(Image: George Kuchar and Marion Eaton in Kuchar’s “Thundercrack”. The filmmaker passed away on September 10, 2011.)

The Past Week in Review: posted on September 14, 2011

We search for the more interesting and provocative news and views of the past week…just so you don’t have to.

This week we check out new technologies that could topple leading companies, consider if New York production incentives are fair, and bid farewell to two pioneering filmmakers.

Sony’s F65 CineAlta

Sony Kills Arri & Red?

One reviewer on the EOSHD site wonders if Sony “just killed the (Arri) Alexa?” with its announcement at the IBC last week that the new Sony F65 CineAlta will deliver with a list price of $65,000. While that question brushes aside the great popularity of Arri’s digital camera system, it’s not a fatuous remark. Sony has instantly reshaped the high-end of digital cinematography via this relatively low-ball pricing strategy.

The successor to the Sony’s CineAlta F35–which cost in the vicinity of $250,000 on up–the F65 bests it in many areas, including its ability to record 16bit RAW from an 20MP 8K sensor and a claimed higher-than-film dynamic range of 14 stops. The F65 offers true 4K resolution too–not available on the $50,000 Arri Alexa. Meanwhile the “4K” $55,000 Red EPIC isn’t a full 4K camera since it lacks the F65 imager’s dedicated green photo sites (pixels).

Meanwhile, Andy Shipsides over at the AbelCine blog notes that not only will a rotary shutter version of the F65 be available (this removes the potential jello effect of the CMOS imager) but that the company will be selling a discounted bundle of the camera and its support system until the end of the year.

Wim Wenders used Iridas’ 3D technology to do post on his tribute to Pina Bausch. Photo credit: Laurent Philippe

Adobe Ups the Ante

You can’t say Adobe isn’t serious about taking its NLE Premiere Pro to expanded markets. Would it be to capitalize on the decidedly mixed response to Apple’s Final Cut Pro X? Yup. To many users, Apple turned away from the pro market with this completely reworked NLE.

At the IBC convention Adobe said that demand for professional video creation tools helped its creative suite package to grow 22-percent year-over-year. Growth on the Mac platform meanwhile grew 45-percent over the past year, “in part fueled by the large number of Apple Final Cut Pro customers switching to Adobe Premiere Pro.”

At the Amsterdam convention Adobe backed up this news when it announced the purchase of the IP assets of Iridas. The Munich-based company has been a well-respected name in digital color grading tools over the past decade. Iridas also developed tools for stereoscopic post as well as HDR video.

Enhanced color grading, says Adobe, is a “top requested feature by our Production Premium customers” and that’s where the technology will be appearing, probably by NAB 2012 if the company keeps to its regular series of Creative Suite upgrades. This blog post by Peter Salvia gives a good sense of what the pro world is thinking about this move by Adobe. Not too much guessing to Salvia’s feelings: his blog is titled adobe + iridas = fcp dead.

I’m also including comments that Iridas founder Lin Sebastian Kayser sent out in a letter after Adobe’s IBC announcement. I think it gives a good sense of how exciting this development is for Kayser, an innovator who stuck with his concept when few thought he could take on heavyweights in the color grading industry, the team at Adobe and for future Premier Pro users:

Over the years, many companies have offered to acquire IRIDAS and we always said no; successful acquisitions are a challenge to execute, so when Adobe approached us I thought “We are doing fine, we have a plan, why should we be interested?” But there are a couple of things that are different about Adobe as a company.
First of all, Adobe is a company that has indeed successfully integrated products from many companies it bought ≠ products like After Effects are central to their leadership. Also Adobe is a true engineering company not only investing massively in pure research, but also bringing it to market ≠ Premiere’s Mercury Playback Engine and After Effects Warp Stabilizer being only two examples. Many recent research results in HDR or new camera concepts coming from Adobe research truly impressed our team.
We also see a convergence of trends, as RAW High Dynamic Range image capture comes to the broader market the need for tools such as those IRIDAS developed is exploding; but our company was sized to service a specialist market.

All the best,
Lin Sebastian Kayser

Director Engineering, Adobe

Founder of IRIDAS

Scorsese releases his 3D version of Brian Selznick’s graphic novel ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’ later this year.

Will Better 3D Save the Studios?

Dave Kehr in the Times notes that the future of 3D movies remains uncertain, as audiences are not flocking to 3D movies like they did previously. But unlike the feared replay of the death of 3D that went down in the 1950s, directors are better adapting to shooting with that extra dimension because of improved technology such as the Cameron-Pace Fusion 3D camera system.

Kehr also notes that 3D may not fade this time as big-name directors including Scorsese and Spielberg will soon release films employing the technology. Meanwhile major TV manufacturers including Samsung, Sony and Panasonic are pushing the technology by building it into their high-end units by default.

However, nothing much seems to be stopping the slide in North American movie attendance over the summer, according to an article by Brooks Barnes in the Times. Films led by A-list stars flopped again and neither the Smurfs or Harry Potter were enough to push projected domestic box-office revenue beyond 1-percent of last year’s total according to Hollywood.com’s stats. Overall, sales were projected to lag 4 percent for the year.

Only solid sales from foreign box offices made the current season less than a debacle. As Barnes has it, “Hollywood has now experienced four consecutive summers of eroding attendance, a cause for alarm for both studios and the publicly traded theater chains.”

DSLRs Go Anamorphic

Ever consider shooting anamorphically with your DSLR? Andrew Reid, who runs the website EOSHD.com, thinks you should. Reid calls his e-book a “comprehensive cookbook for achieving a epic anamorphic look to your DSLR movies.”

This 2nd edition of Reid’s $20 downloadable book includes information on shooting 4K (3840 x 1080p) anamorphic DSLR footage and a comprehensive anamorphic lens buyer’s guide based on “real hands-on experience and testing”. The author claims the information is applicable to DSLRs from all the major players as well as video cameras such as the Sony FS100 and Panasonic AF100.

Selling Film, Not Souls

Film Courage is the oddly named website out of LA that features “film interviews that inspire”. This weekly mix of filmmakers and producers–you can hear it live on LA Talk Radio–takes you through the trials and travails of creatives as they produce and distribute production their work.

What may be most interesting for anyone hoping to make their own independent work is a recent show featuring Jon Reiss, Sheri Candler and Jeffrey Winter from The Film Collaborative, a website of a nonprofit group that’s “committed to distribution education and facilitation of independent film”.

The trio are on Film Courages’ episode number 128 to discuss their book “Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul”. As a book it probably doesn’t have very many surprises for anyone who’s been plowing in this field for any length of time–why filmmakers should be paying attention to Kevin Smith and Ed Burns and whether VOD is a viable source of income for filmmakers–but it seems like a good introduction to the services of the not-for-profit group The Film Collaborative.

Upstate Getting Left Behind?

The large recent state tax incentives passed by Albany might bring joy and some additional production to New York City, but that doesn’t ring such a happy tune upstate according to this recent article by Joseph Spector, Gannett’s Albany Bureau chief.

In his article Watchdog report: Critics rap film tax breaks which appeared on the Democrat and Chronicle website, Spector says that “upstate business groups have questioned the effectiveness of the film-tax credit”, an issue that becomes an issue since there is competition for those funds.

Spector quotes Brian McMahon, executive director of the state Economic Development Council, who said that “It’s an extraordinarily lucrative credit for the businesses, but it is benefiting primarily out-of-state companies that come into New York state, primarily New York City, for a few months, make a movie and leave.”

The amounts of the tax breaks are difficult to pin down South reporter since Empire State Development, the agency that manages the program, hasn’t disclosed the amount of “taxpayer-funded breaks that each project has gotten” even after Gannett says that it “filed a Freedom of Information request in May seeking those details.”

Governor Cuomo as said upstate business development would be a key effort of his administration, but the article notes that tax breaks for beleaguered businesses from the state’s Empire Zone program–revamped in 2010–provides only $50 million in new money each year compared with the $420 million annually for the film program.

You can read the rest of Spector’s investigative report here.

Andy Lampert (left) in a post-screening talk with Joel Schlemowitz at UnionDocs.

Take Me to the Cinemateque

We go to the Times again for a Dennis Lim article on Choosing Cinematheque Over Cineplex. Lim is a good example of a committed writer who straddles the worlds of the “engaged, site-specific programming” of alternative spaces to the studio distribution scene. He urges us to trace the history of the movies by noting how alternative cinemas evolved, “to consider, in other words, how an inventive approach to showing films can foster a new way of understanding them.”

The reporter gives a quick overview of some of the rich history of alternative cinema spaces in the city while touting the continued excitement engendered at venues such as Light Industry and UnionDocs.

An image from Jordan Belson’s Allures
Pioneers Passing

Two filmmakers who passed away recently embodied the DIY style of independent filmmaking key to making Indie cinema in the 60s, 70s, and beyond. The earlier range–let’s say up to the mid 70s–was the golden age of American underground cinema in which both played key roles.

George Kuchar worked in 8mm and 16mm with his twin brother Mike to put the Bronx on the map as a hotbed of camp cinema. Acknowledged by John Waters and David Lynch among others, the two came up with intriguingly off-kilter films such as Moshulu Holiday, I Was a Teenage Rumpot, and Hold Me While I’m Naked. As John Waters wrote in the introduction to the Kuchars’ memoirs “Reflections in a Cinematic Cesspool”, “The Kuchar brothers gave me the self confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision.”

George passed away at 69 in San Francisco, where he taught at the Art Institute. Here’s a recent appreciation of George’s work. You can read his obit here.

