Digital cinema system using JPEG2000 movie of 8-million pixel resolution

We have developed a prototype digital cinema system that can store, transmit and display extra high quality movies of 8-million pixel resolution, using JPEG2000 coding algorithm. The image quality is 4 times better than HDTV in resolution, and enables us to replace conventional films with digital cinema archives. Using wide-area optical gigabit IP networks, cinema contents are distributed and played back as a video-on-demand (VoD) system. The system consists of three main devices, a video server, a real-time JPEG2000 decoder, and a large-venue LCD projector. All digital movie data are compressed by JPEG2000 and stored in advance. The coded streams of 300~500 Mbps can be continuously transmitted from the PC server using TCP/IP. The decoder can perform the real-time decompression at 24/48 frames per second, using 120 parallel JPEG2000 processing elements. The received streams are expanded into 4.5Gbps raw video signals. The prototype LCD projector uses 3 pieces of 3840×2048 pixel reflective LCD panels (D-ILA) to show RGB 30-bit color movies fed by the decoder. The brightness exceeds 3000 ANSI lumens for a 300-inch screen. The refresh rate is chosen to 96Hz to thoroughly eliminate flickers, while preserving compatibility to cinema movies of 24 frames per second.