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The good old days of digital video seemed much simpler. It was just QuickTime or AVI files and the video compression was either Cinepak or Indeo, unless you were lucky […]

With the professional market for uncompromising authoring systems nearing saturation, today's generation of tools targets the broader potential of corporate DVD authoring and range in price from about a hundred [...]

If you're not that familiar with HDV, it would be both a little surprising and completely understandable. After all, over the past year HDV has become one of the video […]

Just about everyone likes standards. They hold the tacit promise that newly purchased products won't become obsolete. They give manufacturers a stable playing field and a presumed critical mass of […]

The article discusses the impact of streaming video on the professional audio-video industry. The success of the YouTube streaming video on the Web has reportedly affected the view of computer users on online digital video content. Also, cable news Web sites and network news stations are streaming short news segments. Companies which offer solutions in managing audiovisual assets include VBrick Systems, Accordent, Sonic Foundry and Advanced Media Design.

Several charts are presented depicting significant information related to flat panel displays which include Astro Systems DM-3106, Panasonic BT-LH80W and Sony LMD-9050.

Provides information on several digital video platforms and compression standards. Intraframe and interframe compression; JPEG; MPEG; Streaming video. INSETS: Square Pixels;More MPEG Confusion.

Discusses the integration of digital video editing and DVD authoring software. Difference of DVD authoring tools and DVD authoring applications; Description of the DVD Builder application software from Roxio; Integration of the Video Studio and Media Studio Pro software from Ulead Systems.

Presents information on the use of digital videos in corporate and educational communication. List of video distribution methods; Development of videoconferencing; Features of the VBrick systems used in the distribution of lectures to students.

The article addresses the need to pay closer attention to detail when dealing high resolution video images. Some of the disadvantages of using high-resolution displays include poor scaling and analog noise. There is little doubt that high definition is a significant step up in picture quality over standard definition. The main difference between Realta and Reon chips from Silicon Optix is mentioned.

The article describes the digital signage pavilion featured at the 2006 National Systems Contractors Association Expo floor. The HD FrEND Plus video appliance from Electrosonic adds component HD-DVS support and a front-panel LCD interface which allows direct local access to stored video material and configuration options. Canopus' MediaEdge3 supports high-definition video (HDV) playback and can distribute live HDV streams played from a camcorder. ChyTV Plus from Chyron allows the user to overlay graphics and text onto a live video source.

Introduces the Squeeze Compression Suite from Sorenson Media Inc. Distinct features of the product; Specifications; Availability; Product offering; Performance rating.

It's been about a year and a half since JVC's consumer division introduced a camcorder, the GR-HD1, able to record High Definition Video (HDV) onto a MiniDV cassette. And, it's been a little more than a year since JVC's professional division launched its version of the product, the JY-HD10, at the 2003 NAB convention. At those introductions, both products gained significant notoriety for technical achievement, but, admittedly, there were skeptics. After all, JVC's original positioning for this new HD-on-DV format envisioned a high-definition future with consumers shooting vacations and birthday parties in HD and playing them back on JVC's plasma television monitors. At the time, however, few consumers had those HD-capable TV sets and professionals were understandably leery of single-CCD camcorders serving any serious purpose. Minimally, it's counterintuitive to expect a camera equipped with limited color and light sensitivity to try to stand up under the detail-revealing scrutiny of high-definition pictures.

Focuses on the integration of audio-visual (A/V) equipment. Models of A/V systems; Convergence of A/V and information technology; Impact of digital video on post-production studios; Effect of large-screen display technology on professional products; Role of convergence technologies in disseminating information.

Evaluates the Apple Final Cut Pro 4 digital video duplication and publishing equipment. Cost of the unit; Design; Features.

Reviews the DVD authoring computer software Adobe Encore DVD.

This article presents information related to technical specifications of Mitsubishi LT-3050 television model. Excellent brightness and contrast are compromised by a limited range of grays. Strong on primary colors, weak on subtlety. Highly defined pixels create superior sharpness for onscreen text, but lead to harsh images, especially on DVDs. Audio: 12-watt amp gives tinny sound from the built-in speakers.

This article presents information related to technical specifications of Sony KDE 42XS955 television model. Best range of grays among the TVs tested, and a top performer in overall color quality. Handsome, in that time-tested Sony way. It's the heaviest TV of the group. Very good picture quality on most broadcast signals and DVDs, but soft on HDTV signals.

The article discusses the emergence of Blu-ray technology as the standard in high definition videos. For several years Blu-ray had been in competition with HD DVD to see which format would come out on top. The author points out that aside from storage capacity, the differences between Blu-ray and HD DVD were negligible. He then speculates the reason motion picture studios and consumer electronics companies chose Blu-ray was because of HD DVD's alliance with Microsoft, which some may have considered unhealthy.

Evaluates the Media Gateway WMG120 and Media Adapter WMA100 media file players for digital video signage from ViewSonic. Capabilities; Functions; Price.

