By Oliver Peters, June 10, 2008
Editor’s Note: A shorter version of this story appeared in the June issue of DV. This is the original “Reporter’s Cut.”
NAB Show crowds filled numerous venues to experience 3-D demonstrations. Given the number of 3-D offerings at the Show and the flow of quality 3-D content, stereoscopic images may be here to stay this time.
Early fears that Apple’s and Avid’s lack of a booth would result in drastically reduced National Association of Broadcasters Show attendance turned out to be unfounded. The South Hall – home of most of the postproduction products – was nearly as crowded as ever, with solid attendance at all the demos until the bitter end at the booths of stalwarts like Quantel, Autodesk and Adobe. In spite of all the interest in new editing features, this year was more about chasing the camera manufacturers. Sure, Red has captured a lot of press, but the thing that interests most editors is whether their chosen NLE can support the various mainstream, file-based camera systems out today. Sony’s got XDCAM, XDCAM-HD and now the SxS cards used on the EW1 and the new EW3 camcorders. Panasonic’s expanded its P2 media to use both the DVCPRO HD and the AVC-Intra codecs. New for NAB was a lower cost Panasonic product line using the consumer-grade AVCHD codec and standard memory cards.
This may be great news for shooters, but it’s simply a faster moving target for all NLE vendors as they try to anticipate which new codec or transport medium will reach a critical mass requiring post support at the professional level. Every major NLE company announced support for one or more of these new file-based systems. In some cases, that was the only new feature they brought to the convention. For their part, both Sony and Panasonic are greatly expanding the ecosystem surrounding their P2, XDCAM-HD and SxS products, announcing various drives and VTR replacement devices based on these storage systems. In fact, only Sony announced new VTRs, including two new HDCAM-SR decks – the SRW-5800 studio VTR and the SRW-5100 player.
Quantel’s Pablo, which now offers 3-D functionality.
If you’re looking for big news from an editing company, then Quantel was happy to oblige. Their big “wow factor” was 3-D stereoscopic post. Quantel has 17 stereo 3-D systems installed worldwide and sees a big future in that presentation format. 3D-equipped Pablo systems allow simultaneous left/right eye ingest and the ability to edit left/right eye views at the same time. Color grading can be matched between the two and there is control over parallax effects. Quantel also announced its Quattro software update, an across-the-board release for eQ, iQ and Pablo. Among other things, it features AAF conform of FCP projects courtesy of Quantel’s collaboration with Automatic Duck. Another continued development is Quantel’s Genetic Engineering, of which thirty systems are installed worldwide. Genetic Engineering is a file virtualization system, whereby Quantel hardware presents Quantel media as virtual graphic files (such as DPX) to outside Mac, Linux and PC software. When accessed, Quantel hardware turns these into actual media files that can be manipulated by programs like Nuke, Shake and others. It also works in the other direction.
Quantel’s new Neo panel has to win the sexiness award. It’s a new color grading control panel for Pablo designed with improved ergonomics and better left-handed or right-handed operation. The Quantel reps are fond of pointing out that it uses the same lighting system as found on the dashboard of an Aston Martin! Other productivity advances from Quantel include 2X ingest from HDCAM-SR and the ability to work with 1080p/60 (and 50), which will be standard on iQ, Pablo 2K and Pablo 4K with the Quattro software upgrade. Last but not least, Quantel has launched its online Compass Training program to expand the operator base familiar with the Quantel editing interface. Once you register online, you get a free, fully-functioning, software-based version of Quantel’s editing application and can then proceed through a series of online levels that result in an operator certification. It’s worth a whirl, because the Quantel interface is actually one of the easiest to learn for new editors.
The GUI for Flame’s batch timeline.
