NAB 2006 Predictions
by Steve Freebairn
on
Mar 14, 2006 at 3:10:51 pm
Just to clarify, this post is just a guess of what might come out from Panasonic at NAB 2006. I don't know anything that hasn't been published.
I think that a 16GB p2 card will be introduced. (4gb sd cards are already available)
I think that the new Varicam will be announced.
I think that a DVCPro200 codec will be released for the Varicam.
I think that the price on the HVX200 and the previously released cards will also slightly drop.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by toke lahti on Mar 14, 2006 at 3:42:28 pm
[Steve Freebairn]"I think that a DVCPro200 codec will be released for the Varicam."
If this will come, I hope they adopt some modern technology to it like jpeg2000 adopted by Infinity.
10b of 12b colors is a must too.
Just raising the dataspeed and keeping over a decade old codec and color depth won't be enough anymore with competition with eg. Red.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by JeremyG on Mar 14, 2006 at 5:15:03 pm
I think the legend of the ghost of Ben Franklin will visit the huge, giant halls of the NAB convention claiming, "You all would not be here if I didn't tie that key to my kite string."
In all seriousness, I'm hoping for FCP v11 (why go to 6 when this one goes to 11?) with real time holographic projection (and real time 3 way cc on that of course) and if they have that, they should have native mxf support, right? Come on Apple, show us how to unleash the intel that's been dormant in the pc for so long, or whatever your latest clean room commercial claims.
Perhaps a bigger p2 store. Enough for two/three days of 720p24N shooting. Cineporter looks like it might be nice, but that p2 store is too darn convenient and I don't have to strap anything else to my camera/body/tripod/forehead.
Perhaps a P2 viewer or mxf management system for Mac. I have not seen the p2 viewer for PC, but it sure sounds cool. It'd be nice to be able to change the name if the clips at the end of the day, before you even touch FCP or your NLE. That way when you sit down to import the files to your favorite NLE (from that bigger p2 store I want) they come in named what you want, not what the engineers want (no offense Panasonic engineers, you guys/gals are doing one hell of a job). It's be nice to be able to do this in an interface outside of an NLE. Some sort of database driven system with thumbnails and perhaps low res previews, something that you don't need to be an editor to use so that the producer can log the files in down time, on the flight home, whatever. If I have this I can now truly, start editing right away instead of renaming and relogging within the NLE.
16 Gig cards would be cool, but way too damn expensive I'm sure. I can wait on that stuff, it'll all come in due time. Plus five years from now we can all sit back and say, "remember when Panasonic's P2 first came out and you could only record 4 minutes of 1080p on an 8 Gig card? Man those were the days." Those kinds of stories never get old, just the technology in those stories gets old. I just want the support to be there so when I sit down to edit I have properly named files and a source big enough to drag in files in one large download instead of a bunch of little ones (here's where the bigger p2 store comes in, again). Since this P2 system is all about an IT centric philosophy, we need the IT management tools to make the process truly unique.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by Ron Lindeboom on Mar 14, 2006 at 5:20:38 pm
[JeremyG]"I think the legend of the ghost of Ben Franklin will visit the huge, giant halls of the NAB convention claiming, 'You all would not be here if I didn't tie that key to my kite string.'"
Nah, he showed up last year and was quite disheartened as many there were products of the networks and hence thought that ole Ben was the inventor of the $100 bill -- which is why he got to be pictured on it...
But those of us in San Luis Obispo County, California know that Ben Franklin invented the Ben Franklin Sandwich Shop in SLOtown and which has therefore become his greatest claim to fame.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by JeremyG on Mar 14, 2006 at 5:27:38 pm
A ha! Boy, I need to visit my elementary school and tell my teacher what Ben Franklin really "invented". Perhaps Zinn should update A People's History of the United States to reflect our findings?
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by kenh on Mar 14, 2006 at 7:10:46 pm
Ben was actually so far ahead of his time he invented the surge protector long before Edison had seen the light. Thank goodness he was holding that ham sandwich at the time. This must have been the event that led to melted cheese on sandwiches and eventually to his famous Philly cheese steak recipe "Thou gather thy friends and together shall you hoist one milk cow to the roof of thy tallest building. Whence accomplished, tie thy kite string to thy cow bell and standest back as far as thy can while holding thy open loaf skyward till it is filled with cheese and steak". May Ron forgive my cowsacrilege....
