By Oliver Peters, June 23, 2010
This year's NAB Show was one of the strongest I've seen in years. There were tons of new products, but it was especially good for those shopping for post hardware and software. Yes, stereo 3D was a big item, but I actually expected to see more. Cameras, storage, post, audio—there was plenty new for everyone.
Stereo 3D
By now, there's a large enough body of work of new 3D content to start evaluating the process. Aside from potential hardware and software solutions, the NAB floor was also a good place to simply walk around and view 3D content, with a wide selection displayed in many of the booths. Most of the manufacturers are approaching new 3D products carefully. A number of these new tools are scheduled to be shipped only on a "build to order" basis. Any system that had already embraced 1080p/60, 3Gb/s or 4:4:4 has the bandwidth for stereo 3D media. Companies like AJA have been able to make firmware updates to their existing products—like KONA 3 cards—in order to release new 3D-ready versions.
Sony and Panasonic have been 3D leaders, but I believe Panasonic has taken the most practical, mainstream approach with the AG-3DA1 (Wall-E style) stereo camcorder. Another practical approach is that of JVC with their real-time, on-the-fly 2D-to-3D converter (IF-2D3D1). Although the results aren't perfect, the algorithms correctly convert most of the image without obvious 3D artifacts, so that average television viewers would be happy with the results. Few producers have Jim Cameron's budget, so smaller production companies and TV stations interested in producing stereo 3D content will certainly gravitate to these products.
- NAB 2010: Panasonic Touts P2, 3D Progress, Glen Dickson, April 21, 2010, Broadcasting & Cable
- What's in Store for 3D Tools at NAB, Carl Mrozek, March 26, 2010, TV Technology
- Panasonic Clears the Path to 3D, Tom Butts, March 25, 2010, TV Technology
- Panasonic Begins Booking 3D Business, Glen Dickson, Feb. 12, 2010, Broadcasting & Cable
- TVB 3DTV Tech Alert: JVC Stereoscopic Image Processor, Jan. 6, 2010, Television Broadcast
- JVC 3D Newsroom, JVC.com
Post systems are also tackling 3D, with plenty of options from Avid, Autodesk, CineForm and Assimilate among others. In fact, Quantel came to the show with the first—and so far only—complete 3D broadcast workflow from ingest to playout. Apparently one customer (a major broadcaster) actually bought this system off of the show floor!
- NAB 2010: Quantel Sets Up Shop in Vegas, Glen Dickson, April 21, 2010, Broadcasting & Cable
- NAB 2010: Dimensions Beyond, Wayne Cole, Government Video
- 3D: Hot Tech Ticket at NAB, Glen Dickson and Paige Albiniak, March 22, 2010, Broadcasting & Cable
- 2010 NAB Show Standouts, Deborah D. McAdams, April 15, 2010, Television Broadcast
Monitors
Display systems are a sore spot for many editors as the last of the CRTs go away. Dolby brought a very expensive and very high-quality broadcast reference monitor to the show, but OLED technology held the interest for most. Sony, Marshall and TV Logic all had actual production models, but the TV Logic 15-inch Organic LED unit was a hit for many. It's available in standard and 3D versions and looks simply amazing. It has a 180-degree field of view and true black levels, thanks to a 100,000:1 contrast ratio.
Cameras
If you judged cameras by the number and types of camcorders used on the floor by video podcast producers, then HDLSRs like the Canon EOS 5D/7D/Rebel models would be the only story. These hybrids have been a hot item for almost two years, but nothing really new on that front at NAB from Canon or Nikon. Plenty of add-ons and lenses from the various vendors like Zacuto, Cinevate and Redrock Micro, though.
The real news for some was that Panasonic's broadcast side appears to be getting into the game with their AG-AF100 4/3-inch (Micro Four Thirds) camcorder. It's due out by the end of 2010 and will record an AVCCAM signal to SDXC memory cards. This camera is clearly targeted at the HDSLRs and a mock-up of the camera body was displayed with a set of Olympus prime and zoom lenses.
