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The Future
So here you are, churning out digital vids. It takes a smattering of the time it used to take you and you're now doing dissolves and wipes and superimpositions and it's a whole new world. But you wonder as you lie in bed at night, what's next? What will the future hold for digital vidding? Well that's what this section is all about. I've tried to keep up with some of the improvements that are coming our way. Now I'm not going to deal with the big stuff that going to cost thousands. There's new high powered captured cards that are introduced for $2000 everyday, that I'm sure James Cameron has interest in, but not me. I'm interested in the stuff that's going to cost a couple of hundred bucks and make a big difference. What are those?
DVD
Sure you've seen the commercials, maybe even flirted with the idea of getting one for yourself. Take my advice, don't. Why? Because DVD is going to the biggest thing to hit video since the creation of star trek, but its not quite there. Right now its play only, that's because movie studios understood that with DVD everything is digital that means no generational loss -- none. And they were a little concerned that some guy was gonna dupe Top Gun 5,000 times and sell them at the neighborhood swap meet for $2 a shot and they were going to be out a pot of money. They've solved that now, worked out an encryption scheme which will keep the unscrupulous from making copies of movies. However currently there is a battle over recordable formats (remember beta v. VHS?). Currently there are over a dozen mutually exclusive formats being pushed. That means that recordable DVD machines are right around the corner but will not talk to each other. We should begin to see them by the end of this year. By the end of next year they'll be a serious contender at the high end. But the replacement of video tape may take longer.
But I'm an optimist though I'm no Jean Dixon, and I can't see how the marketplace will shoot itself in the foot. I think they will get their act together and soon. It can't be any other way, unless the price of DVD cd's are too expensive or can't hold enough data. But everything I've heard says these are non-issues (check out the DVD FAQ). But imagine, the possibility of loss-less digital quality copies of your favorite fandom. When that comes life is going to be good.
FireWire
Firewire is the big new thing in the DV trade magazines. There are several new firewire cards that have come out and more on the way. Essentially what firewire is is a new, extraordinarily fast way of getting data from a recording device (say a digital camcorder) to the computer. It will knock the socks off of any capture card currently on the market. The numbers are something like 100 megabytes per second to a gigabyte per second. To what degree this matters to vidders like us though is a different story. If you taped all your shows using a digital camcorder then firewire will excite you, but currently VCR's don't have firewire ports and their not likely to for a while. You see part of the issue (and this holds true for DVD VCRs and is one of the problems) is that you have to have a digital source to begin with, but television is currently analog. A digital recorder has to convert the analog signal to a digital one (which is what a video capture card does). That takes technology in order to make it reliable which is still to come (and if you've redone a clip four times because you keep dropping frames you know what I mean).
Well, let me correct that, is still to come for most people. You see there is a group of people who are already getting their television in digital format - satellite tv owners. Satellite tv is broadcast in digital. And lo and behold I have seen vcr's designed for satellite systems which have, you guessed it, firewire ports. Their still well over $1000 but the journey of 1000 miles...
Magneto-resistive drives
This is a future which is actually very close. MR drives are now being produced and they offer a tremendous boon to vidders. The thing about MR drives is that their really fast and they can hold a lot. The latest entry, the Orb removable drive, is a case in point. This drive has cartridges 2.16gb and boasts a minimum sustained data transfer rate of 6mb/s and a maximum data transfer rate of 12mb/s. A drive like this could then easily be used for video capture. And here's the kicker, the drive itself has an msrp of $199 and the cartridges will retail at less than $30 a piece. It will be cheaper than a zip drive ultimately. One could fit an entire vid session on one cartridge. You can check this out at Castlewood Systems. This technology has immense potential and is on its way.
The advent of the next version of Adobe Premiere is worth entering in this section though with a ship date of mid June it will not be for long. Those who have worked with Premiere 4.2 will note that there are a couple of places where improvements can be made, and for the most part Adobe has heard our calls. First the audio tools are almost non-existent in 4.2, this has been rectified with a whole slew of new audio tools that look to have exciting potential. Second, one of the most annoying things in Premiere is that if you make a change and decide you don't like it you have to undo the change manually. Premiere 5.0 will come with multiple undo and redo. It also will have stylesheet capabilities, so if you put in a transition it will automatically default to your favorite. They've also improved the titling capabilities and the ease of title creation (always a niggling pain). You can see what the new version has to offer at the Premiere Web Site which is cool in its own right.
Warning: Premiere 5.0 has now been on the streets for several weeks and the following problems have been found:
Because of these problems I can no longer recommend Adobe as my first choice for video editing software. Instead I would recommend Ulead Media Studio 5.0. (see review in the Software Section)
Conclusion
The world looks very exciting for vidders and will continue to be exciting. Technology improvements and cost declines are all about coming quickly. As we see the future become brighter one thing is clear, the digital vidders train is just getting rolling. But what you can do with this technology today is still amazing. Catch that train!
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