NAB 2011 Start
It’s that time again – NAB – the world’s video professionals, and the companies that service them, have gathered in Las Vegas where the latest products and technologies are showcased.
The first day of NAB is always packed full of interesting product announcements – some expected and anticipated, other completely surprising. So, what interesting developments have shown up at the end of the first day of NAB 2011?
CAMERAS
This year it seems that the 3D bug has truly bitten. Sony are bringing out two 3D cameras, the first is the super-compact 1/4” dual CMOS HXR-NX3D1 recording to Sony’s AVCHD-based prosumer NXCAM format. The second camera is a shoulder-mount camera, the PMW-TD300 featuring dual 1/2” 3-CMOS sensors and shooting onto XDCAM EX.
Panasonic is matching Sony’s shoulder-mount 3D camera with it’s own AG-3DP1 sporting dual 1/3” 3MOS sensors and shooting AVC-Intra on P2 cards. And Canon, not wanting to be left behind, have announced new firmware for is XF-300 and 305 cameras that improve 3D features allowing two cameras to easily work together as a 3D pair.
A very interesting development from Canon is two new PL-mount “4K” zooms designed for S35 sensors. They are a 14.5-60mm wide zoom and a 30-300mm telephoto zoom. No pricing details yet, but they are aiming to capitalise on the popularity of new large sensor cameras so it seems likely to be very competitive.
Canon 30-300 PL lens
And probably the biggest news at NAB when it comes to cameras is Sony’s long-awaited entry into the greater-than-HD market with the F65. Featuring a 20-Megapixel 8K sensor it can offer super-sampled HD and 2K as well as “True 4K” resolutions with the suggestion of bigger resolutions in the future. The new camera will shoot 16bit RAW on to Sony’s new SRMemory cards.
Rumors of a next generation F3 went cold but it seems Sony had taken action about the camera’s viewfinder by offering a modification giving it an EX-3 feel to it. It clips on and can be taken on or off through a top assembly
Also on the acquisition end of production, Blackmagic has jumped into the off-board recorder market with their new HyperDeck Shuttle – a 10-bit SDI/HDMI SSD recorder. With a retail price of US$345 Blackmagic is taking their usual lower-price higher-volume approach. But the Shuttle isn’t alone, in a truly unique move Blackmagic is pairing the Shuttle with another product – the HyperDeck Studio. It is a rack-mount 2-SSD recorder which also offers features such as RS-422 deck control and standard VTR controls, bridging the gap between tape-based infrastructure and file-based recording – all for US$995.
Blackmagic HyperDeck Shuttle and Studio.
POST PRODUCTION
In the past few years colour grading has taken some very big leaps, and that continues this year. Blackmagic has upgraded DaVinci Resolve adding support for up to 8-layers of video, XML interchange with Final Cut Pro and OpenCL support to support MacBook Pro and iMac computers. And they’ve also announced a free version of the software – Resolve Lite – it’s almost fully featured but limited to only two colour correction nodes, and only SD and HD resolutions.
It’s not just Blackmagic, Filmlight has also announced a new plugin version of their Baselight grading software for Final Cut Pro. The new plugin is unique in that it is effectively Baselight within FCP – Baselight grades can be exchanged back and forth with the FCP plugin allowing for a basic grade to be started in FCP then finished in a full Baselight suite, or for a full grade to be reconformed in FCP.
Not to be left out Assimilate Inc have announced a Mac version of their popular SCRATCH DI applications and new pricing. Their SCRATCH Lab software is US$4,995 and the full SCRATCH v6 software is now US$17,995
No new NLE updates from Avid since their Media Composer 5.5 release recently, however they have launched a competitive crossgrade promotion for Final Cut Pro owners – US$995 for a full boxed version of Media Composer 5.5.
Adobe are upgraded their Creative Suite applications to version 5.5 and they have created an entirely new pricing structure for the products – effectively a software lease. All the CS products are now available on a monthly subscription basis for as little as US$49/mth which will include product upgrades.
All eyes are now on Apple to see what the new version of Final Cut Pro will look like.
Wrap up at the end of the week with our picks of this year’s trends.
