Editing and finishing systems sit at the bottom of the production funnel and the innovations showcased at the NAB Show offer advances in post-production technology. And sometimes when words and photos fail, you just gotta say it with graphics and effects. The product introductions in the graphics arena will help create those images of illusion to make us all seem eloquent.
Bob Russo (L) of Avid and Hector Berrebi (R) of PrePost in Israel listen to Tal Rom of PrePost explain an editing requirement at a demo of the Avid Media Composer 5.5. Photo by Dawley/KovacsEDITING
Adobe Systems' Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 has new trimming and editing tools and dual-system sound support to more efficiently sync video with audio that was recorded separately, with native support for up to 5K media from RED Epic cameras.
AJA Video showed off their Ki Pro Mini, the first ProRes recorder recommended for use with the RED EPIC camera. They also presented new v9.0 driver software for KONA 3G, letting it support true 4K playout and monitoring.
Smoke 2012 for Mac OS X software from Autodesk now has a redesigned 3D lighting system in Action, support for native H.264 media from DSLR's to full-resolution R3D files, and a comprehensive stereo 3D toolset for editing, monitoring, compositing and delivering S3D projects.
Avid showcased Interplay Central, a Web-based portal and mobile app that enables collaborative remote access to the whole content creation workflow and introduced software upgrades for its editing systems, including Media Composer, NewsCutter and Symphony.
Boris FX gave us their new Media 100 Suite v2.0, which can now handle 4K and 2K video in 16:9 and 2:1 frame aspect ratios and work with up to 4K R3D media in real-time without transcoding.
CineForm released a free 3D software application to assist editing the camera's HD files called CineForm Studio. Those needing more robust capabilities can step up to the full-featured CineForm Studio Professional.
DVS Digital Video Systems brought out their new SpycerBox Flex, with high-performance SAS 2.0 technology, as well as the SpycerBox Ultra, which now features 72 TB of storage capacity.
EditShare announced it has integrated its five product lines: Geevs (ingest/playout), Flow (asset management), Ark (archiving) EditShare XStream (shared storage system) ant LightWorks (editing). A Windows version of the LightWorks NLE can be downloaded free from their website.
Phil Carmichael of Chyron holds the crowd's attention as he demonstrates the BlueNet graphics creation and playout system. Photo by Dawley/Kovacs EDIUS v6.02 NLE software from Grass Valley now has 2K/4K support, 3x faster H.264 encoding on the GPU, and offers multicam proxy editing from up to 16 iso cameras.
Image Systems’ (formerly Digital Vision) Nucoda finishing system has a software upgrade and a new touchscreen grading panel called Precision, as well as a new film scanner called Golden Eye III.
Matrox MXO2 devices now boast Thunderbolt I/O technology, and provide support for Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium software.
Quantel launched QTube, a workflow-over-IP technology for collaborative post production offering metadata editing, quality downloads and frame-accurate cutting. The new Stereo3D toolset is now a standard feature on all v5 eQ, iQ and Pablo systems.
Mistika is a new DI and stereoscopic 3D post-production system from SGO, accompanied by an on-set application called Mistika Live. V6.0 can play at 48 fps and includes new data developments for both the left and right eye in stereo 3D.
Sony Creative Software trumpeted the availability of Vegas Pro 10.0d with improved closed-captioning options, enhanced 3D features and support for AMD's ATI graphics chipsets using OpenCL.
GRAPHICS
Adobe Systems' After Effects CS5.5 introduced new features such as Warp Stabilizer, Camera Lens Blur and Light Falloff. The CS5.5 Design Premium includes new versions of InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional and Flash Catalyst, as well as Acrobat X Pro, Illustrator CS5, Photoshop CS5 Extended and Fireworks CS5.
Autodesk's 3ds Max 2012 with a new accelerated graphics core was seen with mRigids for rigid-body simulations in the Viewport and new sculpting and painting enhancements like the Clone brush. The Maya 2012 gained editable motion trails for animation editing in the Viewport.