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by toke lahti on Mar 15, 2006 at 10:31:16 pm
[JeremyG]"I'm hoping for FCP v11 (why go to 6 when this one goes to 11?)"
Spinal Cut Pro? (Or even Spinal Tap Pro?)
I see no reason why panny wouldn't announce 16GB p2, which will be shipped in 31st Dec in microscopic quantities. If I remember correctly, they did same thing with some other product ;-)
So I'm still waiting for that 2005 announced product to Europe, so I guess nab2006 will tell what I could have in 2007...
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by Shane Ross on Mar 15, 2006 at 12:34:50 am
I predict I will get drunk and lose a LOT of money at the Craps table.
But really, that wasn't too hard of a prediction.
Panasonic said that the P2 card capacity will double every year. Last year they had the 4GB cards, even though the cameras weren't available. Now they have the 8GB cards. I probably won't be until next Jan that you see the 16GB cards...then another year for the 32GB...and so on.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by Blub on Mar 15, 2006 at 12:38:38 am
A few years ago Monty Python had a skit about a British invention that was sure to overwhelm the Germans in WWII. It was a joke that could kill from 400 feet. Several teams of Brits worked on just one part of the joke so as not to be exposed to the total thing.
I predict that Panasonic will announce a 16gig P2 card in a manner not too different from the joke that could kill from 400 feet, I think they will call it the fainting room. You enter to see a small stage with a LV show girl standing ready to put on a show. The room is filled with lush leather furniture, everyone sits and the girl walks from stage right to left holding a large card which announces the new 16gig P2 card, as she gets to stage left she turns and heads back to the other side of the stage and turns the card over to reveal the price of the new 16 gigP2 card at which point everyone in the room faints.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by Lawrence Bansbach on Mar 16, 2006 at 6:44:47 pm
[Steve Freebairn]"I think that a DVCPro200 codec will be released for the Varicam"
While that's possible, why not just use HD D5? It can record true 1,920 x 1,080 at 8 bits (using 4:1 DCT intraframe compression) or 10 bits (using 5:1 compression) at 4:2:2 chroma sampling. It supports 1080i and legacy 1035i at both 60-Hz and 59.94-Hz field rates, 720p24/25/30/50/60, and 1080p24/25/30. I suppose that Panasonic could extend it to support 4:4:4 chroma sampling and variable frame rates. HD D5, however, has, I believe, a data rate of 250 Mbps, not 200 Mbps.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by toke lahti on Mar 18, 2006 at 4:14:11 pm
[Lawrence Bansbach]"While that's possible, why not just use HD D5?"
That's even older codec than dv. Why stick with legacy codecs? This is afterall about tapeless workflow at least before the master and archiving. I expect some new codec from this millenium...
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by Lawrence Bansbach on Mar 19, 2006 at 4:32:25 pm
[toke lahti]"That's even older codec than dv. Why stick with legacy codecs? This is afterall about tapeless workflow at least before the master and archiving. I expect some new codec from this millenium..."
True, but it's an extant, mature codec, and like DVCProHD it needn't be tape based. Unless I'm mistaken, Panasonic developed it and, if it wishes, may extend it with 4:4:4 chroma sampling and variable frame rates. If Panasonic can come up with a better codec -- one that it doesn't have to license -- by NAB 2006, great. It seems that Panasonic has, up to this point, thrown its weight behind DCT-based codecs. Conceivably it could develop some codec based on the MPEG-4 Studio Profile. But the computing horsepower (ie, encoding/decoding chips) necessary to do so probably wouldn't be cheap enough to implement for the $15,000 to $30,000 range within which the new HD offerings seem to be falling.
Re: NAB 2006 Predictions by toke lahti on Mar 20, 2006 at 4:04:45 pm
[Lawrence Bansbach]"Conceivably it could develop some codec based on the MPEG-4 Studio Profile. But the computing horsepower (ie, encoding/decoding chips) necessary to do so probably wouldn't be cheap enough to implement for the $15,000 to $30,000 range within which the new HD offerings seem to be falling."
Looking at Infinity, at least jpeg2000 can be quite affordable codec.
And good thing about jpeg2000 is its scalability.
It wouldn't be very expensive these days to add feature that you could dial in the compression ratio you want...