The much more abstract work of Jordan Belson will be remembered for his development of a cinema based on hypnotic use of light color and movement. Belson, who also lived in San Francisco, was 85 at his death. Belson’s work was celebrated on the site Center for Visual Music. You can read his obit here.

The news spread quickly over the web yesterday: Apple has gone back to selling Final Cut Studio. Now, facilities that have built their business around the NLE software can at least buy extra copies as needed. That is until Apple has cleared out its stock of the old software.

There’s another caveat: You can only buy the software via Apple’s phone sales line (800-MY-APPLE)–not its online or retail stores. Don’t expect a discount either. Just as before the advent of FCP X, Final Cut Studio 3 (which includes Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, Color 1.5 and Compressor 3.5) will be sold for its full $999 price. Educational pricing knocks $100 off that tab.

Although Apple has said it is simply clearing stock, some see the announcement as a sign that the company is finally responding to the extensive criticism from many in the professional world. Final Cut Pro X, introduced this past June, took a radical turn that upended many carefully crafted post workflows while proving incompatible with previous versions of the app.

However, according to posts on The Loop and CNET, an Apple spokesperson claimed that that the software was still retired and that the company has made similar efforts with other software products at the end of their product cycle.

If this is a typical way that Apple sells such defunct software, then the blog site AppleInsider came up with some curious responses by company representatives–internal disagreement over issues such as the availability of educational discounts and even if the software really was available for sale in the first place. While Apple seems at first the only one to sell the earlier version, web seller site Videoguys noted that they did have copies of Final Cut Studio to sell, although it was in limited Supply.

With the announcement just this past week that Steve Jobs was relinquishing the CEO position, it’s tempting to think that the new regime headed by Tim Cook was choosing to be more responsive to the considerable unhappiness voiced by the FCP community these past few months. In reality, that’s probably just wishful thinking. Pro editing can’t rate all that highly in Apple’s future plans.

The numbers of people who see themselves as professional editors is relatively minute compared to the numbers who buy MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones. (The Labor Department recently provided figures that noted that some 25,000 folks across the nation defined themselves as making their money principally through editing.)

With Jobs’ influence now set to decline as the guiding light behind the Cupertino-based company, some are instead wondering whether there is even a strong place for the creative arts at the Apple anymore. In his blog posting on Wired, reporter Tim Carmody starts by asking “Without Jobs as CEO, Who Speaks for the Arts at Apple?” Carmody declares Apple as a unique mix “built on the synthesis of technology and the liberal arts” that Jobs insisted on.

The reporter goes further, calling this time of CEO changeover “an awkward place for a technology company with deep roots in media to find itself.” Carmody thinks that Apple has slipped in its support for video professionals, book readers, or just those who want to use a computer to watch TV in the living room. His bleak assessment is that Apples’ “strategies for media, education and the creative industries — its ticket back to relevance after 1997 — have largely stagnated.”

Meanwhile, the NLE’s two traditional competitors–Adobe and Avid–continue to push for as many of those disconcerted FCP users as they can scoop up.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Future Media Concepts (FMC) one of the nation’s largest digital media training companies, announced that it has “teamed up with Adobe to offer training and discussion events for users of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium software.” FMC will be holding free user group events in six U.S. locations that will include presentations and Q&A sessions with an Adobe-certified instructor.

It’s not too hard to see Adobe’s strategy here: push hard to show that their NLE software can take the place of FCP with a familiar look and feel while working seamlessly with the rest of the post ecosystem.

“The Adobe Premiere Pro user group events with FMC help our customers stay ahead of the learning curve — whether they are current Adobe Premiere Pro users, or they’re moving over from another non-linear editor,” Anita Engelman, senior marketing manager for Premiere Pro at Adobe, said in a press statement.

This first set of meetings will address the latest version changes, hardware, plug-ins, techniques, and more. In time–each month for the remainder of the year–the events will feature guest lecturers in many other areas of expertise.

The Adobe Premiere Pro user groups will be held throughout the U.S. in Boston, Chicago, New York, Orlando, Fla., Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. For more information, to register for the Premiere Pro user groups, and to view the current roster of the user group events to be held at FMC, visit www.fmctraining.com.

Even though Avid reported a loss this past quarter, that number came in as less than a year ago. Many think that the Tewksbury, Massachusetts-based company is well positioned to keep and strengthen its hold on the upper reaches of the editing world. Company CEO Gary Greenfield was recently interviewed on CNBC as to technology in general and the company’s prospects in particular.

According to MacRumors, both Adobe and Avid are continuing their programs of heavily discounting versions of their suites and NLE appls through the end of September.

(Image: Presenting his new film ‘Twixt’, Francis Ford Coppola tries on an Edgar Allan Poe mask that contains 3D glasses.)

The Past Week(s) in Review: For August 22 and August 29, 2011

This edition of TPWR covers the past two weeks of news.

We search for the more interesting and provocative news and views of the past week…just so you don’t have to.

This week we share the good news about local production, learn about a filter that can save you from DSLR headaches, and find out that an older, established filmmaker is more experimental than ever.

Mayor Bloomberg on the set of Pan Am with Media & Entertainment Commissioner Oliver and other officials. Photo credit: The Mayor’s Office.

Upbeat about Production

More good news on the growing number of prime time TV shows filming throughout the five boroughs. According to a recent press conference held by Mayor Bloomberg, we have some 23 shows now shooting regularly; eight of them were selected from 20 pilots shot in the city earlier this year.

Bloomberg made the announcement from the Steiner Studios stages of Sony Pictures Television’s “Pan Am”, set to debut on ABC this fall. Steiner, based in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, is now expanding to double its size. It is already the largest soundstage production facility on the East Coast, with the expansion adding some 2000 jobs to the 2200 jobs at throughout the Yard.

In a release, Steiner Studios Chairman Douglas C. Steiner thanked the Bloomberg administration for its continued support of the entertainment industry. “This onslaught of film and television production is a direct result of the mayor and other elected officials working together to make New York City competitive and hassle-free,” he said. This was taken from an article in The Hollywood Reporter, which you can read here.

Variety credits recently enacted long-term tax incentives granted by the state. An improvement over the previous year-by-year incentive extensions, the five year term offers a more stable environment for the studios for budgeting and other planning. The Variety article says that business boosters, including local studio heads, have learned to be “savvy in lobbying for production incentives at the state capital.”

QR Talk

Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, won the director the fest’s Directing Award. Major prize talk continues to build for Durkin as well as actors Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes well in advance of the film’s October 21st release. But there also seems to be a good bit of interest in Fox Searchlight’s use of QR (quick response) codes on early posters to trigger the trailers.

The gimmick here is that the previews aren’t available any other way online–you really do have to use your smartphone to scan the QR codes on posters you might find on the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Los Angeles–to get to these specific trailers. Entertainment Weekly’s Inside Movies claims to have had the scoop on the first use of these smart-phone-only posters.

Photo credit: MGM
Kubrick Invents the iPad, Personal TV Follows

Seems that it’s not the monolith from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey that garners interest these days but the “iPad like” TV notepads two of the astronauts on the Jupiter probe use. Samsung indeed cites these objects in the movie–they’re the size of a notepad and feature a functional video screen–as an example of prior art in its court case against Apple, who claims the Korean manufacturer has infringed its patented iPad design. You can read further details on Foss Patent’s blog here.

Following the lead of personal media, John Clancy, CEO at Azuki Systems, writes on Mashable that the future TV is “all about personalization.” We all knew that, and Clancy’s company makes platforms for mobile phones enabling cable companies and others to offer a good video experience on the go.

The basic argument isn’t new either: Since viewers no longer make plans to sit down and view specific content on a regular basis–we all want content whenever and wherever we happen to be–cable companies and channels like HBO want to offer video service alternatives that keeps up with their viewer’s habits.

While content creators and service providers are “making a mad dash to get screen time on mobile and other connected devices”, these new delivery options are stumbling because experience is not seamless when using the various devices. Azuki, of course, provides the one item Clancy says is lacking–the “key ingredient for success — personalization.” Metadata behind the video is used to split longer shows into smaller chunks so that viewers can catch clips on the go. Worth a read if just to learn how much control can be exerted over your distributed video.

Photo credit: metaio
Siggraph Notes, AR, & ARRI

Over at Studio Daily, editor Beth Marchant offers a quick take on SIGGRAPH 2011. Top tech presentations at the show in Vancouver, says Marchant, included Nvidia’s Project Maximus (a graphics technology that allows users to access and scale different parts of the GPU as needed) and Amazon’s “Cluster GPU Instance for its EC2″ –this service allows smaller facilities to rent processing power to render scenes. Meanwhile, BlackSky Computing ups the ante on cloud computing schemes like Amazon’s EC2 cloud by claiming it isn’t very effective beyond the capability of working with short sequences. BlackSky may enter the market for high-performance processing and rendering with its own competing service.

Augmented reality may offer a whole new way to use smartphones, or it could just be a gimmick for gamers. With that conclusion still up for grabs, you might take a look at an intriguing video “Roadmap of AR and the Vision of an Augmented City” to get a better idea of what the latest developments offer. Created by the Media Processing Division of chipmaker ARM and the R&D department of German-based AR company metaio, the video shows how more powerful smartphones capable of realtime 3D motion tracking will provide real-time contextual, digital information overlaying urban scenes.

You have to wonder why they haven’t offered this already since the Munich-based company has been around for much of the history of cinema, but ARRI CSC has launched its own Expendables Online Shop. Found at arricscstore.com, the store offers all the items you’ll need for handling camera, lighting, and grip work.

