
NAB 2022 Perspectives: Blackmagic Design U.S. President Dan May on the Content-Creation Explosion By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Wednesday, May 25, 2022 - 8:00 am
Print This Story
In recent years, the Blackmagic Design booth at the NAB Show has been a cornerstone of the South Hall. The large, open space welcomed attendees from across the spectrum of industry professionals. This year, Blackmagic Design called the North Hall home and displayed a wide range of products and services, many born out of the pandemic. One of the key things that we saw immediately with the pandemic was that people were looking to create video, says Dan May, president, Blackmagic Design. There wasn't a lessening of video-content creation; it was an increase of video-content creation.
May says Blackmagic Design quickly saw the birth of a new kind of customer: those who were set to rely on video not only to enhance their business but to stay in business. And the Blackmagic Design products, from the ATEM live production switchers to the 4K cameras, storage, and monitors all found a place in a new eco system.
Blackmagic Cloud comprises the DaVinci Resolve 18 software package offering editing, color correction, visual effects, motion graphics, and audio postproduction.
If you were a karate instructor that no longer had kids coming into your dojo, he says, the question was, how do you get a multi-camera shoot into the dojo. Even normal corporate-video-based things needed to have video in the workplace to connect people together. And then there was media and entertainment.
With that explosion of video-content creation, products like the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera lineup (starting at $1,295 for a 4K camera) and the ATEM Mini (priced at $295) or Mini Pro found a marketplace hungry for their capabilities and price point.
You're not going to sell a lot of those users $10,000 cameras and $5,000 switchers, May explains. The increase in demand was so much that we chanced some of our product launches to broaden our offerings with things like the URSA Mini Pro or ATEM Mini Extreme.
The ripple effect of an expanding customer base over the past three years is also opening up opportunities for higher-level Blackmagic Design products, such as the ATEM Constellation 8K UHD live-production switcher.
We're at a point where people are looking to expand, May notes, and now we can help them with new products that enable them to do more and to move upstream with some of their functionality. We were very fortunate to have products and a supply chain to manage all of that fairly well.
One of Blackmagic's big stories at NAB 2022 was the Blackmagic Cloud, in particular DaVinci Resolve 18, the free software package that provides editing, color correction, visual effects, motion graphics, and audio postproduction.
We want to have people working on the same project timeline within Resolve at the same time, explains May. Someone can be creating a project in California and invite in a colorist in Florida or an editor in Vietnam. The need was driven by the pandemic, but now it's about empowerment and connecting creatives wherever they are. And, with Blackmagic Cloud, you can share a project timeline with them via cloud and then have storage solutions update media across these different projects.
A key message at NAB 2022 involved the pricing of hosting a project as well as accessing it. It's only $5 to host the project library, says May. The editor or VFX person does not have to pay $5 to log in on top of that. We're trying to steer away from everyone having to have a subscription. We're also trying to steer away from the model where you pay for a subscription whether you use it or not. If you have 20 project libraries one month and 10 the next, you pay only for those 10.
It's all part of a process that truly is focused on democratizing video.
How do I bring more people to the table? says May. It's not about taking business away from the post house. It's about getting more people trained and educated on how to use these tools. Maybe some of them will be working at that post house in 10 years, but some of them will just be able to do their own cool things using Blackmagic products. And that has always been what Blackmagic has been about.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
06/08/2026
The broadcaster's 14-race schedule begins in Iowa and ends in November with ...
06/08/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
06/08/2026
As media organizations consolidate teams, technology platforms, and content libr...
06/08/2026
Firmware updates introduce Dolby's next-generation picture engine, content-aware optimization, and new motion and ambient-light tools...
06/08/2026
TNT Sports will have wall-to-wall coverage of the upcoming FIBA Women's Bask...
06/08/2026
swXtch.io (Stand 5.MR13) has unveiled groundSwXtch for Audio over IP (AoIP), a software application that lets broadcasters and media organizations move audio in...
06/08/2026
At IBC2026, Riedel Communications (Stands: 10.A24, 10.A31, 10.A38) will bring modern media production to life with the Live Production Experience - a connected ...
06/08/2026
The first live-sports director to receive the prestigious honor, eight-time Emmy...
06/08/2026
NBC Sports will continue to present the Preakness Stakes on NBC and Peacock thro...
