Sony Pictures High Definition Center

Background

The Sony Pictures High Definition Center was a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment that provided high-resolution imagery scans. Not much is known about it, other than that it provided high-res image scans of the 1992 Columbia Pictures torch lady and TriStar Pictures pegasus that were used for the 2001 Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment logo.

Logo (1990s?-2000s?)

Visuals: First, a white dot with some small lights flying (presumably taken from the opening of the 1st Sony Dynamic Digital Sound trailer) is shown on a black background. Then, the following live-action and/or CGI clips cut or crossfade in:

A timelapse of what appears to be a mountain.
What appears to be a vortex that the camera goes through.
A cannon firing, followed by three soldiers jumping away from a cloud of smoke caused by an explosion.
A timelapse of what appears to be a highway.
A woman with what appears to be a magazine. The magazine is pulled away as the camera zooms in and pans up to show the woman's face.
What appears to be a man sliding across water that splashes in slow-motion.
A zoom-in on a man in sunglasses driving a convertible with a woman seated next to him. The two look at each other.
Four people being "sucked" into the ground while what appear to be sparks flash. This then cuts to a shot of just the ground as a bicycle helmet falls down and lands, then spins.
The camera going down, then up a rail.
A zoom-in on what appears to be a courtroom, with what looks like a police officer walking by and two hands in the background. A man is also shown calling someone on a telephone.
Another shot of a mountain, this time with the camera zooming up. There is also a lake and what appears to be a forest.
The camera zooming in on a man who is talking. A dog, presumably owned by the man, is sitting next to him.
A slow-motion shot of the camera panning up someone's face.
A colorful background with someone swinging their hair.
A woman smiling, with a man next to her.
A black-and-white shot of a woman with her hair flowing in the wind, staring at something offscreen. A man is next to the woman and another person emerges from offscreen on the left.
Finally, a shot of the woman's eyes, which are blue, as a white light shines. The light then brightens, coering almost the entire woman's face, including one of her eyes.

Then, it fades to a black background with a cube projecting a clip showing someone on a background divided into two halves, red and yellow. Many lights shoot at the cube and hit it as the camera turns and zooms in, and the clip begins to rapidly change colors. The camera enters the cube, and the screen turns white briefly before the inside of the cube is shown, revealing that it has four layers inside, each playing the same clip. The lights go through the layers as the camera flies by, panning around in the process, and many spheres of various colors fly through the layers as well. When the camera reaches the last layer, it turns again and pulls back, revealing the cube again, with the clip playing in a total of five layers. The lights are shown to be emitting from the bottom left, going inside the cube, and the spheres, now colored red, orange and yellow, are flying out through the front. The camera then stops at an angle, and the layers compress themselves into the front layer, which fades to a blue square with a purple gradient on the top-right. The lights turn 2D during this, as do some of the spheres, which arrange themselves in four rows of six. The now-2D spheres each go from red to red-orange gradient, orange, orange-yellow gradient, and yellow. When the layers of the cube fully compress into the square, a particle effect occurs as the rest of the spheres disappear. The particle effect turns the background white, with the square, lights (which are now just black-gray-white gradient lines with their ends invisible) and spheres contained within a black rectangle. Part of the top and bottom of the square protude through the rectangle. Then, underneath the rectangle, the following words flip in letter-by-letter:

SONY PICTURES

As "SONY PICTURES" finishes flipping in, the following words flip in letter-by-letter below:

HIGH DEFINITION CENTER

This forms the following:

SONY PICTURES
HIGH DEFINITION CENTER

Once the words are formed, a diagonal line of sparkles wipe across the words from left to right. Afterward, a line draws between the words. Text-wise, the end result is this:

SONY PICTURES
-----------------------------
HIGH DEFINITION CENTER

The finished product stays onscreen for a couple of seconds before slowly fading to black.

Technique: Live-action and CGI.

Audio: A pop-rock tune plays, starting with a held-out note and a synth hit. After this, while the music plays, a male announcer says "Widening horizons, providing a portal of opportunity. Whenever, however, the mind's eye could see. Sony Pictures High Definition Center, the gateway to new possibilities in imaging. The digital gateway to the future." After he finishes, another note is heard, followed by another synth hit. The rest of the logo is silent.

Availability: It was found on a video uploaded by Steve Diggins on Vimeo, but it remains unknown if it was used or not.