Terra Firma sees solid base for digital video technology

FORT COLLINS – Fast-paced advances in digital video technology are being applied locally by a Fort Collins company that already has a track record for Web-site development, Web-site hosting and video production.

“We want to offer promotional, educational and documentary digital videos that can be delivered on Web-based video, VHS-based video and CD-ROM-based video,´ said Kai Staats, head of Terra Firma Design. “Eventually we will move into the television medium.”

Kip Schauer, a Denver-based business-development specialist for Radius Inc., said that with digital technology, someone can “all of a sudden achieve much-higher quality for a fraction of the price.”

Radius makes the FireWire package that allows digital video to be transferred directly from a digital video camera into a computer. It includes a FireWire cable, FireWire card and video-capture software.

“It’s like an ethernet card,” Schauer said. “It allows you to pass more data through it to your computer.”

Consumer-grade digital video camcorders hit the market about 18 months ago, Schauer said, at a cost of $999 to $4,500. The high-end digital video cameras have a quality nearly the same as $20,000 to $60,000 Beta cams used by television studios and news organizations.

One of the distinct advantages to digital video cameras is that they compress video on the camera, eliminating the need for enormous amounts of hard-drive space and hardware that otherwise are needed to compress analog video. Digital video can also be transferred between editing decks with zero data loss.

“In a standard analog system, every time you transfer, you lose a little quality,” Terra Firma’s Staats said.

“What is possible on a Mac G3 in your office is comparable to what Hollywood is doing with special effects,” Staats said.

For a few thousand dollars, digital video can be output to film for viewing in a movie theater.

Frame rates and resolution are the same as professional-grade Beta cameras.

The videographer can then edit, adjust and otherwise fine tune the video via computer, then send it back to the digital video camera though the FireWire or mass produce it for clients who need training videos, product videos, employee-orientation material and television commercials. It can be output to VHS, beta and DVD (digital versatile disc).

“Some of the editing software that makes this possible is Edit DV that allows you to reorganize, edit sound and video, add in clips, MTV-style transitions, bring in special effects that were generated in other software such as Adobe After Effects and Photoshop,” Staats said.

“You don’t need fast and wide hard drives or software,” Schauer said. “On a new system, you can get a 16-gigabyte drive for $500 and get an hour of video on it. For an hour of video on another system, it would cost several thousand dollars (of hard-drive space).”

Staats built his own 36-gigabyte RAID tower that can hold more than two hours of broadcast-quality video.

For companies like Terra Firma Design, complete digital video capability will allow them to produce higher-quality videos for customers.

Terra Firma recently completed a promotional video for General Robotics of Denver that provides testimony by a teacher who has used a General Robotics’ product for five years.

Joining Staats in the next few months will be his brother Jae, former assistant video coordinator for the Phoenix Suns and head video coordinator for Phoenix’s indoor football team, the Rattlers, its Sand Sharks indoor soccer team and Mercury women’s professional basketball team.

Staats wants to use the digital video medium to continue producing educational work and documentaries for clients, as well.

“Keeping with the philosophy of Terra Firma Design, we will encourage our clients to produce clean, intellectual videos that do not increase attention deficit disorder,” Staats said. “Instead of decreasing people’s attention spans, we want to increase their knowledge space.”

Staats dislikes the MTV-style videos that change frames rapidly, constantly barraging the viewer with new images.

“Everything from soap commercials to Bible-camp videos have followed this format,” he said. “Our philosophy is to bring video full-circle. Let’s use this technology to produce something that has value.”

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