Some forward thinking members of the commercial post community believe that datacentric/digital intermediate (DI) style workflows for advertising applications may become a reality in the near future–and will usher in the promise of high-resolution quality, flexibility, and a nonlinear environment.
This makes constructing a workflow that includes color correction systems, scanners/telecine, storage and networking a key focal point at the ’06 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention. Another big story at the annual confab in Las Vegas will be the continuing competition between Avid Technology and Apple Computer in the editorial community.
There are many challenges to configuring a successful data workflow, but top of mind for many this year is storage, a vast topic with varying options that meet different needs. “That’s the critical issue for anyone dealing with software-based color correction or digital intermediate systems–you need good storage that has management and diagnostic and disaster recovery tools; you cannot lose your data,” warned Joe Bottazzi, partner/director of engineering at New York-based Nice Shoes. “It’s a major issue and it’s not cheap. You can’t afford to buy the wrong system. It needs to be reliable. You can’t rely on tape.”
Bottazzi reported that Nice Shoes is installing a Bright Systems storage area network (SAN) with over 30 TB of storage that will be integrated with existing online and nearline storage for spot work. Still, he said he would continue to look for additional technologies. “It’s a whole infrastructure that facilities have to be installing,” he commented. “And it’s involved.”
Fred Ruckel, creative director/Inferno artist at New York-based Stitch, said he is hoping to see a developing option called a Holographic Versatile Disk (HVD).
HVD, he related, is said to be able to store 1 terabyte (TB) on a disk, and handle read and write as fast as fibre channel. “One disk would equate to [the amount of storage] an Inferno used to come with standard,” he said. “You could hold thousands of hours of material, and if there’s fibre channel speed for read/write like they are saying, then it’s the next thing.”
Michael Most, chief technology officer of Miami-based Cineworks Digital Studios, agreed. “Obviously there’s a need for speed and density of storage,” he said. “Holographic storage would be a showstopper because of a quantum leap in density, but I don’t know if it actually exists and if it is fast enough.”
Ruckel also expects to begin to hear the term “petabyte”, which is approximately one thousand terabytes, used more frequently in the post vocabulary. “When you look at how much we use HD digital video– there has to be viable backup. So storage systems are key. That where petabytes are going to start showing their heads.”
For Cineworks’ Most, today’s issue is about putting together an infrastructure that can accommodate HD, data and traditional post requirements, in order to support all commercial and feature clients. “I think it’s going to stay hybrid for quite a while. I need to still support video,” he related. “One of the interesting trends is storing in an IT environment and finishing in another–certainly for a facility like ours, that’s the best way to transition.”
COLOR CORRECTION
Rainer Knebel, VP of DI services at Santa Monica-headquartered Ascent Media Creative Services, which encompasses companies such as Company 3 and RIOT, related that in DI-style workflows, color correction systems offer many applications as the center of a process. “Today they are conforming tools and color correctors; they manage the handling of EDLs and special effects,” he said.
“[The commercial industry] wants to go to a nonlinear workflow, but they also need real time,” added Knebel, who plans to examine the evolution of color correction/finishing systems at NAB. “You also need to be able to output many different formats as fast and efficiently as possible. You don’t necessarily want to render different versions for every output.”
For theatrical work, the studios are typically asking for 2k DIs–and are beginning to ask for a limited amount of finishing in 4k, which requires four times the amount of storage as 2k. Commercialmakers may not have these requirements, but they do motivate storage needs of post houses such as Company 3 and bicoastal Post Logic Studios, which service a mix of studio and advertising clients.
“The horsepower is allowing us to deal with 4k pictures in a reasonably efficient way if people are willing to pay for it,” Levinson explained. “It [4k] burns a lot of storage — In theory, any of the software-based color correctors can run 4k; the question is how much rendering will be required,” he concluded.
With so much happening in the color correction space, some in the industry have identified a need for a common interchange format for color. In response, the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) technology committee’s DI subcommittee–which is chaired by Levinson–is developing an ASC Color Decision List (CDL), which would facilitate color correction data interchange between color correction systems from different vendors. Levinson reported that some color correction system makers might be showing the feature during NAB.
Meanwhile, Larry Bridges, CEO of multi city Red Car, is most interested in examining how desktop color correction tools could be used to improve productivity, beginning on set.
Specifically, he is going to NAB with the hopes of seeing Discreet Lustre software running on a laptop (this was previewed last September at the IBC Convention in Amsterdam). This, he believes, introduces some interesting possibilities.
“Why not have a colorist on set?” he said. “The way you light influences the way you adjust your color parameters for the look that you want. Why shouldn’t the gaffer, DP and colorist be working together on the set?
“The beauty of digital cinematography and Look Up Tables (LUTs) is you don’t have to make a commitment [on set],” Bridges continued. “You can change everything later. But you can create a specialized look. The colorist has never been invited to the set. Now they are. I think you will see Discreet Lustre becoming a production tool.”
The workstations that will be the platforms for software systems–from color correction to editing and composting–also continue to evolve and change the business models. “Clearly there’s a major shift in the democratization of the technology,” said Dean Winkler, chief technology officer for the New York-headquartered Crossroads family of companies that include Crossroads Films and 89 Editorial, citing movement from dedicated hardware with high support costs to less expensive, faster processors on generic computers. “The days of paying for the privilege of owning the tools and keeping them working is over,” he asserted.
EDITORIAL In commercial editorial, there’s clearly one leading story: Apple Computer’s continuing inroads into the commercial nonlinear editing market that has been dominated by Avid for more than a decade.
“It’s a tipping point moment for this decision,” said Winkler. “There used to be a compelling reason to want one–Avid was known as the creative tool; [Apple’s] Final Cut was seen as a finishing tool. That’s not true anymore.
“It’s a very different world and it’s no longer a clear decision….If people are comfortable with the creativity offered on Final Cut Pro, there are hardware advantages to going that way from a price/performance and flexibility standpoint.”
On the flipside, he added, “Avid still has a lot of people who have spent a lot of time and are very comfortable on Avid.”
Bottazzi commented that there is much innovation to watch at the low end. “The low end is ahead of the high end in some ways,” he said. “[For instance] Symphony can’t load P2 or HDV directly. However, there are workarounds with Adrenaline and Xpress Pro. You can load it there, and transfer the files. Here is a case where the low end products do more that the high end product.”
