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DV (Almost) Live From the NAB Show Blog — April 18-19 Updates
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April 15, 2009
Part 1: April 18-19 Updates The DV team, including editor David E. Williams, technical editor Jay Holben, and contributing editors Oliver Peters, Ned Soltz and Iain Stasukevich, will make regular blog reports from the NAB Show from April 18-24, highlighting new tools and technology and events of interest to the DV readership. 
Check back here for daily reporting and start following DVMagazine on Twitter to get our latest updates and notifications of blog entries. Please contact Dave Williams with any questions, comments or editorial pitches. You can read our 2008 NAB blog here.  April 18, 10:41p.m. — Avid Media Composer 3.5
By Oliver Peters Avid Technology is back in the South Hall with a new booth, products and features. Avid just introduced the new Media Composer 3.5 update heading into NAB, thereby building upon last year’s off-floor introduction of the DX hardware and a late-year update of Avid DS. A Media Composer update affects the code base of all editing products, except Avid DS, so these new features will find their way into Media Composer, Symphony and NewsCutter. Avid Media Composer 3.5 (below) hasn’t seemed to receive a big press response from what I can tell, but it includes a number of killer features that move Avid quite a few steps ahead of the competition, which really means Apple and Adobe these days.  The biggest change for Avid is the introduction of AMA (Avid Media Architecture). This is framework for accessing native media without requiring Avid’s standard import/transcode routine. It’s designed as a plug-in architecture and Avid is working with camera manufacturers, like Sony and Panasonic, to allow native support of their tapeless media formats. Currently AMA already supports P2 and XDCAM. All the editor has to do is mount an AMA volume (such as the hard drive where you backed up your P2 media in the field) and that media instantly pops up in the Media Composer UI as a bin.
Stereoscopic 3D has been gaining solid buzz in the post community, but so far it’s only been the finishing systems that have added features to support it. That is, until Media Composer 3.5. This update makes Avid the first NLE to offer creative editors the ability to work with 3D media in the rough-cut phase of a project. Using Avid’s MetaFuze utility, left and right eye media can be merged. Inside Media Composer, the editor can view a 3D image or just the left or right eye view. This way, most of the cutting can be done in a standard fashion, but the system can be switched to a 3D view for screenings or to check the stereoscopic imaging.
Two less whizz-bang features also made it into this release. Fluid Stabilizer camera tracking and software activation. Fluid Stabilizer builds upon Avid’s FluidMotion and Steady Glide technology to stabilize shots with complex camera movement. It filters out error-inducing motion from the motion analysis and creates precise stabilization without the need for easy-to-track, high-contrast picture elements. This release also brings an end to Avid’s hardware license key, aka the dongle. With 3.5, upgrade customers can still choose between the dongle or software license activation, but according to Avid, the dongle will go away completely with the future release of 4.0 software. Avid’s software activation works in a similar fashion to Adobe’s. The license can be moved between different computers using an online deactivation/reactivation process.  April 18, 10:50p.m. — Grass Valley Embraces Apple
By David E. Williams
This afternnoon's Grass Valley presentation at the Wynn Encore hotel featured two primary pieces of news of interest to DV readers: complete GV support for Final Cut Studio in their K2 servers and the bundling of their EDIUS Neo 2 NLE with Panasonic AVCCAM cameras sold after the end of this month. Users who have purchased the relevant Panasonic camera recorders will receive a serial number that will allow customers to install Neo 2 after registering at Panasonic’s PASS system Web site. This bundle campaign will be in effect from April, 2009 to the end of March, 2010. A DVD containing the EDIUS Neo 2 software will be included in all AG-HMC70 series and AG-HMC150 series boxes starting in May.While it may at first seem odd that GV would so fully support Apple's popular NLE, given that they have just introduced a new version of their own with EDIUS 5.1, it's clearly a savvy move to make the GV universe a welcoming environment for FCP users. With Apple's NLE turning 10 years old, it's a sure bet that an entire generation of FCP-only editors are making their presence known in the broadcast marketplace, so why not make them feel at home? For FCP editors, this could possibly open up some new possible employment options. You'll find the available details about the K2/Final Cut announcement here.
UPDATE: Read more analysis from Oliver about the GV/FCP integration and the company's future below.
