"New Computers Tools Teach Old Video Dogs New Tricks"

General Trends

Strangely, this year will not see the advent of a faster chip grom Intel. Digital Alpha's are up to about 600 MHz now, and even that acceleration is slowing as Digital starts to gang Alpha processors (64 in their latest monster machine) rather than extract higher speeds. In terms of lower-cost, higher quality video tools, breakthroughs will be on the board level, suggesting that the chip race is taking a break while the board integrators take up the slack.

I believe this trend originates with the CPU, and the philosophical war between Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation concerning how fast a chip can clock and how many instructions can be squeezed in each clock tick. Intel, for now, believes 200 million with one instruction per tick. DEC says 600 million with four instructions per tick and it looks like it's going to stay that way till next year's Comdex convention in the Fall of '97.

Cirrus Logic, manufacturer of computer motherboards, confirmed the CPU trend by including more functions, like modems, video, audio, SCSI control and networking on their newest mother boards. This frees up the ISA and PCI slots for more exotic peripherals like Digital Processing Systems' (DPS) Perception, and Targa's DTX and RTZ cards whos double thickness covers an extra peripheral slot.

Board Level Advancements

I've been treated to prototype tours of two new 1394 cards that will take the DXC-1000's firewire jack output directly to a hard drive without the need for an intermediary compression step. Essentially, the camera itself executes the only compression to 1394 standard (5:1) and the PC card busses it directly to the hard drive. Here, presumably, new nonlinear editing software will be able to create edited masters and pass them back to the camera (or another 1394-equipped digital recorder) for tape-based storage.

The two cards have been introduced by Miro and Adaptec respectively, with Sony and Targa likely candidtes soon. Miro's Pentium compatible model demonstrated direct video capture from the DXC-1000 into a Miro nonlinear editing software package that could perform rudimentary cuts-only editing. The system could not yet send the edited results back to the DXC-1000 for recording, but Miro expects to have this problem licked by Q2.

The other 1394 contender, Adaptec, has teamed up with the leading codec maker, Digital Processing Systems and Adobe. DPS's contribution to the package is software only, called Spark, which links the Adaptec card to Adobe Premier. Adobe contributes its latest Premier update. The Adaptec board duplicated Miro's capabilities, acquiring from the DXC-1000, but Adaptec's board can send the edited production back to the camera for recording! This configuration eliminates the need for the Perception card (or any video codec), since the camera (or any 1394 deck) can be used for the project studio's video feed. The Adaptec card will work on PCs and MACs and will ship by the time you read this.

Acquisition Streams

Judging from the video cameras being readied for NAB, it doesn't look like we'll see anything better or cheaper than the Panasonic EZ-1, or the Sony DXC-1000 at NAB. When consumer cameras come out this good, it sends a shock through the professional industry and the readjustment of that industry is going to take a year or two. Just as Sony rushed to fill in the gap between the BVW line and the DXC, Panasonic has unveiled a new camera, the AJ-D200, at $5,995 without lens, that fills the gap between the $4,000 EZ-1 and the $17,000 AJ-D700.

The AJ-D200 was designed after focus groups of wedding videographers revealed that none of them wanted to show up for $1,500 gigs toting something that looked like a $750 handy cam.
The shoulder-mounted 200 offers removable lenses, some broadcast features and looks more like a traditional ENG unit.

Pummeled by questions about 1394 compliance, Panasonic announced that they did commit to optionally retrofit Firewire connectors on all models that later incorporate incorporate Firewire. This should clear up any reservations you might have if you want a Panasonic product, but are anxious about the 1394 upgrade path. Good move. Their new AJ-D230 desktop player-recorder for DV, DVCAM and DVC Pro formats which debuted at Comdex for $4,995, is outfitted and priced just right. This unit will record and play from the EZ-1 camera, making a perfect desktop video editing package for the low cost project studio.

Video Editing

Both nonlinear and linear editing are addressed in the long awaited Trinity from Play Inc. Introduced in barely-prototype form at NAB '96, the product was a lot further along when I saw it in January. There are two basic models, a linear editing box, featuring ADO-quality effects for $10,000 - sort of a super Toaster - and a nonlinear enhanced package for $20,000.

