With the FS7, Sony finally learns to cannibalize itself

At the International Broadcasting Conference in Amsterdam, broadcasting equipment companies announce new products, and often ship the new products they announced at NAB in April. For example, Panasonic showed near-production versions of its Varicam 35 that was announced at NAB, as did AJA with its CION camera. Sony, on the other hand, showed a new camera whose existence started to be rumored only a few weeks before IBC. The PXW-FS7 (referred to by most people as the FS7) is a Super 35 4K camera that fits in price between Sony's FS700 and F5, but is functionally superior to the F5 in many ways. It uses the full XAVC codec and records 10-bit 4:2:2 UHD 4K at up to 60 fps and 600Mbps (Digital Cinema 4K will be supported in a firmware upgrade scheduled for early 2015,) but it uses Sony's XQD flash media, which costs substantially less than the SxS Pro+ flash media used by the F5.

It's got built-in ND filters, and it natively accepts Sony's E-mount lenses; Sony announced a new professional power zoom 28-135mm F4 lens to go along with the FS7. An A-mount adapter is available, and of course, third-party adapters that connect a variety of mounts to A- or E-mounts will also work. It's got a standard grip control that puts many of the camera's most important controls on a hand grip. An optional extension unit enables the FS7 to record using Apple's ProRes 422 codec, outputs raw 12-bit 4K video that can be recorded by external Sony and Convergent Design recorders, and supports industry-standard batteries. The FS7 will be somewhat heavier that AJA's CION; the FS7 weighs 4.5kg without the extension unit that it needs to be functionally comparable to the CION, while the CION weighs 3.4kg. Both cameras are lightweights compared with Blackmagic Design's URSA, which weighs 7.4kg.

What makes the FS7 so worthy of discussion is that a number of observers have noted that it's in many ways a better camera than Sony's F5, for less money. The F5 sells for $16,490 (U.S.) at B&H, and that's without a viewfinder or lens. The FS7 will sell for $7,999 at Adorama ($10,499 with 28-135mm lens.) Introducing a new product that competes directly with another Sony product for less money was, until now, considered heresy. Sony took extraordinary pains to make sure that its products didn't directly compete with each other, except when the company was deliberately obsoleting an older product. In this case, however, Sony says that the FS7 will replace neither the FS700, which B&H sells for $7.699 and which the FS7 blows out of the water, nor the F5, which the FS7 compares very well to for about half the price.

Sony's no-competition policy dates back to when Sony was the undisputed technological and market leader in cameras. Any cannibalization of Sony's own products was seen as unnecessarily leaving money on the table. However, first Panasonic and then Canon showed that they could build cameras that could compete very well with Sony's offerings. Panasonic in particular was largely unconcerned if its cameras cannibalized its other models, and both Panasonic and Canon were happy to take sales away from Sony. Blackmagic Design showed that it can't yet design or build cameras to Canon's, Panasonic's or Sony's standards, but it introduced price competition into a business that hadn't seen much of it. That brought in AJA, which looks like it's learned from Blackmagic's mistakes and will combine high-end performance with aggressive pricing.

Sony's in a new world. It's now got competitors that are its technological equal and are willing to accept a lower gross margin on their sales. Sony has finally figured out that it's better to cannibalize yourself and keep the revenues, rather than let your competitors cannibalize you and take the revenues. Sony's going to let its customers tell it if the FS7 replaces either the FS700 or F5. The older products will stay in Sony's product lines until sales fall off sufficiently to make one or both unprofitable to continue to offer.

With the FS7, Sony is finally doing what many observers and customers hoped that it would do decades ago, Time will tell if the FS7 is a one-time fluke or the first product in a new strategic commitment.

Blackmagic adds studio cameras to its live production suite, makes its switchers 4K

Blackmagic Design has long been known as a post-production hardware vendor, starting with its DeckLink cards in 2002. In 2010, the company moved into live video production when it acquired switcher manufacturer Echolab's assets out of bankruptcy. Together with its Videohub routers and video & audio monitoring hardware, Blackmagic built a fairly complete line of live production products. Then, in 2012, Blackmagic introduced its first camera, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BMCC). Many people wondered if the Cinema Camera could be used for live production since it has an HD-SDI output, but Blackmagic cautioned against using it that way. The BMCC's color output is so flat that it can't really be used without color correction, and Blackmagic's subsequent camera models launched prior to this year aren't much better suited for live use.

However, at NAB earlier this week, Blackmagic introduced a line of cameras designed specifically for live production, the Studio Camera HD and Studio Camera 4K (which outputs video in Ultra HD and HD.) The Studio Cameras are designed around 10" LCDs that do double duty as viewfinders and menu displays. The company claims that the viewfinders are the largest offered by any manufacturer. Unlike the Cinema Camera and Production Camera, the Studio Camera's display isn't touch-sensitive; a row of buttons below the display is used for user inputs. The company claims that by eliminating the touch-sensitive layer, the Studio Camera's display is brighter.

On the back of the display, there's a wedge that contains all of the camera's connectors, the lens mount (active Micro Four Thirds), imager and most of the camera's electronics. The result is a very strange looking camera, but one with significantly better features than previous Blackmagic models. For example, the company's previous cameras have become known for their poor battery life, but Blackmagic says that the battery in the Studio Camera will last for four hours, and a standard four-pin power connector allows users to connect external batteries for more runtime, or AC power for continuous operation. The single minijack or dual 1/4" jacks used for audio input in the previous cameras have been replaced with dual XLR connectors with phantom power.

The Studio Cameras also have several new features:

• A LANC interface for connecting a remote iris, focus and zoom control (if your lens is compatible)
• Dual jacks for connecting an aviation headset for intercom use; Blackmagic claims that aviation headsets are much less expensive than video production headsets with comparable features
• A bidirectional optical fiber connector that's compatible with the ATEM Studio Converter and provides the same functionality as the $595 ATEM Camera Converter. This enables the Studio Camera to send and receive HD or 4K video, stereo audio, talkback/intercom and tally lights over cable runs as long as 28 miles
• A software-based Remote Camera Control that works with any ATEM Production Studio. All of the settings on the camera can be monitored and controlled with this software. In addition, a full copy of DaVinci Resolve's primary color corrector is included for live color balancing

You may be thinking, "These Studio Cameras are better than Blackmagic's first-generation models in almost every way, and they're the same price, so why would anyone buy the earlier models?" One big reason is that the Studio Cameras have no storage. No SSD, no CFast, no SDXC, nothing. You can, of course, add an external recorder such as Blackmagic's HyperDeck Shuttle, and you've got other options using the Studio Cameras' SDI connections. However, an external recorder adds to the size, weight and cost of the cameras.

The Studio Camera HD is shipping now and is priced at $1,995 (U.S.), while the Studio Camera 4K is expected to ship in June and is priced at $2,995. Given Blackmagic's track record with cameras, don't bet your life on that June ship date, and expect some problems with the cameras that are shipped for the first several months.

Blackmagic has also made a number of changes to its ATEM line of switchers (all of which are shipping):

• The original HD-only models of the ATEM 1 M/E and 2 M/E have been discontinued; the sole HD-only switcher that remains in the product line is the $995 ATEM Television Studio, which is primarily intended as a "personal" switcher for webcasts and small productions
• The new ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio and 2 M/E Production Studio support 4K and HD on all inputs and outputs (except the monitor outputs, which are HD only)
• Last year's ATEM Production Studio 4K, which has similar functionality to the ATEM Television Studio except it supports 4K, remains in the product line at $1,695
• The ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K is priced at $2,495, and the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K is priced at $3,995, $1,000 less than last year's model

With the Studio Cameras and its 4K switcher line, Blackmagic now has just about everything needed to build a live production facility.

For 4K cameras, price is A thing, but not THE thing

I'm back from NAB, where the overriding theme this year was 4K everything--cameras, monitors, editors, special effects, routers, switchers, etc. Perhaps the biggest battle was in cameras, where AJA Video entered the market for the first time and Blackmagic Design and Sony announced new 4K cameras. (JVC also announced its first 4K digital cinematography cameras, but gave no prices or availability dates.) 4K cameras have been a "thing" ever since the RED One, but $10,000 was the least that you could spend to buy one (Canon's 1D C) until Blackmagic shipped its 4K Production Camera late last year, priced at $2,995.

