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Scitex Digital Video (SDV) didn’t need Apple or QuickTime as it demonstrated its product line from a huge NAB booth rising two stories high and spanning more than 9,000 square feet.

At the top of the ImMIX Sphere family of nonlinear workstations was the $70,000 StrataSphere developed by former GVG staffers. It had real-time, full-motion alpha keying; a DveousFX effects package; and 50 layers of non-destructive compositing.

SDV’s boss Randy Hood told the press:

We challenge this year's NAB attendees to compare the Sphere ‘Think-Do-Done’ philosophy to any other editing architecture on the market. For true real-time functionality, only the Sphere family delivers two streams of full resolution real-time video, not a preview and InstantFX, zero rendering of all effects and transitions. Sphere is where people turn when they need to finish great video.

Alongside the StrataSphere was the more video centric DigiSphere with the same ergonomic control panel and much loved audio fader but restricted to a single real time video channel. There had been significant issues to overcome to deliver as chief engineer Dick Jackson recalls:

Hard disks had got bigger and faster in the time that we started development of the (original) Sphere, to when we were acquired. As a result the need for compression was less and less and once you get in the 5:1 to 4:1 to 3:1 and you just can't tell anymore. And that had been our (initial) major point of difference with the competition that was using early JPEG and MPEG.

At 20:1 there was a striking difference between our Wavelet codec and their codecs but once Avid and others improved, we were stuck. We were tied to chip technology and a custom board that was 8 inches by 10 inches jammed with parts.

ImMIX used a proprietary codec that Aware had tweaked, without success, to match the newer M-JPEG compression capabilities. Jackson continues:

We knew with the next version of our system that we needed to lose the large two-channel Aware Wavelet board and replace it with a chip set, so the system could be significantly cheaper.

To complete what SDV called an open ‘network-centric’ family of digital media finishing tools Jackson’s team delivered a smaller next-generation nonlinear editing system, the MicroSphere. It ran on a Power Mac 9500 using the QuickTime codec and a Truevision Targa video board as the video engine.

Randy Hood told the press:

SDV is very excited to be expanding its horizons to include the high-end desktop-based video market. The ImMIX MicroSphere is a powerful new real-time digital non-linear editing system that takes advantage of Truevision's TARGA 2000 RTX dual codec technology and open systems architecture to create an easy to use professional editing system that is compatible with our entire ImMIX Sphere product line.

What was once a room full of equipment that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars was a Macintosh with ImMIX SphereOUS editing software and a 8Gb hard drive for $30,000.

The MicroSphere's dual streams of video combined with the SphereOUS software let users produce all effects and do all editing work in real time.