NZ Video News May 2011

MAY 2011

Vol 169

NAB 2011—Part One … What you need to know.

I just counted, this was my 15th NAB. I know of some people who absolutely hate it year after year, and others who would happily add a single visit to their personal “bucket list”.

Me, I get caught up in the manic activity and buzz that comes from having so many clever people showing their innovative products to the large and vicious beast that is the NAB crowd. There are no prizes for second; you succeed or fail on your efforts to come up with something that “wows” the pack and the pack salutes the victorious and shuns the mediocre.

Well, it’s all “wow” inside, so enjoy.

NZVN on the web. Go to <https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews> for more news.

I’m so full I could burst !

DISPLAY & CLASSIFIED ADVERT BOOKINGS BY WED 1 JUNE ADVERT COPY BY FRI 3 JUNE

Broadcast Pix We start the show for Gencom at the Broadcast Pix booth with Dennis Breckenridge and Ray Sanders.

Ed: Dennis, this looks like you’ve got everything in one box?

Dennis: Yes, this is the Slate portable system with HD-SD SDI and analogue inputs and outputs; it can be touch screen or operated from an optional control panel. New at NAB is what we call a 500 control panel, which is a nice inexpensive control panel that’s small enough that it can go in a flight case or a rack.

It controls all the aspects of Broadcast Pix, which are clips, graphics, CGs, still stores, and puts it into a nice package where you don’t have to grab a keyboard or a mouse; you can run your whole show then from your standard control panel. So having the nice backgrounds, having the nice DDs, having nice graphics, CGs, at any point with any of the systems.

Ed: Well that’s it, there are lots of systems out there, but there are different levels of them – you’re marketing at the top end?

Dennis: Yes, so there’s a traditional switcher, which is switching videos, maybe doing some picture-inpicture, and then what we do is, we say we want to create compelling live videos. So to do that, you need graphics, you need backgrounds, you need opening videos, and rather than having 10 pieces of gear and five operators to run it, we’re just combining those different aspects into a single platform.

Ed:

And one very busy person?

Dennis: No, it depends on the production. In some cases you must have a single operator because of space or budget, but you can also run it with multiple people if the production warrants. One of the nice things about it is, if you want to have a CG editor or somebody loading the graphics, you can extend to a secondary person.

You can add remote aux panels and allow other people to do camera shading, replay sources, and those traditional things, or even running aspects of the switcher. You’ll have one guy operating for the main output, and then a separate person using a remote panel that’s picking what CGs, clips, graphics, sources are required.

We also added Chyron support so broadcasters that are using Chyron systems can now use any of those same Chyron graphics.

We integrated the Lyric Pro 8 software into our platform, so they can run and edit all their Chyron content natively through the Broadcast Pix as well.

We upgraded some of our bigger control surfaces – like our big 2ME systems – we actually updated the entire platform making it easier to use. One of the things with the larger systems is people, of course, want to do what we call “Macros” which are automation routines, so

Dennis and Ray.

we’ve really brought all those pieces out to the front panel with dedicated buttons. So people aren’t having to go through multiple menus, or again using multiple devices to be able to operate that.

Ed: So Macros – it’s a great thing if you know how to do them, you can put those in the Slate as well?

Dennis: It’s universal across all of our platforms, so any one of our systems from the small ones to the big ones have it. It’s just the big panels have dedicated buttons that are only for macros, where on the smaller panels, you’re sharing those buttons with a couple of other functions. But the Macros are quite easy – you can actually hit “Record” and it will record all the pieces of your opening, go to this camera, go to that camera, bring up a CG, and then it plays it back in real time for you.

Another couple of aspects that we added to the system are the ability to do things like wipes quite easily. You can take an animation that you might have created – any of those pieces coming into one of your keyers, and then when you run that, it’s actually going to run that piece and transition from source to source automatically. So there’s no programming or anything that’s needed; you just put whatever clips you want in there, tell it to run that animation sequence, and it’s going to do all those fancy customised effects for instant replay, news break, you know all those exciting pieces that you might want in your production.

Remote access is a common theme at NAB this year and to explain the use of the iPad with the Broadcast Pix product we have Tony Mastantuono.

Ed: Tony, this iPad is wireless, but it can control anything?

Tony: Yes, it can control any of our Slate or Granite systems, it all is based up on IP address through WiFi, so as long as the Slate or Granite server is connected to a wireless connection, you can tap into that IP address. Right on the iPad, you can type in the IP address of that system and it brings up a control

Page 2

surface so you can switch cameras, bring up keyers, change clips and change graphics.

All the file information that Broadcast Pix is known about, is seen right on the iPad. So you see that the clip name is called ‘Opener’, and you see the graphic names and titles, and you have quick control of all the devices right on the iPad. Ed: Why would you want to do that when you can be sitting in front of a keypad with a dedicated controller?

Tony: That’s a great question.

There’s a few reasons : the first reason is because of cost. In some applications, panels may be a little bit out of the price range, so for a $500 iPad and a $10 iPixPanel app you can download from iTunes, you have a really costeffective control panel.

Ed: But you can touch the screen itself and that doesn’t cost you anything?

Tony: You can, you can add a monitor to any system. The other nice thing about the iPad, is the portability.

I’ve done a lot of productions before I was here, where you’re doing setup and lighting in the studio. There were times when you needed to change a camera and it’s only you. So I would have to go all the way downstairs, go into the control room and switch one button, go all the way back in the other room, just to change the lighting! So it gives you that flexibility, a little bit of freedom.

With one push of a button you can easily change the on-air camera.

touchscreen

want, and a lot of people love it.

We have a tremendous amount of downloads off of iTunes – it’s been a great success.

Ed:

Is this something that you’d use yourself Ray?

Ray: No, not at this stage, but I think we will be when we’re doing some demos and so on in the future.

We’ve just ordered a new Granite demo system which will be spending a lot of time in New Zealand and some in Australia, and it will have everything working with it.

Ed: Now Ray, Dennis was saying that you’ve had quite a major install recently in New Zealand of Broadcast Pix product?

Ray: Yes, we did an upgrade to the Westpac Stadium in Wellington and that involved a Broadcast Pix switcher among other things, and it was a very successful installation. In New Zealand, the range of switchers allows us to handle quite a large part of the market because we can go from the little portable Slate for

We have a lot of our customers in the entertainment market and a lot of the staging companies using our products for like award ceremonies, and the actual announcer, the host, is switching the show. It brings a whole different type of control panel out to the presenter, so they can call up their own graphics, or cue up their own clip.

Ed: What, you let the talent control the show?

Tony with a remote control option.

Tony: I know – it’s unheard of, right, but some people do it.

Ed:

It’s a bad move.

Dennis: Yes it can seem to be a bad idea, but you can limit what they control. In the case of the red carpet events, the talent had a channel of CG dedicated to them and they simply called up the actor or actress that they will next interview on the iPhone application, rather using a dedicated CG operator and coms.

Remember a lot of these shows, especially if their primary market is webcasting, need to keep budgets ( and operators ) down and having split functions can allow for this. We have created tools that allow the system to be used in a personal or budget constrained environment but still offer the same end result.

Tony: And even on your iPhone too. Now on the iPhone, which is a free download, you can control our PixPad, so you can see your clips and graphics. So that’s a great example where you want to extend the control surface. Imagine having a control panel and somebody on a graphics system, plus you need somebody to cue up a clip – you get your phone out – touch the clip or graphic on the iPhone and it’s for the Director to take to air. They can be anywhere you

people just doing simple jobs on the fly, to the bigger installations with multiple MEs, so we can cover a much NZVN larger range than was previously there.

If you want to know more about what is available from Broadcast Pix, contact Gencom Phone (09) 913 7500 or (04) 939 7100 Email info@gencom.com Web www.gencom.com

Cartoni Support Last seen in Rome, now at NAB – Cartoni. To tell us the latest for Gencom we have Elisabetta Cartoni.

Ed: And NAB – it’s got to be good for you, there’s lots of people and hopefully they’re spending money at Cartoni?

Elisabetta: Oh yes, we have seen a lot of international customers, more than last year and the year before. We are presenting our new Maxima head which has already proved to be very well accepted and very well received in the market. This head is capable of holding from zero to 40 kilo and has a brand new counterbalance system … Papa applied a patent earlier this year. It allows counterbalance and continuous fluid

Page 4

“ inspiration. partnership. support ” As Seen at NAB 2011 - Flexible input, output & control architecture.

- Works with both HD & SD video.

- Network ready.

HD/SD Audio/Video Frame Synchronizer and Converter.

- Fluid Action Head.

- Payload capacity.

0-40kg.

- 180 tilt.

maxima , industry standarD tripod.

- Grade A LCD panel.

- 3Gb/s input display.

- Advanced Waveform / Vectorscope.

- Digital Wireless Control System.

- 3D Lenses.

- Improved facial recognition.

ZS17x5.5 lens for half-inch format cameras.

Powerful & Affordable 7” 3Gb/ s-Ready Broadcast Monitor.

AJA - Cartoni - Fujifilm - Plura

Contact us at Gencom for more information on our extensive range of AJA, Cartoni, Fujifilm, Plura products.

Tel 09 913 7500 / 04 939 7100 | email info@gencom.com | www.gencom.com

drag both in pan and tilt.

It is compatible with all the plates of the popular cameras, so it is compatible with the RED, with the O’Connor plate, with the ARRI plate.

Ed: That’s it – there are not many very heavy cameras around these days.

I guess you’ve got to go up to the Genesis or the F23 to get a heavy camera?

Elisabetta: Yes they are, but you have to think that the mass of a heavy duty head is very much needed for accurate and precise work, so the crews tend to oversize the support heads even with cameras that are not extremely heavy.

Also the cameras can be equipped with a lot of accessories from bridge plates, to matte boxes, monitors – all kinds of accessories that add on weight. They add on a lot of weight – and last but not least, the small compact 3D rig fits perfectly on the Maxima.

Ed: I see you’re showing an F3 on the Maxima – that’s certainly not a heavy camera but, as you say, if you have a smaller camera on there, you get even more precise control?

Elisabetta with Maxima head on tripod.

Elisabetta: Yes, absolutely.

By supporting the 40 kilo, we are competing with the O’Connor 25 / 75 which has been the industry standard up till now, and we have to match and even go a little bit over and under their capabilities, which we have done.

Ed: So that’s in the big camera market, but Cartoni look after us with our little cameras as well, don’t you?

Elisabetta: Oh yes, we look after all the cameras – small, medium and big.

We make support for everything. Another new product that we are showing here at NAB is a motorisation kit for the Spin Head. The Spin Head has been very popular since it has been launched two years ago, and now the owners of the Spin Heads can put a kit of motors to remote control the head – hanging from a crane, or from a remote location.

For your own Cartoni tripod or head, contact Gencom Phone (09) 913 7500 or (04) 939 7100 Email info@gencom.com Web www.gencom.com

The very popular Spin Head.

Page 6

Fujifilm Lenses For Gencom we have Lawrie Hitchens from Fujifilm Australia Pty Limited Ed: Lawrie, it’s very sad we haven’t got Nicki here to sit on a motorbike with you?

Lawrie: her.

No, that’s terrible, where’s Nicki, we need

Lawrie with Nicki “sit-in”.

Ed:

Available now?

Lawrie: Ed:

I believe so, yes.

Right, and in the lens department?

Lawrie: We’ve have a ZS 17x5.5ERM, so it has an extender on a half inch lens.

Ed: And sitting here on a Sony XDCAM EX – that’s a big seller for Sony, so this should be a big selling lens?

Ed: In fact, we’re not starting with lenses, we’re starting with the WL325A wireless remote control?

Lawrie: Yes, it’s a product aimed at jib arms and OB’s, anywhere where you remotely want to control zoom and focus for lenses. So it’s simply a wireless link for our normal broadcast lenses.

Lawrie: Yes, it’s a medium range lens, 17x but, yes, with an extender it gives it that range.

Ed: And that’s it, you are camera agnostic. I see Hitachi, JVC, Sony, Grass Valley. Now what’s this little display here – Premier series two-thirds inch 3D ready – one lens?

Ed: So in fact what you’re showing here on the tripod is a monitor, which looks a bit odd, but you’re actually remote controlling the camera by using the monitor view?

Lawrie: Yes, that’s true. Somewhere in this stand is the camera; it’s has a 100 metre range.

Ed:

It looks pretty instant?

Lawrie: Yes, it is instant.

Nothing complicated about it, just simply Fujinon provided a remote for the current range of servos, which I don’t think anyone else is doing.

Ed: So is this a good thing that Fujinon is branching out a little bit from lens making? I guess it’s an adjunct to lenses, rather than relying on a third party to do it?

Lawrie: Yes I guess so. There are lots of third parties that do make bolt on servos, and then control them by remote, but people who are actually integrating to our servos without having to change the lens – I don’t know of anyone else who is doing it.

Page 7

Lawrie: One lens, good question. Fujifilm have got a whole range of 3D lenses which they released last year. This is not necessarily new; what is new is that you can remote control them via that radio link as well.

For your Fujinon lenses and accessories, contact Gencom Phone (09) 913 7500 or (04) 939 7100 Email info@gencom.com Web www.gencom.com

Ed: You can remote control the pair in other words?

Lawrie: Yes, that’s right.

Ed: Through the same WL325A controller?

Lawrie: That’s the one, yes.

Ed: And something Lawrie says is not new, but has had some improvements – it’s called “TRACE”?

Lawrie: The TRACE system is designed to track … you can nominate a number of faces within the screen area and it will track those faces all over the screen and hold perfect focus on those faces, wherever that face moves within the frame.

Ed: It should be really good for sporting events?

Lawrie: Yes sporting and especially in low light conditions which result in shallow depth of field that’s challenging to focus on accurately. So any assistance you can give the cameraman to do so, is an advantage. It’s just an extension of our older focus systems that we’ve been using in the past.

AJA for Gencom For Gencom we are AJA with Bryce Button.

Ed:

Bryce, tell me about the FS2?

Bryce: The FS1 is our frame synchroniser and hardware 1RU converter that we’ve had in the market for a number of years. Today we have announced a sibling and it’s a pretty big boy called the FS2 and what does he offer?

FS2 is a dual channel frame synchroniser and hardware converter, but with a whole bunch of lovely options, so you can put on fibre connectivity if you choose to; it’s also got modular slots for Dolby E encoding and decoding and a wide gamut of conversion possibilities up to 16 tracks of AES EDU or SDI audio and up to 32 channels of mapping, but effectively, a helluva lot of audio channels in terms of being able to route around.

Ed: It certainly looks like an impressive two channel frame synchroniser and builds on that huge reputation of the FS1 which I think is pretty well in every facility that I know of?

Bryce: Yes, and the reality there is we’ve done something great again because rack space is a big deal and the fact that we’re still a single rack unit, it’s two channels, Dolby options in it, at that kind of price point, so we’re talking in the US $4995 MRP – there isn’t anything at that kind of price available like that.

Ed:

I guess you’re still making the FS1?

Bryce:

The FS1 will certainly stay in the market.

Ed: This other box has a codename “Riker” on it.

What’s this about?

Bryce: This is a special tech preview and isn’t a product … yet. Riker’s the beast! Riker is a real serious look at the type of hard work and future engineering that we’re applying here at AJA. It’s an IO device – Page 8

“ inspiration. partnership. support ” special offer limit ed stock

Professional Blu-Ray & HDD Combo Deck Recorder with SD Card Slot!

SR-HD1250 Blu-Ray Disc TM

250GB Share and Archive your Original HD Content.

$1995 + Gst

Quick and easy way to Import, Record and Playback. Simple yet convenient editing and dubbing of HD content.

Recommended camcorders for the SR HD 1250: GY-HD250 & GZ-HM400

Sony - Panasonic - JVC - Canon

Contact us at Gencom for more information on our extensive range of JVC products.

Tel 09 913 7500 / 04 939 7100 | email info@gencom.com | www.gencom.com

$5500 + Gst

basically it gives you a glimpse of the future. It’s dealing with incredibly varied workflows all in real time. It’s capable of working from SD all the way up to 5K and, for instance, it’s designed to work in a modular fashion, so there are two optional modules on the case itself, so that we can add future technologies as they come along, or we can offer users ( once it becomes a product ) a combination of different tools they might require in it.

So what’s happening is we’ve taken the board out of the computer so to speak. All that goes into your computer is a PCIE 8 lane 2.0 card. So a huge amount of data bandwidth and then all the processing is happening in the external box. We brought it here because with a box that’s that powerful, that’s that capable of a huge number of workflows, we want to be able to understand what users would like us to be doing with this kind of technology. It’s a chance for us to show it to people; for us to ask questions.

So rather than saying “we’ve built this thing, and this is the way to go”, we’re saying that this is a huge amount of power, all this real time capability, it’s going to be able to support high res frame rates, stereo work, which as we know right now is a big deal, 48 hertz workflows. So this particular IO device, once it becomes a product, would be able to handle all of that. So it’s kind of a question of “what do people really want to do with it if we build it?”

What’s inside the Riker box—maybe?

Ed:

More flashing lights!

Bryce:

More flashing lights? Oh, I don’t think so!

NZVN

To find out more about AJA box product, contact Gencom Phone (09) 913 7500 or (04) 939 7100 Email info@gencom.com Web www.gencom.com

Page 10

Sennheiser Microphones For Syntec, we have Kai Lange from Sennheiser Germany.

Ed: Kai, Sennheiser has been making fantastic shotgun microphones for a long time – but now they are even better? I presume these are digital?

Kai: Yes, you’re right with both questions. First a step back, we’ve had the MKH line for over 30 years now.

