Best Monday Ever
Monday, April 12, 2010 at 9:16AM I’m not at NAB this year, because Las Vegas murders my soul and trade shows stomp on the remains—but there are some cool things happening at and around the show already.
First a small but important thing: Red Giant Software is having a big sale between now and April 18. 30% off everything. More details here.
Adobe announced Creative Suite 5, which includes new versions of After Effects and Premiere Pro. Both and standout releases, and I extend a hearty congratulations to the product teams. The After Effects feature that has everyone flipping out is Roto Brush, which uses, presumably, some sort of alien technology discovered beneath the Great Pyramids to semi-automate complex rotoscoping tasks. Like the Content-Aware Fill technology in Photoshop CS5, it has the potential to save you tons of time, which you can repurpose for more important things like staring at your computers screen muttering “How the hell do they do that?” Read more about what’s new in After Effects CS5 at the blog of After Effects Product Manager Michael Coleman.
The CS5 tools we care about are now 64-bit applications, which means many good things, but also means that all your third-party plug-ins need to be re-engineered for compatibility. Red Giant Software’s announcement about this is here.
Redrock Micro has teased some images of new products to be announced later today, including one that apparently eats your iPhone and turns it into Pure Awesome:
;)
microTape Range Finder;)
iPhone/iPod Touch advanced automation
Storm
The Foundry has released details on Storm, the end-to-end filmmaking tool tool they’ve been teasing us about. As expected, fxguide has thorough coverage.
Panasonic AG-AF100Panasonic has somehow found the stash of Obvious Pills that have eluded every other video camera manufacturer who also makes the still cameras masquerading as video cameras that have captured all the attention of digital filmmakers. Yesterday they announced the AF100, a “professional” video camera based on the 4/3” sensor from the GH1. Rumored price is to be in the $6,000 range, and although the internal codec is the much-maligned (and, by definition, non-professional) AVCHD, it’s maxed-out 24mbps AVCHD, so it should do better than the GH1. It also will have uncompressed HD out (which your could capture with, say, an AJA Ki-PRO), bypassing the ACVD codec entirely. I hope it also has some buttons.
UPDATE: Oh look, it does:
Jan Crittenden, Product Manager at Panasonic, had this to say about the camera on DVXuser: “There will not be aliasing as we actually have a clue about what causes that.” Nice.
Stu
The press release is up now—Blackmagic Design announced today a software-only version of the DaVinci Resolve color grading system, starting at $995. If you think Apple’s Color is immensely powerful and nearly impossible to use, wait until you see Resolve’s user interface. Still, this is pretty much the coolest thing anyone could have imagined doing after acquiring DaVinci last year.
Stu
Sony getting in on the game, with a direct dig at RED.
Sony - New Prototype Digital Cinema Camera from camera department on Vimeo.
;)
Reader Comments (38)
Hehehe... "obvious pills".
I knew this post would be here. That's why I'm number 2. So excited about the AF-100!
Adobe just forgot one thing... After Effects DI (or Lightroom DI :-)
It's really strange because their main competition on the mac is against the Final Cut package which include Color. Also, DI software are the latest niche in film technology. There has been a constant growth of software in the passing years such as Color by Apple, Lustre (Autodesk), Scratch (Assimilate), Baselight (Filmlight), Nucoda's software and so on. Adobe should make their stand in this arena, especially because they already posses such advanced color management technology, its "just" a matter of coding the right interface. I guess this new Mercury playback engine is the first step. May we live to see it implemented in next year's package, CS6.
Great news on the $29 Red Giant policy. 64-bit AE is a wonderous thing - I finally can start serious production on my 5.6k 32-bit IMAX film project files.
Now if you just bug Red Giant into getting Magic Bullet Looks 64-bit for Vegas 9, that would be awesome.
This is fantastic news from Panasonic. Finally, digital filmmaking tools that really take it to the next level. Necessity is the mother of invention. Invention is the mother of filmmaking.
I hope panasonic gave canon a wakeup call !