Photo credit: Kevin Brown
Wormholes, CDN Woes, & Bird Talk

In an area within MIT’s student cafeteria, you can find a Plexiglas dome that sits over a video screen. You can find the exact similar setup in Stanford University’s cafeteria. What is it? First, consider that there is an always on, high-speed link between the two conversation areas. (The plexi dome acts as a chamber to funnel audio while not disturbing others nearby.) Meant to make realtime long-distance interactions casual and arbitrary, the designers of the system act all science-fictioney by calling the link a wormhole. See if it heralds the future of long distance interactive communication by reading the the rest of the article on the Boston Globe’s site.

Over on the GigaOM site, reporter Stacey Higginbotham offers us an inside look at content delivery specialist Akamai and the “scary future of streaming video.” Seems that within two to five years, the throughput requirement for certain single video events will reach some 50 to 100 terabits per second. That is about the equivalent bandwidth of what it takes to distribute a TV quality stream to a large prime time audience today. Problem is that this is an “order of magnitude” beyond the largest online video events held today, according to Higginbotham, and that’s without adding all of bells & whistles of interactivity, which many claim we desperately want. See what you think by reading the article here.

The LA Times interviews Pixar’s Brad Bird for an article entitled “Hollywood isn’t Brave Enough to Copy Pixar’s Process”. While Pixar has become “the gold standard among popcorn films”, Bird opines, Hollywood studios are doing everything to copy the famed animation studio except actually taking the time and effort to really, truly develop a good story first. A good storyline is a central tenet of the vaunted Pixar process. Read more about Bird’s thoughts on current trends in animation by clicking here.

Photo credit: Mosaic Engineering
DSLR’s Savior, Flash & Jobs

In short review/article on his site, DSLR enthusiast Philip Bloom claims a new anti-aliasing and moire filter from Mosaic Engineering solves the two most serious problems–aliasing and moire generation–you will face when shooting with Canon’s 5DmkII. It seems the filter removes the interference patterns on details that are generated by the camera’s line skipping. Is this a simple cure for what Bloom calls the “bane of shooting with DSLRs and the single biggest problem”? Read it here and decide.

Fast and efficient Flash memory rules in the world of consumer computing (i.e. iPads, smartphones, digital cameras). Except in limited cases, the price of solid-state storage has remained too high to allow it to move into the world of large-scale computing like data centers. Now, Pure Storage, a new start up, says that it can use consumer level flash storage along with its software to pull the price of Flash storage down to less than that of hard drives. That’s a mighty achievement if true. Read more here in Steve Lohr’s article in the Times’ Bits blog.

There have been plenty of testimonials to Steve Jobs on his resignation from Apple. At least read one of them from someone who has something to do with our industry: Here’s a note from George Lucas, who sold Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division to Jobs, a sale which famously created Pixar Animation Studios. But of course that only came after a number of years of development and many millions invested in the new operation. Read more of Nick Wingfield’s article in the reporter’s Wall Street Journal blog by clicking here.

Elle Fanning & Coppola on the set of ‘Twixt’
Still Going Strong

Francis Ford Coppola brought Val Kilmer and the composer of his latest film Twixt to the recent Comic Con convention for a talk. What made that panel more than just the usual dog and pony, says reporter Jason Adams on JoBlo.com, is that this original horror tale-said to be inspired by one of Coppola’s own dreams–will be presented as a live performance. That’s right–Coppola claims to be returning to the early days of cinema when things weren’t so locked down to present some of the “magic and spontaneity of live performance art”.

Coppola, working with electronic musician and soundtrack composer Dan Deacon will “change the experience to suit the audience” in real time. Read more about the ever experimenting FFC and his new idea for presentation by clicking here. Twixt premieres at next month’s Toronto International Film Festival.

As an aside: If you would be curious to see how an earlier, eager Coppola marked up a page from “The Godfather”–and a heavily marked up page it is with “Hit hard and bloody!!” among the exhortations he made to himself–then click here.

Raul Ruiz
Memories of a Cine Magician

Raul Ruiz, the little heralded filmmaker (at least in the U.S.), passed away recently. (If you haven’t had a chance to see one of his many intriguing works, check out his transfixing Mysteries of Lisbon, which is still showing at Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center.)

Producer James Schamus posted a touching remembrance on Scott Macauley’s IndieWIRE blog, calling the director/author “one of the truly great, idiosyncratic and visionary voices of world cinema.” Both Schamus and Macauley—along with a raft of downtown notables of the time including Christine Vachon, Michael Kirby, John Zorn, Kathy Acker, and Jim Jarmusch—worked or acted in Ruiz’s 1987 film The Golden Boat, a goof on the New York art scene at the time.

This bit from AP’s obit sums up his career neatly: “A favorite of cinephiles, Ruiz rebelled against the conventions of moviemaking in an extensive, varied body of work that didn’t result in a widely-known masterpiece, but left behind a vast, labyrinthine collection of experiments, curiosities and innovations.”

Recently, we reviewed one of HP’s top workstations, the Z800, and reported on what made it such a compelling machine for post-production (you can read that review here). Now HP has made one for the road: the Elitebook 8760w Mobile Workstation. We give it high marks, especially for those interested in power and portability. As we’ll see, this machine packs a considerable punch. In HP’s own words: “the 2011 Mobile Workstations are the most robust business notebooks HP has ever created”.

Along with this article, I created this video about the Elitebook 8760w:

A Question of Size

The Elitebook is a mobile workstation, an appropriate term since this machine has much more power than your average notebook computer. And although the Z800 reigns supreme (when it comes to raw power), this laptop has what it takes to handle demanding post-production, animation and video editing jobs.

Whether you should get a mobile workstation or opt for a minitower (like the Z800) depends on your personal tastes and preferences, and also whether you spend the majority of your time on the go. Minitowers, of course, are more expandable than mobile computers. For instance, a machine like the Z800 can accept 192 GB of RAM, while the Elitebook’s maximum is 32 GB (though that will do quite nicely for many applications). Minitowers can also house more hard drives which in turn allow you to create larger RAIDs. There are PCIe slots in a workstation like the Z800 which allow the installation of important expansion cards from third-party manufacturers like the Decklink HD broadcast cards from Blackmagic Design or the most powerful Quadro cards from NVIDIA (like the Quadro 5000).

However, a mobile workstation has its benefits, obviously the main reason being that it is mobile. Have plans to take off to the Hamptons for the weekend but are in the middle of editing an HD picture? No problem, just slip the Elitebook 8760w into your bag and finish it off at your seaside retreat while sipping a tall glass of iced tea. With a mobile solution, it’s easy to work anywhere and at anytime.

Granted, there is something to be said about keeping your playtime for, well, playing. After all, the reason you go to the beach isn’t to do more work, but for some good old R&R. However, for those of you who work in production, you know that more often than not, it’s not so easy to slip away completely.

In the past, mobile computers left something to be desired when compared to desktop-style workstations. Maybe not for 3D modeling or Photoshop work, but doing serious HD editing projects and highly complex renders pushed most laptops to their limits. However, we think that the Elitebook 8760w Mobile Workstation does much to close the gap and bring some of the serious performance levels of a dedicated minitower to the mobile platform.

Good Looks, Yet Tough

In the EliteBook, HP has designed an attractive machine with a sleek industrial design. The surface of the machine has a brushed gunmetal finish on the cover which radiates concentrically from a back-lit jewel logo.

Sleek and attractive as it may be, however, the EliteBook was made to take a beating. Its chassis, otherwise known as the HP DuraCase, is made out of mix of magnesium and aluminum and built to withstand punishment. (It was designed to meet the stringent military standard MIL-STD 810G which clears the unit for drop worthiness, vibration, dust, temperature, shock, altitude and high temperature.)

For all that ruggedness, however, the 8760w is surprisingly light. With the mobile workstation moniker, I expected it to be much heavier. Not so. The machine only weighs 7.8 pounds, which is relatively light for a machine of this class (weight will vary slightly according to configuration). While this isn’t a netbook-class lightness, the EliteBook is a very comfortable machine to carry around.

The EliteBook’s touchpad is made out of chemically strengthened glass; the slick surface allows your fingers to glide effortlessly around. The touchpad is also sensitive for gesture recognition (a la iPad or iPhone), so software that supports it, like Photoshop, will allow you to zoom, rotate and pinch with ease.

On the top and bottom of the touchpad are three buttons corresponding to a mouse’s left, middle and right buttons. My last laptop only had two buttons left and right. While not all programs employ the middle button, it is used quite a bit in several 3D programs such as Maya, so it’s a welcome addition. Although I usually plug in a tablet or a mouse when working on a notebook computer, I do like the way the buttons feel, nice and springy with just the right amount of resistance.

What’s Inside

The CPUs available for the EliteBook 8760w are second generation Intel Core i7 and i5 dual and quad-core processors. The CPU that came on the test machine was an i7-2620M. This chip had 2 cores, 4 threads and runs at a clock speed of 2.7GHz.

HP keeps its emphasis on easy access and serviceability with the EliteBook line. Gaining access to all the internal components, such as the memory and hard drives, is fast and easy and does not require any tools or complicated steps. Just slide a simple latch to remove the cover.

The EliteBook supports up to four SODIMMS for a total of 32GB of DDR3 SDRAM. Very respectable for a portable computer, I’d say. However, you will need to get a quad-core processor to use that much memory. You see, dual core processors support only two memory slots while quad cores support four and memory SODIMMS come in 2, 4 and 8 GBs sizes. Thus if you get a dual-core CPU, the maximum amount you can have is 16 GB.

By comparison, the maximum amount of memory you can get on a 17 inch MacBook Pro is only 8 GB (even with a quad-core i7).

