NAB: Blackmagic Design today announced Intensity Pro, a new high quality video capture and playback card for professional videographers.

Intensity Pro is the first card to combine HDMI capture and playback with the wide compatibility of analog component, NTSC, PAL and S-Video and analog audio capture and playback. It enables users to capture directly from the HD camera’s image sensor, bypassing the video compression chip for true uncompressed video quality. Now users can go beyond the quality limits of HDV for editing, design and authoring with Intensity Pro.

“We think with the combination of HDMI and analog on a single PCI Express plug in card at a very affordable $349 will change the lives of thousands of professional videographers,” says Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “Intensity Pro’s new analog compatibility, combined with HD up and down conversion real time processing, allows videographers to now edit in either SD or HD, while keeping compatibility with older equipment and their archived video footage.” (more…)

At a press conference at 3GSM World Congress, Texas Instruments demonstrated the industry’s first application processor to play back 720p high-definition video for high-end mobile phones.

The OMAP3430 solution is also the first application processor to integrate the newly-defined OpenGL ES 2.0 graphic standard, bringing “life-like” 3D graphics to the handset and creating a mobile gaming experience comparable to today’s handheld gaming devices. In addition, TI introduced two new members of the scalable OMAP 3 processor family that will help handset manufacturers provide smartphones with robust multimedia functionality at a lower cost. (more…)

The market for digital media routers appears to be heating up. Apple is expected to introduce its iTV this coming week at MacWorld, Microsoft is rumored to be adding IPTV to the XBox 360, and NetGear has introduced its Digital Entertainer HD media router.
Engadget reports that the Xbox 360 will soon be able to double as a set-top box for Internet Protocol Television.

NetGear, a networking products provider, has introduced the Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000), a wireless networking router designed to bring the digital media to television sets. NetGear made its introduction a week before MacWorld Expo, where Apple is expected to introduce its own wireless media router, the “iTV”.
NetGear’s digital media receiver offers lets high-definition televisions display media files and Internet content streamed from Windows as well as Mac computers, network storage devices and USB media devices.

Apple is expected to introduce the iTV at Macworld Expo this week. The iTV is expected to feature USB, Ethernet and 802.11 wireless networking, HDMI, Component Video, S/PDIF digital optical audio and RCA analog stereo audio connectors.

Mark Cuban, at his Blog Maverick site, makes the case that HDTV is an Internet video killer, and that it will save network TV:

HDTV is the Internet video killer. Deal with it. Internet bandwidth to the home places a cap on the quality and simplicity of video delivery to the home, and to HDTVs in particular. Not only does internet capacity create an issue, but the complexity of moving HDTV streams around the home and tp the HDTV is pretty much a deal killer itself. Together, internet video is destined for the PC monitor for a long time to come. The only wild card that will have an impact is gaming consoles, but they dint offer access to internet video, they all kill themselves by only offering access to content inside their walled gardens. Internet video won’t replace TV. It wont even complement TV offerings. It will flourish in the office. It will be a fun way to share personal content privately or publicly. It will be Community Access TV.

On the flip side, HDTV is here and now. Its gone from being a future technology that could be cool in our living room to being the King of this holiday shopping season. 10s of millions of HDTVs have been sold and will be sold in the next year. The number of households with HDTVs is exploding. Yet for reasons I cant figure out, the broadcast networks are ignoring the opportunity it presents.

The 4 broadcast networks are really the only 4 companies that create content on a daily basis that can put smiles on the faces of all those HDTV buyers. They broadcast most of their prime time signals over the air and have the greatest reach on cable and satellite HD delivery.

While Cuban makes an interesting point, he ignores the fact that people’s attention is moving away from TV to Internet video and video podcasts despite the fact that Internet video usually looks crappy.

Problems with resolution and file size will be relatively easy to solve, compared to network tv’s dependency on intrusive advertising.

“Dan Rather Reports,” a new weekly news program produced and hosted by well-known broadcast journalist Dan Rather, will make its world premiere on HDNet Tuesday, November 14 at 8:00 p.m. ET, it was announced today by Mark Cuban, Chairman and Co-founder of HDNet. The show marks the return of Rather to television news, with his distinguished record as a premier news journalist.

HDNet is the first national television network broadcasting all of its programming in 1080i HD, the highest-quality format of high-definition television (HDTV). All HDNet original programming is HD-DVR compatible, allowing viewers to pause and time-delay shows so that they can watch them when they want.

According to HDNet, the show will feature hard-edged field reports, in-depth interviews and investigative pieces that emphasize accuracy, fairness and guts in their reporting. The program will cover topics including, but not limited to, politics, the environment, the global economy, and international affairs and conflicts.
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