Based in the former Marin County, Ca. home of George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, The Kerner Group was acquired last year by British entrepreneur Eric Edmeades, who is now CEO and majority owner. Edmeades co-founded Bristol, England-based mobile computing and wireless networking firm The ITR Group, where he was Managing Director for nine years before the company was sold to private buyers in 2006.

Since 2006, the Kerner team has been developing camera, camera rig, and optical technologies for 3D technologies, such as Kernercam 3D capture systems, beam-splitter rigs of varying sizes, available for broadcast or cinematic applications. The Kernercam 3D system was used in the production of actor David Arquette’s short 3D film, “The Butler’s In Love,” which will open the 6th Annual HollyShorts Film Festival, August 5, at the Director’s Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles.
Japan’s NHK Cosmomedia America, Inc., is using Kernercam 3D systems for sports and entertainment programming, and one is being used by the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, based in Vancouver, CN.

The restructured company in San Rafael, Ca. now offers special effects, emerging 3D technologies and production services, model creation, and a variety of problem solving, applied research and prototyping services.

To oversee the restructured company, Edmeades first hired former 20-year Dolby Laboratories executive Tim Partridge, who led the development of Dolby 3D and for 10 years worked as a Dolby surround sound consultant on more than 100 films, including “Goldeneye,” “Willow,” and “The Fisher King.” Among the many positioned he held at Dolby was Executive Vice President of Products and Technologies.
Other Kerner staff includes:
* Brian Gernand, Senior Creative Director; oversees the newly formed KernerFX unit. Gernand began working for ILM in 1986 as a model-maker and his many awards and nominations for his film and TV work include VES, Saturn, and Satellite Awards.

* Greg Beaumont, Engineer, Kerner 3D Technologies unit. 25 years in ILM’s camera engineering department; co-designer of the new Kernercam 3D System.

* Geoff Heron: Practical Effects Supervisor. 20-year leading practical effects supervisor and special effects technician with credits that include “Avatar,” “Transformers,” all three “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, “Star Wars: Phantom Menace,” and “Men in Black.”

* Rose Duignan, Executive Producer; contact person for all productions that come into The Kerner Group. 20-years at ILM as Production Supervisor and Director of Marketing. Former executive producer of ABC animated TV series; Director of Marketing for Tippett Studio and Rhythm and Hues; Development Director for both TV and film at The Osmond Company.

Regarding The Kerner Group’s restructuring, Mr. Edmeades said, “There are very few companies, if any, that can offer their clients the same level of creativity in the areas of production, 3D technologies, realistic visual effects, and model design that The Kerner Group can provide. Our team has a 30-year history of producing the highest quality content and technology possible for the entertainment industry. We are now leveraging that expertise and success to further expand The Kerner Group…”

Among the services at the new Kerner:

* KernerFX (previously ILM’s “Model Shop”): Physical effects for film, TV, and commercial production industries. Credits include “Terminator Salvation” (Visual Effects Society Award nomination) and the 2009 “Star Trek.” Kerner’s action miniatures are often more than 2,500 square feet in size, and have included the 35-foot long model of the “Black Pearl” pirate ship for all three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.

* Kerner 3D Technologies: ILM’s engineers designed and built the “Empire Camera” (for “The Empire Strikes Back”) — a super high speed camera that uses the Vistavision format. This camera is available only through The Kerner Group.

* Kerner Studios: Several fully equipped (indoor and outdoor) stages, camera (2D and 3D) equipment. State-of-the-art production space, equipment, personnel skills, and decades of experience.

MasterImage 3D announced today that CJ CGV is converting all the rest of its 160 3D theaters to its digital 3D cinema systems and that MasterImage 3D has also installed four systems in Korea’s Lotte Cinema in Suncheon.

These installations, combined with existing systems at Primus Cinema, Ya Woo Ri Cinemas and more theatres across Korea, bring MasterImage’s total to 175 of the country’s estimated 250 digital 3D screens, more than 70% of Korea’s total 3D exhibition market share.

