CGW Names Silver Edge Winners
This year, the staff of Computer Graphics World literally logged miles daily on the NAB trade-show floor to check out the latest and greatest offerings. Once again, there were some products that stood out from the rest, with the potential of having a major impact on the industry. These are the winners of CGW’s 2014 Silver Edge Awards, determined to be the best of show at NAB 2014.
■ HP’s Z27x and Z24x DreamColor displays
■ Autodesk’s Flame 2015
■ AJA CION production camera
■ Blackmagic Design’s Cintel film scanner
■ The Devil & Demon Strategy’s Devil and Demon supercomputers
■ AMD’s FirePro W9100 graphics card
■ Autodesk’s Flame Assist
■ Blackmagic Design’s URSA 4k camera
■ The Foundry’s Nuke Studio
■ Nvidia’s Iray Visual Computing Appliance
A comprehensive overview of these products as well as other NAB news can be found at CGW.com in the News-NAB section.
HP Unveils New DreamColor Displays
HP announced two new HP DreamColor Displays for the color-critical display market. The HP Z27x and Z24x displays for PCs and Macs feature HP’s second-generation DreamColor Engine and provide up to 1.07 billion on-screen colors, achieving color error so small that it is not discernable to the human eye. The HP DreamColor Z27x and Z24x are available for $1,499 and $599, respectively.
The Foundry Releases Modo 801
The Foundry has forged a brand-new version of Modo, its 3D content creation application. Version 801 provides even more out-of-the-box functionality, with the introduction of new features, such as Nodal Shading for complex shader building and a completely rewritten Referencing workflow for large-scene management. There are also huge updates to core content creation workflows, including animation and particles.
Blackmagic Conjures Up Camera
Blackmagic Design has unveiled Blackmagic URSA, a new high-end digital film camera designed to revolutionize workflow on set. Built to handle the ergonomics of large film crews as well as single-person use, URSA has multiple accessories built in, including a massive, 10-inch, fold-out, on-set monitor; large, user-upgradable Super 35 global shutter 4k image sensor; and internal, dual RAW and Apple ProRes recorders. The Blackmagic URSA EF model will retail for $5,995.
Devil & Demon Supercomputers Tempt Users
The Devil & Demon Strategy is making a devilish offer: supercomputers for everyone. The new product line of Devil supercomputers and fast, stand-alone, desk-side Demon workstations are custom-tuned, preconfigured systems powered with Micron components and AMD processors.