Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterThe Road to HD: What's Real
Mar 1, 1999 12:00 PM, James Fadden
Throughout its nearly 20-year history, HD has become like the weather-you can complain, but you can't do much about it. At least, it has been that way for most post houses. That is likely to change at this year's NAB convention. Window shopping is going to be far more intense despite the fact that there have been few HD role models, particularly at the broadcast level.
Clearly, there has been an abundance of missing pieces, such as switchers, real-time HD streaming, secondary color correction, sufficient numbers of i/p switchable units, 24Hz/24fps operability, format converters, 720p equipment, and 1.5 Gbps infrastructure.
Come April, the days of technical scarcity will be over. This year Vegas will be brimming with solutions. HD will not be cheap, but, setting up an HD shop will be much less expensive now than it was for the Sony High Definition Center, Culver City, or for six-year-old HD Vision of Irvington, Texas. The cover charge has been considerably reduced.
VTRs from Sony and Panasonic will be surprisingly affordable. Format switchability will be ubiquitous with many units offering 50Hz and 60Hz outputs compatible with European standards. Silicon Graphics will present a parallel (serial to come) I/O (1080i, 1080p@24fps, and 720p) card that will facilitate real-time HD streaming for less than $20,000. SGI is also pushing its new NT system for HD use as well. Philips will be polishing up its remarkable Specter Virtual DataCine, which essentially offlines the color correction process and allows operators in the data chain to work in 2K x 2K files. Discreet will exhibit its increasingly popular, fairly mature HD pathway. And the up-and-down-conversion market will be red hot as Quantel and others battle Snell & Wilcox.
The gear is here, but who wants it? In certain cases, the migration to HD is prompting minimum adjustments rather than acquisitions. Joe Dervin,VP of postproduction for Burbank's NBC Studios (whose projects include Homicide, Profiler, and Providence), reports: "We're waiting for instructions from the network. We are doing this: All the series shot in Super 35 are still composed for 4:3, but protected for 16:9. We make sure there are no light stands or edge-of-the-set backings on the left and the right sides. In post, we transfer 16:9, squeezing it into 4:3 on DigiBetacam. Then we unsqueeze and choose and then online the squeezed 16:9 and output in 4:3 and 16:9."
At this point, syndicators seem convinced that, for now, upconverting 601 16:9 material for the future preempts the need to post in the 1920 x 1080 standard. They are not alone. Firms such as Arlington, Virginia-based Roland House are betting on upconverted 601 processing rather than full-blown HD. No doubt, many regional firms are going to find this tactic extremely advantageous.
In general, Hollywood is leading the way with real HD. There are also a few visionary corporations such as Kodak and Merrill Lynch working with the format. The list thins out after that. Advertisers are remarkably hesitant, and commercial-intensive houses are moving slowly. Here are some examples from the current HD frontier.
Early Adopters The Sony HD Center, which opened in 1989, serves as, arguably, the world's greatest HD house. It is also a bold example of Darwinian adaptability accelerated to dizzying proportions. It specializes in taking film to HD, video (including Hi-8 and DV) to HD, HD to film, as well as CG, HD posting, and film restoration.
The HD Center's toolbox includes a telecine built to specs by Cinema Products, a Digital Vision color corrector, 19 HD-1000 recorders, SGI workstations, Macs, and Uni-Hi and Exabyte output. Dr. Robert Hopkins, VP and general manager, expects to add Sony's telecine in the next year.
HD Center's workload is 80 percent features and 20 percent postproduction, mainly for restoration projects. The Center's specialty is special cases. "We have been able to do the things that are required but not in the most convenient ways," Hopkins admits. The results, nonetheless, have been sparkling.
Director John Landauer, Pavlov Productions (Sony's commercial division), Culver City, recently posted a :60 spot and a 2:30 piece for Sony Wonder at the Center. He shot on 35mm film. "We scanned at 10-bit 2K on the Composer," he says. "No one's Spirit was set up for HD at the time. The $2.50-to-$4.00-a-frame rate is comparable to telecine rates. We pretended we were going to film-out."
The team color corrected in Inferno and mastered on 2-inch digital tape. Sixty-five visual effects, mainly done on Flame, were required. The team had 13 weeks to finish.
"The image we were working with kicked ass," says Landauer. "There was no aliasing, and the keys were 10 times better."
Randall Dark, president and CEO of HD Vision, is also enthusiastic about the picture quality. And he is certainly happy prices have dropped. "When I opened the company six years ago, I paid $360,000 for a VTR," he says. The firm, which specializes in special outlet and demo projects, as well as sporting events, including major league baseball, offers two HD trucks, a facility, and production and post services.
The operation uses seven Sony D-1000 VTRs, four Panasonic HD-D5 VTRs, two Sony HDW-500 decks, three Uni-Hi VTRs, a Snell & Wilcox color corrector, a Sony HDS-1000T production switcher, a Dynasty routing switcher, Chyron graphics, three Sony downconverters, a Yamaha digital board, and JVC W-VHS dubbing capability.
