Is Your Camera Seeing Too Much Light?

A few months ago, I attended the Northern California Chapter of the Digital Cinema Society -- a meeting of professional cinematographers to discuss the latest and greatest technology and tools available. The featured presentations were mostly about high-definition video production, and it was fun. There were several interesting video clips shown, and a lot of discussion about what it took to make them. In one of the behind-the-scenes shots, the subject of filtering Infrared came up, and it struck me that there's no reason for that to be just a movie problem -- it also applies to still photography.

In a nutshell, the problem is this. The sensor technology that sits inside all of our digital cameras is intrinsically sensitive to light we can't see -- especially the light that's redder than red, or infrared. Of course, manufacturers put filters in to make the sensors see things the way we do, but they can't get rid of all of the infrared sensitivity. The result is that our cameras still sense infrared, and what's worse, the red, green and blue sensors often all sense some infrared. That means that a light which is very strong in infrared light (like most tungsten lights are) can lead to very muddy images like the one shown on the right here.

I wanted to learn more about this, so I pinged my most knowledgeable color-science friend, Ricardo Motta. Ricardo is the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Imaging Systems at Pixim. I asked Ricardo if he knew how to test a camera's IR sensitivity, and then, how to filter if needed to improve it's rejection of unwanted Infrared. Apparently, I picked the right guy, because he immediately offered to show me how he does both of these things.

The good news is that Ricardo knows how to test cameras. The bad news is that it takes a lot of well thought through high-end electro-optical equipment and precise technique to do it well. His setup at Pixim is very impressive, and possibly the best in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, it doesn't do much for the average photographer. If you want a quick check though, here's a tip. Grab your digital camera and one of your consumer electronics remote controls. Point the remote control at the camera, and press one of its buttons. If your camera still senses some residual infrared, you'll see it on the camera's preview, or playback display. Here are some pictures with the remote control on and off.

So, you do the test, and find out your camera "sees" IR just like the rest of ours -- is it the end of the world? In a word, no. First of all, remote controls are fairly bright IR sources, and most of the time, there's not that much IR to filter. Second, if you start to notice that you're getting really muddy shots and you suspect that there's a lot of IR in the light, then you can pickup an IR filter to go over your lens. According to Ricardo, the best is a Blue Glass BG39. I won't go into the details here, but the short summary is that it rejects IR better than the other choices, and even though it's not as color-neutral, when combined with the in-camera white-balance, it delivers more vivid colors.

Finally, if you want to see things as really "glass-half-full," you can take advantage of the IR sensitivity of your camera by putting red or infrared-pass filters over your lens, and experiment with infrared photography. Be ready to put the camera on a tripod though, because you will have lost a lot of sensitivity by the time you filter out most of the visible light. It's a fun thing to experiment with though, and you can get some really pretty results like this shot that I took last month in Zion National Park. Needless to say, the sky wasn't really black, and the rocks weren't really white, but when you crank up the red sensitivity, the blue sky goes dark, and the red rocks go white.

NVIDIA Founder Offers Entrepreneurs Advice

Last night I had the pleasure of being entertained and educated by one of Silicon Valley's local success stories -- Chris Malachowsky, Co-Founder of NVIDIA. The event was part of the Fall Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Speaker series at Santa Clara University where my mother teaches, and I attended briefly as both an undergraduate and graduate student. The reason I say "pleasure" is that Chris is that rare combination of both success and grace. Though NVIDIA has become a multi-billion dollar a year company, Chris still knows the value of individuals, and can make anyone feel appreciated. His coaching seemed to come from a genuine desire to help, and I'm delighted to be able to summarize it here.

From Chris Malachowsky -- "What I learned"

• Don't jump in the foxhole with just anybody.
• Have a Vision -- there's was "to be one of the most important technology companies in the world."
• Recognize your competitive weapons -- every director of every function needs to be constantly thinking and acting to make that function a competitive weapon.
• People invest in people -- the VC's asked lots of questions, but in the end, Chris believes they invested because they believed in the management team.
• Focus, Focus, Focus -- take risks where you're differentiated, get to market as quickly as you can, then learn and adapt.
• Who you hire matters -- if you do it well, you'll always be the dumbest guy in the room.
• Stand for something, and don't be afraid to be useful -- people like working for someone willing to chip in and get things done.
• Know when to get off the train -- disasters don't usually happen in one moment, they are usually the product of a long chain of events, so it's better to recognize when things are going badly, and adjust earlier.
• Don't underestimate what you don't know -- 'nuf said.
• The only shame in failure is not learning from it -- "Experience leads to good decisions, and bad decisions lead to experience." Don't wait to be sure. Do something.

