NAB 2008

NAB Heaven: A quick report of Amy Beauford’s favorite things in life.

The National Association of Broadcasters annual conference is an international event that brings media fanatics from every form of professional video to the Las Vegas convention center. The show equates to 3.2 million square feet and up to 110,000 attendees.

This is the South hall, which houses video post production tools.

I go every year, but this year was significant for two reasons. First, I didn’t actually have to work the show, so I went for one day in search of anything RED, which I will explain in a bit.

Second, this is the first year that AVID, followed by Apple, did not attend the show since I have been attending for the last 10 years. You can read more here, and I also will offer my opinion.

AVID and Apple

AVID is the legacy professional editing platform. Since I have been working with video the predominant editing system for video and film has been AVID. Starting off as Mac, and then moving to PC, and acquiring companies along the way including DS (Digital Studio) for compositing and online editing, AVID has been the one paving the way for video and film editing as technology continued to advance. There is a price to pay for this technology, which can easily be in the triple digit price point.

Apple and Final Cut Pro has won over the old-school AVID/DS editors. Apple has introduced software that is at a price point that both professionals and amateurs can afford, the latter of which was not a market for AVID until FCP started growing in popularity. Thus, Apple has created a world in which the pros and the amateurs flourish together. They have also invaded a world in which pricy enterprise and turnkey systems rule.

Is the result of the Final Cut Pro invasion of the professional market going to be the downfall of traditional turnkey solutions like the ones AVID sells? Is it a sign that yet another aspect of professional media is being threatened by the amateurs? I have a hunch that both are true.

RED – http://www.red.com/

RED is a company selling high quality HD cameras at reasonable prices. RED fans order their camera, and proceed to wait up to a year for their camera to ship, at which time they treat their ‘camera #abcd’ as a family pet. RED isn’t your standard HD camera. The RED ONE, which is their original camera, shoots up to 4k resolution, which is twice the resolution of what consumers know as ‘HD’. Their new SCARLET camera has a fixed lens, shoots 3k resolution (again, higher than ‘HD’) and will sell for around $3,000. RED is also coming out with the 5k EPIC resolution camera.

RED ONE camera with the new-to-the-market zoom lens (10lbs!)

RED SCARLET camera