Look before you leap. But do leap. The multimedia revolution is at long last with us.

Witness the growing number of international computer, cablecaster and telephone companies merging to position themselves on the information highway.

Witness in this country Maclean Hunter, now in play after an unwelcome merger bid by Rogers Communications.

Witness the explosion in purchases of home entertainment cd-rom hardware.

It’s a sobering thought, but cd-rom sex titles have until now been mostly ordered from the back of computer magazines and through the mail. But many argue blue movies fueled the vcr revolution and that sex titles will do the same for the cd-rom industry.

That said, current technological advances mean the day is not far off when everyone will, in theory, be able to navigate an expanding digital world, gaining access to any software or any hardware, at any time, anywhere in the world.

Of course, industry giants today lead the interactive multimedia pack. But how can mere mortals in the Canadian independent production sector seize the day? After all, entrepreneurs in multimedia are looking for the talent and creative input of Canadian producers.

Bogged down

Jerr McNabb of McNabb and Connelly, a Toronto-based distributor of non-theatrical product, says people in the production industry should get to know the latest in multimedia technology, but not get bogged down in its intricacies. The important thing, he says, is knowing what the broad array of multimedia applications can do for them.

‘Some projects work and others do not,’ McNabb says. ‘Knowing how the technology works will enable the producer to think of the right type of work that will suit the technology.’

As varied as multimedia software is becoming, so too are the potential clients for enterprising producers. ‘Just like with broadcasters, if you have a program that will work for the cbc, you should approach the cbc. If it will work for tvo, you take it to tvo.’

An example: McNabb says he is looking to convert the Anne of Green Gables tale to interactive use, although the project is now in its earliest stages.

Many using multimedia technology have found it useful in conveying complicated messages – information, for example, from drug companies, scientific data, clinical studies and summaries that often confound traditional media.

Software experts

Luda Tovey, president of Oberon Productions in Toronto, says video producers who want to make their audio-visual programs interactive should find partners among software experts.

‘Scriptwriters will need to learn how to write for interactive applications,’ says Tovey, adding graphic artists and designers will need to adopt a new ‘audio-visual vernacular.’

Brian Porter of Southam Electronics, project co-ordinator of Southam’s new interactive project, True North-Arrivals, insists his company is looking for creative talent skilled in sound, image and photography, since until now, Southam has specialized in print but wants to continue expanding into multimedia.

PC platform

More specifically, one viable ramp onto the electronic highway for the production community lies in exploiting the continuing introduction of digital video technology onto the pc platform.

Here impressive improvements in digital compression and decompression hardware and software are making the distribution and manipulation of digital video material in the pc world increasingly flexible and affordable.

New innovations in computer technology, shortly to be touted in the marketplace, will produce shared video formats allowing people to interact in assorted formats – most commonly using cd-rom technology – and further enable digital data to be easily pulled from storage for later use.

All applications

Robert Levings, product manager for ATI Technologies of Thornhill, Ont., predicts the continuing rollout of motion video technology onto the pc platform will allow digital video to be used in all graphics applications as never before.

Speaking to a recent gathering of the International Multimedia Development Association in Toronto, Levings pointed to recent hardware and software breakthroughs that have ushered in this revolution.

For starters, Levings underlined better compression technology in the way of emerging standards like Indeo, Cinepak, mpcg What is more, new products like video for Windows and lower-cost capture boards are making multimedia more accessible in the pc world.

Then there is the increasing quality of video footage during playback.

Better resolution

‘Resolution and color depth is far better and has improved quality on the pc platform,’ according to Levings.

Taken together with compression improvements, the result is that more and better quality video can be put in a smaller storage space, allowing that material to be more effectively distributed across a myriad of platforms.

Of course, tv quality resolution on desktop systems will not become a reality for some time yet, Leavings cautions:

‘The pc is not an expensive tv set, but it’s coming up fast.’

Faster and better playback in pc video technology is being made possible by hardware dedicated to the decompression, color conversion and display stages, all three considered crucial to the process.

For example, Intel and Microsoft will shortly announce dci, a display control interface device that allows you to take video information and blast it onto a graphics display driver for easier and faster playback. Another bonus is larger, more colorful images attained during playback at higher frame rates.

With files from Sylvie Basley.