The advent of high-definition television and new digital filmmaking practices is affecting not only producers and post houses, but will have a significant impact on Canada’s film conversion, transfer and duplication shops, as well.

As new technologies are being developed and perfected, updated equipment could mean major expenditures for these companies. Some conversion and dubbing houses report that they have already taken steps to ready their shops, while others are taking a more relaxed watch-and-learn attitude, saying they will invest in the equipment when the cost comes down and the need is greater. All agree on one thing though: to stay competitive, these duplication houses will have to succumb to the high-def revolution eventually.

Peter Sara, president and gm of Video Publishing Group in Vancouver, says as time passes and high-def technologies become more advanced, conversion and duplication houses, along with virtually every other type of company that deals with the production industry, will have to become hd compliant.

‘I think what you are going to see are companies like ours providing more and more high-definition services as equipment becomes more affordable, shifting away from film,’ says Sara. ‘[With hd] you don’t have to buy film stock, you don’t have to develop it, and most importantly, you don’t have to scan it on a scanner. A lot of film services will be eliminated – they’ll go the way of the dodo bird.’

Many companies, therefore, are upgrading their equipment to suit the needs of the new digital age.

Bob Scarabelli, president and ceo of Rainmaker Entertainment Group in Vancouver, reports his company has been a totally digital facility since 1990. He sees the move to hd as an extension of his outfit’s growth into the digital arena. He adds that with the growth comes a definite need for new gear to service the high-def jobs.

‘To produce high-def images in the same realtime and interactive method we do with standard definition, it will require the addition of new software and hardware solutions,’ says Scarabelli. ‘We have already spent close to $2 million in preparing for high-definition film transfers and have budgeted another $4 million over the next couple of years to be allocated as the market demands.’

According to Scarabelli, Rainmaker has already purchased a Cintel C-Reality for its high-def film transfers and a da Vinci 2K color corrector. It has also invested in monitoring, vtrs and disc recorders.

‘We’re also looking into nonlinear, high-def online devices and upgrading some of our digital effects tools to be more high-def compatible,’ he says.

And Scarabelli reports that this is but phase one of Rainmaker’s high-definition plan.

Padam Harinder, president of National Video Lab in Brampton, Ont., says the advent of hdtv and digital filmmaking ‘has changed everything.’ His company has already invested approximately $400,000 in upgrades, and isn’t done its spending yet. He is an advocate of staying ahead in the transfer and film duplication business as the new technologies present themselves.

‘That is the only way you can be different than everybody else,’ Harinder says. ‘You have to have something totally different than what everybody else has by just getting into the newer technology.’

He remains confident, however, that despite the changing times business will remain strong.

‘It’s a new era,’ says Harinder. ‘Nobody is using analog anymore. Now the customers are different, the budgets are different, and there is a lot more to the business than before, but you still end up making money.’

Toronto’s Magnetic North is a full-service post house which specializes in virtually every kind of post job, including film transfer, on- and offline editing, audio mixing, music production, etc.

‘There’s not much we don’t do here,’ says Mag North’s marketing and sales manager Russ Robertson.

Robertson says initially hd should not pose too much of a problem for the company.

‘If people start going to high-definition tape, in the early run it won’t affect us too much,’ Robertson says. ‘If people are going from film to end up to tape, and want to end up with a high-definition master, what will end up happening is they will transfer from ntsc and we will do everything like normal, in a normal setting. Then, in the end, they will take the film back and transfer on high-def, with the key codes, from film to high-definition video and do a final film transfer at that time.’

Robertson concedes that steps will be taken to make Magnetic North fully hd compliant, but currently the company is watching and waiting to see what impact hd will have on the industry before it signs any cheques.

‘We are just holding off a while to see what everyone else is doing,’ Robertson admits. ‘We think that is probably the wisest thing right now. We are waiting to see what the Americans are doing and we are also waiting to see exactly what the crtc wants to do in terms of our broadcasters.’

Discussions have taken place within the large post shop as to how much will have to be invested in hd technology. Robertson reports that numbers of upwards of $3 million to make the initial upgrades have been discussed, and that Magnetic North is currently window shopping and comparing the advantages of different models of hd transfer and editing machinery. In the meantime, before purchases are made, he says business at Magnetic North remains strong and consistent, despite everyone around them screaming high-def.

‘We haven’t lost any business because of high-definition,’ Robertson reports. ‘A lot of Americans are coming up here and looking for it, but they are doing most of their high-definition finishes in Los Angeles anyway, so it’s not really affecting us too much.’

Video Publishing’s Sara says his company will also be purchasing new equipment to handle hd, but is waiting until the technology is affordable.

‘To stay in this business one is going to have to invest big time into hdtv,’ says Sara. ‘We’ll buy the right equipment at the right time, but yes, we have to invest. The key is to know what to buy and when.’

Having researched the topic extensively and having even penned an article on hdtv for Canadian industry mag Reel West, Sara suspects that in order to do a proper job when preparing a system to be hd ready, a company will have to invest ‘$1 million just to get started and $3 million just to do a good job.’

Sara is extremely excited by the prospects that new hd technologies will bring to the film transfer, conversion and duplication business, and to the industry as a whole.

‘There has been only one event in the history of television that has been as significant and that was the introduction of color in the ’60s,’ says Sara. ‘There have been many, many great improvements between that time and now, but nothing has been as important as high-definition.’