DV Expo West 2002 Show Report

by Chris Hurd

Published on Dec 15, 2002 12:00 AM
Add to My Yahoo!




Well, once again I headed west to the Land of Los Angeles, where's shirt-sleeve weather in December, with Christmas decorations everywhere even though it still feels like early Autumn outside. The occasion: the yearly gathering known as DV Expo West, four days of seminars, conferences, panels, exhibits and more devoted solely to the topic of digital video. This event is hosted by DV Magazine and its parent company, CMP Publishing. Even though it's smaller than some other major tradeshows such as N.A.B. and C.E.S., it's still a very important happening and is always well worth attending. Here are some highlights from the show floor.

DV Expo West 2002 seemed noticeably less crowded than in previous years, but there was excellent booth traffic at the Pansonic exhibit. They were positioned very close to the show floor entrance and drew a big crowd. Most everyone wanted to get a good look at the new AG-DVX100 camcorder, which has an interesting 24fps feature. Panasonic also showed a working model of their forthcoming AJ-SDX900 professional DVCPro camera, out of reach for some of us at $30,000 but definitely getting the interest of pro shooters. The AJ-HDC27 "VariCam" was there as well. It has true variable-speed frame rates and a lot of Hollywood camera operators were checking it out closely.

Canon USA had their usual "touch and try" booth layout, where you can pick up and hold any number of powered-up camcorders along the counter. There were plenty of XL1S and GL2 models for anyone to get their hands on and explore. The amazing P+S Technik Mini-35 adapter was demonstrated, which allows the use of Hollywood-style 35mm motion picture lenses on an XL1S for a unique "like film" look. Additionally, a new optical anamorphic adapter for the XL1S was on display, for wide-screen 16:9 shooting without loss of image quality. There was a similar anamorphic glass from Century Optics on the front of a GL2, and Century had their own anamorphic prototype for the XL1S in their own booth.

Sony hosted several partners in their expansive booth, showing the power of non-linear editing in various digital video formats. Adobe was demonstrating Premiere 6.5 there, and Pinnacle had an edit station in the Sony booth with their own Edition editing software. Adobe and Pinnacle of course had their own exhibits as well, but it was interesting to see them inside the Sony booth. Sony is going out of its way to show how compatible their products are with other established manufacturers of editing gear. For instance, the new Sony hard disk recorder known as the DSR-DU1 and the files it writes will be supported by Canopus, an important player in the non-linear editing field.

Speaking of non-linear editing, in addition to Canopus, Adobe and Pinnacle, Matrox was at the show as well and so was Apple, with a very large exhibit built around Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools and their other flagship software products. At the Canopus booth, I received a demonstration of their new Imaginate software. Imaginate is like a poor person='s After Effects. It's a compositing program which lets you build up layers of graphics, with the ability to move a virtual camera over and around different elements. Also coming soon from Canopus is a new version of their Xplode Pro software, which greatly enhances previous versions of this amazing 3D effects and transitions program.

Elsewhere on the floor, VariZoom Lens Controls displayed a special new zoom controller for the Panasonic AG-DVX100 camcorder. Jim Kundig of dvcaddie.com brought his DV Caddie camera support for people to try on, and JVC had their new GY-DV5000 Beyond the exhibit hall, there was a lot of other stuff going on… upstairs were panel discussions, camera seminars and more. A film festival was spread out over two nights of short comedy and drama pieces done on DV, along with music videos and animated shorts. The L.A. Final Cut Pro User’s Group had an open meeting, and there was a DV Magazine after-hours mixer where you could mingle with the writers. To top it off, at the Millennium Biltmore where most of us were staying, a full-blown 35mm film shoot was going on for the WB Network series television show “Without a Trace.” So not only did we get our fill of digital video at the Los Angeles Convention Center, but we also enjoyed a front-row seat to see Hollywood in action. See you there next year!

Chris Hurd is owner / editor and designer of DVInfo.net a popular online community for users of prosumer and professional camcorders. He lives in San Marcos, Texas, where he does event videograph including community theater, dance, raves and more.