Digital Video - February 2008 - (Page 31) 2007 WAS A YEAR OF BIG UPGRADES, INGENIOUS SOLUTIONS AND SOME ALL-NEW CREATIVE OPTIONS. have even figured out a way to use the iPhone as Pro Tools controllers and HD camcorders.) — David E. Williams NANOCONNECT BOX Convergent Design, convergent-design.com MEDIA COMPOSER SCRIPTSYNC Avid Technology, avid.com/products Lined dramatic scripts and interview transcripts are the staple working tools of both filmmakers and documentary producers. Avid has introduced the first piece of software that takes the drudgery out of preparing scripts for editing. Avid has been the only NLE to offer script-based visual editing within the application’s UI. Newly added voice recognition technology now reduces the time-consuming task of linking clips to the script from hours down to minutes. Few NLE improvements offer this level of increased productivity. — Oliver Peters I seem to be doing a lot of green screen shots in my living room. I get great keys when I take HDMI from my Sony V1 and feed it into a nanoConnect box. Its output is HD SDI so the dreaded HDV Red Giant’s Magic Bullet software. compression is completely bypassed. I feed the SDI into my MacPro via a Blackmagic DeckLink card and record straight to disc at DVCPRO HD resolution in FCP 6. I key using Ultimatte’s AdvantEdge 1.6.3 in Shake 4. — Stefan Sargent VEESCOPE LIVE DVDxDV, dvdxdv.com There are a number of real-time scopes for the Mac — Scopebox and Monitor Magic among them — and they all have unique advantages. The one that took my eye this year was Brad Wright’s Veescope Live, because it’s not only a real-time Waveform monitor, Vectorscope and capture device compatible with any QuickTime hardware (even the cards from Blackmagic Design and AJA), it’s also a real-time chroma keyer based on Core Graphics and Core Animation. Brad finished the job by creating an FxPlug plug-in for Final Cut Pro/Motion that reproduces, in real time, the key from the set. — Philip Hodgetts INTENSITY PRO Blackmagic Design, blackmagic-design.com The Intensity Card for $249 was the big news for 2006. For 2007, Blackmagic Design added a Pro version. For an extra $100, you get analog I/O for your legacy analog gear, along with real-time downconverts from HD to DV. This device fits in any PCI express Mac or PC and works seamlessly with Final Cut Studio or Adobe Premiere to provide HDMI capture and output as well as analog I/o. I have described it as a breakthrough product and I mean it. — Ned Soltz G-SPEED FIBRE RAID ARRAY G-Technology, g-technology.com Today it’s all about storage: How much, how fast and how cheap. G-Speed drives walk that tightrope between quality, speed, size and cost with precision balance. With so many versatile choices, the G-Speed has become a storage leader among independents everywhere. — Jay Holben DW200 Bron Kobold, bron-kobold-usa.com The DW200 is one of the most impressive small fixtures that I have worked with in a long time. With an incredible array of accessories, this versatile fixture suits many needsand it’s weatherproof! I’d like to see the price point drop considerably, but one small HMI that I’d definitely consider owning. — Jay Holben ENDURA ELITE IDX, idx.tv A little environmental awareness with your power supply, anyone? The ELITE line of Li-Ion V-Mount batteries allows for plenty of shooting time — up to 3.5 hours using a 40W HD ENG camera. Plus, its new Power Cartridge system uses replaceable twin cartridges, so it extends your ROI and reduces waste. — Mark J. Pescatore QC INTEGRATION FX CHV Electronics, chv-plugins.com Noise Industries was the first to create an interface between Apple’s very flexible Quartz Composer technology and the FxPlug format used by Final Cut Pro and Motion, but it didn’t come at an indie-friendly price. CHV created an alternative with QC Integration FX that not only ships with 52 Quartz Composer plugins (52 plug-ins for the price of one) but can take any Quartz Composer composition, of which there are many available around the Internet, and use them as an FCP/Motion plug-in. An almost infinite supply of effect plug-ins is available for the cost of one. — Philip Hodgetts www.dv.com DT-V24L1DU JVC, pro.jvc.com/prof Increased HD work and tools like Apple’s Color mean that monitoring HD images has become crucial. JVC’s 24” DT-V24L monitor is one of the better LCD-based HD production quality monitors and the only one below $5,000. Viewing angles are adequate for most edit bay work and the images look better than monitors many times its price. — Philip Hodgetts dv february 2008 31 http://convergent-design.com http://avid.com/products http://dvdxdv.com http://blackmagic-design.com http://g-technology.com http://www.bron-kobold-usa.com http://www.idx.tv http://chv-plugins.com http://pro.jvc.com/prof http://www.dv.com
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