NEWS
Back in a Post-Production Groove
NAB Finds Its Niche in New York
by Adam Wisniewski photos by John Clifford
 AJA booth |
The attendance and square footage numbers at NAB New York (formerly NAB Post+), held October 23-26 at the Javits Convention Center, would suggest that it is the very little brother of the annual April throwdown in Las Vegas. However, in its second year, the New York show is earning a special niche: It is the place for folks who can’t travel to IBC in Amsterdam in September to see working versions of many of the products announced in Sin City several months before.
The majority of the exhibitors had few major announcements to make in the month following IBC, but they did allow New York’s post-production community to get some hands-on time with new products. Demonstrations from Pana-sonic (solid state high-definition video storage) and RED Digital Cinema Camera Company (4K image displays) also drew those curious about new technologies. On the floor, there was a noticeable shift in companies attending this year’s show compared to last. Among those absent were Leitch, Apple, Autodesk and many storage providers. Among the new blood: audio post, smaller software companies and HD acquisition.
The following are some highlights from the show floor.
AJA Video
(www.aja.com)
AJA, manufacturers of DV interface, conversion and desktop solutions,
demonstrated its NAB 2006 product upgrades, including Kona 3 for the
Mac and Xena 2K for the PC. Just before the conference, AJA announced
it had completed an update for the Io and Kona lines to give them
compatibility with Apple’s new Intel-based Mac Pro.
 Avid booth |
Avid
(www.avid.com)
Avid announced that its Interplay nonlinear workflow system introduced
at NAB was now in beta. Starting at $17,000, Interplay acts as a media
management system connected with Avid Unity storage that oversees
all media––both within a facility and remotely––from
logging to output to archiving. Newly adapted for Avid Interplay,
the Media Composer line, beginning at $4,995, was also on display,
from the basic software-only package to Adrenaline HD. One neat third-party
add-on to the Avid system was Pictron’s logging toolset. While
logging a tape, Pictron’s Media Gateway Suite can group clips
together by recognizing specific facial features and even create a
script of the spoken dialogue, which is directly indexed to the logged
clips.
da Vinci
(www.davsys.com)
In advance of NAB New York, da Vinci released version 3.4 of the Resolve
mastering suite, and the company brought the Resolve RT to the show
floor. The nonlinear color grading system with auto conforming now
includes cineSpace color management to ensure color quality and fidelity
during mastering. Resolve features editing tools to create or alter
EDLs and offers on-the-fly mastering in multiple formats up to 2K
resolution from a single master copy.
DVS
(www.dvsus.com)
With its NAB 2006 products on display, Digital Video Systems drew some kudos
for the output of the Pronto 2K.2 disc recorder. The company also displayed
its latest version of Clipster, which finishes uncompressed video up to 4K.
DVS also showed its stand-alone content management software application, Spycer,
which can handle search, metadata and other content functions within a DVS-specific
production facility or by using other manufacturers’ hardware.
 EditShare booth |
EditShare
(www.editshare.com)
The shipping version of EditShare 4.0 announced at NAB 2006 made its
way to the show floor in New York fresh from IBC. This gigabit Ethernet
network storage system provides storage starting at $15,000. EditShare
4.0 supports up to 54 simultaneous workstations and 16 streams of
uncompressed SD, and is cross-platform-compatible between Windows
and Mac, operating with Avid Adrenaline, Avid Xpress, Final Cut Pro,
Canopus’ EDIUS and Adobe Premier Pro. An upgrade to 10-gigabit
Ethernet for uncompressed HD is available. A new scalable architecture
allows hundreds of terabytes of additional storage by adding servers
to the network. EditShare also released its first portable system,
EditShare Field.
Imagineer Systems
(www.imagineersystems.com)
British visual effects software company Imagineer Systems showed a demo of
its new rotoscoping software, motor (price TBA). Based upon the company’s
planar tracking system used in its compositing and object removal software
packages, monet and mokey respectively, motor creates speedy mattes on the
fly with very little tweaking. They can then be exported to Autodesk Discreet,
Avid DS, Adobe After Effects, Quantel Generation Q and Apple Shake. Currently
in beta at press time, motor is looking at a projected 2007 shipping date.
Noren
(www.norenproducts.com)
Although Noren’s AcoustiLock studio cabinets have been on the market
for some time, I had never seen one in action, and its sound reduction was
impressive. These cooled and insulated cabinets come studio-rated to hold
from five to 24 rack units of hardware and computers or RAID storage, and
reduce noise by 99 percent. Prices range from $1,100 to $3,200, and include
free shipping within the US.
Quantel
(www.quantel.com)
The version 3.6 software package for iQ, eQ and Pablo, which debuted at IBC,
was also on display in New York. The free upgrade was released in November,
and Pablo’s impressive demo featured Quantel’s TimeMagic in full
effect, eliminating rendering time from effects generation.
 SmartSound booth |
SmartSound
(www.smartsound.com)
The fourth version of Sonicfire Pro, the company’s music editing
solution for editors, was introduced at NAB 2006, with “Mood
Mapping” being its significant upgrade. Available for Windows
and Mac, Sonicfire Pro 4 now uses emotional cues along the timeline
to create musical effects without editing or mixing. On-the-fly control
of eight tracks in each piece of music allows users to add and subtract
instruments to change the character of the music instantly. Starting
at $200 for the basic package, Sonicfire Pro runs up to $800 with
a large royalty-free music bundle. Avid also announced that it is
now bundling Sonicfire Pro 4 with all of its Media Composers.
Sony Media Software
(www.sonymediasoftware.com)
A product similar to SmartSound’s Sonicfire Pro, Sony Media Software
demonstrated the Windows-based Cinescore ($200), which debuted at NAB 2006.
This software package generates soundtracks with royalty-free audio samples
or allows more hands-on custom soundtrack design. An interface window allows
the user to map mood, tempo, intensity and other styles to the timeline associated
with a video clip. Cinescore will then generate a musical sequence to fill
that timeline, which can be tweaked and sweetened before output. Users may
augment Cinescore’s directory of music tracks with downloadable theme
packs.
Tascam
(www.tascam.com)
Initially released as an eight-channel mixing board with MIDI control at summer
NAMM 2004, Tascam added Final Cut Pro support and FireWire connectivity and
re-released the FW-1082 in 2006, dubbing it the “triple threat.”
A multi-purpose board for a small studio, the FW-1082 features an edit controller
with jog wheel, control of real-time effects, color correction from Apple
Motion and a full audio workstation usable for ProTools or SoundTrack Pro.
The crowd at NAB New York was again extremely diverse, with many attendees coming from smaller post houses, one-man operations and even nearby states. Although there was more for Guild professionals to see this year, there appeared to be fewer of them present.
In the seminar rooms, many of last year’s topics were repeated (networking in a digital facility, 24p workflow, Final Cut Pro techniques, etc.), but the classes were again well attended. While convention-goers in 2005 appeared to be nervous about staring down the HD future, a good number of them now had experience in the HD realm––mostly with the affordable HDV format.
From the corporate video producer to members of a large, syndicated sports
entertainment entity, the thought on the show floor in 2006 seemed to be,
“Now that we’re ready for HD, what’s our next move?”
Editors at NAB New York were no longer deciding whether HD content creation
was the right move for their company to make. Instead, they need to focus
on choosing an HD format that will fit both their budget and their customers’
delivery needs.
Adam Wisniewski is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who covers television
and film technology, consumer electronics and video games. He can be reached
at adam@smob.com.
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