Arts Technology

Awash in DV
DV Technology Bubbles to the Surface at NAB

Bill Horn

This year's most interesting promotional bauble was a bubble pen: a soap-filled yellow plastic tube with a cheap ball-point pen at one end and tiny bubble wand screwed into the other. As chintzy as it sounds, it's been both useful and entertaining -- not because it's a new idea or dazzlingly powerful, but because it is an economical and clever combination. It's not a bad metaphor for this year's crop of products.

In fairness to the industry, there were many innovations in evidence at NAB, particularly at the high end of the market where broadcasters are struggling to implement the new digital, high-definition television (HDTV) standards. In the lower, bubble-pen reaches of the market, however, the items on display were largely new implementations of existing technologies or long-anticipated releases. The current crop of DV products was typical of this trend.

The DV compression standard is a rapidly expanding digital format for recording video. It is now being used both in the consumer market and in low- to mid-range professional video products. While DV-based cameras still cost more than $2000, look for them to replace the VHS, Video-8 and Hi-8 formats over the next few years. DV tape decks for less than $1000 should also be available in the same time frame.

DV cameras still use tape to record your images, but the signal is turned into digital information and compressed before it is recorded to tape. The images produced by these DV cameras are, in general, superb, surpassing the quality of Hi-8 and rivaling that of BetcamSP. The mini-DV tape format used in consumer devices is recognized by all manufacturers' devices. Sony and Panasonic continue to slug it out for the industrial and professional markets with their competing tape formats, DVCAM and DVCPRO. All these formats, however, share the same DV compression technology. It is likely to be the standard in this part of the market for years to come.

DV Editing Systems

These bundles usually include a standard editing program such as Adobe Premiere. One notable exception is the package from Radius which includes EditDV, its own simple, snappy editing software interface optimized for DV work. Radius' product is shipping for the Macintosh and will soon be released for the Windows market. Products by Promax and Pinnacle are also shipping on the Mac platform. For Windows, Adaptec, Digital Processing Systems (DPS) and Pinnacle are shipping similar products.

Although these solutions require some kind of DV device with a FireWire connection (like a camera), they are still the cheapest in the market. They include features such as timecode, deck control (over the FireWire), and a high picture quality that would have cost 10 to 20 times as much a few years ago. As processor speeds continue to increase, these software-based systems will rival their quicker, more expensive (and less upgradable) hardware competitors. They are definitely the wave of the future for inexpensive but powerful editing tools.

For those with slightly deeper pockets, there is now real competition for boards that include a DV chipset, eliminating the need for an external DV device. These boards can take standard analog input, convert it to DV files and then, after editing, output in either digital or analog form. The current options for Windows are Fast's DV Master and Canopus' DV-M1, with Promax selling a Mac version of the DV Master as their DV-Max card. These boards sell for around $3,500.

For roughly twice that cost, Truvision is offering a dual codec DV board, the DV 2000 RTX, that allows real-time effects. This means that simple transitions and titles will not cause a delay while rendering. It is currently available for Windows NT, and a Mac version is in development.

DV Cameras

One notable exception is the Canon XL-1, released this winter. It has limitations, but for $4,500 it offers superior optics and image stabilization, interchangeable lenses and a good viewfinder. For professionals and independents looking for something downmarket, the XL-1 is a clear winner.

DV Decks

Not the type to sit on its laurels, Sony has added the DSR-20 to its line of DVCAM decks. Now shipping for around $3,300, the DSR-20 is also a half-rack unit without some of the control features of the more expensive DSR-30. Sony has, however, maintained the FireWire (i.LINK) I/O and has added a RS-232 control port. This deck is likely to be used as an inexpensive DVCAM feeder for non-linear editing systems, or for simple dubbing and playback of DVCAM material.

For editors who don't need standard deck features like front panel controls, Sony has reintroduced its stripped-down DVCAM drive series. The DRV-100 and DRV-1000 are designed to fit into the 5.25-inch drive bay of a personal computer, and offer only simple audio and video outputs. The only way to input material or to control the units is via a FireWire (i.LINK) connection. At around $1900, they are the cheapest way to add a DV device to your computer editing system. While most DV cameras can be used in the same way, these drives untether your camera from the editing system, giving more flexibility to video makers working at the entry level.

