Desktop Video Comes to Windows NT

by Doug Strable

Video on the desktop is emerging as the "killer application" for the late 1990s. The increase in PC processing power and rapid development of video editing software on Windows NT has been phenomenal in the past year. But while Western markets have eagerly exploited desktop video production on the PC, the Japanese market has been taking a cautious approach to embracing this new technology.

NT to the rescue
Until recently, setting up your own professional video studio required a budget of \10 million or more, plus an experienced video engineer to keep the multitude of peripheral equipment operating in sync. The alternative was renting an equipped studio for \50,000-plus per hour!

Klaus Bollman, chief executive of UK-based NT Networks, a seller of various network technologies to Japanese computer vendors, agrees. "As late as 1992," says Bollman, "the typical network technology in Japanese companies was still passing 'round a floppy disk."

With the recent advances in PC processing power and video software applications, though, this is changing. More and more foreign software manufacturers are setting up their own liaison offices and marketing staff in Japan, and Windows NT has become the de facto operating system. Today, all that you need to start producing your own professional quality videos, in English or Japanese, is a powerful PC, 128 MB of RAM, a digital camera, a video or graphics input/output card, and video editing software - plus, of course, some talent.

Avid's MCXpress NT is just one of the many "sexy" video editing applications available for Windows NT that provides the power to edit and distribute real-time video on the PC. This is good news for budding Steven Spielbergs or Beat Takeshis eager to cash in on Japan's expanding satellite broadcasts, and for innovative managers contemplating creating their own corporate promotional video, CD-ROM, or Web video.

With NT-based software and hardware packages averaging between \1.2 million and \3.5 million, it is easy and more affordable than ever for your company to create its own in-house video editing system. The PC is becoming ubiquitous in all facets of video production, including among the major broadcasters in Japan.

How it's done
Three essential elements form the base of a video editing/creation system: a sufficiently powerful PC, quality video editing software, and a video/graphics interface card. Japanese manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic have tended to focus on integrated hardware solutions by combining their traditional proprietary hardware with PC interfaces. In North America, Europe, and elsewhere, the trend is toward a more modular, or open systems, approach.

Video-editing software is the creative tool that turns random pieces of video into a cohesive production. Such software usually consists of four modules: video capture, video editing, video paint, and a character generator. The first (and most time-consuming) step in video production is digitizing the video images onto the computer's hard disk. This is done in combination with a video capture board, such as the Matrox DigiMix.

The common choice of hard drives among video producers is an ultra-wide SCSI drive, because it currently offers the best transfer rates (10MB to 20MB per second). Once the video has been digitized, the video editor/artist can work in a drag-and-drop fashion, on a timeline, assembling the video clips as arranged according to a story board. Transitions, effects, titles, and audio are easily added (depending on the software) to create more interest; usually, these are created and simply "dropped" into the timeline. Then, when the editor is satisfied with the end creation, the computer will render the video out through the video graphics board and back onto a videotape.

Editing Stations
Desktop video production stations are built around very powerful computers; the efficiency of the video editing process is directly proportional to the time it takes to build and render the images. Dual-processor workstations with 128MB of RAM and large-capacity disk array servers (for storing the video clips) are commonplace. At the low end, you can utilize off-the-shelf systems, but you'll find yourself spending an agonizing amount of time waiting for the system to render the image files.

With the launch of Windows NT 4.0 and the development of new PCI video I/O cards, real-time editing software is starting to appear on the market. Real-time performance means that you spend less time waiting for transition and titling effects to be added to the video, and more time creating.

Some Windows NT-based video editing software has resolved the slowness of the PCI bus by taking advantage of the Movie-2 audio/video expansion bus standard developed by Microsoft and the Matrox Video Products Group (perhaps best known for its VGA Millennium display card). The Movie-2 bus provides higher bandwidth connectivity between the various adapters within the video editing system than a standard PCI slot, which means faster processing and the addition of more advanced features.

What's available in Japan
On the high end in Japan, Mac-based systems from Avid Technology (Media Composer) dominate because they were the first to enter the market and support Japanese title creation. With Intel's purchase of 5% of Avid stock earlier this year, however, Avid has announced a major effort to port its traditionally Mac-based video editing software to Windows NT.

