Wanting around at IBC this year, one thing stuck me more than anything else. There are now more proprietary capture formats than ever before.

This isn’t anything new, after all video has a long and unsavoury history of competing formats, much to the chagrin of everyone who backed HD-DVD for instance. But with digital formats becoming dominant, this has reached fever pitch. And I would argue, it’s completely unnecessary at best, and at worst it’s completely detrimental to the industry.

RED gives no impression that their business model is anything other than packaging for a proprietary format. But they give you tools to work with it, that are for the most part pretty good, but also available for free. You can gain access to the SDK, but only if you are willing to sign an NDA. incredibly, this is the most accessible of all the formats. Silicon imaging want to charge you $1000+ just to decode footage shot on their cameras. And the new champion of digital camera formats, ArriRaw, is completely unsupported for the most part. I spoke to someone about the long awaited SDK, only to be told that it is actually available, but only to select Arri partners. Whatever the hell that means. And it goes on and on with the likes of Sony, Panasonic ad naseum.

Granted, this is nothing new. But what I don’t understand is why we as professionals dealing with the ramifications of all of this continue to do so with smiles on our faces. Everyone is excited at the Arri stand this year. The footage looks great. That is more important than the ability to post the footage, as perhaps it should be. But given the footage from the camera is so good, why limit the ability to properly work with it? Why shouldn’t I be able to take my ArriRaw files into any post-house, regardless of the grading system or infrastructure used. Surely this would be best for Arri et al?

And worst of all, why do we, as the hapless victims of this situation, continue to allow it to happen? Why do we continue to evangelise a technology that is ultimately detrimental to our day to day lives? The visual effects industry managed to find a common ground with OpenEXR, I can only hope we might one day do the same.

This is of course, bullshit.

To understand why, you need only look at the great staple of motion picture quality: 35mm film. An effective resolution of between 4k and 8k (depending on who you ask) with a bit-depth between 24 and 48.

But this of course, is also bullshit.

Film is not a digital medium. These measurements of its digital equivalence, are merely a convenient representation. Or in other words, if you go with the idea that film has a resolution of 4k and a 16-bit per channel colour range, you probably won’t lose any quality. It’s basic Nyquist theory put to good use.

But physically (film being a physical medium after all) it’s only 3 bits of colour: red, green and blue (or some combination of those). That’s it, there are no shades of red, nor yellow, nor burnt ochre. But wait a minute, what about the glorious range of Technicolour I get to experience at the cinema? Well, that’s because film may only have 3 bits of colour, but it also has a ridiculously high resolution. But hang on a minute, I can measure the resolution of film with a simple chart, that can’t be right! No, because what you’re measuring there is the effective resolution of film, and that is determined by the grain structure. Even the notion of exposure is just a simplification of what’s really going on: the probability of a range of points on the film switching from 0 to 1.

So let’s get back to digital formats. With no grains to get in the way, just nasty rectangular pixels, we actually have a purer medium. So when people say that a recorded 4k image is as sharp as 35mm film but lacking in colour range, they’re missing the point: in actual fact this means although the bit-depth is several orders of magnitude higher than film, the resolution on the other hand is no way near high enough.

35mm film makes for a great benchmark. Absolutely nothing beats it (except larger pieces of film). The 4k/48-bit model makes sense when trying to preserve its integrity in the digital realm, particularly as we’re then limited by what the digital display devices can output. But if we want to make comparisons that actually make sense in that digital realm, let’s do it properly.

But even so, today I was reading through a forum thread that provides a workflow for transferring footage in no less than 15 steps… 

9. RED cine automatically does check sum (or perhaps faster or better data check) and automatically gives a simple answer that data is copied correctly and checked and then and only then gives the option to reformat the card or disk mag.

10. RED cine reformats the disk with the same project settings. and automatically, writes event into log file, and unmounts media from computer. (or the Dit can do each of these tasks manually if RED does not support this.)

11. Assistant places the blank formatted media into some repeated storage bag or box and or perhaps keeps it in their right
pocket until it is reloaded into the camera (see above)

I completely understand the thinking for this- they have correctly judged the need to assume that data is fragile, and hundreds of pitfalls lie in wait between the camera and the archive medium (aside from some minor incorrect technical assumptions). But seriously, requiring a 15-step process doesn’t make the workflow robust, if anything it makes it more prone to human error.

Wouldn’t it be better if it worked like this:

1. Take disk out of camera
2. Plug into laptop
3. Push button
4. Plug back into camera

Judging by the forum posts, this is neither possible, nor desirable (at least not for free).

But it is.

