NAB News: Avid buys Euphonix, Panasonic intros Micro Four Thirds Camcorder

The biggest players at NAB made their pre-conference press announcements today. The big news from Panasonic and Avid:

• Panasonic announced the AG-AF100, a digital camcorder that uses the same Micro Thirds sensor and lenses as those for digital cameras built by Panasonic and Olympus (for example, the Panasonic GH1 and GF1 and the Olympus E-P2 and E-PL2). No price was announced, but CrunchGear estimates that it'll sell for around $6,000 when it ships by the end of the year. One of the biggest issues with using DSLRs for digital cinematography is that they're designed to be used as still cameras, not camcorders, and are difficult to use for long periods of time. By putting the guts of a video-enabled DSLR into a camcorder package, Panasonic offers the benefits (big sensor, high resolution, interchangeable lenses) of DSLRs with the handling of a camcorder.

• Avid announced an agreement to purchase Euphonix, one of the top suppliers of high-end audio consoles for applications such as audio recording and film mixing. Avid is also a major vendor of audio consoles (the ICON and VENUE ranges), but the company has had trouble competing for sales of the most sophisticated systems. Euphonix gives Avid high-end reach, and adds the well-regarded line of Artist Series control surfaces for lower-cost applications. Euphonix had worked closely with Apple in the past on support of Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio with the Artist Series surfaces. That tight level of cooperation is unlikely to survive Euphonix's acquisition.

NAB: Fun With Audio

A few months ago, Avid made big news by pulling out of NAB. Well, apparently that decision didn't sit well with Digidesign, the pro audio division of Avid, which normally exhibits in the Avid booth. I discovered a Digidesign booth in the North Hall, much smaller than even Digidesign's normal display space within Avid's previous NAB booths, but a 20' x 20' booth nonetheless. There was a full-blown Icon console on one side, and a new C24 console and some other equipment on the other.

I also stopped by Euphonix's booth. The company, which specializes in very large, very expensive audio consoles, recently announced the MC Control and MC Mix, a pair of low-cost control surfaces for software such as Apple's Logic Studio and Final Cut Studio. There were two MC setups in the booth, and I had a number of questions and would have liked a demonstration. However, even though there were no other customers and a half-dozen Euphonix staffers in the booth, I was totally ignored.

Now, I'm not entirely chopped liver; I'm an Audio Engineering Society member, and I could have had an intelligent conversation, but I never got the chance. I suspect that Euphonix's salespeople were far more interested in selling their big, expensive "pro studios" products, but if that was the case, why did they even bother bringing the MC control surfaces to NAB? Note to exhibitors: Don't waste the space in your booths displaying products that you don't want to sell. And if you do want to sell them, don't ignore your customers. There are way too many competitors in the low-cost control surface market for Euphonix to take it for granted.