In the pre-show frenzy that each year dominates the months lending up to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention–which begins Saturday in Las Vegas and concludes April 21–the need for a complete workflow has never been more evident. That need is driven by fundamental changes occurring in the industry, including new formats, changing distribution requirements, and a shift toward higher resolution product.
These new distribution channels are viewed as a key to Grass Valley’s growth in the coming years, according to Marc Valentin, president of Thomson’s Grass Valley business.
One way that Grass Valley is addressing this issue is with its new dMAX inititative (Digital Media Asset Maximization), essentially a new system integration and support service aimed at offering this complex task under one roof.
“The industry has become about getting any content, any time, any place,” said Jeff Rosica, VP of strategic marketing, Grass Valley. He added that this is also about delivering to any type of device, including HDTV broadcast stations, cable and satellite, and even mobile devices–in fact, expect much talk as well as some demos to address the move toward delivering content on mobile devices from the likes of the DVB and Harris.
“Our customers face disparate requirements for effective workflow,” continued Rosica. “dMAX offers a single integration partner.” More specifically, under the Grass Valley umbrella, a company can find a single integration partner that will deploy Grass Valley and third-party technologies. Grass Valley’s services would include software and middleware frameworks, applications such as asset management, system integration and support services to create an end-to-end workflow. Integration includes a new Grass Valley OnCall service agreement
As well, research and development continues, and Grass Valley reported that later this year it would introduce a new software-based workflow management application for managing digital audio and video clips.
ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
- Panasonic will introduce an HD 24p camcorder for less than $10,000. The prototype is under development, but a company spokesperson did report the handheld unit will handle DVCPRO, DVCPRO50 and DVCPROHD recording, and should be available later this year. Further, the CCDs being developed for the camcorder will be native 16:9, and footage will be recorded on P2 flash memory.
A reliable source told SHOOT that the camera would have variable frame rate capabilities; Panasonic declined to comment.
- Sony’s Monday evening Cine Alta night will include clips from the upcoming Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, which was among the first productions to use the Cine Alta F950 camera system that records a 4:4:4 RGB image to HDCAM SR videotapes, as well as several additional feature and television projects. These images will be screened in 2k from Sony’s new 4k-capable digital cinema projector; the 4k projector will be used to demo 4k imagery in the Sony booth on the show floor, according to a Sony exec.
- ClearStory Systems, Westborough, Mass., will be in the NAB Digital Asset Management (DAM) Pavilion, demonstrating its Radiant Enterprise Media Server content management tools–which could be used standalone or as part of a system for managing content creation through distribution, and includes collaborative postproduction features.
Ad agencies, advertisers, and the post community are among the targets for this company.
The Java-based system can be offered as a full service product, or as technology to enable customers to build their own applications. A pre-release version of the Radiant technology is already in use as part of Ascent Media Group’s new Hub asset management system for the advertising community. (Hub was covered in last week’s SHOOT). Ascent Media Group is the Santa Monica-based parent of such companies as R!OT and Company 3. In Hub the ClearStory technology is used for DAM functions such as security and version control, reported ClearStory VP of marketing Susan Worthy.
