APB for DSE

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Please be on the virtual look out for Spot...

CES has come and gone and we haven't heard a word from our Dropzone.com correspondent on latest, greatest, newest or cheeiest gizmos that make our life easier - or in my case, exceedingly more frustrating...

Was it that uneventful or is he maybe passed out under one of the tables in the Sony hospitality suite??

C'mon...we're jones'n for our hi-tech fix!!

[DSE 3]

I only did a webinar for Sony/Panasonic on AVCHD this time around.... We have a lot going on here, and I was grateful to only have to do this from our local studio. First CES floor I've missed in a LONG time. The "in/out urge" sucks, but strangely enough, PIA holds more priority than CES, but more on that in a couple of weeks.

I only attended a private pre showing of a new Canon vid cam (and saw some sweetness from the 5DMKII) but didn't get to stick around for the actual floor show, and spent time kissing up to the Sony guys to keep the relationships sweet over the next year.
....a lot of skydivers were seen in my webinar presentation, 'specially a bunch of folks from Sebastian. It's always funny to hear the comments about "squirrel suits" and this year there were a lot of questions about sugar gliders. I didin't realize they'd become so popular.

With Exmor being now released in all consumer cams from Sony, and with Sony not OEM'ing IS from Canon for all models...most of what I know was released is announced for y'all to see.
Exmor is da' bomb. Low noise, high sensitivity, great dynamic range, and now that volume is up...they're CHEAP. And...dunno if it's true, but was told that we can expect prices to actually be lower than pre-announcement prices due to scheduled manufacturing runs and consumer expectancy. I hope this is true.

Many were expecting to see a lot or at least a number of higher bitrate cams...it obviously didn't happen. Faster cards, wireless SD cards, and some new crappy mini-MPEG4 cams showed up, but since I didn't walk the floor, most of my knowledge of what came out is from the same sources as some of you here discovered, plus some "top-secret" podcast stuff from manufacturers. Still under NDA on those for some stupid reason.

Canon has some sweet new cams, still OIS. Panny has a single new cam that I think is decent, but the glass I saw a month or so ago didn't impress me...Canon has it going on if they didn't have such an aggressive OIS. Sony released a couple EIS models, and I have not been permitted to jump with them. However, the MC1 (which a number of people saw at Sebastian this past month) really did do well, and expect to see more in this vein from Sony Broadcast.
A couple of years ago, I mentioned here that AVCHD was gonna take over DV...it's complete. No one announced a DV camcorder that I'm aware of.
There are two people active in this community that were on the floor; I talked to one and he sent me some vid from a camera I thought was promising. It wasn't.
Sony still rules the roost, IMO...I'm waiting for one of their new products to arrive that is exclusive to a major chain; if it does what I'm told it does...we'll have a new ace up our sleeve very soon (mid summer/August). The product was not shown on the show floor. If you'll be at NAB, I'll likely be able to arrange a private showing.
BTW...remember last year when I commented on OLED? What a difference a year makes. Saw my first real "video Tshirt" too. Creepy.
Anyway...sorry to disappoint!! But I did give you some fluff n' puff in this post, right?

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Thanks Spot,

All the hype (or non hype) leading up to CES seemed to indicate that the key players were backing down from major launches due to 'the current economic crisis'.

Did you get any sense of that, or are they maybe using this as a chance to catch their breath and see how the markets might drive the products, rather than the other way around...

So with HD DVD ending at CES 2008 and DV ending at CES 2009, wonder what's in store for 2010?

Please tell me Beta is on it's way back...that way, I can justify that Sony Super Beta that I've been lugging around every move for the past 20 years!!