NAB 2008 Wrap-up

Red Digital Cinema 5K Epic

Once, the big three ruled the world. Who could imagine a car industry without Ford, Chrysler, and GM calling the shots? But the world turns.

Missing this year from NAB were Apple, Avid, and Eastman Kodak. Those with several NABs under their belts will also recall the glory days of RCA, Ampex, Cinema Products, Agfa, Marconi, and ITK. Or even SGI, 3M, and Cintel — still exhibiting but wisps of the powerhouses they once were.

The broadcast industry, born of technology, must ride the tiger of technology.

New at NAB this year, for instance, was Content Central, a large section of Central Hall devoted to “the convergence of content and new technology” and “the place to become truly plugged in to ‘what's next.''” The space included both a Content Theater — packed packed for the sessions on stereoscopic 3D — and the IPTV pavilion, where I did not recognize any of the companies from prior NABs (nor find any of their booths particularly compelling).

Still, blogging from NAB 2007, I had predicted that “next year''s NAB will be the year of mobile TV,” and I think I was spot on. Consider NAB''s stated raison d''être for Content Central: “From mobile to movies to podcasting, today's content is always ‘On.''” Obviously mobile TV is uppermost in NAB''s thoughts. The NAB Show Daily News reported that the Open Mobile Video Coalition''s (OMVC) breakfast at NAB “had the feeling of a gold rush,” with one presenter projecting new ad revenues to ATSC broadcasters at $2 billion by 2012.

Groundswells of deep change often build slowly, imperceptibly, to a tipping point that feels like sudden change. We''ve been adjusting to video on tiny screens since Flash came to Windows Mobile and H.264 to PDAs and iPods. In this country, Verizon and now AT&T are testing the waters of mobile TV to cell phones, while in Europe and especially Asia, cell phone TV has been popular for several years.

Apple''s iPhone has irrefutably demonstrated the power and popularity of the Internet in your hand. Can anyone seriously doubt the appeal of free, over-the-air ATSC broadcasting in your hand, including network hit shows and local newscasts with weather?

Which is why NAB, OMVC, and the ATSC itself are pushing for adoption of one of several competing mobile ATSC technologies by February 17, 2009 %#151; the official U.S. cutoff of analog TV as we know it. They want mobile TV from the ATSC right out of the starting gate and it looks like they''re going to get it.

The impending analog TV cutoff makes NAB 2008 the last NAB show of the analog era, which helps explain why familiar analog-era technologies went missing from NAB this year: standard definition, 4:3 aspect ratio, CRTs, analog VTRs and switchers, flying-spot telecines. Interlace continues to cling as a legacy of broadcasting, whose future also dims considerably after February 17th. Over time 1080p/60 will overtake 1080i/60 %#151; it''s already happening in consumer HD displays. Consumer CCD-based HD camcorders are another story; they''d melt running at 60p. It's why CMOS is coming on strong.

Leaving behind the analog era also means no new proprietary videotape formats ever again at NAB. Future video formats will be based on compression standards. For instance, in Panasonic''s case, both their high-end AVC-Intra and new low-cost AVCCAM line use the MPEG-4 standard.

P+S Technik Interchangeable Mount System for Red Digital Cinema cameras

In another sign of where formats are going, native recording of progressive images has been formally appended to the tape-based consumer HDV standard. JVC pioneered this technique with their 720p HDV camcorders, Canon joined with their Frame Mode HDV camcorders, and now Sony has hopped aboard: their new HVR-Z7U records true progressive-scan images to tape using native HDV 1080p/24 or 1080p/30. Significance? Saves time and de-interlacing: Flash and H.264 have no need for interlacing and work better without it. Adopting native progressive recording therefore simplifies and speeds image creation for web and mobile TV. Hint: recording wave of the future.

Upstarts Red Digital Cinema, Iconix, and Vision Research were responsible for some of the most arresting developments in cameras at the NAB Show this year. Red, barely two years old, announced two upcoming cameras: the 2/3in. single-CMOS 3K Scarlet (“3K for $3K”) and the 5K Epic, smaller in body than the flagship 4K Red One. The pistol-grip 3K Scarlet, capable of 120fps, will have a fixed zoom and record RAW or RGB at up to 100Mbps (Redcode wavelet compression) to dual CompactFlash cards. Both new designs will be available by next NAB, per Red.

Anyone who still doesn't take Red seriously needs to view the sample clips projected (in 4K) at NAB from Steven Soderbergh's upcoming Che Guevara duology, The Argentine and Guerilla. The first was shot 2K with anamorphic lenses and the second flat at 4K. Both looked superb; fully cinema-tographic. No paying audience is going to reject either for occasional shadow noise or clipped highlights (endemic to all solid-state sensor cameras).

To counter the growing scarcity of affordable PL-mount lenses for Red, P+S Technik introduced the Interchangeable Mount System (IMS) for the 4K Red One, featuring a replacement camera front with an assortment of lens mount adapters that invites the use of countless affordable Leica, Canon, Nikon, and Zeiss Contax still-camera lenses.

