DDB Chicago has announced that it will begin conversion from the fl-inch tape format to the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) format for internal use. DDB is believed to be the first major advertising agency to plan a wholesale conversion to DVD.
According to DDB Chicago executive VP/executive production director Grant Hill, the conversion will begin in a couple of weeks, when he and a few of the agency producers are slated to receive DVD players. The agency will implement many more DVD units in the creative and production departments over the course of next year, said Hill, who related that DDB will also acquire two units which will allow the agency to create DVDs internally.
DDB will be encouraging production companies and sales reps to present their work on DVD. Although the agency plans for the transition to occur over the course of 2000, an established date by which DDB will no longer accept fl-inch screening reels has not yet been set. Hill hopes that announcing DDB’s intentions now will provide sufficient advance notice to the production community.
The agency will be sensitive to the community in cases where people can’t provide DVD, certainly for the year 2000 and perhaps beyond then. "We don’t want to make it unusually difficult," Hill said, "and not be able to see certain things we need to see if they’re in the wrong format. It would be silly of us if we were that insistent on it. I know it puts a hardship on certain companies to try to supply DVDs, because they are currently more expensive. But the more people use DVD, the prices to make DVDs will come down dramatically, if there’s enough momentum."
Acknowledging that the transition period will be awkward, Hill said he believes the DVD format to be the most logical for the future, as well as being a convenient, cost-effective alternative to the fl-inch format. "It’s to our advantage to do this from a technological point of view, from a cost perspective, and a convenience point of view. One of the great advantages is that you can view DVDs on computers and laptops; you can preview commercials, look at reels and do anything else.
"I’m looking forward to the time," continued Hill, "when we look at dailies on DVD, when the dailies are loaded into the Avid digitally, and then we come back to the agency with a rough cut on DVD. That’s where we intend to go."
Another important consideration, according to Hill, is the problem of maintaining the agency’s increasingly "less-than-perfect" fl-inch equipment. Sony, for example, stopped manufacturing fl-inch machines a year or two ago. "The DVD machines are much less expensive than the three-quarter-inch machines we used to buy, so for us, it’s more economical," said Hill. "With the three-quarter-inch machines needing more maintenance and … all the advantages of DVD, we decided this was the time to do it."
Over the past couple of months, Hill has been telling sales reps of the agency’s plans during screenings, and said their general reaction has been very positive. "They’ve told me, ‘Thank goodness you’re doing this; we have been waiting,’" Hill said.
DDB’s decision was finalized at a meeting of all the DDB offices’ heads of production, which was held in New York in mid-September. Hill said that everyone in attendance endorsed the DVD format for the agency’s individual offices and for the DDB network as a whole, and that each office will convert to DVD on its own schedule.
