A group of presenters from Razza Digital have been criss-crossing the country, spreading the word on digital video by means of presenting moderately priced two day symposiums on the topic. I caught up with them in Houston, the land that humidity never forgot. I went expecting a current awareness update on hardware and software, some demos, and pitchmen in autosell mode hurling product feature spiels at me. Instead, what I got was structured knowledge, presented in an insightful manner by a group of knowledgeable and talented speakers. I got to see hardware and software as well. The road trip is over for now, but it appears that there will be another national tour in the Spring and Summer of 1996. Call Razza at 1 (800) 261-7690 for more information. It is a symposium well worth attending.

Walking into the conference hall, it looked like a high-tech rock stage... dim lights hanging on a lighting grid, glowing equipment... the mission control look that tech heads know and love. A band on tour. Somebody high tech like Thomas Dolby or Tod Rundgren is going to play here. But no....

Carolyn Goates, the first speaker, got the proceedings off to a good start. "When it's a revenue stream, you really care that it works." After that statement, she had everybody's attention. She held it too. Carolyn raised many of the themes of the next two days. These themes included technical context, structure, and requirements for Digital Video as well as the economic and personal implications for individuals using these systems.

Goates observed that digital video provides for creative control. Concept dissonance. It occurs when an idea is translated from the mind of an artist into the mind of a technican. It's greatly reduced, if not eliminated, by putting powerful tools directly into the hands of the artist. Further, Digital Video is a tool for empowerment by means of economic independence. The equipment costs less than analog video and it's a better return on investment. This adds up to a democratization of the moving image via easier entry to the field.

One of the benefits of the symposium was examining Digital Video from multiple perspectives. It's an approach that enhances understanding. Most symposium attendees were either video-oriented or computer-oriented. Few were both. Accordingly, the overviews of both video and computing were extremely helpful to the attendees. Carolyn Goates provided an overview of the computing context of Digital Video.

Carolyn spelled out the three C's of Digital Video:

Conversion: From analog to digital.

Capture: Digitize the footage.

Compression: With codecs such as Truemotion-S, Cinepak, Mpeg, Indeo, and motion JPEG.
Quicktime is the backbone of the Digital Video system. It is an operating system software extension, part of the operating system. Quicktime is cross-platform, running on both Macs and PCs. Theoretically it could display 30 frames @ 60 fields per sec the size of a billboard. Quicktime 2.0 can display 1/4 screen, 30 fps imagery in software only, with no help from hardware. With hardware support, it can do much more. Clearly Quicktime is powerful.

Carolyn Goates' overview continued. Once digitized, the imagery is edited in Premiere 4.01 or other non-linear editing apps. When completed, the footage is transferred back to video, converted from digital back to analog, in realtime playback on a hard drive directly onto tape. Print to video.

According to Goates, the Digital Video bottlenecks are CPU speed, rendering time, transfer time over the bus (PCI, Nubus, etc), hard drive speed, data transfer rates, and large storage requirements. She pointed out that there are three variables that can be manipulated to overcome the bottlenecks: the size of the window, the resolution of the image, and the rate of frames per second.

David Barrett was the next speaker. Barrett told the symposium in no uncertain terms that Digital video is about communication and making money. He pointed out that operating system superiority discussions have no place in the context of making money with Digital Video discussions. Clearly David Barrett is a no-nonsense and sensible man.

His point of view regarding Digital Video is based on a model of ever accelerating technological accquisition and change. Already we are approaching one hundred years of continuous technological change in motion pictures. It continues in digital. Quicktime started as "The hall of the dancing postage stamps", a trivial beginning. However its importance lay in the fact that Apple could do it. Apple Computer created a data type for dynamic data. In only four years since the introduction of Quicktime, it has developed into a form that is constantly implemented in a broadcast environment.

The theme of continuous change extends into careers. "Hi, I make digital videos. Before that I was a plumber. Before that I was a brain surgeon." Barrett observed that we are in an age of three different careers over a lifetime.

