Digit 2005-04 - Clevernotions.com

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Maya 6.5 

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THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL DESIGN 

APRIL 2005 £5.99 

DVD authoring tools shootout 

Inside the mind of Tribal DDB 

Canon EOS-1Ds II review 

David Droga talks design 

The best of readers’ art 

Win Pantone colour swatches 

Amapi 6.1 on CD – worth £200 

CREATIVE ART 

Pitch to win 

Be a design winner – a guide 

to winning project pitches 

INTERGALACTIC EXCLUSIVE 

DOCTOR 

WHO 

Behind-the-scenes of 

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HARDWARE 

8 pro laptops 

Next-gen Apple, Alienware, 

Sony, and Dell laptops tested 

DESIGN 

Animatic art 

How to master the art of 

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9 771461 381038 

www.digitmag.co.uk 

04

Updated and award winning: 

QuarkXPress 6.5 

The new features of QuarkXPress ® 6.5 offer 

enhanced creativity and greater productivity 

Manipulate images right in QuarkXPress 6.5 with unique nondestructive 

filters and effects as well as image optimization features. 

Import native Adobe ® Photoshop documents (.psd files) into 

QuarkXPress, and exploit the power of multi-layer Photoshop 

images without leaving QuarkXPress. 

Export files directly into HTML, XML and PDF. Quark provides 

you with software that can do it all. 

Projects are a new type of file which can be used to save and 

manage several print or web documents in a single file, regardless 

of their page formats. The project file preferences such as colours 

and stylesheets only need to be defined once and are automatically 

applied to all documents in the project. 

More information: euro.quark.com/en 

Customer Service: 00800 1787 8275 

2004 

PC Magazin TOP-PRODUCT Award 

“The most popular desktop publishing program in the 

world. For the first time, QuarkXPress 6.5 contains 

features for managing images. Overall rating: very good” 

Macworld 4 Star Rating 

QuarkXPress 6.5 received a 4-Star rating from Macworld 

in the January 2005 issue. Macworld says, “Quark has 

produced a feature-packed, mid-term upgrade.” 

Macworld Best of Show 2004 

QuarkXPress 6.5 received a Best of Show award from 

the Macworld MacExpo show and conference. 

The London show awarded only 10 such awards that 

are “given to products either making their public debut 

at MacExpo or recently introduced and generating 

excitement on the show floor.” 

Macworld Eddy Winner 2004 

QuarkXPress 6.5 has won the award for Most Improved 

Page-Layout Program in the Macworld magazine 

Editors’ Choice (Eddy) Awards. 

PC Plus Performance Award 

QuarkXPress 6.5 won the Performance Award from PC 

Plus, one of the most respected magazines in the UK 

with a circulation of over 120,000. PC Plus says that “the 

future of the company looks assured and this 6.5 release 

is a step in the right direction.” 

Support for both Mac ® OS X and Windows ® XP offers greater 

stability and better performance. Exploit the full power 

of your operating system in your publishing workflows. 

Furthermore, registered QuarkXPress 6.5 users will receive 

access to a font package with more than 40 Open Type ® fonts 

from Linotype ® for a limited time. 

ServicePlus is a high-level maintenance program for 

organizations that use QuarkXPress software. It allows members 

to add predictability to their software budgeting process while 

taking advantage of the latest enhancements to QuarkXPress as 

soon as they are available. Increase your peace of mind knowing 

that you'll receive the next major upgrade to QuarkXPress at no 

additional charge. 

©2005 Quark Technology Partnership. All rights reserved. Quark, QuarkXPress, the Quark logo are trademarks of Quark, Inc. and all applicable affiliated companies, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. and in many other countries. 

All other marks are the properties of their respective owners.

CHOOSE THIS MAGAZINE 

Choose a better job. Choose a career. Choose a font family. 

Choose a fucking big Apple monitor. Choose stock images, 

Photoshop plug-ins, Final Cut Pro and a Wacom tablet. 

If only pitching for your next project, your next client, 

your next paycheck, was as easy as ripping off some lines 

from Trainspotting and sticking in words from whatever 

subject you’re aiming at. But it’s not easy. It’s bloody hard, 

when it comes down to it. Better buy this magazine, run 

home and read pages 34-40 immediately. Read the rest 

and you’ll know more and be more creative than anyone 

around you (unless they’ve read it too). 

Life in the creative industries in the modern age is an 

exhilarating and extremely rewarding place to be – as long 

as you're leading, not following. 

Which you are, right? 

TEAM DIGIT

contents 

contents aprilISSUE 

Tardis cover illustration 

by The Mill, www.mill.co.uk 

80 

34 

reviews 

80 Alias Maya 6.5 

84 Epson R-D1 camera 

86 2d3 Boujou 3 

88 Canon EOS-1DS Mark II 

90 Eizo ColorEdge CG220 

91 Toon Boom Studio 2.5 

92 IBM IntelliStation Z Pro 

6 d 

48 

news 

85 

8 ResFest 2005 call for entries: Filmmakers and 

animators get the chance to show off globally 

10 Animex 2005 Student Awards: Up-&-coming 2D 

and 3D animators collect their gongs at industry bash 

12 Xbox 2 powers up: New details as Final Fantasy game 

designer defects for next-generation console 

13 VES Awards 2005: Top effects work celebrated 

14 Mobile gaming: Interview with PSP game maker 

of WipEout Pure 

16 77th Academy Awards: Spider-man 2, The 

Incredibles, and Ryan enjoy Oscar success 

18 Events: The only guide you need to creative events 

20 Canon debuts EOS-350D SLR: Promises cheaper 

digital SLR for the masses, too 

21 Discreet 3DS Max 7.5: New fur-&-hair tools added 

for 3DS Max subscribers 

23 Combustion 4 revealed: Discreet brings Flame tools 

to its desktop compositing software 

24 Stock: feast your eyes on the latest stock-image 

collections and fonts to aid your creative work 

28 Pulse: quirky gadgets, essential exhibitions, 

and cool toys to while away your down time

42 

58 

66 

100 

features 

34 

42 

48 

54 

56 

58 

64 

74 

94 

100 

THE CREATIVE PITCH 

How to get ahead in design, win clients, and influence the world – 

leading designer reveal how to pitch for work and succeed 

THE ART OF ANIMATICS 

Motion storyboards are revolutionising the film industry – and why 

you have to master animatics before you create your next short 

DOCTOR WHO – EXCLUSIVE 

Digit is the only magazine that has seen the new series of Doctor Who 

– and we spoke to The Mill to find out how the FX were done 

GENE KELLY, VIRTUAL ACTOR 

MPC brings Gene Kelly up-to-date for a commercial for VW 

THE LAST DRAGON 

Framestore CFC tells how it has created some stunning CG dragons 

INSIGHT: TRIBAL DDB 

How interactive media campaigns are joining the tribe 

INTERVIEW: DAVID DROGA 

Global image-maker on how the world of creativity isn’t that small 

HD FOR BEGINNERS 

If you’re preparing to shoot film for the next-generation for viewers, 

you’ll need this concise guide to the pitfalls of HD 

DVD AUTHORING SOFTWARE 

The latest DVD authoring tools explored, taken apart, put back 

together, reviewed, and rated. In that order 

CREATIVE LAPTOPS 

Will 2005 be the year of the creative laptop? Digit reviews the best 

regulars 

ONLINE: exclusive features at www.digitmag.co.uk 

DVD ripping takes off 

Despite all efforts, DVD piracy is rising fast, 

as this special report reveals 

Give your storage a boost 

Media makers need as much digital storage 

as they can muster, as this guide shows 

31 Matthew Bath: why good staff go bad 

and leave (often through the window) 

32 Letters: speak, attack, defend, and 

rant – creative communication ahead 

66 Showcase: the cream of your creative 

work as readers show off 

73 Competition: win essential Pantone 

colour-matching solutions 

108 Subscriptions: quench your thirst with 

a regular subscription to Digit, to go 

Mac security: fact and fiction 

Just because you use a Mac, doesn’t mean 

you’re immune from hackers and viruses 

TV on your mobile phone 

Sound impossible? Not according to 

Vodafone, which is showing the technology 

109 Buyers Guide: the industry’s 

biggest guide to creative products 

119 Back Issues: hole in your Digit 

collection? Fill it here 

123 Next month: find out what’s 

in store for the May 2005 issue 

128 Cover CD: complete guide to this 

month’s applications and demos 

130 Design classic: got milk? How 

the celebrity milk-tash was created 

d 7

news 

Apple iPod 

links cams 

Apple has updated 

its line of iPod photo 

digital music players 

with a slim 30GB 

model now costing 

£212 plus VAT. 

The company has 

reduced the price 

of the 60GB iPod 

photo to £263 plus 

VAT – and shown 

its iPod Camera 

Connector, which 

allows digital 

cameras to link 

to the iPod Photo. 

Episode III 

new chapter 

Four stills from the 

forthcoming Star 

Wars Episode 3 

have appeared on 

the Web. Though 

primarily aimed 

at Natalie Portmanworshipping 

fanboys, the stills 

preview some of the 

CGI cityscapes used 

in the film, including 

a city reminiscent of 

Cloud City from The 

Empire Strikes Back 

and a metropolis. 

Explorer to 

get updated 

Microsoft plans to 

release a version 

of a new Internet 

Explorer browser 

by the summer 

that better protects 

users from scams 

and malicious code 

while surfing the 

Web. “We have 

decided to do a new 

version of Internet 

Explorer,” Gates 

said. The new IE 7 

will “add new levels 

of security,” he said. 

8 d 

BBC Post Production 

gets gold medal for VFX 

BBC Post Production London has won a Gold World Medal in the 

2005 Television Programming & Promotion Competition at the New 

York Film Festival, the BBC has revealed. It won the award for its 

work on the title sequence for BBC Sport’s coverage of the Olympic 

Games. The sequence features a giant swimmer rising out of a wave, 

a runner generating a sandstorm, and a discus thrower emerging 

from particles of rock. The athletes were filmed both on location in 

Greece and against greenscreen. BBC Post Production 3D matched 

moving athletes and attached custom particle effects using Alias 

Maya, to create the impression they emerge from the elements. 

Apple Shake was used for compositing the discus thrower and 

Discreet Inferno for the rest of the effects and final polishing. 

Sony shows its next-gen 

‘Cell’ microprocessor 

Researchers from IBM, Sony, and Toshiba unveiled the long-awaited 

Cell microprocessor in February – paving the way for a new 

generation of powerful workstations aimed at digital content makers, 

and forming the basis of Sony’s PlayStation 3. The three companies 

disclosed that its performance should reach ten-times the capability 

of current PC processors. The prototype chip shown comprised of 

one 64-bit Power PC processor core and eight separate processing 

cores that the companies call “synergistic processing elements,” or 

SPEs. The cores can support multiple operating systems. Multicore 

processors can execute instructions in parallel, which means 

multiple separate instruction threads can be processed at the 

same time. By moving to multiple-core designs, chip designers can 

extract more performance from their products while reducing power 

consumption and heat dissipation.The Cell designers have figured 

out how to push both frequency and parallelism, the companies 

said. Cell is capable of running at more than 4.5GHz, but the 

companies have not determined how fast the final product will run. 

ResFest 2k5 

Global festival 

FAQ 

File formats can be VHS, 

DVD, Beta SP or MiniDV. 

Deadline is April 15 ($20 

entry fee), then May 13 

($25 entry fee). 

Running time should 

not exceed 60 minutes. 

Clearances will be 

needed from actors and 

musicians featured on 

your film and soundtrack. 

Signed agreements are 

required. 

T 

he internationally renowned 

film festival ResFest is calling for 

entries for its 2005 global tour that 

showcases the year’s best shorts, features, 

music videos, and animation in cities around 

the world. The tour kicks off in September 

2005, and is seen as a showcase of the 

hottest up-&-coming filmmakers, designers, 

and animators. 

The festival – which last year included 

an in-depth look at the work of British 

director Jonathan Glazer (Guinness Surfer, 

UNKLE’s Rabbit In Your Headlights, Sexy 

Beast), plus music promos from Warp 

Records (LFO, Aphex Twin) – is recognized 

as a pro-am face-off due to its low entry 

fees, and is the largest festival of its kind. 

Budding filmmakers, motion graphics 

designers, shorts directors, and design 

collectives can enter for just $20 per entry 

before April 15. Final submission for entries 

is May 13, with the winners announced at 

the end of July.

for film innovation 

The festival toured over 33 cities and 13 

countries in 2004. Winners selected for the 

2005 festival will get a year’s screenings and 

exposure at events in cities such as Tokyo, 

Los Angeles, London, Melbourne, and Cape 

Town. 

Festival organizers say that ResFest is 

dedicated to showcasing work in all genres 

and visual forms – including narrative, 

documentary, experimental, and designoriented 

work; entries can be live action 

or animated, or hybrid, and can be shot on 

any format. The main criteria for selection 

is innovation, say organizers. 

Standout work from the 2004 tour – 

which featured over 1,500 entries – included 

the seminal We Have Decided Not To Die 

(main image) by filmmaker Daniel Askill 

which mixed slow-motion photography and 

visual effects – and a segment called 

Bushwhacked, showcasing films based 

around the US presidential election. 

Music videos that headlined last year’s 

tour included The Street’s Fit But You Know 

It (effects by Rushes) and Get Yourself High 

from The Chemical Brothers. 

A special feature on design collective 

Shynola was shown, looking at their work 

for the likes of Blur, UNKLE, and Radiohead. 

ResFest, www.resfest.com 

ResFest 2004 was 

a global showcase 

of political films, 

digital animation, 

and short films that 

were selected from 

over 1,500 entries. 

Intel ups P4 

to Extreme 

Intel plans to 

release a version of 

its Pentium desktop 

processor this year 

that can run up to 

four software tasks 

at the same time, 

called the Pentium 

processor Extreme 

Edition. The chip 

will include two 

processor cores, 

each of which 

will support Intel’s 

Hyper-Threading 

technology. 

Paris Hilton 

hack attack 

Hackers penetrated 

the crystalline 

ranks of Hollywood 

celebrity February, 

posting the mobile 

phone address book 

of hotel heiress 

Paris Hilton on 

a Web page and 

passing the phone 

numbers of some 

of Tinsel Town's 

hottest stars. Here’s 

a hint, Paris: don’t 

use your dog’s name 

as a password. 

Vodafone TV 

is tuning in 

Visitors at March’s 

Cebit trade show 

in Hanover will be 

able to view live 

TV broadcasts over 

mobile phones as 

part of a demo by 

Vodafone. The demo 

will be one of the 

first opportunities 

for consumers 

to view content 

received by mobile 

phones equipped 

with the DVB-H 

standard. 

Photographic 

awards face off 

The London Photographic Awards has detailed 

two international photography competitions 

for 2005. All along the Watchtower is a 

conceptual brief, based on Bob Dylan’s 

song. Artists can draw inspiration from Dylan’s 

lyrics. The deadline is April 8. Let’s face it is 

a showcase for established and up-coming 

portrait photographers, of either people or 

animals. The call for entries is open until April 

1. Entry costs £12 for a single image or £18 for 

up to six related images. Students can enter 

for £8 for a single image or £12 for up to six 

related images. 

LPA, www.london-photographic-awards.com 

Apple wins the 

battle of brands 

A poll of branding professionals has found 

that Apple is the world’s most influential 

brand, dethroning Google, last year’s winner. 

The survey of just under 2,000 brand 

managers, ad executives and academics 

threw up a surprise by ranking Al Jazeera in 

fifth place. Ikea and Starbucks were ranked 

third and fourth respectively. The poll is 

undertaken every year by Interbrand. eBay 

was a notable new-entry at number nine and 

other brands in the top ten were Mini, Virgin 

and Nokia. The last entry in the top-ten, Coca- 

Cola, has been on a gentle decline in the poll 

for the last few years. 

d 9 

Rob Kilsby, single image Silver winner, www.lpa-folios.com/rob_kilsby

news 

GreenCine 

film festival 

DivXNetworks – the 

company behind the 

DivX video codec – 

has launched an 

online film festival 

with GreenCine. 

Launched at 

Sundance, it will 

target feature-length 

films screened by 

judges including 

Lawrence Inglee, 

producer of The Day 

After Tomorrow. 

Winning films will be 

shown globally. Find 

out more at http:// 

filmfestival.greencine.com 

10 d 

Winning students 

Johan Borgstrom 

(left) and Philip Askins 

(right) show-off their 

Animex Awards – 

otherwise known 

as ‘the Lemmy’. 

Askins won two 

awards, including best 

newcomer, and he’s 

just 17-years-old. 

For first-time entrant Johan Borgstrom – winner of the 3D Computer 

Animation Games Award for his Eon – Chapter One (middle picture) 

entry – the Animex 2005 Awards were an opportunity not just to pick 

up a gong, but to mix with leading animators from around the world. 

“I found about about the Animex Awards from the Internet, and I 

entered straight away,” says Borgstrom, who travelled from Gothenburg 

for the event. “This is my first time at Animex, and it’s really cool. 

It’s surreal – there are people from Pixar and Dreamworks here.” 

Among the international line-up, the sole UK winner was student 

Philip Askins, who is studying art and english at the University of 

Animex 

Students of 

animation 

spiring animators from around the world have been given a 

boost at this year’s Animex Student Animation Awards, held 

in February as part of the Animex 2005 Festival. The festival 

is billed as an annual celebration of animation, and is run by the 

University of Teesside. 

Organizers said they had received over 450 entries from 

32 countries – the highest number in the event’s six-year history. 

Winning entrants included films from the US, UK, Germany, 

and Malaysia – with judges including Industrial Light & Magic’s 

Tom Martinek, and Mark Craste from Studio AKA. 

The festival – which attracts a high calibre of directors, 

animators, and industry professionals – also saw a series of 

events aimed at preparing up-coming animators for a career 

in the entertainment industry. 

Events included a two-day gaming series that included Chris 

Crawford and Ernest Adams founders of IGDA, and Tony Bickley, 

european development director of Konami. A Lounge event saw 120 

students get the chance to meet staff from the likes of Imageworks 

and ILM, while eight students won the chance to pitch their ideas 

at the Pitch Party. 

Speakers at the festival included Bill Westonhofer, visual effects 

supervisor on the forthcoming The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, 

the Witch & the Wardrobe. 

Two of the talented animators behind the Disney presentation 

of a Pixar film, The Incredibles, also headlined the event. Animators 

Mark Walsh (who was also the directing animator for Finding Nemo) 

and Rob Russ (Toy Story 2 and A Bug’s Life) talked about how the 

silver-screen heroes were created. 

Animex, www.animex.net 

Animex Award winners mix with top animators 

A 

Teesside. He scooped two awards – the Newcomer Award for his film 

Ghost Story, and the Webtoon Award for A Random Stickman Cartoon. 

“Ghost Story is a two-minute film about a ghost with a lot of time 

on his hands, and thinks it would be great fun if he followed a petrified 

man down a corridor of his mansion,” says Askins. “If it were a 

pantomime, people who be screaming ‘It’s behind you!’. The Random 

Stickman Cartoon involves stickmen and completely random events.” 

Other winners included Overtime (Best 3D Computer Animation, 

right), and Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher (Best 2D Animation, left). 

More winners can be found at www.animex.net/awards

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news 

Mac creator 

dies aged 61 

Jef Raskin, the 

lead designer of the 

first Mac computer, 

has died aged 61. 

Raskin joined Apple 

in 1978 as employee 

number 31 and 

headed the Mac 

development team 

from its founding 

in 1982. He named 

the project after 

his favourite apple, 

changing the 

spelling for 

copyright reasons. 

Spongebob 

soaks advert 

Animation studio 

Icepics has created 

a TV and cinema ad 

campaign for Volvic, 

featuring TV cartoon 

hero Spongebob 

Squarepants. Used 

to launch Volvic 

Splash, it first aired 

in February, and is 

planned to playout 

to Nickelodeon. 

Icepics recently 

animated Scooby 

Doo for Adidas. 

www.icepics.co.uk 

‘Laundry’ to 

deliver files 

A ‘digital courier’ 

service called The 

MediaLaundry has 

launched that can 

handle the secure 

transmission of 

files such as video, 

audio, and graphics. 

The service, which 

has 100Mbps lines, 

costs €10 for 1GB 

of storage, and it 

supplies free client 

software for Mac 

and Windows. 

medialaundry.com 

12 d 

The Hive delivers CG for 

Five’s CSI: New York ident 

London FX studio The Hive has revealed it has created the idents 

package for Five’s new series CSI: New York – the crime-drama spinoff 

from CSI: Miami – which follows a team of forensic investigators 

as they solve crimes in the Big Apple. The idents were filmed using 

high-powered ball-bearings fired at apples that had been dipped 

in liquid nitrogen to create a clean, sharp explosion – with footage 

clocked at 8,000 frames per second in a bid to capture the right 

action, says The Hive. The Hive then replaced the ball bearings 

with a CG bullet. The 20-second ident, which has been airing since 

February, is made up of a combination of shot material, 2D elements 

created by Heap, and 3D work from senior Maya operator Christian 

Anderson. 

The Hive, www.hiveuk.com 

incoming 

Robots the movie 

debuts on March 18, 

and is the longawaited 

outing from 

the original creators 

of the CG classic, Ice 

Age. It stars the voices 

of Ewan McGregor, 

Robin Williams, 

Mel Brooks, and 

Halle Berry. Preview 

screenings are 

scheduled from 

March 13. 

Xbox 2 woos 

creator of 

Final Fantasy 

game series 

Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the 

Final Fantasy series, has signed on 

with Microsoft to produce two titles 

for the next version of the Xbox. 

Sakaguchi will lead the development 

of two role-playing games for the 

successor to the current Xbox, 

Microsoft has said. The two games will 

be exclusive to Xbox and be published 

by Microsoft's Game Studios. 

The next Xbox console is widely 

expected to be out by year’s end. 

Microsoft introduced the current Xbox 

game console, the first model, in late 

2001. As of December 31, the company 

had sold 19.9 million consoles worldwide, 

13.2 million of which were in North 

America, 5 million in Europe and 1.7 

million in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. 

More than 60 million copies of the 

multiple instalments of Final Fantasy 

have been sold worldwide, according 

to publisher Square Enix. 

Sakaguchi last year left game 

publisher Square USA, where he was president, 

to launch his own development studio called 

Mistwalker. Details of the arrangement between 

Sakaguchi and Microsoft were not disclosed.

VES Awards 

Top visual effects winners 

are hailed at awards event 

KromA, a visualeffects 

studio in the 

US, reckoned it drank 

its way through $1,000 

of energy drinks to 

turn around the video 

for Britney Spear’s 

Toxic single. It took 

the company just 

three weeks to 

work on the promo, 

including creating 

a CG model of the 

popster herself. 

T 

he cream of the industry’s visual effects artists 

gathered in Hollywood in February for the third 

annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards, 

which saw honours going to films such as The Aviator, 

Spider-man 2, The Incredibles, and music videos such 

as Britney Spear’s Toxic. 

The awards, which celebrate the best visual 

effects artistry in film, television, commercial, music 

promos, and games, also handed out a VES Lifetime 

Achievement Award to Robert Zemeckis, which was 

presented by actor Tom Hanks. 

US-based KromA won the Outstanding Visual Effects 

in a Music Video category for its work on Toxic, which 

saw the studio create a photoreal 3D model of Spears, 

recreate London and Paris as CG enviroments from 

2D concept drawings, and deploy particle effects for 

an exploding glass sequence. 

“We essentially worked round the clock,” 

said VFX supervisor Bert Yukich, who collected the 

award. “We went through $1,000 of energy drinks.” 

WINNING THE AWARD 

FROM VES IS THE ICING 

ON THE CAKE 

BENOIT GIRARD 

Digital Dimensions picked up a gong for 

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast 

Program for the ABC television pilot Lost (main image). 

It created a riveting plane crash sequence that formed 

the heart of the show. “Winning the award from VES was 

the icing on the cake with a project like this one,” said 

Digital Dimension’s president Benoit Girard. 

Best effect of the year went to the tidal wave in the 

movie The Day After Tomorrow, and Star Trek Enterprise 

scooped the award for Outstanding Visual Effects in 

a Broadcast Series. Best CG character in a live action 

feature was awarded for the work on Hippogriff in 

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. 

VES, www.visualeffectssociety.com 

Winners at VES 

included (from left 

to right) films such as 

Spider-man 2, The Day 

After Tomorrow, Harry 

Potter and the Prisoner 

of Azkaban, and The 

Incredibles. 

Skive shows 

Rhodes site 

Celebrity chef Gary 

Rhodes has had his 

official Web site 

redesigned by Skive 

Creative – giving it a 

more sophisticated 

look-&-feel, says 

the design studio. A 

stainless steel and 

black colour scheme 

was deployed, with 

a clean layout that 

“replicates his nononsense 

approach 

to cooking”. 

garyrhodes.com 

CG sharks 

Sway to CG 

US-based Sway 

Studio has created 

a photo-real CG 

aquarium and filled 

it with sharks with a 

powerful hankering 

for fast food in 

providing visual 

effects services for 

a new McDonald’s 

spot. The spot was 

created by shooting 

the woman against 

green screen and 

compositing her 

with the CG fish. 

Sony plans 

Walk‘phone’ 

Sony Ericsson will 

unveil a mobile 

phone-cum-digital 

music player in 

March. The phone 

will carry a name 

that has already 

appeared on some 

350 million music 

players over the 

last 25 years: the 

Walkman brand 

of Sony Ericsson’s 

parent company, 

Sony. It will play 

MP3s. 

d 13

news 

Macromedia to 

boost Flash video 

Akamai and Macromedia are teaming to 

give end users a quick, secure way to speed 

the delivery of Flash video to desktops. The 

companies have announced the immediate 

availability of Akamai Streaming for use 

with Macromedia Flash. Executives say the 

service will eliminate the need to deploy 

video on-demand applications across 

multiple browsers and platforms because 

users will be able to instantly view video 

using Flash Player. Content providers 

upload media such as movies to Akamai's 

EdgePlatform, where it is stored and 

delivered on demand. Pricing depends 

on use. 

Tabbies Awards 

to hail magazines 

English-language business-to-business 

magazines worldwide have been invited to 

enter the 2005 Tabbie awards – the second 

annual editorial and design awards for the 

global event. Past winners included Forbes 

and Tobacco Reporter. 

Categories in the Tabbies’ design division 

include best front cover, best use of digital 

imagery; best front cover illustration; best 

use of a photographic front cover; best front 

cover of a special issue; best opening page 

or spread; and best-designed table of 

contents. Deadline is March 23, 2005. 

Judges in 2004 included Jeremy Leslie, 

creative director at John Brown Citrus 

Publishing, and editors from leading 

trade publications. 

Tabbies, www.tabpi.org 

Smackdown 

art winner 

Over 56,000 creative 

professionals visited 

www.studiosmack 

down.com last 

month to determine 

the outcome of 

Aquent’s unique 

online design 

competition, Studio 

Smackdown. The 

contest pitted five 

graphic designers 

against each other 

to wrestle for art 

dominance. Toni 

Greaves won. 

Moonfish 

set to Wade 

Moonfish, one of 

the top 20 UK digital 

marketing agencies 

with clients such as 

Intel, has promoted 

Chris Wade (below) 

to the position of 

head of technical 

services. Chris will 

oversee all aspects 

of Moonfish’s 

technical offering 

as well as managing 

the company’s 

technical team. 

www.moonfish.com 

“I quit – this 

place stinks” 

A survey of over 250 

advertising agencies 

have revealed a list 

of unusual reasons 

as to why staff quit. 

Some responses 

included: the fact 

the job wasn’t as 

glamorous as the 

staffer thought; the 

building being too 

smelly; and being 

paid too much. One 

person admitted he 

simply couldn’t get 

up in the morning. 

WipEout designer 

on mobile gaming 

W 

ith the release of the PSP looming, 

companies have been pushing to 

finish games in time for its release. 

We recently had a chance to talk with Colin 

Berry, designer for WipEout Pure on the PSP. 

Digit How different is it to design a game 

on a PSP compared to PS2? 

Colin Berry With WipEout Pure, we 

have not had to adjust too much from the 

point of view of short bursts of gameplay. 

If people want to load-up WipEout Pure 

and play for only 5 or 10 minutes then there 

is always going to be something there for 

them to play. One aspect of design we 

had to address with the PSP was that it 

has a few less buttons than a PS2 controller. 

So, from a design perspective we had to 

be clever in working out what controls 

we wanted and how to map them to 

the available buttons. We haven’t been 

prevented from putting anything into the 

game… and we have actually benefited 

from the PSP and made use of its features 

such as Wi-Fi, which has enabled us to 

[offer] downloadable content. 

Digit Do you have to make compromises 

to graphics to extend battery life? 

Colin Berry The number of polygons you’re 

pushing doesn’t directly affect the battery 

life. The battery life is affected by the clock 

frequency of the CPU and GPU. However, 

reducing these wasn’t really an option, 

as it would slow the framerate down. 

Digit How difficult is it to develop on the 

PSP compared to the PS2? 

Colin Berry A lot easier. The PS2 is a 

challenge and returns dividends when used 

correctly, but it does take a while to master. 

The PSP is far easier and comes with 

excellent libraries. 

Digit What about development time? 

Colin Berry Initially, for WipEout Pure we 

thought we would have a smaller team than 

we did for WipEout Fusion, but in the end 

the team size for Pure has grown to about 

the same as it was for Fusion, although its 

only been in the second half of the project 

that the size of the team has doubled to end 

up just over 20. A smaller machine doesn’t 

mean a smaller game, so all the content still 

needs to be created. I guess if people are 

simply porting an old PS2 game over then 

they may well have a smaller team size than 

they would for a PS2 game. However, we are 

not doing a port, the whole game is new. 

Time wise WipEout Pure has taken a little 

over a year. 

Digit What are some of the inspirations 

behind WipEout on PSP 

Colin Berry For the most part the 

inspiration came from the previous versions 

of WipEout and the reactions both positive 

and negative to various iterations, and the 

desire to produce the best version of the 

series to date. A little inspiration was taken 

from F-Zero on the GameCube, the original 

Mario Kart on the Super NES and probably 

on a subconscious level several other racing 

titles. However the main inspiration has 

always been the previous WipEout games 

and WipEout 2097 in particular.

news 

FX studios 

are game 

Twenty-three per 

cent of US effects 

and animation 

studios are working 

on interactive 

games, according 

to research firm 

Trendwatch. It 

shows the games 

market is growing 

strongly, as 

evidenced by the 

number of vendors 

allocating more 

resources for game 

development. 

BeArtist.com 

site debuts 

Cardsup Greetings, 

a multimedia 

company from 

Vancouver, has 

detailed the launch 

of BeArtist.com, a 

major online portal 

for illustrators and 

artists. Its aim is to 

become the single 

reference site artists 

will ever need if they 

want to know how 

to build a successful 

career by selling 

and publishing. 

Digital flicks 

are coming 

The world’s first 

digital cinema 

network has been 

given the greenlight 

in the UK by the 

Film Council, which 

has awarded the 

Arts Alliance Digital 

Cinema group the 

contract to build 

250 digital cinema 

screens. The award, 

worth £11.5 million, 

will use HD screens 

to show movies. 

artsalliance.com 

16 d 

Framestore CFC’s 

animation falls flat 

London-based Framestore CFC has 

completed work for car-maker Renault 

that features a 2D character called 

Hector, and follows his adventures 

in a 3D world. Taking six weeks to 

produce using Alias Maya, Hector’s 

Life is a 60-second spot needed the 

creation of two rigs: a 2D one, and a 

3D rig for when an element of depth 

was needed. 

The shoot, which took place in 

Italy, was supervised for Framestore by 

Ben Cronin and Jake Mengers. Global 

illumination references were gathered 

by Mengers for the London team, and 

cut-out paper figures were shot on 

location in order to place the 3D 

Hector plausibly in situ. 

Further CG work was required 

for the creation of the dung beetle 

Oscar success for both 

Spider-man 2, Incredibles 

The 77th annual Academy Awards was held in the US in February, with 

the coveted Oscar statuette going to movies such as The Aviator (five 

gongs) and Clint Eastward’s Million Dollar Baby (Best Motion Picture). 

Yet, for all the red-carpet celebrity draw that the Oscar’s inspire, the 

creative industry was more interested in the winners of best visual 

effects and animated movies. 

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year went to Disney’s The 

Incredibles from Pixar, directed by Brad Bird, which beat Shark Tale and 

Shrek 2 to first place. In accepting his Oscar, Bird attributed “life” as 

the reason behind successful animation. The animated CG movie also 

scooped an Oscar for Best Achievement in Sound Editing, winning over 

both Spider-man 2 and The Polar Express. 

Best Achievement in Visual Effects was won by Spider-man 2 

(effects led by John Dykstra), which beat off challenges from Harry 

Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I, Robot. Best Short Film, 

Animated, went to Chris Landreth’s Ryan. 

The Academy Awards, www.oscar.com 

(main image, above). The life-like 

bug was built, textured, rigged, and 

animated in two weeks in Maya by 

Dean Robinson, using a preserved 

beetle as a model. 

The spot was shot on film for later 

use in cinemas, and a further level of 

grain was added to enhance the look 

of the spot. 

Framestore CFC, www.framestore-cfc.com 

The adventures of 

Hector follow a 2D 

paper character on his 

adventures to find the 

ultimate in luxury – 

space. 

technology 

Is this the end for CRTs? 

The end is nigh for Barco’s 

place at the pinnacle of the 

creative monitor market. The 

company has called time on 

its long-standing CRT monitors 

for designers – the Personal 

Calibrator V and Reference 

Calibrator V – and even 

withdrawn the LCD display 

created to replace them, the 

Coloris Calibrator. A company 

spokesperson told Digit that 

the company was now only 

focussing on what it calls 

“professional markets”, 

such as medical imaging. 

Barco’s CRT displays are 

the last of the major brands 

for designers to enter what is 

called ‘end-of-life’ – where 

no more units are being 

manufactured but a limited 

number are still available 

through resellers. Recently, 

the demise of NEC-Mitsubishi’s 

22-inch NF (Naturally Flat) tube 

has ended production on wellknown 

monitors such as the 

Diamond Pro 2070SB and 

LaCie’s Electron22blue. Last 

year, Sony ended both its 

21-inch CRT range and the 

Trinitron tubes within them. 

There is still a demand for 

high-quality CRTs though, as 

the news has caused a run 

on the remaining stocks of 

Electron22blues, according 

to LaCie UK general manager, 

George Leptos. There is some 

confusion over what to replace 

them with. Some designers 

are happy with equivalently 

priced models, such as Apple’s 

20-inch Cinema Display or 

LaCie’s Photon20vision II. 

The first high-end LCD 

display, Barco’s Coloris 

Calibrator was withdrawn due 

to the company being unable to 

secure TFT panels of consistent 

quality, according to Geoffrey 

Clements, managing director 

of Barco’s reseller into the 

creative market, 

TypeMaker.

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events 

april 

monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday 

18 d 

01 02 03 

THE RING 2 

Following the huge 

success of the scary 

movie, The Ring, a 

sequel was inevitable. 

Good for horror fans. 

On general release 

04 05 06 07 08 

09 

10 

VISION 2005 

LONDON 

This four-day event from the RNIB looks at the issues faced by blind people, including Web-site 

design and access challenges, and how to overcome them. www.rnib.org.uk/vision2005 

FLASHFORWARD 2005 

SAN FRANCISCO 

A series of conferences, exhibition, and screenings of the best in Flash 

animation and design. www.flashforwardconference.com 

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 

18 

DIGITAL EXPO 2005 

NEC, BIRMINGHAM 

Sign UK, Digital Expo, Screenprint, and Outdoor Media open together 

and are aimed at design and print professionals. www.digitalexpo.co.uk 

19 

PACKAGING INNOVATIONS 

NEC, BIRMINGHAM 

A guide to the latest developments in packaging technology and trends, 

aimed at packaging designers. www.easyfairs.com/packaging/birmingham 

NAB 2005 

LAS VEGAS 

… and features a huge exhibition where the likes of Apple and major video and effects vendors 

typically release new versions of their creative wares. www.nabshow.com 

20 

FESTIVAL OF 

VISUAL ART 

GLASGOW 

glasgowinternational.org 

25 26 27 28 

29 

30 

21 

22 

STAR WARS 

CELEBRATION III 

Run by Atomfilms 

online, this will show 

the winners of the 

recent Star Wars fan 

movie competition. 

www.starwars.com 

HITCHHIKERS 

GUIDE TO THE 

GALAXY 

Long-overdue film 

based on the books 

by Douglas Adams 

gets UK outing. 

On general release 

23 

24 

Artbeats 

www.artbeats.com 

code number. LF124H 

NAB 2005 

LAS VEGAS 

Running over two conference centres, NAB 

is one of the bigggest video shows going…

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product news 

Canon debuts 

EOS-350D SLR 

C 

anon has announced the EOS-350D, an upgraded version of the popular 

EOS-300D. The 300D has been lauded with kickstarting the low-cost, 

sub-£1,000 SLR market that has seen models such as the E-1 and E-300 

from Olympus debut. The 350D adds features and functions found on Canon’s 

higher-end digital SLRs. 

The EOS-350D features an APS-C size 8.0-megapixel CMOS sensor, up from 

the 300D’s 6.3mp sensor. This allows the 350D to produce stills up to 3,456-x- 

2,304 pixels in size – in RAW, TIF or JPG formats – and from ISO 100 to ISO 

1600. The 350D replaces the 300D’s DIGIC image processor with the DIGIC II 

processor, found in the more expensive EOS-1D Mark II and EOS-1Ds Mark II. 

According to Canon, the 350D starts up in 0.2 seconds. E-TTL II distancelinked 

flash metering provides precise flash exposures. Users can select between 

three focus modes: One-Shot AF, AI SERVO, and AI Focus. Canon says writing to 

memory card is 3.5-times faster and the interface is upgraded to USB 2.0 for fast 

image downloads. Mirror lock-up and second curtain flash have been added. 

The 350D features the same Monochrome mode found on the EOS 20D, 

allowing photographers to shoot in B&W with a range of filter effects. White 

Balance correction of both blue/amber and magenta/green bias is available 

to ±9 levels and WB bracketing is extended to include the magenta/green 

bias direction. 

The 350D features a standard EOS lens mount, allowing any of Canon’s 

EOS lenses to be used. Canon has also released the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro 

USM lens, for use with the EOS-350D (plus the EOS-300D and the EOS-20D). 

It features a true 1:1 macro magnification ratio, the lens has a focal length 

equivalent of 96mm in the 35mm format. This very closely matches the EF 

100mm f/2.8 Macro USM, Canon’s most popular single focal length lens. 

The EOS-300D will ship in March for £638 plus VAT for the body alone, 

or £680 plus VAT bundled with an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II lens kit. 

Canon has also released the Digital Ixus 700 for £339 plus VAT. The 7.1mp 

Ixus 700 isn’t as svelte as some Ixuses (including the Ixus 50), but it’s still 

amazingly sleek for a seven-megapixel camera. Like other Ixus cameras, it’s 

got an elegant metal case, and Canon has given the Ixus 7000 curvier styling 

than previous models. Its new features include a clever option that automatically 

rouses the camera from sleep mode when you pick it up. The Ixus 50 has a 3x 

optical zoom and a two-inch LCD, and costs £271 plus VAT. 

Canon, www.canon.co.uk 

20 d 

CURIOUS LABS HAS announced that 

it expects to ship version 6 of Poser in 

Spring of this year. The company claims 

that it has promotions coming soon that 

will be of interest to both Avid users 

and potential new buyers of Poser. 

No details regarding new features 

have yet been released. 

HP HAS RELEASED details about 

the xw9300, its new top-of-the-line 

workstation, featuring NVidia nForce 

Professional 2200 and 2050 graphics 

chips. The new PCI Express-based 

workstation features the new 852 and 

252 AMD Opteron processors in single 

or dual-processor configurations. 

THE CYBER-SHOT DSC-W7 is the new 

model in Sony’s W line. It’s a higher-end 

cousin to the DSC-W1 and costs around 

£300. The brick-shaped DSC-W7 is a bit 

chunkier than some of the new models; 

it looks like a thicker version of Casio’s 

Exilim and shares some features, 

including 7.2mp resolution.

Magic Bullet shoots shots 

Red Giant has released version 2.0 of its Magic Bullet Suite collection of 

film-look filters for After Effects, and added a new plug-in, called Film Fix, 

for editors and compositors working with degraded film stock. Magic Bullet 

Suite 2.0 ditches the SD and HD configurations of the original release in 

favour of a single version that does both for £450 plus VAT. A render license 

is available for £295 plus VAT. Upgrades from version 1.0 cost £85 plus VAT, 

and owners of Magic Bullet Suite HD get the render license for free. 

The update adds 13 Misfire filters that mimic film grain, splotches, 

scratches, and projection artefacts; 23 additional Looks presets; improved 

Mac performance; and the removal of the need to use a dongle. Film Fix 

offers tools for the removal of tears, dust and scratches, as well as stabilizing 

footage in 2D. Film Fix costs £1,095 plus VAT. 

Red Giant, www.redgiantsoftware.com 

Nikon aims at photojournalists 

with the launch of the D2Hs 

The D2Hs is Nikon’s latest professional digital SLR model and is shipping in 

March for £2,128 plus VAT. With a 4.1-megapixel sensor, the D2Hs is designed for 

photojournalists and sports photographers who need high speed but don’t need 

high resolution. A large picture buffer for continuous shooting lets users snap up 

eight frames per second for up to 50 consecutive shots using fine quality images 

and JPEG compression (or 40 shots using RAW format). 

The D2Hs features a new image-processing engine that produces higher 

quality pictures with finer gradations and lower noise. Also new on this model 

is a refined exposure metering system, improved auto white balance and better 

auto focusing. The D2Hs uses USB 2.0 to connect to a Mac or PC, and can also 

send pictures wirelessly to a Mac OS X or Windows XP-equipped system using 

Nikon’s optional WT-2/2A 802.11g transmitter. The D2Hs is compatible with DX 

Nikkor and Nikkor AF lenses. 

