All that glitters: High-bandwidth connections can work wonders for filmmakers and ad agencies. But is there enough business for carriers to justify the investment?

The T-Rex of "Jurassic Park" traveled digitally all the way from the special effects wizards at Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, Calif., to the "Schindler's List" set in Poland, so director Steven Spielberg could review the movie before it terrified audiences in local movie theaters. And the aliens and otherworldly ghouls that agents Mulder and Scully tackle each week on "The X-Files" often originate in Los Angeles post-production studios far from the series' Vancouver, British Columbia, location shoots.

In short, telecommuting has hit the film and video production communities in a big way. Films, television programs and commercials used to be filmed and produced mainly in Los Angeles and New York, but that's all changing. The rise of computer-generated special effects; the growth of post-production communities in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and other cities; and the increasing use of remote location shooting, all mean that many different entities in several cities or even countries may collaborate on a single commercial, TV program or film.

But while most telecommuters mainly need to transfer relatively small data files, post-production houses, studios and advertisers often exchange video files. Even a 20-second compressed file equals 2 or 3 Mbytes-and most video houses work with data-intensive, uncompressed digital video.

Although couriers or express services are still the most popular means of delivering production-quality tapes between collaborators, several carriers offer a range of electronic video delivery alternatives at speeds ranging from ISDN rates to 270 Mb/s. That range of speeds is what carriers must offer to accommodate different perceptions of what broadcast-quality video is.

"Video streaming is in the eye of the beholder," says Andy Johnston, vice president of sales and marketing at Jazz Media Network in Montreal. He and others point out that the video signals broadcast into viewers' homes meet a television station's definition of broadcast quality, but would never pass muster with digital effects specialists in most post-production houses.

To provide full service to the broadcast-quality market, carriers agree they must supply a flexible network. Most also say it is not enough to provide just the transport media; at the very least, clients need an easy computer interface for setting up connections in the network. At the extreme, some require a software package that facilitates high-end videoconferencing for real-time collaboration on video clips and special effects.

Although the demands are many, it's not clear what the returns are, especially for 270 Mb/s, real-time digital video transport. Carriers say customers want the convenience of transmitting real-time video, but the price tag may come as a shock.

"Customers ask if they'll be paying the same $15 they do for an overnight envelope," says Wallace Murray, manager of technical support for transport services at Ameritech, which operates what he calls a marginally successful 270 Mb/s service in Detroit.

One carrier says it is likely that the pyramid approach will hold with video services. "Your high-dollar services are likely to be low in volume," says John Cantrell, product manager of studio, production and post at Vyvx. "The higher volume, such as approvals or video sent in data streams, will be the lower dollar."

D1 service Many carriers are focusing on the promise of high-end video services, especially the glamorous area of serial component digital video, often referred to as D1 after the first Sony tapes that used the format. Component digital video is an international standard backed by the ITU-T and Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in which the color and brightness signals that create a video picture have been separated. Post-production houses consider component video superior to composite broadcast video, which is based on the NTSC analog standard and intermixes color and brightness.

Separating the color and brightness gives post-production houses purer data to work with than NTSC video provides. D1 video also defines channels for CD quality sound, videoconferencing and remote machine control.

But more data requires greater bandwidth to transport uncompressed D1 video. For component digital video to travel in real time, a 270 Mb/s pipe is required. That is more bandwidth than most corporations install on their campuses. A DS-3 circuit, for example, handles 45 Mb/s and a DS-3 circuit offers 155 Mb/s.

Yet compressing D1 to run at lower speeds ruins its value for production houses because compression introduces artifacts into the video signal. The more compression and decompression cycles the video goes through, the more likely there will be artifacts-and the more artifacts in the digital format, the worse the video quality will be in an analog format.

So post-production studios use messengers to send master tapes around Los Angeles and other cities. With film and video editors billing at $800 per hour, the time wasted while tapes are in transit and multimillion-dollar editing suites sit idle equals lost revenue, says David Walsh, product manager of narrow-and broadband video services at GTE. Post-production houses want to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he says.

To meet that need, Jazz Media, Pacific Bell, GTE and Vyvx are among the carriers testing or introducing local 270 Mb/s service to replace couriers and tie remote editors into production facilities.

Jazz Media, formerly known as Intermedia and recently spun off from Bell Canada as a separate entity, is building what Marcel Messier, vice president of distribution, calls an intranet-style, IP-based 270 Mb/s network. To transport D1 video, Jazz Media network users dial into a local operating center on a metropolitan area network. By treating the video transmissions as file transfers, the carrier has avoided interoperability problems prevalent with different manufacturers' codecs, Messier says.