He told a story regarding how broadcast designer Flavio Kampah and his then partner got going in Digital Video. "They came to the west coast and discovered starving." An editor at Razza Digital lent them a Radius Videocaster and Premiere system for a weekend. They used it to put together a demo for a Fox Network open call showing of storyboard proposals regarding a new opening of their program American Gladiators. Everyone else showed traditional paper-based storyboards. Kampah and his partner presented their concept realized in Digital Video. Kampah thought it a demo, but the Fox execs thought it finished work. They bought it on the spot for $8,000. From then on Kampah and his associate never looked back. "They have careers based on this stuff. They believed they could do it."

According to Barrett, in order to make money with multimedia, you must think about where you want to go and start doing that work. To get started, do high profile work for those who can't afford it, non-profit. It is more impressive than cable ads for resturants and car dealerships. Demo the capability, that's what a reel is for.

The most important thing you can market is you. Barrett presented a recipe on how to lose clients: Don't meet with them. Show them your ideas, not theirs. Tell them the're wrong. A more effective response is to stop talking and start listening. Then guide them.

How much to charge? Between $5,000 and $50,000 there are lots of jobs. Barrett advised charging according to your experience and your demo reel.

Barrett presented a fairly standard rate structure with a basic baseline, then effects on top:

$1,000 per minute for industrial.

$1,500 per minute for cable.

$5,000 per minute for broadcast.

$250 per graphics screen.

Structure this as costs per hour plus 15% contingency, plus changes. Get approvals in writing. Work for the decision maker. Digital video is a service. Make the client happy. Price the project at what it is worth.

He had effective budget proposal strategies. Line item everything, but showonly one price at the bottom. This avoids a client picking their way through the proposal arbitrarly eliminating items, like fades and dissolves, in order to lower the price. Regarding payment: 33% advanceupon signing, 33% upon completion of production, 33% at completion on delivery. Have someone else collect if there's a problem.

Enter festivals, any good kudos help build a reputation. Everything you do in Digital Video is an investment.

Do what you're good at and hire for what you're not. You must be proactive and positive. All of this is sensible and effective career development advise. David Barrett makes an important point. So often the solution to what one is trying to accomplish with technology is to be found not in the hardware. Rather the solution lies in the thoughtware and context that surrounds the technology.

He went on to discuss Digital Video platform requirements. The Power PC is becomming an important development platform. 24 megs of ram is the absolute minimum necessary to produce Digital Video. 80 megs is the maximum you will need if you are multi-tasking. For storage RAID (redundent array of inexpensive disks) have large mass storage capability. They can stripe data.

Barrett observed that software replaces post rooms. Video, audio, image processing, graphics, 3-D drawing, interactivity, CD-ROM mastering, MIDI sequencing, all can be done within software. It is both the deindustrialization as well as the informatization of video. This is uncharted waters for everyone. Accordingly he asked, "Who are the experts? The users are, not the manufacturers."

Most importantly Barrett observed that development systems are different from distribution systems. They are much more demanding of capability. One shouldn't mistake one for the other.

He took the symposium through the process of putting a system together. You can sift through mis-information. Pick a system by asking specific questions requiring yes or no answers, rather than listening to a barrage of feature-benifit factoids from a salesman. From the yes-no pattern, the answer will be self-evolving.

Understand your needs. Understand the project. Understand the audience. Determine the scope of delivery platforms. Create proper work environments.

Barrett described three types of systems. Dedicated systems are single use and oriented towards horizontal editing. Media 100 and Avid are examples. Hybrid systems are a kit. You build it. They are the gateway to world of Quicktime. Hybrid systems are more valuable than dedicated systems. They integrate more easily into edit suites. The third type of systems are multi-use systems. They are a general purpose computer configured to do non-linear editing as well as writing, bookkeeping, and everything else. Avoid them, they are trouble. Stuff conflicts with other stuff. Restrict your platform use to the designated application. Avoid problems, don't use Multi-use systems.

On the other hand do maintainence. Ask manufacturers about your cpu. Keep an operations log. Enter additions of software in it. Trace every error. For effective customer service have a complete description of the system info ready when you call. In this regard, he noted that resellers are in effect someone to partner with in complex systems.

Next was Tech futures. The important developments that Barrett identified were:

PCI cross platform cards.

CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) IBM, Mac, Clones all running Windows and Mac software.

