The recent National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, held April 23-27 in Las Vegas, grew in size and scope this year with a reported attendance of 105,000 and significant interest in the changing ways that content is produced, stored and delivered. Conference highlights included examination of digital cinema and mobile content delivery. On the exhibition floor, many in the editorial community identified a strong showing from Tewksbury, Mass.-headquartered Avid Technology; cinematographers and the post community paid close attention to developing cinematography cameras such as the much discussed Red prototype (SHOOT, 4/28, p. 1); and datacentric/digital intermediate (DI) style workflows continued to generate interest with particular attention on color correction (SHOOT, 5/5).
NAB kicked off with the Digital Cinema Summit and a keynote from Academy Award winning director James Cameron, who called on the feature community to “fight” to keep attendees going to the theater. He suggested that 3D capabilities offered by digital cinema technology could be the driver. At the other end of the spectrum, mobile content delivery was a significant topic at NAB, with news about business models, trials, services, and content. (Digital cinema and mobile content at NAB will be examined in SHOOT’s 5/26 Special Series).
EDITORIAL
Avid Technology had a particularly strong show this year–a significant number of sources from the editorial community felt it overpowered Apple.
At NAB, Avid extended its Media Composer family with a new software-only application for Mac and PC laptops or desktops with HD support that lists for $4,995, as well as the Media Composer with Avid Mojo SDI Digital, which adds a serial digital interface I/O device for uncompressed SD capture and output for real-time monitoring and FireWire connectivity for DV, HDV and DVCPRO HD projects.
Avid also scored high marks for its release of Media Composer 2.5 with the debut of HD on Mac OS X. The Mac version of Media Composer now includes format support for DVCPRO HD, HDV, and Avid DNxHD resolutions of 145 Mb, 220 Mb, and 10-bit 220 Mb data rates, enabling the image quality of uncompressed HD at standard-definition data rates. Media Composer on Mac also adds real-time HD multicam, allowing simultaneous playback of all multicam views for on-the-fly editing in real-time.
With these new capabilities, Avid stated that Mac professionals now have the flexibility to transfer HD projects seamlessly between Windows systems and Mac systems, on desktops or laptops, and will enjoy the same editing experience and functionality regardless of platform.
Avid also announced that Media Composer systems would deliver collaborative media production capabilities with Avid Interplay, the company’s new nonlinear workflow engine (based on its AlienBrain asset management system). The company reported that by leveraging the Avid Interplay engine, Media Composer users could perform many time-consuming production tasks in the background, and monitor changes to all project assets made by team members. Lastly, Avid showed expanded product in its storage and infrastructure technologies.
Now, Avid customers will need to decide which of the company’s creative editorial tools are appropriate for their shops. In addition to the newly announced system, the line includes Adrenaline, Adrenaline with Avid DNxcel (with the added ability to encode HD material to 10-bit or 8-bit DNxHD), Avid Xpress and Liquid (a nonlinear editing software from the Pinnacle acquisition).
“We have a flexible line; it’s a question of how a facility operates,” Avid’s Matt Allard told SHOOT. “If it’s a larger facility with many Media Composers, with a central machine room with I/O centrally located, you may choose a couple of Adrenalines and maybe Media Composer software.”
Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple released version 5.1 of its Final Cut Studio bundle that includes Final Cut Pro’s “Universal” version 5.1, as well as DVD Studio Pro, Motion, and SoundTrack. This version can run on Apple’s new MacPro Intel-based workstations, offering speed improvement. Apple also previewed a “Universal” version of its compositing system Shake.
On the exhibition floor, the fierce competition between Avid and Apple was not as pronounced as in the last couple of years; of course, that may be due in part to the fact that the NAB wedged the booth of Toronto-based eyeon Software between the two nonlinear competitors. It didn’t stop commercial editors from examining both companies.
“Avid came back with a very strong stance,” said John Ziemen, principal/editor at New York-based PS 260. “Avid read the market needs really well–the long-awaited HD for Mac and a generally strong stance with Mac. I loved the new price points for the Media Composers–that’s responding to the new realities of the marketplace really well.”
Efficiency and workflow were the keys to the nonlinear editing space for Dave Bradley, editor at New York-based Go Robot. “[Avid and Apple] both have really strong products, so they are looking at other aspects of the business. It shows they are both confident in what they are doing.”
In terms of workflow, Bradley pointed out that the portability of the software only version of the Media Composer “opens the door for people to have more workstations — not just in the editing room, a workflow advantage.” On the Apple front, he noted that the Intel-based workstations increased the speed and thus productivity of Final Cut.
Noting the popularity of the Mac among Avid editors, New York-based The Cutting Vision president Jeff Beckerman thought the Mac support was a very positive move. “Avid was showing that they were supporting their product on a Mac, not just talking about it,” he observed. “Also, the software-only version of Media Composer keeps Media Composer editors happy because they can edit anywhere.”
