BIRTV 2011

Beijing’s BIRTV 2011 was without doubt China’s most prestigious Film and TV exhibiton and one of the largest and most influential industry events in Asia this year.

56,900 industry professionals and visitors attended BIRTV 2011 from August 24th to 27th. There were 469 exhibitors (Film: 86; Video: 192; Related equipment & Technology: 41; Digital & Mobile TV: 52; Post: 10; Transmission: 48 and Radio & Audio: 40) in 9 Halls covering 50,000 square meters.

IBC 2011, held September 9-13 passed the milestone of 50,000 visitors for the first time in its history with 50,462 attendees (an increase of 4% over 2010) in 13 Halls and with over 1,300 exhibitors.

As the market in China continues to grow, BIRTV is getting to be a “must go” show for companies in the business who want to expand in the Land of the Dragon.

Many leading companies were exhibiting directly or with their Chinese agents, including: (to name a few) Sony, Canon, Vitec Group, Angénieux, Cartoni, Arri, Fuji Film, Red Epic, Cooke, Tiffen, and Miller.

Among the vast display of Chinese professional products, the Kinefinity Kineraw S35 Digital camera attracted a fair amount of along with cranes, rigs, lights & HDslr gadgets.

It was interesting to see that this year Hall 10 was shut. Usually Hall 10 housed some of the below-average quality knock-offs and local rip-offs of lights, jibs, tripods and fluid heads copied from the major players. But, this year the surprise was that most visitors were looking for the best in each product line and were eager to get high-end gear on display without any major concern regarding price.

During the Show, Luke Tai, owner of Infratrans Vision Co. Ltd organized a 4 day workshop/presentation of the products he represents for China, making this event a novelty for Beijing during BIRTV.

As crowds come and go during the Show, Luke felt most visitors couldn’t catch any real and meaningful information at his crowded booth so he decided to change the way of promoting and introducing advanced equipment. Thus, having a small booth at the Show – just to touch base and have a referral point, he held the presentations and screenings at the nearby Radisson Hotel focusing on introducing technical knowledge for 3D products, 3D postproduction, optics, and applications of some tools.

These impressive presentations were held by: Les Zellan (Cooke), Ryan Erwin (Red Epic), Florian Maier (Stereotec), Robert Stacy (Cinedeck Extreme), Stephen Chappell (Cmotion 3D), Florian Schafer  (P+S Technik x35), Sebastian Merkel and Harm Abrahams (Chrosziel), Jean Yves Le Poulain and Nicolas Meallier (Angénieux), Duy-Anh (Iridas), Randy Martin (Scratch), Ryan Smith (K5600 Alpha).

The Infratrans presentations generated an attendance of more than 600 industry professional and students from film schools. Luke does not dare say that it was a big success, nevertheless, the ultimate goal of holding presentations is to spread technical knowledge to the end-users and he promised to work harder in this direction for BIRTV 2012.

If you are interested in being part of the 2012 adventure, other than the traditional exhibits, BIRTV next year will also hold international forums and conferences for professional visitors and end-users providing an in-depth look at the current market in China.

Photos from BIRTV taken by Jacques Lipkau Goyard

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1 Response:

  1. Oli Laperal, Jr. says:

    I saw a few Chinese HD cameras in Beijing, but HD cameras do not catch my attention anymore unless they also do high speed, 3K, 4K, 5K or 8K. None looked close to resembling or comparing favorably with Red, Alexa, X35, or Sony F-65.

    A few Chinese makers made small matte boxes (but surprisingly none for 6.6″ x 6.6″ filters), follow focus devices, and DSLR mounting plates. But they were all quite crude and substandard in my books. From what I saw, the matte boxes were flimsy, the FF had a lot of play between the large knob and gear which even after jimmying could not be fixed after parts were replaced, so sub par indeed.

    There were at least 20 outright copies of the Jimmy Jib, Panther Foxy crane, Movietech crane jib arm. There were numerous HMI heads and ballasts with blatant Arri design, panel and the familiar Arri color. However, this is just the beginning of a new industrial revolution in a very large place with a very large population.

    Sony showed F-65, F3, 3D etc. Also showed lens adapters and the new 11-16mm zoom lens, but still not final.

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