NAB 2024 Recap: Gear & Tears!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Thank you, hello and welcome.

(00:33):
My name is Tom.
This is the Enthusiasm Project,season 12, episode 7.
And is 7?
Hard to believe how fast theseason is is going.
That was not.
That didn't work, oh well.
But you know what is workingthis microphone that I'm on
right now, which is no longerthe mystery mic, it's the Lewitt
Ray, so I'll talk about that injust a second.

(00:56):
There was a missing episode.
There was no episode last week,if you're listening in real
time, and the reason for thatwas because I was at NAB, which
was N-A-B-E-A-U-tiful.
That was amazing, and so that'swhat we're going to talk about
today is sort of do an NAB recapin maybe a slightly more

(01:17):
traditional context, kind ofdive into that.
It was really cool.
Nab is something I've wanted togo to since at least 2010.
I think that's when I firstremember being aware of it.
There were several times when Ialmost got to like convince
former school districts I wasworking at to pay me to go when
I was teaching.
I remember there was one timevery, very early on maybe it was

(01:38):
like 2018, like a year after Istarted my channel, polarpro
offered to like give me passesto NAB, but I couldn't go
because of, you know, schoolobligations and work obligations
.
So this was the first time 2024, at least 14 years after I knew
that it was a thing that Iactually got to go and it was
amazing, and that's we're gonnatalk about.

(01:58):
But before we talk about that,got to talk about some gear.
I think this is now the third orfourth episode that I've been
using this microphone on, butit's the first one that I can
tell you what it is, so it madesense to do it.
This is the Lewitt Ray that I'mspeaking into and I'm recording
into the Rodecaster Duo and I'mactually using the Rode
Broadcaster preset, which Ihaven't used with this mic

(02:19):
before but I really like.
So if I take off the preset,this is now the Ray with no
effects and no processing, andthen if I add in the broadcaster
preset, this is what thatsounds like, which I quite like.
And, as you saw in the videolots of videos for the Lewitt
Ray, mine included I can kind ofI am moving my head all around
close and away from themicrophone and it is keeping the
level there.

(02:39):
Of course, if I get furtherback you can hear the room
reverb just like before, but ifI'm near the microphone and just
kind of moving a little bitaround it.
It is, you know, keeping thelevel really consistent.
So I can, I can look from.
You know, I can just move more,a little more naturally, and
the capsule in here is the samecapsule as the 440.

(02:59):
So it should sound identicaland it's a great microphone.
So this is the Lewitt Ray andthat's been the mystery mic.
The only mystery mic I've usedthis season has been this one,
because Lewitt sent it out likemonths ago, which was great
because I got to use it for solong, and that's going into the
Rodecaster Duo.
So that's what I'm recording ontoday.

(03:19):
One quick note about the LewittRay, or, I guess, about the
videos for it.
This is just sort of a thingWhoa, that was a weird sound.
This is just sort of a thingthat I don't know how I feel
about it.
I think it's okay.
So here's so, talking to Lewittwhen they came out with the Ray
and they sent it out to peopleand talking about it.

(03:40):
If you, you know, email themand they're explaining what it
does and they're trying to tellyou about it.
If you, you know, email themand they're explaining what it
does and they're trying to tellyou about it.
They describe it as likeautofocus for your voice, audio
autofocus, which I think shouldbe called audio focus.
But I think that's a reallygood way to describe what the
microphone does and it's veryrudimentary.
It's not, like you know,advanced eye tracking autofocus
that you have in lots of camerasand stuff.

(04:00):
Now it's like the old school,like early days of like contrast
based autofocus, because it allbasically just works on a
proximity sensor.
It doesn't know that I'm aperson, it just knows I'm a
thing in front of the microphoneand so it's adjusting gain
based on how close that thing isin front of the microphone,
essentially.
But it's sort of a hard conceptto explain because there's never

(04:20):
really been anything like it.
And so saying that it's likeautofocus for your voice works
really well because it kind offinds you if you move around the
microphone.
It feels like it's tracking you, it feels like it's adapting to
you, just like autofocus would.
So I thought that was good,like when you know, when they
were explaining it to me, thatkind of clicked to me.
Clearly.
That's a good way to explain it.
That's how they explained it toa lot of people and I wouldn't

(04:42):
call it an issue, but so many ofthe videos that pop up,
including mine, say auto focusfor your voice and the thing
about that is it.
It feels to somebody who doesn'tknow any better, I'm worried
that it feels like these wereall talking points that everyone
who was given the microphonewas given to say about when I
can say Luit is great about.

(05:02):
They do not, they do not like,require anything or try to
influence anything.
They just say like here's thething, here's what it does, boom
, even the release they're likeit's coming out on this date.
Please don't share anythingabout it before this time.
After that, we don't care.
We don't care if you postanything ever.
We don't care if you post itright when it's released or
three weeks later, like they,they are very good about that.

(05:26):
And in fact they kind ofspecifically said like we really
don't.
We're not trying to push peopleto all release at the same time
because they didn't.
They said that they didn't likethat.
They like it when it feels moreorganic and someone made a
video when they wanted to make avideo or when it made sense to
make a video about the thing,and I think that's awesome.
And so it worried me that thisautofocus thing that popped up
in so many people's videos isgoing to feel like everyone's

(05:48):
given the microphone.
Everyone has given thesetalking points and this is what
they talked about.
Nobody has said that.
I haven't gotten any commentsthat seem to do that.
I haven't seen comments anyoneelse's videos, but I've just.
I think pretty much every videothat talks about the microphone
says that, because it is such agood way to describe this like
new thing that we haven't seen.
And in the world of XLRmicrophones you don't really see

(06:08):
a lot of new stuff.
It's been around for a longtime.
It's difficult and rare to comeup with something brand new.
So I the there's no real pointto that, it's just sort of.
I guess I was.
I got a little worried becauseI like Lewitt specifically
because, well, their microphonesare great, but also because
they're so good about lettingyou be in charge of whatever you
want to make, if you want tomake anything at all, and I

(06:31):
didn't want it to come off onmine or anyone else's videos
like it was the opposite of that.
So I'm telling you that if yousee videos about this microphone
and you want to check it outand you notice that everyone's
saying autofocus.
I think that's just how thething was described and it's the
thing that made the most sense,so everyone kind of latched
onto it.
It's not a talking point thatanybody was told they have to

(06:54):
talk about, and I hope you'reable to still pay attention to
those reviews and opinions andthings as authentically as they
are, because everybody I've seenhas done such an awesome job
talking about this microphoneand it's a really fun microphone
.
And again, I think the factthey sent it out so early I'm
guessing other people got thereas early as well, like I did
it's great, because it's notlike you got it.

(07:15):
If you want to do the videowhen it's released, you have
like a couple days to work on itand then it's done.
You actually got to use it fora long time and go back to other
microphones, go back to thismicrophone and kind of live with
the thing and really really putit through its paces before
sharing any kind of opinionabout it.
So anyway, that's the LewittRay.
That's what we're talking aboutthere.
Now we're going to move on toNAB.