The Trinity is worth waiting for. I've been laboring for two years now working on hand-crafted nonlinear editing packages that yield special effects after ten minutes of rendering time. Trinity gives you everything in a turnkey package with very cerebral effects that play back in real time. One, which features a perspective-turned, live video image within a 3-D rendered scene, shows reflections of the video image on any shiny surface of the 3-D elements! This is like live video ray-tracing. Incredible to see - and this is one of the features of the $10,000 package!

Hard Drives

Of course, all of these nonlinear editing packages are going to need hefty, fast, hard drives. The good news is that Seagate demonstrated a 9 gigabyte drive that will deliver at least 6MB per second across the entire diameter! Due for March release, the higher output of this drive will assure that a full 9 gig is delivered to the user, thereby increasing the amount of video that the drive can hold and deliver to a nonlinear system.

And then there's DVD

In addition to the 1394 standard, which enhances production, the next big thing is Digital Video Disk or DVD which enhances distribution. Based on a CD-ROM format that can support 4.7 gigabytes of data, DVD was almost ready for launch at Comdex '96. While the supporters have the core media worked out including, video, audio, closed captioning, foreign language dubbing, etc., some fringe elements are still being worked out.

I predict that DVD will make it's big consumer debut next Christmas season and that in the following year, software developers will begin taking advantage of this format's vast feature set.
Only after this can we expect DVD to become the de facto corporate training medium.

Making DVD programs is a complex affair approaching witchcraft. Panasonic demonstrated the only working authoring system, developed as a beta test for Universal Pictures. Look for a new video job category to appear: The Video Compressionist. DVD's wide range of compromises and advantages using interactive MPEG-2, offer the Compressionist the ability to include several versions (PG-13 and R, for instance) of films, 8 track multilingual support, 35-tracks of subtitles and gameplay interactivity. DVD will be the singular technological development that propels our industry to the next step; a combination of cinema, TV, computer and video games into one entity. It will be big. Very big.

Video Cards

Preparing for the DVD wave with the first DVD video cards, E-4, also known as Elecede Technologies, premiered its CoolDVD card this Winter in demonstrations that played back the few existing DVD prototype CDs faultlessly with wide screen, SVHS video, foreign language dubbing and subtitles. The two track stereo playback will soon support Dolby AC-3 audio. Set to retail in the $300 range, the CoolDVD will work on MACs or PCs. Options will include a 130 channel CATV and DBS tuner module.

E-4 also showed the Artista video card for PCs and MACs, that combines full screen playback of broadcast or cable TV feeds on the computer screen, video editing, MPEG, parental channel lock, videoconferencing and Intercast access. This card has the unique capability of converting closed caption feeds into your word processor! Imagine MTV rappers' lyrics being instantly converted to text, or your favorite movies being printed out as scripts while you watch! Neat.

Intergraph continued to spearhead its entry into desktop video from its niche as the most favored brand of engineers and architects, by lowering prices for its entire line of turnkey computer systems and by unveiling a new low-end, high performance video cards, the Intense 3D and Intense 3D-Pro, which extends Intergraph's OpenGL 3-D video capabilities down to the game card level.

Intergraph's professional video cards, such as the top line RealiZm board, support up to 2.5 megapixels at 1834 x 1368 resolution in 24-bit true color with 8 bits of alpha channel output, were also on display. Obviously, Intergraph is impressing the market. Digital Equipment Corporation was demonstrating Microsoft's new Softimage release on a 500 MHz Alpha processor using a video card called the Powerstorm. The Powerstorm is manufactured exclusively for the DEC Workstation Group by Intergraph. It was breathtakingly fast and it is not available in an DEC clones.

3-D TV

Historically, our customers have looked toward broadcast TV and movies as the quality criteria for our work. Now expect some push from video games. Canopus recently introduced a 3-D interactive video card called Total 3-D and four compatible games that will up the ante for any training video producers who dabble in virtual reality and simulations. Packaged with LCD shutter glasses, this video card offers stereoscopic 3-D, lightning fast screens and 3-D headphone audio for incredibly realistic interactions. Seasoned computer pros will be lining up for workouts on this card like kids in an arcade.

