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Week
of Sep 21 1998
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Sep
25
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Joshua
Eskin <josh@pancam.com>
has kindly allowed us to reprint his
report from PhotoKina.
PhotoKina
in Cologne, Germany, is one big show. Not
quite Comdex-sized, but it did take three
days just to cover everything once
over.
SpheronVR,
a German startup, showed their digital
panoramic camera, the DPC-10.
Unfortunately, their prototype did not
work so they could not demonstrate it.
They had one picture on the wall,
presumably made by their camera. The
camera connects to a laptop (PC only) via
USB. They want to be Mac compatible as
well, and are waiting for a Powerbook with
USB or Firewire. An external battery pack
provides power. Their sensor has 1350
elements. Digitization is to 10 bits. Data
rate I presume is limited by the USB link,
which is 12 Mbit/sec max. Lenses are
Nikon-mount. Est. price $US 12k - 13k.
Projected to ship in December.
<www.spheron.com>
Noblex,
maker of swing-lens panoramic film
cameras, showed a prototype digital pan
camera called the Rotoscan. Their sensor
has 8600 x 3 elements, and makes a 1 GByte
image. They see their camera as a
metrology instrument for architects, not a
QTVR tool. Showed a very high res
black-and-white picture. Would not demo
the camera because "the light is wrong in
here." Est. price US$22,500. Avail. in 6
months.
IPIX
had a desk in the Kodak pavillion,
promoting their $US1500 package. You get a
Kodak DC200 digital camera, a cute little
fisheye lens, a tripod head, and special
IPIX software. You also get 12 free
"saves" of IPIX images (that is, after you
seam two fisheye images into a spherical
image). After that, you pay $US25 per
save. This is done by buying keys from
IPIX, good for a certain number of saves.
In the near future one "save" will produce
three images: high-res, low-res, and
bundled-with-a-java-viewer.
The
Kodak 200 camera does not have exposure
lock. You need to set up your views so
that the average scene luminance is about
the same in both hemispheres. You can
purchase the kit from a Kodak web site.
IPIX also has kits for the Olympus D-340L
and the Nikon Coolpix 900.
<www.ipix.com>
<www.kodak.com>
PhaseOne,
maker of digital backs for cameras will be
involved in two future panoramic camera
projects. A new company called
PanoScan is planning on coming out
with a PhaseOne-based pano camera. Also,
Seitz, maker of the RoundShot
panoramic camera, plans to incorporate a
PhaseOne back into their system sometime
in the forseeable future.
<www.phaseone.com>
A
group called city.scope does custom
pano setups for monitoring public places,
such as the PotzdamerPlatz construction
project in Berlin. Theirs is a digital
still camera on a turntable, with
automatic stitching and integration into a
web page.
<www.cityscope.de>
Some
other cool stuff:
Carbon fiber tripods from
Gitzo and Bogen/Manfrotto.
Feather light and sturdy. A must-have for
the space-age photographer.
Wide
angle adapter (0.8 X) for the Canon
Camedia C1400XL. Maybe this camera
line has another name in the US. The Elf
is called "Ixus" in Europe.
Fuji
will be starting up a line of instant
photo cameras, now that some Polaroid
patents are expiring. One is a digital
camera that prints a small (about 20 x 30
mm) images onto polariod-type film. Sales
of some cameras to start in Europe in
December.
Kodak
and Fuji are both heavily promoting
their network-based film processing
services.
Printing
pictures onto little stickers is a popular
application, both in photo booths and on
ink jet printers.
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Sep
24
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The
Conference "Web Design &
Development '98" is in Boston this
week. I toured the exhibits at the show
yesterday (Wednesday.) This is a small
show, filling about a third of one floor
of the Hynes Auditorium. Attendence seemed
pretty light too, and one exhibitor
observed how small the show was. There are
some interesting sessions running on
Thursday and Friday, so maybe attendance
will pick up...
It
was on odd collection of exhibitors. The
biggest boths were IBM, RealNetworks and
GoLive. Other exhibitors included BeHere
(panoramic lens,) NCompass, some ISPs,
several associations, and places offering
employment services. GoLive had the best
giveaways (jellybeans and wind-up
toys...now you know my interests.)
<www.mfweb.com>
Saw
an overview of authoring for
RealNetworks G2 player. The beta of
this player is available for Windows,
while players for Macintosh and Unix are
expected at the end of the year, along
with the official release.
RealNetworks
has added three new data types to the
existing RealAudio and RealVideo.