(07:37):
I did post a recap video aboutNAB, I think, before.
I can't remember if it was thisor the couple's table or where,
but somewhere before NAB Italked about wanting to do a
recap video.
That was something I'd alwayswanted to do.
I'd always wanted to go and I'dwatched channels for many years
that did cool recaps.
Just this is what I saw, thisis what I'm interested in and
that's something I wanted to do.
I wasn't quite sure how to makethat, so I did make a recap

(08:07):
video.
I shot a bunch of footage andstuff there and then I came home
and tried to like contextualizethat.
I wanted to do it the day afterwe got back it's literally like
the morning after we got back,because all the thoughts are
still fresh and everything andso there was my recap video and
I posted on my channel.
I'm guessing if you listen tothis podcast, you probably
watched the video.
It ends, it goes to a place, itgoes to a like a very heartfelt

(08:27):
I guess you could say emotionalplace is the term, and I didn't
really expect that video to gothere, but I'm so happy that it
did because it it felt like it.
Let me digest and understandwhat I was feeling and thinking
after NAB, which was so muchmore than just a trade show, and
I also thought it was important, you know, if I was feeling and
thinking after NAB, which wasso much more than just a trade
show, and I also thought it wasimportant, you know, if I was

(08:49):
sort of having that experience.
I wanted to share that so thatif anyone else was having that
experience they didn't thinkthat they were weird or like you
know.
Like you know why did I havesuch a strong emotional reaction
to a thing that everyone elsekind of just it's?
You know, it's the conferencethey go to every April, and so I
thought maybe it would, itwould sort of like make it okay

(09:12):
for other people to to talkabout things like that too,
whether it was NAB or somethingelse.
And and I genuinely wanted toshare, because the reason I felt
so strongly was because of somany different people and I want
, you know, I try to telleverybody in person or at least
via text message, as much as Icould, how grateful and

(09:33):
appreciative I was, but also, ifI couldn't, just being able to
just put it out on a video Ithought was really important and
I really liked that video.
It's sort of the opposite,because normally something on
the channel will be a littleless personal, like it has my
personality in it but we're notreally diving into, I'm not
tearing up on most of my videos.
And then the podcast is theplace where I kind of dive into

(09:54):
the more personal side of thingsand this is sort of a little
switched, where the video, whichis 30 minutes long, is the more
personal thing and this podcastepisode I kind of it's almost
like the what I thought thevideo was going to be like a
more sort of traditional recap.
I uh, I don't think I'm nearlyhydrated enough to get as teared

(10:14):
up as in the video, so we'regoing to try to like.
Those thoughts are in thatvideo and they mean a lot to me
and I feel them still very, verystrongly.
But I also want to talk about,you know, just the regular part
of NAB.
But I also thought it might bekind of cool to talk about
making that video, not justbecause of how it ended up, but

(10:38):
even if you take that out of itand you just look at making a
recap video.
I was kind of confused aboutthe best way to do that and so
maybe I can share with you whatI did and what worked and what
didn't work, and then, if youever wanna do something like
that, it might be a little bithelpful.
So what I did?
I had a couple of differentvideo ideas that I was planning
to film at NAB or that I washoping to film, and so as I was

(10:59):
walking around I was kind ofshuffling these ideas in my head
, thinking you know what kind ofshots or what kind of sound
bites or interviews would begood for different types of
videos or the different videosthat I was working on.
And so that was helpful andluckily the recap video is so
broad that pretty much anythingcan fit into it.
And and that's that's kind of.
You know, my goal was to sort ofjust film a lot of stuff.

(11:21):
I wanted to get establishingshots of the convention hall,
and you know there's 60 to70,000 people there.
There's so many vendors.
The Las Vegas Convention Centeris massive.
I forget how many millions ofsquare feet it is, but it's huge
and I wanted to kind of showthat.
So I knew I needed that footage.
There are so many booths Idon't need.
I honestly don't know if youcould actually see every booth,

(11:44):
every vendor, in the two tothree days that you have much
less like film or get somethingmeaningful from all of them.
So it's kind of like, you know,focusing on the ones that are
most interesting to you, andthat's what I tried to do.
But even that got kind ofoverwhelming really fast.
Just trying to, you know,remember, and then you go
somewhere and trying to talk tosomeone.
Trying to, you know, remember,and then you go somewhere and
trying to talk to someone.

(12:05):
It's pretty nuts.
I will say the first day thatthe exhibit hall was open was
significantly less crowded thanthe second day.
The second day was likeDisneyland around the holidays,
like packed.
The first day was a littleeasier to kind of make your way
through and talk to people orbrands or whatever it might be.
Second day was totally nuts.
I don't know if it's alwayslike that, but that's just

(12:27):
something, something to keep inmind if you're ever putting
footage together or anything.
And kind of my plan, which Ibasically did, was to, you know,
if I found a booth that wasinteresting, say, I'd film that
and just get shots of it.
If there was somebody thatneeded that I wanted to explain
something to or ask questions to, maybe I could film them and

(12:50):
they could, you know, the personfrom the company could explain
the things themselves.
So those are kind of the shotsI was going for, and then, you
know, some B-roll shots of, like, actual products and close-ups
and things like that.
That's kind of basically what Itried to do throughout the
whole time.
And then I didn't really know.
I was trying to think like howto put that together and I

(13:10):
decided I didn't want to filmthe whole thing at NAB.
I wanted to do the recap, youknow, film all the footage I
could, but then sort of digestit and come home and then be in
my normal studio explaining kindof what is happening and what
you're seeing, and I thoughtthat would kind of help
contextualize things a littlebit.
It would feel a little lesschaotic.

(13:30):
I also thought because I have athought like oh, I should go
out in front of the conventioncenter and just film my intro
here and explain things here.
But I don't know if this istrue or not Sometimes you can
see videos where people are likeon location, quote unquote and
in a weird way some people do itwell and some people don't do

(13:53):
it as well, and I feel like it'ssomething I struggle with in a
weird way.
Sometimes it feels like they'realmost like boasting, like look,
I'm here and I'm making a videobecause I'm here, which is fine
, but I have a hard time doingit in a way that I feel
comfortable with.
Other people are great at itand so I knew that if I filmed a
video about NAB, anybody whowas at NAB would be interested

(14:15):
in that, probably.
But everybody else you know,who watches the channel, watches
the video they might not wantto see.
It's almost like okay, I'vebeen rewatching the entire
series of Bob's Burgers for likethe past year and I love that
show, absolutely one of myfavorites, and the episodes are
all great.
But pretty much every seasonhas one episode where it's like,

(14:37):
instead of being an episode, aregular episode, it's like a
three stories episode.
So like each of the kids youknow they're trying to figure
something out and each kid sortof like tells sort of like a
wacky story about the thing andit's you know, it's a chance for
them to do kind of weird stuffand it's sort of like that
almost like a treehouse ofhorror kind of thing from the
Simpsons and those are.

(14:59):
It's funny, like those arereally good episodes and they're
funny and they're entertaining.
But I always get a littlebummed out when one pops up,
because I want the regular thingof like I want to see the
characters in the environment, Iwant the episode to matter.
In future episodes, likethere's something about those
where I'm always like, ah, alittle bummed out when one pops
up and I didn't want this.