Helping to keep the crowds high in the South Hall was Autodesk Media and Entertainment. Autodesk system products like Smoke, Flame and Lustre have historically received major updates at IBC and in fact, the 2008 versions were announced in September. This year Autodesk moved the schedule up six months by announcing the IFF 2009 (Inferno, Flame, Flint) and Smoke 2009 updates at NAB. As I wrote in January, the main focus of the 2008 update was to greatly unify the user interface between Flame and Smoke. In addition, Autodesk has been taking greater advantage of GPU processing, now that they are totally on PC workstations and can access the power of Nvidia and other graphics cards. The 2009 update continues this path to unify the toolset between their core editing and compositing products. In the past Autodesk only dealt with uncompressed media, but the new updates embrace P2, QuickTime and new audio formats as importable media. Smoke also sports a newer price, starting at $64K with storage. One of the most important new features is that Flame and Smoke 2009 offer 16-bit float in their compositing modules. This is made possible because the Linux/HP workstations support 16-bit throughout, whereas the SGI workstations that used to be the cornerstone of Autodesk workstations maxed out at 12-bit.
Avid’s new DX, front and back.
Although Avid opted out of a booth presence, they were in Las Vegas hosting various user, customer and reseller events. There they unveiled the new Avid DX product line to accompany the new marketing campaign, “New Thinking,” along with more aggressive pricing. Both the entry level Xpress Pro software and the mid-level Avid Media Composer Adrenaline system have been discontinued. The biggest change in DX, which replaces the DNA products, like Adrenaline, is that external hardware is connected using the PCIe bus and not FireWire, giving the engineers 10Gbps to work with. The products now break down into Avid Media Composer (software only), Avid Mojo SDI (left over from the DNA line) and three hardware/software bundles – Avid Media Composer Mojo DX, Avid Media Composer Nitris DX and Avid Symphony Nitris DX. The latter is the only unit in this family sold as a turnkey product, but also signals Avid’s return to the Mac platform with its Symphony product. The key to these new systems is a 3.0 version of the software that takes greater advantage of multi-core processing and the GPU power of modern graphics cards. In fact, the whole effects pipeline was rewritten and demos showed real time playback of up to eight streams of compressed HD. The new hardware handles I/O and some scaling, but all effects processing is strictly CPU- and GPU-dependant. The Nitris DX break-out box features an embedded version of Avid’s DNxHD compressed HD codec. Avid will continue to position its Avid DS flagship as a high-end finishing product capable of DI film work, but new DS announcements will have to wait until later in the year. The new Media Composer-family software and DX hardware is slated to be available by end of Q2 and will be compatible with Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista.
The EDIUS GUI.
Thomson continues to move forward with the EDIUS editing platform, acquired from Canopus a few years back. EDIUS comes in four versions: Neo (for the education market), Pro, Broadcast and Aurora (a collaborative editing version). EDIUS Broadcast 4.6 was announced, which supports the JPEG 2000 codec used in the Thomson Grass Valley Infinity Digital Media Camcorder. In addition, Sony XDCAM and EX and Panasonic P2 file-based workflows are also supported. EDIUS provides the craft editing solutions that augment Thomson’s other news-oriented editor, NewsEdit.
A setup featuring Matrox’s RT.X2 LE card.
Another manufacturer taking advantage of PCIe is Matrox with the new MXO2. The original MXO was only an output system, but MXO2 adds the ability to ingest uncompressed SD and HD as well. It can be used with both MacPro towers and MacBook Pro laptops and works with Apple Final Cut Studio and Adobe CS3 Production Premium on the Mac. It provides broadcast-quality input/output, monitoring and up/down/cross-conversion, but unlike its competitors, can actually be used on location operating under DC power. New announcements in Matrox’s PCIe cards for Adobe Premiere Pro on the PC include the Matrox RT.X2 LE card — a real time SD and HD card with break-out box — as well enhancements for its Axio line of cards.
MOTU’s V3HD (top) and their next-gen V4HD.
Newcomer MOTU was able to show off its V3HD, which drew interest last year but didn’t make it to the show. The hallmark of this unit is that it provides hardware-accelerated DVCPRO HD capture on a Mac running Apple Final Cut Pro or a PC using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. Last year Apple introduced its ProRes 422 codec for compressed HD, but many people are more comfortable with DVCPRO HD. In addition, the hardware requirements for ProRes 422 are limited to the newest machines, so MOTU’s V3HD becomes the ideal product for customers on recent G5s, who’d like to stay with DVCPRO HD. It connects to the host computer over FireWire and given MOTU’s heritage in audio, sports one of the best audio sections of any external I/O unit. (MOTU also quietly previewed its next-gen model, the V4HD, to a select few at NAB, and it will be covered in a future issue of DV.)