RealFlash is streaming Flash files,
RealPix is streaming still images,
and RealText provides scrolling
text. The G2 player also supports the new
SMIL (pronounced Smile) multimedia
authoring language. SMIL files look very
much like HTML files, but have a layout
section and body section. The layout
section lets you define the areas of the
screen in which data is placed, much like
specifying frames in HTML but within the
document itself. The body is where you
define the data that will play within
those areas. SMIL is more complicated and
sophisticated than this, but that's
essentially what they were using SMIL for
in their demos.
RealPix
is another ASCII file containing tags. But
here you can specify a sequence of JPG or
GIF files, and then list when each image
is supposed to appear on screen and a
transition to be used. The server reads in
all the individual files used in the
sequence, then sends them to the player at
the data rate specified in the file. If
you specify a rate that isn't fast enough
to get the image to the player in time to
be displayed then the player will skip the
image. RealNetworks is also working on an
authoring tool for creating these
sequences.
RealText
seems to be HTML text that automatically
scrolls either vertically or horizontally
within the display area in the player.
Demos showed a stock ticker and a
vertically scrolling list of news
items.
More
information is available at their
developer web page.
<www.real.com/devzone>
Digital
BitCasting Corp, a Salem MA based
company, had a table within RealNetworks
both. They are offering G2/MPEG,
real-time hardware encoding for MPEG along
with client/server software that works
with RealNetworks server and G2 player to
add support for MPEG. At $7,330 for a 100
stream license (plus the license for
RealNetworks RealSystem G2) it's not
cheap, and the MPEG quality is probably
best for intranets rather than for most
internet users. The encoder runs under
Windows 95/NT.
<www.bitcasting.com>
GoLive
was showing their Web Publishing
System. This was announced at Seybold
and is expected to ship in December. The
system is intended for managing web sites
with multiple people editing the content,
though only a few might create the basic
layout of the site. It consist of three
parts; an SQL database and server,
CyberStudio Publishing Edition and GoLive
Cyberwriter. The database/server will run
under Mac OS, Mac X, Win, WinNT, AIX,
Linux and Solaris. It can be used as the
primary server, or can work with other web
servers.
CyberStudio
Publishing Edition resembles the
companies CyberStudio product, but lacks
the site maintenace features of that
product (the site is now maintained by the
database.) The site designer(s) uses this
tool to create the basic template for the
site; the basic page design. CyberStudio
is currently Mac only.
CyberWriter
is a browser-based (4.0 browser) editing
system which lets content authors add
basic content pages to a site (such as
articles) but doesn't let them change page
layout. The CyberWriter is more than just
a form for entering information. It will
list other articles to aid in adding links
from the article you are adding, and list
photos in the database to add to the
article. An overview list of pieces you
are editing lets you manage when the story
is supposed to be active, and change the
status of an article. In the demo a new
"story" was added to the database. The
headline and first paragraph of the story
were placed on one web page, while the
article was published on another web page.
All this--along with the linking between
the two--was done automatically without
any input from the person who created the
article. The database can be published on
the internet "live," or you can publish a
static version of the database at specific
points.
Both
the CyberWriter and CyberStudio looked
very polished (especially considering they
aren't supposed to go to beta for another
month!) And with a $999 expected price
which covers everything but limits the
system to two concurrent editors (not web
visitors) it looks very interesting.
<www.golive.com>
I
also saw NCompass Labs NCompass
Resolution. Unfortunately I didn't get
a full demo of this, so I didn't see as
much as I did of the GoLive system.
NCompass seems to be going after the same
market; it's billed as a web content
management system. It consists of an ISAP
plugin that works with Microsoft's SQL
server. Basic templates are created in
HTML using any HTML editor. A single
authoring application (Windows only) is
used by the site designer to specify how
and who can edit the templates. Content
editors can then use the same editing tool
to edit the content of the site. The
kicker is the system costs $39,000, which
provides for 10 content authors and two
designers. That's actual id's in the
system, not concurrent connections.
Additional authors cost $50, while
designers cost $495.
The
tool looked interesting, but it didn't
look as easy to use as GoLive's. Frankly,
they needed to improve the interface as
well as the look of their demo
content.
Having
already seen GoLive, I had to wonder about
the price difference. Maybe GoLive's
system isn't as powerful as NCompass', or
maybe NCompass does things that GoLive's
can't. That will have to be determined at
another time.
<www.ncompasslabs.com>
Pick
up a copy of WEBTechniques
September 1998 if you can. It has an
interesting article on Digital Cameras, a
review of Live Picture's Reality Studio
and an introduction to SMIL.
