The International Broadcasters Conference is happening in Amsterdam this week. Unlike my annual trips to Vegas for NAB nearly every year, I have never actually been to the event in Amsterdam. But occupying the opposite end of the calendar from NAB, this is the other time when most video technology related companies announce or release their new products, so there are always lots of things to check out and learn about during this time period. I always try to track these updates and announcements from afar, and these are the ones that stood out to me this year.
First off, Adobe is releasing new features in Premiere and After Effects, in both the ‘regular’ and beta versions of the applications. Many of the new features revolve around integrating the generative AI tools currently available in Firefly, directly into Premiere. Generative video, based on many different models, is available directly in the timeline, with a simple interface to sample existing frames as input for the models. (This is much quicker than exporting frames and manually uploading them to Firefly) and the result are downloaded and added to the timeline automatically. 
The same workflow applies to numerous audio features, from music generation, to sound effect syncing, and soundscape creation. There are also tools for isolating the various components (dialog, ambience, music, etc) in an audio recording, into separate editable tracks. It can even separate multiple speakers’ voices for individual editing.
Adobe has also developed new Agentic AI tools in both Premiere and After Effects, to help users work with the application in a conversational way. I still haven’t personally wrapped my head around this idea, but I am sure it will eventually be useful for certain tasks. I am not sure how content aware it is yet, but I can imagine it helping conform offline edits on complex projects. Using something like that in After Effects seems more applicable, because I frequently find myself doing more repetitive tasks there, which I imagine AI could master properly.
BlackMagic Design usually has a slew of new products at shows, but that didn’t seem to be the case this year. Davinci Resolve 21.1 is their big announcement, which adds a variety of new features to the editing and finishing application. They have continued to lean into further support for still image processing, and added more AI enabled features. They have numerous tools for AI facial manipulation, and for focus and sharpening. There is also capability for machine reading slates, to auto tag footage with appropriate metadata, and for ‘IntelliSearch’ analysis of media to allow for better searching through content.
DaVinci Resolve is also adding more support for immersive workflows, which makes sense, considering they are now selling an immersive camera. But that development also includes adding more support for older VR180 and VR360 content, while Adobe has been going the other way, removing support for live headset preview of immersive timelines in Premiere. There are still 360 cameras being released on a regular basis, but most of the content captured by them is usually viewed as regular 2D video. Apple Vision Pro is the potential exception, with lots of both hardware and software tools finally appearing on the market in support of creating content for those users, but it remains to be seen whether that idea will survive long enough to reach a critical mass. I like the idea in theory, but am usually less than thrilled when I am actually experiencing it.
I always keep an eye on AJA, because they are based near me, and I know many people there. The newest product they announced for the show, is their updated frame synchronizer, the FS8, which can also bridge between SDI and IP Video. It can handle up to 8x channels of SDI Input and Output, and 4x 25GbE SFP ports, for SMPTE 2110 connectivity, It can process 4 channels of UHD or 8 channels of HD video.
Sony was showing off the previously announced Rialto 65 camera block for the Venice2 body. This adds a 9.6K resolution 65mm sensor, instead of the standard 8K full frame sensor. This ability to exchange sensors on an existing camera body seems very RED-esque, so I believe we are seeing the long term benefits of competition within the camera market. Sony also has the FX5 coming out soon, which packs more capability into the form factor of the existing FX3 line, to compete with the Nikon ZR and the Canon EOS C50 in the compact full frame space.
In other technically non-IBC, but very much related news, Apple also recently announced the iPhone 18 Pro, which is a primary acquisition tool for many users. The newest version sports 48MegaPixel sensors for all three camera lenses, with a variable aperture for the main lens. The A20 processor adds performance for editing and processing both photos and video. The foldable iPhone Duo has two of those 48MP cameras, and the same processor, so it will be interesting to see how people end up using that.
GoPro has also been in the news a lot recently, with their first interchangeable lens camera, the Mission 1 PRO ILS, finally being released, right around the same time that the whole company got acquired by Starman Optical. I had never heard of that company, but they apparently make optical transceivers, which is only tangentially related to cameras. The initial announcement talked about focusing on the AI and defense industries, so it will be interesting to see if they are going to become the next Flock, or what happens there.