Arri marketing chief Franz Wieser was caught in my optimism detector this afternoon. Chatting a short time ago, Franz told me he was surprised by how solid traffic to the Arri booth has been since Monday, and that orders in certain categories were underway. Given the dire economic atmosphere, not everyone can say that. But Franz did say what many others have been telling me the last two days–namely, that fewer NAB attendees does not translate into less active NAB attendees. Important people with cash to spend wisely were at the Arri booth, and dozens of others, and they were talking serious business, and not merely kicking tires.

In particular, and this was another theme I heard from a few other manufacturers, Franz told me that attendance at the show, and business interest, out of Latin America has been extremely strong, and he points to that region as a rising giant in the media world, and eager to grow.

Arri’s D-21 camera and corresponding Arriraw workflow were also garnering lots of attention this week at NAB as numerous feature productions finally roll out using the Arri approach, and so the company is now offering lots of new tools for be part of its pipeline, including a new debayering software, and various viewing, processing, and editing tools.

Stay tuned for any other signs of positivity I might accidentally bump into …

–MG