IBC Show was back in full swing with its familiar multi-day in-person event, with more than 37,000 smiling faces eager to attend the festivities. The Amsterdam gala is like no other trade show in the industry, pinning studios, media entertainment companies, tech innovators, software providers, filmmakers and creators under one roof. You can literally have a meeting with Google or Amazon AWS in the morning, then learn about the latest offerings from Canon, Sony or Avid in the afternoon. Similar to this year’s NAB Show and Cine Gear Expo LA, the future of technology was a buzzy topic on the […]

Last week was the annual NAB show. Every year in April the film and television community comes together in Las Vegas to “ooh” and “ah” over the latest technology. With so much announced and demonstrated, here are the most interesting things I heard about: Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 14. Blackmagic announced several new products, but the most interesting — once again — was a major update to DaVinci Resolve. Version 14, which is available now in beta, claims a number of performance enhancements that make it up to 10 times faster than the previous version. Resolve also has an entirely new audio […]

The year’s most fascinating entertainment story gets even more so today, as the Seth Rogen/James Franco North Korea-baiting The Interview becomes available for online rental and purchase via YouTube, Google Play and Sony’s own site, with a limited theatrical release occurring tomorrow. (As I post this, Sony’s site just reveals the film’s poster art.) Only days after issuing a statement saying the studio “had no plans” to release the film, it has suddenly become the poster child for the day-and-date exhibition of a studio release — a distribution strategy the theater chains have been balking at for years. From Todd […]

Two weeks ago RED announced that they were suing Sony for patent infringement for technology used in Sony’s PMW-F5, PMW-F55, and F65 cameras. Last week Sony posted a response on their Pro video website. First noting that the F65 has been commercially available for over a year, and that the F5/F55 were announced in October, they go on to say: Sony has now had an opportunity to study Red’s complaint and the asserted patents, and categorically denies Red’s allegations. Sony intends to defend itself vigorously in the Red lawsuit. Sony looks forward to prevailing in court, thus vindicating the Sony […]

This week saw Sony announce two new cameras, the PMW-F5 and PMW-F55, as well as some details about 4K recording for the NEX-FS700. Unfortunately, they didn’t announce many pricing details, other than the $2,000 price for the interface unit for the NEX-FS700. The cameras are expected in January, and pricing information will probably come sometime in December, but we have been left to depend on whispers from those who say they have been told numbers, even though Sony continues to say that they haven’t told anyone the prices. That said, it appears that the PMW-F5 will be under $20,000 and […]

On October 30th, Sony announced two new cameras; the PMW-F5 and PMW-F55. Both cameras bring 4K capture, a common modular design and some new technologies to Sony’s CineAlta line of cameras. Unfortunately, what Sony didn’t release was pricing or sample video. The pricing may come in a couple of weeks, and video will reportedly be released sometime near the end of November. Actual cameras will ship in January 2013. This leaves us to look at the pictures of the shiny new boxes and study the specs and go, “That looks nice,” or as Philip Bloom put it, “I want an […]

This Tuesday we have the big announcement of “The New F” from Sony to look forward to. Will it be amazing? Sony is certainly talking it up, billing it as “The Future, Ahead of Schedule.” Peter Crithary of Sony has tweeted: Peter Crithary @CineAltaNews Those few that have seen, and know the features, their reaction is #GameChanger Of course, he’s from Sony, so he might be expected to say that. Filmmaker Sebastian Wiegärtner has said: Sebastian Wiegärtner @wiegaertner #TheNewF announcement will be very tough for some big players in the industry! I was so surprised yesterday! And Andy Shipsides of […]

Originally posted April 2011. At back-to-back press conferences prior to the opening of NAB’s show floor, both Panasonic and Sony acknowledged the still-unfolding natural disaster in Japan and asked that our thoughts be with the Japanese people. Sony added that despite critical damage to its media plant in Sendai, supplies of HDCAM-SR tape would return to normal by June. Sony’s Sendai Technology Center (which I’ve visited) practically invented the high-performance tapes necessary to DV and HDV (metal evaporated) and HDCAM-SR (metal particle), and still manufactures a preponderance of them. Having persuaded both film and television industries to adopt HDCAM-SR as […]

Originally posted April 2011. The big NAB show in Las Vegas opened Monday, and I’ll be filing reports for Filmmaker’s readers at the end of every day through Thursday, when the show floor closes. For those unfamiliar with NAB, it stands for National Association of Broadcasters, a powerful trade association and influential Washington lobby, no bastion of progressive politics. But for filmmakers and indie producers, it also stands for the huge annual April trade show in Vegas, where the latest in cameras, lenses, recorders, lighting, audio, and all manner of production gear are introduced. TV execs, techies, DPs, and crew […]