Notes from NAB...

[shanewalker]

Quick impressions from this years NAB convention in Las Vegas:

1) HD is SOOO the standard now, it's not news/hype-worthy anymore. We've turned a corner folks. Now, it's going to be all a buzz about 3-D. 3-D, as in duck, dodge and weave at the things you'd swear you could reach out touch in your hitherto two-dimensional TV/movie screen.

2) Speaking of HD being passe, it's now a world measured in multi-K rez. As in NDK's 8K Ultra displays. Longest lines were at the Red Camera booth. The $3K 'Scarlet' seems to have generated the most interest on the floor by my estimation. 3K/120fps capture capabilities in a nice svelt compact camcorder form factor...it ain't your dad's Hi-8, that's for sure.e

3) Environmentalism is now a cultural phenom even pervasive of the glamorous, energy-sucking superficial business of show-bidness...i.e. stage lighting is now pushing toward LED technology, runs cool and has a much lower energy footprint; keeping it data and foregoing recordable material media of any kind is now the standard form of any respectable 'futuristic' acquisition format/camera (no tape, no discs, just hard or flash drives); and finally, even some of the flamboyant booths are touted as recycled/biodegradable (i.e. Autodesk).

Much more to comment on, but these are the big initial three things that struck me as megatrends/observations from the floor. Love to hear what anyone else attending think...

 

[TheForce]

I was more into selfish stuff the first day. Getting my needs answered. So I spent quite a bit of time with the Sony people.
Along with the new trend in hard drive storage for HD cameras, the software and distribution is what is hot. Sony made announcements on their DVD architecture to soon support BluRay authoring and AVCHD (H.264) authoring which is playable on a PS3 or BD player.
Vegas 8 to be released with 64 bit support and 8 core+ is now in beta testing. It will be free for 32 bit users.

On a downer note- Went to the Sony party and the people catering dropped the ball and the food ran out before half the people got in the door. Then they didn't put more out until the show started. As a result, I got three grapes and a stick of celery. Sony tried hard to have a great party but the convention caterer deserves a big F for their lousy service. The speakers were great! Les Stroud, aka The Survivorman gave a 1 hour talk on how he shoots and edits the show now working with all Sony camcorders because they hold up in his environment, and Vegas now because it can handle the job faster. He will be doing an encore at 11 and 3 Tuesday at the Sony Booth

 

[jayn_j]

Quick impressions from this years NAB convention in Las Vegas:

1) HD is SOOO the standard now, it's not news/hype-worthy anymore. We've turned a corner folks. Now, it's going to be all a buzz about 3-D. 3-D, as in duck, dodge and weave at the things you'd swear you could reach out touch in your hitherto two-dimensional TV/movie screen.

Oh, I hope not!

Hollywood has tried at least three times to make major 3D pushes, and there have been a few from network TV as well. Every one has been a yawn to the public and died.

First, nobody likes the glasses, and effective schemes require them. There will need to be a fundamental change in display technology that allows holographic display to get around it.

Second, when something is aimed at a 3-d market, everybody feels compelled to exploit 3-d. Good material gets damaged when this happens. One example is the movie Kiss Me Kate. It was shown in 3-d in its roadshow release. Every twenty minutes, the action is interrupted by somebody picking something up and throwing it at the screen. It is disturbing. I was watching some sitcom the other day that was obviously shot for one of those 3-d pushes in the '90s. Same thing. For the first 5 minutes, everybody kept poking stuff at the screen.

Hopefully, if this takes off, producers will settle down and learn to use the effect subtly. There are precedents. When cinemascope and stereo first came out, everybody placed the principal actors on opposite edges fo the screen and did talking heads with a ton of dead space in the middle. Gave you a headache. Sooner or later they did learn how to use the format successfully.

At the opposite end is stereo and surround sound in television. It was overused the first year or so, but then it dropped down to nothing. It seems to me that 99% of the sound is coming out of the cneter speaker these days on all network shows. The exception is usually the theme music. Rather than learn to use it effectively, producers just gave up on it.

 

[TheForce]

The answer to your worry is to be given a choice to watch it or shut the feature off.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Don whats the big deal about the RED Cameras?

I know its ultra high resolution HD, but is there anything which can display the resolution of these cameras? And since this is the National Association of BROADCASTERS is there any way to broadcast the full resolution shot by these cameras?

 

[TheForce]

Scott- The Red system has been displayed at NAB for 3 years now. It is not intended to be viewed directly, especially by end user. Obviously they do monitor the image but in downconvert, primarily to review dailies and direction for framiing. The Red One camera has two main features that I recall. #1 is it's size. While large by consumer standards and broadcast HDCAM standards, it is equal to a 35mm film camera. And the second is it's future proof design ( yeah I know, we've all heard that before.) The present technology was built to be an electronic replacement for 35mm film camera. Its design is around the 35mm film movie production so it uses 35mm lenses and other infrastructure making it a great choice for replacement of film. A number of Hollywood directors are using Red One. Peter Jackson is one most people know and last year they announced George Lucas was moving to it for his 35mm projects. Last year, I spoke to one of their engineers and yes, they are working on upgrade to 70mm version. The present Red system is 4000 pixel H res and it contains 5 times the data as the highest format under it.
Hope that gives you some perspective on it.


