EventDVLive Winner’s Circle: Top 10 of NAB 2010 for Live Production Pros

EventDVLive, The Live Production & Delivery Resource, has launched its first-ever Winner’s Circle awards program, recognizing the 1o most exciting and relevant new releases of NAB 2010 for live event producers.

EventDVLive Winner's Circle 2010

Walking the floor at NAB can be overwhelming, with the array of dazzling new technologies for 3D and the like, and it’s easy to get caught up in the hype surrounding next-generation technologies that may not reach the video production mainstream for a year or more. But there’s an urgency to live production that makes one approach the show more practically, with an eye to the new products and innovations that will impact the live production workflow now.

With that in mind, we restricted our focus in this inaugural EventDVLive Winner’s Circle to the gear most emphatically geared toward live event producers, and technology and services that will help our readers expand their capabilities and streamline their workflows most significantly in the near-term.

Now, on to the Winners’ Circle, presented alphabetically by category.

LIVE SWITCHERS AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

• Broadcast Pix iPix Panel: an ingenious live production system control panel that enables iPad users to control the Broadcast Pix’s Slate systems using nothing more than a downloadable $195 app

• Edirol V1600HD: a new multiformat video switcher with 14 mixing channels and a feature set equally matched to mobile production and fixed-installation workflows

• NewTek TriCaster TCXD850: a new rackmountable 22-channel HD-capable system with redundant power, removable storage, and new live HD virtual sets that extends the TV-truck-in-a-box concept that NewTek pioneered with the first TriCaster system

• Panasonic AW-HS50: a sub-compact HD switcher at a sub-sub-compact price ($4,000!); sold separately or as part of Panasonic’s IP and serial-controlled production system that also includes a remote camera controller and a multi-format HD/SD camera with integrated pan/tilt/zoom

MONITORS AND SCOPES

• Blackmagic Design Pocket UltraScope: a thumbdrive-sized USB 3.0 pod that takes 3 GB/s SDI input and provides portable waveform monitoring on location via 6 simultaneous real-time scopes on an event producer’s PC laptop, with power drawn from the laptop as well

• SmallHD DP-SLR: a 5.6″ monitor that delivers 720p reference imagery directly from a camera’s hotshoe; its pixel density of 270 pixels per inch (PPI) is sharper than a desktop monitor

LIVE ENCODERS AND STREAMING APPLIANCES

• Digital Rapids StreamZHD: a new adaptive bit rate addition to Digital Rapids’ popular StreamZ streaming encoder line, capable of outputting full 1080/30p streams in H.264, and creating streams for multiple platforms simultaneously

• Telestream Wirecast Pro: a new webcasting system augments the Wirecast line with improved audio controls, new format and input device support, plus virtual 3D foregrounds, backgrounds, and scoreboards for entertainment and sports event producers

• ViewCast Niagara SCX 6.2: a new version of ViewCast’s popular streaming media management application features adaptive bit rate encoding and an “iPhone Live Media Publisher” for streaming to the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad

• Visionary Solutions VSiCaster: a new IP streaming box with DVI and HDMI input support that connects with NetroMedia CDN for an “end-to-end” streaming solution

—Stephen Nathans-Kelly

Thanks to Tim Siglin for his contributions to this list.