Cloak Media

The Apple and Mac application user community basked in the announcements from The National Association of Broadcasters 2007 Electronic Media Show (NAB2007). Participating in the NAB2007 show from a distance gives one an opportunity to forage the web for podcasts, webcasts, blogs, and news from the show. Final Cut Studio 2 will once again transform the industry with an impressive toolset including the new applications Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Color, Cinema Tools 4, and Compressor 3, along with stalwart applications DVD Studio Pro 4 and LiveType 2.

The Final Cut Studio 2 suite introduces long requested features like surround sound, 3D support, and a post production HD codec, which Apple calls ProRes 422. Apple leveraged its intellectual property acquisitions like Shake and Logic to bolster it’s core Final Cut Studio 2 products. As Final Cut Pro burst the barriers to afford HD, Apple Color may just open the door to color grading for the rest of us. Previous systems working on 2K digital intermediates like Autodesk Lustre, IRIDAS SpeedGrade, and Silicon Color FinalTouch started at $24,995 and with control surfaces and hardware requirements easily topped $100,000 value, but Apple in its pursuit to make high end production tools affordable, decided to include Color, based on the FinalTouch acquisition, in the Final Cut Studio for no premium beyond the $1,299 asking price (upgrades begin at $499).

Other developers like Avid, Adobe, and Autodesk have various product support for Mac OS X, but none can compare to the value and tight integration of the Final Cut Studio 2 bundle.

For your Listening, Watching, and Reading Pleasure

Software Announcements
Apple Final Cut Studio 2
Adobe NAB2007 Webcast
Microsoft NAB2007 Site

Hardware Announcements
Panasonic NAB2007 USA Site
Panasonic NAB2007 Global Site
Sony Virtual NAB2007 Tradeshow
Sony NAB2007 Global Site

Color Grading Software
Apple Color
IRIDAS SpeedGrade
Autodesk Lustre
Autodesk IBC Lustre Demonstration

Post Production Codec
Apple ProRes 422 White Paper
Avid DNxHD
CineForm CineForm Intermediate

NAB2007 Blogs
Avid Savannah College of Art and Design Blog
Zoom-In NAB2007 Blog
HD for Indies Blog
Digital Content Producer NAB2007 Blogs
FreshDV Video NAB2007 Blog
CineForm Insider Blog

NAB2007 Podcasts
Digital Production Buzz NAB2007 Podcasts
fxguide NAB2007 Day 01 Podcast
fxguide NAB2007 Day 02 Podcast
fxguide NAB2007 Day 03 Podcast
fxguide NAB2007 Day 04 Podcast

apple final cut studio 2 box image

2006 ushers in the year of affordable high quality high definition (HD) capture, edit, and output, with all the pieces finally becoming widely available. Camera manufacturers large and small showed off their wears to the marketplace. The very largest electronics vendors had monstrous booths with entry pavilion theaters with breathtaking visuals. Sony Electronics featured their 4K SXRD projectors with a spectacular 4096 x 2160 pixel resolution. Sony showcased the 70 mm film Baraka, by Ron Fricke, with scenes of Japanese Macaque (Snow Monkey) and volcanoes. Matsushita Electric Industrial under their Panasonic brand headlined the versatility, workflow, and color accuracy of the AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD solid state camcorder. NHK showcased the North American premiere of Super Hi-vision with an astounding 7680 x 4320 pixels, for a near IMAX experience with digital cinema.

The entry into the HD realm starts with 720p, followed by 1080p, and then reaches into the stratosphere with 2K, 4K, and 8K systems. JVC previewed the GY-HD200U a 720p camcorder and Panasonic celebrated the 720p and 1080p AG-HVX200 camcorder. Sony delivered on the 1080i XDCAM HD series, and RED digital cinema promoted a future 4K RED ONE camera.

On the post production side, Mac based editing solutions include Avid and Apple. Compositing software is more diverse with Apple Shake, Boris FX Blue and Red, Autodesk Combustion, and Adobe After Effects. With the rapid move toward Universal applications and Intel based workstations, every software vendor is rapidly moving toward the PowerPC and Intel binaries, but no one faster the Apple Computer. Already Final Cut Studio and very soon Shake will be fully qualified on the Power Mac G5 series, MacBook Pro series, and future platforms.

