NAB 2012 Product Launches

Well it’s been an exciting NAB show so far! There’s been some great new broadcast product launches, notably from AJA, Blackmagic Design and Panasonic.

Here’s a few of the NAB 2012 product launches that got us talking.

AJA

The T-TAP (yes an odd name) is a fantastic little bit of kit. Thunderbolt to HD SDI / HDMI. That’s all you need to say. And it’s only £160. Fantastic.

The Ki Pro Quad – a chunkier looking Ki Pro Mini – ups the ante in the 2K and 4K world and comes complete with Thunderbolt connectivity.

Here’s the AJA Ki Pro Quad brochure 

The Ki Pro Rack is also a nice addition to the Ki Pro family – it’s essentially the Ki Pro as we know it and love it – but it’s in a 1RU 19" rack-mount form factor. There’s some options already out there to rack-mount the Ki Pro but the Ki Pro Rack – with it’s dual storage docks – is perfect for flyaways, OBs and studio installs. The Ki Pro Rack also supports DNxHD as well as Pro Res.

Here’s the AJA Ki Pro Rack brochure 

Blackmagic Design 

The HyperDeck Studio has been granted the all-important and long awaited Apple Pro Res codec. A sigh of relief from every HyperDeck owner out there!

Blackmagic have also released a new version of the HyperDeck Studio – the HyperDeck Studio Pro – a 4 channel version with Thunderbolt connectivity. Interesting stuff.

And last out of the Blackmagic Design press department – and no doubt a product that wil garner much publicity – the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera. Yes, Blackmagic Design now make cameras! We hear they’re also designing a new solar powered jet ski and a range of white goods – all with Thunderbolt connectivity. Ok that was a joke, but they really have launched a new camera!

I think the new Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera has to be seen to be believed but the specs read well and as usual, the Blackmagic price tag is extremely competitive.

Panasonic

Panasonic have announced some interesting upgrades and enhancements, including microP2 cards – a P2 card in an SD card form factor –  and a new version of the HPX250, the HPX255 which can be controlled via Panasonic’s AG-EC4 RCP – good news for us multi-camera types.

Panasonic also announced the new HPX600 camera – a big brother to the HPX371. Panasonic say it’s future proof, so when AVC-Ultra is finally rolled out, the HPX600 will be one of the first cameras to support it. 

New Broadcast Equipment Launched at IBC 2011

Well, IBC 2011 is almost over. Here’s some of the new notable products launched at IBC 2011 that we liked:

Panasonic:

The AV-HS400 vision mixer has been a widely accepted small form compact vision mixer. The AV-HS410 is the successor with some nice new additions including a clip video store and 3D capability. It comes as standard with 9 inputs and has option boards to increase this to 13 inputs. Look out for some interesting new options boards that may be released next year.

Blackmagic Design:

At NAB 2011, Blackmagic Design released their SmartView Duo monitors – two 8" 3U rackmount monitors. At IBC 2011, Blackmagic launched the Smartview HD monitor – a 17" full HD resolution 3G HD SDI rackmount monitor for an unbelievably low price. Almost too low to mention – £565. As much as we asked the nice Blackmagic man to let us unscrew it from the display wall at IBC to test the weight, he wouldn’t let us –  but this thing looks light – and it’s very thin. And as you’d expect from Blackmagic – it’s very aesthetically pleasing. If you rackmount it above or below the SmartDuo monitor, you’ll notice the frames around the screens marry up perfectly.

Blackmagic have also introduced some new rugged field mini converters – basically the same as they’re previous (and well loved) mini converters but built for a bit more rough and tumble in the field – which makes sense given that’s often where you’ll find those Blackmagic Design mini converters.

Other interesting new equipment from Blackmagic Design included the ATEM Studio Converter. Remember the ATEM Camera Converter that Blackmagic announced at NAB 2011, rather than having two of these for each of your cameras – one at the camera and one at ‘control’ area, the ATEM Studio Converter allows you to connect 4 ATEM Camera Converters – all in a 1U frame. They also have a loop function if you have more than 4 cameras.

Datavideo

Other new kit launched at IBC 2011 that caught our eye included some new hot head cameras from Datavideo (that look suspiciously like Sony’s BRC dome range of hot heads – but without the price tag) and a low cost waveform/vectorscope.

Atomos

Atomos were proudly showing their great Ninja and Samurai tapeless recorders plus the new Connect converter units – HDMI to HD SDI and HD SDI to HMDI. Not groundbreaking technology but they’re nice little units – that also include a test pattern signal and tone generator.

Haivision

We saw a good demo of Haivision’s Viper portable video streaming unit – think Digital Rapid’s TouchStream on steroids. It can stream two HD signals simultaneously – great for a camera plus a PowerPoint presentation or synchronous slides. Using Haivision’s patented InStream player, your client/the viewer can rearrange and resize the two incoming streams. Nice feature.

For-A / NewTek

For-A gave a good demonstration of their new VRCAM2 sensor less virtual studio system. NewTek’s 450 and 850 series looked equally good and potentially more cost effective as NewTek provide an almost full studio end to end solution.

TVU Networks

The TVUpack from TVU Networks is a powerful bit of kit for live, location based video streaming – using 3G bonded sim cards. Turn it on and you’re streaming. Need to tweak a setting, just use your iPhone or iPod.

AJA

Aja launched the io XT at IBC 2011. Basically an upgrade of the Io Express with Thunderbolt connectivity.

Remember most of the new equipment launched at IBC 2011 won’t start shipping till Q4 – the end of the year. Just enough time to tweak those budgets and work out how to pay for it all!

