Archive of the NAB 2006 Category

The Entertainment Technology Center’s Digital Cinema Summit’s morning session ended moments ago with news from Wade Hannibal, VP of Cinema Technologies at Universal Pictures, that the Digital Cinema Initiatives consortium has officially updated the Digital Cinema Spec.

As of this week–the spec is now known as the Digital Cinema Specification, version 1.1. Also, in response to the 3D frenzy, a topic of much discussion at this year’s Summit, the DCI group also announced the Draft Stereoscopic Digital Cinema Addendum, Version 0.9. DCI is also pushing ahead with a new phase of its DCI Compliance Test plan, and has a variety of other new initiatives going on as well as part of the ongoing struggle to standardize the digital cinema formats. You can read papers on the newest DCI announcements at the DCI site–dcimovies.com.

Interestingly Hannibal did not take any questions before the session broke for lunch …

–Michael Goldman

On Wednesday, Trevor Boyer, Video Technology Editor of Digital Content Producer, met with David Stamp, director of Formatt Filters. David explained how soft filters designed for SD cameras often show dimples when used in high-definition recording, and how Formatt‘s new filters use smaller dimples that can‘t be picked up by HD cameras. One show using these filters, Stamp reported, was the weekly television show House.

David Stamp – Formatt Podcast (to download to your desktop, right click and select “Save Target As”)(1.4MB)

Thursday is a blessedly short day at NAB, when the show floor closes early and everyone unwinds at last. Days of frenzy and hyperactivity give way to widespread relief, bottle openers come out, and competitors become colleagues again.

Consequently, my Thursday blog will be brief. Here are some notable items I encountered today.

Vision Research‘s Phantom 35 (35mm-sized Bayer-filter CMOS) and Phantom 65 (65mm-sized Bayer-filter CMOS) digital cameras. The first, 1920×1080, up to 1000fps; the second, 4K up to 120fps. Both are progressive scan with an exposure index about 600 ISO (no microlens!). Low 40W draw. Pricey (about $100K and $200K, respectively) and lacking a viewfinder, but work great. Company has been in business since 1950. more

A busy week is now nearing its close, as the crowds on the floor finally start to thin out. I’ll be going back shortly for a final presentation by NHK of its Super HD (I think that’s how they spell it), a technology which is said to project at 8K pixels. Not sure where that sort of res is valuable in today’s competitive marketplace, but perhaps NHK is just acting proactively, presenting the R&D that will be productized by its clients, the Japanese electronics manufacturers. A similar pattern came with the development of HDTV, which debuted at NAB and SMPTE shows decades before deployment.

Most recently, I stopped by the booth of the ever inventive folks at 1 Beyond, based in the Boston area. President Terry Cullen presented with pride the company’s latest unique products that should be delivering soon, including the HD Octoflex (an eight-processor workstation running under Windows XP) and IntelliRaid FC-XPR (16 SATA2 drives with dual 4-gigabit fibre channel connections). more

At its booth, Kodak is debuting the system that makes it possible for DP Ron Garcia, ASC, to combine various exposures on Vision2 HD Color Scan Film (7299/5299—35mm and Super 16) on the TV series numb3rs. According to Kodak, you can shoot Vision2 HD at an EI of 100, 320, and/or 500, over or underexpose at those ratings, and even possible emulate one of your beloved (but departed) emulsions of the past.

The new gear—the new stock plus software and a digital image processor—not only lets users combine EIs but also incorporates various popular photochem effects such as bleach bypass, black-and-white, etc. Kodak also says the new platform lets users move among different telecines, monitors, and suites, and integrates better with the Look Manager System.

Read Kodak’s NAB press releases here.

Get a recap of the day’s events with podcast interviews from Millimeter and Digital Content Producer editors.

Wednesday at NAB

Download Wednesday’s podcasts by right clicking and selecting “Save Target As” on the interviewee’s name.