The MKH416 is 35 years old now and still is a big model on the market. A couple of years ago, we launched the MKH 8000 line which comes with the omni-cardioid and super-cardioid. They were built for classical recordings.

They have a wide frequency response and very natural sound. So now we thought “why not come up with a new introduction of the MKH line – so put all the good things of the microphone now into something new?”

We had several ideas for making it better. So first of all, the 416 for camera use is a bit too long, so we need a shotgun which is smaller than the 416. The 416 has some kind of off-axis corrector which the customers are fine with, but we now have the more smooth off-axis corrector, without any phasing to the side. So if you have the microphone pointed at the one talker and you have different microphones on air for example, you can mix it around without any real sounds of phasing characteristics. And what was a favourite about the MKH 8000 line is that it is a module system. You just screw off the XLR adapter, put on a standard – we have some very small adapters for wiring for example; we have different accessories just to screw on; and especially for the shotgun where there are no filters on it, we have a filter module that’s a bit shorter than the XLR module, just screw it on and then you have a roll off and a 10dB pad inside the microphone.

Kai shows there are indeed two parts.

Ed: So you don’t need separate microphones, you can just change the module?

Kai: That’s right, and …

Ed:

Wait … there’s more?

Kai: You mentioned digital – you asked for a digital microphone – yes, we have this.

Ed: So again it’s just a module – it’s the same microphone, it’s just a digital module?

Kai: You use the same microphone and just take off the standard analogue XLR adapter and screw on the MZD 8000 adapter and then you have a fully AES42 mode 2 microphone. So this is controllable from the PC, you get the digital format in both directions. You get the microphone signal to the computer and you can control, via the MZD, the microphone settings, for roll off, gain control and so on.

So this is the main advantage for this module system, you’re flexible and future-proof, let’s say it like this …

Ed:

Oh that’s a dangerous thing to say!

Kai: Well I don’t think so because some customers are going for digital, but as you know, we are limited with the digital format now, only the Sound Devices recording system has a digital input but I think more will come, so that’s why I can say “future-proof.” Some people are already using the digital module and they love to work with the microphone. Back to the other microphone, this is a very long shotgun, the longest we have. The father of this microphone is the old MKH816 which we have not manufactured for I think 15 years, but back at that time, the 816 won the technical Oscar.

So now we’ve got this one with a very long tube. With regard to the 816, it has much more high frequencies that give you the opportunity to even hear a very crisp sound …

Page 11

Ed:

A cricket farting?

Kai: Yes, something like that – you will. The microphone itself belongs to the 8000 series, so the natural sound is very appreciated by the customers.

Ed: And you’ve gone for grey – battleship grey rather than black?

Kai: Yeah, this is Nextel so this comes from the older module, which were preferred for use in studio applications, because the light doesn’t reflect off the outer cover.

Ed:

It’s a very matt grey?

Kai: It is. It has the same diameter as the 416 in recent years, it’s 19mm, but much shorter than the older line. What we did to make the MKH line even better – it has the same diameter of capsule, but through the manufacturing it was possible to decrease the diameter of the microphone, but this was on the former 8000 line as well.

Ed: Now a question that I’ve always thought about is why is this called a “shotgun” and I’ve always been under the impression that, having a long shotgun means just like with a shotgun barrel, that the shot has a very narrow angle of spread, and so a shotgun microphone with a long barrel would have a very narrow pickup of sound. Am I on the right track?

Kai: Yes, you are right, perfectly, that’s it. With a long shotgun barrel, you get much more directivity of the sound.

Ed: So why couldn’t you have a short one that telescoped out to a long one?

Ed: And you were saying the cable connector is actually improved?

Kai: Yes, due to the modular design, you have special wiring available which allows you not to use the XLR adapter on the microphone, but later on, before the mixer input. So for booming, you need something which is very light.

And the same with the filter modules. You can put the filter module at the end of the XLR adapter for example. So this gives you many opportunities; and the short length of the microphone was decided because the camera systems are getting smaller and smaller and the 416 was sometimes in the shot of the camera system, so with nearly half the NZVN length of the 416 we are way ahead now.

Kai: Well you have to be aware that the capsule is very precise to the shotgun tube, so it’s not something that can just screw on. I think it wouldn’t work.

For all Sennheiser product information, contact Daniel Rowe at Syntec New Zealand Phone (09) 263 9885 Email sales@syntec.co.nz

Ed: So the capsule is actually matched to the length of tube that you’ve got on there?

Kai: Yes, that’s right, so it’s not always the same capsule. You have different capsules, they are modified a bit, so that it perfectly matches to the tube which is in front.

Ed: I knew there had to be a simple reason. So in the smaller shotgun, what’s the model number of that one?

Kai: That is the MKH8060 – it is related to the MKH60.

With this microphone we do a mixture of the 416 and the 60 and, of course the MKH 8000 line for the three different things coming together; we have the excellent sound of the MKH 8000 line; we have the directivity of the MKH60 and a bit the sound of the 416. So it’s everything together in a very small and unobtrusive microphone.

This other, longer microphone is the 8070, much longer but it has the same diameter as the 8060 and similar sound with greater directivity.

Page 13

Supplies from Japan.

There are shortages of some product lines from Japanese factories affected by the tsunami and that’s not only for our industry. There were a few Japanese companies missing from where they were expected to be on the show floor and it was very courageous of others to be there considering that many had lost people as well as infrastructure. We must remember that we are a very specialised industry with some high value products and that no one can be expected to keep months of reserve stock to cover such as catastrophe. It should be obvious and understandable that there are, and will continue to be, disruptions to supplies coming from Japanese factories for some time so BE PATIENT and cope – it wasn’t their fault.

If anyone has any specific need, send me an email directly ( finnzed@xtra.co.nz ) and I’ll try to find you a local source of new or used product to help you through. Ed.

Avid for Atomise We’re at the Avid stand with Charles Tetaz from Avid Australia. Richard is back home looking after little people.

with the addition of this third party hardware, but also with support of other software. Media Composer 5.5 adds support for a number of new formats in extension to the AMA capability, refinements of the editing tool set and a number of other sort of smaller “user request” related features, so we feel that it’s a really solid release. We did announce it a few weeks before the show and users have already started to use it, so we came to NAB and we’re showing people who maybe haven’t seen it before. We’re releasing software when it’s ready, not necessarily waiting until a trade show.

So that’s a shift to the focus for the user – we wanted to make sure that when we had tools ready for the user, as quickly as we can get them to market, we want to bring them out and allow users to get on-board with them.

Ed: Now the other big interest of mine, announced at the Press event, is a move to the Cloud. It was said that “the Cloud is the way forward.” Could you just explain how Avid’s going to use the Cloud?

Ed: Charles, I guess the big news is 5.5 – some improvements, some more openness which, I guess, is following the path that Avid’s taken to become a more open platform?

Charles: Yes, 5.5 is good news but, actually, let’s step back a step. With 5.0, we added the ability of using the Matrox MX02 hardware for output, but it was output only.

This year, we’ve added support for the AJA Express Io, which allows both input as well as output – just an extension of the openness message.

Charles: Sure – for those who aren’t familiar with it, the Cloud is using web-based services for what have traditionally been, what we call “heavy applications” – an application that needs to be installed on a computer.

So an application that we’re showing at NAB is a tool called Interplay Central and that allows us to access our iNews system which is our news gathering, journalist and reporting system, and to be able to edit and modify that through a web browser. So what that means is, in the past, we had to have a client that was PC based, got installed onto a machine, to allow that journalist to work. Now that journalist can log into a Chrome or a Safari web browser on any platform – so Mac, Windows, Linux – and allow them to play the video to edit their story, and the environment is an interactive HTML5 environment. So if you think about it, web pages can be static, where everything’s locked in its place; the HTML5 allows us to change what elements are shown on a per user basis, and also be able to type and update, see video, edit clips and things like that. So, from a journalist’s point of view, it’s a simple editing environment that gives them access to all richness that they would normally have in a large client. So that

Also, last October, we released Pro Tools without the need of having hardware associated with that, and Pro Tools, of course, since its existence, has always required that there is Digidesign or Avid hardware connected to it. So this is the first incarnation of the audio software – so not only on the video side, but also on the audio side. In 5.5 of course, we added the Express Io, but we also added support for the Artist Series controllers.

As you know, last year at NAB, we announced the acquisition of Euphonix, so with Media Composer 5.5 we’ve added support for Euphonix, but also for many other apps, including Assimilate Scratch and Smoke. So when we say about Avid being “open”, we’ve demonstrated this Page 14

Avid Media Composer 5.5

The World’s Most Advanced Film and Video Editing System Faster and more open than ever.

New features include:

• • • • • •

Capture, monitor, and output with AJA Io Express Support for the Euphonix Artist Series Support for Matrox MX02 Mini monitoring-only solution Sony SR Lite 220Mb/s CODEC native support Real Time Audio Suite & Avid AIR audio plug-in support ScriptSync & PhraseFind

Available NOW! Avid Media Composer software only, Mojo DX or Nitris DX. Call Atomise Limited today for an obligation free quote.

Editing Solutions

Visit www.atomise.co.nz; email atomise@atomise.co.nz or call Richard Kelly on 04 380 5010 / 021 86 33 94 for information & demos.

Experts

Hot Avid Video Promotions!

Crossgrade from Final Cut Pro to Avid Media Composer Software v5.5 with 3rd party applications for only $1,295 + GST *° *Proof of ownership of FCP is required.

Upgrade from Media Composer Adrenaline or Liquid Blue or Liquid Chrome to

Avid Media Composer Nitris DX v5.5 with 3rd party applications & 12 months Priority Support for only $8,995 + GST *°

*Freight is additonal.

Requires return of Adrenaline/ Liquid hardware. °Promo ends 17 June 2011.

Pricing subject to change without notice due to volatile FOREX.

Apace Systems Atomise Limited Authorised Reseller of Professional Editing Equipment

means for deployment for someone, it’s a lot easier, because you don’t have to have a special computer to do it and, for instance, if there’s a major news event, you could very rapidly add just standard computers, Macs or PCs, and have the journalists down writing and working on those stories.

Ed: That’s pretty big and it really makes Interplay now a lot more interesting to a lot more journalists?

Charles: This is the first step.

The technology underpinnings that are driving this new tool come from a company that we acquired a couple of years ago called Max-T ( Maximum Throughput ) and the thing that Maximum Throughput had that we were really interested in, was this ability of having a craft-style video editor in a browser. So not just a “put some clips in”, but actually being able to “top and tail”, add dissolves, edit the audio, etc. There’s two components to that – one was the HTML5 component that allows you to modify things on the screen; the second is the engine that allows you to have a low resolution piece of video played that doesn’t require a proxy to be created. So

year, but within this technology we want to extend that to other clients. There’s two reasons for this : one is that the technology’s great, because it takes away that need to install an app and have a certain PC. The second is that we can have what we call a “unified interface” and when you look at the different roles within a broadcaster or within a post facility, each user maybe a logger, an editor, is looking at a slightly different screen.

If you’re working with a large organisation, and you think about the context of training people in how to use tools, if you’ve got a single interface that can be customised, but fundamentally has the same elements, it’s a lot easier to manage and deploy for users.

So if you had someone who was junior that came in, started logging clips and then moved up to be a bit of an editor, you’re still using that same environment.

And the last thing that’s important about this as a technology, is that when it comes to updating or upgrading, you update the server, and when the client re-logs in, they’re running the new software. So you don’t need this thing where you update the server, then you have to go and update every single client.

So from a management point of view, for an IT administrator, it moves it from the editors and production space into IT managing and controlling that.

Ed: Now when I heard about Avid going to the Cloud, I was thinking of some companies where there is a move to actually put software on the Cloud. You don’t actually buy a disc with everything on it, it’s accessible on the Cloud, you pay per use, or you have a licence to use it, but you don’t actually have it downloaded on your computer. Is this something that Avid is moving to, because I can see difficulties if your Telco isn’t totally trustworthy and drops you out?

normally, if you’re going to have a high res client in an edit bay, you need high res video; but if you’re going to have that played on a web browser, or played by a remote client, you have to do a proxy transcode which takes time to get it down to that low resolution. You know when you play a YouTube clip you press “Play” and you wait for it to buffer and then it starts to play and all that sort of stuff …

Ed:

It’s usually only with TVNZ On Demand actually!

Charles: Yes, well, no comment – but the Max-T engine allows … it doesn’t create a proxy, but it instantly transcodes it and delivers it to the client. So the responsiveness of video playback is very, very good, but it’s based on the resolution of the client and their access to the internet. So it means no proxies have to be created and maintained and we can scale the resolution depending on the bandwidth that’s available. So this technology, of course, uses the first incarnation of this; we’ll be shipping the News client this

Charles: Yes, we still have our applications that allow install, and I’m sure they’ll stay around for a very long time, but within the Cloud model, we have what we call a “public” Cloud and a “private” Cloud. So the greatest challenges are generally for organisations, and that’s within a VPN or a private environment where they’re controlling that network. The operators aren’t dependent on what’s going on, on the internet, the network administrators for a facility are controlling their own network, and that’s where it really works well. The model of having pure software delivered over the web to a remote user of course, as you say, poses a big problem, and we wouldn’t want to move to a model like that without having the option for a client to be able to install locally and do all the work that they need to do with a local app; and still local apps are going to provide better performance under certain circumstances, particularly heavy loads and complex jobs, but there’s a lot of lighter tasks – they may be administration tasks, archiving, logging, annotation, obscenity editing – things like that, they do quite simple tasks, you don’t need a heavy application. So this just

Page 16

really adds another tool to the tool belt for a facility, but particularly where they control their own network, it makes it a lot easier for them.

Ed: Now you mention in there archiving … this is something that Avid’s well known for. Are there any developments in the storage area?

Charles: Within storage, no particular archiving developments, but we’ve announced the ISIS 5000 16 terabyte. Previously, we had a 32 terabyte and we had lots of requests from facilities that were quite small.

This is really a four client directly connected by a Gigabit Ethernet – so just a single wire connection, no need for fibre or others things – it just allows collaboration to occur at a lower price point. So, for people who don’t need a massive amount of storage.

Ed: And you’ve come out with another couple of packages for smaller organisations, such as Avid InGame and NewsVision packages?

Charles: Avid InGame is a sports oriented package for sports codes or stadiums. If you’ve ever seen the giant JumboTrons at stadiums where they’re not only showing replays of footage, but they’re also maybe, in breaks, showing historical stuff and ads and other things – this market, particularly in the US, is a huge market. We’re starting to see more of this occurring in New Zealand and Australia, where the stadiums are media organisations and as there are more choices for a customer for entertainment, these stadiums need to provide a greater and higher level of interaction for the people who are coming.

They’ve got a great environment – they’ve got teams and sports that are

fantastic, and they have an audience that is excited to be there, and this just adds an extra layer. So, in the past, to try to put these pieces together was fairly hard for a group of people who maybe aren’t media experts or broadcast experts, but do have a desire for these multiple pieces. So what we did was put together a package that includes all the components for ingest, editing, play out, graphics and archiving into a single package with services to get them up and running.

Now the NewsVision is a similar sort of thing but, particularly for the smaller and regional broadcasters where they don’t have sophisticated capabilities or needs, and what they want is really to be able to ( once again ) acquire stuff, get the news edited up and get a story to air or to the web. So it’s literally a package designed for those sorts of people where it’s everything in the one package and they don’t need to worry about too much extra.

Ed: In other words, once they get the package, they know it works, they don’t have to worry about third party connections …?

Charles: We include the third party tools to get them archived and things like that, so instead of them having to go and try to piece these things together themselves, we provide that, plus the services to help get it set up and running for them.

NZVN

Page 17

To find out the latest from Avid video, contact Atomise at Phone (04) 380 5010 email atomise@atomise.co.nz website www.atomise.co.nz

Miller Support For A2Z ( Rex hasn’t arrived yet, he’s still eating lunch ), we have Greg Thomson from Miller Australia.

Ed: Greg, only some “rats and mice” improvements in the range, but you’ve been making rock solid tripods for a long time, so …?

Greg: That we have, and we like to think that we’re going to be doing it for a lot longer to come.

Ed: And a big sale understand – Canada?

I

Greg: Yes, we’ve managed to win a contract to supply one of the networks in Canada for about 450 systems over the next three years, mainly in the Arrow 40 line on Sprinter legs. Some of those are supplied with dollies so, yes, this is pretty much Miller’s biggest singular sale to date.

Greg and David.

Ed: It must have been a good price and a good product?

Greg: Well of course, I mean one thing’s making the sale, but the other is that we have to support the

Page 18

equipment. It’s literally spread from one side of Canada to the other and the harsh climate will be a challenge as it is for any product, you know down into the -40s and 50 degrees.

Yes, it will be a challenge to keep everything on track.

Ed: And you’re still making everything in Oz despite the floods?

Greg: Despite those floods, yes, we still are making everything in Australia.

It’s getting rather difficult, of course, with the Australian and US dollar, but we’re still managing to do so.

Ed: That must be it, isn’t it, the Australian dollar at the moment is so huge, even compared to ours?

Greg: Well it’s a 30 year high and we know our competitors have moved to Costa Rica to manufacture – that would be Sachtler and Vinten and we’ve just been told O’Connor have also now moved to Costa Rica in South America – closed up their operation in Los Angeles. But we’re still making them in Australia!

Ed: I guess the big thing for customers browsing for a tripod, is that Miller has that range; it has the range right from the lower end which you call …?