Quadro Acceleration

You’ve got a choice of graphics processors (or GPUs) on the Elitebook. For starters, you can get an AMD FirePro M3900 or M5950 (both 1 GB). Or you can upgrade your machine to NVIDIA Quadro with choices such as the 1000M (2GB), 2000M (2GB), 3000M (2GB), 4000M (2GB) or 5010M (4GB). By going with the Quadro, you have the crucial benefit of acceleration of the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, an integral part of the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro.

To compare again, the best graphics option you can get on the MacBook Pro is a 1 GB AMD Radeon 6750M graphics processor. If you are planning to edit with Premiere Pro, you should know that only NVIDIA graphics processors accelerate the Mercury Playback Engine. AMD’s don’t. This fact, plus the greater memory on the Quadros will be an important factor when deciding upon which machine to buy if you are planning to edit with Premiere and use Adobe Dynamic Linking (see the article on the Z800 for more on Adobe Dynamic Linking).

Get the Picture

There is an option to get an HP DreamColor display on the EliteBook. DreamColor is an advanced display technology that was developed to address the critical need for consistent color accuracy in the worlds of animation, film/video post and the graphic arts. For applications where critical color really matters (like color grading or compositing), this is important. The review unit did not come with a DreamColor display, but the 17.3-inch display looked remarkably good anyway, and featured full 1920 X 1080 resolution. For many of us, unless you require the utmost color fidelity, the standard display will be fine.

To help protect the display, HP has implemented a design called the DisplaySafe frame, a full double-shot rubber frame which acts as a shock-absorbing barrier that helps protect the display panel from damage caused by shock and vibrations.

If one display isn’t enough for you, (and when is one ever enough?) there is a feature available on the 8760w called AMD Eyefinity Technology. When used in conjunction with the HP 230W Advanced Docking Station, you can connect up to five (that’s right, I said five) independent displays for an ultimate computing experience.

This is something that I would certainly be interested in implementing since I happen to be someone who craves screen space. With five displays, you can edit on one screen, composite on the second, animate on the third, surf the web on the fourth and… oh well, you get the idea. Although five monitors may seem flamboyant, the cost is really quite reasonable. The docking station only costs $219 and have you noticed how cheap 1920 X 1080 HD flat screens are getting?

A Question of Storage

You can order the EliteBook 8760w with two drives which support RAID 0, 1, and 5. They can either be two 750 GB 7200 rpm hard drives or two 256 GB Solid State Drives. If you require more online storage, you can put one in the upgrade bay which normally comes with an optical drive (ours came with a SuperMulti 8X DVD+-R/RW drive with double layer support). Thus, without the optical drive the machine can support three hard drives.

Sounds Good

The EliteBook features High Definition Audio (SRS Premier Sound). This high-end audio system can be controlled through an advanced user interface that allows you to control surround sound and has a multi-band graphic equalizer built right in. If you work with sound or music a lot, you will appreciate the audio capabilities of this machine. There is also an integrated pair of stereo speakers.

On the Software Side

Along with the machine, HP includes some bundled software tools. There’s the HP Performance Advisor, a useful tool that helps you monitor the performance of your machine and tune your system accordingly. We spoke about the Performance Advisor at length in our article about the Z800, so you can check it out there, if you haven’t done so already.

The HP Connection Manager gives you full control over your wireless connections including mobile broadband, WiFi, Ethernet and Bluetooth. There’s also HP QuickWeb which contains several easy to access built-in applets for social media, news and other utilities.

The HP Power Assistant allows you to control how your computer uses energy. Through it, you can set different energy profiles based upon how you use your machine. This can help you extend your battery life and conserve power.

HP ProtectTools is a portfolio of security technologies that protects your computer from unauthorized use and keeps your sensitive data safe and secure. It also has an interesting function that “shreds” the files that you trash by writing them over with random bits so that they are impossible to retrieve.

Battery Issues

On the EliteBook 8760w, you’ve got a choice between the standard 8-cell Lithium-ion battery or a Long Life 8-cell battery. On average, batteries last up to 6 hours and 30 minutes and, according to HP, if you get the standard battery you should purchase a new one every 12 to 18 months in order to maintain an acceptable battery life. The HP Long Life battery, on the other hand, has a three year life span — up to twice as long as most Li-ion notebook batteries.

Ports and Slots

The 8760w comes with two high speed USB 3.0 ports which are very useful for connecting external drives for use in video editing, since they’re ten times faster than USB 2.0. It also comes with two USB 2.0 ports so you can plug in all your older devices. It also has one eSATA port which also doubles as another USB 2.0 port (it’s a combo port), a VGA port and a DisplayPort for hooking up an external monitor (if you decide not to get the docking station).

Benchmarks

To measure the performance of the EliteBook 8760w, we used Maxon’s Cinebench and FutureMark’s PCMark 7. Here’s what we found. Keep in mind, our review unit was a dual-core i7. Scores will be significantly better on a machine with a quad-core CPU. If you have an 8760w with a quad-core i7, please post the results below. Note: Comparative Cinebench and PCMark 7 scores can be found on the web.

Conclusion

I think the HP EliteBook 8760w Mobile Workstation is a superb machine. Many factors, such as HP’s close collaboration with Adobe in the design of their products and the Quadro accelerated Mercury Playback engine are central to why this machine rocks (I’ve discussed those issues at length in my article on the Z800). The EliteBook 8760w is an excellent platform for video editors, 3D animators, audio production and graphic designers. Although it won’t hurt to look at what else is out there before purchasing, we think you will be hard-pressed to find anything better. As far as Apple’s 17 inch MacBook Pro is concerned, we feel that the 8760w outshines it in some important ways such as its ability to support more memory and install additional hard drives.

Pricing will vary on configuration. For ordering information, visit this page on HP’s website.

Image: Time Warner Cable and Comcast can’t rely on one steady stream of profits hanging around anymore.

The Past Week in Review: For August 9, 2011

We search for the more interesting and provocative news and views of the past week…just so you don’t have to.

This week we hear about a web mogul in the making, a gray lady learning new tricks, and why fewer people are tuning in and paying the cablers.

Lady Mogul & Lady Gray

In his article Felicia Day: Mogul In The Making, Forbes’s David Ewalt profiles the TV actress and praises her innovative work in creating small niche web videos that are both artistically satisfying for her and actually make money. Facing consistent typecasting by TV casting agents, Day struck out on her own. In 2007 she created the first few episodes of The Guild and released them free on the ‘net. She filed enough fans to support a full season of shows. By the second season production costs of over $10,000 per episode were covered by sponsorships from Sprint and Microsoft.

This was followed up by Dragon Age Redemption, a further gloss on videogame obsessed youth. Shot earlier this year, it features Tallis, an “Elven assassin” played by Day, who also co-produces. This yet to be released web series moves well towards more established pro realms in its use of sets, props, and costumes, with folks with rather impressive credentials involved including Independence Day associate producer Peter Winther as director and John Bartley (Lost) as cinematographer.

You can read Ewalt’s article by clicking here.

You can watch Day’s The Guild series here. Since it resembles a more standard sitcom, its budget doesn’t show as much as might her upcoming low budget fantasy film. Microsoft sponsors it on Xbox Live, so money and recognition are coming Day’s way. Although Dragon Age Redemption was originally scheduled to debut this summer, after Day spoke to reporters at the San Diego Comic-Con fan chatter on the web now points to a fall release.

Developments in the newspaper world are a bit further afield from our usual coverage. But since this involves media heavyweight and city icon the New York Times, I thought the Gray Lady’s web moves would be of interest.

This past week the Times introduced Beta620, a public site for its experimental projects. A bit reminiscent of Google labs in its approach, it offers consumers a way to test new Times’ Web apps that may or may not be used as a standard part of the main site.

Consumers can try out some seven different projects currently including Longitude, which locates the day’s Times articles on an interactive Google map. Here’s an article on AdAge that goes into some of the different aspects of the new project, which might finally provide the old gray lady with some decent Internet chops.

AR, Apple & Adobe

If you have ever used an augmented reality app on your smart phone, you know how intriguing the idea of combining the phone’s video camera with a data overlay can be. You might also be aware of the downside to current technology—instead of actually recognizing a scene’s elements, today’s phones actually use either a QR code that the camera can lock on to or rough sensors and not very detailed GPS info to enable that useful combination of the virtual and the real that’s the promise of AR. The result is much less precise than the hype has lead us to believe.

Now, however, Layar—the largest purveyor of mobile augmented reality platforms—has released Layar Vision. The new app better employs machine vision techniques, recognizing real world objects and layering over digital content that the user has uploaded to the company’s servers. More here.

Apple, as we’ve come to know over the years, likes to control as much of its ecosystem as possible. Not relying on the kindness of strangers is one reason why they bought two ARM chipmakers over the past three years, with the technology turning up in iPods, iPhones and iPads.

Now, Apple is said to be well on the way to merging its two operating systems—the mobile world of iOS and the traditional Mac OS X–with a new custom A6 ARM chip design. According to this Appleinsider article, you can expect to see it in product by some point in 2012. Peter Misek of Wall Street analyst firm Jefferies & Co. speculates that Apple will turn out a new MacBook Air, iPad, and iPhone all running on the yet to release quad-core A6 chip. While pro-level gear like the Mac Pro desktop and MacBook Pro laptop will still use more potent Intel CPUs for now, the analyst posits that by 2016 all of these products, along with the iPad and iPhone, will be running on a single yet-to-be-designed ARM-type chipset.

If you’ve been following the ongoing battle between Apple and Adobe regarding the place of Flash on Apple’s iOS, you know that HTML 5 is the Cupertino company’s preferred app for web animation.

