I’ll post some more product-specific stuff as I get time, but I wanted to post my general thoughts on this year’s show, now that I’m safely out of Las Vegas.

The show seemed even more massive than in the past, with the north hall almost entirely taken over by video folks. It’s really a hard show to get anything useful out of, unless you go in with specific needs. It’s fun to wander around to the 16 different jib companies, but unless you’re going to put the time in to really evaluate the differences between each, it’s a bit silly.

I’m also feeling a bit turned off by the whole scene. The show consists of far to many middle aged men looking for a free trip to vegas on the company’s dime, rather than folks actually there to evaluate technology. It’s just too much of a “good old boys” club. Sitting in the Scopebox booth, I had more than a few of them do a “you buys enjoying vegas seen any good wink wink shows? you should really go to XYZ strip club” … bleh. Not only is it obnoxious, it’s slightly creepy.

The flip side of that is that the same sort of middle aged men with suspenders tend to be representatives in the booths of the major vendors. And they tend to think that nobody under 30 could possibly have any reason to purchase their product. Reps from Sony and Grass Valley literally turned and walked away from me when it was my chance to ask a question. Panasonic was nice however, and that will weigh on my mind as I’m evaluating who to purchase three HD studio cameras from.

On the plus side, folks from outside of the US are consistently friendly and helpful. Props to Telestream in particular.