The floodgates have now opened:

• Panasonic's GH4: $1,699, or $3,299 bundled with its SDI/XLR interface dock
• Sony's A7S: $2,499.99, will ship in July
• Blackmagic's 4K Production Camera: $2,995
• Blackmagic's URSA EF: $5,995
• AJA's Cion: $8,995

None of these cameras cost more than a fraction of the price of an ARRI Alexa ($80,000+) or Amira ($40,000-$52,000 depending on enabled features,) RED EPIC-M Dragon ($50,000+), or Sony F55 ($29,000+) or F65 ($65,000+). You'd think that ARRI, RED and Sony would be shaking in their boots, but they're not. There are two reasons why the companies that make high-end cameras aren't necessarily threatened by the new inexpensive models:

1. There are many elements that determine whether or not a specific camera is appropriate for an application, and
2. You get what you pay for.

Here are some (but far from all) of the elements of camera design that influence how the camera performs and what it's good (or not good) for:

• Imager size
• Imager resolution
• Color space (e.g., YUV or xvYCC)
• Color sampling (e.g., 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or 4:4:4)
• Bit depth (8-bit vs. 10-bit)
• Video output resolution (DCI 4K (4096 x 2160), UHD (3840 x 2160), 1080, 720)
• Video compression formats (e.g., AVCHD, H.264, ProRes, DNxHD, XAVC, XAVC S, AVC-Intra, AVC-Ultra)
• RAW storage and/or output
• Frame rates supported at specified resolution (e.g., 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 59.94, 60 or 120)
• Dynamic range in stops
• Native ISO speed
• Sensitivity (maximum usable ISO speed, NOT the camera's rated top ISO speed)
• Lens mount(s)
• Lens control (manual, automatic or limited automatic)
• Image stabilization (digital or optical, in the camera body or in the lens, or no stabilization)
• Viewfinder, display screen, both or none
• User interface design (e.g., touchscreen(s), menus, dedicated buttons and knobs)
• Storage capacity
• Storage media
• Internal or external storage
• Video interface(s) (HDMI or HD-SDI, with different HDMI versions and, for HD-SDI, maximum speeds)
• Audio connector(s)
• Balanced or unbalanced audio in
• Phantom power availability
• Run time on battery
• Removable or permanent battery
• External power voltage and connector
• Camera shape
• Camera weight
• Ruggedness
• Manufacturer and design maturity (how much experience does the manufacturer have in designing cameras, and how long has the manufacturer been making this particular camera)

There's an enormous number of elements to consider, and some elements work much better for certain applications than others. In some cases, buyers have a wealth of cameras to choose from, while in other cases, there may only be a handful that can do what they need.

Rather than salivating when you hear about a new low-priced camera with attractive features, ask yourself these questions:

1. What am I going to use it for?
2. What trade-offs am I willing to accept (for example, are you willing to live with less sensitivity in order to get a higher-quality compression format?)
3. How often will I use the camera (do you know that you'll be using it over and over on new projects, or do you have one project in mind and you don't know when you'll have the next one?)
4. How much can I afford to pay?

Answering the first two questions will allow you to compile a list of cameras that meet your needs. Answering the final two questions will tell you whether you should buy or rent the camera that you can afford. In some cases, you may decide to buy a less-expensive camera and use your remaining budget to buy lenses or mounting equipment. In other cases, you could rent a camera and use the savings elsewhere on your production, or rent a camera that you can't afford to buy that's superior to other choices for your application. In short, you should answer the four questions first, rather than starting with the price of the camera and instead hoping that it will meet your needs.

It's tough out here for a camera (maker)

Over the last seven years, we've seen a number of companies jump into the professional cinema camera market. Some have had an easier time of it than others. Red launched its first camera, the Red One, at NAB 2006, and a small number shipped to customers more than a year later. Red announced its Scarlet camera in late 2008 but didn't ship a much different (and more expensive) Scarlet model until about three years later. Canon's first cinema camera, the EOS 300, shipped in January 2012, and the EOS 100 and 500 followed in the fall of 2012. Blackmagic Design launched its Cinema Camera at NAB 2012 but didn't start shipping in quantity for almost a year; Blackmagic's Pocket Cinema Camera was announced at NAB 2013 and started shipping small quantities in August 2013. Its 4K Production Camera, also announced at NAB 2013, has only just recently begun shipping in small quantities. Finally, there's the Digital Bolex D16, which started as a Kickstarter project in April, 2012 and started shipping to early supporters at the end of 2013.

Of Red, Canon, Blackmagic Design and Digital Bolex, only Canon shipped its cameras close to when they said they'd ship. All four companies shipped cameras with problems, but Canon's were minor. By comparison, Red spent two years debugging the firmware in its Red One and subsequent cameras, and Blackmagic's cameras are missing essential features, such as audio meters, an indicator of how much storage is available and the ability to format storage in the camera, that should have been there when they shipped. Digital Bolex's D16 shipped late, but so far, it seems to be working reasonably well.

It's interesting, but not surprising, that Canon was the only company that shipped its cinema cameras on time and with relatively few bugs. After all, Canon shipped its first camera in 1936, its first camcorder in 1981, and its first digital DSLR in 1995. They knew how to make or integrate everything needed for a Cinema Camera when they launched the EOS 300 in 2012. (Some of you may be wondering why I didn't mention Arri and its Alexa cameras, but the story is much the same as Canon: Arri launched its first film camera in 1924, and its first digital camera, the Arriflex D-20, in 2005.) Red and Digital Bolex, on the other hand, were founded specifically to make cinema cameras, while Blackmagic Design made an extensive line of video hardware and software before gearing up to make cameras.

My point, which I admit it's taken a long time to get to, is that it's hard to make a good cinema camera. You can't simply go through parts catalogs and find all the pieces you need to build a camera; in some cases, you can't even depend on a parts manufacturer to build the parts you need to your specifications. Blackmagic ran into problems with CMOS imagers on both its original Cinema Camera and 4K Production Camera. Both Blackmagic and Red ran into integration problems--getting all the parts to work together as designed--and both struggled with firmware needed to implement promised features. Blackmagic's cameras use too much power--third-party tests show that its 4K Production Camera can burn through its internal battery in 20 minutes.

I'm not saying that any of these companies shouldn't have entered the cinema camera market; Red changed users' expectations for price and imaging quality, and Blackmagic pushed prices far below where they'd been for comparable cameras from competitors. However, they (and their customers) have learned how hard it is to build a good cinema camera. Given what's happened since 2006, I'd say that other than lenses, cinema cameras are the hardest broadcast or cinema products to design and build.

As we prepare for NAB 2014, we're likely to see a new round of camera introductions. When a company with no previous camera design or manufacturing experience announces a new cinema camera, my recommendation is to not be one of the first customers in line with a preorder. To be safe, you should add at least a year to the company's announced release date, and probably a year after that for the camera's firmware to be stabilized and for all key features to be implemented. The frustration you save will be your own.

That was fast: Blackmagic Design drops price of Production Camera 4K to $2,995

Just three days after the formal announcement of Panasonic's 4K GH4, and before Panasonic has announced pricing or availability for its new camera, Blackmagic Design has cut $1,000 off the price of its Production Camera 4K, bringing the price down to $2,995 (U.S.). That should be below the price of the GH4 plus its dock. In addition, as I wrote yesterday, the GH4 will need an external video recorder to take full advantage of the camera's 4K output, while the Production Camera 4K has a built-in SSD dock, which makes Blackmagic's camera an even better deal. The Production Camera 4K also has a Canon EF/Zeiss ZE mount, compared to the GH4's Micro Four Thirds mount, which could be very important if you've already got an investment in Canon lenses.

I suspect that Blackmagic was planning the Production Camera 4K's price drop as a big announcement at NAB in April, but the company decided to make the announcement early after seeing Panasonic's moves. It's pretty amazing--in the space of four days, we've gone from no 4K cameras under $3,000 to two.

Panasonic's GH4 lowers the bar for 4K pricing, but are the compromises worth it?

Panasonic’s flagship GH series of Micro Four-Thirds ILCs has developed a strong reputation as cinematography cameras, starting with the GH2, which had its firmware hacked to enable much higher bit rates than the stock model. The GH3, introduced last year, took many of the capabilities added by third parties and built them into the base camera. Last month, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Panasonic showed a prototype of a new GH that looked almost identical to the GH3 but supported 4K video. As of this weekend, we’ve learned the specifications for the new camera, called GH4, but not the price or release date.

