CineD Best-of-Show Award for NAB 2024 Winners – Blackmagic Design, Blazar, Core SWX, DJI, DoPchoice, Strada

AwardNAB 2024

by Nino LeitnerApril 19^th, 2024

The Winners of this year’s CineD Best-of-Show Awards for NAB have been announced. Read all about the awarded products and technologies below, as well as a full list of nominees.

CineD congratulates the winners of this year’s CineD Best-of-Show Awards for NAB 2024! As a reminder, we had seven categories in which manufacturers where invited to submit their products:

• Cameras
• Camera Support, Control, and Accessories
• Audio Equipment
• Lighting Equipment
• Lenses
• AI Innovation
• Streaming, Remote Production & Cloud Workflows

Now this is important to point out, for the first time prior submission to the awards by the manufacturers was a requirement, in order for us to be able to prepare and dedicate the required amount of time for judging.

But without further ado, here are our winners and nominees in each category!

Cameras – Nominees and Winner for CineD Best-of-Show for NAB 2024

Cameras – Nominees

• Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
• Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K
• DJI Avata 2
• RED V-Raptor [X]

Cameras – Winner

The CineD Best-of-Show Award in this category goes to the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K for camera innovation. We particularly liked innovative ideas around the camera assistant’s side, including a dedicated 5 inch monitor and particularly the lens data being displayed. Machine learning (AI) is used to measure and then display the focal and iris range. For more information, please watch our video interview with Craig Heffernan from Blackmagic Design below.

Camera Support, Control, and Accessories – Nominees and Winners for CineD Best-of-Show for NAB 2024

Camera Support, Control, and Accessories – Nominees

• Angelbird / Kondor Blue CFExpress B Recording Module
• Angelbird / Kondor Blue SD Recording Module
• Angelbird AV Pro CFexpress B SE 1 TB
• Atlas Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A
• Bebop MLmicro
• Core SWX Hypercore G3
• Core SWX PD Pro Connection
• Core SWX Powerbase Edge Snap
• DJI Focus Pro / RS4
• Hollyland Pyro 7
• Hollyland Pyro S
• iFootage Cobra 3 Strike Monopod
• Kinefinity Electronic Viewfinder
• Libec TH-V
• Shape Power Station 15000 Basecamp
• Tilta Khronos Ecosystem for iPhone
• ZEISS Cinecraft Scenario

We are aware that we ended up having too many different entries in this category, and will be more granular with additional sub-categories in our next round of Best-of-Show Awards. In order to make up for this at least a little bit, we decided to select 2 winners instead of 1 in this category.

Camera Support, Control, and Accessories – Winners

We selected the DJI Focus Pro ecosystem as one of the two winners, for best camera support innovation. Expanding their LiDAR technology beyond their own Ronin 4D / RS3/4 ecosystems means that essentially now many camera systems can take advantage of getting autofocus capabilities on manual cinema lenses, which is going to start a revolution for many solo shooters and also make critical focus more accessible to creators of all kinds.

The second winner is in a much smaller niche, it’s the Core SWX PD Pro Power Connection. To learn more about it, head over to the article or watch the video, but basically it solves a problem that left many, many cameras damaged over the last few years, and this is worth a recognition because it makes camera operators’ and assistants’ lives much easier – and safer on set.

Audio Equipment – Nominees and Winner for CineD Best-of-Show for NAB 2024

Audio Equipment – Nominees

• DJI Mic 2
• Hollyland Lark M2
• Rycote BD-10
• Rycote Nano Shield kit

Audio Equipment – Winner

We award the DJI Mic 2 the CineD Best-of-Show Award for NAB 2024 in the audio equipment category. It’s the most complete solution for low-budget audio transmitters, and includes 32-bit float internal recording in the transmitters as backup, which makes the lives of creators much easier. The charging dock makes usage very intuitive and uncomplicated, and it is already finding its way into many creators’ hands.

Lighting Equipment – Nominees and Winner for CineD Best-of-Show for NAB 2024

Lighting Equipment – Nominees

• Aputure INFINIMAT
• Aputure Sidus Link Pro iOS App
• Aputure Sidus One
• DoPchoice SNAPBAG AIRGLOW

Lighting Equipment – Winner

The CineD team decided to go with the “underdog” from the submitted products in the lighting category, and awards the CineD Best-of-Show Award for NAB 2024 for lighting to DoPchoice for the SNAPBAG AIRGLOW, an accessory to 1×1 or 2×1 fixtures that will bounce and diffuse the light at the same time, and thereby create a beautiful soft light that otherwise takes much longer to achieve.

Lenses – Nominees and Winners for CineD Best-of-Show for NAB 2024

Lenses – Nominees

• Blazar Cato 2x Anamorphic Series
• Blazar Remus 1.5x Anamorphic Series
• DZOFILM Arles Prime Series
• FUJINON Duvo HZK24-300mm Portable PL Mount Zoom
• Laowa Ranger Compact Cine Zoom S35 Series
• Module 8 Tuner
• SIGMA 15mm f/1.4 DG DN Diagonal Fisheye
• SIGMA 50mm f/1.2 DG DN Art lens
• ZEISS Nano Prime Lenses

Lenses – Winner

Another category with lots of different entries that are hard to compare, which is why we will introduce sub-categories next time around. Yet judging from a position of the “indie filmmaker”, we looked at the level of innovation here, and decided that the Blazar Cato 2x anamorphic series are most worthy of this year’s award, since they are affordable anamorphic lenses “with a character”. I’ve been testing their Blazar Remus 1.5x anamorphic lenses for the last few months on a feature documentary project (and they have also been nominated), and I consider them the most “cinematic” looking budget anamorphics. From what we have seen at NAB, the Cato 2x anamorphic lenses build on top of that look.

AI Innovation & Streaming / Remote Production / Cloud Workflows – Nominees and Winners for CineD Best-of-Show for NAB 2024

Nominees

• DaVinci Resolve 19
• Strada
• Hedge PostLab 2.0

Winners

We award DaVinci Resolve 19 the award for AI Innovation since we see it introduces some of the smartest workflow-enhancing AI features that we’ve seen in an NLE yet.

In the field of Cloud Workflows, we award Strada our Best-of-Show Award for NAB 2024 because of its “fresh thinking” in marking cloud workflows more streamlined and time-saving, and thereby increasing productivity. We see a lot of potential with Strada’s ideas for further development in this field. A new interview about Strada from NAB is going to be published in the coming days.

What do you think of this year’s CineD Best-of-Show Awards for NAB 2024? Let us know in the comments below!