Apr 16, 2024
Join us for a special live broadcast from the bustling floors of NAB 2024 in Las Vegas! This episode dives deep into the latest trends and technologies shaking up the audio industry. We’re bringing you the inside scoop straight from the heart of the action, featuring:
- Exclusive Interviews: Robert opens the bag in whats in SourceConnect four, which is set to revolutionize how we handle Atmos and multi-channel audio streaming.
- Product Spotlights: Discover cutting-edge products like the new vocal booths that promise unparalleled sound isolation, even on noisy show floors as their VP of Marketing Freddie Gateley joins us for a chat.
- Tech Insights: Learn about the tech that's driving audio innovation, including the latest in virtual set technology that could change film and TV production forever.
- Live Demos: Experience the power of Austrian Audio’s OC 707 microphone, designed to deliver exceptional sound clarity, even in challenging environments.
Whether you're an audio professional or a tech enthusiast, this
episode is packed with insights that you won't want to miss!
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear..
If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD
Join our Facebook page here:
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For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.”
Hunter S Thompson
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Summary
In this podcast, George and Robert explore the latest audio
technology and trends from the NAB show, including the launch of
SourceConnect four, which enables end-to-end Atmos audio streaming.
They also discuss the impressive soundproofing capabilities of
their trade show booth and the advantages of prefabricated booths
over custom-built studios with guest Freddie Galey. The hosts delve
into the logistics and costs of shipping vocal booths
internationally and highlight Vocal Booth's diverse market
applications. Additionally, they share their experience using the
Austrian Audio OC 707 microphone for recording on the road and
discuss the advancements in virtual production technology showcased
at the expo. The conversation also touches on the extravagance of
Las Vegas and the use of wireless technology to record podcasts in
a crowded convention setting.
#AudioTech
#VocalBooths
#NABShow2023
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) NAB Highlights with George and Robert
(00:00:57) Streaming Atmos Audio with SourceConnect Four
(00:04:35) Soundproofing Magic at the Trade Show
(00:05:57) The Value of Prefab Booths
(00:11:26) Shipping Vocal Booths to Australia
(00:15:12) Vocal Booths: From Testing to Pets
(00:19:00) Building Recording Booths for Any Space
(00:22:12) Recording on the Road with Austrian Audio
(00:24:17) Virtual Production Advancements at NAB Show
(00:28:53) The Excess of Las Vegas
(00:29:55) Wireless Tech Powering Podcasts at Convention
(00:32:24) Wrapping Up and Staying Connected
Transcript
: Y'all ready? Beat history. Get started.
: Welcome.
: Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone, to the pro audio suite.
: These guys are professional.
: They're motivated.
: Thanks to Tribooth, the best vocal booth for home or on the rote.
Voice recording and austrian audio making passion heard.
Introducing Robert Marshall from source elements. And someone audio
post Chicago, Darren Robbo Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging,
Sydney Tech to the Vo stars, George the tech Wittem from LA, and
me, Andrew Peters. Voice over talent and home studio line up.
: Learner. Here we go.
: And welcome to another pro audio suite. Thanks to tributh, it's
your freedom. The golden handcuffs. And don't forget the code
TripaP 200 to get $200 off yours. And austrian audio making passion
heard. Now, lots of things are being heard at NAB as we cross live
to George and Robert.
: Yeah. We are here at NAB 2024. Hello, everyone. We're in Vegas,
baby.
: What happens in Vegas instead of.
: Well, not today.
: Yeah. I hope the sales keep on going outside of Vegas.
: That's right. But we don't want the money to stay in Vegas. We
want it to go with us. We're all here to make money. That's the
bottom line, we have to admit.
: It's true. It's very true, actually. We want to show our stuff.
That's what we really want to do. And then if it makes money,
very.
: Gordon Gekko of you, I must say.
: Yeah, exactly. Very few people leave Vegas.
: I'd be buying everybody and dismantling their companies if I was
Gordon Gekko, wouldn't I?
: Yeah, something like that.
