One technically astute, yet somewhat speculation-weary post type was recently heard to intone: ‘We’ve all heard and talked about high definition for so long, that it’s a painful subject anymore.’ Given that the above sentiment is widely shared across many planes of broadcasting and post existence, then ladies and gentleman, welcome to House of Pain – aka NAB ’99.

Yes, hd solutions will be featured prominently among the thousands of pieces of gear on the show floors at the Sands and the lvcc as will telecine technology, networking and server solutions and products from countless other areas of teleproduction endeavor.

The National Association of Broadcasters extravaganza, April 17-22 in Las Vegas, will feature 1,400 exhibitors from all over the broadcast engineering, post, effects, audio and multimedia spectrum, and, judging from last year’s attendance will likely top 100,000 curious visitors and shoppers. The show will also offer 150 sessions and 11 conferences on numerous tv, radio, new media and satellite subjects.

But scanning the show floor for sensible acquisitions will again take a back seat only to carousing as the most enthusiastically pursued nab activity. And as the above tech commentator acknowledges, many shoppers will be straddling two worlds, continuing to focus on 601 production with an eye on future-friendly equipment to bolster infrastructure for wider bandwidth scenarios and to ease the transition to the world of dtv and hd.

Herewith, a selection of what some manufacturers will be offering overstimulated eyeballs at NAB99.

The booth carpet of the telecine players will likely wear thin this year, with many in the industry anxious to see what progress has been made since last year’s show.

Prominently featured at the Cintel display will be the hotly anticipated and now-available C-Reality. The company will also launch two new products: a mid-line, multi-standard telecine called Rascal and an entry-level, standard-definition telecine called Ursa Electrum.

But at the top end, Cintel will show C-Reality with cvip, the company’s multi-standard digital film scanner with capability for 525/625 standard definition, 2K film scanning and high definition. The company says the system, in beta testing phase until early this year, is now fully available and has been purchased by 525 Studios in Santa Monica.

Direct Scan is the scanning and detection system developed for C Reality which provides the scanning capabilities of Cintel’s crt flying spot technology and utilizes a straight light path, with no mirrors to consume light before or after the film.

The advantages of Direct Scan, according to Cintel, lie in an adaptable crt scan rate which can be matched to a particular transfer format, with no interpolation or down conversion required. The system also offers optical scanning effects, manipulating the scan to allow zooms, rotates and variable aspect ratios within full bandwidth rgb color.

cvip (Color Vector Image Processor) is a six-vector, 14-bit digital color channel which offers individual control of red, green and blue detectors and an array of other capabilities. The system also demonstrates gains in the reliability factor with self-diagnostics, self-alignment systems and remote accessibility into the system via modem, allowing Cintels to keeps maintenance tabs on machines from anywhere in the world.

Philips unveils Specter

Philips Digital Video Systems, which unveiled its Spirit DataCine at NAB 96, will follow up this year with the Specter Virtual DataCine. Specter is part of Philips’ Digital Film Applications lineup and is an integrated system for color correction, manipulation and conversion of 2K files into a number of formats.

The product is said to maximize the efficiency of the Spirit DataCine, providing essentially the same functionality of the Spirit DataCine, but in an ‘offline’ mode, with above functions removed from the scanning process.

The Specter receives data files from the Spirit DataCine, directly or through the company’s Phantom Transfer Engine data transfer buffer, and can deliver 2Kx2K files at up to 30fps. Color correction, by Pandora’s MegaDef system, is in realtime and resolution independent.

Once color corrected, files can also be manipulated in realtime with the Spatial Processor, which can also convert data to the necessary tv broadcast standard, including hdtv, and can deliver high-resolution film data for shooting back to film.

With the increased need to create different versions of one production, the company says the Virtual DataCine saves multiple transfers, meaning product has to be transferred once, with an electronic clone created for working offline and generating new versions as required.

Sony will have its own transfer solutions on display at the show, including the FVS-1000 Multi-Resolution Telecine. While nabsters will have the chance to eyeball the much-anticipated system, it won’t be available for purchase until June 1999. The modular system is designed for transfers at resolutions ranging from 525/625 sdtv to hdtv.

Da Vinci will be showcasing the new 2K color enhancement system. The company will have three 2K systems on show, interfaced to a Cintel C-Reality, Philips Spirit, and Sony FVS-1000. There will also be 2K systems at the Cintel and Philips booths, and a Renaissance 8:8:8 at the Innovation tk booth.

Telecine enhancements

from ITK

u.k.-based Innovation tk will be showcasing its telecine enhancement products including the new high-definition upgrade of ursa. The company will show a prototype of the new upgrade which will include a high-definition digital color channel chassis, new scan chassis and other features to facilitate full 2K rgb high-definition Ursa machines. The product incorporates the high-definition versions of twigi/scan’dal and Y-Front with a new redesigned rts gate and a new redesigned high-definition lens.

Also on the carpet will be itk’s CRT Assembly for high definition, a new rectangle crt package for high-definition upgrade, featuring correct screen shape and a new design for improved light output and high resolution. The Y Front cell box, recently installed at Toronto’s Eyes Post, will also be shown.

SGI packing NT boxes

Silicon Graphics will head into the show with its new nt boxes and the eagerly anticipated hd cards which will fill in some of the hd production and post picture for facilities using sgi hardware.

The company will show an hd i/o card, which the company says leverages the xio bus on SGI Origin servers and Onyx and Octane workstations, supporting high-definition video input and output in either 1080i or 720p formats. The board will provide realtime, uncompressed hd input and output to allow those using sgi hardware with software systems like Discreet Logic fire to post in high definition.

sgi will also show its new StudioCentral 2.0, the company’s solution for the ever pressing demand for digital asset management. StudioCentral 2.0 offers a database independent framework for storing, tracking, managing and securing digital content including video and audio, images and text. The product comes in two versions: a standalone meta file system for storing, retrieving and playing content from an nt workstation, or as a client/server work-group product supporting Windows and Mac clients and sgi servers.

The SGI 320 and SGI 540 visual workstations will be on show at nab, with the 320 currently shipping and the 540 expected to be available in the second quarter of this year.

With the Video Server Toolkit Version 1.1, the company allows broadcasters and post facilities an open system for manipulating media across distances.

The Video Server Toolkit allows users to store, manage and distribute media across one location or across the world and control and view it as video from the same platform. The system supports industry standard video formats, transmission standards and protocols.

sgi will also show mpeg video streaming product WebFORCE MediaBase 3.1, which now includes Real Networks video and audio streams for the Internet.

Discreet focus

on broadcast graphics

Discreet Logic, now officially a division of California-based Autodesk, will show new products as well as the newest versions of the company’s effects, editing, 3D and broadcast graphics systems at nab. The booth will focus on broadcast graphics with frost, flint and edit*, the high-end and high-definition Inferno and Fire products, as well as Flame and Smoke and 2D to 3D integration with nt editing with paint, effect, edit and 3D Studio Max.

The deal for the acquisition of Discreet Logic (now simply Discreet) by Autodesk became official March 16. Through the acquisition, Autodesk merged its former Kinetix business unit, responsible for the popular 3D Studio max modeling and animation software into the new Discreet entity.

At nab, Discreet will showcase a new release – 3D Studio MAX R3, which debuted this month at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose along with Character Studio R2.2, a new release of the character animation plug-in for 3D Studio max.

The new 3D Studio max features significant productivity-enhancing features, the company says, including a customizable work environment, application wide scripting and macro-recording organic modeling capabilities and a completely redesigned renderer.

The new release turned rendering steps like anti-aliasing, sampling, shaders and shadows into plug-ins, which is said to improve speed by allowing artists more flexibility to pick which rendering result is required at any given time. The new release also simplifies the creation of rendering plug-ins with a Software Developers Kit.

Discreet will show the capabilities of frost, flint and edit* as used in a broadcast graphics room application. The new 5.0 version of edit will be debuted at the show, featuring keyframe editor improvements, advanced integration with paint and effect, Quick Time support and added 3D dve option for the Matrox DigiSuite-based system.

On the high end, Discreet will present Inferno Version 3.1 and Fire 3.0, the high-definition-capable effects and editing products. Both feature dtv-friendly capabilities like 24fps time code and edl support, realtime hd output and support for the DVS ProntoVision hd ddr.

The company will also conduct a demonstration of Inferno and Fire version 3.5, supporting the new sgi hd i/o board.

The new version 6.1 of Flame will also appear, including new audio editing capabilities and improved time-warp module and enhanced clip compatibility between Flame and the Smoke editing system.

light version 3.5 will also be previewed, with enhanced lighting realism for 3D graphics and improved integration with Kinetix 3D Studio max.

