The International Broadcasting Conference is being held in Amsterdam this week, which brings with it a variety of exciting announcements and new products. I do not travel to Europe for the show, but I do keep an eye on the various news and updates that happen there. These are just a few of the ones that stood out to me the most, or are relevant to my projects and workflows.
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Adobe has been working on their generative AI initiatives under the Firefly brand for a couple years now, with ongoing improvements and integrations. It started with cloud based image generation in 2023, and grew to include vector and design generation, and now video generation. It also added direct integration in Photoshop for image generation, which works pretty impressively at this point, and they are beginning integration to Premiere Pro with Generative Extend in the current beta application. But their broader AI generated video tools have only been in limited beta form until now.
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NVidia announced their new generation of GPUs at the beginning of this year, at CES in Las Vegas. The first of those “Blackwell” architecture based cards are now hitting the market, starting with the top end 5090, and the second tier 5080, which I have had the opportunity to test. The next steps down, the 5070 and 5070 Ti, will be available in February. The new Blackwell cards are the first to support PCIe 5.0, for faster interface with the host system, and DDR7 for greater memory bandwidth and lower power consumption. NVidia also announced laptop versions of the Blackwell lineup, which should be coming soon as well.
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Adobe took the opportunity of the Sundance Film Festival to highlight a number of new features coming to their video applications in the Creative Cloud suit. Premiere Pro has become more popular for editing feature films, as Adobe continues to improve the application. After Effects has always had a place in the film and VFX world, and Frame.IO has become a widely used cloud tool as its capabilities grow beyond review and approval functionality.
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I recently had the opportunity to test out and review HP’s Omen Transcend 32 OLED Display. It is a 31.5″ UHD HDR QD-OLED panel, supporting up to 240 frames per second. OLEDs are known for their deep blacks, leading to high image contrast and vivid colors. HDR is important for future proofing video content. While high frame refresh rates are usually not as significant for professionals, there are benefits to the flexibility they offer, and high frame rate content can be a valuable creative tool. The display also integrates an advanced KVM solution, to allow power users to leverage its beautiful image with both their desktop workstations and their notebook computers.
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Logitech recently released the MX Creative Console, a new interface device targeting Adobe users. I got the opportunity to see it in person at the MAX conference, and have been testing one myself since then. The device has a rather unexpected design, with two separate parts that are sold together. There is a dial and roller, with four solid buttons, that connects wirelessly to the system via Bluetooth. Then there is a panel of 9 LED buttons, with dedicated next and previous buttons, which connects via USB-C. They are designed to be used together, with the LED buttons displaying and controlling the function of the separate dial, but are independent pieces of hardware. They can each be used by themselves, but they do function more effectively together, and can be set up in a variety of different ways.
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I have had the opportunity to review Lenovo’s ThinkPad P1 Gen7 laptop. It is the first Core Ultra system I have used, built with Intel’s new chiplet design architecture. It also has a new memory module design, and a discrete NVidia RTX GPU, in a 16″ formfactor. And as a ThinkPad, it is a no nonsense design in a solid chassis, with a little red TrackPoint stick in the center of the keyboard.
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Adobe held their MAX Creativity Conference this week, hosted in Miami for the first time. This led to some concern due to the recently occurring Hurricane Milton, but the event was held as scheduled, a few days after the storm ravaged the state. So thousands of people from across the US and around the world descended on the Miami Beach Convention Center to learn more about upcoming technological developments in Adobe’s new software, and be inspired by the work of fellow artists and Adobe users.
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Canon has been creating a number of dual fisheye lens upgrades for their existing line of cameras, and they recently sent me an EOS R7 camera with Dual 3.9mm Fisheye Lens to try out. These dual lens attachments project both sides of the captured stereoscopic image onto the large single sensor, in a side by side configuration. The resulting recordings can then be processed via a variety of methods, and viewed in a VR headset for an immersive experience. But exactly how to do that is worth examining, and the main reason I wanted to check out the camera in the first place.
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Canon has been creating a number of dual fisheye lens upgrades for their existing line of cameras, specifically their mirrorless cameras, but including the C400 which also has an RF lens mount. These dual lens attachments project both sides of the captured stereoscopic image onto the large single sensor, in a side by side configuration. The resulting recordings can then be processed via a variety of methods, and viewed in a VR headset for an immersive experience. 180 degree VR only offers half of the potential view of 360 degree video, but is far more practical, because you only have to fill and record half of the potential perspective, and 360 video viewers rarely look backwards anyway. Continue reading