On the Eve of NAB 2009: Updated

As I sit in my office on the eve of yet another NAB - this will be my 10th NAB - I'm staring at a jam-packed calendar and a ton of very cool news from my clients at the show.

I'm excited about the show.  I know I've said this before, but in 20 years of doing high tech PR, this is the ONLY trade show I actually look forward to.  While exhausting, it's also the most productive shows I've ever been to, and I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of old friends and meeting new ones as well.

NAB has always been a great networking show, but sky rocketing developments in social media have made the show that much easier to navigate, and that much easier to find and meet new people, make new contacts and even generate new business.  Of course I'm talking about Twitter.

I began using Twitter for the first time last year at NAB (I had been on the fence about Twitter for months leading up to NAB 08).  I was amazed at how quickly I came to rely on Twitter on the show floor to stay connected with people and news - up to the second and highly targeted.  I was also heartened to see how many editors, VFX artists and people from the post production space were quickly embracing it and forming new communities apart from the typical forums they so frequently visit.

So this year, armed with TweetDeck and the official NAB Hashtags (#NAB09 and #NABShow), I'll be tweeting live from the show floor on all the news and developments that come my way.  I'm also looking forward to meeting in person all those I've 'met' on Twitter over the past year.  Yes, TweetUp is now a new word to add to the NAB lexicon.

Ok, so I'll be there all week representing my clients - three will be present on the show floor, one will not be physically present, but has news to share with the NAB crowd.  Here's a run down of what's new and exciting with my clients at the show:

Automatic Duck, Booth #SL2529A (The Plug In Pavilion)

Wes Plate will be in the Plug In Pavilion once again with his very comfortable couches on which he invites all to come sit, relax, hang out and hear what's new with the Duck this year.  As for customers, they come for the cool products, they stay for the couches - yes they are that comfortable.

Automatic Duck is debuting Media Copy 2.0, a completely new rebuild of the very popular tool originally designed for moving OMF media files between Avid editors and After Effects users.  Completely re-built from the ground up, the newly released Media Copy 2.0 now adds AAF, OMF, MXF and Final Cut XML file support for editors who need to quickly move media files between their digital video systems. 

Imagineer Systems, Booth #SL10129 (FCPUG SuperBooth)

UPDATE: Imagineer Systems is offering an NAB 09 Special: 25% off all Imagineer Systems products from April 20th - 30th, 2009!!  

Imagineer Systems is back at NAB this year with some really exciting news for Final Cut Pro users - the debut of mocha for Final Cut!  This announcement has been buzzing around the FCP community for a couple of weeks now, so we're really excited to finally show off what we've done.  And what better place to show off a new planar tracking tool for FCP than in the SuperBooth.  So big thanks to Dan Berube and his crew for hosting us!  Here's a snapshot of mocha for Final Cut:

mocha for Final Cut is designed as a stand alone 2D tracking tool and is packed with features that help editors and VFX artists tackle more complex jobs and enable them to finish projects within Final Cut.  Tapping into customer feedback throughout the development process, Imagineer Systems has included the a key toolset in highest demand from editors: a solid 2.5D tracker for image replacement and stabilization.

The tracker in mocha for Final Cut is based on Imagineer Systems’ unique 2.5D Planar Tracking technology, which is significantly more robust than traditional point trackers typically found in today’s editing systems.  mocha for Final Cut enables users to obtain high quality tracks, even in situations where objects are moving out of frame, lack detail, motion blur and heavy grain.  mocha for Final Cut’s innovative Adjust Track tool helps remove drift and enables users to extract offset tracking data for areas that go off screen.

mocha for Final Cut exports the tracking data in XML format to Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express.

CineForm, Inc., Booth # SL11605

CineForm is back at NAB this year with some pretty ground-breaking news in the area of 3D post production as well as huge breakthroughs in color correction technologies.

The first big announcement has the 3D post world buzzing.  This is truly a first.  Neo3D.  I won't go into too much detail here because in this case, you just have to see this thing.  David Taylor, CEO of CineForm will be in the booth demoing for all to see (along with the rest of the CineForm team), so if you're at all involved in 3D post, come to the CineForm booth to see this in action.

Here's a snippet from the press release:

"CineForm's Neo3D™, a significant development in 3D post production workflows, enables Final Cut Pro users to edit 3D projects in real time with full frame rate playback to an external 3D monitor. Traditionally, 3D projects are edited in 2D as independent Left and Right eyes, with a final 3D conform after the entire editorial process is complete.  CineForm Neo3D simplifies this costly, time-intensive process by enabling the editorial team to experience the 3D story-telling process by viewing in full 3D while editing.  This technique allows many projects to eliminate 3D conform entirely and print directly from the Final Cut Pro timeline to electronic 3D distribution or projection files."

CineForm also will debut some breakthrough color correction technology called First Light.  CineForm is very intelligently leveraging their Active Metadata technology and has applied it to color correction with a result that will leave editors smiling - mainly, and very simply, because First Light eliminates rendering in the color correction workflow.  Play around all you want with different looks, colors, treatments, whatever - all in real time and with no rendering.  This is cool stuff.  Here's a snippet from the press release:

"CineForm today announced a powerful new real-time, renderless color correction tool – CineForm First Light™ – which will become part of its professional Neo and Prospect product families on both Windows and Mac.  First Light uses CineForm’s innovative Active Metadata™ architecture to add or adjust color information such as white balance, saturation controls, and even 3D LUTs (Look Up Tables), as metadata “layers” on top of the base image without flattening or rendering the file.  Carrying color adjustments as metadata preserves fidelity of the source images while maintaining compatibility with all AVI and QuickTime applications on Windows and Mac. 

First Light enables unique capabilities for an editor, including the ability to toggle between several versions of advanced color correction in real-time while in consultation with a client, yet in a non-destructive way that does not modify the source content. CineForm will debut and demonstrate First Light at its booth #SL11605 at NAB 2009 in Las Vegas."

Lastly, Puget Systems will not be exhibiting at the show this year.  However, this boutique custom systems builder out of the Seattle, WA area just announced a new power-house ultra-quiet liquid cooled workstation custom-tailored to meet every whim and requirement of the post professional.  It's called Genesis from Puget Systems.  

"Genesis taps into the extreme performance of next-generation Intel “Nehalem” micro-architecture and extreme graphics processing capabilities of the NVIDIA Quadro 8-series GPUs.  These innovations combine to optimize performance for a host of intensive content creation applications, including Avid, Premiere CS4, AutoCAD, Solidworks, Maya, Pro Tools, Cubase, Photoshop and more.  Additionally, creative chassis design strategically places oft-used ports, such as FireWire, USB and eSATA directly in the front panel, adding ease-of-access to the list of features that make Genesis ideal for digital media artists in the competitive, time-sensitive post production environment."

Check this system out, and better yet, I want to talk to you about it.  And the Company wants to talk to you about it.  You see, Puget Systems is a custom systems builder - that means they're flexible and open to hearing your feedback.  This is an amazing system, but they want to make it even better, that is, even more tailored to what you need as editors, VFX artists, post professionals.  It's not a system set in stone, like the off-the-shelf variety, and I think that's critically important to our space.  No two editors have the same requirements, so this is an opportunity to build your ultimate dream system.  So I'd love to hear from you on this.

Ok, that's a wrap for now.  I'm looking forward to an amazing show next week and I hope to see as many of you out there as possible.  And if you won't be making it this time around, I'll be tweeting from the show floor (@bourkepr) and when I find the time, blogging more here.