Greg: Yes, we do have the lower end from smaller DV cameras, right the way through to the broadcast style cameras. In the last two years we’ve released what we call the Compass range and, with the recent addition of the Compass 25, it’s now a range of three and it is performing well.

Ed: And beside that comes the Solo which has no spreaders and can go very high?

Greg: The concept behind the development of the Solo was the fact that it was going to be a “spreaderless” tripod and as soon as you step away from a tripod without a spreader, it enables you to go from really low ( 25-odd centimetres ) all the way to 1.6m for the two-stage Solo, and it’s 1.9m for the three -stage Solo.

Ed:

So a very useful addition to a cameraman’s kit?

Greg: It certainly is, it’s dynamic – it will get them out of many situations with its extreme height, or getting over objects, and all the way down low for the NZVN creative shots off the deck.

For all your Miller needs, contact A2Z Phone (09) 375 3085, Email sales@audio2vizual.co.nz, Web www.audio2vizual.co.nz

UNE ISSUE More from NAB 2011 including Sony, Rycote, Canon lenses, Hamlet, Swit, Sound Devices, Wohler, Technodolly, Apace, Schneider Optics, Sachtler, Chrosziel, Matrox, Petrol, Zeiss Optics, Datavideo, PortaBrace, Dedolight, Plura, LA Acoustic, JVC, Teradek, Adobe and Square Box.

Page 19

ikan For A2Z, we have David Epstein and Daniel Contreras from ikan.

Ed: Now, I look around your stand and there’s not just one product here Daniel, there’s a whole lot of products. What’s the best one?

Daniel: Right now we have our VX7e, our newest monitor. It just got out this week at NAB and just received the NAB Best Monitor Award so we’re very excited about this new monitor. It has peaking and false colour, as well as clipping, which acts very similar to a zebra function in the RED camera. It’s also got HDMI, HD-SDI input and output which is a pass through, so you can actually take that SDI signal in and out of that monitor, directly to another monitor or some kind of a recording device. So a fabulous machine. Now our LED lights – gosh we’ve got a range of LED lights; we’ve got from on-camera all the way through to studio use. Our oncamera lighting is dimmable, variable colour temperatures, on-camera batteries; it’s a really great system.

Ed: And they’re all LED are they?

Daniel: Yes they are LED. The beautiful thing about LED is that it can stay on all day and it’s not

Rex has a go watched over by Daniel.

going to give you a suntan, not going to make you sweat in your clothes.

They’re fabulous and they work really well. They last much longer than standard lighting and they’re really good to have in your arsenal.

Page 20

Ed: Damn, I thought I’d got you with that one! Now a new potential product for A2Z that David doesn’t know about – ikan also has teleprompters?

Ed: I notice there’s a very colourful one there – is that just for Christmas?

Daniel: Well that’s for all holidays actually. It does really well for Christmas. That is our new Multi-K XL … that has 6x variable colour temperature presets as well, and in each light temperature it’s actually modifiable to go from 2800 Kelvin all the way up to 6500 Kelvin.

Daniel: Yes, we have a wide range of teleprompters from a standard 8 inch that’s just a real quick, portable, running through the glass style prompter; we have 15 inch and also a 20 inch teleprompter that offer picture in picture. That picture in picture, the extra screen, can be moved anywhere on the monitor itself, as well as resized, so it allows the person doing the broadcast news or whatever they’re doing, to really see what they’re doing.

Also something new we designed specifically for NAB is our new tablet prompter, which is very similar to an Android tablet or an iPad tablet. It already has the teleprompter software built-in, so you’re not having to carry any extra components, and it’s really, really light and it’s really effective, it works very well.

These can be attached to a camera shoe and are light enough to be hand-held or shoulder mounted.

Ed: But the lights that you’ve been looking at and bringing in already David?

David: They are strictly daylight and not tungsten. Just daylight in two different sizes – there’s a 500 series and a 1000 series.

Ed: So I guess that’s a 500 Watt equivalent light?

Daniel: Well the 500 series, that actually is 500 LEDs on that panel and then our 1000 series is 1000 LEDs on that panel.

It’s outputting an equivalent of around 500 Watts on the ID 500 and on the ID 1000 you’re talking about 750 Watts.

That’s lighting as far as what a standard like an ARRI light would be. What it actually outputs I think on the ID 500 is 35 Watts and on the ID 1000 maybe 50 Watts.

Obviously that would never be enough lighting, so there’s that conversion there because of what LEDs do.

Ed:

And the benefits to you of this range David?

David: Very cost-effective and also that you can buy them in a kit, so you can have a three point lighting kit, including lights, stands, power supplies and cases all for a very affordable price.

Ed: And I guess you’re going to get some of the camera support systems too, now that you know about them?

Ed:

Now I see a range of camera mounts and fittings?

Daniel: Yes with the increasing popularity of handheld video and DSLR cameras needing all sorts of accessories ikan have produced this Elements range.

Starting with individual components to mix-&-match to suit each person’s needs through to combo-kits and packs put together to cover popular requirements.

Everything from rail and follow-focus packages to the whole new concept to shoot handheld and for DSLR users provides versatile, unlimited options.

David:

David: We have some in stock already and some in the air – they’re on their way.

Page 21

And we have these in stock too!

For all your ikan needs, contact A2Z Phone (09) 375 3085, Email sales@audio2vizual.co.nz, Web www.audio2vizual.co.nz

NZVN

NextoDI Mobile Storage For A2Z, we are at NextoDI with David Epstein and Larry Seong.

Larry has a very nifty little device that I’m sure a lot of people have been looking for, for a long time, really for safety.

Ed: Would that be right David?

David: Absolutely.

This is a mobile storage unit that runs on its own internal battery. It’s approximately the size of half a brick and it is currently a 500 Gigabyte storage drive, with a new model coming out that is a 750 Gigabyte drive. This is a very clever box that Larry will tell us about.

Larry with the NextoDI range.

Larry: Basically, it is a memory card copy device.

It can copy every kind of memory card used in broadcast, including P2, SxS, CompactFlash and SV, SDHC, SDXC – even copy your Memory Stick. So we cover every memory card with single device, and copy those memory cards very fast. Then at the copy, show your video on the small colour screen to confirm your video is really safe.

Ed: And it takes all the metadata along with it?

Larry: We copy every detail as it is, with the same data structure. We don’t change; we don’t touch.

Ed: You seem to have three models available. Why would you have three models?

Larry: This one is a lower cost model, which only supports CompactFlash and SD, SDHC, SXDC. This device is for DSLR camera users who shoot video on their DSLR and the good point is, at the copy, this shows you a video taken by the DSLR too. Both photo and video you can see and conform on this ADC. A 32 Gigabyte CompactFlash card you can copy in ten minutes. If you do that in a computer, you may take more than 35 minutes, even one hour.

Ed: And back in the edit suite, you can actually use this as a source to transfer into your editing system?

Larry: Yes, very simple. It has a FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 to interface to a computer, so you connect the

Page 22

NextoDI directly into your editing system, it pops up as an extra hard drive to edit directly, store it to server and everything, yes.

Ed: David, this sounds like it’s been a long time coming?

David: It has and it’s really important while we’re here just to go through the other two models, because they are really extraordinary. So the first model, just to recap, is really for CompactFlash, SDHC and SDXC. Then you have a mid-range device with more versatile support for memory cards.

This device supports CompactFlash and SDSX, SDHC and also supports SxS for a Sony camera, and for a Panasonic P2 camera, we give you a P2 adapter. So every memory card is supported in a single device. The high end device’s most interesting point is that it can copy to two drives. There are two hard drives – one 750 Gigabyte inside and the other 750 Gigabyte outside so you always make two copies simultaneously. The copy speed is not doubled, it remains the same. We are doing everything parallel so copying 32 Gigabyte in single drive takes seven minutes, but two drives also seven minutes. So in seven minutes you have always two copies of data. Some people are worried about using hard drives but no two hard drives fail at the same point, at the same time – that’s very unlikely. So your data is really secured. You don’t worry about your data being lost. This device accepts P2 directly, SxS here and for CompactFlash, there is a CompactFlash adapter.

Ed: What about outputs of this particular device to get back into the computer?

Larry: We’re using FireWire 800 or USB 2.0 for computer interface. So you connect it to computer then you see it as a normal hard drive. And for our mid-range device it also supports eSATA so if you use this device you can connect to computer using eSATA too. So we support all three of the most widely used interfaces.

David: If one would then like to take the data away and out of the NextoDI you would take it out of the second drive, and not have to take NZVN the NextoDI with its inbuilt hard drive.

To find out more about the NextoDI mobile storage devices, contact A2Z Phone (09) 375 3085, Email sales@audio2vizual.co.nz, Web www.audio2vizual.co.nz

Page 23

Check out the latest Autodesk 2012 software releases.

Join us at the Autodesk® Media & Entertainment Product launch to experience the latest Digital Entertainment Crea on (DEC) solu ons and new Entertainment Crea on Suites. Each has been designed to open up new opportuni es for crea vity and help transform your most exci ng ideas into reality.

At the event, you'll see how the power of DEC solu ons enhances the workflow process through two live product demonstra ons:

The first demonstra on will be Mo on Capture, where data are captured and streamed live into Autodesk Mo onBuilder for edi ng, and then sent to Autodesk Maya for further refinement. You will also see how the data captured from Microso Kinect can be used to assist in digital sculp ng in Autodesk Mudbox.

The second demonstra on will show the power and ease of taking 3D data from Autodesk Maya or Autodesk 3ds Max into Autodesk Smoke for Mac via Autodesk FBX. You will also see the power of Autodesk Smoke for Mac's all‐in‐one editorial capabili es and how it can help you to deliver higher quality work faster.

See how the powerful workflows of Autodesk's Digital Entertainment Crea on so ware and new Entertainment Crea on Suites enable you to realise your crea ve vision.

Details:

Thursday, 19th May 2011 Sky city conven on centre, Epsom room 2 3.00pm start, registra ons from 2.30pm Tea & coffee on arrival Drinks & nibbles @ 5.30 pm

Register:

email sales@dvt.co.nz with name and phone number to register

Door Prise: We're giving away an XBOX 360 Kinect Bundle at the event!

Autocue For Quinto we are at Autocue with Frank Hyman and Shane Ormsby from Quinto.

Ed: Frank, we all know Autocue as a prompter provider, and there were some really cool prompters last year. One of them I do want to pick up on is the one that has the iPad in it.

It’s done well for you?

Frank: It’s done really well; it’s been probably the star of the show so far, especially because of the release of the iPad 2. It’s been fantastic, and we’ve got two versions of it now – a light version, a real excellent entry product for US$799 and it’s great for small DV cameras.

It’s perfect for those guys who’ve also got a remote control now for the app from Frank with some of the Autocue range. the App Store, so that you can control the speed, which was one of the limitations previously.

So that’s Ed: Wow. Now a great little prompter here that uses fantastic – and then we’ve got a slightly bigger brother the iPad, and it’s sitting on an Autocue tripod. Now of that, that can take an ENG camera as well, and it’s that’s something new? been a great seller so far.

Frank: That’s right. So basically customers came In fact we’ve already sold 100 to one of our big dealers in the US – and the product has literally just come out!

to us and said we don’t just want the prompter, we’d kind of like a “studio in a box” type solution, and we need it all for a budget price – so we brought out our own range of lighting and tripods designed to fit around our prompters and be one studio package for them, so that they can now get a studio package for well under US$2,000 with the three point lighting kit, a tripod, and the iPad. Ed: I guess that’s important, that you’ve specified the components of the tripods, you’ve specified the lights, so that you know that it does the best job in a teleprompting situation?

Frank: That’s absolutely right. The crucial thing from a tripod head perspective, is the weight that it can carry. It’s making sure that we have a unit that’s suitable to carry the camera, to carry the prompter and for it all to sit sturdily and effectively on the tripod.

We’ve made sure that anything that we’ve brought out ( including the lights ) are fit for the purpose – for the guys that we’re aiming these products at, for these smaller studios that want an affordable way to start prompting.

Ed: But then you have the larger tripods and the larger prompters for the ENG cameras?

Frank: That’s right, so the bigger cameras, our more significant studio settings where you want your presenters a longer distance from the camera, hence we’ve got the 17 inch screens, the 10 inch screens.

They’re very versatile units as well, so they can be oncamera with the camera behind the glass, or if they’re using a Reflecmedia kind of kit, a virtual reality light ring, then we can be above or below the camera, and these things also turn into floor standing monitors, so a really, really versatile option for somebody looking for a budget prompting solution.

Page 25

Continuing for Autocue is Paddy Taylor.

Ed: And a couple of other products that Autocue’s got into – monitors and a very large box that’s whirring and it’s got lights on it … what’s this for?

Paddy: This is our new video server range. We’ve been producing video servers for over three years, as part of our newsroom system, but typically, they were black boxes hidden away in a corner that no one knew about. But now we’ve got our own stand alone video server. You don’t have to use it as part of an Autocue system; you can use it as an EVTR replacement, it’s a four channel, Linux play system.

Each of those channels is entirely bi-directional, so you can play out on a channel, press a button and it suddenly becomes a record channel. Unlike other video servers, you’re not limited to just having four channels – two in two out;

Paddy: Yes, so what we’ve actually got here is three of the video servers together. Typically, a video server is four channels, entirely bi-directional, but you can also daisy chain link them together. So you could use an automation to control these, but also one video server can become the master, and the other video servers can become the slaves. So essentially what we’re able to do is control all 12 ports from one box; and I could gang them all together, so if I was controlling a video wall and I wanted to play you know a mixed file across them, I could use this. If you’re doing stereoscopic, you could gang the ports together to left and right eye, ingest or play out for 3D applications.

Ed: Wow, that looks a very powerful system Shane … who would buy this in New Zealand?

Shane: Just about anyone who is looking for a cost effective server solution would be interested in this – whether you’re a church, a Community TV or regional TV station, whether you’re a postproduction house, or a production house. The fact that you can have bidirectional ports and you can gang a number of these together; you could, for example, have 12 simultaneous recordings going into the server for some kind of a Big Brother style reality TV show, then when you want to finish up, you can still keep recording on 11 or 10 of them, and you can be playing out off one or two; or, while the files are growing, you can have an Avid or an Adobe or a Final Cut Pro editing the content that’s still being recorded on those 12 ingest ports.

So it’s incredibly versatile and very cost-effective.

Ed: And it’s something I guess that you can take out on location for your Big Brother shoot, but then, when that’s finished, it’s not going to sit in a cupboard, it can be used back in the facility as storage and a true server?

Shane: Absolutely. I just think it has a lot of applications in areas where people haven’t really considered a server before, because traditionally people expect a video server to be one of the big brands, and well outside the financial reach of the new nonlinear producers who are coming through. Now more and more content is being shot and produced nonlinearly, it needs to be edited and managed on a nonlinear format.

We’re getting away from tape machines and videotape – this sort of application allows you to do that in a costeffective way.

Paddy with server—monitors not included in the price.

three in one out; one in three out, or whatever the combination you purchase is … it’s entirely open. It will integrate with other people’s systems; we support VDCP; we support P9 protocol; 232 control, so if you want to use it like a deck you can do; equally, if you want to use another automation system, you can use that as well. It is as open and as easy to use as we can make it.

So, very simple interface, very simple transport controls, “drag and drop”, the ability to create basic sequences and play lists. You are relatively file format and codec independent, so we support AVI files, .MOVs, MP2s, .m2v’s, MXF files, and we support ( in terms of codecs ) DV, DV23, DV50, DVCPRO 25, DVCPRO 50, IMX, XDCAM ( EX and HD ), ProRes for playback, DNxHD …

Ed: Yeah, yeah – pretty well it’s all there – and it’s all in one big flight case?

Ed: And in fact it’s cheaper than one of the old videotape machines?

Shane:

Absolutely.

Ed: So a baseband price for this in US dollars would be for your sort of entry product?

Paddy: So a four channel HD system plus inputs or outputs, with 8 terabytes raw storage, which works out to be about 5.4TB useable storage would be about US$14,000.

Typically with video servers, when you purchase a video server, the video server defines your workflow. It will only support a limited number of formats and codecs, so you have to spend a long time looking at the video server and all the other constituent parts around the workplace, making sure that you manage to build the workflow to meet what the video server delivers. With us, we’re open. The idea is this one just slots into an existing workflow. You don’t need to be scared about its implementation; if you’re using XDCAM, we support XDCAM; if you’re using IMX, we support IMX; if you’re using DNxHD, we support DNxHD – so it just slots into

Page 26

existing workflows.

Existing hire companies, post companies, you point out a system that could sit on the shelf as per in a hire company for one day to be a live play out device, it could then be hired the next day to be ingesting for Avids, the next day it could be used in broadcast play out from an automation system, and then the next day it could be used as an archive capture device for an existing old tape library. It’s got so many different roles. It means that any investment will pay itself back many times over in a relatively short space of time.

Ed:

It’s all about workflow Shane?

Shane: Exactly. Efficient and enabling workflow management is the key to improving the cost effective turnaround time for a project or production. Having a versatile and open video server solution cuts down on the time wasted in transcoding or re-digitising material in and out of the system.

Ed: Now Paddy, monitors, it’s unusual to see the Autocue name on a monitor?

inch units. The 17 inch E–Series has a field battery kit as well if you need to use it remotely, and we’re also producing a hood for it. The G-Series is a 10 bit panel, it’s HD-SDI and dual link in 3G, 4:4:4 colour space. It has waveform vectorscopes which can be simultaneously displayed on the screen.

