MacWorld CreativePro is a much smaller expo than the last MacWorld Expo in New York. The Expo covers only one hall in the Javits center, and compared to last years number of exhibitors, this years number seems tiny. Of course much of this can be attributed to Apple's lack of involvement in the CreativePro expo. Their booth size, which is less than half the size of last years booth, and the lack of a Steve Jobs Keynote all contribute to a smaller attendance rate.

Then again this expo is supposed to be more for the Pro Creative consumers, accordingly it is also no surprise that several other exhibitors are missing completely. These include game developers and publishers. The only game publisher at the expo was Freeverse. "Our office is right down the street, so it wasn't so hard to decide to come." said Jason Wong from Freeverse who talked to Nick Canfield during an interview. (Nick will bring you full articles covering all interviews from the expo soon. These include Freeverse, ATI, and Kardon Multimdedia.) Freeverse was also showing off MacSoft's Unreal Tournament 2000 in their booth running with the help of a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.

The small size of the CreativePro expo also showed in the number of people attending the Feature Presentation. Not all the seats were filled, and all attendees, who were in line at 9:00 AM when I arrived, managed to get a decent seat. I can't compare the feature presentation, which this year was available to all attendees, to Steve Job's keynotes from previous years, but even with small imagination I could figure out that it didn't compare.

During the Feature Presentation Greg Joswiak discussed Mac OS 10.3 Panther, and outlined the Power Mac G5. In addition he announced the availability of Soundtrack as a separate applicaton from Final Cut Pro 4. For a full run down of the feature presentation with Greg Joswiak check out our "Daily blog from MacWorld CreativePro".

Contrary to what I had experienced during my day spend at the Final Cut Express tutorial, the conferences were fully stocked with attendees. A session called "How to make iMovies with David Pogue" was especially popular. During the session David Pogue, using witty humor, walked the audience through creating a pretty engaging mock Apple commercial in iMovie.

The Expo floor wasn't too oppressively crowed when I roamed the hall after my third conference session. The rotating G5 is the first thing that catches any one's eye entering Hall 3E. Situated right in front of the Apple booth, the G5 was unveiled this morning after the Feature Presentation ended. It looks better than I expected, but maybe that's what I always say when I see a new Apple product in person. The Drive Savers booth also captures attention with it's array of destroyed computers; ranging from burned iMacs, to an old powerbook that was run over by a bus during a long gone expo in Boston.

A couple of products that caught my attention yesterday include "Sweet Multiport" by Gee three which was just announced yesterday at the expo. The multiport is a combination of a PCI card and front panel card that allows you to have 2 FireWire ports, 1 USB port, and a 5 in 1 memory card reader on the front side of your PowerMac G3, or G4. The introductory price is $129, the standard price will be $149.

Another product that caught my eye during the first day, was the MEC Station Deluxe from AVIAS Limited. This portable multimedia player, which the company calls "The iPod for video", allows users to watch movies encoded in Divx, MPEG 4, MPEG 2, and MPEG 1. The device has composite video out, FireWire and USB 2 support, and features 20GB of storage. The screen looks great with a 16:9 viewing angle. Additionally the device can be used as a photo viewer, music player (WMA and MP3), card reader, data storage device, and provides optional internet access. The MEC Station Deluxe will be available sometime next month for a surprisingly affordable price of $550.

Though the expo floor is not much compared to what it was in the last years, I'm sure I'll find additional interesting products to write about. Be sure to check out the daily blog, and check back for another "MacWorld Report" tomorrow.

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