(15:20):
I feel like a video like thishas the potential to do that.
Like if someone actually likesmy videos, they see one pop up
and then they see like, oh, it'snot the normal thing, he's like
somewhere else and I don't know.
So I thought that by filmingsort of the bookend and the
contextualizing part of thevideo in my normal studio, it
would then make it appealing andaccessible to people who

(15:41):
weren't familiar with NAB ordidn't go to NAB.
And again, this is all before.
I kind of knew where the videowas going to end up going when I
thought it was just going to bea regular recap.
And then that also really easedmy mind when I was filming,
because it's so overwhelming andthere's so much happening and
it's hard to keep track ofthings that I wasn't 100% sure I

(16:01):
filmed everything I needed to.
But at a certain point it'slike okay between me recording a
talking head portion and beingable to edit everything, I
should be able to put togethersomething that makes sense here,
and knowing that I didn't haveto do that on location in the
moment really did help sort ofease some stress.
So I did see videos from otherpeople where they filmed the

(16:23):
whole thing, start to finish itat NAB, and they were great.
So I'm not saying don't do that, I'm just saying this is how I
approach this and it seemed towork really well.
Because then what I did I can'tremember if it was we got home
like midday Tuesday, I filmedthe video on Wednesday and I
think it was even Tuesday night.
I took the like the essentiallyall the raw footage that I shot

(16:45):
in the exhibit hall and justthrew it onto my timeline and
tried to break it into segments.
So it's like okay, here's me atthe road booth, we're doing a
Sennheiser thing, talking toChris Metcalf about cable ties,
like all all the different likesection segments of it.
I tried to put those in anorder that made sense and then
the things that didn't have likea person in an interview but

(17:08):
were more just B-roll clips, tryto figure out where that would
go.
So those little sections werelike at least kind of there.
And then, basically, when Irecorded the video, I just had
my laptop on the desk with meand was just kind of going
through the footage on thelaptop.
So it wasn't like scripted oroutlined really, but I would go

(17:30):
through the laptop and sort ofsee a clip and then remember why
that clip was there and what Ithought was interesting, and
then explain it and talk aboutit and then move on to the next
one, next one, and that actuallyworked really, really well and
it wasn't too difficult or timeconsuming to make.
And then it let me, instead offocusing on, like trying to read
a script or trying to get allthis specific information
perfectly correct, it, let melike focus on my thoughts and

(17:52):
feelings about it, which thenlet me, I feel, you know, be a
lot more relaxed and a lot moreopen in the video, which led to
me being able to share a lotmore than I expected to share
when I pressed record making thevideo.
So that was kind of how I putthat together.
I think that worked really well.
I had never done a video likethat before.
The thing that I would dodifferently, though,
surprisingly is I would film somuch more and I kind of knew

(18:16):
this but I sort of I thought Ifilmed more than I did and the
video is great, but I definitelywanted to just have more.
You know, not that the videoneeded to be longer, but more
footage.
Like, and it's kind of hard,you can film a bunch of shots of
, like, the convention hallfloor, but there's only so many
giant crowd shots.

(18:36):
So you kind of need a variety.
You need big, wide shots,closeups of products, mediums,
you need like every type of shotso you can cut between them and
there's contrast.
But you know, I think severaltimes throughout the video I
mentioned how big the conference, the convention was, but I
really only had like one shotthat was a wide shot that kind
of showed everything.

(18:56):
So I can only use that, youknow, or parts of it, like once
or twice in the video, whereasit would have been nice if maybe
you know, there's I forget,like there's like four of the
different convention halls thatare used, maybe if into each one
of those I got a big overhead,broad, wide crowd view and then
I could have different ones tocut between.
I brought three lenses with meon the trip.
I brought the Tamron 20-40 2.8,the Zeiss 85 1.8, and my Sony

(19:21):
24 1.4.
And I only use the Tamron thewhole time, the 20 to 40, which
gave me I've always loved thatlens.
That's been pretty muchanything.
I film anything that's not inmy studio.
That's the lens I'm using and Ialso do use it on B-roll quite
a bit if I don't need 1.4.
I love that lens.
It's I think it's six or $700,which in the world of lenses,

(19:43):
especially a 2.8 zoom, is quiteaffordable.
If you put it on a camera likethe a7 IV that has the ability
to then do super 35 mode, youkind of get even more
versatility out of the lensbecause you can you can zoom in
further and it's superlightweight.
It's it's like it's just such agood lens and and it's super
sharp and it looks great.

(20:04):
So that was the one I usedpretty much the whole time Super
fast, quiet, autofocus as well.
The 24mm f1.4, I totally didn'tneed to bring.
I brought it because it's mymain lens and I thought like if
I wanted to film a talking headin a hotel room or something, I
could still get a nice blurrybackground.
Totally unnecessary to do that.
I wouldn't have wanted thatblurry of a background anywhere

(20:24):
on the convention hall because Iwouldn't want to like isolate
myself as a subject that much.
So 2.8 was totally fine and theTamron 20-40 obviously can
cover the 24 millimeter focallength as well.
So the Sony was redundant.
The 85, I didn't use, but Iwanted to.
I just kind of ran out of time.
My plan was, once I was donefilming and I knew I was good to

(20:45):
go was to put that lens on andthen go around and get B-roll of
like products almost where it'slike the type of B-roll shots I
normally have in my videos, tryto get those at the different
booths, which would have lookedawesome and things would have.
You know, I really think itwould have been fun to do and I
just kind of ran out of time andthen time got away from me, I

(21:06):
guess.
So I didn't use that lens.
It wasn't a waste to bring,though, because I do wish I
would have done that.
So I wish I would have filmedmore and I do wish I would have
gotten my 85 millimeter shotsOtherwise.
Otherwise things are prettygood.
Yeah, it was fun.
I would definitely go back nextyear and try more next year.
So that's sort of like thevideo side of things.

(21:27):
Now, the video again.
My original intent was just tosort of tell you about some
stuff that I saw, both in termsof products and maybe trends and
things, and that was supposedto be it and I'm really again,
I'm so happy.
That's not all that the videowas, because I feel like it
turned into something a lot morespecial, and reading the
comments on it has been kind ofone of the best experiences of

(21:48):
my YouTube like career ever.
I can't even begin to, I can'teven begin to describe them Like
.
I have like a folder.
I'm trying to screenshot somany of the nice things people
say because it's something thatI don't want to just forget.
I want to be able to rememberand look back on.
But for now, I have a list ofthings that I saw that were

(22:09):
going to be a little less, youknow, a little less tear-jerkery
and a little more just kind ofnormal, and I just want to share
with you some stuff I saw andsome stuff I noticed at NEB.
So we talked about the video.
First thing, this wasn't aspecific booth, although it was
a product at a booth the DJIPocket 3, little gimbal camera,

(22:30):
by far the most common camera Isaw people using there it's like
not even close Differentconfigurations.
Some people are just holdingthe Pocket 3 itself.
A lot of people had like sortof like this I don't know, it
was like a case that was alsokind of like a stick sort of
thing with it.
I don't have it, I haven't usedit, so I don't know much about
it.
And then a lot of people alsohad one of the DJI wireless mic

(22:53):
transmitters that was separateso they were getting their audio
and it was connected directlyto the camera so they could have
wireless audio which, from thevideos I've seen that people
have posted of it, look andsound fantastic.
And there were a lot of peoplewho, like that was the only
camera they brought because theydidn't want to do what I did
and carry a huge backpack.
Especially day one, I had abackpack that was just pretty

(23:16):
much my camera gear because Iwas in a couple mics, because I
was, you know, trying to domostly stuff for the recap video
.
Day two, I was working on a miccomparison, a handheld mic
comparison video, so I didn'thave as much camera gear in my
bag, but I had so manymicrophones heavy ones too, like

(23:37):
the SM7B and the Super 55.
It's like stuff no sane personshould be walking around with
for like 10 hours at a time.
I was carrying there and I'mproud of how not sore that I was
.
So I don't know, I was using myTenba Fulton backpack the whole
time and that maybe it was justa really comfortable, good
backpack.
But anyway, there were a lot ofpeople who didn't want to carry
a bag like that, so they justused the Pocket 3.
And there were a lot of peoplewho did bring their bigger

(23:57):
cameras and their bigger gearand they were like I just left
it all in my hotel room and justbrought this and I gotta say
I'm kind of impressed with it.
It's a pretty cool camera andit looks good.
I know everyone loves it.
The hesitation I have with likeDJI's product timeline is I know
that one's been out for likefour months.
So now I'm like, well, theyupgrade everything constantly.