(Watch this space…)

On the film side of things, the situation has not been much better. The MPAA insisted on a ridiculous “Region-coding” system of DVDs, meaning that a DVD bought in the US could not be played on any player bought in Europe. I used the word ridiculous here, but feel free to replace that with “arrogant” or “xenophobic” – the underlying connotation is that territorial boundaries somehow relate directly to levels of poverty, and by extension “how much we can squeeze Joe Public for the cost of DVDs”, that and the archaic theatrical distribution system: film distributors won’t typically pay for extra prints for non-US audiences (which is why simultaneous international releases are rare, and worse, why if you watch a film outside of the US it’s likely it will covered in dust and scratches). The system is a joke- even to the distributors themselves: I remember at least one studio exec who was over in London complaining that he couldn’t play any of the DVDs he’d brought over for a presentation because they were Region 1.

The promise of digital cinema could have made all of this go away, with the possibility of simultaneous world-wide release dates with consistent picture quality. Instead, it seems to have fallen by the wayside, and things are getting worse. Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats both use new, more complicated DRM schemes to prevent copying. Both of these are already redundant, as a hacker compromised them over a year ago… so all it really does is increase the cost of production and reduce accessibility.

Of course I’m not advocating piracy here, but what I am advocating is a common-sense approach. By using DRM technology on DVDs, you prevent the consumer from doing whatever she likes with it. If I buy a DVD, shouldn’t I be allowed to convert it into a format to watch on my iPod? How about a laptop? What about (as I actually do), converting it to a digital file so it can be stored on a server rather than having to manually locate discs and hope that it isn’t scratched when I want to watch it? Should I be able to load a film into Final Cut Pro to brush up on my editing skills? There are many other examples along these lines, all of which are inevitably answered by the distributors rather than the consumers, and very few are based on solid legal requirements.

The home entertainment market is in enough of a mess now with 3 competing disc formats, and once digital downloads start to become commonplace, things will inevitably decline further. The problem is simply that DRM just doesn’t work the way it has been implemented to date. I once bought a music track by an obscure artist that required me to supply a key every time I wanted to listen to it. And it would only play in Windows Media Player version 9- forget about putting it on an iPod. I can justify needing a key to unlock my home or car, but not one of several thousand music tracks.

Right now, Microsoft is rolling out digital HD-esque video rentals for the Xbox 360 in the UK (it has been available in the US for some time). You can only watch these on the Xbox you downloaded them to. And they self-destruct within 24 hours from when you first hit play (regardless of whether or not you watch it until the end) or 14 days if you haven’t watched it at all. Sure not much different from having to return a rental disk to Blockbuster, but then Blockbuster doesn’t care if you watch it on your xbox or on your friend’s DVD player, and certainly doesn’t expect you to wait for several hours for it to download.

Meanwhile, Apple is launching a similar scheme. And there are dozens of independent sites that offer similar services, each of them with their own form of DRM. Having apparently learnt nothing from the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war, we’re now about to embark on a war of a multitude of formats, with the consumer the biggest loser of all. And the biggest joke in all of this is that it will do absolutely nothing to prevent piracy, which will be as rife as ever, perhaps more so as people try to find non-restricted sources for their entertainment.

People naturally tend to compare the DRM model to things like CDs, but I think it’s much worse than that. Imagine if food had some sort of DRM. Ingredient A refuses to be used in a recipe with ingredient B because it’s made by a different company. You cannot cook a meal for your spouse because they haven’t paid for it. If something goes past its sell-by date, it self-destructs, regardless of its actual level of toxicity. You don’t store something you’ve bought in your fridge in time, so it self-destructs. You can’t just have a slice of cheese, you have to have the whole thing in one sitting. You can only take the bottle of milk out of a fridge a certain number of times. You cannot drink the milk at your friend’s house. You can only drink the milk out of authorised containers. Some unidentified issue has occured whilst you were trying to eat your sandwich, and you must now spend half an hour with some clueless tech support person trying to resolve it. There was an intermittent power failure and the contents of your kitchen self-destructed. The food supplier is aware of the problem and will hopefully have the issue resolved within 6 months.

Ok. That is extreme. But only because we wouldn’t stand for it. The problem is, when it comes to media, there is absolutely no reason why we should stand for it even though we do. We’ve just grown soft, either silently boycotting it or making do. The irony of all of this is that the type of person who wouldn’t stand for this sort of thing is also the type of person who wouldn’t buy it in the first place, and so the rest of us just quietly accept it. Well we shouldn’t, not as consumers, and certainly not as producers.