RED Digital Cinema—which held its user event off site—has some real challengers in the coming year. Primetime dramatic TV is 60 percent digitally-acquired this season. The bulk of the work is being handled by Sony F35, F23 and Panavision Genesis cameras, so it's not as if RED has actually captured the major studio market.
ARRI and Aaton have entered the market with the two newest digital cinema cameras: ARRI Alexa and Aaton Penelope-∆ ("delta"). A new twist is that each records both camera RAW files as well as compressed files for editing. ARRI records to the Apple ProRes codec and Aaton uses Avid DNxHD36 proxies.
The Aaton Penelope-∆ is actually a hybrid film/digital 35mm camera with interchangeable magazines for each medium. The digital "magazine" houses a custom Dalsa CCD sensor, which fits into the same gate area as the film loop of the 35mm film magazine. This design permits the camera to use an optical viewfinder. In the case of ARRI, recording a simultaneous ProRes file means that most TV production will probably never touch the RAW files. Even so, you have them as a "digital negative" and ARRI is quickly making RAW plug-ins available to various companies, including Avid and Assimilate.
If you need a mainstream camcorder, then look to Panasonic and Canon. Panasonic followed up their successful AG-HPX300 with the new AG-HPX370 P2 camcorder. It uses a new 1/3-inch 2.2MP three-chip imager to record full 1920x1080 AVC-Intra media.
Canon introduced the XF300 and XF305—two models based on the new Canon XF codec (MPEG-2 4:2:2 50 Mb/s). Avid is already supporting this codec in their new software. I thought the cameras produced some very pleasing images, but the recordings on display exhibited a lot of mosquito noise and macroblock compression artifacts, typical of MPEG-2. I hope that Canon's in-camera encoding will improve in the shipping versions of these cameras. The XF305 model includes an uncompressed HD-SDI output, so you have the option of using an external recorder, like an AJA Ki Pro, FireStore, Cinedeck or Convergent Design nanoFlash.
Storage
It's hard to get folks excited about storage, but it's an important link in any facility. Shared storage systems have been around for a while, but are viewed as an expensive proposition. One recent development is the availability of low-cost solutions that don't require custom SAN and server installations. At least three such systems were at the show, including Maxx Digital's Final Share, Small Tree Communication's GraniteSTOR and 1 Beyond's EzHDSAN. The basic configuration allows media sharing for a handful of connected systems using regular Gig-E Ethernet and standard networking protocols. Such systems are ideal for shops that want to share media among four or five editors and are comfortable with compressed HD media, like ProRes, DNxHD or DVCPRO HD.
Editing and Post
This was an incredibly innovative show for post, with the releases of Avid Media Composer 5, Adobe Creative Suite 5, Lightworks as an Open Source platform, a software-only DaVinci Resolve and the first NAB showing of Autodesk Smoke for Mac OS X.
Avid
Media Composer 5 will be a key release for Avid Technology. The software adds new "smart tools" for better in-timeline editing and reworks audio tracks to be more like Pro Tools. Audio effects are now track-based and you can insert up to five RTAS audio plug-ins per track. In addition to new, native support for RED, AVCCAM, AVC-Intra and Canon XF, Avid has leveraged its AMA (Avid Media Access) technology to also import nearly any QuickTime file playable on your computer. This is without copying or transcoding and means that Avid edit systems will now be able to immediately use Apple ProRes media and Canon H.264 camera files in a project. I saw a number of companies on the floor, like AJA and CineForm, announce Avid support, based solely on this new development.
This is also the first Media Composer version to use officially approved, third-party I/O hardware. Through an agreement with Matrox, Avid Media Composer software can now use the MXO2 Mini for output monitoring. The hope is that this will expand to include full ingest and output across the wide spectrum of hardware from AJA, Blackmagic Design, MOTU and Matrox. For now, it's a good first step to provide Media Composer editors with a cost-effective, broadcast monitoring solution. The Mini is a good fit for shops primarily involved in file-based workflows, who don't need tape-based ingest.
