NAB: QUICK HITS FROM AROUND THE SHOW FLOOR
At NAB, Post Magazine is streaming live from its booth each day of the show (SL10329) from 10am-12pm. “Post-TV Live” will be chatting with companies that are having an impact on our industry with their technologies and workflows. Post professionals and filmmakers will also chime in about what they are most excited about from the show floor. And, we will be providing nightly wrap-ups of NAB’s must-see gear. So, if you can't make it to NAB, Post will take you there.
Marshall Electronics (www.marshallelectronics.net) is showing a new camera-top/portable field monitor with HDMI connectivity at the NAB show. The V-LCD50-HDMI is a lightweight, 800x480 five-inch monitor that will ship in Q3 for $599.
Marshall is also showing two different 15-inch OLED monitors at the show, along with a 24-inch 3D monitor. And the company has accessories for its existing 6.5-inch and 7-inch camera-top monitors on display too.
At NAB, journalist Debra Kaufman is moderating two panel discussions that look at mobile content trends. "Mobile Entertainment: Original, Repurposed" will take place on Wednesday and will feature panelists Amber J Lawson of Babelgum.com; Frank Chindamo of www.FunLittleMovies.com; and Steven Amato, a partner at Omelet. The "Mobile: A new marketing/advertising tool for Hollywood" panel will also take place on Wednesday and will
feature panelists Brian McLane of iProgram.tv; Curt Doty of Trailer Park; Jason Yim of Trigger; Michael Dutton of the Associated Press/AP Live Entertainment; and Rex Cook of Avatar Labs.
NewTek (www.newtek.com) is giving away one TriCaster TCXD300 HD/SD system each day of the NAB show. TriCaster allows users to produce, live stream and broadcast HD and SD productions. A single operator or small team can create sophisticated productions while switching between multiple cameras, virtual inputs and live virtual sets. They can also insert clips, titles and motion graphics with multi-channel effects. The NTSC version of TriCaster is valued at $4,995.
Sensio Technologies (www.sensio.tv) set up shop at Bally’s Hotel this week, allowing those interested in 3D stereoscopic solutions to see their latest technology. The company also partnered with International Datacasting Corporation, Grass Valley, Teranex, and Gennum for demonstrations on the NAB show floor.
At Bally’s Sensio is showing its 3D digital compression, decompression, and display-formatting technologies, as well as a model that demonstrates an end-to-end live 3D delivery chain.
The Sensio 3D format delivers visually lossless compression of stereoscopic (3D) HD video, enabling 3D broadcasts over standard infrastructure. Sensio has also developed an “Advanced” format offering HD 1080p resolution per eye, which will be compatible with future dual-stream broadcast channels.
At NAB, Nashville’s 615 Music is presenting its latest business venture, Song Street Records, which the company is marketing as “a virtual record label for a virtual world.” According to 615 president/CEO Randy Wachtler, the goal of Song Street (www.songstreetrecords.com) is to connect the emerging and indie artists with producers and music supervisors in film, TV, and other new media platforms. On Monday and Tuesday of NAB, Song Street recording artist Chip Greene is performing live at the 615 Music booth.
Maxon Computer (www.maxon.net) is showcasing its Cinema 4D and BodyPaint 3D software applications at NAB. The company introduced Cinema 4D R11.5 last fall and recently announced a strategic partnership with Tuningchannel to bring Python programming language to the application. The company has a number of guest artists scheduled to make presentations at the booth, including Perception’s John LePore, Nate Mitchell of Innovative Show Design, Rob Garrott of Bending Pixels, Nick Campbell of Greyscale Gorilla, and Mike Senften of 4dthieves.com. Alioscopy is also at the Maxon booth, showing off its glasses-free 3D LCD display.
The NAB Show (www.nabshow.com) features two Content Theater sessions this year that look at the advancements in 3D entertainment: “Alice in Wonderland: Turning Fantasy into Motion Picture Reality” and "ESPN: Scoring a Field Goal in S3D Sports." Last fall, ESPN telecast of the Ohio State-USC football game in 3D and beginning June 11, the network will launch North America's first all S3D sports television network, ESPN 3D, with the broadcast of the 2010 FIFA World Cup match.
