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MillimeterThe 2005 Vanguards
Jan 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Dan Ochiva
Honoring products that change production and post for the better.
The end-of-the-year Vanguard Awards give us a chance to look back over a very busy 2005 and marvel at all the new gear that turned up at NAB, Siggraph, IBC, and sundry other occasions. But it's not new gear for new gear's sake that we honor here. Instead, we want to take some time to highlight breakthrough products of the highest caliber, hardware and software that can and will change production and post for the better.
Earlier in the year, some said that the advent of lower-priced HD camcorders and NLE systems heralded the final stages of technical evolution. But a slew of cut-rate HDV camcorders, lower-cost HD editing systems, and other breakthrough technology that ranged from DI infrastructure solutions through to cool, bright-white lighting systems soon made it clear that 2005 would deliver on the mantra of "Faster, cheaper, better."
Millimeter's judges: S.D. Katz, D.W. Leitner, and Dan Ochiva.
Apple Final Cut Studio
All-in-one bundles are not unique to Apple, but the collective advances embodied by Final Cut Pro 5's multi-camera editing, Motion 2's accelerated 32-bit floating point rendering, DVD Studio Pro 4's ability to burn HD DVDs, and Apple's new audio editing program, Soundtrack Pro, make an overwhelming argument for this $1300 cornucopia.
Autodesk Toxik
Toxik recasts Autodesk's Inferno and Flame tools into a workgroup environment for motion picture projects with the ability to work with massive compositions in realtime and includes many (though not all) of the best tools in Inferno. Toxik future-proofs Discreet's long-running product line as it integrates system advantages that are hard to emulate in lower price editing and compositing environments.
Autodesk Maya 7 software
A good thing gets much better with Maya Version 7. Now incorporating former Kaydara MotionBuilder's full-body IK technology, as well as touches such as polygonal modeling, animators will find Maya a more well-rounded product. The new Toon Shader offers flexible shading and painting methods, while improved coding bumps up the interactivity of this and other tools. Third parties are joining in too. ATI Technologies' Advanced Shading Language Interface (ASHLI), for example, is now built-in, delivering interactive, photorealistic shading when paired with ATI graphics cards.
Arri X Ceramic 250 lighting
The first lighting instruments to use Philips' new tungsten-balanced 250W Ceramic ST 250 HR discharge lamp, the open-face Arri X and fresnel Arri Studio Ceramic 250 match the warm correlated color temperature of tungsten at a quarter of the power. Arri's housings are nearly cool to the touch, ballasts are built-in, and the single-ended lamps are rated 4000 hours. A very nice combination.
Avid Xpress Pro Version 5.2
When Avid brought HDV chops to Xpress Pro in Version 5.2, it created a flexible, open workflow for HD post. One major capability, mixing resolutions on the timeline, stands out. Work with multiple formats in their native form—DV, SD, HD, and film—and never look back.
This fits in with lots of other useful tools: a highly customizable editing toolset, realtime multicam editing, One-Touch automatic color correction, image stabilization, and realtime animated alpha channels.
Canon XL H1 camcorder
Canon knows that an image can be no better than the lens that formed it in the first place, no matter how much bit depth or digital signal processing you throw at it upon capture. If you were to guess that such professional capabilities are meant to seduce broadcasters, particularly small-market stations, already turned on by the allure of HD newsgathering and EFP at bargain rates, you would be right.
eCinema DCM23 LCD monitor
For most production and post chores, LCD monitors are now the norm. Colorists, though, have been reluctant to make the move; LCD color reproduction falls short of what a CRT delivers, leaving too much room for error.
Enter the eCinema DCM23, the first LCD monitor to reach reference-grade monitor status. By combining electronics, optics, and a colorist's sensibility, eCinema's Martin Euredjian has removed the LCDs color-related problems.
JVC GY-HD100U 24P camcorder
Whether ProHD is a new HDV format or flavor, the introduction of JVC's bold crossbreed of HDV and 720/24P stirred excitement. JVC's shoulder-mounted ProHD/DV camcorder, the GY-HD100U, delivers true 1280x720 square pixels. Versatility comes via its interchangeable 1/2in. lens capability; the camcorder comes with a 16X Fujinon lens. JVC pulled out the stops on this one.
Kodak Vision2 HD
What if Kodak took its ever-growing list of tungsten- and daylight-balanced camera negatives and combined them into one product that could, upon developing and transfer, digitally mimic any current Kodak filmstock?
Kodak's Vision2 HD "hybrid" system is a step in that direction: a new low contrast, "scan-only" negative, 7299 (Super 16 only) rated either 320 or 500, plus a Vision2 HD Digital Processor, used at post houses to emulate the other Kodak looks. This is a controversial, even radical, initiative, and it's nice to see Kodak once more stirring things up.
Matrox Axio editing platform
I can report that the experience of editing several realtime streams of uncompressed 1080i HD with realtime effects minus any render speedbumps or timeline hiccups is like soaring free-as-a-bird in the clearest blue sky. Or what I dream flooring a 253mph Bugatti Veyron would be like. A vertiginous, almost illicit speed thrill and possibly addicting too. —D.L.
Nvidia Sorbetto lighting technology
Version 2 of Gelato, Nvidia's sophisticated rendering engine, gains with Sorbetto, a breakthrough, integrated relighting technology that gets that much more interactive with each rev of Nvidia's GPUs. While Gelato 2 delivers volumetric shadows and 3ds Max support, Sorbetto takes things to the next level, enabling lighting changes on final, full-rez material to become interactive.
Panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder
Imagine a Varicam shrunk to handycam size and form factor, and you have a fair idea of Panasonic's AG-HVX200, a DVCPRO HD P2 handheld 1080i/720p/480i multi-format dream machine.
DVCPRO at 100Mbps, 24p, variable frame rates, and four 48KHz/16-bit audio channels, and all for a list price that starts under $6000. Unique tools such as "Focus Assist" (it magnifies the viewfinder image in standby and also during recording) illustrate the careful thinking that went into its design.
Quantum SDLT 600A data tape system
Quantum's MXF-enabled SDLT 600A tape drive delivers a whole new approach to HD and SD storage, and not a moment too soon as higher-rez media proliferates. Relying on widely adopted technology along with the capability to handle MXF's media wrapper, the network-attached SDLT 600A creates a lower price point replacement for standalone SD and HD recorders.
Sony HVR-A1 HDV camcorder
Although it has a small footprint, Sony's HVR-A1U still offers balanced audio, XLR inputs, SMPTE timecode, and a Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T zoom lens. But the enhanced CMOS imager sets it apart, offering a wide dynamic range while eliminating smear from bright, point source lights. This is the undisputed champ in the HDV featherweight division.
That 1920×1440 CMOS chip is "shape-shifting," so it can put out a native 16:9, 1920×1080i image or capture a 4:3, 2.8 megapixel still image. The camcorder borrows many features from the larger HVR-Z1, such as the clever Shot Transition.
Carl Zeiss DigiPrime 3.9mm SuperWide lens
This 3.9mm Superwide T1.9 is the latest addition to Carl Zeiss' brilliant DigiPrime line of HD lenses. The widest prime available for high-end HD cinematography, the 3.9mm's design eliminates the geometric 'barrel' distortion typically found in wide-angle zooms. Of course, image clarity is top notch; by minimizing color fringing, the lense's crisp images help speed compositing and other post CGI work. The Superwide helps when shooting miniatures, too, since it keeps perspectives natural looking.
