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The most compelling stories coming out of NAB? Non-attendees warmly invited :-)
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Nobody else but me chagrined at the ridiculous over-hyping of drones for every (redacted) application?
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I didn’t attend this year, but the big stories for me were:
1. Ursa Mini – if the product lives up to the hype, I think BMD will sell a ton of them. I almost feel as if there HAS to be some sort of catch. Seven frame sizes (one anamorphic BTW), two compression ratios in raw, 15 stops of DR, 160 fps in 1080p, global AND rolling shutter, 12G SDI, all in a magnesium body…. for 5k, WHAT?
2. Resolve 12 – If BMD has solved it’s playback issues, I think a lot more people will be spending time editing in Resolve, and not just debayering raw video, or doing color correction. I’m really anxious to try the new shot matching tools.
3. Panasonic’s DVX200 – AF100 and GH4/5 users have been asking for a large sensor video camera with the features of the AF100, but the image quality of the GH5. Panasonic announced an updated DVX100 with a fixed lens… for some reason. The DVX200 will sell a lot of JVC LS300s, Canon C100s and Ursa Minis IMO. I think they’ve given up on sub 10k video cameras with interchangeable lens mounts.
4. Adobe CC 2014 – Really curious to try out the new tools in Premiere Pro and AE; face tracker, deeper integration with the Lumetri color engine. Speaking of that, does anyone else see the new 3D LUT creation tools as crazily underrated? My only complaint about Project Candy is that it’s iOS only. Come on Adobe, you’re better than that.
I will likely jump on the BMD bandwagon by purchasing the Ursa Mini and taking a second look at Resolve for editing. I don’t love the fact that BMD gives high end software away for free… but if I’m being honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the vision of a company so honestly articulated as it was by Grant Petty for the BMD NAB 2015 press conference… at least, not a vision that agreed with so much – especially the bit from 25:20 to 26:45.
Shawn
Shawn
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[Herb Sevush] “But to an outsider what was most surprising about NAB this year was the lack of surprises”
Yes and no. NAB this year was very evolutionary and in fact, I felt like prod and post in general took a back seat to infrastructure items, as I’ve posted in another thread. That’s not to say that plenty of companies didn’t offer outstanding new products. They did. However, there wasn’t a single attention grabber. 4K is “mainstream”. A new issue is high dynamic range, but that will probably have to wait until there’s an actual display standard. On the acquisition side, if you shoot log, you are already prepared for HDR.
[Herb Sevush] “Smoke as an editor seems to have stalled out”
Autodesk’s story this year was Flame, Maya and 3ds Max. I asked marketing execs about Smoke and was told there is an update in the works for later this year. They were unable to get it ready in time for NAB.
[Herb Sevush] ” 8K now replaces 3D”
I agree, except that 8K is actually a large noticeable difference. There really isn’t much of one between HD and 4K at typical viewing distances for the average home environment. Plus, true support of 4K in a professional setting takes a lot more than most folks think, so a lot of facilities are feeling like that investment should just go to 8K. Why bother with the “interim” step of 4K? Right now, the real players in the pro TV world, who have been asked for 4K masters, are really just doing so for future-proofing. That is – conformed timelines and lists for effects rebuilds. No actual 4K masters, yet, with the exception of some of the Netflix shows and some feature films.
[Herb Sevush] “LTO, slow as it is, is still the best archiving medium”
Not in all cases. Sony is pushing optical archive. In my town, Golf Channel switched from LTO to optical because the LTO tapes were not holding up under heavy use.
It was a good show for storage, with showings of newer, more cost-effective solutions from Facilis and Avid. Also Open Drives was there (hot-rodded system used by Fincher’s team). The speed of that system with Premiere and SpeedGrade was impressive.
The BEST camera demo – bar none – was Panasonic’s Varicam35 set. This was an EXTREMELY DIM living room set and the cleanliness, quality and brightness of the image that this camera displayed was better than any other low light demo I’ve seen.
Resolve 12 demo’ed well. Until we see it out in the wild, we won’t know what real performance it will have as an editor. After all, Resolve 11 demo’ed nicely last year, too, and it was disappointing in the wild.
[Herb Sevush] “Avid sounds like they are thrashing around, trying to figure out what kind of company they want to become”
I’m not sure that’s the case. I was at the Avid Connect event and it was again generally well-received. Unfortunately, their story came across as a bit too audio-centric, as they introduced a number of new audio products, including a live sound console. At the same time, they didn’t play up the MC 8.3.1 release at the keynote, which adds resolution-independent project and export support (primarily focused on adding 2K and 4K now).
Their challenge is attracting new users without changing the UI so radically that they lose their base. A tricky wire act. However, they have been successful in winning back a number of FCP “legacy” facilities (not just B-M). Complain about Avid all you want, but I never hear Adobe or Apple customers (in the large facility category) talk about hundreds of seats like I do hear about Media Composer. And that includes FCP X supporters like Light Iron. However, right now the momentum is clearly with Adobe and no one else.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
As a REDUSER I actually stayed away from REDSTATE (pardon the pun) as much as possible.
Spend a great deal looking at Gimbals and Lights.
I was not impressed with SmallHD showing off their 502 without the eye-piece on an actual camera. Didnt get why they showed it off playing back videos 😛
And of course it was all about 4K but got to see some clips at 8K booth.
My fave was the SuperMeet, fun to see people win stuff.
BMD gave away over 40K worth of gear.
So for me nothing was compelling other than the oohs and aahs from watching the Izotope guys show off RX 4.