James Gilbert points out features of ChannelMaster, Pixel Power's new integrated playout system with graphics. Photo by Dawley/Kovacs EasySet 3D from Brainstorm Multimedia was seen running on their latest graphics engine, eStudio, with an expandable library of virtual set backgrounds, roofs, floors, walls, textures and objects.
Chyron demonstrated BlueNet, which streamlines ordering and graphics asset creation, management and real time playout and unveiled enhancements to its HyperX3, LEX3, and MicroX on-air graphics systems.
The new Persona character generator line from Compix Media Inc. was shown with its innovative VirtualOverlay technology letting users create up to six independent channels of motion graphics and composite them virtually.
The Foundry previewed new releases of STORM 1.1, their on- or near-set digital camera workflow tool; MARI 1.3, for 3D texture and projection painting; NUKE and NUKEX 6.3 for compositing; and introduced us to KATANA, a look development and lighting environment for preparing 3D assets for rendering.
Harris showcased the Inscriber G7 graphics system including broadcast graphics tools such as the Inscriber G-Scribe creation and playout software, Intelligent Interface and MOS support combined with professional-grade hardware components.
Maxon Computer offered v12 of CINEMA 4D, their cornerstone 3D software application, which boasts productivity enhancing features including improved rendering, enhanced dynamics, new deformers and superior character animation capabilities.
NewTek's LightWave 10 3D software was put through its paces with a new user interface now letting artists see changes to lights, textures, volumetrics and more directly in its Viewport. Also new in LightWave 10 is the Viewport Preview Renderer (VPR), making it possible to render in real time.
Pixel Power presented v9.5 of its core software with a new Automated Transition Logic (ATL), which simplifies operations and reduces the possibility of graphical playout errors; and a major upgrade to its Pixel Power Media Shop to manage the conversion and distribution of template-related audio/video clips.
In a demo of its Interactive TouchScreen System, George Sauve (L) of Australian National University draws on a screen in the Accuweather booth, while Taylor Vlahos of Ultimatte interacts with George by operating a different screen in the Ultimatte booth. Photo by Dawley/KovacsOrad's new Interact application enables presenters to interact with their graphics using an Apple iPad and their 3D character generator, Morpho. We also saw Orad's MVP 3.0 graphics system for visualizing critical plays, now equipped with a magnifying glass.
The XPression character generator from Ross Video now has a broad range of workflow enhancements. XPression Studio is now accompanied by a lower-cost version called XPression Prime with a streamlined feature set. Their virtual set system, XPression VS was showcased with a live green screen presentation.
The biggest part of Vizrt's demonstration was called "Virtual Window," which provides "3DTV on regular TVs," making objects change perspective as the camera moves between different positions. They also spotlighted Viz Media Sequencer Engine, the combination of tools from Vizrt to manage and publish video in any scenario.
WEATHER AND TRAFFIC
AccuWeather showed the new Interactive TouchScreen System, enabling on-air talent to directly incorporate live HD and SD video, images, movies, and Web content as the story unfolds in real time.
Omni 3, Baron Services' HD weather software package, can integrate powerful graphics and live video into the weather map display.
Beat the Traffic's BTT3D now includes real-time traffic data for arterial roads into a 3D picture of traffic conditions. It also has an innovative capability to display live streaming video feeds directly into its 3D maps.
Newsroom Solutions showed off its flagship "ticker" displays product, NewsTicker, which delivers automated content to almost 85 percent of U.S. households.
Weather Central claims its VividCast 1km downscaled data has 16x more detail in its model data than any other broadcast solution. Available 1km data includes: temperature, dew point, relative humidity, wind speed, accumulated rain, accumulated ice and accumulated snow.
The FlexChannel Suite from Weather Metric is designed to target viewers with hyper-local information on-air, on-line and on mobile devices. The FlexChannel Suite is comprised of FlexChannel, FlexChannel Lite, FlexChannel Mobile and Flex WebApps.