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Sep
23
|
If, like me, you're thinking of
getting a DV camera, the Sony
TRV900 offers an interesting
combination of features and is something
I've been looking at. While it's small and
fits in the consumer category, it uses 3
CCDs and offers much better image quality
than the single chip TRV9. The chips
aren't as large as the chips on the VX1000
(380K vs. 400K), so the images might not
be quite as good as that camera and
reports indicate that the VX1000 may do
slightly better in low light
conditions.
Nice
features include analog in (convert
existing content to digital!) 16x9
recording, and optional 8 hour battery.
The body is magnesium alloy, and (joy oh
joy) the camera offers manual shutter,
exposure, white balance and gain control.
It also can be set to play sounds when
certain camera functions happen (such as
when ejecting a tape!!)
The
camera is now shipping, though it might be
hard to get hold of. The lowest price I've
so far found for the TRV900 is $2,200
($2,699 list), while the VX1000 costs
$3,200 ($4,199 list).
<www.sel.sony.com>
And for some good HDTV news
(and we need some) Sony says that
Talisman Crest Limited Productions has
selected Sony's digital HDCAM camcorders
to shoot the dramatic series, The
Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. The
program will be the first recurring
television series shot in a digital high
definition format.
The
HDW-700 camcorder they will be using is a
RGB 2 million-pixel CCD camera with a
10-Bit 74.25MHz DSP processing the RGB
video. The camcorder uses Sony's BCT
series HD half-inch Metal Particle Tape.
The standard small cassette allows
40-minutes recording in the camcorder. The
HDW-500 VTR can record two hours on the
standard large cassette. The producers say
they have been able to seamlessly piece
together footage shot on 35mm and footage
shot on high definition video.
<www.sony.com/professional>
  
Crescendo is a streaming MIDI player
for web browsers. Crescendo PLUS
version 4.0 Beta 2 is now available, and
includes a software wavetable synthesizer
LiveSynth, (for more realistic instrument
sounds). LiveSynth requires a Pentium. If
you don't have a Pentium processor, you
will still be able to take advantage of
streaming and the other features found in
Crescendo PLUS. For a short time, a
Crescendo PLUS subscription which entitles
purchasers to both the shipping 3.0
version of Crescendo and 4.0 Beta 2
including LiveSynth is available for
$19.95 at their on-line store.
<www.liveupdate.com>
Media 100 Inc has an exclusive
worldwide distribution agreement with
Puffin Designs to distribute as
well as bundle with select Media 100
systems, Commotion LE, a new paint
and effects tool for video and digital
media artists. Commotion LE will be
exclusively available through Media 100's
global distribution channel and will be
bundled with all Media 100 qxc, le, and lx
digital video systems at no additional
cost to the end user.
Commotion
LE includes many of the features in
Puffin's Commotion package including
real-time paint over time, full motion D1
resolution playback (up to 720 x 486 NTSC,
720 x 576 PAL) and effects capabilities.
Commotion
LE will be available through Media 100's
worldwide distribution channel for $795
USD beginning in October, 1998. Upgrades
to the full-featured Commotion product
will also be available from Media 100 for
$1,895 USD.
<www.media100.com>
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Sep
22
|
Only a week or so after it announced
purchasing Cosmo Software, Platinum
Software has suffered a 37 percent
decline in its stock value. The news
item on CNET makes no mention of the
purchase, but instead talks of rumors of
the companies chief executive leaving.
Whatever the reason, it can't be good for
the future of VRML.
<www.news.com
news item:"Platinum:
No reason for stock
drop">
NewTek has formally announced
availability of the Mac OpenGL
update for LightWave 3D 5.6.
Registered users of LightWave 3D 5.5 and
5.6 can download the Mac OpenGL update
from NewTek's web site at
http://www.newtek.com.
Mac
OpenGL greatly improves real-time view and
accuracy in LightWave 3D 5.6. Other
enhancements using Mac OpenGL
include:
- Full
color background images in Layout
- Faster
screen redraw
- More
accurate lighting model
- More
accurate real time texture map
viewing
- Greatly
enhanced Morph Gizmo
performance
- Viewable
real-time Sky Tracer
environments
- Increased
support for 3rd party tools requiring
Open GL
- Positioned
to take advantage of upcoming OpenGL
and QuickDraw 3D hardware solutions for
the PowerMac.
<www.newtek.com>
CodeRiders has released the
DialogBoxer Xtra for
creating system-style dialogs and
interfaces for use with Macromedia
Director. Interfaces for Mac OS 8 or
Windows 95/95/NT are created using simple
Lingo commands which allow you to build a
fully-interactive user interface. Current
widgets include large and small versions
of pop menu, button, default button, radio
button, check box, text entry field,
caption, and graphic widgets. $95 U.S. per
copy includes a royalty-free
cross-platform Macintosh and Windows
distribution license. You can download a
fully-functional try-and-buy version of
DialogBoxer from their website.