The operating center contains TCP/IP routers, file and video servers, an asynchronous transfer mode switch and a 270 Mb/s video switch (Figure 1). D1 video headed for a local destination is switched onto a dedicated 270 Mb/s pipe to its end-point. Material destined for a distant city is recorded by the video server, which then transmits the D1 over an ATM backbone to the distant city at lower bandwidths-T-1 (1.5 Mb/s) to T-3 rates-using a store-and-forward method. The signal is still uncompressed; it just takes longer to get to its destination than on a higher bandwidth connection.

"Using 270 Mb/s locally is quite viable economically," says Messier. "It can be less expensive than a DS-3 connection-it requires less [multiplexing] equipment because the clients use D1 internally."

To find out how economically sensible 270 Mb/s service is, Vyvx and Pacific Bell have teamed up in Hollywood/Burbank/Los Angeles to offer a D1 service trial with several studios and post-production houses. End users call Pacific Bell to arrange connectivity to another production house.

The users encode their video with codecs from Artel Video Systems and Leitch Technologies, which comply with SMPTE codec standard. The encoded video is routed over Pacific Bell fiber to a Vyvx point of presence and video switch, and it is then transmitted to its destination, all at 270 Mb/s (Figure 2).

"It's not point-to-point, it's switched, mimicking the phone network," says Brad Medford, principal member of the technical staff at Pacific Bell. The carrier hopes to further automate the switching process, he says, but although some customers may want complete control over their network connections, others may be more comfortable calling a service center to set up a connection.

If the trial proves the business case, Cantrell says it would be possible to offer a national switched 270 Mb/s network encompassing key production cities, with service running at 270 Mb/s locally and D1 traveling over 45 Mb/s connections between cities.

Although the financial viability of a national 270 Mb/s service remains to be seen, it is apparent that clients are looking for solutions and must be shielded from telecommunications and switching details, say carriers. To that end, Jazz Media provides a full software suite to clients, including security.

The company uses what it calls the Jazzbox to ensure that only authenticated encoded signals travel through the network. The user interface is written in Java, so it is compatible with a range of end user workstations.

Pacific Bell is looking at providing users with more of the features built into the D1 standard at 270 Mb/s, says Medford. For instance, with remote machine control and real-time video transfer, an editor with a computer at home could manipulate equipment in an editing suite in a downtown production facility as if it were in the next room, eliminating the need to download a full video clip before working on it.

Similar features are available at 45 Mb/s and lower speeds. Vyvx, for example, is testing Distant Director, a 45 Mb/s component digital collaboration tool that enables distant production houses to conduct high-level videoconferences on a T-1 channel separate from the actual video work in progress, says Cantrell.

And Sprint's Drums network offers a collaborative tool at ISDN speeds as part of its service package.

Lower-speed needs Although carriers are excited about their 270 Mb/s trials and services, most say that the greatest client activity is in lower-speed video services. Carriers generally agree that 270 Mb/s long-haul service-between Montreal and Los Angeles, for example-will not be economical in the near future because of the need for signal repeaters.

One long-haul solution is to transmit D1 video at 45 Mb/s in the store-and-forward scheme used by Jazz Media and Vyvx, in which delivery time is not critical, but the quality of the end video is. Pacific Bell also offers this service.

Carriers also provide service at ISDN speeds, which is used primarily for reviewing daily footage from shooting locations, for collaborating on shots and effects, and for client approvals.

Customers of Sprint's Drums network exchange video at ISDN speeds using several options, says Angela Rizzo, director of business development for Sprint Business Services. Customers may transmit video files to a central server in the network via file transfer protocol. Intended recipients then dial into the server to retrieve the file at their convenience.

Although Drums can use IP running over ISDN, some customers pay for a dedicated T-1 link, apportioning part of the link to the Drums service and using the rest of the pipe for Internet access and other business services, Rizzo says.

AT&T offers a video courier service at speeds up to 9 Mb/s and its customers, many of them advertising firms, are using the service to exchange production video, says Dick Slezak, managing director of advanced network services. "In the deals I make, people don't want to pay for more than 3 Mb/s," he says.

ATM paired with video has yet to prove its legs. Post-production houses fret that as an asynchronous data technology, ATM is ill-suited to highly delay-and error-sensitive digital video. "Video is contiguous; what goes in first must come out first," says Bob Pank, technical communications manager at Quantel, a production equipment manufacturer.

But ATM video proponents say ATM's virtual circuits and paths can ensure safe passage of video through a network. For instance, in a closed fiber loop linking a county fair and a local TV station, Brooks Fiber used a Via 188 codec from AG Communications that channeled NTSC MPEG-encoded video into ATM cells, then onto virtual paths, according to Wayne Williams, general manager of Atium products for AG Communications. "We're focusing on applications where something close to broadcast quality will work," he says.

Jazz Media uses an ATM backbone and bases its regular service on ATM. ATM speeds will be the next evolution for Sprint's Drums network, Rizzo says.

