Tech With Mike First – News and analysis of emerging media and graphics technologies and products.

Large Format Camera Workflows

Mike McCarthy May 21, 2018 No Comments

In the last few months, we have seen the release of the Red Monstro, Sony Venice, Arri Alexa LF, and Canon C700 FF, all of which have larger, or full frame sensors. Full Frame refers to the DSLR terminology, with full frame being equivalent to the entire 35mm film area, the way that it was used horizontally in still cameras, and full frame was as opposed to smaller crop sensors in the cheaper DSLRs. All SLRs used to be full frame with 35mm film, so there was no need for the term until manufacturers started saving money on digital image sensors by making them smaller than 35mm film exposures. Super35mm motion picture cameras on the other hand ran the film vertically, resulting in a smaller exposure area per frame. But this was still much larger than most video imagers until the last decade, with 2/3rd inch chips being considered premium imagers. The options have grown a lot since then.
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PNY PrevailPro Mobile Workstation

Mike McCarthy May 17, 2018 No Comments

I have been given the opportunity to test out the new PNY PrevailPro Mobile Workstation. PNY is a company most recognized in the business workspace as the manufacturer of NVidia’s Quadro line of professional graphics cards. They make a variety of other products, mostly centered around memory and graphics cards, but the PrevailPro is their first move into offering complete systems.
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HP Dreamcolor Z31x Studio Display Review

Mike McCarthy May 7, 2018 No Comments

HP sent me their newest high-end monitor to review. The Dreamcolor Z31x Studio Display is a 31″ true 4K color critical reference monitor. It has many new features that set it apart from it’s predecessors, which I have examined and will present here in as much depth as I can. It is challenging to communicate the nuances of color quality through writing or any other form on the internet, as some things can only be truly appreciated by seeing them in person. But I will attempt to communicate the experience of using the new Dreamcolor as well as I can. First we will start with a little context:
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NAB 2018 Conclusions

Mike McCarthy April 11, 2018 No Comments

My second day on the show floor allowed me to follow up a bit more on a few technologies that I found intriguing the day before. The move to IP video and higher resolutions in post production leads to increasing needs for higher speed networking, which is more complicated than the old 10/100/1000BaseT connections. HDR involves a number of challenges, and a better understanding of color science and dynamic range, and as always, there are tons of new products in every category to try to familiarize myself with, so I can continue to be knowledgeable on the options that are out there for different scale workflows and use cases.
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NAB 2018 Exhibits

Mike McCarthy April 11, 2018 No Comments

These are my notes from the first day I spent browsing the NAB Show floor this year in Las Vegas. Further information from the Exhibition will be posted once my trip is complete, but this should provide an overview of the important things that stood out to me the most, in time for people attending to still have a chance to go check them out, if they had escaped their notice to this point.
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Pre-NAB Releases From Intel & Adobe

Mike McCarthy April 8, 2018 No Comments

There have been a number of significant new product releases the week before NAB. On the software front, Adobe has new updates for the video apps on Creative Cloud. Intel had a big announcement on the hardware front, with the release of their newest generation of “Coffee Lake” mobile CPUs. They now offer six-core chips for use in laptops, and upped the performance and efficiency yet again, within their existing 14nm architecture. Continue reading →

GTC 2018

Mike McCarthy March 28, 2018 No Comments

I had the opportunity to attend GTC 2018, NVidia’s 9th annual technology conference in San Jose this week. GTC stands for GPU Technology Conference, and GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit, but graphics makes up a relatively small portion of the show at this point. The majority of the sessions and exhibitors are focused on machine learning and artificial intelligence. And the majority of the graphics developments are centered around analyzing imagery, not generating it. Whether that is classifying photos on Pintrest, or giving autonomous vehicles machine vision, it is based on the capability of computers to understand the content of an image. Continue reading →

8K Video in 2018

Mike McCarthy January 25, 2018 No Comments

As we enter 2018, we find a variety of products arriving to market that support 8K imagery. The 2020 Olympics are slated to be broadcast in 8K, and clearly we have a way to go, but innovations are constantly being released that get us closer to making that a reality. The first question that comes up when examining 8K video equipment is: why 8K? Obviously it is more resolution, but that is more of an answer to the how question than the why question. Continue reading →

Efficient DCP Creation Options

Mike McCarthy December 18, 2017 1 Comment

We made a lot of DCPs for my most recent film project 6Below. These included the final ones that were delivered to Deluxe and the theaters at release. Creating DCPs can still be a bit of a workflow challenge, but the options available are much better than they were in the past. Continue reading →

Lenovo Explorer Windows Mixed Reality Headset

Mike McCarthy December 12, 2017 2 Comments

Microsoft released their Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) platform as part of the Fall Creator’s Update to Windows 10. There are a variety of WMR headsets available from many familiar names in the hardware business. Lenovo sent me their Explorer WMR headset to test on my Thinkpad P71, providing me with a complete VR experience on their hardware.
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