Re: NAB Urban Legend?

[Bob Cole] "That can't be a true story. Or... is it?
"

I'm not familiar with the demo you are referring to but I have seen very similar things going on at road show demos. To mention brands might sway off the topic of this thread too much so I'll avoid revealing that. In this scenario the product was a low end version designed to compete with the rapidly advancing fcp systems just new to the market. The booth was set up with 2 systems and 2 editor/hosts who could have been clones(they both new the system and it's short comings equally well) and the added bonus, an attractive MC style host in fishnets. In short, when one system crashed the editor would signal the "legs" into action. She could jump in strutting and talking (multi talented) and intro editor #2 who was following along editor #1 so he would just pick up and continue while editor #1 would re-boot and get back up to speed. When editor #2 crashed they jumped to the fishnets then back to #1 and so on. The more often this happened those who caught on would glance around the room at one another. They finally got through their presentation and I suspect only 10% of the people new about the constant crashes. To those 10% it was obvious the whole presentation was a well scripted art of deception to cover up the crashes that were only too common in nonlinear edit systems of the time. We would have been more interested in the product if they hadn't tried to hide things.
Another time I was at one and someone in the crowd called out "can fcp do that?" NO WAY came the reply you couldn't do this in fcp! I was not brazen enough to shout otherwise from the back of the room so I just bit my tongue.
Conversely, another experience was at nab while watching a demo for Newtek toaster just after it had gotten up and running on windows nt. The demonstrator just was alone on a 2x6' table and he finally just looked at me and said "it's really a powerfully system but we haven't got all the bugs out yet" as it crashed again. I've always kept a positive feeling in my memory for newtek since that time.

"in the 90's people are going to try to sell you things that you should ought not to buy" - Frank Zappa