 April 18, 11:09p.m. — Grass Valley EDIUS 5.1
By Oliver Peters One of the most capable NLEs is Grass Valley’s EDIUS (now in version 5.1). It runs under Windows XP or Vista (32-bit and 64-bit) and you can throw nearly any codec or format at it and be immediately ready to edit – in real-time without the need to render. This includes the ability to natively edit Panasonic’s AVC-Intra (50 and 100Mbps) high-def format. In addition to native formats, EDIUS 5.1 supports uncompressed media and various format wrappers (.avi, .mov, .mxf), plus uses its own compressed HD codec, Canopus HQ.  A lot of manufacturers claim native support, but in actual practice, transcode the media to another format upon ingest; or at the very least, rewrap the file container to a different type of file. EDIUS does neither. Do you shoot P2 or XDCAM-HD? Simply edit straight from the media files or copy them to your local storage and access the media directly from the native folder and file structure of that format.
The EDIUS user interface sports four color bars in the timeline to indicate CPU stress: blue (no rendering), green (rendered), yellow (may or may not need rendering) and red (needs rendering). When you edit a sequence, EDIUS estimates where rendering is needed, so a lot of the timeline is highlighted with a yellow bar. It is only when you actually play the timeline that EDIUS updates this estimate with accurate information. EDIUS uses a buffer system that preloads up to 130 frames, so as long as you don’t go below a user-defined threshold in the buffer, no rendering is required. The usual culprits tax the CPU: compute-intensive codecs, 3D DVE effects and many video layers. In a typical timeline consisting of some mixed-format media, color-correction, transitions and a few titles, the required rendering is generally minimal.
This software grew from event and ENG roots, but has steadily added features that professional “craft” editors expect. The interface is highly customizable, including colors, icons, window layouts and keyboard shortcuts. You can switch the source/record windows between a dual or a single-window configuration. The bins, effects and information windows can be organized into a single, tabbed window. There is excellent, non-modal editing support, enabling quick adjustment of transitions, trims, opacity and more within an active timeline. EDIUS 5.1 supports multiple sequences and the ability to have several open at once in a tabbed timeline layout. On the whole, it’s one of the best software-based NLEs for Windows at the price and kicks serious butt on a fast PC.  April 18, 11:36p.m. — DSLR Question
By David E. Williams
A question via e-mail:
Thanks for reporting from NAB!
My question involves Panasonic's new DMC-GH1, a so-called hybrid large-sensor digital still camera which also records full HD video using the AVCHD codec.
The GH1 begins shipping in Japan next week, but doesn't begin shipping in the US for about a month or so. As a result, Panasonic US sales & technical support has been unable to answer most questions about this cam, and their online documentation is unclear on certain topics.
I'd greatly appreciate it if you can ask Panasonic to confirm whether or not the GH1's HDMI jack can output "live" HD video full-time -- instead of only just during playback. Full-time HDMI video out would be especially useful for monitoring before & during recording, and could also be used for live capture to devices such as the BlackMagic Intensity or Matrox MOX2.
So my question is: Is the DMC-GH1's HDMI jack strictly a playback-only feature, or can it output live HD video anytime/full-time?
For your reference here's a link to the DMC-GH1 page on Panasonic's global Web site.
Thanks in advance, and have a great time in Las Vegas!
All the best,
Peter J. DeCrescenzo
Videographer/DP
http://www.peterdv.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterdvdotcom
Portland, Oregon Peter, I'll check in with Panasonic on Monday and see what info I can get. The the rise of the DSLR HD camera is one of the most interesting trends going, and I have high hopes for how it will be used by creative shooters. April 19, 9:56a.m. — New Litepanels Fixture
By David E. Williams
Litepanels has unveiled a new, beefier MicroPro LED fixture. You'll find the details here. 
It looks pretty sweet, and offers some improvements over their original Micro fixture. We'll have to check it out to determine how it changes the balance of the camera. April 19, 9:59a.m. — FinalShare Explained
By Oliver Peters The Avid and Final Cut editors’ Hard Rock party has become as much of an “official” NAB gathering as any of the formal affairs. This informal get-together started with an impulse by Bob Zelin, a well-known online contributor and industry engineer, with the added support and sponsorship of a number of manufacturers, most notably that of reseller Maxx Entertainment Digital. Although Ron Amborn’s Maxx Digital isn’t an official vendor on the show floor, they have come up with a number of storage products that have attracted a loyal customer base.
