What Sean Was Testing Today...

Craziest Thing At NAB This Year

NAB always has something that just takes your breath away. This year it is
the Steadiseg, a modified Segway for Steadicam users.

Must get one of these!!

For more information, click here:
http://www.steadiseg.com/gallery/index.html

Video courtesy PVC NAB 2011: SteadiSeg from ProVideo Coalition on Vimeo.

BlackMagic-Palooza

BlackMagic Design went psycho at this year's NAB Show, announcing 13 new products. It's taken me a week to wade through all the press releases! Here is a sampling:

HyperDeck Shuttle

Who saw this coming? A portable field recorder that records to SSD drives in uncompressed 10 bit QuickTime format. HDMI and SDI inputs. For the insane price of $345. Shipping in May. A rack-mount version (Studio) adds 2 SSD slots and a tiny LCD screen, will be $999, and ships in the summer.

UltraStudio

This Thunderbolt little box will give you HD-SDI, HDMI, Component all for $999 when it ships in the summer. Connects via Thunderbolt, so can be used on Mac notebooks and future iMacs.

Production Switchers

BlackMagic is getting into the video switcher business in a big way, announcing various models that will ship this summer.

ATEM Television Studio

This may be the most interesting announcement - a multi-input HD-SDI/HDMI switcher with H264 encoder, all for $999. Uses a software control panel to control the switcher. This may be the low-cost switcher we've been waiting for.

Resolve for Everybody

BlackMagic has decided everybody should colour-correct with DaVinci Resolve, so they are making a Lite version available later this summer for ... free. Gasp, choke.

Quite an impressive show for the Aussies. Now they just have to ship them, as those who have been waiting for the H264PRO Recorder to come out can testify to.

Thunderbolt Is Coming. Look Busy.

DV Dude predicted this NAB would see many Thunderbolt announcements, and his
oracle powers proved correct. The nice thing about Thunderbolt (insert your
own sound-effect here) is it adds the capability of high-end products to any
computer with it installed. So the days of not being to add fast drive
arrays or video capture cards to iMacs and Notebooks is quickly coming to an
end. We won't see any Thunderbolt products until summer though. Here is a
selection of announcements:

BlackMagic UltraStudio 3D

Think of it as an external HD Extreme card - HD-SDI, HDMI and component in
and out in a very nice aluminum box, $995, target shipping date is July.

Matrox

Matrox announced that they would ship Thunderbolt MXO2 products in July as
well. And they will have a Thunderbolt adapter for existing MXO2 products
for $299, so if you've already invested in a Matrox MXO2 product, you can
migrate it to a Thunderbolt-equipped computer.

AJA

AJA didn't make any specific Thunderbolt announcements, just that they would
be making them in the future. They were previewing products in their booth,
but any announcements will be down the road.

Sonnet

Sonnet announced various Thunderbolt products - a 4 and 8 bay drive arrays,
Firewire-to-ThunderBolt and Ethernet-to-Thunderbolt adapters, and a very
intriguing EchoExpress, which is a PCIe card chassis, so you can add PCIe
cards to your Thunderbolt connection. Mmm.. Nothing shipping until this
summer.

Much more to come in Thunderbolt land. Stay tuned.

NAB Notes - Part One

Kessler

The traditional video camera is not dead, according to Panasonic, who launched 4 new cameras at NAB. Here's a run-down of some of the announcements:

AG-HPX250 Camcorder
First compact camcorder to ship with AVC Intra! Full-sized 1920x1080 1/3" x
3 CMOS sensors, variable frame rates, 10 bit 4:2:2, writes to P2 cards, 21X
zoom lens, Genlock input, HDSDI & HDMI out. I see this as a response to the
Canon XF305 and Sony EX1. AVCIntra has a lot of fans, so its good to finally
see that codec in a smaller camera at an affordable price point. Panasonic
claims the new sensor rivals 2/3". Shipping Fall 2011 for around $6500.

AG-AC160 & AC130 Camcorders
For those who don't need AVC Intra, these two cameras share the same front
end as the HPX250 (same sensor and lens) but record the AVCHD codec to
inexpensive SD cards. The AC160 adds variable frame rates, HD-SDI out, and
is switchable between PAL and NTSC. Both cameras are due to ship in Fall
2011, with the AC160 around $5500, and the AC130 around $4000.

BT-300 Pro Plasmas
So many people are using plasmas now in their edit suites instead of
traditional broadcast monitors, and Panasonic is coming out with a line of
plasmas with pro features. Waveform, blue-only, over and under-scanning, pro
calibration tools, and 3D-ready. Will ship in 42" or 50" sizes in October
2011. Pricing TBA.

AVC Ultra
And what would NAB be if there wasn't any new codecs announced? Panasonic
previewed the up-coming AVC Ultra, taking the acclaimed AVC Intra to a new
level. Capable of 4K 4:4:4. At lower resolutions, Panasonic claims HDCAM SR
quality at a much smaller bandwidth.

For more information, videos and photos:
http://www.panasonic.com/promos/nab/2011/

Throw Away Your 5D

Rollei has announced a 8x manual focus telephoto lens for iPhone 4.

DV Dude Grounded!

Due to a passport malfunction, DV Dude has been thwarted from attending NAB 2011. Once again the terrorists win. On a lighter note, apparently actor Zach Braff had some passport troubles this weekend as well.