Their enthusiasm is certainly understandable. The bright, bold pictures captured on the screen literally jump right out at you, rich with sharp details once relegated to insignificant background status. "The resolution is so much higher," Fulks exclaims, "that you see everything. It's so pretty." On the other hand he notes, "Where in NTSC (the most current television format), a character's makeup may look fine, when you see it in HDTV, it may look horrible. You can clearly see things such as blemishes and other skin imperfections. Which is why this wide screen, higher, resolution format requires directors and DP's who won't miss anything."
Just a year ago, Fulks notes, HDTV, a wide screen, resolution independent format wasn't viable. Even as little as two months ago, he couldn't bring real time high definition into his SGI workstation. "But now," Fitch adds, "if you're an ad agency or production company trying to figure out how to best produce a piece, it's worth some time spent investigating the options." One of the reasons it's worth investigating? The government has created a mandated schedule, declaring that the broadcast industry be HDTV ready by 2006. And some shows are already airing in HDTV format. In the fall, Monday Night Football will be broadcast in HDTV, paving the way for advertisers who may just want their product promotions to look as good as the show they're airing on. "What's important though," Fitch says, "is to find out who can really do high definition work, and whether or not that company can do everything or just specific elements of a production.
The technology may be here but...
With a series in the works for National Geographic and projects completed for clients such as Hertz and Best Buy, Crawford Communications has wholeheartedly stepped into the HDTV arena. The big question is whether other Atlanta production and postproduction shops are clamoring for a piece of the HDTV pie or if it is still too soon for others to jump on the bandwagon. Although he was referring to the consumer market, Phil Kloer, a staff writer with the Atlanta Journal Constitution made a telling statement in a recent AJC article, saying "the next revolution in television - the biggest revolution ever - has already begun. But you probably haven't noticed or cared." In other words, while they know it's on the horizon, is seems as if HDTV readiness isn't at the top of everyone's list.
It is at the top of Jeff Blauvelt's list. The former owner of Peachtree Post, one of the earliest post production houses in the city, sold his business to Brick House Editorial to pursue high tech opportunities with digital television, particularly HDTV. He and his partner recently opened the doors at HD Television. "We've got a single high def camcorder package and have limited editing capabilities at the moment, but we'll have full HD editing capabilities in the fall." The people he believes are most interested in HDTV right now are those creating programming with a future shelf life. Fulks and Fitch are of the same opinion.
With an office currently based in Santa Monica, Blauvelt and his partner are marketing HD Television's services to independent feature filmmakers. "I anticipate we'll see the greatest growth in California and New York," he cites. "Unless something surprising happens, I don't expect to see much in the way of HDTV work in Atlanta in the next two years." Blauvelt is looking towards moving either to New York or California, depending on where he feels his time will be better spent.
Part of the reason Blauvelt feels the need to move on is what he sees as the changing face of post-production in Atlanta. "For a long time, work was leaving Los Angeles and New York. The growth of Turner fueled much of the post-production industry as did the growing needs of local corporations. These days, though, filmmaking in Georgia is way down. Corporations have shifted to Internet and Intranet, moving away from video production, and we've lost lots of ad agency business." He believes consolidation in Atlanta's post-production industry is inevitable.
An investment in the future...
Although the investment in HD equipment was substantial, Crawford Communications sees the initial outlay as an investment in the company's future. "With two rooms capable of HDTV, I feel like we've invested fairly cautiously," comments Craig Heyl, Crawford's Vice President of Post-production. "There's no doubt that the cost of equipment is very high right now because there's not a lot being made. Nor will we see an immediate return, which is one of the risks of getting in early. But our hope is that it will establish us as the early leader in technology. The only companies who come close to us right now are Tape House in New York and a few shops in LA. By the time the costs come down and interest begins rising, we'll be five years ahead of the learning curve, and our costs will have depreciated significantly."
Curiosity seekers get wowed...
Crawford's Fulks and Fitch admit there is some skepticism among clients and prospects as to their capabilities, but those doubts are eliminated after a little show and tell. Like the client who wanted to be able to output a program in three different formats - NTSC, PAL (European Conversion) and film. Tom says, "He didn't believe we could do it, but it's easy when I start from HD, the bigger format. Then I simply down convert and output in the other formats." The representatives from Best Buy were also skeptical, but given the fact that they were planning to sell the new sets to consumers, they gave HDTV a try. Those spots are now airing on the showroom floor, helping consumers understand the vast difference between current resolution standards and HDTV.
