As NAB2002 will prove, maturing high-end markets and the proliferation of variable digital media continue to push software producers towards new integrated solutions at all levels.

‘We’re definitely looking at diversification,’ says Maurice Patel, product-marketing manager for effects and infrastructure at Discreet in Montreal. ‘One of the things we did was acquire an area of technology [that] produces solutions for the post-production industry by allowing them to publish media in multiple formats – much more desktop, Internet-friendly formats.’

Discreet, a division of Autodesk, recently acquired Media 100’s cleaner central streaming and editing software product line. A scaleable client server-based automated transcoding system, cleaner central is aimed at the Web and interactive markets. With this application, for example, an edited TV spot can be reformatted in QuickTime for Web preview for client approval.

‘One of the trends we see happening and we predict for the next decade is the proliferation of media and increasing complexity in the digital content creation process. So being able to manage that efficiently is just as important now as having good creative tools,’ says Patel.

Earlier in 2002, Discreet introduced combustion 2.0 (US$4,995), a visual F/X and motion graphics application for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. Discreet is also making headway in the consumer market through gmax.

‘[gmax] is a free software that anyone can download to customize their game,’ says Patel. ‘For example, if you’re playing Microsoft Flight Simulator you can build your own plane [and other characters and objects] in a very user-friendly way. We have been collaborating with the big game-authoring companies to use our software to provide that capability within their games.’

Discreet continues to be innovative at the high end as well, says Patel.

New product releases fire 5.0 and smoke 5.0 feature operator enhancements such as vertical timeline editing, customized timeline information display, media consolidation, partial rendering, support for Asian text, import/export of 3ds max camera data, and template functions in the DVE module. Discreet is also releasing flint 7.6, flame 7.6 and inferno 4.6 (in the US$125,000 to US$750,000 range).

‘A couple of things are happening,’ says Patel. ‘At the high end there’s a lot more digital cinema, [which implies] very high-resolution images [2K/4K] and high-performance systems to provide the interactivity for realtime manipulation. This is one area where products like fire and inferno are very strong. That’s a growth industry for us.’

Discreet says its systems are used on at least 90% of current F/X movies, including The Lord of the Rings, A.I., Pearl Harbor and Harry Potter.

Houdini 5.0/Houdini Select

Toronto’s Side Effects Software will be releasing compatible dual-entry applications Houdini 5.0 (first licence US$17,000) and Houdini Select (US$1999).

The lower price point will trigger wider usage, but Select is also designed for Houdini’s existing higher-end clients. The new version 5.0 Houdini, a full 3D animation, F/X, rendering and 2D compositing package, puts up a new interface (‘interactive handles’) which allows the artist to set aside the procedural component, says Side Effects president Kim Davidson. ‘We have the ability to work more in the view port (in the camera zone) right on the object, as opposed to controls around the edges. This allows animators and artists to keep right in the zone on the interactive models.’

The integrated (2D/3D) Houdini 5.0 compositor has been completely rewritten. Davidson says new interfaces and tutorials make it easier than ever to get onto Houdini, noting that Select is totally compatible with the system.

‘It’s good for our current markets, where we are dealing with Digital Domain, Sony Pictures ImageWorks, Electronic Arts, and it makes sense for them to have a few Houdinis, where directors can both use sophisticated setups (including proprietary installations) and deploy the Select.’

While there are as many as 20 or more established packages on the market, plus a myriad of plug-ins and ancillary products, Houdini’s primary 3D competitors include Softimage, Alias|Wavefront Maya, NewTek LightWave and Discreet’s 3ds max. Recent Houdini-created 3D shots can be seen in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings (by New Zealand’s Weta Digital), How The Grinch Stole Christmas (350 shots created and/or touched) and The Time Machine (by Hollywood’s Digital Domain).

If Side Effects’ home market in Toronto has been sluggish for film, Davidson says sales in the U.K. have grown: ‘The last six months have not been so tough. In fact, they have been pretty good because of copros that pick up on U.K. dollars. A lot more features are going to the U.K.’

London’s CFC (Computer Film Company) recently used Houdini on two new wide releases, Blade 2 and Resident Evil. Davidson says F/X can also be used to enhance lower and mid-range budget movies. ‘Put it right in the script. It’s very cost-effective,’ he says.

Diversification at Avid

Avid, based in Tewksbury, MA, continues to deepen its own diversification strategy, limiting exposure in maturing and near recessionary markets. Avid’s diverse divisions range from audio post with DigiDesign to 3D graphics with Softimage. Avid’s own editing brands include the high-end Media Composer and Symphony lines to software-only products like the entry level Xpress DV, based on Media Composer code.

