The biggest deal of this show (National Association of Broadcasters) in terms of software was probably Apple...


Final Cut Pro 5



At this year's NAB, HD is definitely the buzzword. Final Cut Pro 5 will natively support HDV and HD streams, and multiple, uncompressed HD streams can be edited in real-time. Multi-cam footage of the new Black Eyed Peas music video was shown and edited on what Apple officials say was a stock G5 machine.

The new Final Cut Pro will support multiple audio channels and multiple camera views (as shown in the picture above)


Motion 2



You can think of Motion as Apple's answer to Adobe After Effects; it provides various animations and special effects to spice up your videos. It also accepts plugins from third party providers such as Zaxwerks and BorisFX.

Two of the coolest features in the new Motion 2 are earthquake, replication and midi match. Earthquake realistically shakes the camera view. Replication, as the name implies, produces multiple copies of the video, which you can arrange in columns and animate. Midi match allows you to match effects to beats in your music. Effects and animations are linked to the pressing of keys on a midi keyboard; video and music are played back, while the editor listens and presses keys appropriately.


Soundtrack Pro



Apple enters the professional audio market in a big way with Soundtrack Pro. This professional-grade audio editor ships with over 1,000 sound effects, from explosions to foley effects. During the demonstration, sound samples were seamlessly edited and magnified, all the way down to the individual cycle. Soundtrack Pro also intelligently eliminates audio problems such as clicks, pops and hums.

Apple Product Manager Phil Jackson showed how easy it was to fix and enhance audio samples. With a couple clicks of the mouse, audio pops were eliminated. He also created custom sound effects to match the trailer from the upcoming Batman movie. Soundtrack Pro looks to be a serious competitor to other audio applications.




DVD Studio Pro 4

High quality video and special effects can make DVD encoding a painful and lengthy process. Thankfully, the new version of DVD Studio Pro has distributed encoding, which takes advantage of spare CPU cycles on all the machines in your network.


Final Cut Pro 5 - $999
Motion 2 - $299
Soundtrack Pro - $299
DVD Studio Pro 4 - $299

The individual applications can be bought separately, but Apple is offering the Studio package for $1299.
Previous owners of ANY version can upgrade for $699. Final Cut Studio will be available in May.

http://www20.tomshardware...cut_studio
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We were right across the aisle from them and show attendees literally...



...stampeded in every morning to sign up for their "classes" on each product. The presentation area was set up with 5 rows of approximately 10 stations, each with its own G4 laptop and headphones mirroring what the presenter displayed on the big screen.
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One Affordable Panasonic Camcorder to Rule Them All



After Panasonic unveiled its AG-HVX200 camcorder at Apple's press conference Monday during NAB 2005, we were so enticed that we quickly fought our way through the NAB crowd to the Panasonic booth to get our hands on the AG-HVX200.

According to Panasonic, the AG-HVX200 promises to give prosumers affordable HD recording capabilties and has also caused a stir among NAB attendees. Panasonic officials were also more than happy to give us the juicy technical specifications

Optically, the camcorder is top notch. It uses three 1/3 inch CCDs that record at 16:9 natively. The CCDs are 1.1 megapixels each. The lens is an 83mm Leica Dicomar with 13X optical zoom. The built in neutral density filter can be set to 1/64, 1/8 or off.

The camcorder records on P2 solid state cards, that can be popped into your laptop for immediate editing. The camera also comes with a mini DV tape slot.

An HD field monitor can be attached via the HD analog out port. Panasonic promises to release an SDI connection in the future.

The camcorder has Firewire and USB2 ports. Some companies offer direct to hard-drive recording, via firewire connection. I asked whether the HD signal could be transferred to these drives. Panasonic officials said, "Only standard definition can be transferred via the firewire port, because of bandwidth limitations.

Panasonic says its AG-HVX200 will be available in fall for $5,995.



It's amazing how far recording technology has come in the past few years. Being able to record in full HD resolutions at 100 Mbps is an incredible feat in itself. Morever, while professional HD camcorders used to cost $30,000 and up, Panasonic's AG-HVX200 for $5,995 has the potential to open doors for the average Joe who wants to make true HD content.

http://www.tomshardware.c...200504191/
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A'ight yamomma, use the cup!



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm
[Edited 4/23/05 9:32am]

Whoah... Wow... Dagone!

I've been reading up on the latest Final Cut Pro Studio. So very cool that you were able to see it first hand. Shoot, I got FCP4 (HD) 8 months ago and already they jumped leaps and bounds.

Soundtrack has been a God-sent for people like me. I can't wait to get my hands on this new version.

With the amount of projects on my plate both in my day job AND my night studio work, it looks like this is in the budget for both locations. I will be diggin on this for quite a while, it seems.

They had G5 laptops??? When are those going to be ready to ship?

It's almost frustrating that I just dumped almost 4 grand in studio junk and 6 grand got approved for my day job equipment upgrades to see what I could have got if I waited a few months.

I need to subscribe to one of those insider magazines or something.

I'm not complaining though. What I have now kicks major behind to the way things were, not to mention I have made most of that money back almost imediately ... be it in both trade value and cash. (Although I still had to borrow some money from my wife for gas this week, what a loser)

Being loyal to Canon, I got that XL1-S camera 6 months or so ago too. A few months later I saw how Sony was going all HD and my Canon rep can't seem to tell me what they had in the works to compete.

Remember when gear evolved every few years or so? Man, is this stuff moving fast! I got some cash ready for "Tiger" that comes out in a week! That should pasify that hunger to keep up with Apple for a little while at least. I hear they will have a new line up of G5 models almost imediatly. Next week, I'll be going over a contract with a major studio client next week that should put that in the budget too ... I hope.

Then again, I owe my family (and myself) a much needed vaction. In the three years we've been married, the only time I have taken off is when my two children were born give or take a 3 day weekend here and there. I want to do New York this summer. Look out Jew! Here I come! (Unless my wife talks me into doing Disney)

Thanks, TA for that awesome review. You seem to have an exciting position in your work. I'd love to have the opprotunity to see these sort of events.

yamomma said:

My mistake...



...they were simply Cinema Displays.

Btw, Apple was kind enough to supply us with a few...



...of their iMac G5 machines for our display.




Technology has made the evolution of audio and video products move at light speed. This has its benefits in that over time the cost of this technology has been reduced so that the average person can afford to acquire some of these products. One of the negative sides has been expressed in the "Creativity VS Technology" post here.



Welllll, if you could time shift your vist to "The Apple" till October, the AES Convention will be at the Jacob Javits Center - http://www.aes.org/events/119/
This convention rotates in the U.S. between NYC, San Francisco and L.A.
I was able to gain entry for an interested Orger at last year's show in S.F.

The job can be fun most of the time, but as with all jobs, it has its downsides.
Like keeping me 2000 miles away from the rest of my Tribal Disorder family

My pleasure, as always, to be able to share some info.

Btw, the text and pix on the show were courtesy of the Tom's Hardware Guide site.
A great resource for things techno - http://www.tomshardware.com/index.html
Their main focus tends to be The Dark Side...



...aka the PC


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

Shoot.

We're going up for my wife's sister's graduation. I plan on making a day into the city for myself though.

In October, I just may be in Brazil! That facial treatment presentation thingy I posted a while back... that company wants me to shoot a video down there. We'll see though. There maybe more travel opprotunities in the near future, I hope.