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BOXX
The rising power from down in Texas had a good NAB this year, with 5D sporting BOXX gear in addition to the BOXX/Vegas Video 3 bundle reported here on Monday's NAB Report. A swing by the BOXX booth revealed new variable frame rate support for Panasonic's new DVCPRO HD camcorder and deck. The BOXX method of dealing with this operation is an especially efficient one, where only the frames necessary are captured if you're using the camera or deck's slow motion feature. If you're editing at 24p, for example, and the camera has captured video at 60 frames per second, the BOXX will only capture enough frames to equal 24 frames per second. This can save lots of disk space. Nice way to be efficient, and save the time of crunching the numbers to fit 24p, like Quantel's system reportedly does. Another hit for BOXX. I like this BOXX company, which at NAB gained big buzz as maybe the one to pick up the reins where Intergraph and SGI dropped them on the PC platform.
Lightworks
Hey, look who's back! An old friend of film-cutters, Lightworks, is bringing back its nonlinear editing system that makes your hands feel like they're working with a flatbed film editor. This time around it's packing more power than it did in its last iteration from a few years ago -- it has moderately powerful dual 1.3 GHz P3s under the hood. But to say that's weak and underpowered is to misunderstand this hands-on editor -- it's not an effects box, it's an editorial device that's quick and easy to use. Called Lightworks Touch, the system is currently in its second round of Beta testing and is set to ship on May 28th. It has what many think is the best edit controller in the business, around which the entire system is built. Talk to anyone who has been mesmerized by this baby, and they'll tell you that there's nothing else like it -- it certainly reminds me of a flatbed film editor. Put your hands on it and it feels like you're spinning around film reels. Touch, indeed. You don't have to look at cursors, a mouse or a keyboard, although you do use mouse and keyboard for some functions -- you can keep your eyes where I think they belong when you're editing: On the pictures.
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It's expensive, though, to the tune of $48K. But there are no greedy nickel-and-dime-you-to-death options for the system, either, and everything, even dual flat panel monitors, is included for you to start cutting 24p feature films. Well, almost -- you'll have to buy storage, but that's becoming more and more of a commodity these days, anyway. Lightworks execs summed up the product's approach nicely: "It's an editing system that happens to be on a computer, not a computer that happens to include an editing system." A highlight of the extensive demo the company gave me at NAB was its excellent real time speed controls, with Bezier curves that are the easiest to use I've seen so far, letting you quickly put together one of those oh-so-cool speed up/slow down effects that are so in-vogue today. I also liked its highly customizable user interface that contains not one drop down menu. It's unique. I could see why it was chosen to cut Moulin Rouge, the Oscar winner for film editing this year.
DPS
It looks like the pioneering cardmakers and software creators at DPS have been hard at work on their newest hardware/software wizardry, and this one is about as impressive as anything I saw in Las Vegas. DPS Velocity Q is a circuit board/breakout box/software package that can spit out more real time effects than you can shake a stick at. Set to ship in mid-summer, the system was able to fly around four moving 3D (well, 2 ½ -D) digital video effects with four graphics keyed over that, all in real time. This was uncompressed video, too. The company can't ship this yet, though, because it's still crash-prone, a shortcoming that was repeatedly evident in the demo I saw on the NAB show floor. But still, DPS is really onto something here. Velocity Q's speed and capability is right up there in the same league with Media 100's 844/X, but at a fraction of the price -- DPS officials confirmed that the board and software package will sell for around $10K, and a turnkey system should hit the $20K mark. But you'd better budget some money for the drives, too, which need to be the quickest you can find to support these kind of hijinks. With tons of effects, transitions, 3D moves, the ability to mix compressed and uncompressed video on the same timeline, and much more, this one will give all of the next generation of hardware-accelerating NLEs a serious run for their money, that is, if DPS can harness this beast. With this kind of power, that may be a big "if." Just so I can keep an eye on this development for you, I've already set up a review session of Velocity Q with the higher-ups at DPS, so look for a full report around August of this year here on Digital Media Net. Overall, this emerging generation of hardware accelerators is shaping up to be the next white-hot frontier in digital video editing, with Media 100 and DPS leading the way. We're hearing rumblings about a few more on the way, too, so expect more competitors very soon.
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