: Yeah. Greedy's good. I'm not in on that name, but I'll google it
later.
: It's that movie where he's like the Wall street guy, and he just
buys other companies and destroys them. And all the union people
are like, no. And he's like, fuck you, capitalism.
: Yeah. So we're. I'm here because of vocal booth. Vocal booth.com.
We've done a little story about them already and what I've done
with them. But we're here. I'm here because I wanted to hang out
with them and meet all of their customers and help them make.
: Then it might be the right decision.
: And Robert is, of course, here with source elements, and he's
helping to promote the launch of SourceConnect four, which is doing
some very impressive stuff.
: Yeah, we got nominated for our best in show award. Specifically,
we made source connect four. The upper end version is going to be
able to stream Atmos end to end. And that actually doesn't sound
like that impressive because it's possible to stream multi channel
audio right now. But the difference is source connect four will be
able to stream all the bed, all those channels, all the objects
which could be up to like hundreds and 128. And the metadata for
all those objects so that the receiving side can render that
locally for their system on the fly. And then you can do that for
up to five connections simultaneously. So you could have a director
monitoring an Atmos mix and the stage could be on a 25 speaker
system. The director could have a twelve speaker system. The
producer could log in from another location and just receive on
binaural and maybe the writer logs in and they're at home and they
only have five. One. And all those things can be rendered locally
for each system so the stage doesn't have to dumb down or render
down to the common denominator. Yeah, that was great.
: Mind bending stuff.
: I think we need to add a caveat to that though. You can do all
that unless you're on the australian NBN.
: Well if you have Andrew's Internet then all you can do is half a
channel.
: That's right. South of Melbourne. Not so great. Sydney. No
problem.
: It seems that way, doesn't it?
: Yeah.
: But seriously though, is that dependent on your connection?
: Well yeah, if you're streaming 128 channels of audio we figure on
the realistic side you need at least five megs upload. But really
each person and it can add up quite a bit. So we're really talking
about people with really good pipes. But the intended audio
audience for a product like that tends to be mix stage for a
feature film. They're sitting on top of a ton of bandwidth. And
then on the home side, most people's download, I mean you can get a
gig download without even thinking about it.
: Yeah.
: So yeah, it'll take your average podcasters.
: Not going to use it, let's be honest.
: Of course.
: Or you just need George's cell phone that can get a gig from.
: Yeah, we can get on 5g here. I can get 1.2 gigabit download.
: Wow, wow, wow.
: Inside a building.
: I'm moving to the states, so I'm done.
: I think the towers are in the building.
: Yeah, no, there are definitely microcells inside this building.
So it's. Anyway, to try to paint the picture. We are in the middle
of the heart of the central hall. It's about as central as this
show kind of gets. The main stage is about 150ft in front of us,
right down the hall, which has tremendous sound levels. There's
music playing. There's presenters. It's all kinds of stuff going on
and yet we can get away with recording in this noisy environment
until, uh oh.
: Bing bong.
: Hello, we have a guest. Until that door opens, you can hear the
noise.
: I think we should do that again.
: Yeah, yeah, let's hear that again.
: Before and after without all the talking.
: Over. Take two. Take two.
: Silence.
: Open the door.
: Wow.
: And then close the door.
: That's crazy. That's insane.
: It is really good at a show floor because I've been to plenty of
booth demonstrations at shows and it's really a hard, like, this
is, this is as bad as it gets. You know, if you were doing a sports
thing and who knows what's going on outside. Maybe not NASCAR
racing, maybe not Formula one, but who knows, like a football game,
you could probably get away with quite a bit with some stuff like
this. Especially if it's, you know, off, you know, place in the
right place.
: Yeah.
: Well, we've got another folk, another folk here. Yeah. Freddie
Galey, which we've spoken to before. You betcha. How you doing,
Fred?
: I'm doing awesome.
: He's the reason we're all, at least I'm here. And this is the
reason why we have this booth here.
: That's why we have the booth.
: How many years of nab for you now?
: This would be. Oh, when was my first one? In 2012? 2013?
