Indie Telco Local Content Workshop Information
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Pre-Holiday Expo
by Ken Pyle ([email protected]), Viodi, LLC
December 15, 2004 Issue
Independent producers and entities without Hollywood-size budgets are the target of the DV West Expo trade show and conference. The focus of the show is the technology and techniques that allows Prosumer DV technology to be used to create professional-quality video productions. Although it is significantly smaller than the grand-daddy of video shows, NAB, it may be more relevant for independent telcos.
The show provides a good mix of sessions, led by speakers who are involved in some with the production of video content, tutorials and exhibition hall displays. Training is a big theme of many of the larger vendors, such as Sony, Adobe, Ulead and Apple. Adobe went as far as eliminating their booth and, instead, replaced it with a trade-show classroom, where non-Adobe experts provided tutorials on Adobe’s various products. I sat through one of the Adobe Premiere Pro classes and picked up some good, time-saving tips (if I can remember what they were).
Training is a major emphasis in this industry. Video and audio post-production software can be rather complex because it uses completely different metaphors from the normal office productivity suites. As a testimony to the challenges of staying current with the many available tools, there are companies, such as Total Training and Lynda.Com, which are dedicated to providing CD and DVD training resources.
The sessions dealt with all aspects of video production and there were tracks covering the capture and editing of audio and video, DVDs, lighting, high definition and business issues. I sat in on a few of the business tracks and was particularly impressed with Rich Harrington of Rhed Pixel. This founder of a small video production company gave some great tips regarding project management in the context of video production, although his advice was universal enough for any sort of business or project. He stressed that defining the scope, budget and schedule of a project is critical to a producer’s success. How well a producer performs against these three criteria defines the quality of the work.
On the topic of quality, high definition seemed to be one topic that appeared to be much more matter-of-fact this year, as compared to last year’s show. The new standard HDV is getting some significant traction as it seems to be supported by most of the non-linear editors and the price on a complete editing system seems to be significantly less than last year. More importantly, capturing HDV has just gotten cheaper. One vendor had a show special of $3,495 for Sony’s new, 3 CCD, HVR-Z1U.
DV411, a Los Angeles system integrator, showed a complete HDV editing system including the Sony HVR-Z1U camera for less than $8,000. Last year, HD editing systems, without any sort of camera, started at around $20,000, so this is a major shift. Granted, we are probably still in the early adoption stage of HD by the creative community, but with these price points the cost hurdles for producing in HD are starting to disappear.
There were a number of neat little gadgets at the show; way too many for this article. Here are a few that caught my eye. The rest not mentioned here will probably be included in the next local content workshop.
- The “Hi Pod” – no, I did not say eyePod (hey, maybe that should be the name of Apple’s portable video playback device). The Hi-Pod is a $3,000 boom with integrated LCD that allows one to, “Get above the competition.” It extends up to 15 feet and is well suited for sporting or similar applications where the camera needs to rise above a crowd.
- Focus Enhancements, Shining Disk and nNovia showed “direct to disk” recording technology. In a nutshell, these companies have figured out techniques to record the output from a miniDV camera directly onto a compact, belt-clip or camera-mounted hard-drive. This produces a great time-savings in post-production, eliminates drops and makes a more reliable capture process. The Focus Enhancements and Shining Disk models even pre-capture video, meaning it is possible to go back a few seconds in time and capture a shot that you may have missed.
- AcoustiLock showed a rack-mount cabinet that is temperature and noise controlled. This product seems like it could have some application in the telco-world.
Even for people who have been in the video production industry for decades, it can be difficult to keep up with the major shifts caused by the dramatic improvements in the technology value equation. These shifts are allowing video to be produced at lower costs and by less skilled people. The technology effectively eliminates the need for specialists, on the lower end productions (e.g. internal corporate videos). What is happening in the video industry is akin to what happened when software presentation tools (e.g. PowerPoint) replaced overhead transparencies and slides, eliminating the need for specialists to create those final presentations.
This shift presents an opportunity for independent telcos. In one sense, an independent telco is playing catch-up as they enter a completely new area of business. On the other hand, the ever-improving technology is completely changing the industry forcing seasoned video veterans to continually train and study to keep up with changes. In the end, training, preparation and good program management skills, things which independent telcos already excel, are going to be what differentiate the successful video producers from the ones who are left behind by tomorrow’s technological advances.
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