Nikon, www.nikon.co.uk 

Canon shrinks A520 camera 

After replacing the A75 with the A510, Canon has replaced the A85 with the 

4x-zoom, 4Mp PowerShot A520, claiming it’s 13 per cent smaller and 20 per 

cent lighter. The lens is equivalent to a 35mm 35-140mm zoom and has a 

maximum aperture of between f/2.6 and 5.5. Canon claims that the 9-point 

rear focus system gives more efficient focusing to limit power consumption. 

A redesigned flash unit, optical viewfinder, and a move from Compact Flash 

to SD memory card contribute to a lighter, more compact body. The camera 

includes a Print/Share button for direct printing to any PictBridge compatible 

printer. A 16MB MMC card is included. Software includes ZoomBrowser EX 

for Windows and ImageBrowser for Mac, PhotoStitch and PhotoRecord, plus 

photo manipulation software ArcSoft PhotoStudio. It costs £204 plus VAT. 

Canon, www.canon.co.uk 

3DS Max 7.5 for subscribers 

Discreet has announced a free update for its 3DS Max modelling, animations 

and rendering suite, which will ship in mid-April. However, version 7.5 will only 

be made available to users on the company’s subscription scheme, which costs 

£295 plus VAT per seat per year. 

3DS Max 7.5 adds a hair and fur system based on Joe Alter’s Shave And 

A Haircut plug-in, which includes both styling and dynamics tools. A comb 

allows brushing along complicated contours, with support for realistic effects 

including clumping and frizz. The plug-in’s own dynamics system can interact 

with 3DS Max’s own forces, including inheriting inertia directly from skin. 

The hair system is integrated into Mental Ray, using the native Mental Ray hair 

primitive for faster rendering. The update also provides the latest version of 

Mental Ray, version 3.4, for use with the whole application. This adds faster 

final gathering performance, and fast rasterization for first-generation rays, 

according to Discreet. 

Discreet, www.discreet.com 

d 21

product news 

Matchware Mediator 8 

adds multimedia tools 

MatchWare has announced Mediator 8, an update to its 

multimedia software that includes a new interface design, 

multi-user editing, advanced spell checking, vector drawing, 

an enhanced multimedia catalogue and wizards. A new 

multimedia catalogue visually enhances projects by dragging- 

&-dropping professional interface templates, resizable buttons, 

vector based illustrations and dynamic video players, the 

company claims. It runs on Windows, and costs £36 for the 

Standard version, and £210 for the Professional version. 

Matchware, www.matchware.com 

Amapi Pro real-time 3D 

tool is added by Eovia 

Eovia has announced InstantViz, an add-on for its Amapi 

Pro 7.5 3D modelling software. Using technology from developer 

Lumiscape, InstantViz uses the power of modern graphics 

cards to provide real-time photorealistic renderings of projects, 

according to Eovia. As well as allowing the real-time viewing 

of fully textured objects, InstantViz can also create presentations 

of projects, for example for client approval, at any stage in a 

project. InstantViz costs £489 plus VAT, but Eovia is offering an 

introductory price of £349 plus VAT until May 31. It runs on 

Windows 2000 and XP, and requires a computer with at least 

a NVidia GeForce 6600 or Quadro FX 1100 graphics card. 

Eovia, www.eovia.com 

22 d 

Wacom boosts 

its tablet displays 

W 

acom has launched a 21-inch version of its combination graphics tablet and LCD 

display, the Cintiq. The Cintiq 21UX replaces the 18-inch Cintiq 18SX – adding a larger 

screen, higher resolution and support for the company’s Intuos3 tablet technology. 

The unit costs £1,899 plus VAT. 

The Cintiq 21UX features a 21.3-inch screen with a 1,600-x-1,200 resolution and a 24-bit 

colour depth. Using the Intuos3 technology, the tablet display features an optical resolution 

of 5,080dpi and 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity. It supports the Intuos3 series of pens, 

including the provided multi-tip Grip Pen. Included tips are the brush-type stroke nib and 

the felt pen provides frictioned drawing. An optional Airbrush is available. 

The tablet sits on a removable base that can be pivoted 180 degrees in either direction 

and tilted from 10 to 60 degrees vertically. Wacom says that this allows the tablet to be 

treated like a piece of paper and manoeuvred into a comfortable position before drawing 

strokes. 

The tablet features the same user-configurable ExpressKeys and Touch Strips as the 

Intuos3 tablets. The ExpressKeys are two four-button keypads, while the Touch Strips can 

be used for scrolling and zooming. 

Wacom, www.wacom.com 

Dell boosts its mobile workstations 

Dell has announced a new range of mobile workstations for 3D artists and video editors and 

compositors based on Intel’s latest Pentium M processors and the new 915PM chipset. The M20 

and M70 include Pentium M processors with speeds up to 2.13GHz and 533MHz DDR2 dualchannel 

memory and feature PCI Express bus architectures. 

The M20 starts at £999 plus VAT and includes ISV certifications and OpenGL graphics with the 

ATI Mobility FireGL V3100, which offers 64MB of graphics RAM. Lighter-weight than the M70, the 

M20 starts at 2.21kg, but has a lower graphics resolution 

of either 1,024-x-758 or 1,400-x-1,050. The M70 starts 

at £1,189 plus VAT and includes the NVidia Quadro FX 

Go1400 256MB OpenGL graphics engine and 15.4-inch 

wide-aspect displays, featuring a resolution of either 

1,280-x-800, 1,680-x-1,050 or 1,920-x-1,200. The weight 

of the M70 starts at 3.04kg. Both the M20 and M70 will 

take up to 2GB of DDR2 533MHz dual channel memory 

and either 60GB 7,200rpm or 80GB 5,400rpm hard drives. 

Both come equipped with Windows XP. 

Dell, www.dell.com/uk

Discreet Combustion 4 

adds keying, motion FX 

Discreet has announced Combustion 4, the latest version of the visual effects software that 

includes vector paint, particles, effects, animation and 3D compositing tools. The new version, 

for Mac and Windows, adds new creative tools, interface improvements, new paint tools and 

enhanced support for 3D animation products and encoding software. 

New Discreet’s Diamond Keyer, a set of keying algorithms derived from Discreet’s Flame. 

Time-Warp is a key-frameable, time-remapping operator used to generate slow motion and 

speed-up effects. B-spline vector shapes and new point-grouping has been added to help 

improve roto-scoping. An optimized Fast Gaussian Blur has been added. 

A Gbuffer builder lets you create custom Rich Pixel Format (RPF) data structures from 

bitmap files. A newly optimized Merge Operator speeds up merging two layers of the same 

size using transfer nodes. Operator, navigation, filtering and compare tools have been 

reworked with improved user interfaces. New file format import and export options support 

ASCII Scene Export (ASE) camera targets from 3DS Max, and Windows Media can be 

imported. HDRI support has been added through Open EXR-compatible output. 

Combustion 4 will be released on Windows in March 2005 with a Mac release expected 

in May 2005. The new release costs £850 plus VAT, with upgrades priced at £200 plus VAT. 

Discreet, www.discreet.com 

ATI shows FireGL V5000 3D card 

ATI has introduced the FireGL V5000 workstation graphics accelerator for PCI Express systems, 

which offers dual-DVI connectors and 128MB of GDDR3 memory for around £400. ATI claims that 

the FireGL V5000 will bring top-end functionality to a wider-range of design professionals, thanks 

to its lower price. Advanced features includes dual-DVI connectors 

for multiple displays, dual link support for 9mp displays, 

stereo 3D capabilities with quad-buffered support, 

eight pixel pipelines, six geometry engines, increased 

sub-pixel precision and 128MB of GDDR3 memory. 

ATI claims that the new card features a lower power 

consumption design. The FireGL V5000 cards are certified 

with Discreet 3DS Max, Alias Maya, Softimage|XSI, and SolidWorks. 

ATI, www.ati.com 

HP Designjet 90 series to launch 

HP will introduce the Designjet 90 series this summer, which can accommodate paper up 

to 18-x-24 inches, with optional roll-feed capability for printing images up to 18-inches-wide 

and 100-feet-long. Its six-colour ink system can produce images up to 2,400dpi in resolution. 

Connectivity options include a USB port and a Centronics standard Open EIO for adding the 

printer to a network. Wireless capability can be added with an HP 

Jetdirect module. 

The standard Designjet 90 will sell 

for £750 plus VAT while the 90r, which 

includes the roll-feed capability, will sell 

for £830 plus VAT. The Designjet 90gp 

is also available, which adds an HP 

colourimeter with profiling and 

calibration software. 

HP, www.hp.com/uk 

Firefox ready 

for combat 

The Mozilla 

Foundation has 

released Firefox 

1.0.1 which is 

available for 

download from the 

Mozilla Web site. 

The updated release 

has improved 

stability and 

“several fixes to 

guard against 

spoofing and 

arbitrary code 

execution”. 

www.mozilla.org 

Xara3D gets 

GUI revamp 

Xara has announced 

the sixth release 

of Xara3D. The 

update to the tool 

for creating static 

or animated 3D 

graphics makes 

significant changes 

to the interface 

and adds new bevel 

types and a system 

of boards and 

borders. Xara3D 6 

runs under Windows 

and costs £23. 

www.xara.com 

Olympus 1GB 

USB reader 

Olympus is now 

offering a 1GB 

xD-Picture Card 

for digital cameras. 

The company also 

introduced the 

MAUSB-300, a new 

portable USB reader 

and writer for xD- 

Picture media. XD- 

Picture card is a 

flash media format 

used by Olympus 

and other digital 

camera makers. 

www.olympus.co.uk 

Xerox adds to 

EFI proofing 

Xerox has launched the Phaser EX7750 

in collaboration with EFI. The Phaser 

EX7750 combines Xerox’s Phaser 7750 

A3+ colour laser printer with an EFI Fiery 

Color Server, which provides job and 

colour management and faster printing, 

according to Xerox. The Phaser 7750 

offers printing at up to 1,200dpi or 

35ppm, with a first page out time of 11 

seconds, according to Xerox. Pricing for 

the bundle begins at £13,049 plus VAT. 

Xerox, www.xerox.com 

Compact Nikon 

Nikon has introduced five new 

compact digital cameras, ranging 

in price from £128 plus VAT to £272 

plus VAT. The Coolpix 5900 and the 

Coolpix 7900 feature 5.1mp and 7.1mp 

resolution, respectively, and feature 

all-metal bodies, 3x optical zoom 

lenses, two-inch LCD screens and a 

new Face-Priority auto-focus feature. 

The Coolpix 5900 costs £213 plus VAT, 

and the Coolpix 7900 is £272 plus VAT. 

The new 4mp Coolpix 4600 (£128 

plus VAT), the 5.1mp Coolpix 5600 

(£170 plus VAT) and the 7.1mp 

Coolpix 7600 (£255 plus VAT) all 

share automated functions such 

as In-Camera Red Eye Fix technology. 

All will ship in the Spring. 

Nikon, www.nikon.co.uk 

d 23

stock 

1 

24 d 

2 3

BIGSTOCKPHOTO OFFERS 

BUDGET PHOTOGRAPHY 

A new stock library has launched that offers photography 

from just $1 per image. Big Stock Photo is an online photo 

library that, once you have registered, allows you to 

download and upload content. Photographers can 

become a contributor, subject to a quality check by the 

site’s editors, and earn 50 cents per download. Payments 

are made by cheque or via PayPal. 

main picture. Swan Reflections, 2. Make A Wish, 

3. Manhatten Madness 

4 

www.bigstockphoto.com Photolibrary.com has announced that it is representing 

6 

5 

PHOTOLIBRARY OFFERS TASTE 

www.photolibrary.com, 020 7836 5591 

the new FoodPix catalogue, Taste. This rights-managed 

culinary collection covers continental food as well as 

old-fashioned dishes, and the company says it fuses art 

and science photography. The entire FoodPix collection 

offers over 40,000 images. Images from Taste can be 

viewed and purchased at www.photolibrary.com. 

4. 00038910-001, 5. 00041546-001, 6. 00043763-001 

d 25

stock 

ARTBEATS OFFERS CLOUD CLIPS 

www.artbeats.com 

Artbeats has released several new motion collections. 

Cloud Chamber HD volume 1 and volume 2 (pictured) 

features simulated cloud formations. The royalty-free 

HD collections cost $799. The company has also released 

Nightmare Light and Lumaform – royalty-free background 

collections of various light projection images. Nightmare 

Light costs $399 for SD and $599, for HD, while Lumaform 

costs $299 for SD and $499 for HD. All collections are 

available from the Artbeats Web site. 

26 d 

1 

2 

IMAGE100 GIVE A 

SPORTING CHANCE 

www.image100.com, 020 7612 1550 

image100 has released Sport, a new collection of 

royalty-free images. The collection offers a total of 

645 photographs, ranging from “Sunday league heroes 

to Olympic champions”, according to the company. The 

images are available for download from the company’s 

Web site. Prices for individual images depend on the 

file size required. 

1. 111245H, 2. 111082H

TYKE FAMILY BLACK / LIGHT ITALIC / MEDIUM OSF 

Tyke ITC Black 

Tyke ITC BlackOsF 

Tyke ITC Bold 

Tyke ITC BoldOsF 

Tyke ITC Book 

Tyke ITC BookOsF 

Tyke ITC Light 

Tyke ITC LightOsF 

Tyke ITC Medium 

Tyke ITC MediumOsF 

RESAVSKA FAMILY BLACK / LIGHT 

Resavska ITC Black 

Resavska ITC Bold 

Resavska ITC Light 

Resavska ITC Medium 

Resavska Sans ITC Black 

Resavska Sans ITC Bold 

Resavska Sans ITC Light 

Resavska Sans ITC Medium 

ASTRO FAMILY BLACK / WHITE 

Astro Black ITC 

Astro Black ITC 

BRAMBLE FAMILY REGULAR / WILD 

P22 Bramble 

P22 Bramble Wild 

MANTRA FAMILY REGULAR / XPERT 

Mantra 

Mantra 

\{([@$%&!])}/ 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNn 

OoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz12 

34567890 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTt 

UuVvWwXxYyZz1234567890 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQq 

RrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz1234567890 

\{([@$%&!])}/ 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmN 

nOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz12 

34567890 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrS 

sTtUuVvWwXxYyZz1234567890 

\{([@$%&!])}/ 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlM 

mNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwX 

xYyZz1234567890 



xYyZz1234567890 

\{([@$%&!])}/ 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuV 

vWwXxYyZz1234567890 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMm 

NnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz12 

34567890 

\{([@$%&!])}/ 



xYyZz1234567890 

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOo 

PpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz1234567890 

TYKE FAMILY 

ITC www.itcfonts.com 

The International Typeface 

Corporation (ITC) has released 37 

exclusive new fonts in four families. 

Three of these new families are 

featured here. ITC Tyke is designed 

to match the heftiness of Cooper 

Black, but with a wider range of 

weights. Individual fonts cost $29, 

while the complete volume costs 

$199. The fonts can be purchased 

from the ITC Web site. 

RESAVSKA FAMILY 


Another of ITC’s new releases, 

Resavska was designed by Olivera 

Stojadinovic. It is designed to be 

legible at small sizes. Individual 

fonts cost $29, while the volume 

costs $169. 

ASTRO FAMILY 


The name and design of Astro were 

inspired by the cartoon series The 

Jetsons. ITC Astro is available in 

solid and outline weights, and 

priced individually at $39.95, or 

you can buy them together for 

$72. The fonts are available for 

download at the ITC Web site. 

BRAMBLE FAMILY 

P22 www.p22.com 

P22 and the International House 

of Fonts has released two new 

typefaces: Bramble and Mantra. 

Bramble was designed by Steven 

Rapp, and comes in Normal and Wild 

weights. They can be purchased from 

the company’s Web site for $19.95 

each, or $29.95 for the set of two. 

MANTRA FAMILY 

P22 www.p22.com 

The second of P22’s new releases, 

Mantra, was designed by Hungarian 

typographer Amondo Szegi. According 

to the company, it blends the Roman 

alphabet with Tibetan calligraphy, as 

well as Hungarian folk influences. 

Mantra Xperts offers various alternate 

letters. The two faces can be bought 

as a set for $29.95, or individually for 

$19.95. 

d 27

pulse 

pulse 

Be inspired by the latest happenings in the world of creative design 

HANG THE VJ 

Channel 4 has launched PIXnMIX, a Web site 

devoted to the art of VJing. Central to the site 

is the CandyJar, a unique repository of video 

clips for aspiring and experienced VJs to 

download for free. 

>> 

The clips are shared under Creative Commons 

licences which encourages a thoughtful, progressive 

approach to copyright in the context of digital 

creative collaboration. PIXnMIX is a pioneering 

project among UK broadcasters and a unique development in an emerging art form. 

To help launch the site, 20 youngsters in Birmingham with an interest in digital visual 

arts but no video experience were guided through the process of gathering, producing 

and mixing audio-visual material to create their own live VJ performances. 

www.channel4.com/pixnmix 

28 d 

AN INSTANTLY AVAILABLE 

COLLECTION OF POLAROIDS 

>> 

In existence for over 50 years, the Polaroid 

Corporation’s photography collection is the 

greatest collection of Polaroid images in the 

world. 

Established by Polaroid founder Edwin Land 

and photographer Ansel Adams, the collection 

now includes images by hundreds of 

photographers throughout the world and 

contains important pieces by artists such as 

David Hockney, Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, 

and Robert Rauschenberg. 

The Polaroid Book (£19.99, published by 

Taschen) is a survey of this remarkable collection 

and pays tribute to a medium that defies the 

digital age and remains a favourite among 

artists for its quirky look and instantly gratifying, 

one-of-a-kind images. 

It includes over 400 works from the Polaroid 

Collection, including, clockwise from top left, 

Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, and A Game: Lips 

and Needles by Masahisa Fukas. A technical 

reference section features the various types 

of Polaroid cameras. www.taschen.com 

>> HANG ON A MINUTE, I’VE 

GOT TO FIND A C...AMERA 

Young Latvian photographer Arnis Balcus has 

been making a name photographing himself 

and his partner(s) having sex. “Is this sort of 

narcissim a problem?” he asks. Well, he argues, 

not if it’s self-mocking, and not the “pathetic 

sincerity” of Tracy Emin. 

Casually posed portraits, still-lifes and 

images of sex are shot from the hip, using a 

cheap digital camera. His images explore and 

celebrate “snapshot culture” he says. His first 

London exhibition is at the Matthew Bown 

Gallery, April 14 to May 14. 

www.matthewbown.com

SONY LAUNCH NEW JUKEBOX 

Sony will launch a new version of its network jukebox in March in Japan. The NAS-A10 

contains a 40GB hard drive, a CD drive, AM and FM radio and a MemoryStick slot. 

The jukebox allows music stored on the disk to be transferred to either of the two prior 

portable music players or onto a MemoryStick Duo memory card for playback in a device 

such as the PlayStation Portable (PSP). It will cost approx $600 (around £340). 

www.sony.com 

>> 

SNAP ABBEY 

Abbey bank has developed personalized bank cards 

in association with Endengene. The new photocard 

service lets Abbey customers upload their own 

digital images onto their cash and debit cards or 

choose from a library. The card is then processed 

in the normal way. 

The Photocard has already proved a hit with 

Abbey staff following its internal launch last year, 

with the children of staff being the most popular 

pictures. Abbey said: “This is the first to be available 

in the UK and creates a distinctive position for 

Abbey in the market.” www.abbey.com/photocard 

WHAT WAS THE SKY LIKE 

WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG? 

>> 

Displaying the breathtaking confidence that 

students have, 24 postgraduate photography 

students at Central Saint Martins College of Art 

and Design have embarked on a life-long project. 

24:2004 saw 24 photographers document the 

first 24 hours of 2004 and is now an exhibition of 

the resulting 24 photographs. The same crowd of 

photographers did the same thing for the first day 

of 2005. They plan to keep this up for another 22 

years – 24 hours, 24 photographers, 24 images, 

24 years. 

“How will the group, the project, and the 

world it documents change over the next 

quarter of a century?” asks the group. 

You can see – at least a small part – for 

yourself until March 19. 24:2005 is this year’s 

selection of 24 images and is in Soho Square, 

London, until 19 March. 

Longing for London, left, by Nicky Willcock. 

>> 

PRETTY IN PINK 

T-shirt design company UniForm has magazine 

credits from ID to Wallpaper. Celebrity fans include 

Pete Tong, Zoe Ball, and Sara Cox. UniForm’s new 

collection, out now, is based on Op Art. 

Launched in 1997 the brand now sells to retailers 

throughout the UK, Europe, USA, Australia, and 

Japan. This of course has been no mere accident. 

The two founders, Paul West and Paula Benson, 

have a design pedigree that includes art direction 

and design for high profile campaigns including 

Depeche Mode, Girls Aloud, Busted, The Faders, 

Everything But The Girl, and MTV. UniForm is a 

division of their graphic design studio, Form. 

www.uniform.uk.com 

d 29 

pulse

Hit the Ground Running 

Mac OS X Panther 

in a Nutshell 

By Chuck Toporek, 

Chris Stone & Scott Gever 

March 2004 

ISBN 0-596-00606-3 

£28.50 


for Unix Geeks 

By Brian Jepson 

& Ernest E. Rothman 

February 2004 

ISBN 0-596-00607-1 

£17.50 

Panther is a sleek and powerful overhaul 

of Mac OS X that will supercharge your 

Mac with lots of added conveniences 

and improvements.We’ve dug deep 

into Panther to bring you the information 

you need to get the most 

from this new release, whether you’re 

looking for a thorough but accessible 

introduction from a Missing Manual, a full 

high-end tutorial, an in-depth reference, or 

a handy little pocket guide. 

Running Mac OS X 

Panther 

By James Duncan 

Davidson 

December 2003 

ISBN 0-596-00500-8 

£28.50 

Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, 

Panther Edition 

By David Pogue 

December 2003 

ISBN 0-596-00615-2 

£20.95 

Learning Unix for 


By Dave Taylor 

& Brian Jepson 

December 2003 

ISBN 0-596-00617-9 

£13.95 

Mac OS X Panther Hacks 

By James Duncan 

Davidson & Rael Dornfest 

June 2004 

ISBN 0-596-00718-3 

£20.95 

Mac OS X Unwired 

By Tom Negrino 

& Dori Smith 

November 2003 

ISBN 0-596-00508-3 

£17.50 

Ask for these and other O’Reilly books at your local bookshop. 

www.oreilly.co.uk

Stop paying 

us too much 

The creative industry 

faces staffing challenges 

and high turnover – but 

the reasons are often 

more bizarre than you’d 

realize. 

any of us have dreamed of working in media since we 

decided to use crayons for drawing rather than eating. 

M That was certainly the case for me: I wanted to be 

a journalist since I can remember, and I spent many an hour 

from the age of ten creating newspapers using Letraset transfer 

letters, and no end of patience. My debut issue, which was 

subsequently shown to the school assembly (complete with 

utterly embarrassing Samantha Fox Dates Local Schoolboy 

headline), didn’t dampen my enthusiasm one jot. 

Fast-forward a few years, and I remember nervously taking 

the entrance exam for my longed-for and heavily oversubscribed 

journalist degree, and almost bolting from the room when 

I saw the competition. Not only was I the only bloke without a 

ponytail, but I was the only one that didn’t take the paper with 

my feet perched on the table while smoking a roll-up. Everyone 

was hip, could name-drop with ease, and seemed destined to 

reside in the lofty towers of a glamorous media industry. 

So it comes as no surprise, really, when reality hits home. 

People think media – in all its guises – is a non-stop riot of 

parties, dar-lings, air kisses, baggy cargo pants, and workplaces 

with ball pools and pinball machines. This attitude probably 

explains the latest findings from The Creative Group, which 

asked the top 1,000 media agencies why people quit. The 

following are all real reasons why media personnel walk. 

Headlining the list were gems such as one employee 

didn’t like to use a computer and felt the job simply 

wasn’t glamorous enough. Really? You mean 

deadlines, the need to understand pixels, 

and boring client meetings are the 

reality of today’s world? 

Of course, environment makes a difference. One employee 

quit because he didn’t like the smell of the studio, and another 

walked because the studio lighting “wasn’t right”. And as for 

the bizarre excuse one departing designer made – that he was 

making too much money and didn’t feel he was worth it – that’s 

just nuts. 

Some employees you do actually want to be rid of, such 

as this collection: one person was bored, and left; another felt 

he was over-employed; while a third quit because she didn’t 

want to work so hard, and besides, the location wasn’t terribly 

exciting. The staffer who left to join the Witness Protection 

Program in the US probably shouldn’t have made it through 

the door in the first place. 

One such Marie Celeste moment happened to me. A flighty 

designer had just started working on a sister magazine in a 

previous company, when she popped out for lunch after her first 

morning, and never came back. A second woman left abruptly, 

texting us a few days later saying that life was too short, and 

she was off to travel the world. Maybe it was my Sam Fox 

jokes? 

All this simply shows that working in the creative industry 

is much like any other business. Crappy Monday mornings, 

rubbish jokes from fellow workers, pale skin from the florescent 

lighting, and gritty eyes from staring at your monitor. Still, it 

beats being a lawyer, dar-ling. 

Matthew Bath 

d 31 

opinion

letters 

respond 

Contact d. Get issues off your chest. 

Send letters to dialogbox@digitmag.co.uk 

Please note that personal correspondence cannot be entered into. 

32 d 

Money matters 

Cheers for a great guide to the 

UK design industry as it stands 

(Digit 84) – and, more 

importantly for me, give me the 

chance to leave it around on 

my desk open on the page with 

the average salaries list for my 

boss to see. Now I’ve been 

given an instant raise to my 

rather meagre salary. Well 

done! 

Joan Smith (not my real name) 

Love the pictures, hate the type 

I have just received my first copy of Digit magazine. 

First impressions were really great. Just the sort of 

things I want to read about. But reading it gave me 

a headache. The typeface used for articles is far, far 

too small. 

Your designers should review their typographic 

study notes on readability. If newspapers and books 

were printed using type this small no one would buy 

them. Designers need to remember that the majority 

of the population do not have the acutely sharp 

sight of a 21-year-old. And not everyone reads 

magazines in bright daylight or in studio conditions. 

Even if you are young, try reading Digit as you 

travel home tonight on the moving top deck of a 

number 74 bus or in the soft-lit lounge bar .If you 

are older than 40 you will struggle. If it’s a struggle, 

then you’ll surely give up. Although you can see 

the individual words OK, scanning the lines and 

digesting the information is hard work. Because 

you are concentrating on the act of reading, the 

pleasure of reading is greatly diminished. 

After a few short articles I gave up and just 

skimmed through the magazine. This is a shame. 

Such a good thing spoilt by poor typographical 

design. 

Michael Hailstone 

d: We’re sorry that our choice of typeface is spoiling 

your enjoyment of Digit, but we’ve not had complaints 

about it before. Our choice of the size of typeface comes 

from a desire to provide our readers with a wealth of 

information on every page without getting in the way 

of the luscious artwork that we know you’re equally 

interested in. Imago is one of the most readable fonts 

at any size – and too make it larger would leave us 

with room for less words or smaller/less pictures. 

This is not a choice any of us would like to make. 

One giant leap into 3D 

I was grateful for your article on 3D software for 

illustrators such as myself, as I’ve been trying to 

get into 3D for some time – but with little success. 

I think my work would really benefit from some 

true 3D elements as it’s always been kinda sci-fi. 

I’ve tried many different packages, including the 

‘learning editions’ of most of the 3D tools used by 

top effects companies on big-budget Hollywood 

movies, and generally ended up more befuddled 

than Mr Magoo. They seem to speak a different 

language to the rest of us and the interface is 

beyond convoluted. 

Following your advice though, I checked out 

Strata CX and while the language is still arcane, 

the tools were a lot easier to learn - so cheers! 

Dennis Dissen 

d: Sometimes it does seem that the language used 

by 3D applications was devised by a particularly secretive 

old maths teacher, but it’s often necessary as 3D is by its 

nature more technical than 2D design, animation or video 

production. Perserverence is always the best way. 

A Vue to a kill 

I will never buy your books again because they are 

expensive but most of all you fuck people over by 

telling them there is great software on the CD like 

Vue D’Esprit but once you have bought the book 

it is only for Windows and not for Apple and this 

is false advertisement. Put it on the cover that it 

is only for Windows and not this sneaky shit that 

you first have to buy the book so that only then 

you can look inside the book to find this out. 

Thanks for nothing. 

Dennis Dissen 

d: For every free piece of software that we give 

away for free with the magazine, we always get a few 

complaints that it doesn’t work with any platform that 

you care to mention. As flaming responses go though, 

this one is a classic. 

To be serious though, a quick look at our Digit 

CD pages would have informed this reader that both 

of the full packages we offered on Digit 83’s CD 

were for Windows-only. Why? Because that’s how 

the companies behind them made them. 

Oh well, we hope the six free full-size, royalty-free 

images; Aardan animations; Kempt Flash game – oh, 

and the fantastic creative magazine that comes with 

the CD – is enough to keep Mac users satisfied.

★ 

star letter: Gay, straight – it’s still porn 

In response to your reply to the letter headed ‘Sense and suitibility’ in Digit 84: 

You had used an image that you referred to as ‘homoerotic’. and have ducked the issue by comparing it 

to the other erotic images used and printing letters that also miss the point and so strengthen your stance. 

The point is that the image was not homoerotic as you claim, it was pornographic. You are designers, so you 

know semiology; about signification – so by any intelligent assessment of that image (the position of the 

bodies, the facial expressions, the abscence of other meaning), it is pornographic, it overtly illustrates a 

sexual act. The other images are erotic, not pornographic as they intimate, not illustrate, a sexual act. 

You decided to print pornography in the name of design but have fended off criticism by labelling it 

‘erotica’ (which it isn’t) and deflecting the question by printing homophobic responses; however, it doesn’t 

alter the likelihood of your readers being offended by the inclusion of pornography and you have not 

addressed that question. If instead of your ‘homoerotic’ pic you had chosen one of a woman having 

anal sex, would you have printed it? 

Simon King 

d: We’re not denying that the image could be defined as pornographic. To quote Bill Hicks: “pornography is 

defined as something with no artistic merit but causes sexual thought. Well, that sounds like every commercial I’ve 

ever seen”. However, we believe that in a serious discussion about what is acceptable for the use of sex and sexuality 

in design (in legal rather than moral terms), it’s useful to see examples from both sides of the line. It was there for 

academic interest, not to titillate – which so far no-one has accused us of. If the same advert had shown a woman 

having anal sex, and received the same response and condemnation from the ASA then, yes, we would have printed it. 

Write in & win 

This month, the star letter wins a copy of On the Road with Your Digital Camera by Michael 

Freeman worth £16.95. It is the essential, all-in-one handbook for the digital photographer 

on the road and the definitive guide to planning a digital photographic assignment, trip, 

or holiday. The book is aimed at both professional and 

‘prosumer’ hobbyist photographers and is packed with 

detailed information on file downloads and backups, 

email and FTP image transmission, batteries and 

international power supplies. It’s written by one the most 

widely acknowledged experts in digital photography, and 

the author has travelled and taken pictures all around the globe. 

To order your copy of On the Road with Your Digital Camera at a 

special price of just £13.45 plus FREE postage and packing (worth 

an additional discount of £3.50), visit www.ilex-press.com/digit 

EDITORIAL 

Editor-in-chief Matthew Bath matthew@digitmag.co.uk 

Editor Lynn Wright lynnw@digitmag.co.uk 

Reviews editor Neil Bennett neilb@digitmag.co.uk 

Art editor Chris Hodgson chrish@digitmag.co.uk 

Sub editor Andy Penfold andyp@digitmag.co.uk 

Online development editor Dan Sullivan dans@digitmag.co.uk 

CD editor Richard Clooke richard_clooke@idg.com 

ADVERTISING 

Advertising manager Marcus Wilkinson marcusw@digitmag.co.uk 

Account manager Matthew Bennett matthewb@digitmag.co.uk 

Classified sales executive Andrew Pamphilon andrewp@digitmag.co.uk 

Contact Digit advertising on 020 7071 3681 

MARKETING 

Marketing executive Jaime Parker jaimep@digitmag.co.uk 

Events & marketing executive Sam French samf@digitmag.co.uk 

Marketing and circulation manager Jim Birch jimb@digitmag.co.uk 

PRODUCTION 

Deputy production manager Richard Bailey richardb@digitmag.co.uk 

Head of production Sharon Bird sharonb@digitmag.co.uk 

EVENTS 

Events manager Anne Ridyard anner@digitmag.co.uk 

PUBLISHING 

Editorial director Simon Jary simonj@digitmag.co.uk 

Commercial director Mustafa Mustafa mustafa@idg.co.uk 

Managing director Kit Gould kit_gould@idg.com 

CONTRIBUTORS 

Deborah Bonello, Michael Burns, Joanne Carter, Simon Danaher, Simon 

Eccles, Ed Ewing, Ben Frain, Jan de Schrijver 

TYPEFACES 

Imago BQ, EvoBQ, Helvetica, Jigger 

PRODUCTION SERVICES / DIGITAL STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY 

Printed by St Ives (Roche) / Stock photography from Getty Images, plus 

additional images from Digital Vision 

TECHNOLOGY 

Apple G5 and Dell 650 workstations, Adobe Photoshop CS, QuarkXPress 4.1, 

Macromedia Flash, Adobe Acrobat Distiller, ipodkitz (www.itzkitz.com) 

SUBSCRIPTIONS 

Call the Subscription Hotline on 01858 438 867 

13 issues for £49.99 (UK) £90 Europe, £120 Rest of World 

BACKISSUES / REPRINTS 

Call Jaime Parker on 020 7071 3663 

Back issues cost £5.99 each including p&p in the UK 

£8.99 Europe, £9.99 Rest of World 

ADDRESS 

99 Gray‘s Inn Road, London, WC1X 8TY 

www.digitmag.co.uk 

Tel: 020 7071 3615, fax (ads): 020 7405 0262 

WORLD LEADERS IN IT PUBLISHING 

If we could... bring something back from the dead 

Matt Lynn Chris Neil Andy Dan 

d 33

pitch design 

34 d 

Illustration by Ben Beach & Mark Graham, www.ilovedust.com

Pitching for work is vital to landing the good jobs. 

The process is loathed by some, but it can be as 

creative as the account that’s up for grabs. Here’s 

how to charm the people holding the purse strings. 

S 

ometime during the 1970s, the late Sir 

Peter Parker, then head of British Rail, 

went to the offices of the advertising 

agency Allen, Brady & Marsh to hear a pitch 

for his company’s advertising account. Some 

45-minutes after his arrival, a very unimpressed 

Parker was still sitting, fuming, in the agency’s 

reception area surrounded by a disgusting 

array of over-flowing ash trays and polystyrene 

coffee cups. Having had enough, Parker stood 

up to march out of the reception but was cut 

off at the agency’s front door by its chief 

executive Peter Marsh, who said: “This is 

what it’s like for your customers every day 

of the week.” He won the account. 

Fast-forward to the present day and 

the pitch process is still vital for creative 

companies when it comes to winning new 

business. But it’s not all drama. The use 

of pitch theatre such as that employed by 

Marsh and co above tends to be favoured 

more by advertising than the new-media 

industry. However, there are rules and 

processes that creatives agree are 

necessary ingredients for a successful pitch. 

The type of pitches agencies get involved 

in tends to vary by discipline. In new-media, 

for example, agencies find themselves pitching 

to existing clients as often as new ones 

because most work is done on a project-byproject 

basis. On the other hand, ad agencies 

tend to work for clients on a retainer, and pitch 

for new ones when they come up for grabs. 

Either way, the pitch process is crunch time 

for an agency, so getting it right is paramount. 

Before the big day, there are things 

BY DEBORAH BONELLO 

agencies can do to make sure it is as prepared as possible to wow the client. 

Tom Adams, co-founder of Mook, the creative digital design consultancy, 

says his agency generally insists on meeting the client before a pitch. 

“We won’t do any creative work without first meeting with the client,” he 

says. “Just relying on a written brief can be misleading so we need to qualify it.” 

Adams says the agency has its own way of understanding a brief. “We have 

a questionnaire that we send over, and it almost writes the brief for them. It asks 

them everything from how much traffic they expect on their site through to which 

sites, even those not in their sector, they admire,” he says. 

Mark Chalmers, a creative partner at Amsterdam-based advertising 

agency Strawberry Frog, says: “Too many people assume the client’s brief is set 

in stone. What they think they want and what they need are often different things. 

It’s essential to talk over the issues and get to the heart of the matter. Start off 

from the same agreed piece of paper.” 

It is also worth considering whether a pitch is worth getting involved with 

in the first place. Jon Bains, founder of the digital creative agency Lateral, has 

little love for the pitch process. “I absolutely hate pitching,” he says. “It’s the 

worst, most pointless exercise in the universe and you spend a ridiculous 

amount of time working on them.” 

He says it’s important to choose your battles. “The main deciding factor 

is budget, to be blunt.” 

Adams agrees. “We try not to do more than two a month. We probably 

get 200-300 incoming requests for pitches a year.” 

In the case of new-media work, often an agency has to actually do some of 

the work in order to be able to present something to the client. This costs both 

money and time. Generally, if the project is a Web site, experts say the best idea 

is to put together a prototype of the site that is a few pages deep. It will give the 

client a strong idea of what the site will look like and how it will work without 

requiring the agency to pretty much build the whole thing on speculation. 

Once you have decided to pitch in, do your homework. “Show that you’ve 

put some effort in and you’re really trying to understand what the client does. 

d 35

pitch design 

Do anything you can to put yourself in the 

shoes of that brand’s customers,” says Paul 

Mallett, managing director of digital marketing 

agency Swamp. 

Vox pops 

He says before going into a pitch, he and 

his colleagues often go out into the street 

to speak to the public about what they think 

about a certain brand or company. They 

record the street interviews and then edit 

them into a vox pop linear film to show the 

client during the brief. This is a good way 

of breaking the ice, as well as showing the 

client that you’ve done 

your research – plus you 

can place some funny, 

anecdotal comments 

from Joe Public. 

Glyn Britton, 

managing partner at the 

communications agency 

Ingram Partnership, says 

once you know you’re 

pitching for a piece of 

business, you should get 

cracking straight away. “Two weeks is 

regarded as plenty of time but it’s not 

unusual to be given two days. It’s really 

important not to sit on the brief – start work 

on it immediately. Rehearsal is absolutely 

key. Understanding the client’s business 

is important but you’ll never do it better 

than them.” 

Ashley Friedlein, chief executive of 

E-consultancy, says: “The most important 

thing is to understand the client’s market, 

customers, and competitors. The classic 

mistake is for agencies to go into a pitch 

meeting and tell the client what it needs.” 

Once you’ve done your homework and 

36 d 

TOO MANY 

PEOPLE 

ASSUME 

THE CLIENT’S 

BRIEF IS SET 

IN STONE 

MARK CHALMERS 

the time comes to pitch, it’s important to 

send the right people to meet the client. 

Chalmers at Strawberry Frog says never 

send any more people than the client is 

sending, otherwise they’ll be outnumbered. 

“You’ll dominate the talking and have a couple 

of spare parts. Quality client time is precious, 

you need to hear what they have to say. 

“When we pitched for the European Ikea 

business there were three of us in a room 

of twelve. It was great because the focus 

was on our work. You could have heard 

one of their elusive alun keys drop.” 

You should avoid sending in the big 

guns to pitch for work. The 

danger is that clients will be 

disappointed when they find 

that the people working on 

their business day-to-day 

won’t be the people they 

trusted their business with. 

“The team who will do the 

work are sent in – that is 

a pitch basic,” says Britton 

at the Ingram Partnership. 

In terms of environment, 

some agencies encourage clients to go to 

their offices when they’re pitching. This gives 

the agency more control over what the client 

hears and sees as part of the pitch. This isn’t 

always a luxury that’s available, though, and 

if you’re pitching in a client’s office always 

get there early to give yourself time to set up 

and avoid fiddling around with laptops and 

projectors when the client’s in the room. 

Once you’re in the room, a lot of your 

success will come down to the chemistry you 

have with the client team. Ultimately, the client 

reps are looking for someone they’re going to 

enjoy working with. It’s important that you like 

them too – you must try and gauge whether 

Above: These mood boards 

were made by Random 

Media for Creativity 

Incubator, a site aimed 

at engendering creativity 

in the work place. Using 

mood boards in your 

pitches gives you something 

physical to hand to clients, 

and gives you visual material 

to refer to. An over-reliance 

on PowerPoint-style 

presentations can be 

boring for the client. 

TOP TEN TIPS 

from Ashley Friedlein, chief 

executive of E-consultancy. 

www.e-consultancy.com 

1. Most important of all, you 

must show the client that you 

understand their market, their 

customers, and their competitors. 

For example, you could do some 

independent market research on 

their customers to show you 

understand them. 

2. Question their brief but also 

address all questions in briefs 

to the letter and then give 

more than they asked for. 

3. When it comes to the creative, 

don’t present three finished 

options. Focus on demonstrating 

your creative process, your 

creative insight, and your 

creative thinking. Don’t rely on 

PowerPoint, but use multiple 

media including mood boards, 

environments, paper, and 

models. Mix it up. Get them 

inspired with your approach 

and abilities. Present just your 

strongest single concept and 

how you got there rather than 

pre-done variations. 

4. Be transparent about costs. 

The cheapest cost is not 

always the project winner, 

but transparent costing is 

very important in building trust, 

and trust does win pitches. 

5. Have an opinion on how they 

compare to their competitors, 

be strong in your opinions, be 

challenging, be brave. If they 

really need help, don’t be afraid 

to say. Often the bravest and 

strongest opinions win through. 

6. Flag up your relevant 

experience – clients need 

reassurance on your abilities, 

strategically, technically, 

creatively, and in your 

process expertise. 

7. Talk about return on 

investment (ROI) and being 

on-time, on-brand, and onbudget. 

Use testimonials to 

prove your claims. 

8. Remember you operate in an 

oversupplied market and clients 

tend to choose on personality 

whims. Therefore do as much 

soft research about personalities 

in the pitch as possible. If the 

client has women on their pitch 

team, then make sure you do too. 

Phone several times before the 

pitch to ask questions and get to 

know them better. 

9. Be animated and inspiring. Be 

keen, look keen. Be confident, 

but never arrogant. 