COPLAND. The next version of the Mac operating system. One feature will be realtime 3D object rotation.

He also threw in TWA. That was a joke.

Barrett had several observations regarding both the flexibility and life span of Digital Video equipment. First, the notions of plug-in and upgradibility of the digital approach versus the toss and upgrade approach of analog, Betacam, for instance, is a important benifit. Networking equipment is an approach that can prevent obsolescence. These are tools and they can be repurposed. Thus they will find a place in your system.

He discussed video putput quality levels. Barrett identified three levels as CD-ROM, Industrial, and Broadcast. RS-170a is the basic broadcast standard. For on air broadcast, programming must CONFORM, not be compliant with RS-170a. "Engineers are tought not to smile."

There were observations and comments on Hi-8. The Gulf War was a Hi-8 production, establishing it as a broadcast format. "Iraq is now a Hi-8 country." However Hi-8 doesn't duplicate well to itself. It is prone to both dust and drop outs. He identified Fuji as having an excellent Hi-8 tape. But going from Hi-8 to Betacam is awesome. Hi-8 to S-VHS is very good as well. Barrett pointed out though, that Hi-8 is going to be replaced by small format digital in the next 18-24 months. Continious change. He also felt the new DVC-PRO digital tape format from Panaconic was very pomising. In fact it is equal to D2 in quality.

As Carolyn Goates had laid computer fundimentals for Digital Video, David Barrett, laid out Digital Video broadcast essentials. He started with the rock bottom basics. Imaging is a result of the relationship between between light and an imaging source. Degrees Kelvin is the standard for measuring the color spectrum. Black, red, on through to blue and white. Just because you can see an image doesn't mean you can get the color on tape. Available light isn't the answer.

Many of his asides were quite interesting. The Sony Trinitron patent has expired. Expect to see a lot of clones. Trinitron is a single electron gun tv picture tube coupled with rectangular pixels. It makes for very sharp images. This led to a discussion of dot pitch, a measure of resolution in monitors. A smaller number is a sharper number. Dot pitch is the measurement of the distance between the center of on screen dots (pixels). Broadcast is measured at 72 dpi.

He reviewed the global standards for encoded video. There are three, NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. they all create frames by interlacing odd and even fields. For computer oriented people the complexity of analog television often comes as a relelation. For those with a video background it is helpful to have a refresher on basics.

He explained how 3/4 inch video gets the equilivant of one inch of video information by recording diagonaly of the tape and spinning the record heads as well. It's called helical scan.

Barrett characterized the control track as formatting for video. Continuing with structure, there are twenty two lines that are blank at the bottom of a video frame. Most of them are empty. However line nineteen is where the color information is stored. The standard frame rate for color video is 29.97 frames per second. 30 frames is the standard frame rate for black and white.

SMPTE time code is a video essential. It is the id of every field and frame in a production. There are several kinds. Drop frame time code keeps track of time. Broadcast uses it. Non-drop frame time code keeps track of frames. Editors use it. He identified the address track as the location of SMPTE time code.

"The image is only as good as the waveform." It's expressed in I.R.E. measurements. A waveform monitor measures color while a vectorscope monitor measures voltage and phase. This can change over distance, for instance caused by long cable runs. A Time Base Corrector (TBC) and a proc amp control these factors.

The video/computer interface was examined. RS-422 Serial control of video decks with a 9 pin D connector is the most common form of interface. This is how computers can control video decks. There are other standards, for instance the VISCA Sony standard for control of decks.

Barrett introduced the topic of editing. The next two speakers would expand considerably on it. He identified several editing methods, assemble, crash, and insert. For quality work insert s the preferred mode.

From a hardware perspective, the basic analog system for A/B editing consists of an edit controller, 3 decks, a waveform monitor, vectorscope, reference sync, etc... Complex. Non-linear becomes a simplifying system. It's complex inside while remaining simple on the outside, the users perspective.

Barrett emphasized that the experience of analog is important to digital. It is the context of digital. At least for the time being.

He returned to his model on the acceleration of technological acquisition and change. In 1954, twenty minutes of film cost $2,000. In 1995, 2 hours of video cost $8. Democratization and opportunity are the consequence. From a Digital Video perspective this is just the beginning. "Evolution requires change." A change in perception is required by gatekeepers. This would become a theme of the next speaker.

