Archive of the Personal Viewpoints Category

Photo from outside of the RAI IBC convention center. Goodbye until next year.

Even airports are getting in on the echo-friendly push. Mowing grass is out at San Jose, Seattle, Boston, Nashville, Phoenix, Indianapolis airports.

The solution? Goats.

According to Wednesday’s story in USA Today, airports are planting more native plants and installing fewer grassy lawns, which require power mowing. These airports then use goats and sheep to keep their lawns manicured. So, on your trip home, if you spot a goat next to the runway, don’t worry, just wave. He’s supposed to be there.

The best thing about conventions is being there. The worst thing about conventions is getting there.

After enduring 22hr, door-to-door travel getting home, I’m ready to endorse children-free airplanes. I was unfortunate enough to encounter several of the most ignorant, selfish parents with small children in all my years of flying.

In both legs of my return flight, there were multiple 3-yr-old-something’s who were allowed to totally disrupt the flights with their screeching, screaming behavior. I watched (and listened) as these acoustic terrorists held all of us passengers hostage, in one case for nine hours. No one, including the kids’ parents, worked to temper the behavior of these obnoxious brats.

I say ban kids who can’t behave themselves (and the parents who refuse to make them behave) to the airplane’s cargo hold. Heck, the kids will probably like it because they’ can play with the other animals there.

There are few companies who still provide tutorial, non-biased and corporate-mention-free publications. Quantel is the leader in this select group with the Fact Book.

Roger Thornton announced the company’s latest Fact Book, marking the publication’s 20th anniversary. Personally, I can’t believe its been 20 years since the book’s first edition. Certainly I wasn’t around to see it then.…or was I?

Edited by former Quantel person himself, Bob Pank, the book is a hotly sought after resource. While I don’t have issue #1, I’ve have managed to snag several versions as they came out over the years, mainly for its impartial teaching of technology. more

Need to dispose of some old electronics? Today, you can’t just dump worn out equipment in the trash. Communities don’t like lead and other toxic chemicals being sent to the local land fill. Fortunately, at least one broadcast vendor is offering broadcasters an eco-friendly solution.

In talking to Thomson Grass Valley’s Jeff Rosica, senior vice president of marketing and technology, and Laura Barber-Miller, vice president communications, yesterday, I learned that their company supports an electronic recycling program. It’s called Take Back. When you purchase equipment from Grass Valley, the company will take the replaced old hardware and turn it over to an authorized recycler.

Nifty solution!

However, if that doesn’t work for you, see my September editorial for a different, albeit less efficient, recycling idea. Hint, it involves a chainsaw and perhaps a thousand small envelopes.

It’s turning out to me a strange last day at the show. Many of the visitors have left, so the show floor is quieter, with exhibitors getting a chance to look around. The show have been very buoyant, in marked contrast to the news from the financial centers as the news from Wall Street comes in.

The show has been a great success, with numbers up around 5% over last year, and the show aisles packed. One focus of the show has been stereoscopic technology, with much talk of broadcast in the near future. Hand-in-hand comes 3G, the wideband infrastructure will support left and right signals over one cable, something AES audio has supported for decades!

Yesterday we chose our PickHit awards, soon to be posted on the our web site, and to be featured in Broadcast Engineering world edition in the November issue. As usual a mix of interesting technology, that goes to show how much innovation there is out there, not only delivering new levels of video and audio quality, but delivering cost-savings in operations. At shows it is easy to be blown away by the technology, but at the end of the day the products are tools to deliver content in order to sell commercials. Compelling high-quality pictures produced in efficient workflows are what improve the bottom line for a station. Business and technology in symbiosis are what drives this business, and that is what excites many of us to be in this sector.

Let us hope that the turmoil in the financial sector does not come to hit the TV business too hard. Anecdotes say that when times are tight, folks stop shopping and dining out — they stay home and watch TV.

Broadcast Engineering magazine friends and staff enjoyed a leisurely cruise along the Amsterdam canals, complete with a three-course gourmet dinner.

I’ve discovered several ways a tired, perhaps somewhat hung-over IBC-er may be reminded he’s in Amsterdam at the IBC:

1. Your hotel room smaller than your home bedroom, but costs as much per night as your monthly mortgage.

2. Your hotel room doesn’t have a clothes iron, but does have an umbrella.

3. Every street is a something “straat” or “gracht”.

4. By the end of the convention day, your briefcase weights as much as you do.

5. The last thing you hear as you’re being run over is, “brrring, brrring.”

One my favorite restaurants in Amsterdam, the FLO has an expansive menu to satisfy all tastes, unless you just have to have North American. The restaurant is easy to find in Rembrantplein. Expect a bright, open environment to accompany your gastronomic pleasures. This time, I had sweetbreads. Not to worry, not that kind of sweetbread.

Fellow guests at dinner with me were Miranda’s Michael Proulx, Neal Sharpe and Susie Haldar. At IBC, Miranda is showing additions to its Densite series and announced a partnership with Pebble Beach Systems.

After a brief walk from my hotel (located in the bowels of Amsterdam) to DAM square, where I could get the tram, my shoes look like I took a shower in them. Now, two hours later, they are still wet and probably will be for the next week!

For those familiar with Amsterdam, weather is always a topic of discussion. Usually the comment goes something like, “It’s raining, snowing, windy or cold.” I recall one reason for moving the show from the UK was to find better weather. Oops, looks to me like the IBC organizers bought into the local weather forecaster’s predictions. And, we all know about the accuracy of weather forecasts.