Timeline Analog 6. John Buck

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      Out of nowhere Loesch took a lucky break.

      The computer publisher Gold Disk had sold more than 100,000 copies of its $99 video editing product called Video Director. Company cofounder Kailash Ambwani told the press:

       Gold Disk has worked hard over the past two years to provide customers with affordable, easy-to-use software tools for enhancing their home video collection, with great success.

      Despite the success Ambwani changed direction and focused Gold Disk on the emerging web conferencing market. Loesch continues:

       Gold Disk approached us to see if we wanted to buy Video Director. It was Pinnacle's first acquisition after the IPO and we really agonized over that purchase!

      Pinnacle's Mark Sanders knew the acquisition solved AliBaba's immediate problems.

       They (Gold Disk) had this great deck control technology that we could use straight away. VHS tape machines are pretty basic, they are shaky and the ballistics change from one end of the tape to another. A 120-minute tape acts differently to a 3-hour tape and the existing Pinnacle consumer editing system was essentially predictive.

       It would predict if you pushed the button on your VHS deck how long the deck would take to roll up and get to speed and lock. So you could easily be off five frames without batting an eye. It was very difficult and very frustrating for the home user.

      Bill Loesch had the pieces to let home enthusiasts make professional-looking video.

       We now had all the bits and pieces. Our basic software, an external ‘mixing’ box based on the Sherman ASIC from within Pinnacle, and the Video Director package from Gold Disk. Using all of the components the team came up with a new product based on the Video Director UI that allowed title overlay and fixed-frame transitions.

      Ivan Maltz explains:

       They (Gold Disk) had developed not only a tape-to-tape software program, but also this great and simple to use 'smart cable' with which you could control Sony Camcorders using their LanC interface and an IR blaster for controlling VHS decks.

       Looking back it was a little Rube Goldberg but it worked! We built a new UI, replacing the Gold Disk program. Keith did some great work there to create a 1 - 2 - 3 editing interface, capture, edit, play to tape. We had started in 96 with nothing and by the end of the year we had a product ready to go.

      Loesch concludes:

       By acquiring their technology and several key hires, we certainly shortened the time frame for delivering the new product. But of course we also picked up substantial extra costs that we hadn't budgeted for. When you suddenly have extra employees you need to start shipping something much quicker than you planned for.

      With the acquisition of Video Director, Chris Zamara joined Maltz, Thomson, Lane and former Abekas engineer, Jon McGowan. Maltz recalls:

       The five of us formed the Studio development team for a long time, eventually cranking out Studio 1.0. This version of Studio used a custom external hardware box (plugged into the parallel port!) to capture video frames.

       It also allowed us to more accurately control IR-driven camcorders using a "terrain mapping" algorithm for which we got a patent (#5917990). Still, it wasn't very accurate, especially with cheaper camcorders. The future obviously had to be all digital!

      Mark Sanders recalls the decision to move.

       We needed to get out from underneath this analog VHS tape editing system and go digital.

      Meanwhile CBS was evaluating nonlinear editing equipment, and VP Don DeCesare told the press.

       Where performance is concerned, Avid, Lightworks, D-Vision and ImMix are on equal footing, but all have drawbacks. D-Vision's system keeps crashing, and the Lightworks and ImMIX Systems are too much like film-editing machines.

       Slow digitisation is shared by all four. Instability at Apple Computer is some cause for concern about the Mac-based ImMix and Avid systems.

      Despite the technical issues that CBS was confronting, the very choice of participants in its shoot-out was telling.

      In days gone by it would have been Ampex and RCA, or Ampex and IVC but now it was fight between companies, none more than nine years old.

      After 20 years in business, Apple had shipped 25 million Macs. Much of its success had been built on the print desktop publishing revolution but to date it had failed to deliver similar results with video.

      It had commissioned Avid to create a simple home video editing package that it could bundle with its new Performa 6400/200 VEE (Video Editing Edition) computer.

      Avid Cinema 1.0 arrived at MacWorld in Boston.

      The standard Mac hardware, had been changed to cope with video editing and included a PCI video capture card, 2.4Gb hard drive, an additional PCI slot, an integrated subwoofer for audio output and Avid’s software.

       Avid Cinema is the first computerized video-editing system designed for the camcorder crowd, not professionals.

      The Cinema interface used tabbed folders to direct home based editors through a template approach. The Step One tab encouraged users to create a story outline, clicking on the Step Two tab instructed the user how to import the video clip from a camera or VCR using the 'Video In' function that opened the Performa's TV/Video port.

      There were 21 storyboard templates from birthday celebrations to graduations that instructed users on what kind of shots were needed.

      The finished movie could be published to videotape using the 'Video Out' function that was linked to the Avid PCI СКАЧАТЬ