By Gordon Meyer
P3GizmoGuy@gmail.com

I’ve always been fond of trade shows like DV Expo.  They’re good places to get up to date on new technology and industry trends, not to mention an interesting place to do some networking.  In fact, I met the esteemed Sally Kemper at last year’s DV Expo, leading to my current association with P3 Update.

I attended this year’s Expo anticipating a good deal of productivity both for my editorial and production agendas.  I couldn’t tell you if this year’s change of venue from the Burbank Marriott to the Pasadena Convention Center influenced attendance and exhibitor participation, but it did appear to me that this year’s Expo was smaller than in years past.

There were two things that really stood out for me about this year’s Expo.  One was the growing emphasis by camera manufacturers on the new breed of (relatively) low cost HD cameras.  Sony, Panasonic and JVC were all there in force showing off lines of HD cameras with pretty damn good picture quality and pricing starting well under $10,000.

What I find especially useful about these cameras over the HDV cameras that started coming out just a few years ago is the way so many of them now employ solid state memory technology like SD cards or P2 modules and record their video on QuickTime files, ready to drop right into edit systems like Final Cut Pro.  Just a few years ago when I produced a DVD launch event for Think Film, just rendering all those hours of video into my editor’s Avid system took the better part of a day at a fairly hefty hourly rate.  I love being able to save all that time (and money) by being able to just drop the files directly into an editing program.

Now I’m involved in a production where the line producer wants to use studio-grade HD cameras instead of these much less expensive ones.  Based on the output I’ve seen so far, I think it would be hard, if not impossible, for most consumers to be able to tell the difference on a simple interview show between the kind of footage shot on something like a JVC GY-HM100 and a studio grade camera.

Of course for the show I’m consulting on, there’s more involved in selecting a camera than just price and resolution.   We need something that will both generate network-caliber picture quality and enable us to sync up for a multi-camera shoot with live switching, a line cut and ISO footage.  That quest continues and I’ll keep you up to speed on what we find in our research.

The other thing that stood out for me was the increased visibility of 3D technology, especially in the conference sections.  As one of the guest speakers pointed out, 3D technology has actually been around since the late 19th century and the stereoscope.  While there were highly visible revivals of 3D motion pictures in the 1950’s and 1980’s, these turned out to be short-lived fads.  Yet hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in digital 3D technology from the production and exhibition side.  Panasonic is expected to showcase a line of 3D-ready flat screen TVs at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show featuring footage from James Cameron’s “Avatar,” a film that many in the industry think will do for 3D what “Star Wars” did for Dolby Surround Sound 30 years ago and what a half century earlier “The Jazz Singer” did for synchronized sound.

All I know is that it’s an intriguing technology and if used well can dramatically contribute to the art of cinematic storytelling.  I also know that, for now, the added costs of equipment rental and post make 3D an unlikely part of any of the projects I currently have on my production slate.  But that could easily change over the next few years.

Meanwhile, I saw a few intriguing products at DV Expo that I plan to check out and report on here.  Stay tuned.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.