Archive of the Podcasts Category

To hear the Podcast, push the play button or download here.

Few people have more NAB experience than Band Pro Film and Digital Chief Technology Officer Michael Bravin—he’s been attending NAB for over 30 years. During that time, Bravin has witnessed, and participated in, the rise of an entire new industry—the digital cinematography industry that Band Pro specializes in. As he did in 2008, Bravin sat down again this week with me at the Band Pro NAB booth to discuss the state of digital cinematography in 2009, and its role at NAB this year, particularly in light of the current economic downturn and reduced NAB attendance. Bravin has interesting thoughts about what new trends and opportunities will emerge from these conditions that industry-watchers should consider.

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.

Cinematographer Liz Hinlein gave a presentation Saturday at the Digital Cinema Summit about assisting DP Rodrigo Prieto in color correcting dailies on set using Yuri Neyman’s Gamma & Density Company’s 3cP software system. Today, she explained to me why she thinks 3cP is so useful for people like Prieto. He first used the system on Babel, and then again most recently on Kevin MacDonald’s upcoming film, State of Play, which was shot using a combination of the Panavision Genesis digital camera and 35mm film. The notion of 3cP is to provide a way to precisely preview color on set and communicate decisions about color precisely to colorists and others in the post production and approval chain. It’s built around the ASC Color Decision List (CDL), built on “the logic of cinematographers,” as Yuri likes to say.

Hinlein insists the approach worked well for Prieto because it helped him communicate his intentions to the colorist in a more direct and less labor intensive way than he would otherwise have to do. But, she emphasizes, using 3cP on set is not exactly the same job a digital imaging technician (she calls them ‘DITs’) might do on a broadcast style project.

Listen to a portion of our chat today at the Gamma & Density booth.

–MG

I chatted a short time ago with 3D pioneer Vince Pace after watching his Fusion 3D presentation of sports-related material in a meeting room in the North Hall, including clips from the recent 3D telecast to a theater in Dallas of a Dallas Mavericks NBA game–the first lengthy satellite broadcast of a 3D originated live event.

Pace took time out of his busy NAB schedule today to chat with me extensively about that project, about the current state of 3D acquisition and display, and where both stereoscopic camera and display systems are heading in the next few years, not to mention the business of 3D. Pace is calling himself an “evangelist” on this topic, and insists the technology hurdles are all well on their way to being solved on both ends of the 3D chain, and therefore, it’s now about creating business models that make sense. To do that, he insists content providers like his company need to create imagery of a good enough quality to wow the industry and consumers alike. And, oh yes, Vince is totally tripped out over the work he’s doing right now with James Cameron for his upcoming 3D epic, Avatar.

Listen to my conversation with Vince Pace

–MG

The Digital Content Producer and millimeter bloggers—Editor at Large Trevor Boyer, Senior Contributing Editors David Leitner and Dan Ochiva, and Contributing Writer Jan Ozer—continue their discussion the upcoming show, and the conversation turns to portable media platforms. Listen to the exclusive NAB Show podcast

(music provided by Dead Girls Ruin Everything, Reignition Recordings)

Check out part one

The Digital Content Producer and millimeter bloggers—Editor at Large Trevor Boyer, Senior Contributing Editors David Leitner and Dan Ochiva, and Contributing Writer Jan Ozer—discuss the upcoming show and what they’re looking forward to seeing and hearing more about. Listen to the exclusive NAB Show podcast

(music provided by Dead Girls Ruin Everything, Reignition Recordings)

Check out part two

Color correction is a critical issue for videographers and photographers alike, and if your monitor is incorrectly calibrated, your results will almost certainly be flawed. Specifically designed for digital content producers, LaCie’s new 526 monitor offers a color gamut of 98.5%, an 800:1 contrast ratio and an integrated calibration solution. Hear all about it and their new Blu-ray burner in this podcast with Melissa Logan and Adam Danuil. To listen to their conversation with Digital Content Producer Contributing Writer Jan Ozer, click here

Apple Final Cut Studio has several completely new modules, and dramatic interface changes. Ditto for Adobe CS3. In this podcast, Class On Demand President Paul Holtz discusses the online and DVD training his company designed for these applications, and how they compare to materials offered by Lynda.com and Total Training. To listen to Holtz’s conversation with Digital Content Producer Contributing Writer Jan Ozer, click here

Dave Trescot, CEO of Rhozet Corporation, talks about the problems that studios, television stations and post houses face when they ingest and edit in a dizzying array of high resolution formats, but need to deliver multiple streaming formats for cell phone, streaming and other target devices and bandwidths. Not surprisingly, he then describes how his product, Carbon Coder, solves those problems, with ultrafast encoding of Flash, VC1 and multiple MPEG based formats. To listen to his conversation with Digital Content Producer Contributing Writer Jan Ozer, click here

Sony Vegas has accumulated an increasingly large group of raving fans; Dave Chaimson, VP Worldwide Marketing for Sony Creative Software, talks about why, and the benefits of the new 64-bit version. Also new from the Sony Creative Software group is Soundforge 9, which includes the company’s vaunted noise reduction software and several plug-ins from Izotope, plus multichannel capabilities. To listen to his conversation with Digital Content Producer Contributing Writer Jan Ozer, click here