That’s the Quote of the Week from NAB 2012.
I went to the FCPX “Boot Camp”, presented by Steve Martin (Ripple Training), the guy in the Tekserve video that we looked at a while ago. He’s very good, and might be a person to consider to bringing in for on-site training. I picked up some FCPX materials at show discount, including Steve’s video training DVD, and the Apple Certified FCPX Editing and Advanced Editing books.
If you miss the Color app, Black Magic Design is offering DaVinci Resolve Lite as a free color management tool that exchanges with FCPX via xml. It’s apparently the same as the $995 version, but it “only” works with up to 1080i. http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/davinciresolve/software/
There’s also AirDisplay, an iPad app that might be handy for editing on the road. It sets up the iPad as a wireless second display. http://avatron.com/apps/air-display
For ProTools users, there’s X2Pro to move FCPX files to ProTools: http://www.x2pro.net/
Adobe CS 6
Biggest news was for AE users, adding dramatically faster renders; renders are now handled in the background and reuse previously rendered media. The demo was impressive.
Fusion IOFX is a new PCI Express card that co-processes graphics providing much faster graphics rendering. It’s been developed with the Adobe AE team, and AE has been optimized for it. It “accelerates leading creative applications” but it’s not clear which apps are currently able to take advantage. Runs $2495, something to keep an eye on, especially for After Effects and Maya.
Photoshop Extended adds to its video features, but it’s not clear how handy that will be given we’re already using After Effects & FCP. But it might be a simple way to apply PShop filters to video clips in a pre-process workflow.
Here’s a pretty cool iPad slate app ($24.99) for running dual system audio: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/movie-slate-clapperboard-shot/id320315888?mt=8
Cameron Pace Group has the MetaStrobe, a hardware plus iPad combo, but I think it might be out of our price range.
GoPro introduced the new Hero 2 model ( http://gopro.com/hd-hero2-cameras/ ) which now has a higher quality glass lens, 1080p video, and also makes 11 megapixel still images at 10 fps. Lens coverage can 170, 127 or 90 degrees; you can shoot 120 fps at 848×480. Coming very soon is an iPad app and wireless remote control. These are all insanely inexpensive; the Hero2 lists at $299 with either of the Outdoor , MotorSports or Surf packages which include various clever mounting hardware, battery, etc. The show special is $199, and we can get 2 cameras, but You Must Act Soon! Offer is good for 7 Days! And that’s Not All, You Also Get…
GoPro Hero HD2
There are also a number of new entries at the low end of the “film quality” camera market. I think the most remarkable is Black Magic Design’s new Cinema Camera, it shoots 2k in a raw format, uses Canon EF lenses and runs $2995. http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/
If there’s any single website you might want to browse, especially regarding remote webcasting, it is BlackMagic http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/
They are really working on an integrated production workflow where they can supply all the elements.
The tiny HyperDeck Shuttle recorder is $395, records on removable SSDs, takes SDI or HDMI input and records uncompressed QuickTime (or DNxHD if you run Avid).
The HyperDeck Studio is a dual drive rack mountable version of the same thing with more buttons (!) for $995. The dual drives give continuous recording ability. Very good for a remote kit.
They’ve also got a nice rack mounted switcher, the ATEM Televison studio, $995, takes 4 SDI or HDMI inputs. It has software controls run on Mac or a nice hardware switcher like the ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast Panel – $4,995, with a really nice control surface.
Blackmagic also has a bunch of nice converter gadgets that would be good for our remote webcasting setups.
I think we can eliminate the dreaded Matrox MXO compatibility problems with the handy DVI extender at http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/dviextender/ which takes DVI in and gives SDI out. They are $395.
They also have digital scopes (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/ultrascope/), h264 encoder/recorders, and rack mount 8″ dual monitors with sdi loop $695.
And several vendors had some pretty neat RC helicopters for remote aerial coverage.