Hollywood's digital storehouse.MEGADRIVE SYSTEMS FOUND A NICHE CREATING DISKS THAT STORE SPECIAL EFFECTS special effects, in motion pictures, cinematographic techniques that create illusions in the audience's minds as well as the illusions created using these techniques. AND OTHER DATA When college buddies Alex Bouzari and Paul Bloch first teamed up 13 ears ago to develop handwriting-recognition software, Hollywood was the last thing on their minds. Today, Bouzari and Bloch have carved carve v. carved, carv·ing, carves v.tr. 1. a. To divide into pieces by cutting; slice: carved a roast. b. out a niche for themselves in Hollywood - but not for their handwriting HANDWRITING, evidence. Almost every person's handwriting has something whereby it may be distinguished from the writing of others, and this difference is sometimes intended by the term. 2. technology, to which they sold the rights eight years ago. Instead, the two 36-year-old entrepreneurs run MegalDrive Systems Inc., a Chatsworth maker of data- and image-storage drives that has targeted Southern California's burgeoning digital media industry. MegaDrive is one of more than 150 drive storage makers nationwide, competing with the likes of Digital Equipment Corp, and IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) . MegaDrive's niche is in providing storage devices for Hollywood post-production houses and broadcast stations, which together accounted for about 60 percent of MegaDrive's $27.8 million in 1996 sales. Such specialty markets have not yet grown large enough to attract the attention of the giants, allowing companies like MegaDrive to survive. "(About three years ago) we said, 'Nobody is really focusing on this market,'" said Bouzari. "Everything in the data storage business had been text-based. As more and more people started manipulating images (on computers), the demand has grown for image-based storage systems." That need has become increasingly acute as the pressures build for more digital special effects in feature films, and broadcasters push for ever-faster turnaround times (1) In batch processing, the time it takes to receive finished reports after submission of documents or files for processing. In an online environment, turnaround time is the same as response time. on news footage. The volume of images that need to be stored and then edited by post-production and broadcast personnel often requires hundreds of gigabytes of storage capacity, far exceeding the limits of most internal computer hard drives. "Our drives are crucial for people to take images, store them and manipulate them," said Bloch. Cable News Network's Headline News channel, NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. and Japan's NHK NHK Nippon Hoso Kyokai (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) NHK Nihon Hoso Kyokai (Japanese Broadcasting Association) NHK Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai (anime) Television use MegaDrive storage systems to edit footage for broadcast. Digital special effects technicians at North Hollywood-based post-production house OCS OCS - Object Compatibility Standard Freeze Frame freeze frame a facility on an ultrasound machine which permits an image to be held on a screen. have used MegaDrive systems to store and then manipulate images for such movies as "Independence Day" and "Mimic." "When we work on a project, we have to store the images on several hard disks," said OCS vice president and chief engineer Ray McIntyre. "MegaDrive is the only provider that offers storage drives that work on both Macintosh and PC platforms, which gives us maximum flexibility." The ability of MegaDrive storage systems to handle huge amounts of data and images has opened up another market: government research institutions. MegaDrive last month edged out nine competitors - including Silicon Graphics Inc., IBM and Data General Corp. - to provide drives with 4,000 gigabytes of capacity to NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. The center plans to use the machines for its Numerical Aerospace Simulation Facility. While MegaDrive has demonstrated an ability to land contracts with the public sector and Fortune 500 companies, competition for those markets has grown increasingly fierce and growth potential has correspondingly slowed. Thus, Bouzari and Bloch have recently focused their efforts on the multimedia industry. "We feel we have had a jump of 18 to 24 months on the competition" in the multimedia market, Bouzari said. "Most of the smaller companies have not yet targeted the video market; they are still concentrating on the data side." MegaDrive's main competitor in the postproduction post·pro·duc·tion n. A final stage in the production of a film or a television program, occurring after the action has been filmed or videotaped and typically involving editing and the addition of soundtracks. and broadcast world is Minneapolis-based Ciprico Inc., which entered the video market back in 1989. "We've been there since the beginning, when video editing See nonlinear video editing and video editor. on computers really began to take off, while MegaDrive only switched into this market three years ago," said Inese Lanka, a product marketing manager for Ciprico. Lanka said Ciprico has long maintained an office in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. to be close to its Hollywood and broadcast customers. Other companies, such as Data General and Silicon Graphics, have also supplied storage drives to post-production houses and broadcast outlets. However, for these giants, such sales represent a relatively small percentage of the total business, In the next few years, though, more players are expected to enter the market full time. "Right now, you really have only MegaDrive and Ciprico as true specialists in the video market," Porter said. "We are going to see more segmenting of the market than we have now. "The specialization A career option pursued by some attorneys that entails the acquisition of detailed knowledge of, and proficiency in, a particular area of law. As the law in the United States becomes increasingly complex and covers a greater number of subjects, more and more attorneys are will be based on the size and nature of the application." Porter added. "Right now, MegaDrive and Ciprico supply drive arrays with 4 or 5 terrabytes of space (a terrabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes) to some clients and 9- or 18-gigabyte drives to others. Other players will come in and specialize spe·cial·ize v. 1. To limit one's profession to a particular specialty or subject area for study, research, or treatment. 2. To adapt to a particular function or environment. on one size or the other." In recognition of this. Bloch said MegaDrive is working on improving the speed and performance of its product line. The company is also looking to expand into new markets, but, Bloch said, will need more resources to do so. Among the new markets MegaDrive is considering are visual computing The use of computers for 3D modeling and animation. See visualization. and drives tailored to the oil and gas exploration industry. "We are looking at going public sometime late next year so that we can remain competitive when the competition hits hard," Bloch said. MegaDrive Systems Inc. Year founded: 1988 Core business: Manufacturing and distributing computer drive storage devices Employees in 1988: 5 Employees in 1997:_200 Revenues in 1992: $6.9 million Revenues in 1996: $27.8 million Revenues in 1997 [projected]: $42.1 million Top executives: Paul Bloch, co-chairman and chief executive; Alex Bouzari, co-chairman and president Goal: To be the top supplier of storage drives to the entertainment and media industries. Driving force: The need among post-production houses and television broadcasters to manipulate stored images on computers. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion