One of the elements always apparent at major trade shows can be described as the smoke and mirrors effect. Manufacturers will strive hard to bring new technologies to a prime event, and if they're not ready for the prescribed date, then many get shown anyway. This is not a bad thing, necessarily, because insights in what's going to emerge in future quarters are useful. And, in the case of drupa, at least there was an overall honesty about new machines being in a pre-launch condition rather than being market-ready right now.

This drupa was also full of established technologies and those which have been updated to fit better with current trends. But no-one could have ignored Benny Landa's new nanotechnology, his agreements with major press manufacturers and the first preview of his own printing machines.

In our sector early views included Mimaki's UV-curable LED flat-bed JFX500-2131 which European marketing manager, Mike Horsten, was honest enough to describe as being a cut-down prototype of the real thing which will have a bed size of 2.1 x 3.1m. This new engine is taking the high-quality route with fine text, and has an automatic adjustment feature to correct misaligned materials. This was shown alongside the intriguing JV400-SUV solvent UV machine, and the JV400-LX latex printer. For those who might have wondered about Ricoh's entry in this latter market space, the L4000 is indeed Mimaki-based which makes perfect sense as both use the same print-head technology. However Ricoh's plans are to target the commercial print sector, thus ensuring all bases are covered for potential latex users.

We had an early viewing of the EFI's VUTEk HS100 Pro, the company's latest high-speed 3.2m-wide hybrid production printer which has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks. This was joined by the VUTEk QS2 Pro 2m solution that made its debut at drupa. Both platforms are to be driven by the Orion OS software platform so they can benefit from greyscale print quality and colour accuracy.

At the high end of the production scale, Agfa's fully automated version of its :M-Press Leopard, now with a 3.3m bed, was a crowd puller. This is an interesting addition as the engine was intended originally to be a manual version of the Tiger, minus the screen-printing element. Yet the machine's logical design lends itself to a front loading and stacking option and it certainly does the job well.

There was a rumour doing the rounds that Screen's new Truepress Jet W1632UV is a Mimaki in disguise. It's not, and rocket science shouldn't be needed to work out who has a hand in its manufacture. This is a flat-bed printer which features nozzle mapping and an auto-cleaning function, both of which aid continuous, stable output.

Earlier in the year we saw Epson bring to market its four-colour SureColor SC-30600. It was fairly obvious that this would be one in a series which would be available with white and metallic inks and, sure enough, the SC-S50600 and the SC-S70600 made their first appearances at the show.

Durst, too, came up with new machines based on its Quadro Array Technology which has been fine-tuned during the years to suit the company's precision criteria. The new UV-curable PS10 comes in three widths and has ten-picolitre print-heads to generate higher print quality.

I wrote recently about MEMS print-heads and these were in abundance in working machines for the first time at drupa. Memjet was particularly prolific, with partners demonstrating heads in a range of platforms. Although some are geared for the office and small-format market, larger offerings include Canon/Océ's new Velocity, the as yet unnamed machine from Fuji Xerox which was being driven by Caldera, and the Xanté Excelagraphix 4200.

For many others it was pretty much business as to be expected on the machine front, with HP showing the latest additions to the Scitex FB7600, and Mutoh and Roland DG both extending their existing families with relatively quiet upgrades. Worthy of a mention, too, is Seiko I Infotech with its 'Neon' inks for the ColorPainter W, although these are in reality fluorescent.

Wide-format print was well in evidence at drupa, but one shouldn't forget the other elements which are relevant to the display sector, no matter the output size. I'll be providing a round-up of some of the more interesting of these next week, plus a look at software and finishing options.