The GH4 16.05 megapixel CMOS imager doesn’t break any records for still imaging, but it does support 4K video at both standard resolutions: Ultra HD (3840x2160 @ 30p,) the broadcast/video 4K standard and the resolution of consumer Ultra HD displays, and Cinema 4K (4096x2160 @ 24p,) the baseline standard for theatrical production, post-production and exhibition. In 4K mode, it uses IBP compression with I and B frames at 100mbps, while in 2K mode, it supports All-I compression at 200mbps.

The GH4 has an interesting (and confusing) approach to how it handles storage of 4K video: When using an SD card, video is stored in 8-bit 4:2:0, and is output to the HDMI terminal as 8-bit 4:2:2. If you remove the SD card and use an external recorder, the HDMI output is 10-bit 4:2:2. You can also opt for a dock (Panasonic refers to it as an “interface unit”) that provides two XLR audio inputs with LED meters, four SDI outputs (two of which are 3G) and a 12VDC power socket. The SDI outputs can presumably drive an external recorder and monitor simultaneously at 10-bit 4:2:2. The dock won’t win any design awards—it just about doubles the size of the GH4—but it does add the interfaces that professional users need (or are forced to add with third-party hardware.)

Panasonic’s approach to storing 4K video means that an external recorder will be a necessity. In this regard, Blackmagic Design’s Production Camera 4K (the camera most likely to be compared to the GH4) has an advantage, because users can insert a SSD directly into the Blackmagic camera, eliminating the need for an external recorder.

I have to admit that I’m disappointed with how Panasonic chose to implement storage on the GH4. It would have been nice to be able to use the camera in a handheld mode without a lot of additional hardware, but in 4K mode, the SD card is only good for proxy recording in 4K mode. (To be clear, you can store 4K video on the SD card, but if you're serious enough about 4K to put up with all the other issues you'll need to deal with in post-production--massive storage, faster PCs, bigger monitors, etc.--8-bit 4:2:0 won't cut it.)

At CES, Panasonic representatives said that they expect the GH4 to be priced less than $2,000 in the U.S. That price won’t include the dock, which is likely to cost at least $1,000. So, Panasonic could get the GH4 plus dock to market at around $3,000—but I wouldn’t be surprised if the pair launches at closer to $4,000.

Update (March 10, 2014): Panasonic has revealed prices and availability dates for the GH4. The GH4 body's suggested retail price is $1,699.99 (U.S.). The dock (officially called the DMW-YAGH XLR/SDI Interface Unit) is priced at $1,999.99. If you buy both the GH4 and dock as a bundle, it's priced at $3,299.99. I’d love to see a third party develop a more elegant (and cheaper) dock, but there may not be a big enough market for it to make financial sense.

The GH4 is one of the least expensive ways of getting into 4K, if not the least expensive way. However, as we’ve learned from Blackmagic’s cameras, inexpensive means compromises, and the GH4 is no exception. It remains to be seen if the GH4’s compromises are ones that you can live with.

NAB 2013: The Wrap-up

I only had a day to spend at NAB last week, so I couldn't get to every booth, and undoubtedly missed some "gems" hidden around the show floor. However, I did get to see much of the South and Central Halls. Here's a summary of the products that impressed me (I've already written about Blackmagic Design's two new Cinema Cameras,) along with what wasn't there, and some thoughts about the future of the business:

The New

• Canon's XA20 and XA25: Canon's new small, light and low-cost ENG camcorders are the company's first models with 1080/60p capability. Both models have 20x zoom lenses, dual-band WiFi and dual SDHC/SDXC-compatible memory card slots. The XA25 adds dual XLR audio inputs and an HD-SDI output. The list price of the XA20 is $2,499 (US,) while the XA25 is priced at $2,999; street prices are $2,199 for the XA20 and $2,699 for the XA25. Both camcorders are expected to ship in late June.
• JVC's GY-HM650U ENG camcorder (street price $5,695) was launched at last year's NAB, and it's recently scored a number of high-profile, big-quantity sales to customers including the BBC. The 2.0 model introduced at this year's NAB (a firmware upgrade for camcorders already in use) adds a number of new features. The HM650U has three 1/3-inch CMOS sensors and a 23x zoom lens. It can simultaneously record to dual SDHC/SDXC-compatible memory cards, output video through its HD-SDI or HDMI connectors, and stream a webcast-appropriate version of the video over its built-in WiFi interface or a 4G LTE adapter.
• Perhaps the biggest hit of the show was Freefly System's Movi M10 camera stabilizer. Unlike stabilizers built around the Steadicam model, which uses a system of springs and joints (and requires a vest on larger models to handle the combined weight of the stabilizer and camera,) the Movi is an active hand-held design using direct-drive motors and accelerometers to keep the camera stable. The Movi weighs 3.5 pounds and is built using carbon fiber in order to keep its weight down. It can be operated in two modes: In "Monarch" mode, the cinematographer uses his or her movements to control the Movi, while in dual operator mode, one person holds and moves the Movi while another person wirelessly controls the camera's position using a tablet and RC control.
  
  Before NAB, a number of observers said that the Movi would be too heavy for long use. The maximum weight of camera, lens and accessories that the Movi can handle is 10 pounds, making the total maximum system weight 13.5 pounds or less. I saw men and women of various sizes handling the rig without problems. The Movi M10 model is priced at $15,000 and is expected to ship in Q3; the company plans to add a M5 model priced at $7,500 that can handle a maximum camera weight of 5 pounds. $15,000 is out of the range of most independent filmmakers, but the Movi will undoubtedly be available for rent.
• The low-cost UAV business got a big boost from the DJI Phantom, a fully-assembled quadricopter that includes a RC control, GPS navigation and camera mount for a GoPro camera, for under $700. The Phantom's maximum flight time is 10 to 15 minutes, and it has a maximum flight control range of 300 meters. DJI showed a prototype of a new Phantom model with a built-in video camera that can be remotely tilted. Neither the price nor the availability of the new model were announced at the show.
  
  The Phantom is about as foolproof as a radio-controlled quadricopter can get:
• It has a built-in autopilot that enables navigation to a specific latitude and longitude.
• The manual controls can be set to allow steering to be correct relative to the operator's position, no matter what position the Phantom is in.
• It can return to the operator automatically.
• If it flies beyond the range of the RC controller, the Phantom goes into hover mode, and if a good GPS signal is available, it will automatically return home.
• Matrox's new $995 Monarch HD live video encoder accepts video input from HDMI and outputs H.264 video at up to 20 Mbps in both RTMP and RTSP protocols, which means that it supports virtually any streaming server or service. It can simultaneously save the video in MP4 format at up to 30 Mbps on a removable SD card, USB hard disk or flash memory, or on network-attached storage. It has a simple web-based user interface, and can control up to three additional slave encoders for feeding to multiple streaming servers, services or CDNs. 

The Missing

• One thing that surprised me was the lack of new products from some of the leading broadcast equipment companies, especially Panasonic. For many years, Panasonic could be counted on to introduce new and exciting cameras, but this year, there was nothing really new. For example:
• The AG-AF100A, which pioneered the big-sensor low-cost cinema camera market, has only been lightly upgraded since it was announced in December 2010. Panasonic hasn't introduced any new cameras into this market (excluding the GH3, the follow-on to the company's "accidentally successful" GH2 digital camera that's gotten a wide following from budget-sensitive cinematographers.)
• Last year's "camera under glass," a professional 4K camcorder with an Android interface, disappeared this year and was replaced with a generic, consumer-looking 4K camcorder mockup that was first shown at CES in January.
• Sony, JVC and Canon didn't announce many new products. JVC's biggest news was a firmware upgrade, and Canon didn't announce anything new on the Cinema Camera front. It's possible that the companies are "catching their breath" after the last 18 months' explosion of new product introductions, but it's still disappointing to come to NAB and not see much new from the market leaders.

