IBC (the International Broadcasting Convention) in Amsterdam has been the source of a variety of exciting announcements that I want to bring to your attention. (Thanks to Ben King for doing the legwork and filing this report.)
First, Adobe continued it’s careful rollout of CS4 news by showcasing a speech to text conversion facility inside Soundbooth that literally transcribes the footage. Adobe’s rollout of the entire CS4 line next Tuesday looks increasingly exciting. (By the way, there are rumors going around the web that the CS4 announcements are pretty tame. I think, from a video point of view, that will not be the case. We shall see.)
Second, Apple announced native support for RED files in an upcoming version of Final Cut Pro. (Currently, RED files are transcoded into ProRes for editing.) The report we have from IBC was that Apple said this update would be out in “the next couple of months.”
Third, JVC and Sony are partnering to jointly support XDCAM EX and SxS. This is the first time someone other than Sony supported these formats. Could this be the beginning of both a video recording and storage format that producers could count on working the same between different camera vendors? We’ve taken this for granted for years in standard-definition, only to discover that almost no HD formats – especially HDV – play nicely together.
Fourth, Ikonoscop launches the smallest HD camera which records in RAW images at full HD resolution.
Fifth, Digital Heaven announces Loader, a new application to make loading elements into Final Cut Pro easier.
Matrox is now, finally, shipping the MXO2 – an all-in-one, PCIe-connected box for capturing, monitoring, and outputting SD and HD signals.
CalDigit is shipping a new, high-performance RAID.
And a French company, called “Soft Lights,” is demoing studio lights that can be controlled from your computer. No more climbing ladders.
We’ll have a complete report from Ben King, Michael Horton, and Dan Berube in this week’s Digital Production BuZZ, and I’ll have an audio file of it posted to my website later in the week.
Lots of fascinating things to come – life continues to be exciting!
