News

Ahead of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show next week, Adobe has revealed new features across its Creative Cloud tools for video editing, motion graphics, audio and collaboration. At NAB, Adobe will demonstrate the updated tools and new workflows at booth #SL3910, South Hall (lower) in the Las Vegas Convention Center and at over 120 partner booths from April 18-21.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC
New Media Management features in both Premiere Pro and Media Encoder give you much greater control over the handling of your files during the ingest process, and allow for more flexibility when working with very large media. You can set Premiere Pro to copy media to a specific location on your machine as it imports, and even begin editing immediately while your media copies in the background. If your workflow requires a transcode, you can easily set Premiere Pro or Media Encoder to handle that step for you too.

This release of Premiere Pro also brings support for more native formats than ever including 6K and 8K files from the RED Weapon camera. For times when the media you need to work with is heavier than your system can manage -- for example, when you want to work on a lightweight portable device -- you can now generate proxies on ingest, automatically associating them with the native full-resolution media. A single click lets you toggle between full-res and proxy.

New features in the Lumetri color panel and Lumetri scopes allow you to be more creative with color than ever. New HSL Secondaries allow for quick, intuitive selection of color ranges within a shot, getting the perfect nuance with a few clicks. And the entire collection of beautiful SpeedLooks linear looks help give your media instant personality. Support for color control surfaces like the Tangent Elements, Wave and Ripple enable even advanced colorists to feel right at home, and enhanced Lumetri scopes give instant feedback, with new control over brightness, improved resolution, and support for monitoring Rec2020 colorspace.

Responding to the enormous excitement around immersive video experiences, Premiere Pro offers powerful support for VR Video workflows. You can import equi-rectangular stitched video media and – with a click of a button in the monitors -- enter VR Video mode, which allows you to use pan and tilt controls to preview the experience inside the sphere. You can even click-drag directly on the video clip and freely pan around so you know what your viewer would be seeing when looking in a given direction. When you're ready to share, you can easily add a metadata flag to ensure you’ll get the full panoramic experience on supported sites like YouTube and Facebook.

Alongside the new media management, transcode and proxy generation capabilities listed above, Adobe Media Encoder contains multiple new features, including the addition of the familiar Media Browser, and a new Publish to Twitter feature for easy sharing with your followers.

Adobe After Effects CC
The next major update to After Effects CC will include enhanced video and audio playback: Adpbes's upcoming release is focused on improving core elements of the application that users touch every day. We’ve made lots of changes under the hood, most notably new video and audio preview architecture that delivers real-time playback of cached frames with synced audio. The new architecture shares its foundation with other Adobe video applications for a more consistent experience across Creative Cloud.

Performance and quality improvements: The next version of After Effects CC is faster and more reliable from file import and project load through to final render. Scrubbing the timeline, working with complex masks, and editing large numbers of keyframes is now more fluid, thanks to accelerated interface interactions.

GPU-accelerated effects: We are GPU-accelerating some of our most commonly used effects, including Lumetri Color and Gaussian Blur. Make changes and see results instantly: testers have reported up to 5x speed increases with accelerated effects. Lumetri Color has also been updated across both After Effects and Premiere Pro CC for an enhanced color grading workflow, including HSL Secondaries and new Looks presets.

Improved MAXON Cinema 4D exporter: Export animated 3D text and shape layers to Cinema 4D for a roundtrip Live 3D motion graphics workflow. Customize your exported elements in Cinema 4D (Cinema 4D Lite is included with After Effects), save your changes, and see them update live in After Effects via CINEWARE.

Faster image sequence import: Image sequences now import up to ten times faster. The speed increase is especially noticeable when importing from shared network storage. Some of these changes were introduced in the recent 13.7.1 patch; our spring release includes further improvements. Apologies to those of you who used large image sequence imports from shared storage as an excuse to go get a cup of coffee.

Adobe Stock and Creative Cloud Libraries: Filter searches for Adobe Stock and Libraries content to find what you need faster. Add Adobe Stock assets to your project — including 4K video — and then license them directly within After Effects. Licensed Adobe Stock assets in your library are now badged for easy identification. Videos in your library are displayed with duration and format information and have links to video previews.

Adobe Character Animator: Preview 4 includes a new visual tagging panel for faster puppet rigging. New Motion Trigger behavior enables your character to respond to directional mouse or touch input. Use Character Animator in a live production environment with Syphon support on Mac OS X, or record your performance and export to video via Dynamic Link to Adobe Media Encoder.