Last year AJA made a big splash with Io HD, which finally shipped towards the end of the year
. Most of their news this year was in enhancements to existing products and improvements or additions to the mini-converter line. One of the biggest, “little” items is the release of Mac drivers for Adobe CS3 Production Premium (expected by Q3 of this year). This will be a free upgrade to KONA customers and will allow editors to access the KONA hardware whether cutting on Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro CS3 on the same workstation.
Blackmagic Design’s Decklink HD Extreme.
Blackmagic Design has also been closely associated with Final Cut Pro, but this year they chose to expand in a number of new directions. First is a new line of mini-converters, entering a space largely dominated by AJA, Cobalt and Miranda to date. The biggest impression, though, was made by the new Broadcast Videohub – a 72 x 144 SD, HD, 3Gb/s SDI and RS-422 router for an astounding price of $14,995. Many of their existing Decklink and Multibridge products also support the 3Gb/s standard, which permits dual-link content to be transmitted over a single cable. One new card from Blackmagic is the Decklink HD Extreme, an SD, HD and 2K card with SDI, HDMI and analog connections for under a thousand bucks. However, what probably caught the eye of most booth passers-by was the new Blackmagic Video Recorder. Connect this to your computer’s USB port and get real time H.264 capture in one of several presets, including full resolution. This is the ideal product for making fast client approval copies and it’s available in analog and SDI versions.
Thanks to the Red One camera and the continued move of DI technology to the mainstream, products that generally fall under the concept of a digital film lab have become a key part of the show. One example is Assimilate’s SCRATCH CINE, a customized version of the SCRATCH software designed to deal specifically with Red’s .R3D camera raw file format. SCRATCH CINE is optimized to conform, preview and perform primary color grading on Red’s 4K files in real time. It was demoed on a specially configured BOXX Technologies workstation, called redBOXX, playing in real time with a 2K output at 24fps.
Red’s strangely anti-ergonomic Scarlet 3K cam.
Red Digital Cinema announced not one, but two new cameras – one smaller (Scarlet – a 3K camera) and one bigger (Epic – a 5K camera). Each slated to be a real product by early 2009. A more important announcement for post was Red Ray. Think of this as Apple TV for Red files. The unit allows you to stick in a flash card from the camera and play out files at up to 4K resolution. Also early 2009. Although Apple wasn’t officially on the floor, they did have a station at the Red booth, presenting a technology demonstration of the Log and Transfer module for FCP and the Red Room inside Apple Color. Log and Transfer permits users to directly import native.R3D files into Final Cut and apply a color preset to the image. On the way in, these files are converted to Apple’s ProRes codec. A beta version of this Log and Transfer module can be downloaded from Red’s support site (FCP 6.0.3 required). The Red Room for Color is a bit more intriguing. Color is Apple’s color grading application that comes bundled with Final Cut Studio. The concept is that Red files edited in FCP are “sent to” Color, which in turn links back to the 4K resolution raw .R3D files. In a raw file, all color information is just metadata, so the Red Room lets the colorist adjust the raw metadata parameters first, before applying primary and secondary color grading values (accessed in the Primary and Secondary “rooms” of the Color user interface) for a finished look. There is no release date yet for this feature. It’s a bit of a coup that Red was even able to show an Apple technology demonstration, given how secretive Apple is about its future products.
The CLIPSTER from DVS.
Red has whetted everyone’s appetite for 4K files on the desktop, but the reality is that this is still the domain of heavy iron. One such company is German manufacturer DVS and their flagship CLIPSTER product. CLIPSTER offers the ability to conform, edit and color grade at up to 4K file sizes. DVS has concentrated on making CLIPSTER a reliable DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) mastering solution, offering all the DCI steps automatically. CLIPSTER is able to provide its contents with certificates and encryption of any type required, such as JPEG2000 encoding, AES and RSA encryption, as well as X509 certification.