Dark chose Texas for his base because of cost considerations and because he did not want the trucks centered on one coast. Currently, Dark is looking for funding to open offices in Los Angeles and New York.
The features-to-video market has helped float the HD operations at Tape House, New York, the site of the world's first Spirit installation in 1997. The operation has been HD for a year now and has produced video releases of Dirty Dancing, Earth Girls Are Easy, Celebrity, and Living Out Loud.
Tape House Digital offers two Spirits, HDCAM, HD-D5, HD-1000, a Sierra uncompressed disc recorder with 40 minutes of storage, a Chyron Duet, a Panasonic switcher, an Accom 2020 Axial, an Interactive Effects Piranha compositer, Onyx 2 workstations, and a Pandora MegaDef color corrector. Tim Spitzer, director of HD and data services, says, "The Pandora represents a stunning development, offering full primary and secondary color correction."
Surround sound remains a problem, says Spitzer. "Both HDCAM and D5 have four-channel capacity. Our HD-1000 gives us six channels, which is ideal for AC-3. Most people take audio out of the Avid and then restripe. Our suite is AC-3 compatible but not AC-3 editable."
Spitzer is eager about the industry's move to 24fps progressive. "It's the most exciting thing. The 3:2 pulldown can be pulled out and bandwidth can be saved. Also, you can now make edits in 24p with a 24fps master and can create any number of different standards. It's a very elegant way of working."
Crawford Communications, Atlanta, has also relied heavily on the Spirit for its migration into HD and on the Inferno and Fire, as well.
Ron Heidt, Crawford's visual effects supervisor, is tired of hearing about the scanning debates. "Personally I don't want to see the p versus i arguments. We prefer p here. It's much harder to make p from i."
He also prefers Panasonic. "Sony took a different route with 24sF. It's a weird situation with Sony. I prefer D5."
Ron Burdett, president and CEO of Sunset Post, Los Angeles, chose Cintel for the move to HD transfers. "We have two C-Reality machines on order. C-Reality most accurately reproduces the film, giving us true 14-bit color depth in RGB. I see the differences in the sub-sampled chroma. To our clients, full recovery is imperative.
"Our goal is to post everything in 1080p@24fps. We also use daVinci 2K color correctors, Vas converters, Illusion compositing, Inferno, and we just put in a six-track AC-3 room. The switcher is still up for grabs."
Burdett believes that HD is going to significantly reconfigure the post marketplace. "All through the '80s the high and low merged. HD will help reestablish high and low, although 601 is not dead. It'll be around for a long time."
Waiting to Jump Dean Winkler, CEO of the New York Media Group, is an unabashed HD enthusiast. "It's the killer app of all times. Once Monday Night Football is seen in high definition, the country's going to go nuts."
He is not, however, letting his excitement get out of hand. "We've done a few HD pieces, but the business is still a trickle," he says. "My reluctance is a reluctant reluctance."
Post Perfect, New York, is adding Y-Front capabilities. "It makes a better picture than the Spirit, C-Reality, or the Sony telecine in 525/625," Winkler reports. "C-Reality looks more filmic, but there are some issues with it. The Sony machine has a way to go."
The New York Media Group is updating its sound studios. "It's unthinkable not to build a 5.1 room today," Winkler explains.
Winkler says that the capacity of the new technology is empowering the artists. "The beauty of these systems is that they become almost irrelevant."
Michael Taylor, managing director of Santa Monica-based Encore, is in a similar situation since 80 percent of his shop's workload consists of commercials. "I was really hoping something would happen this year," he says. "Right now, it is not viable to upgrade. Our Hollywood shop will go HD first. Another problem is that the Europeans are not interested in HD." This house offers both a Spirit and C-Reality.
Larry Chernoff, president of the TV group of Encore, Hollywood, is managing the building of the shop's HD center. "We're all 601 right now," he states. "Next season though, we feel there will be demand. High definition differentiates one from the other boys so to speak. Ultimately, that will be the greater mandate. To start, we'll use Sony's 1080i, switchable to 1080p. Clients need both."
It is an exciting time, especially for filmmakers looking for cost-conscious productions and for the networks who now have more outlets. For the rest of the industry, waiting to get onto that road to HD is a nerve-racking experience. Don't worry. Relax. You still have a couple of weeks to think about it.
National advertisers are demonstrating little enthusiasm for HD. For Manhattan Transfer, where spots comprise up to 80 percent of the workload, this means adding HD in selective ways.
Steve Coffey, VP and co-general manager, explains: "About a year and a half ago, people expected commercials would first push us into high definition. Back then, there was a lot more pressure since there were a lot of unknowns. Now it seems that long-form, episodic TV will push us."
Manhattan Transfer recently installed two ITK Y-Front updates on two URSA Diamond telecines and purchased a new Diamond with Y-Front. "They'll be in the 601 world and deliver significant improvements," reports Bill Topazio, VP and chief engineer. "We decided on this move to be fiscally responsible.
