NAB 2025 is a wrap – and the Winners of this 12 months’s CineD Finest-of-Present Awards for NAB have been introduced. Learn all concerning the awarded merchandise and applied sciences beneath, in addition to a full listing of nominees. 

CineD congratulates the winners of this 12 months’s CineD Finest-of-Present Awards for NAB 2025! As a reminder, we had seven classes by which producers have been invited to submit their merchandise.

CineD Finest-of-Present Awards for NAB – classes:

• AI Innovation
• Audio Tools
• Battery Innovation
• Broadcast Innovation
• Digicam
• Digicam Management & Equipment
• Digicam Assist
• Lenses
• Lighting Tools
• Screens & Recording

Now, you will need to level out that prior submission to the awards by the producers was a requirement for us to have the ability to put together and dedicate the required period of time for judging. 

However with out additional ado, listed here are our winners and nominees in every class!

AI Innovation – Winner: Eddy.ai

Earlier than you scream, “traitors,” right here’s the deal: You possibly can hate on AI, however it is not going to make it go away. We is not going to take into account merchandise or applied sciences which might be attempting to interchange creativity – we’re contemplating those which might be there to enhance it.

Bear in mind the times when our fantasies concerning the future centered round having robotic helpers that might do the work no person needed to do? This may also be prolonged to essentially the most fundamental modifying duties, the place many repetitive issues must be performed recurrently.

Seems that each of this 12 months’s nominees fall precisely on this class: the Adobe Media Intelligence and Search Panel in Adobe Premiere and Eddy.ai (hyperlink to our article). Each are designed to take over essentially the most mundane assistant editor duties and assist streamline the early, usually tedious phases of modifying.

We determined to provide the award to Eddy.ai since we see numerous potential of their method to assist with mundane modifying duties, and their integration with every kind of NLE’s makes it a flexible companion app. Congratulations! It’s also possible to try their product on their web site.

Audio Tools – Winners: Saramonic and Hollyland

A lot of nice innovation is going on within the audio area, which is why we determined to award two very totally different options catering to totally different ends of the spectrum – however equally related for impartial filmmakers or small crews.

The nominees have been Saramonic for the Saramonic K9, DJI for the DJI Mic Mini, and Hollyland for the Lark Max 2 and the Lark MS2.

Our first winner was Saramonic: The Saramonic K9 is knowledgeable audio system that transmits in a UHF band as a substitute of two.4GHz. It brings inner 32-bit float recording, timecode sync, and UHF variety to enhance sign reliability and scale back interferences. However what actually caught our consideration is its miniature Lavalier microphone (solely 3mm). In a convincing demonstration, we noticed this Lavalier surviving mud, water, flour (and extra) and nonetheless persevering with to work. Even the cable hooked up to it appeared to be distinctive within the sense that it was arduous to destroy. 
Final however not least, $999 will purchase you a package of two skilled transmitters and a single receiver, all in a compact, sturdy case. 

Our second winner is the Hollyland Lark Max 2 wi-fi audio transmission system, which consists of two senders, an on-camera receiver, in addition to a smartphone receiver. In comparison with the primary model, it has been up to date to assist 32-bit float recording contained in the transmitters. They provide an non-compulsory scorching shoe adapter that enables the receiver to speak straight with Sony cameras, so there isn’t any want to make use of the cable. What actually satisfied us was their non-compulsory wi-fi monitoring answer – over-ear headphones that hook up with the receiver, which in flip could be related to the digital camera, so you’re really listening to what’s being recorded in-camera (which is essential!). A sensible concept for monitoring that does away with the standard cable-connected headphones is very related for one-man band content material creation.

Battery Innovation

That is the one class we selected to not award this 12 months. Whereas the submission from CoreSWX for his or her Nano M-Snap Battery Packs was very strong, we felt it didn’t fairly meet the edge for an innovation award.

Broadcast Innovation – Adobe

We have been discussing if this was a greater match within the AI class, however it positively additionally suits right here: the Adobe Generative Lengthen in Premiere Professional, which helps you to add as much as two seconds of latest footage to the beginning or finish of a clip utilizing Firefly AI – helpful for smoothing transitions with out reshoots. One other time-saver for these occasions once you merely want a couple of extra frames for an edit and don’t have them. Test it out on their web site.