A real Vegas surprise was Avid's announced intent to purchase Euphonix. (The deal closed on April 21.) This means Avid systems will adopt the EuCon protocol, so hopefully we'll see the Artist Series panels, like MC Color, made available for Media Composer and Symphony.
- In Review: Euphonix Artist Series, Oliver Peters, May 6, 2010, DV
- NAB 2010: Avid Scoops Up Euphonix, Glen Dickson, April 12, 2010, Broadcasting & Cable
- NAB 2010: Avid Takes Audio Console Maker Euphonix, April 12, 2010, Television Broadcast
Avid presented its roadmap for the future via the Integrated Media Enterprise announcement and an "editing in the cloud" technology preview. The former pinpoints the broad range of asset management as a growth area for new Avid products. Today this is typified by Interplay, which Avid is developing as a product family. The current Interplay system, familiar to news departments, becomes Interplay Production. Applications that stem from the Blue Order corporate acquisition will become a new Avid asset management solution with a broader scope. That will be known as Interplay Media Asset Manager.
"Editing in the cloud" was a demonstration based on technology developed by Maximum Throughput, another Avid acquisition. Twice a day, the Avid presenter edited a short segment over the Internet using media resident on servers in Virginia. The performance appeared fluid and the minimum connection specification is a 1.5Mb/s Internet connection (although it was likely faster into the Avid booth). Editors work on location with highly-compressed proxy media over the Internet. When done, a "publish" command completes and renders the sequence at the server using the high-quality files. This in turn can be compressed as a high-quality MPEG-4 file and transmitted back to the editor for final approval. An actual product is probably a few years into the future, but the concept could easily be applied across a company's intranet in very short order.
Adobe
Creative Suite 5 was the most teased product in the run-up to NAB. Adobe trickled a lot of news on its Web sites, and I'm happy to say that this is a very worthwhile update. Like CS3 and CS4, if you want a couple of the applications, Adobe's pricing strategy makes it most cost-effective to purchase one of the software bundles. Video folks will be most interested in the CS5 Production Premium package, even if Premiere Pro isn't their primary NLE; however, Premiere Pro has been beefed up and is worth a new look.
All apps are now 64-bit native and Premiere Pro has been optimized for the Mercury Playback Engine. Specifically, performance is accelerated if you have one of the NVIDIA cards that uses CUDA technology. This includes the GeForce GTX 285, Quadro FX 3800/4800/5800 and the Quadro CX cards. Mercury Playback Engine performance offers more real-time with native camera codecs and acceleration for certain effects.
There are many other features and enhancements in Creative Suite 5, such as better project round-tripping with FCP and Avid, faster Dynamic Link between Premiere Pro and After Effects and improved multi-track audio support in Soundbooth. Adobe Ultra, an advanced blue/green-screen keyer sat out CS4, but it's back as a built-in effect in Premiere Pro. Soundbooth's royalty free content is now completely free and includes more than 10,000 sound effects and over 130 customizable music scores.
Several new elements have become part of CS5 Production Premium, including Adobe Story and Adobe Flash Catalyst. Story will be available as a collaborative scriptwriting tool—part of the new Adobe CS Live online service. You can now use Story to load scripts and generate metadata files that work with OnLocation and Premiere Pro. When used with Premiere Pro, this metadata can be reconciled against the speech-to-text function, providing accurate, searchable speech transcriptions, which are linked to the media. Adobe Flash Catalyst will augment Flash Professional and gives CS5 users another way to create advanced Flash content, but using a more streamlined tool.
Autodesk
Smoke for Mac OS X was released at the end of last year, but this was its NAB premiere. Across the board, Autodesk's product line received the 2011 software update and the new Smoke sibling was no exception. New features included the ability to "soft import" ProRes, H.264 and native RED files. There's now support for Apple CoreAudio. Autodesk has added stereo 3D tools throughout their product line and this also includes Smoke.
