The answer can be found in the past, present and future...in loosely defined relationships that relate to fundamental changes in the way that digital media content will be created and distributed in our emerging digital world.
PCUBE LABS is a technology consultancy focused on the convergence of the three most powerful technologies of the 20th Century, video, computing and telecommunications. It is a working laboratory within Digital Lighthouse where products are developed, tested and reviewed. And it is a laboratory where the human interface between content producers and the tools that they use can be observed, improved, and if necessary...invented.
PCUBE LABS is a work-in-progress,
the current phase of evolution in its principal designer and technologist,
Craig Birkmaier, who has worked on the bleeding edge of video and computer
technology for more than thirty years. Craig has been a self-employed technology
consultant and analyst since 1986. Prior to establishing his own business,
he worked with video equipment manufacturers for 7 years, developing and
marketing video production systems. This followed a 13 year career as a
producer, director and operations manager in television broadcasting.
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for PCUBE LABS
Birkmaier graduated in 1966, from Nova High School in
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Nova was the first school in the U.S. to use television
extensively for communications and training. His career in television began
at age fifteen as the director of a daily news program for the students.
This experience helped shape a career focused on making the tools of visual
communications accessible to anyone with an interest in telling a story
or communicating a message, using what has become what has become the rich
new palette of digital media.
In 1970 he graduated from the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Business Administration, majoring in Marketing and Broadcast Speech. While in college Craig worked at WUSF-TV and FM, as a director and announcer, and operated a closed circuit television system for the College of Education. From 1970 to 1979 he held positions at commercial broadcast facilities, learning the production and operations side of the television business. Craig was involved in the development of news and educational programming as well as commercial production. He left the position of Assistant Operations Manager for WCJB-TV in Gainesville, Florida, to begin a career in the development of television production systems.
In 1979 Birkmaier made the transition from equipment user to equipment manufacturing, joining Industrial Sciences, Inc. in Gainesville, where he gained skills in product development and marketing. In 1981, Craig moved to California and joined The Grass Valley Group. His charter was to help the company expand outside their traditional markets with new products for an industry that would become known as professional video. He led the development of the Model 100, introduced in 1984. The Model 100 combined the best of established Grass Valley analog technology with state of the art computer control, cost effective packaging and volume manufacturing techniques. More than 17,000 systems have been installed worldwide.
At Grass Valley, Birkmaier worked with Lucas Arts on the development of the Edit Droid, an early laserdisc-based non-linear editing system for the editing of feature films. In 1984 he planted the seeds of what has become a new paradigm in the creation and distribution of digital media...the concept of a Personal Picture Processor--the integration of Grass Valley video processing technology with the graphical user interface emerging on open system computer platforms. The idea of a personal picture processor was a bit ahead of its' time, however, Birkmaier was determined to bring the Pcube concept to life.
In March of 1986, Birkmaier formed Professional Products & Promotions (PCUBED), a consultancy which initially provided marketing and product development services to manufacturers and distributors of video production equipment. This work included the development of Prodigy--a video and audio post production switching system for Videotek; a computer controlled audio for video mixing system for FOR-A; market development and training programs for the Sony Pro Mavica Still Image system; and market development programs for 3M video matrix switching and graphic products.
In 1988, PCUBED began to focus on the convergence of video, computer and telecommunications technologies. Since that time Mr. Birkmaier has worked with a wide range of companies to develop a new generation of video production and distribution products, written and lectured extensively about emerging technologies, and participated in the process of establishing standards for digital television at the U.S. and international level.
This work has included extensive involvement with video compression technology, and software tools for program production and delivery. Craig has worked with Apple Computer, Avid Technologies, Broadcast Television Systems (Phillips), Media 100, IBM, Lucas Arts (Edit Droid), Microtime, Montage, Scitex Digital Video, TouchVision Systems and Videonics, developing the markets for open platform nonlinear editing and video composition systems. He has worked with Apple Computer, Dynair, IBM and Hewlett Packard on architectures for client/server media work groups, and participated in strategic planning at IBM related to high resolution digital imaging and television. Working with Texscan MSI, Birkmaier developed strategies for digital commercial insertion equipment and graphic systems for cable broadcasters, including a proposal to Turner Broadcasting Systems for a new generation of text insertion systems for the Airport Channel.
In 1994, Birkmaier began a unique association with Two-Head in Gainesville, Florida. The facility became a working laboratory for digital media authoring tools. Within a year, a quarter-million dollar investment in the 1980's tools of video production were replaced with new computer-based systems for 3-D rendering, image processing and graphics, video editing and video composition. To complete the metamorphosis started in 1984, PCUBED became PCUBE LABS, a working laboratory in the technologies of personal picture processing. In 2000 PCUBE LABS joined forces with Digital Lighthouse, a video project studio that produces a wide range of digital media for broadcast, cable and professional clients.
Mr. Birkmaier has been active in the development of video industry standards
in the areas of digital control systems and high resolution digital motion
imaging. As a member of the SMPTE Digital Image Architecture Task Force,
Craig played a major role in developing the findings and edited the Task Force report,
published in September of 1992. He has also been an active participant in
the process of developing production and transmission standards for Digital
Advance Television in North America. Mr. Birkmaier was a member of Working
Party 4 of the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Systems (ACATS),
which examined the issues of interoperability with other delivery infrastructures;
a member of the Interlace/Proscan Focus Group, reporting to the Advanced
Television Systems Committee (ATSC) T4 Task Force on North American Production
Standards; and is currently a member of the ATSC T3/S13 Specialist Group
on Data Broadcasting. As a participant in the ISO/MPEG process Mr. Birkmaier
has worked on advanced video coding standards includiing MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
Birkmaier is also an extensively published author and lecturer on television and computer systems. Among his credits are seminars and papers presented to the International Teleproduction Society, International Television Association, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, SIGGRAPH, and the Society of Broadcast Engineers. He has published feature articles in ACM Networker, Boradcast Engineering, IEEE Multimedia, Netscape World, Digital TV, Television Broadcast/Europe, and Videography.
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