Not the Biggest Names, But Big Ideas
Apr 20, 2006 7:07 PM, Dan Ochiva
While the top multinational companies tend to garner most of the media at shows such as next week’s NAB 2006, don’t forget to take a closer look around as you work your way through the vast Las Vegas Convention Center.
There, sometimes stuffed in a small booth in some dim corner, sit plenty of smaller, innovative companies that quite often beat the big names when it comes to delivering cutting edge, cost-effective technology that offer practical solutions to production needs you have today.
Whether it's an innovative solution to speeding up Adobe After Effects previewing, one that doesn't cost a new workstation's worth of investment, or a flexible camcorder that can record to a hard disk or Flash RAM (and no, it’s not that huge French company’s product), you’ll find it at NAB 2006.
So here’s my look, in no particular order, at what popped up in my Outlook box. See if you can’t find something here that makes you too want to look real carefully in the nooks and crannies of the LVCC maze for that solution you just know you gotta have.
GridIron Software, for example. Here’s a tiny Canadian company that’s worked to help IBM solve tough computer processing problems. So check out their GridIron Nucleo software for Adobe After Effects, which allows AE to run up to 300% faster on a single workstation – but only if it features the new dual-core “Core Duo” CPUs from Intel.
GridIron Nucleo allows you to maximize the power of your multi-core or multi-processor workstation to speed your renders and previews in Adobe After Effects. Another product, GridIron X-Factor, is an extension for After Effects that enables you to improve the speed of previewing and rendering using the power of your network or render farm.
Red Giant Software will show four new products at NAB: Knoll Light Factory 2.5, Magic Bullet Suite 2.1, Film Fix, and Instant HD, as well as some of their other popular products: Primatte Keyer, Magic Bullet Editors, Image Lounge and Key Correct Pro.
Knoll Light Factory is a top selling After Effects plug-in used by thousands of graphic professionals to simulate reflections from a very bright light source as seen in a camera's lens. This updated release adds:
- Render high-quality flares in near real-time, with support from GPU render engine (Up to 5x faster from previous versions)
- New plug-in support for Premiere Pro 1.5 and later and Avid AVX systems
- 25 new flares in the standard and EZ versions
Magic Bullet Suite, developed by The Orphanage, is an After Effects plug-in for processing digital video footage for output to DVD, TV, or film. Users can also apply expertly designed technology to de-interlace and de-artifact footage, apply film treatments, crop footage to any standard format, and ensure compliance with broadcast TV standards. New features include: Look Suite renders up to 7 times faster; Support for After Effects 6.5 and 7 Pro
Film Fix consists of a set of After Effects plug-ins designed for documentary filmmakers and postproduction studios that need film and video restoration tools on the desktop. Using Film Fix, After Effects users can restore tears, remove dust and dirt particles, and stabilize footage originated on film and video resolution material transferred from film. The processing is nearly automatic, provides high-quality output, and rivals dedicated high-end systems.
- Repair seams with the only automated tear-repair tool on the market.
- Stabilize footage with fast, software-based 2D translation.
- Automatically eliminate severe non-linear inter-frame brightness fluctuations.
- Remove dust and sparkle defects using motion detection information.
- Render across a set of networked computers to execute full collective CPU potential.
Ah. More Mac magic from AJA.
The company will be showcasing KONA 3, its new top-of-the-line HD/SD video capture card. Offering 40% more processing power than KONA 2, the new KONA 3 is the ultimate uncompressed capture card for SD, HD and Dual Link 4:4:4:4 HD for PCI Express (PCIe) Apple G5 Power Macs and Apple Final Cut Pro.
KONA 3’s all new extensible architecture features a 4-Lane PCI-Express bus interface with integrated AJA QuickTime drivers that work seamlessly with the new Apple Power Mac G5s and Final Cut Pro providing unparalleled power and workflow efficiency. AJA will also be showcasing XENA LS and LH for integrated video capture and playback on Windows XP for motion graphics and design professionals. XENA LH (PCI/PCI-X compatible) and LHe (PCIe compatible) support combined HD/SD workflows; XENA LS supports SD capture and playback. Both products ship with AJA’s own stand-alone deck-control, playback and capture application, Machina, and a host of powerful plug-ins for seamless integration with Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Combustion, and Eyeon Fusion.
Small but boy does it do a lot. Broadcast Pix Inc., makers of a multi-talented switcher that all other products build around, introduces Scripts, an advanced memory software for its line of production switchers.
