BIRTV 2012. The Beijing professional film and video trade fair.

Now that everyone is talking about the IBC I to take the opposite (and also because I have not gone) I write about the fair BIRTV 2012 (Beijing International Radio, TV and film equipment exhibition) what is that? Well, another macro fair of audiovisual novelties based in Beijing, the capital of China (in case you are short on geography).

Eight pavilions full of gadgets in the purest NAB, IBC or Broadcast style (ahem) As I guess you’re already sick of reading about this year’s new audiovisual gadgets, I’ll summarize the things I liked the most to see at the fair.

Actually although the name of the show says “international” the truth is that the western presence is small. Yes, Arri, Avid, Blacmagic and many others were of course represented in large booths, but the number of English (or non-Chinese) speakers and the overall presence of western faces was small. That’s why I was very excited to see our compatriots from SGO there. Miguel Angel Doncel along with some colleagues was in the Chinese capital presenting version 7 (correct me if I’m wrong) of his well-known and valued software Mistika. David Rivero was showing us some of the new features of the version as the improvements of the color corrector in the management of groups and corrections or the program support of the new Tangent Elements controller, all this of course integrated with the appreciated Mistika stereoscopy tools. While we were there a few Spaniards commented on the number of stereoscopic projects that are being carried out in China (I say this in case anyone wants to send a curriculum).

Flanders Scientific monitors were represented at the booth of a company called Truecolor System. Talking with the Flanders salesman (who was a bit surprised to see a Spaniard there asking questions) he told me that the company is about to open a distributor in Europe (in Brussels if I remember correctly) before the end of the year. This would allow not only an easier sale to the European Union but also a better support.

Avid also had a gigantic booth with demos with simultaneous translation into Chinese.

Since you never know what you’ll need, I decided to pick up some advertising just in case. Information is power.

Following the rumors about Fuji’s supposed discontinuation of photochemical material this December, I have to say that while I have no doubt that the company must be very well off, I don’t know if the things they must be doing at trade shows to sell show a certain degree of desperation. For example, here’s a button.

Of course, Panasonic had an interesting marketing action at their booth. They had a poster explaining the range of AVC codecs (no, the AVC ULTRA was not presented, only announced) and in an urn as if it were a totem the Varicam 4K (which was plastic or chocolate fixed) So in view that they did not have much to say they decided to say it WELL and put five ladies in bikinis and with balloons with a few cameras around for professionals to test them (the cameras) What had to happen happened: NOBODY touched a single camera (well, some did to disguise) and everyone was dedicated to take pictures of the girls (including yours truly, although in my case it was purely for journalistic purposes).

It must be said that the fifth girl posed in front of several 3D systems, both rigs and Panasonic’s dual-optical camera, and here it was more interesting to operate the equipment (although it was a bit embarrassing to frame the girl in bikini in 3D, anyway…).

One of the things that surprised me the most about the fair, probably because I have never been to other big fairs, is the existence of a quite large section dedicated to cinema. And when I say cinema I mean movie theaters: there was an almost complete pavilion full of small and not so small theaters showing seats, sound systems, screens, ticket turnstiles, 3D systems, and of course also… popcorn (I cut myself a hair and didn’t order, but I could have!)

Blacmagic had a super booth with demos of DaVinci 9 and its cameras (still the EF mount, the micro 4/3 was presented at IBC) I tried the camera and found it extremely easy to use (even more than a Canon HDSLR) I will have to evaluate the material with the clips that Blacmagic has left for download but it looks good.

Presentations from Nvidia, Arri, Sony, Red, etc. However, what I was most excited to see, mainly because it is not yet possible to do so at IBC or NAB, was the Kineraw S35. The Chinese 2K Raw camera that can compete with Red and others (at least for the moment in China).

The specifications of the camera can be found on the official website here . It is a 2K camera with S35 sensor capable of simultaneously recording uncompressed RAW in CinemaDNG and compressed in CineformRaw, with the possibility of loading 3D Luts, logarithmic work, etc. Its main attraction is the price, starting at about $6000 if I remember correctly the basic pack. Unfortunately they still do not sell outside China, according to what I was told they expect to be able to provide service abroad from December (I guess depending on how things go, of course). In the previous BIRTV they showed only a prototype, now the S35 already exists, although the other two projected cameras (Kineraw S16 and S8) were not there yet.

Although the workflow, being standard codecs, should be simple, I had some doubts about the RAW development, which they did not know how to clarify (also the language made things difficult, neither their English nor mine is Shakespeare’s). On the one hand the camera has its own gamma/color space called Kinecolor which I do not know if it will be supported by postproduction equipment (the other gammas are 709 and log Cineon) and it seems that there are two working modes with respect to ISO. In one mode the ISO behaves as metadata (even if the ISO is altered the sensor is not affected) as it happens in video RAW but in the other mode when we alter the ISO the sensor DOES receive the signal amplification (as it happens with DSLR Raw in photo) This can be a serious problem for the operator if he does not know it.

Anyway I’m going to download some clips they have available to play around with in Avid and DaVinci.

In short, it helped me to see what is going on in China and to a large extent in Asia in terms of audiovisual. 3D had a VERY strong presence, both in capture, postproduction (with SGO with several Mistika equipment for Live and postpro with an agenda full of demos) and exhibition in theaters. Although HDSLR cameras were represented they did not have a major presence, and much less than the Arri Alexa or Blackmagic (although with the latter I did not find the fury I expected) The Red booth was not the most visited and Sony and Panasonic did have enough affluence (although Panasonic for the reasons already mentioned).

I saw no representation from Apple and their Final Cut X (nothing at all) and both Adobe and Avid had large booths with lots of activity in them. Several DaVinci’s doing demos in various booths with general interest and a couple of Quantel’s Pablo’s without a soul around. There was also a pavilion showing multiple content solutions for Internet and IPTV, making clear one of the paths that professional video is taking around the world.

So with this I say goodbye, you know that if you are in Beijing in August you can take the opportunity to see the fair (admission is free) and if not, maybe next year I will tell you more news.