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DVdoctor interview - Hiro Yamada, Canopus founder and chairman

by Bob Crabtree on 21 June 2005, 00:00

Tags: Canopus

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Introduction

Canopus's founder Hiro Yamada hits out at Adobe, DirectX, the Open HD initiative and the idea of graphics cards powering video editing as he responds to questions put by DVdoctor's Bob Crabtree



Bob sets the scene: The following article is transcribed from my hand-written notes taken during my interview of Canopus's founder and chairman Hiro Yamada at Canopus's offices in Reading, UK on June 10, 2005.

The write up is non-linear, in that I have re-arranged the order of the questions and their accompanying replies - intending to make the whole thing flow more easily.

I'd met Mr Yamada for briefings a few times before but this was my first formal interview of him.

In preparation for the meeting, I created a thread in DVdoctor's right2reply forum, asking if anyone had an questions they'd like me to put to Mr Yamada.

Some disgruntled Canopus customers had their say there, and the number of postings increased after the thread was highlighted on Canopus's own support forums. Many wanted to know why three of Canopus's editing hardware packages - Storm, NX and SP Canopus - did not "properly" support Adobe's Premiere Pro editing program.

Other suggested questions covered technological and new-product development and future strategies. So, come the day of the meeting, having these questions and my own, I was confident we'd not run out of things to talk about.

I arrived to find Mr Yamada looking relaxed and dressed not in what might be thought of as the typical Japanese business-style of suit-and-tie but more like a West Coast high-tech company chief - in slacks and open-necked shirt - and cool (apparently) about my having turned up 15 minutes late.

It soon became clear that Mr Yamada had been reading the threads about the interview, so knew many of the questions I intended to ask and was expecting an ambush (is it still an ambush if it's expected?). I hadn't planned a Jeremy-Paxman-style set-to but did put as many of the tricky questions to Mr Yamada as time and the general flow of the interview allowed.