Digital video and FC have done well together. Here is what the post production NLE folks are up to....
NAB 2000 First Impressions
AvidProNet is an Avid Internet portal that is designed to offer Avid users a place for news, technical information, client/editor and customer/manufacturer collaboration, and an editor community environment
By Bob Turner
Next month's issue is the Videography NAB Wrap-up issue and I plan to offer my annual statistical analysis then. This month, I will offer my first impressions of this year's show.
COPEing with Avid and Other NLE Manufacturers
There were far more web streaming products than I foresaw in my March "Crystal Ball" article. This was especially true with the NLE manufacturers and how they not only offered web-streaming outputs to their products, but also showed a trend toward remote client-approval capabilities.
Avid promoted the "COPE" concept: Create Once: Publish Everywhere. Discreet promoted their concept: "Create Once: Use Anywhere." The code-name for the content creation/web streaming technology being introduced by Discreet is neptune*. Pinnacle Systems' theme was "iCreate, iStore, iStream & iView." Similar concepts were found at other manufacturers' booths, as well.
Media 100 took this concept of web video to the extreme. They shifted the entire company focus from that of nonlinear edit system manufacturing to a streaming media company. The booth focus was "Internet Streaming," showcasing products and services from the trio of recently acquired companies Terran Interactive (Media Cleaner Pro is the leading streaming video software manufacturer), Digital Origin, and Wired Inc. "Hidden" along the back wall on the outside of the booth were the three nonlinear editing solutions the company offers: Finish, Media 100, and EditDV.
One of the highlights of the Media 100 press conference was when they demonstrated the www.icanstream.com website, developed via a partnership with Canon USA, Beatnik, and Kensington Digital Fridge.com. The site allows you to download a free version of EditDV called FreeDV. The site also provides news, reviews and step-by-step instructions for shooting, editing, compressing, and streaming video on the Internet for everyone from the web-video beginner to the seasoned veteran. FreeDV is a real, useable consumer-editing package and not just a "demo version" or a software package with very limited functionality.
Many of you know how contentious the relations between Media 100 and Avid have been in times past. (I have written about the lawsuits.) Considering this contentiousness, you will be as surprised as I was when Avid announced a partnership, licensing, and distribution agreement with Media 100's Terran Interactive to "develop an Avid distributed-media encoding product" (a basic component of their streaming technology strategy).
Remote Client Viewers and Web-based Collaboration
Internet technology at NAB included a new feature trend: remote client approval. Matrox showed a prototype web-based collaboration technology where a remote client (hopefully with a broadband connection) could see what was being edited. The actual compressed output of the editor's program monitor would be visible via a client's browser with only a slight time lag. The client could be watching the video via the Internet as he talked with the editor on the telephone. This is a valuable tool for an editor that needs client approval when the client cannot be supervising the edit. No more FedEx-ing tapes and no more drawn-out approval processes.
AutoDesk, parent company of Discreet, calls their web-based collaboration solution iDesign (www3.autodesk. com/adsk). This refers to a set of browser-based tools that could allow editors, graphics designers, compositors, animators, and game designers to disseminate their creations outside the workgroup for a variety of reasons and uses. Incorporated in their solution is the creation of market-specific portals for project collaboration, content, services, and e-commerce with suppliers.
Avid also demonstrated a powerful integrated-browser solution as part of AvidProNet: an Avid Internet portal that is designed to offer Avid users a place for news, technical information, client/editor and customer/manufacturer collaboration, and an editor community environment. The AvidProNet Review and Approval service will allow the Avid editor to post an encrypted version of his work in QuickTime movie format to his account on AvidProNet.com where he set up a Viewer List (a list of collaborator/clients and their e-mail addresses). The material is password-protected and encrypted so that even Avid cannot view the content. The Reviewer List is sent an e-mail to notify him/her of the web address and that there is something to view. When the client clicks on the web address, their browser downloads the movie, together with a Java Applet. The Applet is a special viewer that will allow the client to make frame-accurate feedback notation. When the client has finished making his comments, the Applet sends the notes and other metadata back to AvidProNet.com, where the editor can access them. With Xpress DV v1.5, Media Composer v10.0, or Symphony v3.0, the editor will be able to click & drag the message from their browser window to a special track in the timeline where the notes appear as Locator Marks.
Emotional Reactions
After the initial reaction that streaming video was the dominant trend, I went to the lead players in the Las Vegas Convention Center and was surprised at what I found. Sony and Panasonic appeared to have a change of heart and acted more cordial to each other and manufacturer partners. Panasonic booth representatives now admit when Sony offers a good product and the same was true for Sony booth representatives about Panasonic products. Both booths had major displays of their integration with third party manufacturers. More about their nonlinear editing systems will come later.
Another surprise reaction: I continually heard complaints or comments that all the interesting or exciting displays were at the Sands Convention Center. It was just a couple of years ago that the Sands had just the opposite emotional connotation.
I also felt startled and, well, depressed when I went into both the Quantel and Avid booths. Neither company showed their complete product lines. Quantel's booth no longer featured a future technology prototype area, which I found to be a highlight of previous NABs. Also, the number of edit system models displayed appeared to be cut in half. For example, they still sell, support, and promote two versions of Editbox and several versions of Infinity, but only one each was displayed. Avid showed only a small portion of the actual models/platform choices available. This made it difficult to "side-by-side" shop. And a major portion of the booth this year was dedicated to the Digidesign product line. This created the sensation of Digidesign "pushing aside" Avid's editing products. I knew, however, that Avid was having a good show with the number and quality of announcements (more about that next month), but the booth gave me a negative feeling.
Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) is a Reality
One of the most exciting and unexpected press conferences was that held by the AAF (Advanced Authoring Format) organization. Brad Gilmer, executive director of the AAF Association promised that the DR2 release of the AAF Software Development Kit (SDK) will happen before this issue of Videography is delivered. He stated, "The AAF development team is working with SMPTE to ensure that DR2 fully complies with the SMPTE Metadata Dictionary, which is also just about to be released. We are working hard to be sure that even the pre-general release versions of our SDK are fully SMPTE-compliant."
The SDK is an object-oriented, platform-independent programming toolkit with supporting documentation, that enables client applications to access the data stored in an AAF file. The toolkit is available in source form for several platforms, including Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and MacOS. Support for SGI IRIX, Linux, XML, and additional codecs will be available for DR3 in mid-summer 2000.
The toolkit includes a complete specification and a reference implementation that should eliminate ambiguity that could arise in interpreting interchange standards. The SDK is free to anyone who registers as an "adopter" and downloads the files from the web at www.AAFassociation.org.
It was announced that a general release and the next version of the SDK were expected around the time of IBC (Sept. 8-12, Amsterdam). Several AAF members confided that AAF-compliant products could also be expected at NAB. Oliver Morgan, the Avid representative to the AAF Association stated, "AAF is also on schedule for the next release (DR3) at SIGGRAPH [July 23-28, New Orleans], which supports UNIX. The UNIX port was provided by Discreet, and is now in test."
The biggest surprise was the amazing increase in membership, which indicated a tremendous momentum was developing for this standard. Manufacturer after manufacturer, and user member after user member, offered testimonials. (See sidebar, "AAF Testimonials.")
The Hottest Booth at NAB 2000
Clearly the Pinnacle Systems' booth with 15 (fifteen!) new products, and incredible financial statistics, was a major success story of NAB 2000.
The TARGA Cine board for G4 platforms may have garnered the most buzz at the show, but the TARGA 3000 was equally newsworthy! The TARGA Cine (with the HDTV daughter card and 8-way hard disk striping) will allow editing
for any of the 18 ATSC-defined DTV/HDTV formats, all for under $30,000 including platform and software. The TARGA 3000 is a major technological advance. It provides true uncompressed video processing, multi-layer real-time compositing (three full uncompressed video channels plus five graphics channels), a major improvement in DVE capabilities, and a wide range of analog and digital inputs/outputs via the new break-out boxes. Pinnacle has over two dozen partners committed to this platform, including Discreet, Adobe, and in:sync. The radically new PDS 9000 switcher also garnered its share of buzz. The 36-input, 2.5 M/E production switcher's features include: nine built-in DVEs, 19 framestores, and RGB color correction.
President and CEO Mark Sanders boasted about 1200 percent growth over the past three years which made them rank 311 in "Fastest Growing Companies" according to Forbes. At the press conference Sanders stated, "We are probably the fastest growing company displaying wares at NAB. Our broadcast business alone grew by 30 percent just this last quarter! Over the last two-and-a-half years, every quarter has been a record sales quarter for the company. Our income today is bigger than our annual sales 4.5 years ago. Our stock has split twice. Our market cap is $1.7 billion. Last year we announced the acquisition of Truevision. This year we have made six additional acquisitions--three in the last 30 days: Shoreline Video (high-end graphics for news and sports); HP Server Division (video servers, which doubled the size of Pinnacle's broadcast business); Hollywood FX (special effects plug-ins); Puffin Designs (compositing/graphics/special effects software); Dixon Editing Services (the most popular sports/team editing system); and Montage Group (news editing)--now called Vortex News. I expect we will probably acquire another 10 companies this coming year."
As far as nonlinear editing systems go, Pinnacle Systems sells about 2,500 systems every quarter. They were displaying six different nonlinear editing system product families in their booth.
Other hot products in the booth included:
the new HD Deko500 HDTV character generator; the new StreamGenie portable webcasting system; the new StreamFactory real-time web stream encoder (both MS Windows Media and Real SureStream) in a 1 RU package; the new MediaStream 300--a new member of the MediaStream family--with up to three MPEG-2 video channels and 25 hours of storage in a 2RU package; version 3.0 of Puffin Designs' Commotion; DC/DVD 2000, a solution for DC-ROM and DVD creation, as well as Videotape and Internet Streaming utilizing Adobe Premiere and Minerva Impression 2.0 DVD authoring software; and DVExtreme DVE.
My personal favorite product introduction was a $399 consumer HDTV tuner board called PC HDTV. This product would allow me to turn my PC into an HDTV tuner with TiVo-Replay-like capabilities and project HDTV via an RGB projector. I hope to review this product around the time of the Olympics!
Hottest Platform: Intergraph
The other first impression I would like to tell you about before closing is the Wow! reaction I experienced at the Intergraph booth. Most know that Intergraph provides the platform for Avid/Softimage's Digital Studio, that they have phenomenal rendering farm capabilities, and some may even have heard about their outrageous new film animation recorder solution, HDAR. But I was "wowed" by a real-time HDTV display demonstration in the booth.
Do you remember how excited everyone was when Play first displayed their NTSC reflective bitmapping? This display was at least as impressive except it was displaying uncompressed HDTV multiple reflective bitmap images. My favorite was a live image in a floating box with glass shapes, including a magnifying glass, rotating around it. There were reflections of reflections, and it was a live image.
Next month I will begin my focus on the hot editing systems at the convention and offer my statistical breakdown of nonlinear edit systems by OS, divided into new, existing, and those missing from the previous conventions.
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