One recent innovation is what Maxx Digital has dubbed, Final Share. This is a low cost, shared storage solution for Final Cut Pro edit suites. It hits the small shop “sweet spot”, where only a few edit bays need to be connected to a shared pool of media. This solution is targeted at those customers that don’t have the budget for the more traditional SAN solutions, such as Apple Xsan, Facilis Terrablock or EditShare.  Final Share connects to the Final Cut Pro clients via standard Gigabit Ethernet, which offers enough bandwidth for up to DVCPRO HD or even ProRes 422 media. Initially in the development of SANs, Gig-E wasn’t considered appropriate for shared media storage and editorial traffic, so developers turned to the more expensive Fibre Channel technology. In recent years, manufacturers, like EditShare have had great success with Ethernet-based SANs. EditShare has been joined in this approach by Avid with their ISIS Unity storage and others. The main reason for this is the acceptance of compressed HD formats, like DNxHD, DVCPRO HD and ProRes 422 for high-quality post.
The main components of the Final Share system are a computer, such as a Mac Pro tower or an Apple Xserve, to act as the network server — plus an Ethernet switch. The hard drive media storage array is attached to the server computer and that computer connects to the various edit bays over Gig-E cabling and the Ethernet hardware switch. The big departure from other SAN systems is that through Zelin’s testing, they have found that it is possible to run Final Share with no special administrative SAN software, like Apple Xsan or Tiger MetaSAN. Final Share uses the built-in Apple networking protocols and nothing else. Zelin has currently installed a handful of these units in Florida and reports success in these installations. April 19, 10:53a.m. — Loveless The Series
By Oliver Peters
The popularity of YouTube might have you thinking that the future of all Internet video is at a quality level that’s somewhere south of your old VHS home movies. Associating Internet TV with unwatchable video is a myth. One adventurous team banking on new media is Two Brothers Entertainment, creators of Loveless The Series, a new dramatic series designed strictly for the Web. Episodes can be seen on Blip.tv. 
Loveless follows the story of fictional psychologist Anita Loveless (above). The series deals with her own personal struggles, while at the same time she is trying to keep her patients grounded as she counsels them through their own issues. Different patients are introduced throughout the series and these provide the dramatic vehicle to take each episode into a different direction. Two Brothers Entertainment is the unusual combination of Christopher and Gregory Parker and Rodney Allen Hooks. The Parkers aren’t television veterans, so Hooks adds the industry expertise with solid first AD credits.
The idea for Loveless evolved out of Avid’s “Perfect Pitch” contest last year, which challenged up-and-coming filmmakers to submit a video of a compelling 60-second pitch detailing a film they’d like to get made. Unlike other Web series producers, Chris and Greg Parker approached this with the Web in mind as the main destination, not as just a demo for a longer film or TV show.
The production of Loveless The Series has been tackled in a style not unlike regular series production, including the use of a RED One camera. The first four episodes are in the can, courtesy of the RED One camera and an Avid Media Composer 3.0 for post. In their workflow, RED files are converted to 1920x1080 DVCPROHD QuickTime files. These in turn are converted to Avid’s DNxHD codec when imported into the Avid Media Composer.
Avid Media Composer is frequently positioned as a professional’s tool with a steep learning curve, but Greg started editing on Sony Vegas; yet, he was able to jump right in without any formal training on Media Composer. Today’s broadband permits a high-quality, HD viewing experience, so Loveless The Series might just have hit with the right timing. The experience of Two Brothers Entertainment is typical of the many types of new producers that an NAB convention is trying to attract.
April 19, 11:04a.m. — Marshall OLED Monitors
By David E. Williams
Marshall Electronics will have the "world's first" OLED camera-mount monitors at their booth in the Central Hall. I'm always skeptical when someone claims to be the "world's first" anything — as there's inevitably a legit challange to the claim — but this will certainly be worth checking out.  You can find more detail here. April 19, 11:24a.m. — Apple's Impact
By Oliver Peters Apple didn’t have a last minute change of heart and put up a stealth booth in the South Hall. They’ve sworn off trade shows. The nature of Apple’s brand appeal means they have plenty of ways of getting the word out, like their website and the Apple Stores. Face it, Apple is a company that people go out of their way to seek information about. Apple doesn’t need an NAB to fuel demand.
