Archive of the Company News Category

Brad Winnett of Isilon Systems was so happy to tout the company’s emergence into the digital intermediate marketplace as a scaleable NAS-based storage solution for such facilities that he brought in old pal, Dean Lyon, of da Vinci Systems, to join our chat this morning. (See my post earlier this week about what Dean told me da Vinci was up to at NAB 2009.)

Both men made the point that postproduction houses need to fundamentally restructure their technology, and their thinking, when it comes to the file-based world they have now, irrevokably, entered. Thus, such previously “mundane” or “expensive” propositions like file-based data protection procedures and tools are now central to their business. more

While we’ve handed the buzzword crown this year to “3D,” let’s not forget about old friend “workflow.” Solutions and improvements abounded this year at NAB, and the Vision Research people are no exception. They are addressing the issue as it relates to their popular high-speed digital camera technology.

The guys at Vision Research showed me their new 10gigabit Ethernet Phantom CineStation—a docking station for its hot swappable CineMag memory magazines designed to speed up the transfer of data from the magazine to the people who need it—both the transfer and the download of the data. When you consider, according to Vision Research, that the Phantom HD system gobbles up about four megabytes of memory for each frame shot, just a few seconds of material can suck up internal camera memory quickly. more

Press Release

Alioscopy USA, a 3D visualization technology provider, has announced its involvement with Autodesk at the 2009 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center (April 20-23,, 2009). Located at the Autodesk booth (South Hall, Booth SL 2120), Alioscopy is demonstrating finished auto-stereoscopic 3D content playing on its LCD display. Attendees can see firsthand how artists and technical directors (TDs) can use Autodesk 3ds Max software (with planned future support for Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Softimage software) and Autodesk Toxik software to help create and composite auto-stereoscopic 3D animated content for playback on Alioscopy LCD displays. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2009 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Arri marketing chief Franz Wieser was caught in my optimism detector this afternoon. Chatting a short time ago, Franz told me he was surprised by how solid traffic to the Arri booth has been since Monday, and that orders in certain categories were underway. Given the dire economic atmosphere, not everyone can say that. But Franz did say what many others have been telling me the last two days–namely, that fewer NAB attendees does not translate into less active NAB attendees. Important people with cash to spend wisely were at the Arri booth, and dozens of others, and they were talking serious business, and not merely kicking tires.

In particular, and this was another theme I heard from a few other manufacturers, Franz told me that attendance at the show, and business interest, out of Latin America has been extremely strong, and he points to that region as a rising giant in the media world, and eager to grow. more

Maybe it’s because he’s Canadian, but Dave Ross, CEO of Ottawa-based Ross Video, appears entirely immune from recession fear or NAB shrinkage concerns. In fact, his company’s busy booth (SU1807) is chock full of new product, expansion beyond the company’s core live broadcast production switchers, acquisition announcements, news of the hiring of additional sales staff, and, according to Ross, good profit estimates. He jokes that the company, started decades ago by his father, Canadian broadcast veteran John Ross, is “an overnight success after 35 years.”

But, more seriously, he suggests Ross has strategically tried to “grow ourselves out of the Recession,” and counsels that companies need to build “recession products before a recession hits—make a range of products, so that people will need something out of that range in both good times and lean times.” more

Press Release

EditShare, a technology leader in cross-platform collaborative editing and shared media storage systems, announced it has partnered with Automatic Duck to solve workflow productivity issues for postproduction facilities and editing workgroups collaborating on shared media files across disparate editing platforms. As a result of this technology partnership, EditShare is integrating key timeline translation technology from Automatic Duck’s Pro Import FCP and Pro Export FCP solutions into EditShare’s Flow Universal Media File technology. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2009 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

An ebullient Dean Lyon, Marketing Director for da Vinci Systems, spent a part of the late afternoon Tuesday touring me through the company’s philosophy regarding how best to survive the current economic disorder. Judging from the spate of initiatives we discussed, that philosophy appears to be “full speed ahead.” Or, to be technically correct and in keeping with the official theme of the da Vinci booth, coined by Lyon, the approach could also be called “visualize the future.”

After making sure I enjoyed a quick visit in one corner of the booth to “The Museum of Every Panel da Vinci has ever built” (”A Japanese guy tried to buy one of the original panels yesterday,” Lyon chuckled), which included an ancient SGI O2 box that Lyon insists “two guys were spotted weeping over,” Dean got down to business. more

Press Release

Inlet Technologies, a leader in advanced encoding solutions for new media, announced at NAB 2009 that it is supporting ZillionTV Corporation’s distribution of high-quality personalized television. The ZillionTV Service utilizes Inlet’s Armada automated encoding workflow management platform as its backend encoding infrastructure to support the encoding handled by ZillionTV’s third-party encoding company partners. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2009 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Press Release

At NAB (Booth N4031), world-leading media technology innovator Solid State Logic (SSL) will announce a partnership with Ross Video to fully integrate the Ross OverDrive Production Control System, used to control video and audio components in a broadcast environment, with the C10 Digital Broadcast Audio Console. This strategic integration delivers essential control of the C10 fader, channel on/off and pan operations to the OverDrive system, increasing production workflow through pre-programmed automation functions, resulting in reduced engineering time on task. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2009 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Maxell continues its immersion into the world of tapeless field recording with its massive iVDR push at NAB this year. Company executive and iVDR guru Rich D’Ambrise today walked me through the advances in Maxell’s iVDR strategy compared to a year ago, when the rugged field media device was first shown around. Today, iVDR-Xtreme is now available and shipping, and in addition to that, the company is diving into all sorts of other iVDRish arenas.

Among those areas, at the Maxell booth, you can now see work in progress related to iVDR for FireWire, iVDR smart adapters for cameras that do not have host mode capability, iVDR for field viewing, and iVDR desktop drives, not to mention iVDR consumer products, some of which are already available in Japan. more