NAB 2012:  Art Lebedev Optimus Popularus Keyboard

NAB 2012:  Plasticase Nanuk

Here is the first of a series of videos on products in the “back corners” of the NAB 2012 exibition floor.  Hope you enjoy them!  In this video, Plasticase takes on an un-named giant.

NAB 2012: Maybe this means nothing.

Anyone that has attended NAB in the past decade knows that major booth positions change very rarely, either in position or in size.  For example, it was a big deal when Sony moved a few years back from dominating the Upper South Hall entrance area to a space near the rear of the Central Hall.  And for as long as I can remember, Panasonic has lorded over the Central Hall floor from an elevated position in the middle of the hall.

However…

This year, those scrappy kids from GoPro have eaten away at almost *half* of Panasonic’s space on that tier.  It is a stunning sight to see.  And in combination with Sony’s underwhelming press conference on Sunday, it’s hard for a broadcaster to feel too comfortable at this point.  Are tectonic shifts afoot?

Autodesk Smoke 2013: it really changed for the better

Autodesk has been saying for quite a few weeks now that Smoke is changing and they were right. What was previously a very high-end, very expensive, somewhat inaccessible piece of post-production software is now a very high-end, much more affordable (though still expensive for many) and more approachable piece of post-production software. The biggest news of all is that Smoke for Mac has gone from $15,000 down to $3,495. The second bit of news is that it should be a lot easier for editors to use.

NAB 2012:  Sony Press Conference

Alec Shapiro hosting the 2012 Sony Press event.  Sorry about the poor picture, but that’s a cellphone for ya.

The annual Sony NAB press conference was held at Las Vegas’ Hard Rock Hotel, with a setting that seemed to be a bit less grandiose than previous years.  Perhaps this is fitting considering that Sony recently announced as many as 10,000 layoffs coming in the near future.  But even without that hanging over the festivities, the announcements made by Senior Vice President for Broadcast & Production Systems Alec Shapiro were less than stellar, and at times even seemed pretty out of touch, at least to an old broadcast hand like me.

The overarching theme was “Believe Beyond HD,” and near the end of the presentation the spectre of 4K acquisition did rear it’s head.  However, the first three items presented were not 4K productions, but 3D.  Clips from the upcoming programs “Stormsurfers” and hip-hop competition “Battle Of The Year” were projected on a mid-sized screen, but oddly, even with the provided RealD glasses neither clip looked very 3D at all.  (And seeing one of the “Stormsurfers” surfers very obviously holding a GoPro camera on the end of a stick suggests, at least, that not *all* of the footage was shot on Sony cameras.)  Shapiro opined that 3D was growing by leaps and bounds, but at least in the home TV market, the just isn’t true, and might well be a big part of Sony’s current financial malaise.  The third 3D production mentioned was ESPN’s coverage of the X Games, but oddly, no clips were played - and I would REALLY have liked to seen those.

9th Annual Editors’ Lounge Panel Predicts a Cloudy NAB

The panel was hosted by Alpha Dogs, Inc. and Key Code Media, and the event drew an audience of well over 100 production and post-production professionals, all eager to learn what’s in store at NAB 2012. attendees were welcomed by panelists that included; Debra Kaufman, Associate Editor at Creative COW (as moderator) Terence Curren (Editor/Colorist and Founder of Alpha Dogs Post), Mark Raudonis (VP of Post Production, Bunim/Murrary Productions), Steve Cohen (Film/TV Editor and author of “Avid Agility) and Michael Kammes (Senior Technology & Workflow Consultant, Key Code Media).

Some of the subjects covered in part one include:

0:00 Introductions
1:39 Who is under NDA?
2:25 Editing for the internet
7:15 Drawbacks to the 3D experience
10:28 Apple in the “post PC world”
15:47 Quality of internet content
18:08 How do we monetize internet content?

Adobe Production Premium CS6 FREE Hands-on Workshops @ NAB

Adobe announced the unveiling of their latest video production tools this week prior to the NAB Show, featuring the CS6 Production Premium suite, which includes After Effects, Premiere Pro, Audition, Encore, and the newest additions, Prelude & SpeedGrade.

I will be giving hands-on mini-workshops for After Effects CS6 and Premiere Pro CS6 for the Manhattan Edit Workshops several times a day during the show. Of course you can stop by any time and just watch, but to get a seat and take CS6 for a “Test Drive” yourself, be sure to sign up ahead of time!

My top 5 (or so) Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 features

The cat is out of the bag on the Adobe CS6 Production Premium. It isn’t shipping yet but I’ve been able test out some of the CS6 products for a few weeks now. While there’s big additions and changes in the entire Creative Suite my first and main focus was to see just how Premiere Pro has changed, what new features have been added and what hasn’t been addressed as of yet. Overall, Adobe continues to make Premiere Pro a better product that will let you “edit your way”. It isn’t perfect (no NLE is perfect) but it’s a lot better than 5.5 … and 5.5 was pretty good itself. Here’s my top 5 (or so) features in Premiere Pro CS6 and a couple of comments on what is still missing. Please forgive some wonkieness on PVC if you’re not seeing certain images as we’ve been having some server issues recently that they are working to fix. A reload of the page might help.

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