Apr 01, 2011As three-dimensional movies have gained in popularity at the box office, two major audio, imaging and voice technology companies have developed the latest in 3-D glasses for theaters. To help the theaters track those glasses as they are used, sanitized and reused, both companies are incorporating passive RFID tags into their products. Dolby Laboratories has announced its Next Generation 3-D glasses, while Xpand3D plans to release its Infinity and Infinity Deluxe models by the end of this month. Both companies report that their new products are designed to offer better viewing quality compared with previous models, as well as the disposable 3-D glasses often used by the film industry. Consequently, the new models are more costly, and are intended for reuse. That means cinemas must retrieve glasses from viewers at the end of each movie, take them to a sanitizing station and then return them to a particular theater within the cinema in which 3-D movies are being played.
RFID could help address some inventory-tracking issues regarding the movement of glasses from a theater to a sterilization area and back to the theater for reuse, but it could also solve other problems, says Ami Dor, Xpand's chief strategy officer. The company's 3-D glasses come in three styles, ranging in price from $35 to $75. The RFID tag is embedded in the frame at the time of manufacture. The typical lifespan of the glasses ranges from hundreds of views to as many as 1,000, Dor says, and among the benefits an RFID system could provide a large cinema is the ability to track how often each pair has been used.
Large theater chains with multiple locations across the United States or around the world could utilize data from the RFID tag reads to track the inventory of glasses, create cost analysis based on the number of times glasses are used, and track the amount of viewers at each movie by employing a fixed RFID portal at a theater's door to capture the ID numbers of glasses carried inside by patrons. While ticket purchases can track how many viewers actually bought specific tickets, the number of viewers who see the movies is often different than those who purchased tickets (some may opt to see another movie once inside the facility, while others may sneak into the cinema without purchasing a ticket). With RFID tags on the glasses used by viewers, a record can be maintained regarding the exact number of people watching a particular movie, and that data can be provided to the movie production company as well. The RFID solution could also function as a security system, with an RFID portal at an exit to read a tag and issue an alert if a person were to walk out with a pair of glasses.
None of these solutions are yet in place, according to Xpand and Dolby, and no theaters have begun developing the necessary infrastructure to make it work. Cinemas would need to identify whether they would use handheld or fixed reader portals, as well as which vendor would provide that hardware, and also purchase a software program to manage data from those reads. However, Dor says, many cinemas have expressed an interest in using the RFID data. Xpand has tested the technology's ability to track the use of glasses in its own theaters throughout Europe over the past few weeks, he adds, noting that the firm hopes to use the system to track its own inventory as it is manufactured and sent through the supply chain to customers. He declines, however, to provide details, and says the company is not yet using the technology.
As for Dolby, the firm is embedding a passive EPC Gen 2 RFID tag in the nylon frame of each pair of its next-generation 3-D glasses, and has been using the technology for its own benefit as well. By reading the tags at its manufacturing site in China, Dolby can manage data about its own inventory as glasses are assembled and shipped. What's more, by capturing the unique ID of each pair produced, and by then storing that information, the firm has a record of when each pair was manufactured and shipped, as well as if it was returned for repair.
"We have gained substantial benefit [from the RFID system]," says Pascal Sijen, Dolby Laboratories' senior product manager for cinema. "These benefits mostly relate to being able to track individual glasses or batches of glasses, in order to validate robustness and maintain quality."
The unique ID number encoded to the tag embedded in each pair of glasses is linked in Dolby's back-end system to the batch ID, the date of manufacture and any repair history. (Sijen declines to name the companies that produce the tags, or that supply the RFID readers and software that Dolby utilizes.) The firm has acquired fixed readers to capture the unique ID number of each pair of glasses at the point of manufacture, and to confirm that every tag is operating properly. Tags are read again as the glasses ship out of the facility, thereby providing the company with a record of each pair's transport to a distribution center or theater operator.
In the event that the glasses are returned, Dolby uses an RFID interrogator to read that pair's tags upon receipt, and then provides the necessary repair or replacement. By having manufacture and batch information linked to each ID number, Dolby has a reference for a specific pair of glasses, how old it is and from which batch it came.
Once a theater receives the glasses, it can then employ handheld or fixed interrogators to capture the unique ID number every time it sanitizes the glasses and then puts them back into the theater for reuse. After a pair is used, the departing theatergoer can deposit the glasses in a box located at the exit. The glasses then must be gathered and taken to a sanitization machine, where they are washed at a high temperature before being reused. After cleaning, the glasses are then taken back to a specific movie theater within the cinema, where they can be used by other moviegoers. With RFID tags, theaters could read the tags after they have gone through sanitation, as well as when they are taken to the theater to be reused. In this way, the cinema could maintain a record of each pair's usage, and ensure that all of the glasses are sanitized before being returned. "We expect that it will take some time for exhibitors to integrate RFID into their theaters," Sijen states, "but these are the types of use cases that exhibitors have expressed interest in."
All of Dolby's glasses are equipped with RFID tags, whether theaters use the technology or not. The company does not provide the software to manage the RFID reads, or the data culled from such reads. "We expect that other software companies serving this segment will provide the software to enable RFID," Sijen explains.
As a test, Dolby put its tagged 3-D glasses through hundreds of wash and use cycles to ensure they could withstand the rigors of the sanitation process, as well as customer use in movie theaters.