CGV Manager Sung woo Kang said, “MasterImage 3D’s system offers an outstanding value compared to other products on the market, and it is simple to install.”

CJ CGV recently opened a 3D screen in L.A. for advancing into the U.S. market.

MasterImage 3D, which also recently entered the New Zealand exhibition market with the sale of its first digital 3D cinema system to the nation’s largest multiplex franchise, Palmerston North-based Downtown Cinemas, says it has nearly doubled its worldwide installation in the past eighteen months and has installed more than 1,800 systems in 40 countries worldwide — approximately 400 in the US, 770 in Europe and 700 in Asia and the rest of the world.

“Exhibitors are recognizing that our ownership-based model and passive-glasses approach offers them a different, and often more attractive business proposition than competitive systems,” said Younghoon Lee, founder, chairman and CEO of MasterImage 3D. “From our US headquarters and offices in Asia and Europe we are aggressively converting theatre markets all over the world.”

CJ CGV was established as a joint venture of CJ Group of Korea, Golden Harvest of Hong Kong and Village Roadshow of Australia, and is now independently managed by CJ Group.

– By Scott Hettrick

The additions give FiOS TV 142 HiDef channels and more than 3,300 HiDef video-on-demand titles every month.

Nat Geo WILD HD, a new cable network dedicated to extraordinary nature and wildlife programming, launched on FiOS today (July 19) on channel 632 in Maryland and Virginia and will be in all markets by the end of the week.

Investigation Discovery HD, featuring real fact-based programming and investigations focused on key issues that shape our culture, define civilization and examine the human condition, is available today on channel 623 in all FiOS markets.

FiOS TV offers more than 565 all-digital channels and interactive services.

– By Scott Hettrick

Despite another overall decline of 3.3% in consumer spending on home entertainment (DVD, Blu-ray Disc, digital distribution) to $8.8 billion in the first six months, sales and rentals of Blu-ray Disc reached a combined total of $982 million for the first half of the year, with  Blu-ray Disc sales accounting for $733 million in the period, and $363 million in the second quarter alone.

Blu-ray Disc hardware sales also continued to climb by 103% in the first half of the year, selling almost 2 million set-top units to bring the total installed base of Blu-ray Disc players in the U.S. to 19.4 million units.

Shipments of Blu-ray discs to retail were also way up in the first half of 2010 to 77 million, a 98% increase from last year, according to figures compiled by Swicker & Associates on behalf of the DEG. Household penetration of all Blu-ray Disc compatible devices, including set-top players, PC drives and PlayStation 3 consoles, has now reached 19.4 million U.S. homes.

“The growth of Blu-ray, both hardware and software, continued to dominate the home entertainment landscape in the first half,” said Ron Sanders, President, DEG and President, Warner Home Video.

In related HiDef data, 79 million HDTVs have sold to consumers, with some 8.5 million HDTVs selling in the first half of the year to put U.S. household penetration at approximately 51.32 million, according to figures compiled by the DEG based on data from CEA, retailers and manufacturers.

Overall, packaged media sales dropped an alarming 7.1% in the first half of the year, and that is compared to a fairly poor showing last year as well. But the decline was not as steep in the second quarter, when packaged media sales were down 3%.

“Clearly, we are still grappling with a challenging marketplace and a tough economy, but overall the trends that we are seeing are encouraging,” Sanders said.

Overall consumer spending on home entertainment also looked brighter in the second quarter when it was nearly flat at -0.7%.
Also encouraging, consumer transactions for home entertainment products were up 2.3% for the first half of the year.

Digital distribution continued a steady rise with electronic sales up 36.9% to $285 million and video-on-demand (VOD) up 19.1% to $865 million in the first half of the year, a combined growth of 23.1% to $1.1 billion. This marks the first time that digital distribution surpassed the $1 billion mark in the first six months of the year.