Iconix Studio2K

Iconix introduced the Studio2K, a 2K version of its tiny 3CCD HD cube camera — ice-cube sized, actually — which, since introduction at NAB a few years back, has suffered from the absence of HD-caliber C-mount lenses.

Rumor at NAB was that Schneider, at the behest of Band Pro(the folks who coaxed DigiPrimes out of Zeiss), had agreed to create first-rate HD C-mount lenses for the Iconix, and that Fujinon had agreed as well. The Band Pro/Schneider effort was confirmed a week after NAB by press release. This is great news for inventors of tiny, low-cost 3D HD rigs. (3D was another major theme at NAB this year, with renewed interest in digital 3D production, recording, and exhibition. The weekend's Digital Cinema Summit was obsessed with the topic — see my Saturday NAB blog.

Vision Research's Miro is shaped like a digital SLR; however, it's a 3.5lb. high-speed camera with a larger-than-2/3in. sensor that captures uncompressed RAW 800×600 progressive images to a CompactFlash card at up to 1265fps — with 500-ASA-equivalent speed. Amazing.

Like Iconix, it relies on C-mount lenses. Will the new Schneider C-mount HD lenses arrive just in time for Miro? Perhaps, but there's a proviso. Iconix uses a prism for its three CCDs, while Miro is single-CMOS, so there may be field-flatness issues when using the upcoming Schneider HD lenses on a Miro. (Abel Cine Tech's Mitch Gross showed me a Miro sporting a Zeiss lens attached with a Nikon-to-C-mount adapter.)

Fast Forward Video Elite HD

What to record these cameras to? Red and Vision Research provide their own answers, but the uncompressed dual-link 4:4:4 signal from the Iconix 2K requires a third-party solution. The long-awaited Codex Digital portable field recorder for lossless JPEG2000 compression of full HD, 2K, and 4K is an obvious candidate (at least until one glimpses the $44,500 price tag). Essentially, it's a 9lb. fanny pack (best worn over the shoulder) housing three or four 200GB drives with RAID 3 protection. Nearly as pricey were two new onboard 4:4:4 hard-disk recorders — the UDR-D100 from Keisoku Giken and the Icon from Colorspace. Or if you can settle for 1080i or 720p at 4:2:2 (no 1080p), Fast Forward Video's$6,000 onboard recorder Elite HD will leave you with considerably more gas money. Its lossless JPEG2000 compression (same as Codex Portable) offers a remarkable 7 hours of HD recording per hot-swappable 2.5in. 320GB SATA drive.

In terms of inventiveness, new camcorders this year from Sony and Panasonic yielded nothing to the cameras described above. Sony is on a roll, introducing a striking new 1/2in. XDCAM EX — the PMW-EX3 — only months after introducing the PMW-EX1. If I describe the EX3 as a platypus, I mean it as a compliment: the EX3 is an EX1 with a new type of 1/2in. interchangeable lens mount and a weird, oversized viewfinder based on EX1's super-sharp flip-out LCD. It takes further cues from Canon's XL H1, with a slightly longer body that upends like a duck tail to permit bracing against the shoulder. There's even a small shoulder pad tucked into the rear that can extend about an inch to meet the operator's shoulder.

The EX3's bayonet lens mount is visually striking, as wide as a PL mount and utterly non-standard. It aroused significant frustration at at least one major lens company. Why would Sony do this? No one at Sony's press conference could answer that question, but I suspect the new, full-throated design brings a number of advantages — including strength, a wider clamping ring that is easier to tighten and release, and better compatibility with mounts found in SLRs and 35mm film cameras. Possibly a brilliant innovation. With lens interchangeability, I can see these camcorders as economy studio cameras — which may be why they are priced higher, at $13,000.

Sony also debuted the PDW-700, its first 2/3in. 3CCD XDCAM optical-disc camcorder. The PDW-700 captures 1080i/p and 720p at both 60/50 rates with the glaring exception of 24p, which I'd wager will hurt sales to independent producers. Color subsampling is 4:2:2; long-GOP MPEG-2 is high-quality 50Mbps recorded to dual-layer 50GB discs. Also announced was an SxS card recorder for the PDW-700, designed to ride piggy-back behind the battery. (SxS is the PCI Express/34 card format developed by Sony and Sandisk for the EX1 and EX3.) Why would an optical-disc camcorder already equipped with file-based recording need a second nonlinear recording device? Could the XDCAM disc answer archival needs, while SxS brings speed and convenience to file transfer? (No disc player needed.)

Whatever the case, the PDW-700 is the first camcorder designed to dual-record to two separate nonlinear mediums. Panasonic's AG-HVX200, equipped with a Focus Enhancements FireWire hard-disk recorder, has achieved similar results for several years but for an entirely different reason: to offset the limited recording time of P2 cards. (No one would ever designate a portable hard-disk recorder or P2 card as archival.)

In my view, dual-recording to produce an instant archival backup is the overlooked story at NAB 2008. A second camcorder at the show, Sony's new HVR-Z7U, manifested a lesser form of the same paradigm: it records to HDV tape (archival) and simultaneously to CompactFlash cards.