This year’s NAB show debuts Destination Broadband, a new exhibit area focusing on advances and applications for broadband technology. More than 50 companies are participating in the exhibit, which includes a presentation theater. Three specialized areas are designated: Broadband Innovations, Mobile Solutions and Broadband Lifestyles. The pavilion comprises more than 25 companies showcasing the latest in content delivery network solutions, online video, IPTV, video streaming and advertising and monetization platforms enabled by broadband.
Future Media Concepts organized the 6th annual Post|Production World Conference at NAB (www.nabshow.com). The conference features over 250 sessions in 11 concurrent breakout rooms over five days. Attendees can learn applications from manufacturers such as Apple, Adobe and Avid, as well as workflow techniques. In addition, attendees are able to reference over 200-hours of previously-recorded sessions from the NAB Online Learning Center.
FMC (www.fmctraining.com) has its instructors at its booth too, highlighting recent course offerings and their new FMC|Online live training platform. Attendees who stop by will be entered for a chance to win a free FMC training course at any FMC branch location or through FMC|Online.
Anthony E. Zuiker, the creator and EP of the CSI television franchise, is featured in an NAB Super Session (www.nabshow.com), scheduled for Wednesday, April 14. Zuiker will speak during the "Multiplatform: Taking Content to the Next Level" session, and will address the trend of creating original and repurposed content for cross-platforms. In 2009, the casts of all three CSI franchises joined together for a three-night crossover television event on CBS. His latest project is Level 26, a digi-novel that incorporates numerous online motion picture scenes throughout the book.
Digital Rapids (www.digital-rapids.com) has its new StreamZ Live family of encoders at NAB. The encoders feature high output quality and robust reliability for live distribution channels from Internet TV and IPTV to mobile video. The company is also showing its TouchStream portable live streaming appliance, as well as the versatile StreamZHD studio encoding system, which has been updated with Version 3.2 software. StreamZHD provides high-quality capture and encoding to multiple simultaneous output formats from live and tape-based sources.
At NAB, Panasonic (www.panasonic.com/broadcast) is showing an expansion to its 3D production product line with the introduction of the BT-3DL2550, a 25.5-inch 3D LCD production monitor with full 1920x1200 resolution. The monitor displays 3D content using an Xpol polarizing filter, so content can be viewed with inexpensive passive 3D eyeglasses. Pricing for the BT-3DL2550 3D will be $9,900 when it ships in September.
Small Tree (www.small-tree.com) introduced its new 2TB GraniteSTOR ST-RAID direct attached shared storage system, which offers realtime performance for Final Cut Pro users. GraniteSTOR ST-RAID supports 12 streams of ProRes 422HQ with no dropped frames and provides consistent performance over Ethernet networks. The 2TB system is available in 8-, 12- or 16-drive configurations.
Fast Forward Video (www.ffv.com) is showing the HD3 and NAB, a versatile and compact all-in-one DVR designed specifically for on-set motion picture and television production. The HD3 combines a DVR and controller with an integral HD monitor in a hard portable case. It uses JPEG2000 compression for optimal HD and SD image quality. The unit will be available in both single- and dual-channel configurations. Fast Forward is also showing the new Micron HD digital video recorder. Priced at $4,995, the Micron HD is a cost-effective, powerful solution for record and playback.
ScheduAll (www.shceduall.com), the maker of enterprise resource management software, is showcasing its full range of collaboration-themed products and services at NAB 2010. The company’s ERM Appliance connects disparate ScheduAll systems, allowing businesses to view, book and manage projects with resources anywhere within the partner network. The company is also showing a cloud-based application that allows individual contractors/freelancers to collaborate on projects with the industry’s largest enterprises in realtime.
Cache-A (www.cache-a.com) a supplier of network attached archive appliances for the digital film, broadcast and pro video industries, debuted its Pro-Cache archive appliance at NAB. Pro-Cache offers both on-set and in-studio features that are demanded by today’s media pros. The company is also showing CatDV Integration, which makes it easy to manage assets within a single workflow. And its Prime-Cache, which is specifically designed for archiving in post houses, has also been improved.
Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems (www.yamahaca.com) is introducing a new broadcast interface card at NAB. The MY8-SDI-ED is compatible with all Yamaha digital mixing consoles and DME series digital mixing engines, and offers from eight to 64 I/O channels, depending on the number of consoles and cards used. The card provides I/O of HD-SDI embedded audio signals and is able to de-embed up to two of the four audio groups (four channels per group for a total eight channels), multiplexed in an HD-SDI signal. Priced at $3K, it can also embed two audio groups into an HD/SD-SDI signal for output.