1.) Red Scarlet/Red Epic – one for home, one for SERIOUS D-cinema work. Scarlet is easily summed up – “3K for $3K” – with 3K sensor that can shoot up to 120 fps for under three grand, when it ships in 2009 it will be a tough price point to beat. Red Epic, meanwhile, with better quality Redcode RAW, and 5K resolution at up to 100fps for only $40K, should be an indie filmmaker’s new Must Have.

2.) Codex Portable – record dual link HD-SDI or even RAW formats the latest cameras using 4:1 wavelet technology, on a breadbox sized package you can sling over your shoulder. Add the virtual file system on top of that, as well as the ability to transcode material in-the-box, you’ve got a helluva solution for a damned attractive price.

3.) Glue Tools 3 – full, honest-to-God DPX workflow in Final Cut. Compressor aware to boot. NICE. Plus, Bob also makes a native Phantom plugin. Dude’s a rock star.

4.) Vision Research Miro camera (in the Abel Cine booth) – 1256 fps at 800×600 at 14 bits RAW, and higher frame rates at lower resolutions. DSLR sized camera, with no-instructions needed touchscreen simplicity. Offloads to SD cards to ingest. Too bad it is $30K – I’d LOVE to have one to mess around with all day.

5.) Cinemag – big honkin’ solid state RAM recorder for the Phantom HD and Phantom 65. Small, dirt simple recording media, docks for offloading to GigE now, 10GigE in the future.

I didn’t get a chance to see all kinds of cool things, like Wafian’s new rig, the SI-2K based 3D rig, Cineform’s latest, eCinema Systems or Cinetal’s new displays, or a bunch of other things. I did see and like Avid’s new approach, I think it is a significant step in the right direction to address my concerns with their competitiveness, but it didn’t excite me as much as what is listed above, which was mostly work related.

-mike