10. If offered a choice, early slots 

are better as the clients tend to 

be fresher. If you are allocated 

a slot at the end of the day, 

make sure you are quick and 

concise. In any case, keep the 

whole presentation down to 

45 minutes at the very most, 

anything longer than that and 

you risk boring everyone.

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pitch design 

PITCH THEATRE: 

THE LEGENDS 

Saatchi & Saatchi, when 

pitching to Toyota, put a 

model of the car in the front 

window of the agency. This 

required the removal of the 

window in order to get the 

car in. When the client 

turned up it was the wrong 

model, so when he came 

for the second round meeting 

the agency put a second 

model in reception. 

Mediacom, the media 

agency, pitched for the 

Royal Bank of Scotland and, 

to prove its commitment to 

the bank’s business, included 

a share certificate for half 

a million pounds in the 

company as part of its 

presentation. 

When communications 

agency The Allmond 

partnership pitched for 

Weetabix, the agency 

transformed part of its offices 

into a supermarket aisle for 

cereals, to demonstrate 

its understanding of 

Weetabix’s customer 

visibility, profile, and 

competition. They won 

the business. 

Advertising agency Publicis 

once staged a pitch for an 

Italian confectionary brand 

in an Italian restaurant. An 

obvious idea perhaps, and 

a small detail, but it made 

a big difference. 

38 d 

or not they are right for your business and 

the kind of people you want to work for. 

Ben Swindell, a creative director at 

Holler Digital, says it’s important to get your 

personality across during the meeting. “If they 

haven’t met you before then they’re sizing you 

up to see if they can work with you,” he says. 

Chemistry set 

You want your pitch to be memorable, and 

you want the client to trust you and like you, 

and one of the ways that agencies try to do 

this is via the use of pitch theatre, which 

makes it look as though they’ve gone the extra 

mile for the client. From examples as extreme 

as that used by Marsh and his associates to 

win over British Rail, to just attention to small 

details, gimmicks can 

really help to make an 

impression on the client. 

Chalmers at 

Strawberry Frog says: 

“We do everything we 

can to bring our proposal 

to life. Since when did 

someone say ‘pitch on 

PowerPoint’? We are the 

agency, we should be the 

refreshing change to the 

daily norm. We won 

Emirates in Bloomingdale’s board room 

in New York City, we’ve pitched in people’s 

houses, we’ve even pitched in our pants. 

Pitch theatre has to be relevant.” 

On the other side of the coin, pitching 

can be a long and arduous task for the 

client as well as the agency, as they have to 

have lots of different meetings with different 

agencies. Anything that makes the process 

more interesting and entertaining for the 

client has got to be a good thing and will 

score you brownie points. 

However, experts were quick to mention 

the perils of pitch theatre. 

Kathleen Saxton, marketing director at 

Saatchi & Saatchi, says that pitch theatre 

can work wonders, but you have to research 

the client. “It has to be relevant, smart and 

memorable,” she says. “The best theatre 

should all draw from the central idea the 

agency is recommending and support the 

team, rather than overshadow the thinking. 

Theatre needs lots of rehearsing, so the 

team feels comfortable with all the props. 

“There is sometimes a risk that if you are 

struggling to crack the strategy or overall idea 

that pitch theatre will be ramped up to mask 

the shortfall – especially in this market when 

we all know that every agency on the list will 

be pulling out all the stops.” 

Pitch theatre tends to be more the 

territory of advertising agencies than newmedia 

design and graphic shops. New-media 

experts are rather cynical about its value. 

Adams at Mook says: “What we tend 

to find with graphic design and online 

advertising is clients are not taken in by 

pitch theatre. They’re quite business-like 

and want to see the quality of our creative 

work. It’s less about theatre and more about 

putting together a solid 

creative pitch that they’re 

impressed with. 

“Very experienced clients 

know whether they can trust 

you to do their work based 

on your previous work for 

them or other clients.” 

Bains at Lateral isn’t a 

fan either. “We don’t do that 

but it can work,” he says. 

“It depends on who you’re 

talking to. Every agency has 

its own style. Ours is brutal honesty. We like 

to think that agencies hire us because we’re 

straightforward and no bullshit.” 

Britton at The Ingram Partnership says 

that the power of pitch theatre is limited. 

“Quite often clients are seeing a range of 

agencies, all of whom could deliver what 

they need. Theatre won’t win it for you 

– being prepared will. Be able to answer 

all their questions,” he says. 

More important is the need to keep a 

pitch simple. This is especially relevant to 

agencies pitching for new-media business. 

Lateral’s Bains says: “The problem is that 

in our industry a lot of the time you’re pitching 

to people who don’t know the area.” 

Although most clients have specialists 

in-house to deal with new-media 

developments and marketing, often the client 

isn’t a specialist and throwing a load of Webspeak 

at them is only going to confuse them. 

“Make sure that you talk at a level they 

understand. As an industry, we often talk 

DO ANYTHING YOU CAN TO PUT 

YOURSELF IN THE SHOES OF 

THAT BRAND’S CUSTOMERS 

PAUL MALLETT 

PITCH 

THEATRE 

HAS TO BE 

RELEVANT, 

SMART, AND 

MEMORABLE 

KATHLEEN SAXTON

Above & left: Random Media created these mood 

boards when successfully pitching for work on the 

video game The Getaway: Black Monday. 

over people’s heads,” says Bains. 

Richard Exon, new business development 

director at advertising agency BBH, says that 

rule applies to other disciplines. “Aim for clarity 

and simplicity. That’s the pitch’s job - to edit 

thousands of hours of creativity and thoughts 

into a presentation.” 

The idea of simplicity should be regarded 

as a golden rule. Pitching with lots of good 

ideas just isn’t, well, a good idea. 

“In all cases answer the brief simply and 

clearly,” says Chalmers at Strawberry Frog. 

“Average concentration span is 40 minutes, 

go with your gut and pitch the creative you 

really believe in. Few people can stomach 

five different routes and sustain excitement 

or a coherent response. Enjoy your work and 

be confident about it. Ultimately advertising 

is a confidence game.” 

Best foot forward 

Mallet at Swamp believes one of the hardest 

things is narrowing creative ideas down. 

“Never go in with loads of ideas,” he says. 

“Most companies are looking for companies 

to advise them. So never go in with 15 ideas 

– you’ve got to get them down to three. Then 

you have to decide what order to present 

them in – my advice would be to put the 

strongest idea first.” 

There are other factors which will 

affect the way an agencies pitches. How 

much creativity exists within the recipient 

organization often defines how a creative 

agency approaches them. 

Benn Achilleas, design director at Neoco, 

says: “If we’re pitching to creative clients then 

we’ll go straight into the work and it will tend 

to be more expressive. With blue-chip clients 

we’re more straightforward and logical.” 

Odd though it may seem, many agencies 

find that the bigger the client, the more 

relaxed the representatives tend to be. The 

marketing or Web-development budgets of 

smaller companies tend to be much more 

modest than big conglomerates, and therefore 

more personally precious to the people 

involved, who might own a stake in the 

company or have started it up themselves. 

Adams at Mook says that the seniority 

of the people in the pitch meeting will also 

affect how Mook puts together its pitch. 

“You have to tailor what you say 

depending on the experience of the person 

you’re presenting to. Senior people want to 

know what they’re getting for their money, 

whereas junior people tend to be more 

impressed by the visual,” he says. 

The format of pitch meetings – which 

usually takes place in board rooms or equally 

formal surroundings – tend to encourage the 

process to be equally formal, and sometimes 

it’s good to move away from this. The meeting 

should be about reciprocity. Just trawling 

d 39

pitch design 

through a PowerPoint presentation can be 

boring for the client, and it’s generally one 

way. Some agencies say using different rooms 

for different parts of the pitch – creative 

versus strategic for example – gets the client 

up and out of their seat, and creates little 

mini-breaks throughout the meeting. 

BBH’s Exon says: “It’s very important when 

pitching to maintain your receptive as well as 

transmission modes. It’s tempting to go into 

transmit mode, but then you can miss a lot 

– you should try to spend half of your time in 

the pitch listening.” Watch the client’s reaction 

– if something isn’t going down well then cut 

it down or just move onto the next part. 

Clients appreciate 

honesty, too. The 

E-consultancy’s Friedlein 

says that during a pitch 

it’s important to be 

transparent about costs, 

even if they’re higher 

than the client might 

expect. This manages the 

client’s expectations, and 

will prevent the agency 

from looking like it’s 

trying to sneak extra costs into the business 

after having the won the account. “This builds 

trust. If a client feels they can trust you it goes 

a long way towards winning a pitch,” he says. 

The tools you use to present your ideas are 

also important. Although PowerPoint and 

projectors seem to be the equipment of choice 

for most creative agencies when pitching for 

new work, more and more companies – even 

those showcasing digital creative – are using 

storyboards and other props to wow clients. 

This helps to step out of the predicted 

formality of the pitch situation and encourages 

more sitting and pointing around a table and 

40 d 

THE CLASSIC 

MISTAKE IS 

TO GO IN AND 

TELL THE 

CLIENT WHAT 

IT NEEDS 

ASHLEY FRIEDLEIN 

less staring at screens. It aids you in your 

quest to be one of the more memorable 

meetings for the fatigued client. 

Mallet at Swamp says: “When we’re 

presenting interactive ideas we’ll still do it 

on boards as it keeps it tactile, gets people 

involved and stops them staring at a screen.” 

Benady at Random Media says boards 

are a must over projectors: “We always use 

boards. New media agencies generally use 

projectors but we use boards which have a 

bigger impact. We always use mood boards 

that tell the story of how the idea developed.” 

Strawberry Frog try to use as many 

different things as possible, says Chalmers: 

“We try and have a variety 

of equipment. It’s more 

interesting. From magazines 

to pick up, to films, to boards 

or posters. It’s important to 

have something out you can 

refer back to. Projecting work 

only allows you to see one 

thing at a time. A linear 

presentation is fine if your 

clients have a photographic 

memory.” 

So, when the pitch is over how do you 

gauge whether it’s a win or lose situation? 

“Three times now we’ve been in a pitch 

and they’ve really gushed about it afterwards 

but then we’ve not won the business,” says 

Benady. “Then often the people who seemed 

like the least impressed ring us back and 

hand us the account.” 

Adams at Mook is equally confused. 

“We find that the more positive the meeting 

then the less likely it is that we’ve won. The 

more poker-faced and thoughtful the client 

looks then the more likely we are to get 

the business.” 

THE PITCH’S JOB IS TO 

EDIT THOUSANDS OF 

HOURS OF CREATIVITY 

INTO A PRESENTATION 

RICHARD EXON 

Above & left: These visuals were put 

together by digital agency Holler as 

part of a pitch to create a microsite 

for Eurostar’s Ski Train service.

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animatics 

42 d 

Above: Just-released Antics Pre-Viz 

puts movie-style animatics and previsualization 

in the hands of the 

consumer for under a grand. 

nimatics 

Animatics gets George Lucas all hot and 

sweaty. We lift the lid on what he knows 

and what you’ve been missing. BY ED EWING 

T 

hirty years ago when George Lucas was developing 

the Star Wars trilogies, he used footage of World War II 

dogfights to show his stop-start model-animators what 

he wanted the final battle in his film to look like. His sketched 

storyboards were legendary for their detail, and when The 

Empire Strikes Back came around he used traditional techniques 

to roughly animate them on film. Crude, pencil-drawn sketches 

of AT-AT Walkers stop-framed their way through Lucas’ moving 

storyboard, and into cinematic history. 

Fast-forward 20 years and Lucas was taking full advantage 

of new technology to give him the creative control he craved. 

“George can finally ‘sculpt’ the film itself,” gushed the 

StarWars.com Web site in 1998. “Using animatics, the film 

has become a responsive medium. As a result, Episode I will be 

closer than ever to the Star Wars movie that George wants to see.” 

Skip ahead another technological light-year to 2005 and 

animatics – or 3D previsualization – is an important and influential 

part of the movie-making process. It’s not unusual for entire films 

to be blocked out in animatics, for actors to act against a bluescreen 

with animatic footage to guide them, or for directors to 

work-up ideas in animatic as part of their pitch. And it’s not just 

Lucas and his Hollywood colleagues who have access to the 

technology – software like RealViz StoryViz and Antics Pre-Viz 

can put studio-style power in your laptop. 

Cruise control 

David Dozoretz is at the forefront of animatics in Hollywood. 

In the mid-90s he was an art director assistant at Lucas’ studio, 

Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). ILM was trying to sell Paramount 

the idea of a helicopter and train chase on a new movie, Mission: 

Impossible. Dozoretz was asked to make an animatic to 

demonstrate the excitement and flow of the scene. 

“In four weeks we put together 100 low-res shots,” Dozoretz 

explains in his online bio. “It was the first time CG animatics had 

been used to previsualize an entire sequence.” That animatic 

pitch helped sell the film not only to Paramount, but to movie 

star Tom Cruise as well. 

It also made Dozoretz’s career. Lucas saw the animatic and

d 43

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asked the then 24-year-old Dozoretz to help him with his fourth Star 

Wars movie. 

“George’s storyboards were fantastic,” says Dozoretz, “but as he 

got into doing animatics we left many of them behind.” 

But Lucas wasn’t into the technology for its own sake: “It’s about 

filmmaking,” says Dozoretz, who originally used Form.Z but now uses 

Maya with After Effects and Premier for compositing. “George knows 

what filmmaking tools work for him and animatics are one of those 

tools.” In the end, 45 minutes of Episode I was previsualized in 3D 

before filming started. By the time it came to work on Episode II, 

the entire movie was shot in animatics. 

Narrative and control 

Lucas uses animatics as a narrative tool: his animatic team headed 

by Dozoretz concentrate almost entirely on storytelling, plot, and 

character development. 

Learning to fly 

Oliver Hotz took pre-viz and animatics a step further 

when working on The Aviator. While steps 1-4 show 

the XF-11 spy plane and the pilot, Howard Hughes 

(Leonardo DiCaprio), crashing in Beverly Hills, stills 5 

and 6 show Hotz’s motion control camera and motion 

Above: George Lucas’ 

remarkably detailed 

storyboards were left 

redundant when he 

discovered what could 

be achieved with 

animatics. 

control base. Shots developed in animatic 

were programmed into the live action rig and 

the camera and the sequence was then run. 

If the rig set-up couldn’t handle the 

movement required for the shot, the filmmakers 

But as well as creative control, animatics give filmmakers 

acute technical control. California-based company Pixel 

Liberation Front (PLF) has a reputation for hardcore problemsolving 

using animatics. The company has worked on dozens 

of films, from Disney’s My Favourite Martian to the Matrix 

series. Ron Frankel was a member of PLF before setting up 

his own company, Proof Inc. Frankel says he worked with 

both creative- and technical-minded directors. 

Spielberg, he says, wanted to “get the major beats down.” 

David Fincher on the other hand wanted: “a map for each setup 

– with equipment, what lens was needed, camera moves, 

and actor placements,” when he came to make Panic Room. 

Panic Room is set in a four-storey Manhatten brownstown. 

The house is equipped with a “panic room”, a refuge in case 

of intruders. On the first night in their new home Meg Altman 

and her daughter are burgled, forcing them to retreat to the 

panic room. The film unfolds from there, as the intruders try 

to force their way in. The camera is king in this movie, 

sweeping seamlessly through the building and between 

floors, ratcheting up the tension. 

Each shot was meticulously prepared. “David decided 

to previsualize the entire film,” says Frankel. “We rendered 

everything out as AVI files … we could load up an AVI file, 

the director could make changes as he was sitting there 

and we could hit a button for the next frame capture. 

Sometimes he’d still be talking when we were able to 

show him the new version.” 

A feature of animatic is its un-realism. It means 

1 2 3 

4 

IN 2005, ANIMATICS 

IS AN IMPORTANT AND 

INFLUENTIAL PART OF 

THE MOVIE-MAKING 

PROCESS 

5 

could compensate with camera movement. 

Hotz says: “For me and everyone on set, that was 

the most fascinating and beneficial part. The motion 

control/base worked so well I’m going to use it on 

every project now.” 

d 45 

animatics 

6

animatics 

ANIMATICS GIVE 

FILMMAKERS 

CREATIVE AND 

TECHNICAL 

CONTROL 

characters don’t have to be as fully 

developed as full CG. Frankel explains: 

“There’s no point in getting bogged 

down with complex character animations 

that might take days to create. With 

Softimage|XSI we created a library of poses. 

Characters would sort of skate along, look 

left and right, gesture this way and that.” 

Extensive planning bore fruit. With the 

shots modelled as animatics it was possible 

to decide how the physical set was to be constructed 

to allow the director’s dynamic shots. 

In the end, they built a set like a skyscraper – a 

steel box cantilevered so any wall could be moved out. 

Director’s cut 

Back then that was unusual. Now it’s almost normal. When 

Martin Scorsese was directing The Aviator he had immediate 

feedback and control and could view different shots, with 

different lenses from a “virtual camera” in realtime on a laptop. 

When he found a sequence he liked, he pulled it back up and 

replayed it on the actual set. The development there was the 

use of motion capture software. Using Kaydara MOCAP 

resulted in realtime movement through a 3D set. Kaydara’s 

roots in game-engine technology helped. 

Animatics are not the sole preserve of the director. 

For actors working on bluescreen it is often the only visual 

reference they have. Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, stars of 

2004’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, spent a month 

Aviation, guaranteed 

Oliver Hotz was pre-viz supervisor on The 

Aviator. Responsible for four major VFX 

sequences he and a colleague created 25 

minutes of previsualization. “We previsualized 

every shot, not just the visual effects shots,” 

he says. “That helped all of us, including the 

director and editor, get a better feel for the 

flow of the sequence. When we moved into 

the production phase, the pre-viz was also used 

as a bidding template for soliciting quotes from 

the model shops and special effects houses.” 

In production the pre-viz was crucial. 

Complicated shots were planned using 

animatics, then programmed into motion 

control cameras. 

“One of the inherent problems of 

shooting motion control is it’s usually very 

time consuming,” says Hotz. “We had to 

find a quicker way. 

“I split up the pre-viz animation into two 

parts. One was used to drive the motion-base, 

which had the full-scale cockpit on it. The other 

one drove the motion control camera used for 

the actual filming. 

“This process turned out to be so 

effective that even on location we could 

make adjustments or even frame new shots 

within minutes. All we had to do was write 

out new control files for the two systems 

and we were good to go. If the director on 

set wanted to try a different angle or setup, 

46 d 

Above & right: Machinima 

is little known outside the 

gaming world, but uses games 

consoles to allow users to 

create their own animatics. 

Spielberg is said to be a fan. 

Below right: Antics Pre-Viz 

is one desktop solution that 

allows real-time editing of 

animatic storyboards. 

we could quickly accommodate that. 

Hotz says Maya was the tool of choice, 

since it offered the flexibility he needed. “Even 

before we went on set, we could check a mockup 

of the motion base and the motion control 

camera, and preview what they would do, all 

within Maya,” he says. “We had all of the realworld 

physical limitations of the platforms built 

in so we could easily see if the motion-base or 

the motion control camera was reaching its 

limits, and adjust accordingly.” 

www.oliverhotz.com 

acting against a 

bluescreen. The entire 

movie was previsualized 

shot by shot before 

shooting began in 

London. For Law and 

Paltrow playing on an 

empty set, the only way 

to work was to look at 

the animatics of 

themselves on screen and then navigate the grids and 

markers on the floor which had been plotted there by 

the animatic previz. 

The future 

A natural extension of that, and one which has been toyed 

with in Hollywood, is making full length 3D pre-viz films before 

green-lighting them. An idea studio accountants would surely 

love, but actors deplore. 

But as animatics get easier to make, that can’t be far off. 

No longer the preserve of a Hollywood elite, off-the-shelf 

previz applications are here, creating a perfect pitch-tool 

for the advertising and design industry. Antics Pre-Viz and 

Realviz StoryViz do similar things, though there’s a big 

difference in price – Pre-Viz costs £750, while StoryViz 

costs $3,600 (around £1,900). 

The software is designed to be user-friendly, building 

on game-engine roots, and lets users create animations in 

real time. The walking motion of off-the-peg characters is 

streets ahead of the “skating” characters developed for use 

in Panic Room. 

“What sets Antics apart is that it is not another variation 

on traditional keyframe animation,” says Antic’s Mark Burton. 

“Instead, like a videogame, it harnesses the robust processors 

and graphics cards of PCs to offer real-time interactivity.” 

Released on March 1 this year, Antics has already been 

road-tested on a Hollywood production, says Burton. Its main 

selling point, he says, is its ease of use: “It has intelligence 

built in. With a simple click, you can direct a character 

towards a chair and it ‘knows’ to sit down.” 

Users can pick drag-&-drop environments and characters 

from a library of content, while characters can be instructed 

to move and pick up objects, just like in gaming. “Pick up the 

TV and go downstairs” is all you have to type for the animatic 

character to do just that, according to the developers 

Alternatively, you might like to try: “pick up light sabre, chop 

Darth Maul in half”. That’s what George Lucas would do.

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projects 

IT’S LIKE 

NOTHING THAT 

HAS BEEN 

SEEN BEFORE 

ON BRITISH 

TELEVISION 

WILL COHEN 

www.mill.co.uk 

40-41 Great Marlborough Street 

London, W1F 7JQ 

020 7287 404 

48 d

DOCTOR WHO 

Everyone’s favourite Timelord is back, with a new BBC series and a 

huge array of effects created by The Mill. Digit bagged the first look… 

By Matthew Bath 

t’s been a long time – even for a Timelord – but the wait for the new 

series of the cult science-fiction drama Doctor Who has been worth 

I it. After a break of 16 years – the last TV series episode aired in 1989 

– the BBC is set to play-out a revitalized, revamped, and stunningly realized 

series that features richly detailed plots, fine characterization, and a level of 

visual effects that simply haven’t before graced British TV screens. In a word, 

the new Doctor Who – starring Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, and a 

dizzying array of alien creatures – is amazing. 

Since the announcement that Doctor Who will see his Tardis materialize 

on our screens, speculation over the series has been rife. Who fans have 

filled Web sites with gossip and snatched on-location photos. Even national 

newspapers have joined in the guessing game as to how the series will pan 

out. Will the Daleks return? Will the Cybermen make an appearance? Can 

Billie Piper fill the shoes of previous Doctor Who assistants? 

With this level of pre-season hype edging towards fever pitch, the 

pressure has been on – not just for the BBC – but also for The Mill, which 

has been slavishly working on creating, honing, and polishing a level of 

effects that will compliment the return of the series, since it won the pitch 

for producing the visual effects. 

For the London-based VFX house, the series represents a milestone. 

Already renowned for its work on a vast output of effects-heavy commercials 

and features, including bagging a Oscar for its work on Ridley Scott’s 

Gladiator, The Mill has had its work cut out in order to meet an exacting 

schedule. 

The result has been the creation of over 1,000 effects shots for the 13 

episodes – with episode two accounting for a staggering 200 effects shots 

in just 45 minutes. And these aren’t simply star-filled space mattes seen 

through the windows of spacecraft; The Mill has been charged with creating 

everything from fully CG characters and scenes, to fluids and particle effects, 

greenscreen and matte work, colouring and grading, and compositing CG 

into live action scenes. 

This CG shot has featured 

in the teaser trailer, and will make its 

debut in the new series of Doctor Who. 

It’s been a tall order, especially considering 

that all the effects aren’t yet completed. In fact, 

when I arrived, the effects deadline for episode 

two – by far the most ambitious of the series 

– was only a week away. And it’s the end of 

February. 

Which makes the quiet confidence of 

Will Cohen, VFX producer for the series, who 

has been working with VFX supervisor Dave 

Houghton, something of a surprise when 

Digit was invited to meet him and be the first 

publication to get a look at the new series, and 

get a sneak peek into the creative pipeline that 

was needed for the effects. 

Outside, The Mill’s London office looks 

a lot like a bank – all high, white walls, huge 

imposing doors, and sparse signage. Look 

closely at the electronic bell by the door, 

though, and a simple ‘M’ presides over a single 

button, wallmounted camera, and speaker. It’s 

hardly the tap-dancing, neon-lit, fast-lane of 

an entrance you’d expect from one of the 

world’s most famous effects studios – and 

most people walking down Great Marlborough 

Street, just off Regent Street, pass by without 

so much as a glance. When I arrived, a gaggle 

of white-uniformed beauty salon trainees were 

snatching a quick cigarette break from their 

course next door, their tanned faces lost in 

gossip, oblivious to the effects magic being 

conjured up behind them. 

Once inside, though, it’s a different story. 

The lobby wouldn’t look out of place in a Park 

Lane hotel – all chocolate browns, recessed 

lighting, deep sofas, and a series of galleried 

meeting rooms and offices that overlook the 

entrance. It’s quiet, strangely relaxing, and 

there are fresh strawberries on the table by 

the sofas. I’m just debating whether to tuck 

into the fruit bowl, when VFX producer Will 

Cohen comes bounding out to greet me. 

Looking relaxed and confident, he tells me 

later that he started life as a runner at The 

Mill before heading off to produce effects 

work for commercials and TV projects. He 

returned around 18 months previously, and 

has been working on the Doctor Who project 

for much of that time. 

By now, I’ve been whisked into a screening 

room with the world's biggest Plasma screen 

(about eight feet, at a conservative estimate) 

and Will is fiddling with the controls that finally 

d 49

projects 

THE NUMBER 

OF EFFECTS IN 

THE SCRIPTS 

DID MAKE ME 

SWEAT A BIT 

WILL COHEN 

50 d 

The teaser trailer for the series 

shows the camera zooming into 

a CG earth and smacking down 

into the heart of London. 

blast the first glimpse of an almost completed 

trailer of the first half of the series. It’s big stuff. 

The music has been subtly updated by Murray 

Gold, while the timetunnel title sequence is a 

modern take on the classic. In the series, it’s 

coloured red when the Tardis is travelling 

forwards through time, and blue when heading 

back. The logo – set on a gold oval with plenty 

of flare and corona detail – has been crafted 

for widescreen viewing. 

Will is instantly onto the detail as first the 

teaser, then scenes from the first few episodes, 

play out. “It’s all about detail,” he enthuses, 

as a snow-bound Tardis disappears from 

view. “Look at the snow flakes that fall from 

the Tardis’ window sills as it disappears – it’s 

all subtle particle effects that we just keep 

layering onto the scenes.” Indeed, it’s a fleeting 

effect, but one that adds to an almost subconscious level of realism. The 

Tardis itself was rendered with multiple passes, including one specifically 

for paint chips and scratches that it has picked up on its adventures. 

What is obvious during the viewing is the sheer range of effects The 

Mill has created. From fully rigged CG characters and aliens – themselves 

all different – to fluid and water effects, to a fantastic scene in episode one 

that features a fully CG earth that positively glows against the backdrop of 

space. And as for episode two – which mixes in greenscreen work, complete 

CG scenes, and a parade of CG characters and effects – “it’s like nothing 

that has before been seen on British television,” says Will. 

Because we want to 

Yet, in true Doctor Who style, in order to get to here, we need to travel 

back a year to when The Mill first pitched for the project. 

“We pitched for the project roughly a year ago,” says Will, “and we knew 

from April 2004 that we had got it – and we’ve been planning and working 

on it since then,” he says. “We knew the pitch would be fierce – and we had 

to make an impact at the pitch. A pitch is a lot about trust, and with the

series there were a lot of detailed, varied scripts involved that meant a huge 

range of effects. What the BBC needed was a commitment to communication 

from us so there were no surprises, especially in terms of the schedule. From 

there, it all organically developed.” 

The pitch itself was based on the scripts for the first two episodes – 

“I remember reading them and blocking out the number of effects. And there 

were a lot of effects – it did make me sweat a bit,” says Will. From there, the 

team created some examples of the type of effects that they felt would work 

with the scripts, plus drafted out a series of concept artwork and created a 

few test shots. They also went armed with animatics of some of the scenes 

to show an idea of pacing, and how 

completed shots could work. 

With shooting pencilled in for the end of 

July, and the cast on board, The Mill and the 

BBC held a series of production meetings 

from June 2004: “basically, we locked the 

meeting room door for ten hours and went 

through everything,” says Will. The meetings 

reviewed production design and models, 

looking at which scenes would work best with 

physical models, and which would look better 

as CG. “It also gave us and the BBC a chance 

EACH EPISODE 

IS SET IN A 

COMPLETELY 

DIFFERENT 

PLACE – FROM 

SPACE TO 

LONDON 

WILL COHEN 

to lay down some ground rules for the production, to ensure the schedule 

was achieved.” 

The Mill then broke each script down and blocked out the sequences as 

a series of storyboards, detailing what additional design would be required, 

and what digital effects were needed. An effects list was then drawn up 

with deadlines, with the 3D people on the team jumping in and working on 

concepts and designs right from the off. By July, the first batch of physical 

models from the BBC’s production department rolled up at The Mill, allowing 

the team to scan in the models and use them as a basis for CG work. 

Some of the CG modelling work evolved during the process, says Will. 

One character in episode two, a creature who is seen as a stretched piece 

CG creatures abound. 

These spiders from 

the new series were 

created in Alias Maya, 

and are fully rigged. 

They were then 

composited with 

Shake and Inferno. 

Billie Piper becomes the latest to 

try to better Bonnie Langford’s 

performance as the Doctor’s 

assistant. 

of skin stitched to a metal frame, was originally 

slated to be a physical model, with minimal 

CG work. Yet the need to show her with 

translucent skin with effects such as blood 

flow, meant that it quickly moved to being 

a full CG character. 

“The alien, played by Zoë Wannamaker, is 

one of my favourite CG characters,” says Will. 

“We shot Zoë delivering her lines, and then 

recreated the CG character with all the facial 

expressions based on her.” 

The upshot is that the 

character looks… well, like 

a flattened version of Zoë. To 

create her, The Mill deployed 

Alias Maya to build and rig the 

model, adding texture and 

lighting detail. The animators 

then used both the shots of 

Zoë acting her lines, and DAT 

audio recordings, to build a 

series of blend shapes for key 

mouth and facial expression shapes. Even 

her eye colour and mascara were faithfully 

reproduced as textures, with the 

lip-syncing created by hand in Maya. 

With the CG model appearing full-screen as a 

major character, the CG had to be believable, 

but also represented another challenge for the 

series workflow. 

“Creating the effects has been a 

challenge,” admits Will, “especially compared 

to other TV series or sci-fi series. Other shows 

are typically set in the same place – such as 

a spaceship in the likes of Battlestar Galactica, 

or graveyards in the case of Buffy – so the 

effects are continuous from one episode to 

the next. A prime example is a scene through 

a spacestation’s window that shows a very 

good starscape. If the series is set in space 

each week, those effects can be reused with 

minimal hassle. 

“Doctor Who, on the other hand, is more 

fleeting; each episode is set in a completely 

different place and time – from space to the 

streets of London – so the challenge is to 

create different effects for all these different 

environments,” he adds. “Shows like Buffy will 

reuse an effect, such as a vampire turning to 

dust, and the team will then put their efforts 

into the CG needed for the series finale, such 

as a CG dragon or something. Each episode 

d 51

projects 

After a period of frantic speculation, 

Christopher Eccleston was named 

as the new Doctor Who, as shown 

in this exclusive shot from the series. 

Our thanks to The Mill and the BBC for their 

help with this feature. All images are either 

copyright the BBC or The Mill, respectively. 

52 d 

GLADIATOR HAD 100 

EFFECTS SHOTS. WE’VE 

HAD NINE MONTHS DO TO 

TEN TIMES THAT NUMBER 

WILL COHEN 

of Doctor Who is like a series finale in terms of work. If you compare it to 

the likes of Gladiator, which The Mill worked on – well, that had 100 effects 

and took around six months to complete – we have had nine months to do 

ten times the number of effects.” 

Other effects are notable by their colouring and compositing prowess. 

The view of the earth, as seen from space, is used both in episode one and 

two. Here, The Mill created a high-resolution model of the globe – in one 

scene, it zooms in through the stratosphere smack into the heart of London 

– and then composited it using Apple Shake and Discreet Flame. 

For one episode, which features a morphing character with liquid-plastic 

skin, the team mixed physical models with CG effects. In many scenes, the 

actor was given a plastic sheen in make-up. In others, a digital morph 

involving the actor’s fingers – in the style of the T1000 in Terminator 2 – 

took the team three weeks, not only to model and animate using Maya, 

but also to match the CG to the shot. 

Showtime 

“A lot of the scenes were shot against greenscreen,” says Will, “so until the 

first screening, no-one had seen the completed scenes.” One such scene, 

in episode two, features the Doctor set in a completely digital matte-painted 

environment. The team have been updating the scene as the schedule 

proceeded, adding render passes for rust and grime layers, 3D fans, beauty 

passes, and particle effects such as steam. All are subtle (apart from the 

cool, huge fans), but pull the CG from TV land into the level seen in movies. 

Rendering was a huge technical challenge for The Mill. “We have a 100machine 

render farm,” says Will, “and we had 30 machines dedicated to the 

project during the day, and the full 100 during the night. The sheer amount 

of passes added to the farm’s workload.” 

The need for a strong creative and technical pipeline was paramount 

for the project to succeed – something that Will was responsible for: “I’ve 

lost lots of sleep over the schedule,” he says – then, he reaches down and 

touches the wooden skirting board of the screening room we’re in – “and 

once the series starts airing, we’re going to have 13 weeks with which to 

finish the remaining episodes. You’ll be able to start the countdown then.” 

Two key elements were required for the project to work: a great effects

team, and smooth communication between 

the BBC, writer/producer Russell T Davis, 

and producer Julie Gardner. 

“We have 20 people working full time 

on the project,” says Will, and he’s obviously 

impressed that he's pulled together the top 

talent from The Mill to work on it. “Each 

team member works on their own shots 

– pretty much to completion – rather than 

the traditional way of doing it which is to 

break down shots into tiny segments and 

people work on a small part of a single shot. 

It means people own the shot they’re working 

on and sometimes you’re working on a new 

shot every day. There’s tons of creative scope 

for the team – someone won’t just work on a 

shader – it’s very collaborative.” 

For communication, The Mill made use 

of BeamTV – a broadband, hack-proof closed 

network that can literally squirt HD footage 

(Doctor Who is shot with Beta SP) to members. 

"BeamTV was great. It meant that we 

could work on an effect, or composite a CG 

character into a live-action scene, and then 

the episode director could complete a day’s 

filming in Cardiff, go home and over 

broadband download and view the scene,” 

says Will. “It made for instant feedback on 

our work – decision making and sign-off was 

much quicker. With so many shots, the ability 

to decide on a shot, then move on, is vital.” 

Feedback on the project has obviously 

been limited: “security reasons,” cites Will. 

It means that peers have not had a chance 

to evaluate the project, but Will beams when 

we start talking about feedback from the BBC. 

“When the client sees it, it’s a nice experience 

– you can sit back and enjoy it. Julie and 

Russell were like kids in a sweetshop 

when they saw the completed episodes.” 

So, with the clock counting down, and the 

Tardis confined to the small screen, the only 

way for The Mill is to head into the future. With 

the expectation of the fans, the BBC, and the 

viewing public, the prime-time series will no 

doubt be a major water-cooler topic from the 

end of March. Touch wood, of course. 

d 53

projects 

Credits 

Project: Singin’ in the Rain 

Client: Volkswagen 

Production: Stink 

Post Production: The Moving Picture 

Company, www.moving-picture.com 

020 7434 3100 

Tools: Inferno, Combustion 

Introduced: 27 Jan 2005 

Based on Singin’ in the Rain, 1952 

Starring Gene Kelly 

Production MGM 

Contact www.mgm.com 

54 d 

DIRECTORS 

BUILT THE 

WHOLE SET 

COMPLETE 

WITH RAIN 

MACHINES AT 

SHEPPERTON 

STUDIOS

ALL SINGIN’ VW 

Recreating the famous Singin’ in the Rain sequence to advertise the 

VW Golf GTI was the challenge for Stink. It came up smelling of roses. 

ou’ve probably seen it on TV by now. The camera opens on an 

atmospherically lit Gene Kelly, swinging on a lampost, singing 

Y the merry tune that we all know and love from 1952’s Hollywood 

hit smash Singin’ in the Rain. Then, a hip-hop beat drops and Kelly is 

flick-flacking through the puddles, breakdancing across the cobbles 

and getting jiggy with a shiny new Volkswagen Golf Gti. 

Left aghast at the digital wizardry employed by those clever 

technicians at production company Stink we rushed to find out 

how they’d done it. I mean, Kelly’s not still alive is he? 

No, the answer is of course that the directors built the whole 

set – complete with rain machines – at Shepperton Studios and 

had a real-life dancer breakdance, body pop and tip-tap-toe in tune 

to the jazzed up music. Cool. 

“Moving Picture Company (MPC) received a script from Stink and 

were asked to advise on the potential challenges of adding Gene Kelly’s 

face to the bodies of dancers,” explains Sophie Trainor at MPC. 

“The immediate challenge was how best to approach using Gene's 

head from the film. We began the post work using images from the 

DVD, but thankfully an HD resolution master 

appeared a few days later.” 

“A copy of the set used in the classic 

movie was built at Shepperton Studios, using 

rain machines. A camera mounted on a crane 

was used for the majority of the shots to match 

the feel of the original film.” As well as the set, 

directing duo NE-O cut a rough animatic from 

the film that was used as a guide throughout 

production. 

Digital head 

Sophie is keen to point out that no digital 

actors were harmed in the making of this spot. 

“Every shot uses Gene’s head from the original 

movie. First, we needed to remove the dancer’s 

head - this was accomplished by repeating a 

similar camera move for a clean background 

pass on set. In Inferno, the clean pass was 

stabilized, tracked and mapped onto the 

dancer’s head. 

“We sourced a high-definition master of 

the original sequence, then edited the shots 

of Gene – a particularly complicated process 

as some shots are 15 seconds long – and in 

certain cases Gene’s head had to be reversed, 

frame-cut and morphed together to match 

the dancer’s moves. This was then cut out 

and stabilized from the film before being 

tracked back onto the dancer’s body. 

“As a final touch to the work completed 

in Inferno, we re-transferred the commercial 

back to film before grading the negative 

to become the final master. This process 

of re-shooting to film really helps to blend 

the composites and gives an organic feel 

to them.” 

Background rain and splash effects 

were shot in the studio, while particularly 

complex shirt and tie animation required 

hand animation to blend with the new head. 

“This was achieved using warping and 

tracking tools in Inferno and in some cases 

painted by hand,” says Trainor. “There is no 

3D in the ad,” she adds. “On the 2D side, 

Inferno was the main compositing tool 

with Combustion used for roto work.” 

The ad first aired on 27 January and won 

plaudits from viewers, the industry and Kelly 

fans alike. The client liked it too. 

By Matthew Bath and Ed Ewing 

d 55

projects 

WE WERE 

SHOOTING IN 

AN ICE-CLAD 

ENVIRONMENT, 

USING FLAME- 

THROWERS 

SIRIO QUINTAVALLE 

56 d

THE LAST 

DRAGON 

Here be dragons... Framestore CFC found experience with 

dinosaurs helped when it came to creating fire-breathing reptiles. 

W 

hen you're looking for a VFX team to bring an essential burnish 

of authenticity to a crypto-zoological documentary about firebreathing 

reptiles, who you gonna call? Framestore CFC were 

delighted that The Last Dragon was nominated for its outstanding visual 

effects by the Visual Effects Society in its third annual Awards short-list. 

The 100-minute programme first aired in Germany in November 2004, 

and again on Channel 4 on 5 March 2005. 

Billed as a “thrilling investigation” into these legendary beasts, 

The Last Dragon uses a docu-drama approach to bring plausibility to its 

subject. The programme’s premise is that dragons existed from prehistoric 

times, co-existing with both the dinosaurs and then later with mankind, 

becoming extinct only relatively recently, thanks to man’s ruthless hunting. 

A 35-strong team from Framestore CFC delivered 167 shots – some 

35 minutes of CG – in 25 weeks for The Last Dragon, making it one of 

the fastest turnarounds the company has ever delivered. "We were helped 

enormously by the experience we’ve gained with the Walking With Dinosaurs 

series and specials over the last few years,” says CGI Supervisor Alec Knox, 

“From the dragons’ walk/run/flight cycles, to tricks that give the impression 

that there’s a physical camera move where it’s actually done electronically, 

there were a hundred little techniques we’d developed on the dinosaur 

projects to get great results at speed.” 

The Last Dragon consists of two threads. The first is the dramatized 

story of Dr Tanner (Paul Hilton), a rogue palaeontologist whose belief in 

the existence of dragons is triumphantly vindicated when he is air-lifted 

in to perform an autopsy upon some mysterious animal and human 

remains which have been discovered in a remote Romanian ice-cave. 

The second thread takes the form of a series of ‘documentary’ 

flashbacks, interwoven with Dr Tanner’s adventure. These take us back 

to several illustrative moments during the prehistory and history of the 

dragon, showing the creature evolving into several different iterations 

The artists at Framestore CFC were able to use their experience of working on the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs 

when it came to creating The Last Dragon. The project required a full 35 minutes of CG in 25 weeks – one of the 

fastest turnarounds the company has ever had to work towards. 

– Prehistoric, Marine, Forest and 

Mountain. These scenes, which feature 

hunting, fighting, mating, and nesting 

dragons, are authoritatively narrated 

by Ian Holm. 

Shooting took place in three separate 

week-long segments between March and 

May 2004. These were in La Palma, in the 

Canary Islands, for the prehistoric footage, 

Chamonix, in the French Alps, for the mountain 

sequences, and at Anduzes, near Nimes, 

where a small bamboo forest provided 

the necessary Chinese forest location. 

Flame-throwers 

Senior Compositing Artist Sirio Quintavalle 

supervised the shoot for Framestore CFC. 

“The ice-cave sequences were interesting,” 

he recalls. “We were shooting in these 

extraordinary ice-clad environments, using 

flame throwers – a unique experience.” 

The crew also suffered the headaches and 

sickness that attend working at high altitudes, 

and Quintavalle also found himself donning 

a wet suit to create the necessary water 

interactions during the Marine dragon shoot. 

