Cloak Media

Earlier this month Apple Computer revealed a new direction in the Final Cut Studio roadmap. In view of the release of the Adobe Production Studio, Apple made a majority of their Pro Applications into an all or none bundle. Previous editions of Motion, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Soundtrack Pro stood as individual applications, but as of now are available only as part of the $1299 Final Cut Studio integrated suite. Shake, Logic Pro, and Aperture continue to be sold as stand alone tools.

Apple also announced the introduction of the Universal version of Final Cut Studio available by the end of march 2006 for a $49 upgrade fee, just in time for NAB in Las Vegas. Historically, Apple has used the NAB show in late April to showcase the development of the Final Cut Studio. In 2004, Apple and Panasonic stunned the high definition world with the introduction of the DVCPRO HD native codec into a Final Cut Pro timeline. In 2005 apple revealed Soundtrack Pro, and a tighter fusion of the Final Cut Studio applications. 2006 should be an interesting time for Apple as they prepare their software for both powerPC and Intel chip architectures.

Final Cut Studio box image courtesy of Apple.

In front of a well fed and eager crowd Giles Baker and Steve Kilisky of Adobe Systems demonstrated the Adobe Production Studio to the Motion Graphics Los Angeles User Group meeting at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. Adobe sponsored a taco bar buffet line to warm up the appetites of creative professionals, and then walked through a vivid scenario using all the tools in the Adobe Production Studio, including Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, Adobe Audition 2.0, Adobe After Effects 7.0 Professional, Adobe Encore DVD 2.0, and a taste of Adobe Photoshop CS2. The glue that binds all these applications together is a unified dark gray user interface presentation layer, along with Adobe Bridge asset management and preset rangler, and the ability to import projects built in After Effects directly in Premiere Pro or and Encore DVD without rendering or final assembly, called Adobe Dynamic Link. Any change in the After Effects composition, updates automatically in the timeline.

Premiere Pro and After Effects also feature float based processing of effects to ensure maximum color fidelity and encourage the use of high dynamic range images. Premiere Pro now offers multicam editing. Most Production Studio applications also support GPU OpenGL acceleration for realtime previews of effects and edits.

Adobe seems to being playing catch up to Apple, with Motion, Final Cut Pro, and Soundtrack Pro already featuring multicam editing, GPU acceleration, 32-bit effects support, and many more features. Premiere Pro does offer more complete integration with Adobe Acrobat with a feature called Clip Notes, a robust edit approval system using PDF to generate notes and comments into the editing timeline.

I discussed directly with the Premiere Pro product manager support for the Panasonic DVCPRO HD HVX200 camcorder, and he balked that the licensing fee for the codec was too great to include in Premiere Pro directly. The only method to edit DVCPRO HD is using the Matrox Axio system priced at $11,495. The Adobe Production Studio sells for $1699.

adobe after effects 7.0 professional screenshot

adobe after effects 7.0 professional screenshot

adobe premiere pro 2.0 screenshot

adobe clip notes screenshot

adobe audition 2.0 screenshot

adobe encore DVD 2.0 screenshot

steve kilisky of adobe demonstates the adobe production studio

In a very large North American launch, Panasonic premiered the AG-HVX200 to the public via full page ads in newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. At the DV Expo in Los Angeles, Panasonic contracted with filmmakers to take the VariCam sibling HVX200 through it’s paces, with footage of a college basketball game, Hollywood street scene, a frame rate exploration of a backlit martial artist, and a green screen music video.

Barry Green’s footage looked fantastic. He shot multiple frame rates at 720p and also some 1080p capture. The Panasonic booth had a 17 inch LCD display as the presentation monitor, and the footage was 80% of the VariCam. Michael Caporale showed an experimental music video shot on a green screen. The original pre-composited material looked sharp, excellent contrast, and ready for green screen removal. Caporale also shot run and gun footage of a Hollywood movie premiere, which looked bright, color accurate, and competent.

Panasonic promised sometime in the future these shots should be available on a DVD. I hope that similar to the VCR-FireWire-NLE launch some two years ago, an editing software vendor release raw DVCPRO HD from the camera, so anyone can test their NLE of choice with actual image captures.

Panasonic also announced the availability of the AG-HVX200 targeted for 29 December 2005. DV Expo featured a near 2 hour walkthrough by Jan Crittenden Livingston, the product manager for the AG-HVX200, on the design and features of this revolutionary camcorder. Included here are keypoint slides from the presentation.

DV expo panasonic AG-HVX200

DV expo panasonic presentation P2 cinema realized

DV expo panasonic presentation P2 workflow

"DV expo panasonic presentation P2 cinema

DV expo panasonic presentation P2 cinema CCD

At the Egyptian Theatre on Friday September 30 2005, Jan Crittenden Livingston, Product Line Business Manager for the Panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder thrilled a crowd of over 100 Los Angeles producers, directors, and high definition (HD) enthusiasts with the latest information on the upcoming DVCPRO HD product. Every aspect of the history and design methodology of this next revolution in affordable HD image acquisition became clear in the 1.5 hour lecture and hands on walkthrough of the HVX200 device.