Overall rental spending was down 4.9% to less than $3 billion in the first half of 2010, according to Rentrak Corporation’s Home Video Essentials, although kiosk revenue was up 55%.

It’s not surprising that DVD sales and rentals are down as the market has clearly achieved an astounding maturity level with 284 million DVD players, including set-top and portable DVD players, Home-Theater-in-a-Box systems, TV/DVD and DVD/VCR combination players, having been sold since the format was introduced in 1997. There are now about 91 million DVD households and the DEG estimates that some 68% of DVD owners have more than one player.

Nonetheless, another 8.7 million DVD players were sold to U.S. consumers in the first half of 2010, according to figures compiled by the DEG based on data from CEA, retailers and manufacturers.

The DEG compiles quarterly sales data for various products within the home entertainment category, including Blu-ray, DVD and HDTV. The industry association compiles its data based on input from member companies, retailers and industry association tracking sources.

– by Scott Hettrick

Meanwhile, Universal’s 3D movie “Despicable Me” topped the $100 mil. mark in only its second weekend in theaters with another $32.7 mil., while the 3D “Toy Story 3″ took in another $11.7 mil. to become the year’s top-grossing movie with $362.7 mil.

A record 197 high-grossing Imax screens represented just 5% of the pic’s total 3,792 playdates but accounted for 12% of overall boxoffice for “Inception.”

– By Scott Hettrick

Among the panelists and speakers at Who Gets to be a Millionaire: Studio Profits on Trial:

* Chuck Larsen, President, October Moon Television
* Mark Holsche, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
(Represents actor and producer Don Johnson)

* Larry Gerbrandt, Principal, Media Valuation Partners
* Steve Sills, Partner, Sills and Gentille

Time:
5:30-6:30 Cocktail Reception, no host bar
6:30 to 7:30 pm Networking dinner
7:30 – 9:00 pm – Program

Where:
Radisson Westside
6161 Centinela, Culver City, CA
(Reduced-fee parking in lot)

Cost:
Full dinner,, Networking and Program: $55
Program Only: $35
(Early Bird rates; prices increase closer to event)

The evening seminar will follow an all-day iHollywood conference at the same venue:

Creative Storage Conference 2010
7:30 AM – 5:30 PM (PT)

On Wednesday, July 28, iHollywood is staging a forum called The Future of Media and Entertainment at the Hollywood Park Casino Ballroom, 1050 S. Prairie Ave., Inglewood, CA 90301.

The 2010 3D Gaming Summit drew filmmakers with an understanding of the value of videogames such as “Avatar” producer Jon Landau, “Resident Evil” director Paul W.S. Anderson, as well as many top videogame executives and analysts.

The memo of understanding with Laser Light Engines (it’s not a final agreement yet), which develops and manufactures ultra-high brightness, laser-driven light sources, says that IMAX plans to make an equity investment in Laser Light Engines in exchange for Laser Light developing a custom version of its laser light technology for exclusive use in IMAX digital projection systems, as well as providing outsourced research and development for new features for IMAX.

One of the most daunting challenges of any 3D program in any theater is the reduction of brightness caused by the polarizing switch at the projector so that each eye only sees half of the two combined images, which is then reduced another 50% by the glasses that only allow each eye to see an image half the time. Further reducing the brightness is the dark lenses of the glasses.

Bill Beck, co-founder and executive vp of business development of the Salem, N.H.-based LLE, says that depending on the 3D system — RealD, Xpand, Dolby, or MasterImage — brightness is reduced from 60% – 85%.
That problem is exacerbated in the large format IMAX theaters (the original biggest of the IMAX screens), where the screens are so massive that no traditional lamp-based digital projector can provide sufficient light for a 3D movie.

“You need a light source that is 3x – 5x brighter than the biggest lamp,” Beck said.
As a result, those venues continue to project 3D movies in 70mm film with two separate projectors and two lamps. Even the smaller IMAX theaters use two projectors with the brightest lamp possible, according to Beck.