Unlike conventional switchers, to which a graphics system and clip stores must be added, Broadcast Pix switchers have those devices built-in. Scripts takes advantage of this tight integration by recalling not only key settings, but also the exact clips, titles and animations to fill the keys. Scripts can be extended to control camera position and lens, as well as video servers. For example, with Scripts, a single-button push can select a camera, position it, bring it to air, fade on its specific title, and then fade it off.
As Broadcast Pix President Ken Swanton puts it—very succinctly I think, “To attempt to achieve the power of Scripts with a conventional switcher, you need to add a CG, still store, clip stores, format converters and camera control system, and then layer on top of that an expensive, cumbersome software environment. And when you’re finished, you’ve invested a lot in an intricate system that requires months to install and learn.”
Scripts is a standard feature of new Broadcast Pix switchers, Ken reminds us, and is a free download for existing customers.
While you won’t see “Vegas Goes Tapeless” plastered on many cabs, add Hitachi to those wild, take-off-your-tape types as it introduces four, eight and 16GB solid-state Mediapac cartridges, along with a 160GB hard disk for its Z-DR1 dockable digital recorder.
The Z-DR1 recorder, first introduced at NAB2005, was developed in partnership with nNovia and Audavi to provide an affordable field acquisition system. The Z-DR1 employs ‘Mediapacs,’ which are aluminum-encased Hitachi hard disks, ranging between 40GB and 120GB capacity. This translates to as much as nine hours of recording time per Mediapac, surpassing competitors with similar codecs. An optional accessory for Mediapacs incorporates hardware encryption for secure content transport from camera to the intended destination.
And that’s not all, says Mike Bergkamp, CEO, Audavi Corporation.
“Just as tape migrated from proprietary to standard formats, no one wants to go back to the days of proprietary formats just because the medium is changing to hard drive recording. The ZDR-1 represents the change taking place from tape to tapeless acquisition. The Hitachi system allows you to seamlessly use hard drive based Mediapacs for high capacity, cost effective recording or solid-state media when the conditions, such as temperature extremes or high vibration, dictate. Mediapac and SolidTape cartridges can be inserted directly into the ZDR-1.”
Well said, Mike.
A number of other manufacturers are now incorporating devices that allow users to transfer content from the camera directly to the editing stations, but most require moving the entire recording device or a hard drive, which is proprietary to the camera manufacturer. By using the MediaPAC design, the customer moves only the data.
Larry Aubry, CEO, nNovia, expands on that. “The Z-DR1 takes full advantage of today’s hard drive technology and is designed to accommodate the capacity and speed improvements projected in the future. Among its advantages, the Z-DR1 cartridge holds and protects the hard drive when not in use. It has a very high shock protection, and it is not limited to a single vendor or industry application.”
Haven’t heard about Silicon Imaging? Based out of romantic, downtown Albany, New York, SI will be on many show goers’ lips and lists. Their SI-1920HDVR, described modestly as “an impressive new digital cinema camera”, uses an extension of CineForm Intermediate as its native in-camera acquisition format.
The CineForm Intermediate wavelet codec (called CineForm RAW) directly codes the raw data from the camera's Bayer image sensor. There are numerous visual quality advantages that result when coding raw sensor data directly, we’re informed, including extended dynamic range and more flexible color palette. Intended for digital cinematographers, the SI-1920HDVR offers many tasty features, including 1920 x 1080 resolution with 10-bit precision using its 2/3-in. 16:9 Bayer sensor. It will record about four hours of material on the hot-swap laptop drive in the camera, which stores the CineForm RAW files. The Prospect HD software has also been extended to provide real-time processing of CineForm RAW data, including side-by-side editing of CineForm RAW data on the same timeline with traditional YUV data. The SI-1920HDVR portable IT-integrated 10-bit digital cinema camera is integrated with Adobe’s Production Studio software too. Ari Presler, CEO of Silicon Imaging, wraps in a copy of the cool Adobe suite so that you can immediately produce dailies, create special effects, and edit full-resolution HD content, all without the need for a time-consuming ingest process.
Features include a dual-core embedded PC architecture under Microsoft Windows XP, 10 f-stop dynamic range, a 7-in. LCD touchscreen interface, gigabit connectivity, battery-powered operation, and up to 4-hours of continuous shooting on its USB2.0 hot-swap 160GB notebook hard drive.
