NAB 2012

As part of this year's DV Expo East, TV Technology's Tom Butts will present the fifth annual "25 Things You Might Have Missed at NAB."

Held every April in Las Vegas, the NAB Show offers an exhibit floor that highlights a wide range of new tools and technologies for our industry. If you’ve ever experienced NAB firsthand, you know that the sheer enormity of it makes it impossible to see everything that’s on display within the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The theme for this year’s NAB Show was best defined by Sony’s banner: “Believe Beyond HD.” 4K-resolution products generated the buzz that bumped stereo 3D from the limelight. Many of the products had been announced, released or hinted at prior to the NAB Show, but Las Vegas provided an opportunity to see, touch and comprehend.

At NAB 2012, Panasonic unveiled the AG-HPX600, a new P2 HD camcorder with 10-bit, 4:2:2 AVC-Intra recording and the lowest weight of a shoulder-mount unit.

A new line of Litepanels tungsten-balance Fresnel fixtures, the Inca Series, made its worldwide premiere at NAB.

Digital Video Expo Comes to New York

In this video from NAB 2012, director and cinematographer Markus K. Jones presents "Amateur Video Production with Thunderbolt." Jones goes through the Thunderbolt workflow that pro skateboarders Shawn Powers and Bill Pierce used to edit a video shot with four GoPros.

DP Sean F. White went hunting for affordable 3D cameras at NAB. He writes, "On this trip to NAB, I was primarily focused on researching 3D camera systems for television documentary acquisition. While there has been some progress in 3D technology since last year, a huge void remains for production companies who seek professional results but don't have feature film or sports broadcaster budgets. I'm looking for an integrated twin lens camera system we can take into the field."

Vincent Laforet writes up the camera accessories that caught his eye at NAB this year including new products from Kessler, Cinevate, Redrock Micro, Oconnor, Manfrotto, LitePanels and more. Read his full post here.

What happened in Vegas certainly didn’t stay there! The Editors’ Lounge will be hosting their NAB 2012 roundup featuring all the best from Avid and BlackMagic Design. The event will take place on Friday, May 18 at AlphaDogs Post Production, 1612 W. Olive Ave, Suite 200, Burbank, CA 91506 beginning at 6:30 pm. RSVP is required to attend.

Vincent Laforet recaps some of the standout new cameras and lenses he saw at NAB this year, including the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and Zeiss and Schneider lenses. Read his post here.

Mopictive's monthly meeting will take place on Wednesday, May 9th at 6:30 PM at AbelCine on 609 Greenwich Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY. This month's meeting will start off with a post-NAB wrap-up and an informal look at Adobe CS6 before turning into a networking and socializing event. There will be free food and a raffle.

Read more and register here.

Watch as inventor Fritz Gabriel Bauer demonstrates his Easyfocus at NAB. Says Cinescopophilia, "The Easyfocus is the very first distance measurement tool combining an extremely precise reader with a touchscreen. Invented by Fritz Gabriel Bauer AAC, famous for designing MOVIECAM and ARRICAM lines of cameras, Easyfocus revolutionizes the art of focus pulling.

According to Den Lennie, the answer is yes. He reports from a screening of Tom Lowe's Timescapes at NAB, "It is stunning to see beautiful cinematography in 4K on the big screen. It’s more immersive than 3D in my opinion (and you don’t need to wear daft glasses). It feels like an IMAX experience but less intense. I found myself scanning the image and becoming immersed in the beautiful cinematography as the full resolution and fine detail of 4K projection was displayed in front of me."

The NAB Show has come and gone, but the learning opportunities from it never end.

DP Mark Forman gives his 4K predictions for the upcoming year based on what he saw at NAB. He says, "In the coming year expect to see a few more important, large sensor camera introductions. But then the rest of the production process has to respond, so I think we’ll see a shift to post solutions that are able to handle the much larger data streams produced by these devices. So get ready for 4K RAW ready Macs and PCs, 4K monitors and more."

Rental house Royal Galactic's Justin O'Neill reports from a screening at NAB where he watched Ridley and Luke Scott's 3D short film "Loom" shown on RED's upcoming 4K laser projector. He says he was "blown away," explaining, "The RED Laser Projector is natively stereoscopic meaning all you need to view 3D is a polarized silver screen and passive 3D glasses. Due to the lasers providing the projector a very stable light intensity per primary color it can auto calibrate itself. For 2D a standard white screen or just a wall will suffice."

Camera guru Tonaci Tran gives his recap of NAB 2012, focusing in particular on RED's showing there. He writes, "With Canon, Panasonic and Sony now finally jumping into the 4K ring, the writing is on the wall for 1080p. To each their own, but I think anyone investing heavily into a 1080p camera is making a grave mistake. Furthermore, if everyone else is finally doing 4k, you can't help but wonder what RED is currently working on behind closed doors."

In case you couldn't make it to NAB or weren't able to make every booth you wanted to see, AdoramaTV Pro has a slew of videos from the floor. See the big news that came from Blackmagic, Phantom, ARRI, Zeiss and more here.

Cinematograper Ryan E. Walters give his pros and cons of some of the latest cameras on the floor at NAB: the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera, the Canon 1D C, Canon C500, and the Sony FS700.

Shane Hurlbut demos the rig options for the Letus Master Cinema Series in this NAB video from FreshDV. Watch below.

Post-production guru Oliver Peters recaps the sights and sounds of this year's NAB Show with his epic highlights post which features a first look at Adobe CS6 and a variety of Thunderbolt I/O devices. He also covers announcements from Blackmagic Design, AJA, Quantel and more.

In these videos from NAB, David from The Verge showcases the Canon EOS-1D C and Canon's prototype 4K display, of which he says, "The footage looks unbelievable." Watch below.