ITL FOCUSES ON DIGITAL CINEMA

The emergence of high-resolution electronic projection for moving pictures and of high data rate information networks has opened up the possibility of electronic distribution and display for movies. This convergence of technologies, known collectively as digital cinema or d-cinema, is being tried out today in about 30 theaters around the world (none in the Washington, D.C., area). The number of d-cinema theaters is expected to expand rapidly in the next four years.

 

The conversion from photographic film distribution and display to an all-digital system offers several advantages. One is the flexibility of digital goods. Another is the cost savings of digital distribution over film. These features come at a cost. Today’s films achieve inexpensive interoperability. A 35-mm film can be shown in any theater in the world with a $30,000 projector designed to meet common, global standards. Based on current technology, digital cinema projectors are expected to cost several times more than film projectors. This cost poses a real challenge to the theater owners.

 

Despite these issues, there is remarkable agreement on what it will take to develop d-cinema. For the studios, the theater owners, cinematographers, and other stakeholders, these requirements are:

·        Digital cinema must provide an enhanced theatrical experience. Today, film images can be unsteady, the colors change, and the film gets scratched and dirty. In contrast, digital cinema projectors provide stable imagery, color constancy, and the images are identical on each presentation.

·        When viewers are asked about the quality of today’s d-cinema, many say it is just as good as film, particularly for digitally produced movies. While the jury is still out on this matter, there is widespread agreement that the quality of d-cinema must be superior to that of film. NIST is actively developing engineering methods for assessing cinematic and video quality.

·        Digital cinema will have many components, which should be built by different manufacturers to ensure a competitive market. For the users of this technology, it imposes a requirement for open, worldwide standards to provide interoperability and extensibility as the technology advances. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and the Motion Picture Experts Group are studying these matters. ITL is active in both organizations.

·        Digital cinema distributes digital data. Without secure content protection, d-cinema will enable piracy of movies with quality which was previously impossible. By contrast, a well-designed system of rights and trust management for this digital content may enable new modes of distribution and improve the viability of digital cinema. ITL is currently active in the area of models for trust management.

 

Digital cinema is generally taken to start with the scanning of a finished film into bits or with the finishing of a digitally produced movie, such as Toy Story 2. For many years, since the early Star Wars movies, the production process for feature movies has involved digital image processing. The introduction of inexpensive digital video cameras promises a creative blooming in video and cinema production. While production is distinct from d-cinema, the improving technology for digital distribution and projection will impact the production process. There are new opportunities for 3-D movies, the use of multiple story lines in a single entertainment, the combination of live actors with digitally projected scenes in the theater, the development of immersive theatrical experiences, and more.

 

The Digital Cinema Project is an initiative in our Convergent Information Systems Division to identify the technical requirements of the digital cinema industry and to develop needed measurement techniques and materials to support quality assessment and standards. For more information, contact Chuck Fenimore at (301) 975-2428, e-mail charles.fenimore@nist.gov. Also see our web site at http://digitalcinema.nist.gov/. This site includes the talks from the recent Digital Cinema 2001 Conference.

 

FEDERAL INFORMATION PROCESSING STANDARDS (FIPS) ACTIVITIES

 

Comments Requested on Draft FIPS for Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code

On January 5, 2001, a Federal Register notice announced a draft FIPS for the Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC), a mechanism for message authentication using cryptographic hash functions. HMAC can be used with any FIPS-approved cryptographic hash function, in combination with a shared secret key. The cryptographic strength of HMAC depends on the properties of the underlying hash function. The HMAC specification in the draft FIPS is a generalization of HMAC as specified in Internet RFC 2104, HMAC, Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication, and ANSI X9.71, Keyed Hash Message Authentication Code. The draft FIPS is available electronically at: http://www.nist.gov/hmac/. We welcome your comments on the proposed FIPS on or before April 5, 2001. Electronic comments may be sent to HMAC@nist.gov. Contact: Elaine Barker, (301) 975-2911, elaine.barker@nist.gov.