It also supports 3D LUT so if you are using it in a grading application, you can load your own user settings relative to what video footage you’re grading. And then at the top of the tree, we’ve got the T-Series. The T is probably our most intriguing monitor. It is a Grade A specification LED panel – and the reason we said it’s Grade A, is it’s not quite Grade 1 specs, and a lot of monitors that say they’re Grade 1 don’t meet the EBU specifications. So instead of saying that this is a Grade 1 monitor, as other manufacturers have done, we define it as Grade A. It’s a very, very high resolution, backlit LED panel, again dual link 3G capable, with full 3D LUTs, very user configurable, but an amazing price point. This is at the same price point as the Panasonic and Sony Grade 2 equivalents. So a lot of customers that are looking at this have got the budget set aside for a Grade 2 monitor; we’ve been suggesting a G-Series as an equivalent Grade 2 monitor, with dual link or 3G capability, but when they see this monitor, they fall in love with it and buy it.

Ed: And the price … we’re looking at the 24 inch?

Paddy: So for the E–Series it’s £2,599; the G-Series is £3,799 and the T -Series which is comparable to sort of many £15,000-20,000 monitors is £6,300.

Ed: Those are good prices Shane?

Paddy: Well we’ve actually been producing monitors for over 50 years, but as part of the teleprompter range.

So this is kind of a natural progression if you like from that, and I think probably the argument would be “why didn’t we do it sooner?”

Basically, from our hardware engineers’ design perspective, they reckon it’s harder to display crisp, clean white text on a black background, with clean vector lines and no bleeding – than to show broadcast video. So this is a walk in the park for them.

Essentially we have five ranges – a large format range of 40 and 46 inch, broadcast specifications, HD-SDI input, very low latency, waveform vectorscope monitors, for use for production or for gallery type applications where latency’s important. We’ve got a quad split monitor, obviously four inputs, available to display in four video windows.

We have an E–Series range which is our entry level model, HD-SDI very high quality video return, waveform capabilities, it’s got GPO and serial control as well.

The G-Series, which is its big brother – so again, the E– Series and the G-Series are both available in 17 and 24

Shane: They are. In New Zealand for Grade 1 monitors, we’re sort of used to around about $1,000 an inch, so NZ$24,000 for a 24 inch monitor. So this is incredible. This is like half that price!

Ed: And it’s a product that you’d be happy to sell to your customers?

Shane: Oh, absolutely, I’ve had a look at it and it’s a great monitor. The pictures are great, you know it’s got all the functionality you could want; it’s got waveform monitor and vectorscope which is quite nice; it’s got switches to mono, blue-only channel, Safe Title markers … it’s got everything you’d NZVN want.

For all your Autocue enquiries, contact Shane Ormsby, Quinto Communications NZ Ltd Email shane@quinto.co.nz, Web www.quinto.co.nz

PAG Power For Quinto, we have Nigel Gardiner from PAG. Shane is in the corner, just listening for now.

Ed: Nigel, there’s a big PAG story coming out in a few months time, but for the present, PAG batteries – there is a range to suit everybody?

Nigel: We do the whole range of batteries for all cameras. There are three basic locking systems – there’s the Sony system, which is commonly known as a “V-Lock”; we’ve got the Anton Bauer, which is three point and very strong in the States; and we’ve got our

Page 28

Avid Studio Turnkey Non-Linear SD/HD System includes Protools SE for audio editing and Anologue Breakoutbox

Enjoy powerful real-time video and audio editing.

Avid Studio is a revolutionary nonlinear video editing application. Powerful real-time video and audio editing tools give you precise control over virtually every aspect of your production. Avid Studio takes video production to an entirely new level.

      

With this turnkey system you simply unpack, plug in your camera and start editing.

Get your Videos done faster with this Xtreme Workstation.

Real-time editing - Take advantage of a new, real-time editing experience that provides immediate feedback and enables you to edit with amazing speed.

Multiple timelines - Take advantage of multiple timelines to experiment more freely and manage complex projects more efficiently.

Advanced colour correction - Use colour correction tools to adjust hue, saturation, and lightness for highlights, and more.

Enhanced audio editing with pro-tool SE- Produce richer, more vibrant audio using sample-level editing, track-based effects and more Direct to DVD and Blu-Ray - AVCHD burning; DVD and Blu-ray disc authoring and burning tools

Workstation includes:

        

Intel® i7 Processor with 6GB of Memory with 4TB of Hard Drive with 1 GB of Video memory.

Configurable with DVDR and Blue-RAY DISC 23” LCD Monitor M-Audio AV20 speakers Avid Vocal Microphone with Protools SE software SD Anologue Breakoutbox

www.imagingtechnology.co.nz;

12-14 Holloway Place, Penrose; PO Box 62-157, Auckland; Tel: 09 5257888 Fax: 09 5257898

own system which is called PAGlok. We try to develop battery products which incorporate any one of these fixings, so that whichever camera, or camera system, or battery system you have, we have something that will suit your need.

Ed: So in other words you could have 20 Anton Bauer batteries and five Anton Bauer chargers, but you could buy one PAG battery and it would work perfectly?

Nigel: Absolutely.

I think some years ago, we decided that instead of being a “PAG battery and charger manufacturer”, we were a “battery and charger manufacturer”, therefore we must make product which interfaces with other connectors.

Ed: And they’re all lithium ion are they?

Nigel and Shane.

Nigel: No, probably 75 -80% is lithium ion, but we still do nickel metal hydride.

It’s a technology which maybe hasn’t reached its full potential, because I think lithium ion’s taken the ball.

Ni-MH is a safe battery technology, there’s no problems with transportation. It’s heavy – it’s more in the line of nickel cadmium, but it doesn’t have the cadmium, so it’s a “greener” battery and generally, it’s about 50% more capacity than an equivalent nickel cadmium, but it doesn’t have the downside of the pollutive chemicals that nickel cadmium has.

Ed: And of course one thing we were all expecting with camera technologies improving, was that the power consumption of cameras was going to decrease, and so either our batteries would last longer, or we could have lighter batteries, but people have come along with accessories Nigel?

Nigel: Well, there are accessories, but basically, we’ve gone from motors and moving parts in cameras to a solid state camera, but because we’re now using computers, we’ve gone from say a 25 Watt camera which has tape drives and everything, to a solid state camera which is now taking 40-50 Watt.

Ed: You’re obviously talking about a RED camera there?

Nigel:

No, no, the Sony 900 is probably 40 Watt.

Ed: So really it’s the high definition requiring a lot more power?

Shane makes a flanking sortie into this interview.

Shane: It’s a lot to do with the codecs themselves.

They ( especially the advanced codecs ) take a lot of processing power, and that processing power generates a lot of heat and takes a lot of energy to run.

Nigel: Together with that, then they want a light on the top, and that’s where our LED light’s been very successful, because they need about 35 Watt of lights, but they can’t afford to have 35 Watt of energy draw, so therefore our LED ( which is giving you about 50

Watt with 11 Watt draw ) is probably the solution. And then you’ve got radio mics and other accessories which are still taking more and more and more current.

Ed: It seems, by looking at the stand, that the L95e is the battery of choice these days?

Nigel: Yes, this is an economical range of products where we’ve realised that if we’re going to stay in the marketplace, we had to make a battery which is maybe at a slightly lesser specification, but consequently, is of lesser cost, and therefore we then compete with some of the Chinese imports.

Ed: But it’s still manufactured in Great Britain and it still has a warranty that is equal or higher than anybody else’s?

Nigel: Yes, and I think because we manufacture in the UK, we choose the cells – we would choose either LG or Sanyo, because we believe they’re the best and most reliable, and once we’ve done that, and as long as we make adequate protection for charge and discharge, then we’re going to get good warranties from our cells.

Those are the fundamentals of our products. This is true for nicad, it’s true for nickel metal hydride and it’s true for lithium ion. If you can control the charge, if you control the discharge, then you’re certainly going to get extra life out of your batteries.

Ed: Nigel – lighting and PAGlight. It’s been around for a while, it’s been adopted by a number of News agencies in the UK. Why have they chosen PAGlight?

Nigel: Well they originally chose PAGlight because you have the ability to use halogen and an HMI arc light, but just recently, because the cameras are very power hungry, they’ve adopted the new LED light which although one could say that the colour temperature is a little bit too high – it’s more like 6500 instead of 5600 – but it’s News, and the most important thing is to power the camera and get the shot and then sort out the slight variations in colour afterwards.

Page 30

Ed: And that’s something they said to you, rather than you said to them?

Nigel: Absolutely, because they don’t want to carry an enormous battery on the back of their camera.

The guys are complaining because of the weight of the camera in the first place, so to put a bigger battery which would supply maybe the ideal power for the older setup, they said they’ve got so many complaints, union problems, so they said right, no, we’re going with LED, we’re only taking 11 Watt, this is the perfect solution.

Ed: That should work in other markets too, shouldn’t it Shane … it’s only News after all?

NZVN

Shane: It’s never “only News” but I think that power management is increasingly important for the cameraman.

As Nigel said, the cameras are getting more power hungry, with more and more accessories on them, and so you need to be more careful with the power consumption you use. So if you can find a way of mitigating that by moving to something like an LED, then it’s an obvious choice.

For more about PAG and other Quinto products, contact Shane Ormsby, Quinto Communications NZ Ltd Email shane@quinto.co.nz, Web www.quinto.co.nz

Page 31

DVT at Blackmagic Stuart Barnaby begins Blackmagic stand.

for

DVT

at

the

Stuart: Blackmagic in their usual style, have come out with a huge range of new and exciting products for NAB. Ed: That’s it – it’s a massive stand and it’s right next to Grass Valley, so they’re going up in the world for a little Australian company?

Stuart: Yes, Grant Petty, who’s the owner of Blackmagic, has done a wonderful job at taking existing products and refining them and coming up with some really clever creative innovative new ones. So we’re very excited about the range that they’ve got out this year.

Ed:

Right, let’s start with item No 1?

Stuart: The first thing I’ll talk about is the DaVinci Colour Grading software …

Ed: Which a wouldn’t they?

lot

of

people

would

need

Stuart: Absolutely. DaVinci was a very high end grading tool. Last year they bought the company, ported it across to the Mac platform and sold it for US$1,000. This year they’ve brought out a new update with a range of new features and are providing that free to all the existing owners of DaVinci. They’re also taking a slightly stripped down version of the software and making it available to everybody else for free.

Ed: Scary … so who could make use of this? Is it a plug in to other NLEs? Stuart: It’s not a plug in, it’s a product in its own right, but it’s got very good integration with Adobe, Apple, Avid and Autodesk, so there are workflows that you can create to take your project into Resolve to do grading. So it’s a very powerful tool for that, but it’s

more likely that anyone doing anything serious would want to use the paid version of the software.

Ed:

Okay, No 2?

Stuart: So 4K is a big step up from the now common HD video that we get in the video world; 4K is true full feature film type resolution …

Ed: So how much bigger is that than true 1080i high definition?

Stuart: Well, 1080i is basically 1920 dots wide, 4K is 4096 dots wide, more than twice the resolution vertically and horizontally. So it’s a significant improvement in the quality of the images that you can work with and, of course, cameras like the RED One camera have been recording that resolution for quite some time, and then there’s lots of other cameras around by a range of different manufacturers here at the show this year, that are able to shoot at that resolution as well. Because most import of that material into your computer is usually done in an IT type workflow, such as transferring it in from an eSATA, USB or Firewire type connection, you don’t really need to have a 4K capture device, but what you do need to have is a 4K play back device. So having these cards that can do both capture and play back at 4K gives you a good way to monitor that material.

Ed:

And that’s the DeckLink product?

Stuart: Yes, that’s the DeckLink 4K – a new product out from them which does full 4K capture and play back.

Ed: And I see something there – hard drive. I haven’t seen that before from Blackmagic?

Stuart: Yes, Blackmagic have created quite a few new products.

This came from their acquisition of another company which had the ATEM range of production switchers, and Blackmagic being a very powerful engineering company, have decided that they can take that concept of production switching and develop a range of new products around that.

So they’ve done a bunch of stuff with production switchers which I’ll get to in a minute. In a production environment you want an easy way to be able to record what’s coming out of a vision mixer as a master record device. You may also want to have a play back device going through your mixer on location as well, so Blackmagic have developed two hard drive recorders called a Hyperdeck Shuttle and Hyperdeck Studio. The Page 32

including all the mixes and wipes directly to an attached computer.

So when you’re finished your production switch, you’ve immediately got a file that you can upload to a streaming server, and you’ve also got a recorded version of the full encoded product. The way they’ve managed to pack so much into a product that is so inexpensive is truly amazing.

And if you want to have a traditional fullblown vision mixing panel, you can buy that to control the unit if you want to.

Ed: Or you just have your own laptop?

Hyperdeck Shuttle is the small portable battery powered 4:2:2 uncompressed hard drive recorder. It does full uncompressed recording and play back, it’s very inexpensive at only US$345 and uses solid state drives (SSD) for recording and play back. So you could use it as an on-camera recorder for an EX1 or EX3 and record full uncompressed video coming out of the HD-SDI output of the camera.

In a production switching environment you could use it as a master recorder for the material coming out of your vision mixer, or you could use it as a play back device going into the vision mixer. And then they have a rack mount version, which is two of those glued together in a 19 inch rack mount 1U device.

Ed: And that’s the studio version?

Stuart: That’s the Hyperdeck Studio, yes.

Ed: Okay, and into the production switcher area, which is totally new for Blackmagic?

Stuart: Yes indeed. There’s a range of switchers that people have been using for years such as Panasonic, Edirol and Datavideo. Blackmagic have now come out with a range of new production switchers.

The entry level model, the Television Studio, is a remarkable product, because it sets a new price point for a full blown production switcher at only US$1,000.

It’s got four HDMI inputs or four HD -SDI inputs and you can use up to six of those at any one time; it’s got frame synchronisers on every input so you can mix consumer cameras with professsional HDSDI cameras. It uses software control from a Mac or PC laptop to control the switcher. It will also encode the whole production into pristine quality H.264

Stuart: Or you just have your own laptop with a lovely beautiful interface to control it. It’s fantastic.

Ed: And is that a touchscreen interface?

Stuart: It could be if you had a touchscreen on your laptop or tablet computer. There’s a range of standalone HD touchscreens that you could run the software on and actually do it with a touchscreen. Give me some time and I’ll figure out a way to do it on my iPad. Ed: Another use for your iPad Stuart?

Stuart: Grant, everybody must have an iPad! Ed: Oh, I’m avoiding it. Now, as you say, the perfect addition to this is the hard disc recorders?

Stuart: Exactly – the hard disc recorders. You could have a Hyperdeck Shuttle going into one of the inputs on the vision mixer, and to play back preprepared material you could pop that in and control it and have that playing back.

Having a Hyperdeck Shuttle on the final output to record your final show would be fantastic as well. Then it’s ready to bring it into your NLE for doing your editing.

Another thing you might want to do is to get the video to and from your camera. Blackmagic have created a “Camera Converter” which is US$595 which gives you a fibre optic connection from your camera back to the switcher. You need one of these for both ends and it will take a HD-SDI or HDMI feed from your camera to your switcher. You can go up to 14 kilometres with fibre optic cable and with the cost of fibre optic cable dropping dramatically, this will give you a cost effective way to do extremely long runs. It also has a range of other features such as tele-information, microphone and headphone support for your camera as well, which is just fantastic. So you’ve now got a full production solution that allows you to talk to your camera operators, direct them on how you want to setup the shot and all that sort of stuff, and then when you go on air, you’ll get a tele-indication in the camera when they’re actually being recorded.

Ed: But then, as you say, for the more dedicated, there are the hardware options?

Stuart: To round out the package, of course, there are far more powerful versions of the switching devices available.

Blackmagic have full 1ME and 2ME production switchers available, which again are 19 inch rack mountable. They house the vision mixer ins and outs – there’s no panels, but you can buy the operation panels separately as well. So if you want a traditional mixer, you can do that, or you can control it all via software. So a really nice modular approach to get into production switching, and with entry level price points starting quite low, now everybody can have a full uncompressed, high quality production switcher that is as good a quality as it gets. It’s fantastic. more on page 36

Page 33

Cloud Power When I was with the DVT crew, we passed a sign which read “Microsoft Cloud Power”.

Ed: Now I know that Avid have taken use of “Cloud” technology – is this something that’s going to be more and more in our space?

Stuart: Absolutely, there are more and more vendors doing it. One of the key applications you can run in the Cloud today is Cloud based encoding. Both Telestream and Digital Rapids have solutions for you to take your files, upload them into the Cloud, have the Cloud render out various versions and distribute those versions to different places. So that’s coming along.

The Cloud really is here now – it’s taking over many ERP, CRM and accounting systems. We’ve got Zero, the New Zealand based company that’s developed a Cloud based accounting solution that people use at home. So it’s coming more and more into our world.

There was some work done porting Pixar’s RenderMan ( Pixar is now owned by Disney but Steve Jobs is heavily involved in it ) to the Microsoft Azure Cloud; ( there’s a bit of irony in that ). Ultimately you could package up a Maya project including lighting, models and textures and load it up into the Cloud and have RenderMan render all the frames for you. In the future you could even work from home, creating your own productions, and by rendering in the Cloud you won’t need to have a renderwall. Cloud Computing has a lot of applications in our world and it’s growing as Internet connectivity, speed and latency improve.

Ed: But isn’t the aim also that you won’t buy a disc with a programme on it, you’ll actually connect to the Cloud and pay a licence fee and be able to use that technology?

Ed: They haven’t stopped there … it looks as though they’ve actually come up with some monitors with their brand name on them?