(24:20):
So it's like the Pocket 4coming out anytime soon because
part of me wants to, you know,maybe get one.
But now I'm I'm in that typicalspot of feeling like no,
they're gonna upgrade it soon.
And it's funny because DJI hada huge booth and if you listen
to this show for extensiveperiod of time.
You kind of know some of myfeelings about DJI and I was

(24:41):
able to solidify those feelingsa little more on this trip After
, especially after talking to alot of other people with YouTube
channels and a lot of whom haveworked with DJI.
I'm definitely not the only onewho feels the way I feel about
them as a company, but all of uskind of agreed their products
are great and I think that'swhat makes it so frustrating is

(25:01):
DJI products are fantastic, likesome of the best in their
categories, and it's weirdbecause the company does weird
marketing things a lot of thetime and I don't want to say
that it's necessarily shady, butit's definitely.
A lot of stuff definitelyborders on shady and there's no

(25:23):
need to do it at all becauseyour stuff is really good and
you don't need to do these weirdthings.
I don't know.
I mean we could go kind of downthat rabbit hole a bit, but
they, they tend to do stuff.
Like you know, there's a lot ofvagueness about when someone is
or isn't paid for a DJI video,which I know a lot of that falls

(25:44):
on the YouTube creator, butalso the way DJI structure their
deals where it varies so muchfrom person to person that
there's no standardized way thatthey operate.
Obviously, I've talked abouttheir inclusivity, or lack
thereof, in terms of creatorsand also just kind of catching
them in sort of I don't knowwhat you would call it, but like

(26:07):
I have known female creatorswho are well respected in the
camera video space who havereached out to DJI and said, you
know like, hey, you know I dothis, here's my channel.
If you ever want to worktogether, I'd love to do
something.
And their response to them isthat they don't have a big
enough audience, even if they'reat, you know, 20, 30, 40,000

(26:30):
subscribers on their channels.
Oh, and it's like oh, okay, Imean, to me those sound like big
channels that would be fine towork with, but sure, maybe you
guys only work with 100,000 plusor something.
But then you see tons of dudesget DJI products that have under
10,000 subscribers.
So it's not clearly, it's notaudience based, it's not view
based at.
You know, it's pretty obviouswhat's going on in those cases.

(26:54):
With DJI, I've heard people saylike, well, they're an overseas
based company and culturallythey're just a little different
than us.
It's like I know lots ofoverseas-based companies that
don't seem to have that issue,and one of the main offices that
deals with creators for DJI isbased in Los Angeles, so it
doesn't fly to me.
That doesn't unlike theirdrones.

(27:15):
That doesn't fly with me.
And then there's so my firstinteraction I'll share.
I know this isn't where we'regoing, but maybe you can kind of
contextualize my conflictingfeelings about them.
My first interaction with themwas in 2019.
So my channel at the time wasprobably at about 8,000
subscribers.

(27:35):
They reached out to me about adrone that was coming out or not
a drone, sorry, a gimbal thatwas coming out which, like I
don't, I had bought like theoriginal Ronin-S I think that's
what it was called the firstlike regular single handheld
gimbal, and I think I made avideo about that.
And they reached out and saidhey, we're coming out with a new
version of that.
We'd love to like hop on a calland talk to you about it.

(27:56):
And I was like sure, like great.
You know, I've had a DJI drone.
I bought the gimbal.
I'd used some of their otherstuff in the past.
I thought they were great and wejumped on the call.
The person was super nice, butwhat they wanted was.
It was we want to send you thegimbal to review.
And I was like, well, sure, butI, you know, I don't really
talk about gimbals that much onmy channel, but I can take a

(28:18):
look at it every once in a while.
They're kind of interesting andyou know.
And then, of course, my wholething of like, well, I can't
guarantee you a video.
You know, here's my ethicsstatement, like all the stuff
that I've talked about so manytimes.
And then they said, okay, we'llsend you the gimbal.
We really want you to compareit to.
I think it was like the Zhiyunor Zhiyun I can't ever pronounce
the company, but you know whatI mean the Zhiyun, whatever the

(28:41):
equivalent gimbal is fromanother brand.
And I was like, well, I don'thave that one.
And they said, okay, well, we'dlike you to buy that gimbal and
then we'll send you this one.
I was like, so you want me to?
They're not paying me.
This isn't like a sponsoredthing.
They're sending me a gimbal.
And then asked me to buy like a$400 gimbal to compare it to,
which obviously I'm not going todo.
I didn't need any gimbals, muchless two.

(29:02):
Now you want me to essentiallyspend $400 to make this video
$500 maybe to make this video?
No, just no.
And then you know then andthat's kind of a thing that they
do and I get that you know achannel of that size 8,000
subscribers at the time isn'tgoing to get the same deal as a

(29:23):
channel of you know 400,000subscribers.
But it is sort of strange whereyou know, on one hand it's like
well, if you buy a $400 gimbal,we'll send you a gimbal, and
then the flip side to that ishere.
We'll just send a bunch ofthings to somebody and pay them
but not officially sponsor thevideo.
And it's just sort of like thepayment is for like services

(29:44):
rendered, so then the person mayor may not disclose it in their
video, and the payment can bewell into the five figures
sometimes and it's it's weird.
It's weird to me and that wassort of like one of my first,
one of my first incidents whichis sort of like this is bizarre,

(30:05):
like why would you ask me tospend $400 on a competitor's
product that I don't need for avideo?
And there's been other weirdlittle things and you know sort
of anecdotal stories from otherpeople, but it's sort of been
enough where I feel like thepicture and the impression I
have is pretty clear, and itcomes down to, though, like the

(30:26):
products are great, it's sort oflike the way the marketing is
handled, at least the creatorrelations are handled.
That is just not up my alley atall and it's frustrating
because I think their productsare good enough to speak for
themselves.
So, all that to say,everybody's using the Pocket 3.
Everybody who had one reallyloved it and I think they got
really good results with it.
And I do think it's an awesome,awesome camera.

(30:47):
That's not even a booth thing.
That was just what I saw on thefloor, a booth thing.
So this was just perfect timingthe Rode booth.
I was working on a video abouthandheld microphones, because
that's sort of an area ofweakness for me, something I
don't know a lot about, not justthe mics themselves, but
different techniques, and youknow why would you use a

(31:08):
cardioid handheld microphoneversus an omnidirectional one,
for example?
All this kind of stuff.
And so I brought a bunch ofmics and some wireless systems
to make a video comparing that,because I thought the convention
hall floor would be a greatplace for that and also because
it's such a it's so loud thatseeing how mics perform in that
environment and it's so pollutedwith signals that you know,

(31:32):
using 2.4 gigahertz systemsversus UHF systems, seeing what
worked and what didn't, Ithought would be cool and just
totally by coincidence, rodeannounced that first day their
wireless no, their Interview Pro.
I can't remember Rode's productnames, but it's a 2.4 gigahertz
wireless microphone that pairswith basically any of their I

(31:55):
think they call them fourth genreceivers.
So stuff like the RodecasterPro, the Rodecaster Duo, the
Wireless Pro, the Wireless Go 2,like all of that stuff, this
handheld microphone, thishandheld omnidirectional
microphone, omnidirectionalcondenser mic, will pair to
those directly and that wasreally cool.
So I was able to talk to Rodeabout that and spend some time

(32:16):
with Ryan from Rode and some ofthe other people there who I had
either luckily gotten to meetearlier this year or who I've
talked to many times for manyyears via email.
So it's so cool to meet inperson.
They are all the nicest peoplein the world, by the way.
They're just so great and theInterview Pro is pretty sweet.

