My last stop at NAB was at the VCI booth (SU727). There I met up with Jamie Meyer, the division manager for automation systems at VCI. I’d met with him briefly last year, but this was my first time to sit down with him and talk. What he’s excited about is that KEYE-TV, which uses VCI’s autoXe MC automation system, was just announced as the winner in the Station Automation category in the Broadcast Engineering Excellence Awards.

Jamie says that what makes the system so strong is that the database is at the foundation. With digital content, the metadata surrounding content is becoming more important, he says, with the database as the foundation on which the applications reside. more

K*WILL is enabling broadcasters to seek out and find the source of lip sync problems wherever they occur. At its NAB2008 booth, the company introduced the portable VP3000, which relies on the company’s Video DNA technology to run signal analysis using double stimulus methodology.

The double stimulus approach compares an original signal source that is presumed to be error free to signal that’s been digitally process, such as a satellite feed or one that’s been encoded or decoded. Based on the original signal, the VP3000 can identify if there’s been any signal degradation, presumably caused by the signal processing. That way, broadcasters have a way to zero-in on the source of the lip syncing errors. more

Half way through now and I have seen more “workflow solutions” than I though possible. I do wish the marketing folks didn’t run a controlled vocabulary, a bit of variety would be great. In the next print issue I’m running a feature on workflows so I have no shortage of raw content to work with.

The new cameras from Sony and Panasonic look great, something for everyone from the digital cinematographer (F35, new 2700 and 3700 Varicams) right down to the budget shooter. Panasonic were showing prototypes of new AVCHD camcorders with long-GOP AVC recorded to SD cards. Sony had similar cameras recording HDV to CF cards. Although these are aimed at very much at the wedding and event videographer, you can bet they will appeal for many broadcast applications like documentary productions. more

Broadcast Engineering’s Pick Hit awards are the industry’s longest-running product technology awards for broadcast and production. With a 24-year history, Pick Hits are the most prestigious technical awards given at NAB.

At the 2008 NAB Show, a panel of independent judges toured the exhibition floor for three days, looking for innovative technology. They then met to make their selections based on multiple criteria, including the technical and financial improvements the products can bring to a facility’s operation. Our editors and publisher have no vote in the selection process. more

At the TV technology lunchon yesterday Ira Flatow, TV journalist and host of “Talk the Nation,” gave the opening remarks. He joked about how TV has changed so much. He said, at the start of TV, we were all squinting at a tiny black and white screen, and we wanted something bigger and better. Since then we’ve evolved to amazing picture clarity on huge sized displays. But now we WANT to watch video on tiny screens, as more and more people are watching mobile TV on handheld devices. Someone in the audience shouted out “Back to the Future.”

Flatow also discussed the use of avatars during an audio podcast he hosts called “Science Friday” for National Public Radio (NPR). NPR has created a virtual reality community where you literally create a virtual “you” and join a virtual community.

Is this something that TV stations will eventually do as well? I’d be interested to see.

Watch a video of Ira Flatow at the Technology Luncheon on Broadcast Engineering TV.

For more information, visit http://www.sciencefriday.com/, http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2007/Aug/hour2_083107.html and http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/090707/virtualworlds090707.html.