Forbidden's FORscene

 

by Neal Romanek

 

 

Who said that military and creative technologies were mutually exclusive?

 

 

For years, there have been promises of web-based media programs, and there have been a few attempts at web-based editorial systems. Some of these have worked well, but usually only in ideal conditions, connected to fast networks. A browser-based system is truly "platform independent". Any hardware that can access the Internet can run the application and one's ability to edit is virtually independent of computer speed.

 

 

The key to FORscene's success is in the compression technology, built from the ground up for the system. Streater studied information theory at Cambridge, and that grounding has been the keystone to FORscene's construction. He explains: "There's a lot of repetition in data and if you've got clever technology, you can work out what's repeated and what's genuine information." When he studied for a PhD at London University, Streater worked with the military on image recognition for guided missiles. The problem he was tasked to solve was how a missile flying to its target at 3000 miles per hour can analyze the video it takes of the ground zooming past, making course corrections instantaneously. Streater points out "At those speeds, you really have only one frame between the time the missile spots the target on the horizon and the target itself." It is exactly this type of problem of analyzing and sending video data that technologists have been chipping away at for the last decade.

 

Streater compares today's hardware-dependent post-production world to the days of information technology pre-Internet boom. "You don't do a search any more with a CD-ROM that you install on your machine as a dedicated piece of software that you upgrade every six months. That's how it used to be with, say, telephone directories. You had to go to your desktop machine, in your office, and maybe there was only one machine because you only had one license for it. Of course, that would be ridiculous now. You just go to Google, no matter where you are. The same change has been happening all over. And we are the people doing it for video editing."

 

The main advantage to the editing system being web-centric is that everyone in the process is connected. Users have access to the material whether they are in their office, or on location, or even on holiday, and at any time of the day. A director in London could be working with an editor in Los Angeles and a producer stuck in an airport in New York, and all three can be looking at, commenting on, and editing the same material simultaneously.

 

 

FORscene features its own integrated chat system, which is also linked to technical support. Particular attention has been paid to the logging and commenting features. FORscene also has a variety of output formats, including FORscene's own good-to-go web player, podcast-, mobile phone-, and web-friendly formats, and MPEG, as well as easy export of XML/EDL.

 

The applications for journalism and time-sensitive content are enormous. Raw footage can be uploaded from the location to Forbidden's servers and instantaneously edited and prepared for broadcast at a newsroom a thousand miles away. That editing task can be spread out among any number of editors.  

 

Streater is well aware that web-centric content creation tools are only following the trend of media as a whole. The Internet – whether watched via PC, iPod, or phone – is fast becoming the principle source of the public's video consumption. In the U.S., iTunes downloadable video is getting set to shoulder out DVD. "The whole world is moving. And the broadcast industry likes to do things a step at a time, but the IT world moves much faster. The Internet is doubling in speed every year. And disk space is halving in price for the same capacity every year."

 

Streater's pronouncements may send chills down the spines of certain well-entrenched media tools manufacturers: "In five years time, no one will be buying a desktop system."

 

Those most affected by the technology shift may be the editors themselves. Gone will be the days of a tiny darkened room. An editor will be able to work in the place he is most comfortable. On the other hand, he will have one less excuse to avoid looking over the producer's latest suggestions while on his Caribbean holiday.

 

 

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