The Last Dragon bolsters its narrative 

with some ingenious “scientific” explanations 

for various aspects of dragon physiology, 

including their ability to fly and to breath 

fire. Fire performs multiple functions for the 

dragons: as a weapon, a signal, a triumphant 

post-coital roar, a barbecuing aid, and 

sometimes to warm and form their eggs, 

which are kept in dragon-built kilns. 

“We shot flames on location where 

appropriate,” says Quintavalle, “And 

supplemented them with a flame-thrower 

effects shoot for the flying sequences 

and the kiln shots where we needed the 

flames to have a more magical quality. 

“We built a model of the kiln in the 

studio, matched up the camera angles 

and flame direction to Lead Animator Neil 

Glasbey’s rough animation, and shot at 75fps. 

We also added magnesium powder for a bit 

of extra sparkle.” The task of compositing 

the shots was later carried out by Quintavalle 

and others, working – appropriately enough 

– in Flame and Inferno. 

By Matthew Bath and Ed Ewing 

d 57

insight 

TribalDBB 

Tribal DDB London is ten this year. That’s quite an age for a new-media 

ad agency. We asked them to tell us all their secrets and they said yes. 

By Ed Ewing 

Tribal DDB 

12 Bishops Bridge Road 

London 

W2 6AA 

Tel +44 (0)20 7258 4500 

www.tribalddb.co.uk 

58 d 

T 

ribal DDB in London is 

staffed by “rock stars, 

socialites, sex machines 

and knife throwers,” according 

to their design director Victoria 

Buchanan. 

“We’re neither old-school 

advertising nor trendy new-media 

wankers – just people,” adds 

creative director Ben Clapp. 

Immediately suspicious of 

any 32-year-old creative director 

of a new-media ad agency 

claiming not to be a new-media 

wanker (NMW), Digit set out to 

see if in fact the reverse was true. 

But no, it seems that despite our 

best investigative journalism efforts 

we cannot conclusively prove the 

NMW tag. Instead, Clapp claims 

the label of “survivor”: “A few 

veteran dot-com crash survivors 

seem to be celebrating their tenyear 

anniversaries at the moment 

and Tribal is happy and relieved 

to be one of them,” he says. “Tribal 

started in 1995 as BMP interaction 

but joined the global Tribal DDB 

network soon after. It’s grown, 

and shrunk, and grown again 

since then. The biggest shake 

up being a merger in 2001.” 

Tribal DDB Worldwide has 20 

offices worldwide and according 

to its Web site is a “top ten 

international digital marketing 

agency with a strong reputation 

for strategic thinking and excellent 

creative work.” They deliver the full 

spectrum of digital services from 

online marketing, media buying 

and planning and strategic 

direction through to Web 

design and programming. 

Skin off the puff and you 

find a very lean, hungry, ambitious, 

and successful global new-media 

agency. Tribal DDB London’s clients 

include The Guardian, Volkswagen, 

Harvey Nicols, British Gas, Lunn 

Poly, Philips, BT Yahoo!, Dairy 

Council, Camelot, and Axa. 

Life in the UK 

Clapp was appointed creative 

director in July last year. It’s an 

exciting time for any new-media 

agency he says, not least because, 

“money is being spent again and 

a lot of it on digital.” He adds: 

“The UK creative industry is really 

healthy at the moment and as far 

as traditional digital formats go, 

great work is already being 

produced. The problem is that 

not enough truly visionary work 

is coming out of digital and there 

are huge opportunities here.” 

Buchanan agrees: “The work 

we see as bland, is stuff that 

displays myopic thinking about 

the potential of digital. Like Web 

sites built for the sake of having 

a Web site. That and old clichés 

such as ‘Skip intro’ buttons,

overuse of ‘easing’ in Flash, reading 

debates about whether intrusive 

formats work or not. We have 

to all consciously move on from 

these things.” 

In fact Clapp isn’t all that 

inspired by what he sees going 

on in the digital world in the UK. 

“The uncomfortable truth is that 

the work that’s really exciting 

us is coming out of the US at 

the moment. Crispin, Porter and 

Bogusky’s work for BK and Mini 

– the way their whole campaigns 

are built around a single thought, 

often expressed through a digital 

hub, is changing advertising. Even 

in logistical terms, it’s incredible. 

We worship their obese US asses.” 

Perhaps the most exciting 

thing about the UK at the moment 

is: “seeing the influence of the 

Internet permeate culture as 

a whole,” he says. 

Internet virgins 

Tribal’s clients are sophisticated 

users of the Web. They are not 

internet virgins by any means, 

says Buchanan: “Tribal have longterm 

client relationships. We are 

not a novelty to them and neither 

is the Internet. 

“Experienced and discerning 

advertisers such as Volkswagen 

or The Guardian expect much 

more from agencies, and we 

work closely together all the 

THE SAD TRUTH 

IS THAT THE 

WORK THAT’S 

REALLY EXCITING 

US IS COMING 

OUT THE UNITED 

STATES. WE 

WORSHIP THEIR 

OBESE US ASSES 

BEN CLAPP 

Behind the wheel 

Tribal’s work for VW allows users to 

interactively find out about the car in 

microscopic detail. Users can also 

configure the car online. The company’s 

work for Marmite was lighter of heart, 

but equally creative. 

way through projects. 

“We have a new generation 

at Tribal which has come through 

the ranks,” says Clapp. 

“A new MD, a new creative 

director and a new head of 

planning. We now have a far 

more honest, intelligent set-up 

and spend more time planning 

creatively and technically. We 

have evolved into a full service 

agency, growing off into specialist 

areas in advertising such as 

Web sites, ECRM, video, 3D, 

and interactive TV.” 

Award winning 

Being part of Tribal DDB Worldwide 

has helped. The DDB network 

d 59

insight 

VW Phaeton 

“Handling Volkswagen’s first entry into the luxury car sector, our research showed 

the target audience had a desire to discover products for themselves,” says Tribal’s 

design director Victoria Buchanan. 

“The site illustrated the depth of engineering in the design by allowing the 

audience to freely explore every aspect of the Phaeton – even to microscopic levels. 

“In order to explore the site in such a free way the conventional rules of 

designing a site (in those days) were deliberately turned on their heads. The 

approach created a truly unique Web site where you can freely move around stars 

containing pockets of information, pictures, animation or just sexy stuff. Follow a 

path and you click through to micro levels of details. 

“The Phaeton was a big technical step for us as this whole site is dynamic, all 

content is generated on the fly as opposed to a set number of screens pulled from a 

database. The approach created a truly unique Web site and was a big step for us. 

“Working without an above-the-line campaign to support it Tribal picked up four 

major awards, including D&AD, for its site promoting Phaeton. We also took over the 

whole of Selfridges’ window with an interactive display.” 

The campaign won a D&AD Silver Award as well as awards from Clio, OneShow 

and the Account Planning Group (the first ever to be awarded to a digital agency). 

As such it was considered a real milestone for the agency, and they worked hard 

together to achieve the result. 

was named the Most Awarded 

Agency Network in the world 

for 2004 by the Gunn Report. It 

also got Adweek’s Global Agency 

Network of the Year for the second 

year in a row. “Being a part of 

that achievement and structure 

of talents sets us apart from most 

other digital shops,” says Clapp. 

Tribal won a lot of awards in 

2004 including D&AD, Clio, The 

One Show, IMAA, Epica, and IAB 

– and it is proud of its record. 

“But to be honest,” says Buchanan, 

“we’re genuinely not driven by 

60 d 

award-hunting, though we 

recognize that only the best work 

wins any of the decent ones. We 

never make or adapt work to win 

awards, and the recognized awards 

such as D&AD or Cannes are the 

only ones we pay to enter. Many 

are just money-making schemes, 

you may as well buy a trophy.” 

“We’re equal first in the number 

of IAB ‘campaigns of the month’ 

we’ve clocked up, and we’re 

pleased with that local standing 

as it reflects the UK situation,” 

adds Clapp. 

ThomsonFly 

“ThomsonFly was an interesting project in that it was pushed into new areas by the 

client themselves,” says creative director Ben Clapp. 

“We were in the process of creating digital advertising work for the launch of 

TUI’s new airline ThomsonFly. The ads used a very smooth, clean, but rich animation 

style of white lines extending from the type. The intention being to use the smooth 

animations to brand the airline as simple and inexpensive rather than merely 

‘budget.’ When we presented the work, the client was so pleased with it that they 

wanted us to run it as TV, which we did.” 

“We created the ads in Flash and reformatted them, making them longer and 

more detailed. A soundtrack was added (which is now used for all Thomson holiday 

TV work) and a voiceover, but essentially they were the same ads appearing on the 

TV and cinema as in the embedded online work. 

“It really made us realize how high our production values had risen that we could 

produce TV ads in-house. As with all our project it forced us to recreate, redesign 

and develop technical and creative answers for clients and pushed our technical and 

artistic creativity in the studio and helped us to grow and develop our disciplines. 

“Obviously, the attention from the award-winning projects has also helped attract 

attention and brought in people who want to work with us, while the technical work 

has developed relations with third party media owners and opened new arenas for us 

to advertise in,” adds Clapp. 

Being a part of the acheivement and structure of talents of the global Tribal DDB network sets us apart from most other digital shops. 

One of the awards the company 

is most proud of is a D&AD Silver 

for its work on the Sony Mavica. 

Clapp explains: “The Sony Mavica 

was one of the first affordable and 

accessible digital cameras in the 

marketplace. Our approach was 

to donate a number of cameras to 

young artists and filmmakers and 

ask them to shoot short films for 

use in our advertising campaign. 

“Films were shot over the course 

of a month and were among the 

first films streamed into online 

advertising formats. The ad work 

won D&AD silver – the first 

digital advertising ever to win 

such an award. That helped put 

us on the creative map and also 

demonstrated the benefits of 

having creative, media planning 

and buying in one place.” 

The cutting edge 

Looking at the new VW GTI 

campaign it’s clear this is the 

cutting edge. “The site is a truly 

interactive video of the new GTI,” 

says Buchanan. “It’s a video 

experience you control.

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insight 

Pretty soon people will access all their home entertainment from one digital device. This throws up a challenge for us. We need to understand how to exploit this creatively. 

We have worked within 3D and 

broadband limitations to create 

an immersive experience of the 

GTI as it drives. Users can choose 

direction and focus in a collection 

of short looping videos embedded 

in flash. The site also allowed you 

to configure a GTI online, which 

proved hugely successful with 

21,400 configurations before the 

car launched. An interactive TV 

addition helped enhance the 

famous Singing in the Rain TV 

ad and brought elements of the 

Web site and TV together in an 

62 d 

iTV experience.” Phew. 

“We make a point of getting 

a diverse bunch of people involved 

at the early stages of a brief,” 

says Clapp. “We run organized 

brainstorms and planning sessions 

which allow everyone – from media 

planners to creatives to techies 

– to understand the brief and 

to pitch in with ideas.” 

Tools for the job 

From there it’s down to the knife 

throwers, or creatives, who use 

Photoshop, Illustrator, FreeHand 

Tribal DDB has an impressive list 

of clients, including Philips, and 

The Guardian (top). 

and Flash for design work, Flash 

MX 2004, php, and MySQL for 

Web development, and After 

Effects and Avid for video. 

But there’s no laurel-resting 

at Tribal. “Things are changing 

again and rapidly,” says Buchanan. 

“Pretty soon people will access 

all their home entertainment 

from one digital device. This 

throws up a challenge for us. 

We need to understand how 

we can exploit this creatively, 

to produce work that’s innovative 

and groundbreaking.”

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insight 

DAVID DROGA’S 

AD AGE 

“Selling is everything, from chatting up a girl in a bar to what 

you wear in the street.” But selling is changing, says David 

Droga, one of the most biggest creative names in advertising. 

64 d 

who David Droga 

company Publicis 

url www.publicis-usa.com 

words Andy Penfold 

D 

avid Droga may be one of the biggest names in 

advertising, but as a consumer, he’s as cynical as 

the rest of us. Worldwide creative director of the 

huge agency Publicis, Droga doesn’t like to be sold to, 

and he says it’s a trait he shares with the British public. 

“I think the British general public is more aware of good 

design and good advertising,” he says. “The British don’t 

just sit back and accept rubbish.” 

Droga is an authority on advertising markets around 

the world. He’s led creative departments all over the 

globe, starting in his native Australia. In his early 20s, 

he joined OMON – a small, Sydney-based start-up 

– and quickly turned it into Australia’s hottest agency. 

At 27, he took the creative director role at Saatchi & 

Saatchi Singapore. Success there earned him the 

opportunity to lead Saatchi’s London office. 

In three years, Saatchi had returned to the top 

of the advertising tree – winning the Cannes Agency 

of the Year in 2003. Now, in his worldwide creative 

director role at Publicis, his job is to apply his golden 

touch to one of the largest agencies in the world. 

Droga says his impulse to conquer the world comes 

from his Australian roots. “Everybody in Australia seems 

to don a backpack and travel the world when they’re 

about 18. I did it business-wise,” he says. “In Australia, 

unless you’re a sportsperson, if you want to create any 

ripples around the world you really have to do it from 

someone else’s backyard.” 

Droga’s ambition works alongside some firm 

principles. The standards he has set himself throughout 

his career show the extent of his drive. “Advertising is 

an industry in which lots of pressure is on you,” he says. 

“I believe I’ve had high standards, and I’ve tried to live 

up to those, and be my own barometer.” He also has a 

fierce work ethic: “I could never guarantee that I was 

more talented than anyone else, but I could guarantee 

that I would work harder than anyone else,” he says. 

His role at Publicis demands this attitude. “Because 

I’m not accountable for one particular thing, I’m sort 

of dragged wherever I’m needed,” he says. 

And while he never donned his backpack as a 

teenager, he’s spends more time travelling than your 

average gap-year Etonian. “It depends which country 

calls me first,” he says. “It’s one of those impossible 

jobs – if I spend three days in San Francisco on one 

project then I’m annoying people in France because 

I’m not working on their project. Essentially my main 

job is to ensure we have the right creative leaders 

in our offices. And I spend time on our most 

influential accounts.” 

The advertising industry has transformed 

since Droga started out as an 18-year-old at OMON. 

“The mystery of our industry has vanished,” he says. 

“Clients used to be seduced by the mystery of what 

happened in the back room. Clients realize now that 

they can do a lot of that stuff in-house. Big agencies 

aren’t intimidating forces any more.” 

It’s not just the creative side that has changed. 

The way consumers experience advertising has also 

shifted. The Internet and digital television services 

have lessened the impact of traditional advertising. 

“For years, the consumer only had a few stations to 

watch and a few newspapers to read. So clients could 

rely on bombarding them,” says Droga. “The consumer 

is armed now, and the industry is led by that. There’s 

much more consideration to understand the consumer, 

as opposed to just taking the consumer for granted.” 

Another shift in advertising is the structure of the 

industry. Droga says that the prestige of the industry 

among the top young creative people has fallen. “It 

used to be that the best young creative minds would 

come into our industry,” he says. “Now, it’s not 

necessarily their first choice.” 

Smaller design and advertising firms are also 

presenting a challenge to the established multinational 

agencies, according to Droga. “A lot of these small 

agencies are now not only competing, but outdoing 

the big ones,” he says. 

Despite the challenges to the industry, Droga’s 

passion for creativity remains. “I like the idea of being 

revitalized by a blank piece of paper,” he says. “I think 

there’s something scary and intimidating and inspiring 

about that. It’s what any creative person loves.” 

And despite his lofty job title and wide experience, 

he still believes creativity works best when the ego 

is left out of the process. “I’ve never walked into a 

country and assumed I know everything. One of my 

principles is to always take a step back and try to 

absorb as much as I can before I have on opinion.” 

The cynicism of the British makes London his 

favourite place he’s worked so far. “London, pound 

for pound, is the strongest advertising market in the 

world ... we have to try to make things more beautiful, 

or cleverer, or wittier, or more subtle.” 

His respect for London’s advertising industry comes 

from his shared attitudes with the British consumer. 

“I love the British cynicism and wit and mocking. Even 

when I come back to London now, within two minutes 

I’m being mocked. That makes me laugh.”

showcase 

1 

2 

showcase 

This is your chance to gain valuable exposure in Digit – and have your work 

seen by thousands of fellow creative professionals and companies looking 

to commission content. Here’s how to submit your work… 

Send work to: 

Showcase, Digit magazine, 99 Gray’s Inn Road, London, WC1X 8TY. 

email: showcase@digitmag.co.uk 

Important – Please send work on CD, or email, to the address above. If you enclose an SAE, we’ll do our best to return 

work to you. All submissions at the owner’s risk, and are made on a non-exclusive worldwide licence to publish in print 

and in electronic media. Copyright remains yours. 

1-6 NICOLAS VAN LEEKWIJCK 

www.8media.cruz.be, eight@pandora.be 

Nicolas Van Leekwijck is a 22-year-old graphic design student living in Antwerp, 

Belgium. His Eightmedia project started out as a small personal creative outlet. 

“By the end of 2005,” he says, “it’ll be time to take Eightmedia to the next level 

– I want to start a small graphic design studio based here in Belgium.” He 

says he tries to design attractive, imaginative, yet functional creations. 

66 d 

3 

4

5 

6 

d 67

showcase 

1 3 

2 

1-2 RICH MCLEAN 

r124@blueyonder.co.uk 

Rich McLean says he doesn’t think 

of himself as an illustrator. “I was 

a musician until a couple of years 

ago, and began designing posters 

for American concert promoters,” 

he says. “I just ended up doing 

the illustrations myself. They were 

originally hand-drawn and painted 

images.” Since then, he has become 

a freelance editorial designer, and 

uses Illustrator and Photoshop in 

all his design work. 

“My aim is to build a portfolio 

of work for editorial and advertising 

clients,” he says. 

68 d 

3-5 KEV SPECK 

www.kevspeck.com, 

kev@kevspeck.com 

Kev Speck graduated ten months 

ago, and is now a full-time freelance 

illustrator. He says he’s doing the 

job he’s dreamed of for six years, 

and believes passion, ambition, and 

enthusiasm can take you a long way. 

“My style fuses collaged 

photocopies and lazy tracings with 

layered textures to create colourful, 

beautiful, and heavily detailed 

illustrations,” he says. 

His list of clients includes WGSN, 

the NME, the FTM and Atomica 

magazine. 

4 

5

6-10 SPENCER WILSON 

www.peepshow.org.uk, spenny17@aol.com 

Spencer Wilson graduated from 

Brighton University in 1998. Then, 

along with seven creative friends, 

he co-formed an illustration collective 

called Peepshow. “It was a way to 

share experiences, exhibit, and have 

some fun,” he says. “Some lucky 

breaks and a lot of leg-work since 

has enabled me to illustrate for 

a multitude of magazines and 

advertising agents, as well finding 

time to continue my involvement 

with collective projects.” 

Based in Birkhamsted, Wilson is 

currently plotting the next Peepshow 

project, as well as developing his own 

style, and continuing to freelance for 

“anyone with a brief to offer”. 

6 7 

8 

9,10 

d 69

showcase 

1 2 

3 4 

1-5 NIKO STUMPO 

www.abnormalbehaviorchild.com, me@abnormalbehaviorchild.com 

Niko Stumpo was born in Drammen, 

Norway. He spent his first years in 

Norway before moving to Italy at 

the age of six. Here, he started 

skateboarding. His first career was 

one as a professional skater, and he 

toured Europe, until a serious injury 

cut his skating career short. He was 

forced to change his focus, which 

led him to rediscover his passion 

for art. 

He had finished art in high 

school, and later enrolled in a fine 

70 d 

art academy, but never finished 

the course. Instead of continuing 

school, he decided to rely on his 

own creativity, and became 

fascinated with Web design. Since 

then, he has worked as a creative 

director at Quam, a major design 

agency in Milan. He then started 

out on his own. His clients have 

included MTV Italy, MTV France, 

EA Sports, Sony PS2, Nike, Condé 

Nast, Capcom, Powerade, Heineken, 

and Goretex. 

5 

As well as his commercial 

work, Stumpo still spends time on 

personal projects. He showcases 

his personal work on his experimental 

Web site abnormalbehaviorchild.com. 

His artwork has been exhibited 

at the Biennial in Tirana and Valencia, 

the World Wide Web Exhibition in 

Sao Paulo, Brazil, the George 

Pompidou in Paris, the Riviera 

Gallery and Witney Museum in 

New York, and the Palazzo Fortuny 

in Venice. 

6-9 MIIKA SAKSI 

www.non-stops.com, nonstop@nonstops.com, 

00358 50 545 7774 

Miika Saksi is a 24-year-old 

self-taught graphic artist. He 

is a freelance designer, stylist and 

illustrator based in Helsinki, Finland. 

He says he started in graphics in the 

summer of 1995, initially just for fun. 

By 1997, he had started working 

as a designer professionally. 

He is also a member of Njoi CoLab 

(www.njoicolab.com), a collaborative 

collective that consists of eight 

Helsinki-based graphic designers.

6 

7 

8 

9 

d 71

showcase 

1 

2 

3 

1-6 MAURO GATTI 

www.thebrainbox.com, 

www.mutado.com, 

mauro@mutado.com 

Mauro Gatti is the art director of 

Mutado Studio (www.mutado.com), a 

new agency founded at the beginning 

of 2004. He has developed his career 

mainly through freelance work for 

clients such as Yamaha, Peugeot, 

MTV, and La Biennale di Venezia. 

Gatti is equally passionate 

about print design, Web design, 

illustration, and motion design. His 

personal playground is the Brainbox 

site (www.thebrainbox.com) and 

he is soon to launch Fake Idol 

(www.fakeidol.com), which will 

showcase his illustrations. 

72 d 

5 6 

4

WIN! 

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The Ultimate Survival Kit is made up of five 

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How much larger are the colour swatches 

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entries lost or delayed. No cash alternative. The winner will be the first correct entry selected after the closing date of April 30, 2005 and will be notified shortly afterwards. The winner’s name will 

be published in the following issue of Digit. IDG cannot be held responsible in the event that a company that is providing a prize is unable to honour its obligation, for whatever reason. 

d 73 

competition

technology 

74 d 

Def Wars 

Format war has been raging across Earth for years. 

While peace reigns in places, interplanetary council 

members Sony and the EBU are still fighting. What 

can be done to bring peace to the world of HDTV? 

A 

BY ED EWING 

lot’s written about HDTV, high definition television, but the New York Times tech 

correspondent got it in a nutshell: “On each programme,” he wrote upon receiving 

his HDTV set, “we counted the pores on the host’s nose.” 

An HDTV set has many more lines than a standard set, and the more lines you have, the 

better the picture. We don’t have it in the UK yet, but if you’ve been to the States, South Korea, 

Japan, Australia, Nigeria, or Brazil in the past few years you’ve probably seen it for yourself. 

Going from normal British telly to high definition TV is like going from black-&-white to colour. 

Your bog-standard TV set in the UK has 625 lines, of which you can only see 575. This is 

the PAL standard. A TV in the States has one hundred less at 525 and is known as the NTSC 

standard. High definition TV sets have up to 1,080 lines. This gives a much more detailed picture. 

After years of format wars across the globe, and in particular in the US, the HDTV world 

is settling down – a bit. The US has adopted a Common Image Format based on using the 

maximum number of lines, 1,080. But there is more to it than that.

How to speak HDTV 

1080i 

The Common Image Format adopted in 

North America and much of the industry. 

Has 1080 lines and displays interlaced, 

which gives it a TV look. Displays at 50 or 

60 fields per second. The major flat panel 

manufacturers have said they will make 

the next-gen displays to this format. 

1080p 

Because you don’t get the inter-line 

twitter associated with interlaced displays, 

1080p has a film look. Downsampling 

1080p to any other format creates a better 

image than if it was originally shot in that 

format. In the future, the EBU wants 

Europe to broadcast 1080p, but bandwidth, 

compression, and cost rules it out for 

now, hence its recommendation of 720p. 

720p 

With 720 lines this is a less common 

standard of HDTV for acquisition and 

transmission. Some sports broadcasters 

prefer it because the 50 or 60 progressive 

fields per second gives better motion 

portrayal, especially in slow motion. 

Ratio 

HDTV has a display aspect ratio of 16:9. 

Standard TVs are 4:3. This means HDTV 

displays are much wider. 

HD Ready 

You’ll find an HD Ready label on lots of TVs 

from now on. To get one, a display device 

has to have a minimum of 720 lines in wide 

aspect ratio and accept 720p 50/60 and 

1080i 50/60 input. 

Fake HDTV 

High definition can mean any system 

where the number of lines is increased 

beyond the basic video standard. What’s 

called HDTV is sometimes merely a 

progressive scan of standard TV. 

Confusingly, this is sometimes called 

Enhance Definition TV, EDTV. This is 

standard TV displayed on a progressively 

scanned TV. The aspect ratio is 4:3. 

Screen envy 

Cathode ray tube is dead. Or so they’d love 

you to believe. Europe loves flat panels on 

the wall, the States is going for enormous 

slimline CRTs. This new tube technology 

means once massive CRT widescreen HD 

TVs are now smaller than old-style CRTs 

and half the cost of a flat panel display. 

Guys and massive TVs 

Big TVs are a guy thing. CNET in the US did 

a Christmas survey in 2004 where Big 

Screen TV came out top of men’s wish list 

– above world peace and good health. 

I want HDTV 

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is said to 

have demonstrated HDTV to his executives 

to “audible gasps,” of amazement. “It’s 

going to be dynamite,” he said. At the 

moment you need an HD-compatible TV 

and a satellite receiver to get Euro 1080, 

the only European HD broadcaster. They 

broadcast one lifestyle channel and plan 

another this summer. Sky is planning to 

introduce HDTV broadcasting in 2006, 

most likely in time for the footy World Cup. 

Details have not been released but it is 

expected to be on a premium subscription 

basis. The BBC is planning to go fully HD- 

compliant by 2010. 

d 75

technology 

WE DON’T NEED THIS DEBATE. 

MOVIES, NEWS, KIDS, AND SPORT 

ALL WORK IN INTERLACED FORM 

JOHN IVE, SONY 

below. The different sizes of TV: PAL and 

NTSC is standard definition UK and US 

television; 720HD and 1080HD is high 

definition; 2K is film. 

76 d 

720 

625 SD (PAL) 

525 SD (NTSC) 

6 

2 

5 

5 

2 

5 

Clear as mud 

Three image formats currently 

dominate HDTV production: 1,920-x- 

1,080 in 50 or 60i varieties; 1,920-x- 

1,080 in 24, 25, or 30p; and 1,280-x- 

720 in 60p. Or, to use their shorthand, 

1080i, 1080p and 720p. 

The first two numbers refer to 

the resolution. So 1080i is 1,920 pixels 

wide by 1,080 lines deep. The second 

set of numbers is the number of fields 

per second that are displayed on the 

screen. Because electricity in the 

States runs at 60Hz frequency, HDTV 

in the US displays at either 60 or 30 

fields a second, in Europe (50Hz) it’s 

1280 

720 HD 7 

2 

0 

This image of Trafalgar Square was shot in 1080i by AHC Post. Although a near 

perfect image, zooming in on the verticals clearly shows the interlacing and 

“inter-line twitter” that fans of progressive displays – including the European 

Broadcasting Union – say is one reason for choosing progressive. 

2048 

2K Film 1 5 

3 

6 

1920 

1080 HD 1 

0 

8 

0 

50 or 25 fields a second. 24 is based 

on film. 

The letter at the end is either “i” 

for interlaced, or “p” for progressive. 

Both are different ways of getting 

a picture onto a screen. Interlacing 

is where the display writes alternate 

lines – lines one, three, five, and so 

on, then lines two, four, six and so 

on – to build up the whole picture 

on screen. Half the picture is drawn 

with every refresh, resulting in a 

complete frame being drawn 25 

times per second. The technology 

was developed because early TV 

tubes couldn’t draw the whole picture 

before the top began to fade. This is 

how standard definition works. It’s 

also why TVs “flicker”. 

Progressive is where the entire 

image is written in line order and 

then displayed on the screen, so 

lines one, two, three, four, up to 

1,080 are written and then the image 

is displayed. This gives a smoother 

image without flicker, and it looks 

like film. This is how your computer 

monitor displays. 

Sony kicks off 

So far so clear. The confusion – and 

wading through the Web sites, news 

groups and industry press releases, 

it is clear that the HDTV-world is very 

confused – comes when you start to 

look at how these three different 

standards are being applied. 

1080i has been adopted as the 

common image format by the States, 

and to a large degree by Australia, 

North America, and Asia. The big 

technology developers and 

manufacturers like Sony have also 

been happy to adopt this standard. 

But, just to make things more 

complicated, Europe has not. 

Instead, at a European 

Broadcasting Union (EBU) 

conference towards the end of 

last year they came down firmly 

in favour of 720p. This nearly gave 

Sony Europe’s director of strategic 

planning, John Ive, a heart attack: 

“We don’t need this debate,” he said. 

“Movies, entertainment, kids, current 

affairs, docs, and even sport work 

wonderfully well in interlaced form.” 

He would say that of course – his 

company is the biggest supplier 

of 1080i production and broadcast 

gear in the world. 

In turn, that made Phil Laven, 

director of EBU’s technical 

department, commit a sharp U-turn. 

The final decision was turned into 

a “work in progress” and the issue 

was left fudged, again. 

Excuse me? 

“Why is Europe promoting 720 

progressive while the rest of the 

world is getting on with 1080 

interlaced?” you might ask. Well, 

to clarify their position after their 

bun-fight with Sony, EBU released 

a statement in January this year. It 

said that most consumers in Europe 

are moving towards widescreen, 

non-CRT, flat panel TVs. All these flat 

panel displays and HDTV projectors 

will be progressively scanned. 

Because the displays are 

progressively scanned, said EBU, 

broadcasters should broadcast in 

progressive. This is because when 

you convert from interlaced to 

progressive you lose quality. This is 

done in the consumer’s equipment 

and it is the quality of these filters 

which determine the quality of the 

image: much better to broadcast 

in progressive and display in 

progressive. 

Another good reason – 

and perhaps the main one – for 

recommending 720p over 1080i is 

bandwidth. With current compression 

technologies it is less bandwidthheavy 

to broadcast 720p. 

So, despite Sony’s heart attack,

EBU went on to recommend that the 

preferred standard for HDTV emission 

in Europe is 720p/50. However, it also 

mentioned the need for “flexibility” 

and the need to be aware of and 

support “the multiplicity of HDTV 

formats”. 

Hang on a minute… 

Let’s think about this for a minute. 

The States and the rest of the world 

are broadcasting in 1080i. Some of 

the US sports channels broadcast 

in 720p/60 because they get better 

motion portrayal. The nascent HDTV 

industry in Europe is also working in 

1080i: The BBC test broadcasts are in 

1080i; Sky is promising to broadcast 

in 1080i and 720p in time for the 

2006 World Cup in Germany; and 

a dedicated HDTV satellite channel 

called, wait for it, Euro 1080 launched 

in early 2004. 

So why is EBU adamant that 

progressive is better? It would argue 

that it’s looking towards the longer 

term. In the future, the argument 

goes, compression technologies will 

be such that 1080p (the best quality 

of the three formats) will be easily 

piped into homes. 

It also argues that the difference 

in quality to the viewer is negligible: 

720 and 1080 lines deliver the same 

subjective vertical resolution. It 

argues that “inter line twitter” of 

interlaced images reduces the 

image quality. 

The EBU agrees that 1080i gives a 

wider image, but argues that cameras 

and displays today only offer 1,440 

pixels and use funky technology to 

stretch it out, not the 1920 promised. 

Sony of course points out that the 

screens of tomorrow will be the 

full 1,920 pixels wide. 

EBU argues that progressive 

gives much improved motion 

portrayal, especially for slow motion 

– you don’t get the blur of interlaced 

images. And finally it argues that it’s 

easier to convert from progressive to 

interlaced than vice versa. 

“Suppliers of HDTV equipment 

have complained that EBU’s support 

for progressive scanning is damaging 

the case for 1080i/25 and the 1,920-x- 

1,080 common image format,” EBU’s 

Philip Laven said in defence of his 

position. “In fact, EBU has recognized 

that 1080i/25 services will operate 

alongside 720p/50 services – and 

strongly hopes that 1080p/50 will 

eventually become the norm.” 

Where does this leave you and me? 

Well, as consumers we should 

be OK. A new “HD Ready” label 

has been produced by the European 

Information and Communications 

Technology Industry Association 

(EICTA). Supported by all the major 

Euro broadcasters, including Sky, 

the label guarantees technology 

from different manufacturers is future 

proof. If a screen has an HD Ready 

label it has a minimum resolution of 

720 lines, and is capable of accepting 

720p/50/60 and 1080i/50/60. 

But as programme-makers things 

are trickier. EBU in their well-funded, 

fat-bottomed helpful kind of way 

have suggested that HDTV 

programme makers buy equipment 

that: “Should include, at a minimum, 

720p/50, 1080i/25 and 1080p/25 

systems”. They add: “HDTV 

production equipment in the 

longer term will need to include 

all of the above and 1080p/50.” 

So the future of HDTV in Europe 

looks like it will be multi-format. 

Broadcasters will be able to choose, 

on a programme-by-programme 

basis, whether to broadcast in 720p 

or 1080i and consumers shouldn’t 

need to worry. But what if you’re 

a programme maker? 

Choosing what to shoot 

“Forget about 720, 1080 is real high 

definition,” says Doug Hammond, 

director of operations at Shooting 

Digibeta (790) Super16 HDCam (750) 

Camera hire (8 weeks) £10,600 £20,800 £12,700 

Stock and working copies £3,100 £36,480 £5,100 

Shooting Sub Total £13,700 £57,280 £17,800 

Post - neg cut, grade, £14,320 £22,720 £14,320 

conform, finish & masters 

Total £28,020 £80,000 £32,120 

This table, courtesy Shooting Partners, gives a rough indication of costs involved in shooting 

HD based on an eight week shoot using 60 rolls of stock. 

As the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray hots up film studios are siding with one 

format or the other. Whoever wins, high definition DVD will feed the demand for HDTV from 

the traditional broadcasters. 

Partners Group in London. They’ve 

been shooting HD since 1990 and 

their definition of HD is 1,920-x-1,080. 

“You’ll never make a movie on 

720,” says Hammond, “you can on 

1080”. From his point of view the EBU 

format war about 720 isn’t even worth 

discussing. His industry works on 

1080 and that’s it. “We’ve sent some 

cameras out to Africa for Discovery 

Channel in the States. They’ll be 

shooting in 1080/30p or 1080/60i.” 

He advises: “Use 1080, shoot one 

higher and down convert from 60 

to 50 rather than bump it up.” 

In the States, that bellweather 

of the broadcast world – the LA porn 

industry – has been at it for years. At 

Shoot SD 

No 

WHAT FRAME RATE DO I USE? 

Overseas 

sales, long shelf life 

HD financing 

Yes 

the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in 

Las Vegas in January Bob Christian of 

Adam & Eve Productions said they’d 

been shooting in HD for three years. 

“We shoot at the highest 1080p and 

then edit on HD equipment. The 

DVDs are released at standard 

definition but the all-HD process 

results in a higher quality image.” 

However, not everyone thinks 

that’s such a good idea. Nina Hartley, 

a 21-year veteran of the industry who 

has been in over 650 movies said she 

wasn’t sure if HD would benefit porn. 

“HD is not adult friendly,” she said. 

“Most women in porn are average 

looking, the same for the guys. I’m 

not sure how that will hold up.” 

Yes 

HDTVDEcision Chart. Shooting 

in 1080 but unsure of what 

frame rate to use? Shooting 

Partners in London give 

their clients this flow 

diagram to help decide. 

Shoot HD 

UK only No Global sales 

Shoot 50i TV look Film look Shoot 25p 

Shoot 24p or 

25p if for film 

60i for TV look 

For USA 

or Japan 

Film transfer 

required 

30p for film look 

Yes 

No 

d 77

this month 

Alias Maya 6.5 Epson 

RD-1 2d3 Boujou 3 

Canon EOS-1Ds MK 2 

Eizo ColorEdge CG220 

Toon Boom Studio 2.5 

IBM IntelliStation Z Pro 

Digit Best Buy 

The prestigious Digit Best Buy award is given only 

to products that are in the top-flight of their class. 

The product must offer professional creatives 

compelling design advantages, leading the way 

in its particular field. Digit Best Buy products are 

compelling solutions, often delivering innovative 

technology or unique tools, or are simply 

the best of their kind. 

Digit testing 

Digit brings you exclusive UK reviews of 

professional creativity packages – and when 

we say exclusive, we mean exclusive. Digit 

only reviews the finished versions of software 

packages – the same version you end up 

buying. All products are submitted to the leading 

IDG/Digit labs for testing – making Digit reviews 

ones you can trust. All tests are carried out 

with benchmarking. 

Buying notes 

All prices in product reviews are listed 

without VAT (17.5 per cent), and are correct at 

press time. Some manufacturers are forbidden 

by law to supply prices, in which case an 

average street price will be given. 

Online review 

Digit Online (www.digitmag.co.uk) for 

all your review needs, with exclusive 

reviews constantly updated. 

Digit ratings 

The best in its class ★★ ★★★ Avoid ★ 

d 79 

reviews

eviews 

80 d

1. Maya’s IPR has 

been improved. 

You can now make 

changes to lights and 

even cameras, to 

rotate the view and 

still get IPR updates. 

Combined with the 

Preview Raytrace and 

full-on Render Globals 

IPR settings this is an 

excellent interactive 

previewer that rivals 

that of XSI. 

Maya 6.5 

3D modelling, animation, and rendering software 

format Irix 6.5.15, Mac OS X 10.3, Red Hat Linux 9.0, SuSe Linux 9.1, 

Windows 2000/XP 

price Complete £1,449 plus VAT, upgrade £659 plus VAT, Unlimited £4,899 

plus VAT; upgrade £909 plus VAT 

company Alias, www.alias.com 

contact Alias, 01494 441 273 

minimum specs Intel Pentium III/PowerPC G4, 512MB RAM, hardwareaccelerated 

OpenGL graphics card, 450MB of hard disk space 

pros Satellite rendering, better Final Gather performance and much 

improved IPR, all-round performance gains. Better file referencing 

implementation. 

cons Interface can be slow at times – on OS X you have to restart 

the program periodically to regain performance. 

Digit Rating 

Alternatives 

★★★★★ 

3DS Max 7 LightWave 3D 8 Softimage|XSI 4.0 

aya’s improvement continues 

with this latest release from Alias, 

M though this .5 update is short 

of radical new features. Most of the 

boosts are to speed and performance. 

The most significant feature is the 

inclusion of Mental Images’ MentalRay 

3.4 rendering engine. Alias have 

continued to refine the integration 

of MentalRay with Maya, and while 

it doesn’t quite match the synergy 

Softimage|XSI has with MentalRay, 

Alias has done a good job of getting the 

two programs to work together tightly. 

The most exciting new feature in 

the new MentalRay implementation is 

Satellite rendering. Not only does this 

allow you to farm out a batch render to 

multiple CPUs over a network, it offers 

parallel processing of any MentalRay 

rendering you do inside Maya itself. 

As long as you have network render 

nodes available, as soon as you do a 

test render in Maya (including IPR) the 

load is spread across the network and 

delivered back to the Render View as 

if it was a normal local render. 

The implementation is seamless. 

This is not farming out frames to 

different CPUs, but ‘buckets’ within 

a frame. Print designers using Maya for 

huge resolution stills can at last benefit 

from additional networked CPUs. 

The number of CPUs that you can 

use is limited though, dependent on 

your license. Maya Complete comes with 

MentalRay rendering licenses for four 

local CPUs and two additional networked 

CPUs, while Maya Unlimited users can 

d 81

eviews 

2 

3 

4 

82 d 

render on up to eight additional CPUs. 

So if you are a Maya Complete user with 

a few spare PCs or Macs lying about you 

can call them into service and potentially 

double your rendering speed. 

Installation and set-up of Satellite 

is simple. You need to install and run 

the Maya Satellite service on each 

networked machine and be able to 

connect to them from the main machine 

on which Maya is running. A special 

configuration file named maya.rayhosts 

is placed in Maya’s preferences folder 

with the names (or IP addresses) and 

port numbers of the render slaves. 

When you initiate a render, Maya 

sends a request to the awaiting slaves 

who churn through the data and pass 

it back to the master machine. It’s 

a fantastic addition to the package. 

Data slaves 

More improvements come in the form 

of speed enhancements to various 

areas, such as Artisan and 3D painting, 

and various polygon operations including 

poly reduction. Soften/Harden polygons 

is still desperately slow, though, when 

compared to other 3D programs. Obj 

importing on Windows and saving of 

.mb files over a network is now faster. 

The latter will be especially important to 

teams collaborating using Maya’s object 

referencing. This has been enhanced in 

Maya 6.5. The new system is more robust 

and less prone to problems when making 

or loading/unloading edits to complex 

referenced hierarchies. 

The new system introduces proxies. 

This allows you to swap low-resolution 

proxy files that you associate with each 

referenced file. Proxies are easily loaded 

and unloaded to allow you to optimize 

the current scene for the job at hand. 

Scene management can become 

problematic when working with very 

large data sets, so some kind of proxy 

system becomes essential. However, 

the Reference manager window could 

be easier to use, since it puts the 

load/unload commands in sub-menus 

when a simple check-box button would 

have been more direct. 

Despite the countless speed-ups 

and improvements, which seem to be 

the main thrust of this upgrade, Maya’s 

general interface operations can still 

be on the slow side. Changing interface 

layouts tends to be sluggish, as does 

accessing marking menus and the 

hotbox. It’s only a second or so delay 

but when these operations occur many 

times in a session it becomes frustrating. 

Similarly, loading data into the 

Attribute Editor can take a second or 

two, and this is a pain. The issue of a 

general slowdown during a session on 

Mac OS X remains. The workaround is 

to save, quit and restart Maya. 

Generally though Maya 6.5 is 

a decent – if not earth-shattering 

– upgrade. For many users there 

will be some bugs crushed or an 

improvement in performance that 

makes the 6.5 upgrade worthwhile, 

but apart from the referencing and 

Satellite rendering features don’t expect 

a whole lot of new goodies to play with. 