Avid is introducing the NLE Xpress DV 3.0 at NAB2002 at a price of US$1,695. The standalone compact unit incorporates ‘all of the goodness of the Avid editing model that can be run on a [PC or Macintosh] laptop computer,’ says Joe Bentivegna, VP video development and operations. The new Xpress DV 3.0 has more than 100 realtime effects, ‘so the moment you drop them into the timeline, they can be previewed right then and there.’

Also new from Avid at NAB2002 will be a beta preview version of 6.0 software for Avid|DS and resolution-independent Avid|DS-HD, featuring a redesigned editorial interface.

Bentivegna says Avid’s engineering cycles are in close step with industry production cycles, whether it’s film season, network TV or games development.

‘Avid has gravitated its business so we can deliver the latest technology to our customers so they can have it at the beginning of their cycle. Nobody wants to change over in the middle of a cycle or a production.’

Bentivegna sees NAB2002 as a prime test for market recovery after a very difficult year. One of Avid’s newest products is LANshare (local area network), a competitively priced Ethernet-based shared storage solution. LANshare offers many of the features of the more expensive Unity MediaNet model and can network up to 10 DV editors (Xpress DV, NewsCutter DV) at DV resolution or at offline resolutions (such as 10:1 compression).

Tactile Lightworks 1.0

Lightworks will introduce its Lightworks 1.0 nonlinear editing system at NAB2002. Audio editing manufacturer Fairlight recently acquired majority control of Lightworks from OLE Canada. Tektronix remains a minority shareholder.

Based in Montreal, new Lightworks president Bruce Sinclair says Lightworks Touch 1.0 focuses on the central editing experience as opposed to production tools. Its editorial interface aims to reproduce the classical cinema vocabulary with the realtime effects (wipes, trims, dissolves, etc.) of flatbed editing. ‘That’s where Touch comes in. People tell us they feel like they ‘touch’ the material, so it’s much more organic.’

Lightworks’ base price, with a variety of payment options, including a pay-per-project plan, is US$45,000 to US$50,000, with a 25% discount on trade-in, and one year of 24/7 tech support. Lightworks has 19 beta sites, including commercial post house Flashcut in Toronto.

The Lightworks 1.0 package is more open, less proprietary than preceding generations and encompasses monitors, keyboard-mouse and edit console on the desktop, on Windows 2000 OS. The system uses open standards for hook-ups to shared networks.

‘You can buy off-the-shelf products that work with Windows 2000. Under the hood you have the Lightworks board, which goes very low [level] in video and is what really allows for the tactile control of the materials,’ says Sinclair, a former marketing VP with Softimage. ‘Because it’s open we now have the ability to do far more effects than the classic products did. It’s got the networking capabilities and the variable compression. So the main change is really one of speed and far better compression and image quality.’

Matrox NBS solutions

Matrox Video Products Group and its integrator partners will showcase the all-digital Networked Broadcast Studio solutions at NAB2002. For this year’s show, Matrox’s booth is configured to demonstrate a digital newsroom environment compatible with Avid iNEWS. Matrox’s NBS technology is equally applicable to post-production facilities, says Janet Matey, marketing communications director with Matrox in Montreal.

Matey says NBS allows broadcast clients to integrate Matrox hardware components (acquisition and playout servers, content creation and realtime editing systems) on a digital storage area network. ‘It basically pulls all of the pieces together to create a complete digital newsroom or digital post-production environment.’

Matrox recently shipped DigiSuite MAX 7.0, a complete content creation platform for broadcast and post. ‘It has all the I/Os that professional facilities use, realtime DV input-output and realtime MPEG-2 for DVD authoring and accelerated batch Web-encoding, realtime 3D effects, serial digital components, YC composite and balanced and unbalanced audio,’ adds Matey.

There are three Matrox DigiSuite MAX lines: LX MAX (DV and MPEG-2), LE MAX (Digital Betacam), based on motion JPEG, which supports up to 15 megabytes/sec of throughput, and DTV MAX for the DV50 production format. ‘MAX 7.0 is basically the latest software release which supports all three of these platforms,’ says Matey.

Matrox’s diversified product lines have helped the company avoid the worst of the economic downturn. ‘We’ve had a very successful RT product for realtime Final Cut Pro on the Mac platform, and our RT 2500 card is doing well in the [corporate videography] range.’

Matrox’s realtime tape-based edit products are also used to author CDs and DVDs and create Web video streams. ‘Not only do we have a range of prices but there is also a range of output options,’ says Matey. ‘The price of DVD burners has come down very low in the last year, so more and more people want to get into DVD production.’

Matrox will have about 50 staffers at NAB2002, ‘our most important North American show,’ says Matey.

-www.discreet.com

-www.sidefx.com

-www.avid.com

-www.lwks.com

-www.matrox.com