ProductionHUB Announces NAB Show 2024 Awards of Excellence Winners

If you've been following us for awhile now, then you're probably aware of our annual NAB Awards of Excellence awards.

The Awards of Excellence recognize exceptional technological innovation and practice. Each year, ProductionHUB editorial staff and industry experts collaborate to carefully vet and choose the winners. Award recipients are trailblazers in technological growth, products that help streamline workflows for film and video production, as well as advance the art of cinematography.

ProductionHUB commends the recipients of the distinguished 2024 Awards of Excellence:

Adobe New Generative AI Video Tools in Premiere Pro AJA Colorbox 2 with ACES ARRI ALEXA 35 Multicamera System Blackmagic Design URSA CINE 12K DJI RS 4 and RS 4 Pro Lightcraft JetSet with Accsoon SeeMO SmallHD Quantum 32 SONY BRC-AM7 4K 60P Strada ZEISS Nano Primes Adobe New Generative AI Video Tools in Premiere Pro

Adobe has unveiled new generative artificial intelligence tools in Premiere Pro, its video editing software, aimed at enhancing video creation and production workflows. These tools empower users to streamline video editing tasks, such as adding or removing objects from a scene or extending existing clips. These innovative editing workflows will be driven by a new video model set to integrate seamlessly into the software.

AJA Colorbox 2 with ACES

Today, AJA Video Systems unveiled ColorBox v2.1, a complimentary software upgrade for its real-time color management tool. Additionally, they announced that AJA ColorBox and Pomfort’s Livegrade have achieved the first joint logo product certification from the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES), showcasing their commitment to supporting ACES-based workflows. ColorBox v2.1, now available for download from the AJA Support Page, introduces a range of user-driven features tailored to streamline 4K/UltraHD HDR tasks and adapt to evolving workflows from on-set to post-production.

ARRI ALEXA 35 Live Multicamera System

ARRI introduces the ALEXA 35 Live – Multicam System, extending the renowned cinematic image quality of its flagship ALEXA 35 camera to live productions across various domains such as concerts, sports, esports, fashion, corporate events, and talk shows. The core component, the ALEXA 35, represents ARRI's pinnacle of technological advancement, featuring identical hardware to the ALEXA 35, including the sensor and image processing capabilities. Visually indistinguishable from its sibling, the ALEXA 35 Live is distinguished by a yellow "Live" label. ARRI emphasizes that the ALEXA 35 Live is ideal for live productions, boasting exceptional high dynamic range, image quality, low-light performance, and adaptability to mixed lighting conditions.

With modular lens mounts supporting a range of options including LPL, PL, EF, and B4, users can leverage a diverse selection of lenses. Additionally, ARRI enhances the ALEXA 35 Live's versatility by introducing new Look files and Textures tailored specifically for live production environments.

Blackmagic Design URSA CINE 12K

Blackmagic Design has announced the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K, “a revolutionary new digital film camera that introduces new advanced technologies with total integration into the postproduction workflow.”

The new model includes a new large format RGBW 36 x 24mm sensor with larger photo-sites for 16 stops of dynamic range, interchangeable PL, LPL and EF lens mounts, and industry standard Lemo and Fischer connections.

DJI RS 4 and RS 4 Pro

Arguably, the most notable addition to the RS 4 and RS 4 Pro is the second-generation native vertical shooting capability. In today's social media-driven landscape, vertical video holds considerable importance, with many content creators primarily shooting in this format. The redesigned gimbal horizontal plate eliminates the need for extra accessories, allowing RS users to effortlessly switch between landscape and portrait orientations with ease.

Lightcraft JetSet with Accsoon SeeMO

This app transforms your iPhone 15 Pro Max into a camera tracker and real-time previsualization tool. Lightcraft’s Jetset Cine app seamlessly integrates with any cinema camera, utilizing an iPhone mounted on the camera and an Accsoon SeeMo HDMI or HD-SDI input, to create a fully-tracked virtual production system.

SmallHD Quantum 32

Quantum 32 emerges from the collaboration of SmallHD and Samsung Display Corporation, aimed at crafting an HDR reference monitor tailored to the demands of motion picture production and post-production. Leveraging SDC's groundbreaking quantum dot OLED technology, which harnesses Nobel Prize-winning nanotechnology, it delivers unrivaled color accuracy and dynamic range.

SONY BRC-AM7 4K 60P

The SONY BRC-AM7 4K 60P effortlessly tracks moving subjects with precision and realism. Harnessing AI technology, the camera boasts advanced recognition capabilities, all within the compact and lightweight integrated lens, ensuring seamless installation flexibility.

Strada

“The post-production community has been facing many of the same problems for decades–problems I myself am all too familiar with as a creator and advisor to other creative professionals. So we set out to build a solution,” states Michael Cioni, co-founder and CEO of Strada. “No other tool or technology on the market does what Strada can do. It automates tedious and repetitive tasks, improves search, increases delivery speeds, and saves time and money, all of which allow creators in any market segment to significantly up-level the quality of their content. We’re so excited to give NAB attendees the first look at the future of workflow automation.”

Transfer: Strada comes preconfigured to link with Dropbox, Google Drive, and Frame.io, granting users seamless access to their media and the ability to edit within a unified interface, as well as facilitating transfers between these platforms.

Transcode: Effortlessly export metadata-rich files for editing and distribution through an intuitive interface.

Transcribe/Translate: Automatically generate searchable captions in over 100 languages.

Tag/Analyze: Automatically assign tags to objects, people, locations, and emotions, enabling advanced search and filtering capabilities.

ZEISS Nano Primes

ZEISS introduces its latest innovation, the Nano Prime Cinema Lenses, initially exclusive to E-mount. Tailored for full-frame mirrorless cameras, these Nano Primes promise unparalleled performance and cinematic aesthetics in a remarkably compact and lightweight design.

Honorable Mentions:

Atomos Sun Dragon DoP Choice AIRGLOW RED V Raptor X Red Digital Cinema Atomos Sun Dragon

Atomos brings a new level of affordability and performance to HDR lighting with their new LED, Atomos Sun Dragon. The new LED comes packed with densely arranged LEDs and delivers punchy, powerful output close to the full sun spectrum without the need for diffusion. With a 5-color LED design and precision electronic control, Sun Dragon offers unparalleled color accuracy and versatility.

The new 3cm thick and 5m long bendable LED lighting has a brightness of 2000 lumens end to end and comes with an advanced RGBAW design that incorporates five different colored diodes—red, green, blue, amber, and white—allowing for precise color mixing. It boasts a remarkable CRI of 99 and TCLI of 98 and can reproduce almost the entire sun spectrum, minimizing the need for post-production correction and saving time and resources.

DoP Choice AIRGLOW

DoPchoice has announced AIRGLOW, an Inflatable SNAPBAG for LED 1×2 Panels such as the Creamsource Vortex8 and Vortex8 Soft, ARRI Skypanel X21 and S60 Classic. AIRGLOW is an inflatable solution that was designed to create a simpler answer to booklight-style illumination. It can produce extremely soft, indirect lighting source, without hard defined shadows.

RED V Raptor X Red Digital Cinema

RED V RAPTOR X has been recently launched by RED as the industry’s first large-format cinema cameras featuring a global shutter. Demonstrations will center on RED’s Global Vision suite of tools, including Extended Highlights and Phantom Track for virtual and live productions.