Houdini 3.0

on show at SES

Toronto’s Side Effects Software will be showcasing Houdini 3.0 for Irix and for nt this year. The latest version of the 3D animation software features tight integration, a procedural approach and realtime animation capabilities, an area the company says represents the most significant enhancement for the product. Houdini 3.0’s high-performance interactivity, which includes a fast interface and prototyping capabilities brings a potential enhancement to animators’ work process, says ses.

Waltham, Mass.-based ice will focus on a new ice’d version of Commotion visual effects software, a major acceleration of that package. The company will also be unveiling new applications.

Graphics products at

Pixel Power

Making its debut at this year’s nab is the new line of graphics products from u.k.-based Pixel Power including Graphite and Graphite Playout which offer a set of graphics creation tools and the ability to play finished clips to air.

Graphite is designed for quick assembly of multilayered material, says the company, and offers painting and rotoscoping of multiple sources of live video, unlimited layers of graphics and text, clip editing and key-frameable effects.

The product is aimed at applications like news and sports broadcasts, which often require quick design-to-air turnaround and instant updating, and supports major newsroom automation protocols for the play-out of last-minute information in realtime layers with a prepared clip. The product has 36 minutes of uncompressed storage as standard, with open-ended expansion available.

Graphite Playout offers the same on-air capabilities for applications involving fewer complex graphics creation requirements.

Pixel Power will also launch Clarity, a multiformat hd graphics system and character generator. Clarity is a complete system combining an nt host and Pixel Power’s hd graphics hardware with the company’s character generator and video paint software. The company says the hardware can output to 720p and 1080i broadcast formats and is the first character generator to offer support for 1080p, the holy grail standard for high definition.

Avid/Tektronix

In a booth sure to top even last year’s monolith, Avid will present its latest lineup for tv and film, graphics effects and animation, broadcast news, multimedia and audio, and will showcase Softimage under the same roof for the first time.

Avid will be featuring Avid Symphony, Softimage|ds, Media Composer, Film Composer, Avid Xpress and Newscutter dv among other Avid and Softimage products and is expected to announce new technology initiatives. Products from the Avid/Tektronix new hybrid company Avstar will be shown in the Tektronix booth.

Tektronix will address the spectrum of digital transition requirements with a full line-up of format independent audio, video and measurement products. Aiming at smaller markets, the company is extending its line of Profile video servers with the Profile Pro Series, lower cost products which feature two video channels, four to 10 hours of internal storage or eaid and up to four audio channels per video.

The company has also announced a high-definition path for Profile supporting hd formats using mpeg. The new HD Profiles will be available in the fall of 1999. At nab, Tektronix will also launch a new networked data library architecture, addressing the requirements for a solution to cost effectively archive video and share-stored material across a network.

The fruits of the Tektronix/Avid alliance will also be a prominent nab feature. The companies recently launched the new joint venture newsroom computer company Avstar Systems, which will support existing customers of Avid and Tektronix news systems and provide a migration path to the new Avstar broadcast news solutions.

Tektronix will hold a number of celebratory events in Vegas to mark the 40th birthday of Grass Valley products. Events will include a ‘birthday party’ every night of the show at 5 p.m. at the Tektronix booth.

Tektronix is drawing on the experiences of Grass Valley product users over the years to mark the milestone: the company is asking customers for anecdotes on early Grass Valley products that may still be in operation or recollections of early experiences with the products. All responses will be entered into a draw for a dvd player, with one player awarded each night of the show. Entries are currently being accepted on the Tektronix Website (www.tektronix.com/vnd).

Quantel showcases Spotrunner

Quantel will be highlighting new products and upgrades across its server, editing graphics and film product lines.

At the show, Quantel will feature its new Spotrunner multichannel commercial insertion system and the latest addition to the company’s server line. Spotrunner is designed to replace cart machines and is touted to be a cost-effective digital turnkey system which provides built-in redundancy, online dvcpro compressed storage for spots, and ‘faster-than-realtime’ loading.

The Spotrunner system consists of two independent video servers, a library server and an on-air cache server, in addition to an integrated routing matrix and a common automation system to control the two interconnected video servers.

For the on-air studio production environment, Quantel will be showing its new Moving Picturebox to provide broadcasters the same capabilities of industry standard dtv still store but with transmission of moving video clips as an added feature. Enhancements to Quantel’s other graphics systems, Paintbox Esprit, Paintbox f.a.t. and Hal, will also be featured.

