From the Briefing Room…

HAYWARD, Calif. — April 13, 2009 — Wohler Technologies Inc. today announced that Wohler Mobile, packed with state-of-the-art processing and monitoring products, will be making a stop on the 2009 NAB Show floor. Proudly adorned in Wohler blue, the 22-foot-long trailer demonstrates how easily Wohler products provide key functionality even in the most space-constrained production applications. more…

By Phil Kurz, Broadcast Engineering contributing writer

Omneon is healthy, prosperous and delivering product aimed at tapping into more than simply the market for playout servers.

That was the message Omneon CEO Suresh Vasudevan and Geoff Stedman, senior VP, products and markets, conveyed April 18 to members of the media attending its NAB Show press conference at the Palms Casino Resort.

While many companies struggled last year, Omneon grew 2008 revenues 43 percent, up from its 2007 revenue of $89 million, said Stedman. Perhaps insulating it to a degree from regions with shaky economies, the company reported its revenue is fairly well distributed geographically with the Americas accounting for 42 percent, EMEA 41 percent and APJ 17 percent.

Capping off his description of the company’s financial health, Stedman reported Omneon has a cash position of $34 million with no debt. The proof points seemed intended to emphasize that despite significant challenges in the broadcast industry, Omneon is financially sound and in a position to take the steps necessary to assure continued growth.

To that end, Omneon announced some new products and partnerships aimed at accelerating its growth despite economic uncertainty this year. more

For the press, the show starts two days early on Saturday. We have back-to-back press conferences over the weekend – one PowerPoint after another. Saturday opened with Grass Valley (not Thomson). Just as I had got used to calling the switcher and camera manufacturer Thomson instead of Grass, it’s all change again. Of course this is all about the impending sale, announced by parent company Thomson back in January. Company spokesman Jeff Rosica would not be led on progress on the sale, only to say “we have received a number of serious enquiries”. The feeling is that an announcement could be close.

As for products, Grass announced a new 1.5Gb/s switcher, the Kayenne. They stated that they believe that there is not yet sufficient demand for a 3Gb/s product. The switcher is impressive, in versions from 1 ½ up to 4 ½ M/Es, with the fully loaded product sporting 30 keyers and 20 channels of DVE.

Another new product is the LDK3000 studio camera, based on the Xensium CMOS imager of the Infinity camcorder. It will sell for 30% less than the CCD-based LDK8000.

Next we were bussed to Omneon, for an introduction from the new CEO Suresh Vasudevan. After a presentation on the financials, where we learnt that they have revenue per employee of $400k, we heard about the near-term focus to grow share in the production and content repurposing segments.

The new MediaDeck GX channel playout system is the fruition of a partnership with Pixel Power, to put graphics and keying into a playout server. This leaves the broadcaster free to use their favored automation, and the product will be shown on the Crispin, NVerzion, Pebble beach and Sundance booths.

Second announcement was that Omneon is selling the Castify business to Aspera to focus on servers and media storage products. They will instead partner with Aspera on content delivery between media storage systems.

It’s Sunday, first real day of press conferences. I’m up early, it’s 7am and I’m off to the 8am Chyron press conference. As I arrive at the central hall, I’m expecting to pause for a brief breakfast at the cafeteria or at least at Starbucks. Wrong!

Neither of the food establishments are open. Okay, I understood yesterday and they weren’t open, but sessions are in full swing today. Press conferences are taking place. Exhibitors are franticly working and there’s no place to get some food or drink.

I end up walking back to my hotel a half-mile away just to get a cup of coffee.

Come on LVCC. Open up these places a bit so workers can have breakfast. The convention center is probably in cahoots with the Hilton so people will go there for food. more

It’s late Friday evening before NAB and write this note to you from my hotel room in Las Vegas. I made it here, but not without issues.

I’ve decided the convention gods are telling me I’m not supposed to go to the show and the stars aligned against me.

Late yesterday United Airlines cancelled my flight to Denver. Orbitz sent me an email about 4pm yesterday, so I had some warning. Being of technical mind, I proceeded to break the problem down into steps and results.

Step 1: Contact United Airlines, see if they will rebook my flight. After all, they cancelled the original flight. more