CVC's affiliates: a family affair BY TIM FROST
When Warner launched DVD, the bulk of the first 50 US titles were created by CVC, Warner's own authoring facility in LA. Since those 'early' days all of five years ago, CVC has spread its influence worldwide to embrace associated facilities around the globe to create a worldwide production capability.
LA - where DVD content calls home - has a cluster of DVD production centres, and at the heart, is one of DVD's earliest exponents, CVC. The company claims not just to have the biggest output of titles, but says it is responsible for more DLTs than the rest put together. "On a big month we are cranking out 500 DLTs and an average of a 350," says Zeevik Bar-Am, CVC director of special projects, who then insists that the high numbers doesn't mean that CVC simply automatically churns out titles.
"A lot of people like to say
we are just a factory pushing out a product. Well, at CVC we have done three
to four thousand discs to date, but as well as the high numbers amongst those
is The Matrix, The Abyss, and Yellow Submarine. I am making the point that
each one of those projects were extremely complex and advanced titles. The
reason we can do this is that when DVD came out we were very close to Toshiba,
as Warner had content and they wanted to sell hardware. So Toshiba created
the tools - the encoders and the authoring systems. Then, money was no object
as they had to have the tools to do the job and the system was not being produced
as a commercial product."
CVC is part of DVD's history, but the company in fact existed for many years before DVD's launch, as an edit and post- production facility for Lorimar. With the acquisition by Warner, the company changed direction to become a duplication and distribution facility for TV programming. By duplication, we are not talking mass VHS production, but the preparation of program duplicates to be sent to TV stations for transmission.
This TV broadcast interest has been developed dramatically, with CVC now also having a substantial TV programming distribution centre that is the hub of Warner's WB network. It sends via satellite, TV programming and individualised adverts slots to many hundreds of small TV stations across the US. This is a whole separate section of CVC, housed in the same building, with robot professional video Jukeboxes, a futuristic control room, and brand new video digital store systems of multi-terrabyte capacity. There, as well as the broadcast functions, the Video-on-Demand division that has grown 1000% over the past year and now prepares and satellite transmits 400 VOD programs a month.
The link with all of this to CVC's move into DVD is that Warner found itself with a facility that had already substantial experience in video preparation and encoding, so it was going to be culturally an easy move to take on DVD. There was an experiment in Orlando called Full Service Network which was effectively VoD. "We did all the compression for that, so since the Nineties we have been gaining compression experience and when DVD came along we already had some knowledge and some background from that," says Bar-Am.
The first generation of the Toshiba encoding and authoring systems came in separate large boxes and were constantly being updated as more and more was learned about authoring and encoding to work in the real world of less-than-perfect DVD players.
"Because there were problems about discs not playing or having problems in some players we were in contact with Toshiba on a daily basis with comments such as 'this doesn't work, that could operate differently, or wouldn't it be nice if...'
We have had a crew of very talented people up-dating, adding, changing and debugging this system over four or five years."
The system has gone through several iterations and the latest unit is compact and includes a whole additional range of features, such as comprehensive and tailored video filtering for the compression work. It seems that Toshiba was considering calling a halt to production of the encoding/authoring system. However, the CVC affiliate program, and its need for additional units for new affiliates and the way that affiliates seem to be taking on more units as they expand, has encouraged Toshiba to keep the system in production. However, the development stage of the system is now coming to an end, with the view that DVD as a technical format has now matured and there shouldn't be any real need to make further changes to the system. That is, presumably, until someone else ( comes up with a new way of using DVD- Video that needs further authoring development. Aspects, such as Web linking, are added at a later stage via the usual DVD i Web linking developers, so this is a sideways issue for the authoring system.
Part of that robustness is the system's intolerance of out-of-spec material. Being generated by Toshiba, it looks very carefully at the information it is being given to ensure that it meets fully the DVD spec. As DVD developed, CVC and Toshiba spent time finding work-arounds for out-of-spec players and the newer authoring functions that stretched players to the limit.
The most visible example of this was The Matrix, which pushed the envelope just one bit too far. But, says Bar-Am, the learning experience was a good one and came, fortunately, at the right time.
"In those first couple of years we were being asked to create work-arounds because we didn't want to give the public the view that DVD didn't work."
"The Matrix was a good thing for the industry because we could say if it doesn't work it is the hardware and the hardware companies that have to do something about it, By that time, DVD had already made a statement that it was here to stay and if something didn't work then the hardware companies had to fix it. If The Matrix had happened two years before, whilst DVD was trying to get established, it would have been a problem." CVC reports now that a lot of the initial problems with players not handling some of the more adventurous authoring techniques have been sorted out, as manufacturers at all levels refine their products in the light of discovered problems. So unless the disc has some new ground- breaking functions, it would not need to be tested on every possible player.
CVC is a substantial facility with a range of encoding, authoring, 5.1 and QC rooms. A CVC speciality has long been encoding and, starting from the original separate Toshiba encoder and external filters, the work is now done on the latest generation of the Toshiba encoder/authoring box - which is not cheap, but doesn't carry the $500k price tag of the first generation system.