"The Y-Fronts have much less glass and mirrors in the way so that the images don't get lost," he continues. "The technology is representative of rocket science and provides a greater bandwidth. We made this choice because there's some question about how much further the (Philips) Spirit can be pushed, and C-Reality is a little late. Y-Front's the dark horse by giving owners a building block."
The facility will also take delivery of three 2K daVinci color correctors for use in 601. "We have to do this to maintain our place in the marketplace," says Coffey. "But we're not feeling pressure to migrate to high definition. We feel a responsibility to the client to stay within ourselves. Right now we're waiting for the market to come to us."
Recently the market did come to them. PBS needed both SD and HD versions of "Digital Open," a 10-second promo. The facility is hoping that an increase in HD work will lead to further involvement at the preproduction level.
"We're trying to change perceptions. We want to be brought in at the start of a project," Coffey concludes.
No doubt, as more clients explore HD options, Coffey's wish will become an inevitability.
In order to present affordable systems scheduled for summer delivery, Sony is offering a new flavor of progressive HDTV: 24sF (segmented frames).
ATS 292 and SMPTE 274M outline the parameters of the HD formats-except sF. "We don't want to change the standards, but add one," explains Larry Thorpe, Sony's VP acquisition systems. "If we didn't present sF, we would have had to climb back into the recorder, use new chips, and make it switchable to 60i. That would have required lots of redesign. Instead, sF delivers switchability (60i/60 fields and 24p), cost effectiveness, and minimizes the need for glue boxes."
The sF process breaks each frame into 48 segments and creates a video structure very similar to the interlace structure "absolutely devoid of interlace artifacts," Thorpe says. Each segment is 1/48th of a second apart, resulting in 48fps output, which is then translated into 24fps. It is actually a data packaging trick that allows for a maximum flexibility.
"It's a great idea that allows for an incredible price," Thorpe says. "The recorder is only $58,000. The signal is not penalized in the slightest way."
Although it appears to be a brilliant way of disguising p in order to process it like i, there has been much dissent, and Sony is working overtime to lobby SMPTE and the industry.
Panasonic, on the other hand, is sticking to the ATS 292 and 274M specs and is struggling to deliver its 24p system this year. "This is a natural progression of the market line," explains David Wiswell, Panasonic's ATV group manager. "There's been pressure to have something by June, but it's much too short of a cycle. Our idea is to not have an interim format but to do it once and do it right. The purpose for 24p is to get greater efficiency out of MPEG and get the best out of the 3:2 pulldown. Also, DVD is moving 24p along. In the end, it leads to more efficient editing."
Although startling in its design, sF is not as important in comparison to D5 as Sony's pre-sampling and compression scheme. Perceptions at the high end weigh toward Panasonic, but p is a very select format. CBS will not accept a 24p tape. Despite the fact that there could be an ascertainable benefit in Panasonic quality, Sony is betting that its systems approach, ease of operations, and price performance will outweigh what most people will never notice.
"Manufacturers have said establishing HD operations would cost a factor of 1.3 more than it would for 601. In fact, the price is closer to plus or minus 1.75, which is almost twice as much. There is going to be a lot of technical suicide before this is all over."-Ron Burdett, president and CEO of Sunset Post, Los Angeles
"We altered our initial focus from acquisition to the post arena. We embarked on a campaign, which was built in late '98, to deliver 24-frame HD. We have a commitment to install complete systems in June of this year."-Larry Thorpe, VP acquisition systems, Sony
"By the end of 2000, high definition should be booming. It's inevitable; like air, you've got to breathe it."-Larry Chernoff, president of the TV group, Encore, Hollywood
"We get phone calls every week, but they're never serious. Clients would love to do it in high definition, but will the viewers see it?"-Michael Taylor, managing editor of Encore, Santa Monica
"I think it's a year away. None of our clients-from ad agencies to shows-are asking for HD."-Dean Winkler, CEO of the New York Media Group
"We've made a couple of forays, but it's fairly quiet-not surprisingly. Clients aren't ready to quadruple the pain. By not jumping in head first, we're not sapping them."-Steve Coffey, VP and co-general manager of Manhattan Transfer, New York
"At this NAB, people will recognize HD and see that it's not a pipedream. They'll wonder, 'What if I don't buy today?' Our position is to go forward with HD."-Andy Sheldon, manager of the entertainment market, Silicon Graphics, Mountain View, California
"Six years ago when we started, we had 10 clients and did eight productions. In '98 we averaged 40 different clients a month. This past December, we had 38 clients work with us."-Randall Dark, CEO of HD Vision, Irvington, Texas
"I think it's going to happen quicker than most people do. There's no reason for people to buy a digital set yet; it will be years before that will happen. But things will happen behind the scenes before the public embraces it."-Jim Kristoff, president of Metrolight Studios, Los Angeles
"Everyone I talk with agrees that the subject of HD has quieted down the last three months, whereas last year, there were lots of plans."-Joe Dervin, VP of postproduction of NBC Studios, Burbank
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
