Archive of the Software Category

CoreMelt recently released its CoreMelt Complete V2 plugin package for editors, and it was showing it off at NAB. CoreMelt is also offering its ImageFlow package for quick and painless photo and video montage creation.

Press Release

Calibrated Software, an innovator of applications and plug-ins for video, asset management and mobile platforms, announced an enhanced family of cross-platform tools to streamline and speed the process of viewing and using high-definition camera and other video files within popular post-production systems and editing packages. The products are being demonstrated at NAB booths #C5108 (Ikegami) and #SL8307 (Square Box Systems). Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2009 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Reel-Exchange Community Manager Craig Erpelding talked with Bruno Sargeant of Autodesk about the possibilities Flare creates for studios at NAB 2009.

Got a nice demo today of the leaps and bounds being taken by The Foundry‘s new and upcoming versions of its Nuke compositing software (version 5.2 was unveiled this week at NAB, and 6.0 will come out later this year). Lots of improvements worth checking out.

But when the demo was over, Foundry guys gave me a little lesson in the context of product development work. They revealed they have come up with an impressive little, for lack of a better name right now, plug-in called Rolling Shutter which, as the name implies, is designed to help filmmakers address and smooth out artifacts that can occasionally pop out of bits of footage shot with CMOS-chip-based digital cameras. In a technology demo, the tool clearly eased blur and quiver in test frames impacted by the rolling shutter technology that is part of CMOS design. (It’s all very complicated, but as I understand it, the rolling shutter exposes different portions of the frame at different periods in time, and certain anomolies can crop up in frames or between frames under particular circumstances in such footage.) more

Reel-Exchange Community Manager Craig Erpelding talked with Jon Robbins of Rhozet about transcoding at NAB 2009.

Reel-Exchange Community Manager Craig Erpelding talked with Mark Randall of Adobe about the company’s products featured at NAB 2009.

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

I don’t want to appear jaded, but at this point, if a nonlinear editor is still in the game, it’s obviously extraordinarily functional, which makes updates somewhat predictable and incremental. More formats, more filters, some interface tweaks, that kind of thing.

At the risk of increasing my hate mail by 300%, I’ll use the Sony Vegas 9 upgrade as an example. The new version includes enhanced format support (native XDCAM and AVCHD editing, as well as support for the RED ONE .r3d format), support for 4K workflows and gigapixel image sizes, six new video effects, additional customizable layouts and new keyboard shortcuts, and “improved audio-waveform drawing during recording.� 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.