Stuart: Yes well, you think about what’s the next thing you’re going to need and that will be some really good little monitors, so they’ve created a thing called a SmartView Duo, which are two 6 inch monitors, paired up side by side in a 19 inch rack mount unit that could easily be mounted in a road case. Add that into the mix with the production switchers, the hard drive recorders, the camera converters and you’re starting to get a pretty well rounded production solution together.

Stuart: The big thing is how much of your traditional production environment do you push into the Cloud? At the moment, it’s quite typical for us to shoot it, edit it, and manage it all outside the Cloud, encode it and then put it into the Cloud for delivery to customers. That’s pretty traditional now, whether that delivery’s via YouTube or whatever, which is all a Cloud based service.

In the future, what we may be doing is shooting on our camera, taking our SD card and loading that material directly into the Cloud. Once that material is in the Cloud, we then edit it in the Cloud, grade it, add effects – do the whole thing in the Cloud, and also deliver our content to people in the Cloud. And that’s got some wonderful advantages because it allows you to do collaboration worldwide – all you need to do is go to a browser anywhere in the world, and you can access all of your content and manage it.

So we’re still probably years or decades away from this but … there are solutions like the encoding I talked about with Digital Rapids and Telestream that are already in the Cloud and I think, as time goes by, we’ll see more and more of those types of solutions come as we go through.

Ed: What I’m really talking about is subscription based services – that’s not the Cloud?

Stuart: Yes it is if it is delivered in the Cloud like the Xero accounting system or Cloud based encoding solutions. However if you are paying a subscription to download a programme and run it, then that is not NZVN Cloud Computing.

Ed:

And in a Perspex box, UltraStudio 3D?

Stuart: Apple and Intel, of course, have just come out with a new connection standard called Thunderbolt, which is 10 Gigabits per second connectivity. To put that in perspective, eSATA hard drives are 1.5Gbps; FireWire 800 is 0.8Gbps – so you now have a connector on MacBook Pro and iMacs which runs at 10 Gigabits per second. It’s a level of performance improvement beyond anything that we’ve really seen in the past.

Thunderbolt connectivity lends itself really well for plugging in external hard drives, which provide enormous performance capacity.

Of course one of the other things you’ll also want is to have a device that you can do your video IO with, using Thunderbolt. Blackmagic have come up with a product called the UltraStudio 3D which is an external aluminium box that’s got HD-SDI and HDMI inputs and outputs on it, with a Thunderbolt connector to allow you to control that from your MacBook Pro or iMac. The big deal with this is that now you can get external hard drives for a MacBook Pro or iMac that are capable of playing back at least four streams of full uncompressed 1080 material, and so now with the UltraStudio 3D added to the solution, you can do full uncompressed editing on one of the new modern MacBook Pros or iMac’s.

It’s NZVN phenomenal.

For all Blackmagic product information, contact DVT Phone (09) 525 0788, Email sales@dvt.co.nz : www.dvt.co.

Page 36

K-Tek Supports For Sound Techniques we are with Steve Buckland at K -Tek and we have Dave Fisk.

What Dave’s going to show us is Norbert Sport, and something that’s dear to my heart – more accessories for a DSLR. Aaaah! We’ve just lost our Norbert Sport to another Press group but we can still talk so ...

Ed: In terms of your range, there’s an awful lot of poles here Steve?

Stephen: Well K-Tek are known for their boom poles and microphone accessories.

Ed: But it’s gone beyond that hasn’t it – I mean to call them boom poles, you’re saying that you stick a microphone on the end, but users have now discovered lots, lots more uses?

Stephen: That’s right, by having a thread adapter, you can easily screw on most sorts of small cameras, and then you have, effectively, an extension to your arm, to put the camera up high, or low, or with one of those GoPro cameras, you could use it on your skateboard and record yourself skateboarding.

Steve and Michael on boom.

This is kinda taken from the idea of camera guys who do have a similar support. They said this would be really good for a lot of boom operators too who are

Ed: Or not. It’s an easy item to carry around and cheaper than a dedicated monopod?

Stephen: Exactly, yes – just simply an extension to your arm. You can reach places that you can’t reach without getting a ladder normally.

Ed:

Exactly, and it’s light and strong?

Stephen: Yes, K-Tek make the booms in materials – there’s aluminium and carbon fibre.

two

Now demonstrating the Easy Boom, which is a backpack overhead hangey device that you can hang a boom pole off, we have Michael Sujek.

Ed: Michael, this looks as though, once you’ve got yourself strapped in, you could stand for hours with this?

Michael: Absolutely, it’s definitely good. It takes all the stress off your lower back and your shoulders, so it’s great – especially if you’re on a long pole, 16 feet or 20 feet, and you’re trying to do a long scene.

Everybody’s shooting digital nowadays, they don’t keeping stopping for film, they’re just like “keep rolling” and then “let’s do it again” so this takes all the stress off your back and you’re not sitting there shaking and making all this handling noise, so this is great.

Ed: And it’s so well controlled. I had a little play with it and it’s very easy because it’s counterbalanced?

Michael: Exactly, we have the weights in the end of it … it actually makes the pole heavier, but the way that it works, it feels like it’s lighter.

Ed: And the cable’s all internal – I see there’s a Cannon style XLR connector at the side. I imagine you could also hang a video camera off the Easy Boom?

Michael: Yes, I guess technically you could … we could easily adapt that to have a camera hanging off it.

Page 37

taking a lot of wear and tear on their bodies. Easy Rig – that’s what the camera guys use.

Ed: And is the counterbalance actually adjustable – is the amount of tension in the cord adjustable?

Michael: Right now it’s not adjustable, maybe that’s a consideration, but again, it’s got two tension arms so that you can pull it down and it doesn’t keep moving on you, it’s going to stay in place. It doesn’t lock, but there’s enough tension that it will stay where you had it, without fighting against you.

Ed:

And you could even hang a DSLR off it?

Michael:

Yes, you could definitely hang a DSLR off it.

Ed: When you’ve added all the accessories, you probably need it!

Michael: Right, we’ll build the accessories for you and then sell them to you – we’d be happy to!

Now Brenda Klemme-Parker is going to tell us about Norbert Sport.

threads and you can handhold it; you can hold it upside down and sideways and it has a top handle, so you can run around on your skateboard and you can shoot things with your camera which is phenomenal. So that’s why it’s called Norbert Sport.

You can hold it up in the air and it’s really lightweight.

It’s made in the USA and it’s great quality and it’s height adjustable.

Ed: So you’ve got more space for more accessories?

Brenda has a GoPro on a K-Tek pole.

Ed: Brenda, last year we saw Norbert, but now we’re going Norbert Sport and it’s still black?

Brenda: It is black, but Norbert has grown up a bit and we now have four different Norbert kits. The one that we’re introducing today at NAB is the Norbert Sport. What’s great about it is that the sides have hand grips, so you can hold Norbert from each side. It keeps the top plate with the shoe, there’s ¼-20 and ⅜-16

Norbert Sport having a rest.

Brenda: Oh yes, you can put a monitor on it, you can put a recorder on it …

Ed: Lights?

Brenda: Lights, cameras, whatever.

Ed: And, of course, the required audio recording device?

Brenda: That’s most important of all. What we also have this year is our new shoe department. You gotta have shoes right? So let me go and show you our shoe department. Anything that you want to put on a shoe on a camera, we make. We have a shoe bar – it’s 9 inches; we have one that’s 6 inches. We’ve got a shoe plate for a nice lovely recorder or a transmitterreceiver; we have a wiggly arm with a shoe plate, so if you need to move or bend your recorder forwards or backwards you can do that with the wiggly arms – they are on a shoe, we have ¼-20 and ⅜-16 threads on a shoe on a wiggly arm.

So this is our shoe department … and they’re priced very reasonably.

Ed: I’m sure they are.

Steve, you haven’t got anything like this in your stable so far have you?

Stephen: Well I didn’t know about all the shoes, but we do have the basic Norbert and well, why not?

Page 38

Ed: But you don’t have to put the shoes onto a Norbert, you could put the shoes onto an ordinary video camera?

Ed:

I think we’ll stop there!

Stephen:

Yes, good point.

NZVN

Stephen: Exactly – and I’ve just realised that right here today Grant!

Ed: He’s quick, ladies and gentlemen, he’s quick!

Stephen: Yes, sometimes.

Ed: But wait, there’s more … Tadpole?

Brenda: There is more. This year we are introducing our Tadpole. Last year we had the Extendable Hand Grip which had the ⅜-16 thread on top, but we had a lot of requests to make a pole for small cameras, so we are introducing the Tadpole. We have two different lengths and I can hold it over your head and I can record the top of everybody.

Ed: That’s it, with the number of recorders, lights, microphones, everything getting lighter and lighter, you can use a lighter pole?

Brenda: Yes, and one of our shoe products has got a mini ball head on it.

You can put that on top of any K-Tek boom pole and then a camera on top of I just can’t stop him hamming it up for the camera. that. So, yes, we have the Tadpole, but I think it’s a result of missing out on pictures with his audio. if you already have an audio pole and you just get an adapter on top, you can throw a GoPro And it is possible to get K-Tek poles in different on top of it and you can go up 20 feet if you want. colours; aluminium poles can be custom ordered Ed: It’s got to be a winner Steve? in red or blue.

Stephen: I think so Grant, yes, as I said before, a Talk to Steve at Sound Techniques great way of having a longer arm and getting the Phone (09) 366 1750 Email digital@soundtq.co.nz camera into places where otherwise it would not be able Web www.soundtq.co.nz to reach.

Countryman Microphones The Sound Techniques audio story continues at Countryman because they have some really, really nice little microphones and we have Chris Countryman to start us off.

Ed: Chris, you’ve got a couple of microphones here to show us – one is an omnidirectional and the other is a directional, but they both look identical mics. Now tell us, why would you choose one over the other?

frequency, hypercardioid pattern that you can place to pick up a talent source even if they are moving around.

It’s discreet enough that you really have a lot of flexibility with placement.

Ed: What impresses me is the quality of your clamps to hold it onto the clothing. They look very solid and not easily broken?

Chris: Well if you can get an omnidirectional microphone very close to the source it has a lot of advantages – low handling noise, even pickup pattern so with placement you don’t have to worry as much about it; however, with a directional microphone, you get the advantage of protection from that extra ambient sound.

Ed: But what happens when the talent turns his head from left to right?

Chris: That’s why you need a directional microphone that has a really even off-axis frequency response and has a good broad but crisp pickup pattern.

Ed: And that’s what you have?

Chris: the B2D.

That’s what we have with It has a nice even, over Page 39

Chris: That’s an important piece too. You need a clamp that allows you to place it exactly where you want, and position it exactly how you want.

Our isolating clips have the advantage of a shock absorbing member which helps to take any vibration out of the cable before it reaches the microphone.

Ed: And for those very special occasions, you also have microphones on your face?

Chris: Some of the best options with miking are definitely earsets or headsets which get the microphone very, very close to the source and allow you to turn your gain down and reject as much of the ambient sound as you possibly can. You can get an advantage of 8, 10 or 12 dB over a lavalier on the chest, just by getting closer to the mouth.

Ed: And there’s one that you’ve got coming out of your ear … oh, it’s just coming over your ear, but it’s nowhere near your mouth?

Chris: We have a short version of our traditional earset, which is a directional microphone that we’ve tuned to sound very much like the omni, but we’ve been able to pull it back about 4 inches from the mouth, and the result is that you get slightly less isolation, but you get the world’s most discreet earset, which is perfect for HD video or other applications where you really need to be discreet.

Ed: So that sounds like a very good range from Countryman Steve?

Stephen: Yes Countryman are very popular. What Chris could add is that the smaller one, the B6, is waterproof. We’ve just got a client going off on a six

week filming expedition and he’s taking those, because he’s on water the whole time. They’re very popular because of their size; you can discreetly place one of them inside a buttonhole or such, and on a mediumwide shot it won’t be seen, and also the quality of them

Page 40

is as good as any other lapel mic. We’ve actually got a lot of them being used on the shoot with the short people in Wellington, where they’ve been sewn into costumes, very neat and discreet, and placed into hair I think as well.

Ed: Right, we’ve just demo with the two mics, and the omnidirectional other names for them, other names?

Stephen: Well directional.

done a little the directional – Steve has what are the

cardioid

and

omni-

Ed: Certainly the placement of the directional one is quite critical – if you’ve got it too far away from the mouth, it’s quite tinny, but if you get it in the optimum spot, it sounds fantastic and, of course, you can move it in an arc across the clothing and it still picks up exactly the right sound at quite an extreme angle – but, yes, distance is critical. In terms of taking away any background sound, hugely, hugely improved over omnidirectional.

Omni left v. directional right.

Stephen: The clip that the directional mic comes with has a swivel so you can optimise the direction that it’s pointing in, so you could effectively pin it off to one side on a person’s body and swivel to point towards their mouth, which makes it again simple to place, and also the mount as Chris might have said, is designed to minimise the amount of noise that’s conducted. It’s a

very effective shock mount, which also helps the sound NZVN quality.

Page 41

To hear the Countryman difference, contact Sound Techniques Phone (09) 366 1750 Email digital@soundtq.co.nz

KinoFlo Lighting For PLS we are at KinoFlo and we have Tom Jacob.

Ed: KinoFlo is a very successful product range in New Zealand and you continue to develop it – what’s new this year Tom? Tom: Well we’ve got a few things.

First of all, behind you here, you’ll see the new practical lamps, which is something that’s been requested in the field for gaffers for years now.

Everyone knows that everything KinoFlo make is flicker-free … until the practical lamp came along.

There is just not the real estate to put a flicker-free ballast in it. So we have to make sure we tell people that they have to shoot it at the crystal speeds, you know, 24, 30 – the standard. If you go off speed you might see some flicker there, so we want to make sure that message gets out.

On the TV side, we’ve been asked for a DMX-able DivaLite. As you know, the Diva-Lite is a semi-successful fixture – there’s about one in every car in the world, but they’re not DMX-able. So right behind you here is the Imara. There is a 6 lamp version and a 10 lamp version. It is, I would say, three times the output of a Diva-Lite; it’s power factor corrected, so it only pulls as much as a Diva-Lite, about 2 amps; it’s switchable and dimmable. The 6 lamp gives you about 16 foot candles at 18 feet; the Imara 10 gives you about 40 foot candles. They are yoke mounted, very light, very user friendly and, again, DMX-able. It has the same lamps as the Diva and they’re vertical mounted versus horizontal. They have the same type of reflector that the ParaBeam has, but smaller, so you get a nice big spread versus the ParaBeam’s more just lateral mark or hotspot.

So I think these are going to be very successful in the TV market.

Ed: That’s in the studio configuration, but I have seen the BarFlys, the single panels, used as location lights very successfully?

Tom: The 4Bank and the 2Bank are the most popular and we are now working on an integrated unit, so by the end of the year I think, the ballast will be integrated to the back of the unit and so you’ll just plug it in.

Ed: Won’t that put a bit too much weight on the top of your stand?

Tom: No, not really, we’re only talking about 4-5 pounds difference from the standard 4Bank. The Tegra is the elite 4Bank. Output is the same as a 4 foot 4Bank, but it has a new plastic housing on the end, a new hinge design, which we feel is going to be less troublesome than the current conduit – and again, these are for the photographer, the ENG, the guy who just wants to plug it in and turn it on. It’s switchable,

and for the first time as a 4Bank, dimmable, a feature the 4Bank has never had, and with the integrated ballast, plug it in, turn it on, it’s also universal power supply.

You can use it anywhere in the world, automatic detect – so you can use it in Australia, New Zealand, Japan …

Ed:

Rwanda?

Tom: Rwanda, UK, Los Angeles, and it’s also power factor corrected, so you use half the power of the regular 4Bank. This only pulls about 2.2 amps and you get the output of about a 1-1.2K soft light.

Ed: Aren’t you a bit worried about plastic though – I mean, it has a bit of a negative connotation to make a lamp housing out of plastic?

Tom: Not really, because they run so cool. This has been on for about 1½ hours and I can touch them with my hand, so there’s no heat there. And you do have a reflector in between the plastic … and don’t forget the lamps are also plastic coated for safety. So this plastic is nice and cool, you can’t even really feel it.

They’re designed for shows like Dr Phil where there’s about six inches of room. Another use is on feature films, when they use foam, and they carve foam objects or statues or whatever – the layout like Tron, Kino Flos go in there because there’s no heat and it’s colour correct.

Ed: The other thing I find particularly cool is your little side flags?

Tom: This is called the “BatWing”. It is a clip-on louvre; they come in a set of five and they’re called the BatWing because you can take both sides on a little Velcro slide and widen them or shorten them, depending on how wide you want your barn doors.

These were designed and developed in co-ordination with us and Dave St Onge who’s been the gaffer on 24 for 8, 10 seasons. What it does, is it allows you to cap the side spill which a lot of people want to do, but still allow ventilation, and it gives you more control, because the 4Banks spread quite a lot. A lot of guys wrap these

Page 42

More LEDs from Dedolight

Diffuser included V Lock & NP-F battery mount on board Mains power supply included Remotable dimmer included From $1700 plus GST

Phone (09) 3024100

Email: info@kelpls.co.nz

Website: www.kelpls.co.nz

The BatWings really are effective.

up, they get too hot and they’ll go green. you’re keeping ventilation and control.

This way

Ed: I see you’re clipping these actually onto the tubes?

Normally, when you’re handling fluorescent tubes, you’re always really careful because you knock them and bang, they go pop, and here you are clipping things on and off, so I guess these are not ordinary fluorescent tubes?

Tom: coated.

