HD Technology Update: When you look at developing a product like this, you must have a pretty good handle on the size of the HDV market. How would you characterize the HDV market?
Ali Ahmadi: It is very difficult to say because that category of cameras has various applications and various users. If you go into Best Buy as a dad who wants to shoot his son’s baseball practice, you are going to come across an HDV camera. They’re used for everything from that all the way up to cinematographers like David Lynch who decided to go with these kinds of formats because they will allow him a totally different kind of workflow. That opens up a whole new way of moviemaking to him.
That’s two people from opposite sides of the spectrum in the HDV market, and as a result, it is very hard to gauge that market. And, all the camera manufacturers are now pushing for solid-state memory to store the video. This offers great advantages in terms of workflow, so these cameras and the new workflows are getting more attractive by the hour.
HD Technology Update: In particular, what impact do you see HDV having on the broadcast and motion picture markets?
Ali Ahmadi: I think it’s having a huge impact because of two reasons. These cameras now are so closely tied to computers — the optical chips — and you take that in combination with the advances computers have made and the advances of chips in the last couple of years; just three years ago, it was inconceivable that anybody other than the highest professional photographer could have an 8-megapixel still camera.
