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NAB 2004 delivered the welcome news that the media industry is ready to do business again. But this isn't a return to the industry of just a few years ago; we're entering an era of drastic changes in how we consume — and therefore make — our media.

NAB 2004 was the first to headline a top computer company's CEO; HP's Carly Fiorina got top placement as the opening session's keynote address. As Fiorina noted, the digital era we're entering is one in which the public has the power because “consumers watch or listen to what they want to watch, when they want, on any device. This is a generation that will not wait for content to be delivered to them at a prescribed time.”

Her speech sounded a challenge. The cable industry has laid siege to broadcasters for years, but now commoditized tools as well as a gradually commoditizing distribution infrastructure will usher in even greater changes over the coming decade.

Meanwhile, the show had tools. As D.W. Leitner notes, HD seemed to be everywhere. Proliferating codecs seemed almost as prevalent, with new and newly applied HD/HDV algorithms coming from Apple/Panasonic, Avid, Cineform, Microsoft, QuVIS, and Ulead Systems.

Cameras: Synergy No Longer a Buzzword

Of course, more gear and software made news beyond the slew of HD introductions. Digital cinema camera systems from Arri and Dalsa grew closer to their final forms. Storage from 1 Beyond, Huge Systems, and others brought multi-stream HD editing to lower price points. So read on for our view of one of the broadest, busiest, and most interesting NABs in years.

Emblematic of the unholy alliance between consumer digital and broadcast technology at NAB was Apple's announcement at the convention's outset that Panasonic's DVCPRO HD codec, embedded in Final Cut Pro, would be available as a free download after the press conference.

A huge banner above Apple's NAB booth proclaimed “HD for everyone, everywhere.” JVC chose “Affordable HD for everyone.” Pinnacle trademarked “PracticalHD.” Sticking to script as it were, a major broadcast equipment company rep told me that its goal was “HD for the price of SD.”

Panasonic even merged consumer flash memory with ENG, delivering a working camcorder that captures 25Mbps or 50Mbps DV to its solid-state P2 cards. Replacing cheap DV cassettes with costly flash memory may seem questionable. But the vast size and price sensitivity of the consumer market — coupled with whichever Moore's Law pertains to flash memory — will remove this hindrance in time.

As the PC industry knows, one answer to commodity pricing is volume. The other answer: cost-cutting, in this case converting hardware to software, squeezing bit rates with compression, re-purposing existing chip sets, etc. JVC's introduction at NAB 2003 of a cheap camcorder recording what is now called HDV — same cassette, tape speed, track pitch as MiniDV but lower bit rates — was just such a shot over the bow.

HDV is transmission-grade MPEG-2 re-purposed. Originally said to be uneditable, MPEG-2's “inter-frame” compression (across a group of pictures, or GOP) features P-frames (forward predicted) and B-frames (bi-directionally predicted) that don't actually exist and therefore require only a half to a quarter of the data of discrete I-frames.

DV, HDCAM, and IMX, on the other hand, rely on I-frames (“intra-frame” compression), which are self-contained like JPEG stills. HDV with its 6-frame GOP (one I-frame every six frames) is therefore considerably more efficient. So what would happen, say, if the 19Mbps of JVC's 720p HDV were scaled to 50Mbps or 100Mbps, as happened to DV in Panasonic's hands?

I'll let you in on a secret: the current 4:2:0, 8-bit HDV spec already provides for higher level protocols — 4:2:2 and up to 100Mbps — and NAB scuttlebutt has it that 50Mbps HDV will give 185Mbps HDCAM a run for its money.

No wonder Pinnacle, Boxx, Ulead Systems, and, by my count, nine other NLE outfits arrived at NAB with HDV editing solutions. Such low HD bit rates give rise to striking possibilities. Focus Enhancements announced that its piggyback FireStore hard disk recorder would enable camcorder capture of 4.5 hours of HDV. JVC's Dave Walton showed me a demo of wireless, crystal-clear HDV sent live over WiFi from a JVC JY-HD10U HDV camcorder to a tiny Japanese laptop. Damned if it didn't work.

Walton then turned excitedly to JVC's new MPEG-2 encoder for HD, the 1 RU-high DM-JV600, which compresses HD-SDI with a sub-second delay, yet permits live HD field transmission over existing standard definition microwave links. HD pioneer WRAL has been testing it in Raleigh, N.C.

