|
NAB was something of a watershed for picture editing this year. Apple showed a much improved Final Cut Pro and Avid revamped its entire line, with new hardware for Media Composer, Xpress DV and DS. Media Composer Adrenaline now supports up to five streams of standard definition video and 24-bit audio, as well as automatic color correction and other new features. Contained within a single rack-mountable unit, the hardware is much more portable and easier to set up than previous Avid systems and the price is lower, too. Xpress Pro, when combined with the new Mojo break-out box and accelerator, can handle full-res standard definition material. But more important to Guild members, it will play and edit (but not digitize) 24-frame Media Composer media, which means that editors will be able to transfer material to their laptops and work wherever they wish. It now offers JKL trimming, which was notably absent in Xpress DV. Apple also demonstrated impressive multi-stream capabilities in Final Cut Pro 4, but of more interest to Guild members, Cinema Tools, the program’s list software, can now make well-formatted change lists. FCP4 introduced a host of other new features, including much-improved trimming functions, integrated compression tools and music and titling software. With appropriate hardware, Final Cut can work at all resolutions up to full-res HD, and with its many new features, seems likely to further shake up feature film and television post production. Meanwhile, Lightworks’ Touch system continues to gather steam, with several major films using it, and some prominent editors buying systems of their own. The program preserves the intuitive Lightworks editing interface and adds modern audio and visual effects features, all running under Windows. It also includes a new controller with a nicely-weighted jog wheel. Two other companies are producing compelling systems that might soon offer film functionality. Media 100’s 844/X is based on a completely redesigned user interface that should be intuitive for Guild members — and it offers the most dynamic effects interface anywhere. It’s difficult to describe the responsiveness of this system in words, but for editors who’ve hated the slowness of effects work in the past, this system will be nothing less than a revelation. The 844/X offers limited HD functionality and it can remove and reinstate pull-down. But so far it can’t make film lists. The same is true for Sony’s impressive Xpri system. This machine is unique in that it can handle HDCAM material in its native, compressed form, which means that editors can cut and view HD images using comparatively low-cost storage. The result is that we could be looking at full-res HD materials in our cutting rooms at all times. Or we could output from the system and go straight to a screening room (or a preview) and see beautiful images on the big screen. Like the 844/X, the Xpri can handle 24/30 conversions and can do a good job with 24p-based television, but it doesn ’t yet understand film. This year, for the first time, editors will be able to choose from three sophisticated and well-differentiated systems that can all function effectively in a feature film cutting room. With a little luck, the list may grow even longer in the future. We’ve never been offered so much choice before, and the result can only be good for us and for the industry as a whole. |
|||||||||
