NewTek’s IP Series Leads 2017 StudioDaily Prime Awards

NewTek’s IP series won top honors in the sixth annual StudioDaily Prime Awards, announced during a special presentation on the show floor at NAB. The product line was named the most outstanding, or “Best in Show,” by a panel of judges convened by StudioDaily to evaluate the best of production and post-production technology introduced during 2016.

Best in Show

Judges were impressed by NewTek’s forward-looking technology, which helps broadcasters get legacy video equipment on the network as they begin to build video-over-IP environments. “NewTek’s IP Series is an aggressive move into the control room that demonstrates how software-driven, GPU-accelerated production techniques will change the industry,” said StudioDaily Executive Editor Bryant Frazer. “Broadcasters can use IP Series hardware with NewTek’s NDI technology to put legacy equipment on the network and build out IP workflow using affordable equipment.”

The Rest of the Winners

Other StudioDaily Prime Award-winning products this year include, in post-production hardware, 1 Beyond’s EzPetaSAN modular, high-capacity shared storage system, Avid’s Nexis storage platform, Blackmagic’s Teranex AV standards converter, and Nvidia’s Quadro P6000. Winners in post-production software and services were Aspera Transfer Service, Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 12.5, Prime Focus Technologies Promo Operations, and Smartsound Software Sonicfire Pro 6.

Winners in the category of production tools were the Codex One Workflow, the Flanders Scientific BoxIO dual-channel LUT box, Imagine Products Shotput Pro 6, and the Sigma High Speed Zoom Cine Lens Line.

The judging panel included StudioDaily editors and contributors as well as input from our colleagues elsewhere in the industry. This year’s group included producer and post supervisor Nathan Adams, cinematographer Barry Braverman, producer-director Randall Dark, DP-editor-producer-director Marc Franklin, cinematographer David Leitner, and other power users who generously shared their expertise.

“Once again, the Studio Prime Awards finalists made up an impressive slate that highlighted innovative and uncompromising solutions for content creation at every scale,” Frazer said. “The winning products are those that have been ranked most highly by the judges for their feature set, innovative qualities, ease of use, and value for money. They enhance creativity as well as making good business sense.”

A full list of winners follows, with supporting quotes from the Prime Awards judging panel, along with the original slate of finalists in each category.

Best in Show

NewTek IP Series “NewTek just bridged the gap between SDI video and IP video. The IP Series builds on the company’s TriCaster expertise and extends the network to SDI devices you already own. That means IP video for broadcast makes more sense than ever. Is it disruptive? Yup. Is it the future of media production? Could be. You can’t ignore this.”

Post-Production Hardware — Prime Award Winners
	1 Beyond EzPetaSAN “1 Beyond has always made powerful, innovative products, and this is a solid, scalable SAN solution that you can customize to meet increasing workflow requirements. 6K, 8K, VR? This SAN can keep up.”
	Avid Nexis “Avid Nexis has built upon the capabilities of its ISIS platform, adding more flexibility to hardware configurations to customize capabilities to client needs. Set-up is simple, and performance is rock solid.”
	Blackmagic Teranex AV “If you’re working with SDI or HDMI, this box literally converts everything to everything for $1700. It’s amazing.”
	Nvidia Quadro P6000 “This GPU needs a lot of power, but once you get it going, you will see render time drop dramatically. If you do a lot of rendering, having one of the most powerful GPUs in the world makes a lot of sense.”
Post-Production Software and Services — Prime Award Winners
	Aspera Transfer Service “Valuable for any big company looking to move a lot of content securely and efficiently, especially if integrating via API into existing or evolving workflows. Its pricing allows companies to adopt an OPEX vs. CAPEX payment cycle, and the Aspera toolset is robust, stable, and effective in its capability to get content around the world … every single time.​”
	Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 12.5 “All hail DaVinci Resolve! With every version of resolve, Blackmagic comes closer to being the only solution editors, producers and colorists need.” “Resolve 12.5 is the industry’s best deal.”​
	Prime Focus Technologies Promo Operations: Automation and Effective Vendor Collaboration “Wow. I’m still thinking of new and impressive ways to implement this in a production and studio pipeline for versioning and automated content creation, review, approval and distribution. Absolutely a game-changer.​”
	SmartSound Software Sonicfire Pro 6 “The best tool out there for non-musicians to make great-sounding soundtracks at an affordable price. There is nothing else like it.”​
Production Tools — Prime Award Winners
	Codex One Workflow “Codex has masterminded a fantastically powerful, frictionless, ACES-compliant workflow — including storage, asset management and mezzanine file generation — to support camera formats like Alexa 65 and Red Weapon 8K from acquisition through post.”
	Flanders Scientifix BoxIO Dual-Channel LUT Box “A minimalist marvel. That it can process two discreet channels in dual mode makes it the equivalent of two LUT boxes. FSI’s first LUT box sets a new bar for what a LUT box can be.”
	Imagine Products ShotPut Pro 6 “I can’t imagine any DIT getting through a production without it. Even for facilities that ingest lots of content, it makes so much sense. No brainer. Slam dunk. Home run.”
	Sigma High Speed Zoom Cine Lens Line “The 18-35mm T2 zoom is a tour de force of modern lens technology, exhibiting no perceptible breathing of focus when zooming and maintaining extreme sharpness to the corners, even at T2.” “Can a new family of cine zooms be described as disruptive?”

STUDIODAILY PRIME AWARDS — ALL FINALISTS

Post-Production Hardware

Production

AJA Rovocam
ARRI Master Grips
ARRI SkyPanel S120
Codex One Workflow
Flanders Scientific BoxIO Dual-Channel LUT Box
Fluotec CINELIGHT 120
Fluotec VEGALUX 300 12″ 300W BiColor Tunable Motorized Zoom DMX StudioLED Fresnel
Imagine Products ShotPut Pro 6
NewTek IP Series
Sigma 50-100mm F1.8 DC HSM Art
Sigma High Speed Zoom Cine Lens Line
Sony AXS-R7 16-Bit Linear Recorder
Sony PXW-Z450 2/3-Inch Shoulder-Mount 4K Camcorder
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