“Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced the July 17 release of the James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD Collection – and this time the infamous secret service spy isn’t just licensed to kill, he’s also licensed to Mac. The collection – which took over two and a half years to put together – includes digitally enhanced versions of all the James Bond movies; sound and images look sharper and sound better than ever before thanks to new 5:1 surround sound,” MI6 reports. “All twenty James Bond movies are available as part of this collection, from 1962’s ‘Dr No’ to 2002’s ‘Die Another Day’. The videos also offer a vast range of meticulously researched archive material, including host of never-before-seen interviews and on-set footage.”
“The images and sound were remastered by DTS Digital Images (once Lowry Digital Images) using a huge installation of 600 Power Mac G5s,” MI6 reports. “The project needed that kind of horsepower, explained DTS Images vice president of strategy and marketing, Mike Inchalik, who stressed: ‘Certainly, the Mac is the only computer that’s touched this project.’ Inchalik, who used PCs extensively in his previous career at Eastman Kodak, stressed that his company is very happy with how reliable Macs are: ‘Historically, when I joined the company it had about 200 Power Mac G4s. It was refreshing how reliable they were,’ he explained.”
“Reliability matters: DTS had to check an astonishing 42-miles of film as part of the project. The company had to digitally remove a mind-boggling 37 million pieces of dirt and 74,000 hairs before it even began to touch-up the colour, so that even the oldest Bond movies now look as fresh as if they had been made this year. The company deployed 700 Terabytes of storage to support the project. Company founder John Lowry explained: ‘This is true frame-by-frame digital restoration. When you have 42 miles of film, there’s a lot to clean up.’ The project team also worked to a higher resolution than DVDs support, offering a route forward to release the digitised classics on other formats in future. The film was scanned at a resolution of 4,000 x 3,000 pixels, in contrast with the 720 x 576 pixel resolution of DVDs. This meant that each frame of each movie weighed in at 45MB,” MI6 reports.
MI6 reports, “Inchalik (who led the team that designed Kodak’s very first digital film scanner in the 1970s), explained why his company chose Macs – and cost of ownership is critical. ‘Apple is our defacto solution,’ he said. ‘Costs of ownership include repair, power and heat demands. Power is a big issue for us, as we are based in South California. We basically look at how many gigaflops of computing performance we get per operating dollar.’ Apple needs to remain focused on the same matter to retain these large-scale Mac deployments, he warned: ‘Power Mac G5s remain at the top of that heap, but it may not be easy for them to stay there,’ he said.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jim” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Those 600 Power Macs have had quite a workout: see related articles below.
Advertisements:
• Introducing the super-fast, blogging, podcasting, do-everything-out-of-the-box MacBook. Starting at just $1099.
• Get the new iMac with Intel Core Duo for as low as $31 A MONTH with Free shipping!
• Get the MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo for as low as $47 A MONTH with Free Shipping!
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
Related articles:
600 Apple Power Mac G5s used to restore Star Wars trilogy for DVD release – September 13, 2004
Lowry Digital’s 600 Power Mac G5s are forging the future of 4,000 line ultra HD DVD – April 17, 2004
if those are the same 600 for all the movies they have restored… wow
An even bigger workour watching all 20 flicks.
45 megs per frame, that IS large and in charge. I used to do graphics for video and loved working at 72 dpi & RGB in Photoshop. How many layers? Who cares? Of course that was on an 8100. When the G3s came out I was not happy with my cheapskate boss who would not upgrade. He had interesting ways to spend his, whoops, company money.
sshhh, your making mine feel lonely there under my desk, maybe he’ll get an intel friend in august (or maybe hell be on ebay haha)
Off-topic: I know and accept that MDN needs advertising in order to give us a place to scream at them for doing so, but still, I have to smile every time I see the Napster ad I’m looking at now…
Remember when 700 Terabyes was science fiction?
In Australia, we have a TV show called “Beyond Tomorrow”, and one episode had a really good segment on this facility. If somebody has the episode, maybe it’s on YouTube.
600 Power Mac G5’s?!!! When all the while they could’ve been using about 50 Mac Book Pros…
Thelonious, I remember when 700 *Mega* bytes was science fiction…
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue laugh” style=”border:0;” />
Thanks for that
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
“600 Power Mac G5’s?!!! When all the while they could’ve been using about 50 Mac Book Pros.”
Um, no. The MacBook Pros didn’t exist two years ago
My bad, sometimes facetiousness cannot be picked up by some people….
Apple has a nice two page interview with Lowry (it’s not new).
And here is what the room full of hundreds of G5s look like 😀
And I so have the picture right here
There used to be a 3D Quicktime video of them too somewhere.
I forgot to say that the second link I posted is a QTVR…
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Is it just me or there is only 580 G5s in that room?
True. But note the empty rack at the end of the room by the doorway. That’s your missing 20. Probably took the picture before they were all added.
520 — 26 racks with 20 in each. thats what i counted
40 facing us
240 on right side
300 on left side
0 on wall behind us
580 but an empty rack that fits 20 on right by the door
WOW!!! Imagine the amount of porn you could download with 600 PowerMacs!