By Oliver Peters, March 27, 2008
Editing and Post
The biggest news leading into the NAB Show is about who is not going to have a booth. Two anchor vendors--Apple and Avid -- have decided that their money would be better spent in ways other than fronting a huge booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Apple has already targeted alternate ways to get the Pro Apps message out, such as hosting large training events in Los Angeles for the Motion Picture Editors Guild. You can expect to see Avid expand its reach through regional road shows during the coming year. Both companies are mum for now and promise to start letting out the marketing message in the weeks leading up to NAB. Although neither will have a booth, that doesn't mean they won't have a presence, like presentations at user events, such as the FCPUG SuperMeet. The general scuttlebutt is that Avid will have various demos at the Renaissance Hotel adjacent to the South Hall. So don't cancel your reservations -- there'll still be plenty to see in Las Vegas.
For the second year in a row, AVID comes to NAB with a new executive team, led by a new CEO and a new video division head. The past year and a half has been spent fixing bugs and making the core products rock solid. New versions of Media Composer, Symphony and others are in beta testing, so the general expectation is that Avid will announce some new features and thin out the lower-end products. Even a new hardware option is being rumored. Anticipated features include Apple OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and Microsoft Vista support and new XML import and export functionality. One big announcement made in February is that SMPTE has ratified the VC-3 codec, which is based on Avid's DNxHD compressed HD video codec. There are more than 30 Avid partners that have licensed DNxHD, so all of their products, along with Avid DNxHD media, will be interoperable with VC-3.
APPLE hasn't let much leak out about possible alternative exposure, but it's a fair guess that you'll see a lot of Final Cut Pro workstations around the floor, especially in places like RED Digital Cinema's booth. One of the big disappointments last year was that Apple missed the target date to release Final Cut Server. It appears to have been a casualty of Leopard development and was held back in order to make sure the final version of the product was truly trouble-free. Apple has since held various Final Cut Server presentations at shows such as last fall's Government Video Expo, so I expect to see an announcement that Final Cut Server is shipping at last. I don't really expect a major change in Final Cut Studio, since that happened last year, but true native editing support of RED ONE media is anticipated by many customers.
If you're looking for the traditional booth from a high-end NLE supplier, then look no further than Autodesk Media and Entertainment and Quantel. Both will be in full force showing outstanding product developments. AUTODESK's Smoke and Flame 2008 products sport a new, unified user interface, all running on PC platforms and using OEM'ed AJA cards for I/O. Gone are the venerable SGI workstations, replaced by HP and Linux. Look for lower cost, more robust networking for concurrent workflows and less dependence on proprietary Stone storage. Although IBC is traditionally the show at which Autodesk makes major announcements, it is expected that this year some major releases will be announced months earlier at NAB. The scheduled cutoff of analog television transmission in 2009 is expected to drive more HD equipment purchases this year. Autodesk feels that its cutting-edge product line will be of interest to broadcasters seeking more reliable alternatives to desktop post solutions for deadline-sensitive HD content delivery.
QUANTEL will be out in force at NAB with several new products and firsts. This list includes Pablo Neo -- for improved tactile control of color correction -- and stereoscopic 3D post solutions. Genetic Engineering, Quantel's open solution for team-based post and DI, will offer more tools and capabilities. Also new for NAB is Final Cut Pro integration for a smooth transition from rough cut to mastering. Quantel's broadcast product line will include new options on Newsbox HD and Enterprise sQ, as well as Dino -- a shared solution for long-distance post. In addition, Quantel will be promoting its professional services and has made a point of telling the media that they view NAB as a world showcase and are there because their customers want them to be there.
It has been a year since ADOBE rolled out Creative Suite 3, which heralded its return to the Mac with video editing products. Adobe will be back with their lineup of products, including Premiere Pro, Encore, Soundbooth, After Effects and all the rest. Now that Toshiba has pulled the plug on the HD-DVD format, Adobe is left in a pretty good position, since Encore is one of the few affordable desktop DVD authoring tools able to create Blu-ray high-definition DVD titles.
This should be an exciting year for hardware support to enhance Premiere Pro on both the PC and Mac, with solutions available from Matrox, Blackmagic Design and AJA. Also big will be Adobe's announcement of Adobe Media Player, an application designed to aggregate and play your favorite Internet TV offerings -- whether online or offline. It's a cross-platform application designed to play back streamed or downloaded FLV or MPEG-4 video content. The design enables a viewing experience more like channel surfing than any other Internet TV scheme, and Adobe Media Player supports advertising and graphic branding. Official launch dates will be announced just before NAB.
An interesting development in post is that DI solutions have become mainstream products. Systems from da Vinci, FilmLight and Digital Vision are on the must-see list for many facility owners. This is no more evident than with ASSIMILATE, which will be present in the RED Digital Cinema booth and will host private demos at the Renaissance.