So hold on to your baseball caps. Impressive HD playback at even lower DVD bit rates was demonstrated at NAB using Windows Media 9 and MPEG-4's H.264. Apple will champion the latter as one of the DVD Industry Forum's mandatory codecs for the HD-DVD spec. All signs point to further radical shifts in costs, technologies, and consumer expectations.

Perhaps the only question is, with cheap HD poised to invade the retail space, what will be the iTunes of digital motion image entertainment? Will we see it coming?

With this delirium in mind, here are selected highlights of production and postproduction technologies at NAB '04.

In cameras and camcorders, 2004 was the year of what will be. Never have so many brazen prototypes — let's call them “balsacams” — been showcased. But never have so many fundamental new technologies converged at the same time.

JVC ignited the HDV phenomenon at last year's NAB with its introduction of the $4,000 JY-HD10U (now available online for less than $3K). Celebrating the JY-HD10U's arrival last year, I wrote, “How will the competition respond?”

A year later it's an odd fact that no one, including JVC, arrived at NAB with a new working HDV camcorder. Yet JVC showed a concept ENG-style camcorder, temporarily named GY-HD0000U and promised for next year. It's impressive: 3-chip, 2/3in. CMOS, native 720p and 1080i plus 24p, switchable SD/HD, and HDV-style MPEG-2 compression. How's it do all that? The state-of-the-art CMOS sensor from AltaSens can reconfigure its target area, a key advantage over CCDs.

For data capture, the prototype GY-HD0000U contained a hard disk module — that's why it can't be called an HDV camcorder, since HDV is a DV-based, MPEG-2 tape format.

But JVC made a point of noting that the HDV recording format could capture 276 minutes of HD on full-sized DV cassettes and 60 minutes on MiniDV, so what might actually debut at NAB 2005 is anyone's guess. The most impressive thing about the GY-HD0000U? A target price of $20,000.

The HDV format, announced in July 2003 by JVC, Sony, and Canon, was finalized only last September. Perhaps that's why Sony set aside an entire booth to tout its prototype HDV handycam, which it had unveiled a month earlier at the German IT trade show CeBIT.

The unnamed camcorder resembles a fat PD-150 or 170, with a 16:9-shaped eyecup and lens shade, innovative flip-out LCD screen built into the handle, and my favorite revision, audio XLR inputs moved from the handle to the camcorder's base where they always should have been. (HDV audio, incidentally, is 16-bit, 48kHz, MPEG-1 Layer2.)

Whether priced less than $5K (as rumored at CeBIT) or nearly twice as much (rumored at NAB), this camcorder is sizing up to be the VX-1000, the category killer, of HDV. (For the latest HDV developments, check the official HDV website, www.hdv-info.org.)

Last year's Panasonic balsacam, the AJ-SPX800, arrived this year as a very real product, every bit as groundbreaking as Panasonic claimed it would be: 2/3in. 3-CCD, ENG-style, standard-def camcorder, switchable between 16:9 and 4:3 with 24p, 30p, and conventional 60-field interlace, 25Mbps or 50Mbps using DV compression to P2 (Professional Plug-in) cards.

It's that last detail that startles. Capturing video to consumer SD memory cards encased in PC cards eliminates all moving parts. Instead of a tape drive, the AJ-SPX800 uses five PC card slots. While five 4GB P2 cards will capture 80 minutes of 25Mbps DV, at present P2 cards reach only 2GB. The current cost of flash memory? A 1GB SD card retails around $500; it takes four to create a 4GB P2 card. Perhaps that's why the AJ-SPX800's suggested list is a modest $19,500.

Nevertheless, what price can be put on a totally silent, maintenance-free camcorder (imagine sandstorm conditions in the Iraqi desert) with instant start, USB 2.0, FireWire, and did I mention the superb 3.5in. flip-out LCD viewing screen which doubles as a GUI?

Panasonic's booth, in fact, featured a wall o' P2 mock-ups, everything from handycam-sized camcorders, including an under-$3,000 HD version, to a P2 Varicam and P2 D-5 HD camcorder using 128GB P2 cards. All of this is well into the near future, and it'll be interesting to watch how Panasonic, a non-member of the HDV consortium, integrates low bit-rate MPEG-2 (MPEG-4?) into its P2 product line. Panasonic, after all, is the old-line broadcast equipment company that broke ranks to give away its HD codec to Apple and add FireWire to HD decks, like the new $21,000 AJ-HD1200A.

There's more: its new AG-DVC30 3-CCD prosumer MiniDV camcorder, introduced at NAB, boasts infrared “Super Night Shooting” in total darkness by means of built-in illumination. Add an optional $380 infrared lamp if you want to light larger areas. All signs are that Panasonic is on a brilliant creative binge, with much more to come.

