I'd have to take a little exception to this statement. It is expensive OR
enormously time consuming, I think, not both. It's the old law of cheap,
fast, or good--pick two. I support my dance habit by designing/producing
educational CDROMs, and I'd have to agree that the current state of the
"art" is rather hostile to an accurate representation of most live dance
work. However, much of the same problem is encountered with other media
such as video and DVD--namely, few choreographers and dancers are happy with
the way a 2d medium represents their dance. I'm certainly not...but as a
videographer/designer, I simply think that the limitations have to be
accounted for, adjusted to, and developed into further aesthetic features.
If you "roll your own" from scratch, you're in for a steep learning curve
and lots of mistakes that take lots of time...but you can have a decent
production environment for less than $3000american as an initial investment.
On the other hand, for about $5000 you can commission a commercial company
to produce your project with an entire development team at your
disposal...until the initial investment goes over budget, and the company is
bought, etc, etc.
I'd like to add that I personally would be very interested in working on the
CD and DVD (and the web, though that project is in the works already) as
media for dance expression. So if anyone would like to
commiserate/brainstorm/consult, let me know.
Jeff