Many novelties, few surprises

NAB'98 was the scene of many releases. And, as always, among the avalanche of products and data related to the transition to digital television, some that may be especially relevant to our market stand out.

However, we must start from the beginning: it was not a year of great surprises. Certainly revolutionary products appeared that, as always, justify attendance at one of the largest technical events in the world.

But above all it was a year of trend validation. Manufacturers are beginning to respond to the demands placed in recent years, and thus continue to fulfill the task of offering practical solutions to real problems.

One of the most interesting phenomena that became evident in 1998 is the gradual change of character of some of the most traditional firms in the television equipment industry. Important corporations such as Tektronix dedicate great research and development efforts to generate new products that allow it to maintain a leading position in the new digital television market.

In addition to its traditional products in the line of equipment for production and systems of technical control and distribution of signals, Tektronix has become a power in products specialized in the management of compressed digital video, including its servers of the Profile line and a wide repertoire of distribution systems and quality control for flows mpeg-2 digital video.

An interesting aspect of these moves is that while the line of production equipment inherited from the merger with Grass Valley Group is being reinforced, some years ago, an important part of this operation has been ceded to another firm. Support and development of Grass Valley's VPE editing controllers was handed over to an independent company that will handle these products as a separate business.

Apparently, Tektronix decided to orient its operation towards the manipulation and distribution of compressed digital video; an option according to the market generated by the immediate needs of broadcasters, forced to implement digital television systems in a relatively short time.

Large multinationals such as Philips/BTS and Sony are also following this trend, increasing their business in the area of distribution and connectivity to better accommodate the demand of the coming years. It is clear that they are preparing to survive in the market of a television converted into intensive traffic of digital information.

A little surprise move – which was to be expected – is the technological openness of the firms that had traditionally defended the dedicated teams built on their own platforms of jealously reserved design.

Quantel presented in 1997 the possibility of incorporating Java applications into its user interface, a bridge to use TrueType fonts in its graphers and composition equipment and some connectivity solutions to integrate with equipment from other manufacturers.

This year it announced its strategic partnership with other market leaders, in order to open new spaces for its products. For example, Avid has adapted its AvidNews newsroom system to operate on Clipbox servers, one of the most powerful platforms in the industry. And Panasonic is working with Quantel to establish automated storage and playback systems for compressed material in DV. It is significant that one of the companies that had always handled its products as "black boxes" begins to open up to the outside world...

Connectivity is a basic theme. And the responses of the industry have not been long in coming. Some Avid equipment can operate uncompressed video on Pluto Technologies' Space disc recorders. And Pluto introduces Hyperspace, a DDR that can record video with or without compression in any format, known or unknown. With the advantage of bringing built-in and ready to work connectivity solutions necessary to mount server networks with distributed storage.

Automation system integrators like Odetics begin to design solutions that can operate with the servers or DDR that the customer chooses. Meanwhile, several vendors offer FibreChannel-based video storage and distribution solutions. And on every corner is a small DDR that pompously calls itself a "video server," some of which look suspiciously like products that two or three years ago were presented as "quality video recorders." off-line".

Meanwhile, Windows NT continues to earn points. Media 100 announced the release of new versions of its products, designed to operate on Microsoft's operating system with Intergraph hardware.

And the offer of Windows-based non-linear editing equipment is reinforced by the relaunch of D-Vision equipment by Discreet Logic, which offers a modular system with editing, effects and graphics in an integrated work environment.

A curious note was the presence at the exhibition of many small companies specialized in transport and multiplexing of digital information through fiber optics and satellite links. Surely some of them will become powerhouses of the distribution of television material within a few years.

One of the most important trends that became evident at NAB'98 was the identification between DTV and HDTV, promoted by equipment manufacturers. Everyone promotes their production systems for HDTV from the principle that it is better to originate the material in a higher system and then convert it to the distribution system (which will not necessarily be one).

When it is clarified that the distribution format of DTV will be MPEG-2, several of the most important players in the industry put their offers on the table. Sony proposes a production model in which video is originated, stored, post-produced and transmitted in MPEG-2 MP-ML, without ever returning to baseband. This would allow Betacam SX equipment to be integrated into SDTV production operations in the immediate future, and would make greater sense of using editable MPEG-2 as a basic production format in news operations.

As for production equipment for DTV, Sony's offer is relatively wide in the field of cameras, and it is feasible in a very short time to integrate DVCAM, Betacam SX and Digital Betacam equipment into SDTV operations.

Regarding HDTV recording, Sony's basic offer is the HDCAM format, which will not really be ready until the recording requirements of the 1080i format are fully clarified, which, for the moment, requires a spatial resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels that current models of HDCAM recorders do not cover.

Panasonic insists on the development of its DVCPRO product line, which continues to grow along with the DV compression system. The products of the DVCPRO 50 line are now ready to deliver 4:2:2 material with quality close to D1 for conventional and SDTV operations, and soon the equipment of the DVCPRO Progressive line will be launched as real products, which will support from day one the compressed recording of HDTV material for general production applications and post.