(full frame please canon not 4/3)
64 bit support for AE is a nice and welcome feature. But to me the rendermanagement still stinks! Look what you can do wit nucleopro inside AE since 5 years now. I dont get it - why is Adobe not able to improve the rendersysytem inside AE.
the pana, why the heck must it be so ugly ?
One thing I still don't get with all the nice and cool apps and uses people create for the iPhone and the like. What are you supposed to do when you're busy adjusting the focus on your very important shot with your iPhone embedded in that nice Redrock enclosure and you get a phonecall?
You can turn that "phone call" feature off, or use an iPod Touch.
You turn the phone to airplane mode.
Right - it's fairly obvious I don't have an iPhone isnt'it?
The main reason why I thought about this, is because we have an iPhone commercial here where a family goes on a trip and the mother uses her iPhone for all kinds of cool stuff, ranging from finding directions to keeping the children entertained with 'Finding Nemo' but it never shows the part where the parents need to look at the map and pry the phone out of the fingers of their Nemo-watching progeny. Then my train of thought just derailed.
Lots of cool stuff for the Digital Rebel, that's for sure.
That Panasonic camera looks pretty sweet, but I wish they'd ditch this Long-GoP nonsense. If they really want this to REALLY be a game changer, they need to have it be AVC-Intra 4:2:2. Long-GoP formats should not be used for acquisition. They can work nice for many things, but every once in a while, Long-GoP. At least maybe make an add-on unit for a bit extra cost that can record to AVC-Intra 4:2:2.
I do alot of VFX work, and it's so frustrating that all these years, you can't get a decent sub $10,000 cam that can do nice keying except for the HVX-200/170, which have less than stellar resolution. When Scarlet gets here, it will be a different story. I don't know how they expect this to compete against a Scarlet using AVCCAM vs. Redcode when both of these cams will be at similar price points.
Sorry forgot to finish the thought.....
"It can work nice for many things, but every once in a while, Long-GoP suffers in complex, moving scenes and keying."
Hey exciting times,
Those redrock products look awesome I just hope that there is a way to turn off the iphone receiving calls, it would suck to miss a focus pull cause your mum was calling you! One other thing in the video the guy says that micro 4/3 is 2x size of 2/3 inch chip isn't it 4 times?
"What are you supposed to do when you're busy adjusting the focus on your very important shot...and you get a phonecall?"
That's not likely to happen — you have AT&T as your carrier. This is one case where having the worst reception in the world is a benefit.
:)
Is it fair to assume that the $29 upgrade cost still applies to current purchases of Trapcode products? (Not that that's a huge deal, just curious)
I'm curious as to what Sony deems 'affordable' when they say, "solution for every pricepoint." Before next NAB? Whew... this CMOS tech is moving quite fast.
-Mike
Wow, Looks in RedCine-X?
That's to cool.
Now I ditch the Idea of even thinking about this m4/3 Camcorder. I need a Scarlet :-)
the avccam avchd is a better implementation than dslr's h.264 codec
it deserves a lot more credit than just being a "long GOP codec"
and avchd on the gh1 is a crippled avchd not the avccam brand.
plus id really give panny a lot of effort by putting hd-sdi on it
Blackmagic Design has also presented a new Intensity device
It promises to record an HDMI signal into uncompressed 10bit 4:2:2 for just $200 (downside: hooked to a powerful desktop PC)
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/
Does anybody know if these things are any good? It definitely is much cheaper than a ki-pro... Not that I'm planning to get one soon, but it sounds interesting, specially if the next generation of cameras provides better HDMI output.
They are at NAB, though I'm sure everybody's schedule is pretty tight already, with the stabbing Philip Bloom because of his april fool's joke and everything...
That ROTO Brush is insane. If it actually works it could mean the end of greenscreens in the future.
RE: Intensity Shuttle...
Does that mean you could capture an uncompressed 4:2:2 signal to a USB 3.0 equipped laptop, or do you still need a RAID. It also says it can capture to DVCPRO HD, which is still 4:2:2.
