I'm writing this from my hotel room the night before the 2014 NAB Show opens in Las Vegas, Nevada. We spent the day today assembling our booth - more on that in a minute.
I really love this show. Yes, it's too big. No, one person can't see it all. And, yes, it's way past over the top. But nothing beats it for seeing favorite vendors and industry friends all in one place all at one time. I can't remember how long I've been coming here, but I think black and white film was the "latest new thing" the first time I attended.... We're in booth
SL11505 (South Lower Hall waaaay near the back) - stop by and say hello if you have a minute.
The industry changes in a day tomorrow - just as it does every year. Sometimes the changes stick, sometimes they prove to be more hype than reality. Still, by tomorrow night many things that we took for granted today will have changed - some suddenly, others more incrementally.
I'm looking forward to sharing what I learn with you here in my newsletter and, more immediately, in my podcast:
DigitalProductionBuzz.com. The three articles for this week's newsletter all reflect changes driven by this year's NAB Show. By the way the best place to go for my thoughts on NAB is my blog:
www.larryjordan.biz/blog.
DIGITAL PRODUCTION BUZZ COVERS NAB
The Digital Production Buzz has sent a team of 29 people this year to cover NAB from our booth in the South Lower Hall (
SL11505). Every day, starting later today (Monday), you can hear two live
NAB UPDATES at 10:30 AM and 2:00 PM, plus an evening
NAB SPECIAL REPORT which posts around 7 PM every night for the rest of the week. (All times are PDT.)
You can hear all our reports - covering more than 80 companies and ten guest commentators - on the following websites:
(As a note to our subscribers, all our NAB coverage will be posted to my video subscription site starting Monday afternoon.)
Plus, we have partnered with
Moviola.com to provide video coverage of many of these interviews and all our live shows. For the complete list of video coverage, visit
Moviola.com.
As an added bonus, The Buzz invited comedian
Corey Roberts to join us at NAB to view our industry through the eyes of someone who's always been in front of the camera; to see our industry from the outside looking in and share his thoughts on what he discovers. It's his first time attending the show and we are quite curious to see his reaction. Corey's videos will post to our YouTube channel starting Wednesday:
www.youtube.com/larryjordanfcp.
OH! And one more thing - we are now on Instagram and will be posting images throughout the show. Check out the latest images at:
http://instagram.com/larryjordanfcp. I, uh, can't wait to see how THIS turns out...
I especially want to thank our sponsors:
Blackmagic Design, Moviola, Adobe Systems, G-Technology,
Promise Technology, and
Shutterstock. Without their support, none of this would be possible.
Join us for all our NAB coverage - and, as always, let me know what you think.
MORE, FASTER AND BETTER PIXELS
4K images are all the rage right now; spanning everything from acquisition to distribution. But I had a very interesting conversation with the video folks at Dolby earlier this week, which continued in conversations with other companies later in the week. There's more to good images than just 4K.
4K focuses on creating images with MORE pixels. Greater resolution, especially when viewed on larger screens. But there are two other technology trends, though not as loudly discussed, that can impact the quality of our images for the better.
The first of these is FASTER pixels; meaning faster frame rates. As frame rates increase, image detail and clarity also increase. The first big discussion of this came when "The Hobbit" was released with a 48 fps frame rate. There was a LOT of controversy over whether the improved image quality enhanced or detracted from the movie. But there was NO debate that increasing the frame rate made a noticeable visual change.
The second trend is BETTER pixels; meaning pixels with a greater bit depth. Bit depth determines dynamic range, the difference between the lightest and darkest pixels in an image. In the past, we've been locked into 256 shades of gray. Now, we can expand this up to 65,536 shades of gray and the results are stunning, even on lower resolution images like HD.
Three three trends - More, Faster, Better - are not exclusive, nor are they competitive. We can have all of them, or some, or none. As you read the releases and coverage from us and from others this next week, keep these three words in mind and see how they start to evolve into products. (And I'm indebted to the folks at Dolby for the use of the term: "More, Faster, and Better.")
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED BUZZ INTERVIEW
This week, I want to highlight an interview with
Jeff Foster, Author and Producer, on the new challenges of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) as flying videography platforms. (We used to call these "drones," but that use of the word is being actively discouraged by "those in the know.")
Jeff is indulging a long-time love of flying with these new quad-, hex- and octo-copters that can carry small video cameras hundreds of feet in the air to get shots we can't get anywhere else. He describes what works, what doesn't and what the rules are.
Listen to Jeff's interview
here.
Listen to the
entire show here.
We are now offering complete text transcripts for each Digital Production Buzz episode, courtesy of
Take1 Transcription. View the
transcript here.
THREE NEW ARTICLES THIS WEEK!
The three new articles for this week appeared first in my blog - which is the fastest way I have of sharing my thoughts with you between newsletters. I'll be publishing more blogs from NAB during this next week. You can visit it here: www.larryjordan.biz/blog/
The first article was written yesterday, after a round of conversations with a variety of vendors. The second covers the launch of new upgrades from Adobe. And the third is a write-up from my technology briefing at Dolby Labs. There are lots of concepts to think about in all three articles this week.
Plus, I've updated our Top Three lists. Have a great week and remember to check out all our NAB coverage at NABShowBuzz.com.
I arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday and instantly began a round of briefings to learn more about the latest announcements. 
On Wednesday this last week, Adobe formally "revealed" the features in the next versions of After Effects, Premiere Pro, Prelude, Audition, Story, SpeedGrade and Adobe Media Encoder.
Here are the most popular articles, webinars, and audio interviews for the past seven days across all my websites.
With the release of Final Cut Pro X v10.1, Apple also updated Compressor to version 4.1 An all new interface, improved compression settings and better monitoring. So much changed, in fact, that we went back and re-recorded all our training for the new version.