Archive of the Workflow Category

Avocent announced digital KVM and USB matrix switching for the Emerge ECMS4000 extender and Emerge DM2000 desktop manager products. The Emerge family of products now offer switching and extension of audio, digital video, mass storage, and USB human interfaces for use within high definition video edit suites, allowing strategic placement of business critical workstations. These leading-edge digital KVM matrix switching products allow valuable equipment to be secured in the machine room where it is kept cool and clean, and is secure from physical interference and unwanted software downloads. Based on a Gigabit Ethernet switch fabric, computer resources can be accessed on-demand by engineers, designers, and support personnel. Graphics and sound editors are able to interact with edit systems within the critical viewing and listening environment of their edit suites, while support engineers have direct management access to systems from the convenience of their desks. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Let’s face it; few of us can love more than one video editor; two at most, and that’s only because Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro share a common heritage and for most high level functions feel like they were separated at birth. So it’s not surprising that Sony Vegas just doesn’t suit my eye. For me, it’s like driving a car in the UK; I may not crash driving while steering from the right, but I never do it long enough to get comfortable or really good at it.

None of this stops me from appreciating Vegas’ strengths. A few years ago, for another magazine, I tested all the major editors for “skills� like chromakeying, slow motion, color correction and the like, and Vegas came out first. I know a many, many talented editors love the product, and the Vegas party closed out last night with 1500 very vocal users paying tribute. more

Holophone, a leading manufacturer of surround microphones, is simplifying workflow when editing the Holophone PortaMic 5.1’s and H4 SuperMINI’s Pro Logic II encoded audio with the introduction of the Holophone D-CODE multi-channel Pro Logic II decoder. The Holophone D-CODE will make its industry debut at NAB 2008 (Booth N6438, N6435). Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

I ran into HD maven Randall Dark moments ago at the Maxell booth, where he was practically rubbing his hands together in glee, anticipating shortly dragging “a bunch” of spanking new Maxell iVDR removable storage disk drives, designed to work with Panasonic P2 media cards, out into the field. Randall will be one of the first users of the iVDR technology in a grueling field application, and grueling it will be indeed. He’s taking the system into the Grand Canyon for a television documentary called “Boat Men” (about river guides in the Grand Canyon), and he’s excited about finally having what he calls “a better way” to offload data from expensive P2 cards in the field, making the media cards more efficient.

Richard D’Ambrise, Maxell’s director of technology, told me the company is also excited about Randall’s foray using the lightweight 160-gig hard drives for his project. He is confident they will hold up in the field, being able to withstand temperatures of up to 10 degrees farenheit, and strategically designed with recessed connectors, beveled edges, and tiny shock absorbers, among other doodads. more

I returned to the Band Pro booth this morning–this time to see the spanking new Codex Portable field recorder from Codex Digital. While I was duly impressed with what I saw, and more importantly, with the concept of what I saw and what it might mean for recording to hard drives in grueling field situations, I was most impressed by what my colleague and pal, millimeter contributing editor and resident cinematographer David Leitner, saw.

David told me the notion of the technology is “amazing.” Those who know David is not easily impressed will understand that is high praise indeed. I won’t get into much of it here because, no doubt, David will shortly be blogging about it himself. But certainly, the Codex Portable, from a conceptual point of view, is one of the big deals at this NAB for folks interested in making digital acquisition a more seamless prospect in the field. more

One of the best things you can do with your time here is digest the presentations at the Adobe booth. Not so much the usual stuff–features of Premiere Pro and After Effects, etc. It’s more important to take in the demos related to distribution (Adobe Media Player/Adobe Flash Player) and Flash-related content creation. That means in all tools; for example, look at what an interactive SWF file looks like coming out of Encore DVD. Also take in the Sneak Peek presentations–all to help visualize the metadata driven future. Whether for traditional, linear film resolultion projects or production for web and mobile, Adobe’s put forth some ideas that are helpful to consider.

I got the nickel tour from Simon Hayhurst. Some highlights: more

Well for those of you waiting to see if some new blu-ray authoring solutions were coming online I have good news and bad news.

To start with the bad news: no upgrade for Adobe Encore (which I currently use) so no pop up menus and no ability to replicate. As expected, no news from Apple either.

The good news is that on Saturday I saw a new blu-ray authoring product called DoStudio from NetBlender. They were on a panel with Sony and Sonic and they gave a brief demo of DoStudio which looks like a great! Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

At the 2008 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, Inlet Technologies, the leader in advanced encoding solutions for new media, announces the debut of Armada, a never-before-seen approach to encoding workflow management. Replacing numerous manual steps with automation, Inlet’s Armada dramatically accelerates the traditional encoding workflow without compromising control or quality. Inlet will demonstrate this forward-thinking approach for efficient workflow at the Las Vegas Convention Center in South Hall booth SL8325. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

A few more thoughts out of my lengthy conversation yesterday with Band Pro‘s Mike Bravin. Mike mentioned that several network people, including HBO‘s Christian Wilson, whom I chatted with Sunday at the Digital Cinema Summit, have been visiting Band Pro’s booth, and others, while investigating HD and data-centric workflows for high-end broadcast shows, representing a philosophical transition from the typical tape-based philosophy regarding broadcast productions. This is the start of a broadcast paradigm shift for such networks, he suggests.

“When you say broadcasters, to me, they fit into three groups. There is the news and event broadcasters, that do mostly live or pretty near-live stuff. Then, there is the broadcasting entertainment–variety and sports type stuff. And then there is the dramatic stuff, like HBO does. I think the toughest transition psychologically is the people who are doing the cinema type stuff, because they are used to shooting film, doing a film workflow. For them, capturing data and keeping the data through the workflow is a lot different than what they are used to. The live event people, they use lots of devices to capture data and move it around. They edit on SANs with Avid Unity systems. So it is not as big a jump for them. And then, I think the news people, it is a matter of the media they record on. Once they make a decision about whether they are going to go to P2 or XDCAM, the workflow is kind of set up for them. more

Today’s schedule at the Central Hall Content Theater concentrates on VFX, Animation and New Digital Workflows. Hear about animation and ambition on the Indian subcontinent at 9:15; Barry Sonnefeld and team talk about the look on Pushing Daisies at 10:45. At noon my dear colleague Carolyn Giardina of The Hollywood Reporter moderates a VES session with an eclectric group of 3D and traditional animators on the blending of techniques. Horton Hears a Who! filmmakers will take the stage at 3:30.

On the workflow front it’s the F23 and the Red Camera. The F23 session (1:15) focuses on onset workflow; at 2pm there’s a case study about Red/FCP workflow.

To find the Content Theater, look for the teal-ish tube tent in front of Central Hall with eight or so flatscreens playing a come-on loop, pass through the double doors into the building and start walking straight ahead about 100 feet, maybe less. Content Theater is off a little to your right.