Big Brands, Small Prices

Jul 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Dan Ochiva

Manufacturers who have built reputations in film and television production come to Siggraph with some affordable products for the rest of us.

Siggraph 2003 remains the premier event for the graphics and animation crowd, where Hollywood jostles with academia. But don't think that means the booths in the San Diego convention center will only hold the latest in high-end (read “pricey”) gear and software.

Today, as vendors seek a wider audience, new versions of top programs and hot workstations cost less than ever, and you'll see this on the show floor. True, you may not need all the bells and whistles of a 3D animation and effects program, such as Alias Maya 5 Complete. But even this Hollywood favorite recently changed course with a steep price reduction. Maya 5 now costs $1,999, down from the initial versions, which cost more than $7,000. If that's still too much, consider the much easier to use Animation: Master from Martin Hash's Hash Inc. His well-regarded program comes in at an affordable $299.

And there's more to Siggraph than graphics and animation products. Adobe, for example, plans to introduce its completely rebuilt Premiere NLE software at the show, while AJA will show Io, its I/O add-on for Apple Final Cut Pro users. Intel and AMD each plan to present new CPUs, while nVidia, 3Dlabs, and ATI will debut new, price/performance-leading graphics cards.

Adobe is the quintessential example of a company that took high-end ideas and made them affordable. After 10 years, After Effects is a virtual institution in postproduction; along the way it has up-ended traditional thinking about what desktop tools can do. At Siggraph 2003, After Effects 6.0 debuts with hundreds of user-driven upgrades and features. AE 6.0 reflects a continued trend: the product is more accessible than ever with easy-to-use templates. The price is also more accessible at $999 for the pro version, down from $1,499.

Let's also look at how Adobe plans to make a place for Premiere in the fiercely competitive NLE market. While Premiere remains one of the most widely used NLE programs, Adobe knew its aging software needed a boost to stand up to the latest products from Apple, Pinnacle, and others. That boost comes with Premiere Pro, which is a complete recoding of the program and a comprehensive interface redesign. One immediate impression: The new NLE is fast. According to Adobe, it offers a “break-through, render-free experience.”

Adobe Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro runs on standard Windows XP systems. The software's sleek, highly customizable user interface plays back full-res frames in realtime — including titles, transitions, effects, motion paths, and color correction on two simultaneous channels — with no additional hardware support required.

Adobe touts the product's “work without constraints” approach, such as increased support for importing and exporting a greater range of video, graphic, and audio formats. The NLE addresses complex project management, too. For one thing, it features multiple, nestable timelines. How does this help? Now editors can assemble scenes on as many multiple timelines as they like, and then nest them into one main timeline. Another new feature is native YUV processing.

Be sure to check out Adobe Audition, which also debuts at the show. This is a reworked, “Adobe-ized” version of Syntrillium Software's Cool Edit Pro digital audio program. Adobe announced in May that it acquired the audio technology assets of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company. (www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html)
Avid will pitch its portable Mojo hardware, the entry-level part of its new DNA (Digital Nonlinear Accelerator) series, as the perfect complement for its redesigned Xpress Pro software. The petite, metallic Mojo might be mistaken for a PDA, but the lightweight box delivers realtime editing, effects, and audio for both Windows and Mac.

Avid Xpress Pro running on Mojo

Mojo provides basic realtime analog and DV I/O capabilities, and handles offline compressed media, DV, and uncompressed 8-bit 601 resolutions. The device connects to a host computer, including laptops, via a single FireWire cable. Other provisions include analog audio, video, RCA, and mini DIN4 pin connections for I/O, as well as genlock — a big step forward for DV. (www.avid.com/products/dna/mojo)
Expect the battling graphics card makers to come to Siggraph with new high-end boards, while also showing off their price/performance-leading, lower cost boards. Don't miss ATI's booth. The company will debut two of its top-of-the-line FireGL graphics accelerator cards, with a number of demo stations featuring OpenGL applications running on the cards.

ATI FireGLX1-256

ATI aims the FireGL cards at higher-end workstation chores. The FireGLX1-256, for example, features 256MB of DDR memory, dual DVI output, and an AGP Pro50 bus. It supports AGP 8X, and provides a high-speed, two-way interface between the graphics subsystem and the workstation.

But you may not need to spend the upwards of $750 that such a card costs. The ATI 9800 Pro 128MB features VGA, DVI, and S-Video connectors with the latest 256-bit memory interface at about half the cost ($370 street price). (www.ati.com)
Meanwhile, nVidia introduces its own high-performance workstation card, the Quadro FX 3000. The 3000 builds around the NV35GL, the first nVidia GPU to employ a 256-bit memory interface and 256MB of unified frame buffer RAM.

While the FX 3000 now leads nVidia's graphics line, the less expensive Quadro FX 500 still holds its own among graphics cards. nVidia describes the FX 500 as “the first fully programmable entry-level workstation card.” At press time, prices came in at $449 and lower (for street price). The card runs with an astounding 128-bit floating-point pipeline and 32-bit per pixel color depth. Even loaded down with full-scene anti-aliasing, the card runs up to 60fps for all but the most compute-intensive graphics. Check out the connections too, with both analog and digital (DVI-I) video connectors provided. (www.nvidia.com)
Many consider 3Dlabs' Wildcat Series graphics accelerators a high-end product with a price to match, but 3Dlabs jumps right into the thick of the medium-level graphics cards wars with its new Wildcat VP880 Pro. With an estimated price of $499, the VP880 packs in 256MB, 256-bit DDR RAM and includes dual DVI-I monitor connectors.