06/08/2026
Cobalt Digital (Stand 8.F90) continues to reinforce its commitment to delivering...
06/08/2026
Wave Central has promoted promotion Jeff Daubert to Director of Sales, Americas.
In his expanded role, Daubert will lead Wave Central's sales strategy and ...
06/08/2026
KMH Integration is expanding its ability to serve media, broadcast, and IT organizations by adding Keith Hanadel, an accomplished architect with decades of indu...
06/08/2026
Advanced Systems Group (ASG) has promoted Michele Ferreira from Vice President of its Systems Integration team to the newly created position of Chief Business O...
06/08/2026
Demonstrations will include new JPEG XS, Dolby audio, cloud-gateway, stream-processing, and distribution capabilities...
06/08/2026
The deal includes three premium mobile units, engineering personnel, existing br...
06/08/2026
Broadcast Management Group produced Amazon Prime's inaugural Obsessed Fest a...
06/08/2026
Exhibit will feature new variable-ND functionality, OLED viewfinders, remote-camera tools, and UHD production monitors...
06/08/2026
Compact full-frame E-mount lens targets sports, wildlife, and other long-range shooting applications...
06/08/2026
Live broadcast will honor Roger Federer and Mary Carillo on Aug. 29, with onsite...
06/08/2026
End-zone board receives higher-resolution LED technology and an updated Show Control system ahead of the 2026 football season...
06/08/2026
New 16- and 32-pad MIDI controllers now available
Fender have just announced that the two new performance-focused controllers that were unveiled at NAMM 202...
06/08/2026
Standalone version, performance improvements & more
Lewitt have just released a significant update for their speaker and room virtualisation software, intro...
06/08/2026
Combines celeste samples with synth engine
After launching earlier in 2026 with deFORM, ebbandflow have returned with their first sampled acoustic instrumen...
06/08/2026
SGL Carbon's consolidated sales in the first half of 2026 totaled 394.2 million, down 13.0% from the prior year (H1 2025: 453.2 million). On the one hand,...
06/08/2026
The BBC has announced casting for the forthcoming six-part series Hercule from Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited.
Joining Bluemel are Henry Ashton (A ...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
Proven offering builds on more than 20,000 live sporting events with greater automation, flexibility, and operational control
LTN , the industry leader in tran...
06/08/2026
Hornets Tech, a specialist in broadcast connectivity and IP video, is bringing a new range of encoders, decoders and an IPTV platform to IBC2026.
Broadcast in...
06/08/2026
Introducing Adobe for ChatGPT: Create, edit and get work done - all in ChatGPT
Deepti Pradeep August 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Adobe plugin in ChatGPT br...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
At IBC2026, MediaKind will make its first major appearance as a unified global powerhouse in video, showcasing one of the world's most comprehensive video i...
06/08/2026
Big Blue Marble (#5.A63) will demonstrate how its integrated technology and operational expertise help media companies scale premium services with less complexi...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research has received more than $500,000 in first-year fund...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Viruses are masters at invading our cells thanks to specialized proteins that coat their surfaces. When scientists design vaccines, they often crea...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-The brain has its own immune system, which detects threats and mounts a defense. A growing body of evidence has shown that in Alzheimer's disea...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research chemist Jin-Quan Yu has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors a scientist can achieve....
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research ranked third in the inaugural 2026 Cure Innovation Index recognizing the top-performing institutes and centers across the United S...
06/08/2026
Benjamin Cravatt, the Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology and a professor of chemis...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Dennis Burton, professor and the James & Jessie Minor Chair in Immu...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Inside every human cell, proteins are constantly being tagged with small chemical modifications after they're produced. Known as post-translati...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA-Scripps Research has established the Ian Wilson Endowed Chair, a new fa...
06/08/2026
Scripps Research's Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Science...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Professor Jin-Quan Yu of Scripps Research has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the U.K.'s national academy of sciences and ...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-For years, researchers have been hoping for vaccines that protect people against not just one strain of HIV, but every strain of the quickly mutati...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-The Calibr-Skaggs Institute for Innovative Medicines, the nonprofit...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Building the complex 3D molecules needed for new medicines has alwa...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Fentanyl and related variants of the synthetic opioid kill more Americans each year than car accidents and gun violence combined. In too-high doses...