Archive for April 17th, 2008

Artbeats didn’t just bring three new collections to NAB–a gorgeous ultra slo-mo reel, new air-to-air (shot with Phantom) and energy aerials, and an Environmental Impact series.

The company also reinforced their intention to be a creative and technical resource for those using stock footage with an on-booth demo theater running continuous series of tutorials on topics including Steve Holmes on compositing fire effects in AE, DVD menus, lower third design, and using ProRes 422.

For those who aren’t at the show check out Artbeats free downloadable tutorials at artbeats.com.

New Manfrotto tripods at the Bogen booth: the MPRO 535 (6lbs. holds 44) and 536 (8lbs. holds 55). Both are 100% woven carbon fiber, which Manfrotto says provides incredible torsion rigidity (no mid level spreader required). They’re very light and very fast to set up, ideal for ENG. “A lot of people take carbon fiber for granted,” says Bogen’s Kyle Kappmeier. “But not all carbon is created equal.” $550 and $725.

HP announced it is the first company to release Microsoft’s Media Center Extender capability to an Internet-connected TV.

With the capability, people using HP MediaSmart TVs not only get access to rich content from the Internet but they also can enjoy their own digital treasures from their home PCs on a big screen high-definition TV (HDTV). Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Mobile Studios is on the Panasonic booth with an elegant flypack system for live production. The set up includes a Panasonic AV-HS400 switcher, BT-LH2600W monitor, and an AJ-HPM110 P2 recorder. It can be configured with Mobile Studios own MS-CG100HD character generator (available separately at $9995). Fourteen available rack spaces for optional intercom, wireless sound audio mixer, direct-to-edit capture, and battery backup/UPS. $30K to $75K.

In addition to the flypack on display here, the company also does one with a MOTU V3HD option for direct-to-edit capture on laptops with FCP or Premiere CS3. www.mobilestudios.com for more.

After AJA turned heads last year with Io HD, it seemed IO had gotten new preeminence and respect. Now Matrox brings the MX02 into the mix, an elegant, portable tool kit of Mac IO for Mac and MacBook Pros. Native support for XDCAM, XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX, and P2. Not ProRes dependent (though it will support ProRes). Available in July at $1595.

Also of note at Matrox, the RT.X2 LE at $1095, so the cheapest realtime HD editing we’ve ever seen. Works with Adobe Premeiere Pro CS3 and CS3 Production Premium. Now available through dealers worldwide.

Last quarter, Studio Network Solutions started shipping an ambitious unannounced product that you can see for the first time at NAB. Inside the EVO box is up to 10Gb iSCSI SAN and NAS, and multiple (up to eight) 4Gb Fibre Channel ports, designed to bridge your existing storage. Up to 24TB per enclosure, and your choice of RAID 0, 5, or 10 per volume. Oh, and two ports of Ethernet. Six TB for $1707; completely blown out at $24TB for about $30, add another 4-ports and still just under $40K, says SNS VP Eric Newbauer.

More news on the ongoing struggle to bring enterprise IT storage into our world. Eric Newbauer, VP at Studio Network Solutions describes the company’s adventures working with IBM and EMC to bring Mac connectivity to the big storage boys including LSI, EMC, IBM, Hitachi, HP, and Sun. “They have certain features within their storage arrays that can’t be taken advantage of without our driver,” Newbauer is saying. That’s a diplomatic understatement of the technical and cultural challenges involved in bringing IT and content creation together.

The SNS’ approach takes the form of Ellipse Enterprise, and I’ll describe it just the way they do: An enterprise-class, high-availability 4-Gbps fibre channel host bus adapter for Mac OSX. Can be PCIe or PCI-X. Single-, dual-, or quad-port, claiming up to 800 MB/s per part in full duplex mode. Supports Intel-based Macs and PowerPC Macs in case you were wondering

A key competitive feature is failover support for all controllers in enterprise arrays.

Autodesk no longer has to get graphics support from one source and SDI support from others. With the integration of Nvidia’s Quadro FX 5600 SDI, new efficiencies open up in the workflow for Smoke 2009, Inferno 2009, Flame 2009, and Flint 2009, as well as the Backdraft Conform 2009 systems.

The Quadro 5600 SDI card (a graphics card and an uncompressed SDI daughter board) provides two channels (fill or key) of 8-, 10- or 12-bit uncompressed SDI in 2K, HD, and SD formats, analog and digital house synch and ancillary data, for support of virtual sets and other live compositing applications and direct connection to broadcast monitors, switchers, tape decks or SDI projectors.

In my quest to identify buying momentum for Blu-ray recorders, I spoke with Alison Traxler from Primera Technology. Primera offers a range of CD/DVD/Blu-ray recorders, from the inexpensive Bravo SE (20 disc capacity, $900 street with DVD-R/$2900 street with a $500 rebate till the end of May for Blu-ray) to rack mounted, multi-burner units that are much more costly.

Primera offers Mac and Windows clients with all units and has network software for $500 that allows unlimited number of Mac and Windows clients to send record/print jobs to any of their burners.

After three days at the show, Alison reported that “people are super excited that our Blu-ray solutions work with Macs; we’re the only company shipping a Mac solution in that price range.” She also commented “we’re also seeing a lot of interest from event and wedding videographers who are producing small numbers of discs for clients willing to pay for HD quality.” more

FOR-A Corporation, a leading manufacturer of video and audio systems for the broadcast and professional video industries, will introduce expanded input/output options for its VPS series of digital switchers, including the VPS-700 GINGA and the all-new VPS-715 GINGA 1.5 M/E switcher at NAB 2008 in Las Vegas from April 14-17, 2008 (Booth #SU5220). Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room