OWC: https://vimeo.com/214598987

James Mathers interviews OWC Founder, Larry O’Connor to find out about several upcoming product updates including the OWC DEC, which attaches completely flush to the bottom of the 2016 MacBook Pro and allows users to extend the life and the functionality of their laptops by increasing the performance with additional flash storage and lots of connectivity.  Added benefits include up to 4 TB of additional Flash/SSD storage, an SD Card Slot/Multi-Media, a USB 3 Type A Port, Gigabit Ethernet, and the ability to add future functionalities as they are developed.

Larry also shows us the latest ThunderBay 4 which will soon have the capability of going up to 48 Terabytes and ThunderBay 6, a 6 bay solution going all way up to 72 Terabytes with extremely fast throughput and the ability via SoftRAID to host different RAID configurations on the same unit.  He also describes the upcoming Viper SSD Array with even faster capabilities, as well as a Thumbdrive that will soon grow to 1TB and a larger bus powered Envoy single SSD.  Last, but not least, Larry tells us about the Thunderbolt 3 dock with 13 ports including multiple Thunderbolt 3 ports, 4K HDMI, etc., etc., etc., all the way down to legacy Firewire 800.

Adobe: https://vimeo.com/214588326

James Mathers interviews Adobe‘s Patrick Palmer about a series of upgrades to Premiere Pro and Creative Cloud. These include a new graphics and titling collaboration tool known as Motion Graphics Templates, as well as an easy workflow for filmmakers to contribute and market their stock footage through Adobe Stock.

Avid: https://vimeo.com/214601647

Avid’s Dave Colantuoni gives an update on news coming out of Avid Connect, their annual trade show before the trade show. Of course, Avid is moving headlong into cloud computing and a big announcement is their partnership with Microsoft. Also extremely noteworthy for Avid is the release of a FREE version of Media Composer, which will be available for download in June. It’s a somewhat simplified end-to-end post solution that is seen as a way to bring new Editors into the Avid fold and get them comfortable working with the platform. New products include an io box built in conjunction with Blackmagic Design called DNxiQ designed to aid 4K workflows with lots of connectivity options including Thunderbolt 3.

Blackmagic Design: https://vimeo.com/214588484

Blackmagic Design’s Dan May gives an update on developments to their flagship post product DaVinci Resolve, now up to version 14. Already one of the industry’s top color correction solutions, they’ve been optimizing processing speed, and adding editorial functions, and now with the latest version are including many new Audio capabilities that have been integrated following their recent acquisition of Fairlight. They’ve also enhanced their collaborative workflows allowing a large number of users working simultaneously on editorial, audio, and color. They also announced that even as they have added a lot of functions, they have lowered the price of the all inclusive Studio version to $299 and still have the somewhat less featured version available for free as a download.

Dan also touched quickly on camera developments including an optional F mount, an SSD recorder and Bluetooth control now built into the URSA Mini Pro camera.

Quantum: https://vimeo.com/215357462

Quantum’s Dave Frederick describes performance enhancements to their flagship scale-out storage solution, StorNext, especially in the area of 4K workflows. StorNext 6 can include a new all flash array known as the Xcellis Workflow Director that can handle up to 64 streams of 4K in real time and there is a new partnership with a company called Varitone to provide integrated Artificial Intelligence services for content management.