QUANTEL AUTODESK, MTI Newbury, U.K.-headquartered Quantel introduced an addition to its eQ range, the eQ FX, a configuration designed specifically for postproduction and broadcasters users. At NAB, Quantel announced the purchase of the new system from commercial post/visual effects houses Brickyard in Boston, and Acht in Frankfurt.
“eQ FX has been introduced in response to customer demand for a high specification HD system at a highly competitive price,” explained Steve Owen, group product manager, Post and DI. “eQ FX will help ease their transition into HD business by giving them all the tools and power they need to speed HD work through the suite–at a price which makes good business sense.”
The eQ FX system is “resolution co-existent” and comes with 160 minutes of HD workflow; TimeMagic hardware, the Qcolor in-context color correction package and a choice of plug-ins. It is now shipping and priced at $249,000.
Quantel also continued to make noise with its Pablo 4k color correction system, which was introduced last fall during IBC.
San Rafael, Calif.-headquartered Autodesk (formerly Discreet) introduced Discreet Inferno running on a Linux operating system. Last November, the company introduced Inferno on Linux for the Japanese market; now it is available worldwide. (It should be noted that the while the Inferno software is the same, the systems are different in how they are configured for background rendering.) The new Inferno on Linux runs on dual-core IBM, AMD Linux-based workstations.
Autodesk also announced that the next version of its collaborative digital compostiting software, Toxik 2007, is scheduled to ship this summer. (Additional Autodesk NAB news was covered last week in SHOOT.)
MTI Film, headquartered in Providence, R.I., unveiled the newly developed 2k version of its Control Dailies system, which is an image and audio control environment that accelerates the delivery of dailies, facilitating faster than real-time image transfer and audio ingest, complete metadata collection, post synchronization in SD and HD resolutions, and output to various deliverables.
Control Dailies 2K is designed to provide for generation and resizing of DPX 2k files to HD and SD and will feature Control Color, a fully integrated primary color corrector with built-in Still Store co-developed with San Diego-based Silicon Color, creators of Final Touch color correction software (which was also exhibited at NAB).
Miami-based Assimilate continued to promote its Scratch resolution-independent DI system that includes tools for tasks such as data management, conform, and primary and secondary color grading. It was featured at NAB at partner booths including Bluefish 444, Imagica, S.two, Exavio and with the Red Digital Cinema presentation.
London-based The Foundry celebrated its 10th Anniversary during NAB and featured some of its newest OFX-based plug ins, which are also being created for the emerging DI market and its new workflows. That includes OFX plugins for Assimilate’s Scratch.
It also showed beta versions of the Furnace 3 plug-ins for Autodesk’s Discreet Inferno, Flame and Flint line.
Santa Clara-based Exavio demoed how its ExaMax 9000 I/O Accelerator can be used to deliver increased performance in existing storage environments. The presentation included an uncompressed HD workflow for Apple Power Mac with Xsan and a multi-stream PC-based 2k DI workflow demonstration running off an accelerated SAN.
TELECINE/SCANNING AND RECORDING Last week in SHOOT, NAB coverage included the debut of London-based Filmlight’s Northlight 2 scanner. It was also reported that Paris-headquartered Thomson’s Grass Valley showed the Spirit 2k and 4k in its postproduction demonstration areas, which including its LUTher and Bones systems.
Additional news in the space came from Hertfordshire, U.K.-headquartered Cintel, which demonstrated it diTTo 2k and 4k data scanner, as well as its Millennium II 4k system. It also introduced its new D/SCO (dirt/scratch concealment option) for DiTTO.
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based Celco showed the Firestorm 2X film recorder, which outputs a frame of film in 1.4 seconds, 50 percent faster than the original Firestorm. Celco also presented a working prototype of the Fury 4k film recorder with speed enhancements, driven on the Linux OS; it is scheduled to ship during Q3 for $450,000.
London-based Film + Data Technologies has a different business model, based on the belief that telecine is almost unaffordable with room rates rising slower equipment prices. Based on this notion, it showed its Nova 2K HD Telecine Scanner, which is available for rental only. The Nova is a CRT based scanner for standard definition 525/625, all HD formats and 2k. The system includes integrated noise and grain reduction and Nova Steadi-Gate technology.
The company also showed the Corona Editor Light, a technology designed to allow the user basic telecine/scanner control from a nonlinear color correction unit. It is available for $12,500.
This concludes SHOOT’s product coverage for NAB, which began in March and continued each week featuring different products and companies. Complete NAB coverage will end with SHOOT’s May 26 Special Reports on Cinema Advertising and Mobile Advertising.
