Published in Point of View
magazine
Upscale Video - Multivision
~~~
| “You don’t
just wait for trends to come along - you see if
you can invent some along the way.” |
|
“We didn’t set out to build the
‘first Component Digital D 1 editing suite’
in New England,” says Jay Heard, co founder of Boston’s
Multivision, “that was not our intent.” But
if not by design then by chance that is just what has happened.
Come December Multivision will plump up the cushions on
the new producer’s chairs, tweek the digital output
BVWD75 Betacam SP editing machine, switch on the Sony DVR2100
D 1 mastering machine, the Serial Component Digital video
switcher DVS8000C with DME5000 effects unit and Yamaha’s
full automation all digital DMC1000 mixing board, adjust
the lights, and welcome their first component digital video
business. Heard’s partner and co founder, Don O’Sullivan,
freely admits that they’re “going out on a limb”
with this new editing suite, but sticking their necks out
is the way Multivision has successfully conducted business,
and prospered, for the past 21 years so gambling is not
new for them.
The
decision to enter the component digital video domain was
not an easy one. Says O’Sullivan, we think this is
the way of the future, but you never can be sure.”
Adds Heard, “as we see it you can go one of two ways.
You can go towards the lower end of the scale the pc desktop
environment helping out those folks who want to do more
of the work themselves, or you can go the other way and
look for the high end business. We’ve always been
committed to the latter.”
The way Design Director Frank Verni, tells
it the road to the component digital choice started about
two years ago when Multivision decided to enhance its graphic
suite. “We saw a need to go more towards building
for layered-type animation. It didn’t seem good enough
to do just single pass animation. We wanted to start combining
different forms of animation.” So with that in mind
they added more sophisticated equipment to their Master
Paint Suite including a second Aurora 280 Paint System,
an ADO, an Abekas A 62, a Chyron Scribe Infinit! and two
Betacam SP tape machines, all of which are operated by the
paint artists themselves thus eliminating the need for an
editor during the process of building graphics and/or animation.
O’Sullivan believes this arrangement “has substantially
cut down on possible mis-communication between artist and
editor when building graphics.” Now, two years later
the need for even more complex graphics and animation layering
is becoming evident, thus the decision to move into the
component digital video domain, in a big way.
| “People don’t
want to hear 'you can’t change this, or
it’s going to cost you.' ” |
|
Jack Efromson, Multivision’s Chief
Engineer and effects specialist, is responsible for the
design and creation of the new D 1 editing suite. He is
eloquent on the subject of component digital video: “this
format is not subject to the same limitations as analog
digital formats things like audio and video tape noise,
distortion, generation loss. And although composite digital
formats have been available for the past year or so, they
are subject to crawling key edges, ringing, echos, smearing
and loss of resolution. Component digital formats are not.”
The advantages of this new video format are numerous, as
Efromson illustrates: “It is now possible for people
to go from Betacam camera original footage to a D 1 master
with no degradation whatsoever.” More than that, there
is still no degradation when either the finished program,
or internal footage, is “dubbed” down. Component
digital dubs are not even called dubs, but “clones”
because they are exact replicas of the original, with no
loss of picture quality. You can clone endlessly and your
100th clone will be the same as your first. “A composite
digital signal, such as in the D 2 or D 3 formats,ö
elaborates OÆSullivan, ôis an approximation
of the full information so you’re not even starting
with the full picture, and then you’re copying, copying,
and copying. With each copy
you get further and further away from the true picture.
In the component format you don’t have that problem.”
| “...has substantially
cut down on possible mis-communication between
artist and editor when building graphics...” |
|
The component digital format is clearly ideal
for graphics layering and animation. Verni is enthusiastic
about the format “because,” he says, “each
layer is preserved. This gives you true flexibility in making
changes in a complex build.” Such an ability is perfect
for Multivision whose philosophy has long been one of flexibility
and ease of change. O’Sullivan adds: everything we
do is done with an eye to giving you the ability to change
your mind. People don’t want to hear “you can’t
change this, or it’s going to cost you $20,000 more
to change that.” Component digital video allows them
to do just that at very little extra cost, and in a very
short time frame.”
