Subsequent to a shift to nonlinear editing, the post industry faces yet another major reorientation with the move to nonlinear online finishing of projects. Toward that possible end, post companies and editing shops are striving to anticipate the next investments they will make, and developers face the challenge of providing the next wave of editing and post solutions while remaining profitable, particularly in the Canadian market.

For one Canadian company, Adcom Electronics, doing business in this marketplace provided a formidable challenge. Adcom’s Nightsuite nonlinear editing system was fully developed in Canada as a nonlinear system for corporate and broadcast use. Although the system found success internationally, it was never adopted on a significant level by Canadian users.

Adcom’s John McDonald says the Canadian market is one of the hardest markets to sell into, not only in nonlinear but in all technological areas.

‘There have been tons of Canadian firsts, but it’s not until a product becomes popular, particularly in the u.s., that Canadians are willing to look at it,’ he says, also citing the size and concentration of the Canadian market.

Aside from conquering geographical and cultural peculiarities, developers are looking at emerging technical and business issues arising around the phenomenon of online finishing.

As the transition to online begins, producers are looking at alternatives for finishing long-form projects on a nonlinear machine, without going to another high-end post system.

Avid has been offering systems like its Avid 8000 for online use for the past year. The company, which has dominated the commercial editing market recently, closed its regional offices, consolidating its operation in Toronto.

London-based Lightworks has traditionally served the bulk of the longer format tv market in Canada on an offline basis. Lightworks is now launching the vip, a product developed with Oregon-based Tektronix which addresses the online market. Mark Pounds, head of Lightworks reseller OLE Canada, says while nonlinear finishing is not fully accepted now, it will become the norm in the next few years.

Existing players have carved out niches and other major companies have been angling to enter the market for the past few years, with Sony having a series of false starts with a nonlinear product and Microsoft looming with a Softimage system.

While most predict difficulty for a huge equipment company like Sony to reorient themselves to a software-based system and deal with interface challenges, it is agreed it will likely take a major company which can sustain losses and develop economies of scale to trump the nonlinear game.

In McDonald’s estimation, there will not be a lot of room for error: ‘I think there will be a shakeout and there will be two or three nonlinear providers and the other guys will get tired of beating their heads against a stone and go away and do something more productive.’