Trickbox TV Twitter Feed – @TrickboxTV – tweet tweet

Trickbox TV Twitter Feed – @TrickboxTV – Tweets about: 

NAB 2011 New Product Announcements – Matrox, AJA, Sonnet and Thunderbolt™ SDI I/O Devices

Blackmagic Design also released their UltraStudio 3 - another SDI I/O device to compete with AJA’s "Phaser" and Matrox’s Thunderbolt enabled I/O boxes. Click here for a previous review of Blackmagic Design’s UltraStudio 3.

NAB 2011 Product Announcements – Blackmagic Design

NAB 2011 officially kicked off yesterday. News reports of product announcements from the broadcast industries big (and small) players came flooding in all day.

Here’s our pick of some of Blackmagic Design’s new product launches and announcements at NAB:

Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio

A compact, 1U file-based HDD featuring uncompressed HD recording (to two solid state drives) and playback. 10-bit SD/HD video via SDI or HDMI connections. It offers full VTR functionality with familiar jog and shuttle control and it even has a built in LCD screen for monitoring. It records to QuickTime .mov files which are compatible with AVID and FCP. At $999, the Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio could be a real game changer in the tapeless and file-based world.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hyperdeckstudio/

Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Shuttle

A cut down version of the HyperDeck Studio, the HyperDeck Shuttle is designed for on-camera recording to optimise your camera’s uncompressed output. No LCD screen but at $345, it’s a bargain.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hyperdeckshuttle

Blackmagic ATEM Camera Converter

Convert your camera SDI signal into optical fibre to extend SDI’s limited distance up to 28 miles. It also includes talkback, an external microphone input, a program return feed, a tally and a built in battery power source. Very impressive and at $595, Blackmagic Design have yet again produced a broadcast quality product at an unbelievable and unbeatable price. Although remember, you’ll need two (one at the camera, one at the control room).

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/atemcameraconverter/

Blackmagic Design ATEM Television Studio

A professional vision mixer with 6 SDI inputs, 4 HDMI inputs, multi-view monitoring and realtime H.264 broadcast quality encoding all housed in a 1U frame? Surely not. Blackmagic Design have extended their ATEM production switcher range to include the ATEM Television Studio.

You may have to see it to believe it, but the specs look pretty impressive. As standard, it comes with a software control panel which you can run on Windows or Mac OS, but physical panels can be purchased as well. Starting at $995, this could give the likes of NewTek with their Tricaster portable studio range, a run for their money.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/atemtelevisionstudio/

Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 3D

Yes that’s the infamous Thunderbolt DisplayPort you can see there. It’s here. Finally. Fairly inevitable, that Blackmagic Design would announce this new product at NAB. Matrox and AJA also have SDI I/O boxes with Thunderbolt connectivity too. More on their release in another blog.

The Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 3D is a compact, portable capture and playback device for SD, HD, 2K and 3D and it’s all built on Thunderbolt™ technology – that’s 10Gbps. Will webcasting and video streaming software providers such as Telestream, with their Wirecast streaming software, support it? Blackmagic Design have priced the UltraStudio 3D at their familiar $995 price point.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/ultrastudio3d/

New Sony NEX-FS100 Super 35mm Camera Announced

Sony have just released their new super 35mm NXCAM NEX-FS100 – yes a bit of a mouthful! Is it a camcorder? Is it a DSLR? Does it matter?

The specs look pretty good and there’s a fair bit of hype surrounding it. Interesting Sony chose to launch it prior to NAB – presumably to help build up a bit of momentum leading up to NAB rather than competing with the rush of other camera releases at NAB. 

It looks a little bit brick like – similar to the RED cameras, but it’s packed full of nice features. A low recording bit rate is saved somewhat by outputting uncompressed 4:2:2 footage (with embedded timecode no less) on the HDMI output.

Anyway, here’s some further reviews, notably from Den Lennie, at F-Stop Academy who contributed to the design of the camera through a focus group, took part in the video promo campaign and was the first people to use it (or a prototype of it) to shoot a music video: 

Reviews:

Den Lennie, F-Stop Academy News

Trusted Reviews

Nigel Cooper, DV User

Here’s some Vimeo videos about the Sony NEX-FS100 – the music video, Vertigo, shot by Den Lennie and James Tonkin, Den’s review of the camera and the official Sony promo for the Sony NEX-FS100:

Cozi: ‘Vertigo’ Music Video from Den & James on Vimeo.

NEX FS 100 Video Blog from Den & James on Vimeo.

Sony Professional – NEX FS100E: Affordable Super 35mm from Sony Professional on Vimeo.

Did You Visit Us AT BVE & TPS 2011?

So, did you visit us at BVE & TPS 2011? We were on Stand 526 in The Production Show section and it was our first year exhibiting at the show.

After years of visiting the exhibition, we thought we’d see what it was like on the other side of the fence, and we’re so glad we did.

We had a great time and met lots of great people and companies. Thanks for stopping by our stand. We learnt a lot from all your feedback.

Here’s some of our snaps from the exhibition (including some of Frank from Artem and his BBC3 Monkey trying operate one of our cameras!)

We’re Exhibiting at BVE & TPS 2011, Earls Court, London. Stand 526

We’re exhibiting at The Broadcast Video Expo and The Production Show 2011 at Earls Court, London, between the 15th – 17th of February.

Come and visit us at Stand 526 where we’ll be demonstrating our Mobile Studio, The Trickbox.

The show is free, just register and use this priority code: ESMT1