Like I said, it was a pleasure, and I hope others will find some value in this. Pass it along.

Annie Leibovitz, Spencer W. Kimball and Nike

On Monday night, I had the good fortune to be invited to a presentation by world-renowned-photogapher Annie Leibovitz in San Francisco. She read from her new book titled "Annie Leibovitz at Work." As she read, several of her photographs were projected in the theater, and the overall effect was like tagging along with her on a tour of her life. Not surprisingly, her tale, like that of many phenomenally successful people, had striking elements of chance, but when asked what she attributed her success to, she said "it's work" and "you just have to do it." She apologized for sounding like a Nike commercial, and I couldn't help but remember the first person I knew who espoused that slogan was the President of the Mormon church when I was growing up -- Spencer W. Kimball. In fact, long before Nike splashed the slogan around the world, he claimed it as a personal motto, and had it modeled into a plaque that sat on his desk. It's safe to say that there are few things in life as different as Annie Leibovitz, Spencer W. Kimball and the Nike corporation, so I'm impressed that they all three emphasized the message "do it."

As a photographer myself, one of the things that impressed me most about Annie Leibovitz's presentation was her pictures of the queen. She only had 25 minutes, and took four different poses with varying attire, and no "costume changes," just a progressive unlayering of very formal attire. To do that, I assume takes considerable preparation, and a readiness to "just do it" when the subject arrives.

Before going to the presentation, I thought Annie Leibovitz was someone with good skills that got lucky. After all, there are many, many skilled photographers in the world who never get noticed, never get the chance to shoot for an up-and-coming national magazine, never get the chance to travel with the Rolling Stones, and never make it big. After seeing her presentation, and hearing her advice, I think I'm a little more humbled and chastened. Though it's easy to say "just do it," it's much harder to actually live by that creed on a daily basis. Perhaps I should give her, and many other "famous pros" more of a break, and recognize that working hard has it's rewards too. Put another way, if you've got the skills, and are ready to work hard, one "big break" is probably all you need, and that's not too much for any of us to expect over a lifetime.

6 Ways to Improve Netflix Instant Streaming

We've been using the Netflix Instant Streaming now for about three months, and I have to say our family loves it. I keep thinking we should keep a log of our hours, but I'd estimate that 20% to 30% of all of our TV watching is now through the Roku box. That's pretty amazing when you think that it's an OTT (over-the-top) Internet video streaming service that we're getting through a DSL Internet connection. Still, there are a few ways it could be improved, so here goes:

1. Faster start times -- I know a streaming feed over the Internet needs to be buffered, but why not have a memory card slot the user can put some Flash memory in, and pre-buffer the shows in their queue? It wouldn't cost much, and it would mean all of the shows in their queue could start almost immediately.

2. Built-in HDMI switch -- Most people don't have a lot of HDMI inputs available on their receiver or TV yet, but that's the highest quality, most convenient way to connect a new video source like the Roku. At our house, we solved that problem by putting an HDMI switch between the Roku, our DVD player and the AV Receiver. The switch defaults to the DVD player if it's on, or goes to the Roku if the DVD player is off. Building this into the Roku (or LG Blu-ray player, or XBox 360, or TiVo) would make the install even easier.

3. Netflix iPhone Queue Manager -- The Netflix Instant Streaming app makes you go to the PC to add shows to your queue. I know there are at least a couple of apps that claim to do this, but they appear to be weakly integrated, and not supported from Netflix. The PC is an ok fall-back, but the iPhone is much more likely to be with me on the couch. For now, I'll keep trying the emerging 3rd party iPhone apps.

4. On-screen content finder -- Wouldn't it be great if Netflix could introduce me to what I want to watch when I want to watch it instead of offering me a laundry list of things I've already "queued up?"

5. Integrated TV DVR and Netflix Instant Streaming Recommendations -- This is the holy grail. My digital video recorder knows a lot about me and my family. Netflix knows a lot about us too. Unfortunately, neither knows what the other knows, and consequently, my video recorder is a little dense when it comes to speculatively recording shows for us, and Netflix is a little dense about the TV shows we like. Getting this information shared and leveraged is probably a business challenge, but the results could be delightful.

