by Bill Sewell 04/22/08
I just flew back from NAB 2008 in Las Vegas and boy do my arms, I mean feet, hurt. I estimate we logged 5 to 6 miles and were on our feet for about 10 hours each day.
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This was the first year for me where Avid and Apple were absent from the show floor. Both companies were very much present, though, taking up meeting rooms near by at the Renaissance Hotel and throughout the Vegas hotels. In a weird way, the techno-spiritual center of the South Hall had been hollowed out and replaced by Thompson and Matrox . . . not exactly the intriguing rivalry of years past. |
Red Camera, digital workflow steal the show
Red Camera stood out as the booth with crazy wild products that just might work and change the industry. I just hope they make their camera-mounted remote controlled helicopter into an available product 
I got to listen to Jim Jinnard, the owner of Oakley and Red, pitch his new product line. Clearly he knows his stuff and is having a great time disrupting the industry! As he mentioned, a lot has changed in 2 years . . . from people thinking Red was a scam to now having over 2000 4K cameras in the field.
A big take away was that digital workflow really is here now. The last few years everyone was talking about convergence. Now everyone is actually doing it and, fortunately, not using that word anymore. Adobe’s broadcasting technology preview was really cool, starting from interactive video authoring to real-time mobile conversion to Flash streaming with advanced bandwidth management. Its OnLocation app lets a person capture, organize and tag video in the field with a neat trick – the ability skip around video by clicking on speech-to-text translations of the interview.
Unfortunately, those kinds of demos are usually smoke and mirrors. The most advanced recognition software out there, Dragon’s Naturally Speaking, requires ideal environments, closely placed microphones, and significant training in order to achieve usable results. Capturing an interview of your friend outside will still result in a transcript worthy of a Dilbert comic strip.
What was new and futuristic?
3D stereoscopic video seems like next year’s new thing available almost today. I saw someone walking around with stereoscopic handheld video camera shooting the NAB floor, which looked like a pair of binoculars with a digital screen sticking out. And yes, the playback systems require those awesome polarized 3D glasses. Isilon had a great 3D demo room with clips from Nascar and U2’s concert streaming out in two uncompressed HD stereo streams running through a single 10 GB/s accelerator box and a bunch of storage. For me, I really did feel closer to the action but I started to get a slight headache just after a few minutes
Final Cut Server capabilities discussion coming soon
Apple and AICE got together again this year to wine and dine a handful of editing companies at the Hard Rock Foundation Room at the Mandalay Bay. We were able to talk with the Apple Pro Apps team and really drill down into Final Cut Server capabilities, which to me is the most intriguing development of the last few months (more posts to come on that!). The FCS guys definitely seemed a lot more relaxed than last year, now that the product is shipping.
Random thought: This was the first trip that my wireless card really worked well, connecting at 3G. My only complaint is that it takes almost a minute from sliding in the card to being connected on the web.