Like a baseball catcher facing a knuckle-ball pitcher, edit systems have to be ready to handle anything that gets thrown at them. However, at this year’s NAB Show changes in marketing strategy trumped many new NLE feature innovations, although the post-production systems introduced gave editors the reach to get a glove on the new challenges of a 4K world and beyond.
EDITING
ADOBE showcased its new Creative Cloud marketing concept for licensing their software, with “CC” appended to all their new software modules. In addition to Adobe Anywhere integration in the cloud, Premiere Pro CC NLE now offers Live Text templates that let you import After Effects compositions into Premiere Pro with editable text, and the new Master Clip effect feature ripples any enhancements to every clip in the associated sequence.
AJA’S new KONA 4 card can handle 4K at up to 50/60p rates with bidirectional 3G-SDI I/O connections and a HDMI 2.0b output for high frame-rate UltraHD monitoring. AJA also launched LUT-box, a new mini-converter that allows monitors to display accurate color space.
AUTODESK debuted Smoke 2015 and Flame Premium 2015 systems. Smoke 2015 will soon be available as a pay-as-you- go desktop subscription and features improved workflows with other NLE’s such as Final Cut Pro X. The comprehensive finishing toolset in Flame Premium 2015 now supports the addition of a second GPU card and provides an end-to-end 4K workflow. It can work with Flame Assist, a Mac-based, timeline-centric assistant station.
Michael Larsen (R) with the University of Southern Denmark asks Chris Ellis questions about the Matrox Monarch HD professional streaming and recording appliance. New feature enhancements for AVID edit systems apparently will have to wait for software upgrades later this year, but the company did present three new modules for the Avid Media Suite: Media|Director, Media|Index, and Media|Distribute. They are all built on the MediaCentral platform, which promises timesaving workflows and enhanced Avid Everywhere cloud-based collaboration in post production. Access to the MediaCentral platform is enhanced by the new Avid MediaCentral|UX user interface, formerly called Interplay Central.
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN gave its DaVinci Resolve 11 more than 100 new editing and color correction features, bringing the vaunted color grading system into the realm of a true NLE.
EDITSHARE demonstrated its new Lightworks v11.5.1 NLE running on Linux and Windows, with a Mac incarnation (v12) available in the near future. v11.5.1 boasts a smarter right-click menu stuffed with your favorite pre-sets, and new background task capabilities to allow editors to work uninterrupted while importing, rendering and exporting.
Matt Scott demonstrates the Grass Valley EDIUS multiformat nonlinear editing software.GRASS VALLEY introduced v7 of their EDIUS NLE, which can now transcode streaming formats directly from their HD/HQX mezzanine codec, thereby facilitating cloud collaboration. Designed as a native 64-bit application for Windows 7 and Windows 8, EDIUS 7 accelerates intense media operations by taking full advantage of installed physical memory.
MATROX VIDEO announced their new Monarch SDK that provides third-party developers access to the streaming capabilities of Monarch HD streaming appliances from within their own custom applications running on any platform, whether it’s PC, Mac, mobile devices or automation systems. Matrox also added features such as gang recording to its VS4Recorder.
The Quadro K6000 GPU from NVIDIA with 12 GB of on-board memory is ready to tackle high frame-rate 4K editing through Adobe Premiere Pro’s GPU-accelerated Mercury Playback Engine. NVIDIA’s GRID technology will let editors access additional GPU’s in the cloud as needed.
ROHDE & SCHWARZ DVS presented its new SpycerBox Cell storage system that contains 30 hot-swappable drives. The DVS Clipster DI mastering station can now process 4K in real time and is compatible with numerous RAW camera formats including Sony XAVC.
The Mistika high-end post-production system from SGO in v8.0 was seen benefitting from Mamba FX compositing software for enhanced color grading, mastering and revisioning.
SONY CREATIVE SOFTWARE’s new Vegas Pro 13 NLE enables faster editing and easier archiving directly from the edit system itself. Vegas Pro 13 can handle up to 4K material in 2D or 3D and can now nest Vegas Pro projects in its timeline. With the Vegas Pro Connect iPad app multiple viewers can collaboratively enter marks and comments into a project on the NLE during editing and review.
GRAPHICS
Once graphics systems were considered afterthought adjuncts to main production capabilities, but at the 2014 NAB Show we saw graphic capabilities become powerful tools making their own unique contributions to the digital creation workflow.