(32:39):
It's a cool microphone.
It's surprisingly lightweightbut still feels like it's nice
quality.
It connected really well.
It performed really well.
I didn't have to.
I didn't have any issues.
They just gave me like one ofthe wireless Go receivers to use
and I clipped that to my camera.
We paired the mic to it andthat audio worked fine.
You can definitely hearbackground noise, but it was.

(32:59):
I filmed this on the second daywhen it was insanely crowded,
so it's about as crowded as itcould possibly be in that room
and you can hear a clip from itin my recap video and there'll
be another clip from it in theother video I'm working on.
But it did a good job.
It doesn't, like you know,totally isolate the voice or
anything, but it did a reallygood job.
It's omnidirectional and it hasbuilt in 32 bit float audio so

(33:21):
you can just press record on it,just like a lot of the wireless
transmitters do, and it cantransmit and record at the same
time, which a lot of UHF systemscan't.
So, like you know, the UHFwireless systems from, like it's
sort of weird, the body packscan't and I am not 100% sure
what I'm talking about here.
So have, like, the SennheiserEWDP, which is a UHF wireless

(33:47):
system and it's wonderful.
It has no recording built in atall on the body pack, on the
XLR plug, if you want to plug itinto the bottom of a microphone
.
It does have a micro SD cardslot and it can just be a
recorder and you can record andtransmit at the same time.
I have a Shure wireless systemhas no recording options, and I

(34:08):
also have the Deity Theos, whichis a dual transmitter UHF
system that can record in thetransmitters but it cannot
record and transmit at the sametime.
So if you're recording, it'sessentially you're not using the
transmitter at all, which Ithink is sort of silly.
In the case of of then why areyou spending the money for a UHF
system if you're just going touse it as separate audio

(34:29):
recorders, like you're kind ofwasting hundreds of dollars at
that point you could just get acouple of Zoom F2s and be good
to go, and I think the reasonfor that is I think there's a
patent thing.
It's the same thing thathappened for a long time GoPros.
If you were using the GoPro appto monitor the camera and you
pressed record, the app wouldblank out and you couldn't

(34:51):
monitor while recording.
Which people are very mad atGoPro about and thinking that
was like the most ridiculousthing in the world and it is,
but it was.
It had something to do with apatent of like recording and
transmitting at the same time.
There was something there andit's only recently with the
GoPro 12, whenever that wasreleased.
At that time they were able tolike I don't know if the patent
expired or they bought it orsomething changed, but now you

(35:12):
can press record on the GoProapp and still see what you're
recording while it's recording.
I think it's a similar issuehere with the UHF body pack
transmitters.
So if you have the, the packthat goes on your body that you
normally plug like a lavaliermicrophone into those can
transmit or they can record, butthey can't do both at the same
time.
Not because it's nottechnically possible, but I

(35:32):
think it's a legal thing.
But the XLR it comes to UHFlike.
You shouldn't really need therecording feature anyway,
because if that's somethingyou're relying on, the signal

(35:56):
should never drop out to thepoint where that becomes a
problem with UHF.
So you kind of don't reallyneed it and then it just adds
more to your workflow.
And UHF a lot is used in livescenarios as well, where you
can't edit.
There's not going to be anyediting, it's either live
broadcast, live stream, whatever.
So you need transmissiondirectly.
2.4 gigahertz, much more proneto interference, although, like

(36:16):
I said, the wireless sorry theinterview go didn't have any
interference issues on the showfloor, at least close up.
I didn't make Ryan do a test,but a couple other people were
doing kind of like similarinterviews with him and they had
him walk like really far awayand if he got, you know, 20, 30
feet away in that crowded spaceor lost line of sight, then it

(36:36):
would drop out and do thingslike that.
But if we were, you know, fiveor six feet away from the camera
just talking direct line ofsight, there was absolutely no
issues and those kinds ofsystems that are more affordable
and prone to interference.
Having that backup recordingdoes give you a lot of peace of
mind, even if you never need touse it.
So I think that system ispretty cool.

(36:57):
The only thing I don't likeabout it is something I've
already talked about, which isit has a built-in battery.
It has a great battery.
It's a high quality batterythat should last for a long time
and gives you I forget what thepredicted battery life is, but
plenty of battery life and it'sjust simple USB charging or you
can get a charging dock for it,but over time, which road

(37:19):
batteries are good batteries andshould typically last, I don't
know at least four to five yearsbefore you really start
noticing the battery lifedecreasing a lot.
Then it's done.
And it's not just the littletransmitter like in the wireless
goes and stuff, it's the wholemicrophone.
This whole really niceomnidirectional condenser
microphone is now done becausethe battery can't be replaced

(37:42):
and that's.
You know, I made a whole videoabout that.
That's the trend with all prettymuch every 2.4 gigahertz system
.
That is the trend and that'sunfortunate because you know
it's nice to to buy somethinglike that.
I know it's not the mostexpensive thing in the world,
but I think that mic is 250bucks.
A lot of the wireless systemsare 100 to 300, maybe $350.

(38:02):
You know it's nice to be ableto use those for a long period
of time and unfortunately that'sjust sort of for one reason or
another they don't havereplaceable batteries and even
if it's not like a battery thatyou just pop open and replace
like a AA, even if there's alittle bit of minor tinkering,
like you have to undo a screwand take a thing off and you

(38:22):
know, order a replacementbattery from them or whatever, I
would be fine with that.
You have to do that every fouryears.
That's cool, but then yourmicrophone you get to keep and
use instead of it becoming awaste.
So that's the only criticism Ihave, which, as more and more of
these things come out and thisproblem continues to be a
problem.
It just is a problem, I don'tknow how else to describe it and

(38:49):
I wish that something would bedone with that, because this
kind of goes into the next thingI'm talking about, which is
Shure.
Shure does have 2.4 gigahertzsystems which I wanted to try
but didn't get a chance, justbecause I haven't seen theirs.
And what I like about theirs isit's small.
And there was also a company Ithink it was Boya yeah which is
one of the more budget audiocompanies.

(39:09):
They have their little, youknow, wireless 2.4 gigahertz
system, but they had a fourtransmitter system which I've
never seen.
I've seen the two transmitterones.
I've never seen a fourtransmitter system, which is
pretty cool Four transmitters toone receiver receiver, kind of
nuts.
But um, we met some people atthe shore booth because I had my
wireless sm7b rig, which was.
I didn't think it would garnerthe attention that it did, but I

(39:33):
had that um bunch of peoplefrom shore came up, which one I
had talked to via email and likevideo calls a few times before
over the years, but not much.
I haven't really done much withshore other than buy their
products over the years, um, butnot much.
I haven't really done much withShure other than buy their
products over the years.
But that's what happened.
So she came over and one oftheir engineers came over and
they spent so much time with usjust because they were

(39:54):
interested in what we're using.
And then I was telling him aboutthe 2.4 UHF thing, they saw I
was using the Sennheiser andthen they made sure to let me
know that I should be using theShure transmitter.
I had gotten the SennheiserEWDP before NAB, specifically

(40:14):
for NAB, and I love it.
I had never used a Shure before.
And so they were like well,here, try one of ours.
And so they gave me to borrowthe SLX-D3.
I had to look it up because Idon't know Shure product names
as well as the Sennheiser onesthat I've been using for a long
time the SLX-D3 XLR transmitteralong with the SLX-D5 receiver,

