First The CML Party!

I must be tired and grumpy or just getting old.

I'm really fed up with the BS that I'm supposed to swallow, and it seems to get worse every year. There are a few companies who are both showing good gear and who treat you as if you have a brain. There are more companies who have good gear and who treat you like a moron, maybe its just that they don't understand what they have or who uses it. Then of course there are the companies who have a sack of shit and truly believe it's great, or maybe they don't and are just happy to pile their BS on you. I'll be posting positive, and negative, reviews in the relevant lists.

This was just a general explosion of frustration with people who waste my time.

3D first not lot's to see, a few interesting things. First it's really nice to see that Cameron Pace are becoming sponsors of CML, I didn't realise that they were but after such a blatant plug this morning, which is something that only sponsors are allowed, I can only assume that Lucas, who knows the rules, is going to make CP sponsors, cool! I'll talk about it with him tomorrow. I'll be taking the boys round when I go to visit.

So, what was worth seeing? the ghost 3D OB truck from 3ality was cool, 4 cameras and no convergence pullers, iPad supervision, auto alignment, it's cool guys, really cool and it's the way to make a lot of TV viable. They also had the Helix prototype rig, an Atom/TS5 offspring, again great stuff and of course the bulletproof Sony F3, well that's what it looked like, an armoured version of it...

Meduza, still not quite there but closer every time I see it, today the 3ality control system for it was working perfectly, it was just a few other things that weren't. I'm sure it will get there and if they get the pricing right it'll be very popular.

Prototype auto-stereoscopic screens from Sony, 46" was pretty uncomfortable but the smaller screen worked well and the 26"? was really good.

Emotion3D software if you're here go and see it, you'll not regret it, down towards Sony close to the wall, put your back to Panasonic and walk down the side wall towards Sony, you'll come across them.

IO mini cams at up to 4K square, working with Convergent to record using the Gemini-Raw, not for now but next year...

Ikonoskop it's here, working and looking really cool, not a lot else to say except maybe AT LAST! please go and harrass them about genlock because I can see this as a cool little 3D unit.

Red, after my disappointment at Reduser last night I should have been prepared, but I thought, that was Reduser, this is Red, they wanted me last night to see them as totally different things so I gave them the benefit. I went to Red at 1pm for the news conference where I expected to see images, maybe something from the Dragon, but no, apparently I was going to get an hour long tour of the booth with Ted and my visit would be shot on a Epic and I'd get a CF card of my visit to take away with me!! WOW! thanks but no thanks, you wasted 2 hours of my life yesterday you're not getting another one that easily.

Sony F65 pictures looked great projected but guys, if you're using a semi silhouette of 4 guys against a sky please, don't insult me by cutting to a close up with perfectly exposed skin, either use fill on the wide, or expose for the sky to blow out or keep the exposure of the skin down in the close up.

Not a lot else, I'll check out the BM camera tomorrow.

I don't get the obsession with 4k, I saw some great 4k displays but none of them impressed me as much as the extended range 709 HD being shown at Arri.

Once again we are obsessed with numbers to the detriment of pictures.

OK, we need the numbers as a rough base but they have become a marketing tool in the hands of people who just don't know what they're talking about.
I don't recall going past a Kodak or Fuji both at shows in the past to be greeted with "look at the diffuse granularity values of this!" or "the RMS is incredible" or, well, you get the point, they showed pictures.

I have to scream Emperors new clothes about the BM camera, what's it good for? its a format that just doesn't work for all the lenses out there, ergonomically it's an example of something designed by a blind man with one arm tied behind his back and he probably has a bad limp as well.

Whats it for? "ah well I shot my kids holidays totally uncompressed raw"
bragging rights? just because you can make something doesn't mean you should! of course it'll sell by the million and we'll have even more "cinematographers" out there.

At least they were honest, when asked why that chip size the reply was "that's what we could get" thank you, and I mean that.

Lights of every colour under the sun and some that looked as if they came from a galaxy far far away, a few interesting ones, Photon Beard and Hive with Plasma's but so many LED lights all shouting "me too!" and all looking dire, OK a couple were fine but most were just dire. How can someone stand there and tell people how wonderful they are and what great colour response they have when every light around him is a different colour! Have these people no shame?

Lots of mini-helicopter whizzy things, again because you can...lots of accidents looking to happen.

If you didn't get to NAB this year then don't worry, some years NAB is a turning point and you can see pivotal things, some years they're kinda placeholders between pivotal events but this year really felt WTF?

Best thing there? CML party, I talked to so many people and there were bunches of people intently talking about serious things like Ira's pink stripe filters!!