When worlds collide: TV meets it; Panasonic's Phil Livingston looks at how big-time TV and film production and distribution will fit in a smaller, faster, cheaper world - It's Always Something - Brief Article

Post, Feb, 2002 by Ken McGorry

SECAUCUS, N.J. -- In his 40 years in the broadcast industry, Panasonic's Phil Livingston has seen nothing if not change. When you think of the age of 2-inch videotape, "film at 11" and total reliance upon broadcasting towers, and how much all that and more has changed over the years, it's hard to imagine what 40 more years of change will bring. But Livingston seems to thrive on technological change and its inherent opportunities. However, changes in employers are a rarity in the Livingston resume. He has 22 years at Panasonic and, after a relatively brief stay as VP of technology at Azcar Technologies, he's recently returned to Panasonic in a familiar role: VP, technical liaison and technical spokesperson. We recently got hold of Livingston as he was preparing for another NAB season with Panasonic.

POST: If the content creator's mission (highest attainable production quality) is opposed to the broadcaster/distributor's mission (transitory distribution of "disposable" content) how does the content creator reconcile with the end-distributor?

LIVINGSTON: I don't believe there is reconciliation; I believe each distribution step can provide "just sufficient quality" to satisfy their customer. HDTV program distribution is a good example. A program gets shot on film, and the output of the telecine is 1.2 Gigabits/second. It goes through post production and to a network on HD D-5, a pretty pristine format that actually carries hundreds of Megabits/sec. The networks in turn send a 40-odd Megabit/sec stream to the local DTV stations, and they in turn broadcast at 19 Megabits maximum. A cable company or satellite provider could reduce that to 3 or 4 Mb/s, and Mr. and Mrs. Couch-potato still wouldn't balk!

POST: Ouch. If today's content creators desire high production quality, can they "settle" for video instead of film? Can there or will there be "high quality" DV or DVCPRO movies?

LIVINGSTON: It will be the economic equation of good enough for the intended market over the projected life of the material. Is it for theatrical release? TV? Is ft effects laden? This tradeoff is compounded by the many steps of post production that can in turn impact quality, and the compensating benefits of staying digital and minimizing the transcoding of the images. The best examples are the integration of video material into film productions. The audience doesn't dash to the exits demanding a refund because the last scene they saw was captured on video!

POST: Okay, but can digital video overcome traditional film? If so, when?

PHIL LIVINGSTON: I think "overcome" is too pejorative a word, and I'd rather think that the technologies and attributes of each medium will cause "cinematographers" to select one or even both for a project. That said, however, one can foresee better and better imagers coupled to better and better electronic storage for capture, and better and better means of image display being brought to market. While this will change the equation in the future, the issue of replacing film's unique role as universal image interchange is yet another matter:

POST: How easily (or with what difficulty) can "commodity" computers, workstations, networking solutions and other business-oriented IT hardware be standardized for television or digital film production?

LIVINGSTON: If one goes back to the bandwidth discussion, the production arena will be more difficult than the traditional broadcasters' environment because the demands will be harder to meet with commercial off-the-shelf equipment from the IT world. However it's already here in broadcast, and it's only a matter of time since networks get faster, disks get bigger and memory gets cheaper every day. However, there is and will still be the industry specific equipment about which the IT world is not only clueless but, for the most part, uninterested.

POST: Where does that trend position the traditional large television-production equipment manufacturer (such as a Panasonic) in the future?

LIVINGSTON: We need to focus on those pieces where our expertise is unique and valuable, to work in standards bodies to assure that interfaces work, and to actively partner with other companies to develop and demonstrate viable solutions for our customers. The carrot that attracts us is the industry and its potential, and the stick that shows us the error of our ways is the commodity prices of things like network interface cards that cost tens or hundreds of dollars, not thousands.

POST: How has the broadcast world changed since you started, and how will it change?

LIVINGSTON: When I went to work in 1961, radio was massive turntables, news was film, videotap was only the 2-inch format, and the equipment was mostly vacuum tube. That era was transformed by the transistor, which led to integrated circuits, and narrower tape, which made smaller and more portable equipment possible.

The result for broadcasters was less expensive, more reliable equipment requiring less maintenance (I recall there was an overnight engineering position that did nothing but check tubes!) that was easier to operate -- a trend we still see today with products like DVCPRO and DVCAM. However, even with the vast improvements in convenience and cost effectiveness that have brought what was once "broadcast quality" to a multitude of users, the broadcast process and workflow has remained pretty much the same. This is the same [thing] that we are seeing now in the IT world, where hard drive progress and network speeds exceed Moore's Law [doubling every 18 months], and those advances are bringing a level of signal handling capability and a cost effectiveness that can be applied to broadcast.