You have found the website of Bill Cain, video engineer in the Meetings and Events Staging industry. The central focus of my career for two decades has been providing top-quality video systems integration, setup, and operation, including camera adjustments ("shading and painting") for large-venue projection video and production recording.

Technologies I am familiar with range from from NTSC video (composite or YRB component) at the older end of the scale through computer graphics formats and on up through various SMPTE / ATSC flavors of HD-SDI. I have broad experience with Evertz and AJA processing and conversion gear and other types of glue that hold today's various digital formats together without limiting the producer's content creativity. I know what to look for on professional test equipment screens to get the best possible signal results.

I generally work with portable ("flypack") systems, and professional EFP cameras for projection and studio-quality recording and playback, with studio-grade waveform/vector signal monitoring as standard. My specialty is doing the engineering it takes to supply the quality of I-mag and playback pictures that are part of the studio-quality look on the screens. Ultra-wide-screen blended systems such as the Encore and Spyder display these images impressively.

Multi-screen multi-city internet video conferencing has changed the budget requirements of many modern meetings, but not the quality requirements of the signals going in. In the end, a reputation for production quality will be what survives difficult times and industry changes.

What you will find here is information. It's about bringing my skills to your projects and making them shine.

A little bit about my background:

Until 2003 I was a 16-year staffer, senior video engineer and systems project supervisor for AVHQ in Los Angeles. Since then I have been available freelance, and have broadened my skills into the digital era, familiar with SD and HD-SDI and their various SMPTE-standards relatives, and familiar with the additional new set of parameters, features, and limits that go with them. If you'd like to know more about what I do and what I can do for you, read on.

Bottom line, simplified:I provide Video Engineering services (EIC-level) to the A/V Staging Industry. This includes component, composite, and both SD-SDI and HD-SDI digital video system design and installation; precision camera control for broadcast-quality I-Mag, video system CAD; studio upgrade and integration; and flypack design and integration. (While on staff at AVHQ-LA, all of AVHQ's component 'Airfax' systems, nationwide, were my designs, including AVHQ-LA's highly-automated Grass Valley 250CV system, Airfax 8.)

I understand video systems architecture, from flypack setup for meetings and events to HD studio architecture complete with EIA-708A closed-captioning and 3D virtual sets; I have a wide range of experience and understanding, and I offer that understanding to you, while also bringing years of experience making video cameras look their best both on huge projection screens and on HD studio-based shows. And further, I do so at very competitive day-rates if your budget is struggling with the times and with cost-cutting changes in business-meeting strategies.

Regarding my studio work, I recently completed an upgrade integration project which took a cable TV production facility from NTSC composite video to 1080i HD, and which also features a 3D virtual set as one of its background elements. The system is primarily powered by Evertz routing, processing, and multi-viewer gear, three Ikegami HDK-79EXIII cameras (with CCU-790A's), and an ORAD/Ultimatte virtual studio package.

This studio project took me out of the freelance marketplace, and had me making Visio line drawings and diagrams with my nose in an Evertz catalog and in the Evertz website for almost a year. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to learn first-hand and hands-on about the latest technology developments that are beginning to make their way into the 'corporate theater' meetings arena and can be expected to be predominant in the industry as costs go down.

Regarding my EIC work, I have been fortunate and have usually done the larger shows. If I am not booked I'll do yours, large or modest. I get great satisfaction just from making good pictures. My day rates are competitive in the current tough economic times, which have left me open for full-time employment opportunities as well (inquiries welcome!).

This website is permanently under construction, and may soon make some quantum leaps as I expand my interest into a working knowledge of website software, which currently includes extensive study of html, dhtml, xhtml, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, PHP and beyond.

But if you got here you probably already know of my video systems work. Hope to hear from you.