The next speaker was Taz Goldstein (Taz Goldstein Web site). He spoke with wit and knowledge. He continued the theme of personal economic and expressive empowerment through Digital Video on the desktop. He's a broadcast designer, an Emerson College grad, with a Broadcast major. After graduation he became a screener for America's Funniest Home Videos, where he watched hours of home video. Now he owns Glyphics, a broadcast design company with national clients. Taz went from a staff guy to a freelance guy to owning his own company. Clearly Digital Video has become a tool of empowerment for Taz.

He showed his demo reel and talked about it. It was quite impressive with many national accounts. Nissan and J C Penny were among them. Goldstein talked about the process of putting together these projects.

Among the more interesting apps Goldstein used were Cameraman and Logomotion. He used Cameraman (Utilities Unlimited) to capture on screen computer activity, like typing text. Text typing itself to the screen was an important element in several spots. The program makes a Quicktime file of on-screen activity. Taz used it as a creative element. It captures exactly what was done on the screen, even typos and backspacing. Cool. Logomotion, I've seen it for $109, automates the making of animated flying text and logos. It's a very easy way to get ray traced, lit, 3D animated logos into a production.

He spoke of the importance of getting hardware and software manufacturers to support your efforts. Constructive engagement, Kissinger would have called it. Get to know people in the company. As David Barrett said earlier, the real experts are the users, not the manufacturers. Taz supported this point. The manufacturers will work with you to develop new features based on your perception, experience, and desires.

He showed his pilot teen travel program, The Wanderers. The half hour program was shot on Betacam and edited with Radius and Premiere. It was produced all in house. It cost $1,000 in out of pocket expenses. It looked good. It was an example of digital voodoo economics at work.

The Tek stuff Goldstein used was pretty modest to accomplish the project. It consisted of a Mac with a 68040 cpu, 24 meg ram, and 1.7 gig hard drive. He captured at half screen (320 x 240) using PRO-VTR to get footage into Premiere. Then he edited in 3 min chunks. The end result was blownup in software to full screen during the print to video. That way you get both a film look and a grunge look. Cool.

Persona Cognita An interview with Taz Goldstein.

Goldstein pointed out that digital technology can be integrated into an analog video editing suite. Studio Recorder by Radius can act as a frame accurate insert editor.

Taz made several interesting comments about the changes that that will inevitably occur in the existing industry structure as a result of desktop video. Post houses, for instance, will reconfigure into standards conversion services providing a needed service to desktop editors. He also observed that there is a need for a learning curve for clients regarding a living room based society. Inspite of all the talk about telecommuting and SOHO (small office home office), to date, the corporate culture hasn't assimilated the changes.

His pragmatic "Any cpu power will help" comment echoed Barrett's notions of the upgradability and repurposing of the digital approach. What Goldsteiin was getting at was that as newer and faster computers are accquired, renderings and other tasks can be distributed out to as many machines as are available, regardless of their speed. Pragmatic advise.

Goldstein demoed Premiere. It's a program that is strong and well suited to vertical editing. This means the stacking of elements, thus causing multiple materials to occupy the same space by means of overlays and underlays. (As of July 95) Premiere 4.01 is Adobe's latest version. The program makes certain system demands. It requires a minimum of 24 megs of ram to use effectivly. Figure on 6.5 minutes per gigabyte when working at broadcast quality levels. In pixels, a frame size of 720 x 486 or 640 x 480 is sufficient for video. Larger isn't necessary. Taz had the details as well as the big picture well in hand.

Goldstein made an excellent point when he advised not to let an initial investment in hardware and software drive the rest of the development of the system. It's all too easy to say now that I have spent $300 dollars on a particular card, I'm permenantly committed to a system in order to protect that first $300 dollar expenditure. All too often that can lead to distortions that can lead to great losses in capability.

Taz summed up one theme of the symposium when he said, "You don't have to get rid of what you have, but you do have to move forward." Again the imperative of continuous change and adaptation was raised.

