Last November, DDB Chicago announced it was making the transition from 3/4-inch decks and reels to Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) over the course of 2000. Other shops, including Foote, Cone and Belding, Chicago; The Richards Group, Dallas; FCB Worldwide Detroit, Southfield, Mich.; and The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., have also started exploring DVD. The changeover is being embraced by agency producers, who find the 3/4-inch format for viewing and storing reels to be "clunky" and "ridiculous."
"We’ve been thinking about DVD for the past six months, and have now made a financial commitment to buy DVD players that are being attached to the thirty-five or so viewing stations we have throughout the agency," says John Noble, director of broadcast production at The Martin Agency. "Each of our viewing stations has a three-quarter-inch and a half-inch [VHS] player attached to a monitor. By June, they will all have a DVD player attached as well." The Martin Agency is also looking into purchasing a burner—consisting of authoring software on a computer attached to a DVD box capable of writing or "burning" a master disc. Noble, who says the agency will use the burner to create reels for presentations, expects to have one in place by early 2001.
FCB Worldwide Detroit is making a similar commitment to DVD. John Van Osdol, senior group VP/director of broadcast production, says the agency will be installing 50 players over the course of 2000, and is investigating installing DVD authoring services in-house. And according to Jim Martin, a senior VP at Foote Cone & Belding, Chicago, that office is also exploring in-house DVD authoring. "We’re talking to suppliers in town to see what will work well," says Martin. "We’re still in the learning curve at this point."
The Richards Group has already installed approximately 25 DVD players in its creative department, says Diana Schroeder, director of broadcast production at The Richards Group/spotmakers. (Spotmakers is the production arm of the agency.) She reports that the agency’s tape library is being equipped with removable shelving in anticipation of its conversion from 3/4-inch to DVD.
In contrast, Publicis & Hal Riney, Chicago, is taking a more cautious approach toward the new format, according to Dena Holmes, a broadcast business manager. Currently, the shop has a DVD player on a single viewing station. "We have only eighty people here in our Chicago office. We don’t do a whole lot of in-house recording," says Holmes. "When we do, it’s usually a rush job. I would think that agencies the size of FCB or Leo Burnett—where they have their own in-house audio/visual rooms—would have more DVD capability."
Grant Hill, executive director of broadcast production at DDB Chicago, and Robert Isherwood, director of technology at the agency, say that they are reviewing more and more DVDs, and that the shop will eventually make the DVD transition for sales and review presentations to clients. Both report that DDB’s account reps and creatives are in a "can’t wait" mode regarding the benefits that the DVD format offers for sales and client review meetings. "DVD gives you such amazing flexibility," says Hill. "There may be meetings with clients where you’re not sure how the conversation or presentation is going to go. If you wanted to edit during a meeting, you couldn’t with three-quarter-inch. DVD gives you random access—assuming it’s authored that way—to all the materials on a disc. This is a huge advantage. There’s no fast forwarding and scanning with the bars, tone and all that awkwardness that can happen—which is amplified when it’s a nervous, high-stakes meeting."
DDB Chicago is planning to counsel its clients on the new format change, and will offer technical advice on purchases. "We think our clients will also get DVD equipment," says Hill. "If not, we’ll help them out in that way and/or have portable DVDs to take with us to show our work on. They’ll be in transition and they’ll be a bit behind us. We’ll work on that."
Van Osdol says that FCB has taken its implementation of DVD a step further by making players available to key clients such as Daimler Chrysler, Little Caesar’s and Federal Mogul. "We’ll make sure DVD units are available so that we can review work with them."
Cost Issues
What is still a bit of a tough sell is the expense of authoring on DVD. The cost of DVD authoring gear has dropped as the technology has gained a foothold, but ad shops are waiting for prices to decrease further, preferring to gear up with laptops and desktops equipped with DVD drives before investing in authoring equipment. "You can be in the two-hundred-fifty to five-hundred dollar range and get an excellent player," DDB’s Isherwood points out. "The cost of creating a DVD is higher. It’s partially an equipment cost, because you’ve got to have a certain piece of software, a certain computer and a certain burner. It’s also partially a skills cost, because doing a DVD dub is not a simple thing. There are technical skills involved. It’s not particularly difficult; it’s a science more than an art, especially given the short time lengths we deal with [in advertising]."
The agencies moving to DVD expect the larger production companies to follow suit shortly, and add in-house authoring capabilities later. They predict that smaller production companies will initially outsource the mastering of directors’ reels on DVD, and might purchase authoring software and hardware in a couple of years, when the costs go down.
At this point, all of the agencies SHOOT spoke with are leery of mandating that production companies send their directors’ reels on DVD. Most are simply notifying commercial shops of their ability to view DVDs, but some producers report that a few directors’ reels in DVD format have started to trickle in.
"We request reels and view them on whatever format people send," says Schroeder. "We’re not exerting a tremendous amount of pressure, because we recognize that people are waiting for the costs to drop in authoring the discs."
"We’re not quite there yet [as far as requesting reels on DVD]. That’s why we wanted people to know well in advance before we requested them—we don’t want to catch anyone off guard," says Hill. "Production companies are obviously free to make their own choices in this area, and a lot has to do with the availability of equipment and the cost of making DVDs. They’re going to be in transition too, and we accept that."
"It might take a while for a lot of the smaller agencies and studios," adds Martin. "Three to five years seem right, because DVD doesn’t have the political issues that HDTV has."
Easy Sell
The DVD format does not appear to be a tough sell for anyone. Agency creatives appreciate its enhanced picture and sound, the capability to randomly access materials, the potential to store DVD format files on internal servers, and the ability to send files via the Internet—not to mention finally being able to travel light.
Noble says The Martin Agency’s creatives are pleased that DVD doesn’t even require a dedicated player to view footage—all that’s needed is a laptop computer equipped with a DVD drive. "I feel one of the ultimate advantages is for one of our producers to jump on a plane with five or six directors’ reels in their back pockets," says Noble. "Producers nowadays are doing two or three jobs at once. So when they are shooting one job, they’re looking at other directors’ reels. You’re not always privy to a three-quarter-inch machine. If you have a laptop with a DVD drive on it—which all of our producers will have by July—it makes it so much better and more convenient."
The changeover from 3/4-inch to DVD as the industry standard is now inevitable; most predict that it will happen in the next three to five years. "Three-quarter lasted way too long," says Noble. "It’s the same reel my father was looking at when he was a creative director at DDB thirty-five years ago. Here we are looking at the same reels. It’s incredible!"t
