Here we go again. Spring time in Vegas. I can almost smell the re-circulated air and cigarettes now. You know what else I smell? Excitement. There is a buzz out there about NAB ‘07. Pros are anxious to check out products that not only make their workflow easier, but also help them expand their business into different areas, such as posting content for mobile devices.
One of the products already causing a stir is the Red Digital Cinema One camera, which, according to the company’s Ted Schilowitz, will be available around the NAB timeframe. See our news story on page 16 for more.
Anthony Cupo of NYC’s Rust is one of the 1,200 people who plunked down $1K last year to reserve a One, even though it wasn’t a working product. “Tried and true is great,” he says, “but sometimes you need to jump off the edge to see what's on the other side. As HD digital acquisition becomes the standard, production houses need a flexible solution for the different types of projects we come across. Not every job needs a 4K recording, so having a camera that can switch between formats is a huge advantage.”
His biggest question about the camera is how will it play with the big editing systems like Avid, Final Cut and Premiere.
At NAB, “we first take a look at emerging technology to get a preview of the industry’s future,” notes Heidi Habben, VP of Minneapolis’s Crash & Sue’s. “That long-term perspective helps us decide on the purchases we’ll make to meet our immediate needs and keep Crash &Sue’s on the cutting edge.”
C&S’s has had high definition capabilities since 2000, but it wasn’t until last year that the majority of their clients started asking for their deliverable in HD and not SD. “The surge in HD work demands that we dramatically increase our storage capabilities,” says Habben. “The NAB will give us an opportunity to explore a wide range of data storage options before deciding on which system best suits our needs.”
Home/NYC is multiplatform, multifunction and resolution independent.
“We move from Final Cut or After Effects to Avid, to Smoke, Nitris or Flame on any given day, so our focus at NAB is on finding a solid working solution that allows all of the platforms to store media and metadata in a cohesive way,” says managing director Martin Malanoski. “We’ve yet to find one solution that seamlessly integrates our software and hardware requirements in an efficient workflow.
“We’ll also be looking at some new HD cameras — the Genesis and Red cameras are interesting.”