Beck says LLE technology, beaming the light with a laser that does not even have to be in the projector itself, will allow the option for those venues and future large format venues to use a single projector and achieve even greater brightness.

In addition to saving on the cost of two 3D film prints that can each cost tens of thousands of dollars, there are additional benefits of the technology for any digital large screen system and even advertising and other applications, such as concerts and digital signage, according to Beck.

For example, lasers have a far greater lifespan, eliminating the need for replacement of lamps that can cost up to $1,000 each. The brightness of a projector lamp also declines over time to about 50% of its original strength before it burns out, meaning patrons watching a movie towards the tail end of a projector lamp’s lifespan are seeing an image that is significantly dimmer.

By eliminating Xenon arc lamps, there is less cost for cooling projection booths and overall electricity usage is reduced.

In anticipation of the contemplated partnership, LLE agrees to offer custom technology exclusively to IMAX for a period of two years and not offer it to any other large format theatre systems for three years.

“Laser Light Engines looks forward to designing and developing systems and products that will best harness our high brightness, solid-state illumination laser engines including but not limited to d-cinema, large venue and others,” said Doug Darrow, Laser Light CEO, referring to IMAX as “the most demanding application of digital cinema and large format film presentations.”

– By Scott Hettrick

In a joint venture with United Cinemas, IMAX Corp will install up to five digital IMAX theatre systems in Japan, three of which are confirmed. The first two are scheduled to be installed in time for the launch of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” this November and the third is scheduled to be installed in either late 2010 or some time in 2011. The agreement allows the companies the option to install two more in Japan at a later date.

“Moviegoers in Japan have a growing number of options when deciding how to see a movie, and it is very clear that an increasing number are choosing IMAX as the best way to experience the biggest first-run movies,” said Mr. Masanori Miyata, CEO, UC Cinemas.

“Japan is one of the largest exhibition markets in the world and a growing market for IMAX,” said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond. “Our existing IMAX theatres in Japan have performed extremely well…”

And in the People’s Republic of China, IMAX signed an agreement with private movie exhibition chain Lumiere Pavilions to install three digital IMAX theatre systems, the first of which is scheduled to open in the city of Chongqing at the end of this year. The second system is scheduled to open at the Guangzhou Cultural Centre (Tai Ko Hui) in downtown Guangzhou in August, 2011, and the third at a yet-to-be determined location in 2012.

The deal would bring the total number of IMAX theatres scheduled to be operating in China by 2012 to 57.

“IMAX theatres are changing the way people in China experience movies, and the success of IMAX’s existing theatres demonstrates that The IMAX Experience is the premium option that moviegoers are choosing when they visit the cinema,” said Jimmy Wu, Chief Executive Officer of Lumiere Pavilions Ltd.

“China is the fastest growing movie exhibition market in the world, and entering into a new relationship with one of the country’s most aggressively expanding chains will contribute to the rapid growth of the IMAX network there,” said IMAX’s Chief Executive Officer Richard L. Gelfond. He also noted that IMAX is exploring the business of releasing Chinese films in the IMAX format with the release of Aftershock this month.”

The deals in Japan and China bring the total number of IMAX systems signings announced year-to-date to 95, which compares to 35 systems in all of 2009.

– By Scott Hettrick

The stock, which opened at $16 on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RLD, closed Friday at $19.51, up nearly 22%. TThe price spiked as high as $21 when trading began and sold 12.5 million shares, 1.75 million more than expected, at a price above the range of $13 to $15 it had set.

The seven-year-old RealD is the dominant player in theatrical 3D systems, especially in the U.S., and is licensing its technology for 3D in the home as well as military and academic applications.

The company has yet to turn a profit and had an operating loss of $39.7 million on net revenue of $150 million in the year ended March 26.

– By Scott Hettrick