A LOOK BACK AT NAB 2008
With 1,650 exhibitors to visit, an estimated 105,259 attendees (down from 111,028 last year) descended on Las Vegas last month for the 2008 NAB show. I’m curious how many of those 105,259 attendees left the show with shin injuries incurred while walking the floor. I think the powers-that-be felt we were becoming a little complacent, having last year figured out their new-math way of numbering booths, and decided to keep us on our toes — or asses, in some cases — by placing park benches down the center of the most crowded aisles in the South Hall. After day one I made sure I had my insurance card with me, just in case. Seriously, NAB, re-think this for next year. It’s hard enough walking the floor — we don’t literally need obstacles placed in our way.
So we all survived that unpleasantness, I hope, as well as the fact that Apple and Avid both sat this one out. Avid made its presence known with some user events and product news (page 14); Apple execs were roaming the floor, talking up Final Cut Server, which was announced the week prior to the show (page 8).
The Red booth, once again, had adoring fans lined up around its booth. The Red theatre was showing a reel culled from Red camera users and included all sorts of projects, such spots and music videos, as well as clips from Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming Guerrilla, a biopic about Che Guevara. The director shot footage in 4K as well as 2K anamorphic for effect. It looked good.
Red also announced new products expected to ship in early 2009. They will add two new cameras to its line. The Scarlet 3K HD camera uses Red’s new 2/3-inch Mysterium X sensor, shooting from 1-1020fps and up to 100MB/sec RedCode RAW HD, recording to dual Compact Flash cards. It will cost you $3,000. Red’s Ted Schilowitz said, smiling, “The camera will be used on feature films as well as at kids’ parties.” Also new is Epic, a 5K camera — yes, 5K — for $40,000. It’s smaller and lighter than the current Red One and users can trade those in and pay the price difference to upgrade, but Schilowitz expects most people will keep their original Red One as well as buy an Epic, or at least he hopes. It also uses the Mysterium X sensor and shoots from 1-100fps and 100MB per second of RedCode RAW and RGB to RedFlash.
Another new product is RedRay, a drive for under $1K that plays back 4K, 2K, 1080p and SD from RedDisc and Red Express. It also plays native RAW R3D files from Compact Flash.
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