HP Goes to the Movies

LAS VEGAS -- Hewlett-Packard's pervasive digital strategy is bringing the company closer to Hollywood.

HP already has launched partnerships with cell phone vendor Nokia for interactive radio/cell phone services, and with Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee retailer, to provide on-site music sampling and on-demand custom CD burning. At the NAB show here this week, the company is announcing several new services and products for the content creation industry, including DreamWorks and Warner Bros., among others.

Making a Green Ogre

DreamWorks used HP equipment to make the first computer-animated Shrek movie, and the partnership deepened with the making of Shrek 2 (due May 21 in theaters). HP provided not only workstations but also a collaboration tool to help teams working in different areas of the globe come together to work on the story.

In brief video clips, HP Chief Strategy and Technology Officer Shane Robison gave a glimpse of this forthcoming tool, currently dubbed the Visual Studio Collaboration project. It appeared to occupy an entire wall in a conference room and combined a nearly life-size TV display and an equally large whiteboard shared by all the participants.

HP will release a Utility Rendering Service as well; it too was developed and tested with DreamWorks on the Shrek 2 project. This service essentially makes available additional processing power on demand, allowing companies to pay only for the capacity they need instead of making large capital equipment purchases that would only be fully used in times of peak demand, Robison said. IBM and Sun Microsystems have similar types of services.

No pricing has been announced. The two technologies also came into play in other DreamWorks projects such as the NBC computer-animated series Father of the Pride debuting in the fall.

High-Powered Workstations

Avid, a major player in the content creation field both for professionals and enthusiasts, has solidified its partnership with HP. HP's 8000-series workstations are the only qualified desktops to run some of Avid's products, and it's a preferred vendor for many of the others.

The new Avid Xpress Studios product combines several products into an integrated suite with professional-level video capture, editing, and special-effects and animation tools.

The suite starts at less than $3995; combined with a standard-configuration 8000 workstation, the whole package costs less than $10,000, Robison said. A package with this level of functionality--but lacking its interoperability and integration--cost as much as $100,000 a few years ago, he said.

Good as New

HP also is teaming up with Warner Bros. to make over classic movies and digitize televisions shows. As part of the presentation here, HP showed impressive before and after clips from Errol Flynn's Robin Hood.

Warner Bros. brings its expertise in restoration to such projects--which can generate about 1000 terabytes' worth of raw data--while HP adds image, color, and data management techniques and storage solutions.

HP also announced initiatives with Warner Bros. to develop a platform for a "postproduction studio of the future." The company is working with all of its partners and other content creators and distributors to develop the Digital Media Platform, which will be standards-based and designed to simplify interoperability between different digital media processing and distribution systems.