That was actually cool 🙂
A few things I wished I had seen and one was a gimbal on a steadicam.
Oh and I forgot that FCPX was updated and FCPWorks ran a great seminar. -
[Oliver Peters] ” I was at the Avid Connect event and it was again generally well-received. Unfortunately, their story came across as a bit too audio-centric, as they introduced a number of new audio products, including a live sound console. At the same time, they didn’t play up the MC 8.3.1 release at the keynote, which adds resolution-independent project and export support (primarily focused on adding 2K and 4K now). Their challenge is attracting new users without changing the UI so radically that they lose their base. A tricky wire act.”
Personally I’ve nothing to say about Media Composer other than I don’t use it and everyone else I know who cuts in NYC does. My comments about their identity had to do with the push to have Isis work with non-avid products, their push, as you noted , with audio as opposed to MC, and also opening up Avid to third party I/O. While this might be a corporate vision of inclusion, to an outsider it looks like “hey let’s throw everything up on the wall and see what sticks.”
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “While this might be a corporate vision of inclusion, to an outsider it looks like “hey let’s throw everything up on the wall and see what sticks.””
It’s been a shift that’s been happening for the last 5 or 6 years though. ISIS has worked with non-Avid NLEs for years but apparently it works ‘better’ now with PPro than it does with other NLEs. Avid connect is, AFAIK, the first time Avid video I/O hardware has worked with other NLEs, but MC working working with 3rd party I/O is not new.
Maybe Avid is currently making a marketing push showcasing it’s ‘openness’ because it is still so widely regarded as being a closed system?
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[Herb Sevush] “My comments about their identity had to do with the push to have Isis work with non-avid products, their push, as you noted , with audio as opposed to MC, and also opening up Avid to third party I/O. While this might be a corporate vision of inclusion, to an outsider it looks like “hey let’s throw everything up on the wall and see what sticks.””
My perspective from inside Avid was different. Customers were adamant about wanting support for third-party I/O, which most Avid customers already had on hand for a variety of other applications, including, yes, FCP, that they were also using. Hence their demand Unity/ISIS support for as many products as possible, at the highest possible level (ie, a lot more than just media).
Avid has always understood Media Composer as part of a workflow that included products from other companies, which is how it was designed from the outset. (Even moreso on the broadcast side, where no single company even tries to cover the entire workflow. Integrate with others or die.)
Avid’s support for other companies gets re-announced when new iterations roll around, especially one as high-level as the new effort with Adobe, but the idea is squarely in line with the company’s vision of meeting its customers’ demands for working with as many other companies and products as the customer themselves do.
Not that this is any comment on the rest of your post, or on anyone’s feelings that Avid isn’t making this vision, or others, clear.
But I certainly understand how the idea of working so intimately with other companies to support customer needs might seem bizarre or distressing to an Apple customer. *rimshot* LOL
KIDDING. Not saying you’re saying this, Herb.
But I think that a lot of Apple users have appropriately given up on expecting Apple to treat high-level third-party workflow interop as any kind of priority, or grew up in the industry in the past 15 years not even considering it a realistic option, or maybe not even desirable. Apple provides all, or I don’t really need it…because if I needed it, then Apple would provide it, a sentiment that repeats in, if I may call it, an Infinite Loop.
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[Andrew Kimery] “ISIS has worked with non-Avid NLEs for years but apparently it works ‘better’ now with PPro than it does with other NLEs”
In fact, the Avid ISIS engineers worked some with the Adobe engineers to improve how Premiere Pro accesses media from drives in ways that their performance with ISIS is now closer to Media Composer’s. According to Avid, ISIS performance with FCP X, MC and PPro is the same now. FWIW – the Open Drives engineers also worked with Adobe to improve PPro’s media access (read/write) from drives.
[Andrew Kimery] “Avid connect is, AFAIK, the first time Avid video I/O hardware has worked with other NLEs, but MC working working with 3rd party I/O is not new.”
Via the ACA councils, it was kicked around about how best to support 4K i/o going forward, since existing Avid hardware (Nitris and Mojo) would not support this, except as downsampled HD. The general advice from council members was for Avid to rely on third parties, rather than spend R&D dollars creating new hardware. The BMD box is an outgrowth of that. The extra Avid sauce is an embedded codec inside the unit to support Avid DNxHR. This unit will support Media Composer, but also FCP X, PPro and Resolve.
[Andrew Kimery] “Maybe Avid is currently making a marketing push showcasing it’s ‘openness’ because it is still so widely regarded as being a closed system?”
This is correct, as well as the fact that the current CEO comes from a banking software background and is very interested in open solutions. This extends beyond the i/o unit, but also in SDKs related to Avid storage and other parts of the ecosystem.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Tim Wilson] “But I think that a lot of Apple users have appropriately given up on expecting Apple to treat high-level third-party workflow interop as any kind of priority”
One of the interesting take-aways I had from NAB – as related to FCP X and Apple – was this. More than one facility manager told me that they had people within the facility who really liked X (including an owner). They also had a lot of creatives maintaining use of Macs for offline editing. However, when it came to the greater good of the overall facility and its workflow – especially for online and finishing – the decision was still made to stick with Avid, as well as increasingly PCs for workstations.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I am a bit worried over what could happen to FCP X after the Photos launch. Dissapointed big time, then again something could happen. Something wonderful. Who knows but hey they added 3D text! Perhaps that is something to be excited about, could see an application in well graded kitty videos or epic escalator fails. All crazy stuff on You Tube to watch.
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