Of course Adobe is too savvy a company to let this simmering dispute to endanger its position as toolmaker to the creative world. This past week Adobe launched Adobe Edge, a tool to allow creators to design animated web content using a variety of standards that Apple does approve of, including HTML 5, CSS, and JavaScript. The software will coexist with Adobe Flash, and not replace it, at least initially. Edge seems especially important if Adobe expects to be a player in mobile, since Apples’ devices will probably never run Flash natively.

Click here to read Sarah Perez’s article on ReadWriteWeb.

New Cellphone Tricks

Up against fierce competition in the cellphone market from Apple and Android-based phones, Nokia continues to try lots of things to reinvent itself.

It doesn’t hurt to pair with a leading animation house either, and that’s what they did in this video. Working with UK-based Aardman Animations, Nokia charged them to create the “world’s largest stop-motion animation made with phones” which is some kind of record to shoot for, I suppose.

Shot on a beach in Wales via three Nokia N8 cellphones rigged up to a crane, video producer Sandrine Ceurstemont used ever-changing life-sized sand drawings covering some 11,000 square feet to do this simple silent narrative. Check it out on the New Scientist site here.

For those who shoot with a Canon EOS series DSLR, a new app allows you to control it via a compatible Android device over USB. There are other specifics as to which version of the phone or a Honeycomb tablet you need to pull this off at this site.

Fewer Golden Eggs

As reported by All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka and others, Time Warner Cable has a porn problem—it isn’t selling enough of the stuff these days.

Seems that even though cable companies like TWC and Comcast claim that web video (e.g. Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV) isn’t cutting into their business, their video-on-demand portion had dropped substantially over the last quarter. Reporter Kafka asked TWC CEO Glenn Britt to explain the drop; Britt revealed that there were many fewer viewers paying $10 or so for a VOD softcore video as they were now checking out XXX-rated video on the web for free. That final step to XXX rated material is something the cablers won’t touch.

A Great Combo for Adobe Premiere" />

If you are a media production professional, you’ll want to take a good look at the HP Z800 workstation. When paired with a NVIDIA Quadro GPU accelerated video card we’re talking about a system that achieves an outstanding level of performance. Whether you are an editor of motion pictures, a compositor, visual effects artist or create high-end 3D animation, the HP Z800 workstation has a design that’s ideal for the special needs of production and post-production professionals who are searching for the utmost in power and flexibility. As we’ll be discussing throughout this article, this should be especially relevant to video editors who may be looking for new directions in light of recent developments in that field.

Editing’s Changing Tides

Before we go over the machine, let’s elaborate on recent news that has recently made the Z800 much more compelling to a segment of our community, namely film and video editors, who may have overlooked it before. It should come as no surprise that Apple’s recent release of Final Cut Pro X has thrown this group into a frenzy, since the new app throws out many of the pro features and third party plug-ins developed over the years. One company’s NLE is suddenly benefiting greatly from this unease, specifically Adobe Premiere Pro, and interest in this cost-effective professional solution continues to grow as a result. (Read Walter Biscardi’s rather bitter farewell to Apple’s FCP X NLE solution to get an idea of what’s involved in this issue).

Due to the early success of a few key software packages, Windows-based machines have basically become the standard in 3D animation production. The leading computer manufacturer for both Windows and Linux — HP — exemplifies this, as it has built a longstanding relationship with DreamWorks Animation.

However, due the development of Final Cut Pro over the past 12 some years since its introduction, including a number of third party plug-ins that solved crucial issues, many professional video and film editors moved to Macs for their work. (Meanwhile 2D compositing is done on both platforms). The most common editing program used on the Mac, outside of the consumer-oriented iMovie, has been Final Cut Pro; it has been used extensively here in New York at production companies, ad agencies, design boutiques and by indie filmmakers. In the meantime, Avid Media Composer, the long time leader for feature film and television, had been losing seats to FCP.

Now, unless you’ve been hiking through the Himalayas for the last couple of months, you’ve probably heard something about the controversy surrounding the new version of Final Cut Pro. For those who might have missed it, let’s just say that many FCP users are less than thrilled about the new release (and by the way, welcome back from the Himalayas).

Some have said that the new version of Final Cut doesn’t live up to the standards of a professional editing application, having more having more in common with a consumer-grade product (such as iMovie). It also doesn’t open older versions of Final Cut projects and no longer supports some pro features like multi-cam editing and XML export. To many, these are serious shortcomings that have led some to question the level of commitment Apple has to the professional market. There have been some improvements to the software, and some of the objections that have been raised might be addressed in future versions. Yet many editors remain discontent and have been casting their glance towards software that suddenly seems like it is much better suited to the needs of professional editors: Adobe Premiere Pro, which really shines, for reasons we’re about to explore, on an HP Z800 workstation.

In fact, over the past couple of years we’ve already noticed a steady rise in the popularity and capabilities of Premiere Pro. This can be attributed to several factors, many of which were described during the recent Adobe Roadshow for Production Premium CS 5.5 in New York where Adobe, in explicit detail, explained to an appreciative audience many of its exciting new features. Incidentally, at the Roadshow, Adobe used a Z800 during the demonstrations, but we’ll be talking much more about the special relationship that has blossomed between Adobe and HP later.

Some of Premiere’s benefits include better support for native tapeless file-based camera formats (such as HD H.264 editing directly in the timeline), generated by popular cameras such as the Canon 5D Mark II. More support for native camera formats means less time wasting time transcoding. You can just drop a file directly from the camera’s memory card into the timeline and start editing without extra fussing. Then there is Adobe Dynamic Linking, a feature that eliminates intermediate rendering between the different programs in the Creative Suite.

Ironically, Premiere was one of the first video editing apps commercially available, but for whatever reasons it ended up taking a back seat to Final Cut. As Adobe’s other software programs such as After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash emerged as industry standards, Premiere lagged behind. Far from abandoning it, however, Adobe steadily continued to improve it. The question is in light of the recent developments, has Premiere’s day finally and suddenly arrived?

If you have come to that conclusion yourself, then you may wish to consider getting an HP Z800 since it may very well be the best choice to build an ultimate high-end editing system based upon Premiere Pro.

Thanks to the CPU/chip set’s 64-bit capability, the Z800’s 12 DIMM slots can support an unprecedented 192GB of DDR3 1333 MHz triple channel RAM. The machine we used to conduct this review was running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, had 24GBs of memory, dual six-core Xeons, a Quadro 5000 GPU, SSD (solid-state drive) to hold the OS and apps while dual terabyte hard drives were configured into a 2TB RAID. HP, which provided and configured the rig, also included a USB 3.0 card.

Born to Run, Built to Last

Upon first glance, the Z800 is impressive looking with a sleek industrial design. No surprise since the looks come courtesy BMW Designworks. The computer is handsomely appointed on both sides with sturdy brushed aluminum side panels. These panels not only look good but provide heavy duty protection against the elements. Simple touches show the thought of the design, such as the sturdy handles built into the top, which makes it a cinch to move around. The remarkable design of the machine isn’t just skin deep, however, and this becomes immediately apparent when looking inside the minitower.

Look Ma, No Tools!

Opening the Z800 is easy in just the way it should be: you just grab a handle and pull off one of the side panels. No time wasted unfastening bolts or screws. Once opened, an impressively sleek and modular design, rather than a confusing mess of cluttered wires, ribbons and cables, greets you. The intelligently architected interior provides easy access to all of the internal components, each neatly covered by easily removable panels that snap into place.

The principle of tool-less serviceability and upgrading has been consciously applied to the Z800. This is something that HP has been perfecting over a while and now the whole process has become slick and effortless. It is perhaps best exemplified by the power supply which sits at the top of the unit. If anything should ever go wrong with it, you simply slide it out and slide in a new one. It’s really that simple and completely cable-less with no tricky screws or bolts to remove. Replacing a typical power supply can be a complicated and tricky proposition as you tug at tight fitting plugs in snug quarters. Not in the HP Z800.

Here’s a video I made showing how to access the interior of the machine. It also provides other information about the system and its components:

This is a RAID

For editors, storage is one of the most important considerations. Video requires a lot of it and it must be fast. A RAID (array of drives configured to work simultaneously) setup has become the standard way to go for years. The Z800 allows you to put up to five 3.5 inch 7200 rpm SATA drives, each up to 2 TB, for a maximum of 10 TB of online storage which will allow you to store many hours of HD.

The hard drive bay is located towards the front of the machine in a neat and tidy stack of drawers. To remove a drive you simply pull it out by its handle. Adding one is a matter of pushing it in. Once again, no need to worry about complicated mounting brackets or tiny screws. The Z800’s integrated SATA 3 GBs and SAS controllers are RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 capable. With the online price of a 7200rpm 2 TB hard drive going for about 79 bucks, it’s not only a snap to install a high volume, speedy RAID — it’s also cheap.

While the solid-state memory used in SSDs is not yet cost-effective to use in building a RAID, you do have the option to go with an SSD as your boot disk for the OS and applications. You’d still use the cheaper, high capacity drives for the RAID. This is a good mix that takes advantage of a SSDs’ speed and reliability and the cost savings of older gen magnetic storage. That’s just how the machine used in this review was configured.

Thanks for the Memory

The Z800 comes with 12 DIMM (dual in-line memory module) slots that allow you to install an astounding 192 GB memory, which comes via the CPU/OS both supporting 64 bit operation. While it is unlikely you’ll endow your machine with that much memory at first, it’s reassuring to know you can down the line. The machine I tested had 24 GB of RAM which is generous enough for most users. With the ample memory and the speedy internal SSD, I was able to run multiple programs concurrently and the Z800 handled it in stride. Programs such as Premiere, Cinema 4D, After Effects, Maya, Photoshop and others sprang to life quickly and there was enough memory to go around for each to operate comfortably at the same time.