Simon Danaher 

2. Maya 6.5 features built-in FBX support for 

transferring animated characters between 

it and MotionBuilder, or indeed any program 

that supports the FBX format. 

3. File Referencing has been improved together 

and a new Proxy system introduced to allow 

low-resolution substitutions to be made in 

complex scenes. 

4. Final Gathering has been improved in 6.5 

so that you need only 1/10th of the FinalGather 

samples that you previously required in order 

to get the same quality results.

eviews 

main picture. The R-D1 

is styled like an oldfashioned 

film camera. 

2. The camera’s built-in 

mono option is aimed at 

Leica lens users, and 

there’s even a choice of 

traditional photographic 

digital filters such as 

yellow, orange and red 

for landscapes. 

3. High contrast edges 

are a good test for 

chromatic aberration. 

The R-D1 with 

Voigtländer 35/2.5 

pancake lens produce 

results that put many 

digital SLRs to shame. 

4-5. Epson’s 

PhotoDRAW RAW 

processing software 

is only available for 

Windows users to 

convert RAW data 

to JPG or TIFF files. 

A plug-in is provided 

for Mac users. 

R-D1 

6mp digital rangefinder camera 

format Mac/Win 

price £1,702 plus VAT (body only) 

company Epson, www.epsonrd1.co.uk 

contact Epson, 08702 416 900 

accessories Voigtländer 90mm f/3.5 Apolanthar lens £205 plus VAT, 

Voigtländer 50mm f/2.5 Color Scopar lens £180 plus VAT, Voigtländer 

28mm f/3.5 Color Scopar lens £255 plus VAT 

pros Classic analogue handling with life-size finder for an involving 

experience, while large digital SLR-style sensor provides low noise. 

cons Menu system is poor. Main concern is that the camera has 

frame-lines for only three focal lengths. 


Alternatives 

84 d 

★★★★ 

★ 

Canon EOS 20D Leica Digilux 2 Panasonic DMCLC1B 

E 

pson’s 6mp R-D1 shares some 

features with the recently 

announced R3A. It includes the 

same bright, life-size finder magnification, 

and aperture priority exposure control. 

Its big attraction, though, is the 

compatibility with loads of Leica M 

bayonet and L mount screw lenses. It 

also fits a wide range of other brands – 

such as early screw thread lenses from 

Canon and Nikon – with the help of an 

optional adaptor. A lever on the top plate 

allows selection from one of three framelines 

visible in the viewfinder for 50mm, 

28mm, and 35mm focal lengths. 

Other lenses will fit, but it will be 

difficult to judge the field of view for the 

sensor without a viewfinder. However, 

Voigtländer have introduced a series of 

four viewfinders covering 12mm, 15mm, 

21mm, and 25mm focal lengths. These 

attach via the hot-shoe, but as yet there 

are no dedicated finders for longer 

lenses, such as an 85mm, or 105mm. 

We were supplied with the gorgeous 

M mount Voigtländer Colour Skopar 

35mm f/2.5P II pancake lens, so called 

due to the stubby construction. Together, 

handling is very good, though the R-D1’s 

body is big, and the magnesium alloy 

construction belies its 590g weight. 

There are few modern comforts. For 

starters, these classic lenses are manual 

focus only, and there’s no evaluative 

metering, built-in flash, or automatic 

frame advance. It’s odd having a manual 

film advance lever when saving to an 

SD card. It cocks the shutter though, 

and lightly pressing the shutter release 

primes the TTL centre-weighted metering. 

As with most similar systems, you’ll 

have to know how to compensate for 

difficult lighting, but at least there’s 

exposure compensation or metered 

manual. In both instances, the shutter 

speed selected is shown in the 

viewfinder, either automatically, or, if 

using manual, the set speed is shown 

while the metered option flashes. It’s 

simple but effective. 

Shutter up 

Both shutter speed and exposurecompensation 

are selected by a 

traditional knurled dial on the top plate. 

It locks when set to AE (Auto Exposure), 

and it’s fiddly to release to use exposure 

compensation. ISO settings from ISO 200- 

1600 are selected by pulling the same 

dial up and rotating to suit. And, just like

2 4 

3 

a 35mm camera, there’s no auto option. 

Powering up is sluggish, but it’s only 

really noticed when you’ve forgotten to 

turn it on. It’s not really an issue as the 

shutter has to be cocked before metering 

anyway. 

Driving forward 

On the left hand side, a large circular 

window encompassing four dials with 

needles provides the first indication 

that this isn’t actually a film camera. 

It looks not unlike the gauges on your 

dashboard. It’s here that white-balance, 

image quality, battery life, and the 

approximate number of frames remaining 

are displayed. A pseudo film rewind knob 

is actually a super-responsive jog-dial, 

and is used for adjusting the settings 

in combination with a well-placed 

lever sitting high on the camera’s back. 

In addition to a 3,008-x-2,000-pixel 

RAW file format (ERF), there are just 

two JPEG settings – one at full resolution 

and the second with a 2,240-x-1,488-pixel 

image size. The camera’s rear is 

dominated by a pull-out and rotating 

monitor, but at 2.0-inches it could easily 

have been larger. Nonetheless, it is well 

detailed, though the protective screen is 

highly reflective and difficult to see in 

bright lighting. It can’t really be angled 

either as the camera’s shutter design 

doesn’t allow real-time CCD viewing. 

It’s either out for setting the menu, or it’s 

folded away to protect it from scratching. 

Navigation of the menu is clunky, 

even with the excellent jog-dial – there 

are too many button-presses required 

to select any given feature. That said, 

there are only two settings that you’ll 

probably use regularly – film settings, 

and colour options. The latter allows 

mono shots with the further option to 

add digital photo filters for effect, such 

as red, yellow, and green, for portraits 

and landscapes. 

Film settings allows customization of 

edge definition, noise reduction, tint and 

saturation, as if selecting a traditional 

film for its particular characteristics. 

However, if you’re shooting RAW files 

then there’s little use choosing either 

option. Along with a copy of Elements 2, 

Epson supplies its PhotoRAW processing 

software, but it’s Windows only. Mac 

users have to make do with a plug-in. 

The R-D1 produced some excellent 

images, with careful use of the meter. 

Noise is very low due to the large digital 

5 

6 

SLR-style CCD – even ISO 1600 is usable. 

The life-size finder allows both eyes to be 

open during focusing, which is a major 

plus for a rangefinder, and quick grab 

shots can be achieved even without AF. 

The R-D1 is a niche product, but 

it’s an incredibly rewarding camera. 

The only concern is that, off the shelf, 

it only has frame lines for three focal 

lengths equating to 42mm to 75mm, 

but this is unlikely to stop the legions 

of M-type lens owners wanting to try it. 

Joanne Carter 

d 85

eviews 

1 

Boujou 3 

Matchmoving software 

format Mac OS X 10.2/3, Red Hat Linux 7/8/9, Windows 2000/XP 

price $10,000 (around £5,325) 

company 2d3, www.2d3.com 

contact 2d3, 01865 811060 

minimum specs 500MB RAM, OpenGL-compatible graphics card 

pros Fast automatic tracking with excellent solution integrity. 

It’s simple to use, too. 

cons It’s very expensive, and it’s dongled – so be careful not to lose 

the key. 

Digit Rating ★★★★★ 

Alternatives 

RealViz 

MatchMover Pro 

86 d 

Science D Visions 

3D Equalizer 

The Pixel Farm 

PFTrack 3.0 

B 

oujou has always been an 

expensive package. At $10,000 it’s 

probably the costliest matchmoving 

solution available. For that kind of payout, 

you’d expect it to deliver something 

special. It doesn’t disappoint – the 

software will save you a huge amount 

of time, and spare you from the ravages 

of matchmoving boredom. 

Some 2D-to-3D packages require you 

to manually place 2D markers on certain 

points in an image and then track them 

in 2D before finally extracting the 3D 

scene information. This process can be 

both time-consuming and tedious, and 

requires that you have a least a few goes 

before discovering what and where the 

best tracking points in the footage are. 

Along with a handful of matchmoving 

applications, Boujou is a totally automatic 

matchmoving solution. Once footage is 

loaded you can tell the program to 

analyze each frame and choose the 

2D tracking points itself. There’s no 

need for human input at all. 

There are two main benefits of this 

automatic process. Firstly, the software is 

able to input a much larger number of 

tracking points than you would be able 

to reasonably do manually. This helps 

to reduce errors in the solution since 

the data is averaged over a greater 

number of tracking points. Secondly, 

the program can automatically add new 

points to track as they enter the frame. 

This is very difficult to do manually. 

The mask 

Moving objects in the scene can 

throw out the auto-tracking solution 

by contaminating the static scene data. 

Since Boujou doesn’t use any kind of 

artificial intelligence to select tracking 

points, it’s just as likely to select a moving 

object as the static background scene. 

Small movements can be dealt with by 

the software, so swaying trees don’t 

seem to cause too much of a problem. 

However, an object traversing 

the scene, such as a vehicle, person, 

or animal, can present too much 

of a problem. Boujou handles this 

complication simply – to prevent 

these objects from being tracked

you can draw a mask to isolate 

them from the background. 

The masks are simple polygonal 

shapes that you draw over the footage. 

They can be animated, both in translation 

and in shape. The masks are autokeyframed 

as you make changes to 

them, so it’s a relatively straight-forward 

process to matte out a particular object 

from the tracking process. Multiple 

masks can be added and animated 

independently, so it doesn’t matter if 

objects cross each other in the footage. 

Boujou also allows you to import imagebased 

masks so you can create custom 

mattes from the footage using whatever 

motion graphics application you like. 

Once objects are masked out, you 

can tell Boujou to track the scene, which 

it does quickly. The speed will depend on 

the number of tracked points, length of 

the sequence, and the degree of camera 

movement. If there is a big jump between 

frames then tracking can take longer. 

Generally, Boujou suffers less from losing 

track of points than other matchmoving 

applications, and the integrity of the 

solutions seems to be high. 

Some sequences will prove too 

difficult, in which case you can manually 

intervene and place custom markers, 

or inset survey data to constrain the 

2 

3 4 

solution. Of course, entering the camera 

focal length helps. 

Once tracked, the camera solution 

is derived when you press the Camera 

Tracking button. This runs in a separate 

pass and can take a minute or so. Again 

solution integrity tends to be high, and 

you can place test 3D geometry in the 

scene to confirm the solution looks 

good. Boujou allows you to export 

the camera to numerous 3D formats 

including Maya .ma, Softimage .xsi, 

LightWave .lws and Houdini .hip. 

You can also export to Shake. 

The new version sports a charcoal 

interface for enhanced contrast and 

new, faster tracking algorithms. There 

are some improved tweaking tools, 

such as camera path smoothing, 

and a new timeline. 

Redundant Wizard 

A new Wizard is included to guide users 

through the whole matchmoving process. 

This is a godsend for those not used to 

the program, though the process is so 

simple you’ll only need to use the Wizard 

a few times before you get the hang of 

it. We did encounter a windowing bug 

requiring a Force Quit on Mac OS X, 

where two Save dialogs overlapped each 

other during a camera export and neither 

would receive mouse or keyboard input. 

Apart from this the program seemed 

fairly robust and bug-free. 

Boujou is what an automatic 

matchmoving program should be. 

It’s simple to use and gets the job 

done quickly with the minimum of 

fuss, saving a huge amount of time 

in the process. For those who can’t 

stretch to the price tag, the strippeddown 

Boujou Bullet offers some of the 

power of the full version for $2,500. But 

despite the price, Boujou 3.0 is a superb 

program that’s well worth looking into. 

Simon Danaher 

1. Boujou has an easy 

to use lens distortionfactoring 

tool that 

allows you to calculate 

the distortion in your 

footage if you don’t 

know the value. 

2. 2D feature 

tracking of a 280frame 

sequence took 

around two-and-a-half 

minutes on a Dual 1.8 

G5, and extracting the 

camera solution took 

only one minute. 

3. Polygon masks are 

used to isolate moving 

objects from the scene 

that would otherwise 

contaminate the 

tracking process. 

4. The solution can 

be previewed in 3D 

before export, and 

3D test objects can 

be inserted. 

5. A new Wizard 

guides you through 

every aspect of the 

tracking process. 

d 87 

5

eviews 

2 

main picture. Canon’s 

extensive EF range of 

lenses (except for EF-S) 

can be used without the 

cropped field of view, 

due to the full-frame 

sensor. 

2. Canon’s new Digital 

Photo Professional 

(DPP) software has a 

simple to use interface, 

including batchprocessing 

options, but 

it’s still sluggish in use. 

EOS-1Ds Mark II 

16.7mp digital SLR camera 

format Mac/Win 

price £4,510 plus VAT (body only) 

company Canon, www.canon.co.uk 

contact Canon, 08705 143 723 

accessories EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens £238 plus VAT, EF 28-135mm f3.5/5.6 

IS USM £295 plus VAT, EF 28-300mm F3.5-5.6 L IS USM lens £1,489 plus VAT 

pros Full frame CMOS panel allows unrestricted use of Canon’s 

wide-angle EF lenses. The 16.7mp resolution permits a double-page 

spread at 300dpi with minimal interpolation. 

cons Menu system is poor. Frame-lines for only three 

focal lengths. 


Alternatives 

88 d 

Contax N-Digital Nikon D2x Kodak DCS Pro SLRc/n 

T 

he update to Canon’s EOS-1Ds 

hardly comes as a surprise. It’s 

the studio-&-location version of 

the sports- and press-oriented EOS-1D, 

which was updated last year. However, 

the timing of the EOS-1Ds Mark II’s 

release is surprising – Canon announced 

it just days after Nikon announced its 

12.4mp challenger to the original 1Ds. 

Visually, the EOS-1Ds Mark II has 

hardly changed over its predecessor, but 

in fact each magnesium alloy panel has 

actually been subtly altered. The matte 

finish paint is less reflective too, though 

few users will notice at first. What 

matters is this camera now features 

an impressive 16.7mp CMOS sensor, 

and it’s still full-frame. With a maximum 

4,992-x-3,328-pixel image size, the 

EOS-1Ds Mark II can punch-out 

a 300dpi image at 16.5-x-11-inches 

without interpolation. 

At 36-x-24mm, the CMOS sensor 

is precisely the same size as a single 

35mm frame, allowing Canon’s wideangle 

lenses to be used without the 

irreversible cropping of the field of 

view associated with digital SLRs 

using smaller, often APS-C-sized 

sensors. Conversely, there’s none of 

the extra reach when using telephoto 

lenses, which is one of the reasons why 

sports and action photographers like the 

smaller chip. But, with so much resolution 

and detail available, it’s still feasible to 

crop an image to give a similar effect. 

Buffer up 

Canon have increased the continuous 

framing rate to a respectable 4fps with 

buffering for up to 32 high-quality JPEGs 

or 11 RAW images, up from the 3fps 

and 10 JPEG or 10 RAW shots from 

the discontinued 1Ds. Even with the 

substantial increase, it’s nothing like 

the turn of speed available from the

3 5 

4 

press cameras. This isn’t really what 

this camera is for. For many users, 

the EOS-1Ds Mark II will be seen 

as an alternative to using slower, 

versatile, 645 medium format 

cameras and digital backs. 

Noise from the proprietary CMOS 

panel is impressively low, and Canon has 

expanded its sensitivity with a range the 

equivalent of ISO 50 to ISO 3200. There’s 

nothing to be gained quality-wise with 

the lower setting, but by adding the ISO 

3200 option at least puts the spec on 

a par with recent semi-pro digital SLRs, 

and can be the difference between 

getting a shot and missing out. 

Other changes and improvements 

include a more detailed screen, and 

the addition of an SD card slot next 

to the standard CF Type II bay, which 

can be used individually or to write 

files simultaneously, as back-up. Faster 

processing is claimed, and it’s certainly 

5 

visible in certain areas. JPEG images 

appear on the monitor within an instant, 

but a supposed 50 per cent increase 

in AF processing is barely noticeable 

in practise. 

Picture this 

For photographers concerned with 

deadlines and captions, and who 

don’t have time for post-processing, 

the camera has a vast range of user 

selectable options. Between the 

separate Colour Matrix and Parameters 

options, users can, for example, choose 

an appropriate colour space, adjust 

brightness, colour balance, saturation, 

contrast and sharpness, choose from 

three tone curves or load their own 

from the EOS Viewer utility. 

Gone is the external secondary whitebalance 

sensor. The camera now relies 

solely on TTL measurement from the 

CMOS sensor. In some instances, notably 

under indoor lighting, images from the 

Mk II don’t appear to be quite as wellcorrected. 

However, external sensors 

can be easily fooled – especially if the 

camera is located under one light source 

and you’re using a telephoto trained on 

another. It’s not so much of an issue if 

there’s time to tweak white-balance, and 

there are a number of ways of achieving 

this. In addition to six presets, a manual 

option, and colour temperature settings 

in degrees Kelvin, there’s even a choice 

of up to three personal settings. Whitebalance 

bracketing and colour correction 

are available too. 

It’s a dazzling array of choices, but it 

allows the user to fine-tune the camera 

over time to his or her own preferences. 

That said, many users are likely to 

just shoot RAW files anyway. New Digital 

Photo Professional software is included 

and offers a wide range of processing 

and enhancement options, though it’s 

still slow in use and not as slick as rival 

offerings. 

Start-up times – from sleep and from 

powering up – are vastly improved, and 

there’s none of the previous camera’s 

sluggishness. Handling is very good, 

but the old-school NiMH battery pack 

makes for a body that feels heavier 

than the quoted 1.5kg. Nikon’s D2-series 

utilizes similar construction techniques 

and use a Lithium-Ion pack, and appear 

much lighter and better balanced. 

Without doubt, image quality and 

detail is nothing short of remarkable, 

and the camera boasts the size and 

convenience of a pro 35mm SLR. For 

the hard-working professional, such 

expediency makes all the difference. 

Joanne Carter 

3. Difficult lighting 

is handled extremely 

well by the 

evaluative metering 

system, and at ISO 

1600 noise levels 

are low. 

4. DPP’s imaging 

editing window 

allows for a fair 

range of adjustment 

and enhancement, 

for RAW and RGB- 

JPEG images, but it 

isn’t as impressive 

as some rival and 

third-party offerings. 

5. Although the 

camera is built for 

location work, the 

sublime image 

quality will make 

it a firm favourite in 

the studio as well. 

d 89

eviews 

ColorEdge CG220 

LCD monitor 

format Mac OS X 10.2/3, Windows 2000/XP 

price £3,189 plus VAT; Eye-One calibrator £177 plus VAT 

company Eizo, www.eizo.co.uk 

contact Eizo, 01483 719 500 

pros The best handling of colour available from an LCD monitor, 

and fantastic display quality. Good ergonomics and high-level of 

user control. 

cons Hugely expensive – a CRT could match it for quality at 

a fraction of the price, if you could buy one. 


W 

e’ve only seen one LCD monitor 

so far that could be said to truly 

challenge the colour ability of 

the CRT: Barco’s Coloris Calibrator. 

Unfortunately, that model was withdrawn 

in December 2004 due to issues with the 

quality of components, and with CRTs on 

their last legs, there’s a gap in the market 

for high-end displays for creatives. 

Now, Eizo is attempting to tackle the 

issue with its latest ColorEdge monitor for 

designers, the CG220. It offers the same 

focus on colour – being the first LCD 

monitor capable of displaying the whole 

gamut of the Adobe RGB colour space 

– and has an inevitably high price. 

For an LCD, the ColorEdge 220 is 

enormous – though it will still take up 

less of your desk space than a LaCie 

electron22blue, for example. The 22-inch 

screen is surrounded by a thick black 

bezel and supported by a tree-trunk of 

a base. Around the monitor sits a small 

hood for keeping ambient glare off the 

screen. Part of the hood slides off to 

allow a calibration device to hang without 

having to remove the whole thing. 

Eizo does it 

A calibration device is a must. Eizo ships 

the CG220 with its own ColorNavigator 

software, which is designed to work 

with GretagMacbeth’s Eye-One device. 

ColorNavigator works with both Macs 

and PCs. It’s simple to use and offers 

a wide level of control. 

After calibrating your monitor – and 

even before – the quality of the CG220 

is immediately obvious. Even to the 

naked eye, the level of colour accuracy 

and depth is better than LaCie’s 

90 d 

Colours visible to the 

human eye 

Colour space 

displayed on 

monitor 

Adobe RGB space 

Photon20vision II, which is currently 

the LCD of choice for designers. 

Assuming the rest of your workflow 

from input (camera, scanner) to output 

(proofer, press) is properly calibrated, 

there’s currently no better way of making 

sure that what you see is what you get. 

We examined the colour profile 

created by ColourNavigator and the 

Eye-One in Chromix ColorThink 2.1. The 

colour range available for output by the 

CG220 is the largest available on any 

LCD display we’ve seen by a wide margin 

– though it didn’t quite cover the Adobe 

RGB gamut (see diagram, above). It was 

also one of the most accurate we’ve seen. 

The 1,920-x-1,200 resolution allows a 

large amount of detailed information to 

be shown: an A4 spread – plus palettes 

– was perfectly readable in InDesign. 

Only the slow response rate of 37ms 

is a disappointment – but this monitor 

isn’t aimed at video professionals. 

The ColorEdge CG220 is a fantastic 

monitor but the price is going to be 

too high for the majority of designers 

– though you can reduce it a bit by 

going for the Colour Confidence 

DisplayProof System bundle from 

TypeMaker, which essentially bundles 

the Eye-One calibrator and a colour 

management guide for the same £3,189 

plus VAT price. TypeMaker also claim to 

check the monitor to a higher standard. 

You’re essentially paying over £3,000 

for a monitor created to match £700 

CRTs. However, if your clients require 

that level of colour accuracy (or you’re 

just rich), the CG220 is an exceptional 

product. Those on lower budgets may 

want to wait for LaCie’s forthcoming 

321 LCD Monitor, which claims to match 

CRTs for colour but is more affordable 

at just over £950 plus VAT. 

Neil Bennett 

specifications 

Viewable area: 22.2-inch Dot pitch: 0.294mm Native resolution: 

1,920-x-1,200 Connection: 2x DVI-I Response rate: 37ms Horizontal 

viewing angle: 170 degrees Vertical viewing angle: 170 degrees 

Brightness: 200cd/m2 Contrast ratio: 400:1 10-bit gamma correction: yes 

Dimensions (W-x-H-x-D): 565-x-452.5-x-272mm Weight (with base): 6.6kg 

Modes: 1 Speakers: no Ports: USB (for calibrator) Software: 

ColorNavigator Specified calibrator: GretagMacbeth Eye-One Hood: yes

Toon Boom 

Studio 2.5 

2D animation software 

format Mac OS X 10.3, Windows 2000/XP 

price £239 plus VAT, upgrade £99 plus VAT 

company Toon Boom, www.toonboom.com 

contact Pixelution, 01462 433558 

minimum specs PowerPC G5/Pentium III 800MHz processor, 

256MB RAM, 100MB hard disk space, Wacom tablet 

pros Auto lip-syncing, drawing in 3D scene planning view, and colour 

transformation effects add to an already well-designed package. 

cons Some inconsistency with interface conventions and a slightly 

clunky display for 3D and orthographic views. 


D 

★★★★ 

★ 

igitized 2D cell animation is a 

tricky thing to get right. The toolset 

required seems similar to those 

in any other drawing application, but 

in reality they need to be a lot more 

specialized. Toon Boom Studio 2.5 

offers a decent and robust toolset 

together with a clearly set-out 

workflow for 2D animation. 

Version 2.5 adds to the feature set 

with impressive automatic lip-syncing, 

gap-closing, and colour keyframing. 

There’s a new clipping feature for adding 

masks to drawings. These can then be 

animated, and soundtracks can now be 

scrubbed directly from the timeline. 

Good support for graphics tablets is 

essential, and version 2.5 adds pressure 

sensitivity support for line thickness with 

Wacom graphics tablets. The update at 

last adds eraser support for Wacom pens 

too. There was an issue with the Intuos 3 

Wacom tablet – there was occasionally 

an offset of the stroke compared to the 

cursor position when you began drawing. 

We couldn’t duplicate this effect in any 

other program using the tablet so there 

may be an issue between the latest 

Wacom driver and Toon Boom. 

Schoolboy errors 

One minor, but irritating interface issue 

was the inconsistent menu conventions 

when you switch functions on and off. 

In the Window menu you get ‘Show 

Function Editor’ which changes to ‘Hide 

Function Editor’. In other menus, you 

get a check mark instead. It’s a minor 

complaint, but causes brief confusion 

when you start with the application, 

and it’s a mistake that shouldn’t find 

its way into a commercial program. 

However, overall Toon Boom 2.5 

offers a clean and clear workflow for 

1 2 

1. The 3D Scene Planning mode is where your animated elements 

come together. Elements can be keyframed in 3D space. 

2. The new Colour Transformation effects allow you to animate colours 

of elements over the course of an animation. 

3. The new clipping mask feature allows you to create effects such 

as this moving binocular view. 

professional 2D animation production. 

The integration of the two modes of 

operation – Drawing and 3D Scene 

Planning – have been further tightened 

by offering touch-up drawing to be 

accomplished in Scene Planning mode. 

This is a fantastic feature because it 

allows you to see what needs to be 

fixed right in the scene as it’s playing, 

rather than performing the guess work 

involved when having to do touch-ups 

back in the drawing mode. 

While there isn’t a massive number 

of new features, those added are 

significant and will have a great impact 

on the workflow of current users. While 

in essence it’s still a relatively simple 

and straightforward program Toon 

Boom Studio 2.5 represents a focused 

and well-crafted environment for 

traditional 2D animation. 

Simon Danaher 

Alternatives 

Bauhaus Mirage 1.2 

Digital Video 

The TAB 2.0 

Macromedia 

Flash MX 2004 

d 91 

3

Dual-processor workstation 

format Windows XP 

price £4,385 plus VAT 

company IBM, www.ibm.com/uk 

contact Matek, www.matek.net, 01403 276 300 

pros Obscenely powerful 3D performance. 

Fast image rendering and processing. 

cons High price. Small, single hard drive. 

No DVD reader. 


T 

he last IBM workstation we 

looked at was rather behind 

the times – but this is right up-todate. 

Dealer Matek’s entry into our last 

workstation group test was a generation 

behind much of the competition, but 

this is the first computer we’ve seen to 

feature ATI’s top-of-the-line FireGL 7100 

graphics card. It’s a superbly powerful 

machine – with a price to match. 

The IntelliStation Z Pro shell is an 

imposing black box that’s shorter and 

fatter than the Dell Precision 670 we 

looked at in Digit 80. It’s rather ugly 

– especially sat next to an Apple 

Power Mac G5 – and it doesn’t look 

as imposing as the Precision either. 

But it’s what’s inside that counts. 

This Z Pro is driven by the fastest 

Xeon processors available: two 3.6GHz 

92 d 

chips with 2MB of Level 2 cache each. 

These are fed by 2GB of DDR2 RAM 

across an 800MHz system bus, and 

connected to a motherboard with an 

almost full set of PCI-Express, PCI-X, 

PCI, Ultra360 SCSI and ATA connectors. 

A FireGL 7100 card, a single 73GB, 

10,000rpm Ultra 360 hard drive and a 

CD-RW drive are all included. But that’s 

it – leaving a bare-to-the-bone system. 

Light work 

From the specs you’d expect this 

IntelliStation to be powerful – and 

this unit will surpass your expectations. 

Rendering of the Radiosity_box 

benchmark scene in LightWave 8 (using 

four threads with Hyper-threading turned 

on) was accomplished in 18 minutes and 

44 seconds – two minutes quicker than 

the dual 3.4GHz-driven Precision 670. 

However, we should mention that the 

IntelliStation was tested using version 8.2 

of LightWave (while the Precision used 

the then most recent 8.0 version), as it 

took the upgrade and an ATI graphics 

driver update to make LightWave open 

the benchmark scene. This may have 

given the rendering time an extra boost. 

It was our Cinebench tests where this 

IntelliStation really started showing off. 

This is the first review machine we’ve 

specifications 

IntelliStation Z Pro 

Processor (supplied): 2x Intel Xeon 3.6GHz Processor (maximum): 2x 

Intel Xeon 3.6GHz RAM (supplied): 3GB RAM (maximum): 8GB 

DIMMs/free slots: 2/4 Graphics card (supplied): ATI FireGL V7100 

Graphics RAM/AGP port: 256MB/PCI-Express Hard drive type: Ultra320 

SCSI Hard drive size/speed (supplied): 73GB/10,000rpm Bays: 2x 5.25inch 

ext, 1x 3.5-inch ext, 3x 3.5-inch int 

seen to get Cinebench scores of over 

3,000: achieving a groundbreaking 3,384. 

Equally importantly, this is over eighttimes 

quicker than without using the 

graphics card. The NVidia Quadro 3400 

used by the Dell Precision 650 could 

only manage a 6.19x boost – though 

in itself this is an impressive score. This 

IntelliStation’s 3D power is due to the 

V7100 card, which is imbued with 256MB 

of GDDR3 memory, six geometry engines, 

16 pixel pipelines and a throughput of 

up to 28.8GB per second. It’s also why 

this workstation costs so much. 

The high price is justified by the 

power of the unit within 3D applications 

– though you’d need to be working with 

some very intricate models to make it 

worthwhile. Some of Matek’s 

configuration choices are poor – the 

Precision’s addition of a Serial-ATA 

system drive (leaving the SCSI system 

free for media manipulation) is better, 

and the CD-RW drive is a lame option 

when almost all pro-level systems come 

with a DVD±RW as standard. A DVD 

writer is of limited professional appeal, 

but the ability to read DVD-ROMs is 

something everyone needs these days. 

However, the stonking 3D performance 

should keep you happy. 

Neil Bennett 

Alternatives 

Dell Precision 670 

IBM M Pro

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take you. 8 channels of pristine 192kHz analog recording & playback, 

digital I/O: ADAT optical, AES/EBU and S/PDIF. £675 (£793.13 inc vat) 

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Up to 56 channels record/playback, up to 192 kHz sample rate, and 

true FireWire 800 sum up to an unsurpassed high-end, high 

performance FireWire audio interface! £799 (938.83 inc vat) 

37-key Firewire audio/MIDI interface & controller 

A completely integrated audio/MIDI FireWire production tool designed 

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audio/MIDI interface in a compact package. £322 (£378.35 inc vat) 

M-Audio 

Keystation Pro 88 

88-key MIDI controller 

The first USB bus powered master MIDI controller designed specifically 

to let you perform, program and mix music directly with your 

computer. 88-key hammer action and a complement of 59 assignable 

controls. £299 (£351.33 inc vat) 

Novation 

X-Station 25 

Audio/MIDI controller 

Combines a Novation-class synthesizer, an audio solution, MIDI remote 

controller, MIDI interface and a multi-effects processor. The keyboard 

employs a premium-class mechanism with 25 semi-weighted keys and 

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labs 

94 d

DVD on the menu 

Thanks to the dominance of DVD in home 

entertainment and computing, desktop authoring 

of DVDs has really taken off. We’ve looked at 

several applications for creating DVD, drawn 

from across the scale. 

T 

he process of creating a DVD is the same whether you’re just burning 

data or constructing a flashy menu for a movie release. It consists of 

adding data to a project folder on a computer, then laying out that 

project in an authoring package. Video and audio assets first need to be 

encoded to formats compatible with the DVD specification, and if you want 

your DVD to do anything more than store data, you’re going to have to 

incorporate some sort of menu system on your disc. 

Disc navigation is normally added in the form of menu screens and jump 

buttons that correspond to chapter points embedded in the media streams. 

Authoring applications allow you to link buttons to menu screens, media, 

and chapter points by either dragging-&-dropping the asset or item onto 

the button or by specifying the link in a properties field. 

Subtitles can be entered or imported, and colours can be set for the button 

to give some interactive feedback to the user. The project is then ‘built’, with 

the video and audio streams multiplexed together during this process and 

then written to the blank disc. All DVD authoring follows this same basic 

BY MICHAEL BURNS 

d 95

labs 

Adobe Encore DVD 1.5 

format Windows 


company Adobe, www.adobe.com 

contact Adobe, 020 8606 4000 

minimum specs Pentium III 800MHz or 

faster processor, 256MB of RAM, 1GB hard-disk 

space, DVD-ROM drive and supported DVD 

burner, QuickTime 6.5 software 

digit rating ★★★★★ 

Encore has a similar look to Sonic’s DVD Producer, with an initially rather dull interface 

of empty floating palettes. All assets are imported into the Project Window, and as you 

do so the corresponding monitor, menu editor, or timeline pops up. This all makes for 

rather cluttered viewing, especially on a small monitor, and as there is no preset 

workspace facility, users need to set their own default arrangements. 

When you drag a video clip to a menu, Encore automatically creates a video 

button for the clip, creates a link from the button to play through the video, and 

then sets the End action to return to the menu. In a view option similar in style 

to Photoshop, you can check button routing using a floating overlay. 

Encore DVD integrates extremely well with Photoshop, Premiere, and After 

Effects 6.5 or later. If you have an Adobe-heavy PC, you’ll be able to export motion 

menus as AVI files in After Effects, create backgrounds and buttons in Photoshop, 

and add markers for Chapter points in Premiere movies. You can use the Edit 

Original command in Encore to edit the files in their native applications. 

The Styles palette allows pre-designed effect styles for Text, Shapes, and Images 

to be dragged-&-dropped onto elements in the Menu Editor. A Check Project feature 

can be used at any point in the process to identify and solve problems in the project’s 

structure. QuickTime is now supported as an asset, meaning that Encore, though still 

confined to the PC, is now more of a cross-platform contender than the Apple offering. 

ALL DVD 

AUTHORING 

FOLLOWS THE 

SAME BASIC 

PROCESS 

96 d 

process. This is due to the 

applications, hardware, and 

media all adhering to the DVD 

Specification, a standard set 

and adhered to by manufacturers 

such as Sony, Philips, and Pioneer. 

Basic ‘collect and burn’ 

programs such as Roxio Toast and 

NTI Dragon Burn on the Mac and 

the likes of Ahead Nero on the PC 

have the ability to add perfectly 

adequate navigation to your discs, 

but for anything more complex you 

Apple DVD Studio 

Pro 3 

format Mac OS X 10.3.2 or later 

price £297 plus VAT 

company Apple, www.apple.com/uk 

contact Apple, 0800 783 4846 

minimum specs 733Mhz G4 or G5 Mac, 

AGP graphics card with 8MB of video memory, 

256MB RAM (512 MB recommended), 

QuickTime 6.5, 4.4GB Disk space, DVD drive 


The closest thing to a professional DVD authoring suite you’ll get on a Mac, DVD 

Studio Pro is closely integrated with the rest of the Mac OS media packages (Motion, 

Soundtrack, Final Cut Pro, iTunes, and iPhoto). The best thing about DVD Studio 

Pro is the level of user control available – Apple gives the author access to some 

in-depth commands from the user interface and allows scripting for more complex 

programming. For example, you can notify a DVD player if a user has viewed a certain 

First Play menu before and get it to jump ahead accordingly. 

The authoring process is fairly simple and can be carried out in any of three 

workflow configurations ranging from basic drag-&-drop elements to full outline 

views and scripting windows. Assets are imported into the application and can be 

encoded to MPEG format in the background as soon as they arrive in the Assets 

tab. Multi-layered graphic files can be imported as menu backgrounds and the 

product has tight integration with Photoshop – allowing live updating of edited files. 

Extra templates and interface elements, extra workflow enhancements and wider 

format support all arrived in version 3. Other enhancements include new transitions, 

buttons and slideshows, as well as extended support for video and audio formats. 

You’ll need a large drive to store all the templates and extras. Recent updates have 

allowed this tool to burn directly to dual-layer DVD-9 discs as well as encode HD 

material using the bundled Compressor application. 

need a dedicated DVD authoring 

application. All of the applications 

tested here offer designers the 

ability to create varying levels of 

complexity in their menus. Most 

have some facility to import layered 

images from a graphics package 

– normally Photoshop – or provide 

tools for adding text, images, and 

shapes (for buttons) within their 

own workspace. 

If you are designing your menus 

in an external editor, be aware that 

you should save screens as 

multi-layered files if you want 

to use button highlights. 

Author’s specials 

For motion menus it’s best to 

create complex transitions in an 

application such as After Effects, 

before importing the rendered 

project into the DVD project. 

You need to leave at least 

double the hard drive space 

required for authoring each project.

APPLE DVD STUDIO PRO IS THE CLOSEST THING TO A 

PROFESSIONAL AUTHORING SUITE AVAILABLE FOR THE MAC 

Pinnacle Liquid Edition 6 

format Windows 98/2000/XP 


company Pinnacle Systems, 

shop.pinnaclesys.com 

contact Pinnacle Systems, 01895 442 003 

minimum specs 800MHz processor, 256MB 

RAM, DirectX 9 compatible graphics and sound 

card, 500MB disk space, CD drive 

digit rating ★★★ 

★ ★ 

Pinnacle’s Liquid product is a full video editing and effects suite with an integrated 

DVD authoring component. The tools resemble a basic program such as Intervideo’s 

WinDVD, so if all you are looking for is some quick editing and simple transitions to 

prepare your disc, Liquid may be a bit of overkill. 

There are a number of wizards to make the process of assembling your assets 

easier – including a media search tool. The wizards are helpful, as Liquid is not a 

product you can pick up and run with, as you need to understand Liquid’s editing 

conventions first. 

Liquid is another package with one video track, but it allows users to assemble 

clips consecutively on the timeline. There are a number of menu templates to choose 

from – you can follow a wizard to add the menu asset to a sequence in the timeline, 

then create links to chapters. You can customize the menu in the Menu Template 

Editor, importing background graphics or adding or editing text. End actions are 

installed using jump markers in the Timeline, which return users to the main menu 

after every clip. You can save the finished project as an ISO file prior to burning. 

It may possess confusing proprietary quirks in some places, but Liquid Edition 

includes Hollywood FX Plus RT and TitleDeko RT for effects and titles. Having your 

effects, video, and authoring package in one suite is certainly of use to the DVD 

author, allowing you to create complex motion menus with transition effects before 

adding them to your DVD project. 

When you are working through a 

slew of DVDs, this probably means 

using a fast external drive. Some 

DVD writers do not support DVD+R 

discs – the Apple Superdrive is a 

notable example. 

DVDs have limited interactivity 

when compared with Web sites 

or games consoles, due mainly to 

the basic nature of consumer DVD 

players. The DVD specification is 

meant to ensure that the disc you 

author will play on all platforms. 

As the specification was set some 

time ago, many of the strictures 

imposed seem backward in 

today’s consumer market. However, 

developers have added some 

special features to applications to 

extend the use of the format, and 

a good designer will always be 

able to create some interaction 

using scripted behaviours, animated 

motion menus, and transitions and 

button routing. 

Button routing allows you to 

Sonic DVD Producer 

Authoring 5.0 

format Windows XP Pro 


company Sonic Solutions, www.sonic.com 

contact Sonic Solutions, 020 7437 1100 

minimum specs 1.7GHz Pentium IV CPU, 

512MB RAM, CD or DVD-ROM drive, 

1,024-x-768 resolution, 24-bit colour, 

200MB hard drive space 

digit rating ★★★★ ★ 

Sonic Producer goes some way to bridging the gap between high-end dedicated 

systems and the desktop DVD author. It ships in three versions – the option tested 

here ships with a 128MB Matrox Parhelia video card. The interface includes a timeline, 

a viewer window, a Palette for storing assets, a list window for adding menus and 

movies to a project, and a menu editor window. 

A large library of assets in the Producer folder is available to the Palette on 

opening. Menu graphics and imported assets are dragged onto the List Window 

to bring them into the project – along with any audio associated with the video. 

The menu building process is a straightforward case of drag-&-drop, with 

automatic linking of buttons and tracks. Button highlights can be set in the Properties 

window – though the application doesn’t support imported graphics with Alpha 

channels. There are several choices for menu button routing, including an AutoRoute 

choice. Support for burning DVD-9 discs directly came with version 4.5, so Sonic was 

ahead of the pack with Producer and you can also add a jacket picture for the project. 

Illegal formats for DVD use such as AVI are transcoded just before the build 

process, so be prepared for a long wait if you haven’t prepared your assets 

beforehand. Other products in the roundup share this lack of background encoding, 

but given the price here it could be seen as an omission. However, the application 

does ship with Sonic Audio Transcoder and MyDVD, a real time MPEG encoder. 

specify the behaviour of the cursor 

and remote control. Many packages 

allow both manual and auto-routing 

of buttons for greater flexibility, but 

it’s wise to keep to convention if the 

DVD is for the wider market. 

On the button 

To avoid unsightly jumps when 

the disc is accessed, you can set 

transitions between menu screens 

to play when buttons are pressed. 

Similarly, End actions are assigned 

to movies and menus to take the 

user back to a main menu screen 

after the movie has finished playing, 

or when a menu has cycled for 

a specified amount of time. 

Special features can be built 

into menus by accessing the 

parameter register memory values 

of a DVD. These are machine level 

commands that the player 

understands and can control 

parental management features, 

or whether to play a certain menu 

d 97

labs 

Sonic ReelDVD 3.1.3 

format Windows 2000/XP 


company Sonic Solutions, www.sonic.com 

contact Sonic Solutions, 020 7437 1100 

minimum specs Pentium III processor, 

800MHz , 256MB RAM, 2GB hard drive 

space, SoundBlaster compatible sound 

card with DirectSound support, CD or 

DVD-ROM drive 


Ideal for entry-level users, ReelDVD is a simple application. It has an open interface 

with a Windows-style explorer window. The Storyboard area is the starting point for 

assembling assets and elements. Files dragged into the Storyboard from the Explorer 

window are given the once-over by the application and a window pops up to say 

whether or not the format is supported. Only MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video is supported, 

so transcoding needs to be completed before bringing assets into ReelDVD. 

The storyboard builds up an arrangement of tracks, icons for menus, and 

connectors between them, which is ideal for the non-linear nature of DVD authoring. 

Once tracks are in the Storyboard, their component parts, known as streams, can be 

viewed in the Track Editor. Here is where the button highlights and subtitles for each 

track are set using up to 32 subpicture streams, as well as the language for the audio 

(up to eight streams). The Track editor also allows Dolby Digital audio files to be 

synced with the timecode in the video stream. 