The Trends

• Video hardware and software pricing is looking more and more like computer pricing, where prices go down and capabilities go up each year. Here's a few examples:
• Adobe's Creative Cloud offers users everything in Creative Suite 6 for about $50 per month per user, and they can use the software on two PCs. That, combined with improvements in Adobe's software, is enabling Adobe to pick up lots of market share in video editing and post-production. In response, Avid has priced its new Media Composer 7 at $999, with the additional Symphony features priced at $1,499. $999 used to be the price of a competitive upgrade from Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro to Media Composer, and only for limited periods; now, it's the list price of the software.
• Blackmagic Design has driven down prices in every market that it's entered, and competitors have had no choice but to respond. Prices for professional color correction systems have tumbled since Blackmagic acquired Da Vinci Systems, as have prices for video production switchers (except the very top-of-the-line models) since it acquired Echolab. The market for high-end video processing systems has always been small because of their high cost, but Blackmagic's acquisition of Teranex and subsequent rock-bottom pricing will dramatically increase the size of the market. The cinema camera market is already highly competitive, but Blackmagic is increasing options and decreasing prices for buyers.
• Canon, JVC, Panasonic and Sony are using their top-of-the-line consumer camcorders as the basis of their entry-level prosumer/professional camcorder lines, which increases production volumes, decreases costs and allows manufacturers to lower prices. In most cases, if you don't need XLR inputs or HD-SDI outputs, you can save a fair amount of money by buying the consumer models. However, even the prosumer/professional models are less expensive and more capable than comparable models from even a couple of years ago.
• DSLRs have dramatically decreased the cost of cinema cameras, and an entire ecosystem of lenses, rigs and accessories that are fairly priced in relation to DSLRs has emerged.

Blackmagic Design rocks the cinema camera world--again

I just returned from the 2013 NAB Show in Las Vegas. My first stop (as it apparently was for a lot of other attendees) was the Blackmagic Design booth. NAB attendees have gotten used to playing the game "What the heck is Blackmagic announcing this year?". Two years ago, they announced radically lower prices for the ATEM production switchers that the company acquired from Echolab and a $995 model for schools, churches and even individuals. Last year, they announced the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. This year, while there were several new and updated products, two new cameras drove crowds to the Blackmagic booth. Let's take the somewhat less-radical model first:

Blackmagic Production Camera 4K

The Blackmagic Production Camera is a 4K camera with a Super 35mm sensor, 12 stops of dynamic range and active EF mount for $3,995. It's in the same physical package as last year's Cinema Camera, except that it has a bigger sensor that's a much better fit for EF mount and cinema lenses, and a global shutter to deal with rolling shutter issues. It's also got exactly the same combination of connections as the Cinema Camera, except that the SDI connections are 6G-SDI to support 4K output. The Production Camera stores and outputs video in Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) and CinemaDNG RAW. The company claims that CinemaDNG RAW gives an output comparable to RAW while producing much smaller files.

Blackmagic claims that the Production Camera is the smallest 4K camera on the market. However, it's got many of the downsides of the original Cinema Camera: An internal battery that can barely run the camera for an hour, RCA-style audio inputs instead of XLRs, a reflective viewfinder/touchscreen that's almost impossible to use in sunlight and pretty much requires the use of an external monitor, and a trapezoidal body that looks like it can be handled like a DSLR but really can't.

However, just as with the original Cinema Camera, plenty of buyers will accept the tradeoffs. For $1,000 more, you get a Super 35mm sensor with 4K resolution that can take full advantage of EF and cinema-style lenses. The Production Camera doesn't feel like quite as much of a bargain as the Cinema Camera did last year, but it's still a very good deal. However, the second new camera is what really drew attention:

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera

If you did a double-take when you read the word "pocket," so did I when I saw it on the sign in Blackmagic's booth. But this really is a cinema camera, with a Super 16mm-sized sensor with 13 stops of dynamic range, exactly the same user interface as the larger Cinema Camera, and an active Micro Four-Thirds lens mount, all in a body that's the size of a typical digital mirrorless still camera. Yes, it can fit into a shirt pocket (although not once most lenses are attached.) Like the other models, it outputs in both Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) and Adobe CinemaDNG RAW. And did I mention the price? $995 (U.S.).

A $995 pocket-sized cinema camera suggests that there had to be some compromises--and there are. The Pocket Cinema Camera has 2K resolution vs. the 2.5K resolution of the bigger Cinema Camera. It's missing the 3G SDI and Thunderbolt connections of the bigger Cinema Camera; the only video output is HDMI. Instead of a touchscreen, the menus are navigated with directional buttons, and the display's usefulness as a viewfinder remains to be seen (although its matte display is much less reflective than that of the original Cinema Camera.) The microphone and headphone jacks are both stereo mini-jacks.

On the other hand, it has several features that the Cinema Camera doesn't have:

* The Pocket Cinema Camera has an active Micro Four-Thirds lens mount, which means that it can use all of Panasonic's and Olympus's lenses, third-party lenses and adapters that require power from the camera. By comparison, the bigger Cinema Camera's MFT lens mount is passive, which means that it only works with manual lenses.

* Unlike the built-in rechargeable battery in the Cinema Camera that's really only usable as an emergency backup, the Pocket Cinema Camera's battery is both rechargeable and removable, and Blackmagic says that it uses a standard, widely-available digital camera battery.

* The Pocket Cinema Camera comes with a wired remote control.

As with the Production Camera, the Pocket Cinema Camera's functional tradeoffs are going to be offset by the value of its incredibly small price and size, plus the flexibility of its active MFT mount. Blackmagic suggests that the Pocket Cinema Camera will be the perfect "sacrificial" camera for use in war zones, riots, or countries where the camera might be confiscated by officials. If it's lost or destroyed, it can be inexpensively replaced. The small size also has another big benefit: No one who sees it will believe that it's a professional camera, so it should be easier to get wild footage in situations where permits are ordinarily required.

Which brings us to the original Cinema Camera. It's identical to the models that Blackmagic introduced at NAB and IBC last year. The Micro Four-Thirds mount is still passive, and the EF mount version still has the problems inherent with using a big lens with a small sensor. With these new cameras, I'm not sure that there's much of a market for the Cinema Camera: For $1,000 more, you can get the much-more-capable Production Camera; for $2,000 less, you can get the slightly-less-capable Pocket Cinema Camera. I suspect that Blackmagic is keeping the Cinema Camera in the line in order to fulfill its order backlog, but I expect a lot of customers will cancel their orders and replace them with either the Pocket Cinema Camera or Production Camera.

So, when do these new cameras ship? Blackmagic says that both the Production and Pocket model will ship in July. Blackmagic CEO Grant Perry says that his company has resolved the problems that led to the long delays in shipping the original Cinema Camera, but I'd take those dates with a grain of salt--and even if they start shipping on time, the order backlog is likely to be enormous.

Livestream announces new family of production switchers and a new trend: The DIY switcher

Two years ago, Blackmagic Design threw a grenade into the broadcast production switcher market with its repackaging and aggressive repricing of Echolab's Atem switchers, along with its introduction of the $995 Atem Television Studio. Since then, other switcher vendors have been trying to figure out how to respond; some have lowered prices or introduced new products, while others have ignored the competition, in the hope that it'll go away.

Now, there's a new trend that promises to drop prices even lower while increasing flexibility. For lack of a better term, I call it the "Do-It-Yourself," or DIY, switcher trend. You may recall that last year, Livestream announced a switcher, portable computer and display integrated into a single box, called the HD500, priced at $8,500. The HD500 combines custom-designed switching software written by Livestream with off-the-shelf audio/video I/O cards from Blackmagic Design. Then, earlier this year, Livestream unbundled its switcher software into a $1,999 package that requires a fairly powerful Windows PC but can work with any Blackmagic Design video capture cards and devices--it can even drive the company's Atem switchers.

Today, Livestream dramatically expanded its product line, starting with the $6,999 HD50--a switcher in a mini-PC chassis that uses Blackmagic Design Decklink Quad and Decklink Studio video cards to provide essentially the same functionality as the HD500 in a smaller package, without the built-in display. The HD50 competes directly with Newtek's $4,995 Tricaster 40, but the HD50 has a big advantage--all of its inputs can be HDMI or HD-SDI, while the Tricaster 40 is limited to component and composite inputs. In addition, Livestream launched two new rack-mounted switchers, the HD900, priced at $14,999 with 9 inputs, and the HD1700, priced at $24,999 with 17 inputs. The HD900 and HD1700 are based on rack-mounted PCs with off-the-shelf Blackmagic Design video cards and Livestream's proprietary software.

Livestream isn't the only company that's playing the DIY game: Telestream, whose Wirecast software has been used for several years for low-end, inexpensive switching solutions, has partnered much more closely with Matrox, and supports the Matrox family of video cards and devices in much the same way as Telestream does with Blackmagic. Finally, Blackmagic recently released an API that allows anyone to write software that drives its Atem switchers.

We're on our way to switchers that start as nothing more than tower PCs. They'll make it simple for groups of inputs to be added by inserting video capture cards. Need five more inputs? Drop in another video capture card. Need more functionality? There's an app store where you can buy add-ons from the switcher vendor or third-parties. What we don't have yet is a good selection of third-party switcher control surfaces, but they're likely to start showing up soon, possibly as early as next month's NAB conference.

