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Reader SurveyNAB 2008
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM
Perspective on this year’s show.
Leveraging the scalability of AVCHD, solid-state construction, and the parts bin of far pricier Panasonic camcorders, the compact AG-HMC70 offers better-than-expected performance at a modest price.
Camcorders at NAB
By Barry Braverman
By any measure, the past year has been an extremely fruitful period for professional video technology. “Convergence,” a buzzword that fell out of fashion years ago, is finally reality. After years of hype in these two realms, cameras that enable accessible IT-based video recording and codecs that facilitate ubiquitous high-quality web delivery finally complete a puzzle that began with one piece: digital editing on the desktop.
The eventful past 12 months inform the year to come as our experts analyze the state of the industry. With an eye on the future, we recap the past year in video technology as the industry gears up for NAB 2008. This month, we look at the current and future camera offerings from the major manufacturers and take a wide-ranging yet in-depth view into the state of streaming and encoding.
Check back with us next month as we look at the recent past and future of desktop postproduction. We'll also have more breaking product news that was not yet available as this issue went to press.
The industry's march toward the adoption of file-based workflow will, of course, be evident at NAB 2008, and this trend will be especially apparent at the Panasonic booth. Panasonic's Material eXchange Format (MXF)-based P2 recording format supports a wide range of critical metadata, in keeping with the industry's objectives in creating the format in the first place. The idea has always been to take maximum advantage of the IT world's superior economy and efficiency, while tackling the daunting challenge of managing an exploding amount of data in an ever-expanding digital landscape.
Reflective of this trend, a number of key P2 developments will be on display at NAB. The 32GB cards (and 64GB versions coming in the fall) will eliminate any residual anxiety regarding the constrained running times of earlier P2 cards. In 24p native modes, a 32GB card can accommodate up to 80 minutes of intraframe-compressed HD, which translates to more than 6 1/2 hours of continuous running time in cameras fitted with five P2 card slots.
At the zenith of the P2 architecture, AVC-Intra 100 will be a major story for Panasonic this year as we see expanded industry-wide support for the master-quality codec. Providing full-raster 1920×1080 or 1280×720 video at 100Mbps, 4:2:2, 10-bit implementation, AVC-I 100 finally offers a wide range of shooters and producers the capability to achieve the highly accurate grading, color correction, and compositing that are imperative for the preparation of high-quality HD masters.
For years, D5 has been the mastering format of choice for filmmakers and high-end producers. Now the tools exist on the computer desktop for near-D5 master quality from image capture through display. All this from a digital camera without the requirement for videotape or a pricey $70,000-plus VTR. That's a key development for the industry as the promise of a file-based D5-level workflow becomes a reality for users across a broad spectrum of broadcast and non-broadcast markets.
In the high-end broadcast/production landscape, Panasonic P2 cameras with native AVC-I capability, such as the AJ-HPX3000, are driving the industry, motivating a range of downstream manufacturers and software vendors to support the new codec. Postproduction support is growing both for AVC-I and P2. Apple Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 now supports AVC-I import and transcoding to ProRes 422. Adobe has embraced P2 by offering support for the format's expansive metadata in Adobe Bridge. Adobe After Effects also now supports native P2 MXF import.
For its part, Canopus Edius 4.5 supports AVC-I via a $999 plug-in. Avid has announced future support. MainConcept, which provides technology to Adobe and others, now offers AVC-I support via its ubiquitous transcoder.