Panasonic AG-HPX170 and AG-HPX150 (the HPX170 is the ever-so-slightly longer one)

Panasonic unleashed its own volley of advances — starting with two all-solid-state P2 Varicams, the AJ-HPX3700 and AJ-HPX2700. With a set of new 2.2-megapixel, 2/3in. CCDs, the 3700 elevates the Varicam line to full-HD acquisition at 1920×1080, along with uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB dual-link output and/or full-resolution recording of 4:2:2 1920×1080 in AVC-Intra 100 lossless compression (100Mbps). The 3700 also records to AVC-Intra 50 (1440×1080, 4:2:0) and DVCPRO HD (1280×1080, 4:2:2). The 2700 has three 1-megapixel, 2/3in. CCDs (like the original Varicam) and records to the same three compression formats.

Panasonic's new AG-HPX170 is a solid-state (no tape) refresh of the HVX200, slightly smaller and 1.3lb. lighter, featuring new 1/3in. CCDs. It will list for the same as the HVX200A, around $6,000. Of note is the addition of thumbnail waveform and vectorscope displays in the corner of the LCD finder, which can be either alternated or toggled off with an assignable button. (Why has it taken so many years to get a waveform monitor built into a camera?) Reputedly, these are generated by a circuit borrowed from Panasonic's excellent new BT-LH1760 17in. LCD monitor, which also introduces a vectorscope function this year.

You could be forgiven for confusing the HPX170 with Panasonic's new AG-HMC150, because outwardly, they look identical. Same color, button layout, handle, and viewfinder. (The HPX170 is the ever-so-slightly longer one.) But the HMC150 contains a big surprise: a new long-GOP compression from Panasonic, based on consumer AVCHD and recorded to SDHC cards (Secure Digital flash, High Capacity). Panasonic dipped its toes into these waters last NAB with the tiny AG-HSC1U, liked the response it got, and this year introduced not only the HMC150 but a larger shoulder-mount version of the HSC1U, the AG-HMC70. The new line is called AVCCAM.

The HMC150 will feature a choice of four variable bit rates, from lowest quality (approximately 6Mbps) to highest (24Mbps max). The three higher modes (excluding 6Mbps) will enable recording of full-HD 1920×1080 images.

The irony here is that Panasonic has long extolled the merits of intra-frame recording of discrete frames in P2; with AVCCAM, the company now embraces long-GOP inter-frame recording too.

NAB 2008 offered up so many novel solutions in various areas %#151; some described in my NAB blogs %#151; that I could easily triple the length of this report. So here, briefly, are a handful of stand-outs that caught my eye.

Professional flatscreen monitors are finally making real progress. In addition to Panasonic''s BT-LH1760 17in. LCD monitor mentioned above (scans at 120Hz for better resolution of movement) and Sony''s larger 42-in. BVM-L420 master broadcast LCD Monitor (with LED backlighting), Sony''s 11in. OLED was a showfloor stunner %#151; the blackest blacks I''ve ever seen, while Field Emission Technologies'' nano-Spindt 20in. prototype %#151; also a sensation on the floor %#151; proved that flat-screen technology could incorporate SMPTE/EBU phosphors to match CRTs perfectly in tonal scale and black level.

Sachtler''s SOOM tripod wants to be a Transformers toy, with its spreader that converts to a set of mini-legs and its center pole that climbs over eight feet. (Great for short DPs like myself.) Tiffen''s new Steadicam Pilot for camcorders between 2lbs to 10lbs. looks unremarkable %#151; typical three-axis gimbal stabilizer with vest, spring arm, lightweight carbon post, sled, and 5.8in. color LCD monitor %#151; until you see the remarkable price: $4,000. Perfect for an HVX200 or EX1.

These three you can drop in your pocket: Blackmagic Design''s Video Recorder is a USB 2.0 device that connects to your laptop and converts %#151; on the fly %#151; incoming composite or component SD to H.264 for an iPod, YouTube, or website (only $119). Neutrik''s ConvertCon hermaphroditic audio XLR plug readily converts from male to female and back. And Litepanels' new Micro is a feather-light (4oz.) dimmable LED fixture that runs 1.5 hours off four AA cells or a jaw-dropping 7 hours off Duracell Lithium AAs. It''s mostly plastic, weighing hardly more than its batteries, but delivers the punch of a classic Litepanels Mini.

Small was big at NAB 2008.

Avid Media Composer and Nitris DX

NAB is like the proverbial elephant and five blind men: Your impression of the beast depends upon where you touch it. My colleagues, poor souls, were forced to look at glittery new cameras, innovative lighting systems, and boring ancillary items such as new lenses, microphones, and stabilization systems. Me? I was fortunate enough to spend my time focusing on video editing, streaming, encoding, and Blu-ray production, and that's what I'll share here. Just so you know, I'm not going to repeat any of the announcements made before the show that I reported in the March issue ) or the April issue's “NAB 2008 Update”.

I'll discuss the editing majors in alphabetical order. Adobe made no new editing-related announcements before or during NAB — although it did show several interesting technology demos, including a Mac version of OnLocation and audio-to-text conversion software that could help automate captioning, subtitling, and metadata creation in future versions of Premiere Pro.