There will always be a market for integrated switchers, especially in smaller sizes that are easy to connect to a notebook computer via Ethernet. However, for the middle ground between the huge switchers used in the largest studios and production centers, and the small, portable, integrated switchers, there's a lot of room for PC-based, easily expandable switchers.

NewTek's new Tricaster 40: Right price point, wrong feature set

Earlier today, NewTek announced a new Tricaster, the 40, that offers HD video switching at a very competitive price. The Tricaster 40 has six live inputs and three internal video sources, including an internal hard drive that can store up to 20 hours of 1080i HD video. It also offers the same 24 virtual sets as NewTek's more expensive Tricasters, making it one of the least expensive ways to use professional virtual sets. The entire package weighs 19 pounds and is about the size of Shuttle's small form factor PCs. The Tricaster 40 lists for $4,995, and its optional dedicated control surface is $1,995.

The biggest problem that I have with the Tricaster 40 is that all of its inputs and outputs are analog, not HDMI or SDI. If you want digital inputs, you have to step up to the Tricaster 455 A La Carte model (without a control surface) for $15,995. Virtually every camera and camcorder that you'd want to use for HD production today has either a HDMI or SDI output, so with the Tricaster 40, you're stuck with a stack of converters and a rat's nest of cables. Blackmagic Design's ATEM 1 M/E, which has four HDMI and four SDI inputs, along with HDMI and SDI outputs, lists for $2,495. It seems to me that the decision by NewTek to leave professional digital video inputs and outputs off the 40 wasn't so much a cost-saving measure as it was a deliberate attempt to keep the 40 from cannibalizing the company's more expensive Tricasters. That might have worked when NewTek was the only game in town, but customers are now very aware that they have other choices.

At this point, the only reason that I'd recommend a Tricaster 40 over the ATEM 1 M/E is for the virtual set capability. If you want to use virtual sets, the Tricaster 40 is a steal. Also, if you want to use a dedicated control surface, you can save some money over an ATEM 1 M/E ($6,990 for the Tricaster 40 and control surface vs. $8,485 for the ATEM 1 M/E with control surface and HyperDeck Studio dual-slot disk recorder.) However, the best solution would be for NewTek to "bite the bullet" and put professional inputs and outputs on a device that's screaming for them.

Blackmagic Design adds software audio mixer to its ATEM production switchers

When doing live video production, it's easy to give audio short shrift. If you're traveling light or have limited space, there are many times when you'd prefer not to carry a separate audio mixer, or use an A/V mixer that often compromises both audio and video capabilities. Blackmagic Design announced today that the software audio mixer that it recently added to its ATEM 2 M/E production switcher is now included at no cost with both its ATEM 1 M/E and ATEM Television Studio switchers.

Blackmagic's ATEM Switcher 3.2 Audio Mixer uses the embedded audio from SDI and HDMI cameras attached to the switcher, and from the switchers' built-in audio interfaces (AES/EBU in the Television Studio, and a breakout cable in the 1 M/E and 2 M/E.) It can also accept audio from any audio interface connected to the computer running the audio mixer software, and in the case of the 1 M/E and 2 M/E, from the switcher's internal media players.

The audio mixer software communicates with the production switcher, so that in Audio Follows Video (AFV) mode, audio automatically crossfades when the video input changes. Or, selected audio inputs can be permanently mixed into the program output. The new audio mixer is integrated into Blackmagic's ATEM Control Panel software, which runs on both Windows and OS X, and is accessed through a tab in the Control Panel. ATEM Switcher 3.2 Audio Mixer is available now for free download from Blackmagic Design's website.

A television EFP van in your...motor scooter?

Last year, Newtek got a lot of attention by turning a Mini Cooper into a tiny EFP vehicle, equipped with one of its Tricaster systems, camcorders, tripods and microphones. KiBAN International, a Japanese eLearning vendor, has just announced an even smaller EFP vehicle--well, actually, an EFP scooter.

The Panda Bird combines Blackmagic Design's electronics and a Honda Gyro Canopy three-wheeled scooter. It incorporates Blackmagic Design's ATEM Television Studio video switcher, HyperDeck Studio Pro dual-deck SSD video recorder and SmartView Duo dual 8" display, along with two camcorders, tripods and additional electronics. Camcorders are connected wirelessly to the ATEM Television Studio, and its built-in H.264 encoder can be used for live streaming from the Panda Bird directly to Ustream. The electronics package fits into 6RU, is powered by 12 volts and can be removed from the scooter for indoor use.

As you can see, there's no room to carry lighting and sound equipment; from the picture, it might not even be possible to fit in the camcorders and tripods. So, the Panda Bird is more an interesting exercise than a self-contained mobile production system. However, it does suggest that Newtek no longer has the miniature video production system business to itself.

Blackmagic Design crashes the cinema camera party

Last year at NAB, when I spoke with Blackmagic Design's CEO Grant Perry and Director of Marketing Americas Terry Frechette about the company's new video production switchers, I noted that they sold just about everything for video except cameras. This year, they corrected that oversight. The new Blackmagic Cinema Camera shown at NAB was a huge surprise--to my knowledge, there were no rumors that Blackmagic was working on a cinema camera, especially one as "out of the box" as this design. It looks like a simplified, trapezoidal DSLR with mounting points on both the top and the bottom of the case. It should work with a variety of cages and mounting systems from companies such as Redrock Micro and Zacuto.

The Blackmagic Cinema Camera has a 2.5K sensor (2432 x 1366) with an active area of 15.6 x 8.8 mm—bigger than Super 16mm but smaller than Micro Four Thirds. The company claims 13 stops of dynamic range. It supports Canon's EF-format lenses, including Canon's autofocus lenses, as well as Zeiss's EF-compatible ZE mount lenses. The camera can output RAW using Adobe's 12-bit open-source Cinema DNG format at full 2432 x 1366 resolution, as well as compressed video in Apple's ProRes and Avid's DNxHD formats, at 1080p/23.98, 24, 25, 29.97 and 30 fps. It saves onto a SSD using a built-in recorder and outputs through both 3Gbps HD-SDI and Thunderbolt interfaces. (A 256GB SSD can store 30 minutes of RAW footage or more than two hours of video in ProRes or DNxHD format.)

Virtually all interaction with the camera is through a built-in 5" 800 x 480 touchscreen display that comes with a snap-on hood--there's no separate viewfinder. A handful of buttons are used for recording (buttons on both the front and back of the camera), automatic iris, focus, transport control, bringing up the menu and power. Audio in is via standard stereo mic/line inputs. The camera can run on 12V to 30V DC and has a built-in battery. And, I forgot one important thing: Its list price is $2,995 (U.S.). That's not a misprint--it's priced less than $3,000. The Cinema Camera is scheduled to ship in July.

According to Blackmagic's representatives, the company learned from customer feedback that, while cinematographers love the price and video capabilities of today's DSLRs, they're tired of working with cameras that were designed for still photography first. That includes small LCDs designed more for changing menu settings than for accurately judging image framing and quality, limited recording time, no built-in support for industry-standard video recording formats and HDMI outputs that are useless for live recording.

The Cinema Camera fixes all these problems, drops all the still photography-oriented features, and sells for $2,995. It also comes with a full copy of DaVinci Resolve software for color correction on Windows and OS X PCs, and Ultrascope for monitoring output--the software alone costs $995 when purchased by itself. Of course, the camera's not perfect--it's not 4K, the imager is small, the compressed output is 10-bit 4:2:2, there's no 60p mode, slow motion or ND filters--but it's $2,995, which covers a bunch of complaints.

As I always say when new cameras are released, you'd be smart to hold off on placing an order until good third-party reviews of the Cinema Camera are released, along with sample footage. (Australian John Brawley was the first cinematographer to get his hands on a prototype camera for in-field testing. He's posted footage on Vimeo.) However, I suspect that there are lots of people who aren't going to wait--they want to be among the first to get their hands on it. 