On the other hand, this NAB will see plenty of Apple and Final Cut Pro / Studio presence. There are FCP-oriented presentations at the Post Production World sessions and, of course, there’s the FCP SuperMeet. What I really mean though, is that many vendors on the floor are showing products geared around Final Cut Pro. I’ve written before about FCP as a “platform”, not just an NLE, and NAB underscores that idea. There are the traditional plug-in companies, like Boris, Noise Industries, Core Melt, Automatic Duck and others. There are the storage vendors like EditShare and Facilis. These are joined by more this year, though, because many traditional broadcast manufacturers have taken the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach.”
Companies like Grass Valley and Omneon are a prime example. Both have been traditional broadcast and “hard news” server and storage providers in a world largely absent of FCP. Yet, they see their customers move towards FCP as the NLE of choice and have realized that they’d better find a way to make their systems work with FCP or potentially also see the loss of server sales. For example, Grass Valley is showing news and production workflows based on their K2 servers and FCP. This is in addition to GV’s own Aurora news editing environment and the EDIUS NLE. Grass Valley is demonstrating FCP with K2 and even Apple Xsan, as well as the K2 Connect FCP plug-in, to locate and view K2 or Aurora assets from inside the FCP interface.  Other new Final Cut-related products include CineForm’s First Light — their first color correction tool, designed to work in tandem with various NLEs, including FCP. They are also introducing a 3D Stereoscopic editing plug-in for FCP. This comes right on the heels of the release of Avid Media Composer 3.5 software, which also provides 3D creative editing tools to Avid editors.
Smart Sound is also demonstrating their new Sonic Fire Pro plug-in for FCP. Using the plug-in, the editor can place music markers on the timeline, which can be “sent to” Sonic Fire Pro. These markers are used as edit points to change arrangement, length and “mood” within Smart Sound’s custom music creation interface.
I believe it’s a mistake for Apple to pass up NAB, but even though Apple isn’t here, you can’t escape the impact of Final Cut. I suppose that simply proves their point that the word gets out, with or without an official booth on the NAB convention floor. April 19, 11:30a.m. — Grass Valley: 50 Years And Counting
By Oliver Peters Amidst ongoing discussions by parent Thomson to sell its marquee division, Grass Valley enters this NAB with a series of new products to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Industry veterans grew up on Grass Valley production switchers, but the trend of the entire industry is to look towards various software solutions that run on general purpose computers. Despite that, there is still a major segment of the industry that needs traditional broadcast hardware, like production switchers, special-purpose servers and studio cameras. These include broadcasters, sports trucks, large media churches and others. To answer current and future needs, Grass Valley is rolling out the Kayenne HD production switcher — or, as GV likes to call it, the Video Production Center. This will be the industry’s largest design with a maximum configuration of 4 ½ mix-effects banks and up to 30 keyers. If you have fader-bar envy, this is the system for you!It’s clear that Grass Valley has refocused its attention on the traditional core customer. Last year Grass Valley sold off their telecine division to a German venture capital firm. The new firm is called DFT Digital Film Technology, which develops and markets the Spirit Datacine and Bones post-production software suite. This leaves only the Viper FilmStream camera as Grass Valley’s remaining foot in the digital cinema door; but, alas, no new Viper is in the pipeline. Despite the success of films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, there doesn’t appear to be much worldwide demand for the Viper and thus, no reason to develop a next generation product in today’s economy. After all, it’s probably hard to grab attention back from RED, or even cameras like Sony’s F23 or F35, for that matter.  Viper, which is still in the GV camera line-up, has provided an important test bed for Grass Valley’s newest generation of studio and field production cameras. Many of the film-style features that first appeared in Viper have migrated into Grass Valley’s broadcast camera line, like the LDK 8000 Elite, which features three 9.2 million pixel imagers. New in Grass Valley’s camera line is the lower-cost LDK 3000 camera series. This is the first LDK system to use in-house developed Xensium CMOS imagers — the same imager used in the Grass Valley Infinity camercorder.
