State of the Art: Desktop Video and Web Animation, Part 1

By David Em

February 10, 2003

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Once upon a time, multimedia production team members were highly specialized. Designers designed, editors edited, animators animated. Seldom did the twain meet in a single individual. That's changed. Lately it seems that web designers, animators, sound and video editors, and video post-production artists are all expected to be reasonably seasoned in each other's field.

This is an enormous challenge for creative pros who suddenly need to add a passel of rarefied software skills to their already overflowing creative toolboxes. It's an equal challenge to the multimedia software developers who craft the code that lies under the software. It's no longer sufficient for programs to be merely capable; they also have to be easy for a lot of people with different backgrounds to quickly wrap their heads around. It certainly doesn't hurt if they're crossplatform and affordable too.

With this in mind, I've been testing new generation of video, DVD, 3D, and web animation software from Ulead, Sonic Foundry, Macromedia, Adobe, Eovia, Digimation, Electric Image, Hash, and ToonBoom Technologies. Remarkably, most of these applications run on both Macs and PCs. Equally remarkable, every one of them costs less than $500. This week and next, I report on these new systems, starting with a new offering from Compaq.

Compaq's N800w Mobile Workstation

Before launching into the software, I've got three strong multimedia hardware recommendations: Compaq's N800w mobile workstation, Matrox's Parhelia graphics card, and Contour Design's ShuttlePro jog shuttle.

I'll start with Compaq's N800w (click here to read my First Look at it). I tested all the software products in this article on the N800w. I edited photographs, sound, and video. I designed complex 3D objects, and built multilayered web animations.

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