Sundance films, present and past, simply do not register in the online pirate world—unless they are one of the few that have already made it big (like Clerks or Little Miss Sunshine). This
proves two things: When it comes to content piracy, obscurity, not security, is the best defense. It also demonstrates that movie pirates are fundamentally parasitic, not predatory.

Shame on them! This is a classic example of mistaking correlation for causality. The relationship of independent movies to pirated ones does not imply that an increase in interest in the movie will lead it
to be pirated, nor that pirated movies garner increased exposure. It is just as likely (probably more so)
that the cause is due to a lack of availabilty rather than of interest.

By the same token, it is also incorrect to presume that there is some code of ethics at play here, that somehow the pirates have some respect or solidarity towards independent film producers. Nope, it is
likely that they just haven’t got their hands on a DVD. After all, why hasn’t Slate commented on the complete and utter lack of distribution across legal channels? Or the fact that Sundance films tend to show up on the IMDB radar for a very short amount of time (peaking during the festival itself) before plummeting into the nether-moviemeter-ratings for good?

Moreover, the logic employed to determine the proliferation of pirated material is also flawed: you cannot gauge the number of people pirating a given film by simply counting the number of hits on The
Pirate Bay. There are many other piracy outlets which would need to be factored, many of which cannot be measured directly, such as the simple act of an owner of a DVD making a copy for her friend.

But what all of this suggests to me is that these independent movie producers are actually too “precious” about their films for them to get the exposure they crave. After all, if their primary concern is exposure and proliferation of their work, why aren’t they pirating their own movies themselves?

The delayed “Production 2.0″ event… took place in Soho, London last night. There was nothing to get that excited about, certainly not much on the nature of digital production… I haven’t covered previously.

The organisers presented a workflow using a Panavision Genesis that basically allowed rushes to be viewed immediately after shooting on a laptop, projector, or even an iPod. Most of this is thanks to the Codex Digital Recorder, a disk-based uncompressed video recorder that can transcode on-the-fly to a variety of different formats. All good stuff.

Also present were the Hat Factory to provide on-set VFX and editing capability, though that was very much a case of –insert VFX facility here– rather than them presenting anything in the way of innovation. Also present were transmissions bods Sohonet, though their exact role in all of this was very unclear. I would guess that if it’s your aim to bounce data around the world, that’s where they can help. I certainly wouldn’t consider them an integral part of the system though.

It was interesting to actually see it all come together in the flesh as it were. There were no apparent hiccups anywhere along the line, it seemed to work fairly smoothly (although we were practically in laboratory conditions), and I have no doubt that Codex Digital can in fact deliver on what they’re offering (although I am still waiting for the promised email to say that the footage from the event is available to view online).

Also of interest was the discussion about the workflow for the Wachowski (siblings?) forthcoming film, “Speedracer”. They made use of up to 7 Codex Digital Recorders, and their workflow was to send data off to the four corners of the Earth after each shoot, where it was colour-corrected, composited, and edited overnight as needed, and then sent back. At the dailies session the next day, the results were auto-conformed, and the production was able to watch a segment of the finished film rather than individual takes in isolation. Absolutely incredible, but I can almost feel the pain and heartbreak that the overnight crew must have gone through to make it happen.

The entire event left me wondering what the actual, tangible benefit of all of this really is. The only conclusion offered by the seminar was that it allows things to happen faster. “And it’s easy”, but as the fellow sat next to me pointed out, “of course it’s easy if you’re the designer of the system”. Because, at the end of the day, is browsing through a set of folders and files to find a shot as easy as spooling through a tape for “most” people? It remains to be seen.

UPDATE: The edited highlights can be viewed online now… 

Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads.

Does he have a point? Maybe. But I’d be more convinced if there was any evidence to suggest that people were actually using their computers to watch TV. Most people I know certainly don’t, so why would there be a push to watch films there? As I’ve mentioned many times before, I do think there is a definite need for decent, DRM-free downloads (which is why I think Amazon Unbox… is a great idea for example) but I think for the foreseeable future the formats will coexist quite happily.

Well, I’ve heard holographic storage mentioned a few times, but I remain skeptical that this is the right way to go for now. The obvious problem is that it’s unproven. I take issue with the prediction that it’s good for 50 years when it’s only been in development for 7. I have had DTF2 tapes that have developed faults within a 6-month period, and countless disk drives that have died within a shorter period. It’s for the same reason that we don’t yet use LTO4 technology here at Surreal Road yet- it looks good on paper, but not yet as proven as LTO3…

Even so, let’s assume that they live up to the hype. What you essentially have is an investment in a particular product. If the company that manufactures the readers/writers or the company that manufactures the media (or both) goes bust, you’re left with something that then becomes useless. And as far as I’m aware, holographic storage technology is not particularly lucrative right now. So that adds a huge risk to the investment. On the back of this is that the technology isn’t exactly widespread. You couldn’t for example, archive to a bunch of holographic disks and then send them off to someone to restore them at a later date.