In 50 years, Grass Valley has seen many ups and downs. In spite of an impending sale, they seem to be upbeat about the future and weathering the current climate with targeted products that offer value to the customer on a tight budget.
April 19, 12:35p.m. — Slumdog Editor & Composer At Avid
By Oliver Peters Who: Slumdog Millionaire editor Chris Dickens and composer/performer A.R. Rahman
What: An Avid-hosted presentation at NAB 2009 with this year's Academy Award-winning editor Chris Dickens and Academy Award-winning composer/performer A.R. Rahman of Slumdog Millionaire will offer an engaging look at their collaborative efforts and the creative process behind the audio and video workflows for one of 2008's most watched and loved films in the world.
When: Monday, April 20, 2009, 4:00 PM PST – 5:00 PM PST
Where: Avid Booth #SU902, Las Vegas Convention Center
Details: In its ongoing efforts to provide greater access to industry professionals, Avid has arranged for a special guest appearance from Slumdog Millionaire editor Chris Dickens to be joined in conversation with composer/performer A.R. Rahman (Jai Ho, O'Saya). Chris and A.R. will take the audience through an exclusive behind-the-scenes discussion to dissect the film's audio and picture elements, showcasing the artistic workflow that set the stage for the year's most popular independent film to soar to the big screen and into the hearts and minds of film viewers across the world.
The presentation will be available as a podcast after the conclusion of the event. To watch the video, subscribe to the Events Rewind Podcast or Events Rewind Blog on Avid Community.
April 19, 3:50p.m. — Autodesk Lustre & Smoke
By Oliver Peters New interest in cameras like Grass Valley’s Viper, the SI2K and the RED One have thrown the spotlight on film-style, digital intermediate post production for digitally-acquired projects. Autodesk Media & Entertainment’s Lustre color grading station has come into its own, with several hundred installations worldwide, including such prestigious facilities as LaserPacific Media and EFILM in Los Angeles.
High on the list of new features is greater GPU acceleration. In past versions, certain functions were offloaded to the OpenGL power of the Lustre workstation’s Nvidia card, but the colorist had to decide which to assign as GPU-based. In the current release, a greater number of primary and secondary corrections are accelerated by GPU processing. The result is that more processes will play in real-time. Virtually all of the creative grading tasks are accelerated, as well as the processing of several plug-ins, including Blur Mix, Bleach Bypass and Glow. 
The American Society of Cinematographers has sought to facilitate color correction information exchange between systems through the creation of the color decision list (ASC-CDL). The CDL uses slop-offset-power (SOP) values to assure that the same image can be displayed in two different locations and systems, yet look the same. The slope-offset-power data is a way of defining values for shadows, midrange and highlights along with red/blue/green color balance. Autodesk Lustre is one of the few color grading systems to adopt the ASC-CDL. Multiple CDLs can be imported either as SOP values in an EDL or as files referenced in the EDL comments. This CDL data is applied on a per-shot basis in the Lustre timeline.
One of the most impressive features is Lustre’s shape tracker. This is the best tracking tool I’ve seen in any system, including sophisticated compositors. In fact, its current power is bound to be the envy of Flame artists, whose systems are known for their tracking power. The Lustre tracker works like this. Simply create a shape around an area of interest and Lustre will automatically detect trackable points. No need to manually pinpoint a precise, high-contrast area in the image that stays in the frame. Lustre simply detects a cloud of little points in the image, which it can track as the shot moves. In the case of color grading — as opposed to compositing — tracking information is used to lock in secondary shape correction, such as spotlights or vignettes. If you need to brighten a character’s face as the actor moves through the shot, the tracker enables the colorist to lock that shape (and its associated brightened correction) to the actor’s head and match the movement.
The film and video industry has focused new attention on color correction thanks to the onslaught of low cost desktop tools; however, if you want real performance, only a true grading workstation will do. Autodesk Lustre is one of the few systems with an established track record grading feature films and trailers. Autodesk decided that NAB is still a great showcase to attract new small-to-medium market customers, like broadcasters. The system of most interest to them is Smoke, a premium-grade NLE with powerful compositing tools for advanced visual effects (see the GUI below). There’s no need for a smaller shop to also purchase a Flame or an editor to use external applications, like Motion, Shake, Combustion or After Effects. Smoke can now access both uncompressed and compressed media formats, including QuickTime and MXF media. P2 shooters will find that Smoke can now natively access the cards, including media recorded in Panasonic’s new AVC-Intra codec. 