Web TV

Since this was a year for the boards to catch up to the chips, the applications people also see it as a year to catch up with the boards! Most applications were in the area of expanded distribution channels. Look for new and interesting ways to get your programs out to wider audiences.

The biggest distribution news was in the Internet market as Sony and Phillips demonstrated Web TV. This set top box, selling for about $350, turns a TV into a web browser. Connect it one end to the TV, the other end to a phone jack and you're surfin' dude. You can hook up your own keyboard, buy an optional infra-red remote keyboard or use the included remote control which makes typing laborious. Either way, this is the way to get Grandma on the web. Simple, easy, cheap. I once thought the Internet would go the way of CB Radios - all the rage one year and then just truckers the next. Maybe it will, but this time, we're the truckers.

Sounds Better Yet

A small Las Vegas company, Innovative Quality Software, has developed a new nonlinear sound editing and mixing package called Saw Plus which will truly impress you with its vast capabilities and efficiency. Delivered on one floppy disk, Saw Plus offers 16 tracks of audio mixing with full effects. You can combine midi, 8, 16, and 32 bit stereo all in the same mix. This Windows program was written in assembly language, the native tongue of computers, by programming genius, Bob Lentini, who is one of the few people left doing Windows aps in assembly code. It has ten times the power of other programs written in C++ which require CD-ROMs to deliver the goods to your box. Check out their fully featured, free demo disk now!

Digital Still Cameras

Several companies debuted digital still cameras in the professional category this season, priced at between $1,000 and $2,000. Sony's DKC-ID1 ($1,795) has become quite popular with multimedia professionals who find the high quality, PCM-CIA transfer card and small size allow an otherwise text-oriented web-ducer to shoot support photos for those text laden sites. Ricoh's entry, the RDC-2, also new at Comdex, sported similar specs to the Sony model, records sound, and will feature a price breakthrough at under $1,000.

While videographers can obviously freeze a frame of video for use in multimedia programs, the quality offered by this category of digital still camera bridges the gap to print and website resolutions. If you can afford it, adding one of these cameras to your kit makes excellent sense as a customer-pleasing "throw in." None of my clients has regretting getting a disk of "location photos" for the company newsletter.

Unclassified

Many of you have remarked that you like to hear about new and unusual applications for computers and I have several that may be of interest to the videographer. Elcom Technologies took the wraps off a series of devices that use your house's AC power as a multichannel analog and digital distribution system. One product transmits high fidelity stereo audio, another system transmits printer or modem commands, still others are planned for network linkups. Since the AC line acts as the transmission medilaum, you no longer need to run wires for these applications. Just in time. I was going to start drilling holes in my office walls to connect my five nonlinear editing computers to a common printer!

Another product makes a significant advance on surge protection. Until now, most surge protectors used cores that self-destruct when hit by large charges. Even with slow charges the core begins to fail, never warning the user that protection is vanishing. "Protection" lights continue to glow, but you're at risk! Elcom's new surge protector, uses a fast switch to shunt the surge to a special capacitor where the charge is slowly dissipated back to ground. The unit is the only surge protector that is UL approved and permanently reusable.

Chicago Map Company finally integrated a low cost GPS satellite tracking system with a laptop computer program to create a $350 software package that shows you on a scaleable map, wherever you are in the US. A handy package for the ENG crew wandering about in a strange location.

InContext Systems demonstrated several handy software packages dedicated to improving your website designs. My favorite, Web Analyzer, graphically dissects any website and offers a host of utilities for making it work better. Lost links, redundancies and inefficient flow, the most common problems on a site, are instantly identified and marked for correction. This program is a lot like what MetaTools intends to do with its web analysis program, but it's available now.

Finally, one company realized that it was about time something be done about boring computer and video furniture. I mean, what if you don't like high tech architecture? Passport Furniture is marketing a stunning array of Chippendale, Queen Anne, Sheraton, Wicker and Country style computer cabinets and accessories. Imagine an elegant maple armoire with ball and claw feet. At the touch of a button, out slides your Pentium nonlinear editing system! My wife loved it!