: I think so. So that was after we teamed up because guy was the
first one that we.
: Yeah, we were. I just, you know what? My Calvin, our owner, just
sent me a photo like a couple days ago and he happened to be the
one that we were down there and I said, source elements here is
2015.
: Wow.
: Yeah, it's not been a while.
: And.
: I've been coming to these spottily over the years, but I'm so
glad that I came to this one because the, the quality of the, of
the people that attend nab are top notch. I mean, these folks are
not just creatives, but they're like education directors, station
directors, managers, just incredible high level people here and
they understand the value of this thing. The first thing I'm always
impressed by is when you tell them what this, this is a big booth
we're in, what, eight by ten?
: Yeah, this one's an eight by ten platinum plus. Or a double wall
with an extra layer of mass loaded vinyl.
: Yeah. And you know, if we were at a music convention, you might
tell them the price and a sticker shock might roll over their face,
but not at a show like this, because people understand the value of
what this thing does.
: What's something like this? Like 15,000? Yeah.
: So the basic one of this one would go out as seen here at an
eight by ten. And the platinum double wall, including all the
shipping be 23,000 shipped.
: And the shipping is like two, three.
: Grand on the chunk of it.
: It's pretty stiff, but we pay for the shipping, so that's your
out the door price.
: That's what I love. These guys price everything shipped in the
US, which really takes away any of the mystification of what stuff
credit really.
: Costs and, like, parts and materials and someone to build it.
You're spending that much money, at least, and then double it for
the frustration.
: I've done a lot of custom studio designs and builds with
contractors, and it's excruciating.
: Yeah, excruciating.
: Like, I. One of the things I get hard to do so often is, should I
build or buy? And the build argument is so strong now more than
ever, because construction's so damn expensive. It's very
frustrating to deal with contractors. Not that they're bad
people.
: They don't understand the details of, like, I even did it now,
and my contractor, I said, put these little rubber pads underneath
the floor, blah, blah, blah. Do not screw the new subfloor to the
old floor. What did they do?
: Yes.
: Thousand screws in it. By the time I got home from work, it's
like, it's done now. My floor is coupled, and I didn't want it
coupled.
: You can spend gobs of money way more than this thing for
something this size, and then have one mistake. One screw goes
through his timber, short out the build, and it's ruined.
: You ruin the whole.
: That's a couple. Yeah, yeah.
: One of the things, too, that I've had clients and stuff in the
past is they've called us. They were already pretty well down the
road with somebody, and then they were like, I'm just gonna see
about having some. A prefab. And we came in, they're like, oh, you
guys are a third the cost, and you can have it here this month.
Yeah, game on. Let's go. And then that was the other big thing for
them, too, is they were like, hey, I'm not modifying my real
estate, so this is not going to be something I have to try and
resell. This pool house with a recording studio in. It's like we
just take it each.
: Part of the art, right?
: You have to include that cost, which is once you want to sell it,
you've now modified some basement room to something that people
don't want, and then you got to put it back, and that'll cost you
at least half as much to undo it all.
: Yep. I know. Watching Joe Cipriano's custom built studio I
designed 15 years ago essentially be dismantled and destroyed
because the people that bought the house don't need it was rather
heartbreaking.
: If there's one way to devalue your property, build a studio.
: Unless you're very lucky.
: Yeah. Unless you actually find you're just lowering the pool of
people that want to buy your house on resale. Seriously. I had a
real estate agent, and I was talking about building my studio and
this and that, and I was like, definitely do not get rid of that
bathroom. But all in all, I was like, you're devaluing your
property by building this huge studio in it. It's like, well, I'm
not moving in my case, but if you don't know or you're building,
you know, buying an investment house and you might be planning on
selling it, building a studio in there will cost you at least as
much as a prefab booth. It will cost you more to get rid of it, and
you will be frustrated by the whole process, and it will take you
longer.
: It's a serious commitment. Yeah.
