Archive of the NAB 2006 Category

The Dalsa folks seem particularly happy this NAB about the notion that their Origin camera (pictured) and its affiliated tapeless, 4K data path flow are finally on the verge of making the transition from the development and testing and specialty production world into the realm of hardcore, bigtime feature film projects. Look for major feature films to be announced this year that are expected to use the Dalsa camera and 4K workflow.

To make this a reality, Dalsa is actively celebrating and promoting its technology partners—companies like Quantel, Ciprico, and Root6 Technology, among others. Root6, for instance, is offering a universal encoding platform designed to allow content creators to get its 4K data transcoded and transformed into digital dailies on any of a number of platforms. Root6 says this is accomplished by achieving the notion of “remote transcoding,” meaning that its system identifies 4k files on a network and transcodes those files by reaching out to them—not ingesting them and talking up mega storage space within its system, in other words. You can find Root6, by the way, within the Avid Developer community section of the Avid booth. more

Yesterday D.W. Leitner and I had a meeting with Thomson Grass Valley. We chatted with Mike Wolschon, director of strategic marketing, about a broad range of the company’s current and future plans. The Viper Filmstream camera is coming into its own and exceeding expectations, according to Wolschon. The last year has seen important announcements related to the workflow of the high-end digital camera. DPX file import is now supported by Final Cut Pro, which Apple had shown us earlier in a testimonial by director David Fincher, who’s been working with the Viper on a recent project, Zodiac. Also, the Venom solid state recording device is now shipping—it promises to be a more manageable storage solution than what had been available previously.

About 18 months in gestation, the hard drive-based Inifinity camera is now a deliverable product. Wolschon noted that this is a significant new initiative for the company, which had never before brought out a camera near Inifinity’s price point (about $25K). Leitner pressed him on Thomson’s plans for introducing an even lower-cost camcorder—HDV perhaps—and Wolschon replied, “Ruling out the palm camcorder market would be a foolish thing to do.” Quoting statistics he heard from Larry Thorpe of Canon at the HPA Retreat, Wolschon said that there are about 150,000 HDV camcorders in the field currently. more

NAB opened its doors to the general public today, and there were plenty of announcements of new hardware and software to divert attention from the recognition that the industry is in the midst of change. Change, perhaps, is the theme of the show; Apple has moved to a new hardware platform, implementation of digital theatrical distribution is becoming a reality and IPTV turns telcos into broadcasters.

I arrived at NAB with my new Cingular Razor cell phone and was quickly informed at the NVidia booth that my phone was just so “yesterday.” NVidia is making chips for mobile devices and all three of the models they had to show put my cell to shame. It‘s clear that my even my next phone/personal media player/recorder/camera/GPS locator will have to be replaced every six months to take advantage of new services and new features. more

Press Release

da Vinci’s Splice Puts New Nonlinear Face on da Vinci 2K Color Enhancement Systems
more

Press Release

AJA Debuts XENA 2K; Adds New Adobe Premiere Pro Support Into XENA Line; v2 Software Offers Elegant Adobe Premiere Pro Implementation and XENA 2K Brings Multi-Format 2K Workflow to the Windows Desktop
more

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

Monday at NAB

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

Monday’s selection includes a chat with Sony‘s Robert Ott regarding the XDCAM HD. Find out what’s new at AJA with Nick Rashby speaking about the XENA 2K card and Jon Thorn discussing the KONA 3. Blackmagic Design‘s Grant Petty talks about the new DeckLink HD Extreme card. Adobe gets in the mix with Chris Hock speaking on Flash Media Server, Simon Hayhurst discusses Adobe’s workflow innovations, and Jim Guerard touches on the Adobe Production Studio.

Other podcast highlights include sitting down with Apple‘s Gail Nishimura to talk about the new dualcore Macbook Pro. Vince Pace from Pace Technologies, discusses the latest 3D and HD camera innovations. Exavio‘s Jim Farney talks about their ExaMax 9000 SAN Accelerator. And, wrapping up the day’s interviews is David Rosenberg from Siemens, who speaks on their mobile content delivery trials with the BBC.

I had a nice chat a while ago on the show floor with editor/post supervisor Jacob Rosenberg about his ongoing crusade to promote combined offline/online workflows into what he calls a desktop DI process for independent filmmaker, built around Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and the Cineform codec. Fresh off the buzz his team earned last year for editing/finishing the movie Dust to Glory using this workflow (read our coverage of that project here), Rosenberg is promoting the methodology at the Adobe booth at NAB.

When that’s finished, he’ll return to finishing up his latest project—editing and supervising post on the upcoming theatrical film LBS (Pounds), which has adopted elements of this workflow. Look for a podcast on this site shortly containing our full interview, but meantime, here’s an excerpt, as Rosenberg discussed his new project and his belief that indie filmmakers can benefit from his workflow experiences: more

We’re here at the Prism booth with Adobe‘s Jim Guerard, who is an NAB veteran. Here’s his view from the vantage point of Day 1, 2006 about 3 .pm.

Jim Guerard: The show feels really good and alive. As I look around, two things pop to mind. One is on the historical point of view. Twelve years ago, when we talked about professional production, you had to have a $100K computer. And it was a very specialized industry where you had Media Composer artists, Flame artists—and the universe revolved around those people—in many respects, rightly so. The PC was considered a toy by this industry. What we’ve seen with the evolution of hardware technology and the approachability of software is a democratization of content creation. It’s very clear standing here today that what people—many more people—can do with desktop software is incredibly compelling.

From a technology point of view, we’ve matured as an industry to where it’s not about the latest feature and it’s more about the workflow and the productivity of these products together—whether they’re from the same manufacturer or a mix. On a business side, for the first time in a long time, this industry is on the cusp of some great new growth opportunities. After a couple of years of talking about it, with technologies like Flash the ability to build new revenue, distribution, and ad models has finally become a reality. more

Panasonic product announcements are aggregated in one location.

Click here for Panasonic’s NAB press releases regarding the P2, AK-HC1500G HD cam, BT-LH2600W HD monitor, AJ-HDP2000 VTR, and AJ-HD1400 compact VTR.

Avid has got student representation from various colleges and universities blogging about their NAB experiences. Read candid entries by future industry pros from across the country at the links below.

Columbia College, Chicago
Emerson College
Howard University
NYU
USC
University of Akron