The SI-1920HDVR’s 16:9 format 2/3-in. CMOS sensor, we learn, enables use of wide aperture optics to achieve a 35mm-like Depth-of-Field, without the need for ground-glass converters. Its interchangeable optical assembly supports the use of 16mm PL, F and C-mount lenses. Integrated support for 15mm lightweight rods and 19mm bridge-plates make a good match for cinema-style gear and accessories. The camera head is detachable and can be remotely accessed using gigabit Ethernet. Two camera heads can be mounted side-by-side for shooting 3D sequences.
The 7-in. widescreen LCD doubles as a viewfinder and touchscreen graphical user interface. On-screen menus and hot-spot zones provide camera, recorder, and playback controls. These include a false-color exposure meter, 2x digital zoom for fine focus, safe-zone markers, compression quality, and SMPTE timecode. In addition to traditional 1080/24/25/30p frame-rates, special effects and off-speed shooting capabilities include overcranking up to 72fps at 720P, undercranking, long exposure and time-lapse modes.
The SI-1920HDVR, says the admittedly heated e-mail, abandons fixed bitrate codecs, such as DVCPRO HD and HDCAM. Instead, camera sensor data is recorded directly into CineForm RAW format, preserving the original pixel data. This gives cinematographers the flexibility to develop the “digital negative” in post rather than make non-reversible decisions on-set.
File-sharing tools in Windows XP creates new possibilities for collaboration and production. While shooting, begin editing and compositing with Adobe’s Production Studio and CineForm’s Prospect-HD over LAN. Or, remove the hard drive magazine and edit content directly from disc. Play 10-bit CineForm AVI footage in Windows Media Player, add metadata with Adobe Bridge, edit in Adobe Premiere Pro or composite in Adobe After Effects.
Does it end there? No! Edit up to four 1080/24p streams in real time without expensive RAID arrays. Then select from a variety of advanced de-mosaic algorithms to process the RAW data for output to film, tape, HD-DVD, or Windows Media High Definition video format for digital cinema distribution and Internet streaming.
Price? “Below $20K” Available for delivery in Q3 2006.
As the IRIDAS release boldly asserts: Size Matters. Or at least if you want to plaster museums and other biggish venues with colorful, uncompressed images.
This comes with the release of FrameCycler VenueSystem, a new app that offers direct-from-disk playback of digital film content at unlimited resolutions providing higher image quality and greater playback precision than video codecs will allow.
FrameCycler VenueSystem plays virtually all industry standard frame-based file formats so it is no longer necessary for content creators to re-render their material for public performance. This also makes it easier to replace or update frames, sequences - or the whole film - at any time. Every seat of FrameCycler VenueSystem includes advanced synchronizing capabilities allowing multiple CPUs and projectors to be linked for perfectly matched playback at any resolution. Together with the application's image warping capabilities, this allows for projection onto unusually large or contoured screens, such as dome theaters.
FrameCycler VenueSystem has already been successfully deployed for a number of high profile installations including—have you got religion?--the Crystal Cathedral's Creation show, where it provided playback of 10K footage across a 252 foot screen; Pixar's 20-year retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the critically acclaimed Ashes and Snow exhibit in Los Angeles.
Derek Zavada, Director of Technology at Threshold Digital Research Labs, did get something when he oversaw the creation of the Creation Show, it seems: "Codecs just don't allow us to see our work in the kind of detail and we need, nor would we have the playback precision which FrameCycler offers us. For a complex multimedia show like Creation, playback controls are essential for rehearsals with actors and acrobats. They allow the director to stop, start, repeat sections, or jump to any part of the show they want to work on."
Don’t put them in a box quite yet. Yes, BOXX Technologies, that innovative, hard to define Austin based, er, box maker, will launch APEXX 4, a personal workstation with an extraordinary (their word) four Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor architecture.
As a 64-bit personal workstation with as much as 64GB of memory, APEXX 4 boosts the efficiency of digital artists working on the large CG scenes and realistic digital characters that constitute much of the attraction of today’s most popular motion pictures, animated features, broadcast television shows, and online content.
It’s more than just personal, too. BOXX’s APEXX 4 inaugurates the era of the super-workstation designed for cutting-edge digital content creation and based on the innovative integration of non-proprietary PC technologies. As such, it delivers a high-end computing experience that was the exclusive domain of proprietary UNIX workstations, for a fraction of the price.
Or, as Pat Patla, director of server/workstation marketing, AMD, puts it, “With up to four Dual-Core AMD Opteron 800 Series processors with Direct Connect Architecture and industry-leading performance per watt, APEXX 4 will help to broaden the creative possibilities of digital artists.”
‘Nuff said.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.