Apple's most significant NAB-related announcement was that it wouldn't have a booth, but just before the show, Apple announced that Final Cut Server was shipping. Like Apple, Avid didn't have a booth at the show, but it pretty much took over the Renaissance Hotel next to the South Hall it used to occupy, with a huge media room and multiple demonstration rooms.

As you probably know, Avid made a significant announcement prior to the show, unveiling its “New Thinking,” which included merging Avid Xpress Pro into the Media Composer product line, dropping the price of Media Composer software by 50 percent, and offering any student at an accredited university or college Media Composer software for $295. (Listen to a podcast of an interview I had with Avid Chief Marketing Officer Greg Estes about the announcement.)

With such a significant announcement so close to NAB, I really wasn't expecting anything new out of Avid at the show. Boy, was I wrong. Basically, Avid completely updated its hardware and software product lines. From what I could see, the changes were both sweeping and significant. From the hardware perspective, Avid moved devices such as Mojo DX and Nitris DX from the relatively low-bit-rate FireWire bus to the ultra-fast PCI Express bus, improving editing responsiveness significantly.

The new 3.0 software includes a new caption tool that's efficient and superbly integrated. There's a new ability to display multiple timecodes over the preview window — for example, identifying project timecode, reel timecode, and the name of the digital file. You can also interrogate a timeline to identify the reel, file names, effects, and other information regarding all clips on the timeline, then save this as a separate file — a definite administrative helper.

I also saw multiple formats on the same Media Composer timeline with realtime playback and no rendering, and the ability to drag files from the source bin into any track in the timeline. These last two features are obviously catch-up in nature, but the drag-and-drop one really impressed me.

Why? Well, we all know that Avid's new president is from outside the industry and that Avid has a reputation as not being the most customer-friendly company on the planet. I can imagine the new CEO asking his minions, “What one feature could we change that would let folks know that we were serious about this New Thinking, that we really wanted to become customer-centric?” For me, the overwhelming answer would be drag and drop. The significance of this added feature is obviously pure projection on my part, but there it is.

The last editing company that I visited, Sony Creative Software, announced DVD Architect 5.0, which (like Adobe Encore and Roxio DVDit) extends DVD authoring to Blu-ray production but doesn't offer full support for the BDMV or Blu-ray Java specs. This means no overlays or picture-in-picture menus — just the same authoring feature set available for standard-def DVD authoring. Sony also announced that the 64-bit version of Vegas, shown as a technology demonstration last NAB, will ship in September, and that projects will be backward- and forward-compatible, so you can edit the same project in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes. Both DVD Architect 5 and the 64-bit version of Vegas will be free upgrades for owners of the latest versions of Vegas and DVD Architect.

Digital Rapids StreamZ

There were at least six companies selling streaming encoders at the show, and that doesn''t count those selling live H.264 solutions for cable TV and broadcast. Most had very large booths populated with lots of smiling people, so it appears that these are good times for companies in this space.

The sheer number of available solutions forced me try to figure out how to differentiate between the contenders vying for your encoding dollars. To some degree that was simple, to some degree it was not. Let me set this up %#151; then I''ll go into detail regarding what each company showed at NAB.

Two companies, Sorenson and Rhozet, sell software-only encoders for producing on-demand files. They''ll play nicely with your other video production or content-management systems, but they don''t pretend to replace them.

The four other companies %#151; Anystream, Digital Rapids, Inlet Technologies, and Telestream %#151; sell both software and hardware encoders with live and realtime capabilities. Of these four, Anystream is the easiest to categorize %#151; they want to be your total streaming solutions provider, with a comprehensive range of tools that encode, distribute, monitor, and report your streaming video efforts.

Digital Rapids is somewhat the Wal-Mart of encoding companies, with a broad range of primarily hardware products to meet most high-volume producers' needs. Telestream has the most extensive offering for Mac producers, while Inlet has crafted an intelligent encoding solution with front-end file analysis to ensure optimal template selection and back-end quality control.

That''s my positioning, anyway, and with this as background, I''ll discuss what each company showed at NAB. As previously reported, Sorenson showed standalone encoder Squeeze 5 (about $500, depending upon options) at the show. Squeeze 5 looked great, especially in its ability to encode multiple files simultaneously. I also like that Sorenson has dropped Apple's H.264 codec in favor of the MainConcept one, which should produce at least the same quality in much less time.

The other major addition was the ability to create an audience preset that includes pre-processing filters, encoding settings, and output destinations (including FTP) that you can access through the main program or via a watch folder. Though you never know until you actually test the product, Squeeze 5 looks like a winner.

Rhozet announced the introduction and availability of the next version of batch-encoding program Carbon Coder (about $5,000). The program can serve as a node on a server farm and offers an extensive API for integrating encoding and delivery functions with other programs. In the new version, Rhozet combined the watch-folder manager and queue manager into a single, more intuitive program, while expanding the utility of each function.

For example, using the watch-folder manager, users can now proactively retrieve files from remote folders or even FTP files %#151; a great feature for service bureaus serving external clients. You can also add leading and trailing clips to encoded files and apply audio and video filters to your source files. Also new is the ability to choose multiple targets for your source files and to set email notifiers for starting, completion, and/or errors.

