Digital content + HP = better workflow

Post, June, 2004 by Ken McGorry

FORT COLLINS, CO -- The "trickle down" effect that visual effects and editing professionals have been experiencing, as new workflow technologies developed for feature films have become available in productized form, will continue with HP's help, the company says. At HP's annual media event held here in late May, Jim Zafarana, VP of worldwide marketing for workstations, reaffirmed the company's commitment to DCC professionals' ever-intensifying computing challenges and emphasized HP's growing market share in this area. A strong sign of HP's commitment is its $4 billion in annual R & D spending.

In June, HP will announce a new line of DCC workstations for Linux and Windows users wishing to work in 64 bits. HP's participation in DreamWorks' Shrek 2 stands as the central case in point, but the company is also increasing its focus as workstation supplier to Avid as well as its presence in product design and more.

The Shrek connection was made more apparent in a media event presentation by Jeff Wike, software development manager at DreamWorks. DreamWorks' well documented adoption of Linux during the production of the first Shrek has led to an ongoing relationship with HP that includes regular (approximately annual) workstation upgrades that follow both the production of new animated films and HP's enhancements based on Intel upgrades.

Besides overseeing the workflow optimization of new hardware and software at DreamWorks' Glendale, CA, headquarters, Wike also has first-hand experience with VSC, the Virtual Studio Collaborator that DreamWorks developed to keep close with its animation division in Northern California, PDI/DreamWorks. The creative executives, Wike says, had become dissatisfied with the limitations of traditional videoconferencing and the necessity of air travel in order to facilitate true creative collaboration, HP provides a key component of the VSC, a technology called Remote 3D, which enables the realtime sharing of high-resolution 3D graphics. VSC takes remote collaboration to a whole new level. "The Remote 3D software pilot that HP provided to DreamWorks gave animators the ability to remotely view the digital content that's been created between the two sites in realtime," says Jeff Wood, HP's global marketing manager for personal workstations.

Outside of the DreamWorks partnership, HP is also aggressively pursuing media distribution, Wood says, that will further negate the need for razor blades, especially starting with theatrical trailers.

Avid's VP of video development and operations, Joe Bentivegna, told event attendees that HP's technology partnership with Avid helps enable HD workflow and realtime SD, and that "workflow boils down to dollars." HP is helping to enable the new Avid DNxHD 10-bit codec. Bentivegna predicts that HD will engender new NLE business across the board, from modest-budget projects using native HDV to real-time networked collaboration based on Avid DNxHD.