The Heart of the Matter

Two six-core Xeon processors lay at the heart of the test machine and add up to twelve cores, the maximum number available on a Z800 (you have a choice of eight different Xeon X5000 and E5000 series CPUs). Premiere Pro has long been multi-threaded and multi-core aware, and was designed to take advantage of all the power the dual Xeons can muster.

Since Creative Suite 5, Premiere will only run on 64 bit operating systems. After Effects 5.5 also requires a 64 bit OS. However, Production Premium CS 5.5 ships with a complementary version of Premiere Pro and After Effects CS4, which do run in 32 bit, so if you have an older machine, you can use them temporarily until you purchase a new one.

The Ultimate Video Card

If HP’s Z-series are the top of the shelf workstations, to many Nvidia’s Quadro line of GPUs are the ultimate video cards. Today, standard definition (SD) (720 pixels X 480 pixels) video editing is practically a memory, and editing in HD resolution (1920 X 1080) has become the norm. Relatively inexpensive HD cameras such as the Canon 5D and Sony NEX FS-100 are capable of producing excellent results and are a popular choice among independent producers and television shows. However, higher end cameras from ARRI and Sony can shoot at 2K resolution (2048 X 1152), and the RED ONE can shoot at 4K (4096 X 2304), which is over four times the resolution of HD. While most productions don’t yet use 4K capture, it’s very useful for commercials and effects heavy films, where extensive effects compositing is planned.

At the heart of Premiere Pro CS5.5 is the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine (MPE), a software technology developed by Adobe to handle the considerable demands placed on your system by this growing trend towards higher resolution workflows. MPE incorporates NVIDIA CUDA parallel processing architecture. When accelerated by a Quadro series card, you’ll get real-time previewing and editing of native, high-resolution footage.

There are three Quadro models you should consider when buying a Z800, namely the 4000, 5000 and 6000. All of them accelerate the Mercury Playback Engine. The system we tested came with a Quadro 5000, a high-end card with 2.5 GB RAM which can easily handle multiple streams of HD video but can also handle 4K editing as well. For those working very heavily in 4K, you may wish to opt for the higher end (and costlier) Quadro 6000 which has 6 GB of memory and can edit multiple streams of RED 4K video at once.

However, if your workflow is primarily HD with a dose of 4K in the mix, the Quadro 5000 will provide ample horsepower to kick the MPE into high gear. Aside from real-time editing previews, the Quadro accelerated MPE will also significantly improve the speed of the final encoding of your video — up to a claimed 13 times faster.

A Walk in the Park

For my testing of the Z800, I shot HD footage in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park with a Canon camera and transferred it onto the 2 TB RAID. Once inside of Premiere, I set the playback resolution of the program to 100-percent at 1920 X 1080 (the highest setting possible for HD). This forced Premiere to display all of the pixels during the real time preview (by default, Premiere is set to 50-percent which degrades the image, but plays back more smoothly from the timeline).

Normally, if you are using only one monitor, editing at full size and resolution is impractical since it commands too much of your screen’s real estate without leaving enough room for Premiere’s timeline and controls. However, that was not the case for me, thanks to the test system’s enormous 30 inch HP ZR30w monitor with its 2560 X 1650 display resolution (more about the monitor later).

While I cut the shots from the park together, I added fades and cross dissolves and applied color correction as well. Although Premiere was set at the maximum resolution, it didn’t skip a beat — even when I put four streams of HD video on the screen at once. Playback was smooth and scrubbing through the timeline was fluid. To be certain, the Z800’s speedy RAID, dual Xeons, Quadro, generous amount of RAM and the Mercury Playback Engine all contributed to the snappy feel.

Adobe Dynamic Linking

Although many factors make Premiere an attractive alternative to dissatisfied Final Cut users, one of the strongest cases that can be made for it is the way it integrates with the entire Adobe Creative Suite, especially After Effects (but also Encore, Audition, Flash and the rest of the gang).

After Effects is one of the bedrocks of our industry, needless to say. It’s used heavily in New York City and is popular around the world for compositing, motion graphics, visual effects, title design, color keying, animation, and much more. It is, in fact, such as versatile program, and is put to so many different uses, that it almost defies characterization.

Within CS 5.5 Production Premium, Premiere and After Effects are able to communicate with each other by utilizing a feature called Adobe Dynamic Link, which allows you to eliminate the tedious intermediate renderings that you once needed to do between the two applications. Here’s an example: suppose you are working on editing a film and one of the shots require special effects or compositing in After Effects. Traditionally, the process has been to drop the live action backplate into a comp in After Effects, add other layers, cut masks, apply effects and set key frames. When it was ready, you would render it out to your hard drive as an intermediate movie file and import that file into Premiere.

As it happens more often than not, however, at some point you’d probably need to make some modifications to the shot (like move around some key frames or scale something down). So you would go back to After Effects, make the necessary adjustments, render out the intermediate movie file again and replace the old one in Premiere.

With Adobe Dynamic Linking, however, it is no longer necessary to waste time on this. Instead of rendering an intermediate file, you simply open the After Effects comp in Premiere with all of its layers, keyframes, and effects intact and slip it into your timeline where it is treated as any other piece of footage. You are free to set in and out points and otherwise edit it in any way you like, and when it comes time to make a change to the shot, you simply switch back over to After Effects, make the change and switch back. No rendering or intermediate files needed and thanks to Mercury, real time previews of dynamically linked After Effect projects play back efficiently.

I have been a long time After Effects user, having worked intimately with it for fifteen years. I have also edited with Premiere for years now. However, it has only been since its inclusion in CS 5.5 that I have started using Adobe Dynamic Linking between them. If you are an After Effects or Premiere Pro user and have never experienced it before, let me tell you, it’s a game changer. The interplay between the two applications will open up a whole new perspective on the way you work.

With Dynamic Linking, I am now bouncing back and forth between both programs and feel like I am working in one unified creative environment. Changes made in After Effects are immediately reflected in the edit. This is truly an important development in the way the Creative Suite works. Once you start using it, Dynamic Linking is sure to become an important part of your workflow.

The HP Performance Advisor

Workstations are complex and highly configurable machines, and like any sophisticated instrument, they can and should be tuned in order to operate more efficiently. It’s also useful to have a straightforward way to monitor their performance. For a number of years, HP workstations have come with a useful and unique piece of software called the HP Performance Advisor which helps you easily configure the software and components in your system to work better, while providing you with detailed information in one complete area.

By viewing the HP Performance Advisor’s block diagram, you can see a visual representation of the components installed in your Z800 without having to open up the case. By clicking on the GPU, for example, you can find the model number and how much memory it has. You can also learn how busy your GPU has been and even get assistance in choosing the correct graphics driver for it without having to search all over the web. Once you find the correct driver, you can download and install it right from within the Performance Advisor.

The HP Performance Advisor also helps manage your apps by implementing the correct configuration and BIOS settings as recommended by the manufacturer. I found this to be a very useful way to learn about which system resources are utilized by each application as well as which options are turned on or off.

Other important components of the Performance Advisor are the Memory Graph and the Application Monitor. The Memory Graph provides a visual representation of the memory usage for all of the applications running on your machine at any given instant while the Application Monitor collects information about how your applications are using system resources over an extended period of time.

More about the HP Performance monitor can be seen in this HP video.

What about 3D?

Although this review has focused on the Z800 primarily as a platform for editing, I also spent time running 3D animation software on it, specifically Cinema 4D and Maya 2012. Needless to say, both programs performed outstandingly. The current crop of Nvidia Quadro cards, which do much to accelerate the Mercury Playback Engine, also feature an engineering innovation called Fermi. According to Nvidia, the Fermi architecture is a technological breakthrough that offers 5 times faster 3D performance than previously available, delivering an astounding 1.3 billion triangles per second. This performance was readily apparent.

The HP ZR30w Display

Along with the HP Z800, I had the opportunity to review the HP ZR30w high performance display. Engineered for compatibility with the Z-series of workstations, this ultra-high resolution monitor (2560 X 1600) echoes the design of the tower, being framed by brushed aluminum. It looked great sitting next to the workstation, and plugged into the Quadro 5000 via a dual-link DVI cable.

The ZR30w employs In Plane Switching (IPS) LCD technology which is considered superior to Twisted Nemetic (TN) technology, (used on cheaper, lower-quality displays). IPS allows ultra-wide viewing angles so the monitor looks good wherever you stand, while offering the ability of better color rendition.

The ZR30w displays 10 bit color (30 bits per pixel) for an amazing 1.07 billion possible different colors per pixel compared to the 16.7 million colors per pixel available on eight bit systems. For those doing compositing, this helps reduce banding artifacts, which sometimes can be a problem on displays with lower bit depths.

The ZR30w display also features HP Direct Drive Architecture. This means that the high performance IPS panel is connected to the graphics card in such a way which enables it to directly drive it at its full, native resolution without extra intervening electronics such as a scalar processor. When a display is driven in this way, it provides the best possible image quality. Other benefits of Direct Drive include less video latency, less power consumption and less heat generation. Also, digital color values take a more direct path from the graphics card to the LCD.

Solidly built, the ZR30w sits on a sturdy base and like the Z800, it looks ready to take on punishing levels of abuse. It also has a 4-port USB hub so you can handily plug in any USB devices right into the display.

Thoughts About the Industry

As noted earlier, questions have arisen in the minds of many postproduction professionals about Apple’s commitment to the pro market.