Day three brought a couple interviews that would qualify for our “Brushes with Fame” category. Michael Goldman caught up with editor and postproduction supervisor Jacob Rosenberg, (Dust to Glory, “LBS” (Pounds) (in production)) on his pioneering efforts in creating “desktop DI” utilizing an Adobe Premiere/Cineform based workflow. Goldman also sat down with Focus Features VP of Post Production Jeff Roth to discuss making big-time films on small-time budgets, as well as their utilization of Avid-based workflows.

On the camera front, Ikegami Engineer Haluki Sadahiro demonstrates the HDN-X10 EditcamHD – their first HD camera with hard disk storage. Wayne Schulman from Bogen goes over the new Manfrotto Fluid Monopod. Kata‘s Bellina Israel stopped our own Trevor Boyer to discuss their new camcorder bag by inserting a digital camera owned by Bogen‘s PR rep into a Kata mini-bag and throwing it 30 feet down the convention isle. The camera survived.

Storage brought some interesting storylines to the table as Maximum Throughput‘s CEO Giovanni Tagliamonti explains real world demos (BBC being one) of the new Sledgehammer Dual Stream. Rich D’Ambrise of Maxell talks about their upcoming holographic storage system as well as their support for Blu-ray and HD DVD. InPhase Technologies (developer of said holographic storage used by Maxell) provides Dr. William Wilson, chief scientist and founder, to explain why holographic storage exponentially increases storage capacities.

In other interviews, our editors caught up with Peder Norrby of Trapcode in the Plug-in Pavilion to discuss their 3D particle plug-in for After Effects. Elsewhere, Chris Putnam from Serious Magic answered questions on the DV Rack. Matrox Product Manager Wayne Andrews explains why MXO is so hot that Apple featured it in their product demos. Rounding out the day’s interviews is Panasonic‘s Steve Golub who showed off two of their LCD monitors in side-by-side comparison with similar Sony models.

JVC follows up its popular ProHD GY-HD100U camcorder with the GY-HD200U, released at the show.

According to JVC‘s Dave Walton, the new “Compact-Shoulder” form factor camcorder is targeted at independent filmmakers and stringers. Employing the new “Super Encoder”, the 200U delivers HDV720/60P progressive capture—that‘s 60 frames per second, which can deliver slow motion when the final output is 24P.

Besides the new 1/3in. mount HD lenses introduced at the show, JVC has created the HZ-CA13U, an optional lens adapter that fits on the 1/3in. bayonet mount of JVC ProHD camcorders. Why‘s that? So you can access the thousands of great quality 16mm film prime lenses that use a PL (Positive Lock) mount, such as those from Arri. more

Yesterday I blogged that my eyes had seen the glory of the coming of 4K (hum that to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, you won’t get it out of your head) at Filmlight’s demonstration of 4K color grading of 4K Dalsa Origin clips over a Sony 4K SXRD projector. But that was yesterday. Today my eyes have a new hero: NHK’s Ultra High Definition Video, which delivers sixteen times the definition of HD. And seeing is believing. more

Technical Editor Dan Ochiva interviews Autodesk‘s Director of Product Marketing Maurice Patel in this afternoon’s podcast. Patel notes, “The sophistication of what needs to go into producing a final digital product and then versioning of it, applying it to multiple areas, are producing new types of problems for our clients.”

Listen to Autodesk’s Maurice Patel talk with Dan Ochiva in our Autodesk Podcast, or to download to your desktop, right click and select “Save Target As.”

NAB, the “National Association of Boys.” I heard that at a ProMax Systems gathering, where the guy on stage was tossing ProMax T-shirts to eager audience members, preferably those blonde and female he announced with self-irony. Of course only a few in the audience fit this description. Perhaps that‘s why he asked if Adam Wilt were in the audience. He was, duly received and donned his free T-shirt, and curtsied. Boys will be boys. Adam will be Adam.

A far cry from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when companies (particularly European) at NAB or the SMPTE Equipment Exhibition featured at their video camera demonstrations tableau vivants of lissome “Indian” babes in buckskin posed in front of a teepee. It‘s gratifying how NAB has evolved away from dimwitted chauvinism and towards inclusiveness. more