: What's even wild, too, is that recently, schools have been
getting into that, too. I had one school that built an entire
second story out of an acoustic floor just to be able to put our
booths in on top of that so that they didn't have to later demo all
the sheetrock and all the studs and everything. They're like, let's
just put 17 big booths up here, make it look like it's all one
structure, wood veneered, and wire all the h vac and everything
into it. But later, we can just get rid of it.
: Do you know one of the best tricks I've seen? You buy a booth,
and then you just build the simplest wall in front of the booth,
and the whole thing looks like it's built into the house, and it's
only been one wall with one stud and one layer of drywall, and it
looks like Joe Cipriano's place, practically.
: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
: So, gents, down there in Australia.
: Yes.
: What do you guys have in mind? What do you want to know?
: I actually have a quick question about the booth you're in,
because every Aussie and every Englishman is asking, yeah, it's
great. 23 grand in the states. But if I want one down here, what's
shipping going to cost me, and I'm Bhop.
: Funny you brought that up.
: 50,000, 100,000 australian. What's the conversion rate is
off.
: It fluctuates.
: We've been seeing NAB is very international. So there are Qatar
people from Qatar, Dubai, Europe. And you guys, did you ship
something overseas not too long ago?
: Well, even just thinking about Australia is just this last year
we did University of Sydney down there and we did. I mean,
containers full down there and they did a whole room full of booths
and stuff. So logistics are the big thing down there. So if it's
something going to Sydney or going to a port city, that's not too
big of a deal. We have really good air options, we have really good
freight options for the ocean options as well. And if we do a full
container down there, it's really easy. We can even get that
dropped off at the place and then it's almost like having a
trailer.
: So we're talking group orders. Maybe get together and do a group
order or something, then fill a container.
: Yeah, exactly. You know, we can always use somebody consolidating
stuff over there.
: So the shipping, the 23,000 for this booth shipped, that's
continuous us states or is that. Yep.
: That's going to be anywhere where we don't have to cross borders.
Because then once we do get into, like, Canada, of course, we've
got all the tariffs and fees and stuff that has to go in there and
somebody has to be grabbing it on the other side. It's usually.
It's funny how it's really not sometimes that much more. Sometimes
it's like an extra $150 on our freight side to get it over there,
but on. And that's if they're taking care of all the tariffs and
all the import duties. We can do that. We can act as brokers for
people too, though, and make it pretty easy. But again, it just
depends on the level of.
: It's a really world market now. I mean, we are doing build outs
in the US where the windows and doors come from, China. This is not
unusual. This is all happening right now. So things moving between
continents is not nearly. Now, I know there was a little problem
besides missiles. Yeah. ICB vocal booth. Intercontinental ballistic
vocal booth.
: I'm sorry, it just crossed my mind. I don't know what.
: Filters. Filters, yeah. So, yeah, no, it's not unheard of. Would
you buy maybe a little one off, four by four? I don't know. It
depends on. Because you're sharing a container when you're doing
like, one booth. Yeah.
: And we do international crates, and so we can get it priced out
just for a crate. The hard thing is that that is even a fluctuating
market. So we've seen, all of a sudden it'd be dirt cheap, like,
where we can get something down there for $1,200 shipping, but then
we'll see it, like, just absolutely spike. Like, of course, we saw
weird things during the whole COVID pandemic, like ships that were
just sitting out there with stuff rotting on it. So it was just
astronomically up and down, so you never really knew. But we do
really quick turnarounds on quotes, so that's something that it's
all up front, like, you know, order the boot and then find out how
much shipping's gonna be once you guys, when somebody's happy with
the way that the quote is, they're ready to go ahead and move to
the next level. We're on the phone with our logistics.
: Guys and we got it done.
: So AP's just texted me, he'll take a container load, please.
: Right.
: Right away.
: When you're all done with the container, you can just line it
with double wall and make a booth out of the container.
: Maybe we should line it with other things to pay for it.
: Yes.
: There you go.
: Exactly. I think this just became evidence.
: Hello, ASIO, if you're listening. Yes.
: Yeah. So what's your biggest market? Is it people like myself,
like a voice over talent? Or is it more studios, as in, you know,
commercial studios?
