I had the plan to do a quick update on the best stuff I saw for the day in and around NAB 2008. On Monday I wrote about Sunday’s Avid event. On Tuesday I posted a few quick thoughts on some cool stuff I saw on Monday. But on Wednesday I was laid up in bed with what I can only describe as food poisoning after taking in the More buffet at the Luxor. I think the more appropriate name would be More Disgusting as two of us in the party got sick. It took me out of commission for the keynote from Stu Maschwitz “A Million Dollar Look on a Thousand Dollar Budget!” as well as the LA FCPUG Supermeet. Needless to say I was not happy as the FCP Supermeet was one of the main reasons I was excited to go at all! But I did see some good stuff on Tuesday.

The day started at the Photoshop for Video workshop that brought a whole new use for Photoshop CS3 into my world, animation! Then came an early afternoon meeting with several representatives from Avid. We discussed their New Thinking campaign as well as their new product announcements. We’ll discuss this further in future posts as there is a lot to chew on and I’m still putting my thoughts together on Avid’s new direction. I will say that there seems to be a real openness with Avid that has never been there before. It’s refreshing.

People mention (me included) Avid and Apple not being at NAB 2008 but that turned out not to be true at all. Avid had off-site events and meetings galore and their products had a presence at over 25 booths on the show floor. Of course Final Cut Pro was all over the place also as well as a couple of installs of Final Cut Server. You weren’t really allowed to demo Final Cut Server as I got kicked off of one of those installs as I tried to play with it. This is probably a good thing since those first few clicks and drags were very sluggish and non-responsive. I did see some presentations of the software elsewhere that week and those seemed to be better. But isn’t that usually the case with a demo presentation?

The strangest Apple moment of the week came as I got on the elevator of a hotel across the street from the Las Vegas convention center to leave the Avid meeting. I had noticed an Apple representative sitting in the hotel lobby where Avid was having their meetings. There on the elevator was a colleague of mine and a guy with an NAB lanyard around his neck that said: person’s name > Apple > Cupertino, CA > Exhibitor. I first said that I was surprised as I thought they weren’t attending. No response. I then directly asked (in a very polite way) what Apple was exhibiting and doing at the show. Still no response. My colleague stated that he had been trying to get that information since the top floor. I then proceed to explain that I have been a Final Cut Pro user since version 1.0, still actively use it on a near daily basis as well as write/blog about it, editing and post production. The gentleman finally let out the most brief sliver of information that they were demoing Final Cut Server and some other stuff. Then silence. Again, in the most polite was possible, I asked if there was a way I could get an appointment myself. Again, silence (along with a bit of a smirk). I was a bit dumbfounded as well as feeling like an idiot. The doors to the elevator then opened and out the Apple guy went. I think we all know that Apple is very hush-hush on unannounced products but there was Apple at what I think is the largest broadcast trade show in the world doing something. Here was a media person with a media badge asking about and wanting to cover what they are doing and basically being ignored. I have been ignored before and I’m sure it will happen again but I would at the very least have expected the gentleman just to give me a polite response that the meetings were for invited guests only or that all their slots had been filled up or something … other than silence. Anyone who has followed Apple for any length of time knows that other than making good products, the company really doesn’t care much about their customers or what they want anyway so I guess it really doesn’t surprise me as to the reaction I got. Oh well.

The afternoon on the show floor saw a return to the huge camera displays in the Sony, Canon and B&H Photo booths. The RED booth finally didn’t have a line so I checked out the big hunks of aluminum under glass that are the Scarlet and Epic cameras they announced at the show. I got a great demo of very tight integration between Final Cut Pro and Quantel’s eQ via Automatic Duck and the Quantel Quattro software update. This is a big update for iQ, eQ and Pablo users. I also met fellow blogger Shane Ross at the Matrox booth. We discussed our Avid meetings, the new Matrox products and my article on what’s wrong with the younger FCP editor. Shane game me a copy of his Getting Organized in Final Cut Pro DVD which I am looking forward to viewing. Oh, and I also had great conversation with Roger Bolton of CoreMelt and Niclas Bahn of Noise Industries. These are great products and some great guys who create them. Wait …. that might have been on Monday. The days kind of run together at NAB.

That evening came the disgusting buffet at the Luxor, losing money gambling and developing food poisoning. In that order. Lessons learned at NAB: have a plan and avoid buffets.