Archive of the New Products Category

Extreme slow motion capture has remained something film does best. Until NAB 2007, the few hi-res video systems available were too limited, with either a not-so-impressively-fast frame rate or having poor (read murky) image quality.

At the show, I-Movix offered one of the first truly usable systems; its SprintCam not only captures extreme slo-mo–up to 5000 frames per second–but it looks good doing it via canny uprezing technology by the Belgium-based company. more

I still have Sunday on my mind. So much innovation to absorb. From Samsung, Apple, Panasonic, Sony… for instance Sony‘s sensational F23 digital cinema camera, or XDCAM EX flash memory Handycam (at right, promised this fall), or the replacement to their outstanding BVM-A series of HD CRT monitors, the sure-to-be-award-winning 22.5-inch, 1920 x 1080, LED-backlit LCD BVM-L230 — 1080/60p and digital cinema 2K (plus every lesser format) with waveform and audio level displays!

(When it comes to flash memory recording and professional LCD monitors with waveforms, it‘s only fair to credit Panasonic with starting these balls rolling at previous NABs.)

It was only yesterday that HD itself was precious and exotic. But Sony‘s NAB mantra this year is “HD for All.” Apple, in turn, boasts of its ongoing effort to “democratize” professional video and HD. (Popularization and professionalization are wildly clashing ideals Apple seems to enjoy juggling like a watermelon and an egg.) Both echo JVC‘s proletarian 2003 NAB motto, “HD for the Masses.” This got me to thinking about the roles of language and marketing at NAB. more

Ready to move media management to the next level?
Microsoft is. At this point, the Redmond giant may only have a tentative presence in the creative content creation arena (although that‘s changing; stay tuned for a later blog on Silverlight) but that doesn‘t mean they don‘t have some interesting ideas of what might be useful for integrating media production and business chores.
One example: Microsoft Interactive Media Manager, a just announced digital content management package that combines digital workflows and media application integration, all of it accessed via a collaborative front-end Web environment. more

As Ikegami’s 60th anniversary approached in 2007, things didn’t look all that good for the one-time leading light of video camera technology. Once the maker of coveted high-end cameras that featured electronic circuitry delivering what many felt were the best video images going, by the late 1990s the company lost the lead, as Panasonic and Sony prevailed. Unlike Ikegami, those two industrial giants could also deliver the integrated tape mechanisms necessary to get a rig out of the studio.

Ikegami fought back with its innovative Editcam, launched in 1995. Designed in part with input from Avid, Editcam was the first mainstream camcorder to use ruggedized hard drives to replace tape in the field. more

Sunday morning started with a magic bus ride. Rolling down city streets, through underpasses, along Interstate 15 at 70 mph, and finally pulling into an underground casino parking lot, a handful of journalists including yours truly got a preview from Samsung of a proposed enhancement to ATSC that enables perfect mobile reception of digital TV, particularly to handheld devices.

What‘s the big deal? In a word, YouTube. Even the most benighted of computer illiterati grew acquainted with the pleasures of Flash files over the past year. (Thanks in large part to Paris Hilton, but that‘s another story.) The idea that it‘s fun to watch videos in a small window a few inches from your nose instead of from across the living room floor has now entered the public‘s consciousness. Apple‘s video iPod is another manifestation of this shift in TV viewing habits, as will be the larger, sharper iPhone when it debuts in June. more

At its press conference this afternoon, Panasonic unveiled nothing too surprising. Of course, that can be seen as a testament to the prudence of its current direction — namely, nonlinear acquisition via solid-state media in the form of P2 cards. (Not to mention the fact that Panasonic previewed its most prominent NAB product announcements in February.) (Read the press release at The Briefing Room: 2007 NAB Newslink) Indeed, Panasonic’s most oft-repeated announcement during its NAB press conference was the new five-year warranty that will be standard for all full-size P2 camcorders and related field equipment.

So what were the specifics? Well, our editors covered two of the big announcements before the show: the HPX500, a full-size 2/3in. 3CCD P2 HD camcorder with interchangeable lenses (for an agressive $14K) and the tiny HSC1U, a 1.1lb. camcorder that shoots long-GOP AVCHD to SD Store memory (not P2; $2,099). more

If you work on color correcting in post, or have to match cameras in the field, it‘s easy to rue the passing of CRT technology. While that analog technology had its limits, moving to LCD monitors meant losing track of colors such as emerald green and dark red, since backlighting the screen with fluorescent tubes greatly limits color fidelity.
At their Sunday press conference, Sony provided a solution with its BVM-L230 LCD video reference monitor; the 22.5-inch HD monitor employs a newly developed LED backlight system and display engine capable of producing 1,024 levels of gray scale. (The ability to render a greater number of luminance values directly influences color reproduction fidelity.)
Sony claims the new LCD panel is the industry’s first with to offer a 10-bit driver, replacing 8-bit technology, which is capable of only 256 levels of gray scale. more

Teamworking in post is all the rage. You can‘t read far though the slew of pre-show press releases to learn that playing well with others will be a big part of the news at NAB 07

Quantel does its part with the launch of Genetic Engineering at their Sunday press conference. No need to worry about stem cells piling up on your NLE though: the Brit company is talking about overturning the traditional way of looking at SANs (storage area networks), allowing Q users to hook together any of its products–whether eQ, iQ, or Pablo–and getting access to the same clips at the same time without copying, reformatting, or moving the media. more

Chyron is touting its all HD booth at this year’s NAB show, a first for the company. At the press conference, SD and HD weren‘t even a topic of discussion for the 41-year-old company: that‘s so yesterday.

The Melville, New York, company traditionally holds the show‘s first press conference, an 8am Sunday breakfast slot that doesn‘t automatically make it beloved of reporters, though Chyron can always be relied upon to offer a good spread and non-stop product introductions.

But we weren‘t here just for another CG rollout. But rather the company played up its sharpened market sensibility and product mix: profit margins moved from 62% to 67% over the past year, it‘s now debt free, and over the past two years the product line has been completely revamped and rationalized–that is, products fit together, work together into some greater whole. more

NAB, LAS VEGAS–April 15, 2007–Apple® today unveiled Final Cut Studio® 2, a significant upgrade to the industry‘s leading video production suite that delivers new creative tools designed expressly for editors. Final Cut Studio 2 includes Final Cut Pro® 6, which introduces Apple‘s ProRes 422 format for uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes and support for mixed video formats and frame rates in a single Timeline; Motion 3 featuring an intuitive 3D environment, paint and new behaviors; Soundtrack® Pro 2 with dozens of innovative tools for multitrack editing, surround mixing and conforming sound to picture; Compressor 3 delivering powerful batch encoding for multiple formats with a single click; and DVD Studio Pro 4.2 for SD and HD DVD authoring. Final Cut Studio 2 also introduces “Color,” a professional color grading and finishing application for ensuring consistent color and creating signature looks. Read on at The Briefing Room: 2007 NAB Newslink