Another one of the impressive high def features Fulks likes to discuss is the ability to do film effects for motion pictures, effects that have always gone to optical houses in the past. "I did one effect for a client," Tom recalls, "that took about three hours to render. It probably would have cost him about $30,000 at an optical house. We charged him $1,500." While it takes a bit more time to render, Blauvelt agrees that this new digital mode of operations provides opportunities to cut costs in ways that allows clients to put higher quality images on the screen. "What you save in processing," Blauvelt remarks, "You can then use to pay for a better script, or props, or wardrobe, or actors."
Taking the plunge after clients ask...
While Crawford Communications and HD Television have enthusiastically taken the HD plunge, not everyone is so eager to jump so immediately into the fray. Turner Studios, which provides services to the Turner networks, has adopted a "wait for the market to drive them" approach.
In weighing various decisions for the building of its new production and post-production facility, HDTV was given ample thought. "We certainly considered the impact of HDTV, and such things as where it was going and how soon it would happen," comments Kevin Shorter, Turner Studios' Vice President of Engineering. "What we concluded, though, was that it simply wasn't feasible to build an all digital 127,000 square foot facility. So we tried to determine what we could do now that would be the best hedge on our high-def future." Creating a high definition-ready infrastructure was part of their plan. "We purchased high definition capable wiring and patch panels to distribute wiring so that when the electronic pieces are available, we can convert room by room or any standards we want to work on."
When the government steps in...
What Shorter isn't comfortable with is the way industry HDTV preparations have been forced to come about. The Society for Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and Congress adopted nineteen different resolutions and screen formats as being legal. He believes that most of the major players had to make a declaration to the public about which way they were going to go before the technology was ready. This spawned a sort of "beat on the chest" syndrome where no one wanted to be less high-def than another so everyone adopted 1080-I (a high level of resolution). We've made a statement that we'll deliver 1080-I, but the problem for the industry is that the technology isn't available and what little is available is so costly that few can afford it. So even though the legislative powers that be mandated benchmark timelines for all to convert, it simply won't be possible." Which is why Shorter believes the industry, as a whole is way behind, moving more slowly than Congress would have liked.
"It would have come eventually because the quality is such a quantum leap above what existed," Shorter says. "We would have been better off, however, if the market, rather than the government had driven the evolution, and if we had taken a more pragmatic approach. We would be better off taking an approach more like the computer industry where upgrades happened more slowly. We're leaping five steps at once. If we had gone to digital 480-P instead of 1080-I, it would be more affordable for the manufacturer to produce equipment, easier and less expensive for us to integrate and more cost effective for the consumer to buy. Then it would be left up to the public as to when the time was right to move from 480-P to 1080-I.
As far as Shorter is concerned, the time for Turner to spend money is when their customers tell them they want HDTV, not when someone else comes in and says this is the next best step. "We provide our services and facilities on an as needed basis and at this point nobody has come to us and said HDTV is what they want. Of course that could change tomorrow. And I suspect there will be a lot of industry professionals like me out there who try to predict when and how much, and we'll probably end up being wrong."
Not everyone has to start from scratch...
Although Crawford Communications had made a significant investment in high-def equipment, Fulks considers them lucky because some of their equipment could be repurposed. From his SGI workstation, he continually pushes the limits with Discreet Logic's Inferno, a system that lends itself to the HDTV upgrade. "I'm actually a beta site for Discreet Logic, helping them become more resolution independent," he mentions. Turner Studios' Shorter is also glad the studio owns a number of scalable SGI platforms, so that once they decide to make the move, they won't have to recreate the wheel in every case.
Looking into the future...
What impact will the legislative mandate have on the future? "I think we'll see some doors closing, more so with smaller broadcast companies than post-production shops," Shorter thinks. "There will definitely be those who feel they can't afford to compete. As for the post-production shops here, I think the market is smart enough to know better than to build on spec in the hopes that customers will come. I haven't heard of any big expenditures being made so far here. Like us, people are adopting a wait and see approach."
Consumer education, the missing link...
That Turner Studios will be able to get up to speed when the time is right is unquestionable, but Shorter wonders whether consumers are clued in to industry changes. "Most consumers don't understand what HDTV is, or why they would even want it," Shorter states. "If the public is going to buy in, they need to see how much better it is. What we need are high tech expos in malls and such, where the manufacturers or government offer demonstrations to increase public awareness. Consumers need to see the quantum leap in viewing desirability in order for them to be interested in spending more money. I don't know what the studies show, but my guess is that market penetration is much poorer than expected. Again, that's because awareness is so poor." He cites the conversion from monochrome television to color.
"That was such an easy assimilation to make," Shorter says. "Everyone could immediately see the difference between color and black and white. But still, it took ten years for the number of color sets to equal the number of black and white sets out there."