Crush Digital Video, New York, a division of the New York Media Group specializing in Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) compression and authoring, has unveiled the Crush Composer. The system was built to hold a digital archive of spots that a user can manipulate to create custom reels. The Crush Composer comes as part of a developing industry trend to move away from the antiquated fl-inch tape format towards the more space-efficient DVD.
Over the past few months, the buzz over what the next life cycle of reel distribution will be has gathered momentum. In November, DDB Chicago executive VP/executive production director Grant Hill announced that a complete conversion of the agency’s archive from fl-inch to DVD was imminent (SHOOT, 11/5/99, p. 1). BBDO New York recently made the move, archiving nearly five decades of advertising for its client Mars Inc. on a DVD Library Disc, courtesy of Zuma Digital, New York, a DVD design and development company.
"The three-quarter-inch tape is quickly going out of style, so it’s been a big point of discussion here because we’re the supplier," explained Paco Carr, director of business services at Crush.
The Crush Composer is a package deal that goes one step beyond storing digital archives and functions as a presentation tool and a reel generator. Initially the agency turns over its archive of fl-inch tapes to Crush, where a compressionist encodes them to MPEG2, DVD-ready files. The agency specifies how it wants the information organized, and Crush creates an asset list that contains different directories. For instance, if the agency wanted to group together all the spots it had with dogs in them, Crush would make a separate category and call it "dogs."
Once Crush is finished converting all the materials, it will deliver the library back to the client already installed in the Composer software, which is a directory that lives on the computer’s hard drive. Crush will also back the library up on a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM (depending on how much material has been encoded) as a safety precaution.
The software contains two windows that sit side by side on the screen. One accesses items from the asset list; the other builds a play list. Spots can be added or deleted from the play list with one click. When ready for viewing, items on the play list can be watched on the computer screen, or the computer can be plugged into a larger monitor.
One of the Composer’s greatest selling points is that a reel can easily be created and stored on a laptop and toted around without the worry of carrying around fl-inch tapes or making sure those tapes are cued up. When screening spots for a client, a presenter has the freedom to shuffle the order of the spots on the play list, insert black screens, title screens or write a note to the viewer. The play list can also be output to a VHS tape, a fl-inch tape, a CD-ROM, and soon, a DVD. At press time, Pioneer was the only company to manufacture a DVD recorder, but it has yet to finalize the hardware for sale.
The Composer has already garnered interest from both agencies and production companies. At press time, bicoastal Shelter Films was awaiting delivery on the system it purchased. "We’d been interested in finding a way to compress our elements and store them for a while. This is really good for making reels, because I can just go on to the computer and make a special reel that will be digi-beta quality and can go onto a three-quarter-inch that night," explained Shelter Films production manager Sandy Schwartz.
DDB Chicago director of management information servicesRob Isherwood is considering adopting the system for the agency, but is still negotiating in what capacity DDB will use it. "Right now we’re sorting through the issue of how much of the library is relevant to put on a DVD, and how much of it is destined for the dustbin," Isherwood explained.
Barbara Michaelson, head of production at DeVito/Verdi, New York, also looked at the Composer back in October while researching a way to put the agency’s reels on DVD. "The head of the agency wanted to be able to take his laptop, go to his presentation and choose which spots he wanted to show," explained Michaelson. "[The Crush Composer] was the only one that I found that had a menu software that was so flexible." Ultimately DeVito/Verdi was unable to adopt the system, as the hardware was not compatible with a Macintosh computer.
"Nothing we’ve written is incompatible with a Mac; the problem is the Mac’s physical hardware and the tools that are required to use it don’t exist. … It’s a physical limitation of the Mac," explained Carr.
Crush is selling the Composer software along with an IBM computer for $5000. (The cost of compressing materials is extra.) The idea behind buying the computer in addition to the software is that Crush will provide technical support if everything is running on a system that Crush supports. The user is free to install the Composer software on any other DVD-compliant computers, but Carr says Crush will not be responsible for supporting additional systems. "We’re saying, ‘Here’s the software and it works on this system and we’ll support it. We want you to buy the computer because we want it to be a dedicated system to making reels," explained Carr.
At the time of purchase, if a buyer has a large library of materials to compress, Crush is offering a 50% discount off the normal price of spot compression, which is about $100 per commercial. The deal is valid for the first 90 days after purchase.
While created for, but not limited to, ad agency use, Carr sees the Composer as a tool for anyone who makes reels. "It’s made for an industry that is constantly saying, ‘Send me your reel,’" contended Carr.