Aside from all this even, there is a larger issue lurking under the surface: no-one is particularly sure what data to archive anyway (in the film/video world at least). Right now, it seems that the digital cinema master is the best bet, as it is the format least likely to change right now. But what of non-D-Cinema productions? For instance, if your final output is DVCAM, should you archive the DVCAM avi or Quicktime files?

Personally I always convert everything to still sequences and then save off the audio separately. This minimizes the impact of any data corruption, allows quick access to specific portions of the production (if you only need to restore a specific shot later on for instance). It goes without saying that I also aim to create two copies of everything and keep one off-site if possible. Using an image format such as DPX means that it should be readable by at least some software in 10 years time. I have also anticipated the need to do spot-checks on the data integrity every year, and am ready to transcode everything completely or copy to a new media at some unspecified point in the future. Back in the ’90s I was archiving to CD-R (and slightly later to DVD-R), until it got to a stage (around 4-5 years later) when the discs were starting to become unreadable (despite being kept in ideal conditions). At this point I transferred everything to a new format (at that time I was actually using a nifty little system to back up raw data to DV tapes via firewire), and have repeated this a couple of times since. Needless to say, I still have data hanging around that is 15 years old. I now rely on Internet-based storage almost exclusively for everything except large files (but that’s a discussion for another article).

Another problem is metadata. There’s no agreed specification for many types of metadata (at least, not yet). By this I of course mean things like the title of a project, the respective rights to the images and so on. This isn’t a huge problem, you can pretty much get away with saving any relevant detail in a text file or Excel spreadsheet for instance (although notice how frequently Microsoft change the Excel and Word document formats- will they still be good 10 years from now?), but it is something that should be standardised. There is also the issue of other metadata, such as project files and software settings. Final Cut Pro XML is absolutely the right way to go in this regard- provided that you are using FCP of course. And even then, the project data is only really useful if you backup all the source data along with it, and let’s face it, that can often seem like a waste of time.

Ultimately, holographic storage may provide a decent long-term archive medium. But without a robust, long-term data strategy to support it, what is the real benefit?

There are still other issues to address, such as image quality. I’ve heard that some test footage shot with the HPX3000 camera is looking pretty good. It’s still shy of the Viper camera though, there is no talk about log colour space for example, and it’s got 4:2:2 compression in addition to the H.264 compression as part of the format. The AVC-intra 100 format will also record the full 1920×1080 progressive frame, so you would expect that the resolution is good. All in all, the format has a data-rate of 1GB/min (or 60GB/hour if you prefer).

That’s very reasonable, until you realise you have to store it all on Panasonic’s crappy P2 cards (at least for the duration of the recording).  When I say “crappy”, I mean expensive and small. A single 16GB card will set you back $1000. Yes they are solid state, and they are reusable, but there is no way you will be using them like camera mags, shooting and shelving them, unless you’ve really got a disposable budget* (think about it, that’s $60 per minute of rushes), and even then, there are better ways to protect your data.

You can daisy-chain up to 5 of them together, which will give you up to 80 minutes of sustained shooting. But at some point you’ll have to give them to someone to plug into a laptop and copy onto long-term storage. So in reality, the 10 or so P2 cards you buy are just glorified buffers between the camera and the hard disk.

So the question for me is, if you’re copying them to hard disk (or data tape) anyway, why not uncompress it to a frame-based format such as DPX or Tiff, given that you’re probably going to have to do this at some point to do a DI or online? As of yet, there is no professional grading system that will conform from AVC-intra files as far as I’m aware, and certainly no reliable way to batch convert select frames from movie files by EDL. And if you’re converting to a frame-based format, then ultimately what advantage does AVC-intra offer over any other compression format?

Now I realised I’ve presented a somewhat twisted argument here. Ideally what I’d like to know is how robust the format is if you keep it in its native format for as long as possible. There would be definite advantages to doing so, not least the savings in storage and bandwidth, but would there ultimately be more headaches in the long-run? After all the DPX/Viper workflow of having uncompressed, single-frame files, though not perfect, is a proven one. Can the same be said for AVC-intra?

*Having said that, I have heard of some productions who are doing just that, rationalizing that the cost is comparable to film stock+processing.