Media 100's Blood Secrets
John Molinari August 9, 2022
0 Comments
In Blood Secrets the founder of Media 100 Inc., John Molinari, laid out the vision and the driving force that fuels Media 100. Even today in 2001 2022, seven twenty-six years after it was first published, it gives a clear and open window into the company that has changed the video industry so markedly.
We are a small band of engineers, joined by a growing circle of heretics, out to change the demographics of video forever. These are our blood secrets.
Our mission is to make video personal. Nonlinear systems emerged in the Eighties to simplify working with video however, these systems mainly benefit trained editors creating edit lists, not finished videos, at dedicated post facilities. Like the tape systems they replace, these systems are costly and dedicating one to a single individual is usually impractical.
Our purpose is to build nonlinear systems that empower the individual to compose finished videos, largely on their own, with small overhead costs. We call these people new users and see the individualism of their work leading to new forums of interest for video and altering how programs are broadcast to a target audience.
By new, we mean new authors of video programs with creative backgrounds or communications jobs, creating new kinds of video programs, using the computer as a media source, and using new delivery systems, such as CD ROM and digital transmission over the internet. Not all new users are new to video or video inexperienced, but have found working with video to be difficult, limiting, and costly.
In the vanguard of this circle of heretics are longtime video sophisticates, drawn from high overhead facilities to the personal empowerment and productivity of working on their own. They are on the frontline leading the liberation, first to understand the epochal change represented by personal systems.
Yet it's no wonder people are confused. Video users and equipment manufacturers unfamiliar with the rapid evolution of computers see themselves under seige by new computer users and suppliers. Computer users and computer suppliers, in particular, see a world of opportunity in digital video, but faintly understand the origins and particulars of analog video. While many might jump to agree that the take over by nonlinear systems is imminent, real understanding of the motives behind the engineering of these systems is less sanguine.
The bulk of nonlinear systems shipping today were conceived in the Eighties for offline editing. The manufacturers primarily engineer computer software. This history is important: while software can manipulate video pictures and sound in real time for nonlinear editing, powerful hardware is required for higher quality. Since this hardware would only come later, and not from these companies, the idea of actually finishing a video program using a nonlinear system was not a part of their original plan. At best, the idea was fanciful something for the future. We were told, that's not possible, when we proposed the idea.
Nonlinear systems architected as computer interfaces for editing may save time for professional editors, but they in effect preserve the status quo. Because finished programs are still assembled online with videotape equipment, these systems leave the video creation process as expensive and inaccessible as ever for the rest of us. This thinking motivated us in late 1989 to begin engineering hardware for a new kind of personal nonlinear system. Herein our blood secrets.
Our strategy is to create a new mold by making a video system which is simple a personal system for new users aspiring to have greater personal control over working with video. Technically, the means supporting this strategy is to provide output picture and sound quality which is unassailably broadcast quality in a nonlinear system built from a small, ubiquitous, and inexpensive computer. Matching or exceeding the video quality provided by broadcast videotape equipment eliminates the need to return to it for final program output. Quality becomes the path to finished results without complexity. Achieving quality naturally leads to simplicity and the means to creating new users and applications.
Likewise, the goal to meet broadcast standards is not tantamount to a goal to serve broadcasters. This point is often confused. Historically in video, manufacturers and users have suffered the worst inconveniences, technical difficulties, and high costs to get to high output quality adopting new, incompatible tape formats, bumping up, rerecording restrictions, multi-wire component hook ups, etc. have all been part of the complicated video culture to get to quality or avoid quality shortfalls; every facet of the process is a means to get to that end, quality. Since broadcasters seek the highest quality of all, they go to the most trouble and expense to get it. In our world, high quality is etched in digital stone upfront, so it is automatic and can even be varied by the user to meet the needs of new, digital applications, like CD ROM. With quality built in, the sole challenge in the process of creating programs is to be creative. While we may provide the quality that many broadcasters seek as we seek to meet their standards, serving them is not the end goal.
Quality cannot provide simplicity if its cost is impractically high. The other factors that ensure simplicity start with the economic: simplicity should mean the system is easy to buy it is not so expensive that business and creative users cannot afford to own it. Simplicity means the system is easy to set up. A measure of simplicity? Count the cables to be connected to assemble the system: you should find they are few. Yet, many self-described desktop systems have as many cable hook-ups as conventional A/B r
North America Stories
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Newest Lenses, Horizon Anamorphic Seminar & Guided Lens Character Experience Highlight Creative Possibilities
At the 2026 Toru CAMERIMAGE Film Festival, ZEISS...