: I'm guessing it's broadcasters and production companies.
: Yeah, it's funny. Our biggest market, probably. I mean, if we
wanted to talk just dollar wise, it's going to be education and
corporate, even testing. So those are the biggest ones that are
getting really big boosts. So some of these will be 16 by 32ft and
nine or 10ft tall. Some companies, like Medtronics or Philips,
respiratronics or something, they'll be doing really big production
stuff and want to move all their testing stuff inside because
they're in a bigger factory. And so this is something that they can
pop up right in a factory, bolt to the floor in there, and have a
whole way of stuff coming in and out.
: Bolt it to the floor. You're gonna couple it and then you're
gonna get all those vibrations through the.
: Yeah.
: And so again, what they're all about is they don't need an
anechoic chamber, but what they need to do is have all that
equipment out there and bring it down to a level that's good enough
for their testing inside. And so even inside of that big booth will
be other booths.
: Oh, wow.
: Yeah. So it's a big crazy thing. But again, to bring a level down
to another level and to another level also, we've been doing a
whole lot of stuff with Apple and Amazon and stuff too, and their
testing departments. And that's just one of the most consistent
things that we have.
: And then what stuff do they need?
: A big thing that we designed for them is custom testing
enclosures. And so this will be stuff to test all of their small. I
don't know what my NDA can let me say, but you all know.
: What Apple devices, that they all know.
: What Apple branded devices about the size of an iPad or the size
of generally portable things. Portable. So a lot of stuff in the
testing facilities where they'll want to stack up like maybe 15 or
20 of these and have run localizations on all of those and not have
them talk to each other. So they don't need like an insane level of
isolation, but enough to where they're just not straight talking to
each other or maybe even like speaker arrays or weird things on the
inside and then even up to that. So, like, booths that are this
size that they can go in and then have stuff kind of bounce around
even. We do a lot of stuff like in the broadcasting world and stuff
like the Nielsen Corporation that the Nielsen ratings and stuff
too, where they build living room sets inside of our booth. So they
have big 16 by 32 sets.
: Wow.
: And they're all dressed out and they have robotics arms and
stuff, but they can build all those living room sets, put all their
listening devices in there and then run all the tests around. And
they have, like, I can't remember, they run like 32 of their own
little tv stations in the back. And so they can broadcast to their
own little closed circuit. Not closed circuit, but just a very
small power thing and then test how this works across all of their
tv stations and what it sounds like in this living room and what
sounds like in that living room and if this thing is working and
stuff. So again, that's the crazy thing about vocal booth, is that
we never know who's gonna call and stuff. So we do get the people
that, you know. Yeah, I'm unfortunate.
: I rarely say no.
: It sounds like, you know, yeah, we pretty much say no to very
little.
: Do parents ever call and they just wanna put their kids in the
booth, actually.
: Okay. So recently I did get a call and somebody wanted one for.
They wanted one of our ant boxes that would perfectly fit a dog
crate. And so they could put their dog in there because the dog had
anxiety issues and he could be put in there. And we have
ventilation and everything. And that crate slid right in there. And
the dog could sleep in a nice, very quiet environment when they
went to work. And then we had later one that somebody bought a
three carat diamond for their parrot. So that thing was driving
people crazy and the neighbors crazy when they go to work. And so
they both. And I don't know. I mean, you don't ask questions.
: Polly's got a booth.
: We just don't say no.
: Back to this. Back to the dog crate one, though. It's school
holidays here, so I'll take four of those, please.
: Absolutely.
: And they stack nicely.
: Yeah, yeah. Nice one.
: What, the children or the boots?
: The serial killer. Did the serial killer want an environment to
do his thing in?
: A less eating Las Vegas hotel food for too many days in a
row.
: Haven't had that customer yet.
: There was somebody who wanted their entire bedroom put in
one.
: Oh, wow.
: What were they getting up to in there then, I wonder?
: I don't think.