Whether the work elements of a project be
comprised mostly of graphics, original camera footage, or
even old archival film footage, it will be preserved exactly
as it arrives in the D 1 suite, and will remain so throughout
the whole editing (and cloning) process. Working with film
footage, for instance, becomes much more efficient and cost
effective because it is no longer necessary to color correct
all 20 hours or so of original footage before editing onto
a master. With D 1 it’s possible to color correct
only the finished master thus saving an inordinate amount
of time and money. The computer will save all the information
and recall not only the exact settings of the color correction,
but what machine the tape was in when corrected. Until now
it’s been necessary to correct all footage because
you couldn’t be sure what was going to be cut together
for the finished product. That process is eliminated with
D 1. Also, the same shot can be laid down many times without
degradation. This clearly enables change and improvement
to a finished program for any number of reasons - the client
may not like this shot, or that graphic, or this cut, or
that element. Using D-1 it’s no longer the nightmare
it’s always been to make changes at the last minute.
It has become possible to re enter a graphic build or animation
and change one or two of the elements as needed without
destroying the whole build.
| “...their creative
horizons have become even wider...” |
|
For Verni and his staff of designers, the
opportunity to work in the component digital domain is as
close to thrilling as you get, and their creative horizons
have become ever wider. Says Verni, “not only can
we now save all the layers, but every successive generation
is the same as the first. The new D 1 editing suite will
pick up where our Master Paint Suite leaves off.”
Until now Verni and his colleagues have been limited to
50 seconds of animation, which is all the Abekas A 62 is
designed to hold. The D 1 suite offers them infinite flexibility
because of the ability to lay off everything they create
onto digital tape and preserve each image in the same format.
These images can be used and re used at will without fear
of degradation. Not only that, adds Verni, but “the
digital tape can handle bandwidth much better and is in
the component format so you’re never going to get
the chroma crawl on the edges of characters that you always
get with analog NTSC or even composite digital video.”
The possibilities for layering and animation are literally
infinite.
The advantages of component digital video are not restricted
to the creative arena but are also significant in engineering.
Says O’Sullivan, “in a serial digital environment
a lot of problems simply no longer exist. Timing is a good
example. In the analog component parallel environment you
have to get the three signals timed precisely, and not only
once but each time they pass through any of a number of
junctures, so your chance for signal error is great. In
the serial digital component environment that’s eliminated
because you æ re working with a single data stream.”
| “We’ve always
tried to experiment with ways to accomplish a
task.” |
|
While it sounds as if all Multivision’s
excitement is focused exclusively on the new editing suite
there remains a firm belief in the worth of their “normal”
suites, all of which have been upgraded with the new CMX
Omni 1000 Edit Controller. Through the use of “Windows”
and a much more powerful edit decision list memory, the
Omni is able to control not just the video switcher and
audio mixer cross points, but The Chyron Infinit character
generator, the TBC remotes and color correctors, the ADO,
the Abekas, and all other effects devices as well. All the
complex settings of everything that goes into an edit such
as TBC settings, text page and font, mix levels, EQ’s,
and ADO moves, are recalled by the Omni thus making changes
far easier than was previously possible. “What a producer
might want to do now,” says Verni, “is create
some complex elements in D-1, and do the rest of the program
in one of the other suites.” This adds yet another
dimension of flexibility to Multivision’s already
producer friendly environment. Combinin equipment, talent,
technology and creativity is a key factor in their continued
success. “We’ve always tried to experiment with
ways to accomplish a task,” adds Verni, “and
you can’t remove the experimental aspect of D 1 but
that’s what we’ve always liked at Mulvitision.
Our attitude is “let’s see what we can do with
it, and not just what it does.” You don’t just
wait for trends to come along you see if you can invent
some along the way.”
Digital component video is not only here,
and reliably so, but it’s affordable maintains Heard.
“Up until now a D 1 suite cost somewhere in the range
of $500-$1,000 an hour, but we can now offer it for something
like $300-$500 an hour, which is what some facilities are
currently charging for “edits.” Adds O’Sullivan,
“since our philosophy has always been to get clients
in and out as fast as possible, the advent of D 1 enables
us to streamline this process even more. We can provide
excellent quality and speed and efficiency. The throughput
of a production is much faster and efficient with D 1, and,
of course, this also contributes to price reduction.”
After reviewing all the inherent advantages
of component digital video it’s hard to see where
the gamble lies in Multivision’s astute decision to
enter this domain in so substantial a way.
