DMN Interview: JVC’s Dave Walton
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DMN: It sounds to me like JVC’s philosophy is pretty much going to cause an explosion in HD, because as soon as the price is right, everyone is going to jump in. Everybody who sees HD is going to say, “I want that.”
Walton: If you have an HD display, you have the ability to watch it. If you haven’t seen it, you could be very pleased with what you presently have, but once you’ve seen the difference it’s hard to go back.
DMN: We’re right at the flash point here, don’t you think?
Walton: Yes, and the affordable prospect isn’t just at this level. We’re doing stuff in the broadcast level, also, with HD that I think is worth mentioning. We have an encoder now, $30,000 might seem like a lot of money, but when it competes with encoders that are selling for $100,000, well, that’s a different story. This is an encoder a broadcaster uses to move compressed data from a remote location like a truck to a station. The ability to produce this encoder comes from JVC’s core technology. The same thing we developed for the small cameras is now available in a rack-sized unit that’s used with an HD-SDI input to create a bitstream that can be microwaved from a blimp, or a truck to a network control center where it can then be broadcast. So this type of product is part of the whole story. It’s also used in DVHS – that’s a big story in itself. MGM is using it, for example, to create dailies for all the directors and cinematographers to use on the sets of major films. Those dailies then can be distributed on DVHS with password protection. It’s part of our affordable story.
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DMN: That’s quite a bit more manageable than dealing with 2K files, isn’t it?
Walton: Well, yes, and this is what the film studios love about this. You would think that these high-budget film studios are just swimming in dough, but they, as much as anybody, are looking for affordable ways to view dailies in a form that’s better than VHS, which a lot of them were using.
DMN: When you have to pay $20 million for one actor, you’re looking to cut costs wherever you can.
Walton: As Jerry Bruckheimer said, when I was at his studio, he explained this to me. He said, “You know, we had been sitting here watching this stuff on low-resolution sets.” He was just totally blown away when he could see this footage from the day’s shoot, or the shoot the day before, on a projector in an HDTV format that looked better than what he was actually seeing in a movie theater. Wow! Compared to what you actually see on a screen at a movie theater! We’re able to show it from a 25 megabit DVHS tape – it looks as good as or better than what you saw on the screen at theaters. It’s a major achievement to be able to bring that level of quality into a price range that’s just under $1000 – a very, very affordable method. Part of it is in the creation, which is the JY-HD10 part. Other products will evolve in that category. Part of it is in the processing and editing, where we take that created material and we mold that into a completed program. And part of it is the distribution: D-VHS, tiny HDV recorders and soon-to-come disk formats. And the best part – high resolution plasmas and projectors that make beautiful pictures that everybody can enjoy and be proud of. That's our objective. We have attempted to – we’re not complete – but we have, I think, better than anybody else in the business, come up with solutions in all four of those categories that are able to bring that high-definition experience to the masses.
Digital Media Net Executive Producer Charlie White has been writing about new media and digital video since it was the laughingstock of the television industry. A technology journalist and columnist since 1994, White is also an Emmy-winning producer, video editor, broadcast industry consultant and shot-calling television director who has worked in broadcasting since 1974. Talk back -- Send Chazz a note at cwhite@digitalmedianet.com.Read Charlie White's editorials by clicking here.
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