If you keep up with the regular postings on pro forums about this issue, it’s apparent that we are on the cusp of a user revolt that could well topple the current NLE market leader, Apple’s Final Cut Pro. I now edit exclusively with Adobe Premiere Pro on 64-bit Windows 7. For those who are thinking of switching but might have reservations, my opinion is that you won’t be disappointed.

With the Z800, HP has designed a workstation to the highest possible standards of performance and industrial design. Granted, there may be those who’ll hesitate to step out of their comfort zone, but for independent minded individuals looking to build a top notch system for Premiere, we think that there is currently no better choice than the HP Z800.

Let’s explain our thinking. In the late 1980s and into the next decade, both Apple and Adobe benefited symbiotically from the desktop publishing revolution. This was fueled by the liberating power of PostScript, along with innovative apps such as Photoshop and Illustrator. In the nineties, a similar thing happened with video, with low cost After Effects upsetting the domination of high-priced compositing systems.

While some of its early apps appeared first on Macintoshes, eventually all of Adobe’s software became available on the Windows platform. That made sense, since there are vastly more PCs sold than any other computing platform. Today, the best professional graphics software is available on both platforms.

This may or may not have led to a gradual falling out between Adobe and Apple, something that has become more apparent to us over the past few years. The decision by Apple not to include support for Flash on the iPhone and iPad, a decision that surprised many, may be one sign of a possible strained relationship between the two companies.

In the meantime, the bond between Adobe and HP grew. Now Adobe officially endorses HP technology and the two companies’ engineers collaborate closely in the design of their products so as to ensure maximum compatibility. As an example of this close working relationship, check out this video in which Adobe makes specific recommendations as to which HP workstations to get.

If the gulf between Apple and Adobe may at times look like it’s widening, the bond between HP and Adobe seems to be strengthening. For editors looking to get into Premiere, whose utmost concern is engineering, the platform of choice may very well shift. Will HP become the platform best suited to demanding video professionals? We’re not sure, but if the editing crowd embraces Premiere en masse, the HP Z800 may very well emerge as the leading machine to edit with.

In reading the many postings on the web, Premiere looks like the most qualified successor for serious professionals. (Avid Media Composer, however, still reigns in high-end post for features and commercials.) In response to this recent spike in interest, Adobe has offered a 50-percent off of Production Premium for current FCP users who are considering switching.

Who can be sure if this is truly a harbinger of things to come? Apple, as usual, offers few cues as to its plans. As Final Cut still sits at the heart of many individual and pro production suites, the Cupertino-based company may suddenly decide to take measures to correct these missteps and appease the outrage of full-time editors. Or, then again, perhaps they feel their future lies in mainstream consumers of its iPhones, iPads, iPods, and iMacs, and that an app that’s been described as “iMovie on steroids” is the better way to go.

In any case, it’s safe to say that the prevailing opinion right now is that Premiere has the goods.

Adobe is in the business of making software for creative professionals and remains committed to the pro market. That’s one reason we think that Premiere Pro might just emerge as the leading video editing application in our industry.

Summary and Conclusion

For those stepping into Premiere, HPs partnership with Adobe makes the Z800 and the ZR30w display a no-brainer. In addition, the innovative industrial design, expandability and high-quality build ensures that it will stand up to both the heaviest HD or 4K workloads and any post environment around.

An innovative American company that helped spark the creation of Silicon Valley, Hewlett Packard is the world’s pre-eminent computer manufacturer. Known for esteeming its engineers’ thinking over that of the marketing and sales teams, HP continues to invest vast sums into R&D and new factories. We like that, since it shows in the well thought out products in our review.

Your final cost, of course, will vary depending on configuration. To check out your options, visit HP’s Z800 site by clicking here.

Dan Ochiva contributed to this report.

Assistant editor Jordan Lindblad keeps track of edit room details by running Filemaker Go on his iPhone. Photo credit: John Clifford

The Editors Guild magazine has posted my article on using databases for tracking edits during postproduction. Mainly centering around the use of FileMaker’s FileMaker Pro—including the newish FileMaker Go app for iPhones and iPads—I also offer a bit of history via speaking with David Leitner and his use of an early Mac database Double Helix. David used that innovative database extensively for production on Al Reinert’s feature documentary For All Mankind.

You can link to the article here.

The Past Week in Review, for May 17, 2011

While you won’t find the music to this Dickson Experimental Sound Film (circa 1894) on the new National Jukebox site, you can still pick among some 10,000 recordings for free.

We search for the more interesting and provocative news and views of the past week…just so you don’t have to.

This look at the past week’s news includes a look at trends in 3D production, tips on what goes into making a successful start-up, and the debut of a national jukebox service.

Technicolor’s DSLR Love, Zacuto’s Rig

This past week I visited with Domenic Rom, senior vice president of Technicolor Creative Services at the company’s Leroy Street offices. Domenic wanted to discuss new products Technicolor released at the NAB last month. With him was Bob Herman, Technicolor’s PR manager, in from the West Coast.

I’ll write about these new services in an upcoming article. The new services include Technicolor’s CineStyle, which is become an instant hit. No surprise, as it offers the ability to integrate the output of Canon’s DSLR cameras into Technicolor’s full DI workflow.

But if you do want to keep up with what’s happening with DSLRs for video production, Philip Bloom’s site regularly offers up good reviews and opinion pieces about the latest production gear and software.

In a recent posting, London-based Bloom reviews the Zacuto Scorpion Rig. Zacuto, out of Chicago, moved quickly to become one of the leading gear makers for the DSLR market. Their latest high-end production rig that offers a much more usable approach for employing these small cameras within a more or less traditional film style shoot.

Sony 3D, Indie 3D, Even Small Objects Get 3D

With 3D production now becoming a serious alternative for filmmakers, educational resources that can shed some light on what actually is required to create usable 3D content becomes a clear need.

Last week I attended an evening seminar by Sony’s team from its 3D school in Culver City, California. I’m writing up that story for the editors Guild website. I’ll post a link to it here shortly for anyone wanting more info about what this free seminar offers.

Meanwhile, it’s no surprise that Hollywood directors with huge budgets can pull together the resources to do a 3D production,

However, for an indie to take on 3D production has seemed an exercise in fiction. High-end 3D gear is well beyond what most folks with meager budgets could ever consider.

But in her recent Variety article “Indies embrace cheaper 3D”, writer Karen Idelson notes that lower costs for 3D production gear and new post solutions have joined with the promise of a bigger box office to attract indie filmmakers.

Here’s one rather eye-popping example: With an average screen pulling in some $27,820 in its debut weekend, Werner Herzog’s new 3D film Cave of Forgotten Dreams (IFC) is not only making the most money of any film in his career but also came out on top of the total US box office–yes, that includes beating out Fast Five--according to website Box Office Mojo.

You can read more of Idelson’s article here.

Another type of 3D can also be important to a production–Indie or otherwise–and it too is coming down in price due to improvements in technology. The Times’ Melena Ryzik writes about MakerBot; the Brooklyn-based start-up has designed a consumer-grade, desktop-size 3D printer that uses melted plastic to build models of your designs.

The ability to easily and relatively inexpensively create 3D objects is a welcome tool. Graphics artists and those doing models for movies and commercials often need a real-world version of their creation to produce molds for final art. Meanwhile, creating your own movie props from scratch could solve production headaches. The MakerBot device was recently demo’d at a weekend Make-a-Thon which the reporter covered in an article you can find here.

The most recent iPhone and iPods have garnered kudos for their high res screens that reach 326 ppi (pixels per inch). Here’s a report of a company–Ortus Technology–which had recently developed a 4.8-inch color liquid crystal display with the pixel density of 458 ppi.

While a display like that might in itself be useful for production or post, a further interesting point is that the company now offers a similar sized screen that can deliver some 229 ppi when used in a dual-screen 3D mode. Ortus spots the development as an ideal viewfinder for use in 3D camera systems.

Cloud Services, Encoding and Video Delivery via the Web

More developments keep turning up to offer low-cost, or often free, production services that rely on cloud computing to deliver the goods.

In January, Vid.ly, a new website and service from Encoding.com, began a public beta. Users need only upload a video once; the service then transcodes it into 14 popular web and mobile formats, according to this article in VentureBeat.

Once the video has been encoded, you also get a short URL link. Once clicked on, that link automatically provides the video file that’s compatible with the device that’s just been connected.

It’s not just for those uploading cute animal videos either. If you have a number of video files, you can point to the source files stored via FTP, HTTP, Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) or other cloud storage services.

What’s it cost? Well, who can keep up with free (at least for now)?

VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi also writes about Zixi, a cloud video start-up that recently raised $4 million in a to fund its web video broadcasting business.

Zixi is completing the build out of the system to deliver HD video via the cloud for broadcast, enterprise and video-on-demand services. Current customers include CNN, Reuters, and CBS Sports.

While Cisco, Polycom and others already offer some form of HD video delivery via the cloud, Zixi claims it has developed methods of making the best use of available network bandwidth, as well as minimizing start-up delay.

At NAB 2011, hardware company Haivision announced it collaborated with Zixi to create its line of low-latency Makito encoder and decoder HD H.264 appliances. Haivision spots the devices as ideal for field use in breaking news (to replace pricey satellite uplinks) and connecting production facilities over low-cost and readily available Internet connections to save “thousands of dollars every month” when compared to managed-performance network services.

More on the Makito product here.

But the actual delivery of movies and other entertainment en mass over the public Internet is hitting a snag as we move further into our age of digital distribution.