Unlike some other top graphics cards, says 3Dlabs, the Wildcat VP880 Pro needs a workstation with only one standard AGP slot, not two, and not one with the hard-to-find AGP Pro slot. The card is programmable, which is necessary for creating texture-rich realism. (www.3dlabs.com/product/wildcatvp/index.htm)

Even as card performance soars and prices come down, the latest graphics and animation packages likewise boast more features for lower prices. Now, ease-of-use gains importance, as companies add templates and “starter” figures.
Need basic character animation but don't want to start with a steep-learning-curve 3D program? Curious Labs Poser, now in version 5.0, is both easy to use and affordable. It's only $199 (via download), and Poser helps newbies start fast. The software includes more than 70 ready-to-use high-res 3D figures, as well as libraries with hundreds of poses, expressions, clothes, scene props, light sets, and camera sets. Poser's popularity extends to a worldwide network of users, who collaborate via the Web, sharing and selling models, characters, and accessories.

At the show, Curious Labs will debut Poser 5 PLUS BodyStudio 2.0. Described as a “next-generation” plug-in, the software allows pre-rigged characters and props from Poser to port into Maya, 3ds Max, and other 3D apps. (www.curiouslabs.com)
Hash Inc.'s Animation: Master remains a longtime favorite at Siggraph, with the Vancouver, Wash.-based company's booth quickly drawing crowds for demos. And why not? The $299 program offers hundreds of useful features usually available only with more expensive software. Hash also builds in features such as “Hash” Patch Technology, which allows users to create “truly infinite” resolution models that are fast, flexible, and simple to make, according to the company. Other features include: skeletal and muscle motions for character animation; Action Objects (for easy interaction with prop objects); and Hybrid Rendering (combines A-Buffer, raytracing, and radiosity). At this year's show version 10.5 debuts, which is a free upgrade for current users. A completely recoded Mac OS X version is now in alpha testing. (www.hash.com)
How do you tie your new technology together into something useful, rather than creating a rat's nest of cables, connectors, and the odd patch bay? AJA Video Systems has a solution with its Io.

AJA Io

AJA Io won a Millimeter NAB 2003 Pick Hit award. (See June's Millimeter.) It's not hard to see why. For not a lot of money, the company delivers the first uncompressed audio/video FireWire capture device for Final Cut Pro 4 users in the form of an “ultimate break-out box.” The product's brushed aluminum face hides a wide range of ports that allow it to connect and support multiple audio and video formats. But Io keeps things simple too: you can attach a Mac G4 via a single FireWire connection. This rackmountable I/O device takes advantage of the new “broadcast quality” 8- and 10-bit codecs and multi-channel audio capability built into FCP4. In short, your DV-based infrastructure can stop looking like a homespun computer network and look like a professional editing or effects suite. (www.aja.com/io.htm)
Kaydara's new Motionbuilder 5.0 takes the company's long pedigree in character animation for feature film and applies it to a $995 version (a $3,995 professional version is also available). Over the past few years, Kaydara has expanded Motionbuilder from a motion capture/character animation tool into a comprehensive animation program. It now includes easy-to-use features such as animated “clip art,” and an enhanced NLA timeline that now supports multiple camera views. The $995 version is designed to make 3D animation accessible for non-animators or those who want a fast, basic tool and don't need advance motion capture editing, a software developer's kit, support for NXN, or other high-end features. In another cost-conscious move, the $995 version is supported via email, while the professional version gets custom, personalized support. Kaydara's emphasis on file format exchange also means that Motionbuilder is easy to integrate with the animation and editing programs you may already have. (www.kaydara.com)

Discreet Cleaner XL

Don't forget to check on the software updates to Discreet's popular Cleaner software. While high-end turnkey graphics systems from Discreet can run well over $100,000, at $599 Cleaner remains a deal. Cleaner XL for Windows and Cleaner 6 for Macs help to simplify web distribution, encoding, compression, and media mastering.

Cleaner XL won a Video Systems NAB 2003 Pick Hit award. (See www.videosystems.com for more info.) Why did Cleaner XL win? One reason: speed. This totally recoded version exploits Intel's Hyper-Threading technology and supports multiple-processor platforms and network rendering. These changes help make the XL version significantly faster than earlier versions. (www.discreet.com)
You'll need a fast workstation to run all of this new software and hold those hot graphics cards. You won't have to pay as much as you might imagine, either. Take the new xw4100 from HP. The company calls the xw4100 an entry-level workstation, and its suggested price of $799 confirms that. But the specs on this new Pentium 4-based machine could fool you. For starters, it comes in 2.6GHz, 2.8GHz, and 3.0GHz versions, but the kicker is that it uses the Intel 875P high-performance chipset. This makes it one of the first machines with an 800MHz front side bus sporting fast dual-channel DDR-400 memory, as well as Intel's Hyper-Threading architecture. Also new is Intel's Performance Acceleration Technology, which Intel says decreases memory latency.

The convertible tower features a redesigned chassis with a clean interior cable layout, and optimized chip cooling via an impressive fan and ductwork assembly. There's front-of-the-chassis access for USB 2.0, 1394 (FireWire), and audio. (www.hp.com/workstations/ia32/xw4100/)

Siggraph 2003 will still feature expensive, over-the-top gear and software for high-end graphics. But look closely, and you'll see exhibitors offering plenty of good deals that can help a beginner or cost-conscious pro increase his editing and effects capabilities.