Ah, Las Vegas,
Since a million people have written about this place I figured I might as well add in my eloquent two cents.
There is a strange appeal of Vegas that I can't fully explain, but it falls somewhere in the area of what it felt like when you got to stay up and watch your first R-rated movie. I always enjoy coming here an look forward to NAB. Since I am younger in my career, NAB offers a chance to see plenty of things up close and personal, as well as meet the people I follow on twitter and read about.
Landing at the Las Vegas airport I immediately sensed the presence of thousands of video people. I think many wear the same cologne or something but either way the city was all NAB. I immediately jumped into a cab and headed over to the convention center. The place was set up like an adult amusement park. There are giant booths everywhere that are emblazoned with the various logos of the big stars. Abobe, Autodesk, Sony and others have all staked their claim to a chunk of real estate amongst the massive show.
I decided to start out in South Hall this year in order to focus on Post Production. I spent a some time looking at the new Smoke improvements as well as watching a demo, and I am pretty impressed. Their Actions set-up is robust and really could speed up some of the projects I work on hands down. For NLEs that are trying to fill the gap left with FPX, they have moved into a top postion especially now that Smoke on Mac is reduced down below 4k a seat. I know that sounds like a lot in the shadow of FCPX, but for the amount of things it does I can more than justify the cost.
The rest of my day was spent chatting and checking in with some of my vendors and checking on what is coming up that will benefit my clients. We (Splice) have been working through a CatDV MAM system this past year so it was good to talk to the Squarebox team. It really is amazing what you can do in a one on one session.
My NAB has started off in full motion. I don't know how it happened but a day can get spent very quickly at the various stations. I am off for now to grab some tapas for dinner at the Aria. Please check back again or follow me on twitter for more updates.
Mark Heitke
@mheitke