Pics and comments from my visit to NAB today.. at DVinfo.net

Adam Burtle · April 19th, 2004, 06:51 PM

*MODS.. feel free to move this wherever is most appropriate*

**I will update this thread with more video, pics, etc throughout the week**

I dont know if anyone cares.. but for those of you who dont have the chance to attend nab, i thought i'd post some pics and talk about some of what i see this week. I didn't have a chance to take very many pics today, as I have a laundry list of stuff my company needs to buy, and today was the day where i find every booth on the list, make contact with those companies, and see if their products are better or worse than the competition.

The first booth i wanted to find, was ZGC's. I've heard nothing but good things about ZGC on here, and I have been drooling over the mini35 since i first saw video online of them. I found ZGC pretty quickly in the C-hall.. they had an HD cam, an XL1, and another cam all outfitted with Cooke and Optex lenses, and pro/mini 35 units. All three cams are aimed at a miniature set (maybe 3'x3') with model grass ,fireplace log, a stuffed squirrel/ferret, bottle of soda, sand, and some other stuff. My first disappointment came when i stood in front of the ZGC booth (maybe 2-3 feet from the XL1) for at least 10 minutes waiting for someone to talk to me, or approach me. I tried to have the "i'm ready to buy at least 1-2 mini35's but would like to try them out first" look on my face.. but apparantly it didn't work (which sucks, since I actually AM ready to pickup 2 units, i just need to justify them to my boss.. who was with me, and not happy that no one seemed to want to talk to me). All of their salespeople were busy with other customers, finished with them, and then went to help other people standing near me. I toyed with the XL1 for 5-10 minutes, still no one talked to me, and i figured 20+ minutes at one booth was long enough.

I did snap one shot of the XL1.. fitted with a 27mm Cooke S4

http://www.adamgeek.com/nab1.jpg

I'm sad to say I came back to the ZGC booth twice more throughout the day, and never could manage to speak with anyone from ZGC. I did have a 15 minute conversation with one of the optex guys though, who let me play on one of the HDcams outfitted with a 5.5mm optex wideangle periscope pens.. absolutely cool, at least for use ont he miniature set.. gave very shallow DOF from 5-10" away from the objects, and due to the length of the lens, when you pan the camera on the tripod, it doesn't seem like a tripod rotating on a single axis, but rather a crane sweep.. since the lens is soooo long. He explained to me how it uses in in-lens relay system to provide 35mm view angle and dof to the 2/3" chip camera.. but i wasn't quite clear how it did this, since he claimed it was all done optically (without the aid of GG)

Anyway, like i said earlier, i didn't have much picture taking chance today, but tomorrow, when i return to the ZGC booth i'll take some more pics there. I looked for P+S Teknic GMBH's booth, but i couldnt find it where it was supposed to be.. i'll try to look some more tomorrow.

I spoke to a guy named Walter Klassen, who makes carbon fiber vests for MK-V steadycams.. who had some really cool body mounts. His vests were absolute works of art, and I hope to demo one of the arri-rigged units tomorrow.. I watched a couple of their experienced operators for about 10-15 mins today doing various moves.. and it was absolutely artful to watch them dolly around people, and make snap movements panning the camera.

Maxell had a booth where their plasma screen demo was prohjecting 10GB disc media, 23GB, 50GB, 200GB.. and even 400GB per disc optical media.. they were saying 2006-2007 for the 400GB stuff.. holy cow@!!

Arri had a bunch of film scanners, but there were so many people crowded i didn't get a chance to look closely.

Really looking forward to playing on a smoke machine tomorrow as well. I watched a presentation on a "quantel" "eq" today.. a DI system for color grading up to (and beyond??) 4k scans, and the workt he colorist was doing (live, on a projection screen) was very impressive.. i only caught the last 2/3 or so of the demo, but I plan to watch the entire thing tomorrow. I suspect that most of the people watching the demo didnt know what color grading is, since a lot seemed to walk up, and walk off, but from what i saw today, their system seems to be about as robust as all the video i've seen of people using Lustre / collosus5d systems. He had the ability to load preset templates he had made (much like in magicbullet), and then tweak them manually, mask out certain areas to adjust luminance, saturation, etc and motion track those same areas with the masks. I didn't see what (if any) kind of keyframing it has integrated, which i'd like to talk to them about tomorrow, since it would be nice to be able to keyframe in adjustments, shifting gamma or saturation along the timeline.. as well as find out if it's built for a closed architecture, and what he total pricetag is. Actually, they had at least 2-3 other booths open doing presentations in.. and if they have other editing suites that are as effective adn tehir color grading suite seems to be, they might be a good contendor in place of a smoke or avid system for editing.