Scratch is designed for film-based DI, but Assimilate has also developed software and products for RED's native .R3D media files. One of these products is the Scratch RED PrePost system, a bundle built on hardware partner Maxvision's MaxCube and configured with modules optimized for REDCODE files. Scratch is currently unique in its ability to natively read and manipulate .R3D files at 1K, 2K and 4K resolutions. Users can access the full conform and DI-style color grading capabilities of the software just as if the images were DPX or Cineon. After finishing a conform or color grading session, Scratch can then perform a real-time video output up to Dual Link 2K-RGB at 2048x1080.
The editing application that is probably the best in handling a large number of different formats and codecs is THOMSON GRASS VALLEY's EDIUS. This year, the company will roll out the software-based EDIUS Neo. Its hallmark is real-time mixed-format HD/SD editing, including DV, HDV, AVCHD, MPEG-2, Windows Media and QuickTime. EDIUS Neo will also convert different frame rates (60i, 50i, 24p) and different resolutions, such as 1440x1080, 1280x720 and 720x480. The software is designed to run on any Windows workstation or laptop and can input/output video from any OHCI-FireWire-compatible hardware.
Another strong software-only NLE is Vegas. At IBC 2007, SONY CREATIVE SOFTWARE launched Vegas Pro 8, which includes features for multi-camera editing, support for tapeless workflows, a new ProType titler and enhanced scripting capabilities. At last year's NAB, Sony Creative Software announced it was developing a 64-bit version of Vegas Pro software to address the greater computing power requirements of HD workflows. This year, the company will demonstrate the 64-bit version of Vegas Pro at a user event to be held at the LVCC the evening of Monday, April 14. As yet, no shipping date has been announced.
Let's not forget MEDIA 100 as the longtime NLE competitor on the Mac. The company is still around, under the Boris FX umbrella, and offers a strong alternative to FCP, Avid and Premiere Pro CS3 for Mac users. Boris FX has continued the R&D, keeping up with Apple's hardware and OS changes to finally bring the software to a point where new features can be added. They offer software-only and hardware/software solutions including Media 100 SDe, HDe and HD Suite, which include OEM capture cards from AJA. Media 100 has always been QuickTime-based and allows a wide range of codecs and file formats to be mixed on the timeline. It's now in version 12, which added P2, progressive format and VTR-mode XDCAM support. This version also starts to reap the benefits of Boris FX and Media 100 synergy. Boris FX's clip effects and transitions can be applied and saved as favorites within the Media 100 interface. Effects can be processed in 16-bit-per-channel color space for maximum quality and color accuracy.
AJA, Blackmagic Design and Matrox return as the go-to companies for third-party hardware support among software-based NLEs. AJA made a big splash last year with AJA IoHD, a standalone I/O product that embedded the Apple ProRes codec into the hardware, permitting even laptop users to capture and output HD content with Final Cut Pro. This solution shipped late in the year, so this NAB will be the first time many editors can get a better look at how it works.
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN will once again show its wide selection of capture cards, including the flagship products Multibridge Pro and Multibridge Eclipse. Each uses a small, L-shaped connector card that plugs into a 4-lane PCI Express slot and works as a solution for Apple Final Cut Pro, as well as Adobe Premiere Pro on both Windows and Mac. Since the connection requires such a minimal installation, I wonder whether Blackmagic Design will introduce a laptop-oriented sibling to compete with AJA's IoHD.
MATROX will showcase solutions for Adobe CS3 Production Premium and Apple Final Cut Studio. The Matrox Axio platforms are designed for the highest SD and HD real-time performance for editors working on Premiere Pro CS3 (Windows only). Matrox RT.X2 is designed for real-time HDV, P2 MXF and DV editing. Matrox's Mac product, MXO, is designed for mastering-quality SD and HD video output from a laptop and is ideal for Apple Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 (Mac) editors who don't need a capture device. Matrox announced the release of MXO 2.1.1 software, which adds support for the latest MacBook Pro laptops with Nvidia graphics cards.
One new product of major interest is MOTU's V3HD, which was announced around NAB 2007 but didn't ship until late in the year. V3HD is designed as a competitor to AJA's IoHD. Instead of ProRes, it uses DVCPRO HD as the embedded video codec. Although ProRes is of superior quality, many have now discovered that it works only on the latest Macs. Since DVCPRO HD has proved to be acceptable for HD delivery, the V3HD is an excellent alternative to editors with older Power Mac G5s, for example. In addition, V3HD is compatible with Final Cut Pro and, coming soon, Premiere Pro CS3 on the PC. MOTU's track record as an audio company is undeniable. As you would expect, V3HD has the most comprehensive audio section of any video capture product on the market.
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