Mevo (formerly Movi), Livestream's streaming camera for Livestream Live has been renamed to Mevo, and has also been made compatible with the new Facebook Live platform. The Mevo fits in the palm of your hand, yet its 150-degree all glass lens and 4K sensor enable the iOS app to control up to nine virtual HD cameras. Live editing includes the ability to pan, zoom, and cut between multiple live shots from a single camera, providing the same storytelling capabilities used in professional live productions. Movi can also be easily added as a remote camera in Livestream Studio. The camera ships this summer.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design has become the first Australian company to be selected as Red Dot: Design Team of the Year, an honour widely acknowledged as the most prestigious design award in the world.

The annual award recognizes design teams whose work is consistently characterized by innovative achievements. Being awarded the Red Dot: Design Team of the Year is a unique accolade, as no designer or company can apply for this esteemed honour and sees Blackmagic Design join the exclusive company of previous winners including Apple, Bose, BMW, Braun, Porsche, Sony, Adidas and Bosch.

Blackmagic Design has rapidly grown over the last decade to become one of the world’s leading innovators and manufacturers of creative video technology. Blackmagic Design’s dedication to innovation, quality and rapid product development, has seen its products revolutionize the industry by allowing the highest quality video to be affordable to everyone. Blackmagic Design’s end-to-end suite of hardware and software products are used in films, television programs, advertisements and news broadcasts around the world. The global business is headquartered in Port Melbourne, with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia, and employs more than 800 staff as part of its dynamic “invention factory”.

Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, founder and president of the Red Dot Award, says, “The Blackmagic Design team has developed a reputation for combining user-centered design with highly innovative engineering to consistently deliver products that not only challenge, but change markets. Their strong product language is backed by a deep-rooted design philosophy that is focused on use and function in an uncompromising way. That makes Blackmagic Design the deserved recipient of the highest Red Dot title in 2016.”

In addition to the design team award, four Blackmagic Design products were recognized in the Red Dot: Product Design 2016 competition. They were chosen from around 5,200 submissions from 57 nations and evaluated by an international jury of experts against specific criteria including: degree of innovation; functionality; ergonomics; longevity; ecological compatibility; and clarity of function.

Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini was awarded a “Red Dot: Best of the Best”. Blackmagic Design’s Micro Camera, URSA Electronic Viewfinder and Video Assist products were awarded the Red Dot: Product Design 2016 award. Many of this year’s biggest Hollywood blockbusters have been made possible using these award-winning products, along with Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve, including The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road, Furious 7 and The Dressmaker.

“We are honored to accept the Red Dot: Design Team of the Year Award for 2016,” said Blackmagic Design CEO Grant Petty. “We have a proud history of innovation and this award is confirmation of our resolve to continuously blow customers’ minds with exceptionally designed, high-quality, exciting products which make the creative process easier for them. The award is testament to the creative work of Simon Kidd and the entire design team and we are delighted that the team has been recognized with such a prestigious global award.”

Simon Kidd, Director of Industrial Design, who has built and led the design team since its inception 10 years ago, said “We have an incredible team of highly talented, passionate and dedicated designers. When you pick up one of our products, I believe you can see the commitment our team has made to creating the very best product possible. To be recognized among the top design-led businesses in the world truly endorses this commitment.”

Awards will be presented to the winners at the Red Dot Gala awards ceremony at the Aalto Theatre in Essen, Germany on 4 July 2016.

Blackmagic Design’s products will be on display in a special exhibition “Blackmagic Design – leading the creative revolution” the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen, Germany from 4 July 2016.

Press Photography

Product photos of all Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD 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 go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Blackmagic Design today announced that DP Xavier Grobet used several Pocket Cinema Cameras to shoot select scenes for Paramount Pictures’ comedy “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.” Grobet required a small form factor camera that delivered cinematic images for the film’s in-vehicle shots and several actions scenes.

This was Grobet’s third time working with Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, and Grobet noted that given the nature of the film and the war zone setting, the Pocket Cinema Camera was a natural choice.

“I was looking for a very small camera for my specific needs. We shot in a lot of cars and Humvees, so the camera needed to be compact. We didn’t want to shoot off of a process trailer, mounting the car on a rolling platform. We wanted to do it practically,” said Grobet. “I found the Pocket Cinema Camera to be outstanding. The latitude and definition are great, and I was most impressed with the dynamic range.”

New firmware 38.48 for Panasonic PX5000 and version 34.44 for PX270 camcorders adds enhanced functionality of P2 Cast network service. The new versions support a display function of thumbnail images and battery indicators onto P2 Cast; sending and receiving the menu data according to the command given through P2 Cast; time zone correction by GSP; and firmware update according to the command given through P2 Cast. To update, copy the downloaded update file of the to an SD memory card and refer to the installation procedure.