Last week Richard Taylor, executive chairman of U.K.-headquartered Quantel, gave SHOOT an exclusive preview of the companys NAB plans and new technologies. At NAB A99, Quantel will demonstrate some editing and effects products in development based on Quantels Monty technology, including a 1080/ 24P editing system. It will also have some important news surrounding its Editbox and Henry product lines.
On the Monty front, Quantel will demonstrate three developing products on the second level of its NAB booth. The Monty-based HD-ready products will be an editing system, an effects editing system, and an editor dedicated to servicing work in the 1080/24P format. The highest quality HD format in the FCC-approved ATSC standards table for DTV, 1080/24P is gaining support in the post community as the HD mastering format of choice.
Quantels aim is to get customer feedback on these developments at this years NAB, and then complete a system or systems. No release dates are set, but Talyor said Quantel is looking toward 2000.
Did Quantel get the timing right? Taylor says he believes so. We feel 601 will be around for a long time to come, he explained. HD will happen, but it is happening at different times in different parts of the U.S. We need to provide a step by step approach that allows them to transition smoothly from 601 to HD according to their own time frame. … At the moment there is not a lot of HD postproduction going on. Over the next year the demand will increase. We dont see 2000 [as a year that] everyone will be doing HD. It will increase. So 2000 is about right.
As for todays editing capabilities, at NAB Quantel will introduce a new Editbox system while ceasing to show Editbox Platinum and Magnum.
We found we were confusing the marketplace, Taylor explained. We found that people like the name Editbox and it seems there were too many names [with Platinum and Magnum].
The new Editbox, Taylor said, will have more power and more capabilities. It will be able to handle plug-ins from such third party developers as U.K.-based 5D, which will have roughly 200 Editbox plug-ins at NAB. The new Editbox will also have a new rendering engine that will enable rendering as a background task while the user is editing on the system.
Taylor expects the new Editboxawhose complete name is not finalizedawill be available for shipping by NAB. He added that current Editbox owners would be offered an upgrade path to the new Editbox.
Editbox Platinum was released at NAB A98 as a lower cost editing tool. It was often compared to products such as Discreets Smoke and Avids Symphony. SHOOT asked Taylor if Quantel is abandoning efforts to compete in that lower price range. While Taylor did not divulge the new Editbox pricing structure, he said it is scalable and will allow Editbox to continue to cover a large portion of editing markets including the aforementioned lower-cost finishing segment.
Henry, like Editbox, will also gain the plug-in options and render engine among its new features. The high-end Henry, Henry Infinity, has been renamed Infinity. Henry V8 remains available under the same moniker.
As part of Quantels step by step program, the company will also show Clipnet with a new feature dubbed resolution coexistence. Taylor explained that this means Clipnet allows various formats to co-exist in the system at the same time. The feature will be available by NAB.
Quantel will demonstrate with Clipnet a not yet named upres/downres station that utilizes the Monty technology. It operates in conjunction with the Henry or Editbox products; summer availability is intended.
The Web
Two new productsaSpiDDR and Spiderawill be making their NAB debut. Neither product developer had heard of the other similarly named product when contacted by SHOOT. Heres the distinction:
SpiDDR is a format and resolution independent device that provides integrated storage, I/O and networking capabilities.
SpiDDR was unveiled at last years International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) by Newbury, U.K.-based Post Impressions, a fledgling company founded last April by Discreet Logic alum MC Patel, who serves as chairman/chief technology officer. The company is run by numerous Discreet alums. Graham Sharp is the companys managing director, and John Miller was hired last month as president of Post Impressions Inc. (U.S.).
SpiDDR generated quite a bit of excitement at IBC, and 19 systems have already been sold in Europe to companies such as London-based The Moving Picture Company and VTR. Post Impressions now intends to show SpiDDR at NAB and introduce itself to the U.S. market.
The SpiDDR software, Sharp explained, offers productivity-enhancing capabilities for use in machine rooms, as well as telecine, graphics and nonlinear editing rooms. It currently supports formats up to 4K resolution.
Sharp explained that SpiDDR aims to bridge the gap between video and data as well as help post houses transition to HDTV.
SpiDDR has already been installed for demonstration purposes at Complete Post, Hollywood; Cutters, Chicago; and Black Logic and Post Perfect, New York.
Post Impressions will have a booth at the Sands Convention Center.
Meanwhile Spider marks a foray into software development for Station X Studios, Santa Monica. Station X will market and sell its Spider proprietary rendering management software, which at press time was expected to be demonstrated at NAB in the Newtek booth.
Spider offers management features such as job prioritization and job grouping. It supports Newteks Lightwave and Silicon Grails Chalice compositors. Support for other software is in development.
Station Xs Spider operates as a Windows NT service on networked computers, allowing it to run as a system startup, and it continues to run whether or not a user is logged on to a workstation.
As an entertainment and technology company, releasing commercial software packages has always been part of Station Xs business strategy, said Allen Crawford, VP of production development and corporate affairs at Station X. Spider is just the first of several production-tested software tools that Station X plans to release. It is generally desirable to have several revenue streams that operate on different business cycles to help smooth out the peaks and valleys that have historically been present in the feature-film industry.
Kaydara
At NAB A99, Montreal-based software developer Kaydara will unveil the next version of its FiLMBOX real-time production system with motion capture, animation and interactive rendering tools. The significance of the product is that it aims for live integration of 2-D into 3-D, according to FiLMBOX product manager Dan Kraus.
FiLMBOX 2.0 includes Camera Reality, a new module for camera tracking and integration, and Video Reality 2.0, a module providing streaming video support for real-time 3-D compositing. According to Kaydara, the introduction of these two modules allows users to work fully in context for real-time production, integrating digital characters, a matched digital camera, and live video input.
FiLMBOX provides integration with all the main 3-D packages, which allows users of Alias|Wavefront Power Animator/Maya, Kinetix 3-D Studio Max, NewTek LightWave, and Softimage|3D to take full advantage of FiLMBOX motion capture and animation tools. FiLMBOX 2.0 is scheduled to ship shortly after NAB.
For Road to NAB editorial consideration, submit all information to Carolyn Giardina, senior editor, postproduction, SHOOT, 1515 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10036. Phone (212) 536-1427, fax (212) 536-5321 or e-mail cgiardina@shootonline. com.
