News

In response to Autodesk announcing the end of life for the Softimage software, the LightWave 3D Group is offering a special crossgrade promotion to entice Softimage users to move to LightWave. This promotion only applies to full versions of LightWave 11.6 and does not include upgrades or educational prices. The LightWave 3D Group proudly stands in support of independent artists and rogue studios that like to flex their creative spirit. As a special offer to Softimage users, NewTek has put together a groundbreaking crossgrade promotion that offers a full seat of LightWave 11.6 for approx. 395 EUR.

Panasonic announced delivery of the new AJ-PX270, the company's first P2 HD handheld camcorder with AVC-ULTRA recording. Combining the high quality and efficiency of low bit rate recording and the flexibility of 3G/4G/LTE wireless mobility, the five-pound PX270 provides all the key functionality of Panasonic's high-end, shoulder-mount camcorder (the AJ-PX5000 with AVC-ULTRA). It also features newly-developed high-sensitivity, low-noise 1/3" 3-MOS imagers to produce stunning pictures, even in low light conditions. With its innovative AVC-ULTRA codec, the PX270 features a wide range of recording modes. For high-quality recording, the camera records in 100Mbps AVC-Intra100, as well as 200 Mbps AVC-Intra200 (optional: available in the near future). For applications where file size is critical, e.g., for wireless feeds, the camcorder incorporates a choice of AVC-LongG quality levels, including AVC-LongG50, AVC-LongG25 and AVC-LongG12. These 10-bit, 4:2:2 sampled codecs (LongG50/25*) record in much smaller file sizes, saving storage cost and transfer time while maintaining equal or better video quality to existing legacy codecs. The ultimate news acquisition tool, the PX270 will be equally suitable for a wide range of sports, corporate, education and event applications. The PX270 will be available during March.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that DaVinci Resolve 10 was used by Gavin Fisher of LA-based production and post facility Fisher Film Works for color grading Lady Antebellum’s “Compass” music video.

With seven Grammys under their belt, the country music trio Lady Antebellum is known for their harmonies, deft songwriting and often uplifting messages. “Compass,” the recently released third single off of 2013's album Golden, delivers all three. For the music video, Lady A returned to acclaimed country music video director Peter Zavadil of Taillight. Using light and color to help highlight the song’s message, he shot light writing to spell out the lyrics. Light writing is a form of stop motion animation where stills are taken of words being spelled in light. The images are then arranged sequentially, creating the optical illusion of movement.

“Peter wanted a super bright, colorful and festive look to the video, so I pushed the saturation to its limits, which was fine for the still camera shots that were used for light writing,” said Gavin. “But in order to match the performance scenes with that same level of intensity without ruining the skin tones, I really had to rely on DaVinci Resolve to key out all the saturation and maintain the skin tones. It’s the best keyer I’ve worked with.”

In order to incorporate light writing, every letter in the alphabet was shot by itself. But doing a rough composite and cropping in on the letters left the tiles exposed instead of creating a seamless look. Gavin brought the footage into DaVinci Resolve, and by removing the crop and using DaVinci Resolve’s blend mode, he was able to make the light writing seem as if it was part of the original footage.

“I was able to blend all the images together instead of having to crop off the edges, which delivered the seamless look that Peter was going for,” said Gavin. “If ever I run into an issue with footage, I know DaVinci Resolve has the tools to help me overcome it.”

Gavin noted that DaVinci Resolve 10’s new editing features were essential to streamlining the workflow, which was especially useful considering he had 24 hours to turn around the project. “Because the video was shot with different kinds of cameras, when I imported the XML into DaVinci Resolve, it was all in a jumble with whacked out timecodes. For a lot of conforms, it’s easier to rebuild the edit by hand based on the offline,” he said. “But DaVinci Resolve 10’s robust editing features made it super easy to rebuild it right in Resolve. It saved me on time and was a life saver.”

He continued: “DaVinci Resolve shined when dealing with different cameras, video and stills and different formats and timecodes. The conform process in DaVinci Resolve and flexibility of its timeline helped me get the project conformed and turned around super quickly. Out of all the applications I have used, DaVinci Resolve is the most intuitive, and there are very few problems I can’t solve with it.”

About DaVinci Resolve

Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is the world’s highest performance on set, editing and color correction solution for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux computers. DaVinci Resolve supports more real time color correction than any other system because it’s not limited by the performance of the computer it’s running on. DaVinci Resolve eliminates this performance barrier because it’s based on a cluster of high performance GPU cards, so all processing is always real time. DaVinci Resolve has the power of a true real time performance solution so handles complex color grades even when using dozens of primaries, secondaries, Power Windows™, multi point tracking, blurs, and more. DaVinci Resolve provides incredible performance in a low cost solution which can be easily upgraded by adding extra GPUs for supercomputer power to handle 4K resolutions, stereoscopic 3D and real time grading direct from raw camera files such as ARRI RAW, RED RAW and Sony RAW files which can be handled with ease.

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/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 film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, 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 stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Adobe's latest update for After Effects contains fixes for several known issues related to Project Panel, Output Module Settings dialog box, QuickTime output ProRes issues, XMP metadata and more. You can install the update through the Creative Cloud desktop application, or you can check for new updates from within any Adobe application by choosing Help > Updates.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that Dutch broadcaster NOS deployed the Blackmagic Universal Videohub 288 for signal routing and distribution during its coverage of the Olympic Winter Games. Built by live production specialist Broadcast Rental, the Sochi facility will handle more than 60 live signals from across the Games.

As well as live feeds from commentary positions in more than 40 sports venues, the master control room, based in the International Broadcast Center at Sochi, will also receive inputs from ‘Holland House’, where Dutch athletes, coaching teams and supporters congregate, to take viewers behind the scenes of the team’s Olympic experience.

The Universal Videohub is controlled via a touchscreen monitor and software, and will distribute HD-SDI video signals into the unit’s ingest system for editing, where two broadcast feeds for transmission in the Netherlands will be produced. The router will also manage distribution of signals to multiviewers and monitors within the control hub to assist with signal selection. A tally system is also connected to the Videohub to monitor the status of the router. Information from the tally, such as time codes or feed titles, can be viewed in the under monitor displays in the multiviewers, giving production staff all the information they need about each feed in a glance.

Broadcast Rental will also have engineers working in partnership with the NOS production team throughout the Games, providing dedicated technical support and allowing production staff to focus on delivering the most relevant and exciting action from across the Olympic venues.

“Blackmagic Design’s Universal Videohub really is the heart of our Olympic operation, as it gives us a secure level of integration within a temporary unit and has enabled us to build a highly reliable, customized control suite that matches NOS’ requirements exactly,” explained Martijn Swart, Broadcast Rental. “Its SD and HD-SDI connections mean that we can quickly and easily link to the editing systems to provide seamless transitions between events.

“The unit was initially conceived to deliver NOS’ broadcast coverage of the London Olympics in HD,” he continued. “We’ve expanded and refined the unit even further, retaining the Universal Videohub as our central element of a control hub that facilitates exciting, engaging coverage for Dutch viewers across the fortnight’s action.”

Press Photography

Product photos of the Universal Videohub 288 are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/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 film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, 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 stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.