Stephen Recker, the next speaker was earnest but friendly in manner. His knowledge was coupled with an enthusiasm for the field. He too is on the Razza Digital staff. Recker, a muscian, showed a music video of himself. He was quite good, a cool jazz guitarist. He covered topics in digital audio, multimedia design and development, and Quicktime VR.

On audio, Recker presented a problem solving approach. He tackled the issue of getting clean, no-noise audio samples and soundtracks. For instance, the grinding and crackling sound that can happen at end of a sample can be eliminated by using hardware compression during digitizing. Once sampled if one is faced with a noisy soundtrack, NO NOISE by Sonic Solutions provides excellent, but expensive, digital noise removal. Cybersound FX, an audio plug-in for Premiere is yet another approach to reduce noise. Delay, noise reduction, and compression are among the additional capabilities of Cybersound FX. Steve observed that 8 bit sound sampling is sufficient for voice.

Covering an array of apps, Recker pointed to Opcode Studio Player linked to Radius Video Vision as providing a powerful soundtrack development environment. Recker used Soundedit 16 for audio digitizing and waveform editing at 44.1k resolution (CD spec). The program has the capability to spot sound effects. This means setting up the soundtrack so when someone knocks on a door, the sound is synced to the picture.

Steve also provided a quite effective strategy to using equalization to shape the sound of a soundtrack. His approach works regardless of whether digital, film, video, or for that matter radio, sound is involved. Use subtractive EQing. Inexperienced audio mixers often constantly raise the levels of equalization pushing all bands towards overdriven distortion. Instead, listen to the tracks. Find out what track is blocking up the mix, hiding other sounds or frequencies and remove it. Nothing gets overdriven this way.

Recker even introduced automated audio mixing environments. New software releases such as Deck II and Session 2.0. provide this capability. He raised interesting developments such as Vocal Fonts. You speak in, but George Burns voice comes out. The product is coming.

Digital Cinema Tools

On multimedia development, Steve approached the topic on a design level as well as an operational level. He made several astute observations about a good user interface. Recker advocates no obvious "click here" directions. Rather things are implied. This leaves decision space for the user to interact with the material. However, if after thirty seconds or so, the program senses no user clicks, then a little movie opens up with a guy telling you what to do. This is a subtle but effective approach.

Steve emphasized the importance of speed in multimedia and World Wide Web design. Do what one can to accelerate the operations of projects. If the project is cross-platform, then think ahead. Plan for it early. For instance Quicktime is a cross-platform data set. However it must be flattened for cross-platform use. This means compressing data and resource fork files into one file. Quicktime requires three megs per second data throughput for full screen broadcast video. However only 180k per second data throughput is required for cd-rom. The nature of the project dictates the hardware requirements that are necessary to complete it.

Steve pointed out a very interesting and very useful element of Quicktime 2.0: there is a text track available that is invisible, yet searchable. This feature is found in both the Windows and Macintosh versions of the program. With this feature, one can implement a database search of Quicktime footage. This is how Voyager made their cd-rom of A Hard Day's Night searchable. By entering, for example, Paul in the text track every time McCartney appeared on screen, one creates the means to conduct a search of every instance in the film where Paul appeared. Powerful stuff.

Recker turned his attention to Quicktime VR. It is a very cool extension of Quicktime. It is a means of creating a 360 degree environment where the user can, at will, explore in all directions a particular space. This is a very acessible form of virtual reality. For developers there are $500 in software costs. Steve highlighted Quickpan, a tripod head configured to create the panaroma series of still shots that will be stitched together in Quicktime VR to create the 360 degree environment. A variety of development applications, including Hypercard and Director can support Quicktime VR. Studio Pro can render out Quicktime VR files. It supports Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) as well.

In the middle of Recker's presentation, the computer got hammered. There was a total equipment crash. However, there was an equally impressive recovery undertaken by the presentation team. This too was instructive in it's own way. Because it demonstrated that even though things go wrong, as they do with any technology (driven a car lately?) there can be effective responses as well. It was the only technical glitch in two full days of presentations. This is as good as it gets.

At the end of two days, the brain dump was complete, with an impressive amount of information transfer having occurred. Be sure to catch the 1996 series. It is well worth it.