Apple, Panasonic & Thomson-GVG?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
(honorable moderator: I'm cross-posting this into a new topic from Kormac's NAB 2004 Predictions...)



There are two other interesting things. (coming out of NAB 2004, that is)



First, of note is that Apple is *not* listed as a partner in Panasonic's "P2" system, which harnesses SD cards in a PCMCIA form factor for tapeless recording. Surf on over to Panasonic's website, and go to the popup windows for their P2 system, and you'll see what I mean.



The other interesting thing is Grass Valley Group, or GVG (bought from Textronix by Thomson) receiving such a prominent mention on the Apple website. You see, GVG recently bought out the video side of ParkerVision.



Now ParkerVision is an abomination of a television automation system. It works "okay" if you're doing videoconferencing or a tightly scripted show, like an infomercial. I say "okay" because a number of television stations -- most notably, the McGraw Hill ones -- bought these systems to nuke television production technician for live news production, where it truly stinks. Very steep learning curve, little flexibility when breaking news hits, technical gaffes that would have had humans fired within a week. It is perhaps the very antithesis of Macintosh, if you can imagine such a thing.



As of now, there is *no* upgrade path to HD with PVTV. It's based on Win NT4 (!) run in administrator mode (!). Which leads us to an interesting train of thought: did GVG suddenly realize they needed Apple more than they thought?



It is a well-known fact in the broadcasting industry most television station chief engineers will see Macintoshes carried into their stations over their dead bodies. GVG however, has to do something for McGraw Hill to keep them as customers, because ParkerVision is a dead end. Rumors coming out of GVG suggest their own PVTV replacement has hit a wall, and is nowhere near ready for even beta testing.



Enter Apple. Anyone with a smattering of NLE video production experience has heard FCP rocks. All your film wannabes want Macs. The problem Apple has traditionally had in this field is tying things together, which GVG, as an old-line broadcast control room vendor, has done quite well in the past.



What remains to be seen is the level of commitment between Apple and GVG. It will take a substantial commitment on both sides to penetrate the broadcast market, and for all we know, Apple couldn't care less about it. We'll see.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    sam damonsam damon Posts: 129member
    (more cross-posting stuff)



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gizzmonic

    Sam, that's some might interesting speculation. Have you seen or heard anything about GVG's plans with regards to ParkerVision?



    I've seen not a thing. There exists some rampant speculation, though. My mention of a PVTV upgrade hitting the wall came from some unhappy campers in Jacksonville (which may be fifth or sixth hand, for all I know).

    What's left of ParkerVision is some wireless 802.11 stuff, and that's about all they have. From what I heard, the PVTV group was absorbed into GVG.



    As I said, the problem for Thomson is that PVTV is a dead end. There *might* be some tomfoolery they can swing with Direct X to make PVTV work with something besides SD, but you're looking at a fairly massive software engineering project to make it happen. And then you have to deal with a bunch of seriously unhappy producers, directors, and talent that have twisted their workflow in an effort to make PVTV work. AFAIK, PVTV has not given an station where it was installed a boost in Nielsen numbers. What it did was allow stations to get rid of people, but in a way that looked cost-effective *only* on paper. But I'm getting off the subject.



    I have maintained that with FCP, you are about 70 percent of the way to a broadcast automation system like PVTV, but with the *nix underpinnings and QT, this (hypothetical) system could actually do what the PVTV inventors envisioned. I'm really preaching to the chorus here, but most of us who use FCP know it's pretty darn stable, OS X in Jag is pretty darn stable, and by and large, our Macs simply work.



    By way of comparision, I have seen PVTV put a station into a 15-minute block of commercials and public service announcements while the crew frantically scrambled to put something, anything together that resembled a newscast.



    Which leads me to speculate: is anything big happening with Apple and GVG? As I see it, it's the only way GVG can salvage the mess they bought when they bought PVTV to get McGraw Hill's business.
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