The company is also showcasing its new Background Load capability for its online editing products.

Also making its North American debut is Quantel’s new end-to-end Integrated News and Sports Production system, Inspiration. Together with distribution system Cachebox and Clipbox, a video server with integrated editing, Quantel is positioning its server product line as addressing the whole spectrum of budget and genre of production, including news and sports, commercial insertion, promo production, transmission and post-production.

Quantel also says it will introduce a new editing system on the film side, which is promised to increase productivity and speed the approvals process.

Three from VDS

Toronto-based Video Design Software will show three new products for Chyron graphics systems. vds’ Live Event Duet Application is designed for Chyron’s Duet system for sports, news and other live-event applications which require speedy systems operations and graphics creation. leda runs on nt and provides an interface combining the keystrokes and speed operations of Chyron’s iNFiNiT! line with the Duet system.

vds will also demonstrate its Distributed Control System Architecture which controls Duet and iNFiNiT! systems simultaneously. The dcsa product was developed to address broadcasters’ need for automated operations and graphics recall by non-technical staff (e.g. on-air talent). The system provides various control and recall interfaces like touch screen and keyboard for on-air control of graphics.

The company’s AirPlot software will also be on show, which, in conjunction with Chyron’s iNFiNiT! line, provides for automatic creation and recall of live graphs using external data, a useful tool for financial, news and sports applications.

Chyron’s Pro-Bel subsidiary will also be one of 20 tv technology companies which will be part of the Pro-MPEG Forum interoperability demonstration. The Pro-MPEG Forum was created by broadcasters and manufacturers to demonstrate the effectiveness of MPEG-2 in the studio environment and to ensure multi-vendor interoperability of equipment.

The demonstration will encompass the entire broadcast production spectrum from acquisition, production and post to distribution. Pro-Bel, which deals in routing, signal processing, automation and master control, is providing components for system integration in the demo. Signal switching for the demo will be controlled by Pro-Bel’s System 3 software, a Freeway router used for sdti routing, the TX 320 for master control switching and Compass Automation for playout.

The exhibit will highlight mpeg in network applications and point-to-point applications in the studio using existing video routing infrastructures.

Some of the other companies involved in Pro-MPEG Forum include Matrox, nds, Philips, Pinnacle, Quantel, Snell & Wilcox, Sony, Tektronix, Thomson Broadcast and Leitch.

DTV solutions at S&W

Snell & Wilcox will be focusing on dtv again, this year with an emphasis on practical transition solutions. The company, which specializes in hd up-and-down conversion products, introduced a range of hd production switchers and routers last year and this year is expanding that family of products with the HD1010.

The HD1010 is a compact unit designed for telecine/post-production and small ob van applications. The product can be used for color correction using its frame stores and optional color corrector as well as for picture rotation using the optional dve.

All of the company’s hd production switchers (which also include HD1012 and HD1024) support 1080i and 720P formats, and new at nab, support for the 1080P/24-frame format.

The company will also launch a new hd digital video effects solution for the hd switchers.

In the areas of picture restoration and evaluation, Snell & Wilcox will also introduce the Picture Fixer system for film and video restoration, which offers realtime detection of impairments and estimation of quality levels, realtime restoration with user-controlled levels of correction and interactive restoration tools for badly damaged materials.

In the mpeg arena, the company will incorporate a new technology into its Video Analyzer product which will allow users to draw a numerical assessment from an mpeg signal. Picture Appraisal Rating allows mpeg artifacts to be measured while ignoring any original picture deficiencies.

Other new products will be shown for signal conditioning and aspect ratio conversion as well as upgrades to existing hd conversion products.

DSC Test Target launch

Toronto’s DSC Labs will launch its new 72dB 13-Step Greyscale test target at NAB 99. The Test Target is currently being used in a beta version but will be officially launched at the show as a means of precisely evaluating and adjusting a camera’s greyscale and color reproduction through its full dynamic range.

The product was created to optimize the performance of newer cameras, which with a dynamic range of 1000:1 or more can see and reproduce more detail than ever and require a 72dB (12 f-stop) test transparency.

The new target is an 8×10-inch transparency and can be used with 4:3 and 16:9 cameras. The continuous tone greyscale is logarithmic, with transmission values from 100% to 0.024% (0 to 3.612 density).

dsc says the product was initially requested by a camera manufacturer to evaluate the performance of its new camera line.