A company like Netflix, of course, relies on the Internet to build its fast growing business of delivering movies and TV shows directly to viewers’ homes. But as Netflix’s CEO makes clear in the following article, anti-competitive action by ISPs via new broadband caps and other controls on video traffic might just quash all this as the ISPs fight to keep more of your money and not be tossed aside as nothing more than just the “dumb pipes” as some disparage them.

ISPs also fight the implementation of network neutrality as planned by the chairman of the FCC and Obama’s appointees. A number of members of Congress are siding with the broadband industry, and plan to limit how much control the FCC has over this new growth in network traffic. You can read more in this article from GigaOM here.

Last month, there were a number of reports that Apple was putting the final touch on its huge new data center in North Carolina that will actually be key in the company’s cloud-based video service. While this is speculative, the timing is right as Apple’s new OS Lion is said to move much of its capability to the web.

Check out this article from Business Insider for more on Apple’s purported plans.

VC News ala Scoble

Here’s a short, fun read by the nonstop blogging engine known as Robert Scoble entitled “What I learned by interviewing 23 start-ups in past few weeks”. Scoble offers up videos of his meetings with a variety of successful launches. The hot start-ups turn out photo/camera apps to those who are building apps around non-Apple iOS smartphones. These latter, according to Scoble have, for the first time, the coolest apps out there.

The National Jukebox

Yes there is such a thing, at least after the Library of Congress and Sony Music Entertainment got together to announce it. Now anyone can access “the largest collection of historical recordings ever made publicly available online.”

That’s large as in “more than 10-thousand”. Not bad when you consider that this is only the beginning: only music from the archives of the Victor Talking Machine Company are included, which Sony controls.

Here’s an article from the NPR website that discusses the collection.

If you want to go directly to our new National Jukebox website click here

D.W. Leitner enjoys the benefits of a Super 35mm-sized sensor on Sony’s F3.

In an earlier podcast, David Leitner had discussed some of the key technologies that he found going in to the 2011 edition of the National Association of Broadcaster’s convention, which ended last week.

In his wrap-up of the show, David considers one of the top attention draws at a very busy show—Apple’s preview of Final Cut Pro X, announced at the last minute at the annual Final Cut users’ group meet-up. The Cupertino-based company, reports Leitner, delivered a striking re-working of its very successful non-linear editor, which is said to now control around 50-percent of the total editing market. Beyond just listing some of the new capabilities, he offers up specific examples from his experience of just how the new software—which releases in June—benefits editors from newbies to pro.

David goes on to discuss how the ubiquitous appearance of solid-state drive (SSD) technology further made the case that tape is “on its way out” as a capture medium, and how a number of companies are using the compact devices to offer remarkable recording gear. Other technologies he takes note of include proliferating Super 35mm sensors, a new life for film lenses, and a discussion of what the move into choices for quality lens means for production. This section runs about 35 minutes.

David Leitner Final NAB 2011 Podcast Part 1

In the second section, David discusses LED lighting, including a significant new product from Arri Lighting, the L7 Fresnel. There are also notes on cameras at the show, including the new Arri Alexa M, which the company designed for 3D; the RED Epic, being used by Peter Jackson in shooting 3D for The Hobbit; and Panasonic’s shoulder-mounted camcorder. David goes on to discuss further aspects of 3D production, including an innovative 3D camera rig developed by a St. Petersburg-based company and recently used by famed effects designer Douglas Trumbull; small screen Nintendo 3D; business models for 3D, and more. This section runs around 15 minutes.

David Leitner Final NAB 2011 Podcast Part 2

James Cameron says 3D TV will be a viable business model within five years.

We search for the more interesting and provocative news and views of the past week…just so you don’t have to.

This week we have a look at some of the top news from the “world’s largest electronic media event”, including a new 3D camera company, a totally rewritten NLE and—with the upcoming Earth Day in mind—a note about a meeting where you can learn to fit recycling into your production cycle.

What Else? NAB in the News

Every year around this time a general hysteria sets in for those interested in the technological aspects of film and video production.

This past week wasn’t any different, with the unspooling of the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, accompanied by the usual round of speculation, hearsay, and tasty details from those supposedly under NDA over this or that piece of hardware or software.

Some use the attendance numbers at the show to try and descry the health of the industry. But with the total number of registered attendants essentially unchanged (up a little over 5-percent for a total of 92,708) it’s doubtful any conclusions exist beyond the knowledge that the numbers didn’t tank.

But the good news for anyone involved in production and post? The faster-better-cheaper mantra chanted at the beginning of the computer age still finds ample voice in this 2011 edition of the show.

For anyone thinking that 3D had no relevance beyond expensive features, James Cameron delivered the keynote address—along with partner and camera design wiz Jim Pace—to the mainstay audience of broadcasters that “Your business is about to go 3D”. You can read more about just how this business model makes sense (and could even be well under way in five years) in this article in Variety.

How to Remake a Popular NLE

But before talking up cameras, let’s jump into post since many thought the big news of the show was Apple’s announcement of a completely redesigned Final Cut Pro. Coming out some 10 years after the first version of the popular NLE software, the new Version X will feature a low price point of $299 when it debuts in June.

Larry Jordan, a Final Cut trainer of some note, titled his blog on the introduction of the new app “The Sound of 1,700 Jaws Dropping”. Although he obviously has a number of horses in this race, Jordan points up the new version as a “bold move” for its totally redesigned interface, full 64-bit support, and, oh hell, why not, “a rethinking of the entire concept of what it means to edit.” Read more here.

You can find a bit more of a questioning attitude—it’s there in the title ” FCP X, Game Changer or iMovie Pro?”–in this podcast from the Terence & Philip Show, an enjoyable bit of back and forth between LA and the Vegas show floor from Terence Curren and Philip Hodgetts.

You’ll find stronger critiques of the software’s relevance from Walter Biscardi on his blog. Biscardi, who also attended the Apple presentation at the annual Final Cut User Group SuperMeet event, sees the NLE apps from Avid and Adobe gaining in importance to professional editors.

For even more specific reasons why he plans to move to Avid Media Composer, read Biscardi’s updated post here.

Avid, a company valued at a tiny, tiny fraction of Apple, takes on the Cupertino crowd by offering a limited time “cross-grade” to Final Cut Pro users. Until June 17th, FCP users can pick up the $2495 Avid Media Composer software for $995. More here.

Here’s Looking at You

As D.W. Leitner mentioned in a podcast from earlier on at NAB, the spread of 35mm-sized single sensor camera systems takes creators back to the origins of still photography, where knowledge of how lens, sensor/film and the rest of the setup interacts with light holds to the details long ago worked out by the great masters of the medium.

Arri has been gaining fans for its Alexa, with a number of features and TV shows now moving to the digital camera system. At the show, the Munich-based company presented new versions of the Alexa, including the Plus, Studio, and modular M, which is pegged as ideal for 3D since the camera head can be separated from the body to allow a lighter, lower profile 3D rig. You can watch Abel Cine’s Mitch Gross find out more about the product launches in his interview with Arri’s Marc Shipman-Mueller.

Arri also has a long tradition in building quality lighting gear. Here’s a short video on their introduction of a portable LED-based L7 Fresnel that is garnering positive attention.

Another camera with fast growing interest is Sony’s recently introduced single-sensor PMW-F3. Most notable new twist: Its upcoming firmware upgrade delivers a much greater dynamic range via S-Log gamma mode. Dual Link 4:4:4 RGB video output, 3G-SDI output and more are also on tap with the $3,300 upgrade coming out in late summer/early fall.

You can find a video with extensive comparison shots with a standard XDCAM here.

Magic, Blackmagic that is, Really does make it Faster, Cheaper, Better

Blackmagic Design is a small, savvy company based in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Each NAB the company presents products that remake, piece-by-piece, crucial parts of the postproduction infrastructure via hardware that does what the original products do (or better) but at a small fraction of the price.

At the show, you could find the HyperDeck Shuttle, for example, which offers 10 bit, 4:2:2 uncompressed SD, HD over HD-SDI or HDMI recorder for just $345. (You still need to add a solid state drive.)

For $995 Blackmagic’s UltraStudio 3D, meanwhile, allows laptop editing of SD, HD, along with 2K capture and playback. You’ll find it supports two streams of full resolution video up to 1080p HD for stereoscopic 3D workflows.

Finally, Blackmagic announced DaVinci Resolve Lite. This new reduced feature version of the DaVinci Resolve color correction software has one striking feature: it’s free. DaVinci Resolve Lite has some limits, of course. But since it’s based on the upcoming DaVinci Resolve 8, it shows what can be done on a full-featured color correction app that only goes for $995. The software runs on the latest model iMac, 17inch MacBook Pro and Mac Pro computers.

Adobe launched Version 5.5 of its Creative Suite collection of apps at the show. Productions might like one new approach: you will be able to lease access to the software on a month-by-month basis.

We’ll be covering a local New York producer/director’s use of the software in an upcoming issue, so stay tuned.

With so many intriguing new products at the show, I’ll simply point you to a couple of reliable sites that offer quick round-up video postings that you can range through to find what’s most interesting.

Filmmaker IQ offers some useful in-depth interviews in its Video Roundup.

The FreshDV team, meanwhile, produced 32 videos from the NAB tradeshow floor with over 5 hours of content.

Make your Production fit for Earth Day and Beyond

On Saturday evening, April 30th, prop and set-dressing boutique Film Biz Recycling will hold a free workshop in environmental management for film and television production. The Brooklyn-based not-for-profit will offer a “practical workshop and how-to” intended to expand the talent pool, provide upper and middle management with useable tools and increase awareness of the impending changes and options in the film industry, among other key issues.

Spaces are limited and an RSVP is required. Click here to RSVP.