Rhozet also provides separate views in the queue manager for active, queued, completed, and failed jobs, which were previously lumped together into one folder. This increased visibility really simplifies server-farm management.

At the show, I asked about the company''s product philosophy. "We''re trying to be the best possible transcoder available, and that''s it," Rhozet CEO David Trescott says. "This lets our customers choose the best-of-breed tools for content management, website management, workflow and broadcast automation, and we fit into that workflow.”

In contrast to this encode-only approach is Anystream, which I also covered at the show. Russell Zack, the company''s VP of product management, responded to a similar question about product philosophy. “Our special value-add is that we integrate the products into a comprehensive system," Zack says. "We''re not just about the codecs; we also can deliver watermarking and fingerprinted content through partnerships with a number of third-party companies.”

Along these lines, Anystream''s most significant NAB announcement was a partnership that allowed Anystream customers to access Audible Magic''s Magic''s SigGen content registration and CopySense content-identification technologies from the Anystream Media Lifecycle Platform.

So, Sorenson and Rhozet simply want to encode your files, while Anystream wants to manage your entire streaming workflow. What did we learn about the others at NAB?

In my view, the most significant streaming-related announcement at the show was Inlet Technologies' Armada, which seeks to take the “human out of the encoding process” by automating most key encoding decisions and quality control. Armada analyzes your files during input and suggests optimal output parameters. Then it performs post-rendering quality control on all encoded files.

I didn''t learn much about the front-end analysis at the show, but Inlet's Semaphore product will handle the post-compression quality control. Semaphore is by far the most capable QC tool in the industry. How it will all fit together is another question that won''t get answered until the product ships in December, but I definitely like the vision %#151; where other products want to encode and deliver your files as quickly and efficiently as possible, Inlet wants to lend some up-front analysis and back-end QC to the workflow. Mark my words: these will be the “must-have” encoding features for all products announced in late 2008 and beyond.

Also at the show, Inlet announced that Major League Baseball was using its Spinnaker realtime encoding platform to produce VC1 video for the mlb.com website. According to Inlet, the features that MLB found most compelling were a realtime highlight-creation capability and the ability to mux multiple videos into a single stream, allowing mlb.com viewers to instantly change channels during playback. Finally, Inlet announced direct capture and encoding of ASI/IP input, eliminating the need for a separate ASI-to-SDI converter.

If Inlet wants to add intelligence to the streaming production process, where does Digital Rapids fit in? This Canadian-based company has the broadest product line of the bunch and made a range of announcements at NAB. Most relevant was version 2.5 of the company''s StreamPro and StreamEnterprise software, which accompany all hardware encoders. New features include support for the F4V format and access to the Windows Media Video encoding tweaks. Both are critical features for streaming producers who are attempting to support new formats and/or delivery platforms such as H.264 Flash and Silverlight.

Also new was the Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager for those encoding and distributing high volumes of live streams. It provides a great preview capability of all sources, automated failover should any encoding node fail, and visual scheduling for encoding tasks.

Last but not least was Telestream, which boasts a broad product line of hardware and software-based encoders primarily for Mac producers. Like Rhozet, Telestream offers both a desktop encoding program (Episode Pro) and a server with distributed encoding (Episode Engine), so it's the only Mac solution that scales from a single, standalone program to an automated server farm. Though Telestream shipped Episode Pro 4.4 right around the end of 2007, the company announced version 5 at NAB, which was scheduled to ship by the end of April.

I didn''t get a look at the program, but according to the press release, Version 5 includes 10-bit support, allowing compatibility with the Red Digital Cinema Red One camera and with Cineon and DPX formats. It also adds input support for VP6 files and output support for Flash 9 and Blu-ray. Also at the show, Telestream debuted the Pipeline Quad and Episode Podcast, which I described in the pre-NAB encoding article.

Microboards MX-1

For Blu-ray, I'll start with software, then move to hardware and finish with some analysis of the Blu-ray hoopla that I saw — or actually didn't see — at the show. The first company I visited was Sonic Solutions, which announced support for Advanced Access Content System in Roxio DVDit Pro HD ($299), and export to the Cutting Master Format. This is significant because both features are required to replicate a Blu-ray project, which currently require Sony Blu-print or Sonic's own Scenarist, which both retail for around $40,000.

With DVDit Pro HD, you don't get fancy pop-up menus, overlays, or Blu-ray Java support. The company merely extends the program's standard-def DVD-authoring features to high-definition video and Blu-ray Discs with their greater storage capabilities. Still, many corporate and event projects don't need these baubles, and the price is certainly right.

Also at the show, Sonic announced the release of Scenarist BD 4.5, with numerous workflow enhancements and a new Scenarist safeguard tool for setting security parameters on Blu-ray Disc Java (BD-J) content. BD-J enhancements include a new BD-J project-creation wizard, a new user interface with drag-and-drop application creation, and all-new BD-J tutorials.

I've already mentioned that Sony Creative Software DVD Architect 5.0 now supports BDMV Blu-ray production. Also at the show, Sony's software arm showed its Blu-print 4.3 Blu-ray authoring software integrated with Ensequence on-Q Create for more visual Blu-ray Java production.

