Archive for April 16th, 2008

Scaling and Stabilizing with Red Giant Software

redgiant4.jpgRed Giant Software is mostly known for its Magic Bullet product, but I’ve worked primarily with their InstantHD product, with increasing success. At the show, I met with Sean Safreed, co-founder and manager, to see the latest product and came away impressed.

Briefly, the product is a plug-in for Premiere Pro, After Effects and Final Cut Pro, that’s designed to scale low resolution source footage to higher resolutions, say when you need to incorporate DV footage into an HDV project. The first version didn’t work with interlaced footage, so didn’t fit my need at all. The second version, which I reviewed here, worked pretty well but the interface was too confusing. This release, called Instant HD Pro, which should be available this summer for $399, should improve both quality and usability. more

North Hall, in search of Diogenes

FFV Elite HD camera backOne of the coolest products I saw at the show came to me by chance as I was hurrying across the North Hall, that almost always deserted-as-a-ghost-town hall. Maybe it’s not something a journalist would, or should, admit to, but when walking across such halls I sometimes feel sorry for the companies that have booths there. The booth employees make longing glances at your press badge as you hurry by. I usually find myself mumbling something like “Oh boy, really late again…” as I shuffle past looking for the exit.

(Hey, it just struck me–it might be helpful to someone who has never been to the show that one way to get a sense of it is to begin by thinking of a really huge amount of enclosed space. Okay? Divide that up into three big spaces/buildings, but not evenly: have each one gaining on the next. Good. Now think of these as having personalities. Maybe something from Goldilocks and the three bears could work. For example, North Hall seems a little too quiet at times, but it really is the smallest of the three in floor space, so that fits. Next, move on to Central Hall–yes, it’s laid out right in the middle of the three halls. Central Hall usually seems just about right; whether it’s crowd size, said crowds attendant caffeine levels, or amount of shouting needed to make yourself heard in the hallways, everything comes out about average. But now walk into the last of the three, the very oversubscribed South Hall. Here, just think of those over-crowded, sweaty fairgrounds you’ve encountered, or maybe a dangerously over-packed subway platform, something you might not want to navigate on a regular basis, but with everyone running. Yes, even in Las Vegas too much, it turns out, is really sometimes too much.) more

Which Enterprise Encoding System? Here’s Rhozet’s Pitch

Rhozet at NAB Show 2008After three days of looking at multiple enterprise encoding systems, I decided that I couldn’t meaningfully tell them apart by a features and benefits approach. I had to look at the high level product philosophy. Fortunately, I was meeting with two companies that couldn’t have been further apart. Briefly, Anystream wants to be a soup to nuts provider, while Rhozet wants to provide the best darn encoding tool available, and that’s it.

Note that neither approach is right or wrong, just more or less well suited for what you’re looking for in an enterprise encoding system. Between the two companies, you’ll see the extremes of this type of product offering.

In this post, I’ll discuss Rhozet, where I met with company president David Trescott and product marketing manager Jon Robbins. Check out Anystream’s pitch more

Which Enterprise Encoding System? Here’s Anystream’s Pitch

Anystream at NAB Show 2008After three days of looking at multiple enterprise encoding systems, I decided that I couldn’t meaningfully tell them apart by a features and benefits approach. I had to look at the high level product philosophy. Fortunately, I was meeting with two companies that couldn’t have been further apart. Briefly, Anystream wants to be a soup to nuts provider, while Rhozet wants to provide the best darn encoding tool available, and that’s it.

Note that neither approach is right or wrong, just more or less well suited for what you’re looking for in an enterprise encoding system. Between the two companies, you’ll see the extremes of this type of product offering.

In this post, I’ll discuss Anystream, where I met with Russell Zack, Anystream’s VP of Product Management, and Ken Haren, a technical representative who helped me during a recent review of Anystream Agility. I started the conversation by asking Russell why a customer should choose Anystream over any other system. Check out Rhozet’s pitch more

The Top Five Signs That You Need GridIron Flow

GridIron at NAB Show 2008GridIron Flow is a project organization tool for people who don’t want to take the time to get organized. Think of it in the context of Adobe Production Studio, with content like PSD and AI files. At a high level, it provides a workflow map that shows all the content you input into a Premiere Pro, After Effects or even Final Cut Pro project (see Figure). From the map, you can track a particular piece of content through project.