: I didn't ask, but I don't think it was all about what kind of
sound was coming from the inside, but from the outside, so that's
okay. They actually, it was one of the writers on Jimmy Fallon's
show. And they were like, I get done writing after the last show is
done and we get too busy and I might not get home until 08:00 in
the morning and done writing, and then I'm in Manhattan and this is
a nightmare stuff. So sent a booth, and from our booths, they can
all be built from the inside out. They have nice ventilation and
everything. So he just built it right into his bedroom and then
threw all the bedroom set and everything aside.
: That's very interesting. Your boots can be built from the inside
out. You can put the floor in a corner and you're not screwed. You
can put it in the corner. You don't have to, like, build it in the
middle of the room and then shove it in the corner.
: That's huge.
: I have built enough booths that that's a big deal. Like, I didn't
even realize that. That's really.
: That's huge.
: Yeah, we put all the stuff on the inside because so many places
you want to maximize your, you know, your. Maximize your space. And
so some people will even call, they just have an alcove like that.
That's a big thing with corporations stuff, too. They're like,
we've been given the area where the printer used to be. And that's
our recording studio now. And so, yeah, no problem. As long as you
get there from the front, build all the sides, and even with really
short ceilings, we can build it right up to within, like, two
inches of the ceiling and then slide light in, you know, the
ceiling panels so that you don't have to go up and above and lay
them down and then put that final wall in there. And that's a.
: That's a really big deal. I mean, building booths is, you know,
building your own built in booth is really frustrating, but it's
still a task. It was.
: It.
: I mean, it's gonna, like. I'm sure you guys can put this thing
together in, what, like, 2 hours or something, but if your first
time on this, you're gonna spend the day building this thing.
: Yeah.
: At least the day. How good you are with instructions and how far
it is you have to bring the panels or whatever. It just depends on
the people and.
: How it's like going to Ikea.
: I was just there yesterday.
: Very heavy Ikea, insulated with Romo.
: Okay.
: So funny enough, Ikea has actually become one of our clients, as
last time. And we just sent him one of those little wrenches.
: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
: We seem to have lost our Allen key.
: Yeah, that's right.
: Well, you've got a few leftovers, like.
: Yeah, yeah.
: What do I do with my missed.
: Yeah, yeah, totally.
: On that wall.
: You guys don't mind, I've got. I've got some clients and stuff to
see out here, too, but it's great talking to you guys down there.
And always a pleasure. So, Freddie, thank you for letting us
enjoy.
: Cheers.
: Love having these guys around, and it's been fun.
: Thanks, Freddie. Cheers, man.
: Thanks.
: Cheers.
: Now listen to the door. Here we go.
: Let's hear it again.
: Seriously, it's good.
: That's very good.
: It is good.
: That mic is doing good, too. From the distance, it's picking him
up really clearly. It's hard to tell how it really is when you're
the speaker.
: Yes.
: But when you turn it on him, it's good.
: For most of you are probably only hearing the show. This is
really an audio show today, and we are using the austrian audio OC
707. I promised I would make this my on the road mic.
: It's a tighter polar pattern than the. Than the OC eight, I
think. Right?
: I think so. Like, I'm. So we're. Right now, Robert and I are
equidistantly across from the mic, and it's still getting both of
us. But it's a little more diffuse. Right? It's not as focused.
: It's got a good presence. Like, that's even more presence. I hear
that. And that's just rotating the mic, like, 30 degrees or
something.
: So very cool. It's definitely not. It's not a wide cardioid. It's
a more narrow, maybe almost hyper.
: I think it might be hyper. I don't know, but it's. I think it's
doing well.
: Yeah. Well, it's weird, because in this booth, we have other
mics. We have some earthwork ethoses, and we have some other gear.
But I opted just to go single mic handheld, which sounds old school
and weird, but the nice thing about that is I can essentially
engineer this. So I'm controlling and mixing manually. This is an
old school thing, but I'm literally mixing the three of us. And
because we have one mic, we don't worry about fading and crosstalk.
We can get away from the glass. That's. This booth has a lot of
glass because it's all about showing off. And, yeah, it's working
out really well.
