Three solid state lasers are used in the ARRILASER, producing monochromatic light beams in the colors red, green and blue. With a perfect Gaussian shape, very long life expectancy and minimal size as well as power consumption, they are the key to the ARRILASER’s unrivalled image quality.
The data for each color channel and pixel is fed to an Acousto-optical Modulator (AOM) as a light intensity value, according to which the beam intensity is controlled. The AOM translates the digital data of each pixel into beam intensity in less than 17 nanoseconds.
Moving parts on the ARRILASER are designed to sustain a minimum of wear. A new aerostatic bearing motor, which encounters no mechanical friction during operation, is used to achieve the speed required for the deflection of the beam. Line by line is written on film in an ultra precision linear stage. A linear induction motor moves the stage through direct magnetic induction without any additional moving parts such as gears.
The increased CPU capacity of the new ARRILASER camera electronics enables more sophisticated control of motors in the camera and magazines. In addition, the display and the camera buttons now offer expanded and improved features.
Control of the ARRILASER using the display and the camera buttons has been simplified to allow more intuitive camera operation and film loading. The two camera buttons now function as soft keys and can be used to make all necessary setup entries. At every stage the display indicates exactly what will be achieved by pressing either of the buttons.
The operator can now specify what film type/emulsion has been loaded into the feed magazine. With these parameters in place, the ARRILASER is able to calculate the amount of remaining negative in the magazines and display these quantities in either feet or meters. This gives the operator an accurate idea of the remaining film stock in the feed magazine and therefore minimizes film wastage.
Newly designed electronics now allow the bit depth of the internal processing to be raised from 10-bit to 16-bit, thereby rendering additional bit depth conversion unnecessary. This enables the processing of all 16-bit image data without any compression, from the file loader all the way down the data path to the D/A converter (digital-to-analog converter).
The implementation of commonly-used FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) on the electronics board results in improved data handling and eliminates image transfer errors. In combination with the CAN bus protocol, this speeds up both internal communication and processing, while also making the system safer.
The new ARRILASER Trillian interface, which replaces the current AL GUI, offers unprecedented flexibility of operation and is itself capable of speeding up daily operations. Trillian’s main advantage is its ability to control and operate multiple lasers with the ease of just one application.
A single, centralized job database allows multiple reel recording with just one click and greatly simplifies both job and calibration management. The new job editor allows easier access to recording jobs and also permits greater control of all image processing options.
The existing ARRILASER Image Processing Engine is being replaced by the new ARRILASER ImageBooster software that is also used in the ARRISCAN film scanner and ARRIFLEX D-21 camera. The ImageBooster utilizes not only the Host PC’s CPU (Computer Processing Unit), but also – in line with the latest developments – permits rendering to be carried out entirely with the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
A new image viewer with A/B comparison fully visualizes the image manipulation to avoid any unpleasant surprises after a recording has finished. With the new GPU-based rendering, all image manipulations made by the ARRILASER ImageBooster can be played back in real-time.
New software modules such as the Status Monitor allow everyone involved to have a constant overview of the progress of each individual recorder. There is no need to install any software to access the Status Monitor as it is simply an HTML broadcast and therefore runs on any internet browser that has access to the company’s network.