Avid's MCXpress for Windows NT - priced in Japan at about \700,000 (for software only) - is the first Avid product on NT. It offers everything required for creating training and promotional videos, CD-ROMs, and more.

Less expensive (priced at about \100,000) is Adobe Premiere 4.2J (for Windows 95). Premiere 4.2J is a good entry-level choice, but you'll need patience while the software renders your video. The process can easily take 30 or more minutes for a 5 to 10 minute video segment. Premiere is targeted primarily at corporate users (and professional wedding photographers). Plug-ins for effects (Boris Effects) and a kanji character generation (Inscriber FeaturePak) add further professional enhancements to Premiere, allowing you to grow as your demand and sales increase.

Two new Windows NT products have entered Japan's midrange software level: Speed Razor 4.0RT (\350,000 and up) from in:sync Corporation, and Incite (around \4 million for the PC plus software) from Incite Multimedia Corporation of Geneva, Switzerland. These provide the necessary real-time processing power to take advantage of the increased processing speed of the Movie-2 bus.

The elusive element - titling in Japanese
A character generator is an integral part of any video editing program. Most video-editing software comes with some kind of integrated titling package, or accepts plug-in titling software, but until the Japanese version of Windows NT 4.0 appeared last year, it was only possible to add English (romaji) titles with most PC-based video editing software.

Windows 95/NT took care of this limitation by standardizing the input methods for entering text in Japanese. Unfortunately, however, not all of the integrated character generator programs that come with the editing software on the market support Japanese input. (Forget Photoshop and PowerPoint; they just are not fast enough, and do not provide the high-quality titles that viewers expect these days.) One popular and universal titling plug-in for character generation is Inscriber from my own company, Inscriber Technology Corporation. Inscriber recently launched a Japanese version of its titling software, called Inscriber Feature Pak. Inscriber Feature Pak supports direct integration to video editing software for the most popular video editing software packages: Avid MCXpress, D-Vision On-Line, Pinnacle Alladin/Genie, Adobe Premiere, FAST Video Machine/Blue, in:sync Speed Razor 4.0RT, VideoAction NT, United Media On-Line Express, and JVC Media Workstation.

Do You Need it?
You may think that having an in-house video studio is too frivolous for your corporate communications and information needs. After all, you've gotten along fine until now by distributing your news in faxes or via a company newsletter. Why do you need to change?

The answer is "speed." Quick access to information is essential in today's global market, and can be the key to successful marketing and corporate communication. Many Japanese corporations already are using video as a means to pass along information on important events inside and outside the company to staff at their branch offices in Japan and overseas, and to key contacts within the industry and media.

Video has the power to make information entertaining, and therefore more likely to be retained than with traditional print media. To keep corporate staff updated on events, for example, MC Communications Inc., the corporate communication center of the Mitsubishi Corporation Group in Tokyo, uses its video production studio every morning to produce a collection of daily news and corporate information. This program is broadcast during the noon lunch break, by cable or satellite throughout the company, to TV monitors located in each section of the company. During working hours, exchange rates, weather, and stock and company information is shown.

Taking the next step
If I've convinced you that video production capability could help your company, what's the first step? Pick the right retailer! There are literally hundreds of computer retailers, but few specialize in the hardware and software designed for video postproduction.

Unfortunately, you probably won't find knowledgeable folks at the regular MacWorld or Windows World computer shows, or even in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district. You will find them at trade shows traditionally for video hardware manufacturers and multimedia. The largest trade exhibitions in Japan for the video-multimedia graphics industry are the InterBEE and Digitalmedia World exhibitions held yearly in November at Chiba's Makuhari Messe.

But you don't have to wait 11 months for the next Digitalmedia World to learn more about PC-based video production. The coming months are likely to see numerous announcements centering on the rise of real-time effects capabilities in video editing software and hardware, and even more competitive pricing. Do your homework, and ask around.

If your company expects to stay at the forefront of multimedia information technology, the future is now!

Doug Strable is director of operations, Asia-Pacific, for Inscriber Technology Corporation's Tokyo office. He has worked in the video industry in Japan since 1989. Mr. Strable can be reached at

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