I haven't stopped into their demo this year but understand this, not all stuff at nAB has to do with direct application to the TV station and network industry but much of the show is only related indirectly. A large number of attendees are independent TV and film content producers and therefore the show has technology on display for that industry as well. More and more we are seeing IPTV and multi format technology such as TV production for cell phone display at the other end of the spectrum. Its all here at NAB.

 

[shanewalker]

Don whats the big deal about the RED Cameras?

I know its ultra high resolution HD, but is there anything which can display the resolution of these cameras? And since this is the National Association of BROADCASTERS is there any way to broadcast the full resolution shot by these cameras?

Did the Red tent today. Very impressive. The key to this camera is that it takes the price-point of film resolution/look digital cinematography (read MUCH better than HD, a true filmmakers camera) down to a tenth what the competition charges for their solutions. It's the 16mm revolution of the 21st century--the true fruition of the DV revolution.

What Red is doing is positing themselves as harbingers of a real paradigm shift in filmmaking--they are writing the obit for film in quality production pipelines and you're going to see a LOT of talented but cash-strapped folks use their products to bring some truly spectacular-looking content w/ indie flavor to the marketplace.

HD, with these cameras, is a down-rezzed output format, but the raw native resolution it shoots has the potential for full cinema release. And at $3K, the price of a nice pro-sumer barely true HD camcorder, the 'Scarlet' offers resolution that speaks to cinema of the highest level at unheard-of prices (only prob is right now its not spec'd to accept a standard PL mount, thus the lens selection is quite limited).

 

[shanewalker]

As for 3-D...its EVERYWHERE at NAB this year. Screenings all over, every major compositing/effects/3D vendor touting a production solution, etc.

I was at Siggraph back in the summer and it was the buzz there, too.

But now its looking like lots of event programming (concerts, sporting events, etc) will get the 3-D treatment, as well as CGI and effects/genre films.

There's a LOT coming down the pipe. And thought it may be a gimmick at first, it may stick...who knows. Maybe its the late 1950s all over again (TV/home theater is crippling theatrical exhibition and the need for a true 'big screen' draw is causing Hollywood et al to look to something like this to bring people in). But the fact that there are all those 120kHz HDTVs coming to market (and in peoples homes) that will be able to show 3D without alteration means its all just simply up to broadcasters/Bluray/etc to bring it home, too. Could be interesting.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Definitely not excited about 3D, but thanks so much for the updates. I appreciate them.

 

[TheForce]

Shane- I haven't hit the Red yet this year. I was surprised about your comment of 16mm. I went to their web site and it is still showing the 35 mm digital replacement. I'll have to check that out. The 35 mm camera head was about the size of a gallon jug.

When others outside the industry ask me about this I would say it's like you as a movie viewer would be concerned over whether the movie was shot with Arri cameras or Panavision cameras. You don't concern yourself over it as it is a hidden technology difference in the way the film is made. Same for Red One. By the time a viewer sees the film, he shouldn't be able to see any difference in an all digital movie and a film shot movie. With Cine Alta 24p HDCAM you would see a difference on the big screen and that is why experts have often said that the film equal of HDCAM from the high end Cine Alta is 16mm.

I'll have to check it out to see what Red is doing to be competitive with the Cine Alta for 16mm. Thanks for the heads up on this.

BTW- Did you see the underwater Red? I was fascinated by that rig last year.

I'll be spending most of the day at the North hall looking at audio stuff today and If I get time I'ss how the lines are at Red tent.


Re 3D- I see lots more this year but not pervasive as Shane indicates. Mike- In my opinion this is an emerging technology that will become a niche as opposed to a paradygm as was HDTV. From what I see some movies will continue to use it but I'd bet that 10 years from today we will observe it being most prominent in the game industry-- Dare we say "XBOX 3D" and "Playstation 3D"?
I'd be real surprised to see football being done with it as people are happy with the 15 cameras we now have covering the game.

Time to go...


Wednesday-

Stopped by the Red One tent and saw their latest collection. I asked one of the engineers there about the camera size and he confirmed all their cams have imagers designed around the 35mm camera lenses and accessories.

Took a look at the 3D stuff. NHK was the best looking at a 4K level

What I did learn is that bluRay Disdk will have some offerings this summer in 3D but the guy I spoke with would not state the titles claiming to be NDA information. What he did say was the BluRay titles would be using the Universal Red / Teal gels.