Archive for April 27th, 2006

Thursday is a blessedly short day at NAB, when the show floor closes early and everyone unwinds at last. Days of frenzy and hyperactivity give way to widespread relief, bottle openers come out, and competitors become colleagues again.

Consequently, my Thursday blog will be brief. Here are some notable items I encountered today.

Vision Research‘s Phantom 35 (35mm-sized Bayer-filter CMOS) and Phantom 65 (65mm-sized Bayer-filter CMOS) digital cameras. The first, 1920×1080, up to 1000fps; the second, 4K up to 120fps. Both are progressive scan with an exposure index about 600 ISO (no microlens!). Low 40W draw. Pricey (about $100K and $200K, respectively) and lacking a viewfinder, but work great. Company has been in business since 1950. more

A busy week is now nearing its close, as the crowds on the floor finally start to thin out. I’ll be going back shortly for a final presentation by NHK of its Super HD (I think that’s how they spell it), a technology which is said to project at 8K pixels. Not sure where that sort of res is valuable in today’s competitive marketplace, but perhaps NHK is just acting proactively, presenting the R&D that will be productized by its clients, the Japanese electronics manufacturers. A similar pattern came with the development of HDTV, which debuted at NAB and SMPTE shows decades before deployment.

Most recently, I stopped by the booth of the ever inventive folks at 1 Beyond, based in the Boston area. President Terry Cullen presented with pride the company’s latest unique products that should be delivering soon, including the HD Octoflex (an eight-processor workstation running under Windows XP) and IntelliRaid FC-XPR (16 SATA2 drives with dual 4-gigabit fibre channel connections). more

At its booth, Kodak is debuting the system that makes it possible for DP Ron Garcia, ASC, to combine various exposures on Vision2 HD Color Scan Film (7299/5299—35mm and Super 16) on the TV series numb3rs. According to Kodak, you can shoot Vision2 HD at an EI of 100, 320, and/or 500, over or underexpose at those ratings, and even possible emulate one of your beloved (but departed) emulsions of the past.

The new gear—the new stock plus software and a digital image processor—not only lets users combine EIs but also incorporates various popular photochem effects such as bleach bypass, black-and-white, etc. Kodak also says the new platform lets users move among different telecines, monitors, and suites, and integrates better with the Look Manager System.

Read Kodak’s NAB press releases here.

JVC follows up its popular ProHD GY-HD100U camcorder with the GY-HD200U, released at the show.

According to JVC‘s Dave Walton, the new “Compact-Shoulder” form factor camcorder is targeted at independent filmmakers and stringers. Employing the new “Super Encoder”, the 200U delivers HDV720/60P progressive capture—that‘s 60 frames per second, which can deliver slow motion when the final output is 24P.

Besides the new 1/3in. mount HD lenses introduced at the show, JVC has created the HZ-CA13U, an optional lens adapter that fits on the 1/3in. bayonet mount of JVC ProHD camcorders. Why‘s that? So you can access the thousands of great quality 16mm film prime lenses that use a PL (Positive Lock) mount, such as those from Arri. more