Ever wonder why the standard commercial media format is still the 3/4-inch tape? You’re not alone. Effectively, 3/4-inch technology has been defunct since the mid-eighties.

The last 3/4-inch deck made by Sony Canada was shipped two years ago, and the technology only held on that long due to industry demand.

Calvin Judges, marketing manager for broadcast systems at Sony Canada, confirms ‘[the 3/4] has gone through a couple of discontinuation announcements. There was all sorts of crying and we said, ‘We’ll extend it this amount.’ ‘

There will be no more extensions for the 3/4-inch deck, and Sony Canada’s policy to provide at least ‘seven years of parts and service support for all discontinued products’ is also drawing to a close. Judges points out that ‘as the parts become harder and harder to purchase, the pricing for that [obsolete] level of technology goes up.’

Although Sony continues to make the tapes, ‘soon it will become an impossibility,’ adds Judges. And then, like it or not, the industry will have to change. ‘Now what do you do?’ he asks.

Several new technologies will contend to become the standard or default for the industry. DVD, Beta SP and 1/4-inch DV are all possibilities, while some believe the Internet is the certain route of the future.

Agencies, often blamed by commercial production companies for their reluctance to change and purchase new equipment, are at different stages of the transition process.

At Leo Burnett, Toronto, Richard Ambrose, audiovisual technician, suggests 3/4-inch is still the number one choice because ‘it’s just easier to copy them.’ He also points out that ‘we have only one DVD writer, and that’s in the interactive department.’

Leo Burnett has more than 10 3/4-inch decks, and Ambrose has just purchased another. Despite this apparent reluctance to make the switch, Ambrose knows it’s ‘definitely’ coming. ‘I’ll eventually get a DVD writer [in my department],’ he says.

Many agencies say they will ‘wait to see what everybody else does,’ while others are moving head-first toward new systems.

Prompted by a push from the Chicago office, Palmer Jarvis DDB, Toronto ‘has stocked all the rooms’ with DVD players.

‘We’ve had the death bells going for about a year already,’ says Andrew Schulze, manager broadcast production at PJDDB, Toronto. We can’t buy any new 3/4s, and repairing them is becoming tougher and tougher.’ Schulze also acknowledges the Web is ‘a big help in the production process.’

At Young & Rubicam, Vancouver, Suzanne Carrier, production co-ordinator, is now requesting reels on VHS (1/2-inch) if production companies don’t have a website or CD-ROM.

‘I request VHS simply because it takes up less space,’ says Carrier. ‘We don’t have a DVD. We can’t justify buying a DVD machine because nothing is coming in on DVD.’

Carrier would like to see the industry set a date to do away with the 3/4-inch deck. ‘I hate the things. You send them for repairs and the quote is $500 to get them fixed.’

According to Brian Young, Sony Canada’s marketing manager for production and post market, there is already ‘a shortage of option boards [and parts] are very difficult to find.’

This forced end to what has been a great technology for Sony (that’s far outlasted its expected life span), has production companies, albeit anonymously, complaining that ‘our clients, the agencies, don’t want to buy new gear.’ Says one executive producer: ‘Quite frankly, until they get new gear it doesn’t matter. We have to give them material on what they can watch.’

To meet the continuing demand for reels on 3/4-inch, production companies are scrambling to get the necessary equipment. ‘We’re just buying them from each other now,’ one executive producer laments.

‘I always laugh when they ask for 3/4 because it’s such a big, clunky thing,’ says Chris Bowell, managing director at Circle Productions in Vancouver. ‘For me, in that format, VHS is still king. When I look at VHS and I look at 3/4, VHS is better.’

Bowell, who is excited about Web technology, expects a new generation of agency producers to be ‘more in tune’ with other systems like DVD.

At The Partners’ Film Company in Toronto, Coleman Baslaw, film and video manager, confirms Partners’ group of companies has ‘over 100 [3/4-inch] machines in our house.’ Partners’ even rents the machines out to a market increasingly desperate to get its hands on the old technology.

‘This is late 1950s, early 1960s technology,’ Baslaw says. ‘Sony made it too well. It’s a very rugged format. Yes, it’s grainy and cumbersome, but I liken it to a dump truck – it’s efficient, slow, but dependable.’

Baslaw believes agencies’ reasons for clinging to 3/4-inch are sound. ‘They have copious amounts of library and historical material in their archives that are on 3/4. And it ain’t broke so why fix it? Why do we need to spend thousands of dollars on a machine that won’t play back a 3/4?’

Baslaw suspects the 3/4-inch deck will only truly die when parts are only available through ‘pirate companies,’ which over-charge for the hard-to-find items. ‘That’s what’s going to kill the format. When people say, ‘We can’t justify the expense.’ ‘

At Toronto’s adbeast, William Cranor and his team have been developing an online system designed to ease agencies into forgetting their 3/4-inch machines (see p. S-4).

‘The biggest indictment of the 3/4, which still falls in other formats like DVD, is that it is a single, physical source that still needs a delivery mechanism that involves a person,’ says Cranor. ‘The way of the future is Internet-served technologies, and particularly – down the road – wireless Internet technologies.’

Adbeast is also working to help agencies make the transition from their 3/4-inch archives to an online archival system that provides efficient search and reel compilation functions.

‘We make it easy for them to begin archiving much more painlessly than they would have believed possible,’ Cranor says. ‘I’d say in 18 months if someone asks you for a 3/4-inch, you’ll look at them like they were asking for a two-inch.’ *