Well these are two things : they’re safety However, this is only on our T12 lamps; our

Matthews Supports For PLS, we’ve come to the Matthews stand to meet with Linda Swope.

Divas and TV studio lamps are not safety coated, because usually they’re put in, they stay in.

The 4Banks can be changed from daylight to tungsten and in rental houses, that happens quite a lot.

So the safety coating is, if you drop it, all the lamp shards will stay inside that envelope. Nothing will blow or pop out, so it’s a safety thing.

But there’s a secondary advantage that we found by accident – these block the low UV part of the light range, and you can use these to light if you’re doing something in a museum.

Rare artefacts that don’t normally allow photography, they’ll allow these in, and they’re used in museums all over the world for restoration or copying an original – you know, maybe very, very old paintings. So this is the way to go – safety coating! That was found out by accident, that the harmful UV was actually being decelerated, or the output was diminished to almost nothing with these. The Diva-Lites, things like that, you have to be aware that they’re not safety coated, because these do get a little hot to the touch, but still not that hot that you can’t handle them.

Ed: That’s probably enough from KinoFlo for one year?

Tom: I think so – and I’m hoping next year we’ll NZVN have more stuff.

To find out more about KinoFlo product, contact PLS at Phone (09) 302-4100 Email info@kelpls.co.nz Website www.kelpls.co.nz

show. It is mounted on a runway base, so if you want to get four in a row, it’s on the base to move around

Ed: Linda, I’ve just come from Kino Flo, and I see that they have a Matthews stand and I notice here you’ve got some Kino Flo lights – you’re obviously working happily together?

Linda: We are happily working together.

This is our new product, it’s called the K-Stacker, and basically it’s made so you can stack Kino Flo fixtures.

Here we’ve got two stacked together to enable us to get this “tower of power”.

Ed: Ooooh is trademark is it?

Linda:

that

a

No …

Ed: Well some refer to Chris as “tower of power”?

Linda: I didn’t know that! Well Chris I’m sorry if I’ve stolen something from you, but that’s just what we’re calling it here at the

Linda with the DC Slider.

Page 44

Speed to Get the Shot

09 6300753/info@lacklands.co.nz

easily. You can also take one and mount it into a Low Boy Combo Stand if you want to put two; you can also hang it from a grid.

Ed: But surely you could stack other things as well?

Linda: Oh sure, yes, all sorts of fixtures, it doesn’t have to be Kino Flo for that, though Frieder has blessed it and did all the photography for it.

Ed: Before you invented the Stacker, how would they have stacked multiple Kino Flos?

Linda: It was very cumbersome – they would have to use more than one stand and bits and pieces and just kind of hold it together with different bits and parts.

Ed: Another new innovation – this looks very much like a crane?

Linda: Well this is not really a crane. It’s called our DC Slider; it’s a slider and it’s a mini-jib all in one. In this configuration here, it’s shown as a jib. We’ve got another configuration where you can run it straight up and down as a tower; and another configuration where you can move the arm as well as the camera, to get some pretty amazing jib slider shots.

Ed: Now for those of us who are unfamiliar with sliders, I mean this was probably a “filmy” thing to do, but now you’ve introduced this into the video world … just explain what “sliding” is?

Linda: Well sliding is just where you mount the camera, and it slides the camera back and forth, up and down, at an angle. There is a counter-balance for the head and camera so the motion is smooth.

Ed: But you can also use it as a jib?

Linda: Yes, you sure can.

The slider comes in two cases, so it’s easy to take around, assemble and use.

Ed: Now the other product I haven’t seen before is MAX? Linda: MAX has been around for quite a while.

Ed: It looks quite industrial?

Linda: It is, it’s just a MAX Menace Arm and it’s basically to extend the light up, out and over.

That particular MAX will hold about 60Kg. Ed: It’s not elegant, but very practical?

Linda: It’s very practical, and it does the job when you need a big, beefy arm to get up and out with your light source.

How to stack your Kino Flos.

Ed:

So that’s why it’s got a guy’s name?

Linda: That’s why it’s got a guy’s name – but then we have Mini MAX and MAXine …

Ed: MAXine’s beautiful.

Linda: Ah-ha, she is beautiful – very thin, very lightweight but strong.

To get your hands on a MAXine or other Matthews product, contact PLS at Phone (09) 302-4100 Email info@kelpls.co.nz Website www.kelpls.co.nz

MAX and MAXine together at last.

Page 46

RED was there I never got inside the big red tent to sample the KoolAid but there was noticeable public interest in the attraction. No, they weren’t giving out free sunglasses or magic dust, they were performing a live buttock tat workshop to show off RED power with lots of close-ups.

Nothing gratuitous mind you!

On other stands, there were plenty of examples of product being made specifically for RED and more specifically for the long anticipated Epic.

A major supporter was AJA with their Ki Pro—they even had a RED engineer at their Press Breakfast showing us the two clipped together. I’m not sure if it was taking pictures, but a lot of pictures were taken of it by one section of the media.

I’d really love to have some sane person explain the value of the RED concept to me in comparison to what else is on offer these days. Please contact me to arrange an interview if you exist. Ed.

UNE ISSUE More from NAB 2011 including Sony, Rycote, Canon lenses, Hamlet, Swit, Sound Devices, Wohler, Technodolly, Apace, Schneider Optics, Sachtler, Chrosziel, Matrox, Petrol, Zeiss Optics, Datavideo, PortaBrace, Dedolight, Plura, LA Acoustic, JVC, Teradek, Adobe and Square Box.

Testing Sites In a follow-up to last month’s lead story about electrical safety and testing, Chris McKenzie offers these people and places of contact.

The Bible on what is required AS/NZS3760: 2003 This is the standard that sets out the requirements for testing.( and all other electrical matters!!)

Sources of Equipment to Test and some that tag too.

Metro Test Ltd 0800 638 768—www.metrotest.com/ AVO New Zealand 0800 485 990 Megger and AVO Products www.avo.co.nz/products-mainmenu-64/category/73/portable -appliance-testers?gclid=COzr0dKavqgCFQrgbgodnDnAqQ Test & Tag People Craig McDonald 021-628 378 Craig does bulk testing and logging for a number of the gaffers around Auckland and as such would be the person I recommend as he has a good understanding of the gear he is working with. He would be my first person I would approach to do testing.

The numbers below are a selection of companies which offer a generic test & tag service, some are NZ wide, some are Auckland.

Test & Tag 0800 837 8824 Tagman's Test and Tag 0800 824 626 Jim's Test & Tag 0800 454 654 Tag Hunter Ltd 0800 824 486

Page 47

Avid Audio To begin the Protel story at NAB, we are at Avid with Rob Paris from Protel.

Ed: Rob, Avid continues to develop – some of us are a little bit sceptical about the developments, because one would think that we’d have it sorted by now, but what you’re saying is this … finally, there’s been some unbundling, there’s been some open doors, some embracing of other people’s technology which production facilities have. They have other vendors’ products and now Avid is able to talk to a lot more products, and talk to them well?

Rob: Correct.

What happened here at NAB last year was Avid announced their first unbundling of software products such as Pro Tools and Media Composer, to start working with other manufacturers’ hardware.

Rob and Tom for Avid Audio.

brands

and

other

At the time it was a Matrox MXO2 and now this year, there’s an AJA IO hardware device used for Media Composer capture. Also late last year, Pro Tools was unbundled for the very first time in its history and it now talks to anybody’s hardware – any other manufacturer that makes an audio capture card or play out device, Pro Tools will work with. That may not sound significant, but it is actually huge news for existing editors who now have that flexibility, and it is proof that Avid really are opening up in their solutions, by embracing other technologies, formats and standards.

Ed: So you can actually use the Pro Tools software with your own hardware in most cases, or you can use the Avid hardware with other software in a number of cases?

Rob: Exactly. The Mbox family in particular has just been revised to its third generation – that hardware is the best sounding in its class and price point, and will talk to anybody’s software such as Logic, Cubase, Performer, Final Cut Pro – anyone who makes software that needs an audio IO device can use the fantastic sounding Avid Mbox.

Ed: And the industry must have recognised it, because I understand Avid has won yet another award?

Rob: Actually, to date Avid’s innovative digital audio and video solutions have earned the company hundreds of prestigious industry awards, including 14 Emmy® Awards, one Grammy® Award and two Oscar® statuettes.

In fact, in the audio post production industry, for the past 11 consecutive years, every nominee for a Sound Editing Oscar has used a Pro Tools system.

To continue the Avid Audio story, we have Tom Graham from Avid and Rob Paris from Protel.

Ed:

I guess you’re an audio specialist Tom?

Tom: Yes, I’m a segment marketing manager, basically handling the postproduction audio and professional mixing.

Ed: Yes, well that’s where we’re going.

Euphonix has obviously been big for you?

And buying

Tom: It’s been a big positive move. You know there was some great momentum we had carried with the ICON and the C|24 in that people really have adopted mixing in the box as a very acceptable method for postproduction especially, and by the same token, the ergonomics of Euphonix consoles and the hybrid capabilities of being able to use the DSP engine of the console and the EuCon layer to get software control of Pro Tools, Nuendo, or what have you, was really attractive to a lot of our customers. It was something that we didn’t have, a DSP engine that could stand alone as a console, without being tied directly to Pro Tools.

Rob: And the Artist Series controllers – is it true that they will talk to a number of different manufacturers’ products, such as Final Cut and Color?

Tom: Absolutely so. Another request that had come to us from our customers was that it would be great if my ICON could control Logic, or my C|24 could control Final Cut as well. The Artist Series with EuCon had already bridged that gap, and it made sense to us to expand our Command 8 where that worked with Media Composer and Pro Tools – to expand that to do even more, and they had already figured it out and it just made sense. It was a perfect marriage, there wasn’t a lot of overlap in products or in competitive areas; it was just a perfect fit.

If you looked at everything from the Artist Series then the C|24, the DCommand, the D-Control, the System 5-MC, the Fusion, the System 5 – it’s the perfect line-up and really offering the customer the way they want to work. And, as you know, in the post industry, a lot of times the editorial person may do volume graphing in Pro Tools and then they go to the next stage, and the mixer may

Page 48

want his own separate layer of DSP automation, so that he’s not fighting or erasing the mixer for the editor’s automation.

Rob: Media Composer for $450; Pro Tools 9 for $450; to students, teachers, schools – four years free software upgrades. It’s an unbelievable offer, I know.

Ed: Rob, have you found this in reality with your customers that they’ve really embraced this?

Ed: What happens after four years – can they keep using it?

Rob: Yes absolutely.

We’re installing Artist Series controllers to a wide variety of users now – video and audio; often nothing to do with Avid’s other products, they’re not necessarily on Media Composer, they’re not necessarily on Pro Tools. It’s another factual example that Avid have opened up and here are the products to prove it, and the solutions that they provide.

Tom: Sure, but then they would be theoretically educated and out, so if they wanted to buy a new version they would have to pay the regular upgrade price to do that at that point.

Tom: And another comment, that it really came from our customers and the desired workflow was to be able for you to use Pro Tools on a laptop without any hardware, and be able to take that, work on their project and then seamlessly go back and forth, or use a third party interface if that was the case. So it is more

Ed: Now Rob, there’s a whole lot of different controllers here all with Avid labels on them, but you don’t have to buy all of them do you?

Rob: No, they’re all available individually, so in the Artist Series there are four in the range – Transport, Color, Control and Mix. Ed: So I guess depending on what your facility is, you would choose one or more?

Rob: Yes, if you need multiple faders, you would use multiple Mix modules; if it was purely transport, control and jog / shuttle wheel, you’d use the Transport item, etc. If you wanted global controls via the touch sensitive colour screen, you would use the Artist Series Control.

of our open policy and it also was kind of a request, especially from the post people, that hey, we need the OMF and AAF import and export option and we need the timecode ruler which was previously a paid option – that’s now all included in every version of Pro Tools – no extra charge. So really, ultimately it’s about listening to your customers.

Rob: Tom could you tell us a bit about education which is another new area where Media Composer and Pro Tools have special versions available for students, teachers, schools and tertiary?

Tom: Sure. I know on the Media Composer and Pro Tools side, we have a great offer for students; a great price plus they get four years of upgrades for free. We’re very serious about students and about young people learning Pro Tools, learning Media Composer, going out in the real world, because many top professionals cutting sound and picture for films are using Avid products.

Rob: As New Zealand’s local dealer, we’re making Media Composer 5.5 and Pro Tools 9 available to students for $450 +GST Ed: You’re $450?

making

Media

Composer

available

at

Ed:

Ed: Now one last thing, you’ve got a certain upgrade path you want to tell your customers about?

Rob: Yesterday Avid announced the ability to cross-grade from Final Cut to Media Composer 5.5 – that is the full boxed version of Media Composer complete with full Production Suite Bundle for NZ$1399 +GST. Any version of Final Cut Pro, all we need is the serial number and documentation.

Ed: So you could even keep your Final Cut Pro and just get the box?

Rob: Absolutely, start using them both.

Keep Final Cut and add Media Composer in for just $1399+. It’s a very, very good deal.

A limited offer?

Rob: I recommend giving this offer serious thought now as it is will expire on June 18, 2011.

NZVN If anything here takes your fancy, contact Protel Phone 0800 PROTEL Email Rob.Paris@protel.co.nz

CalDigit Storage For Protel we have Glenn Miers with Jared Picune from CalDigit.

Ed:

Now Jared, what does “CalDigit” stand for?

Jared: California Digital – a US based company out of southern California. It started about seven years ago and we build and design RAID storage products specifically for the content creation industry.

Ed: Obviously there are many RAID storage products around, but you’ve developed yours specifically, as you say, for this creative industry because …?

Jared: Creative professionals need higher bandwidth and more capacity than everyday users, so we can focus on that niche and provide products that work specifically for their needs, so they don’t have issues with throughput or capacity. Also for support – if

Page 49

from the ground up. We’re not using third party chassis and we’re using only quality drives that we certify. So (1) we have complete control over the hardware; and (2) we certify the drives – it takes anywhere from 2-3 months to actually certify any model that we use, so we know that it’s going to be up to our standards. You can’t guarantee that every drive is going to last forever, but we know that we’re using ones that are there, because we have a warranty, so we can replace them if there are any problems. Then we use RAID protection in our products, so if a drive does fail, you are protected – you can swap out a drive, rebuild, and you’re up and working again. Because we have complete control over the hardware, we have to provide better support, because we know that the controller card, the drives and everything is working well together.

Ed: That’s fine for you to say that you can provide the support, but how do you support Protel in New Zealand?

Jared: Well first off, we support Protel by testing products before they’re shipped, so when Protel receives their products they know that they’re working out of the box. We also support them by providing training documents and things so they can provide local support; and we also assist with support directly if we need to.

Ed: Now one interesting graphic I see there on the screen is all the different connections that you have. I guess this is something that’s very important in today’s environment – and that’s that different facilities have different connections?

Glenn with Jared from CalDigit.

they’re going to be using special software like Final Cut Pro, or Avid, we can support them and know that our products are going to work with those software packages.

Ed: So how will you know that your RAID storage system isn’t actually coping with what you’re trying to do with it?

Jared: Generally the problem shows up in video with dropped frames. Our high end products actually have something called “ASTT” which is Active Sustained Transfer Technology. It works like a vice to keep the throughput extremely consistent. If you look at a chart of read and write speeds on a standard drive, you have sudden drops in speed, it’s not very consistent. If you look at our products on a chart of read and write speeds, it’s extremely consistent.

Ed: And obviously there’s a range there from a single unit to multiple units?

Jared: Yes, we have everything from a single drive or AV drive product, which uses USB 3.0, up to a 24 drive system, the HD Pro 24 which can do about 1600 Megabytes a second, so super-fast.

Ed:

And you’re able to manage 4K easily?

Jared: Very easily with that system – even on a SAN based network we have something called “SuperShare” which allows you to share an HD Pro 24, and / or an HD Pro 2, amongst multiple workstations.

Ed: Now what about reliability? Drives these days are just about all made in China, they don’t seem to have the longevity of drives from years ago? How do you get around that?

Jared: We do several things. The first thing about CalDigit is that we build and design all of our products

Jared: Yes, right now different products support different protocols. We have several products that are quadruple interface – FireWire 800, 400, USB 2.0 and eSATA. We also support USB 3.0 – we’re the first manufacturer for the Mac to support USB 3; we also support external PCI Express on our higher end products and in the future we’ll see more USB 3 SATA 6G and Thunderbolt developments.

Ed: Glenn this sounds like it’s one device to rule all – why would you need anything else?

Glenn: Well, there’s always going to be different products that will suit different users. With the CalDigit line, it’s the robustness of the product that’s important.

It’s been QC’d extensively before it’s even hit our shores, there’s the new AV drive that’s come out with USB 3 and FireWire 800 on it.

The FireWire 800 connection has been optimised by CalDigit – it’s actually faster than any other implementation of FireWire 800 interface, getting around about another 10 Megabytes per second off it, which is all good for video playback.

The CalDigit RAIDs, having been optimised by CalDigit, are robust and reliable …

Ed: A lot of good things. In terms of the user of a product like this, it’s not going to be a major broadcaster because they’ve got a huge SAN; it’s not going to be the small wedding videographer because they’ve got all their drives in their PC or Mac, but it’s going to be somewhere in between?

Glenn: No, I disagree. I think you’ll find that these products actually fit across the entire range of users.

We’ve got these units in major film companies that are using them for their video village for providing backup on set, and for moving media from set to editorial; we’ve got people using single drive solutions running off their laptops or off their iMac for editing as well; videographers – wedding videographers, photographers using them for storing all of their photographs and stuff as well; audio – right across the whole range of

Page 50

anybody doing professional productions could use these product lines.

