AV Specialist Africa Edition Volume 94 - (Page 8)

a technology being forced on the market. Consumers love large flat-screen TVs and are coming to acknowledge that they really do not look that good showing standard definition pictures. According to Screen Digest, which carried out the research on behalf of IABM, the growth of consumers with HD ready television receivers is set to shoot up, reaching close to 150 million in the top 22 markets by the end of the decade, 48% of all TV households in those territories. Clear demand for HD content So the demand for HD is clear. There are two elements to meeting that demand: programme production and broadcasting. Each has different challenges to face, although they share the common concern in the need to invest in new equipment. While at one time HD equipment was significantly more expensive, this margin is now rapidly reducing to the point that HD hardly rates a premium at all. The exception is in storage: HD requires six times the number of bits used by the equivalent SD signal, so you cannot avoid buying more disk drives for servers, for example. For production and post production companies you could argue that the hardware costs are relatively insignificant as the cost of operators is much more important than the hardware they drive. Add in the huge cost of sports rights, or writing and acting talent in drama, and the equipment represents a tiny fraction of any production budget. “Investment in standard definition is inadvisable at this time” – Andy Setos, VP engineering for Fox Networks, speaking at NAB earlier this year. HD – the winners and the losers At IBC more than 20 years ago there was a conference session titled “1985 – the year of decision for HD”. It may have been two decades before we reached that year of decision, but now we have passed the tipping point and the transition to HD is up and running fast. In this month’s article, Dick Hobbs draws on a market research study commissioned by the IABM, and looks at the implications for production companies, broadcasters and manufacturers of this change. owadays there is a growing sense that video means high definition. If you were to ask the question “does this do HD?” of any manufacturer at NAB you would have received at best a polite assurance that of course it does, and more likely a very strange look for even asking the question. Al Jazeera English recently launched its global, tapeless production network in HD from the very start, and if its architecture may have seemed bold when it was first conceived, by the time the channel was on air there was an assumption that of course it would be HD. In the Middle East we are seeing new Fierce commercial pressure The counter argument to that - which the owners of production and post facilities are no doubt shouting at me as they read this – is that the commercial pressure on them is fiercer than it has ever been, with budgets tightly constrained. Now is not a good time for any new investment, however modest it may be. It is in this context that the Apple announcement at NAB has to be considered. Final Cut Studio 2 is now a complete post production facility with everything from colour correction to audio sweetening via 3D animated graphics. Final N projects like Kuwait’s Al Watan TV including large HD production studios from the start. In exploring the implications for production companies, broadcasters and manufacturers, we start with the realisation that consumers want HD. This is no longer 8

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AV Specialist Africa Edition Volume 94

HD: the winners and losers
The future of news
De Beers Diamond World gets Christie cut
The magic of cinema
SANDF on recruitment drive

AV Specialist Africa Edition Volume 94