XpanDing 3D: Maria Costeira targets screens in North America

http://today3d.blogspot.com/2010/03/xpanding-3d-maria-costeira-targets.html

 

For moviegoers in North America, RealD and Dolby Digital 3D are the names they generally associate with the new wave of hit digital 3D releases. But around the globe, there’s another player making a vivid impression in the stereoscopic realm.

With manufacturing facilities in Asia, Europe and North America, XpanD is the world leader in active-shutter 3D glasses for cinema, home theatre, videogames and other applications. The company has an estimated 90% 3D market share in Asian cinemas and boasts more than 50% market share in Europe. And now it’s preparing to “XpanD” its reach in North America.

Maria Costeira, XpanD’s exuberant CEO, is targeting a 30% market share in North America by 2012, by convincing the continent’s exhibitors that the investment in her advanced system is a long-range bargain. “Compared to the initial investment for a [silver] screen plus the royalties, we’re much, much cheaper,” she argues. “It’s yours forever and you don’t owe me anything.”

Plus, Costeira insists, “3D is not just the glasses.” She argues that other systems can cost more than double hers in terms of light usage, while putting less than half the light on the screen.

Still, Costeira realizes that the U.S. market poses greater challenges for XpanD 3Dthan other parts of the world. “It’s a high-end product—you don’t throw it away after the movie. In Europe, it’s so expensive to have trash and so forbidden to have trash that the last thing you do is throw things away. For the U.S., it’s an educational process. But the fact that 3D will [soon] be present in everyone’s houses and people will have their own personal pair of glasses will change the perspective people have in terms of quality. Once you see it, there’s no way you will go back to a passive system. It’s a world of difference.”

XpanD’s active 3D glasses employ a patented fast-switching liquid-crystal cell, called a pi-cell, as a shutter to alternately block each eye, producing great depth and flicker-free 3D realism. XpanD glasses are available in a dozen different colors or color combinations.

XpanD systems are installed in the screening rooms at Disney, Fox and Paramount in Los Angeles; Pixar in Emeryville, CA; Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco; ESPN in Bristol, and venues like the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. Domestic circuits like Marcus and Premiere have also embraced XpanD, and the company points with pride to its new installation at the fabled Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, CA. “The Dome was a very challenging project,” Costeira notes. “It requires precision and high quality. It’s a demonstration of the quality of our system. A RealD cannot go into a dome—it’s just a scientific fact.”

Costeira says her system is especially attractive to independent entrepreneurs. “Every exhibitor who actually owns his business likes this business model. I pay, it’s mine, I can do with it whatever I want and use it as many times as I can take care of it. If I’m good at my management, this will last a long, long time. It has 3,000 hours guaranteed usage, and it can last ten times longer.”

The XpanD CEO says her own company’s independence is also a market advantage. “We’re not focused just on theatrical. We do 2D-to-3D conversions, we do alternative content, we finance big productions, we do every type of equipment that is needed for 3D. We’re in the production houses in L.A., where you can check your dailies on your PC with our glasses. We’re used by the U.S. Army, the Israeli Army, by hospitals for remote surgeries. It’s a very big difference compared to our competitors. We are not dependent on anyone else, we’re not licensing anything else. And the volume of what we do allows us to maintain the quality in theatrical.”

For the immediate theatrical future, Costeira reports, “We’ve licensed with Texas Instruments’ DLP so that every single projector from any of their OEMs onwards that has a DLP chip is going to be immediately ready for XpanD glasses. You won’t need any other hardware. It will be ready to go for 3D.”

A nine-year veteran of AMC Entertainment, where she expanded the circuit’s presence in Europe, Costeira became intrigued by 3D after seeing NuVision Technologies’ demonstration of its active-shutter, single-projector 3D technology with the screening of Disney’s Chicken Little at ShoWest 2005. She formed XpanD in 2006 and bought NuVision in 2007.

XpanD reunited with Disney and its ESPN division last summer for the X-Games 3D event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. As Costeira recalls it, “A 4,500-seat auditorium packed, and we had all these kids and their reaction was ‘Wow! These are real glasses! This is real 3D!’ It’s not biased—those kids know technology and gaming. If you know gaming, you know 3D. Their perception of the world is 3D perception. They understand the language.”

Though XpanD is involved with 3D entertainment for the home, Costeira doesn’t see that development as a threat to the theatrical experience. “Good-quality 3D is better achieved in a cinema than at home, because it is a contained environment and it’s dark and the light on the screen is brighter… I don’t see TV as competition to theatrical, I think it’s a complement. But you have to take advantage of that window. If you play Avatar, you should sell the videogame at the concession stand.”

Aesthetically, Costeira believes 3D “is not about a constant ‘wow’ effect. It’s just about seeing things with volume. The entire world has applications. In Hollywood it’s about the effect, but it’s not about that in other applications. We want to make sure as a company that whatever is 3D, we’re there.”

One of Costeira’s most intriguing responses to her technology comes from someone quite apart from the arena of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. “We are doing a religious content piece for a megachurch in Texas,” she recounts. “We recorded the Pope in Israel. And this very correct gentleman from the church in Texas said, ‘Maria, God wants us to see 3D. He gave us two eyes.’ He’s completely committed to 3D based on a philosophical conviction. I could not define it better.”