: It's funny you should talk about mics, though, because the file I
sent to you, that was done in the back of the car with the austrian
audio, Cc eight, I sent to one of the engineers at big radio
network here. And he said, what mic is it, and where do you record?
I told him, CC eight with the mic four pro in the back of my car.
And his reply was, nuts. Absolutely nuts. He couldn't believe
it.
: Right?
: Yeah.
: So from now on, you're doing all your sessions from your car?
: That's right.
: Yeah, exactly.
: Exactly.
: Well, I gotta say. So I don't know how much time you've had to
really see the joint. I've only walked one lap of the central hall
briefly, because, honestly, I've had so much to do here, I've not
had a chance.
: I mean, I walked one row down, so just the aisle. We got a pretty
good boot spot. So we're on, like, a main aisle, but I just got to
go all the way down and back. And I did see one thing that was
really impressive. So do you know what a video wall is?
: Yeah.
: Like an led screen. It bolts together and is modular.
: Not quite. More like, okay. You used to shoot stuff on green
screen. Why shoot on green screen when we already have the whole
background shot?
: Oh, yes.
: So now they have this thing. It's a $4,000 box, which is like.
This is like million dollar shit. And now it's like $4,000 box. You
can build the whole environment virtually. Or if you go through a
bigger process, you can shoot it all from multiple angles. It'll
stitch together. Then you shoot it with an iPhone or some camera
that has the same thing that you use for VR. So wherever you move
the camera, the video behind you moves in the exact same way. So
you get the same angle. And all the parallax. Not only that, the
thing controls all the lights that you set up around it. So if you
turn it to a place where you say, this is dark, the lights will go
down and.
: Whoa.
: Yeah, well, this is million dollar stuff. Like, I don't know
exactly how much the real deal stuff is, but this is like $4,000, I
think.
: I remember seeing it here the last four, five, six years ago, and
it was extremely, like, science fiction and extremely expensive,
and it's. Now it's accessible. So what do they call it? Virtual
sets, right.
: Well, it's more than a virtual set, but yes, it's a virtual set,
but now it's. I thought they call it a video wall or something, and
it just negates the need for. Because a virtual set, you're sitting
there just looking at a green screen. But on this thing, the
actors, like, running around doing this thing, and they look
behind, and if there's a character, they can make eye contact with
the screen. They can act and feel it much more than pretending that
they're talking to a green screen and imagining what's there. They
can focus their eyes in the right places.
: Right? Yeah.
: Well, there's a couple of guys I know here who set up a thing
called Dreamscreen, which you can google, and that's the same
thing. But they've got massive sets with the whole back of the set
is giant video wall. And they've shot a lot of films there. In
fact, they were up for Metropolis, the remake of Metropolis, the
Fritz Lang film.
: Yeah, it's.
: Oh, wow.
: Except bring your own screen.
: Yeah.
: But they said it will work with projectors, so you can stitch
together multiple projectors and fill a, you know, who knows how
big of a wall.
: Well, they did a. They did a big thing here. One of the first
things they did was a series called fires. It was all about the
bushfires drama. And they, of course, could actually, you know,
have the. Have the fires actually happening with the actors on set,
on the screens. So the actor, even though they had, like, the, you
know, the car there was on fire or whatever, they had blah, blah,
blah. But they had the screens in the background so the actor felt
like they were actually in the middle of a bushfire.
: Whoa.
: Wow.
: Yeah. This is the kind of thing you see at nab. It's all the
traditional stuff, like mics, camera booms. Um, but you're seeing
way more of this virtual type production. There's. There are
apparently 150 different classes here on AI stuff alone, because
there's a huge amount of education that comes along with it. We're
just. We're just here for the expo. You know, we're here to sell.
But there's a huge education component.
: I mean, that's. That's the problem with being an exhibitor, is
that you can't do it. You can't see all this stuff. It's like, it
takes an nab. You can probably do in a. It'll take you at least two
days or three days to really see everything.
: And your feet are gonna kill you.
