The upcoming confab, NAB2001, is expected to be more "evolutionary than revolutionary" with postproduction and visual effects companies seeking upgrades to equipment purchased in the past 12 months.
In the second part of SHOOT’s Road to NAB Preview, company executives share information on equipment and trends they have their eyes peeled for during the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas.
Larry Bridges, president/ founder of Red Car, which has editorial houses in New York, Chicago, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Dallas and Toronto, said he is excited about offerings from two companies in particular. These are NeTune Communications, Culver City, Calif., (SHOOT, 8/25/00, p. 7) and Unique ID Software, an offshoot of visual effects house Smoke & Mirrors, London.
"Headed by president Curtis Clark, NeTune is a very interesting company which foreshadows the need for instant communication from locations and also manages workflow enhancement between companies over long distances," said Bridges. As an example, Bridges uses the situation of a film crew shooting in Machu Picchu, Peru, and sending its film back to be developed at Technicolor in Los Angeles. "The film can be developed the next day and the transfer sent back to Peru via a very high speed data satellite connection. NeTune has developed software that allows you to conduct a very quick review of the footage to make sure it came out right. One of the big unknowns about production is when to break your set. That is a very important enhancement to any location production," he enthused.
Bridges first came across the asset-tracking and production management system offered by Unique ID, known as CakeS, during his visit to the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC), held in Amsterdam last September. Based on a browser-based system, CakeS combines a unique identifier on tapes with a proprietary digitizing station to create real-time, proxy clips of the original tape media, which can then be streamed across the Internet. All the user needs to access CakeS is a regular Web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.
"Unique ID is up and coming and I think they will be something to watch," predicted Bridges, who is also looking at Discreet Logic products including Backdraft and the color correction now available in Flame. He will also be looking at the Avid| DS Remote Processing System, whereby edits, composites and graphics can be accessed and adjusted while computationally intensive tasks are processed in the background. "For me that it is a great addition to a very strong box that is really competing with anything in its field," he said.
But broadband bares watching in the coming months. "You’ve got to keep your eye on bandwidth," Bridges continued. "To me it is the most elastic of all prices in production right now. There will be an explosion of useful things you can do when bandwidth can be provided for a useful price."
Steve McCoy, president of FilmCore, which has editorial shops in Santa Monica and San Francisco, said that aside from educating himself—one of his prime motivators for going to NAB—he will be checking out the status of HD and whether the costs of DVDs have fallen. He is also interested in product offerings from Avid and alternatives such as Final Cut Pro and Discreet products.
McCoy said he would "keep on eye" on DVCAM. "There is a push right now by Sony to have DVCAM replace the three-quarter inch cassette. The three-quarter inch might be almost thirty years old, but just about everyone has it and it works," he said. "I don’t see anything extraordinary in DVCAM that is going to make it last for an extended period of time. It will be an interim format, almost like D2, which bridged a very narrow gap between D1 and Digibeta. Now, D2 has mothballed and people are using it to plant flowers. I think the same is going to occur with DVCAM—something is coming along in the not too distant future that will be the true long-term replacement," he predicted.
Bill Topazio, VP of engineering, Manhattan Transfer, New York, said since becoming part of the Liberty Livewire group in January, long distance working relationships have become more important. Therefore his priority at NAB will be looking at some of the long distance communications partners offering collaborative network systems such as, but not exclusive to, WAM!NET, Minneapolis, and Toronto-headquartered JCI Corporation. "I am very keen on JCI right now because it seems to offer a good trade off between bandwidth and usability in terms of pay per usage," said Topazio. Manhattan Transfer made a significant investment in HD equipment last year with the acquisition of a C-Reality telecine system and URSA Callisto from Cintel, the U.K.-based manufacturer with a U.S. operation in Valencia, Calif. Manhattan Transfer also purchased a HD-ready Fire and Inferno system.
Topazio maintained that he has been finding NAB less and less relevant, the sheer size of the confab making it difficult to spend quality time with the vendors. "I feel I can do as much before NAB as the manufacturers conduct their major market road shows," he said.
Dave Satin, executive VP/director of engineering, SMA Realtime, New York, agreed that the sheer size of NAB makes it difficult to spend quality time using the equipment. Therefore, SMA is planning an open house day at the facility whereby artists will be invited to "play" with its recently installed ITK Millennium telecine. The date for "Transfomania 2" is expected to be over a weekend in May. In terms of what he will be searching for during the confab, Satin is mainly interested in purchasing a new flat panel display or projector.
Tony Robins, executive creative director, Spontaneous Combustion, New York, said that he was curious to see the integrated 3-D Studio Max, developed by Discreet, Quantel’s iQ, and 5D Cyborg from 5D, London. (5D Cyborg is designed to improve productivity and workflow in postproduction by integrating a range of advanced, resolution-independent, image processing tools into a central working environment.) Robins will be looking at both ends of the spectrum—from the desktop to checking out the status of HD.
In general, Robins finds NAB worthwhile even though it is a little tough on the feet and the brain. "You see such a wide variety of things at all different levels and all different prices … it gives you a keyhole to where the world is in terms of our business and the technology," he maintained.
Pat Howley, general manager of New York-based Post Perfect, which is part of the New York Media Group, said he was looking forward to attending Discreet Logic’s user group meeting on April 22 because he is interested to see developments in Fire, Inferno and other Discreet products such as Combustion. Post Perfect is looking at increasing its storage capacity and is interested in seeing Quantel’s iQ.
But most of Howley’s time will be spent looking at cameras that originate in video and can go back to film, as this is something clients are requesting. "We will be increasing our HD capabilities with more HD machines and infrastructure and converters. We recently bought an ITK Millennium and will be upgrading our desktop divisions," he said.
"It could be a major investment year. We will either buy right at NAB or wait until July and do the infrastructure upgrades over the summer months. A lot depends on where the HD products are at," he added.
Peter Wehr, managing director of Liquid Labs, and multimedia specialist, New York Media Group, conceded that the offerings at NAB2001 seemed more evolutionary than revolutionary. "Companies are mainly building on things that happened last year and getting some of the stuff stabilized—which is a good thing," he said.
Wehr will be focusing on high-speed networking solutions and looking to upgrade Liquid Lab’s DVD capabilities. "I am also looking for real time encoding systems for QuickTime, Windows Media Player and RealVideo. I’ve been kind of disappointed with them in the past so I’m just seeing if the technology has gotten any better," Wehr concluded.