Anyway, sorry to ramble.. i don't know if anyone is even interested in what I am going to take pics of, or my impressions of various stuff.. so i guess speak up and let me know what you want to see.. i will take a bunch of pics tomorrow, but if you want to see particular stuff, I can swing by booths if i have time.. and my boss is taking thursday off, so I intend to use thursday as a chance to run around with an XL1 shooting a bunch of video of various products, so I can post some of that if anyone is interested.

Again, sorry to ramble, thanks for reading this far.. if you did haha.

Lynne Whelden · April 19th, 2004, 07:44 PM

Any HDV products you come across would be appreciated but given the dribble of news so far, I think the big guys threatened to cut JVC off at the knees if they ever, EVER pull a stunt like the HD10 again. So it's back to the molasses in January pace of developement for HDV products. Unless you can unearth some news we're missing....

Marco Leavitt · April 19th, 2004, 07:59 PM

Thanks for posting Adam. Keep it coming!

Heath McKnight · April 19th, 2004, 08:19 PM

Hey, what's the biggest day of NAB? The first, last, etc.??

heath

Adam Burtle · April 19th, 2004, 08:25 PM

OH yea.. and anyone wondering about a mini35.. a few first impressions..

1: it was virtually silent.. i had to put my ear UP TO the unit to hear any noise at all.

2: on the 7" LCD monitors they had, i could not perceive any grain at all when i turned the GG oscillator off.. i'm going to ask tomorrow if they will let me pop in a miniDV tape, for a few seconds, so i can examine the footage at home for grain etc.

Heath, I am not actually very certain what the "biggest" day is.. probably sometime mid to late week. there were at least 5 thousand people there today by my guess..

Heath McKnight · April 19th, 2004, 08:27 PM

Sorry, i'll be more specific: What's the biggest day for announcements at NAB? Last year I was following it with my film partner Jeremiah like crazy. This year, I'm much more casual about it, not sure why. Except last year I was looking forward to the HD10 (HDV) camera.

heath

Chris Hurd · April 19th, 2004, 08:33 PM

Firdst dsay ids usually the big one. Many thanks, Adam -- keep it up! Much appreciated,

Heath McKnight · April 19th, 2004, 08:41 PM

Chris,

Was the first day Sunday?

Also, are you out there? I'm pretty sure you are; you and Vegas seem pretty friendly! ;-)

heath

Graeme Nattress · April 19th, 2004, 09:44 PM

I'm posting my NAB updates at:

http://www.nattress.com/NAB.htm

More updates and more pictures tomorrow.

Graeme

John Steele · April 20th, 2004, 08:37 AM

If any of you guys pass the glidecam stand could you grab a couple of pics of the New V10 and V35?

John.

Marco Leavitt · April 20th, 2004, 11:09 AM

Hey Adam, if you're still taking requests, how about swinging by the Sound Devices booth? Their T-series recorders are supposed to be on display.

Joe Carney · April 20th, 2004, 12:50 PM

Graeme, could you possible post more info and pics about the new JVC HDV camera? Thanks in advance

Heath McKnight · April 20th, 2004, 12:52 PM

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=24821

That should answer some HDV questions.

heath

Adam Burtle · April 20th, 2004, 10:29 PM

see below for post.. i may have to break it into pieces..

Frank Granovski · April 20th, 2004, 11:15 PM

You may want to split your info post in 2, if it's that long of a thread.