The LairdShare HD from Laird Telemedia. It’s storage that makes the post world go ‘round and for many the pick hit of the show was Laird Telemedia’s LairdShareHD. This seems to be the best shared solution for a small shop not interested in purchasing or setting up a SAN storage network. LairdShareHD uses a standard Gig-E local network to connect to the editing workstations, just like a LAN server, and incorporates server, storage and administrative software into a single unit. Approximately $21K for 12TB of storage. There’s no SAN software required and as they max out the performance of a Gig-E network, were able to demonstrate the playback of eight streams of shared DVCPRO HD media. As many folks know who’ve tried it, several Final Cut Pro stations can access common media stored on a server over Gig-E with few problems. LairdShareHD is a more robust version of that, making sure to keep your files safe. The Laird Telemedia booth was also one of the few places to see Apple’s newly released Final Cut Server. Although LairdShare HD does not require Apple Xsan or Final Cut Server, it works well together with FC Server. For example, FCP projects cannot be shared, so even with LairdShareHD, two editors collaborating would need to work with local copies of the same project to prevent each from overwriting the other’s work. Final Cut Server allows FCP Projects to be “checked out” and “checked in”. This safeguards the files and is just one way in which Server is an excellent companion product to LairdShare HD.
One company that does seem to have cracked the Final Cut Pro sharing issue is EditShare. In fact, EditShare is the only outside company to offer a method of sharing Avid, as well as Apple Final Cut Pro project files. At NAB EditShare announced its Complete Collaboration products, including EditShare Flow, EditShare Server Series and EditShare Ark. EditShare Flow includes two modules: Flow Ingest and Flow Browse. Features include multi-channel ingest with independent control over each channel, full metadata capture and edit-while-recording capabilities. Users can automate ingest, control it remotely or initiate it manually. EditShare Flow Ingest supports Apple ProRes and Avid MXF formats and up to three codecs per channel, including proxy.
EditShare has also added Xtreme to its Server Series. EditShare Xtreme can process media at data rates of 300MB per second per stream, supporting up to 52 streams of DV50 and multiple 1080p 444 HD projects/streams. This makes it of interest to post facilities working with digital intermediary 2K projects, as well as television stations with large numbers of simultaneous users accessing central storage. As I mentioned in January, EditShare would be expanding into back-up solutions. EditShare Ark provides integrated solutions for backups, mirroring and archiving. These features enable users to organize and manage media in a variety of scenarios, including LTO-backup and “spinning disc” solutions that can be upgraded to full EditShare Server Series with little to no downtime.
Gridiron Flow, which was the hit of MacWorld.
I could go on for pages, as this was the show to check out many of the small, innovative companies that frequently lead the way. In no particular order, some of the other products to check out include 1Beyond Systems’ high-end laptops and ruggedized workstations. They offer the first quad-core, RAIDed laptop and even demoed a ruggedized notebook by trickling water on the keyboard for the whole show! GridIron Software’s Flow – the hit of Macworld – was just as impressive in Vegas. It’s probably the best background organizer for the creative professional. Flow creates flowchart-style maps and understands numerous creative project types (layered Photoshop files, After Effects compositions, Final Cut Pro projects, etc.). It establishes a graphic plot that is really a relational database combining projects and associated assets.
MAXEdit offers an alternative editing approach using the Web.
Maximum Throughput provided a glimpse into how editing might be done in the future, with MAXedit Server and MAXedit Web Editions. Both are streamlined editing interfaces that allow multi-resolution edits linked to centralized storage accessed over a server or over the Web. If you are into control surfaces to pimp your edit system, then you’ll be glad to know Euphonix has released two affordable control surfaces for DAWs, like Apple Logic. MC Control and MC Mix from Euphonix will also work with Apple Final Cut Pro using Mackie protocol and permit function mapping to the various buttons and knobs of MC Control or tactile fader control with MC Mix.
Although not an official exhibitor, this product caught the attention of many editor/colorists, especially those thinking about tricking out their Apple Color suites. Tangent Devices introduced a new Waves panel for color grading control. This sub-$2K panel is the most affordable one of its kind and was spotted in use with SCRATCH and IRIDAS grading systems. Hopefully it’s compatible with Color, as other Tangent Devices and JL Cooper panels that work with Color run in the thousands. If so, this would be a truly breakthrough price more in keeping with the cost of all things related to Final Cut!
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