The post on getting (almost) enterprise-class storage for cheap that I promised a couple of days ago isn’t quite ready yet, so here’s a post on the adoption cycle for digital media creation technologies. It’s good background for much of the discussion on this blog, which is, after all, largely about how commodity technology is bringing down the cost of high-quality production and post-production.

There are basically three stages in the adoption of digital technology for creating media content:

1. A given task is only possible using high-cost specialty products.

2. A given task is possible using a low-cost commodity approach, but high-cost specialty products offer significant advantages.

3. Computing power, storage capacity, etc. reach the point where commodity hardware is good enough that there’s no longer a major advantage to using high-end specialty products.

Something like 2K/4K color grading is presently at the first stage, inching toward the second stage… but the insanely fast rate of progress with commodity graphics processing hardware, combined with compressed workflow solutions, could push this into the third stage within a few years.

Non-linear editing is at the second stage. Final Cut Pro exists, but Avid’s higher end stuff still sells. Fast commodity graphics processors are almost certainly going to push NLE fully into the third stage over the next few years. If Avid is smart, they’re gearing up to deal with a market where they’ll have to push more units, at much lower prices. Apple is already there.

What’s really interesting is to look slightly farther afield, to an industry where this cycle has been completed for a substantial period of time. Desktop publishing provides such a glimpse of the future.

In the desktop publishing world, all the arguments you still see today in the filmmaking world (about how commodity technology will never be suitable, how lowering barriers to entry will flood the market with inferior product, etc.) all died years ago, because a large fraction of the current generation of DTP folks got their start after high-priced specialty systems were already dead — many probably aren’t aware they ever even existed. Beginners, even amateurs, have access to the same tools the pros use. There is no real barrier to entering the industry except for talent.

Filmmaking will never quite reach this stage, because some aspects of it are just inherently more expensive… but many of the “old guard” are going to be surprised by just how close it can come.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 12:56 PM and is filed under Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.