This camcorder has extensive coverage from around the blogosphere, including HVX User, P2 Info Net, and Creative Cow P2 forum. The most interesting tidbits from the discussion and presentation in no particular order:

Panasonic showed coyness in revealing the HXV200 imaging block specifications, but rather had actual test footage from a prototype camcorder, and asked the audience to judge the final results, and not compare pixel count or CCD size. In the test footage at the booth, and some projected engineering style capture of a luscious tabletop scene of spinning desk accessories, textures, and reflective materials the image held it own. One audience member quipped that we did not actually see raw capture off the P2 card, but due to logistical reasons, the source material was transferred via analog component to an AJ-HD1200A VCR and played back on a DVCPRO HD tape, preserving the DVCPRO HD codec output.

For four days the prototype HVX200 played back a scene on P2 from the IBC 2005 Amsterdam show, with street cars during a night and daylight shot, and on the playback display, the images looked stunning with absolute clarity and image fidelity, even into the shadows. This also demonstrated the robustness of the P2 media, as hundreds, if not thousands of eager camera operators touched, prodded and cajoled the camcorder all weekend long. I left on the final day and the media and camera continued to play back the Amsterdam scene without tape wear or hesitation. The DVCPRO HD codec, based on the compression technology of DV, but at a color sampling of 4:2:2 instead of DV 4:1:1 is one step closer to the highest quality HD-D5, but at a more affordable price point. Panasonic has already announced in some future camcorder a full D5 unit, most like two years away. Currently, a HD-D5 VCR lists at $99,000 as compared to the $5995 list price for the AG-HVX200 camcorder. Another useful point during recording, using the P2 media, the camcorder will be able to remove redundant frames, so a 24p recording session will contain only the necessary information, rather than the limitation of a linear tape based system that maintained a constant tape velocity and needed to always record 60p, regardless of the variable frame rate setting. The output from the firewire interface follows this paradigm, always receiving the full 60p information stream.

This camcorder may be the best product designed for the aspiring filmmaker and documentarian. Though the camcorder is chubby and larger than DV camcorders, the weight is low and controls are well placed, and it offers specifications unavailable in any other under $10,000 HD camcorder. This camera will have four channels of uncompress audio at 16 bit 48 kHz sampling, as compared to the paltry 2 channel MPEG-1 Audio Layer II on HDV camcorder. For a small budget film, or documentary sound is over 50% of the experience, and requires perhaps more care and handling than the picture. Previously, one would need to chain a DAT or MiniDisc recorder to the camera for high sound quality, but the Panasonic rig takes care of that necessity.

Now, the faithful must wait a few more weeks. Panasonic expects to receive shipping AG-HVX200 camcorders by the end of November 2005, but I suspect that it will premiere at the Tokyo Inter BEE 2005 show in mid November, and become more widely available by early 2006.

panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder at resfest 2005 LA

panasonic jan crittenden livingston

panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder at resfest 2005 LA

panasonic AG-HVX200 ergonomic design

Panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder at resfest 2005 LA

Panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder at resfest 2005 LA

Panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder at resfest 2005 LA

Apple is moving the Mac to an Intel chipset. Until that day in 2007, where all new Mac machines will be Intel inside, expect many surprises. The glue to any good chipset deployment is not only the underlying semiconductor design, but the application environment to write to the hardware, or application program interface (API). Apple Xcode is the technology that drives the software engine. When the multicore comes out with hyperthreading, then we’re talking a good move toward Intel. The chip will have at least two onboard processors, and two virtual processors. All eyes are watching the Intel Fall Developer Forum, to see the processor roadmap.

Along with advanced processors, comes 64-bit computing, which allows access to more than 4 GB of RAM (the 32-bit limit). Today’s Power Macs can hold 8 GB of RAM. I was told by Adobe, that Creative Suite 2 needs around 2 GB of RAM for all it’s applications, and Apple Motion definitely needs all it can get (4 GB at least). the future is always in flux.

At the end of spring and now into the summer, the GPU market has reached an inflection point. Unlike the 90 nm and 65 nm semiconductor barrier, both NVIDIA and ATI chug along with product announcements and advancements. ATI announced at Computex CrossFire, a method to bond multiple PCI/AGP video cards together for near double the performance. NVIDIA had already announced a similar solution they called SLI. NVIDIA stirred the pot again with the GeForce 7 series. if the GeForce 6 series did not scream enough, we have the latest and greatest with more transistors and higher performance.

NVIDIA spurs on interest in its product and introductions with unique characters, usually buxom women scantily clad to attract the gamers and young folk of the planet. if you recall NVIDIA creates these female persona to demonstrate the real time rendering of characters in cinematic motion. all in all we have luna, nalu, dusk, and dawn (summary below). Will these chipsets make it the Mac?