D1 over ATM for long-haul deliveries is also an option, says Joe Lardieri, senior product manager of ATM at GTE. But using ATM and D1 over short distances could add a layer of complexity to what is now a relatively simple transmission, he says.

Carriers also are uncertain of the value of ATM speeds between 45 and 270 Mb/s. "At 155 Mb/s, you're still compressing the video," says Vyvx's Cantrell, noting that would limit the value of OC-3 for production purposes.

Whither HDTV? What remains to be seen is whether users will ask carriers for even higher video speeds, particularly as the broadcast and production industries move to digital TV and high-definition TV (HDTV) formats. HDTV in particular has about three to four times the data of the D1 standard, or about 1.5 Gb/s.

Much will depend on whether broadcasters actually will adopt HDTV. The Federal Communications Commission has said that affiliates of the top four networks in the top 10 markets must be on the air with a digital signal by May 1, 1999.

But carriers say broadcasters could comply by adopting standard definition TV (SDTV). Although SDTV is based on a digital component signal, which makes it better than current NTSC analog video, it does not have the resolution of HDTV.

That means it may be a long, slow process before film studios and production houses begin converting existing cameras, monitors, editing bays and other equipment to expensive new devices that meet HDTV standards, say some carriers and vendors. Consequently, it is likely to be some time before production houses will be sending out digital video in 1.5 Gb/s streams, say carriers.

Pacific Bell has had some cursory inquiries from production houses for transport greater than 270 Mb/s, says Medford at Pacific Bell.

But while the industry is still trying to sort out the effects of digital TV and HDTV, at some point, production houses will want to transmit uncompressed HDTV data streams, says Darin Crosbie, director of sales for the Americas for Miranda Technologies.

That's fine with carriers, who say that more digital production is better for them because digital video is likely to find its way into their networks at some point. For example, more local broadcasters are shooting with MPEG-capable cameras. Eventually, all cameras will produce digital output.

One way to capitalize on that opportunity would be to create docking stations to which broadcasters could plug in to upload video, says Ameritech's Murray. Other carriers also are looking at digital cinema and digital video distribution (see sidebars).

"There are few technical limits," says Cantrell at Vyvx. "It's all economics and value, with the main question being, how will you make the service pay?"

>From a network provider perspective, just looking at the number of cineplexes out there, digital cinema would be a dream," says John Cantrell, product manager of studio, production and post at Vyvx.

Digital delivery of feature films via fiber or satellite to cinemas is still many years away, say carriers, as the motion picture industry studies how to make digital projectors equal to their traditional counterparts in clarity and brightness. Theater chains also will have to invest in expensive new digital projectors.

But if the studios and theater operators ever make the investment, carriers are waiting. "We know we can transmit the digital signal-we've done it with HDTV," Cantrell says.

Meanwhile, AT&T is breaking ground on a new aspect of broadcast-quality video-live event pay-per-view theater feeds.

The carrier tested the concept last year at a benefit for the American Israel Cultural Foundation, when it broadcast a live concert featuring the renowned violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman to six theaters around the country.

Perlman was playing at Lincoln Center and Zukerman was in St. Paul, Minn. High-fidelity sound traveled over a separate 128 kb/s channel and the video over a T-1 carrier using VTel codecs connected to a bridging facility in Denver, where the material was re-broadcast to the theatres.

"It was $25,000 a ticket, and there were no complaints," says Dick Slezak, managing director of advanced network services at AT&T. After working out a variety of licensing and union issues, Slezak says AT&T expects to introduce the service soon, focusing on high-end cultural events, from special performances to museum exhibitions.

Before a sitcom or commercial can get to the home, it must first get to the broadcaster. Today, some television stations still need to receive tape cassettes, but increasingly, programming distribution and storage will be digital.

For instance, advertisers or their production houses can supply one of Vyvx's service centers with either a broadcast-ready tape or a fiber or satellite transmission. Most advertising firms still deliver master cassettes because that's what their processes are oriented to produce, says Kurt L. Myers, director of interactive operations at Vyvx. The center then transmits the video over a 45 Mb/s fiber link to its main teleport in Tulsa, Okla., as well as to a facility in Memphis.

Next, in the early hours of the morning when most TV stations are relatively quiet, the satellite transmits commercials and their broadcast instructions to stations that subscribe to Vyvx's service. The stations' video transmission receivers (VTRs) record the transmission. Later, a broadcast engineer prepares them for airing.

For stations without VTR capabilities, Vyvx automatically routes transmissions to its Memphis facility, which duplicates tapes for overnight shipment to the stations.

Vyvx is working toward a satellite store-and-forward system, in which the commercials can be transmitted to high-power video servers at a television station, in a pitch-and-catch system, Myers says. The servers would then be storage as well as transmission devices, reducing the need for videotapes.

"We'll never entirely eliminate videotapes," Myers says, "but we'd like the process to be as digital as possible."