One of the coolest products I saw at the show came to me by chance as I was hurrying across the North Hall, that almost always deserted-as-a-ghost-town hall. Maybe it’s not something a journalist would, or should, admit to, but when walking across such halls I sometimes feel sorry for the companies that have booths there. The booth employees make longing glances at your press badge as you hurry by. I usually find myself mumbling something like “Oh boy, really late again…” as I shuffle past looking for the exit.

(Hey, it just struck me–it might be helpful to someone who has never been to the show that one way to get a sense of it is to begin by thinking of a really huge amount of enclosed space. Okay? Divide that up into three big spaces/buildings, but not evenly: have each one gaining on the next. Good. Now think of these as having personalities. Maybe something from Goldilocks and the three bears could work. For example, North Hall seems a little too quiet at times, but it really is the smallest of the three in floor space, so that fits. Next, move on to Central Hall–yes, it’s laid out right in the middle of the three halls. Central Hall usually seems just about right; whether it’s crowd size, said crowds attendant caffeine levels, or amount of shouting needed to make yourself heard in the hallways, everything comes out about average. But now walk into the last of the three, the very oversubscribed South Hall. Here, just think of those over-crowded, sweaty fairgrounds you’ve encountered, or maybe a dangerously over-packed subway platform, something you might not want to navigate on a regular basis, but with everyone running. Yes, even in Las Vegas too much, it turns out, is really sometimes too much.)

Fine, you’ve got it.

Now, let’s go back to the North Hall. As I’ve noted, things there always seem a little, well..dead. Please realize that there’s nothing in that statement that says there’s something wrong with the companies you’ll find there. Really. These are some the best in their chosen product field. It’s just that…well, those fields are often pretty narrowly defined product areas. Really, really narrow.

Think of wire (Sencore) or control devices (DNF Controls). Absolutely nothing wrong with that sort of thing–Sencore and DNF make some very nice wire and control gear. I’ve got a geeky, gear head part to myself for that matter; I won’t deny that. I’ve been found at various shows, stuck in a corner of the odd booth, aimlessly twirling and twisting my way through a panel of unconnected knobs, or getting a salesperson to let me plug and unplug the latest in Molex connectors…actually, this is getting kind of embarrassing.

Anyway, all of this relates to this past Tuesday, as I was traversing the North Hall, I took a shortcut through what turned out to be the middle of a very empty FFV booth–okay, it was 9 a.m.– where I saw a setup of what I thought was just another similar entry in one of the themes that keeps turning up regularly at the show — find a way to attach a small HDD to a camcorder. Focus, Maxell, Sony…the list goes on.

FFV, you ask? FFV is Irvine California-Based Fast-Forward Video, a small company that’s been coming up with innovative compact designs for analog and digital video recorders, plug-in codec boards, and so on for years–from the mid 1980s or so, I think.

But what I had actually nearly walked into is one of the first camera-mounted DVRs–certainly at this price point–that uses JPEG 2000 to record HD-SDI video signals on inexpensive–hell, cheap–off-the-shelf, hot-swappable 2.5-inch SATA drives. (Okay, we’re not forgetting Thomson, are we? But of course their drives aren’t quite as off-the-shelf as here.)

The drive, the Elite HD, records HD-SDI video with up to eight channels of embedded audio in the instantly accessible J2K file format. Might just be lossless with data rates of up to 100 Mbs available. JPEG2000 hasn’t turned up in many less expensive recording products yet, especially stand alone units, so expect this super efficient, open format standard to shake up on-location recording as more companies come to market.

Final pricing on recorder wasn’t available at the show, but you can expect to pay somewhere around $3000 for the basic package. That might sound high at first, but the price is mostly for the electronics and hardware that the removable hard drive fits into. After that initial investment, you should be able to pick-up suitable HDDs online or at the local electronics shop for cheap and ever falling prices. Visit www.ffv.com for more.