April 19th, 2004, 06:51 PM	#1
Adam Burtle Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 173	Pics and comments from my visit to NAB today.. MODS.. feel free to move this wherever is most appropriate I will update this thread with more video, pics, etc throughout the week I dont know if anyone cares.. but for those of you who dont have the chance to attend nab, i thought i'd post some pics and talk about some of what i see this week. I didn't have a chance to take very many pics today, as I have a laundry list of stuff my company needs to buy, and today was the day where i find every booth on the list, make contact with those companies, and see if their products are better or worse than the competition. The first booth i wanted to find, was ZGC's. I've heard nothing but good things about ZGC on here, and I have been drooling over the mini35 since i first saw video online of them. I found ZGC pretty quickly in the C-hall.. they had an HD cam, an XL1, and another cam all outfitted with Cooke and Optex lenses, and pro/mini 35 units. All three cams are aimed at a miniature set (maybe 3'x3') with model grass ,fireplace log, a stuffed squirrel/ferret, bottle of soda, sand, and some other stuff. My first disappointment came when i stood in front of the ZGC booth (maybe 2-3 feet from the XL1) for at least 10 minutes waiting for someone to talk to me, or approach me. I tried to have the "i'm ready to buy at least 1-2 mini35's but would like to try them out first" look on my face.. but apparantly it didn't work (which sucks, since I actually AM ready to pickup 2 units, i just need to justify them to my boss.. who was with me, and not happy that no one seemed to want to talk to me). All of their salespeople were busy with other customers, finished with them, and then went to help other people standing near me. I toyed with the XL1 for 5-10 minutes, still no one talked to me, and i figured 20+ minutes at one booth was long enough. I did snap one shot of the XL1.. fitted with a 27mm Cooke S4 http://www.adamgeek.com/nab1.jpg I'm sad to say I came back to the ZGC booth twice more throughout the day, and never could manage to speak with anyone from ZGC. I did have a 15 minute conversation with one of the optex guys though, who let me play on one of the HDcams outfitted with a 5.5mm optex wideangle periscope pens.. absolutely cool, at least for use ont he miniature set.. gave very shallow DOF from 5-10" away from the objects, and due to the length of the lens, when you pan the camera on the tripod, it doesn't seem like a tripod rotating on a single axis, but rather a crane sweep.. since the lens is soooo long. He explained to me how it uses in in-lens relay system to provide 35mm view angle and dof to the 2/3" chip camera.. but i wasn't quite clear how it did this, since he claimed it was all done optically (without the aid of GG) Anyway, like i said earlier, i didn't have much picture taking chance today, but tomorrow, when i return to the ZGC booth i'll take some more pics there. I looked for P+S Teknic GMBH's booth, but i couldnt find it where it was supposed to be.. i'll try to look some more tomorrow. I spoke to a guy named Walter Klassen, who makes carbon fiber vests for MK-V steadycams.. who had some really cool body mounts. His vests were absolute works of art, and I hope to demo one of the arri-rigged units tomorrow.. I watched a couple of their experienced operators for about 10-15 mins today doing various moves.. and it was absolutely artful to watch them dolly around people, and make snap movements panning the camera. Maxell had a booth where their plasma screen demo was prohjecting 10GB disc media, 23GB, 50GB, 200GB.. and even 400GB per disc optical media.. they were saying 2006-2007 for the 400GB stuff.. holy cow@!! Arri had a bunch of film scanners, but there were so many people crowded i didn't get a chance to look closely. Really looking forward to playing on a smoke machine tomorrow as well. I watched a presentation on a "quantel" "eq" today.. a DI system for color grading up to (and beyond??) 4k scans, and the workt he colorist was doing (live, on a projection screen) was very impressive.. i only caught the last 2/3 or so of the demo, but I plan to watch the entire thing tomorrow. I suspect that most of the people watching the demo didnt know what color grading is, since a lot seemed to walk up, and walk off, but from what i saw today, their system seems to be about as robust as all the video i've seen of people using Lustre / collosus5d systems. He had the ability to load preset templates he had made (much like in magicbullet), and then tweak them manually, mask out certain areas to adjust luminance, saturation, etc and motion track those same areas with the masks. I didn't see what (if any) kind of keyframing it has integrated, which i'd like to talk to them about tomorrow, since it would be nice to be able to keyframe in adjustments, shifting gamma or saturation along the timeline.. as well as find out if it's built for a closed architecture, and what he total pricetag is. Actually, they had at least 2-3 other booths open doing presentations in.. and if they have other editing suites that are as effective adn tehir color grading suite seems to be, they might be a good contendor in place of a smoke or avid system for editing. Anyway, sorry to ramble.. i don't know if anyone is even interested in what I am going to take pics of, or my impressions of various stuff.. so i guess speak up and let me know what you want to see.. i will take a bunch of pics tomorrow, but if you want to see particular stuff, I can swing by booths if i have time.. and my boss is taking thursday off, so I intend to use thursday as a chance to run around with an XL1 shooting a bunch of video of various products, so I can post some of that if anyone is interested. Again, sorry to ramble, thanks for reading this far.. if you did haha.

