Archive by Trevor Boyer

At its press conference yesterday, Blackmagic Design introduced 17—count ‘em—new hardware products, to go along with five software products and the three other hardware units the company introduced earlier this year.

One of the biggest pushes was fiber. Blackmagic President Dan May said that fiber solves some of the problems inherent to SDI technology, which allows cable runs only up to 300ft. Copper needs to be replaced with some frequency as well. more

In this media day and age, it’s apparently not enough to offer just blazing-fast shared storage based on SATA drives and Gigabit Ethernet or 10-Gigabit Ethernet networking. EditShare, which over the past few years has made network-attached storage systems that act like SANs, is now focused on workflow.

EditShare claims that its server software is what allows its shared-storage systems to use a much bigger portion of those gigabits per second of bandwidth than its competitors. So it’s not a huge surprise that the storage company’s now touting its new software—workflow software—here at NAB. more

Two weeks ago Red Giant Software announced version 2 of its Trapcode Particular and ToonIt plug-ins for Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Avid. ToonIt 2 is shipping; Particular 2 will ship this summer. Sean Safreed gave me a demo of both at Red Giant Software’s booth today.

ToonIt’s now in the position of competing with the native Cartoon effect in After Effects Creative Suite 4. So as one way to go beyond simple “cartoonification,” ToonIt 2 features new “natural media” effects such as simulated airbrush, bristle paint, gouache, and scratch board styles. There are also about 50 new presets, as well as a randomization button for settings, to give one’s creative process a kickstart. more

Gridiron Software, which made a huge splash last year with its Flow workflow management software, is taking the year off NAB. But I had an opportunity to sit down with Gridiron president and founder Steve Forde just as he got into town from Ottawa before the show floor opened.

The company is about to release its third public beta version next week. (Forde says the market will determine when Flow is “ready” for an official version 1.0 release.) New supported programs that get tied into the Flow “map”: Adobe Encore CS4, Apple iWork ‘09, Nuke, and soon to come are Apple Soundtrack and Logic. more

Also a bit light on product introductions—especially smaller camcorders—was Sony’s Sunday press conference. In the company’s defense, it’s unleahed a whole bunch of handheld HDV and XDCAM EX models in the past 12 months, so evidently the company has extracted itself from the industry’s traditional NAB-centric product release cycle.

So, what is new for Sony at NAB 2009? First, the SRW-9000 is the first camcorder based on the HDCAM SR format. It’s intended as a mobile, Steadicam-friendly B-camera to the Sony F23. The SRW-9000 has 2/3in. CCDs and a 14-bit A/D converter. As standard, the camcorder does 4:2:2 10-bit recording at 1080/23.98P, 24P, 25P, 29.97P, and 1080/50i/59.94i. It can also record 4:2:2 1080/50P/59.94P. Full 4:4:4 recording and output is possible via the optional HKSR-9003 RGB 4:4:4 processing board. The SRW-9000 will be available in December; pricing has not yet been determined. more

Autodesk brings to NAB a host of new product releases. Before getting into the gritty details, Bruno Sargeant, film and television industry manager for Autodesk, gave an overview of the company’s current position in the content-creation industry, which, of course, includes not just TV and film but CAD modeling of buildings and cars and such. Today, however, the worlds of engineering and entertainment are not as separate as they once were. Sargeant explained the “CAD to AD” paradigm, wherein computer-aided design models are repurposed for the development of 3D-animated representations that end up in advertisements and video games. These “intelligent assets” would seem to support the level of productivity that’s necessary in today’s business world. more

As mentioned in the post about Panasonic’s new AVCCAM model, the HMC40, Panasonic announced a lot of its new gear a couple months ago in advance of the NAB show. That includes the around-$10K, shoulder-mounted P2 HD / AVC Intra-shooting HPX300, which Barry Braverman reviewed for the current issue of millimeter.

Then there’s a pair of products, available later this year, that seem to be made for each other. The AG-HMR10 AVCCAM recorder (battery-powered, 3.5in. LCD screen, HD-SDI I/O, $2,650) connects to the AG-HCK10 camera head (newly developed 1/4in. 2Mpixel 3MOS imagers, 12X zoom, $2,100) via a cable up to 10 meters long. The HMR10 recorder controls the camera head’s iris, focus, and zoom and records 1080i/720p HD to SD cards, like one of Panasonic’s more traditional AVCCAM cameras. (The setup recalls Sony’s new HXR-MC1, reviewed by D.W. Leitner in February.) more

In the theater within its booth space, Panasonic hosted its annual press conference this afternoon. Like Sony’s that followed, it was scaled down compared to press conferences of years past, both in terms of venue and product launches. (To be fair, Panasonic announced quite a bit before the show.)

The big product news for Panasonic is the AG-HMC40, a compact handheld AVCCAM model that features three 1/4″ CMOS chips and a built-in 12X zoom in a 2.2lb. chassis. According to the press release, here are the flavors of MPEG-4-based AVCHD that it shoots: more

The Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (ETC-USC) has set up a laboratory where manufacturers and content creators can put stereoscopic 3D to the test. In fact, they can test any and all combinations of content (live action vs. animated), display devices, format, distribution paths, and glasses types. Called the Anytime/Anywhere Content Lab (AACL), the arena is a neutral ground that focuses especially on the consumer experience in the home.

At the Digital Cinema Summit at NAB today, ETC executive director David Wertheimer acknowledged that the industry needs to keep its stereoscopic eyes on the prize of the home market. For the entertainment industry as a whole, he said, “Home video is the tail that wags the dog.” (In theaters, the battle has in many ways been won; all major U.S. media markets have at least one 3D-enabled theater for a total of about 8,000, and all DreamWorks releases are now getting a stereoscopic theatrical release.) more

Harris had its press conference on Sunday. This news is coming a bit late, of course, but that’s probably because the conference was aimed more at broadcasters than content producers, so it’s a bit outside our usual area of coverage. Still, you’ll want to pay attention to this news, as it has implications for the new ways the public will be accessing and viewing video in the next few years.

Among the news about its various broadcast systems (servers, routers, DTV transmitters), Harris also discussed its MPH initiative that it’s undertaking with display manufacturers Zenith and LG. MPH, which stands for “mobile/pedestrian/handheld,” aims to send video to mobile devices via “in-band” transmission — over the air, within the existing digital spectrum available to broadcasters. more