AJT SYSTEMS debuted their second-generation LiveBook GFX with new broadcast templates and redesigned user interface supporting a preview channel and on-air output monitoring. Now LiveBook GFX offers a specific SportsApp for each sports competition.
The 2015 versions of 3ds Max, Maya, MotionBuilder, Mudbox, Softimage and the newest addition, Maya LT, were introduced by AUTODESK who also announced the availability of the 2015 Entertainment Creation Suite for extended 3D animation and visual effects capabilities built upon existing data exchange workflows.
BORISFX released Boris Continuum Complete v9, adding more than 30 new filters and transitions, which can now all be viewed in the FX Browser window integrated in every BCC filter or transition.
BRAINSTORM presented the worldwide launch of Infinity Set, the first product featuring TrackFree that combines tracking and trackless productions within a virtual studio environment.
CHYRONHEGO debuted HeliPaint, which leverages the company’s sports telestration and tracking capabilities to a helicopter reporter because HeliPaint’s high-visibility LCD screen is easy to see even in bright sunlight. ChyronHego also brought out PowerClips with an innovative tab-view user interface.
FOR-A introduced VRCAM3, an economical virtual studio system that links computer graphics to camera motion by simply connecting it to a 4K camera without the need for a motion sensor.
A grand entrance to Maxon’s Cinema 4D theater.THE FOUNDRY debuted NUKE Studio, which allows users to do VFX, editorial and finishing in a single application. NUKE Studio combines a timeline and node-graph workflow with powerful, hub-based collaboration to produce real time 4K playback.
IMAGINEER SYSTEMS launched v4 software for its mocha planar tracking and VFX system. The company also brought out Python scripting capabilities, which allows customers to integrate mocha within custom workflows.
MAXON demonstrated the latest release of Cinema 4D featuring volumetric particle rendering, which can be rendered as either points or voxels. Maxon also announced a new co-development with Vizrt to integrate their real-time modeling and animation system, Viz Artist, through Maxon’s Cineware technology.
GRASS VALLEY announced a collaboration with social TV company never.no, to offer a seamless integration between Grass’s Vertigo XG broadcast graphics platform with never.no’s Social TV product.
NEWTEK debuted LightWave v11.6, offering modeling, rigging, animation, effects, dynamics and near-limitless render nodes in its integrated LightWave render engine. LightWave 11.6 includes the Genoma character rigging system with modular presets, predator and prey flocking capabilities.
The new PlayMaker Combox from ORAD merges PlayMaker’s eight-channel sports replay server with a fully flagged, realtime graphic system. Orad also debuted Pivot, a Windows-based production assistant application.
PIXEL POWER highlighted Pixel Factory, their new implementations of Pixel Power’s graphics engine. They also presented Pixel OnDemand, a software-only graphics system breaking users free from the traditional CAPEX infrastructure.
XPression from ROSS VIDEO demonstrated its ability to offer onscreen graphics including XPression Tick-it ticker and Brand-it branding, XPression Prime GO! laptop system, XPression Template Builder, XPression Touchscreen and Telestration freehand control and drawing. The company also announced the launch of UX Design, an augmented reality and virtual set design department, as part of its acquisition of Unreel LLC.
Ventuz partnered with BLACKMAGIC DESIGN to bring out a cost-efficient 4K broadcast graphics workflow. Visitors saw streams of uncompressed 4K video from a HyperDeck Studio Pro 4K SSD recorder or a 4K camera flow to the Ventuz real-time render engine through a DeckLink 4K Extreme capture and playout card.
VISUAL RESEARCH introduced KarismaCG, a 3D motion graphics system that focuses on the productivity of CGtemplates, animation presets and 3D chart wizards. KarismaCG can add a live video stream on video texture.
VIZRT demonstrated immersive graphics integrated with live 4K pictures using a Red One camera shooting 4K processed through the Viz Engine 3D compositing system to provide 4K video aired in real time.
WEATHER GRAPHICS
The StoryTeller Interactive Touchscreen Solution presented by ACCUWEATHER combined the real-time immediacy of downloadable apps and new live switching between apps giving StoryTeller new interactive capabilities. These include the AlertID Crime App, Social Media TV App, INRIX Traffic App and Weather App now featuring MinuteCast hyper-local update.
WSI-WEATHER CENTRAL showed its Max Traffic Mobile app, Max Sky forecast visualizations and the next generation of Max Mobile. Max Mobile’s two new designs include a photographic theme and a carousel theme offering revolving thumbnails to deliver more content at fingertip control.