: Yeah. CES is insane. You'll just shoot yourself when you're done.
But as an exhibitor, you get to stand on your feet all day. But you
only get to see your own stuff because.
: Yeah, so. So I haven't seen anything too revolutionary. There's
another company here that does soundproof windows, which I've known
these guys forever called, literally soundproof windows. And they
have an entire Conex shipping style container that they've
converted into a quiet space so they can show off all their doors
and windows. And it is damn impressive. As quiet as it is in here,
takes it down another ten to 15 decibels.
: That's. That's like a whole other level.
: That's, you know, that's probably a hundred thousand plus
install.
: Yeah. You're not shipping that to a residential place, and you're
not building that on your own in a day.
: This thing's on a. This thing's on a flatbed truck. It's
trailered in, and they've used it in am show and stuff like that.
You know, so it's. I'm staying a whole extra day tomorrow just so I
can start seeing things that I haven't been able to see. Yeah.
: Because if you lose weight. No, it's impossible to lose weight
here. That's my problem, actually.
: You know, a six dollar order of onion rings at the Westgate is
enough to feed like a starving family.
: Yeah. And they don't even talk about the buffets.
: I ate a $30 omelet this morning because that's. It was a buffet.
And all I wanted was a damn. Yeah, that's Vegas.
: Right.
: Well, let me tell you. I mean, we just had the Sydney Royal
Easter show here, which is like our big carnival of the year, I
guess in Sydney, a cup of lemonade was dollar 18.
: What? Oh, my gosh.
: Yeah. $18 for a cup of lemonade?
: Oh, my gosh.
: That's ridiculous.
: Well, the other thing I want to mention is that, you know, again,
we've been talking about source elements and their new product.
We're using Nexus right now as our communications portal. So we're
all communicating real time over Nexus, and we're using source
Connect 3.9 because that's the version we have currently installed.
Third four just dropped, but we're using that. And the amazing
thing is, we're doing all that on my laptop, which is running on a
battery I don't even have plugged in. We're using a mic port pro,
which is also running on batteries. And we're using a hotspot on a
phone connecting all this via wireless to a mobile, you know, a
mobile data connection. And we're doing all which.
: That is mind blowing because I've been to so many of these
conventions where usually you have to come in with three separate
cell phone connections and you do what's called bonding them into
one. When you get 100,000 people here with their cell phones, the
towers just bog down to a crawl and you have to brute force it with
three parallel connections. You're just doing it like a pedestrian
turn on my hotspot.
: Yeah, yeah. If you're on Verizon here, you're in good shape. If
you're on t mobile, you're pretty well screwed, because Verizon,
which I should.
: Mention the source elements booth, is using a Verizon connection,
which they were very gracious to provide us with. And we hooked up
and it was a gig. And I was like, gigabit.
: Yeah.
: Gigabit connections on wireless.
: Wow.
: So we've been just leveraging all this technology to do shows
from here. We've been recording from this booth. I've done. This is
my fourth podcast since I've gotten here, and it's just incredible
we can pull off these days. And, you know, and by the way.
: Everyone, I like to point out that this, in a show floor that's
really loud, is much better than most of the audio I give.
: Yes, indeed.
: This is a true fact. Actually, talking about the amount of
bandwidth you've got there. I'm just looking at my hamster, and
he's giving me the hairy eyeball saying, give me a break. I'm
puffed out.
: Yeah.
: Yeah. So it's been great, guys. So I'm watching a ton of people
outside the booth that are, like, circling. They want to come in
and they're.
: Going to start huffing and puffing and.
: Like, they're being tutting and rolling their eyes. Is that
what's going on?
: We'll put a. Yeah, no, no, no. There's just people that want to
come in, so.
: And I need to go huff and huff.
: You do HR puff and stuff.
: Exactly.
: That's right.
: All right, we're out.
: Yes.
: Well, that was fun. Is it over?
: The pro audio suite with thanks to tribers and austrian audio
recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by
Voodoo Radio Imaging with tech support from George the Tech Wittem.
Don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversation
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