Post Magazine

May 2010

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Bits & Pieces Postnames its ‘Picks’ from NAB 2010 THE TOP FIVE • Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve: a $995 Mac-based product that allows users to work in SD,HD and 2K. Check out our “Products” page for complete details. • Adobe’s Creative Suite F or the second straight year, Post Magazine (www. postmagazine.com) has presented its “Post Picks from NAB” awards, representing the best new products and technolo- gies introduced or previewed at the annual NAB show in Las Vegas last month. Post deputized numerous post production professionals — from around the country and the world — who attended this year’s NAB and had them report back on what they believed, as users, were the top products of the show. Here is a short rundown on our Top Five picks, as well as some Honorable Mentions.We feel these awards carry a lot of weight, as they are voted on by actual users who feel these new products could actually improve their day-to-day work. 5:The Production Premium edi- tion offers native 64-bit support for Mac and Windows.This in- cludes Photoshop, After effects and Premiere Pro applications. The new Mercury Playback En- gine allows users to open files faster and refine effects-heavy HD sequences in realtime. Users benefit from realtime performance regard- less of whether they are working on SD,HD, 2K or 4K projects.A new automated rotoscoping tool has been introduced, which can save users lots of time. Support has been added for XDCAM HD 50,AVCCAM, DPX and AVC-Intra. Red support has also been enhanced.Adobe hopes to ship CS5 this month; cost is $1,699. • Avid’s Media Composer 5: Avid’s latest release adds Quick- Time support as well as support for Red productions and Canon’s new XF format. Media Composer 5 has an enhanced user in- terface with controls that change as the user scrolls over different points on the timeline. Real- Time Audio Suite plug-ins are included, and users can now tap the same RTAS plug-ins that Pro Tools users call on for various signal processing and restoration duties.Avid plans on delivering Media Composer 5 in June. • Arri’s Alexa: this new generation of digi- tal cameras (www.ar- ridigital.com) is designed for use in Final Cut workflows. Alexa features a new Super 35 format sensor that delivers images with a base sensitivity of EI 800, low noise and a dynamic range of 13.5 stops.Arri Imaging Technology (AIT) allows Alexa to capture organic, film-like images with nat- ural color and pleasing skin tones. Alexa can use all 35mm PL mount lenses, as well as Panavision, Canon and Nikon lenses.The camera sensor’s 3.5K pixel count delivers a latitude for HD (1920x1080) and 2K DI workflows. Alexa can capture Apple QuickTime/ProRes files to on-board SxS memory cards.Two HD-SDI connectors supporting 1.5G dual link or two 3G 4 Post • May 2010 signals can alternatively be used to output 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 uncompressed HD signals in addition to an ArriRaw T-link signal. Alexa is slated for release in June with an estimated price of $60,000. • Red’s Epic: A new 5K camera that looks much like an SLR, Epic can be configured with an electronic viewfinder and different modules for storage and battery power.The camera captures to Compact Flash media and can shoot up to 100fps. Red hopes to deliver the digital camera in the months ahead and had working units at NAB. HONORABLE MENTIONS • Autodesk’s Smoke and Flame 2011: Autodesk is shipping its 2011 releases, which fea- ture stereoscopic 3D finishing tools. Smoke offers new features for editing, viewing and compositing stereoscopic 3D content. Flame was given new creative tools and 3D ca- pabilities.A new GPU-based pixel shader rendering pipeline helps improve the quality of rendered re- sults and enables support for new texture mapping and lighting effects. A new substance procedural texture library can be applied to 3D objects, 3D text or surfaces. Both Smoke and Flame feature na- tive in-application support for Red RAW media and H.264 QuickTime. See more details on page 11. • Cinedeck: this recording, monitoring and playback device is designed to replace costly SR decks. Cinedeck costs just under $10,000.The unit works with HDMI or HD-SDI cameras and weighs less than four pounds, making it easily-mountable to a camera rig.The Cinedeck supports an array of codecs and file formats, including CineForm in both AVI/MOV wrappers, and MPG2 MXF.VTR and monitoring functions allow users to preview, focus assist, record, play back, downconvert and transcode material; off-the shelf solid-state storage helps keep costs low.A 128GB drive costs about $400, and a 256GB runs approximately $720. Connectivity is made possible via a Blackmagic Design HD Extreme 3 card. • Red Rock Micro’s MicroRemote: pro- vides high-quality wireless remote follow focus. It will ship this summer for around $1,000. • TV Logic’s 15-inch OLED displays: new 15-inch 3D and multi- format monitors were introduced at NAB and are expected to ship this summer.The 3D OLED panel includes an audio disembedder, internal speaker, HDMI input, 3G input and Dual Link. Pricing will be $7,695.The 15-inch multi-format monitor is designed for HD and SD work, and has an OLED panel, audio disembedder, internal speaker, HDMI input, 3G input and Dual Link. Pricing will be $6,150.

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