IBC/ BUT 2011

so, I'm probably the only guy in the biz who has gone to the Netherlands three years in a row for both IBC in Amsterdam and The BUT Film Festival in Breda. There's not too many other people around who need to see the new Sony/Panasonic/Red/ whatever and then take a train an hour south and watch a John Waters/Jorg Buttereit or Nick Nedd film. This year I was doing triple duty by carrying around a camBLOCK Pan and Tilt motion control system in my satchel and doing adhoc demo's on the IBC show room floor as well as shooting some timelapse shots at the Film Fest.

Here's a few quick highlights: AJA had a good slew of solid product announcements including the IO XT - the portable IO for Thunderbolt with Loop through! its shipping in Q4.

AJA also demo'd a new (free!) software gui called CONTROL ROOM that will make it easy to deal with video in, out and convert and (soon to be playlists?!) in this multi-software-the-same-machine-wtf-do-i-do-with-FCPX-new-world.

Also on the thunderbolt front was Sonnet, who are inching closer to shipping the plethora of devices they announced at NAB. This one is particularly cool :

its a 1RU Mac mini chassis that has room for the Sonnet Thunderbolt to PCIE box that will hold your full lane card. This is how you make an Xserve in 2011/2012.

Panasonic previewed another hand-held Stereo 3D camcorder, the HDC-Z10000. This one will come in at about $3500 (vs $22K for the 3DA1) It does not have dual HD-SDI like the 3DA1 - other comparisons forthcoming, but this could be the compact stereo cam that finally makes a dent in the predator market.

and, RED showed their Epic with an EF mount that controls Iris and everyone gathered around to bow down to it. Cumon Panasonic - make one of these for the AF100!

Tangent Devices wins the award for the coolest looking booth. Its a castle! oh, and the also previewed a new line of modular control interfaces called Element. The Element's should hopefully be ready for Resolve, Scratch and Color (?, RIP) and others by the time they ship.

Sachtler wins the award of tricking me into learning about new tripods by way of free Toblerone. The new ACE tripod does look pretty slick and affordable.

The Sony HXR-NX70 is already a shipping product. Somehow I missed the spec before about it being rain and dust proof. Pretty cool!

hey kids! this is a film flat bed! you can use it to edit and view 35mm and 16mm film and yes companies are still making and marketing them! This unit is made by Kinoton.

This is James Cameron and Vincent Pace talking about how awesome 3D is and why you should hire them on your next big budget Stereo shoot.

The Netherlands in Sept is the only place in the world where you can see hollywood giants like Cameron on stage and then an hour later see underground film legends like Nick Zedd.

(Cameron screened a future movie of Cirque Soleil with some impressive stereo effects with RealD and Christie Digital rigs. Zedd screened a ton of stuff at the BUT, including an insanely analog triple 16mm film with cassette tape non-sync audio experimental film.)

This is how you park your bike in Holland.

oh yeah! and here's the movie that me and Clay Liford were at the BUT showing. WUSS! We need to make another movie stat so we can go back next year.