 

UPDATE ON NEW PUBLICATIONS

ITL publishes the results of studies, investigations, and research. The reports listed below may be ordered from the following sources as indicated for each:

 

Superintendent of Documents

U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO)

P.O. Box 371954

Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954

Telephone (202) 512-1800

Fax (202) 512-2250

Home Page: http://www.access.gpo.gov

 

National Technical Information Service (NTIS)

5285 Port Royal Road

Springfield, VA 22161

Telephone (703) 605-6000

Rush Service (800) 553-6847

Fax (703) 321-8547 or (703) 321-9038

Home Page: http://www.ntis.gov/onow

 

The Eighth Text Retrieval Conference (TREC-8)

E.M. Voorhees and D.K. Harman, Editors

NIST Special Publication 500-246

November 2000

SN003-003-03664-1                       $62.00

Order from GPO

 

This report constitutes the proceedings of TREC-8 held in Gaithersburg, Maryland, November 16-19, 1999. Cp-sponsored by NIST and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the conference was attended by 170 people. Sixty-six invited groups represented 16 different countries. The conference was the eighth in an ongoing series of workshops to evaluate new technologies in text retrieval.

 

American National Standard for Information Systems--Data Format for the Interchange of Fingerprint, Facial, & Scar Mark & Tattoo (SMT) Information

NIST Special Publication 500-245

September 2000

SN003-003-03656-1                       $10.00

Order from GPO

 

This standard, ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2000, is a revision of ANSI/NIST-CSL 1-1993 and ANSI/NIST-ITL 1a-1997. It defines the content, format, and units of measurement for the exchange of fingerprint, palmprint, facial/mugshot, and scar, mark, and tattoo (SMT) image information that may be used in the identification process of a subject. The information is intended for interchange among criminal justice administrations or organizations that rely on automated fingerprint (AFIS) and palmprint identification systems or use facial or SMT data for identification purposes.

 

An Interpretation of the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement

By R. Kacker

NIST Special Publication 500-244

May 2000

SN003-003-03648-0                       $2.25

Order from GPO

 

The Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM) is intended for all scientific and technological measurements in science, engineering, commerce, industry, and regulation. Its terminology and recommendations straddle two different ways of doing statistics: frequentist and Bayesian. This paper clarifies the ambiguity to promote a more consistent use of the GUM and facilitate its application to situations not explicitly covered in the original document.

 

Federal Agency Use of Public Key Technology for Digital signatures and Authentication

Kathy Lyons-Burke (editor) and the Federal Public Key Infrastructure Steering Committee

NIST Special Publication 800-25

October 2000

SN003-003-03666-8                       $4.75

Order from GPO

 

The Federal Public Key Infrastructure Steering Committee developed this guidance to assist federal agencies in the use of public key technology for digital signatures or authentication over open networks such as the Internet. This includes communications with other federal or nonfederal entities, such as members of the public, private firms, citizen groups, and state and local governments.

 

A Statistical Test Suite for Random and Pseudorandom Number Generators

By A. Rukhin, J. Soto, J. Nechvatal, M. Smid, E. Barker, S. Leigh,

M. Levenson, M. Vangel, D. Banks, A. Heckert, J. Dray, and S. Vo

NIST Special Publication 800-22

September 2000

SN003-003-03659-5                       $21.00

Order from GPO

 

This paper discusses aspects of selecting and testing random and pseudorandom number generators. The outputs of such generators may be used in many cryptographic applications, such as the generation of key material. The document discusses statistical testing and its relation to cryptanalysis and recommends some statistical tests.

 

A Phase-Field Model with Convection: Numerical Simulations

By D.M. Anderson, G.B. McFadden, and A.A. Wheeler

NISTIR 6442

December 2000

PB2000-101327                        $23.00 paper

Order from NTIS               $12.00 microfiche

 

In a previously developed phase-field model of solidification that includes convection in the melt, the two phases are represented as viscous liquids, where the putative solid phase has a viscosity much larger than the liquid phase. This paper presents numerical computations on a simplified form of this model, which represents the growth of a two-dimensional dendrite in a thin gap between two parallel thermally insulting plates.