14/11/2026
Sonnet Announces Black Friday Sale on Select Products
Brie Clayton November 14, 2026
0 Comments
WHAT: Sonnet Technologies is having a sale on a select...
14/11/2026
Berklee Alumni Shine at the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards This year's winners included songwriters, engineers, and performers who contributed to acclaimed reco...
13/11/2026
The UIM E1 Series wraps its third season this week with the Bombay Sapphire E1 Miami GP, Nov. 11-14, on Biscayne Bay at the Miami Seaplane Base on Watson Island...
13/11/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
13/11/2026
Singer-songwriter Benson Boone will headline entertainment for the Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles St...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced the Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone, a 7th order ambisonic microphone array that captures spatial audio for immersive video prod...
13/11/2026
SMPTE has announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infrastructure and communications technology for the Solutions Hub at t...
13/11/2026
The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) has announced the theme and program focus for the 2027 HPA Tech Retreat, which takes place Feb. 14-18, 2027, in La ...
13/11/2026
Football Manager 27 Touch is available on Apple Arcade starting today. The game ...
13/11/2026
MotoGP has announced a two-year media rights agreement with ESPN covering the Un...
13/11/2026
Apple Sports, the free iPhone app, has added the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to its lineup of supported sports, in time for Saturday's UFC 334. The...
13/11/2026
The NBA and Fanatics Studios, the joint venture between Fanatics and entertainme...
13/11/2026
ESPN held its annual EDGE Innovation Conference last night and offered up an ove...
13/11/2026
Regional sports network gives Ithaca College, SUNY Cortland students a platform to thrive
One of the biggest games in Division III college football will be pla...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Blue Lucy, the workflow orchestration and integration platform for broadcasters, rights owners and localisation companies, today announced an integration with c...
13/11/2026
Krotos announces Black Friday offers on Studio Pro and Studio Max
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
First-year annual plans start at US$195.99...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
New 7th order ambisonic microphone with 108 MEMS...
13/11/2026
Meet the Berklee Student Setting Planetary Motion to Music With his compositional platform SoniKosmos, Javier Roqueni aims to make the universe the ultimate i...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Amagi, the media industry cloud company, today announced a partnership with Golden Times Media Technology (stock code 920021.BJ), a Beijing-based media and tech...
13/11/2026
CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world, together with its Malaysian partner, Cedar ...
13/11/2026
SMPTE, the home for media professionals, technologists and engineers, today announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infra...
13/11/2026
iWedia, a global leader in connected TV software solutions, will present its software-first approach to DRAM optimization at Android TV APAC Summit 2026 in Bang...
13/11/2026
From pediatric research to smart hospitals, AI is helping care teams spend less time on routine tasks and more time with patients.
Health systems and startups...
12/11/2026
Industry leaders examine how Dynamic Media Facility, Media eXchange Layer, and c...
12/11/2026
The junior Tar Heel is embracing the technical and creative challenges of live production while emerging as a leader and mentor in the control room...
12/11/2026
Gracenote, Nielsen's content intelligence business, has released its fifth a...
12/11/2026
RTL Deutschland will bring the NHL to free-to-air TV in Germany starting Nov. 30...
12/11/2026
Clear-Com supported On Air 2026, a 24-hour student-led broadcast connecting 45 u...
12/11/2026
uniqFEED has opened a Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Madrid, Spain. It is already operational, delivering virtual advertising for LaLiga matches. The ROC is ...
12/11/2026
Disney, ESPN and the NBA will present Dunk the Halls, the third real-time animated NBA game using Sony's Beyond Sports data visualization technology, on Chr...
12/11/2026
Van Wagner has launched Van Wagner RELAY, a digital platform for official athlet...
12/11/2026
Deal brings together two of the industry's most established graphics brands and significantly expands Vizrt's footprint in U.S. sports and regional broa...
12/11/2026
Euro TV Production GmbH of Austria has upgraded its outside broadcast vehicle with Lawo technology. The mc 36 Classic console in service since 2019 was replaced...
Media 100's Blood Secrets 
