LAS VEGAS — Post is once again pleased to announce its Post Pick winners, representing the best of show offerings from the NAB 2012 convention. Each year, Post’s editorial contributors (working post professional) scour the show floor at NAB to find the newest products that will most impact their own post production workflows.
This year, numerous pros contributed their insight to the selection process. Our scouts included Mark Raudonis, Howard Brock, Mark Pederson, Jim Geduldick, Terry Curren, Tim Crean, Wally Rodriquez, and Tom Baurain. There were many more, and all get a big thank you for their input.
The following is the list of winners in no particular order, as chosen by these working professionals.
Blackmagic Design’s Cinema Camera
The Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a digital cinema camera that includes super wide 13 stops of dynamic range, a high resolution 2.5K sensor, a built-in high bandwidth SSD recorder, open file format support, color correction via a full version of DaVinci Resolve and a built in LCD with metadata entry. The unit will cost $2,995 when it ships this summer. The built in SSD recorder has the bandwidth to capture open standard CinemaDNG RAW, ProRes and DNxHD files. Standard jack audio connections are included, along with a Thunderbolt connection, and 3 Gb/s SDI output. The camera is compatible with Canon EF and Zeiss ZF mount lenses. In addition to Resolve, Blackmagic will include UltraScope software, which can be run on a laptop connected to the camera via a Thunderbolt connection.
Autodesk Smoke
Smoke 2013 has a new, much lower price point at $3,495 and features a redesigned user interface that will make it more appealing to those who might have been intimidated by the tool in the past. Mac users can now benefit from a fully featured editing and visual effects toolset. ConnectFX provides powerful node-based compositing inside the timeline for high-end effects and advanced compositing without leaving the editorial environment. Finishing tools include Action, for true 3D compositing; the Color Warper for grading and color matching; and the Master Keyer for chromakeying and stereoscopic 3D editing and effects. The system will run on the latest recent generation of Apple iMac and MacBook Pro systems using high-bandwidth Thunderbolt storage and IO.
Adobe Creative Suite 6
Adobe showed Creative Suite 6 Production Premium software at NAB, which is accelerated with Nvidia GPUs. Applications such as After Effects CS6 simplifies and accelerates the motion graphics workflow with a powerful new 3D compositing pipeline that employs ray tracing. Creative pros can now incorporate extruded and beveled text and shapes directly within After Effects, integrate their rendering with its native layers, and eliminate the traditional time-consuming back and forth with external 3D tools. The Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere Pro now provides up to an 8x performance boost for fast video editing. It also features new GPU accelerated features like Uninterrupted Playback, a new and improved Three-Way Color Corrector. Creative Suite 6 will include SpeedGrade CS6, a realtime, professional color grading tool optimized for Nvidia Quadro GPUs.
Red’s RedRay 4K Projector
Red’s new RedRay Player provides 4K playback of up to 120fps. The solution also features four HDMI 1.4 video outputs, 7.1 channel HDMI 1.4 audio out, and the ability to download 4K content to an internal hard drive. Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports are also featured, along with USB and E-SATA ports. The device can be controlled with a tablet too.
Sonnet’s xMac Mini Server
Sonnet's xMac Mini Server is a 1U rackmount enclosure that encloses a single Mac mini and a pair of PCIe slots that connect to the mini through Thunderbolt expansion. This product enables users to employ expansion cards (normally used in large computers like the Mac Pro) from AJA, Blackmagic Design, Red, and others with the Mac mini. It's priced at $1,299.
AJA T-Tap
AKA’s new T-Tap is an inexpensive and compact device that uses Thunderbolt connectivity to deliver 10-bit SD, HD and 2K video and embedded audio from any compatible Mac. Its 10-bit output is superior to DisplayPort, which only supports 8-bit output. The unit also supports 3D HDMI output for review applications and use with stereo 3D monitors.
Not everyone could be a winner, and there was a ton of new products at the show. Our panelists also reported a number of products worthy of an Honorable Mention: Quantel’s New Pablo, Kessler Crane’s Fusion system, AJA KiPro Quad, Blackmagic Design’s Teranex, Assimilate Scratch.Next with full 3D compositing, and Canon’s Cinema EOS C500 all caught their attention.