Blackmagic Design acquires Teranex, slashes prices

Earlier today, TV Technology reported that Blackmagic Design has acquired Teranex, a digital image processing company, from Jupiter Systems for an unreported price. Teranex has had some excellent technology for years, especially for standards conversion, video denoising and upscaling/downscaling, but it's never been part of a company that was focused on broadcast technology. Teranex started in 1998 as a spin-off of Lockheed Martin, which invested more than $100 million in real-time video processing. Lockheed Martin, of course, was primarily focused on defense-related business, not broadcasting. In 2004, Teranex was acquired by Silicon Optix, which focused primarily on semiconductors and consumer-grade video scalers. Silicon Optix sold Teranex and most of its other products to Integrated Device Technology in October 2008, and IDT sold Teranex to Jupiter Systems, a video wall manufacturer, in June 2009. And now, 2 1/2 years later, Jupiter Systems has sold it to Blackmagic Design.

When a company has been bought and sold as many times as Teranex, it's very difficult to retain employees or to focus on long-term product plans. As a result, it's hard to know exactly what Blackmagic Design is getting. Teranex has some very interesting 3D software that enables two of its video processors to convert 2D to 3D and output 3D in a variety of formats. Combined with Blackmagic Design's ATEM production switchers, the Teranex products give the company much more extensive real-time image processing capabilities. However, many of Teranex's hardware designs are several years old, and could probably benefit from Blackmagic's abilities to redesign the products using current LSIs for lower cost and higher performance.

Update, December 14, 2011: StudioDaily reports that Blackmagic Design has slashed the price of Teranex's top-of-the-line VC100 universal frame synchronizer and format converter from $90,000 to $19,995. In addition, Blackmagic added additional features including dual-channel 3D support, so that it no longer requires two converters to handle 3D. Existing owners of VC100s can get the new features with a $3,000 upgrade. Even without redesigned hardware, Blackmagic has managed to reduce the price by almost 80%,

In short, the acquisition is certainly a good move for Teranex, which is finally partnered with a parent company that knows what to do with its technology. Depending on how much it cost Blackmagic Design and how old Teranex's technology is, the acquisition might or might not be such a great idea for it. We'll know more at NAB 2012, when we see the first displays of Teranex products in the Blackmagic Design booth.

NAB 2011 Part 3: Wireless ENG Backpacks, POV Camcorders, Thunderbolt and Final Cut Pro X

In this third and final installment of highlights from NAB 2011, I'll cover some of the interesting new trends and product categories, and finish with a quick look at Final Cut Pro X.

• ENG Trucks-in-a-Backpack: LiveU pioneered the category of putting encoders and broadband wireless transmitters into a backpack for field use, but there are now many competitors and a variety of approaches. The "traditional" backpack approach was demonstrated by LiveU, TVU and Streambox. These devices take the video output from a camcorder (analog, Firewire, HDMI or SD/HD-SDI), compresses it and sends it to a receiver over the public Internet using multiple USB broadband modems and WiFi adapters (anywhere from seven to fourteen, depending on the manufacturer). The receiver (located at the television station or head-end) takes the various bitstreams sent by the modems and WiFi interfaces, reassembles and decompresses them into a single video output for streaming or broadcast. Each manufacturer has their own approach:
  
  
  • LiveU uses a conventional PC running its proprietary software as the receiver, while both TVU and Streambox have their own dedicated receivers.
  • LiveU and Streambox use channel bonding between the multiple connections in order to get the needed bandwidth, while TVU uses channel aggregation with forward error correction, somewhat similar to the technology developed by Digital Fountain and now sold by Qualcomm, which it claims provides better quality at lower bitrates.
  • TVU and LiveU both use H.264 high profile compression, while Streambox uses its own proprietary codec.
  • Streambox's hardware receiver can support one transmitter at a time, while TVU's can support as many as ten transmitters simultaneously.
  • Streambox offers a "cloud" option for the receiver--customers can transmit video to Streambox's cloud and receive bonded, decompressed video without a local receiver.
  • All three systems are priced in the $30,000-$40,000 range (U.S.) for a single HD transmitter/receiver combination.

• Teradek demonstrated its Cube, a wireless HD H.264 encoder and transmitter about as big as a pack of cigarettes. Unlike the backpack models, the Cube can only transmit via a single WiFi or wired Ethernet interface, or a single USB port that currently works with Verizon's 4G LTE Modem. It's designed for video monitoring on-site and lower-bandwidth ENG applications, but its small size and weight may make it less visible, and certainly easier to move around, than the backpack systems.
  
  Teradek's various Cube models come with HDMI or HD-SDI inputs. They're paired with wireless decoders that are just as small as the receivers, and they can send directly to Livestream's streaming service for broadcast over the Internet. When using Livestream, no local receiver is necessary. Prices for the transmitters and receivers range from $1,490 to $2,190 depending on inputs and interfaces, and they're also available in matched sets for from $2,682 to $3,942.
  
• Comrex showed a working prototype of its Liveshot, a video compressor and transmitter designed to be mounted on ENG camcorders. The Liveshot Portable has two USB ports for broadband or WiFi modems, and HDMI, HD-SDI and analog video inputs. The Liveshot Studio is the receiver. Both devices support intercom/IFB headsets for two-way communication. Pricing hasn't been finalized, and Comrex doesn't expect to ship the Liveshot until late 2011.
  
• POV Camcorders: This was the year that low-cost POV camcorders were accepted by broadcasters and filmmakers. POV camcorders are being used to shoot athlete-perspective footage for skiing, surfing, skateboarding, car and motorcycle racing and skydiving. GoPro's booth was jammed when I was there; the company was selling its HD Hero models that are normally priced at $299.99 for $200, for delivery after the show. GoPro's 3D Hero system, which gangs two HD Heros together in a single waterproof housing and is priced at $99.99, was also a hot seller and one of the least expensive ways to capture 3D action footage. Contour was also exhibiting, showing its ContourGPS and ContourHD POV camcorders, as was V.I.O., with its POV.HD model.
  
• Thunderbolt peripherals: A few companies showed peripherals compatible with Intel's and Apple's Thunderbolt high-speed interface, now available on Apple's MacBook Pros. Matrox will be building Thunderbolt ports into its MXO2 line of video capture and conversion devices starting in July, and it's making available a box that connects Thunderbolt to its existing host interface for MXO2s purchased and shipped before July. The converter box will be priced at $299, with a discount if purchased with an MXO2 device.
  
  LaCie was showing prototypes of its Little Big Disk, the first model that will ship with Thunderbolt interfaces. The Little Big Disk holds 2 SSD or hard disks, and comes with a total capacity of 240GB or 500GB (SSD), or 1TB (7200 rpm hard disk). At NAB, LaCie had four 1TB Little Big Disks daisy-chained together on Thunderbolt as a RAID 0 array, and they claimed that they were getting better throughput than a comparable Fibre Channel array.
  
  Promise Technology's 4- and 6-bay Pegasus disk arrays were displayed in a number of booths, and it appears that Promise is the first company actually shipping Thunderbolt peripherals. As I reported yesterday, Blackmagic Design displayed its UltraStudio 3D video capture and display device with Thunderbolt, priced at $995, for July delivery.
  
• Final Cut Pro X: I didn't attend the FCPUG SuperMeet on Tuesday night, and there are plenty of other reviews of what Apple previewed at the event on the web, so I'm going to limit myself to a few points. First, the new FCP X demonstrates that Apple has been very serious about improving Final Cut Pro; there are many performance improvements (including 64-bit support and GPU acceleration) and new features. Apple also says that FCP X should work on any modern iMac, 17" MacBook Pros and Mac Pros running OS X 10.6 or greater; Thunderbolt isn't necessary (although it will make editing much faster.) In addition, the $299 price through the App Store was a shocker--right before NAB, Avid announced that FCP users could buy Media Composer for $999, which looked like a great price until the SuperMeet.
  
  At the same time, it's important to keep in mind that the version shown in Las Vegas was the same version shown to a small group of outsiders by Apple in February, and the final version isn't scheduled to ship until July, so a lot of work on the product remains to be done. In addition, Apple said nothing about Motion, Color, Soundtrack Pro or Logic, what (if anything) is being done to these programs, whether Apple will still offer a bundle, etc. There's a lot that we still don't know.

NAB 2011 Part 2: Blackmagic Design and the Video Value Proposition

In the interest of transparency, I want to start this post by saying that I've been a fan of Blackmagic Design for years, ever since the company launched its Decklink card in the U.S. market. Blackmagic Design reminds me a lot of what Hyundai has become in the automobile business--not only do you get an excellent product, but you get it at an excellent (and sometimes amazing) price. They carry on in the tradition of fellow Australian company Røde Microphones, which pioneered making high-quality microphones at very reasonable prices, and Atomos, which is selling amazing on-camera video recorders at a fraction of the price of most competitors.