(40:40):
and then they kind of explainedthe difference and so we got to
use that and see how itperformed, which was great.
And this was pretty cool becauseI apparently they said these
ones or ones similar to theseare like what they use at the
Super Bowl, and I didn't noticeright away.
The build quality wassignificantly better than my
Sennheiser one, which I love,the Sennheiser one, I have no

(41:01):
complaints about that but it waslike, oh wow, this feels better
and the XLR part has, like thisreally cool locking, quick
release system so you can swapit out between mics really fast.
I think if you're somebody likeme and you're just using one,
you just need one transmitterand one receiver.
It doesn't really matter ifyou're using the Sennheiser or

(41:23):
the Shure they're both great,but one receiver.
It doesn't really matter ifyou're using the sennheiser, the
shore they're both great, butthe shore if you're using a lot
of them at once.
It's kind of cool because theywere showing us how you can take
the receiver and essentiallylike, assign and pair different
transmitters and receivers fromone receiver.
So say you're using like fivetransmitters, you can assign all
their frequencies andeverything and even control them
from one receiver, even if theyall they can't all actually use

(41:47):
that receiver.
So you're not pairing fivetransmitters with one receiver.
They would all need their ownreceiver, but you can like
essentially control and assignthem.
So if you're trying to assignfrequencies or change something,
you don't need to walkphysically walk over to each
receiver.
You can kind of just like don'tneed to walk physically walk
over to each receiver, you cankind of just like do it all from
one spot.
You can even monitor them fromone receiver.

(42:09):
So if you want to hear like, oh, what is you know camera two
way over there, what does thatsound like?
Or something you can do that,which is pretty darn cool.
And the this is the first shorewireless system I had used and I
did notice the build quality isreally good.
It's like really heavy dutymetal build quality.
And the reason I'm bringingthis up is because both the

(42:31):
Sennheiser and the Shurewireless systems and I think you
know the Sony pretty much everyUHF wireless system I think
works this way.
A lot of them can take AAbatteries.
So they just have a door thatpops open, throw in two AA
batteries and you're good to go,and you know that's easy and
you can get rechargeable AAbatteries.
So they don't have thattwo-point.
No UHF system has the built-innon-replaceable battery.

(42:54):
Most of them can run off of AAbatteries.
A lot of them also, then canhave their own proprietary
rechargeable batteries whichhave a higher capacity.
So then you can just get youknow the batteries for that and
put them in the Shure and theSennheiser both work that way
and the Shure I actually don'tknow if my Sennheiser can do
this, but the Shure can also berun off of a USB power bank.

(43:15):
So there's three different waysto power it, all of which are
easy to replace.
You have small batteries thatcan be easily replaced, so your
wireless system keeps going andgoing.
And I know this because when Iwas teaching our wireless
systems that we used becausethis is what was available also
like 10 years ago to 2021, werethe Sennheiser G3s and G4s.

(43:40):
Those are the main ones that Iuse for everything, and the only
reason I ever even upgraded tothe G4s was just when I main
ones that I use for everything,and the only reason I ever even
upgraded to the G4s was justwhen I started needing to order
more wireless systems.
They didn't make the G3 anymore, but all of the G3s.
Maybe we even had G2s.
I think we did have some G2s,3s and 4s.
None of them ever stoppedworking.

(44:01):
The only reason I got new oneswas because we needed more, not
because there was a problem withany of them, because they just
work on frequencies.
There are weird things thathappen where certain frequencies
, because of weird legal issuesand things, become unavailable.
But those sort of catastrophicincidents aside, in terms of
just actually functioning, neverhad a problem with any of them.

(44:23):
The newer ones just have, youknow, some new features, some
new nice quality of life things,or might be more appropriate
for more specific use cases.
But the fact is, you could buy,you know, a UHF wireless system
in 2012,.
You could buy, you know, a UHFwireless system in 2012, and you
could bring it to NAB 2024,.
That's going to work just fineIf you none of the 2.4 gigahertz

(44:47):
systems have been around longenough to be, you know, 12 years
old at this point.
But if you do have one that's12 years old in a number of
years, chances are you're notgoing to be able to use it at
NAB, you know, be able to use itat NAB, you know, 2031 or
whatever, because the batterywill be dead and non-replaceable
and that sucks and a cool thing.
I really have to thank Shurebecause I think I was geeking

(45:08):
out about their transmitter sohard that then they were like,
oh, just hang on to it.
And I was like, okay, so.
So then they gave me that,which there was a funny thing.
They gave me that, which iscool, and I did not expect it
and it's kind of it's funnybecause I got home and I was
like putting everything away andthere's even stickers on the
back that say like Shore Events,and I think it has an inventory

(45:29):
tag on it.
They didn't like give me, youknow, a retail box or anything.
It was literally the ones theywere using at the booth.
They were like here, just takethis, which.
Now, that makes it a reallycool souvenir that I really like
.
But it was funny because onething that's really cool about
the Sennheiser XLR adapter thatthe Shure doesn't have is it has
a 3.5 millimeter microphoneinput.

(45:51):
So, even though it doesn'tnecessarily make sense to use
that for a lavalier microphone,if you need to you can.
If you only bought the systemthat has the XLR plug, you can
use that for a lavaliermicrophone.
If you need to, you can.
If you only bought the systemthat has the XLR plug, you can
use that for a lavalier thingtoo, almost like a body pack,
and then also plug it into anXLR mic.
So that's some pretty coolversatility.
Bronson from Audio Hotlinebrought me a microphone.

(46:12):
I cannot wait to share thismicrophone in the dynamic review
.
But it is the like $9 mini micfrom Amazon.
I'm sure you've seen thesebecause they're all over like
social media.
It looks like a little SM58,but it's like the size of a
lavalier microphone, which ishilarious.
They're usually like eight ornine dollars and sound

(46:32):
surprisingly fantastic.
Like for eight or $9, you can'tcomplain, no matter what, but
like it worked really well.
So anyway, we left the Shorebooth.
That little mini mic was thenext one I needed to do and I
just had my XLR plug and Ithought, oh shoot, I need to put
the Sennheiser plug back inbecause then I can plug this mic

(46:55):
into it.
And then we went to get somelunch and we were in like the
little like cafeteria food courtthing and we were walking over
to the like the table to eat andHeather had found a table for
us and it just so happened to benear one of the shore
representatives who was justeating her lunch there and we
could hang out and talk, but itwas.
This was literally like an hourafter they had given me this

(47:15):
amazing XLR system and I waslike, oh, thank you.
And then I was walking over toher with my Sennheiser system
back on, which I just felt wouldbe insulting.
So we were like walking overand I I very quickly because I
had my camera clipped to myshoulder strap of my backpack,
my FX three, with the Sennheiserreceiver on top I very quickly
like we're just going to setthis on the ground and like put

(47:37):
this totally out of sight.
Not that it not that it reallymatters.
But I really didn't want tocome off as ungrateful, like oh,
we just went out of our way togive this guy a freaking thing
and he just immediately likedoesn't care about it, which is
absolutely not the case.
And I still love my Sennheisersas well.
They're they're all so good andeverybody at the Sennheiser
booth was awesome, like theSennheiser booth was so much fun

(47:59):
to go to because they were justso excited.
I don't think they releasedanything new.
I don't think Shure releasedanything new either, but they
were just like excited about alltheir stuff, which is almost
better because it's like youdon't have to sell this new
product.
You can just show us everythingand be super excited about it.
And now I'm pretty happy becauseI bought the EWDP last year

(48:20):
because I wanted a UHF systemand I love it, and then Deity, a
couple months back, sent theTheo.
So when that came out, I waslike, okay, cool, at some point
I want to make a video about UHFsystems and I thought it will
be good to not just have one,especially modern ones.
Like you know, I've used theSennheiser's G3s or whatever.
You can't buy those anymore.
They especially modern ones.
Like I.
You know, I've used theSennheiser's G3s or whatever.