 

Model Phase Diagrams For an FCC Alloy

By R.J. Braun, J. Zhang, J.W. Cahn, G.B. McFadden, and A.A. Wheeler

NISTIR 6463

January 2000

PB2000-101947                        $23.00 paper

Order from NTIS               $12.00 microfiche

 

This report describes a free energy model that allows the computation of phase diagrams for a particular set of solid-state phase transitions in a binary alloy. This is an extension of previous work, in which researchers developed a diffuse-interface model of phase boundaries that occur in order-disorder transitions of a face-centered-cubic (FCC) binary alloy.

 

Common Biometric Exchange File Format (CBEFF)

By F.L. Podio, J.S. Dunn, L. Reinert, C.J. Tilton, L. O'Gorman, P. Collier, M. Jerde, and B. Wirtz

NISTIR 6529

January 2001

PB2001-101938                        $25.50 paper

Order from NTIS               $12.00 microfiche

 

This report presents the CBEFF, which describes a set of data elements necessary to support biometric technologies in a common way. These data can be placed in a single file used to exchange biometric information between different system components or between systems.

 

A Phase-Field Model with Convection: Sharp-Interface Asymptotics

By D. Anderson, G.B. McFadden, and A.A. Wheeler

NISTIR 6568

October 2000

PB2001-100011                        $25.50 paper

Order from NTIS               $12.00 microfiche

 

ITL previously developed a phase-field model of solidification that includes convection in the melt. This model represents the two phases as viscous liquids, where the putative solid phase has a viscosity much larger than the liquid phase. This report examines a simplified version of the governing equations for this phase-field model in the sharp-interface limit to derive the interfacial conditions of the associated free-boundary problem.

 

Direct Blind Deconvolution II. Substitute Images and the Beak Method

By A.S. Carasso

NISTIR 6570

November 2000

PB2001-100013                        $23.00 paper

Order from NTIS               $12.00 microfiche

 

This paper significantly extends the applicability of the BEAK method. It is shown that images of similar objects often display approximately equal gross behavior, and that gross behavior in such substitute images can be used successfully in numerous practical contexts. Using substitute images, a variant of the BEAK method is developed that can handle defocus blurs. 

 

Morphological Stability of a Binary Alloy: Temperature-Dependent Diffusivity

By S. Van Vaerenbergh, S.R. Coriell, and G.B. McFadden

NISTIR 6586

November 2000

PB2001-101237                        $23.00 paper

Order from NTIS               $12.00 microfiche

 

This report describes the effect of the temperature dependence of the diffusion coefficient on the morphological stability of a binary alloy during directional solidification when treated by a linear stability analysis.

 

UPCOMING TECHNICAL CONFERENCES

 

Strategies for the Development of Security Requirements and Specification for Computing and Real-Time Control Systems

This conference will bring national attention to the concept of security requirements definition and its importance in developing a more secure U.S. information infrastructure. Leaders from government, industry, and academia will share their views on the role of security requirements in the development, testing, and acquisition of commercial products and systems.

Date: March 7, 2001

Place: Indianapolis, Indiana

Sponsors: NIST and the National Security Agency (NSA)

Contact: Ron Ross, (301) 975-5390, rross@nist.gov

http://niap.nist.gov

 

14th Annual Federal Information Systems Security Educators' Association (FISSEA) Conference

The annual FISSEA conference addresses the major challenges confronting information security trainers and educators. This year’s theme is “From Y2K to T E A (training, education, awareness) with FISSEA.”

Dates:  March 13-15, 2001

Place:  Hilton Hotel, Gaithersburg, Maryland

Contact:  Mark Wilson, (301) 975-3870, mark.wilson@nist.gov

http://csrc.nist.gov/organizations/fissea.html

 

National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) Training Courses

The web site is http://niap.nist.gov.

 

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Disclaimer: Any mention of commercial products or reference to commercial organizations is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology nor does it imply that the products mentioned are necessarily the best available for the purpose.