Multi-layered PSD files can be imported intact, so that you can automatically 

define subpicture overlay masks and button hotspots for menus. In a further nod 

to professional authoring, button routing can be set up in the preview window while 

playback flow, End actions, and simple point-&-click programming can be set up 

in the Storyboard. There’s no facility for DVD-ROM content but ReelDVD will allow 

you to create a DVD-Video from prepared assets with little fuss. 

IF YOU’RE 

SERIOUS ABOUT 

AUTHORING, IT’S 

WORTH LOOKING 

AROUND TO TAKE 

ADVANTAGE OF 

THE LATEST 

TECHNOLOGY 

98 d 

if the viewer has seen it before. 

The power to access these 

features is what sets the higherend 

packages apart from the host 

of DVD authoring applications. 

The high storage capacity 

of DVDs can hold multiple types 

of information on one disc, which 

allows a degree of interactivity. For 

example, a band’s music DVD could 

hold extra material in a DVD-ROM 

section such as screensavers or 

Flash movies. The amount of space 

Ulead DVD Workshop 2 

format Microsoft Windows 2000/XP 


company Ulead Systems, www.ulead.co.uk 

contact Ulead Systems, 0049 2131 512 6850 

minimum specs Intel Pentium III 

800MHz or higher, 128MB RAM, 500MB 

of hard disk space, Microsoft DirectX 9 

and DVD-ROM drive 


DVD Workshop features a simple interface and has plenty of wizards to help you 

along. A well-sized Preview Window dominates the screen, with a Media Library 

to the side, and a Content Window in the form of a filmstrip below, used to define 

the order of material. 

DVD Workshop restricts the project to a single video track and there is very 

much a linear approach involved, with five tabbed windows carrying you through 

the authoring steps. Encoding is handled by Ulead’s MPEG-Direct codec so you 

can capture and translate any analog or DV footage into MPEG in one step, including 

video from non-copyrighted DVDs. 

Automatic scene detection in the form of Split by Scene allows the software 

to capture, detect, and arrange clips automatically, but there are also simple controls 

to trim or cut clips into separate files, insert chapter points and add background music. 

For more complex projects you can add or import up to 32 separate subtitle tracks 

complete with customized text, as well as eight audio tracks and audio fading options. 

Button routing facilities are available – you can manually assign commands to a playlist 

to control how menu buttons behave. 

The interface is far from sophisticated but this will suit many users who just need 

to assemble a project quickly. Recent update patches have provided support for duallayer 

authoring so this relatively inexpensive offering is still a valid package to consider 

for more professional work. 

used for video dictates the 

amount of interactive material 

you can include. 

Interactivity 

For this reason, commercial movie 

releases, which use high-quality 

video and audio streams packed 

on dual-layer discs, usually display 

little interactivity, while discs 

featuring less or lower quality video 

content, intended for play on a PC, 

will boast more interactive features. 

Web access can be built into 

DVDs, embedding hyperlinks or 

within DVD-ROM content, so that 

if the disc is being viewed on an 

Internet-connected PC, a Web 

page can be accessed. The buttons 

point to the corresponding Web 

links, and are stored on the DVD- 

ROM section of the disc. On a 

corporate DVD, you could embed 

links to a sales site or prompt 

a sales request by opening the 

user’s email program.

THE HIGH STORAGE CAPACITY OF DVDS MEANS 

THEY CAN OFFER A DEGREE OF INTERACTIVITY 

Alternatives 

Although there is a proliferation of DVD software for the prosumer, higher-end 

systems are available. Chief among these is the Scenarist line by Sonic Solutions. 

This is the weapon of choice for professional DVD authoring houses such as 

Abbey Road Interactive. There is a wide range of configurations that include an 

audio hardware converter, PCI encoder cards, dual monitors, and specialized 

software. The power of Scenarist lies in its ability to access the programming 

level of the DVD specification, providing a complete tape-to-disc solution that 

encodes, authors and outputs DVD projects for any purpose. 

Sonic’s SD-series Encoder hardware lies at the heart of the system, working 

in conjunction with real-time hardware video output that allows you to preview 

your project in real time on an external video monitor. The authoring process itself 

allows multiple video angles with audio/subtitle switching, jacket picture, subtitle 

effects, text data, 96KHz PCM Audio, DTS Audio, and even full karaoke support. 

The key factor in the success of Scenarist however is its cell-level access 

to the scripts that control DVD players. This allows precise control over every 

command and parameter available in the DVD specification, including access to 

all 16 General Parameter registers (GPRMs). Multiple users can work on parts of 

the same project at once thanks to a powerful workgroup management system. 

Pioneer also has a high-end solution in the form of the PRV-LX10 Professional 

DVD-Video recorder. This features a modular design with a 120GB hard drive and 

up to two DVD-R/RW drives in one unit. It allows one-step conversion of video 

assets to DVD, easy authoring of video projects and video archiving to DVD- 

Video format. Designed for those with limited knowledge of DVD authoring 

on computers, it can create DVD-Video on DVD-R or DVD-RW 4.7GB discs 

and allows real-time recording and menu creation. 

Basic editing features allow users to trim VOB files, precisely remove 

and replace chapter points and reassign the title order. The internal hard drive 

allows storage of over 20 DVD projects, as well as libraries of menu backgrounds, 

button layout files, and EDL data. The recorder offers multiple analogue and 

digital connections and RS-422A and FireWire control capabilities. An ethernet 

port allows you to transfer files to the internal drive via a network connection. 

Many DVD authoring applications will only accept video and audio assets 

1 2 3 

Discreet Cleaner XL (1), Canopus ProCoder 2.0 (2), Optibase MPEG MovieMaker 200S (3) 

In authoring terms, the standard 

designation for single layer and 

dual layer media is DVD-5 and 

DVD-9 respectively. Until now, 

consumer DVD-9 projects were 

largely confined by the recordable 

media available. So, disk images 

had to be saved to DLT drives 

for pressing to DVD-ROM by 

commercial authoring houses. 

Older commercial dual-layer DVD 

formats weren’t compatible with 

existing DVD Video players either. 

In a breakthrough in dual-layer 

recording however, competing 

DVD-RW DL and DVD+RW DL 

formats are now available, so a 

new stage of DVD-authoring is set 

to be played out. The new formats 

virtually double data storage 

capacity on DVD recordable discs 

from 4.7GB to 8.5GB, allowing 

recordable media to provide space 

similar to the discs pressed by the 

major studios for their movies. 

Most of the applications tested 

encoded in formats that are ‘legal’ for the DVD specification. For encoding 

purposes, a third party hardware system or application is often required. One 

such system is the MPEG MovieMaker 200S from Optibase. Available in Basic 

or Xpress configurations, MPEG MovieMaker 200S is an MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 

encoding platform for DVD creation that ships as a half-size PCI card. 

Encoding options 

It offers a range of video and audio interfaces, video resolutions, audio encoding 

format and MPEG multiplexing capabilities. Integrated with Optibase’s developer 

tools and video streaming and networking platform, the boards are bundled with 

the MPEG Composer 200, a well-featured encoding-management application. 

ProCoder 2.0 by Canopus provides powerful tools to prepare source video 

for conversion. Stitching allows multiple source clips in different formats and 

resolutions to be linked together to create one or more target clips. Video and 

audio filters provide high quality enhancement tools, such as bitmap overlay, 

cropping and volume adjustment, and to protect input before encoding, while 

target filters allow specific adjustments to be made for particular output formats. 

You don’t need specialized hardware for the encoding process. A software 

solution that content creators have been using for years is still going strong in 

the shape of Discreet Cleaner. Available for both Mac and PC platforms, Cleaner 

provides support for more than 60 media formats, including QuickTime 6, MPEG- 

4, Windows Media 9 (including support for HD and multi-channel audio), 

RealSystem 9, and AAC. 

High performance, high quality MPEG-1 and 2 VBR encoding allows 

users to create top quality video for DVDs and Video-CDs, as well as providing 

a way to tweak the video with Cleaner’s controls to get the highest quality. 

Professionally designed presets are available, allowing users to understand 

trade-offs between encoding output and quality, as well as allowing them to 

tweak the presets to get exactly what is required without starting from scratch. 

Both Cleaner 6 on the Mac and Cleaner XL on the PC platform have the 

ability to set watch folders to encode footage automatically as well as output 

the encoded material to multiple local, network, and FTP destinations. 

here have had point updates 

rushed out in the past month to 

provide support for dual-layer 

authoring, while hardware 

manufacturers are bringing out 

dual-layer burners. We used one 

such device as the baseline drive 

for the test – a new standalone 

FireWire burner from Plextor (the 

PX716UF), which we used with 

both Mac and PC applications. 

Drives like this can support 

a dizzying number of formats, so 

if you’re serious about authoring 

it’s worth looking around to take 

advantage of the latest technology. 

The recordable Dual-Layer discs 

will be priced at a premium until 

they become more widely accepted. 

For that reason we’ll use the DVD-5 

compatible single layer DVD format 

and its rewritable derivatives. It’s 

best to use branded disks, so we 

used a selection of 8x and 16x 

speed TDK DVD+Rs and 2x speed 

DVD-RW discs for the test. 

d 99

labs 

main picture. Sony Vaio FS195XP 

1. AJP D900T, 2. Alienware MJ-12m 7700 , 

3. Apple PowerBook G4 15-inch 

4. Dell Latitude D610, 5. Evesham Voyager XT , 

6. HP NW8000, 7. Sony Vaio A397XP 

100 d

Creative laptops 

BY NEIL BENNETT 

The next generation of laptops and mobile workstations are here, so whether 

you need something small and light for regular travel or a powerhouse that 

only needs to go desk-to-desk, prepare to do more on the move. 

2 

004 was supposed to see the laptop emerge – we’d all chuck out 

our hulking desktops and workstations and work from ‘hot’ desks 

and airport lounges on tiny silver devices, serviced by secretaries 

in pencil skirts while saying ‘Ciao’ into mobile phones. 

While this fed the fantasies of largely male sales departments and 

middle managers, creative pros have been underwhelmed by what’s been 

made available to them. Creative applications from Quark and Photoshop 

to Final Cut Pro and LightWave require high-resolution workspaces, which 

require a screen at least 15-inches in size. The only laptops combining 

spacious displays with a light frame seemed to be Apple’s PowerBook 

G4s, which were a generation behind their workstation-class G5 cousins. 

At the beginning of 2005 though, Intel is attempting redress the balance 

between power and mobility with a renewed version of its Centrino platform 

for notebook computers. The platform, known by its development codename 

Sonoma, will provide benefits across the board, according to Intel. 

The Centrino platform is aimed at notebook computers and consists 

of three major pieces: the processor, its companion chipset, and a wireless 

board. The new Centrino platform includes improved versions of all three 

components with a new chipset, called 915 Express, forming its centrepiece. 

The 915 Express chipset, formerly known by the code-name Alviso, adds 

support for the PCI Express interconnect technology. This allows users to 

add more powerful graphics chips to their notebooks. 

The chipset supports DDR2 memory, a next-generation memory 

standard that clears the way for memory chips to run at faster speeds. 

The chipset also comes with support for a faster front-side bus, increasing 

the speed at which data flows between the processor and the memory 

from 400MHz to 533MHz. Multimedia improvements include support 

for Dolby Digital and Dolby 7.1-channel surround sound. 

Changes have also been made to the wireless side of the package. 

There is improved networking software, within both the chipset and a new 

client application. Intel says this will make it easier for users to connect to 

Wi-Fi access points, as well as bring several security enhancements aimed 

at enterprise users. However, wireless speeds are still significantly slower 

than their ethernet equivalents. Wireless is great for Web surfing but you’re 

still better off plugging in to move Quark documents or video clips around 

your studio’s network. 

Seven new Pentium M processors are available as part of the package. 

They range from a top-of-the-range model that runs at 2.13GHz to an Ultra 

Low Voltage version that runs at 1.2GHz. 

Intel has presented benchmark tests that show a notebook PC with 

a 1.6GHz processor running the new Centrino platform would deliver a 5 

per cent increase in performance with no impact on battery life, compared 

to a similar PC running at the same speed based on the old platform. The 

difference in graphics performance between the same two PCs is even 

greater with the new Centrino platform delivering a 91 per cent increase 

in performance, according to Intel’s benchmarks. 

2 3 4 5 

6 

7 8 

d 101

VISIT OUR WEST LONDON SOLUTIONS CENTRE • CALL 020 8400 1241 • SHOP ONLINE @ WWW.GOTSC.COM 

A/V Editing 

Final Cut HD 

Edit, finish and deliver HD, 

SD and DV media for film, 

video and TV using Emmy 

award-winning, XML-enabled Final Cut Pro 

HD; now providing DVCPRO HD video 

support, the Digital Cinema Desktop and RT 

Extreme enhanced for HD. 

£579 ex vat £680.33 inc vat 

Motion 

Create professional motion 

graphics for film, video, TV 

and DVDs using Motion, a 

breakthrough offering selfpropelled 

animation 

technology and real-time previewing for 

spontaneous and intuitive motion graphics 

creation. 

£169 ex vat £198.58 inc vat 

DVD Studio Pro 3 

Design, build and author 

state-of-the art DVDs using 

comprehensive authoring 

tools that include new autogenerated 

transitions, the Graphical View, 

DTS audio support and high quality HD to 

MPEG-2 encoding. 

£295 ex vat £346.63 inc vat 

Shake 3.5 

Design and composite 

stunning corrective and 

fantastic visual effects for 

film and HD. Render using 

Qmaster, the industrialstrength, 

scalable network rendering 

manager free with Shake for Mac OS X. 

£1785 ex vat £2097.38 inc vat 

Avid Xpress Pro 

The complete solution for 

portable, pro real-time video 

and audioediting. Real-time 

FX, titles, keys, audio, color 

correction and compositing. 

£1120 ex vat £1316 inc vat 

AJA Io 

Io offers Final Cut Pro users unsurpassed 10bit 

uncompressed video and multi-channel 

audio. With Io, you can configure a Power 

Mac as a professional editing suite, 

corporate/industrial video center, or highpowered 

desktop video setup - and just 

about anything in between. 

£1599 ex vat £1878.83 inc vat 

Video Cameras / Decks 

Sony GV-D1000 £799 £938.83 

Sony DSR-11 £1299 £1526.33 

Canon XM-2 £1349 £1585.08 

Canon XL-2 £2880 £3384.00 

Sony HDR-FX1 £2120 £2491.00 

Sony HVR-Z1 £3040 £3572.00 

AJA Video Interfaces 

AJA LA (analog) £849 £997.58 

AJA LD (SDI) £649 £762.58 

Analog - Firewire 

Datavideo DAC-10 £395 £464.13 

Canopus ADVC-55 £129 £151.58 

Canopus ADVC-110 £199 £233.83 

Canopus ADVC-300 £349 £410.08 

Audio Interfaces 

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AJP D900T 

format 17-inch widescreen 


company AJP, www.ajp.co.uk 

contact AJP, 020 8208 9744 

digit rating ★★★★ ★ 

This is a whopper. It dwarfs every other unit in this group 

except Alienware’s MJ-12m 7700, which uses the same 

hulking Clevo chassis. It also weighs just under a ton 

(actually 5kg, or two 15-inch PowerBooks), runs for less 

than an hour without being plugged into the mains and 

produces as much heat as a Metro on a motorway. 

This may seem faintly ridiculous – and if you regard 

the D900T in terms of a traditional laptop, it is. However, 

if you work desk to desk (or home to work) and you’re 

after a level of power just not available from traditional 

laptops, a unit such as this makes perfect sense.The 

power comes from a 3.2GHz desktop Pentium 4 chip, 

which is accessed through a desktop-level 800MHz 

frontside bus. The D900T features 1GB of DDR2 memory 

and NVidia’s latest, greatest mobile graphics chip, the 

256MB RAM-enabled GeForce Go 6800. It’s a set-up 

that would make most desktop users jealous. 

All this power is accessed through a top-quality 

X-black-type 17-inch screen, which looks fantastic. 

The black-&-silver chassis looks impressive, and features 

an excellent keyboard and trackpad – though the pad 

is the wrong aspect ratio for the screen. 

The D900T falls down because it’s not fully 

featured enough to justify the weight and size. The 

3.2GHz P4 chip is good, but a 3.4GHz or 3.6GHz unit 

would have been better. The 80GB hard drive only 

runs at 4,200rpm, only one of the D900’s two bays is 

used and many creative applications require the full 

Professional version of Windows XP. The chassis is 

credible if you fulfil its potential, as with Alienware’s 

unit (right), but not if you cut corners. 

Alienware MJ-12m 7700 



company Alienware, www.alienware.co.uk 

contact Alienware, 0800 279 9751 


If you’re shopping for a new machine, check the specifications to 

ensure you get all the benefits of the new platform. This is because Intel 

is allowing manufacturers some degree of freedom in their selection of the 

Centrino platform. For example, two wireless adaptors are available but only 

one supports 802.11a networking. Similarly, four chipsets are available to 

PC makers but only two of them support the faster 533MHz front-side bus. 

Thermal challenge 

Away from Intel, there is less to shout about in terms of processors and 

architecture. AMD’s mobile processors have found more favour in low-cost 

units, and Apple is still stuck with its G4 chips for its laptops – claiming 

that putting a G5 chip in a laptop is “the mother of thermal challenges”. 

Based around the same enormous Clevo chassis as 

the AJP D900T, the MJ-12m 7700 contains more than 

enough power and peripheral features to justify its size 

and weight. It’s expensive – almost two grand. However, 

the overall package just about justifies the cost. 

The 3.4GHz Pentium 4 processor at the heart of the 

7700 is one step below Intel’s fastest desktop chip. It’s 

only slightly faster at pure processing than the 3.2GHz 

chip found in the D900T, but it’s much quicker than any 

of the Pentium M chips at high-intensity processing. The 

7700 was over two minutes faster than the D900T in our 

Photoshop 2D image processing test, even though both 

machines feature 1GB of identical DDR 2 RAM. This can 

be attributed not only to the faster processor, but also 

the 7700’s innovative drive system. 

The 7700 is the first laptop we’ve seen with two 

hard drives inside. The two 60GB drives run at 7,200rpm, 

which makes them viable for video editing, and are joined 

as a RAID array. This had been set-up as a single 120GB 

drive, but this could theoretically be set as a single 60GB 

mirrored drive for extra data protection. 

It’s for the power and features such as this that some 

users will plump for the 7700 over lighter 17-inch models. 

Alienware also has a mobile workstation version coming 

out soon, which is identical apart from using NVidia’s 

Quadro FX Go1400 graphics chip. 

Other details we like included the excellent X-blacktype 

screen, the dual-layer DVD±RW drive, and the 

multiple media card slots that will work with almost 

any camera. Only Bluetooth is a notable exception 

to the 7700’s feature set. 

Apple PowerBook G4 15-inch 


price £1,343.88 plus VAT 

company Apple, www.apple.com/uk 

contact Apple, 0800 783 4846 


This new PowerBook isn’t a G5, but it’s still a notable 

machine. It’s not the fastest, but it offers great valuefor-money 

and style. 

To some creatives, though, all that matters is that 

it’s a Mac; it runs Mac OS X, and is the smallest, lightest 

15-inch we’ve seen. If you have an older PowerBook, 

the speed bump to 1.67GHz is noticeable with larger 

documents and media. The sleek aluminium design is 

getting a bit old now, but you’ll still garner envious looks. 

This PowerBook’s main competitor is Sony’s Vaio 

FS195XP, which is very similar in price and purpose. The 

specs almost match too: processor (1.67GHz vs 1.73GHz), 

RAM (512MB), screen resolution (1,280-x-854 vs 1,200x-800), 

DVD±RW drive and wireless (though Bluetooth 

is only an option on the Sony). 

The differences begin with the screen, which the 

Vaio wins hands down with the glossy X-black display. 

The Vaio has the edge for high-intensity processing 

(LightWave test) and image processing (Photoshop), 

and knocks the stuffing out of the Mac at 3D. To the 

Vaio’s advantage, the 1.73GHz processor is only midrange 

– while the PowerBook’s 1.67GHz is as good 

as it gets. The PowerBook has the advantage with 

weight (it’s 800g lighter) and battery life (4.5 hours 

to the Vaio’s two hours). 

However the PowerBook also features innovations 

not found on the Sony: notably the scrolling trackpad, 

Sudden Motion Sensor and Bluetooth 2.0. The trackpad 

allows two fingers to be used for scrolling and other 

functions, and works well – though two buttons would 

have been more useful. 

However, innovation has appeared in other areas, with Apple debuting a 

faster wireless connectivity standard for connecting peripherals (Bluetooth 

2.0), and technologies first introduced by single manufacturers last year 

appearing across the board. 

In 2004, Sony introduced its revolutionary X-black screen technology, 

which produced brighter and richer output than we’re used to with LCD 

displays – nearer, in fact, to what you’d expect from a CRT display. Video 

editors especially will appreciate the extra brightness. Now the technology 

is also available on larger models from more specialist manufacturers. 

In the last year we’ve also seen widescreen displays change from being 

confined to a stylish minority to appearing on most models. As well as 

improving the looks of a laptop, widescreen laptops are generally easier 

d 103 

labs

labs 

Dell Latitude D610 

format 14-inch conventional 


company Dell, www.dell.com/uk 

contact Dell, 0870 152 4699 

digit rating ★★★ ★★ 

Quite why Dell sent us the Latitude D610 for our feature 

on laptops for creatives, I’m not sure. However, it 

provides an excellent lesson on why we require the 

specs that we do – and why our laptops cost so much 

more than those dinky units the sales guys are running 

around with. The D610 would be ideal for the travelling 

businessman or woman, but it’s not for the creative 

professional at all. 

As you’d expect, the D610 comes last in all of our 

tests – even losing out to the 15-inch Powerbook in 

our 3D tests. The results also seem better than they 

really are, as the 1,024-x-768-pixel screen has almost 

a third less pixels for the graphics system to deal with 

than a 1,200-x-800 screen such as that found on the 

PowerBook or Vaio FS195XP. It’s pretty lame, though 

that’s hardly surprising considering the basic processor 

and lack of a separate graphics chip. 

The 14.1-inch screen has its advantages – it’s much 

easier to use in cramped conditions such as on a plane 

– but the D610’s only slightly lighter than the 15-inch 

PowerBook, and the resolution is too low for most 

major creative applications. 

To keep the price down to less than £800, Dell has 

skimped on the hard drive – which is only 40GB in size 

– and the optical DVD/CD-RW combo drive. These could 

be improved using the online build-to-order site, as you 

could spec the machine up to a 2GHz (Pentium M 760), 

2GB RAM, ATI X300 graphics chip, a 1,280-x-1,024 

screen, 80GB hard drive, and a a/b/g wireless card 

for a whopping £2,094 plus VAT – and you’d still be 

better off with a 15- or 17-inch Sony. 

to use in cramped environments, such as while flying cattle class. 

IBM was first to introduce drop protection for the notebook hard drive, 

using motion sensors to shut it down before it hits the floor. From the 

original ‘Active Protection System’, we now have other systems such as 

Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor. 

Power tools 

The new PowerBooks are the first to support Bluetooth 2.0, which is 

designed to be three times as fast as the Bluetooth 1.0/1.2 found on all 

other devices. However, this is less about speed than saving battery life – 

anyone trying to print photos via Bluetooth will appreciate the speed jump. 

Open Bluetooth connections eat battery power, and transferring data in a 

104 d 

Evesham Voyager XT HP NW8000 


price £976.85 plus VAT 

company Evesham, www.evesham.com 

contact Evesham, 0870 160 9700 

digit rating ★ 

The Voyager XT is the definitive average creative laptop. 

Its specifications look pretty good on paper and it’s 

available at a very good price. However, there’s nothing 

to make you rush out and buy it. 

The overall styling of the Voyager XT is very 

corporate, but it’s much more powerful than the sales 

force-focused Latitude D610 (left). The 1.8GHz Pentium 

M 745 processor is powerful, but relies on a 400MHz 

frontside bus. The standard 512MB RAM is DDR RAM, 

not the faster DDR2 memory found on other new models. 

The modern prevalence of widescreen displays may be in 

part an affectation for style points, but it’s semi-practical 

too, so the Voyager XT misses the bus here, too. 

Certain physical components aren’t good quality 

either. The keyboard and trackpad are as comfortable 

and responsive as you’d expect from a standard laptop, 

not what you require from a high-end creative laptop set 

against models from Apple and Sony. The keyboard was 

very squidgy, almost reminiscent of an old ZX Spectrum. 

Below the trackpad is a scrollpad, which is a nice 

thought but not high-enough quality to be truly useful. 

The ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 gives the Voyager 

XT more 3D power than any other Pentium M-based 

laptop – only beaten by the huge 17-inch desktop 

replacements from AJP and Alienware. The Voyager 

XT’s connectivity options are basic, only offering 

10/100Mbps ethernet networking – most other 

laptops in this group test offer Gigabit, and b/g 

wireless networking. There’s no Bluetooth and only 

two USB 2.0 ports. The DVD-RAM drive is unusual, 

but slow as it’s DVD recording is limited to 2x speed. 



company HP, www.hp.com/uk 

contact HP, 0870 241 1485 

digit rating ★★★★ 

★★★★ ★ 

The NW8000 is the most reasonably-sized mobile 

workstation models in this round-up – but smaller 

and lighter models have since appeared from Dell and 

IBM. The NW8000 is still a worthy machine though, 

if hampered by an outdated graphics chip and less 

than up-to-date technology. 

At 2.9kg, the NW8000 is as light as the Evesham 

Voyager or the 15-inch Sony model. The case design 

isn’t bad, and it certainly feels more robust than the 

cases of either of those two models. Look inside it, 

though, and the NW8000’s weaknesses appear. 

The 2GHz Pentium M chip is powerful – but the 

400MHz frontside bus lets it down. This is because the 

NW8000 is essentially based on pre-Sonoma technology. 

The NW8000’s screen is great, but it’s been usurped 

by the X-black-type screens becoming more widespread. 

The NW8000’s screen is still better than most offerings, 

though. 

More importantly, the ATI Mobility FireGL T2 

graphics chip that makes the NW8000 a mobile 

workstation is getting on a bit. With a new range of 

Mobility FireGL chips on the way – the V5000, the V7800 

and the V9000 – that boast more power and PCI Express 

connectivity, the poor old T2 looks very lame indeed. 

The NW8000 did comparatively well in our tests 

– but certainly not well enough to justify the price being 

even £450 more than the well-beaten MJ-12M 7700. 

As Digit went to press, HP has announced an 

upgraded version of the NW8000 that adds the Mobility 

FireGL V5000 graphics chip. We’d recommend you wait 

for this NW8240 instead. 

third of the time will save you much juice. Unfortunately, there aren’t any 

Bluetooth 2.0-compatible devices available yet. 

Other useful devices that are becoming more widespread include duallayer 

DVD burners, which allow 8.5GB to be burned to a single disc – 

though media prices are still prohibitively expensive at around £6 plus VAT 

per disc unless you order in bulk online. More laptops are including media 

card ports, which is great if you are always losing your USB card reader – 

though an SD card slot isn’t much use if your camera uses Memory Sticks. 

A laptop may not be your primary machine, especially with a deadline 

hanging around your neck – but when it’s time to kick back, chill out and 

be creative, a laptop in the garden with a beer on a summer’s day is just 

what you need.

labs 

Sony Vaio FS195XP 



company Sony, www.sony.co.uk 

contact Sony, 08705 111 999 

digit rating 

The Vaio FS195XP is Sony’s take on Apple’s new 15-inch 

PowerBook. Although stylish, Vaios used to come in two 

varieties: large, heavy, and powerful; or small, light, and 

a bit weak. The FS195XP isn’t quite as diddy as the 

PowerBook or as stylish as the 17-inch Vaio (right), 

but it’s an all-round performer let down by some 

graphical corner cutting. 

Based on Intel’s Sonoma platform, the FS195XP 

has some powerful technologies behind the rather 

bland specs. 512MB of RAM is right for the price, 

though the 1GB limit is crap. It’s DDR2 memory, which 

gives this Vaio a slight advantage in RAM-hungry tools 

such as Photoshop. The 1.73GHz Pentium M processor 

is faster than the 1.67GHz Power PC G4 processor found 

in the PowerBook. More importantly, you have the option 

to spend more and get a processor up to 2.13GHz in 

speed, which you don’t with the PowerBook. 

What will attract most users, though, is the X-black 

screen – though this is no longer only available on Sony 

laptops and monitors. Unfortunately, the screen is 

powered by an NVidia GeForce Go 3200 graphics 

processor, which only has 16MB or 32MB of graphics 

RAM (Sony couldn’t say which). The 128MB quoted 

figure is found by adding this to the amount of normal 

RAM that the graphics chip can use – dropping the 

available power overall. This leaves this Vaio lagging 

behind other PC laptops in the 3D stakes, but still 

ahead of the 15-inch PowerBook. 

This Vaio lacks the PowerBook’s scrolling trackpad, 

Sudden Motion Sensor, and Bluetooth 2.0 – though 

none of these are essential. 

Testing procedures 

The laptops were benchmarked for 2D graphics 

and rendering performance. All tests were performed 

three times directly from start-up and an average 

taken. Video-manipulation performance was tested 

using Adobe After Effects and Discreet Combustion. 

Photoshop 

This test performs 20 actions upon a 200MB image, 

within Photoshop CS with Version Cue running. 

Results are in seconds and smaller bars are better. 

106 d 

Sony Vaio A397XP 



company Sony, www.sony.co.uk 

contact Sony, 08705 111 999 

digit rating 

★★★★★ ★★★★★ 

The Vaio A397XP is an absolute corker. It offers the best 

balance of power and mobility for the creative designer – 

and looks great to boot. It’s as if the AJP or Alienware 

units had been on a serious diet, making it thin and light 

enough to use on the move and powerful enough to use 

as your central design, editing, or animation machine. 

The outside looks great, but it’s the screen that really 

shines. Combining Sony’s X-black technology with a 

high-definition 1,920-x-1,200 resolution matrix, it’s the 

best laptop screen we’ve ever seen. Images in Photoshop 

are extremely detailed and colourful, and the screen 

offers spacious layouts within usually cluttered video 

editing and 3D applications. Even at this resolution, the 

ATI X600 chip keeps 3D graphics running smoothly and 

generating a decent Cinebench score – helped along by 

the fast 2GHz processor and 1GB of DDR2 memory. 

Results in Photoshop were less impressive, though 

perfectly adequate. We could see that redrawing the 

huge resolution was slowing down image processing, 

which the swift time in LightWave backed up. However, 

the small delay is worthwhile. Only the two huge Pentium 

4-based units were more powerful than the A397XP, and 

their size and weight puts them in a different category of 

device entirely. 

Also adding points to the A397XP’s score was a 

responsive trackpad, which was the correct shape – 

unlike some of the other widescreen laptops, and a 

comfortably large keyboard. This Vaio matched its much 

bigger brothers for sound quality from its little speakers, 

and the dual-layer Sony DW-D56A DVD±RW drive. 

A definite winner. 

Cinebench 

Cinebench 2003 simulates scenes from within Maxon 

Cinema 4D. Scores given are the OpenGL HW-L result. 

This is an indication of the frame-rate and 3D power 

of the host machine, placing particular stress on 

the graphics card. The test passes the position of 

light sources and geometry to the graphics card, 

which processes them using OpenGL. Results are 

in Cinebench’s proprietary units, and longer bars 

are better. 

products 

at a glance 

MANUFACTURER AJP 

MODEL D900T 

PRICE PLUS VAT £1,399 

DIGIT RATING 

OS Windows XP Home 

CPU Pentium 4 540 (3.2GHz) 

RAM (STANDARD/MAX) 1GB/2GB 

FRONT SIDE BUS 800MHz 

SCREEN 17-inch 

ASPECT RATIO Widescreen 

RESOLUTION 1,680-x-1,050 

GRAPHICS CARD NVidia GeForce Go 6800 

GRAPHICS RAM 256MB 

HARD DISK 80GB 

OPTICAL DRIVE DVD±RW (dual layer) 

MEDIA CARD SLOTS CF, SM, SD, MS 

INPUT DEVICE Trackpad 

DIMENSIONS (W-X-D-X-H) 397-x-298-x-50mm 

WEIGHT INCLUDING BATTERY 5.2kg 

BATTERY LIFE 1 hour 

ETHERNET Gigabit 

WIRELESS CONNECTION 802.11b/g/Bluetooth/IR 

PORTS 4x USB 2.0, 2x FireWire, 

DVI, S-Video, composite 

video, PCMCIA, keyboard/ 

mouse, parallel, serial, modem 

Rendering 

★★★★ 

★ 

This uses the Tracer – Radiosity.lws file, included 

with LightWave 7.5c, with the resolution multiplier 

raised to 50 per cent (from 25 per cent) to test the 

response to very complex scenes and long-term 

stability. The Image Viewer FP was turned on. 

Rendering was performed using two threads per 

Hyper-Threaded or 64-bit processor and one thread 

per processor for other chips. Results are in minutes 

and seconds, and shorter bars are better.

ALIENWARE APPLE DELL EVESHAM HP SONY SONY 

MJ-12M 7700 POWERBOOK G4 15-INCH LATITUDE D610 VOYAGER XT NW8000 VAIO FS195XP VAIO A397XP 

£1,928 £1,343.83 £799 £976.85 £2,399 £1,344 £1,899 

★★★★★ 

Windows XP Professional Mac OS X 10.3 Windows XP Professional Windows XP Home Windows XP Professional Windows XP Professional Windows XP Professional 

Pentium 4 550 (3.4GHz) PowerPC G4 1.67GHz Pentium M 730 (1.6GHz) Pentium M 745 (1.8GHz) Pentium M 755 (2GHz) Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz) Pentium M 760 (2GHz) 

1GB/2GB 512MB/2GB 512MB/2GB 512MB/1GB 1GB/2GB 512MB/1GB 512MB/1GB 

800MHz 167MHz 533MHz 400MHz 400MHz 533MHz 533MHz 

17-inch 15-inch 14.1-inch 15-inch 15-inch 15.4-inch 17-inch 

Widescreen Widescreen Conventional Conventional Conventional Widescreen Widescreen 

1,680-x-1,050 1,280-x-854 1.024-x-768 1,400-x-1,050 1,600-x-1,200 1,280-x-800 1,920-x-1,200 

NVidia GeForce Go 6800 ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 integrated ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 ATI Mobility FireGL T2 NVidia GeForce Go 6200 ATI Mobility Radeon X600 

256MB 64MB up to 128MB (shared) 128MB 128MB up to 128MB (shared) 128MB 

120GB 100GB 40GB 80GB 60GB 100GB 80GB 

DVD±RW (dual layer) DVD±RW DVD/CD-RW DVD-RW/RAM DVD/CD+RW DVD±RW (dual layer) DVD±RW (dual layer) 

CF, SM, SD, MS None None None SD Card Memory Stick Memory Stick 

Trackpad Trackpad Trackpad/Pointer Trackpad Trackpad Trackpad Trackpad 

397-x-298-x-50mm 348-x-241-x-28mm 312-x-262.2-x-34.3mm 326-x-258-x-25mm 326-x-275-x-41mm 364-x-265-x-25mm 406-x-280-x-42mm 

5.2kg 2.5kg 2.2kg 2.9kg 2.9kg 2.9kg 3.9kg 

1 hour 4.5 hours not quoted 3 hours 2 hours 2 hours 2 hours 

Gigabit Gigabit Gigabit 10/100Mbps Gigabit 10/100Mbps Gigabit 

802.11b/g/IR 802.11b/g/Bluetooth 802.11b/g/IR 802.11b/g/IR 802.11b/g/Bluetooth/IR 802.11b/g/IR 802.11b/g/Bluetooth/IR 

2.0+EDR/IR 

4x USB 2.0, 2x FireWire, 2x USB 2.0, FireWire 800, 4x USB 2.0, VGA, S-Video, 2x USB 2.0, FireWire, VGA, 2x USB 2.0, FireWire, 3x USB 2.0, FireWire, VGA, 3x USB 2.0, FireWire, 

DVI, S-Video, composite FireWire, DVI, S-Video, PCMCIA, parallel, serial, S-Video, PCMCIA, parallel, VGA, S-Video, PCMCIA, S-Video, PCMCIA, parallel, VGA, S-Video, PCMCIA, 

video, PCMCIA, keyboard/ PCMCIA, modem modem modem parallel, serial, modem modem parallel, modem 

mouse, parallel, serial, modem “ 

Test results 

★★★★★ 

★★★ ★★ 

★★★★ ★ 

★★★★★ 

★★★★★ ★★★★★ 

AJP D900T Alienware Apple PowerBook Dell Latitude Evesham HP NW8000 Sony Vaio Sony Vaio 

MJ-12m 7700 G4 15-inch D610 Voyager XT FS195XP A397XP 

LightWave 39m 49s 37m 21s 64m 24s 66m 5s 58m 35s 56m 19s 61m 21s 53m 11s 

Photoshop 8m 53s 6m 47s 11m 52s 14m 20s 10m 19s 6m 53s 11m 17s 10m 46s 

Cinebench (CB) 2627 2588 806 624 2311 2643 1816 2289 

d 107

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Digit Buyers guide 

Digit’s mission is to review and rate professional 

tools that bring out the creativity in you. Each month, 

Digit reviews more creative products than any other 

magazine in the UK, and Digit reviews are the most 

respected in the industry. The Digit Buyers Guide 

provides the most authoritative listing of reviewed 

products in the past year, including ratings, contact 

details, and a product summary. Pricing is correct at 

the time of the review, but please note that pricing 

does change – you should contact your distributor 

for pricing information before purchasing. The 

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d 109 

buyers guide

uyers guide 

DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: WORKSTATIONS 

110 d 

Apple Power Mac G5 dual 2GHz 

Everything the Mac community had hoped it 

would be, the Power Mac G5 is fantastic with 

Photoshop, and could convert Windows users 

Dell Precision M60 

A sleek and businesslike notebook that is suitably 

kitted-out for the creative professional. Boasts the 

Pentium M processor (1.7GHz) and 2GB of RAM 

Sony Vaio GRT996ZP 

Huge and powerful, this Vaio has the best screen 

we’ve ever seen on a laptop. A 3.2GHz Pentium 4 

chip adds speed to this desktop-replacement 

Xworks X6 

Incredibly fast processing speeds, plenty of 

RAM, and flexible upgrade options make the 

X6 a fantastic machine 

Buying advice: digital cameras 

If you want a digital camera for serious design and 

publication work, you’ll probably reach for a digital SLR 

first. These cameras are built for professional photography. 

With a digital SLR model, you’re sure of high-quality 

output, the lenses are interchangeable, and the cameras 

can communicate with proper flash lighting systems. 

Digital SLRs are now starting to fall in price, too, so they’re 

becoming an affordable solution to your imaging problems. 

However, a few of the top ‘prosumer’ compact 

cameras offer similar capabilities, so it’s worth checking 

out your options. 

The race to pack in higher megapixel output seems 

never-ending – the current crop of compact models has 

eight million pixels. Higher resolutions can decrease 

output quality, because cramming more sensor cells onto 

small CCD sensors increases image noise. However, there 

are signs that suggest manufacturers realize high megapixel 

output only gives their products a temporary competitive 

advantage, and we’re seeing some genuinely useful 

innovations too. 

For instance, some manufacturers are addressing one 

of the biggest limitations of digital sensors – the dynamic 

range. This is the ability to capture detail in both bright 

highlights and deep shadows in the same exposure. 

HP and Fujifilm have both come up with technologies 

that attempt to improve dynamic range. HP’s Adaptive 

Lighting features on its Photosmart 945 model. When a 

photograph is taken, the camera calculates a contrast 

mask, and electronically balances the range of tones. 

Fujifilm’s method involves two photodiode sensors 

in each cell area of its Super CCD HR sensor. The two 

photodiode sensors have different light sensitivities, 

and the camera chooses which one to use for different 

areas of the image. 