NAB HD 2006 poster

apple NAB 2006 booth HD

panasonic NAB 2006 booth AG-HVX200

century optics NAB 2006 booth fisheye adapter on panasonic HVX200

DSC labs NAB 2006 booth test charts

RED digital cinema NAB 2006 booth RED ONE prototype

las vegas strip looking west from wynn

On 24 February 2006 Panasonic, through their high-def blog site, revealed the underpinnings of the AG-HVX200 imaging block. The camcorder uses a revolutionary 3 CCD pixel shift technology to optimize three 960 x 540 imaging sensors to deliver both 1280 x 720 and 1920 x 1080 progressive images to the P2 media. Their decision to utilized 1/3 inch CCD’s required unique engineering decisions beyond the raw pixel count other manufactures report.

In the still camera arena, there are small CCD 8 megapixel cameras, but they generate so much noise and perform so poorly in low light conditions, they become unusable. a more robust 4 megapixel or larger sensor 6 megapixel camera would deliver a more usable device beyond the technical specification. As the production ramp up of the Panasonic HVX200 continues, more folks will report on any picture degradation because of the novel pixel shift or spatial offset technique. Read the blog article and decide for yourself.

CCD representation

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

At NAB 2005, producers and directors of photographers wondered what would become of the video cassette recorder (VCR), as solid state flash memory devices usurp the legacy tape based formats like DigiBetacam, DV, HDV, and DVCPRO 50. Sony has chosen a proprietary XDCAM format, based on a magneto optical disk, while Panasonic is going to a SD format PCMCIA card called P2.

As a VCR replacement one would have to consider these factors:

1. Speed must be near real time (one hour video transfered in around an hour or less)
2. Media should be around the same form factor as a video tape
3. Drive price must be near VCR price or lower

Cloak Media has run some tests using published transfer rates and data capacity. The results for a sample four hour project (250 GB):

* prices from summer 2005 survey

Today, the only viable VCR replacment on a small four hour project is the LTO series, AIT 3/AIT 4/SAIT, and the DSLT 600. In the IT industry, data centers have gravitated towards the multivendor LTO. Quantum is the sole provider of DSLT. Sony maintains a strong following for the AIT and SAIT series.

IBM totalstorage ultrium LTO tape drive

During the Panasonic CES 2004 keynote address, Andrew Nelkin, Vice President of Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company first hinted that by the first quarter of 2006, Panasonic would produce an affordable high definition camcorder using solid state flash memory devices (secure digital memory card or SD cards). The magic date became Torino 2006, the home of the next Winter Olympic Games, where Panasonic traditionally has a commanding sponsorship.

Fortunately, Panasonic did not wait until CES 2006 to announce the new products, but instead had a very large presence at NAB 2005 for the professional DVCPRO HD AG-HVX200 rollout, and IFA 2005 for the consumer MPEG-2 based camcorder rollout. Both products are expected in the fall of 2005.

Unlike traditional portable video capture devices, these new camcorders have no need for magnetic tape. Video tape has it litany of problems including jams, dropouts, snags, tape breaks, curl, and video tracking along with environmental issues like susceptibility to humidity, magnetic field erasure, and simple aging. The era of the cassette is over, and the opportunity to be creative faster and more robustly has arrived.

The first generation product, with a 2 GB to 16 GB starting storage capacity, will need a new workflow. The recording medium, a reusable SD memory device, once filled, needs to be put somewhere, and a storage area network (SAN) or RAID device would be ideal to protect the invaluable electronic image capture. As the era of solid state recording dawns, notably other backup devices are either already mature or nearly ready to archive the DV, DVCPRO HD or MPEG-2 recording.

Today, DVD+R makes an entry level archive medium, with a 4.38 GB (17.5 minutes in DV format, 11 minutes DVCPPRO HD 720p/24) storage platform. DVD+R is cheap, reliable, and long lived. On the horizon, look to Blu-Ray Disc with a capacity of about 25 GB, five times the capacity of DVD+R. Also on the cusp is holographic storage at some 300 GB a cartridge.

panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder P2 memory slots

panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder side view