48 TVBEurope NAB Wrap-Up
Post production predicaments
From 4K to high frame rates, Carolyn Giardina looks back at the big NAB topics and their potential impact on the post production space
WORKFLOW REMAINS a thorny subject with seemingly infinite options, and so post production equipment manufacturers at the 2012 NAB Show highlighted expanding support for the latest production formats, high resolutions, 3D and varying frame rates. “Post production has become
a very technical process because of the quantity of data and specialisation of the tools,” said Marc Petit, senior VP, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “I think we can do a lot more in workflows.” But keep it simple, advises
director of photography Steven Poster, who is president of the International Cinematographers Guild. “There is a scramble to grab some of the front-end lab business that doesn’t exist anymore — either through complete simplification of the process or creating complexity where none is needed. It seems to be two different philosophies of post production. There is no reason to complicate it beyond what it already is.”
4K and HFRS For many, this was the year of 4K resolution. “NAB is about 4K,” asserted AJA President Nick Rashby as he introduced the Ki Pro Quad, a new solid-state portable video recorder that is slated for availability later this year for $3,995. The device — similar in size to the Ki Pro Mini — captures files in 4K, Quad HD, 2K, and HD to create a “camera-to-editorial” path with 10-bit 4:4:4 and 10-bit 4:2:2 colour support. The development went hand in hand with Canon’s announcement of its EOS C500 camera that is capable of recording 4K.
In the thick of the South Lower Hall – equivalent to the dark and noisy Hall 7 at IBC
6.1 of Scratch and Scratch Lab supports 48 fps playback; and Dolby, whose Professional Reference Monitor now displays content shot at a rate of 48fps. (It already supports 60fps.) During a panel on HFRs at
the Technology Summit on Cinema, both Park Road Post’s Phil Oatley and Technicolor’s Nick Mitchell emphasised that HFRs require planning to work with significantly more data than used for 24fps production. “Data management should not be ignored. It is not a small challenge,” Mitchell advised. In the area of 3D, stereo tools
are now available in many post production systems, but at NAB, Dolby was previewing a way to get the format to the home. Dolby 3D is a new format developed by Dolby and Philips that enables encoding/decoding, transmission and rendering to 3D-ready displays and mobile devices.
“There is a scramble to grab some of the front-end lab business that doesn’t exist anymore — either through complete simplification of the process or creating complexity where none is needed”
Steven Poster, cinematographer
Poster said that interest in shooting with the likes of the new Canon 4K cameras, as well as Sony’s 4K F65, for features and broadcast production was high at NAB. For features, 4K projectors
from leading manufacturers are already available and 4K feature production is already underway. At NAB, Sony previewed director M. Night Shyamalan’s F65 production, After Earth. A Sony spokesperson said on home delivery: “Sony recently announced a consumer 4K projector, so we expect to see demand for 4K content delivered to the home. … This is a long term effort as 4K will affect several elements in a live production workflow, however. We’ve seen several broadcasters already conduct tests with 4K content, most recently TV Globo and its 4K capture of Carnivale in Rio. But in the short term, 4K for broadcast today is about harnessing the power of a 4K
camera system and down converting to high definition.” “The broader need is folks have
been working toward some form of a digital negative,” said Bryce Button, product marketing manager at AJA Video Systems. “Folks are looking for a high enough resolution (to be used) for a number of years to come. … Various broadcasters are also looking at (4K) as a source format. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they will deliver 4K right away, but they want to be able to handle it. We are trying to help people record to and use the 4K at any time they choose.” Blackmagic Design CEO
Grant Petty said that 4K — as well as high frame rates (HFR) — are not ready for terrestrial broadcasting. “I cannot see any way that the world is going to have another round of digital broadcasting standards with high frame rates and high resolution,” he said, adding that delivery of a combination of 4K and HFRs
will (at least at first) be achievable in cinemas or via download using an internet based delivery system. He said that while he doesn’t
believe that these features will be needed on every project, Blackmagic plans to incorporate these capabilities in its technologies so that they are available to customers when needed and without requiring separate purchases. Support for HFRs was a central
topic at the SGO stand, as the company worked closely with Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post to incorporate HFR support into the SGO Mistika finishing system. Park Road is now using Mistika to post Jackson’s two-part Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit, which is being filmed and posted in at 48fps and in 3D. Among the companies that made HFRs part of their NAB discussions was Quantel, which launched ‘new Pablo’ with features including support for HFRs; Assimilate, whose version
Editing and the Cloud Post production professionals at NAB were also examining the competitive editing space (though Apple again didn’t exhibit) and use of the Cloud. Avid CEO Gary Greenfield asserted that its flagship editing systems remain the top choice of the professional community. “At the end of the day, it’s about the workflow, we are about asset-based workflows...We think it is not just about creating the asset but reusing the assets.” At NAB, Avid unveiled
Interplay Sphere, a cloud-based system aimed at enabling journalists to create and file stories on the go, from a mobile device. Adobe’s newly unveiled Creative Suite 6 Production Premium was also previewed at NAB. The bundle—aimed at professionals— includes new versions of Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Story Plus, Media Encoder, Encore, and Photoshop; as well as SpeedGrade colour grading system; and Prelude for ingest, logging and transcoding. On its editing market, Jim
Guerard, VP/GM of Adobe Video Solutions said: “Adobe’s professional [editing] business grew at 45% on the Mac platform for each of the last two years (and more than 20% overall), so Premiere Pro adoption was already in motion when Apple made their change” [to Final Cut Pro X in 2011]. The combined CS6 toolset is also central to the new Adobe Creative Cloud. “The idea is to create workflows,” summed up Adobe’s Bill Roberts. Avid and Adobe’s new cloud services join additional such services as Quantel’s QTube and Chyron’s Axis World Graphics.
www.tvbeurope.com June2012
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