Quantel
Quantel has been leading the stereo 3D charge with about 100 stereo 3D-equipped Pablo and iQ systems around the world. The 3D toolset has been improved in version 5 software, including a new stereo 3D timeline. Other advances include color correction within a multi-layered timeline. No need to flatten the timeline. Quantel is also adopting the Windows 7 64-bit OS for all of its products starting with version 5.
Lightworks
Lightworks is known as much for its shark icon as for the fact that it's the preferred NLE of several Oscar winners. EditShare picked up Lightworks when it acquired Geevs and has decided to revitalize it in a rather innovative manner. Today's Lightworks NLE is up-to-date and competitive with any modern system. It's already running under Windows 7 and has been fully integrated into EditShare's Complete Collaboration family of products.
EditShare has decided to transform Lightworks into an Open Source platform. According to James Richings, co-managing director, EditShare EMEA, "Lightworks Open Source offers a highly collaborative development environment based on powerful and feature-rich underlying technology, which has come from over one million hours of software development. Building on such a solid foundation will enable creative developers to generate concepts and capabilities never seen before. I expect that the Lightworks Open Source initiative will transform not only the technology, but also the opinions on what a professional editing tool can achieve." EditShare will also offer a turnkey system under the Lightworks Film label.
Blackmagic Design DaVinci
I saved the biggest news for last: DaVinci. As in 2009, Blackmagic Design came to Las Vegas with more new products than any other single company. Once again, they led the pack in innovation. Many of these products work with the new USB 3.0 connection standard, even though only a few computers support it, yet. In the past, Blackmagic was first with 3Gb/s and Fiber Optic SDI support. The DaVinci news overshadows it all.
With the acquisition of DaVinci Systems last year, Blackmagic Design founder Grant Petty decided to reinvent DaVinci. Legacy hardware systems are gone, leaving DaVinci's two flagship software products—Resolve (color grading) and Revival (film restoration)—as the basis for future development. DaVinci Resolve 7.0 was a huge NAB story, because Blackmagic Design has ported the code to Mac OS X and is offering it for the first time as a software-only product. In addition, they redesigned the signature colorist's control panels in order to integrate them into Blackmagic's hardware manufacturing pipeline.
- Blackmagic Videohub Smart Control Now Shipping, June 22, 2010, DV
- Blackmagic Revolutionizes Color Correction, April 13, 2010, Videography
- Blackmagic Releases DeckLink HD Extreme 3D, April 13, 2010, Videography
- Blackmagic Announces Pocket UltraScope, April 13, 2010, VFXPro
- Blackmagic Videohub SDI Router, Joey Gill, April 9, 2010, TV Technology
- Blackmagic Adds Digitally Synthesized Composite Waveform View to UltraScope, Jan. 11, 2010, Videography
- In Review: Blackmagic Design Video Recorder, J.R. Bookwalter, Jan. 6, 2010, DV
- Blackmagic Design UltraScope in Review, Oliver Peters, Sept. 25, 2009, Videography
Resolve 7.0 (software-only for the Mac) is $995 and will work with standard Mac Pros, high-performance GPU cards and off-the-shelf panels like the Tangent Wave. If you want the Mac version and the DaVinci panels, the price jumps to $29,995. Lastly, the Linux version adds $19,995 to the $29, 995 tag. None of this includes computers or storage. The Mac version is limited to using a single GPU, so you can expect similar performance to Apple Color. The Linux version is where the real horsepower comes into play, because you can cluster multiple workstations and access up to 16 GPUs.
No amount of technology in the world …
With all of these whiz-bang gadgets to get excited about, it was humbling to see that nothing stood in the way of the Icelandic volcano's ash cloud. Thursday arrived and most of the European visitors and vendors realized they might be indefinitely stranded in Las Vegas. Some made the best of it. For instance, Quantel had at least 25 staffers and executives from the UK home office, including CEO Ray Cross. To maintain "business as usual," Quantel set up a temporary Las Vegas office at one of the hotels. Now that's dedication. The skies finally loosened up a bit over Europe, but some of these folks didn't make it out of Vegas until the end of April!
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