Despite the lower attendance at this year’s NAB show (the NAB announced that there were about 83,000 attendees compared with last year’s 105,000), the show was still successful for many exhibitors I talked with.

Though the economy affected the number of people at NAB 2009, the quality of those people was good. And I must say, it made the convention halls a little more easy to navigate!

NAB is all about innovation and technology, so I want to share with you some of the new products I saw at the show. more

With 1 billion MPEG-2 set-top boxes still in play, MPEG-2 technology isn’t going anywhere soon, and TANDBERG Television has a solution.

At NAB 2009, the company showed me its new EN8100 MPEG-2 SD encoder. The system has been designed to deliver revolutionary encoding performance in a high density, low power (six channels in 1RU) chassis. It cuts MPEG-2 SD bandwidth requirements by at least 15 percent, even in legacy set-top box operations, and delivers a step change in performance.

According to Screen Digest research from March 2009, there are close to 1 billion MPEG-2 SD STBs and integrated digital TVs expected to be deployed worldwide by the end of 2009. The EN8100 opens up new opportunities for legacy service providers. It enables operators to achieve higher picture quality in the same bit rate, which is ideal for making SD MPEG-2 look acceptable on large flat-panel TVs, and to profit from additional revenue from their existing infrastructure. more

It’s clear to me, based on how busy company founder and president Tim Carroll has been over the past year, that Linear Acoustic “gets” audio.

Tim and I caught up at NAB 2009, where he told me stories about projects Linear Acoustic has been a part of since last year’s show. One of those was the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Tim said the Olympics broadcast was mixed by watching loudness. And those summer Olympics were, according to him, the “best laboratory.” Tim was able to work with top mixers from around the world who gave him insight about what would help them notice changes in audio levels. more

Solid State Logic introduced the C10 HD audio console at NAB 2009. This compact control surface offers benefits of the C100 HD console, but was designed for smaller budget broadcast stations.

The C10 HD console integrates all DSP signal processing and operating hardware into a convection-cooled control surface. Full processing redundancy, also within the console surface, is available as an option. The console comes in two frame sizes — 24+8 and 32+8 — with scalable DSP and I/O options. The control surface layout is complemented by a clear graphical overview of all signals, augmented with SSL’s Eyeconix feature that presents thumbnail pictures of sources to be displayed for fast visual recognition and navigation.

The C10 offers four access levels to the console’s features: Admin, Certified, Express and Lockdown. These levels provide the appropriate functionality to engineers and staff with different mixing skill levels. more

Everyone is going green these days, and Nevion is one company that makes products that use less power, thereby reducing the cost of ownership for broadcasters.

Nevion provides routing and transport systems that encompass an array of video network interfaces and signal processing, a well as an integrated family of network management and control systems. more

On March 6 Snell & Wilcox and Pro-Bel announced they would be merging to form one company. And just recently they debuted the new company name — Snell.

Representatives from both companies formed a unified front at NAB 2009 under the new name, and there were plenty of new products to see, including Pro-Bel’s 800 series. more

I met with Shawn Maynard, vice president and general manager of Florical, to see a demonstration of the company’s InventoryBrowser.

InventoryBrowser is an optional module within Florical’s S.M.A.R.T. Central product that allows the user to browse the database and view low-resolution copies of their inventory (i.e. on-air content). more

Avid is back at NAB, and I visited with them in the South Hall today where we shot demonstration video of the company’s Deko 5.2 graphics solution.

Version 5.2 of Deko 3000, an on-air graphics package that supports the industry-standard FBX and Collada formats, enables users to easily import and play back a broader range of 3-D models and animations from applications such as Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Softimage 7.5 and MAXON CINEMA 4D. Now, users can leverage existing skills and toolsets without having to burden staff with learning new 3-D tools. more

This morning, as a member of the press, I was treated to a special, live demonstration of holographic technology.

If you recall, this technology was used during the 2008 presidential election, when CNN transported images of reporters off-location onto the CNN set.

What I saw today was amazing. Just across the aisle of the convention center from one another, Vizrt and STATS transported one person in the STATS booth onto the virtual set of the Vizrt booth. more

At NAB 2009 Sony Electronics introduced a new line of HD studio cameras designed to provide broadcasters a high-quality, yet more accessible entry into HD production.

The new HSC-300 camera is compatible with Sony’s existing large lens adaptors and can be used with triax cable runs of up to 1300m.

It features a 2/3in Power HAD FX CCD with 2.2 million pixels, and is switchable between 1080i and 720P 50/60Hz, with 525i and 625 SD modes available from the camera head and CCU. The camera offers image controls with wide dynamic range and a 14-bit A/D.

The HSC-300 offers a range of automatic features designed to minimize the adjustments necessary during production, including auto iris with multi-zone weighting, auto skin tone detail, auto knee, electronic color correction, focus assist function and hyper gamma. more