The latest system has a whole range
of that the attitude towards the variety and level of filtering for DVD varies
enormously.
"It depends on what the clients say they want their compression to look like. Different clients like different looks to their compression. We used to use mainly outboard filtering, but now we tend to use filtering on the compressor because Toshiba have given us about 45 different filters. These have the different characteristic designed for film, video or different kinds of source material, as well as being tuned for different bit rates. We can also do scene by scene filtering using the time code and we can adjust the level of filters, so there is an infinite range of filtering we can apply."
Granlund is very much part of the Toshiba system as it was often his suggestions and comments that drove new developments. "If it was built for commercial purposes we wouldn't have got all these facilities because it would have to be something that everyone wanted, before the developers would consider working on it. But as a system to support the format we found that when we ran into a bug or a problem we got an answer the next day.
Where we are standing today, is with an authoring system and encoder that is about as good as it can get for DVD with the specs that we know today; this is probably the most robust on the market."
The quality control process that ensures the video quality varies from studio to studio. CVC starts with the specifications for the discs and then check how much extra content is going on them to calculate the bit-budget. This is a co-operative effort, with the main focus on producing the best picture and audio quality first. In keeping with the general way of working out these things, there is a two-way conversation about bit budgeting, confirming the number of discs the release will be put on and how much additional material is going to be included.
Test compressions are exchanged until everyone is happy, and the project can then progress. After this stage, with Warner, CVC becomes the QC organisation; after all these years, the studio trusts CVC's abilities to only produce titles that they will be happy with. Other companies do their own checking and Fox use a third-party company to QC the titles, and this work is done mainly at one of CVC's own QC rooms which is convenient for everyone concerned.
Compression work is done at CVC for both NTSC and PAL masters. Whilst PAL offers better line resolution it does bring with it its own set of problems, says Granlund. "It is harder for PAL because we have more languages and subtitles, so we normally end up with a lower bit rate." This leads to the decision to offer a wider range of PAL SKUs. That way the number of language tracks can be reduced and the bit rate increased to keep quality up to match the increased line resolution.
Although they can do a range of audio compression work, mostly the audio files come in from specialist audio facilities, all ready to incorporate as files into the projects.
Another major investment for CVC is the multiple QC rooms, where every element of a title is checked. Emulation is done using Toshiba emulators. These appear almost to perfectly duplicate the functions and performance of a standard Toshiba DVD player. As well as checking image and sound quality. Obviously the real work is in ensuring the navigation works, the menus read correctly, subtitles are in the right place and right time - all the usual difficult aspects of DVD that need to be confirmed before thousands of copies are pressed. Each of the QC rooms also have a different range of DVD players. One of the advantages of a large operation is when a title runs to a number of discs, CVC can spread the load around a number of QC rooms so that a title can be passed quickly.
Of course, that requires a good level of organisation and communication and a lot of this is enabled through twice-daily meetings where the staff talk through the ongoing projects, tracking what has come in, who is doing what, reporting problems such as missing or incorrect resources. On my visit it seemed the usual amalgam of things going well, double checks of who has signed off what and what audio resources had been sent in with completely the wrong language on it.
But even with the success of CVC
as a major LA facility, Bar-Am felt that the organisation still needs to do
more to address the international nature of DVD production. Content owners
want to aid and control the quality of product on a worldwide basis. Although
DVD's technology allows for a fully international disc with every language
you can think of, the practicalities are somewhat different. Optimising for
PAL or NTSC, and running out of space to do more than a few language tracks,
are the more obvious disc- related limitations. But there are more real issues
such as dealing with censorship cuts, the localisation for subtitles, with
just supplying the local market with exactly what it needs - and that all
requires the use of local production. CVC started looking at building up its
contacts with other DVD production companies without really looking at the
international implications, says Bar-Am.
"We knew we wanted to put up more things on DVD and deal with this across the world. But there comes a certain point where if you expand yourself it doesn't work. So we came to the conclusion that we should look to a joint venture of some kind with companies that we trust and can train. Then when there was a overflow they can take it, that was the initial concept."
It started with ComChoice in LA, which is now CVC's biggest affiliate, producing up to 150 DLTs a month. But the concept expanded and changed as pressure to make sure that the DVDs released internationally were of matching quality to the US product.
"A lot of territories were putting pressure on the studios to say they wanted to participate and they were finding errors and they know their local needs. From Warner we were getting asked, 'we want to work with this company or that - are they qualified to do the work?' and we looked at territories where this would be important and we came up with the concept of affiliates. This was not just for overflow but to service the clients. The idea was when a client comes to CVC they are not handled by one company, but instead by a worid-wide group."
So three years ago the affiliate to programme started to expand. One of the major keys to making this idea work, was that each affiliate be working, with the same system, thus making it easy to move projects from one territory to another.
"The concept was that we become a global network, that no matter where you do the work, you get the same technology, the same approach, the same pricing and the same equipment. And as a result, today we have ten affiliates around the world," says Bar-Am.
