SIGGRAPH 2000 Roundup
| Join our team of seasoned reporters as we take you on a behind-the-scenes whirlwind tour of the best of digital video editing technology demonstrated at SIGGRAPH 2000. |
First
up was a demo of the newest technology from discreet. The idea here
is that discreet and Autodesk merged a few years back, and they're doing
a bang-up job of integrating all their products to let you do just about
anything with video or film. The newest star in this formidable constellation
is Combustion, a Mac and PC compositor that reminds me a lot of Puffin
Designs Commotion. It has a great way of showing you all your layers
so they're easy to visualize together or separately, and as you work,
the effects are caching all the while. This gives you an almost real-time
look at your final product as you work. There are also quick ways to
blend 3D objects with 2D graphics, and it all uses the same keyer that's
used in discreet's high-end megabucks app, Inferno. It's quick, it's
powerful and it's available now. That's not all, either. Discreet announced
at the press conference new versions of just about everything they sell,
including updates to Inferno (version 4) and version 7 of Flame, Flint,
and Effect (read more about these new releases here).
Cool company, cool products.
Next
up was a fantastically elegant demo/party thrown by Silicon Graphics
Inc. (SGI) at scary-novelist Anne Rice's house in the heart of The Big
Easy. The lucky demo-goers were liquored up (this working reporter not
included!), stuffed with Creole cuisine (yes, but no fried alligators
for me, please) and doted upon by soothsayers, genuine voodoo high priestesses
and fortune tellers. When I asked one of the tarot card readers what
she saw ahead for SGI, she said she sensed what looked like a big letter
Z. Hmm. What could that be? Ah-ha! Must be referring to the biggest
announcement for SGI lately -- they're going to be selling NT (Win2K?)
boxes by Intergraph -- you know, the purple boxes with the big "Z"
on the front? Spooky. Find out more here.
SGI also announced a clever new concept called "bricks," where
owners of SGI's high-end machines like Onyx can swap out parts of the
machines instead of spending millions on a whole new refrigerator-sized
box once a year. Nice idea, and maybe one that will trickle down to
computers with less stratospheric price tags.
Also notable was the newest Octane 2 gracing the demo room. Alas, this won't help us digital video editors much -- the original Octane is still the machine of choice for use with discreet Smoke, but the technology and new graphics cards for animators were quite impressive. And, most eye-catching was our old friend, the SGI 17-inch wide screen flat panel display. And, there's a recently-announced $450 multilink adapter that'll make it easy to use this beautiful screen with almost any graphics card. In fact, in the demo room there was a notebook computer running the wide-screen beauty. Why should we care about this particular monitor? A monitor's a monitor, right? Think about your editing timeline stretched out super wide and ultra-sharp. Get it? And, with a VGA converter, you can even watch HDTV with this mutha. Nice.
The
next stop was with Adobe, where we saw lots of seriously enhanced products,
but there's a catch. I can't tell you a thing about them. As we entered
the luxo-sport penthouse demo den, nondisclosure agreements were passed
to everyone, the signing of them rendering us speechless until mid-August.
Oh well. Check back here for the full story as soon as it's released.
Suffice to say that Adobe has some incremental improvements in the pipeline
to a few of its graphics applications that we all know and love. But
it's nothing revolutionary, so if you see that overused word
in a press release, don't believe it. Nevertheless, I was impressed
with Adobe's industrious upgrading to already-fabulous and useful technology.
Next
we were ushered into yet another posh suite atop another trendy hotel
to lay eyes on IBM's latest techno-demo, where a big black box with
lots of noisy fans contained a new Intel Itanium chip running the 64-bit
alpha version of Windows 2000 (here's
more about other software shown running on Intel's new chip).
Even in its infancy, this technology promises to be formidable for both
animators and editors alike. And, whispers about IBM's copper-based
technology and its wellspring of patents has us wondering what the Big
Blue company has up its sleeve. For now, the biggest egg in the Blue
basket is the agreement to bundle the Intellistation with Avid Xpress
DV and a new alliance with NewTek and its formidable granddaddy of all
digital video editors, the Toaster. Here's
more about IBM's NewTek deal.
Speaking
of HD, perhaps you've heard of the new dpsReality HD digital disk recorder
(DDR). We strolled over to the DPS booth and saw this cuts-only frame
stacker and playback device that uses a mega-pixel-spittin' card to
move HD video through itself at blazing speed. The thing works, too
-- I was actually moving gigantic video files around with ease myself
-- and the biggest news is that it'll cost only around $25K. Still sounds
like a lot, but considering the prices of similar products from other
companies, this is a steal. The system is capable of recording, cuts
editing and real time playback of Sony HDCam format 1080i video, and
should be ready in a couple of months, according to DPS officials. Read
more about it here.
Next
there was a meeting with Media 100i product manager Charlie Mascari,
where a wide-ranging discussion centered around the new announcement
by the Marlboro, Massachusetts company about their newest Internet-friendly
wizardry. Unless you haven't heard about it, Media 100 i is a system
that will let you edit HTML for the Web as a part of your video editing
timeline. Imagine the possibilities of this interactive streaming video:
For example, you're watching football highlights, and you're wondering
about a particular player's stats for the season so far. Media 100 i
will let editors place a hot spot over that player so you can click
on him and open a separate window with more information. Mascari thinks
this "drill-down" technology is going to be big. I agree.
