Dailies to go: filmmakers want dailies hot off the telecine - Technology

Post, Sept, 2003 by Claudia Kienzle

HD DAILY PLAYBACK

In Cohen's installations, the nonlinearity is enabled by Mediasonic's MS 9100D, a Windows 2000 PC-based HD playback device with a proprietary decoder card for up to 35Mbps of SD or HD video.

"Digital dailies represent a business opportunity for post houses that already provide telecine services," says Anthony Magliocco, manager of business development for Mediasonic (www.mediasonic.com). "Instead of making video screening cassettes, they can transfer the film or HD video onto our Mediasonic HD player. If users build an EDL for 90 minutes of content, our encode applications allow them to define the in and out points and our encoding station automatically captures those streams and puts them onto the hard disk."

The Mediasonic product line includes the Mediasonic encode capture station/player for realtime encoding of video and audio from film scanners and HDVTRs--captured as an MPEG transport stream file.These files can then be burned onto DVDs, moved over a network or saved onto an external USB 2.0 hard disk.Also, at this year's Infocomm, Mediasonic introduced the MS 9400 (HD FrEND), a compact, lightweight, Linux-based HD player that plays HD video or downconverts it to SD video. Studio execs, says Magliocco, "can get their digital dailies, screen them in the trailers or in the screening rooms, on large plasma monitors, projection screens or even small TVs."

PASSWORD-PROTECTED HD DALLIES

Targeting the film and HD content creation market is JVC's Pro-HD D-VHS--an HD recording and playback system that includes password-protection and encryption to prevent illegal access to the tape's media contents."Pro-HD D-VHS combines film-like image quality with the convenience of a videotape that can be viewed in user-familiar VCRs in virtually any surroundings," says Lawrence E. Librach assistant VP of broadcast and entertainment business development for JVC (www.jvc.com/pro).

"While Pro-HD D-VHS is very affordable, it can also save productions money by enabling pristine digital preview screenings at a fraction the cost by reducing the need for film dailies printing, conforming, creating temporary opticals and re-conforming the film work picture," reports Librach.JVC's PROHD D-VHS was used during the making of the summer hit Pirates of the Caribbean.

By using Pro-HD dailies (and JVC's D-ILA Cineline digital projector) on the set and in the screening rooms, the MGM movie Barbershop saved nearly $250,000 by using PRO-HD dailies and digital previews. MGM has also used the JVC system for A Guy Thing, Legally Blonde 2 and Agent Cody Banks

JVC's Pro-HD D-VHS solution includes the DM-JV600 HD MPEG-2 encoder, the SR-VDA300US ASI mastering recorder with password-protected recording and the SRVD400US distribution player. At $50,000, these high-end encoders have presented a barrier to entry for post houses, but Librach says Tandberg now has an HD MPEG-2 encoder for under $40,000.And JVC is bringing its own HD MPEG-2 encoder to market in October for under $25,000.