Now that NAB 2008 is well underway, I thought it was time to get a little perspective on the lay of the land as far as the digital cinematography landscape is concerned at NAB 2008. Is the hysteria over 4k, 3D, Red, F23, F35, and all those other developments more pitched, or less pitched, than a year ago? What are the trends to watch out for?

In search of my answers, I sat down and had a nice chat with Band Pro HD guru Mike Bravin a little while ago at the Band Pro booth in the South Hall. Bravin certainly has his ear to the ground where all things HD and beyond are concerned, as the shiny new F35 at the Band Pro booth illustrates. But, overall, his take was this: things are “settling in.” People are trying to “find components” far more than they are jumping on anyone’s bandwagon.

Here are just a few of Bravin’s musings regarding the early digital camera trends at NAB 2008:

“Last year, and maybe a little bit the year before, a lot of people thought that maybe the Red furor was representing a huge change in the industry,” Bravin told me. “I think I was a little skeptical of that. I’m really interested in what Red is doing, but I don’t believe in revolution–I believe in evolution. I think, this year, what we are seeing is that Red has settled in and found their place. They have their product out. They have had their troubles and their victories. And I think that they are accepted, but people are starting to look at other things again. I think some of the furor has gone down over Red.

“One of the things I’ve noticed [so far] is that people seem to be more solution oriented this NAB. They are looking for specific pieces of equipment to fill specific needs. What I saw the last few years, maybe five years ago, was that people weren’t sure they were going to jump into high definition, not sure about the digital cinematography revolution. But the products evolved. People’s opinions go all over, and this year, people have settled down and are looking at practical solutions. For us [Band Pro], the Codex Portable recorder, which is at its first time at the show, has earned a lot of interest, and the F35 has gotten a lot more interest than I expected. I thought that a lot of the high-end rental houses would be the only ones interested, but the interest goes far beyond that.”

Bravin has lots of other thoughts, and I’ll try to post a few more of them a bit later on.

–MG