I think the other thing to remember with these types of drives is that you can go and buy a real cheap USB or Firewire drive unit, but the important thing with the CalDigit product line is that they’ve been constructed to provide better heat dissipation, better drive performance, they’re quieter … the components that are in there ( and particularly in CalDigit’s case ) are designed in-house, they make their own components and their own board-level stuff. They’re not bundling a whole lot of somebody else’s components together to make it work, so they’re optimised to work really well and be robust and reliable and that’s what people want, certainly in our industry anyway!

NZVN For more on the Caldigit range, contact Protel Phone (09) 379 8288 or (04) 801 9494 Web http://www.protel.co.nz

AJA for Protel For Protel we are at AJA with Bryce Button.

Ed: Bryce, I went to the Press do this morning, a lovely breakfast, but more importantly, the overall impression I got was that AJA is really becoming a big company with a future?

Bryce: Oh yes, as a company we’ve been around for 17 years already but we have had tremendous growth over the last number of years. It was 35% growth last year and obviously there’s got to be a reason that that’s happening, because bottom line, the world’s economy has not been great. When it comes down to the fact that we’re an engineering based company, that’s the heart of it, and any sales and marketing efforts that they put out there grow from that engineering knowledge first.

We’re not all about creating smoke and mirrors.

Ed: That’s exactly it, because you’ve produced a range of “brick” products which are pretty much industry standard in a lot of areas; you’ve produced now the Kona 3G card which everybody uses, and the Ki Pro Mini and the Ki Pro. But you haven’t stopped there, you’ve continued to develop further products and so it’s not just a case of a “one product wonder” company, it’s a company with, as you say, lots of good engineering behind it?

Bryce: Oh yes, and in many ways it was just a few years back that we decided for both the market and for ourselves, to break our

product lines down into the acquisition, convert and edit areas, which helps us communicate which particular product is probably best suited for various applications within one of those niches; but also to help us, as a company, understand ourselves better, because as you grow you want to be pretty clear about what it is that you do and don’t want to do.

The other thing we’re about is that we like to be extensible with what we do and today, we did something pretty damn significant : we provided 4K for free. So folks who invested in a Kona 3G card, all they have to do is to download the new 9.0 software, and off you go, you can now do 4K play out. It’s that type of forward thinking we put into pretty much every product,

Page 51

and it’s allowed us to build a reputation for being reliable.

We’re not always the first to market on everything, but sometimes what is required to do the job right takes a little more effort and time.

For the Ki Pro Mini, we just released a firmware update which has more frame rates, CF card support and LAN control.

A good example of why that might be important is, let’s say, cheaper HDMI cameras may not be sending timecode down the HDMI, so with a little LAN controller, you can stop and start from the camera and the Ki Pro Mini will stop and start alongside it.

Ed: And the other good thing is that, if you don’t yet have a Kona 3G card, you can buy it for the same price but now you get 4K with it?

Bryce: That’s correct. You know our pricing from that kind of point of view is done really simply. We take the components that we believe are the best to get the job done and we simply apply our standard margin to it.

We don’t go at the market thinking whose kneecaps can

we break today! That’s just kinda not our business model you know.

Ed: Well that sort of makes sense when you have a business partner such as Apple?

Bryce: Yes, Apple’s obviously one of our major business partners, but of course there are many you know – Adobe, Autodesk – you look at all of the software companies that have their products in our booth. Here we’re showing workflows for the Kona 3G card for instance, on every single one of these platforms, so Adobe, Sony Vegas, Io Express, Avid with the 5.5 software.

Ed: And the big announcement this morning, sticking a Ki Pro Mini on the back of a RED Epic?

Bryce: Yes, so there were a number of big announcements this morning, but yes, we had Ted Schilowitz from RED who has been a fabulous partner and, quite frankly, a member of the old AJA family.

Basically, RED is recommending that people who are working with the new Epic, which has the ability to output 1080p out of its SDI, should really be attaching to the Ki Pro – and this is the Ki Pro Mini where the form factors mesh very well.

The reliability of the Ki Pro Mini is huge for their users, because people working with a camera like the Epic tend not to be doing experimental work so to speak.

It’s going to be used on everything from mid to high range projects, so reliability is key and that’s one of our key points as a company.

Ed: Well it’s obviously good for RED because they don’t have to develop a recorder for that 1080p workflow or the proxy workflow – you’ve done it. Now, there’s a few new products that have code names I see – not actually to market yet, but a sort of “watch this space”?

Bryce: Yes, under the heading of “coming soon” we set up at the booth here a tech preview area, and what we’re showing are two different products codename Phaser and codename Riker – so what are these two beasts? Well the codename Phaser is a first look at our coming Thunderbolt implementations.

So it effectively has the nice shape and form factor of our previous Io Express,

Page 52

through the Thunderbolt cable into the MacBook Pro. So that’s completely live and real. We’re not wanting to give it a name right now; price points and so on haven’t been set. You bring it to a show like this – why?

Because we knew Thunderbolt was going to be important after Apple’s announcement, and we wanted to make it very clear that, yes, we have announced we’re doing something and we wanted to show people.

Ed: So what is Thunderbolt?

Bryce: Thunderbolt is a brand new technology derived from Intel’s work, so it’s an Apple-Intel relationship. On these MacBook Pro’s, they’ve brought out what they’re calling “Thunderbolt”. Thunderbolt is Intel’s technology applied.

and of course the Io Express is still on the market, but with Thunderbolt plus a whole bunch of other new options, so up / down / cross conversions, the ability to output – there’s 6 RCAs in the back for instance to deal with sound, and FireWire; we’ve still got component output – it’s going to be an incredible little device, but it’s not a product right now per se. We’ve shown a case that more or less gives an idea of what people can expect, and in the tech preview area we’ve effectively set up one of those little grey metal boxes, that’s an engineering prototype type thing …

Ed: I thought you said you’re not into “smoke and mirrors”?

Bryce: That’s why we don’t have the smoke and mirrors – the engineering box has got the hardware in it. So the key point there is we’re actually showing on floor ( which nobody else is ) a camera shooting the case, and the camera’s SDI is going into the engineering prototype and actually kicking out the video

Ed: And the opposition is USB3?

Bryce: Well no, because USB3 can be handled over Thunderbolt. You’ll notice if you look at one of the new MacBooks that it looks like the old display port right, so Thunderbolt supports all these different protocols.

USB3 is one of those protocols it supports; the display port is one of those protocols it supports, and then of course video IO from partners like ourselves are supported within it. So it’s a combination of various protocols, etc that have been brought to bear.

Ed: So somebody else might come up with another connection that also handles USB3?

Bryce: Oh sure, we fully expect … I mean the great news here is you’re simplifying life.

You’re moving to a single cable that will daisy chain between these different devices, and the actual devices that are connecting are maybe using any one of a number of protocols. If it’s a screen, it’s going to of course use a display port.

Ed:

We’ll look forward to that.

For the above mentioned AJA product, talk to Protel Phone (09) 379 8288 or (04) 801 9494 Web http://www.protel.co.nz

GoPro Sport Cameras For Protel, we are at the GoPro stand.

There are various combinations of GoPro cameras, including 3D, set up here. Now, you don’t have to gaffer tape two together yourself, they actually mount in a new housing and of course we know that it’s NTSC and PAL and with a range of frame rates. Just to tell us a little bit about this is Richard Loughery from GoPro. Ed: Now these have been very successful in New Zealand Richard and I guess one of the big features that has happened recently is the addition of the LCD screen – even though you bought a GoPro in its original pack

Richard has stereo GoPros for you.

Page 54

NZVN

without the LCD screen, you just buy the screen and it clips on?

Richard: Yes sir, you can add on the LCD backpack for NZD$160.00 and it just plugs right into what we call our HERO bus, which is an expansion port at the back of the camera.

It’s the same bus that allows this camera to be modular, so then you can connect two GoPros together to shoot 3D. And then you could buy our battery backpack for NZD$90.00 and connect that on the back to get double battery life … and if you look in there, you’ll see some concepts of cameras where we actually have three GoPros strung together.

They’re all connected through the HERO bus, so it’s really the whole idea of future proofing the basic camera so you

4D?

you can set it to do time lapse mode, to have it take a photo every 5 seconds, so then you’re going to have a whole bunch of photos that you can create a 3D time lapse sequence with. That’s really cool as well.

We also have software available so the average user – someone like myself who is not an editing expert – I can now create a 3D video. I get these two HD video files out from my two GoPros and then I put them onto my computer, we use our GoPro CineForm Studio software and that will mux them together and create a 3D video.

Ed: Any plans to improve the audio?

Richard: Well the improvements for the audio are really in the skeleton housing and the open back doors, which allow a lot more audio input. Now granted, as soon as you put the skeleton housing on, and the open back door, it’s no longer waterproof, but for motorsport, mountain biking, things like that, it’s fine.

Ed: Excellent, so the sky’s the limit?

Extreme surfing fun.

Richard: The sky is the limit.

For more on the GoPro, contact Protel Phone (09) 379 8288 or (04) 801 9494 Web http://www.protel.co.nz

can build and add on accessories, add on function and still protect your investment in your original camera.

Ed: So that’s it, to go 3D, all you need to do is buy two standard GoPros, a bus connector and then the box that they go in. When you put them in the box, they line up so that you get that correct 3D image?

Richard: Absolutely.

You power the cameras on and then there’s one button on the top, the shutter button.

Press that and it starts both the cameras recording; at the same time the synching cables make sure that it’s constantly in sync and constantly Genlocked throughout the whole process.

Not only does it do 3D video at 1080p, but it also does 3D photos, so

Take your GoPro to the skies under this helicopter.

Page 55

Sony Part One Once again, Sony had a large presence at NAB so David and I sorted the treats into two meals to provide you sustenance over the next two issues.

Ed:

An entree David?

David: Well, the slogan that you can see in that great big sign above your head there Grant, is “Believe Beyond HD” and I guess that encapsulates the two themes that are prevalent in the show for us.

One of them is the 3D theme, which is something that we’re seeing increasingly incorporated into products and workflows across the board and maturing rapidly, so that it’s really becoming a relatively straightforward process to shoot and postproduce and display 3D for television and movie creation. So that’s one theme; and the other theme is “Beyond HD” I guess in its truer sense, which is where we are extending the resolution of production, so that the images are of higher resolution, 4K as an example.

Ed: That’s it, they’re quite different technologies but both very advanced?

David: Well obviously the two together will be a factor in the future too.

Ed:

Ed:

Okay, but that’s the future?

David: Well in fact it’s the future we are showing on this stand as real products.

So 4K 3D at a high frame rate?

David:

editorial quality about that frame rate, but we are moving quickly into electronic delivery of movies and obviously perceptions are changing in the audience, and as you say, with 3D which tends to be more invasive to the human perceptions in terms of the cognitive process and so on, probably there’s a very strong argument there to move to higher frame rates, yes.

4K 3D at higher frame rates, yes indeed.

Ed: But that’s something that has to come together doesn’t it? I understand that if you do go to 4K, you really can’t have a 25p frame rate?

Ed: Okay, where shall we start? We’re standing in front of the F65 and it’s certainly not a handheld camera David?

David: Well our new camera, the F65, is an 8K camera, 20 million pixels on the sensor, and is the highest resolution camera, the first true 4K camera inasmuch that it is an 8K resolution camera with a true 4K workflow.

It will operate up to 120 frames per second. So a typical 48 Hertz frame rate, which is the direction that has recently come into vogue for 3D production, is a relatively trivial matter for this camera.

David: Certainly it’s a camera designed for the high end where a range of facilities are required.

Ed: But, technology wise, that is the sensible thing to do … that if you do “up” your resolution that far, you also need to “up” your frame rate?

David: I think there’s still a magic that people associate with 24 frames per second, so there is a kind of

Page 56

Ed: Right. But other manufacturers out there have got little tiny camcorders that are 4K? David: Well firstly, we need to actually be more specific about how we define 4K. This is, as I say, a 20 million pixel sensor with an 8K resolution, and the workflow proposed for it currently is for 4K – a full 4K workflow. Also, the camera body design is optimised to handle the enormous data rate without sacrificing product reliability. It’s designed the way it is because of the requirements of 24/7 in the most extremely onerous environments and with 100% reliability for very high end cinematography applications.

similar kind of ergonomic design. It has two half inch, three chip CMOS sensor cameras and records separately onto two separate SxS cards left and right eye, and rather uniquely, we are now offering the solution with the lens which has a coaxial zoom focus and convergence control on the side of the lens.

Ed:

So it’s all-in-one?

David: It’s an all-in-one solution for the issues relating to how do you control the lens, which is an issue with 3D acquisition. So lens focus, lens zoom and

Ed: So is this a replacement for the Genesis?

David: Well I can’t offer any comment about Genesis, that’s from Panavision.

However it’s not a replacement for the F35 – F35 is also very much ongoing – but this is addressing the requirement for extremely high performance.

This exceeds the performance of any camera ever offered on the market before.

Ed: Are we likely to see other 4K variants in the future do you think?

David: Certainly the answer would be “yes”. It’s obviously going to be a developing theme for sure.

Ed: Now in the 3D space we did see a prototype of an “all-in-one” 3D camera from Sony at IBC. This one’s looking more and more like it’s a real product David?

David: Yes it is. Here we have the PMW-TD300.

This is in response to rapidly growing demand from the 3D industry and has the benefits of mobility and easy set-up before shooting, compared to 3D rig solutions using two cameras. People seeing it would actually consider it to be quite similar to the PMW-350, the XDCAM shoulder style camcorder.

It’s based on a

convergence are all integrated together in one control under the left hand of the camera operator and it works rather smoothly and nicely to give efficient …

Ed: So finally you’ve got a 3D camera that one person can operate?

David: It is, yes. It’s really designed for a raft of different scenarios – I guess typically for basic 3D projects of all sorts, in the kind of middle ground of the industry, including live events, documentary or Web video.

Ed: So if you took just one of the feeds, like the left eye or the right eye, would that be equivalent to what you’d get out of a 350?

David: It would be about the same as a 320.

This is a half inch camera, so more or less exactly equivalent to the PMW-320.

Our studies show that by using a 1/2” sensor we can achieve an ideal balance between high picture quality and compact design – the body is of similar size to current 2D models.

Ed: Now I have to say that is the first practical design of a handheld 3D camera, one

Page 58

person operator version, that I’ve seen, so it should be good?

David: I’m sure it should actually fit the bill pretty well for people really wanting to get serious about 3D production in a practical way, yes.

Ed: But there’s also a smaller version that you’ve brought out?

locks up into a nice 3D view in the viewfinder, and you’re confident that you’ve got a proper 3D image.

I’ve been playing with this, and it seems to work every time.

Ed: Easy-peasy.

We’ve just adjusted the convergence in the LCD viewfinder with no need for any glasses and it’s perfect once checked on the big monitor.

David: Yes, it’s operating in the same fashion as you would shoot with a normal compact video camera, with no other real overhead in terms of getting the job done.

Ed: Have we worked out what the recording mechanism is?

David: The HXR-NX3D1 employs Multiview Video Coding (MVC). This is part of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard and enables efficient encoding of sequences captured simultaneously from multiple cameras using a single video stream. The new Vegas Pro 10.0d will be able to directly import MVC files taken by HXR-NX3D1 as 3D clips.

David: Yes, that’s right. There’s the HXR-NX3D1.

Now I really adore this camera and it works so beautifully. It’s a little handheld 3D camera which has an auto stereoscopic viewfinder, and it has a convergence control, so I think one of the first small handheld type 3D cameras to have true convergence control that lets you optimise a 3D operation whilst you’re shooting, and actually evaluate the quality of the convergence in a proper 3D viewfinder. And this works like a dream. So without any glasses on, no unusual kind of operational requirements, you simply … its WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get.

You basically tweak the convergence control, it snaps into convergence in the viewfinder as you shoot and on playback it’s beautifully converged and looking great 3D. It really does work well.

Also, Cineform have announced MVC support with their new Neo3D, 3D plugin software for major NLEs. And, additionally, a new Contents Management Utility supplied with HXRNX3D1 has the functionality to divide MVC files into left and right side clips and to convert MVC to two 2D AVC files. This function will help editing MVC with 3D NLE software designed for using left and right footage in 3D editing.

Ed:

So, a great little 3D entry … any idea about price?

David:

Yes, we expect it to be under US$4,000.

Ed: And so those are the two smaller offerings in the Sony range, but again, with the use of rigs, you can take pretty much any camera pair?

David: Well you can actually. If you walk around this stand or indeed, generally, around the show, you’ll

Ed: And this obviously doesn’t take SxS cards, it takes something smaller?

David: As this is in the NXCAM family it’s recording onto SD cards or onto our 128 Gig solid state drive.

At this point, David tests his skills as a 3D camera op.

Ed: So what were you doing there David?

David: I just set up two different 3D shots, a wide angle one and a telephoto one, and it was so simple to do. You just compose the picture in the normal way, in whatever position of the zoom range you’re wanting to employ to contain the composition you’re looking for, swing that convergence control around until it

Page 59

see 3D rigs using pretty much every possible camera under the sun. With the new F65 camera for example, taking it to the extreme – that camera has been designed from the outset to allow 3D operation, because it has a T or “telescopic” head which allows the imaging head of the camera to be extended by up to 50 metres from the body, so you have a small imaging head which can be installed into a 3D rig (obviously with two of them) or even helicopter gimbals, camera stabilisation rigs, or all sorts of scenarios like that.

