Today is Labor Day here in the US. This holiday marks the unofficial end of summer and the start of fall as both schools and businesses ramp back to normal. However, today also marks the start of a very big week of announcements: Apple with their iPhone reveal this Wednesday and IBC opening in Amsterdam with introductions of all kinds of cool new media tech.
While it may be sad that the summer is ending - though I will be very glad of a cooling spell - I'm excited to see what the future holds for our industry.
Thinking of the end of summer, August is traditionally my lowest readership month. So my lead story lists all the tutorials and reviews that I published during the month - almost 20 - just in case you missed any while you were on vacation.
In the news, pre-IBC news predominates:
AJA debuted ColorBox. This is a compact, high-performance converter for color managed workflows designed to specifically meet the conversion needs of broadcast, live events, and on-set applications. Supporting Standard Dynamic Range (SDR), High Dynamic Range (HDR), and Wide Color Gamut (WCG) signals, it utilizes 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 for single wire 4K/UltraHD HDR up to 4:2:2 10-bit 60p or 4:4:4 12-bit 30p with a unique color processing pipeline.
Autoscript introduced Autoscript Voice. This uses advanced speech recognition, currently in 7 languages, to free presenters and production staff from their scroll control devices. It’s an effortless way to control a prompter ever.
Lynx Technik introduced a new yellobrick with Instant Dialog Cleaner. This incorporates artificial intelligence to isolate speech & dialog by removing complex background noises in audio recordings.
Facilis will demonstrate the new 8.2 version of the Facilis Shared File System featuring WANLink, which is designed to provide a secure, remote link to Facilis storage through the same Facilis Console software used in the facility.
Hedge is updating a range of products, including EditReady, ScopeBox, Canister and, PostLab. PostLab provides editorial collaboration in Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Final Cut Pro.
Pliant Technologies debuts the CCU-08, the latest addition to the CrewCom intercom system with the ability to use up to eight 4-Wire ports while retaining all the same features of the current companion CCU-22 and CCU-44 products. This contains no radio and is frequency agnostic and can therefore control and monitor any device across CrewNet regardless of radio frequency bands being utilized.
Zixi, which provides dependable, live broadcast-quality video over any IP network, announced a partnership with Marshall Electronics to integrate their Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP) into their lineup of IP cameras. All standard IP camera versions can be loaded with the Zixi-enabled firmware allowing existing Marshall operators to unlock premium connectivity support and direct integration with the full suite of capabilities in the Zixi SDVP.
Pixotope just released its new XR Edition for extended reality productions. Developed in response to the growing trend of LED volume use in Virtual Production and the need for hardware optimization, Pixotope’s XR Edition includes a range of tools to simplify setup and operation by reducing the technical complexities and associated resource costs of XR workflows and environments.