Part of this new Autodesk openness includes the added use of standard file formats for direct-attached, SAN and NAS storage. There is also OMF, AAF and XML support, so editors who choose to do their creative cut on an Avid Media Composer or Apple Final Cut Pro edit system can easily bring their files into Smoke for finishing. Autodesk recently signed on to the RED Digital Cinema Camera SDK, which will allow Smoke, Flame and Lustre to offer native support for the RED One camera raw files.
Some of the features that sets Smoke apart include internal image processing as RGB 4:4:4 and most of the full Flame toolset for compositing. It is the only NLE where you build effects in a total 3D environment. This includes advanced lighting effects that respect proper 3D spatial relationships and the ability to add a geometry mesh to the image. Points on the mesh can be pulled and warped in 3D space to apply deformations, such as stretching the nose of a character, a la Pinocchio.
Other major items are an integrated tracking tool and the Colour Warper (the Flame color corrector). Tracking and color correction can be used integrally with nearly every effect. It is impressive to see the speed at which a skilled Smoke artist can walk through some composites seen routinely on national commercials. This is largely due to the overall efficiency and performance of Smoke.
New in Smoke is a deliverables modules — designed for those who must deliver a wide range of SD and HD formats from their projects. Autodesk has chosen to use the Nvidia card and not the built-in AJA card for output. By doing this, they can support various software scaling and filtering algorithms for optimal conversions, custom display LUTs and color spaces, like log-to-linear conversions. These tools — based on Lustre’s Color Management - are unique for an NLE.
Autodesk continues to lead the charge in defining what a finishing system should be. Do your cutting on Final Cut or Media Composer, but when it’s time to really “wow” the client, move to Smoke for the final bells-and-whistles.
April 19, 4:07p.m. — Autodesk Launches Flare
By David E. Williams
During their product presentation event this afternoon, Autodesk announced the 2010 releases of their Flame and Inferno systems, but the launch of a new companion toolset, Flare, was the real news.
“In this economic climate, reducing costs and increasing ROI is on everybody's mind,” said Film & Television Product Manager Bruno Sargeant. He presented the software-only Flare as a cost-effective way for post houses to add creative seats. Flare features the core creative elements of Flame and Inferno but can be had for a fifth of the price. So while the customer must have a Flame or Inferno system to begin with, they can greatly expand their capacity with Flare, and there is no company-imposed limit to the number of Flare seats that can be added to a facility. "Your storage capacity is the only limit," Sargeant said.
The Linux-based Flare offers compositing and support for rotoscoping, retouching and dust removal, project setup and keying. All functions are fully compatible with Flame or Inferno, unlike Autodesk's discontinued Combustion solution.
Asked if purchasing Flare was the equivalent of buying the "soul" of a Flame or Inferno but not the "guts," Sargeant laughed and confirmed the notion. He went on to describe how a given post house could use the cost-effective Flare stations for junior artists, training, experimention, and client demos. "Flame and Inferno suites are booked 24/7, so there's seldom time to use them for these purposes," he reasoned.
New features in the 2010 versions of Flame and Inferno include graphical processing unit-accelerated 3D Blur, 3D Path, Normal and UV Mapping tools as well as advancements to 3D Text and Displacement Mapping tools; and expanded support for REDCODE RAW files. The inclusion of REDCODE RAW support is an indication of Autodesk's commitment to "adopt industry standards, not introduce more new ones," Sargeant said.Sargeant also noted that as the company recognized that many people might not be able to attend the NAB Show, Autodesk had set up their booth as a "TV studio" and would be recording all of the presentations held there to be later streamed via their Web site.
All of Autodesk's new offerings will be available by the end of April.
You can read the April 20-21 updates to our 2009 NAB blog here.
| COMMENTS (1) | | 04/20/2009 | | Any news on the continuing DSLR Movie hybrid trend that's spreading through the industry at the moment. I, for one, am very excited by the possibilities:)
John - London |
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