Here's
more.
After
that, all eyes and ears turned to Softimage, where the talk turned to
the Beta release of the next version of Softimage|DS: version 4. Also,
rumblings abounded about the newest feather in the Softimage cap, the
soon-to-be-released high definition version of DS, Softimage|DS HD.
Both these formidable updates to the heavy-duty editing and compositing
app are slated for shipment this Fall. The news here was that the union
between Avid and Softimage is paying off big time with the workgroup
ability of the new DS4, allowing DS, Avid Media Composer and Symphony
users to share projects and read each others' files, as well as share
OMF audio files from ProTools digital audio workstations. Great idea,
especially in light of the fact that reliable studies show that 65%
of DS owners are also in possession of a Media Composer. A slick feature
introduced in version 3.0 last year was a tree-based compositor, which
turned out to be extremely popular with DS users -- so much so that
Softimage is adding new functionality to this feature for the new version
4.0. We've seen tree-based compositing before, but not quite like this.
Called kissing, twanging and ripping, the new abilities sound more like
something that would happen in a New Orleans bawdy house than in a high-end
compositing package. This sub-interface looks like little buttons held
together by threads, where gestural movements of the mouse cause elements
to associate themselves with each other with just a flick of the wrist.
Try that in a Crescent City brothel!
Next
stop was Matrox, where version 2 of the value-priced real time RT2000
editing system was on display. Set for a fall release, the newest edition
of the RT2000 will be Windows 2000 compliant and packing extra real
time punch. And, here's a company that listens to its customers, folks.
For example, users didn't like Adobe Premiere's titling tool included
with version 1, so now RT2000 jockeys can get a free version of Inscriber
Title Express, a powerful and easy to use CG app that blows away that
lame Premiere text tool. Better yet, with version 2.0, the real time
effects will be keyframable, audio synch issues will be fully resolved
(I saw both of these enhancements with my own eyes) and entirely new
classes of real time 3D effects will be introduced free. Coolness such
as particle effects, page curls and cylinders are in the works, and
they'll all be free for the downloading from the Matrox site. Speaking
of downloading, Matrox began offering a new group of real time effects
for RT2000 today at the company's Web site, so if you're an RT2000 user,
check
it out. Also on display was the same demo of RTMac that we saw
at last Spring's NAB, but still, it was a thrill to see the Mac doing
real time dissolves and such with Final Cut Pro. Even though the system
is still designated "pre-Alpha," it seemed to be running smoothly.
There's still lots of work to be done, though, according to Matrox.
Even so, if all goes well with Matrox developers' work to make RTMac
more stable, release could be as early as this Fall.
After
that it was time to take a look at a built-from-the-ground-up video
editor called MoviePack by AIST. We've been hearing about this potentially
powerful package for years, but now I think it's actually about to be
released at $799. Although it still crashed once in front of your humble
storyteller, it shows great promise with its powerful features that
are all software-based. It has its own titler, scads of effects, great
compositing features, the ability to integrate 3D Studio Max models
with video, and a great caching/preview routine that gives you a realistic
look at your composite in no time flat. Best of all, the fact that all
these features are software-based means that as processors get faster,
the interface can only get snappier. Keep an eye on this one -- we'll
have a full review on DigitalVideoEditing.com as soon as it's released,
possibly as early as September of this year.
Nearby,
there was more Mac news, with the unreleased Pinnacle CineWave on display.
All I can say is, Wow! Even though we saw this beast rearing its head
at NAB, it was even more impressive up close and personal. CineWave
gives you QuickTime HDTV editing on the Mac using Final Cut Pro. So
I thought, "Hmm. Must take an eternity to render a dissolve."
Wrong, humble narrator. Unless you call 45 seconds (to render a one-second
HD dissolve) an eternity, CineWave is quick, clean and hard to beat.
There is some serious pixel pushing happening up in those Pinnacle cards,
too -- the system is moving around 155 MB per second -- and it's doing
all this without dropping frames. Pinnacle plans to have Beta units
in the field in September, with shipment not long after that. Not bad
for a system that'll cost you only $30,000 turnkey. Imagine that. HD
editing for $30K.
On a final note, it's been an interesting SIGGRAPH this year, and our team of reporters, producers and editors have had a fine time bringing you the latest news from this super graphics fest. And by the way, if you're coming to New Orleans, might we recommend any time but Summer? Low temperatures of 82 degrees (not to mention highs in the mid-90s) are just too, too hot, especially for those of us traveling here from the Midwest Test Facility! And the smell of Bourbon street as it bakes in the sultry heat and saturated humidity? Eeeww.
Charlie
White has been writing about digital video editing since it was
the laughingstock of the post-production industry. He's an Emmy award-winning
producer and director for PBS, and producer of this Web site. Do you have
comments or questions? Send Chazz a note at cwhite@digitalmedianet.com.
Previous Columns
Fix it in the Mix?
NAB
2000 Wrap-Up
Mac?
Just Another Pretty Face
The Digital Video Editing
Crystal Ball
Thank-You Note to Santa: Thanks
for Bringing These NLEs For Me
What's With This 24p Stuff,
Anyway?
Digital
Video's Pizza Syndrome
HD Video Editing is Here. Now.
Welcome to Digital Video Editing.com