Archive of the Digital Cinema Category

I call Thursday NAB’s “rump” day, a short, casual afternoon of thin crowds, when tired booth personnel slip away to visit competitors and otherwise view the show floor for themselves. It’s my favorite day.

For instance, I swung by RED’s tent and found no lines. I stepped immediately inside and like those before me, ogled the aluminum prototypes of the upcoming 5K Epic (the small boxy one) and 3K Scarlet (“3K for $3K”) rotating behind glass. more

Serendipity on the show floor makes for impromptu sessions. Tuesday I ran into cinematographer Bill Bennett in front of the Sony F35 parked on a dolly in front of Brand Pro’s booth. Not much to say about the F35–35 means its newly developed single CCD is the size of a Super 35mm film frame–except that it’s as impressively thought out as last year’s F23 on which it’s based, and like its double first cousin, Panavision’s Genesis, did once, it sets a new highwater mark in 4:4:4 RGB high-end digital cinematography cameras.

Well, for $250,000 without lens, it ought to. A lot to pay in weak dollars for tighter depth-of-field and better dynamic range than the F23, plus 1-50 fps variable speed in 4:4:4 (compared to F23’s 1-30). But you do get every pixel you pay for. This is a full-on 1920×1080 RGB image—no Bayer interpolation of phantom R and B pixels here, no sir. Leave that to lowly CMOS cameras like the REDs, Silicon Imaging 2Ks and Minis, and Arri D21s (at NAB upgraded from D20 with new 2K RAW data output mode). more

Monday’s dharma at NAB was about bigness and smallness, and I’m still thinking about it.

Yesterday Tim Robbins gave the keynote speech. Ever since FCC Chairman Newton Minow gave his famous “vast wasteland” speech at NAB in 1961, it seems NAB has played it safe. Past keynotes I’ve attended have featured Ronald Reagan (attacked on stage by an ice sculpture-wielding assailant, yards from where I was sitting), Barry Diller, Richard Parsons of Time-Warner, James Cameron and the like. Safe Republican choices, not likely to get former NAB CEO and good ol’ boy Eddie Fritts in any Washington hot water.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Convention Center this year.

How Tim Robbins got invited to give the keynote is anyone’s guess. But there he was, on stage, facing a large morning audience of radio and TV broadcasters, cable owners and mixed-media types. more

Back from the show. I like taking a day or so after my last postings to look through everything I’ve collected, selecting some last items to include in a final wrapup. While that’s not a lot of time for deep reflection, I am at least far enough away from the hype of the moment to enable a bit of perspective.

At the NAB press office earlier this week I overheard an NAB official talk to the editor of one of the leading trade mags. He was asked about what he thought would be among the most exciting developments of the show. Instead, he begged off answering, stating that as far as he was concerned it was all just a rehash. He could find nothing new or interesting worth commenting on. more

When a company with a product line as big and deep as Autodesk makes its NAB presentation, you’ll forgive them for thinking like an auto company and describing the updated apps as their 2009 product lineup.

Trevor Boyer has already posted notes about Autodesk’s Sunday press conference. While each of the major products announced have plenty of notable and usable improvements, I’ll vote for lower price points and ability to work with compressed media as the most significant moves that herald future trends. Smoke 2009’s $64,000 tab for a turnkey hardware/software finishing machine–storage included–is a great breakthrough. For the first time, (fiscal) hope is offered to those many mid-level shops which blanch when faced with six-figure offerings from Autodesk, Quantel, et.al. (At present, this was described as an introductory price available through July 21, 2008. It’s a little unclear what happens after that; maybe if enough new buyers are attracted, the price will hold.) more

With the increasing use of capable high-end digital cameras, the ability to manipulate data as soon as possible looks to yield great benefits in speeding production as well as ensuring delivery of the directors vision. UK-based FilmLight made a move in this increasingly competitive space–Arri, da Vinci, and LaserPacific are just a few of the companies working on products and proposed solutions–with the introduction of Truelight On-Set at the show.

The company has made a name for itself as one as the leaders in color management technology in post. On-Set takes that capability to the earlier stages of a production, enabling the director and DP to set a look during the shoot that will serve as the foundation for color correction in post. more

While portable HDDs are turning up on HDV camcorders around the show floor, the promise of portable 4K field production came a bit closer with the pending release of Codex Portable from Codex Digital. Now on display in the Band Pro booth, the Portable (scheduled to deliver this June) is shown capturing 1080p, 4:4:4 data from a Sony F23 camera. The lightweight disk recorder– a pricier solid-state version will also be available at some point this year– is about the size of the toaster and records HD, 2K, and 4K from Sony, ARRI, Panavision, Panasonic, Thomson, and Dalsa cameras. more

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced that it plans to lead an initiative to define an industry-wide open file format for digital cinema files to streamline workflows and help ensure easy archiving and exchange. Adobe intends to leverage its successful Digital Negative Specification (DNG) file format as a foundation, and Adobe plans to work with a broad coalition of leading camera manufacturers, including Panavision, Silicon Imaging, Dalsa, Weisscam, and ARRI—along with software vendors, including Iridas and The Foundry, and codec provider CineForm—to define the requirements for an open, publicly documented file format that it plans to call CinemaDNG. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

I finally made my way over to have my chat with Red’s Ted Schilowitz, the company’s self-admitted chief evangelizer, to find out what is new as Red continues its annual tradition of getting NAB-goers more than little bit excited.

Ted gave the company’s POV on its new “pocket camera” called Scarlet, and other new or developing products, but he also talked about the meaning, if there is any, in the whole “is it really 4k” debate, and the company’s admitted rush in the recent past to get product to market before it is fully mature. He freely admits the Red guys are “as crazy as ever,” but added they are trying to be a bit more reserved regarding product beta test and release dates and promises, and other aspects of the hyping process vis a vis the development process that have, in the past, earned Red both great praise and criticism within industry circles. He also told me he expects Scarlet to eventually have applications for high-end consumers, as well as industry professionals, and a few other interesting notes. Overall, he’s a very happy guy.

Listen to our entire conversation from this morning.

At the Adobe dinner last night Mark Randall described NAB 2008 as the “year of plumbing.” Without a lot of blockbuster product releases (especially for the desktop), there’s a lot of truth to that statement. So what we’re seeing is a lot of infrastructure gear that’s not incredibly “sexy” (sorry, I can’t believe I just typed that) but is, or will be, incredibly useful.

Take 3Gbps HD-SDI transmission technology. This year (and somewhat last year) we’ve seen a wealth of products that can input and output 3Gbps worth of data i.e. video — it’s all over the show floor. Why is this number significant? Traditional single-link HD-SDI works out to 1.5Gbps. Dual-link HD-SDI and the newer 3G-SDI (which operates over a single coaxial cable) can handle 3Gbps. Standard HD-SDI can handle the transmission of 1080i video; dual-link HD-SDI and 3G-SDI open up the possibility of transmitting 1080p, 4:4:4 RGB, 2K “film” data, and stereoscopic 1080i. more