TRW PROVIDES PICTURE PIPELINE FOR HOLLYWOOD FILMMAKERS.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

In its first foray into Hollywood, spacecraft and high energy laser maker TRW Inc. has developed a system that lets production crews collaborate on a project at the same time from different continents.

Picture PipeLine, debuted to the industry Tuesday, was recently used on a feature film to link sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Australia, allowing the producers and editors to study the same piece of footage on a live video conference.

The computer-based system was tapped by Warner Bros.' popular drama ``Third Watch'' to connect the studio's Burbank lot with the show's production office in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the director's office in Manhattan.

``There have been other companies who've tried to do pieces of this but we're the first single source provider who also provides security,'' said Charlie Mitchell, vice president of sales and marketing for Carson-based Picture PipeLine LLC, of which TRW is a majority stakeholder.

Security was a prime consideration in designing the system and studios and production companies can keep their latest projects from prying eyes by encrypting the footage as it is transmitted and again when it is stored in a computer under 24-hour intrusion monitoring.

TRW's systems and information technology group in Carson developed Picture PipeLine as part of the company's effort to adapt its advanced space systems and government technology to the commercial sector.

It was the aerospace and defense corporation's first commercial venture within the entertainment industry.

TRW, headquartered in Cleveland, started working with Warner Bros. two years ago to tailor the system to the needs of the film, TV, music video and commercial industry.

``We are big backers and believe in using technology to increase the efficiency of the creative process,'' said Barbara Brogliatti, a Warner Bros. spokeswoman.

TRW launched this project about four years ago. The first beta test was with Warner Bros.' feature film ``The Perfect Storm'' where a connection between the Burbank lot and Industrial Light & Magic in Northern California allowed the previewing of high-resolution special effects.

``Ultimately, these networked processes could link studio and production organizations all over the world,'' said Tom Gritzmacher, Picture PipeLine's president and chief operating officer.

Aside from collaboration, the system can also speed up the viewing of ``dailies,'' film footage shot that, depending on the location, could take up to three days to ship back to the studios.

Now the footage can arrive as a stream of compressed digital data and it can be annotated by voice, text or graphically.

While Picture PipeLine leases a turnkey system, setting up the computers at each end of the transmission link, the system does not require any one type of connection, enabling to it use any high-speed connection including terrestrial T1, microwave and satellite.