On the blue-laser XDCAM front, Sony showcased its breakthrough XDCAM camcorders, the PDW-510 DVCAM and PDW-530 MPEG IMX/DVCAM (switchable). Maxell and TDK announced manufacture of blue laser discs for the XDCAM format. Avid, meanwhile, announced support of XDCAM and future support of XDCAM's low-bandwidth MPEG-4 proxy images across its entire NLE line.

Sony did introduce an economical $48,000 HDCAM, the HDW-730S, with basic 60i/50i and NTSC/PAL output via SDI. Sony also provided a $15,000 entry point to HD with the HDC-X300, a 3-chip HD POV camera with new 1.5 megapixel, 1/2in. CCDs. This “go anywhere” box camera weighs less than 3lbs. and features frame rates of 60i, 50i, 30p, 25p, 24p (with 3:2 pulldown) and full HD SDI, analog HD, and RGB output.

Come to think of it, just add lens, LCD viewing screen, power (less than 20W), shoulder mount, and a data-capture device, and you've got yourself a small, sophisticated HD camera system from Sony, minus the compression drawbacks of HDCAM.

A truly tiny HD box camera, using even smaller 1/3in. CCDs, was shown by Santa Barbara-based Luma Video. The 3-chip, 720-line KV3000 camera head is a 2in. cube with a C-mount (shown at NAB as a 1-chip prototype). Also promised is a teeny-tiny single-chip “lipstick camera” version. Both cameras connect by cable to the KV3000 Remote Head Camera System CCU that outputs 720p, 1080i, 1080/24p, and 1080/60p. Total system cost, less than $10,000.

Ikegami, long respected for its engineering prowess, introduced an unexpected novelty: the HDK-79 NAR is a full-sized, shoulder-mount HD camera whose body contains not the usual signal-processing electronics but a behind-the-lens rotating optical block that can spin the image, adjust horizon level without a tripod, and even perform gyroscopic image stabilization. A single cable up to 30m connects this “optical main body” to a second camera body, an HDK-79EX NA, which handles the signal processing.

It's back… Ikegami and longtime partner Avid announced the development of a tapeless HD camcorder using hard disk FieldPak technology, originally developed for Avid/Ikegami's Editcam. Ikegami's camcorder will capture HD via Avid's new 4:2:2, 8- or 10-bit DNxHD mastering compression format. The Avid format, while similar in bit rate to 3:1:1 HDCAM, preserves the full HD raster. That's 1920 horizontal luminance samples instead of HDCAM's subsample of 1440.

Another first: Ikegami's HDL-40HS high-speed HD camera, a 3lb. shoulder-style CMOS camera that outputs 720p at 120fps via a dual HD-SDI link. In a similar vein, Thomson Grass Valley adapted its popular LDK-6000 mkII WorldCam to create the new LDK 6200 HD Super SloMo digital camera system. Designed to capture to EVS's HD-XT server, the Super SloMo records 720p or 1080i at 100fps or 120fps, and 1080p at 50fps or 60fps. It will be switchable between 2X Super SloMo and standard LDK 6000 mk II operation — a first.

For much higher frame rates, Band Pro debuted the Cine SpeedCam, a 5lb. box camera with attached viewfinder that captures TIFF or AVI files at a default rate of 1000fps in a 1536×1024 pixel format, and can capture as high as 4000fps in a reduced 768×512 format.

As for digital cinema cameras, my list of the defining characteristics: single chip (no prism optics) to enable use of PL-mount (film) lenses, output of RGB RAW image files (no video compression) of at least 2K in size to hard drives, and in prototype-only form (no real-world production yet).

Both the Dalsa Origin and Arri D-20 (built from an Arri 435 35mm film camera body) feature a single sensor. Ontario-based Dalsa makes its own 8-megapixel photogate CCD. Arri's 6-megapixel CMOS is designed by FillFactory in Belgium and fabbed by Tower Semiconductor in Israel; it matches a 35mm motion picture film frame in area. Meanwhile, new kid on the block Kinetta uses a 2/3in., 2-megapixel CMOS chip created by AltaSens; it's close in size to 16mm.

Notably, Kinetta is “sensor-agnostic” and designed to accept new sensors up to 16 megapixels and 35mm in size, as available. Kinetta also breaks from the pack by including onboard battery power and data storage. Kinetta says 110 minutes of 1920×1080 images written as uncompressed 10-bit log RAW data are captured by 480GB worth of RAID 3 storage on 1.8in. hard drives housed in Kinetta's clip-on “magazine.”