Product name Price Company and contact details Platform Reviewed Digit rating 

Workstations 

Acumen Xtreme £1,899 Evesham, www.evesham.com, 0870 160 9700 Windows Oct 04 3.0 

Looks like a winner on paper, but the Acumen Xtreme performs poorly. It incorporates a lot of new kit though, and packs in top accessories 

Aspire 2000 £1,020 Acer, www.acernotebooks.co.uk, 0845 226 2235 Windows Jun 04 4.0 

Some nice touches make this a sexy system for the mobile businessperson, but the Aspire 2000’s screen is too low-res for the creative 

Centurion £1,299 ACi, www.aciplc.com, 020 8830 1958 Windows Jun 04 3.0 

A no-frills Centrino-based laptop. Boasts 1GB of RAM for a reasonable price, but the screen and hard drive are notably average 

Crossbow XB-A700 £1,275 Armari, www.armari.co.uk, 01923 225 550 Windows Digit 76 3.5 

A good attempt to put workstation components in a small case. It looks great, but because of its small size, upgrade options are restricted 

EvoFlex 360-PCX59 £1,575 Graphicsworkstations.com, 020 8544 0022 Windows Oct 04 4.0 

There are a few weaknesses – the unit is incredibly noisy, for one – but overall this is an excellent budget option for the graphics professional 

IntelliStation M Pro £1,750 IBM, www.ibm.com/uk, 0800 015 7229 Windows Oct 04 2.5 

Would have been a great choice a few months ago, but a few new technologies have rendered IBM’s machine out-of-date 

Magnetar Xi £3,999 Armari, www.armari.co.uk, 01923 225 550 Windows Sep 04 4.0 

Boasts supreme graphics performance, and is packed with features. However, it’s pricey, and didn’t perform that well on LightWave rendering 

NW8000 £2,507 HP, www.hp.com, 0870 241 1485 Windows Jun 04 4.0 

This mobile workstation is a little on the large side, but boasts a great screen, and fast powerful performance. It’s a bit pricey for what you get 

NX7010 £1,533 HP, www.hp.com, 0870 241 1485 Windows Jun 04 3.5 

This laptop’s feature list reads like a minimum recommended specs list for a creative notebook, and while it’s adequate, it isn’t anything special 

Pavilion zd7050EA £1,445 HP, www.hp.com, 0870 241 1485 Windows May 04 3.5 

A big laptop with big ambitions. It’s filled with wonderful little details, but needs a better processor and a higher-resolution screen 

PowerBook G4 (15-inch) £1,870 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 Mac Jun 04 3.5 

Not as cutting-edge as it once was, the PowerBook G4 is in need of an update. It’s now underpowered, and only matches the encroaching competition 

PowerBook G4 (17-inch) £2,040 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 Mac Jun 04 3.5 

1GHz G4 chip; 17-inch/1,440-x-900-pixel screen; 64MB graphics memory; 60GB hard drive; 3.1kg; 4.5-hour battery life 

Power Mac G5 dual 2GHz £1,863 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 Mac Oct 04 4.5 

Ideal for the traditional Power Mac creative, but the dual 2GHz G5 is limited on high-end flexibility, but the G5 is perfect for 2D and video work 

Precision 370 £1,939 Dell, www.dell.co.uk, 0870 152 4699 Windows Oct 04 3.0 

Dell has delivered a machine that is fine for the corporate market, but best avoided by the creative user. Offers poor value for money, too 

Precision 670 £5,691 Dell, www.dell.co.uk, 0870 152 4699 Windows Nov 04 4.0 

The most powerful workstation we’ve seen but you need to spend £3,000 to upgrade the £1,200 model. Two 3.4GHz Xeon processors make it very fast 

Precision M60 £2,349 Dell, www.dell.co.uk, 0870 152 4699 Windows Jun 04 4.5 

A great mobile workstation – it’s huge, but it packs a lot of power. Features media card reader slots and good ergonomic touches, and a decent screen 

Pro Cinebook 1.7 £1,233 Evesham, www.evesham.com, 0870 160 9700 Windows Jun 04 4.0 

Desperately tries to be a PowerBook. Doesn’t match Apple’s looks, but it does have shedloads more power and an absolute bargain price 

ThinkPad R50p £2,900 IBM, www.ibm.com/uk, 0800 015 7229 Windows Jun 04 4.0 

The ThinkPad R50p is ugly, but confirms IBM’s reputation for reliability and innovation. Features a Pentium M 1.7GHz, 1GB RAM, and a 60GB hard drive 

ThinkPad T41p £2,930 IBM, www.ibm.com/uk, 0800 015 7229 Windows Jun 04 3.5 

A 14-inch version of the R50p, this notebook isn’t as good value. The benefits brought by a smaller case are countered by lower screen resolution 

T900-NQ £1,999 Armari, www.armari.co.uk, 01923 225 550 Windows Oct 04 4.0 

A powerful machine with a host of impressive technologies, although it could do with some more RAM. Incorporates an Iomega REV drive 

Vaio GRT996ZP £2,210 Sony, www.sony.co.uk, 08705 111 999 Windows Jun 04 4.5 

A fine desktop replacement model, the Vaio GRT996ZP boasts a better screen than some standalone monitors. A 3.2GHz P4 chip makes it very fast 

X6 £1,937 Xworks, www.xworksinteractive.com, 01785 229 191 Windows Oct 04 4.5 

Aside from the black ash look, the X6 is a great machine that offers speed and top performance. Perfect for 2D, and easily upgraded for 3D work 

Digital cameras 

Camedia C-5060 WZ £420 Olympus, www.olympus.co.uk, 020 7523 2772 M | W Jul 04 4.0 

The C-5060 WZ features a clever rotating monitor, and the widest-angle zoom of any prosumer compact camera. One of the best 5mp models available 

Cybershot DSC-F828 £765 Sony, www.sony.co.uk, 08705 111 999 M | W Jul 04 4.5 

Fast, powerful, and enjoyable to use, this camera should please professional photographers, as long as they can live without custom user settings 

D2H £2,130 Nikon, www.nikon.co.uk, 0845 4500 155 M | W Jan 05 5.0 

Nikon’s second-generation professional digital SLR is a fantastic camera, despite its relatively low resolution of 4mp. Great quality images 

D70 £680 Nikon, www.nikon.co.uk, 0845 4500 155 M | W Jan 05 4.5 

This is one of the first digital SLRs to move away from the professional market. It has consumer features like scene modes, plus pro fine-tuning options 

Dimage A2 £650 KonicaMinolta, www.konicaminolta.co.uk, 020 8751 6121 M | W Jul 04 4.5 

This 8mp model is great to use, thanks to its high-quality viewfinder and excellent output. The image-stabilization technology is a real plus, too


DCS Pro SLR/c £2,495 Kodak, www.kodak.co.uk, 01442 261122 M | W Jan 05 3.5 

It has a 13.9mp sensor, but this SLR is let down by a poor frame rate – only 1.7fps. A fine camera if you’re not in a hurry, no good for sports or news 

DX7630 £298 Kodak, www.kodak.co.uk, 01442 261122 M | W Jul 04 4.0 

A high-resolution camera at a low price, the DX7630 has a good screen and full manual controls. Some of the controls are a little fiddly, though 

EasyShare CX7430 £170 Kodak, www.kodak.co.uk, 0870 243 0270 M | W Jun 04 3.5 

If simplicity is a virtue, the Kodak EasyShare CX7430 is perfect. It’s good value for 4mp, but includes controls suitable only for point-&-shooters 

E-1 £850 Olympus, www.olympus-pro.co.uk, 0800 072 0070 M | W Jan 05 3.0 

The first camera built to the new Four Thirds lens mount standard, this SLR can’t quite match the performance of more expensive models 

E-300 £595 Olympus, www.olympus.co.uk, 0800 072 0070 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

Digital SLR with 8mp and Four Thirds lens and flashgun compatibility. Great output for a good price, but the menu system is slightly fiddly 

EOS 20D £925 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 0800 616 417 M | W Jan 05 4.0 

This 8.2mp digital SLR offers fantastic image quality, great detail, a quick autofocus system, and a DIGIC II processor, all in a small and light body 

EOS-1D Mark II £2,562 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 0800 616 417 M | W Jan 05 4.5 

A digital SLR built for performance. Canon’s DIGIC II processor, top notch exposure and autofocus technology, and 8.2 megapixels 

EOS-300D £765 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 0800 616 417 M | W Dec 03 4.5 

The lowest priced digital SLR on the market. All the important functions, such as user-definable white balance and sensor cleaning, are included 

Exilim Pro £425 Casio, www.exilim.co.uk, 020 8208 2838 M | W Aug 04 4.5 

Fast and quiet with good image quality, plenty of advanced features, and bracketing options. The Exilim Pro is compact and solid, and a top model 

FinePix F810 £298 Fujifilm, www.fujifilm.co.uk, 020 7586 5900 M | W Mar 05 4.0 

An update to the FinePix F710, the main difference is the F810’s 7.3mp resolution – twice that of the old model. A decent, well-built compact 

FinePix E550 £281 Fujifilm, www.fujifilm.co.uk, 020 7586 5900 M | W Mar 05 3.5 

Compact camera with 6.3mp resolution, 4x zoom, and a 2-inch screen. Unless you use RAW capture, it’s prone to purple fringing at ISO 100 

FinePix S2 Pro £1,150 Fujifilm, www.fujifilm.co.uk, 020 7586 5900 M | W Dec 03 4.5 

A top digital SLR model. Good on detail and easy to use, the FinePix S2 Pro has two memory card slots and supports both FireWire and USB 

FinePix S5500 £1,150 Fujifilm, www.fujifilm.co.uk, 020 7586 5900 M | W Mar 05 3.5 

It looks-&-feels like a digital SLR, but isn’t. Boasts 4mp resolution, a massive 10x zoom, and good output, but sufffers from a small screen and 

FinePix S7000 £470 Fujifilm, www.fujifilm.co.uk, 020 7586 5900 M | W Jul 04 4.0 

Top-end prosumer digital camera with long zoom, fast responses, good control set and excellent 6mp or 12mp resolutions 

*istD £1,200 Pentax, www.pentax.co.uk, 01753 792 792 M | W Jan 05 3.5 

The smallest, lightest digital SLR on the market, the *istD doesn’t offer as good value as some on the market, but still offers decent images 

FinePix F610 Zoom £399 Fujifilm, www.fujifilm.co.uk, 020 7586 1477 M | W Jun 04 4.0 

Stylish design, good controls, and great output make this 6.3mp camera a decent buy. However, it only ships with 16MB of storage 

Lumix FZ10 £385 Panasonic, www.panasonic.co.uk, 08705 357 357 M | W Sep 04 4.0 

The 12x Leica zoom lens is powerful, and boasts built-in image stabilization. Image quality is great, but the supplied 16MB card is rather stingy 

PhotoPC-L400 £200 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 01442 261 144 M | W Jul 04 3.0 

A basic, budget-priced 4mp camera. The L400 boasts a good user interface, but it doesn’t offer comprehensive control over shutter speed or aperture 

Photosmart 945 £255 HP, www.hp.com, 0870 241 1485 M | W Jul 04 3.5 

The HP Photosmart 945 is simple to use, but its image quality doesn’t compare favourably to the competition. A decent budget option nonetheless 

PowerShot G6 £510 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 0800 616 417 M | W Nov 04 4.5 

This 7.1mp upgrade to the well regarded G-series offers faster processing and excellent images. Sadly purple fringing on contrasting edges is still there 

PowerShot Pro1 £725 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Jul 04 4.5 

Canon’s top prosumer camera, and the company’s first long-zoom compact. An 8mp CCD, 7x zoom, and well-designed controls make the Pro1 a top buy 

SD10 £936 Sigma, www.sigma-imaging-uk.com, 01707 329 999 M | W Jan 05 3.0 

Improved version of low-cost digital SLR produces extremely sharp images despite low resolution. Unusual Sigma-only lens mount is only drawback 

Digital video cameras 

AG-DVC30 £1,650 Panasonic, panasonic-broadcast.com, 08700 100 464 M | W Dec 04 3.5 

A decent secondary pro camcorder but overpriced compared to Sony’s PDX10. Features include IR-based B&W night-vision mode 

AG-DVX100A £2,450 Panasonic, panasonic-broadcast.com, 08705 357357 M | W Dec 04 4.0 

The DVX100A has ruled the roost for years, but has been usurped by Canon’s XL2. However this is still a great camera and has a lot to offer filmmakers 

DCR-HC40 £446 Sony, www.sony.co.uk, 08705 111 999 M | W Aug 04 3.0 

The auto mode on this prosumer camcorder is seriously lacking – it really struggles with bright sunlight. Spot metering can fix the problem, though 

DCR-HC1000 £850 Sony, www.sony.co.uk, 020 7365 2947 M | W Dec 04 2.5 

Good looking but ultimately disappointing DV camera lacking controls and let down by poor footage. Small, but not perfectly formed 

DCR-PC109E £489 Sony, www.sony.co.uk, 08705 111 999 M | W Aug 04 4.5 

Sony’s upright palmcorder has a touch-sensitive LCD screen – focus can be set by pressing a spot on the LCD. Boasts decent image quality, too 

DVC-30 £2,000 Panasonic, panasonicbroadcast.com, 08700 100 464 M | W Apr 04 4.0 

The DVC-30 is a flexible DV camcorder that captures great footage. It offers manual functions and unique features, but lacks Sony’s innovations 

DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: PROFESSIONAL PICTURES 

PROFESSIONAL DV CAMCORDERS 

Canon XL2 

For three grand you get a component-based 

system that is without doubt the best in the 

market. Footage is crisp and detailed 

JVC Professional GY-DV5000E 

A stalwart of the pro DV world for years time has 

seen a price drop from £5,000 to £2,900. Intuitive 

to use the full auto mode is ideal for news 

Panasonic Broadcast AG-DVX100A 

Once top of the heap the DVX100A still has a lot 

to offer indie filmmakers. It’s light and is good 

close up, but is outdone by the XL2 

Sony Broadcast PDX10P 

At only £1,400 this attempt at combining 

professional and consumer features makes 

the PDX10P best in its class 

Sony Broadcast DSR-PD170P 

Sony’s workhorse could do with a larger LCD 

screen, better CCDs and more features to bring it 

up to date – watch out for the FX1 and Z1 

RECOMMENDED: 

Canon PowerShot G6 

The ever-popular G series 

of digital cameras from 

Canon gets another 

upgrade. It’s a 7.1mp 

model, and the quality 

makes it suitable for a pro 

SLR CAMERAS 

Canon EOS-1D Mark II 

Based on Canon’s top professional film 

camera, the EOS-1, this digital SLR is 

built for the ultimate performance 

Canon EOS-300D 

Identical to the 10D in terms of image quality, 

the 300D is aimed more at the prosumer, with 

emphasis on automation and bargain pricing 

Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro 

The S2 Pro offers flexible connectivity, bags of 

storage options, and a competitive price. Great 

on detail thanks to Fuji’s Super CCD sensor 

Nikon D70 

The D70 is a great value digital SLR that packs 

in some excellent professional-level features. 

Thankfully, the images look great too 

Nikon D2H 

An updated D1H, this offers improvements 

to the imaging technology and is incredibly 

quick. Excels out in the field 

d 111

uyers guide 

DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: PROSUMER CAMCORDERS 

112 d 

Canon MVX25i 

There’s virtually nothing to fault the MVX25i, 

with its 1/1.4-inch CCD, great colour fidelity, 

and stacks of manual controls 

Canon MVX3i 

If 3CCD models are out of your reach, this is the 

next best thing, with excellent picture quality and 

ease of use, plus manual and pro features 

Panasonic NVGS200B 

With a three-CCD imaging system, the NVGS200B 

offers superior colour fidelity, a proper focus ring, 

and good audio and accessory options 

Samsung VP-D590i 

Vertical DV camera; 800,000 pixel CCD; 10x 

optical zoom lens; digital image stabilization; 

Night eye; 355g; 2.5-inch viewfinder 

Sony DCR-PC109E 

This upright palmcorder’s touch-screen is unique, 

and makes the unit really easy to use. The output 

is great, with vibrant colours and good detail 

buying advice: DVD drives 

Unlike CD-RW, recordable and rewritable DVD drives and 

media are split between three incompatible formats – 

though recent efforts have brought them closer together. 

DVD-R and DVD-RW, writable and rewritable versions 

of the same format, were created by the DVD Forum, the 

original inventors of the DVD format. DVD+R and DVD+RW 

were developed by the DVD+RW Alliance. DVD-RAM was 

also invented by the DVD Forum. It differs from DVD-RW 

and DVD+RW in that it has a disc layout that doesn’t require 

linear writing, as with conventional CD-RW, DVD-RW or 

DVD+RW discs. This allows it to be used like a hard drive, 

with drag-&-drop adding and deleting of files. 

The main difference between DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW, 

apart from the basic incompatibility, is the lack of support 

for DVD+RW on the Mac. DVD-R and DVD+R both have current 

top speeds of 4x, with DVD+RW’s 2.4x top speed beating 

DVD-RW’s 2x. Though these speeds seem slow when compared 

to CD burners, you actually get a lot more from each 

speed with DVD. A 4x DVD-R burner creates an entire 4.7GB 

disc in the same time as it took an old 4x CD-R drive to build 

a 700MB disc. DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW speeds are likely 

to grow at the same rate as CD-R/RW did, if not faster. 

Manufacturers say they’re unlikely to get as fast as 

current CD-R/RW speeds – though they also said that 

about CD-R/RW in the past. 


DSR-PD70P £2,200 Sony, www.sonybiz.net, 0870 6060 456 M | W Dec 04 3.5 

Sony’s workhorse pro-level DV camcorder has a loyal following who swear by it. With controls to match the competition this would be a top model 

GR-D93EK £510 JVC, www.jvc.co.uk, 0870 330 5000 M | W Aug 04 3.5 

Top of JVC’s budget prosumer range, the GR-D93EK lacks some key features – such as a microphone input, headphone output, and accessory shoe 

GR-DVP9EK £765 JVC, www.jvc.co.uk, 0870 330 5000 M | W Aug 04 3.0 

As small as a dictaphone, the GR-DVP9EK is stylish, light, and compact. It features a decently-sized 1/4-inch CCD, and plenty of manual funtions 

GY-DV5000E £2,900 JVC, www.jvcpro.co.uk, 020 8896 6000 M | W Dec 04 4.0 

This stalwart of the scene is intuitive for those used to conventional broadcast cameras, offering good manual control and excellent auto 

HDR-FX1E £2,150 Sony, www.sony.co.uk, 08705 111 999 M | W Mar 05 3.5 

This HDV camcorder offers exceptional output quality at 1080i resolution, but it suffers because it doesn’t have XLR audio inputs 

JY-HD10E £2,650 JVC, www.jvcpro.co.uk, 020 8896 6000 M | W Dec 04 2.5 

Very popular because for a year it was the only HDV camcorder available. But lacks manual control, is American format and has been superceded 

MV750i £375 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Aug 04 3.0 

A very cheap prosumer camcorder, the MV750i’s performance is unfortunately reflected in the price. The picture is OK, but image-stabilization is poor 

MVX25i £765 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Aug 04 5.0 

The MVX25i is worth the money – there’s virtually nothing to fault this prosumer model. The 1/3.4-inch CCD stands out 

MVX250i £529 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Aug 04 3.0 

A 1/4.5-inch CCD is large for a camcorder at this price, and this model makes several premium features more affordable 

NVGS200B £850 Panasonic, www.panasonic.co.uk, 0870 906 8357 M | W Aug 04 5.0 

The NVGS200B’s three-CCD imaging system delivers vibrant, well-defined colour. Every manual feature you’d need is catered for and easy to use 

NVGS400 £900 Panasonic, www.panasonic.co.uk, 0870 906 8357 M | W Dec 04 4.0 

The NGS400 isn’t a true professional-level DV camera, but it does offer some pro applications. Three CCDs, and clean footage with accurate colours 

NVGS55B £510 Panasonic, www.panasonic.co.uk, 0870 906 8357 M | W Aug 04 4.0 

The NVGS55B packs a lot into a small package, including an accessory shoe and microphone input. There is a healthy selection of manual controls, too 

PDX10P £1,400 Sony, www.sonybiz.net, 0870 6060 456 M | W Dec 04 4.0 

This is Sony’s attempt to combine the best from the pro and consumer worlds and it works well. Top of its class in compact and mobile DV cams 

XL2 £3,000 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Dec 04 4.5 

Digit’s Best Buy and the best indie-film DV camera in the market. It’s £500 more than the DVX100A but is a better component-based system 

XM2 £1,350 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Mar 04 2.5 

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Canon’s XM2 – it has a great lens, and many pro-level features. However, it’s now old and out of date 

Input devices 

Intuos3 from £129 Wacom, wacom-europe.com @ CU, 020 8358 5857 M | W Dec 04 4.0 

A smart new design and an improved pen make the Intuos3 a great graphics tablet. The mouse is a bit unbalanced, but overall a decent buy 

MX700 £51 Logitech, www.logitech.com, 020 7309 0127 M | W Jan 03 4.5 

The best cordless mouse on the market: flexible, rechargeable, and offering the level of precision a designer requires – at a price 

SpaceBall from £375 3Dconnexion, www.3dconnexion.com, 01952 243 629 Windows Sep 04 3.5 

Two-handed input devices that potentially prevent RSI, but they’re unlikely to change the way you work, as there’s no real benefit in terms of speed 

Storage devices 

Bravo II Disc Publisher £1,395 Primera Technology, primera.com @ Microboards, 0845 230 7800 M | W Digit 76 3.5 

A pricey convenience, the Bravo II Disc Publisher nonetheless offers good duplicating and printing facilities if you need to produce small runs of CDs 

FlashTrax from £260 SmartDisk, www.smartdisk.com, 01252 530 960 M | W May 04 4.0 

The FlashTrax is an inexpensive way to avoid taking a mountain of costly media cards out when photographing – if you can take your eyes off the iPod 

MediaBank HS-R £299 Miglia, www.miglia.com, 0870 747 2988 M | W Mar 04 4.0 

If speed and security are high on your priority list for external storage – and cost per MB isn’t – the FireWire 800-enabled MediaBank HS-R is great 

REV £249 Iomega, www.iomega.co.uk, 00 353 1213 3754 Windows Jul 04 3.0 

Cartridge-based storage system. Low-cost cartridges makes the REV a real rival to tape and DVD archiving systems. Sadly, it doesn’t support Macs 

Monitors 

Cinema Display £851 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 M | W Oct 04 4.5 

Stunning picture quality for under £1,000. The design looks great next to a G5, but it only has a single input and no picture modes 

Cinema Display HD £1,360 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 Mac Digit 76 3.5 

More manual controls needed, but at almost half its original price this 23-inch LCD with huge resolution now offers excellent value for money 

ColorEdge CG21 £1,279 Eizo, www.eizo.co.uk, 01483 719 500 M | W Digit 76 4.5 

It’s been overtaken by Barco’s Coloris Calibrator for the best LCD crown, but this 21.3-inch model is far more realistically priced


Coloris Calibrator £2,999 Barco, www.barco.com @ Colour Confidence, 0121 604 1234 M | W Digit 76 4.0 

Barco’s first LCD for the graphics market is massively expensive, but boasts fantastic colour-accuracy and a built-in calibration sensor 

Colour Reference System £1,446 Sony, www.sony-cp.com, 08705 111 999 M | W Jun 03 5.0 

The best monitor we’ve ever used. The GDM-C520K monitor and Sony/GretagMacbeth calibrator are a winning pair – for a comparatively low price 

Electron22blue IV £549 LaCie, www.lacie.com/uk, 020 7872 8000 M | W Apr 04 4.5 

The Electron22blue boasts excellent picture quality, and offers great value for money. You won’t get a better monitor without really splashing out 

Flatron L2320A £1,999 LG, www.lge.com, 01753 491 500 M | W Digit 76 3.0 

Modern design and good functionality makes this 23-inch LCD a decent monitor, but it falls short of professional status due to poor picture quality 

Gallery 2010 Platinum £779 Formac, www.formac.co.uk, 020 8533 4040 M | W Digit 76 3.0 

A 20.1-inch LCD with unimpressive picture quality, Formac’s Gallery 2010 Platinum is slightly more flexible than the Apple Cinema display range 

MultiSync LCD2180UX £1,099 NEC Mitsubishi, www.mitsubishi monitors.com, 020 7202 6300 M | W Digit 76 4.0 

A pricey 20-inch LCD, the LCD2180UX features a large colour gamut and great picture quality – though it’s not quite up to the Eizo ColorEdge CG21 

p1230 £457 HP, www.hp.com/uk, 0870 241 1485 M | W Apr 04 4.0 

A fine monitor and excellent value for money, the p1230 boasts good picture quality and a compact case. Sadly, there is no USB hub included 

p225f £399 Viewsonic www.viewsonic.co.uk, 01293 643 900 M | W Apr 04 3.5 

The design of the unit is dated, and the picture quality isn’t anything to brag about either. However, it includes a USB hub, and at least it’s cheap 

Photon20visionII from£603 LaCie, www.lacie.com/uk, 020 7872 8000 M | W Oct 04 4.5 

Picture quality is marginally inferior to Apple’s Cinema Display, but still fantastic. The Photon20visionII offers picture modes, and a budget version 

Reference Calibrator V £3,250 Barco, www.barco.com @ Colour Confidence, 0121 604 1234 M | W Apr 04 3.0 

The cost is immense, but for the ultimate in colour calibrated workflow, there is no alternative. However, the screen is curvy by today’s standards 

SDM-S204 £770 Sony, www.sony cp.com, 0990 424 424 M | W Digit 76 3.5 

This is an unimpressive unit – the definition of an average 20.1-inch display. It has a high contrast ratio – 500:1 – but otherwise it doesn’t stand out 

Studioworks N2200P £462 LG, www.lge.co.uk, 0870 607 5544 M | W Apr 04 3.0 

This CRT is decidedly mediocre, with poor refresh rates at high resolutions, and lacklustre design. Includes Colorific calibration software 

SyncMaster SM243 £1,701 Samsung, www.samsung.co.uk, 0870 242 0303 M | W Digit 76 4.5 

A massive 24-inch LCD, the SyncMaster SM243 is remarkably compact considering its size. Picture quality is fine after calibration 

UltraSharp 2001FP £670 Dell, www.dell.com/uk, 0870 152 4699 M | W Digit 76 4.5 

This 20.1-inch LCD offers great image quality – especially when you consider the price. Features two USB ports, and a slim, stylish design 

VP201b £698 Viewsonic, www.viewsonic.com/uk, 01293 643 900 M | W Digit 76 3.0 

An inexpensive but otherwise unimpressive 20.1-inch LCD. Suffers from graininess – particularly in blocks of colour – and an overall lacklustre picture 

Printers 

Bubble Jet i990 £255 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Apr 04 4.5 

Unless you require the quality of Epson’s R800 – and are prepared to wait for it – the swift and accurate i990 is the best A4 inkjet printer available 

Bubble Jet i9950 £465 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Jul 04 4.5 

This A3+ photo printer has a PictBridge camera port at the front, and the ChromaPLUS eight-ink system. USB 2.0 and FireWire interface 

Designjet 120nr £1,600 HP, www.hp.com/uk, 0845 270 4222 M | W May 04 4.0 

An excellent addition to a busy design studio. It may not be the world’s fastest printer, but its price, quality, and versatility speak for themselves 

Designjet 130 £1,100 HP, www.hp.com/uk, 0845 270 4222 M | W Jun 04 4.5 

Exceptional output quality for photographs and artwork. The Designjet 130 is compact, flexible, and good value for money 

Designjet 30n £535 HP, www.hp.com/uk, 0845 270 4222 M | W Jul 04 4.5 

Despite some usability issues, the Designjet 30n outputs exceptional quality photographs and artwork – better than most A3 photo printers 

P915 £80 Lexmark, www.lexmark.co.uk, 0870 44 0044 M | W Feb 05 3.5 

This A4 consumer-focused photo printer offers great print quality, and features such as support for four memory card formats make it a bargain 

Phaser 8400N £909 Xerox, xerox.co.uk, 0870 873 3873 M | W Apr 04 4.5 

Nothing can match the 8400N for under £1,000. It boasts fast colour output, true PostScript support, and great graphics quality 

PIXMA iP8500 £280 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

A strange shape, the PIXMA iP8500 is billed as a printer for pro photographers, but doesn’t have any digital camera card slots. Fast, with good output 

Photosmart 7762 £152 HP, www.hp.com/uk, 0870 241 1485 M | W Jun 04 4.0 

An excellent printer for the photographer – top quality with a friendly price. You may find yourself swapping print cartridges in and out a lot, though 

Photosmart 8450gp £275 HP, www.hp.com/uk, 0870 241 1485 M | W Feb 05 4.5 

Stylish printer for digital photographers, packed with features for the serious user. Supports five different digital camera cards, as well as PictBridge 

Stylus Pro 2100 £387 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 0800 220 546 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

An A3+ alternative to Epson’s R800. A seven-ink system allows you to swap between matte black and photo black cartridges as required 

Stylus Photo R300M £135 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 0800 220 546 M | W Jun 04 3.5 

Considering the price, the quality is very high. However, printing is slow, and the ouput quality doesn’t compare well to more expensive models 

Stylus Photo R800 $399 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 0800 220 546 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

The highest-quality photo inkjet printer on the market, the R800 produces accurate photos, though it’s slow and can’t print borderless on the Mac 

DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: MONITORS 

Apple Cinema Display 

The picture quality is stunning, and Apple’s 20inch 

LCD offers the usual great styling. Its DVI 

inputs allow non-Mac use for the first time 

Dell UltraSharp 2001FP 

A great 20-inch LCD, the Dell UltraSharp 2001FP 

offers good value for money and high-quality 

output. Good response times and clever design 

Eizo ColorEdge CG21 

The best LCD package available. Pefect colour 

accuracy makes the CG21 a great buy for any 

designer – despite the comparatively high price 

LaCie Electron22blue IV 

This CRT is a fine monitor that offers great picture 

quality and high resolution. You’ll be hard pushed 

to find a better monitor at such a good price 

LaCie Photon20visionII 

This 20-inch LCD offers great picture quailty at 

an attractive price. There’s a budget version, 

but the full version comes with a stylish hood 

Samsung SyncMaster SM243 

A whopping 24-inch viewing area makes this the 

giant of the LCD market. The SyncMaster’s output 

is great, and the price is reasonable 

Sony Colour Reference System 

The best monitor we’ve ever used. The GDM-C520K 

monitor and Sony/GretagMacbeth calibrator are 

a winning pair – for a comparatively low price 

buying advice: monitors 

The first decision you’ll need to make is whether to 

get a flat-panel display, based on liquid crystal display 

(LCD) technology, or a cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor. 

CRTs are cheaper and offer higher colour vibrancy 

and accuracy than LCDs. If low price is your biggest 

requirement, or if you’re looking for a display for 

publishing or design work, go with a CRT. 

An LCD display’s advantage is unparalleled sharpness 

and ultra-thin profile. In recent years, the quality of LCDs 

has improved to the point where they are suitable for all 

but very high-end graphics work. 

A screen hooked-up to a digital DVI or ADC connector 

offers sharper, clearer images than those connected via 

an analog VGA connector. Analog LCDs sometimes suffer 

from noise, a by-product of converting the video signal 

from digital to analog and then back again. 

The resolution of a monitor is expressed in horizontal 

and vertical pixel dimensions. The higher the resolution, 

the more you will be able to see on-screen. The more inches, 

the larger the pixels. A CRT’s dot pitch measures how close 

adjacent phosphor dots (or stripes on aperture-grille CRTs) 

are to each other. In general, the smaller the dot pitch, 

the sharper the display will be. 

On CRT monitors, a low refresh rate – how many times 

your computer sends a fresh copy of the screen image to 

your display – implies flicker, a major cause of eyestrain. 

LCDs don’t suffer from flicker at all. 

d 113

uyers guide 

tech notes: film scanners 

114 d 

RECOMMENDED: 

HP PhotoSmart 8450gp 

A stylish printer for the 

digital photographer. Can 

download pictures direct 

from your camera, or a 

variety of memory card 

formats, and offers 

first-rate picture quality 

Despite the surge in digital photography, film isn’t dead, 

and most professional photographers will have masses 

of film archived whether they’ve gone digital or not. So, 

scanning film is a regular task. The main problem when 

choosing a film scanner is the fact that the market is in 

decline. For a start, the emergence of digital photography 

has made a dent in the demand for film scanners. 

Decent flatbed scanners have invaded the film scanner’s 

market too, and there’s little incentive for manufacturers 

to keep their film models up to date. 

Desktop film scanners generally come in two forms: 

35mm and medium format. 35mm film scanners can 

capture 35mm slides and filmstrips, with the ability to 

scan just a single slide at a time or a holder of four or 

five. Some medium format film scanners can work with 

film up to 6-x-9cm, some with up to 5-x-4-inch – and 

most come with holders for around four 35mm slides. 

In the past, the most important specification for a 

scanner was the optical resolution. Now, though, even 

the lowest-resolution film scanner can produce images 

large enough to print A4 size or bigger at 300dpi. 

Most scanners can capture 16-bit colour, but the 

most important figure is the dynamic range. This gives 

an indication of the level of shadow and highlight 

detail the scanner can reproduce. Many film scanners 

offer hardware-based automated correction tools. 

Kodak’s Digital ICE is the best known, but some 

manufacturers have invented their own proprietry 

systems. 

DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: GRAPHICS CARDS 

3Dlabs Realizm 100 

This is a great value card. It boasts two display 

outputs, two DVI output, 256MB memory, and 

8x max AGP support 

PNY NVidia FX 1300 

The PCI Express card is quick, solid, and good 

value. It boasts 128MB memory, two display 

outputs, and two DVI outputs 


Stylus Pro 4000 £1,495 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 0800 220 546 M | W May 04 3.0 

This proofer boasts good results thanks to extra ink colours, which don’t slow printing down. Some calibration quirks, but otherwise a good choice 

W2200 £1,995 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W May 04 3.0 

This desktop proofer is now a couple of years old, but despite its age, delivers good results. Some practical problems, but very fast 

WP-20 Wireless Print Server £120 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Apr 04 4.0 

Canon needs to fix the installation process, but the WP-20 Wireless Print Server is the simplest and best mechanism for networking an inkjet printer 

Scanners 

ArtixScan 120tf £1,360 Microtek, microtekeurope.com, 0870 906 3300 M | W Mar 05 3.0 

The best film scanner Microtek has to offer, which isn’t saying very much, since this model is very old. Correction system isn’t as good as Digital ICE 

CanoScan 9900F £250 Canon, www.canon.co.uk, 08705 143 723 M | W Sep 04 3.5 

A top scanner at a low price, the 48-bit colour depth and 3,200-x-6,400dpi resolution are great, but it’s let down by poor software 

Dimage Scan Elite 5400 £510 Konica-Minolta, www.minolta.co.uk, 01908 200 400 M | W Mar 05 3.5 

A very slim upright device, this film scanner sadly doesn’t live up to its impressive specs. Takes a lot of time and tweaking to get decent results 

Dimage Scan Multi Pro £1,960 Konica-Minolta, www.minolta.co.uk, 01908 200 400 M | W Mar 05 3.5 

This shoebox-sized film scanner is the medium-format equivalent of the Dimage Scan Elite 5400. Suffers the same drawbacks, but does have digital ICE 

Expression 10000 XL Pro £1,634 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 0800 220 546 M | W Sep 04 4.0 

This A3 scanner boasts 2,400-x-4,800 optical resolution and 3.8 dynamic range. Film scanning is no more than adequate, but it’s fine for larger formats 

F-3200 £465 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 0800 220 546 M | W Mar 05 3.5 

This unusual film scanner also scans reflective media, and can scan eight 35mm slides at once. Lack of corrective hardware limits its usefulness 

FilmScan 3600 Silver £297 Microtek, microtekeurope.com, 0870 906 3300 M | W Mar 05 2.0 

A prime example of why you shouldn’t buy a low-cost film scanner. Only 12-bit per colour capture gives dull and muted colours 

FineScan 2750 £6,500 FujiFilm, www.fujifilm.co.uk/gs, 01234 245245 M | W Sep 04 4.0 

You could use this high-end A3 format and film scanner confidently to produce a top-quality magazine, but it’s been usurped by the iQsmart1 

iQsmart1 £6,382 Creo, www.creo.com, 01242 285 100 M | W Sep 04 4.5 

Professional A3 film scanner aimed at creatives. You don’t need to be a pre-press expert to get great results, and the resolution is good at 3,200dpi 

Perfection 4870 Photo £270 Epson, www.epson.co.uk, 0800 220 546 M | W Sep 04 4.5 

Low-cost flatbed scanner with high resolution and dynamic range. Built-in Digital ICE dust/scratch removal makes this good value – if slow 

Scanjet 5530 Photosmart £156 HP, www.hp.com/uk, 0870 547 4747 M | W Sep 04 3.0 

This desktop scanner is tuned for high-speed print scanning. It’s slightly larger than A4, but only takes single strips of 35mm film at a time 

ScanMaker i700 from £254 Microtek, microtekeurope.com, 0870 906 3304 M | W Jan 05 4.0 

High-resolution flatbed film scanner with Digital ICE, and a decent feature and software set. An attractively priced all-rounder 

ScanMaker i900 £595 Microtek, microtekeurope.com, 01327 844 880 M | W Sep 04 3.5 

This A4+ scanner has a conventional top bed for reflection copy, as well as a separate slide-in tray for film. It’s a good scanner, but not good value 

Super CoolScan 5000 ED £935 Nikon, www.nikon.co.uk, 0800 230 220 M | W Apr 04 4.5 

High-res film scanner with advanced post-processing functions. Excellent colour and shadow handling, with automatic restoration of worn originals 

Super CoolScan 9000 ED £2,000 Nikon, www.nikon.co.uk, 0800 230 220 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

Versatile high-res film scanner with Digital ICE4. Can handle all formats from miniature to 6-x-7cm. Only 35mm and 120/220 film holders are supplied 

Graphics cards 

FireGL X3-256 £699 ATI, www.ati.com. 01844 263 747, ati@manandmachine.co.uk Windows Nov 04 4.0 

ATI’s highest-spec AGP graphics accelerator has a massive 7cm fan that gives a lot of cooling power. It’s pricey, though 

FireGL V3200 £249 ATI, www.ati.com, 01844 263 747, ati@manandmachine.co.uk Windows Nov 04 3.5 

This 128MB PCI-based card is a decent card at a good price. It performs in the mid-range on Maya and Max, but is a winner for Cinema 4D 

FireGL V5100 £499 ATI, www.ati.com, 01844 263 747, ati@manandmachine.co.uk Windows Nov 04 4.0 

ATI’s decent value 256MB PCI Express card offers 22.4GB/s memory bandwith, has the same massive fan as the X3-256 but doesn’t need extra power 

Parhelia 256MB £365 Matrox, www.matrox.com, 01753 665 544 Windows Nov 04 3.0 

The Parhelia 256MB is small, and needs no exernal power. It supports three monitors at once so it’s good for VJing or video production. Costly 

PNY NVidia FX 1100 £645 NVidia, www.nvidia.com, 01784 224 220 Windows Nov 04 4.0 

Good performance but with 128MB memory and a £650 price tag you would expect more from it. Outclassed by the Realizm 100 


A Digit Best Buy this PCI-Express card is small, solid, and well-priced. With 128MB of DDR RAM, it’s good enough for most situations in 3D applications 


At an earth-shattering price performance should have been better overall. The FX 1300 offers much better value for performance 

Realizm 100 £683 3Dlabs, www.3dlabs.com, 01784 470 555 Windows Nov 04 4.5 

Very good value. One of the most capacious cards on test and a Best Buy. 8xAGP support; 256MB memory; two DVI outputs;two display outputs 

Realizm 200 £874 3Dlabs, www.3dlabs.com, 01784 470 555 Windows Nov 04 4.0 

If you need to visualize scenes with a lot of textures, this is ideal. 8xAGP support; 512MB memory; two DVI outputs; two display outputs


3D and animation software 

3DS Max 7 £2,695 Discreet, www.discreet.com, 01252 456 669 Windows Jan 05 4.5 

Version 7 incorporates Character Studio 4, and features Normal Bump Mapping, Subsurface Scattering, and enhanced modelling and viewing tools 

Animation:Master v 11.0 $299 Hash, www.hash.com, 001 360 750 0042 M | W Aug 04 4.0 

Oriented towards teaching people the basics of 3D animation, Animation:Master is nonetheless a decent, good-value character animation package 

Carrara 4 Pro £419 Eovia, www.eovia.com @ Computers Unlimited, 020 8200 8282 M | W Feb 05 4.5 

Offers a wide range of features. Bones and IK animation are easy to use, and the suite boasts real-time terrain-creation and network rendering 

CAT V1.2 £549 CAT, catoolkit.com @ Graphics Domain, 01869 255 815 M | W Aug 04 4.5 

A complete character-animation system for 3DS Max. It features a highly flexible and easy-to-create character rigging system called CATRig 

Character Studio 4.2 £695 Discreet, www.discreet.com, 01252 456 669 M | W Aug 04 4.0 

Although Character Studio is often derided by ‘real’ animators, few solutions offer this level of productivity for bulk character animation work 

Cinema 4D 9 £424 Maxon, www.cinema4d.co.uk, 0500 224 660 M | W Jan 05 4.5 

Version 9 supports N-gons, Brush, Melt, and enhanced knife tools. One of the best 3D applications out there – perfect for learning the craft 

EIAS 5.5 $895 EI Technology Group, eitechnologygroup.com, 001 830 438 4955 M | W Sep 04 3.5 

3D suite that offers fast, high-quality rendering, good HDRI support, and unlimited network rendering. The Silo component is sadly Windows only 

Endorphin 1.5 £7,995 NaturalMotion, www.naturalmotion.com, 01865 250 575 Windows Aug 04 4.0 

This character-animation system features customizable AI behaviours dynamic retargeting, and active posing. However, it’s expensive and buggy 

Life Forms 4.0 £$495 Credo Interactive, www.charactermotion.com, 001 604 291 6717 M | W Aug 04 3.0 

This tool imports third-party models and adds motion to them. It can be a bit of a mysterious process, and importing is often long-winded 

LightWave 3D 8 £945 NewTek, www.newtek.com, www.newtek-europe.com/uk M | W Oct 04 4.0 

Version 8 of this 3D suite has new character animation tools including bone editing and rigging enhancements, plus an IK booster and loads more 

Messiah:animate 4.0 $595 pmG Worldwide, projectmessiah.com Windows Aug 04 4.0 

A worthy update with a focus on workflow and rendering speed, but new features such as fur-&-hair creation and fake radiosity are impressive 

Maya 6 from £1,449 Alias, alias.com, 01494 441 273 M | W | L Oct 04 4.5 

Maya is the industry-standard high-end 3D effects and character animation tool. Its workflow is creative and experimental, but hugely powerful 

MojoWorld 3.0 from $199 Pandromeda, www.pandromeda.com, 001 304 788 7818 M | W Mar 05 4.0 

Powerful fractal scene generator that generates whole planets with local overrides. Pro version adds vegetation and animated textures 

MotionBuilder 6 from £645 Alias, www.alias.com, 01494 441 273 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

Imports 3D character-models for animating. There’s expanded keyframe features in version 6, along with enhanced character manipulation 

Nat FX v2 £750 Bionatics, www.bionatics.com, 0033 149 691 220 Windows Dec 04 4.5 

A true high-end solution for creating and animating 3D foliage. A superb system, costly, but the animation is the best we’ve seen 

Realsoft 3D 5 €600 Realsoft, www.realsoft.com, 00358 3212 9913 Windows Mar 05 3.5 

This 3D package will attract newcomers to 3D with its educational pricing plan, but it’s Windows-only, and has a steep learning curve 

Shade 7 £552 Curious Labs, www.curiouslabs.com @ CU, 020 8200 8282 M | W Jan 05 3.0 

Full function 3D modeller and renderer for a reasonable price. Integrates with Poser, ArchiCAD, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Not as easy to use as it looks 

SketchUp 4.0 £345 @Last Software, www.sketchup.com @ CU, 020 8200 8282 M | W Sep 04 4.0 

@Last adds an intuitive push/pull tool to this easy-to-use design software. One of the easiest 3D graphics programs to master 

Softimage|XSI 4.0 from £299 Softimage, www.softimage.com, 01753 655 999 W | L Oct 04 4.5 

Powerful 3D modelling and animation suite that boasts one of the best renderers available. Great workflow and interface makes this a top package 

Strata CX $695 Strata, www.strata.com @ Grey Matter, 0870 366 5577 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

This 3D modelling, animation and rendering suite is easy to use, and the familiar interface and high-quality rendering make Strata a good buy 

SpeedTree £215 IDV, www.idvinc.com, 001 803 233 0073 Windows Dec 04 3.5 

This 3DS Max plug-in generates animatable, realistic trees, though not as realistic as the more expensive Nat FX 

Swift 3D 4 £149 Electric Rain, www.erain.com, 001 303 543 8233 Windows Sep 04 4.5 

Rendering times are a bit slow, but this is a versatile and easy-to-use 3D-to-Web application. Good quality animation tools and Flash importer 

Vue 5 Esprit £171 E-on Software, www.e-onsoftware.com, 0033 143 553 671 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

This landscape-generation software is more expensive than its rivals, and requires OpenGL hardware for best results. Good output and features, though 

World Construction Set 6 £650 3D Nature, www.3dnature.com @ N Light, 0117 904 9452 M | W Jun 04 4.5 

Arguably the best 3D landscaping program, but not that intuitive. Fiercely detailed, you need the mind of a geographer to get the best from it 

Xfrog £220 Greenworks, www.greenworks.de, 0049 3046 7963 31 M | W Dec 04 4.0 

A novel system for creating trees and plants and very logical and intuitive in use. Animation is on offer: you can simulate growth effects and wind 

ZBrush 2 £270 Pixologic, www.pixologic.com @ Freehand, 01483 200 111 M | W Feb 05 4.5 

A novel and innovative hybrid 2D/2.5D/3D modelling, painting, and rendering program with lightning fast, high-resolution polygon tools 

Desktop publishing software 

Acrobat 6 Professional £339 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4001 M | W Digit 63 4.5 

Acrobat 6 is split into two versions, with Professional offering advanced features for print, which should make it a key part of your design workflow 

SPOTLIGHT: 3D MODELLING AND ANIMATION SOFTWARE 

SOLUTIONS FROM £1,000-£5,000 

DISCREET 3DS MAX 7 

Version 7 incorporates Normal Bump Mapping, 

Subsurface Scattering, and the complete 

Character Studio 4 character-animation package 

ALIAS MAYA 6 

Maya 6 might not have added many headline 

additions, but the upgrade does deliver good 

workflow enhancements and refinements 

SOFTIMAGE|XSI 4.0 

A professional 3D tool with features tuned to 

match its price tag – revamped hair tools, 

particle dynamics, and nonlinear animation 

NEWTEK LIGHTWAVE 8 

Version 8 sees numerous hard and soft-body 

dynamics improvements, says NewTek, along 

with cloth and workflow enhancements 

BBC’s digital people 

Aardman projected 3D 

models onto real people in 

its ad for the BBC’s digital 

multichannel services. The 

technique involved using 

elements of real faces to 

create the characters 

SPOTLIGHT: 3D MODELLING AND ANIMATION SOFTWARE 

SOLUTIONS FROM UNDER £1,000 

MAXON CINEMA 4D 9 

One of the best 3D applications available, and 

ideal for learning the craft. Version 9 includes 

many improvements, including N-gon support 

EOVIA CARRARA 4 PRO 

A shallow learning curve and impressive feature 

set make Carrara 4 Pro a good addition to your 

creative toolbox 

BIONATICS NAT FX V2 

A true high-end solution for creating and 

animating 3D foliage. Offers just about every 

feature you can think of for animating vegetation 

ELECTRIC RAIN SWIFT 3D 4 

This 3D-to-Web software is versatile and easy 

to use. Version 4 sees a vastly improved polygon 

modelling environment and better gallery options 

KAYDARA MOTIONBUILDER 6 

A comprehensive tool that allows you import 

models from other applications and add 

real-time animation to them 

d 115

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DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: DIGITAL VIDEO TOOLS 

116 d 

Adobe After Effects 6.5 

A packed point-five upgrade to a great compositing 

application, After Effects 6.5 has more than 60 

new effects, and an advanced clone tool 

Apple Final Cut Pro HD 

Apple has gradually improved this video-editing 

suite to the point where Final Cut Pro is one of 

the best in the business 

Apple Motion 

Apple’s motion-graphics product provides realtime 

manipulation and rendering of motion 

graphics on the Power Mac G5 for £169 

Canopus Imaginate 2.0 

Imaginate 2.0 offers smooth and simple rostrum 

camera options, and packs in loads of new 

features to keep it ahead of all-in editing suites 

Canopus ProCoder 2.0 

This video-transcoding software is invaluable. 

