LAS VEGAS—Here on the show floor of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference, there’s an awful lot of equipment that is beyond the purchasing power of most average individuals. That is to say, most people will wait for their company to invest in that $16,000 Codex ARRIRAW digital recorder that’s being demoed at NAB rather than save up to buy it themselves.
But a number of products at NAB dance the line between professional-grade video cameras and cameras you might buy for a side project you’re particularly dedicated to. Below are some of the cool new things we saw on the show floor.
Accessorizing your POV shot
Sony’s Action Cam has been taking shots at GoPro for a while now, and while GoPro is still the first name many people think of when they think of point-of-view (POV) video, the Action Cam has also received a lot of attention on the show floor this week. Perhaps a lot of the hype comes from Sony’s latest Action Cam accessory, the Live View Remote wristwatch.
Sony’s wrist-mounted remote controller, first announced at CES back in January, retails for $150 and pairs with many of Sony’s Wi-Fi and NFC-enabled cameras, including (as was seen on the show floor) Sony’s Action Cam. Sony will be bundling its latest “splashproof” Action Cam, which usually retails for $299, with the Live View Remote later this year for $399.
The Live View Remote goes on your wrist and streams exactly what the Action Cam is recording via Wi-Fi, so you can just look down and make adjustments as you’re, say, running through the woods, filming a Blair Witch-type scene. Currently, the Live View Remote can connect to five separate cameras, and you can toggle through to see each of the streams as they’re filming. With a firmware update this summer, Sony representatives told us that the wristwatch will be able to manage 10 different cameras.
The wireless wristwatch may make Sony more of an option for some POV camera customers. Both Sony and GoPro have iOS and Android apps that allow you to view what you’re recording live, but sometimes keeping an eye on a smartphone is hard, especially if you’re in motion.
Still, GoPro had some interesting new products of its own to demo. GoPro’s booth was showing off its latest housing and mounting options, specifically its new $50 Blackout housing and the $200 Dual Hero System, which links two GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition cameras.
Megan Geuss
The Action Cam includes a mini-HDMI port, a mini-USB port, an expansion connector, and a stereo mini jack.
Megan Geuss
The Action Cam includes a mini-HDMI port, a mini-USB port, an expansion connector, and a stereo mini jack.
Megan Geuss
The camera can shoot 1080p at 60 fps and uses Sony’s proprietary SteadyShot image stabilization techniques. Without SteadyShot on, you can get a 170° viewing angle; with SteadyShot, that angle reduces to 120°.
Megan Geuss
The right side of Sony’s latest Action Cam. The Camera can connect via Wi-Fi and NFC to a smartphone or to the Live View Remote.
Megan Geuss
Here’s the new part: this remote controller wristwatch recently hit the market and lets you see the footage your camera is taking (from the top of your helmet, say) via Wi-Fi. Those toggle buttons on the left let you scroll through your video streams, and on the right side of the screen a film strip icon will show up for each camera you have connected.
Megan Geuss
A side view of the wristwatch.
Megan Geuss
Maybe you like creeping around the neighborhood undetected. In such a situation, you might try GoPro’s Blackout housing, a black matte case with LCD-hiding stickers, made to reduce visibility in the field. The Blackout case will only put you out $50 if you already have the Hero3 or Hero3+ camera to go with it.
Megan Geuss
A side view.
Megan Geuss
GoPro’s Dual Hero System. This system takes two Hero3+ Black Edition cameras (each $400 and sold separately) and fits them into a special housing that will enable them to take synchronized 2D video and convert the video to 3D with GoPro’s free editing software. Or the cameras can be set up so that one takes video and the other takes still shots simultaneously.
Megan Geuss
The back of the Dual Hero System. The two cameras are connected, so you can control both cameras from one camera interface.
Megan Geuss
The Dual Hero System housing is waterproof down to 197 feet underwater.
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The waterproof housing comes in handy if you want to invade the privacy of some sharks and fish.
Gather ye video while ye may
Because NAB is a conference for broadcast production people, many booths showed off professional-quality video capture products—stuff not quite within the range of the average hobbyist video producer. But we also stopped by a booth showcasing the products of a production tool company called Atomos.
Atomos designs recorders that capture video from your camera’s sensor and convert that video to Apple’s ProRes video compression format. With an external recorder, your camera doesn’t have to compress video into an AVCHD format, so you get higher-resolution video to work with when you’re ready to edit.
We specifically took a look at Atomos’ newly announced, low-cost Ninja Star, which retails for $295. The company is targeting the kinds of people who would buy a Sony Action Cam or a GoPro to film extreme sports or video from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The Ninja Star weighs 3.5 oz and uses a CFast card that should record more than two hours of ProRes video.
Livestream the parade
Finally, the company Livestream was present at NAB this week, showing off some of its new hardware and software products for people who need affordable-yet-professional-looking coverage of real-time events. The streaming platform used the conference to announce its new Google Glass app, which lets users stream video from the headset after opening the app with the voice command “Livestream” and then hitting record.
Livestream also showed off its first foray into video mixing boards with the Livestream Studio Surface, which will go on sale later this month. The basic version will start at $6,000, which is a sizable chunk of change, but the board is meant to give a professional touch to audio mixing and video streaming, allowing users to put text overlays on multiple video streams, insert ads into video, or add playback into a stream using Livestream’s Studio Software. (The software is available from Livestream without any of the hardware for $800.)
A Livestream representative told us that the company’s prospective customers include churches, which use the tools to broadcast services and ceremonies like weddings.
This is our last day at NAB, but we’ll be bringing you a look at some of the UAVs and the more impressive camera rigs that we’ve seen on the show floor this week.
Listing image by Megan Geuss
Article source: http://www.thephoblographer.com/2013/09/23/the-five-greatest-m-mount-film-cameras-of-all-time/
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