Evaluates the "Digital Video Essentials Professional," a DVD from Joe Kane Productions. Key features; Advantages and disadvantages; Cost.

The article focuses on a recent agreement by Avid Corp. to purchase Pinnacle Systems Inc. which is a blockbuster in the digital video industry. These are two of the biggest competitors in the business. Over the past few years both Avid and Pinnacle have done their share of shaking up the industry by gobbling up other companies. The good news for the digital video community is that Avid and Pinnacle are actually a pretty good fit, at least in most areas. The two companies have already been partners for a lot longer than they've been true competitors. In fact, Truevision was the OEM supplier of Avid's editing I/O hardware. Also, Pinnacle's Aladdin and Genie FX hardware were the first real-time effects preview engines for early Avid Media Composers. And more recently, when Avid was strapped for cash, Pinnacle bought Avid's Sports Division, which now boasts an impressive list of customers. Avid dominates the higher end of the editing market with products like Symphony and Avid DS Nitro, while Pinnacle's high-end focus has been the broadcast market, featuring live production and play-to-air solutions such as the Deko live-production titler and the MediaStream and Thunder on-air digital servers.

The article presents the author's viewpoint on digital media. His first product review was a roundup comparison of 22 different Windows 3.1 video capture cards. Only the top two or three could capture "multimedia quality" video without dropping any frames and according to him none of the companies represented still exists today. The author says that those that have been around digital video for a while would recognize a few of them as real pioneers, whose early technologies ultimately changed desktop digital video forever. By combining these capture cards with editing software, and zooming the video to full screen on NTSC output, videographers could build relatively affordable non-linear editing systems for the first time. It was the birth of the open-system non-linear editing station. The systems were modest, of course, but it wouldn't be long, only a little more than another year, before CPUs, hard drives, and capture cards would get fast and powerful enough to capture full-frame 60 fps video, and the image quality gap started to close.

Evaluates Visionary Solutions Inc.'s AVN200 video network appliance designed for encoding video into MPEG-2. Capability to turn video into packetized Internet Protocol data; Features; Specifications; Dimensions.

Focuses on the development of high definition (HD) technology for producing DVD. Efforts to create a standard deliverable HD media format; Potentials for putting HD on disc; Problems facing a future HD DVD standard; Technical solutions for HD-DVD.

Evaluates the digital versatile disc (DVD) authoring software DVD Workshop 2 developed by Ulead. Support for eight audio and thirty two subtitle tracks with the inclusion of a subtitle editor; Regional coding, parental control, encryption and copy protection; Absence of a timeline for linking video and audio clips and the failure of the interface to follow standard Windows-based application.

It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, of course, considering one is hardware and one is software. But, imagine, in a two-year span from 1999 to 2001, DVD authoring software went from a high of $10,000 to free with the purchase of a new Apple Mac OS computer. A general move toward the "abstraction layer" was the trigger for, and major outgrowth from, dramatic changes in the DVD industry. Job One for any DVD authoring software is simply building and organizing a set of files that a very simple consumer DVD player can read. The most affordable DVD authoring software available today including InterVideo's WinDVD Creator, MedioStream's neoDVD, Pinnacle's DVD Express, Roxio's DVD Builder Sonic's MyDVD, Ulead's DVD Movie Factory, and Apple's iDVD4, is designed to offer users a very straightforward working environment for creating simple titles, essentially just a couple of video clips with a menu in front, in a very accessible way.

Evaluates the PRV LX1 DVD recorder from Pioneer. Features and capabilities; Overview of how it works; Quality of encoding from the recorder.

Presents information on the introduction by Adobe computer software of the concept of bundling post-production software. Move made by Adobe developers to redesign application interfaces; Disadvantages of the early versions of Adobe Premiere; Information on DVD authoring application.

With Media Composer Adrenaline, Avid Technology Inc., for the first time, exploits today's multi-gigahertz CPUs rather than relying on dedicated hardware cards. At the same time, Avid has dropped prices considerably. Its Media Composer Adrenaline replaces the full line of on-line and off-line Media Composers priced two to three times higher. Because the Meridien hardware enabled Media Composer to edit two streams of fullframe-uncompressed video in real time, losing it may seem frightening. Leveraging the work Intel Corp. has been doing to increase processor speeds, Avid's release amazingly plays five simultaneous streams of uncompressed video in the timeline on a 2.8GHZ workstation using only the CPU and Adrenaline. The FireWire ports hold a lot of Adrenaline's power. The 6-pin connector is the link to the Media Composer workstation, carrying digitized video and audio back and forth from Adrenaline to the CPU.

Discusses the basic concept of Color Mapping in DVD authoring. Selection of color to map; Design of the changeable areas in Color Mapping; Assignment of new colors.

Reports on DVD technologies showcased at the Digital Video Expo in New York City in July 2003. Premiere Pro from Adobe; Xtreme card from Matrox; Video Toaster from Pinnacle Systems.

Describes Encore, the DVD authoring technology from Adobe. Features; Main creation tools of Encore; Benefits to users.