(48:41):
You can't buy those anymore.
They don't make them.
So I was like, okay, I wantmodern systems.
Having more than one to talkabout would be good.
And now I have three because ofthe Shure, which is great.
So I'd love to be able to makea video talking not just about
UHF.
But also, okay, what is thedifference between the things?
Like when you go Shore,sennheiser, theos, the systems I
have, I feel are all prettycomparable to each other.

(49:01):
And speaking of Deity, that wasone of the more bizarre
encounters I had.
So we went to the Deity boothat the end of the last day and
Deity has been.
They're a very supportivecompany of creators and they're
also owned by Aperture, whichthe Aperture booth the lighting
booth was ridiculous, like allof the lighting booths I said

(49:22):
this in my video looked reallygood because you have a company
that just makes beautiful, sothey're all beautifully lit,
plus production lights on standsdoing cool things.
You know, cool RGB, colortemperatures, projectors, all
that stuff.
You can do really cool stuffwith lighting.
So the booths just by default,tend to look a little cooler
than the other booths justbecause lights look cool when

(49:42):
they're and make things lookpretty.
But Aputure, they released a 20by 20 light mat, so you know,
like an LED mat.
That's sort of like a flexiblelight.
Those are things that arebecoming more and more popular
lately and 20 by 20 is prettygood, right, like you know, full
RGB, full everything.
The thing was it wasn't 20 by20 inches, it's 20 by 20 feet

(50:05):
and I didn't realize it was asingle light until I realized
the entire top of their boothwas just this light that was
like hanging over everything,this one single light mat.
That's full RGB and it was justcycling through all this stuff
and it was unreal.
It made you feel like likehoney, I shrunk the kids like
you, got shrunk down and now youwere at like a normal size
video light just hanging aboveyou.

(50:26):
It's crazy.
It was just so cool and I reallywondered, like I genuinely
didn't know, because it had sortof like a softbox around it
which looked the same as likethe 20 inch by 20 inch matte
panel lights.
When you put a little softboxaround them and I kind of wonder
, like if you add a diffuser oran egg crate to it, if there is
just a bunch of Velcro allaround that, like what is it?

(50:48):
24 to 80 feet of Velcro runningaround this and you have to
like Velcro this giant diffuserin somehow?
I just think that'd be funny.
I don't know if that's how itworks and that's probably not
how it works, but it seemedfunny to me.
So anyway, the reason I bringthat up is because Aperture owns
Deity.
Aperture booth in the middle ofeverything Just phenomenal, you

(51:09):
can't miss it.
It's so cool Deity booth wayoff in the corner of a different
room with, like not nearSennheiser or Rode or Boya or
Neuer or any of the other likecreator-ish companies which
Deity seems to be very focusedon creators.
They're way off in some othercorner, which is crazy, and we

(51:30):
went to the end of the day, so Ithink they were a little bit
tired.
The people I've talked to atDeity, especially Steve, have
always been so enthusiastic andjust so excited about everything
.
You see him on their YouTubechannel.
Well, come to find out.
Steve NAB was his.
He's leaving the company, sothat was his like last day there
, so we didn't get to see him.
I didn't see anyone else.
I knew there was basically likea couple of people just sort of

(51:52):
sitting on a couch and then oneguy who I can only describe as
like vaguely confused, workingthe booth, and Bronson and I
walked up and Deity had two newmicrophones they had announced
it was the S-Mic 3.
I forget what they're called,but it's the S-Mic 3, the third
version of it, and there's along one and a short one.
And they were sort of sittingthere and we're like, whoa, you

(52:13):
guys announced new microphones.
We didn't know this.
And he was like, oh, yeah.
And we're like, oh, are youknow?
Are these coming out?
And he's like, well, these arestill kind of prototypes,
they're not available yet.
I'm like, oh, okay, you knowwhat's different about them?
Did they sound any different?
He was like no, oh, okay.
And he's like they are fullywaterproof.
And I was like, oh, that'sawesome.
Like waterproof mics make sense.

(52:34):
And he was like, oh, I didn't,I didn't know that.
And then Bronson asked like oh,can I try one?
You know cause Bronson hascamera.
It was like, oh, can I plug onein and try it?
He's like can I try one?
And the guy was like no, theseare prototypes.
Like we need them.
And he's like no, I don't mean,can I have it?
Like, can I try it?
And I was like, oh, yeah,whatever, that was sort of the.

(52:59):
It was like the experience wehad at like the shore booth or
the sennheiser booth or the roadbooth, where people are giving
you so much of their timebecause they can't stop talking
about the thing that they madeand they're so excited about it.
Deity was like the polaropposite and I've never had
someone who was sort of unsureabout why a product exists, not
really explain it all and thenjust wander away, was our
experience.
There wasn't anyone else at thebooth.

(53:20):
It wasn't like let me go talkto these other people.
It was weird, I don't know, itwas the end of a day.
I'm sure it was a very long day.
A couple of other cool things wesaw Kupo, k-u-p-o.
I made my video a couple weeksago about my camera rig where I
used a couple Kupo adapters.
They had a booth which is likeit wasn't a huge booth or

(53:40):
anything, but it was coolbecause they had all of their
adapters.
They're like for sale, so ifyou needed something you could
just buy their adapters.
And Kupo has a good reputation.
But what I didn't realizebecause I had literally been
browsing their website beforeNAB trying to put together some
like adapters I needed when itcomes to grip gear, lighting,
camera stuff, tripod stuff, ifyou need to adapt anything.

(54:00):
If you've ever wondered likecan I connect this to this, or
is there a mount that will letme connect two of these things
to this thing or whateverAnything like that they have it
and it's super well built andprobably pretty affordable.
So all I wanted to do was justbring up like.
Sometimes those things seemit's not like the most exciting

(54:21):
thing you think of when youthink of something like nab, but
they let you do whatever youhave an idea of like.
I wonder if I could do blankwith blank, that's probably
going to be the thing thatenables you to do it.
So, um, kupo, I just want toremind you, like, go to kupo's
website.
Kupo and, you know, check outadapters.
They have a lot of stuff onAmazon and B&H as well, but, um,

(54:42):
their website has, like theirfull catalog so you can, you can
order directly from there oryou can find what you want and
then order it from your site ofchoice.
Uh, we did see this thing.
It was, um, from a companycalled Cine.

(55:05):
They said it was a $6.5 milliontruck and it wasn't just a
broadcast production truck, buttheir goal with it was to get I
forget how they put it likeessentially, you could run your
cameras into it, which of course, they have the highest end
cameras in the world, camerasand lenses going in there and
like full 4k plus quality butthen also being like color
corrected and color graded andaudio being processed.
So the the output.
Their goal was that the outputlooked almost indistinguishable

(55:27):
from like a finished, you know,film or movie product project.
So you could do that with alive event, and they walked us
through the whole way that thathappens, from how things are
ingested and how things areprocessed.
And the truck was so, so insane.
I have footage of it in some ofmy videos.
I just thought, as someone whoused to teach broadcasts and I
always thought this stuff wascool, I just thought it was

(55:48):
pretty phenomenal.
I don't have $6.5 million tospend on a giant truck, but it
was really neat and the inside,which is just so massive, is
like totally modular, so you candivide it up, break it up, move
desks around, change thingsaround, depending on what type
of show you're doing or whatkind of crew is working, and I
just I don't know.
That was just fun.
There's nothing else there,nothing else to that, other than

(56:09):
fun.
The last thing that I want tohighlight that I probably won't
get to talk about in a video isYOLO, yolo Live YOLO Box.
They had a booth surprisinglythey were kind of like tucked
away in the corner which I feltlike a lot of what they do is so
relevant to what was happeningthis year at NAB that they
should have had like a betterlocation.