Inexpensive Input

Editing Software

Macromedia has been promising a summer release of FinalCut, its answer to Premiere. FinalCut's profile at NAB was so low that I thought it had been withdrawn. When I did find it, though, I liked what I saw. The interface is more elegant than Premiere's, and seems to be specifically designed with the editor in mind. In comparison, Premiere has a lingering multimedia feel, despite its considerable improvements. FinalCut's compositing controls are also superior to Premiere's. The real competition for Premiere will likely come from specialized, niche-market editing software such as EditDV from Radius (mentioned above), or from those editors linked to a specific hardware package, like the Media 100. On the Windows platform, there is also a decent installed-base of Speed Razor from In:Sync. SpeedRazor, a robust mid-market package, ships with a number of Windows hardware solutions and competes most directly with products like the Media 100.

For its part, Media 100 was touting a Windows NT version of its software, Finish NT, slated for fall release. In addition to the usual Media 100 features, Finish NT promises real-time transcoding of DV material into Media 100's M-JPEG codec. This feature will appeal to editors who need to combine DV and analog sources in a single project. Media 100 promises to include this feature in future releases of their Mac product as well. Similar functionality is also available from Truvision's Madras trans-coding box, for about $7,000.

The Big Bucks

A non-linear editing station (only a bit pricier than a bubble pen)

Avid continues to dominate the high end of the editing market. With a strengthened set of effects systems and a new release of its popular Media Composer software, Avid is working hard to maintain its position while diversifying into high-end compositing. This is the realm traditionally dominated by Discreet Logic and, to a certain extent, by Quantel. Both had very strong showings at NAB. Having acquired D-Vision and its award winning On-Line 3.0 software last year, Discreet Logic is attempting to deliver an integrated set of products along the same lines as Avid. Whether new clients can be convinced to buy into this line is unclear, but the new integrated suite of post-production tools should help. For its part, Quantel continues to concentrate on the broadcast graphics market. Most impressive were HDTV graphics systems capable of mixing multiple HDTV resolutions into a single composition. These are, of course, astronomically expensive.

DVD Technology

A number of media preparation and authoring tools for DVD were on display at NAB. Serious compression tools for preparing MPEG-2 and Dolby Audio media, two DVD standards, begin at around $20,000. The authoring tools needed to employ the full range of DVD features, such as Daikin's Scenarist and Sonic Solutions DVD Creator, also begin at around $20,000. This puts the initial price of a production system at $40,000 to $50,000. Consumer players for your television are now in the below-$1000 range and DVD-ROM drives for your computer are shipping in limited numbers for around $300.

The first signs of inexpensive DVD production were evident in a $17,000 desktop DVD burner from Pioneer. DVD writing was formerly an exclusively industrial process. This will open the market for the creation of single-copy disks, but one can still expect to pay at least $500 to burn a DVD disk, not including charges for design and media preparation such as MPEG encoding.

Sonic Solutions has two tools aimed at the low end of the market. One is their DVD-It plug-in for Premiere. For about $500, DVD-It allows you to export MPEG-2 encoded A/V files that can be written to a DVD disk. These are relatively low-quality MPEG streams without any interactive features. For around $6,000, Sonic's Vobulator software is a more sophisticated encoder that gives you higher quality MPEG-2, as well as the ability to lay out multiplexed tracks that take advantage of DVD's interactive features. Both these tools lack any authoring capability.

DesktopDVD, also from Sonic, offers an integrated media preparation and authoring package aimed at the corporate market for around $40,000. Sonic's products are likely to be representative of those being released by other companies in the coming year.

Storage

Hard drive prices continue to fall. The current 9 GB standard for high-capacity drives is giving way to 18 GB units. These will be available at prices only slightly higher than their 9 GB predecessors. Look to pay around $1200 for an 18 GB drive by the summer.

Network storage solutions are also becoming more popular. These systems use high-speed optical connections to move files to the desktop. With files stored centrally instead of on a particular station, all the members of a workgroup can access the materials for a particular project. The centralized location can also make the management and maintenance of the drives easier.

Formerly, such systems were limited to high-end broadcast and post-production facilities. They still come at a premium over local storage, costing roughly 50 to 100 percent more, but are now cheap enough that small companies and schools can consider using them. Some of the major players in network storage at NAB were dataDirect, Mountain Gate, and Pathlight Technologies.

Like the developments in DV, these network storage systems are not new ideas: systems using similar technologies were on display last year at NAB. But with better software integration and strategic partnerships among vendors, they are now a more realistic possibility for a larger market.

Posted May 18,1998