Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
DCP Directory
MillimeterNAB 06
Mar 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Trevor Boyer, Barry Braverman, Dan Ochiva, Jan Ozer, Jem Schofield, and Jeff Sauer
Tire kicking time
Last year saw the “big two” video editors, Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid Xpress Pro, become the “big three” with the release of Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 (shown) and Adobe Production Studio.
Editing
In the video world, many assess progress not by the calendar year, but from April to April, or more specifically, from NAB to NAB. The past 12 months have seen some significant shifts in the nonlinear market, all of which should prove obvious as you walk through the convention center halls.
For example, last April, HDV was still “on the bubble,” with one legitimate three-CCD HDV camcorder (the Sony HDR-FX1/HVR-Z1U), and sketchy application support, primarily through intermediate formats with all the inherent processor and disk space overhead. This year, with several new high-quality three-CCD HDV camcorders available, including the Canon XL-H1 and JVC GY-HD100 camcorders, native HDV support in all major editing applications, and HD DVD on the immediate horizon, HDV is here to stay, and should be all over NAB.
The last year also saw the “big two” video editors, Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid Xpress Pro, become the “big three” with the addition of Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. Sure, there is no support for networked workgroups, and the four camera multicam limitation will disqualify Premiere Pro from many high-end shops. But for smaller, more integrated production studios, the Adobe Production Studio is a killer app at a killer price.
Finally, this past year saw significant consolidation, most notably Avid's acquisition of Pinnacle and Thomson's purchase of Canopus. Though in the latter case there appears to be little product overlap, producers who favor the former Pinnacle Liquid family of editors have some questions to ask once they arrive at the Avid booth.
Adobe
As per tradition, Avid and Apple did not preannounce their NAB plans, so let's look at Adobe, which announced the Adobe Production Studio in January. By now you're familiar with the updated products and the highly integrated interface, but the most interesting NAB storyline will be the extensive suite of add-on hardware and software products, some showing at Adobe's plug-in booth, others in the respective company's booths.
On the hardware front, Adobe has at least four partners with add-in cards providing high-end format compatibility, accelerated rendering and preview, or both. For example, the AJA Xena card provides integrated capture, playback, and print to tape of SD-SDI and HD-SDI uncompressed digital audio and video, with full software deck control.
Both Blackmagic Design and Bluefish444 have announced updated drivers that allow Adobe Production Studio to work with their entire line of uncompressed SD/HD SDI hardware. Blackmagic also announced the DeckLink HD Pro PCIe capture card, a dual link HDTV 4:4:4 12-bit SDI card for Mac and Windows.
Matrox announced support for Adobe Production Studio on the Matrox Axio realtime HD and SD editing platforms, and on a new, lower-cost version, Axio LE, which retails for $4,495. With uncompressed HD and SD editing, support for native HDV and DVCPRO HD, realtime mixing of HD and SD codecs, full support for Premiere's new multicam feature, and accelerated export to MPEG-2 and Flash, the Axio is definitely worth a look for those seeking accelerated SD/HD/HDV production. (For more, see D.W. Leitner's review at digitalcontentproducer.com).
Adobe's plug-in pavilion should be chock-full of software partners, but announcements were slow to firm up. Red Giant Software is showing three new or updated products that should interest film and HD producers. For example, Instant HD 1.0 performs bi-cubic scaling of SD to HD footage, with sharpness and anti-aliasing controls and multiple scaling presets.
Documentary filmmakers and postproduction houses should catch a demo of Film Fix, a set of After Effects plug-ins that restore tears, remove dust and dirt particles, and stabilize film-based video. Operation is reportedly highly automated, and you can spread rendering over multiple networked computers. Finally, Red Giant is also updating its Knoll Light Factory After Effects plug-in to version 2.5, with faster operation, support for Premiere Pro 1.5 and later, Avid AVX systems, and 25 new flare effects.
Quantum’s SDLT 600A data tape system represents an important next step in the move toward file-based post workflows. Building around the company’s SDLT archiving standard, the network-attached 600A drive features MXF-aware hardware and built-in Gigabit Ethernet. By relying on the growing use of MXF wrappers for media, users won’t need to buy as much VTR-specific hardware, yet can still enjoy VTR-like access to subclips by timecode as well as access to metadata stored on the tape.
Apple
Apple stayed mum on this round of announcements, but based on previous releases, Final Cut Studio should be running on Intel-based Macs before you land at McCarran International Airport. Whether Apple shows these units at NAB will be an interesting question. The initial Intel-based MacBook Pros are single-processor, dual-core systems. With few pro editing and effects apps running natively on the new processor, we'll have to wait for final news on the real speed up.
Most video developers are working on dual G5 systems, many with dual-core processors, which should prove much faster than the current Intel-based iMacs. Unless Apple has a dual-processor, dual-core Intel system ready to unveil at the show, the Intel-based MacBooks may not have much of a presence. (However, don't rule out a dual-core Intel introduction—at least from somebody).
Expect to see the new Kona 3 card from AJA Video in the Apple booth. With a four-lane PCI-Express bus interface, the card supports uncompressed SD and HD formats, with 10-bit conversion to and from HD, and a live hardware keyer, and reportedly 40 percent more processing power than the KONA 2 card.
Avid
Avid also held back on its NAB announcements, but look for the newly shipping Symphony Nitris and Media Composer Adrenaline to be displayed prominently in the booth. At the other end of the spectrum, it'll be interesting to see how much bandwidth Avid Liquid Chrome HD gets. In need of an interface redesign, and directly competing with Avid's Xpress line of products, Liquid offers no film-based workflow or project and interface compatibility with Avid's higher end products. Avid reportedly coveted Liquid for its innovative, multiple-format rendering engine, not its interface, which makes you feel like Liquid should be on the endangered species list.
Harris
Harris Corporation, which acquired Leitch during the second half of 2005, is making an initial venture into the software-only market with Leitch VelocityX ($1,500). Borrowing a page from Avid's playbook, VelocityX shares the same interface as hardware-based VelocityHD and VelocityQ, providing an inexpensive alternative for field or laptop editing.
Boxx Technologies
Beyond the core NLEs, several additional products rate as “must sees” at the LVCC. For example, Boxx Technologies will debut its Boxx Apexx 4 workstation with four dual-core AMD Opteron processors running Red Hat Linux. With up to 64GB of memory, the unit can process up 2K and 4K film res, but obviously can't run any of our favorite Windows editors. ProMax, which customizes Boxx products for the video editing market, will be on hand with Windows-based video workstations for mere mortals.
Focus Enhancements
Focus Enhancements should be showing native HDV QuickTime support in its FireStore FS-4Pro HD and DR-HD100 hard disk recorders. As with DV25 QuickTime support, this allows Final Cut Pro 5 editors to load HDV files directly into the timeline, rather than capture via FireWire or convert the files to MOV format.
Virtual Katy
On the audio front, Virtual Katy will show VK2 in the Avid Partner Pavilion. The tool synchronizes Avid video edits with soundtracks in Pro Tools via an EDL or Avid Cut List, eliminating the need for manual synchronization.
SmartSound
SmartSound will show Sonicfire Pro 4, the next generation of its automated music-scoring solution. The new version features “mood mapping,” which lets you change the mix and arrangement of the music score to match the video. For example, when using an orchestra mix, you can duck the music for dialog, reducing the number of instruments and volume; go strings only for a quiet, somber moment; or play the entire orchestra to well up for the finish.
— JAN OZER