So, Panasonic is also showing off their 3D camera, with two sets of imagers, lenses, and SD card slots, along with automated controls for convergence. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on 3D filmmaking for the DV Rebel. Is the AG-3DA1 at the leading edge of something, or is this a dead end?
Don't throw your green screen equipment out the window just yet. Rotobrush is still a very limited technology with a long way to go to actually provide a decent key. For now it is mostly useful for providing sort of okay mattes for further tweaking or for use in things like selective color correction or special effects using plugins such as Trapcode Form.
I am glad that as I predicted, the HDSLR market is heating up. When the Sony EX3 came out I was really happy that we finally got a decent video camera, but right now, it looks like its fast becoming a relic of a time we had "just video" cameras who had to be attached to some ancient device with batteries to produce depth field. I am sure once the new cameras are released the EX3's price will drop to something more reasonable. I also hope to be seeing a new Canon model (mark III?) in the near future.
Anyhow, probably not a good time to buy a new camera as technology breakthroughs are are on the way,
RE: blackmagic intensity shuttle
I think it can work with a laptop, but won't record uncompressed video unless there's some RAID hooked to it somehow (USB3 or eSATA); on the laptop's HDD it can only record the whole series of individual frames in jpg format, which may not provide better image than the camera's AVC; still, I haven't tried the thing, so I don't know
RE: ROTO brush
I wouldn't expect it to be so good that you can do without a green screen, but I'd hope it's good enough that you can get by with a "not-so-green-screen", with less equipment needed in terms of special lights and such, and less bleeding, so in general much cheaper and easier, and less obstrusive
RE: blackmagic intensity shuttle
sorry, I threw all my speculations and forgot to add that all that I really know is that their homepage they say:
* "Intensity Pro works with uncompressed SD or HD video, and compressed codecs such as ProRes, DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO 50, JPEG, HDV and DV", but I'm not sure if that's for recording, or just edit and playback
* specifically for recording, I only find references to uncompressed and "Online JPEG"
* in any case, only Intensity Shuttle supports 1080p23.98, 1080p24, and for that one they state: "easily handles the highest quality 10 bit uncompressed 1080HD video on x58 series or better Windows computers", and would need a fast HDD system too, so that means no notebooks
but the information on the site is pretty bad, so I'm not sure, that's why I was asking... maybe somebody will see it working at NAB...
Both Intensity devices can now capture to DVCPRO HD 4:2:2. I don't know if you get full 1920x1080 or just 1280x1080 though. If you are working in 720p, I guess it doesn't matter. I think I might e-mail Blackmagic to find out.
Isn't this your idea? ;-)
http://www.freshdv.com/2010/04/freshdv-nab-2010-act-focused.html
@Stanko
Wow. It even has my suggestion in there about touching within a region and a wheel appears. All it needs now is the ticking feedback.
Stu, this is a bit off topic, but since you work at red giant, could you help?
I am trying to buy mojo, my card has been rejected by the site, which has never happened before. So, i placed an order using my paypal account. It's been 2 days already, money transfer status inside paypal still says "Waiting", i guess waiting for red giant's approval. Wrote them discribing my problem on customerservice@redgiantsoftwear.com - message returned: " Unrouteable address". Wrote again on sales@redgiantsoftwear.com, 32 hours passed, no answer.
my account is registered at volnorez@volnorez.ru
my paypal account is the same
any ideas? please
Is it just me or does the Panny AF-100 look like an upside down PixelVision camera?
http://bit.ly/b2uawG
Egor, could it be as simple as your misspelling of "redgiantsoftware"? Anyway, I've passed your information along to them.
probably misspelled first time, second time copypasted from the site
anyway, thanks a lot
Holy cow! Have seen the proof of concept color control surface at NAB? There's video over on prepshootpost.
Let me clarify. An iPad color correction control surface!
AVCHD!!!!!
No thanks.
A few comments earlier, i complained about payment issue i had with red giant.
Guess what, they sent me a letter today, with apologies and a free serial number for the product i wanted to order. Even though it seems it wasn't red giant's fault, but paypal's bug.
I am touched.
This is some serious client care.