No longer just a toy for whiling away hours and a threat to children wandering helplessly into pornographic minefields, the Internet has become a legitimate tool for production and its value is increasing as things like real-time video links become a part of conceivable reality.

The Net is being exploited by production and post facilities to access a world of technical expertise and showcase current projects. Its use as a means of transferring video images has the potential to effect great change, but it’s still in its braces and greasy hair phase, with users working around high costs and lack of infrastructure.

Jim Carroll, Internet sage and author of The Canadian Internet Handbook, says technology is moving forward at a furious pace, but high-speed telecommunications links are required to make it work.

‘All kinds of organizations are scrambling to bring together the technology for real-time audio and video through the Internet,’ says Carroll. ‘But if you try it out these days it’s like the early days of tv with big walnut cabinets with tiny tvs and fuzzy images. It will take some time for the technology to mature.’

Carroll says cable and telephone companies are facing challenges of cost and real-world infrastructure placement.

Current modem speeds of 28.8 kilobits per second generally prohibit video images of adequate quality to be bandied about between post shop and client. Integrated services digital network (isdn) lines allow up to 128 kilobits per second but are pricey, about $500 per month per line, and it takes multiple lines to accommodate real-time video of premium quality.

Toronto’s Dan Krech Productions has a long list of international clients, and owner Dan Krech says he is finding an increasing demand for the capability to facilitate production through the Internet.

‘Clients from markets like New York don’t mind coming to Toronto as much,’ says Krech. ‘But those from the further reaches, like l.a. or San Francisco, don’t want to spend that much time and money. It’s also valuable for Toronto clients who have to be in two places at once.’

A commercial spot for Grey New York featuring animated toy soldiers was recently executed by dkp without the client gracing their Toronto offices once. Krech says clients will usually make the trip for key editorial stages, like the film-to-tape transfer, but single-frame approvals and other day-to-day decisions can be made through the Net.

Harvey Fong, an animator at dkp, says it takes about half an hour to download a 10-second spot over their dedicated 64 kbps isdn line. On a current job for Grey New York, Fong says they can send j-peg compressed images at 640 by 480 resolution that the client can play back at 30 frames per second. Fong says dkp is also developing a Web site that among other things may allow clients around-the-clock access to works in progress on their account with a password.

Grey New York is hooked into Sprint’s Drums network, a collaboration with Silicon Graphics utilizing a T1 line, permitting 1.54 megabits per second transmission of j-peg compressed video, which, for a 30-second spot, would take a few minutes. Frames can be frozen and transferred to a whiteboard where, like John Madden circling holes in the Jets’ defense, concerned parties can point out desired changes, with a display allowing observation of a client’s face contorting with satisfaction or displeasure.

But airlines and courier companies will not yet have to prepare for Armageddon. Cost again provides a disincentive for Canadian companies to partake.

David Harrison, engineer at Vancouver’s Gastown Post and Transfer, quips that for the monthly price of a T1 line one could fly to l.a., do an hour of dailies, have lunch and fly home.

Scott Miller, national sales manager for Sprint’s multimedia group in Atlanta, says u.s. companies pay roughly us$3,000 per month per connection and that arrangements are being made to bring the service to Canada in the next several months.

Bob Kennedy, editor at Toronto’s Flashcut, estimates it would take about 18 isdn lines running simultaneously to work in real-time with a quality sufficient to deal with discriminating clients on the minutiae of a commercial edit. He says users, particularly agencies, have to confront issues of intra-organizational access and how to connect to the outside world without compromising security.

Kennedy anticipates leapfrogging the isdn phase and waiting for atm, or a synchronous transfer mode technology to become cost-efficient. atm is a point-to-point, high bandwidth data transfer technology and has been used in the production of cg-intensive features like Virtuosity.

‘atm is a whole new protocol, it’s more bandwidth independent. It allows you to have dedicated links for video when you need it and then give away bandwidth when you don’t.’

Kennedy says Flashcut is conducting a test with client Leo Burnett Advertising downloading rough cuts using a software called Creative Partner which allows the client to annotate the cut. He says it has only been used for testing because the image quality is inferior and, at conventional speed, is too slow to be efficient.

Kennedy says providers seem to be concentrating on developing technology for home use rather than business applications.

‘To me the next logical step is looking at businesses which can pay a premium,’ he says, ‘especially in our business where we’re dealing with high bandwidth digital product all the time.’

On the cable front, Dave Masotti, vp business development for Rogers Cablesystems, says the company is in the final testing stages of high-speed access products in 50 homes in Newmarket, Ont. Masotti says while the technology can be used for business, ‘you’re going to see it’s more successful letting people access the finished product through their homes.’

He says that based on the outcome of trials, the service will be offered on a significant scale by the end of next year, and will likely be priced as a premium service at around $50 per month. He says Rogers expects to launch with a 25 mbps service.

In addition to acting as a digital courier, Internet facilitation of the production process has occurred via Internet groups.

Rob Lingelbach, senior colorist at Editel in l.a., started his Telecine Group in June 1994; it now numbers about 300 subscribers worldwide comprised of engineers, colorists, facility owners, managers and assistants, including several from Canada.

The group started as an Internet mailing list for telecine professionals to exchange information. ‘The mailing list is a very simple idea,’ says Lingelbach. ‘But the future is more along the lines of the Web.’

The telecine Web (//www. alegria.com/telecinehome.html) page features archives of the group’s message traffic since its inception, which include comments on telecine procedures and practices and reviews of equipment, all searchable on the page via an index, as well as a list of subscribers and listings of manufacturers and facilities.

‘Someone involved in shooting might not be interested in the level of discussion; we’re not really talking about exposures and film, though that’s part of the story,’ says Lingelbach.

Gastown’s Harrison, a member of the group, says the group is an excellent link to manufacturers and a way to get a worldwide perspective and ‘prepare for the trends that come out of l.a.’

Meanwhile, as eager participants wait for fiber optic and coaxial infrastructure to be put in place and made affordable for businesses as well as households, phone companies have been working on adsl (asymmetrical digital subscriber line) technology that would allow high-speed Net access over existing copper lines.

Carroll, who says that six months in Internet time is like 20 years in human time, cites companies like Xing Technologies as bringing real-time video closer to daily use (Xing Streamworks software promises five fps video using 28.8 modems and 30 fps video at isdn rates. Xing’s software is being used to broadcast Ottawa’s cfra radio in real-time on the Internet).

He reiterates his message delivered to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters last month in Ottawa: ‘Wake up and smell the roses.’

He says high-speed communication lines, the corollary to Internet technology, are necessary and inevitable. ‘Whether it will take six months or two years is the question,’ says Carroll. ‘I predict that within five years we’ll be doing this (real-time video) as a matter of routine and I’ll have my own tv station, cjim, on the Internet.’