On the hardware front, all three majors in the replication/printing market — Microboards, Primera, and Rimage — showed Blu-ray integrated into their product lines. Primera was cheapest; its Bravo SE with Blu-ray sells for a street price of $2,900 (with a $500 rebate scheduled to expire at the end of May). Microboards showed the MX-1 ($4,495), with two Blu-ray recorders and a 100-disc capacity. The MX-1 features a new HP print engine with separate ink cartridges — a great feature that means less waste — and a new software interface that (finally) replaces the ancient Prassi interface (see p. 42 for more on Prassi).

At the high end, Rimage showed its new (and very cool) Macintosh interface, as well as 600dpi printing, which is the highest disc-print quality that I've seen to date. A quick visit to LaCie's booth confirmed that 4X Blu-ray drives were making their way into retail units; the LaCie d2 Blu-ray drive is now 4X. There's still a price premium for these faster drives, but it's definitely a spec worth insisting upon for most producers.

What about the Blu-ray hoopla? Well, as my colleague D. W. Leitner commented before the show, this was the first NAB after the demise of HD DVD, which created at least the expectation of excitement. What I sensed was more a sigh of relief that the senseless format war was over so producers could go about the business of methodically maximizing profits for the content.

Blu-ray seems to have the most potential at the market extremes. For mass-market consumption, Hollywood is converting lots of movies and TV series to Blu-ray, but that's a very small group of producers with lots of content. At the other end of the spectrum, Primera reported that event producers were excited about the ability to produce affordable onesies and twosies for their wedding clients.

The vast middle of the market — from corporate producers to television stations to universities, hospitals, and government institutions — seems more focused on streaming to target audiences than delivering high-capacity optical discs to relatively few viewers. In this regard, the rise of high-quality streaming probably means that the winner of the high-definition optical format war will have far fewer spoils than once anticipated.

Blackmagic Design Broadcast Videohub

My colleague Trevor Boyer noted in one of his NAB blogs that, upon attending Adobe's annual dinner, the company's Mark Randall described NAB 2008 as the “year of plumbing.”

As co-founder of Play and founder of Serious Magic, two transformative startups for the production industry, Randall should know. While NAB 2008 won't be especially noted for blockbuster breakthroughs, companies such as Blackmagic Design (its hot-selling DeckLink HD Extreme now offers 3Gbps throughput) and even Avid (while it was not officially at the show, its hotel suite offered a chance to see its new 10Gbps Media Composer platform at work) agree that it's time to move to faster networking and processing technologies.

Why is higher throughput becoming so important? To handle the burgeoning use of HD as well as the coming high end — 2K, 4K, and stereoscopic 1080i — all without the attendant sluggishness that would make periods of thumb-twiddling too great a part of client-edit and approval sessions.

Forward-thinking Blackmagic had already built 3Gbps technology into last year's award-winning Multibridge Eclipse I/O product and HDLink Pro monitoring device, while AJA Video Systems' two new converters, the 3GM and the 3GDA, also offer — at comparably low price points — that speedier data-moving technology.

Studio Network Solutions (SNS), which made its name providing Mac-oriented shared storage products for AV post, demonstrated its own approach to an improved post experience with the first NAB showing of the Ellipse and Ellipse Enterprise Fibre Channel HBAs. The host-bus-adapter cards for Mac OS X deliver a claimed 4Gbps throughput.

For just a little bit more, SNS will bundle in its SANmp management software, which enables users to share their projects more easily on a storage-area network even if it involves huge media files. Unlike some other advanced products, SANmp is relatively automated, requiring neither separate server nor metadata controller. Makes sense when you're starting to deal with the complexities of managing ever-changing projects with their large data files.

Atto Technology, meanwhile, takes a look back by debuting FastStream Storage Controller software to address issues about future reliability, performance, and capacity for Mac users who bought into Apple's Xserve RAID storage. Earlier this year, Apple announced that it would be getting out of the highly competitive (read: thin profit margins) hardware RAID-storage market, potentially leaving anyone who had bought into their systems high and dry.

Atto's FastStream SC software provides one upgrade path by allowing users to aggregate multiple Xserve RAIDs together to boost performance up to 750MBps while providing RAID 5 protection. There is another benefit: by using parity protection distributed among multiple arrays, FastStream enables access to data with no degradation of performance in the event of an Xserve RAID-controller failure.

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC) demonstrated an interesting technology it calls xSATA, which connects each drive in an array directly to a PCI Express card (eSATA cards use a single connection for all drives in an array). AMCC's 3ware SidecarStorage, an (unpopulated) outboard storage device that comes with the card, allows you to build a highly capable 4TB RAID array for around $2,000. Not bad for a system that's rated at 350MBps, according to AMCC — a throughput speed well beyond what a typical eSATA array could deliver.

But what can you do with all of this speedy throughput when you go beyond one or two users at a facility? Efficient handling of cables in today's post facilities still comes across mostly as an afterthought, with messy patch panels complicating interconnections of monitors, workstations, storage, and other necessary gear.

