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MillimeterVanguard Awards 2008
Dec 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Trevor Boyer
Fourteen new products represent technology’s leaps and bounds.
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector
Optoma Pico Pocket Projector
Micro-sized projectors are nothing new. At the past few InfoComm International shows, manufacturers exhibited paperback-sized models projecting plasma-screen-sized images using feisty (not to say bright) LED lamps. This year, manufacturers are able to exploit the continued advances in LED technology and Texas Instruments' new DLP Pico chipset to produce powerful-enough — and affordable — micro models. Optoma is the first out of the gate with the 4oz. Pico Pocket Projector, which comfortably ducks under the $500 price point and ships with a kit to connect to Apple iPhones and iPods. At 2”×4.1”×0.7”, the Pico is about the same size as these devices. Miniaturization definitely brings challenges: The Pico's battery-powered (rechargeable Li-ion) has a listed life of only 1.5 hours; there's one 0.5W built-in loudspeaker; and the maximum image size is 60in. Still, the Pico is harbinger of things to come. “Expect to see more variations on this form factor,” says judge Dan Ochiva. “Cell phones are said to be next.”
IK Multimedia ARC
Are you performing audio post or creating music tracks in a home studio? And with less-than-ideal reference loudspeakers? If you answered yes to the first question, you probably followed suit on the second. IK Multimedia's Advanced Room Correction (ARC) system offers an affordable way to boost your monitors' performance. “Purists may balk at giving an award to a software package that essentially imposes an EQ curve in order to improve the sound coming from your stereo monitors,” says judge Gary Eskow, “but I was knocked out by the results that ARC brought to my room.” The software operates as a plug-in within your digital audio workstation, and the system ships with a microphone that helps diagnose shortcomings in either your loudspeakers or your listening environment. After applying the EQ curve that ARC generates, expect a marked improvement in sound quality.
Apple iPhone 3G and Application Store
This award wouldn't be Apple's if YouTube hadn't adopted the iPhone-friendly H.264 for the encoding of its videos, if 3G broadband network technology hadn't been implemented in the United States, or if the touchscreen marvels hadn't gained such wide acceptance — and adoration. Leave it to Apple to once again offer the market a lightning rod for technology trends. What really sealed the deal for our judges is the emergence of the Application Store, a potential wellspring of tools for professional content producers. (Take Sonoma Wire Works' FourTrack. It's a professional multitrack audio recorder for the built-in iPhone microphone or any third-party mic.) Judge Barry Braverman reports that iPhones and video iPods have already done dailies duty on sets where he's worked. “In cameras fitted with a proxy encoder,” he says, “tiny MPEG-4 clips can be saved and then uploaded easily and efficiently for iPhone viewing on the set, perhaps over lunch in the commissary — or ultimately anywhere in the world.”
Inlet Technologies Semaphore 2.5
Crunching videos down to size for online consumption is fraught with hazards. Quality control used to mean a pair of trained eyeballs scanning every frame, but with Semaphore, Inlet Technologies has automated the process. The video-analysis tool lets you define parameters for quality, bit rate, dropped frames, and other metrics. Within minutes, the software can QC hours of video. Support for MPEG-2 and Flash is new for version 2.5, and these features suddenly make Semaphore a must-have for DVD and web-video producers. “Literally, there's no other way to see inside of a Flash file,” says judge Jan Ozer.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.