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
Bitcentral unveiled Air Now, a backpack-based digital news gathering system weighing less than 10lbs, which will let a reporter transmit live reports via EvDO wireless channels from the field.
The product, according to the company’s Ken Lee, is like an ENG truck in a backpack. It consists of a laptop computer loaded with special encoding software, a cellular transmitting box and a battery that will power the unit for 2.5 hours. Air Now streams a live Windows Media 9 stream via an EvDO cellular network connection to an IP address at a TV station or elsewhere. According to Lee, the system produces useable results at data rates as low as 280kb/s.
I happened to be visiting Bitcentral when Andrew Lombard, chief engineer of McGraw Hill-owned KGTV in San Diego, was wrapping up a visit. Lombard said he was impressed with the performance of Air Now, and “looking down the road” could envision equipping journalists in San Diego and at the company’s Indianapolis station with the product. Lombard added he would help the company in its continued development of Air Now.
IneoQuest’s mission, according to Calvin Harrison, IneoQuest’s vice president of marketing and business development, is to create products for users that help them improve their ROI, deploy services quickly and decrease operating expenses. To that end, the company has created modules that monitor a signal and, when a problem occurs, pinpoint exactly where things went wrong. One of these products is the new Cricket 8-VSB, which offers confidence monitoring of 8-VSB broadcast signals. It provides verification and troubleshooting of studio-to-transmitter link and RF coverage area. Listen to what Calvin Harrison has to say about the Cricket 8-VSB.
So representatives from every company at this year’s NAB, and surely every NAB since the beginning of time, want to convince the public that their companies are the best, whether they are trying to corner the newsroom system market from acquisition to playout or focus specifically on one aspect of the broadcast industry and encourage integration with as many companies as possible.
But, really, what can I say to a company that was featured, in small or large part, in more than a dozen booths beyond its own — not just integrated by these companies, but backed by as well — and that adheres to the idea of being “cheaper, faster and better” than any other company that is trying to do what it does? more
My last meeting of the day on Tuesday was with Microsoft. I met with Joe Seidel director, Global Partner Development, Microsoft TV. Seidal discussed the Microsoft Mediaroom Internet Protocol Television and multimedia platform, which he said is delivering video entertainment experiences to more than 1 million set-top boxes worldwide. In addition, he said its service provider customers are adding two new IPTV subscriber households every minute.
One of the developments of Microsoft Mediaroom that peaked my interest was DVR Anywhere. This allows viewers to begin watching a recorded program in one room and finish watching it in another. For instance, you could begin watching a movie in your family room, continue watching it on your kitchen TV while you’re eating dinner, and then finish watching the same movie from your bedroom. But that’s not all … While you’re finishing watching the movie from the comfort of your bedroom, someone else from your household can begin watching the same movie from a different TV in your house.
Communications Specialties Inc. (CSI) is in booth SL8025, which happens to be just across the aisle from the Penton booth (Broadcast Engineering’s parent company) in the South Lower Hall. In the CSI booth, Derek Miranda walked me through a live setup of the company’s new Pure Digital Fiberlink 3150 Series, which allows users to transmit HD/SD-SDI over one single mode or multimode fiber.
The company also offers the Pure Digital Fiberlink in 7500 Series and 7502 Series versions. They use no compression or sync stripping.
Inlet Technologies has announced two major initiatives at the NAB Show. Neil Selvin, COO, and Andy Beach, director of product management, first discussed the debut of Armanda, which is an approach to encoding workflow management. The workflow is designed to enhance the hands-off automation that is required to support high-volume operations. An easy-to-use interface and documented APIs will allow organizations to easily tie their controls into existing operations. Armanda provides for pre-encoding, which includes capture and analysis, file verification and metadata extraction; encoding, which includes template creation and management, distributed encoding, job scheduling and priority, and load balancing and node management; and post-encoding, which includes quality control, content encryption and document records, and packaging and publishing.
Selvin and Beach then discussed the availability of two additions to the company’s Spinnaker family of live streaming appliances — the Spinnaker 4000 and 7000. The Spinnaker 4000 introduces ASI and IP input into the Spinnaker product line, while the Spinnaker 7000 supports high-definition. Inlet also has introduced a third format to the Spinnaker family — H.264. The inclusion of this codec in its live encoding product provides content creators with more options for how they deliver streaming media.
My first appointment of the day was with Tamihiko Ogawa and Hisashi Kasahara from NTT Electronics (SU10220). The company’s big introduction this year are the AVC/H.264 HDTV/SDTV HVE9100 encoder and HVD9100 decoder. One of key features the men emphasized was that they feature 4:2:2 chroma for high-quality professional broadcast. The units are compact, lightweight and supports a wide range of applications, including MPEG-2.
In their booth you can see a series of displays showing the encoders and decoders. The first screen shows the original video footage. The second shows the video at 45Mb/s, 4:2:2 and 1920 x 1080. The third is at 18Mb/s, 4:2:2 and 1920 x 1080. And the fourth is at 8Mb/s, 4:2:0 and 1440 x 1080.
The HVT9100, an MPEG-2 to AVC/H.264 HDTV/SDTV real-time transcoder is another relatively new addition to the NTT lineup. It transcodes, while maintaining picture quality with minimal dealy in real time.
Update: NTT’s HVE9100/HVD9100 H.264 encoders won a Pick Hit award!
Omneon introduced ProCast CDN, a high-performance content distribution platform. It’s kind of hard to describe, but basically it optimizes file transfers over any IP network providing dramatically increased efficiency over great distances.
Incorporating advanced WAN acceleration technology, network management, and bandwidth prioritization, ProCast CDN enables broadcasters and content distributors to easily initiate, monitor, and manage transfers of large files between multiple geographic locations. more
The Thomson press conference is usually one of the more polished PCs of the show. This year was a huge exception, but only for technical glitches.
The teleprompter (no hints at who’s it was) failed several times during the presentations. Unfortunately, the presenters didn’t seem able to carry forth without the prompter. One would think these pros could wing such things, but not so this time. more
The editors and writers of Broadcast Engineering post live from the NAB Show in Las Vegas as the news happens. Check back throughout the day for the latest in industry news, reports from press conferences and product introductions.
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
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Omneon introduced ProCast CDN, a high-performance content distribution platform. It’s kind of hard to describe, but basically it optimizes file transfers over any IP network providing dramatically increased efficiency over great distances. 
