Nearly 105,000 attendees trekked across the massive exhibit floors of the Las Vegas Convention Center at last week’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention, examining the continued development of digital production and postproduction tools and techniques–and their impact on the way content is created.
“The choices available to filmmakers have become quite complex,” warned NAB Digital Cinema Summit keynote speaker and Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) president Leon Silverman, who is president of Hollywood-based post house Laser Pacific and VP of the Entertainment Imaging division at Eastman Kodak, Laser Pacific’s parent company. “And the really hard work is about to begin–to make this technology transparent to creative and business people.
“We really don’t have a plan on how to navigate production, distribution and archiving,” he continued, specifically referring to digital cinema, although the same can be said for the commercial advertising industry.
In this first NAB wrap installment, SHOOT will examine some of the areas that will likely impact commercial advertising in the coming years, including content distribution to mobile devices, more affordable HD and its potential impact on the business, R&D in archiving digital content, a developing high definition DVD standard, and the evolution of HD production. Also in a tongue-in-cheek column this week (see p. 2), SHOOT explores the lighter side of NAB (find out why Larry Chernoff was a hit as a demo artist). Next week, SHOOT concludes its NAB coverage with a rundown of the major product categories, including cameras and color correction systems.
THE DOLLARS AND SENSE OF HD
High definition content creation was a front and center topic at NAB, but it involved much more than just digital broadcasting. Avid Technology CEO/president David Krall delivered a keynote during which he predicted a growing demand for HD content based on an increased number of customers of subscription-based HDTV services in the U.S., growth in HD terrestrial television into additional countrie–notably China–and the expected arrival of a high definition DVD format.
For growth in HD television advertising, Krall cited audience measurement as an important factor that still needs to be addressed. He added that challenges remain in dealing with multiformat distribution requirements and workflow changes. But as an opportunity, he opined that that high quality of an HD finish would give a project a competitive advantage when broadcast to DTV viewers.
But there is much more going on in HD than broadcast television–notably the current debate over a standard for a high definition, professional and consumer DVD format. In a nutshell, there are two formats competing to be the next-generation DVD standard; manufacturers are divided between one known as HD DVD, the other known as Blu Ray. Some rumors suggest a compromise may be on the way. Unresolved issues include how content would be prepared for such a format. Stakeholders would like to see progress, with an eye toward introducing the first product for the 2005 holiday buying season.
At the same time, the HDV format had its first serious NAB, with Sony and JVC introducing cameras in the $5,000 range. For post, Apple introduced HDV support in Final Cut Pro 5, and Avid said it would offer HDV support later in the year.
HDV was not the only format driving down prices, across the show floor; affordable HD was one of the NAB’s major themes. Panasonic, for instance, showed a prototype of a 24p variable frame rate camera for $6,000; and Silicon Color had an HD color correction software for $5,000.
At those prices, many attendees agreed that affordable HD tools could have significant impact on HD not just in the commercial world, but even for the consumer.
However, not everyone agreed that all of these tools are ready for the high end commercial market. Newbury, U.K.-headquartered Quantel asserted that many of the new lower cost finishing systems are not necessarily built with the speed and features expected at client-attended sessions in the commercial world. “They can’t do the job, so the fact that they are low cost is irrelevant,” said Quantel’s post marketing manager Mark Horton. He added that if an agency client has a bad experience in an HD session with such as system, “it gives them a reason not to do HD, then nobody wins.”
In response, Quantel launched a program called “Pay as you go HD.” Essentially one can purchase a fully equipped eQ for 60 percent of its full price, but ingest and playout is limited to standard definition until a password is loaded into the system. Weekly, monthly or permanent passwords can be purchased so that customer can migrate to HD at their own pace, and only pay the premium for HD when needed.
“Many customers feel that HD remains a big financial risk,” explained Quantel executive chairman Richard Taylor. “Pay as you Go means that Quantel carries the risk. From day one a customer has all of the power and performance of an eQ but only needs to pay for the HD input and output as and when they need it.”
MOBILE CONTENT
At NAB, there was substantial growth in the emphasis on delivering content on mobile devices such as cell phone and PDAs. Demonstrations occurred at NAB, and trials, as well as some actual services, are in place in various countries in Europe and Asia. At NAB, SHOOT spoke with Peter MacAvock, executive director of the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) office, a UK-headquartered, industry-led consortium of over 250 broadcasters, manufacturers, network operators, software developers, regulatory bodies and others in over 35 countries that aims to design global standards for the delivery of digital television and data services. At NAB, the DVB was among the exhibitors demonstrating broadcast reception on handheld devices.
“Until a few months ago, there were technical barriers; but now the standards are pretty much there,” MacAvock reported. “We expect that over the next six months trials will turn from technology to determining what customers really want and how much they are willing to pay.”
For trials already in place in countries such as Finland and China, MacAvock explained that broadcasters are testing a subscription-based model, essentially Pay TV, with participation from mobile phone operators, who are handling the billing for these services. “The subscription model will probably come first, but over time, it could be advertising. But that requires studying the market.
“Most interest [in receiving content on handheld devices] is coming from outside the U.S., in parts of Asia and Europe. Studies seem to suggest that people are prepared to pay almost as much for video on cell phones as for traditional voice services.
“There is a different gauge of interest from U.S. broadcasters,” he continued. “Their concern is advertising, since the advertising funded business model is currently used.”
MacAvock suggested that to generate the advertising interest, the industry will need to come up with a method of audience measurement. (Krall offered the same assessment relative to the subject of HD television commercials.) “It’s not trival, but it’s starting to get sorted,” he reported.
Some traditional commercials have already made their way to early distribution systems in this arena, but there are pundits who believe advertising on handheld devices will really become about receiving branded information combined with interactive capabilities. For instance, perhaps customers would have the ability to locate a theater and buy movie tickets on their cell phones.
ARCHIVING
Archiving was another big topic of concern with industry leaders exploring their options for an archiving media in the emerging data world.
In an off the floor whisper suite, Secaucus, N.J.-headquartered Panasonic previewed its R&D in this area to select customers; SHOOT was also granted a sneak peek.
The company revealed a developing compression algorithm (based on the H. 264 codec)–designed for archiving–which would process 2k at RGB 4: 4:4 10-bit to a Panasonic D5 deck in real time. Another revelation in the Panasonic suite is that this compression algorithm is also targeted for use in future HD camera development.
A second (large) manufacturer was also demonstrating an archiving technology in a whisper suite; a company official told SHOOT that it would be revealed publicly in time for the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in September.’