At IBC 2009, Blackmagic announced that it had acquired DaVinci Systems, the maker of some of the most powerful and widely-used professional color correction and restoration systems for film and television. DaVinci Resolve was priced for high-end post-production facilities; an entry-level system was over $100,000 (U.S.) and could easily scale to several hundred thousand dollars as more processing nodes were added. Many industry observers wondered about how DaVinci's high-priced products would fit with Blackmagic's product line, most of which was priced at $1,000 or below. It didn't take long to find out the answer.

At NAB 2010, Blackmagic announced a $995 software-only version of DaVinci Resolve that's compatible with Apple's OSX and runs on most MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac Pros. The software-only version is only a single processing node and doesn't include a control surface, but it's functionally identical to the product that had sold for $100,000 less than a year earlier. If you want a multi-node system, you can go with a $19,995 Linux version of the software and use it with a variety of third-party control surfaces, but if you want DaVinci's own control surface (which comes with a license for the Mac version), that's priced at $29,995. So, you could now pay less than $50,000 to get exactly the same functionality that you originally paid more than $100,000 for. And, since the Linux license supports multiple CPUs and GPUs, less than $50,000 also gets you the same functionality as those Resolve systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last August, Blackmagic acquired Echolab, the manufacturer of a highly-regarded line of production switchers that had fallen on hard times and declared bankruptcy. Blackmagic continued production of Echolab's two most recent designs, the ATEM 1 M/E with 10 inputs for $19,995, and the ATEM 2 M/E with 18 inputs for $51,995. At the time, I wondered if Blackmagic was going to apply the same cost-reducing philosophy to the ATEM switchers that it did to DaVinci Resolve. Again, I didn't have long to wait.

At this week's NAB, Blackmagic announced the next generation of ATEM:

• ATEM Television Studio, a six-input HDMI/HD-SDI 1 M/E switcher with two built-in media player framestores, two downstream keyers, software control panel, built-in H.264 real-time encoder,  built-in 10-channel multiviewer with HDMI and HD-SDI outputs, separate program HDMI and HD-SDI outputs, and an Ethernet interface, for...$995. That's not a misprint. $995.
  
  Roll a few of these concepts around in your head: A "personal switcher" that's small enough to hold in your hand but has four HDMI and four HD-SDI inputs, any six of which can be active at one time. A built-in hardware H.264 encoder. A built-in multiviewer that can use any off-the-shelf HDMI display. No need whatsoever for any PC slots. A software control panel that runs on Mac or PC. The ability to connect to hardware control surfaces and the Internet via Ethernet. $995. This is an order of magnitude better price/performance than anything comparable that I saw on the show floor.
  
• ATEM 1 M/E: Based on the specifications of the original ATEM 1 M/E, with 4 HDMI and 4 HD-SDI inputs, all of which are active, a separate analog input, frame resynchronizers on every input, HDMI, HD-SDI and analog program outputs, down-converted SDI output, a multiviewer, USB 3.0 and Ethernet interfaces, RS-422 control, and a PC and Mac-compatible software control panel. Plus, it includes stinger and DVE transitions, 6 keyers, built-in media players, etc. Blackmagic completely redesigned the electronics and firmware so that the switcher is small enough that you can hold it in your hand. And the price? $2,495. If you want the ATEM 1 M/E's original control surface, that sells for $4,995. The total is $7,490.
  
  The only feature that Blackmagic deleted from the new version of the ATEM 1 M/E is the second multiviewer, which most customers found redundant, and they added additional features, such as USB 3.0. Then, they cut the price by $12,505. If you can live with a software control panel, they cut the price by $17,500.
  
• ATEM 2 M/E: Take the ATEM 1 M/E and expand it to 16 simultaneous inputs, add a super source multi layering compositing engine, an additional multiviewer and an expanded software control panel. The resulting switcher is 3 RU high instead of 2 RU high for the ATEM 1 M/E, but you can still hold it in your hand. And, it's priced at $4,995. If you want the original ATEM 2 M/E control surface, it's priced at $14,995. The combination is $19,990, for an equivalent to the same switcher that sold for $51,995 at NAB last year.

These are, in many ways, revolutionary products, and the ATEM Television Studio will likely have the most impact of any of them. Consumers who had never even considered the possibility of doing live multicamera production and streaming it on the Internet will have an affordable way to do so. It has the potential of opening up entirely new applications, as do the other two models. All three models are going to put dramatic price pressure on Blackmagic's competitors, who are going to have to either drop their prices to remain competitive or add features to justify the big difference between their prices and Blackmagic's. Finally, we may see third-party control surfaces support the ATEM switchers at prices even lower than Blackmagic's, just as lower-cost color correction control surfaces are now available from a variety of vendors.

There's one final piece necessary if you want to do multicamera live production, especially in large churches, arenas and stadiums, and that's a way to extend the connections between the cameras and the switcher. To handle that, Blackmagic announced the ATEM Camera Converter, which accepts either HDMI or HD-SDI as input along with two microphone inputs. It's also got inputs for a talkback microphone and an output for talkback headphones. It then converts the signals to ride bidirectionally on an optical fiber pair, up to 147,000 ft. (27.8 miles or 44.8 kilometers). At the switcher end, another ATEM Camera Converter provides HDMI and HD-SDI outputs from the optical fiber signal, as well as talkback audio input and output for the director.

And the cost? $595. A pair is needed for each camera, for a total of $1,190. Consider that before now, you would have had to use professional cameras with multicore and optical fiber interfaces that cost tens of thousands of dollars. The ATEM Camera Converter enables you to use any good consumer or prosumer camcorder with an HDMI interface. The combination of the ATEM switchers and Camera Converters will make professional live field production affordable for schools, churches, community cable stations, small-market TV stations and Internet video producers of all kinds.

Just to touch on a few of Blackmagic's other NAB 2011 announcements:

• UltraStudio SDI, a cost-reduced version of the UltraStudio Pro with HD-SDI in, a HDMI 1.4 display output for monitoring, and a USB 3.0 interface, for $395.
• UltraStudio 3D, Blackmagic Design's first device with a Thunderbolt interface, with dual HD-SDI inputs, HDMI input, analog inputs on a breakout cable and HDMI monitor output for 2D ot 3D video capture and display, for $995.
• HyperDeck Studio, a dual-drive uncompressed HD recorder that uses the same 2.5" SSD drives as the new HyperDeck Shuttle I wrote about yesterday. It has HDMI and HD-SDI inputs and outputs, VTR-style deck controls, a jog shuttle dial, a small LCD monitor for time code, audio and video monitoring, and an Ethernet interface. SSD drives can be swapped while the device is running for effectively infinite recording time. The price is $995.
• H.264 Pro Recorder, a real-time H.264 encoder with component, HDMI and HD-SDI inputs, USB output and RS-422 control, for $495.
• And, as for DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic introduced a new feature-reduced version called DaVinci Resolve 8 Lite, intended for users from whom even $995 is too much money right now. The price? Free.

My point in going into this detail isn't to provide an ad for Blackmagic (although I'm sure that the blog post reads like one), but to make it clear that video technologies that cost tens of thousands of dollars just a year ago, and hundreds of thousands of dollars a few years ago, are now available at a price so low that hobbyists can afford them. Just as making computer power available to consumers at a reasonable price sparked a revolution in the early 1980s, so making video and audio power available at a low price will spark an explosion in how media is produced and who produces it.

In the final part of this series, I'm going to take a look at some of NAB 2011's other interesting new products and trends, including the first Thunderbolt-compatible peripherals, POV cameras, the rise of ENG trucks in a backpack (or a cigarette case), and a brief comment on Apple's forthcoming Final Cut Pro X.

Blackmagic Design acquires Echolab

Last May 27th, I wrote a blog entry about the demise of Echolab, a well-respected manufacturer of video production switchers that had just run out of money and gone into liquidation. At that time, I wrote that Blackmagic Design might be a good buyer of Echolab's assets. For years, Blackmagic has driven down the prices of professional video capture cards, converters and routers. Last year, they acquired DaVinci, and this year, they flipped the professional color correction market on its head by offering a software-only DaVinci implementation for OS X for under $1,000 (US), and a full-bore, Linux-based implementation with dedicated control surface for literally hundreds of thousands of dollars less than the previous comparable DaVinci Resolve implementation.