"Part of what makes it attractive to us is the association with CVC, which brings a certain level of credibility," comments Bob Hively, president ComChoice. "We also have the opportunity to learn the features and operating methodologies that have been proven within CVC. Beyond that there is the wider communication with the other affiliates around the world and the ability to share ideas and what works best in different circumstances. Ultimately, we are able to deliver a global DVD via the affiliated partners around the world, which we think is quite a unique benefit."
Mercury's executive director, Lim Tai expands on the point.
"That applies to all of us. What we are trying
to portray is an image that we are global. The competition in Singapore is
very high and the problem is that the prices are always going down and in
the end nobody makes money. But if we stay together we can have a lot of co-operation
and quality control and can offer something unique, we have this idea of a
one stop shop for the world market."
Memory-Tech's Digital Post senior manger, Ryoji Higashi, commented also that the program gave the company access to a wider range of facilities whilst also being able to offer their own links to the wider content community.
Using the same Toshiba system throughout the network is an essential part of making the affiliates program work in terms of project interchange, says Bar-Am.
"If you are all using the same system, it makes it easier to exchange files. But it is more than that, as we can also exchange templates, which are used as the blueprint for any title.
So if we decided to do The Matrix today we could send all the elements and the templates out which defines the whole of the project. The affiliate can do the subtitle changes and other localisation, but they don't have to start reinventing the wheel and re-do all the testing and debugging." The template approach works well when everyone is using the same authoring system and then there is no possibility of confusion. Also when the various companies are working with similar methodologies, then the interchange process becomes even more transparent.
To make life easier and faster, CVC now sends all of its files, apart from the video, directly
from its ftp site so that everyone has instant access to the essential elements of a project.
"This is the important thing," agrees Hively, "having a standard way of working and making the interchange straightforward. The elements that have to go into a DVD match the software you are using, so that you get to a bunch of elements and you know they will work. We have consistency and it is easy to move things around and do the work."
Training is also an issue that binds the affiliates together. Traditionally, CVC would help train staff from the new affiliates. The training is more than simply how the encoder and authoring systems work. CVC help the recruits with a full understanding of the tricks of the trade that lead onto successful masters, as well as how the affiliates can work together. Some of this training activity has now been taken over by the affiliates themselves, with more established companies helping out the newer ones.
Whilst facilities tend to guard their secrets jealously, there is a more open frame of mind amongst the affiliate family. What one company develops, another has access to if they need it. This brings a number of new functions to the whole group. One important development was made by Mercury which worked on a new way of dealing with the cuts in movies required by local censorship rules in territories such as Japan, the UK and the Middle East.
"Mercury is in a territory which is high in censorship and we had to find a way to do it more cost effectively," says Bar-Am. "If you censor, you have to have a new master and new subtitling. The DLT cost can be the same for Singapore as it is for a worldwide release."
Lim produced a way of being able
to create the censored version from the existing files and this offers a substantial
savings in time and cost. The quality is the same world-wide because they
are all working from the original files. It is a win-win situation for the
affiliates as it is a unique function that we can extend to all our clients."
Handling and editing material from the original files to deal with issues such as censorship will increase in importance as the worldwide reach of the affiliate program expands into more areas where censorship is an issue. Being able to share such techniques is a core advantage of the affiliates group. Bar-Am says that each company has its own area of expertise that can be accessed by the rest of the group, from Web creation to disc manufacturing via Karaoke.
But a core issue is to be able to offer a client a world- wide single service supply. Bar-Am highlighted a project from the BBC where the compression, authoring and encoding is being done at CVC, whist ComChoice is creating the Latin American versions and Memory-Tech is working on the complexities of the Japanese release. Since each company is working in parallel, they can get the project done quickly and they can each access the same basic sets of resources created in LA. "This way clients maximise their dollars," he says, "and we can take the headaches away from them and they get some uniformity of the product. We are really trying to give a one-stop-shop on a worldwide basis."
Affiliate-led developments are being expanded with an Internet-based internal communications system developed by ComChoice. This allows clients to access work from their desktop. No matter where they are in the world, clients can check developments and approve work in progress. So far, this is something that ComChoice has developed for itself, but ultimately there is no reason that the software cannot be expanded to be used by other affiliates.
"This is another possibility," says Hively.
"Developing a centralised communications system where we would be on
line so that we can have information and share it around. We already have
it ourselves in the US and we use it as our main means of communication. The
reaction from a European client was that they are finding it easier to work
with us across the Atlantic than it is to work with other companies in their
own cities. We have started to introduce it to other affiliates, so setting
up the possibility of using it as a global system. It has to be tried out
to see how it would work."
One of the reasons for this openness is that the affiliates do not overlap territorially, there is no sense of the companies being in direct competition, so they are happy to work together, to develop a bigger market for the whole family.
"This is why we are very careful not to have more than one affiliate in the same territory. How we decide who is to become an affiliate is not a money- making choice, it is purely for servicing clients," sums up Bar-Am, concentrating on the point that it is the working relationships that make the program work. "If we look at a new affiliate, it is the attitude of the owner that is important and if they really care about supporting each other."
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