6. Ratings Preferences -- Why can't I tell Netflix that I'm not interested in movies or TV shows with particular ratings (Say R or X)? Maybe I'm just missing how to do this, but it seems a pretty basic request -- sort of like turning on search result filtering in Google.

Like I said, we love our Netflix Instant Streaming, but there are ways to make it better, and I'm guessing we'll see many of them sooner rather than later.

Hollywood Hates Netflix, Hollywood Loves Netflix

One of the things I love about Silicon Valley is how connected it is. In the past two weeks I casually met with a former Hollywood studio senior manager, and a Netflix insider. It was an opportunity to find out what they know that I don't -- and it's usually a lot! Since I'm a recent Netflix Instant Streaming convert, I asked them both about it, and what I found out was interesting. According to the former studio guy, "the studios hate Netflix." According to the Netflix insider, "the studios love Netflix." And, according to both of them, it's all about money. So what gives?

When I asked my ex-studio friend about Netflix, his reaction was nearly instantaneous and visceral -- "Do you know how much the studios hate Netflix?" According to him, the issue is that Netflix "hides behind" the "first sale doctrine" resulting in lower revenue to the studios. The "first sale doctrine" refers to US law that allows copyrighted material to be transferred after it's been purchased so long as no additional copies are created. What that means is that Netflix can legally send me a DVD disc in the mail, then get it returned and keep circulating it as long as they want without paying the studios any more money. That's different from say a pay-per-view movie, where every time someone watches it, the studios get a cut of the revenue. OK, I can see why the studios wouldn't like that, but then it's not like Netflix made the rules -- they just built a system to capitalize on them.

So how is it my Netflix contact can claim that the studios love them? Well, to start with, according to him, it's not about how much money the studios make on each viewing, it's about how many viewers Netflix brings to more obscure content. He claims Netflix is so good at learning what you like, that they can sell you the "long-tail," or lesser-known content, and you'll love it. So, the upside for the studios is that they can make money with movies and TV shows that would never sell on an end cap at Walmart or Circuit City, because Netflix has to tools to find just the right people to watch them. Not only does this grow the market, but it also helps up-and-coming artists find an audience. You might be great at making shows that appeal to 1% of the viewing audience, but no one will ever know if you have to get approved by a Walmart buyer first.

The one thing they both agreed on is that it's all business, and it's all about money. If Netflix (or anyone else) builds a service that has lots of viewers, paying lots of money, with enough allocated to send to Hollywood, the studios will find a way to provide their content. Today, Netflix Instant Streaming content library selection consists mostly of older TV shows and movies, and in some cases, it's clear that it's "teaser" content. For example, you might get episodes 1 to 4 out of a series via Instant Streaming, but then have to watch concluding episode 5 on DVD. From a studio perspective, that ensures that Netflix still buys the DVD, but it definitely compromises the consumer experience. So what would it take to have a richer library, or one without these kinds of compromises? The answer is simple -- money.

Today, Netflix Instant Streaming is bundled with a DVD rental service, so you could argue that the end-customer isn't really paying anything for it. In contrast, the other "all-you-can-eat" video-on-demand services are either ad-funded (e.g. Hulu) or come with fairly large monthly bills (e.g. Cable and Satellite TV). What will be interesting to see is how this evolves over time. In the past, cable and satellite justified their rates by arguing that it was expensive to build and maintain their distribution networks. Now that standard definition TV can be readily delivered over broadband cable, and HDTV will be in the near future, the line between traditional video services, and Internet streaming services has begun to blur. So regardless of any love-hate relationships, I'd place my bets on the most efficient delivery systems -- after all, it's all about the money.

AT&T U-Verse Catching Up

Today, AT&T announced that their U-verse video service would be adding whole-home video watching from a single PVR to up to 8 televisions. Hooray! As a consumer, it's always great to have a choice, and until now, Dish was pretty much the only service-provider game in town when it came to whole-home PVR. Now, if they'd only add the ability to expand the hard-drive capacity via USB, and compatibility with portable viewers like the Archos players, we'd have a real horse race.