<www.coderiders.com>
Ulead has announced a new video
editing software for novices called
VideoStudio. VideoStudio features a
step by step interface for beginners to
the video editing process. VideoStudio
also includes a training CD that walks new
users through the process of installing
the necessary hardware and explains video
lingo and features - all for only $99.95.
VideoStudio will ship in
mid-October.
<www.ulead.com>
Macromedia last week announced the
general availability of Authorware 5
Attain and Dreamweaver Attain.
Authorware 5 Attain is a visual authoring
tool for Web and online learning and is
available for US $2,699. Special upgrade
pricing is available for Authorware 4
users at US $649. Web developers and
instructional designers can purchase
Dreamweaver Attain, avisual HTML tool for
creating Web-based learning content, for
U.S. $799.
<www.macromedia.com>
PUBLISHING
Digital Movie News, a web site that
included an interesting and eclectic mix
of information on digital video production
has ceased publication. The authors have
moved on to publish Digital
Puppets, which focuses on using tools
such as Poser to create digital
movies.
<www.el-dorado.ca.us/~dmnews/>
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Sep
21
|
There are still big questions about
broadcast digital video, but manufacturers
are starting to announce more product.
Sony Electronics has announced a
digital TV receiver/decoder to help
consumers during the transition from
analog to digital television. The
DTR-HD1 is capable of
downconverting over-the-air digital
broadcast signals to analog signals when
the receiver is connected to an external
antenna, so the signals can be displayed
on analog NTSC televisions.
The
receiver/decoder incorporates an RGB
output and is compatible with Dolby
Digital 5.1 channel surround sound via an
optical digital output. The receiver also
decodes Dolby Digital stereo
sound.
The
DTR-HD1 is scheduled to go on sale in late
December at a suggested retail price of
$1,599.
Sony
has also announced a direct-view, totally
flat screen HDTV set. The 34-inch,
16-by-9 widescreen TV, featuring Sony's FD
Trinitron flat screen picture tube is
scheduled to go on sale in late November
at a suggested retail price of $8,999.
<www.sel.sony.com/>
PROFILE
A press release at Microsoft's website
profiles Linda Stone, director of
the Virtual Worlds Group at Microsoft
Research. It highlights her work with
Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center to develop a "virtual world" that
enables people with cancer to obtain
information and interact with others
facing similar challenges.
The
piece is worth reading because it covers
both the project, as well as Stone's work
in other areas. For those unfamiliar with
her work, while at Apple Linda worked to
promote Multimedia and CD-ROM development.
Joining Microsoft in 1993, in 1994 she
helped establish the Virtual Worlds Group,
and went on to develop Microsoft V-Chat,
an avatar based two and three-dimensional
environment. The group's work also
contributed to the development of
Microsoft Chat.
I
once interviewed Linda for a newsletter I
was publishing. After telling me she
probably wouldn't be of interest to the
readership, she spent half the time giving
me ideas for promoting and improving the
publication(!)
<www.microsoft.com press article
"Microsoft's
Linda Stone to Present Her Virtual World
to the National Cancer Institute This
Week">
PUBLISHING
Digital Content Creation Magazine
finally seems to be accepting subscription
applications. This publication will begin
publishing soon, and you can apply for a
free subscription.
<www.dccmag.com>
In an opinion piece published on
Emediaweekly's website Senior
Associate Editor Joanna Pearlstein
complains that "Microsoft's
Chromeffects might be neat, but its
reliance on Windows, Internet Explorer and
fast PCs doesn't jibe with Webmasters'
desire for accessible
technologies."
I'd
have an opinion on this, but I haven't yet
been able to see Chromeffects in action
(it won't run on my PC or Mac...)
<www.emediaweekly.com
opinion "Microsoft
on the Web is
members-only">
VideoScript 1.1, the official
release of this tool for analyzing video
and images in real time, is now available.
VideoScript Professional ($195) includes
one year of technical support and free
upgrades. VideoScript Personal ($49) is
available to individuals and
not-for-profit corporations. TrailWare
versions can be downloaded.
<www.videoscript.com>
There is a new Technical Note for
the QuickTime 3.0.2 update. The
Technote, available in HTML and PDF
format, describes the changes between the
final release of QuickTime 3.0 and the
update release of QuickTime 3.0.2.
<devworld.apple.com
Technote "HTML
Technote
1139"
or
"PDF
Technote
1139">
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