4/26/99
BILL FERSTER’S VIDEOGRAPHICS NEWSWIRE
ISSUE 99-12
ABOUT THIS NEWSWIRE
Bill Ferster’s VideoGraphics NewsWire is published weekly and summarizes the important events in the convergent worlds of multimedia, video, animation, chips, mass storage and computers.
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Business
---> Accom Posts Good Quarter
Video equipment maker Accom (http://www.accom.com) earned $514K on sales of almost $10M, following an unprofitable period. Last year they lost $576K on sales of only $3M. They seem to be digesting the recent acquisition of the Scitex Digital Video unit in a way that gives promise that the union will be a success. The company recently raised $3.5M in a private placement.
---> 3Dlabs Revenues up 57% but Still Runs at Loss
Leading 3D chipmaker 3Dlabs lost $2M on sales of $8M this quarter. Although still running at a loss it's better than last quarter's $5M loss on sales of the same amount of revenue.
---> Connectix Barred from Shipping PlayStation Emulator
Virtual-PC manufacturer Connectix (http://www.connectix.com) was sued by Sony for its Mac-based Sony PlayStation Emulator software for a second time and was slapped with an injunction to stop making the product. The company plans to appeal the ruling.
---> Pinnacle Reports Yet Another Record Quarter
Leading video equipment maker Pinnacle Systems (http://www.pinnaclesys.com) continued its seemingly unending streak of excellent financial performance, by earning $5M (not including a $6M charge for the Truevision and Shoreline acquisitions) on sales of $40M, as opposed to last year's $3M on sales of $29M.
---> Tek Tries to Shed Video Unit
Video equipment pioneer Tektronix (http://www.tek.com) is actively trying to divest its ailing video division. Rumor has it that the Profile group, will be split off from the older switcher and "video plumbing" units. Possible takers include Pinnacle, Chyron, and Sony.
3D TECHNOLOGY
---> Vinten shows New Camera Position Sensor
Leading camera support maker Vinten (http://www.vinten.com) announced a distribution deal with Thoma for their new "ImageTracker" camera-position sensing device. Thoma's ImageTracker uses infrared sensors mounted on the ceiling, tracking bizarre-looking antler-like ball antennae mounted on the cameras, making it possible to track even handheld cameras. The ImageTracker boasts high accuracy by creating a link directly back to the focal plane of the camera.
---> Very Innovative 3D Camera Concept
The most interesting thing I saw at NAB was a 3D camera from Israeli-based 3DV systems (http://www.3dvsystems.com) that is able to automatically extricate a depth mask from a scene without the use of a blue screen background. The "ZCAM" camera uses the new technology based on infrared viewing and assigns a Z depth for each pixel in the scene making it possible to change lighting and perform soft keying in real-time.
IMAGING
---> DLP Projectors Looking Great
NEC Technology (http://www.nec.com) and others offered a series of DLP-based projectors ranging from $5K to $80K that showed incredible looking images. DLP technology is based on chips from Texas Instruments that utilize micro-mirrors at resolutions up to 1024 pixels and show no visible scan lines. This technology will be critical in the emergence of digital cinema distribution for theatrical film release.
---> Arri Shows Laser Film Recorder
Leading motion picture camera manufacturer ARRI (http://www.arri.com) demonstrated their new "ArriLaser" high-quality laser based film recorder. The unit which is expected to sell for around $300K, and offers up to 4K pixel resolution with recording times of three to five seconds per frame. Laser recording technology offers significant advantages to traditional CRT based film recorders, including higher contrast, steadier imagery, faster throughput, good detail and excellent color fidelity, and the ability to use slower, high-detail film stocks.
---> Matsushita Demos MPEG 4 Compression
Matsushita demo'd MPEG 4 compression on their Internet server. The content was sent in separate layers, individually decoded at the receiver into a single display. The various layers included figures and background images text and video in the form of a weather forecast.
BROADCAST / POST-PRODUCTION
---> Apple Chips Final Cut Editing Software
Apple Computer (http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro) unveiled the fruits of their acquisition of Radius's editing software last year. The under $1000 "Final Cut Pro" will allow Macintosh users professional editing using the native FireWire ports on Apple's G3 computers. Final cut is QuickTime-based and contains tools for compositing multi-track editing, real-time output to tape and character generation.
---> Avid to Drop Macintosh Support
In what is possibly a related story, Macintosh pioneer Avid technology (http://www.avid.com) said they will stop developing the Macintosh versions of their Xpress or Media Composer editors and there would be no major releases for Macintosh users after version 8.0 ships next month. Also keep in mind that Intel has a 10% stake in Avid. Meow...
---> Puffin Designs Ports Commotion to NT
Puffin Designs (http://www.puffindesigns.com) announced they have ported their popular Commotion 2.0 compositing in rotoscoping tool from the Macintosh to NT. Commotion makes innovative use of RAM to provide very fluid access to high-resolution frames, for creating mattes, image editing and motion tracking applications. Commotion was one of the last production tools available solely on the Macintosh platform.
---> Peak Virtual Set Integrates 3D Models
Virtual set manufacturer Peak Systems (http://www.peak.cc) added some new features in their Everest virtual set system that make it easy to integrate data driven models represented graphically within the virtual sets. The models respond real-time to changes in the data based on templates, and follow the camera moves perfectly.
---> EDIDOS Shows Nonlinear Editing Software
UK-based EIDOS (http://www.eidos.co.uk) showed a rather interesting nonlinear editing software package. The under $1000 "judgment" editor has all the usual features of a professional NT-based system, and supports all industry standard codec cards. It has an interesting 3D-timeline display that shows the edits as if they were wrapped across a movie theater corner sign. Edits in the center of the time line are large; reflecting the center of interest, while the rest of the show is rendered in perspective, allowing more of the context to be sensed.
---> SynaPix Unveils Clever Technology
Former Avid founder Curt Rawley's new company, SynaPix (http://www.synapix.com) showed two very innovative products capable of extracting 3D scene information from a series of still images. The base technology, called visual stream analysis (VSA) is able to reconstruct the original camera position, camera path and surface geometry of the scene. This makes it easy to edit what was a 2D representation of 3D world with full dimensionality. They are making the technology available in products to perform 3D analysis of footage, move-matching, and compositing.
---> Play Intro's Palm-Based Editor
One of the more interesting products at the Play (http://www.play.com) booth was a product based on the Palm pilot PDA that enabled producers to perform field logging and even cuts-only editing. The "Pocket Producer," which sells for under $400 is a beautifully designed application that can control multiple VTRs using LANC or RS-422 protocols.
---> Chyron Sports Many Duet Partners
CG pioneer Chyron's (http://www.chyron.com) hybrid black box/open PC environment seems to have more partners running their software on it than you can shake a stick at. In addition to Inscriber and other software vendors, ICE (http://www.iced.com) makers of accelerated effects for After Effects and other tools ported over 120 plug-ins to the Pentium-based system.
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CYA DISCLAIMER: The preceding NewsWire represents my best efforts to gather the facts and the offering of my opinions. Although I try to describe the world as it appears me, I make no representations as to the accuracy of the reports within, which are gleaned from press releases, print and online magazines and the Inquisit Information Service.
