Line Up For The Line Ups

If you haven't been to Vegas then you haven't experienced the joy of lining up. There's line ups for coffee, escalators, buses, taxis, restaurants, snack foods, you name it. At NAB the line ups continue for screenings, gadgets, lunch, more coffee, swag, appointments with sales reps, on and on. I find myself lining up to see the latest line up of product launches at every popular booth. There's a line up to listen even!

Some of the line ups:

Red is everywhere now and delivering Scarlet cameras in five to seven days and with the booth in open concept the mystique is gone. They are just there.

3D is getting much more sophisticated. The next wave of cameras and rigs makes it much more easy to shoot. Dolby and others showed 3D monitors that don't require glasses.

Augmented Reality is starting to take off. One demo I saw showed several ads that integrated AR nicely. In an ad for boots, a bootprint magazine photo, when viewed on an iPad reveals a three dimensional boot that you can fully explore by rotating the paper ad.

LED lights have matured beyond expectations and are quickly replacing florescents. Rotolight, for example, has a range of portable lights, great for documentaries that are inexpensive, superbright and very flexible. Their studio lights are completely programmable with dial-up color temperature, bluetooth remote controls over dimming and temperature plus you can chain them to each other and make any size light you want.

Mini cameras are popping out everywhere. Like the GoPro and Contour, there are numerous knock offs in every shape and size, even a camera mounted in sports sunglasses.

Open Source camera making is taking off. It is now possible to manufacture small HD cameras from off-the-shelf parts. Dozens of manufacturers are packing these in their own boxes. These are professional quality, som rigged for stereo 3D, some for action / sports rigs, some for surveillance and scientific use. Even a remote control sphere that you can control like a strange cousin to HAL.