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NAB 2015


Phil Rhodes

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Good grief, it's only the end of Saturday and already I'm sitting down, brow furrowed like an Alpine valley, to vent about something horrible that's happened in Vegas this year.

 

I won't mention the company - this is a common enough problem and I'm sure we'll see a lot more of it over the next few days, but good grief, I travelled six and a half thousand miles for this and on that basis, this sort of egregious bullshit needs answering. I sat through an hour - and that's not representative of the speech being over, that's representative of my having stalked out in disgust - of corporate soliloquy apparently assembled from a fridge magnet set entitled How to Make Your Powerpoint Enthralling to Idiots, full of syllables and friendly smiles but containing, at best, one actual fact for every ten minutes of presentation. And at least one of those facts was the presenter's name.

 

We learned that almost any task can be performed "efficiently and collaboratively." Several times, we were lectured on the importance of "integrating workflows" and "engaging audiences". New features in the company's flagship products were overlooked entirely (and I'm not kidding - entirely) in favour of something clearly intended to be a turn by someone who's famous on YouTube and a lot of pounding music and intelligent lighting. It was very slickly produced - a steadicam operator walking the venue, no less! - and I'm sure the lead presenter's suit cost a lot of money, but it was also a complete, catastrophic waste of time and effort which made me want to go to the headquarters of the corporation concerned with an angry, pitchfork-wielding mob, burn it down Genghis-Khan-style, dig in the ashes, salt the ground, and never speak of it again. I do these things (he said grandly) so you don't have to.

 

I mean, who could possibly come up with that many meaningless words about Avid Everywhere?

 

Oops.

 

P

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I had guessed "Avid" by the end of the second paragraph, anyway.

 

I don't think I would have expected much more from them. Seems they're in a bit of a downward spiral while trying to play catch-up without disappointing the corporate machine that dug this hole for them in the first place.

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Yea, Avid has been rubbish since day one. It's so unfortunate they force people like myself to use it. :(

 

Edit: I have absolutely no idea what their new product is. The web site is full of little pictures and buttons, with no exact description at all.

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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I had a brief window of time while in prep on my current project to run over to NAB on Monday, flew back home Monday night. I was hoping to see something exciting there, like some Alexa 65 footage on a large 4K screen, or some footage from the 8K VistaVision-style Red Weapon, etc. Hardly anyone had detailed test footage of their new cameras.

 

The 6K Red Weapon and its new modules seem like a good idea in terms of improving the Epic's functionality.

 

Truth is that the VistaVision Red Weapon, to me, would have been more exciting with a new 6K FF35 sensor, not 8K, just for the increase in sensitivity that the larger photosites would allow, and that recording 6K compressed raw for a feature is more reasonable than 8K, which I can see being an issue with some producers. Sure, if I were shooting for IMAX release, I'd want to record 8K, but for a typical 2K/4K DCP, I'd love to be able to shoot with a Full-Frame sensor in 6K and use the whole sensor for the image. But that's a minor quibble. Certainly being 8K helps with any marketing in terms of competing with the 6.5K Alexa 65.

 

The Alexa SXT is a good idea too in terms of putting some of the processing power and features of the Alexa 65 and Amira into an Alexa, but the fact that it made the camera even bigger is a bit disappointing; the Amira seems like the ideal size and weight for a 35mm-sensor studio camera these days. I guess they didn't want to redesign the basic Alexa from the ground-up yet, not until there is a new sensor, but when they do, I think they should look at shaving some weight off of the classic Alexa. I don't think they have to get into the Red Epic size arena, they now have their Mini for that, but I think for a studio camera that is going to used in Steadicam and handheld mode a certain amount of time, a size and weight in the area of the Amira and Sony F55 is a good target.

 

Was hoping for some sort of announcement from Canon about what they are going to do with the C500, now that the C300 has been updated.

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Truth is that the VistaVision Red Weapon, to me, would have been more exciting with a new 6K FF35 sensor, not 8K, just for the increase in sensitivity that the larger photosites would allow, and that recording 6K compressed raw for a feature is more reasonable than 8K, which I can see being an issue with some producers. Sure, if I were shooting for IMAX release, I'd want to record 8K, but for a typical 2K/4K DCP, I'd love to be able to shoot with a Full-Frame sensor in 6K and use the whole sensor for the image. But that's a minor quibble. Certainly being 8K helps with any marketing in terms of competing with the 6.5K Alexa 65.

 

I agree but aren't they doing both?

 

As an aside, 6K "VV" is diffraction limited past f/4 and 8K "VV," f/2.8, ignoring interpolated color.

 

The Ursa Mini looks interesting, just haven't seen tests yet.

 

It should look similar to Ursa footage, shouldn't it?

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