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NAB 2016 Announcements.

I’ve been honored to speak at NAB for the past 9 years. A few days ago I was addressed as a “senior” speaker, which feels kinda good but very weird at the same time. One of the many lessons learned is that it’s close to impossible to understand what’s happening in terms of announcements while you are AT the show. There are so many people, so many widgets, and so much noise… It is actually much easier and faster to follow the news and read the reports “from the the trenches” to stay up to date on new toys.

If you are attending the show, I’d love to have you at one of my seminars or simply meet and catch up. I’ll be on Twitter (@EA_Photo) obsessively.

In collaboration with B&H, this year I’m testing two new widgets that are populated automatically; one for Announcements and a second one for B&H specials during the show. I have no idea how this is going to work, but it doesn’t hurt to try. So, here we go!

NAB 2016: Just Announced

 

NAB 2016: Show Specials

 

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NAB 2012 wrap-up.

 
Blackmagic announced a hard-to-believe camera featuring a 2.5K image sensor, 13 stops of dynamic range, built-in SSD recorder, popular open standard uncompressed RAW and compressed file formats, compatibility with quality EF and ZF mount lenses, and LCD touchscreen monitoring.

• Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 is out with and enhanced 64-bit playback engine that can handle 5K resolutions, and higher, new trimming options, compatibility with Mac touchpad gestures, a Warp Stabilizer that was previously confined to After Effects, and expanded multicam editing for more than four cameras. Taking a page from its sister app, “the audio oriented Audition, Premiere Pro CS6 offers a redesigned and more functional audio mixer. Adobe also introduced SpeedGrade, a film finishing and color grading app, and Prelude, for ingesting, logging, and transcoding.

• Autodesk announced Smoke 2013 for the Mac, a new version of what the company is now calling video editing software and at users of Apple’s Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer who want high-end editing and finishing tools in one app. The new price is “only” $3495, down from $14,995 for the 2012 version.

• Panasonic announced a bittersweet firmware update for the AG-AF100 that provides 1080 50p and 60p modes. That’s the sweet part. The bitter? They want users to pay $300 for the upgrade.

Panasonic AF0100

Canon announced the 1D C ($15,000), which has the same chassis and still shooting features of the EOS-1D X ($6,800), and captures 4096 x 2160 8-bit 4:2:2 video to a CF card at 24 fps. Unlike the X, the C swaps a headphone jack for the X’s PC sync.

• The higher-end Canon EOS C500 ($30,000) offers the same ISO range as the C300 (320-20,000) and requires a dedicated external recorder, but captures in two full-RAW flavors: 4096 x 2960 (for motion picture), and 3840 x 2160 (for 4K TV). Both of these modes offer 10-bit 4:4:4 at 60 frames-per-second. There are two additional RAW option, 4096 x 1080 or 3840 x 1080 resolutions, which are also 10-bit 4:4:4, but at 120 fps. The camera also offers

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Watson MD. New ways to see data.

 

Data is not useful until it becomes information, and on this fascinating 30-second commercial the flow of information is presented in a unique way by seamlessly combining medical visualizations, scientific literature, live action photography, pathogen analysis, and more. Guillermo Navarro, the same cinematographer who shot Night at the Museum, the Hellboy series, and the fantastic Pan’s Labyrinth, used two RED cameras and one ARRI Alexa camera to capture over a million images for this project.

“We shot insects, livestock, plants and other elements live on greenscreen. We licensed medical procedures for the young actor in the spot to get medical visualizations of the boy’s actual anatomy – CAT scans, X-rays, brain stem eye visualizations, and more; photos of his family members to illustrate medical history, medical literature showing research on actual potential causes and conditions of the scenario, images of pathogens, viruses, allergens and bacteria at the root of the possible causes, and more.”

Motion Theory’s Director Mathew Cullen Visualizes Supercomputer’s Thinking Process for IBM’s “Watson M.D.”

Incredibly, none of the images in the spot are computer generated! According to another source, production on “Watson M.D.” took four weeks and included consulting with medical practitioners, a three-day live-action shoot, developing the animation engine and integrating visual effects, and editing.