How many people do you know who are receiving high-definition television (HDTV) broadcasting in their homes? Probably not too many—either inside or outside the industry. Early on, the high definition argument was to post spots in HD so they wouldn’t look inferior to the programming available on HDTVs. But since advertising is about reaching a quantifiable audience, HDTV has not been a compelling option for advertisers. For limited HD audiences, most advertisers have accepted that networks will upconvert their standard-definition spots—broadcasting the 4:3 aspect ratio with side panels to accommodate 16:9 aspect ratio TV sets, or stretching the picture to fill the screen.
However, HD tools have become affordable and accessible, and HD awareness and education has grown significantly. As a result, the number of HD post proponents from the commercial sector has exploded.
Some of the perceived advantages to HD post are outlined in this Special Report on postproduction article. However, it should be noted that this is a vast topic that cannot possibly be covered in a single news story. As that is the case, educational materials are readily available, including dozens of books that have been published on the subject. Additionally, Newbury, U.K.-headquartered Quantel recently published a white paper on the advantages of posting in HD, as well as The Guide to Digital Intermediates (which discusses a related subject); Montreal-headquartered Discreet has published a white paper on digital intermediate work; and Click 3X, New York, has produced a report titled Designing for HDTV.
Cinema Advertising
The most commonly cited reason for using HD, according to companies such as Technicolor Creative Services and PostWorks, both in New York, is the ease in repurposing TV ads for cinema distribution. Theatrical advertising is already popular in many parts of the world, including Canada and much of Europe, and it appears poised to take off in the U.S.
Montreal-based commercial post and visual effects house Buzz Image Group, for example, has posted about a dozen HD commercials since opening its Discreet HD Inferno suite last year. The shop recently completed visual effects, compositing and HD finishing on a Coors Light spot, "Caesar," out of agency Mondialis, Montreal. Eddy Chu, who is represented for spots in Canada by Radke Film, Toronto, directed the ad, which was produced through 401, Montreal. (Chu is with Highway 61, New York, for stateside representation.)
Patrice Cormier, VP of HD development at Buzz Image, suggests that clients do an HD finish if a theatrical version is planned, or if there is even a remote chance that they may consider a cinema release.
At Buzz, clients do pay a premium for HD, but Cormier points out that to re-edit an SD-produced spot to create an HD version is far more costly. In fact, that scenario could double the post budget. "This past year, we’ve had three or four advertisers that chose to finish SD, then decided they wanted an HD master for cinema release," he relates. "Their post budget nearly doubled because we had to go back to telecine and do a second transfer, and adjust the EDL and trace back and re-conform."
This argument dovetails with the advantage of creating a "universal master" in HD. With distribution opportunities expanding and fragmenting, many post execs and manufacturers point out that HD produces a high-resolution master that can be used to easily create all versions of a spot, including NTSC for U.S. SD distribution, PAL for international distribution, all flavors of HD for HD distribution, film for theatrical release, or any other format needed for Web, multimedia or special venue displays.
To illustrate this point, Nate Robinson, senior visual effects artist at San Francisco-based Ntropic, cited the recent Kodak spot "Print Party," out of Eleven Inc., San Francisco, which the company mastered in the 1080/ 24p flavor of HD. All deliverables were created from that one master. The spot needed to be delivered in PAL for broadcast distribution to Paris, and in film for theatrical release in the U.S. and parts of Europe. "It allows the agency to have complete control," says Robinson of HD mastering. "They can really put their mark on each version. To have that flexibility definitely saves time and money, and the quality we are able to show is better."
Creativity
Commercialmakers are also starting to turn to HD for creative reasons, which can involve image resolution. There are many who contend that an HD-produced commercial, converted to NTSC for SD broadcasting, offers a better picture than an SD-produced commercial. (In the U.S., HD is generally considered formats with 720 lines of resolution or higher, although some countries consider the popular 480 interlaced and progressive scan formats to be HD.) Many digital artists appreciate the extra resolution for visual effects and finishing, including blue-screen work and compositing.
Santa Monica-based Steele VFX is one company that promotes the process of HD mastering for SD content, with Quantel’s eQ and Qcolor at the heart of the workflow. "We work from the premise that the higher resolution you start with, the higher quality you end with," says Jerry Steele, president/CEO of the shop. "When we traditionally take film that has a huge resolution and transfer it to an SD format, we immediately end up carving out eighty percent of the resolution of the image as the result of the transfer process. With a transfer to HD using the eQ, that doesn’t happen anymore. We can maintain more of the resolution on the film at the highest possible quality, composite and edit the material at HD resolution, and then dump that to a standard-def tape.
"Over and above the eQ being a natural progression, it presents us with a whole new set of toolsets, and allows us to enter the hi-def arena seamlessly and without any additional financial burden for our clients," continues Steele. "What we’re doing now is giving the client better quality and more time to be creative at a cost that is close to what they pay now."
On Qcolor, Steele comments, "We’re color-correcting in a completely non-linear, layer-based environment. We now have the ability to influence the entire look and feel of a project in post with the quality and tools that agencies expect."
Washington, D.C.-based Interface Media Group—which offers Discreet’s Fire and Inferno with HD capabilities at no additional charge over traditional SD—produces many HD promos for PBS. "We get a lot more color space to work with, and a much bigger image, which is especially good for effects work," explains VP Jeff Weingarten. We use Inferno a lot—especially mixing resolutions."
As previously mentioned, Click 3X is steering a "Designing for HDTV" initiative, which educates clients about the design challenges and opportunities afforded by HD. That includes designing for multiple format standards and protecting for 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, as well as the possibility that viewers will be watching the images stretched or cropped on screen. "It all comes down to being aware," relates Peter Corbett, partner/ president of Click 3X.
At Click 3X, which is built around Discreet’s Flame systems, new HD cable channels are driving the need for HD when it comes to IDs and promos, such as Click 3X’s recent promo for INHD, a cable channel offering movies, specials and sports in high definition. Christine Lin was designer/director on the client-direct promo; Iain Greenway, creative director at Click 3X, also worked on the project. Meanwhile, most company execs SHOOT spoke with say agency requests for HD are also on the rise.
This transition is further along in network television. This year, most primetime programming was produced in HD—including the full primetime episodic series schedules of CBS and ABC. Concurrently, the number of HD cable channels is expanding, which is also driving the need for HD content.
Many HD early adopters made the leap for the episodic television market, but some also produce commercials. That includes the likes of Ascent Media Group, headquartered in Santa Monica. Many of its entities, such as R!OT Santa Monica, already built an HD infrastructure to service episodic series work, and the workflow is now being applied more frequently to advertising projects, such as Skyy Blue’s "Pool," out of The Lambesis Agency, Carlsbad, Calif., and directed by The Hughes Brothers—Albert and Allen—and produced via @Tate, a division of Tate & Partners, Santa Monica. While most commercialmakers are far more aware of HD post than in recent years, a transition of this magnitude continues to involve education. And most will say the first step, if one is considering HD, is to talk with one’s post house.