Digicam – Blackmagic Design

By way of Digicam Innovation, Blackmagic Design stole the present as soon as once more with the introduction of the 12K model of their PYXIS digital camera. What’s exceptional is that they managed to place this extraordinarily high-performing sensor in such a small physique. Its efficiency was evidenced by the outcomes of our Lab Take a look at of the URSA Cine 12K, which was the primary digital camera to have that very same sensor.

Different submissions on this class have been the Proton HFR digital camera, DJI Osmo Motion 5 Professional, and OBSBOT Tail 2.

Digicam Management & Equipment – DJI

That is historically a really numerous class with a variety of submissions and nominations, so it’s by no means simple to guage.

In the end, the CineD workforce agreed to award the prize to DJI for the DJI RS 4 Mini because it reveals the most important development in gimbals in a very long time due to its very convincing Clever Monitoring Module.

Different nominees on this class embrace the Hollyland Cosmo C2, the Bun-G-Ring, and the OWC Jellyfish S24 and ThunderBlade X12.

Digicam Assist – MID49 and Tilta

Additionally by no means a simple class to guage, as digital camera assist covers a broad spectrum of merchandise which might be usually troublesome to match straight. In the long run, we selected two ex aequo winners for the CineD Finest-of-Present Award for NAB within the class of Digicam Assist: MID49 for the TWIST Ball Arm, and Tilta for the Nucleus-M II.

MID49’s TWIST Ball Arm is modern as a result of within the space of “magic arms,” there’s often little magic, however this one is totally different: its friction design permits for grabbing and twisting it with out loosening a thumbscrew.

The opposite winner on this class is the Tilta Nucleus-M II, which satisfied us it was a worthy successor of Tilta’s extremely standard Nucleus M. Tilta proved that they listened to numerous buyer suggestions, addressing many ache factors of the unique system, and likewise including some actually modern capabilities to this distant comply with focus, which is obtainable at a really aggressive worth.

Different nominees on this class have been Ghost Kits for his or her Specter machine, Atomos for the ATOMOSphere cloud service, and, once more, Tilta for his or her Digital Suction Cup Monitoring Package (which lets you test the standing of as much as ten of their digital suction cups remotely – from contained in the automotive, as an illustration – to test whether or not they’re nonetheless safely hooked up).

Lenses – Laowa & DZOFILM

Lenses are all the time an attention-grabbing class, with many very totally different merchandise to select from. We determined to deal with the innovation facet right here and, ultimately, awarded two opponents with very comparable merchandise, Laowa and DZOFILM, for his or her new probe lenses. Each fashions have their benefits, however we are able to see how each corporations did job innovating on this area: each provide a wide-angle zoom, each cowl full body, and each have 360-degree variations and periscope variations obtainable.

Different nominees on this class are FUJIFILM for the Duvo™ HZK14-100mm Moveable PL Mount Zoom Lens, Blazar for the Mantis 1.33x FF Anamorphic Lens, and Beastgrip for the Beastgrip DOF Adapter Фoton.

Lighting Tools – NANLITE

Within the Lighting Tools class, we opted to go for one thing “small” and selected the NANLITE PavoTube II 6XR, which is the successor of a particularly standard tiny RGB tube mild. It’s extremely versatile, could be absolutely managed and synched remotely, and so forth. Verify the main points in our article!

Different nominees on this class embrace Godox for the MS60R/Bi, Astera for QuikSpot, NANLITE for the Evoke 5000B, and Aputure for the Storm XT52.

Screens & Recording – ASUS

On this class of the CineD Finest-of-Present Awards for NAB 2025, the ASUS ProArt Show OLED PA32UCDM satisfied us. 10-bit shade in an ultra-wide show, mixed with an important most brightness of 1,000 NITs and 240 Hz for lower than $2K, is type of an enormous deal and a exceptional achievement.

Different nominees embrace the DJI SDR Transmission system and the SWIT K15 Subject Monitor.

What do you consider this 12 months’s CineD Finest-of-Present Awards for NAB 2025? Tell us within the feedback beneath!