Broadcasters, of course, solve this by installing large, expensive, and complicated routers. You don't have that kind of money. Blackmagic Design, you'll be happy to know, took out a clean sheet of paper and came up with the Broadcast Videohub — described by the Aussie company as “the world's largest affordable SDI router.” It's a smart, relatively low-cost solution designed to replace manual patch cables for connecting equipment.

For a $15,000 list price — much less than anything in the broadcast space — facilities can now deploy a software-controlled switcher with 72 SDI inputs, 144 SDI outputs, 72 deck-control ports, twin redundant power connections, SDI reclocking, and 3Gbps SDI technology.

“We designed Broadcast Videohub to eliminate complicated manual patching,” says the affable, fast-talking Grant Petty, founder and CEO. After setting things up, users can change connections from their desktop computer via a simple drag-and-drop software interface (both Mac and PC, natch) that ships with the product.

I/O wrangling on a more modest scale comes with Matrox's MXO2, an updated version of its popular all-in-one monitoring, output, and scan-conversion device for the Mac, which now offers capturing. It's a bit like AJA's Io HD box, although it doesn't have Apple's ProRes codec built-in. However, that makes it a lot cheaper. It's small and lightweight, so you can take it on location, powering it via an Anton Bauer or IDX battery. Capture includes HD-/SD-SDI, HD/SD analog component, Y/C, composite, along with HDMI I/O. In Mastering Mode, the device takes the YUV data before the graphics card has a chance to convert it into RGB. That means there is no YUV/RGB/YUV conversion done, which makes for a better signal if you want to print to tape or broadcast the result.

Finally, MOTU, which shipped its FireWire-connecting V3HD I/O box late last year, showed in private demos its successor, the V4HD. Expected to ship this month for $2,995, the dual-platform V4HD incorporates an Apple ProRes 422 workflow. It doesn't include the codec in the box as the AJA Io HD does. Instead, it applies a 3:1 hardware compression to incoming HD-SDI signals, which allows the video to be sent via FireWire to the host computer. At that point, a MOTU driver decompresses the stream so that Apple Final Cut Pro can capture it as ProRes “or any other full-raster codec,” says Jim Cooper, director of marketing for MOTU.

Maxell Field Tough Media

Considering how long the media is supposed to last, we shouldn't be impatient with Maxell's shepherding of InPhase Technology's Holographic Optical Recording Technology, announced three NABs ago to great fanfare. Slated for introduction later this year %#151; honest! %#151; recording capability is expected to top out at 1.6TB per disc in the final version. But this is a big-ticket item with pricey media, slated initially to fit the needs of big broadcasters and others who can pay the tab for this next-generation storage technology.

Maxell, appropriately enough, makes the Holographic Recording Media that works with InPhase''s Tapestry 300r holographic media recorder/player. Turner Broadcasting, which plans to invest in the gear, has completed live-to-air playback tests, so this is beyond smoke and mirrors. Maxell and InPhase should be commended for keeping at it over all these years; it's very difficult technology to get right. A number of potential competitors have dropped by the wayside.

Maxell's iVDR, meanwhile, is much closer to prime time. You may not be familiar with the term, the product, or maybe even the concept, but iVDR (Information Versatile Disk for Removable Storage) is big … in Japan. There the compact, ruggedized storage is turning up in devices such as Hitachi''s plasma TV, which features a slot to hold these hot-swappable HDDs. Designed initially as an improved way for users to time-shift or save favorite programs, the consumer version of the drive contains content-protection firmware that can be triggered by content owners (TV stations, studios) to control the recording of TV shows and movies.

The iVDR Consortium itself began in 2002 by companies including Canon, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Sanyo, and Victor Company of Japan. Later Seagate and Maxell joined. However, the concept of an industry-standard removable hard-disk-drive technology %#151; one that's compatible with a broad range of devices from AV to PC %#151; never caught on with U.S. consumers. Instead, TiVo took that market.

Maxell, better known for its professional and consumer tape and disc products, saw a professional need for storage that features a high-speed layoff capability and comes in a form factor that easily fits in a palm or back pocket. Working closely with Panasonic and Ikegami, Maxell has developed a toughened version (drop it from 4ft. onto a hard surface without worry) of the iVDR that offers more connection potential %#151; it includes eSata, FireWire, and USB ports.

This might be an attractive option to anyone shooting with gear using Panasonic's P2 cards (Hitachi will also be using P2 for an upcoming HD camcorder). The iVDR will enable them to offload the cards safely on location, quickly returning them to use. That's good news for Panasonic, which has endured criticism that P2 shooters have to handle pricey, small solid-state storage cards that need downloading to something else before they could be reused.

The drives aren't expensive. (A 160GB drive and adapter will be available Q2 2008, followed by a 250GB drive in Q3 2008.) A minimal docking station attaches to the back of a shoulder-mounted camcorder, allowing you to download 10-bit, 4:2:2 recording to the lightweight 0.4lb. drives.

