Compositing for the high-definition age: the tools of the trade, from hardware to software, must keep pace with the move to higher resolution.(Compositing)

Yet again, the world is changing.

The world of video is in the process of a major transition. The 50-year-old standard-definition TV format is slowly going away in favor of high definition. LCD and plasma televisions have dropped in price and are flying off store shelves, and customers are demanding high-resolution content to feed these large screens.

In the early part of this year, the high-definition format war between Sony and Toshiba ended when Sow's Blu-ray prevailed, clearing the way for that format to replace the venerable DVD. High-definition broadcasts are also becoming more prevalent. Cable and satellite providers are adding more HD channels every year, and digital broadcasts will become the US standard in 2009.

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This demand for HD content puts new demands on digital content creators. A stream of 1920x1080 HD video requires six times the storage and bandwidth of standard-definition (720x480) video. Compositing is one area that is particularly affected because it combines multiple streams of video into a single image, multiplying the bandwidth requirements and taxing both the hardware and software. Not only does the increased amount of data require faster and more capable computers, it also requires faster software.

The high end of the compositing world has been doing this sort of work for well over a decade. Those in feature films have always worked in high-definition formats, and, historically, compositing for features has always been at the cutting edge of technology and performance.

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