More 21st century propulsion

To work on building its corner in the interactive tv market, Massachusetts-based Digital Equipment Corp. has hooked up with Toronto-based interactive multimedia tech developer Digital Renaissance in a formal partnership to develop software tools to enable interactive programming to the home using dec computers.

The Toronto company has had a long business relationship with megacorp dec as a platform for its applications. Now Digital Renaissance’s application development for interactive broadband services to the home will entail developing tool kits, server software and interface products for dec’s media server hardware (currently the server of choice for Ameritech’s interactive tv project).

Digital Renaissance remains autonomous and will retain ownership of the core tools developed.

Digital Renaissance’s business development director Tim Tevlin says the company has already begun early stages of development and that things will roll into full gear this month on the dec project, which will ‘more than likely lead to our becoming a larger entity.’

dec also recently announced the AlphaStudio Broadcast System. It’s touted as a digital-based solution based on 64-bit Alpha technology which will send broadcast video’s standard analog technology reeling fully digital into the next century, with the usual allure of high-capacity storage and full-motion digital imaging in its automation, playback, recording, editing and library functions.

The system incorporates dec’s AlphaServer and Unix software, dec’s storage subsystem velocitor, and an audio/video interface from Leitch Technology. Specifically configured to the user’s needs, the flex system sells for us$150,000 up.

Powering up

Power DirecTv has added Toshiba America Consumer Products, Uniden America and Hughes Network Systems to its list of licensed Digital Satellite Systems suppliers, previously consisting of Thomson Consumer Electronics and Sony. dss is a future-proofed system, comprised of a pizza-sized dish, set-top box and a remote, able to support interactive and info services, hdtv and 16 x 9 ratio images.

Spider spins his Web atop T.O.

Webster, a 3D animated spider who explores different environments (courtesy of integrated stock footage) in the wired world via motorcycle, is in the EcoDeck at the top of the CN Tower.

Webbie shreds the net on his hog in an interactive guide to cyberspace and the environment sponsored by Environment Canada.

The focus of the two-kiosk exhibit, produced by Ron Rimer of Microforum, is to give a presentation on the government’s environmental online service glimr (Great Lakes Information Management Resource) and provide a fun overview of the Internet – past, present and future. It’s also heading to schools via cd-rom.

Budgeted at around $40,000, the project took about eight people to produce over a period of three months. Robert Faucher handled software design/programming concerns, animation was by Collon Brown and Cory Mogk, with Steven Mast directing. Anthony Del Rizzo was responsible for graphics, Claudio Baiocchi executive produced.

Web-in-a-box

Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop have been added to the Silicon Graphics Webforce authoring workstations bundle (Indy/ Indigo2). Adobe Systems is also working on bringing Acrobat tech over to the sgi boxes.

Tower of Babel scaled

New Hampshire-based The Synclavier Company found a link – the S/Link 2.0 – to help audio producers and multimedia authoring types make some sense out of the myriad instances of incompatibility met in digital-audio-format land.

The file transfer/conversion utility for the Macintosh uses a Finder-based interface to load supported scsi drives as Mac volumes. In addition to a bunch of desktop formats, translation is supported for Digidesign systems, OMF Interchange, PostPro, and of course, Synclavier. us$249.

This summer the company is releasing EditView 4.0, touted as the first cross-platform digital audio editing application, and a cross-platform version of Synclavier’s AutoConform (video edl conversion for audio edit) previews at nab.

Technicolor into DVD

After successfully getting into the optical media manufacturing biz last year, California-based Technicolor recently joined the digital video disk manufacturing fray. The company’s multiformat supplier strategy will apply in this new endeavor, with plans to accommodate various dvd formats, such as Toshiba-Warner and Sony-Philips.

Curt Rawley never sleeps

Through mergers that saw Massachusetts-based Avid Technology ceo Curt Rawley issue shares valued at us$45 million, the digitally integrated company acquired two privately owned image processing suppliers, London Eng.-based The Parallax Software Group and Wisconsin-based Elastic Reality. Parallax develops paint and compositing technology and Elastic Reality develops special effects software.

And in order to supply one more linear link from the shoot to post, Avid just inked an exclusive three-year licence deal with Interfilm to incorporate its script integration technology (initially patented by l.a.’s Ediflex Systems) into Avid’s editing line – the Film Composer and Media Composer systems.

Avid is now shipping its Media Composer line on the Power Mac 8100/100 platform, and began delivery of the Media Composer 900, the latest addition to the line (starting at us$39,900). Avid users can opt for a board upgrade to run the Power Mac version, or avail themselves of a full system upgrade from Avid.

Revenge of the nerds: the next generation?

I suppose it was inevitable, but it just got that much harder to dodge posterity. The endless list of things which people deem needy of interactivity has expanded with the addition of interactive multimedia cd-rom yearbooks, an offering of Nashville-hq’ed International Video Yearbooks (franchised nationally as well as in Canada, and curiously, Guam). It’s sold as a package with a print and video yearbook, in the us$50-$60 range.

One of the ‘exciting features’ highlighted is the ability ‘to playback an entire principal’s speech to the student bodyÉ’