Encoding quality is high, and encoding to 

multiple targets simultaneously is very quick 

Magic Bullet Editors 

This Final Cut Pro NLE plug-in version of the filmmimicking 

tool greatly reduced in price compared 

to previous versions, and performs impressively 

The Pixel Farm PFHoe 1.0 

A powerful tool that lets beginners get to grips 

with complex motion tracking facilities. Handles 

free motion and nodal pan camera moves 

Reflecmedia Matenee 1.0 

It works best with Reflecmedia’s own Chromatte 

hardware, but the software is quick and easy 

to use, and offers great results 

The Pixel Farm PFMatch 1.0 

For £750, you won’t find a better tracking 

solution for broadcast media. Good tracking 

results, with a decent set of post-track tools 

Paradise found 

As part of Channel Four’s 

Animator in Residence scheme, 

Gaelle Denis used After Effects 

to animate her bizarre story of 

a foreigner arriving in London 

in her shot film City Paradise 


FullColor 1.5 £55 Badia Software, badiaxt.com @ XChange, 020 7490 4455 Mac Digit 76 4.0 

QuarkXPress dictates that you create colours in one window, and apply them in another. This useful plug-in brings these two functions together 

HumanEyes 3D from £550 HumanEyes, www.humaneyes.com, 00 972 2651 8999 M | W Digit 76 4.5 

Breakthrough software for creating stereoscopic images for lenticular print or 3D monitors, with easy use interface. For now, though, it’s very pricey 

InDesign CS £609 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4000 M | W Jan 04 4.0 

The CS version of Adobe’s page-layout program gains an improved user interface, better styles and file import, and access to Version Cue and GoLive 

iDropper £39 Gluon, www.gluon.com @ XChange, 020 7490 4455 M | W Digit 76 4.0 

A QuarkXPress plug-in that provides an eyedropper tool, which allows you to pick up attributes with one click and apply them elsewhere with another 

Multi Style II XT 5.0.4 £69 Techno Design, techno-design.com @ XChange, 020 7490 4455 Windows Digit 76 4.5 

This plug-in builds InDesign’s must-have feature – nested type styles – into QuarkXPress. Makes complex styling much easier 

PageMaker Plug-in Pack £39 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4000 M | W Digit 76 4.5 

Designed to encourage PageMaker users to upgrade to InDesign, this plug in pack is a must-buy thanks to its simple bullets and numbering features 

QuarkXPress 6.0 £1,095 Quark, www.quark.co.uk, 00800 1787 8275 M | W Aug 03 3.0 

Too little, too late. Some innovative features don’t mask its shortcomings in the face of the competition – and the licensing scheme is crazy. Avoid 

Digital video 

After Effects 6.5 from £565 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4001 M | W Feb 05 4.5 

The upgrade to version 6.5 adds an advanced clone tool, which saves a lot of time on boring jobs. Disk caching also speeds things up. Essential 

Au Naturel $99 Buena, www.buena.com M | W Nov 04 3.0 

An After Effects plug-in that restores a more realistic gamma curve to video footage but the results aren’t that different from built-in tools. Slow. 

Blaze £199 Easy Effects, www.easyeffects.com M | W Jan 05 4.0 

Blaze successfully adds a different interface construct to Avid’s product line. Offers a variety of colour, blur, and glow effects to text and video 

Boris Red 3GL from £599 Boris FX, www.borisfx.com, 01264 326384 M | W Feb 05 4.0 

Runs as a compositing plug-in with almost any editing package, or as a standalone suite. The interface is cramped, but the results are great 

Boujou Bullet 1.0 £1,365 2d3, www.2d3.com @ Techex, 0870 161 7171 M | W | L Oct 04 4.0 

The interface of this matchmoving tool is a little glitchy, but Boujou Bullet offers a simple-to-use wizard, and offers fast and efficient matchmoving 

Colour Finesse 1.5 £349 Synthetic Aperture @ Digital Garage Group, 01295 201 120 M | W Jan 05 4.0 

Real-time colour correction systems haven’t made Color Finesse redundant yet. It takes over the whole screen, but there’s no better tool for colour 

Combustion 3 £725 Discreet, www.discreet.com, 01252 456 669 M | W | L Feb 05 3.5 

The best visual-effects package for under £1,000, but After Effects still tops it for motion-graphics work. However, Combustion represents good value 

Continuum Complete 3.0 £459 Boris FX, wwwborisfx.com @ 01491 875 665 M | W Dec 04 4.0 

A massive set of video plug-ins that runs with Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro or After Effects. Expensive but worth it for professional users 

Digital Fusion 4.04e £2,650 Eyeon, www.eyeonline.com, 020 7637 5319 Windows Feb 05 4.0 

Widely used in the US, Digital Fusion is a solid, reliable compositing suite. It renders quickly, and the interface is efficient and effective 

Edius 2.5 £315 Canopus, www.canopus uk.com, 01189 210 510 Windows Sep 04 3.5 

It’s come a long way, and every upgrade fills in a few gaps, but the well-designed Edius still has at least four better packages for competition 

Final Cut Pro HD £595 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 Mac Sep 04 4.5 

Final Cut Pro has clawed its way to the top since its launch five years ago. Its swift workflow and drag-&-drop flexibility make it a top application 

Flix Pro 4.0 $149 Wildform, www.wildform.com, 001 310 396 2025 Windows Digit 76 4.0 

Easy-to-use tool for converting audio and video clips into Flash format. Performance could be improved, and preview window should be larger 

Imaginate 2.0 £119 Canopus, www.canopus-uk.com, 01189 210 150 Windows Oct 04 4.5 

Rostrum camera software that allows you to zoom and pan over still images. The real-time feedback is smooth, and the interface offers great control 

Liquid Edition 5.5 £425 Pinnacle, www.pinnaclesys.com, 01895 424 228 Windows Sep 04 3.5 

It has an efficient and flexible interface, but there are a few holes in Edition’s feature set. Audio tools are weak, and the titling tools are poor 

Magic Bullet Editors £175 Red Giant Software @The CarPark, 02879 632 614 Mac Jul 04 4.5 

This Final Cut Pro version of the Magic Bullet plug-in suite is a great product. It performs well, and is better value compared to older versions 

MatchMover Pro 3 £5,995 Realviz, www.realviz.com @ Keoti, 020 7482 4858 M | W | L Jun 04 4.0 

This professional 3D camera-tracking system is a capable and robust application, but can be buggy under Mac OS X and is very pricey 

Matenee 1.0 £195 Reflecmedia, www.reflecmedia.com, 01606 593 911 M | W Oct 04 4.5 

This keying plug-in is simple, fast, and effective – as close to one-click keying as you’re likely to find at any price. Licensing is a little complex 

Mirage 1.2 €895 Bauhaus Software, bauhaussoftware.com, 001 210 212 7530 M | W Feb 05 3.0 

Combines video effects, motion graphics, rotoscoping, cel animation, and Painter-style natural media. Great for animators, not so great for compositors 

Motion £169 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 Mac Nov 04 4.5 

Apple’s much anticipated motion-graphics product provides real-time manipulation and rendering of motion graphics on the Power Mac G5 

particleIllusion 3.0 $399 Wondertouch, www.wondertouch.com M | W Jan 05 3.5 

A standalone program based around a 2D particle system that uses layers to create faux 3D effects. Impressive feature set, but not as good as Motion 

PFHoe 1.0 from £49 The Pixel Farm, www.the pixelfarm.co.uk M | W Mar 05 4.5 

This motion- tracking software brings high-end process within reach of beginners. Inexpensive and professional, with a user-friendly look-&-feel


PFMatch 1.0 £750 The Pixel Farm, www.the pixelfarm.co.uk M | W Jul 04 4.5 

Relatively affordable tracking solution for broadcast, auto-tracking with good post-tracking cleaning and refinement tools. The interface is a little glitchy 

Premiere Pro 1.5 £525 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8358 5857 Windows Sep 04 4.0 

The interface has been given a grown-up redesign, and there’s some new features too. Great integration with Adobe’s other video products 

ProCoder 2.0 £299 Canopus, www.canopus-uk.com, 01189 210 150 Windows Digit 76 4.5 

Encoding quality is great, and encoding to multiple targets simulaneously is fast compared to the competition. Lacks backwards compatibility 

RealProducer 10 Plus $200 RealNetworks, www.realnetworks.com, 020 7290 1206 L | W Jul 04 2.5 

It’s the first commercial tool to support the Real 10 platform, but RealProducer 10 Plus barely improves on the free version 

Sapphire $549 GenArts, www.genarts.com, 001 617 492 2888 M | W Jan 05 4.0 

An expensive set of plug-ins, but the collection offers great a wide array of useful tools. The results are excellent, too 

Shake 3.5 from £1,786 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 M | W Feb 05 3.5 

An exceptional tool for post houses putting together top film and commerical work, but it’s not the right software for everyday jobs 

Squeeze 4 $449 Sorenson, www.sorenson.com M | W Jan 05 4.0 

Compression Suite that’s simple and intuitive, with good export format option. Results are good quality, but you can’t output from Windows to Mac 

StoryViz €3,000 RealViz, www.realviz.com Windows Jan 05 4.0 

Previsualization software that offers real-time preview rendering, import options, and real-world camera correlation. It’s pricey, and tricky, though 

Vegas 5 £425 Sony Pictures Digital, mediasoftware.sony.com @ MVS Digital, 0845 456 0801 Windows Jul 04 4.0 

Ideal for short-form combo editing and compositing – thanks to a curves-based editing system and top-class audio tools. Lacks high-end colour controls 

Visual Communicator £258 Serious Magic, www.seriousmagic.com, 01635 294 300 Windows Jan 05 2.5 

It’s the easiest live video tool so far, with good keying features. However, the stock media is awful, and you can’t add your own templates 

Xpress Studio from£2,599 Avid, www.avid.com, 020 7534 2800 M | W Oct 04 4.0 

This end-to-end creative studio for video work beats the competition in terms of tools, but it’s expensive and, not as well integrated as some packages 

Graphic design software 

ADC plug-ins $99.95 Kodak, www.asf.com, 01442 261122 M | W Nov 04 4.5 

Standalone versions of clever Digital ICE technology to reduce noise and film grain while preserving detail. Works well, but not with mono 

ArtMatic Pro 3.0 £169 U&I Software, www.artmatic.com @ Eovia, 01483 797 498 M | W Feb 03 4.5 

As graphics toys go, ArtMatic is in a field of its own: you won’t find a better experimental art, animation, and squeak generator anywhere 

Backdrop Designer $199 Digital Anarchy, www.digitalanarchy.com, 001 415 586 8434 M | W Nov 04 3.0 

Flexible easy to use Photoshop plug-in that lets you substitute simulated backdrops onto cutouts and blue-screen images. Good effects but very slow 

Creative Pack $39 Flaming Pear, www.flamingpear.com M | W Nov 04 3.0 

Formerly Furbo Filters, Photoshop plug-in Creative Pack offers four filters and special effects but no way of reverting back to the original image 

Deep Paint $249 Right Hemisphere, www.righthemisphere.com, 001 510 818 2880 Windows Nov 04 3.5 

Photoshop plug-in that’s like adding a miniature Painter to Photoshop. Lets you paint normally or use a wide range of tools for natural-media effects 

Digitalizer $22 Panopticum, www.panopticum.com M | W Nov 04 3.0 

Photoshop plug-in that creates an image out of text characters. It’s decent value, but bugs are evident on images over 5MB 

Eye Candy 4000 $169 Alien Skin, www.alienskin.com, 001 919 832 4124 M | W Nov 04 3.5 

Eye Candy 400 is a collection of 23 plug-ins, so there is bound to be something that appeals to you. The Shadowlab option is particularly useful 

Flood $20 Flaming Pear, www.flamingpear.com M | W Nov 04 4.5 

Handy Photoshop plug-in for creating water effects is cheaper and easier to use than its rivals. Well worth the money 

FreeHand MX £289 Macromedia, www.macromedia.com/uk, 01344 458 600 M | W Apr 03 4.5 

With its excellent MX Studio interface cleanup, great new tools, and a raft of improved features, this is the most compelling upgrade since version 7 

Illustrator CS £435 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4000 M | W Jan 04 4.0 

The typographic reworking, 3D graphics features, and improved performance are all impressive, but Illustrator’s interface is showing its age 

ImageAlign $129 Grasshopper, www.grasshopper.com, 0064 7854 7279 M | W Nov 04 3.5 

Photoshop plug-in that allows photographers to compensate for lens problems like barrel and pincushion distortion. One of the best of its type 

Light! 2.0 $50 Digital Film Tools, www.digitalfilmtools.com M | W Nov 04 4.5 

Clever Photoshop plug-in that controls light and adds realistic shadows, even from objects not in the main image. Poor manual but still a Best Buy 

Mystical Lighting $179 Auto FX Software, www.autofx.com, 001 205 980 0056 M | W Nov 04 3.0 

Lighting control Photoshop plug-in that gives you more in-depth tools and control than in Photoshop CS. However, it’s a bit slow 

Painter IX £249 Corel, www.corel.co.uk, 01628 589 800 M | W Nov 04 4.0 

Painter IX has faster brushes than 8.1 and is all the better for it. There really is no better natural-media painting program on the market 

Paint Shop Pro 8 £85 Jasc, www.jasc.com @ Digital Workshop, 0870 120 2186 Windows Jul 03 4.0 

Jasc pushes ahead with more design and correction tools to keep Paint Shop Pro strong enough to fend off rivals. The new look may confuse you 

Photoshop CS £515 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4000 M | W Jan 04 4.5 

This upgrade is all about improving efficiency and productivity. There are few new effects, but the user has much greater freedom to create 

Piranesi 4 £450 Informatix, www.informatix.co.uk @ CU, 020 8358 5858 Windows Nov 04 4.0 

High-quality and fast painting tool for painting textures, ading depth and finishing 3D scenes. Primarily used by architects 

SPOTLIGHT: DESKTOP PUBLISHING TOOLS 

PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS 

Perfect timing 

All characters in the 

TimeSplitters video game 

series are modelled using 

the same bipedal rig. Free 

Radical, the creative team 

behind the game, uses rigid 

bind in Maya, giving a 

prescribed geometry 

FLAMING PEAR FLOOD 

Make waves in your toolbox for only $20 by creating 

water effects, ripples and reflections. Other 

plug-ins do this too, but this is excellent value 

DIGITAL FILM TOOLS LIGHT!2.0 

Streaming light through windows, shadows 

where there were none, even light falling through 

the leaves of a tree. Good and only $50 

RIGHT HEMISPHERE DEEP PAINT 

Like having a miniature Corel Painter bolted into 

your toolbox. Either apply texture effects or paint 

with brushes and by cloning photographs 

Software in focus: Final Cut Pro HD 

In the five years since Apple first launched Final Cut Pro, 

it has emerged as one of the best digital video applications. 

It’s partly responsible for the demise of Premiere on the 

Mac, and it’s creeping up on Avid’s dominance of the film 

and broadcasting arena. 

The newest incarnation – Final Cut Pro HD – may sound 

like a massive leap, but the ‘HD’ tag is really just there to 

sound impressive. However, it does feature native DVCPRO 

HD support, and DeckLink HD cards are comparatively 

inexpensive if you want to work with full 1080p HD. 

Final Cut’s success hasn’t been about headline-grabbing 

features – Edition, Premiere, and Xpress Pro have been 

first with most creative tools. Final Cut has flourished 

thanks to an efficient workflow, and the plethora of hardware 

solutions that enable it to work with most formats. 

d 117

uyers guide 

DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: GRAPHICS SOFTWARE 

118 d 

ArtMatic Pro 3.0 

As graphics toys go, ArtMatic is in a field of its 

own: you won’t find a better experimental art, 

animation, and squeak generator anywhere 

FreeHand MX 

With its excellent MX Studio interface cleanup, 

great new tools, and improved features, this is 

the most compelling upgrade since version 7 

InCamera 3.1 

You need a colour target as well, but this hasslefree 

Photoshop plug-in adjusts image colour 

according to lighting profiles – with great results 

Painter 8.1 

Painter 8.1 offers a more Photoshop-like experience, 

and is all the better for it. There is no better 

natural-media painting program on the market 

Primatte Chromakey 2.0 

This compositing plug-in for Photoshop removes 

plain backgrounds from photos, and handles the 

difficult cutouts like hair really well 

pxl SmartScale 

It has limits, especially with text and logos, but 

SmartScale soothes the headache of low-res 

imagery like nothing else. Highly recommended 

DIGIT BEST BUY RECOMMENDATIONS: UTILITIES 

Knickers with a twist 

Designer undie-maker Agent 

Provocateur hired Large Design 

to create the company’s Web 

site. Large used Flash MX 

and Photoshop, as well as 

LightWave for 3D elements 

Enfocus PitStop Pro 6.0 

A versatile PDF preflight checking, manual/auto 

editing and tracking utility. Now updated for 

OS X and Acrobat 6 features and formats 

FileMaker Pro 7 

This database/asset-management system has 

been updated to incorporate a higher capacity, 

instant Web publishing and loads more 

Flexion Solutions CubeLite 

An easy-to-use in-house photography studio. 

The white tent and studio lighting system allows 

you to shoot objects with even light sources 

Enfocus Instant PDF 3.0 

This preflighting software is worth shelling out 

for. Supports new versions of both major DTP 

packages, and minimizes expensive errors 


pxl SmartScale £149.99 Extensis, www.extensis.co.uk @ CU, 020 8358 5858 M | W Nov 03 4.5 

It has limits, especially with text and logos, but SmartScale soothes the headache of low-res imagery like nothing else. Highly recommended 

Stitcher 4.0 £345 www.realviz.com @ Computers Unlimited, 020 8358 5858 M | W Apr 04 4.5 

The leading multi-image stitcher for panoramas and interactive spherical images gains improved controls and interface, and better rendering options 

Studio Artist 3.0 $379 Synthetik Software, synthetik.com, 001 415 762 9452 Mac Jul 04 3.5 

Studio Artist is a powerful natural-media program, and the animation and rotoscoping features take it into new territory. Blighted by a poor interface 

Verdant $179 Digital Elements, www.digi-element.com, 001 510 601 7351 M | W Nov 04 3.0 

Photoshop plug-in that lets you create realistic trees and plants that you can add to your images. Not quite photo-realistic, and a bit pricey 

Xara X1 £94 Xara Group, www.xara.com Windows Sep 04 3.5 

This vector-illustration program has an extremely fast rendering engine, and intuative tools. However, its toolset is relatively limited 

Multimedia software 

DVDit 5 £145 Sonic, www.sonic.com, 020 7437 1100 Windows Aug 04 3.0 

Not really a professional-level tool, but DVDit is simple to use and uncluttered. The price is reasonable, but basic features, such as subtitles, are missing 

DVD Studio Pro 3 £297 Apple, www.apple.com/uk, 0800 783 4846 Mac OS X Digit 76 4.5 

Compact yet wide-ranging DVD authoring application. Version 3.0 boasts new interface elements, workflow enhancements, and wider format support 

Encore DVD 1.5 £121 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4001 Windows Aug 04 4.0 

The upgrade to version 1.5 adds QuickTime support, background transcoding, a styles palette, After Effects integration, and some essential revisions 

iPix Interactive Studio from $899 iPix, www.ipix-uk.com, 01482 308 830 M | W May 04 4.0 

New spherical image stitcher and linker offers improved automation and input flexibility, but the most useful new tools cost extra 

Opus Pro 04 £255 Digital Workshop, digitalworkshop.com, 0870 120 2186 M | W Jul 04 3.0 

Clearly designed with the business user in mind, this multimedia-authoring tool is simple enough to use, but of limited use outside corporate markets 

Web design software 

Click Away 0.4 $499 Minds Eye View, www.pictosphere.com Windows Feb 04 3.5 

It’s still in beta and not as advanced as iPix’s software, but at least its images are freely distributable. Legal issues make buying Click Away a gamble 

Dreamweaver MX 2004 £339 Macromedia, www.macromedia.co.uk @ 0131 458 6766 M | W Nov 03 4.5 

This upgrade manages to provide more power while still maintaining ease of use, and its strong support for CSS points to its future path 

Flash MX 2004 £419 Macromedia, www.macromedia.co.uk @ 0131 458 6766 M | W Nov 03 4.5 

New Timeline tools make the base version a must-have upgrade. Many functions of the Professional version may not appeal to Web designers 

GoLive CS £335 Adobe, www.adobe.co.uk, 020 8606 4000 M | W Jan 04 4.0 

Up-to-date CSS support and improved integration with Adobe products make this a good upgrade, but Dreamweaver users are unlikely to switch 

Fireworks MX 2004 £249 Macromedia, www.macromedia.co.uk, 0131 458 6766 M | W Nov 03 4.0 

Not that radical an upgrade, but there are welcome performance improvements, collaborative features, and enjoyable new creative tools 

NetObjects Fusion 8 £132.50 WebSite Pros, www.netobjects.co.uk, 001 877 729 8625 Windows Digit 76 3.0 

A tidy interface and plentiful wizards make Fusion an easy-to-use Web design product, but you have to pay extra for some of the functionality 

TourWeaver 1.1 $115 EasyPano, www.easypano.com Windows Mar 04 4.0 

An easy-to-use and simple-to-learn interactive tour authoring tool. Excellent features and a well-conceived interface make for a versatile system 

WireFusion 4.0 from £59 Demicron, www.demicron.com, 0046 856 486 950 M | W | L Oct 04 4.0 

WireFusion 4.0 features an updated interface, and is quick and easy to use. Pricing starts at £59, but the full version stretches to £1,195 

Utilities 

Colorproof XF from £735 EFI, www.efi.com, 020 8476 7676 M | W Mar 05 4.0 

Professional-quality proofing software to drive a wide range of colour printers, with accurate simulation of international print standards 

CubeLite from £255 Flexion Solutions, www.cubelite.com 01530 837 143 M | W Oct 04 4.5 

This in-house photography studio comprises of a collapsible light tent and studio lamp that make it easy to shoot photos with even illumination 

Designer Edition 4.0 from £420 EFI, www.bestcolor.com @ CU, 020 8200 8282 M | W Digit 76 4.0 

Software RIP that provides accurate, high-quality colour output from a variety of inkjet printers. This upgrade doesn’t offer many new features 

FileMaker Pro 7 £219 FileMaker, www.filemaker.co.uk, 01628 534158 M | W Jun 04 4.5 

Version 7 of this database/asset-management system boasts increased capacity, improved architecture, tighter security and multiple window views 

Instant PDF 3.0 €199 Enfocus, www.enfocus.com, 0032 9269 1690 M | W Mar 05 4.5 

Utility for detecting and correcting expensive mistakes before submitting PDFs. Now supports InDesign, QuarkXPress, Acrobat ans OS X PDFs 

PitStop Pro 6.0 £429 Enfocus, enfocus.com @ XChange International, 020 7490 4455 Mac Feb 04 4.5 

A versatile PDF preflight checking, manual/auto editing and tracking utility. Now updated for OS X and Acrobat 6 features and formats 

Portfolio 7 £130 Extensis, www.extensis.co.uk @ CU, 020 8200 8282 M | W Aug 04 4.0 

An improved interface and ease-of-use make this more accessible than previous versions. New NetPublisher allows you to create a Web portfolio 

Profile Mechanic £135/£140 Digital Light & Color, www.dl-c.com, 001 617 489 8858 M | W Jun 04 4.0 

An easy-to-use, and efficient program for calibrating your workflow. Profile Mechanic is simple to set up, good value-for-money, and reliable

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d 119 

backissues 

issue 84

*all contents correct at press time. Next 

month 

On sale April 7, 2005 

REBRANDING 

How to re-invent your client’s image – top 

studios reveal their rebranding projects 

INK & STOCK FOR DESIGNERS 

Creative options for using a variety of ink 

and paper stocks for creative impact 

COLOUR THEORY 

The intelligent use of colour can add impact to 

projects – but do you know how colour works? 

LABS: LCD DISPLAYS 

Chuck out your CRT – LCD displays are 

now better for designers than ever before 

LABS: MATCHMOVING TOOLS 

Add 3D computer animation to your video 

projects with this round-up of software 

DIGITAL CAMERAS 

Reviews of the Fujifilm S3 Pro and 

Konica-Minolta Dynax 7D digital SLRs 

d 123 

next month

digit cd 

GET TO GRIPS WITH THIS MONTH’S FULL FREE CREATIVE SOFTWARE 

AN INTRODUCTION TO EOVIA AMAPI 6.1 

124 d 

U 

This month the Digit CD features Eovia 

Amapi 6.1, a full 3D modelling package for 

Windows 98/NT/2000/XP and Mac OS 8.1/9 

(and OS X under Classic). The package 

includes a full set of tools for the creation of 

scenes for illustration, product design and 

more. It includes rendering tools and an 

export module allowing models to be 

pon opening Amapi 6.1, you’ll be greeted by the Registration page (right), where 

you’ll need to enter your name and the Password (serial number) that you’ve 

obtained through registering at www.eovia.com/offers/digit-0305.htm. You’ll also be 

given the choice to use the Workshop interface – as found across Eovia’s product range – 

or the Standard interface, which uses a palette similar to other creative tools such as 

Photoshop. This tutorial has been created using the Workshop interface and below we 

have provided an easy visual guide to all of the available tools. These tools can also be 

found, with the same icons, on the Standard interface’s palette. 

Amapi’s creative tools are divided into three sections: Construction, Modeling and 

Assembly. Changing between sections is achieved by swiping the mouse to the right 

edge of your screen. 

Construction Palette 

3D Primitives 

Height Fields 

Grid 

Platonic Solids 

Cone 

Cylinder 

Cube 

Sphere 

Drawings 

Text Editor 

Extract Curves 

Facet Extraction 

Extrusion 

Sweeping 

Double Sweeping 

Ruled Surface 

Surfaces 

Coons 

Gordons 

Hull 

Construction, Modelling and 

Assembly palettes alternatly sit 

on the right-hand side of the 

interface, while the Control 

Panel sits below. 

Assembly Palette 

Duplicate Repeat 

Symmetry 

Rotate 

Move 

Scale 

Snap 

Lay On 

Weld 

Unfold 

Modeling Palette 

Deformers 

Bend 

Wrap 

Spherical 

Thickness 

Cut 

Taper 

Bend 

Twist 

Stretch 

Delete 

Smooth 

Chamfer 

Decimate 

Tessellate 

Surface Relief 

Soften 

Bump 

exported into Discreet 3DS Max. 

The CD also includes demos of Eovia’s 

latest 3D suite, Carrara 4 Pro – plus two 

other full packages: Paint.NET 2.1 and 

CADopia IntelliCAD 5.0. There are also 

12 royalty-free images from Creatas and 

F.stop.com, demos, showreels and more. 

Control Panel 

Scene Manager 

Display Hidden Lines 

Simplified Display 

Working Plane 

Perspective 

See All 

Zoom 

Viewpoint 

Magnetization 

Navigate 

Hide/Unhide 

Group/Ungroup 

Measurements 

Constrain Cursor Movement

2. Swipe the mouse to the right edge to leave the Hide Object tool and prepare to build 

your elephant. Bring up the Construction toolkit and place the mouse over the Sphere 

tool to make the primitive chooser appear. Click on Cube. Click where you’d like the 

bottom face of the cube to be, then drag out your cube to a reasonable size. 

4. The elephant’s legs will be extruded from the bottom face. Select the Extrusion tool 

and the Extrude Faces mode from the pop-up. Right-click to make the cursor change 

to selection mode. Click-&-drag to lasso around all of the vertices on the bottom 

face. Move the mouse down to drag out the extrusion. The yellow line indicates 

the first direction of extrusion. 

1. In this tutorial, you’ll create an elephant from a cube. It’s not going to rival the 

Oliphants from The Lord of The Rings: The Return Of The King, but it’ll give you an 

introduction to Amapi’s object creation (Construction), manipulation (Modeling) 

and placement (Assembly) tools. First, click on the Hide Object tool on the control 

panel to hide the Workbench. 

3. The elephant needs four legs. Use the navigation tools to move around so that 

you can see the bottom face of the cube. Select the Tesselate tool, and rectangular 

tesselation from the pop-up and click on this face. Click on the rear face too (the 

side you want the tail to be on. Press Enter/Return to confirm your work and swipe 

the mouse to the right edge to leave the tool. 

5. Space changes the extrusion type. Initially you can extrude directly away from the 

face. The second mode stays inside the face. The third adds the ability to change the 

size to the first. Use the third mode to bring the legs down and inwards to create 

ankles. Click to extrude further down to create the feet and click again to fix them. 

Press Enter and then leave the tool. 

d 125

digit cd 

GET TO GRIPS WITH THIS MONTH’S FULL FREE CREATIVE SOFTWARE 

AN INTRODUCTION TO EOVIA AMAPI 6.1 

6. To create the tail, select the Sweep tool, which has more freedom than the basic 

Extrusion tool. Choose the Sweep Vertices mode from the pop-up and select the top 

central vertex from the rear of the cube. This is why you tesselated this side before, so 

that you had a vertex to sweep from. Move the mouse around a click to draw out a tail. 

8. Select the Sweep tool again, but this time select Sweep Face. Select the front face 

and bring it out to create the thick neck. The CTRL/Apple modifier allows you to change 

the size of the section you’re about to create – the face and trunk. Use the plus and 

minus keys to reduce the size of the trunk as it extends. Press Enter and leave the tool. 

10. Select the Extrusion tool again and the Extrude Edges mode. We want the ears 

to be symmetrical, so Shift-click one of the vertical edges where the face meets the 

body and Shift-click the other vertical edge. Extrude the ear upwards and outwards, 

and then back in and further out to create a basic ear shape. Press Enter to finish 

and leave to tool. 

126 d 

7. The tail is currently more of a pipe. Press Enter to finalize the tail shape, but don’t 

leave the Sweep tool. You can use the plus (+) and minus (-) keys on the numeric 

keypad to change the size of the sweep. Make the tail smaller towards the end. Then 

leave the tool so that you’re ready to create the neck, head and trunk. 

9. If the trunk doesn’t quite look as you wish, you can edit it using the Stretch tool 

from the Modeling toolkit. Select a vertex or vertices (using the same right-click-based 

lasso technique as before) and move it/them to where you wish. The spacebar allows 

you to limit the movement to a single axis. Now all the elephant needs is Prince 

Charles-style ears. 

11. The elephant looks made out of Lego, so we want to smooth it out. Select the 

Smooth tool from the Modeling toolkit and the Doo method. Click on the closed 

eye to preview the smoothed subdivision surfaces. Plus and minus change the level 

of subdivisions. Press Enter to save a basic render. Now add more detail to your 

elephant until you’re happy with it.

digit cd 

Demo 

software 

Using creative 

software can 

be a subjective 

experience, so we 

endeavour to let 

you try the 

software that we 

review in Digit. 

If you see this 

symbol in the 

issue, a demo of 

the software being 

reviewed can be 

found on this 

issue’s cover 

disc. 

128 d 

on the CD 

THE LATEST PROFESSIONAL CREATIVE SOFTWARE TOOLS 

#85 ON THIS ISSUE’S CD 

EXPAND AMAPI INTO A FULL 3D ANIMATION SUITE! 

UPGRADE TO CARRARA 4 

FOR AS LITTLE AS £162! 

www.eovia.com, Windows & Mac 

Carrara 4 is the powerful, approachable, 

complete 3D solution from Eovia. It offers 

modelling, animation and rendering tools 

aimed at the creative designer – and is 

designed to be easy for creatives from 

disciplines outside of 3D to learn. 

The software is available in two 

versions: Standard and Pro. The Standard 

version includes a full creative toolkit, while 

the Pro version adds advanced features and 

includes a full version of Amapi 7 Designer 

PAINT.NET 2.1 

www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net, Windows 

Paint.NET 2.1 is a photo and image 

manipulation application for Windows 

2000 and XP. While hardly a replacement 

for Photoshop, it’s a great package for 

creatives who don’t need every part 

of Adobe’s toolkit – and it’s certainly a 

great improvement on Microsoft’s Paint 

application that ships with Windows. 

– plus the TransPoser and CAD-style 

plug-ins. 

Version 4 of Carrara adds terrain and 

sky modules, texture and lighting controls, 

and improved rendering, IK, motion paths, 

and timeline support. Eovia claims to have 

improved integration with other tools, 

including Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, 

Shockwave, Flash, Final Cut Pro, Avid 

Xpress, Premiere, and After Effects. 

The new Pro version of Carrara adds 

network rendering, vector and 3D motion 

Paint.NET 2.1 offers a level of 

functionality only usually found in highend 

applications, such as the ability to 

work with layers and a History palette that 

keeps track of everything you’ve done – 

and allows you to go back and change it. 

The application features dialog boxes 

that become transparent when moved 

blur, and integrated sound support. It 

also adds support for LWO and COB files. 

We’ve included demos of the Mac and 

Windows versions of Carrara 4 Pro on the 

disc for you to trial. 

Readers can upgrade to Carrara 4 

Standard for £162 plus VAT; and to 

the Pro version for £353 plus VAT. 

To upgrade or for more details see 

www.unlimited.com/digit. The offer runs 

until March 31, 2005. 

over the image you’re working on, making 

your results more precise. It also supports 

additional plug-in effects such as Emboss 

and Difference Effects, which can be 

downloaded from the Paint.NET Web site. 

Please note that this software is an 

alpha release, and as such Digit cannot 

guarantee its stability.

FREE STOCK IMAGES FROM CREATAS AND FSTOP 

12 ROYALTY-FREE IMAGES 

CADOPIA INTELLICAD 5 

www.cadopia.com, Windows 

CADopia IntelliCAD is the perfect CAD 

tool for students, educators, architects, 

designers, drafters, and engineers: 

virtually anyone who creates or uses 

CAD drawings. 

The application offers compatibility 

with popular CAD products through 

IntelliCAD's native file format, DWG. 

It allows you to open and save any 

existing Autodesk AutoCAD file (V2.5 

through 2005) and there is no file 

conversion or data loss. IntelliCAD also 

provides a high degree of compatibility 

with the AutoCAD command set, menu 

files, scripts, as well as with AutoLISP and 

Autodesk ADS. If you regularly receive 

files from clients that are in one format 

and you need to convert them to 

www.creatas.couk, www.fstop.com 

This month we present 12 royalty-free 

images for you to keep. You can even use 

them in your commercial work if you wish. 

Six are from Creatas and present a summer 

of love to drive away those snowbound 

blues. Creatas can be contacted on 0800 

056 7533. The other six are from FStop and 

showcase the work of Arlington, Texasbased 

photographer P Ravishankar. The 

images include nature photography and 

ancient buildings and landscapes. FStop 

can be contacted at www.fstop.com. 

another, IntelliCAD can do that too. 

IntelliCAD offers smooth Windows 

integration plus many unique product 

features, including the ability to open 

multiple drawings at once, and review 

and exchange drawing content. 

This version of IntelliCAD is free 

to use for non-commercial work until 

January 31, 2006. 

MORE CONTENT 

Modo 102 

Mac and Windows 

www.luxology.com 

Modo is a 3D tool 

designed to adapt to 

the environment that 

it’s being used in – 

including changing its 

front end to mimic the 

animation tool that it’s 

being used alongside. 

Modo 102 improves 

performance and 

adds a more userfriendly 

interface. The 

release includes an 

improved advanced 

toolset, with new 

functionality such as 

bridge, paste and loop 

slice, which enables 

users to create new 

geometry faster and 

with greater control. 

Projects and 

showreels 

www.umeric.com 

www.hive-uk.com 

As well as the best 

software tools around, 

we’re showcasing the 

best new creative 

work around – 

including the latest 

showreel from Aussie 

ad and music video 

house Umeric and 

one of a series of 

adverts created for 

the arrival on Five of 

hit US show CSI: New 

York by the UK’s own 

The Hive. Want your 

work here? Drop us a 

mail at showcase@ 

digitmag.co.uk 

Plus 

Adobe Reader 6.0 

(Mac and Win) 

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 

(Mac and Win) 

StuffIt Standard 

(Mac and Win) 

WinZip (Win) 

d 129

design classic 

REVOLUTIONARY DESIGN MILESTONES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD 

#8 THE GOT MILK? CAMPAIGN 

130 d 

With US milk sales turning sour Got Milk? and the 

White Mustache campaign made it cool again. 

I 

t’s 1993, and milk sales in 

California are sliding. But, boldly 

committing three cents per gallon 

gave the California Milk Board 

$23million for an ad campaign – a 

budget on a par with cars and beer. 

San Francisco-based ad agency 

Goodby, Silverstein and Partners ditched 

the post-war ‘Milk does a body good’ 

health message and developed a ‘milk 

deprivation strategy’. This focused on 

that feeling you get when there’s no 

milk to wash down cookies or go on 

cereal. The first TV ad saw a man unable 

to answer the $10,000-winning question 

on a radio phone-in because he had no 

milk to wash down his peanut butter 

sandwiches. Got milk? was born. 

The success of the campaign saw 

sales rise by 15 million gallons that year. 

The next stage linked milk with brands 

like Oreo cookies. Print ads of cookies 

with a bite taken out and the “Got 

milk?” slogan were bold, simple 

and didn’t even feature milk. 

The campaign went national and 

Milkpep, the US milk marketing board, 

developed the White Mustache 

campaign. With celebrity endorsements, 

this built on milk’s new coolness and 

brought back the health message. 

Celebrities get as much kudos from 

the campaign as they give. 

In 2004 Got milk? went global as the 

UK milk council adopted it. An exhibition 

of the ads-as-art is at the Copia Gallery, 

California, until 30 May. 

www.gotmilk.com

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