As a long-time user of the Dish Network VIP-622 PVR, this has been one of the features missing for me in the AT&T offering. Being able to program only one PVR and have it available on both of our TV's has been a great convenience. Dish network took a rather simple, but effective approach to multi-room PVR viewing. They have an output on their PVR that essentially broadcasts a second viewing experience including user interface, audio and video on a cable TV channel. By connecting that output to a coax cable running to a second TV, you can access all of the PVR's recorded shows on that other TV. This approach has some advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, there's no set-top box required at the second TV. On the minus side, it only works for standard definition viewing, because the channel it sends is a standard-definition analog TV signal. The control from the second TV is via an RF wireless remote control. In principle, that should work fine, but in practice, we find that it doesn't go through stucco walls very well, and we're often contorting our bodies to achieve the right positioning of the remote to get the key clicks heard by the PVR. Still, it's been fantastic to only have one PVR to record, and have the whole collection of video available in two rooms at once.

The new AT&T approach is different. They require a simple IP set top box for each of the TV's that will be accessing the PVR, but those were necessary to view the U-verse service anyway. Because the remote controls are communicating with those set top boxes, there's not likely to be any problem with remote control range like there is with the Dish Network PVR. The AT&T U-verse solution also covers up to 8 TV's which will probably matter to some folks, though we're a bit backward having only two. I'm still on the fence about trying the service because I'm always running out of hard-drive space, and the Dish solution allows an extra hard drive to be installed via USB while the AT&T solution does not. I've also used the Archos PocketDish players with the Dish network, and liked them. Again, I don't think AT&T U-verse has anything to match this. Still, if they were able to add multi-room, maybe it's just a matter of time. In their press release, Jeff Weber, AT&T VP of video products says "With our 100 percent IP network, we are able to constantly evolve features and services to match the needs of viewers." So, I guess we'll have to watch to see if they deliver on that promise.

Mythbusters, NVIDIA and Growth

For the grand finale at NVISION 08, NVIDIA brought in the Mythbusters. They were looking to demonstrate how a GPU (graphics processing unit) differs from a CPU (central processing unit) in a way that the average person-on-the-street could understand. This is important to NVIDIA because they've come to dominate the stand-alone GPU business, and still need to grow. To do that, they'll need to have both the industry, and end-users come to appreciate how the GPU can do more than just graphics.

First the Mythbusters demo (you can see all of my pictures on my photo-sharing website pqphotography by clicking here). They started with a small remote control robot that represented the CPU because it did one-thing at a time -- namely, shot paint balls at a piece of paper to paint a smiley face. The crowd of industry analysts, gamers and developers loved it, and welcomed Jaime and Adam to the stage like heroes. It was kind of cool and generated applause. Then, it was time for the GPU demo, which involved pulling the curtain back and unveiling a suitably more impressive machine. Naturally, it does more in parallel -- Using 1,100 paint-ball guns to paint the Mona Lisa in a fraction of a second. It was very impressive. If you want to see a youtube video (hopefully still posted), click here.

So, other than having pulled off and entertaining, engaging, trade-show with clear messages, what did this all say about the evolving graphics market, and NVIDIA in particular? As for graphics, I think it's clear that the industry is following an "if you build it, they will come" strategy, and the developers and artists are coming. It's hard to imagine all of the things that will be done with graphics in the next 5 to 10 years, but it's easy to imagine that many of them will be compelling and easily appreciated by large segments of the population.

As for NVIDIA, they're at an interesting point in their development as a company. Many a company experiences success in one domain, only to struggle extending that success beyond their initial niche. They've had an amazing run when you think that they are the only sizable dedicated PC graphics company still standing, and they're doing very well against the likes of Intel and AMD who each develop and offer their own graphics engines. But continuing to grow at a rate that will satisfy investors will require much more than maintaining share of the PC graphics business, so the bets they are placing are on mobile, embedded, and compute applications of GPUs. I like these bets because they are all adjacencies and logical extensions of their core capabilities. For mobile, it seems reasonable that we will want richer interfaces on our iPhones and Smartphones. For embedded, why not have richer interfaces and displays for our cars -- after all, a 3D representation of the map would be a lot closer to what I see out the window of the car. Probably the toughest challenge is in compute. Sure, there are interesting difficult problems that will quickly appreciate the value of NVIDIA's CUDA that turns their GPUs into massively parallel compute engines, but it's hard to imagine that this won't be fiercely fought for by existing CPU companies when the market broadens. That's not to say that NVIDIA will fail, just that this is less of an adjacency, and will be a harder win. On the whole though, yes, NVIDIA came off looking like a company making good calculated bets on the future, while continuing to lead in their core business. I look forward to seeing where they are at NVISION 09.