By merging Blackmagic's and Echolab's know-how, the company could introduce powerful production switchers at lower prices than the competition. Today, Blackmagic announced that it acquired Echolab, and said that it will be displaying an updated version of Echolab's Atem switcher at IBC in Amsterdam next month. The entry-level Atem with one mix/effects bus and 10 inputs (8 SD/HD/3Gbs SDI and 2 HDMI) will be priced at $19,995 (US), and the two mix/effects bus model with 18 inputs (15 SD/HD/3Gbps SDI and 3 HDMI) will be priced at $51,995.

In the future, it's easy to imagine Echolab's technology brought down to the desktop level--perhaps a reengineered UltraStudio Pro or Multibridge with 1 M/E bus and 4 inputs for under $10,000. An iPad-based user interface wouldn't be out of the question, either.

In any event, this is great news for both Blackmagic Design and the engineers who worked on the Echolab platform, many of whom have been rehired by Blackmagic. Here's the official press release:

Blackmagic Design Acquires EchoLab

Boston, MA, USA - August 12, 2010 - Blackmagic Design today announced the acquisition of all assets of EchoLab Inc., one of the world’s leading designers and manufacturers of production switchers. EchoLab has over 35 years of experience in designing and building production switchers since 1974. This experience has culminated in the latest ATEM range of production switchers that include cutting edge technology for world leading features such as up conversion on inputs, multilayer SuperSource™ input, Stinger™ transitions, and built in multi-view monitoring, all in a familiar and affordable, fully digital M/E style design.

The ATEM production switchers will be demonstrated at the Blackmagic Design IBC 2010 booth #7.B25.

For the thousands of people who use production switchers, ATEM will be instantly familiar. It uses the conventional M/E style of design that’s easy, safe and fast to use on even the most critical live production. ATEM also combines powerful features such as SuperSource™, which is a separate multi layer engine with 4 x 2D picture in picture DVE’s and 4 x keyers that provide the same power as adding a whole extra multiple M/E switcher to the ATEM input!

SuperSource can be called at any time, and connects into the switcher as an input. Only SuperSource gives you the power of 4 built in layers of keying, plus 4 picture in picture DVE’s, while keeping ATEM an easy and fast to use conventional M/E style switcher.

For connecting to the widest range of cameras, decks and computers, the ATEM 1 M/E model includes 8 SDI inputs that operate at SD, HD and 3 Gb/s SDI, plus 2 switchable HDMI/Analog video inputs. ATEM includes multiple SDI outputs for program, preview, and aux. outputs, plus an HDMI output for the multi-view monitoring output. The ATEM 2 M/E model includes 15 x SD, HD and 3 Gb/s SDI inputs, as well as 3 x switchable HDMI/analog inputs for a total of 18 video inputs. ATEM 2 M/E also includes two multi-viewer outputs, clean feed, aux., program and preview SDI outputs. All ATEM switchers include serial ports for camera and VDCP servers as well as genlock.

ATEM switchers allow previewing of transitions before putting them on air. Users simply select “Preview Transition”, and the preview output of the switcher will show all the elements of the transition, so users can have the confidence to make fast multi layering decisions during live production.

When working with multiple cameras and sources, ATEM saves thousands of dollars on expensive monitoring because it includes a built in multi-viewer that lets you see multiple sources on a standard HDMI television or monitor as well as program and preview outputs. When sources are on-air, ATEM multi-viewer displays highlighted borders, and multi-viewer windows can be custom labeled.

ATEM also includes Stinger transitions for exciting and creative transitions. Stingers can be loaded into the switcher, and are then available on the 2 built in media players. ATEM can hold 32 stills and hundreds of frames of real time clips with alpha channels, so users have a wide range of graphics and clips to play back as animations, supers and stingers. Media players can be selected into any of the 4 built in upstream keyers or the transition block for ultimate flexibility and creativity.

For enhanced effects and transitions, ATEM includes a 2D DVE with borders and drop shadows that can be used with any upstream keyer or in the transition block. This means the built in DVE can be used for transitions, or it can be used for keying operations. Because the 4 built in upstream keyers are stacked, users have a wide range of layering options available, and completely independent of the SuperSource input.

When the 4 upstream keyers are combined with 5 SuperSource layers, the transition block keyer, the 2 down stream keyers and the stinger, even a 1 M/E ATEM switcher can have up to 13 keyers on screen simultaneously. This is the heart of the power of ATEM, and would require 3 M/E’s on other brand switchers.
This makes ATEM a tremendous value for money, while providing a compact and portable solution.

ATEM can be fully automated with macros, and also includes support for VDCP controlled servers and robotic cameras, all from the ATEM control panel. Customers can use the built in joy stick for controlling cameras, and then recall macros for incredibly powerful operation with very few people. No other switcher allows customers to produce powerful live productions with so few people!

“I have been using live production switchers since I was in school where we covered local theater, sports, racing and bands. I think it’s the most exciting way to do production because it’s all live and thousands of people are watching what you are doing! Production switchers need to be powerful while also being familiar and easy to operate. I think the ATEM switchers from EchoLab are the most exciting switchers I have ever seen, and it’s incredibly exciting to add these products and intellectual property to the Blackmagic Design family”, said Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design. “The ATEM switcher is a fantastic creative tool, and it includes powerful features not found in any other product. Since the acquisition, we have already dramatically expanded the engineering team working on ATEM. This fresh engineering team, which is a combination of new as well as experienced EchoLab staff, will allow us to move faster in adding new features to the ATEM product. It’s so exciting, I cannot sleep!”

ATEM Key Features
•    1 M/E model supports 10 video inputs, 2 M/E model supports 18 video inputs.
•    SD, HD and 3 Gb/s SDI, HDM and analog video inputs.
•    Full 10 bit HD operation for broadcast quality.
•    Built in multi-viewer for monitoring switcher sources, includes custom labeling and tally borders.
•    Built in SuperSource allows 4 picture in picture DVE’s and 4 keyers independent of the M/E.
•    2 Media Players are built in for animated graphics and stingers.
•    Stinger effects are independent of keyers.
•    Includes 4 upstream keyers with each including chroma, luma, linear and pattern keying built in.
•    Includes 2 downstream keyers, and independent fade to black.
•    Supports macros, and graphic and clip downloads via PC software.
•   Up to 13 keyers active at one time.

Availability and Price
ATEM is currently being retooled for production and will be available late 2010 for US$19,995 for the 10 input 1 M/E model, and US$51,995 for the 18 input 2 M/E model from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.

Press Photography
Product photos of the ATEM production switchers can be obtained by emailing Terry Frechette at terryf@blackmagic-design.com. Press images will also be posted to www.blackmagic-design.com/press/images/ <http://www.blackmagic-design.com/press/images/> early next week.

About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, color correctors, video converters, routers, waveform monitors, live production switchers and film restoration software for the feature film, post-production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in the television industry, while the company’s DaVinci Emmy™ award winning color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984 and continue ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagic-design.com <http://www.blackmagic-design.com> .

Echolab shuts down, will liquidate; is there an opportunity for Blackmagic Design?

Last week, Echolab, a well-regarded manufacturer of video production switchers, closed its doors and gave notice that the company will be liquidated. All the company's employees have been laid off. Echolab focused on the midrange switcher market--higher-end than the industrial-style switchers from Panasonic and Broadcast Pix, but below the high-end from companies like Ross and Grass Valley.

Echolab's investors are looking for companies to buy its technology and inventory; in a liquidation, all, part or none of the company's assets may be sold. Blackmagic Design comes to mind as a potential buyer of Echolab's technology. Blackmagic has been a leader at driving down the cost of video production technology, and they're revitalizing DaVinci's color correction business. Production switchers are generally far too expensive relative to the price drops for most other video production and post-production equipment, and Blackmagic already makes an inexpensive, well-regarded line of routing switchers. Echolab might have technology and software that they could use to bring the same kind of cost-effective products to the production switcher market.

And yes, I can hear some of you saying that NewTek's Tricaster already fills the low-cost space, but there's plenty of room for competition. NewTek's control surfaces leave a lot to be desired, and by the time you get to their entry-level HD-compatible model, the TCXD300, you're talking almost $15,000, plus another almost $2,000 for a physical control surface. That's pretty close to the price of Grass Valley's Indigo AV switcher/audio mixer.

In any event, Blackmagic may already have all the technology it needs to produce a production switcher, or it may have evaluated the market and decided that it's not big enough to warrant the effort. However, an under-$10,000 HD production switcher from Blackmagic would get a lot of people very excited. Whether or not they pursue Echolab, it could be in the cards.