Competition Returns to Hollywood

‘Go Digital’ Event Gives Guild Members a Chance to
Examine Gear From Sony, Avid and Apple

by Steven J. Cohen

The evening was initially intended as a showcase for Sony’s new tape formats: DVCAM and HDCAM. But realizing that a chance to play with some great new decks might not be

The scene in the late afternoon, at the DGA’s Atrium Room.

enough to bring Guild members out of their homes and cutting rooms, Linda White, Sony’s Western Region Sales Manager For Professional Products, invited Avid and Apple to show off their latest picture editing equipment. To sweeten the pot, she brought along Sony’s newest non-linear system for comparison. With separate sessions starting every hour from 4 to 9, the seminar, held on June 28, gave over 200 Guild members a unique chance to get up close and personal with gear from three major competitors for our picture editing dollars. Key people from each company were in attendance, showing off their systems in the DGA’s Atrium Room, while clips from HDCAM and DVCAM material ran in Theater 2, from both film and video projectors. Food was available on the patio. To top it off, the event featured a live webcast of the online magazine show, The DV Guys.

The Gear

Détente was watchword for the night, with fierce competitors amiably coexisting across a few feet of floor space. Avid showed their ‘Meridian,’ Version 10 system, running on a Macintosh G4 and connected to the company’s Unity media networking technology. So far, price has kept most rental houses from upgrading the majority of their systems, and the event offered Guild members a chance to see what they’ve been missing. The upgrade is somewhat slicker than the version 7 machines we’re familiar with, and it’s noticeably faster. When

Sony showed the XPRI non-linear editing system, amd the latest DVCAM and HDCAM decks.
Apple’s table featured Final Cut Pro running native and with the Pinnacle Cinewave card.
Avid showed the ‘Meridian,’ Version 10 Media Composer with Unity media sharing, as well as Xpress DV 2 and Digital Studio HD.

asked for a succinct reason why editors would want it, Avid folks most often answered, “Picture quality.” That hasn’t been enough for many of us in the past, but Barry Nulman, Avid’s new chief of West Coast operations was eager to let Guild members know that the company is now intent on vigorously competing for our minds and wallets and would not abide defections to other systems without a fight. He hinted that a lower-cost, Mac-based film product would be available from the company in the near future. Avid also showed off Xpress DV 2, running on a PC laptop. It operates only at 30-fps and offers no film features in the software, but can work with Avid’s FilmScribe add-on to make cut lists. Avid also showed their high-end, HD editing, compositing and finishing system, Digital Studio HD.

Next to the Avid table, Sony showed its new XPRI system. Currently designed as a non-linear online machine for HDCAM material, it may soon be reconfigured for offline work. Visitors to the show saw it smoothly handle high-definition material, with no appreciable performance penalty. The interface is taken directly from the Avid mold, with familiar features like trim rollers and a patch panel for routing from source to record monitors. The system also offers some features that the Avid currently lacks. There’s a hardware, flying-fader mixer and a hardware, multi-band, real-time, audio equalizer. In a brief demo, it appeared that audio keyframes can be manipulated more flexibly than in an Avid. The system offers an Avid-like customized keyboard, but goes further, providing separate layouts for each system mode (digitizing, trimming, cutting, outputting, etc.). It offers no film features, but handles 24-frame material in its native form. Film functionality is planned for a future release.

Final Cut Pro got the biggest crowds, and their table was busy throughout the event. The team brought several key people down from Cupertino and showed off Final Cut Pro 2 running in its native mode on a laptop, and also driving the Pinnacle Cinewave card, allowing it to cut uncompressed HD material. The HD system seemed quite responsive, but images on the computer monitor played back with a noticeable lack of sharpness. To see them properly one had to look at the HD monitor. Nevertheless, the possibility of cutting your show at DV quality and then, on the same machine, onlining in uncompressed HD seemed like a sign of things to come. Pinnacle also showed a real-time, standard-definition version of the card, which is capable of playing two uncompressed streams of video and two streams of graphics. Slated to be released in September, it should make a splash for low-cost, standard-definition, non-linear online work. Overall, there was a palpable sense of excitement at the FCP booth, with one observer saying, “It doesn’t matter who wins. What’s important is that they’ve shaken up the world of professional editing. It’s been quiet here for too long.”

DVCAM and HDCAM

Sony’s decks were visible on every table. The company stopped making 3/4” machines three years ago and is eager to see Guild members begin using their DVCAM decks as the input and output source for offline editing systems. Indeed, the midrange DSR 1800 seemed like a more than credible replacement for our aging decks. One turn of the jog/shuttle knob made clear that the precision of its tape mechanism is better than what we’ve grown accustomed to. The deck shows an image at all speeds — the tape never leaves the heads in fast forward and reverse. Image quality is similar to Beta SP and audio is digital and equivalent to DAT. Another advantage is tape length. 184-minute tapes are available, allowing a three-hour show to be played out without interruption.

Attendees also had a chance to see HD and DV material playing in DGA Theater 2. A reel from The Anniversary Party demonstrated just how good tape-acquired shows can look when converted to film. The show, shot on PAL 16x9 DVCAM and transferred to film, looked

The DV Guys hosted a live webcast. Hosts Phil Hodgetts and Ron Margolis interview Craig Yanagi, marketing manager for DVCAM products at Sony. Greg Woodhouse handled technical tasks.

very good. Only a slight softness and lack of color saturation gave the source away, but without being told, average viewers might well believe that it originated on film. Other clips showed off Sony’s HDCAM materials, and they were even more impressive, with excellent sharpness, steadiness and color saturation.

Webcast

The surprise of the night was a webcast from the online show The DV Guys. Every Thursday at 6 p.m. Phil Hodgetts and Ron Margolis interview key players in the DV community and broadcast it live over the web. The show is aimed at a wide audience of amateurs and professionals and thus isn’t always appropriate for those of us creating features and television — but their sense of fun is infectious, and they provide plenty of invaluable, up-to-the-minute information. The event was a terrific showcase for them, and they put on several informative interviews with participants. For those who found their way to the tiny room that served as a studio, the surprise was how little gear it now takes to broadcast a live event. The biggest part of their portable setup were the lights. Audio and video from this and other shows can be heard at www.dvguys.com.

The Bottom Line

This event offered Guild members something that they couldn’t easily get anywhere else: an opportunity to get a hands-on look at the latest editing systems and compare them directly in the same room. But the message of the event went beyond the demos. After a five-year lull, competition is back at the top of the picture editing world. These three big players now see Guild members as their blue ribbon market. They want us and they’re apparently willing to spend money to get us.