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In other news: Apps, lights & recorders

Autoscript I-Plus iPad app, Lowel’s many heads make light work’ Maxell portable hot-swappable media recorder, and nano3D starts shipping.

Prompting: There’s an app for that…
Autoscript is launching a software App for Apple’s iOS-powered mobile devices. “We have been looking at how we could use the iPhone, iPod Touch and, more recently, the iPad, in a prompting environment. Although there are a number of very basic Apps in this area, we wanted to offer a system the Autoscript way,” explained its Managing Director, Brian Larter.

The new I-Plus App will interface to its WinPlus News or Studio software (or any of the main newsroom computer systems) and allow downloading or transfer of scripts or running orders directly to the device. This means that a WinPlus System could send a script to a reporter on location, anywhere in the world. The App will be available on the App store for download from mid September. Autoscript is also offering scroll controls and lightweight through the lens mounts for the system.

Also at IBC, Autoscript will have enhancements to its LED range of TFT On-Camera units, giving better performance and features, and new features for WinPlus including a realtime prompt preview on a PC laptop, negating the need for a preview monitor.

www.autoscript.tv


SoftCore quick-change artist turns heads

Lowel has announced two new lights: the versatile, multi-headed SoftCore and the easily portable Trio three-lamp fluorescent fixture.

The SoftCore is essentially an accessory for video softboxes that folds out to attach to a stand or boom. Users have a choice of three quick-change lampheads that hold one, three or five Edison-base screw-threaded fluorescent lamps in individually switched sockets to provide variable light output. It has a unique four-arm system that expands to quickly hook onto softboxes, and a simple rotation lock for positioning.

Used with Lowel’s new 80-Watt fluorescent lamps, it delivers soft, constant daylight with a high colour rendering index of 90+, for accurate colour representation For use with larger lampheads and softboxes, it accepts a counterweight arm system for balance on larger stands.

The Lowel Trio uses three high CRI daylight or tungsten 55W lamps, and folds to a slim, easy-to carry package. The three lamps are individually switched to control the light output. Its mounting system keeps the light balanced over the stand while allowing a full range of tilting positions.

www.lowel.com

Maxell recorder for budget camcorders
Maxell Europe has introduced a new rugged field capture recorder. The pocket-sized iVDR VC102 records on to a removable iVDR disc cartridges (up to 500GB), and supports DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD & HDV, QuickTime and AVI. It is based on Shining Technology’s CitiDISK tapeless video recorder, but using Maxell’s removable media, and captures via FireWire.

Features include: loop recording, hot-swappable cartridges, and plug-and-play use with nonlinear editors.

Maxell has also expanded its range of recordable media, offering: new XD Cam discs (single layer 23GB and dual layer 50GB); P2 E series media cards; and LTO5 Data Tape for archiving, with capacities up to 3TB.

www.maxell.eu.com

Tiny nano3D recorder starts shipping
Convergent Design has begun shipping limited numbers of its nano3D, which it claims is “the world’s smallest, lightest-weight, lowest-power 3D recorder.” It combines two of its nanoFlash recorders, plus additional software to enable frame synchronized recording and playback with side-by-side combining. 

The nano3D supports I-Frame-Only recording at bit-rates up to 280Mbps with external time-code (LTC) input. It records two independent QuickTime/MXF files (left and right) on to two separate Compact Flash cards. The results can be loaded into Avid, FCP, Premiere, Vegas or Edius for creation of the final 3D movie. A few of its features aren’t full enabled yet, but will be in the next few weeks.

Convergent Design has now sold more than 2,000 of its small nanoFlash recorders. These are being used for a wide range of documentaries and other programmes, as well as commercials, particularly in extreme environments or confined spaces.

Users of Premiere Pro CS5 have noticed some problems synching audio from some nanoFlash files (as they have with some camcorders). This has apparently been fixed and will be part of an upcoming CS5 update. CS5 users will then have native support for all nanoFlash MXF files in both Long-GoP and I-Frame codecs, at all bit-rates.

convergent-design.com/