Small-but-capable portable RAID arrays turned up in some interesting configurations. G-Tech's tiny G-RAID mini 2 drive is solidly built, yet it isn't much bigger than a paperback book. Housed in the company's traditional sleek, all-aluminum cage, it looks useful for carrying into the field to download from solid-state camera systems. Running on FireWire or eSATA bus power, it has both RAID 0 and fail-safe RAID 1, as well as a claimed 100MBps-plus transfer rate when used with its eSATA connection in RAID 0. Storage capacity runs up to 1TB.

Sonnet Technologies' Fusion F2 is another two-drive RAID SATA storage system constructed specifically for portable use. When used in a RAID 0 configuration, two 2.5in. drives mounted side by side deliver up to 126MBps read-and-write data transfers, according to the company. The drive uses two eSATA connections, along with a FireWire port for power. It's designed to work with the Sonnet Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34 adapter for the MacBook Pro and Windows notebooks.

When you get back to the studio to begin posting, EditShare wants you to consider its reconfigured product line, which emphasizes complete media management from ingest to archiving. Named EditShare Flow, EditShare Storage Series, EditShare XStream Series, and EditShare Ark, the line suggests the difficulties of trying to run a company that offers only storage, as was the case until this show. With storage and networking costs plummeting, EditShare — along with other companies such as Maximum Throughput — is among the formerly hardware-only suppliers that are moving to include software and value-added services to their offerings.

The new EditShare Flow series includes Flow Ingest and Flow Browse. Flow Ingest captures most common formats along with full metadata, with simultaneous outputs to just about any format including Apple, Avid, and low-bit-rate proxy formats. You can automate ingest, control it remotely, or initiate it manually. Flow Ingest supports Apple ProRes and Avid MXF formats and up to three codecs per channel, including proxies.

EditShare Flow Browse, meanwhile, is designed to accelerate media searches within an EditShare storage environment. It supports proxy viewing outside the nonlinear editing application, allows annotation of metadata forms, and gives you the ability to drag and drop media into an Avid or Final Cut Pro bin.

The company has expanded its storage offerings too: There are now mobile storage solutions, a “Metro” addition for small to mid-size editing workgroups, and even scalable rack units. The EditShare XStream Series delivers heavy iron for high-end post and broadcast; it can process media at data rates of 300MBps per stream. That's claimed to be enough to support up to 52 streams of DV50 and multiple 1080p 4:4:4 HD projects/streams.

Finally, EditShare Ark offers an integrated approach for backups, mirroring, and archiving, which includes LTO tape backup and lower-cost drive arrays that can be upgraded to the full EditShare Server series if you so desire.

Focus Enhancements FS-5 Direct To Edit recorder

But handling and moving around so much data raises a question: What are you doing about DAM? Digital asset management continues to be an amorphous concept to many in the production and post communities. Implementing it could make your business more efficient, and even save you money in this increasingly competitive environment. But jumping in and working with such high-concept stuff can be scary. Where do you start?

Creating a path from shooting to ingest and editing is part of Focus Enhancements plans for its new top-of-the-line FS-5 Direct To Edit recorder. The small recorder, of course, is designed for field recording. It features improvements such as additional file-format support, lighter weight, smaller size, and the ability to log custom metadata wirelessly via a laptop or smart phone while it's still recording media. At the Focus booth, I saw a demo of material (which had been recorded to both FS-5 and P2 in the field) being ingested by the company''s new PX Media Transfer Utility into the PX-100 metadata-based server. Looking at this setup makes you think that getting into digital asset management could be as easy as drag-and-drop.

A more built-out approach comes from Xytech Systems, which has been involved in the DAM business for a longer time. Its Xytech Enterprise software might be just the thing to make you take the plunge. For version 10, the company builds out the software from its familiar schedule sheet structure to make the transition to a file-based system that integrates digital assets (media files) and physical ones (staff, rooms, hardware).

By pulling everything together into one database, Xytech accomplishes what Microsoft is attempting with its Microsoft Interactive Media Manager (we'll get to that). While Microsoft proposes you build your DAM from the top down out of a high-concept mix of business and creative apps, version 10 of Xytech Enterprise sweats the small stuff, answering the real-world questions you face every day when you walk through your facility's door: "How much did last night's edit job cost in man hours?" and "What‘s the profit margin of our pricey new compression room?"

By moving to a file-based approach, Xytech now lets a producer view a single page that presents a project's relevant economic data together with related media files, which can play back at the click of a button. If you add the expanded web services module, there's further integration possible with third-party DAM systems.

Let's look at Microsoft's approach. The company's booth, at least, was less confusing than those of prior years. Instead of touting a hodge-podge of third-party products and applications, the focus was on two initiatives: Silverlight (the browser plug-in that supports the building of rich web apps that include animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback) and Microsoft Interactive Media Manager, a collaborative media management approach that''s not so much a specific product but a series of “solutions” built upon Microsoft''s Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The idea here is to create an end-to-end content production system that's simple enough to use for everyone in your business. Launched around last year''s show, the software was shown at the booth in version 2.0, which has a final release scheduled for July.

In a blog, senior Microsoft architect Andrew Gayter described it a “a monumental jump forward on previous attempts for Microsoft to get into the media space." With reputable types like Telestream and Avid involved, it''s been designed to work for TV broadcasters from “ingest to playout."