(56:29):
But I've talked about the YOLOBox before.
I have the YOLO Box Ultra,which I want to make a video
about, but it can do so much.
It honestly feels overwhelmingto try to like explain
everything it can do, and that'swhy I haven't done it in a
while.
And this is a great thing forcustomers.
But it's hard when you reviewthings.
They update stuff so often.

(56:51):
It's hard to figure everythingout, digest it, make a video
about it, because there's goingto be an update like instantly,
that makes your video out ofdate.
So that's why I haven't talkedabout the Ultra.
But it's great and I've knownthe people who work at YoloBox
for I guess four years now.
I think 2020 was when we met.
I think that may be when theystarted the company and they're

(57:12):
great.
They're genuinely passionatepeople.
Again, it's an overseas company, like.
They specifically want to seekout diverse creators to help
with their stuff.
They have, you know, men andwomen working on their team at
all levels.
So it's like I don't know youcan't really use that excuse
other companies, but they werejust.

(57:34):
It was really fun to see whatthey did and they do a thing.
They just released somethingcalled the Alpha Cam, which is
sort of funny because sony has,like, the alpha line of camera.
So I don't know if that's.
I don't know if that's a thingto, if it's going to be an issue
or not, but the alpha cam is amicro four-thirds webcam,
basically an interchangeablemicro four-thirds webcam, and

(57:57):
it's pretty interesting becausebasically what they wanted to do
with it I think the price Iforget what he said.
Oh, they didn't have anofficial price yet but they're
trying to make it only a littlemore expensive than, like, the
highest end webcam.
So if you look at, like theLogitech Brio or something where
you have like these $400webcams, this is a micro
four-thirds sensor withinterchangeable lenses.

(58:18):
So micro four-thirds lenseswork on there, full 4K,
everything, but also really fastautofocus, which I never really
used.
Micro four-thirds but somethingI understand is autofocus was
always a bit of a trouble, andso I think the way the camera
looks, there's a lens and thenbelow it is sort of this
protrusion that sticks out and Ithink it's a LiDAR sensor, but

(58:42):
it has a really fast autofocus,like they were showing us.
You know how fast it is, so itdoes have autofocus means you
could get a fast lens, shallowdepth of field and have really
fast autofocus.
And really what they're tryingto do with it is for the person
who wants, like the mirrorlesscamera, look, the shallow depth
of field, the image quality, butdoes not want to spend any time

(59:04):
learning how to use amirrorless camera or set up a
mirrorless camera.
They're essentially making awebcam the body of the camera
doesn't have.
It's not something you couldtake off and go take pictures
with or make videos with, Likeit is just a webcam.
But it's for the person whowants to plug that into their
computer via USB and never thinkabout it again and get that
mirrorless video level ofquality, which I think is

(59:25):
actually kind of a big deal,because that's what webcams have
been promising.
Every time there's a new webcamthat comes out and it's never
true, because it can't be true,like based on the laws of
physics and reality it's not athing that can be true.
But they've kind of found acool way to do that and I'm very
excited to see where that goes.

(59:46):
And it's kind of cool toobecause it sort of makes that
they have sort of a wholeecosystem.
Now you could buy a couple ofYoloBox cameras with the YoloBox
and you have sort of thisintegrated ecosystem.
I don't know, it's pretty neat.
And oh, then of course there wasthe Blackmagic booth, which I
think everybody talks aboutbecause they were the title
sponsor and it was crazy.

(01:00:07):
The thing about the Blackmagicbooth that I wanted to point out
which is very cool, is I was inthere looking around and I
didn't get to talk to himbecause I was too starstruck,
because these, these are thepeople I get starstruck by.
Right behind me, I suddenlyheard this Australian voice and
I looked and it was Grant fromnot from B&H, from Blackmagic,
who is their founder, and he'sthe one you know whenever you

(01:00:28):
watch videos of product releasesor whatever.
He's always the one there.
He's been there, you know fromthe beginning.
It's his company and he's juston the floor like any other
representative, talking topeople about their products with
the same excitement as anyoneelse, which he probably doesn't
need to be.
Most other companies, unless itwas a small company, didn't have
their founder there, much lessthe title sponsor, and it wasn't
like okay, watch out, everybodyhere comes.

(01:00:50):
The founder for 10 minutes oflike face time with the normies
is like no, he's just hangingout at the booth all day, every
day, like nerding out withpeople.
The same thing goes with likenot the founder of Nanlite, but
one of the US, like his name'sBarry.
I forget his exact title, buthe's one of the main US like
coordinators for Nanlite.
He's one of the people I'vetalked to over the years to try

(01:01:12):
to help me out with lights andstuff and figure things out
about my lights.
I really wanted to talk to himand say hi but I literally
couldn't because every singletime I saw him, every single
time I walked by the Nanlitebooth, he was so deep in like
enthusiastic conversation withsomeone I just couldn't
interrupt him.
And that's cool, like the factthat people are that into what
they do is pretty phenomenal,and that's you know.

(01:01:34):
I'm only sharing a handful ofthings with you that I sort of
saw, found interesting,memorable right now, but that
you could take this andextrapolate it to you know so
many different products andcompanies and people.
And then there's the wholeinterpersonal side of it, where
it's not even about the brand orthe company but the
relationships between you andthe people working the event and

(01:01:55):
the people attending the event,and that's a whole magical
thing.
So if you didn't, if you didn'twatch my video about that,
definitely do that, because Ifeel like I more effectively
shared my thoughts about thatover there and I definitely also
I should probably should havedone this at the beginning of
the podcast, but also again wantto thank B&H for covering the
travel costs for Heather and Ito go to NAB, because that

(01:02:16):
really did help a lot Hotel foodflight even.
You know, boarding our dogs fora couple of nights which is
that's always a big one likeleaving pets.
We don't have family that liveslocally to us, so going out of
town for multiple nights isalways a little tricky.
We're always pretty anxious.
There's a great place that weboard our dogs at pretty
regularly, but it's also notcheap, you know, and you know

(01:02:39):
obviously your pets are worthtaking care of, but it's like,
it's almost like you're payingfor a second hotel stay wherever
you go, and you know thosebills add up very quickly.
So it becomes easy when youthink of doing something, like,
oh, I'm gonna do this, and thenyou start adding up the price
and you're like or I could donothing and not have to spend

(01:03:00):
all that money on it, you know.
So when B&H shows up and like,hey, we'll just eliminate that
stress for you by covering thosecosts, it really makes a
difference and it made the wholething possible for us.
So thank you, b&h, for doingthat, for enabling us and for
the support.
That was absolutely fantastic.
So that pretty much wraps it up.
If you have any thoughts oranything, of course you can

(01:03:23):
share them, as always, tom, atenthusiasmprojectcom, or go to
hi, my name is tomcom and leavea voice message for the podcast.
We've got three episodesremaining this season.
One of them might include a bitof a surprise, so we'll see.
We'll see about that, and thatpretty much wraps it up.
So thanks so much for listeningto me.
If I saw you at NAB or got totalk to you there, thank you for
spending your time with metalking to me.
If I didn't get to talk to youor we didn't get to talk long

(01:03:45):
enough, I apologize and maybe wecan next year, because that'd
be really fun.
In the meantime, I hope youhave a safe, happy, healthy, fun
rest of your day and your weekand I'll see you next time.

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