April 19th, 2004, 08:19 PM	#4
Heath McKnight MPS Digital Studios Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Palm Beach County, Florida Posts: 8,531	Hey, what's the biggest day of NAB? The first, last, etc.?? heath __________________ My Final Cut Pro X blog

April 19th, 2004, 08:27 PM	#6
Heath McKnight MPS Digital Studios Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Palm Beach County, Florida Posts: 8,531	Sorry, i'll be more specific: What's the biggest day for announcements at NAB? Last year I was following it with my film partner Jeremiah like crazy. This year, I'm much more casual about it, not sure why. Except last year I was looking forward to the HD10 (HDV) camera. heath __________________ My Final Cut Pro X blog

April 19th, 2004, 08:33 PM	#7
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Firdst dsay ids usually the big one. Many thanks, Adam -- keep it up! Much appreciated, __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

April 19th, 2004, 08:41 PM	#8
Heath McKnight MPS Digital Studios Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Palm Beach County, Florida Posts: 8,531	Chris, Was the first day Sunday? Also, are you out there? I'm pretty sure you are; you and Vegas seem pretty friendly! ;-) heath __________________ My Final Cut Pro X blog

April 19th, 2004, 07:44 PM	#2
Lynne Whelden Major Player Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: williamsport, pa Posts: 604	Any HDV products you come across would be appreciated but given the dribble of news so far, I think the big guys threatened to cut JVC off at the knees if they ever, EVER pull a stunt like the HD10 again. So it's back to the molasses in January pace of developement for HDV products. Unless you can unearth some news we're missing....

April 19th, 2004, 07:59 PM	#3
Marco Leavitt Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Albany, NY 12210 Posts: 2,652	Thanks for posting Adam. Keep it coming!

April 19th, 2004, 08:25 PM	#5
Adam Burtle Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 173	OH yea.. and anyone wondering about a mini35.. a few first impressions.. 1: it was virtually silent.. i had to put my ear UP TO the unit to hear any noise at all. 2: on the 7" LCD monitors they had, i could not perceive any grain at all when i turned the GG oscillator off.. i'm going to ask tomorrow if they will let me pop in a miniDV tape, for a few seconds, so i can examine the footage at home for grain etc. Heath, I am not actually very certain what the "biggest" day is.. probably sometime mid to late week. there were at least 5 thousand people there today by my guess..

April 19th, 2004, 09:44 PM	#9
Graeme Nattress RED Problem Solver Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 1,365	I'm posting my NAB updates at: http://www.nattress.com/NAB.htm More updates and more pictures tomorrow. Graeme __________________ www.nattress.com - filters for FCP

April 20th, 2004, 08:37 AM	#10
John Steele Major Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Scotland, UK Posts: 216	If any of you guys pass the glidecam stand could you grab a couple of pics of the New V10 and V35? John.

April 20th, 2004, 11:09 AM	#11
Marco Leavitt Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Albany, NY 12210 Posts: 2,652	Hey Adam, if you're still taking requests, how about swinging by the Sound Devices booth? Their T-series recorders are supposed to be on display.

April 20th, 2004, 12:50 PM	#12
Joe Carney Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Centreville Va Posts: 1,828	Graeme, could you possible post more info and pics about the new JVC HDV camera? Thanks in advance

April 20th, 2004, 12:52 PM	#13
Heath McKnight MPS Digital Studios Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Palm Beach County, Florida Posts: 8,531	http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=24821 That should answer some HDV questions. heath __________________ My Final Cut Pro X blog

April 20th, 2004, 10:29 PM	#14
Adam Burtle Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 173	see below for post.. i may have to break it into pieces..

April 20th, 2004, 11:15 PM	#15
Frank Granovski Outer Circle Join Date: May 2002 Location: Hope, BC Posts: 7,524	You may want to split your info post in 2, if it's that long of a thread.