Joe and I had the opportunity to visit the Matrox Road Tour as it made its way through Orlando.  The tag-line for the event is Shoot, Edit, Deliver so every aspect of production was represented by an industry leader.

Shoot

Panasonic’s Wes Carr was there to speak on behalf of the “Shoot” portion of the event, discussing all things acquisition.  Wes spoke a bit about P2 as well as the AVC HD family of codecs.  He brought with him an HPX 300, which is a fantastic camera for the price, as well as the new AG HMC-40 camera.  The AG HMC-40 is a great camera if you want to dip your toes into the wonderful world of tapeless HD without spending a fortune.  The AG HMC-40 shoots on SDHC cards using the AVCCAM codec.  I didn’t get a chance to use it (or even see any recorded footage, only live video) but as soon as I can get my hands on one, I will write up a little review.  See the Panasonic video below for a bit more information or check out the website.

Edit

Apple provided the post-production portion of the event, highlighting Final Cut Studio 3.  Orlando Luna, Sr. Systems Engineer from Apple, spent a little bit of time going over workflow ideas using P2, AVC Intra and of course Matrox’s hardware.  I even picked up a few tips that were new to me – look for at least one of those in a future post.

Deliver

Headlining the event was Matrox, led by Eric Zaino.  Eric demonstrated some of Matrox’s product line including their versatile IO boxes.   I had never had a chance to see Matrox’s products in action so I was pleasantly surprised.  There are products for every price range including the new Matrox MXO2 Mini.  This product is perfect for editing on the road because it does everything you would need at an amazing price and it fits nicely in a laptop bag.  Matrox is sending us a demo unit to review – look for that in the next few weeks.

Bottom Line

Events like this happen all the time – all around the country.  If you see one coming to your area, make sure that you go.  It’s a good way to meet professionals in your area and it’s a great chance to learn about new equipment. You can find the Matrox Road Tour schedule here. Like I said above, I picked up some cool new tricks about Final Cut that have already been useful to me.  They usually have free coffee too, so that’s a bonus.  Seriously, this is a great way to meet people, so get out there and see what’s new.

Matrox

Panasonic