But the biggest obstacles for HD producers is the lack of avenues for delivering HD video content.Watching standard-definition TV may soon seem like watching black-and-white TV, or so some experts say. Content providers are starting see the value of acquiring footage in high definition, even though currently they can only deliver the final product in standard definition. Many plan to go back to the original HD source material, recapture it and deliver the same product in HD format when the time is right.
One of the biggest obstacles for HD producers at the moment is the lack of avenues for delivering HD video content.
"You can't deliver MPEG in 1440 by 1080 and play it on anything at this point in time," says Douglas Spotted Eagle, an award-winning recording artist and managing producer at VASST, a video-training and production company. There are currently no widely adopted consumer devices that can play any of the HD formats, although the industry is nearing an agreement on HD DVD standards that should correct that problem in the next few years.
Click here to read more about Microsoft stretching the reach of digital entertainment.
Computers can play HD-quality files already, but convincing the average couch potato to watch movies on a computer screen has proven to be a pretty tough sell.
Methods of recording HD content are developing more rapidly than methods of playing it back. Sony's consumer-priced HD camcorder, the HDR-HC1, started appearing on store shelves this month at prices just below $2,000, cheaper than many of the 3-chip SD camcorders that video pros use today.
And the latest versions of all the leading video editing programs, including Apple Computer Inc.'s Final Cut Pro, Sony Corp.'s Vegas, Adobe System Inc.'s Premiere and Avid Technology Inc.'s multiple products, include a method for capturing, editing and printing HD content back to tape.
Even without devices for HD playback, video professionals are delighted with HDV image quality, even when they end up down-converting to standard format.
"I love recording in the widescreen, 16 by 9 format," said Charles Dennis, a dance and performance art videographer in New York. "HDV is a great acquisition format. The picture just looks extraordinary." Dennis takes advantage of the broader canvas that HD offers to create more compelling visual presentation.
A few hiccups remain in the HD production process. The massive data throughput and storage requirements that HD demands have been reduced through aggressive compression. Sony's approach to reducing HD file size is to rely on what's being called the HDV format, although that term may be a misnomer.
"There really isn't an HDV codec, it's just MPEG-2, only a higher bit rate than DVD," said Spotted Eagle. However, all that compression chews up plenty of processor power when the time comes to edit or render a final product.
"Compressed formats take a lot more horsepower than uncompressed formats due to the decode," he said, although the falling cost of chips makes it easy for producers to simply throw lots of processor power at the problem.
High interest in high definition. Click here to read more.
A small-scale format war is also brewing among the different HD acquisition formats, although nothing that's likely to stall the growth of HD production.
While Sony is relying on the HDV scheme, Panasonic Corp. prefers a variant of the DVC Pro format, which creates larger files and demands faster data through put than HDV.
Panasonic's next HD camcorder, the AG-HVX200 will not use tape for HD-level recording, but will rely on memory card system called P2, which is said to do a better job than tape at coping with the high data rates needed to do the job.
The proprietary P2 memory cards will cost $2,000 each for 8GB of storage, which yields between 8 and 20 minutes of recording time at HD quality. Panasonic argues that their approach involves less compression, yielding better image quality than the HDV format. Whether HD producers consider that difference worth the price remains to be seen.
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