For viewing, Kinetta uses an electronic color viewfinder based on emerging OLED (organic LED) technology, which is flickerless, light-emitting, and low power. Harking back to 35mm film cameras, both Origin and D-20 use rotating mirror shutters and viewfinder optics.

Dalsa is readying six prototype “beta-cameras” for field-testing, with plans to sell the first 12 Origins to the public in November. Arri has eight “functional demonstrators,” six of which are involved in pilot projects. Kinetta, with a significant feature film lined up already, is adding finishing touches and will ship in the fall after IBC.

On the lens front, Arri extended its superb LDS system (Lens Data System) for display and management of film lens data — focus, iris, zoom, depth of field, hyperfocal distance, close focus — with the LDS Datamount. This is a PL-mount embedded with microcircuitry and contacts that transforms any lens from any manufacturer into an intelligent lens when coupled with Arri lens motors. Arri's new LDS Archive system also extends LDS capabilities to any camera, not just Arri cameras.

Cooke Optics debuted its S4/i “motion picture lens intelligence system,” which — through a welcome cooperative agreement — is compatible with Arri's LDS. Cooke S4/i lenses will display current settings through LDS contacts on an Arri camera or by an external connector on the lens to an S4/i data display made by Cinematography Electronics.

Cooke also introduced a longer S4 HD series, an 8mm to 46mm T1.7 zoom. The minimum object distance (MOD from the front of the lens is only 13in.

In film-style HD zooms, Zeiss and Band Pro introduced the 6mm to 24mm T1.9 DigiZoom, a compact variable prime instantly recognizable as a new member of the outstanding DigiPrime family. (Variable primes intentionally limit their zoom range to maximize image quality at each focal length.) MOD from the front of the DigiZoom is 11in. Both Zeiss and Cooke designs are exemplary, in a class by themselves.

Fujinon introduced two versions of its new 18×7.6 HD zoom (7.6mm to 137mm) — with and without 2X extender, which extends wide angle and tele extremes in a handheld HD zoom.

Thales Angénieux likewise debuted dual versions of its 26X HD zoom, the Digital 26X ENG/EFP Lens, with a focal range of 7.8mm to 203mm and an aperture of f/2.2 (1.8 for ENG version).

Bigger-is-better boasting rights, however, go to Panavision, which exhibited a new 300x HD zoom lens, 7mm to 2100mm, the size of a small howitzer (perhaps a clue as to who requested it). Uniquely, an internal microprocessor continuously adjusts focusing and breathing control through the zoom range.

Canon reworked the mechanics and housing of its FJ Series T 1.6 HD prime lenses, increasing focus rotation angle to 280 degrees and adding a needed 55mm to its lineup of 5mm, 9mm, 14mm, 24mm, and 35mm.

Also introduced in the HD EC line was the HJ8×5.5B (5.5mm to 44mm) T 2.1 cine-style zoom with a wide angle similar to the DigiZoom but twice the zoom range.

There were also two Canon surprises. The Digisuper 22x (7.3mm to 161mm) f/1.8 is a unique mini box lens intended to address the growing phenomenon of ENG-style SD and HD cameras found on studio pedestals. It comes with a B-4 mount instead of a Sony hanger mount, and at a compact 13.4 lbs., it defines a new category of studio lenses. The ACV-235 Anamorphic Converter for 2/3in. CCD lenses is an 8in., 3lb. tube (akin to Zeiss/Angénieux adapter for cine primes) with anamorphosing relay optics that squeeze a 2.35 aspect ratio “Cinemascope” image into a standard 16:9 frame (image is upside-down on CCDs, like Zeiss/Angénieux). For filmmakers who want wide 2.35 images from HD cameras without cropping. Smart idea.

If you nosed around the smaller booths on the upper floor of the Convention Center's South Hall, you might have had the good fortune to stumble across Wasol's booth, where its versatile 3D lens system was demonstrated on both a PD-150 and HDCAM F900. The small Korean company has created an opto-mechanical lens attachment that sorts left and right fields-of-view into consecutive top and bottom fields of interlaced video using a single camera and lens. Synchronized viewing glasses are required to view resulting 3D images on a video display. This has been done before (years ago by Lenny Lipton, of all people), but Wasol's 3D58 LenSys is compact, well designed, and smart.
— D. W. Leitner

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© 2009 Penton Media, Inc.