Digital Video - May 2008 - (Page 12)

DV UPDATE a huge fan) with SD and HD royalty-free video footage from $5. With a very friendly user interface and extraordinarily reasonable prices, pond5 is definitely something to check out.— Jay Holben improvements throughout the line speed up playback with the software looking ahead for effects and transitions. A new titling tool has been introduced. In my opinion, Avid has the right idea and is on the right track both in product lineup and price point. —Ned Soltz UP-REZZING I passed by Topaz Labs, but didn’t get a chance to really talk with them as they were swamped with people. I had heard of their upconverting software before, and would like to take a look. It’s one of those hard-to-believe-until-I-try-it instances where they can convert SD to HD or HD to 4K and actually improve the image rather than degrade it by interpolating data and stretching the picture. I picked up their single-page flyer and will look more into them in the future. — Jay Holben FAR-EAST DISPLAY MONITOR MATTERS Another LCD monitor company caught my attention. Boland has been around for a long time, but I’m having a hard time swallowing the claims of their new monitors: ultrahigh contrast of 500,000:1, 178-degree viewing angle (which I could see there on site that might be true for casual viewing, but certainly not for critical image analysis), 10-bit processing in 40", 42", 52" and 57" with dynamic LED backlight. I didn’t get a chance to discuss this further with the rep as I think I offended her with my shock and skepticism of the tech specs and she turned her attention to another show attendee. It’s my assumption that dynamic backlight means that certain backlight LEDs are turned off in black areas to get deeper blacks in the picture. If that’s the case, that’s fantastic technology, for sure. Strangely, the smaller monitors — which I would expect to see in color bays and out in the field —aren’t rated even close to the big monsters. The 20" has an 800:1 contrast ratio. I’d like to see these side-by-side with CRTs and really get a chance to test out a 500,000:1 contrast ratio. — Jay Holben The next booth that caught my eye belonged to a Korean company with very friendly, albeit indecipherable, representatives. Bon was presenting their BLM series of professional broadcast LCD monitors. These full-resolution 10-bit HD LCD monitors were quite impressive on the show floor and available in many sizes from 8.4" up to 55". Although without extensive testing side-by-side with a high-definition CRT, I can’t attest for the viability of these monitors, their published specifications are quite impressive: 178-degree viewing angles, 1000:1 contrast ratios in several models. These are monitors I’d like to take a more Blackmagic aggressive look at. converters. — Jay Holben LIGHT IT UP Lowel-Light had a couple of “sneak-peeks” at interesting new toys. The Trio is a small fluorescent fixture with three independently switched globes, kind of a hybrid between their Caselite and their FluoTech fixtures. Lowel was also giving a sneak-peek at their soonto-be-available Softcore fixture, which has an egg-like softbox and utilizes the same interconnectable fixtures as the Rifa eX and allows you to have one, three or five CFL in the softbox. The box itself has quick-release tension rods for easy assembly and takedown. The large, egg-shaped softbox gives the same kind of light quality as a big China ball. I’d be interested in playing with this one a bit more. — Jay Holben BLACKMAGIC CONVERTS AVID INCOGNITO While Avid was a no-show in the exhibit hall, the company was holding court in the Renaissance Hotel across the parking lot from the LVCC. I was treated to a demo of Media Composer 3.0 and told about the pending release of Symphony 3.0 and Newscutter 7.0. More exciting though, was the introduction of two new capture board solutions. Rather than relying upon FireWire 400 as did Adrenalin MojoDX and NitrisDX are Express34 to PCIe capture and output boxes with full complements of I/Os. The MojoDX has no analog while NitrisDX is complete. Avid has lowered prices. Symphony 3.0 with MojoDX is around $10K and $15K with the NitrisDX box. Software 12 dv may 2008 NAB is also about parties and I attended the Blackmagic Design party in a swanky suite at the Palms. I was the first reporter to see the new BMD line, which will include a new line of converters all priced at $495. They include Component-SDI, SDIHDMI, and a range of others. The popular Multibridge Pro has been released as a standalone converter for $995. And in an entry into the consumer market, BMD announces a USB device to record and transcode to H.264 for iPod, iPhone, or just for later viewing. The analog version is $119, perfect for consumers. There is also a version with HD-SDI input for $299. This is not just a transcoder, it is a recorder with a software UI and is very clever. — Ned Soltz DV www.dv.com http://www.dv.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Digital Video - May 2008

Digital Video - May 2008 Contents DV Update Close-Up AJ-HPX3000 Camcorder Sidecar Raid Zoom H2 Recorder Instant Expert 324 Flat-Panel Display Extreme 35MM Adapter Type-S JIB How Slow Can You Go? Global Gastronome Mixing It UP Long-Distance Runaround Tools & Technology DV 101 Production Diary

Digital Video - May 2008

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