We’ve seen PMW-F3s, we’ve seen EX1s, HDC-P1 cameras – that’s the little HD box camera – every possible camera under the sun has been employed in 3D rigs from around 20 or more manufacturers out there now.

Ed:

And to complement the cameras, 3D monitors?

David: Yes, we’ve got two LCD based 3D monitors – a 24 inch and a 42 inch, which are designed for production applications. So they have the appropriate 3D analysis tools built in. These are the polarising type, so they’re designed to be used with circular polarising passive eyeware, which are much more benign in studio scenarios and, of course, the critical thing about that is that you can’t use the shutter type, because the multiple monitors in a room would disturb the operation of shutter glasses.

So you’re obliged to use the polarised type.

Ed: And I guess also it’s a cost issue, that if you issue everyone with the active glasses, you’re talking quite a few dollars to kit yourself out?

David: Yes that’s right, I think shutter type are fine in the domestic world, because it’s more of a controlled environment, you’re probably not watching television all day with them, and they do provide better resolution. But in the professional environment, where you’re wearing them all day, you want something that’s affordable, that’s lightweight and that isn’t fatiguing to wear.

Ed: Okay, and monitors segues us nicely to one of the pick hits of the show for Sony – your OLED monitor?

David: Oh my gosh. This is extraordinary … sorry to gush but this will be the year we celebrate a groundbreaking event. It truly is, I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. It’s a solution to a problem that many in the industry have been struggling with for probably the last 5-6 years at least.

really works well, because people have a consistency of style and operation and image quality, but with different criteria satisfied in the two ranges.

Ed: So can you actually identify one of them as a grade 1?

David: I think we’re past the expression inasmuch as I don’t think …

Ed:

use

of

that

It’s not relevant anymore?

David: It isn’t really relevant – we’re totally exceeding the original specifications that were laid out when the term “grade 1” was introduced, yes.

Ed: Okay, anywhere?

has

any

new

scale

been

introduced

David: Not that I’m aware of, but the criteria are defined in specification and they’re unassailable to be honest. Firstly, what is obvious is the extraordinary black control, and they are utterly black.

In the absence of signal, there is no residual grey level whatsoever.

Ed: And that’s it, you’re finally seeing more what the camera sees than you were able to before?

David: This is an emulation of the signal present in the programme, yes – nothing more, nothing less.

Ed: And I guess all the other controls are what they were for previous monitors, so price – are they a lot more expensive?

David: They’re still very much in keeping with where these classes of monitors were priced at in CRT days, so there are two models in each range. We have the 25 inch BVM-E250 and also BVM-E170, so 25 inch and 17 inch respectively. They have a 12 bit engine and a 10 bit panel. Obviously they’re full HD; the 250 will also display 2K. They have all the features you need to evaluate 3D images, 3D evaluation tools builtin, character display and other things like that. I guess one of the important differences between the two types is that there is a difference in the grading quality, so that’s a typical way of differentiating the classes of these monitors. So the very optimum selection quality of panels with the best uniformity, the best colour imagery, the best angle of view and so on tend to go into the top end, as you’d expect.

Ed: I’ve never seen colour quite like that I must admit.

David: Well this is one of the attributes of this Super Top Organic LED technology. We’ve been hearing about Organic LED (OLED) for some years, as a technological principle, but now we’re into a position where we can actually offer these as a practical and stable technology for both the high end, and the general professional video application, as we are introducing two ranges. One is the BVM-E series and the other is the PVM series.

Ed: Well this is a Sony pattern isn’t it?

You’ve had the professional and you’ve had the broadcast ranges of monitors back in the CRT days, so it’s good that you’ve continued this?

David: Yes, well this is very much in keeping with that same philosophy and it Page 60

Ed: And we’ve just seen a Ferrari go past and I’ve never seen the red of a Ferrari look so perfect?

very notable in some of the darker scenes, if you watch some of this programme.

David: Yes – well actually the colour gamut of this Super Top type OLED that we’re using here, which is a unique Sony technology, has a wider colour gamut than any CRT or any display ever introduced, ever developed, and interestingly, that colour gamut remains, it doesn’t diminish when the level of the image goes down towards greys or even towards black, so the chroma level is uniform at whatever brightness value.

So even in the dimly lit scene, the chroma value, you know, the vibrancy of the colour is maintained. It doesn’t start to go sort of muddy and grey – and that’s

Ed: Stunning, just stunning.

David: And the other thing too is that, rather conveniently, and also with a consideration to the cost of these units, they’ve actually added 3G, HD, SD and all the normal kind of interfacing as standard. They’re not an additional option board that you have to purchase and install separately at additional cost.

They’re all standard interfacing. So basically, out of the box at the price of the unit, you’re getting a fully NZVN functional, fully interfaced unit.

Sony Part Two continues in June.

Manfrotto For Panavision, we are at Manfrotto with Paolo Frison from the Vitech Group.

Ed: Paolo – tripods, what’s new?

Paolo: At NAB we are presenting a couple of new heads. The first one is the 509HD – that’s the bigger brother of the current 504HD. In terms of payload, it can support up to 13 kilo as maximum capacity with the counterbalance. As with the other head, the 504, this head has a completely variable fluid capability on tilt and pan, plus an illuminated levelling bubble.

We are also applying on this product a new feature that is called ABR. This is a new device with a couple of LED lights which enables the user Paolo with the 509HD. Orders taken ladies. to record the perfect balanced position so that Ed: So this is something that would only work with every time you are using it, you need just to slide in one camera because I guess you have to balance that your plate and follow the indication of the LED light. As camera and set that position? soon as you are reaching the double green position, the head is telling you that this is the perfect balanced Paolo: Exactly.

If you are going to have, for position. So you can save a lot of time, use after use. example, an external monitor or an LED light on the So it’s something new we are applying on the 509. top, you need to set the system up for that balance position. This head will be available with the twin aluminium tripod, middle and ground spreader, and it’s available also in combination with a carbon fibre tripod that’s very flexible for outdoor applications, with a very low profile, with a very low operating height, starting from 40cm up to 2 metre 20. So it’s very flexible – with just one tripod you can reach all the different heights.

We are also launching here the new 502, again using the bridging technology in order to make more rigid the structure of the head. The maximum payload of the counterbalance is 4 kilo, so we are going to have the 502 with 4 kilo, the 504 with 7.5 kilo, and the 509 with 13 kilo – the complete range. Also, on this head, you have the complete control of the fluidity with a variable cartridge on tilt and pan, levelling bubble, 75mm bowl

Page 62

be a big surprise in the second half of the year!

Ed: Right, but speaking of accessories ( and a recent story we did was about the accessories that Manfrotto makes ), you’ve continued to add to those?

Paolo: Yes, as a Manfrotto brand, we are launching a complete range of LED lights for your photo camera and video camera, starting from the 12 LED lights up to 84 twin LED lights. We have different features depending on the lights – you can find continuous light, or also flash plus continuous light.

We are also launching DADO, this accessory. It is something funny but so useful because, thanks to this … let me call it golf ball, here you can find a lot of different female parts, and with these tubes within the insert, you can combine more than one ball, more than one tube, so multiple tubes together, in order to have multiple accessories for lighting and accessory support.

and a longer sliding plate.

This is the perfect combination for the video DSLR camera and accessories because of the size of the head and also for the capability in terms of payload.

Ed: Certainly the bridging head obviously a very stable platform.

Another accessory we are launching here is the Snake Arm. This is something very flexible; something to complete the use of the Magic Arm and, thanks to this unique handle, you can release and lock from one point. You can easily use the Snake Arm to find the right position for your light or your accessories. It can support up to 5 kilo.

is

Paolo: Yes, everybody is looking at the bridging technology from the design point of view.

Of course, you can recognise that the design of the bridging can generate a much more sturdy and rigid structure of the head, plus we are using, in all the bridging technology heads, ball bearing components inside to make it very rigid.

Also, from the ergonomic point of view, it’s very useful for all the functionality.

All the bridging heads have “quick links”.

I’m talking about these two female ⅜ threads on the side, because here you can directly connect all your accessories on an arm such as an external monitor or LED light for example.

Ed: This is directly to the tripod head, rather than onto the camera?

Paolo: Yes. By using the quick links, you can save the shoe of the camera, so you can have another accessory on the shoe of the camera.

Ed: And not only that, it’s a beautiful design as one would expect from an Italian manufacturer?

Paolo: Absolutely … and you will see the coming product. I cannot tell you what’s coming, but have a look at them on the Manfrotto webpage because it will

It’s a combination of curved aluminium tubes, with aluminium connections and we use a steel cable inside so it’s very robust.

And to tell us a little bit more we have Caccavale Valentia.

Caccavale: We have two new remote controllers. The clamp version you can put on your pan bar directly and

Page 63

abrasion protection. Little tabs that make sure that your camera stays in place and doesn’t slip back and forth; big pockets that can be flattened out into normal pockets, but then opened up with a padded insert – you can put into it a camera body, lenses, accessories that you need extra protection for. The whole system is actually designed so that the weight is distributed along all the jacket, and you see we have a suspension system, so the pockets are not just pulling downwards the weight of the gear inside, but you’re using your shoulders and back to carry the weight of the gear in the jacket. And even a nice little pull-out …

Ed:

Oh, I thought it was a hankie?

Bellina: Yes, a hankie – like your granny, stuff it back up your sleeve and when you need to clean your lens, pull it out. Made obviously out of top of the line materials from the outdoor world, windproof, showerproof, all the seams are completely sealed off.

As well as the jacket, we have a vest and a wind jacket, and we’re going to continue this with a poncho, pants, shirts, caps, gloves, the whole lot.

Ed:

Lingerie?

Bellina: Next step with a little pocket to put your media card with all incriminating pictures!

Ed:

And one colour – basic black?

Bellina: At the moment basic black. We will have silver probably, but that’s much later – probably 2012 and we’ll see, we might have other colours as well.

Ed:

the pan bar version attaches to your tripod head. You can control zoom the iris, the focus and you can also control the maximum speed limit for the zoom. You can set the speed limit so when you push the knob, even if you push it to the end, you can reach exactly the maximum speed you set before. So this allows you to have more control of the zoom, and also with the focus.

Bellina: If you really insist … it helps you duck better! It’s the first time that photographers can look really good wearing their gear. It can be an everyday jacket, classic, sophisticated, doesn’t stand out.

Ed: And so there are a variety of models I see – I guess depending on which camera that you’re connecting to?

Caccavale: Yes. Continuing with new products from Manfrotto – a new jacket and a bag that are actually made by another part of the Vitech Group, but carry the Manfrotto brand.

Bellina Israel is going to model these for us.

Ed:

It’s a bit warm for that jacket today Bellina?

Bellina: Well somewhere it isn’t – under this spotlight it definitely is. So we’ve been making a new Manfrotto collection. You were looking at the Lino collection, a collection of photo and video apparel and bags – a very select, luxurious line. Basically, it’s the first line of bags and apparel and we’re the first to attempt to enter the market with a full line of fashionable wear for photographers and videographers where you have style and functionality.

Ed: So that’s just lots of pockets?

Bellina: Not necessarily – we have lots of smart solutions that will enhance your shooting experience.

These epaulets will secure the camera strap so it doesn’t slip off your shoulder …

Ed:

Does it have any protection from small missiles?

Don’t get your hair caught in there.

Bellina: I don’t need my hair!

It’s completely useless. The jacket has Kevlar areas that will give you Page 64

Ed:

Just the woman about town?

Bellina: Well to shoot a wedding you need to look respectable; if you’re going to shoot the President, I don’t know.

Ed:

And along with it the bags?

Bellina: Yes, they even integrate. We have the inserts that can fit in the bag and in your pocket, so you can take your gear out. The apparel is designed to allow you to wear the bag with the jacket on, so that the buckles don’t get in the way.

there is an enhancement in the red and consequently the infrared sections of the sensitivity of the chip to enhance the image quality, but as a result, it also does what was never an issue with film, and that is it has what is called “infrared pollution artefacts”. Now this can be in varying stages depending on the type of light ( artificial or natural ), and also the type of materials, particularly in your blacks where synthetic materials and industrial dyes have a different effect on the chip, or the chip has a different effect as they read them.

Ed: Is this also a case that with high definition you’re just getting so much information in there that in the early days of standard def, these things wouldn’t be noticed?

Brett: It is, you’re right … and it’s like the raw processing of still images, the actual high pixel count means that they’re getting a lot of processing detail down the line from the CMOS chip, but it’s like anything ( be it audio or light ) linearity is what you want. So, for example, if you have a green tinge across the board that’s okay, you can balance it out, but if something’s nonlinear ( like the result with infrared ) you actually are best to correct it in the camera, so as you process you then apply a linear filter to it, or a linear white balance or some kind of postproduction effect. So what we have is a range of infrared filters and hot mirrors which address first, the out of spectrum infrared – that gets rid of a bunch of issues which can cause problems with contrast or with slight magentas in the blacks; but the main one is in the part of infrared that is just at the end of the visible spectrum, where our infrared neutral density combination filters allow you to actually bring your blacks back to black. Because as you stop down to very high stops, and people are looking for that because of the depth of field, everyone wants very, very finite focal

Ed:

In other words, it’s all designed together?

Bellina: As a system, completely integrated … so you can wear the jacket, the waist belt of the backpack won’t obstruct opening the pockets, and all the little details have been thought through.

Ed: Fantastic, and available soon in a Manfrotto store NZVN near you.

For all your Manfrotto needs, contact Panavision Phone (09) 360 8766 Email tim.timlin@panavision.asia Web www.panavision.co.nz

Tiffen Filters For Panavision, we have Brett Smith from Tiffen.

Ed: Brett there’s a big interest in the industry with CMOS and LED lights. There are some issues, but Tiffen has the way to solve these problems?

Brett: Yes, and it’s not exclusively LED lights, there’s issues with all types of light sources be they natural or tungsten. The CMOS chip itself – and the camera guys will slightly correct me on the detail – but Page 65

CLASSIFIED For Sale RIEGERS CAMERA & VIDEO CENTRE 246 Dominion Rd Mt Eden Auckland Ph: (09)6304115

Fax (09)6315228

MAY SPECIAL CANON XLH1 S HDV Semi shoulder Camcorder—Interchangeable 20 X Lens HDSDI/SD-SDI out.

THIS CAMERA IS NEW, RRP $14,999.00 Inc gst ONE ONLY $6,500.00 +gst $7,475.00 Email riegers@ihug.co.nz planes, and you’re looking on television commercials and now you say “that’s shot on a 5D”.

So that’s one that a lot of the more creative users of our filters should look out for.

But even with the Alexas and the high end cameras which all have some kind of issue at certain levels with the infrared, we have a range of filters to address it, and more specifically for cameras like the Alexa, the T range, T1 and T½ can be used by themselves without neutral density, just to bring your blacks back to black.

Ed: Is a lot of this available online to have a look and see the effects that putting one of these filters in has?

So if you’ve got a woollen coat, a synthetic coat, you start to stop down, one starts to go red, one stays black, put in the T1 and in general terms, depending on all the other conditions, you’ve actually got yourself back to a more linear situation.

So that’s the big buzz and really in Australia and New Zealand the IR NDs, we can’t keep up with the demand, which is terrible to say, it’s not like an enhancement filter, it’s actually a correction, but the result is good, you’ve actually got sharper, crisper, more linear images and your blacks are as they should be without the magenta tinge.

We’ve also added another filter in our Pro-Mist range, because in terms of Hollywood halation effects, Pro-Mist is one that a lot of the operators use, and now we’ve got a Cool Pro-Mist which just adds a little bit of “cool” – a bit of blue – to the Pro-Mist effect.

NZVN ADVERTISING RATES

Brett: Yes, londonfilters.com is the resource we have, because Tiffen has an expert, Carey Duffy, who is known around the world for his filter knowledge. He enhances the tiffen.com website with a separate information source, because it is an arcane science.

It’s a bit like the old film days when, if you wanted to get rid of red, it was in the timing of the processing, you know, the guy with the white coat used to fix it up.

Not much has changed; when you hear a description of how a filter works, it’s as arcane and as descriptive and as subjective and depends on this, so yes, you need a resource and Carey, our filter guru, has that on his website.

So an awesome resource but tiffen.com also carries all the information on the filters – and there are thouNZVN sands!

For all your Tiffen needs, contact Panavision Phone (09) 360 8766 Email tim.timlin@panavision.asia Web www.panavision.co.nz

NZ Video News is posted free to New Zealand video production professionals - if you know someone in the business who would like NZVN too, tell them to write or phone us

Rates from April 2008 Advertisement A6 (must be set portrait) A5 (must be set landscape) A4 (must be set portrait) Spot colour - a supplement of Full colour - a supplement of Classified 40 words pre-paid cash Loose Inserts are accepted conditionally

NZVN AD RATES: - EXCLUDING GST $ 80 $140 for one $270 for two in the same issue $260 for one $250 each for more than one in the same issue $120 per A3 $420 per A3 $ 20 ($23 including GST)

AD COPY REQUIREMENTS: To qualify for listed rates, all copy and artwork must be submitted in photo copy ready

form - black on white, as an Adobe PDF file - print optimised. Email to <finnzed@xtra.co.nz> AD DEADLINES:

SEE FRONT PAGE

Pay by cheque or direct credit to ANZ # 010242-0160111-00

Page 67

Choice.

2065

504 HD

Video 20SB

The Premium Quality Tripod Systems -the only problem is choosing which one

www.panavision.co.nz Sales Tim (09) 3608766

Support 318 Richmond Rd, Grey Lynn, Auckland

Service tim.timlin@panavision.asia