NAB 2006 was noticable for the lack of buzz this year. The main take-away was that digital workflow will change everything - pretty much the same message of the last few years. This year, the message seems stronger and more immediate with completely tapeless workflows being a reality.

AVID
Avid’s Interplay set the tone of what we believe will be the workplace of the future - all post software (at least all Avid) working nicely with a useable media asset management package… at least inside the facility. Interplay sits on top of Unity, so all media assets are stored in the local storage network. It’s also not out until summer. Avid also held a nice get-together with AICE (Association of Independent Commercial Editors), where they publicly announced they were changing their proprietary ways, albeit slowly. This means supporting 3rd party storage solutions and allowing limited integration of non-Avid applications, like Final Cut on Unity. They also re-embraced the Mac platform.

http://www.avid.com/products/interplay

So our next question was, who else is building an Interplay-like system? Artbox by Proximity looks interesting so far - it’s almost like a network version of iPhoto, but with strong video capabilities.

APPLE
Apple is in a big transition year, moving over to the Intel platform. Therefore, their professional applications and hardware stayed pretty much status quo. The 17″ MacBook Pro was announced at the show, as expected.

RED
The coolest vaporware product was the affordable 4K camera from the founder of Oakley. No one knows quite what to make of this product, as it sounds too good to be true… Offer more than 2x the resolution of a $100,000 Sony HD Camera for $17,500? Using none other than a Mysterium sensor