NAB2010:  The Edit Monitor Of My Dreams

If you are like me, you can never have too much desktop to edit on.  My problem is that I just can’t stand the bezels interrupting the free flow of image from one monitor to the next in multi-monitor setups.  I found a solution to this problem while I browsed through the B&H Photo/Video stand at NAB2010 - the Ostendo CDM43.  It’s a single curved screen, 40” wide by 12” high, which offers a native resolution of 2880x900, also known as Double WXGA+.  While it isn’t the brightest monitor in the world, it is a real treat to have almost 90 degrees of your field of view full of the information you need - and no black lines in the middle.  The CDM43 lists for $6500, and can be found at bhphoto.com.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5: Better, Faster, Bigger and Especially Faster

With the announcement of Adobe’s new version of their Creative Suite, CS5, they are delivering a new version of Premiere Pro. This review is based on a beta version of Premiere Pro CS5 but from my time spent working with the program it was much more stable that much of my Premiere Pro CS4 experience, and very fast. I think it’s safe to say that this beta version of the software that Adobe delivered to the press ahead of its April 12 launch was a nearly finished version, minus some documentation, help files and a few features here and there.

I don’t think this piece should be considered a full review but rather my thoughts and experiences as I worked with the application on and off for a couple of weeks before the official April 12 announcement. While I kicked the tires on many of the new features my main objective was to see if I, as an experienced Avid and Final Cut Pro editor, could sit down in front of Premiere Pro CS5, go to work and find value outside of what I already have. I have dabbled with PPro CS4 so I was familiar with PPro as a whole. In short, there’s some things to really like about this new version. Realtime performance and the support for native formats is unrivaled, especially when coupled with the right hardware. But there are some things, simple things, that were frustrating.

Avid introduces Media Composer 5

See that image above? That’s some crazy new timeline stuff that might be happening in the new version of Avid Media Composer. Avid has kicked off NAB 2010 with some really big news for editors. They held a press event today (Sunday) to announce Media Composer 5. Unfortunately I was on the airplane flying in at the time and missed it but the news is good.

Media Composer 5: direct support for QuickTime .mov files, native RED .R3D files, direct manipulation of the timeline without going into Segment mode, first ever support for 3rd party hardware from Matrox.

Oh, and Avid has also entered into an agreement with Euphonix to buy them.

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