For example, say you created a Photoshop file that you used to create a motion menu in After Effects, as a background for titles in Premiere Pro and a menu in Encore. Client calls and asks you to change the font size or adjust the color. A quick look at Flow shows that while the initial change will probably take 30 seconds in Photoshop, the “collateral damage� in the other applications could take hours to resolve. more

Featured News from the Briefing Room: Anton/Bauer New Stasis Flex

stasisflex_motion_ghost_3m.jpgBuilding on the innovations of the widely successful original Stasis body support, Anton/Bauer‘s new Stasis Flex redirects the geometry of a handheld camera by redistributing its weight into the operator’s torso and over the shoulder. Introduced at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas in April 2008, the innovative design of Stasis Flex enables a cameraman to shoot in virtually any position, taking the weight off the operator’s hand, relieving fatigue and stabilizing shooting. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Blu-ray Won the HD war; Does Anybody Care?

Microboards at NAB Show 2008One of the big questions I had coming into the show was how much momentum Blu-ray would accumulate after the demise of HD DVD. A key barometer for me would be the attitude of the companies selling blu-ray printer/recorders, of which Microboards is a prime example. Let me rave about their latest printer/recorder, the MX-1 Disc Publisher a bit, then I’ll get back to the Blu-ray issue.

To set the stage, I currently use a Microboards CX-1 for DVD reproduction and printing. Three things about the MX-1 that caught my eye. First, it uses separate ink cartridges, which means less waste and a reported drop in print cost to nine cents per disc.

Second is a brand new software interface shown in the figure that’s built over the Prassi software that actually runs the unit and serves as the user interface on my CX-1. To be kind, the Prassi software was plain and functional, a nice way of saying it was two or three generations behind and not all that user friendly. The new software is wizard driven, a lot more fault tolerant, yet still uses the Prassi software to drive the recording functions, which should enhance reliability. Microboards also ships Charismac with the unit for Mac users, though there are no network capabilities, you have to be connected to the unit to drive it. more

Déjà vu All over Again

There was something of a Yogi Berra moment at the Hard Rock Cafe on Sunday when Avid‘s new executive VP and then the new CEO took the stage to pledge that this time we’re going to get it right.

Oh no, I thought, not another set of promises about working well with others and thinking outside the box. Well, we got those promises again. And yes there were some snickers around the floor of Hard Rock’s music venue (Avid’s traditional space over their years at NAB) at inappropriate times from the hundreds in the audience of users along with a smattering of press.

After all, neither CEO Gary Greenfield nor Kirk Arnold, executive vp and gm of Avid Video, have any video industry experience. (Give Avid’s board credit though–both of these very recent hires have solid reps for turning around high tech companies.) more

My Damn Channel

My Damn ChannelI just came from the extremely amusing “Trusting Talent: My Damn Channel” panel presentation at the Content Theater in the Central Hall. And besides being rather chuckle inducing (you should really check out “You Suck at Photoshop” and other programming at www.mydamnchannel.com ), it was actually rather thought provoking.

The entertainment site’s president/CEO, Rob Barnett, showed up with two stars/programmers of two of the eight channels on My Damn Channel–internet/cable TV oddball Andy Milonakis and legendary comedian/satirist/author/actor Harry Shearer, and in between clips and jokes, they proffered their theory that My Damn Channel and certain other entertainment sites finally have a chance at success now that “the bandwidth is finally there,” in Barnett’s words. He laid out a business model that doesn’t attempt to craft a new paradigm so much as combine old and new paradigms together. more

Featured News from the Briefing Room: LaserPacific Selects MTI Film’s CONTROL Dailies and CONVEY

MTI Film announces the sale of its revolutionary dailies processing solution, CONTROL Dailies, to LaserPacific Media Corporation. LaserPacific, one of the largest providers of post production services in Hollywood, has purchased four CONTROL Dailies systems with CONVEY and plans to use them to increase the speed, capacity and quality of its dailies processing operations for episodic television and feature films. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

About

The editors of Digital Content Producer and millimeter post live from the NAB Show as the news happens. Check back several times a day for the latest industry news, reports from press conferences, and product introductions.

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