GPU NVIDIA history

G70
GeForce 7800
luna demo woman

NV40
GeForce 6800
nalu demo woman

NV35
GeForce FX 5900 series
dusk demo woman

NV30
GeForce FX 5800 series
dawn demo woman

NVIDIA digital production pipeline

Apple has historically used Siggraph to announce cool things. This year, on the opening day of the Siggraph trade show, Apple Computer announced its might mouse pointing device. This first ever Apple released multibutton mouse looks like the ordinary elongated apple single clicking device, but has a very small trackball and multiple clicking surfaces.

Also at the booth, Apple featured a fully functional studio workstation setup with full Xsan support and shared rendering and storage resources via Xserve RAID. The majority of Apple representatives work out of the Pro Applications Santa Monica Campus, and for all three days showed nothing but respect and loyalty towards their varied customers.

apple might mouse

apple final cut studio station

friendly apple staff

apple shake in use

apple shake users

apple xserve G5 along with xserve RAID

At the Orpheum theater on 2 August 2005, Luxology announced it’s next release of it’s fabulous character modeler, Modo 201. Luxology also divulged how it can generate complex new applications that integrate fully together though an effort they called Nexus. Using the Nexus application engine, Luxology is able to combine modeling, rendering, and in a future release animation. Expect Modo 201 before the end of the year.

luxology announced modo 201

brad peepler onstage

brad peepler demonstrates Nexus

luxology is one year old

With the recent disclosure, that Apple Computer will slowly transition Mac OS X from PowerPC architecture to Intel architecture, new trade shows and events now become relevant. No longer can the Mac user rely that product announcements will come at Macworld San Francisco, NAB, WWDC, or Apple Expo Paris. Look over the upcoming dates and trade show links for the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

Start Date | Trade Show Name
08/23/2005 | intel developer forum 2005
08/30/2005 | entertainment media expo 2005
09/09/2005 | international broadcasting conference 2005
09/19/2005 | oracle openworld 2005
09/19/2005 | demo fall 2005
09/21/2005 | apple expo paris 2005
10/04/2005 | combined exhibition of advanced technologies 2005
10/07/2005 | audio engineering society AEC convention 2005
10/17/2005 | HP technology forum 2005
10/19/2005 | educause 2005
10/24/2005 | fall processor forum 2005
11/01/2005 | seybold new york 2005
11/15/2005 | streaming media west 2005
11/16/2005 | interBEE 2005
11/30/2005 | seybold san francisco 2005
12/07/2005 | DV expo west 2005
01/05/2006 | consumer electronics show 2006
01/10/2006 | macworld san francisco 2006
01/20/2006 | NAMM show 2006
02/13/2006 | demo 2006
03/07/2006 | intel developer forum 2006
03/09/2006 | cebit 2006
03/21/2006 | game developers conference 2006
03/29/2006 | musikmesse 2006
04/24/2006 | national association of broadcasters 2006
05/02/2006 | interop las vegas 2006
05/23/2006 | streaming media east 2006
06/06/2006 | computex taipei 2006
09/08/2006 | media-tech showcase 2006
09/08/2006 | international broadcasting conference 2006
09/08/2006 | audio engineering society AEC convention 2006
09/18/2006 | HP technology forum 2006
09/19/2006 | interop new york 2006
09/26/2006 | intel developer forum 2006
10/23/2006 | oracle openworld 2006
09/26/2006 | photokina 2006
11/15/2006 | DV expo west 2006

During Siggraph 2005, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Cloak Media proudly presented its credentials to the visual communications community. This is what I learned:

Los Angeles is still the world center for rich media and visual delights. Be it the video game industry, the visual communication education arena, or just plain visual entertainment, Los Angeles reigns as its fulcrum.

Over the course of two days, The Arts Institutes sponsored a vendor job fair with the likes of Imaginary Forces, Intel, Papaya Studios, Laika, Activision, and Lucas Arts all willing to talk with animators, compositors, pipeline architects, and programmers about contract or full time employment opportunities.

The bulk of studios and design firms also has regular trade show booths to talk with future clients and future employees. Large studios like Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, and Pixar had a extra day on the show floor. From what I could count, at least 100 positions were available, for an applicant pool of over 600 who decided to submit a resume for review. Good luck to all who met with employers and may all find future happiness.

eager job hunters review the credentials

curricula vitae of the masses

employers and future employees papers

To a capacity crowd gathered at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles, CA Apple Computer extolled the benefits of Mac OS X in the field of animation, motion graphics, and advanced compositing. Showcasing the latest release of Shake, version 4, experts from South Park animation, Luma Pictures, and the Shake team walked us through the rich feature set.

Apple’s presentation was artfully orchestrated using a full high definition presentation system, which allowed the artists work to shine. Luma Pictures educated the crowd on the ease of deploying advanced PHP web applications to monitor and track visual effect shots for enterprise collaboration.

On 2 August 2005 Apple announced its first ever multibutton mouse, called the might mouse. Expect a full report later on this week on this singular product.

apple shake

apple shake registration area

apple shake sign

apple shake stage

apple shake graphic

apple shake UNIX UNIX UNIX

apple shake H.264 or AVC

apple shake luma pictures

apple shake wilshire grand hotel