Meanwhile, D5-HD recorders – which support the recording of compressed signals for HDTV – are finding a real niche in the market, thanks to their modular design that allows them to change standards simply by adapting their encoder to the needs of customers.

JVC introduced Digital-S recorders that operate at 100Mb/s and support the recording of material in various HDTV formats with very light compression. The main attraction of this equipment is its cost and the possibility of scaling operations according to technical requirements. In the near future, hybrid installations can be thought of that support 480p and 1080i operations with the use of different versions of Digital-S but that maintain a minimum level of compatibility.

Hitachi, Philips/BTS and Ikegami introduced new camera options, interchangeable ratio models that interchangeably support 4:3 and 16:9 production for SDTV and can eventually generate high-quality 720p video. Meanwhile, the models suitable for work in 1080i progress little by little, and lens manufacturers present versions of their most popular models, which can adapt without problems to the 16:9 ratio.

Avid introduced an uncompressed image editing and composition system based on Windows NT. Simphony operates on an Intergraph station and shares the interface of the well-known Media Composer. In addition, it demonstrated the Media Composer 9000, a version that allows retouching images according to the concept of intraframe editing.

For his part, Ikegami demonstrated an external controller for the Editcam recorder that allows to simplify the editing of material in the field. It is a portable PC with a simple graphical interface, which allows you to generate simple sequences without prejudice to the possibility of connecting the recording disc to Avid editing equipment.

TrueVision introduced a new model of the popular Targa 2000 card that incorporates a DVEOUS special effects module from Abekas. It also demonstrated the first digital video stations it has developed within its partnership with IBM, and a number of digital video distribution and conversion products based on the Madras transcoder . This is the case of a company with a multifunctional product, whose adaptation to different scenarios is, in many cases, a matter of developing a piece of software.

DPS introduced an updated version of the Perception recorder that can be configured to mount an editing system with an accelerator for effects and playback of eight channels of audio in real time.

As part of another merger of companies, Pinnacle presented the MIRO DC50 card, a video capture and playback subsystem that allows small non-linear editing systems to be mounted that are increasingly closer to the performance of their older brothers. In a higher range, Pinnacle introduced a new version of the Alladin that supports two video channels and is operated using the same software as the DVE-Extreme to become a powerful effects station of relatively low price. Likewise, it presented a version ready to operate on HDTV.

Another interesting product from Pinnacle is Reeltime, a non-linear editing system with real-time effects, specifically designed to deliver the performance of larger systems for a fraction of the cost.

Most of these low-cost editing equipment operate with Premiere 5.0, the latest version of Adobe's non-linear editing application, which offers complete hardware independence and now incorporates many tools specially designed for real-time operation.

Thanks to the latest advances in the design of video cards, the days when it was necessary to wait a few seconds – or minutes – to visualize each cut have been left in the past.

In the same vein of improving existing products, Snell & Wilcox introduced a new version of the Magic Dave, an effects unit for digital systems that offers an excellent cost-benefit ratio. Tektronix launched a complete line of Grass Valley video mixers for HDTV applications, whose operation is completely identical to that of the analog versions that have been the industry standard for the past twenty-five years.

Microsoft released an image composition and editing system that also operates under Windows NT and runs on an Intergraph graphics station. Softimage Digital Studio offers a simple and powerful interface that allows you to seamlessly integrate Softimage 3D to achieve special effects with highly complex animations.

Chyron updated the interface of most of its dedicated products, and offers new options in low-cost PC-controlled character generators. Inscriber demonstrated the Action Pak in several desktop video applications, which can incorporate as a plugin a complete title generation system based on the Inscriber VMP interface for a very interesting cost.

While all traditional companies introduce software-based products, another unlikely-looking fusion appeared on the scene. Play Inc., maker of Trinity digital video stations, has acquired Electric Image and will control its entire product line that is likely to be closely associated with Trinity.

From now on Play will be one of the major players in the high-performance graphics market, strongly linked to the product that has been called "the video toaster of the nineties".

The supply of virtual scenography systems tends to be simplified as the market conducts its natural selection process. The most important players present new options that had already been announced, such as shadow tracing on three-dimensional objects, interaction between real and virtual characters through motion capture techniques and significant improvements in multi-layer montages, and the mapping of video images.

As always, the demonstrations make it evident that it is a technology in full development, often affected by the policy of vapourware, the tendency to announce changes or features that are not really ready yet.

Newtek released a new 3D graphics package designed especially to compete with Softimage 3D, and which can work on a wide range of platforms. The first version of Aura, which cannot avoid the burden of being the heir package of the Lightwave tradition, offers interesting features that await the test of the market to be able to compare it with the competition, which increasingly generates more difficult to reach products.

As in years past, the conclusion of NAB'98 is that the industry is still on the move, and that we must wait for the picture to clear up in order to get something clear. This is a particularly difficult year for those who are obliged to make decisions within the framework of the convergence between television and digital technology. Solutions are just around the corner... the real problem is identifying them.