Archive of the Hardware Category

At the Wacom booth, After Effects artist and Apple Engineer Ben Koning is spending his first 20 minutes of life as a Wacom user testing the new Intuos4 tablet. “In that time I’ve gone from completely flailing around, drawing things when I don’t want to, to being able to drive Photoshop and AE,” Koning says. “This is my first animation with keyframes and spline,” he says with mock pride, indicating a kindergarten-level construction of boxes on the monitor. Buy hey, he’s driving. “It’s responsive and easy to learn I’d have to say, almost like drawing with a real pencil or a real brush.” more

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

Press Release

Wireworks, a leading innovator of audio/video cabling systems and custom panels, introduces SPEN and SPE5 Loudspeaker Cords designed specifically for use with Meyer Sound’s MM-4 and MM-4XP speakers at NAB 2009 (Booth C4147). Wireworks newest additions to its speaker cable line are typically used with Meyer Sound speakers, while SPEN cords can also be employed anytime small, secure speaker cords are required. 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

Press Release

Wohler Technologies announced that Wohler Mobile, packed with state-of-the-art processing and monitoring products, will be making a stop on the 2009 NAB Show floor. Proudly adorned in Wohler blue, the 22-foot-long trailer demonstrates how easily Wohler products provide key functionality even in the most space-constrained production applications. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2009 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

The most succinct spin I’ve heard over the last couple of days about how best to analyze the dichotomy between the clearly smaller flow of attendees to NAB this year and the show’s potential for productivity came late this morning from audio veteran Norman Levenstein, sales and product development director for Azden Corporation (manufacturer of wireless microphone technologies). Norman said there is no point in pretending numbers aren’t, or won’t be, down this year at NAB.

“However, the people who are here this year, want to be here, and that means they are more serious about business,” he pointed out. 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

I always feel like a kid in a candy store when I visit the Digital Rapids booth because there are so many products that look so yummy. Top on my list this year is the TouchStream live video streaming appliance that’s as simple to operate as an ATM but dispenses live streams rather than cash.
The unit is about 16 inches long, 6 inches tall and 5 inches wide. Inputs vary by configuration, but can include composite and component analog video with XLR or RCA audio inputs, and SDI inputs up to full rez 1080p. Outputs include VP6, H.264 for both QuickTime and Flash and VC-1/Windows Media. You control operation via a touch-screen interface with integrated live video monitoring and VU meters. Designed for live events like concerts, sporting events and news, the new unit looks like a great alterative to notebook or computer driven streaming products. more

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

Globalstor CTO Scott Leif is two years into his Red workflow experience. Technology partner Assimilate worked closely with Red in the development process of the camera—Assimilate can deal natively with Red files. Now Globalstor debuts the next generation of its ExtremeStor-DI REDe video storage workstation. This is the first workstation to deliver native uncompressed 4K resolution, Leif says. Raw, DPX, and Cineon files are handled in real time at 24fps (it can also do stereo 2K). It’s built on the Intel Nehalem architecture, which Leif calls “nothing short of spectacular.” The system also incorporates Nvidia’s Quadro Plex 2200 D2. Core software is Assimilate’s Scratch.

Will be available in rack and tower versions at capacities from 1.4-9 terabytes.