NAB 2011 in Review: Part 3

It is easy to get lost in the week of chaos that is the NAB Show. In an effort to help those who may have missed the show’s biggest news items or just want to go back and reminisce about the event, here is the final installment in SVG’s three-part series, dubbed NAB 2011 in Review, which chronicles all the product announcements, deals, and personalities that made the biggest splashes in Las Vegas this year.

At 3D Sports Supersession, the last in a trio of SVG-produced sessions at the show, producers and executives on the front lines of live 3D sports production preached about the need for 2D and 3D shows to converge if the format is to have a future.

A variety of audio issues and topics kept attendees’ ears ringing throughout the show. SVG Audio Editor Dan Daley gave readers an inside look at the profusion of shotgun mics unveiled at the show and the range of loudness-control solutions rolled out in a response to the CALM Act.

Throughout the show, SVG produced a series of “NAB Perspectives” from industry leaders at companies positioned throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center:

• Jason Power, senior director of marketing for broadcast at Dolby, discussed the company’s latest audio offerings for everything from a home-theater setup to a Nokia N8 mobile phone.
• Ericsson’s Lisa Hobbs provided an overview of the company’s new television ecosystem: content, networks, and consumers. Among the new products for this ecosystem was Voyager II, a digital satellite newsgathering system that encodes MPEG-4 AVC 4:2:2 in 10-bit at up to 1080p/50 or 60 resolution.
• Thom Calabro of Fujinon noted that new servos across the company’s premier and select lenses enable a 50% reduction in power consumption, reduced backlash, and a more economical design.
• Barb DeHart spoke of Telestream’s concerted effort to create products that streamline the delivery of video to a constantly growing number of devices.
• Teranex GM Mike Poirier predicted that the 2011 NAB Show would be a record breaker for his company. By the third day of the show, his prediction had already come true.
• VidyoCast GM Jim O’Brien opined that “the importance of live sporting events for television ratings is just a ubiquitous reality and it’s clearly going to keep growing in importance.”
• Fraunhofer’s Matthias Rose discussed the growth of 5.1 surround audio in the streaming domain for sports.
• Keith Wymbs of Elemental Technologies noted the trend toward multiplication rather than duplication, with one single piece of media having multiple destination points in multiple formats for multiple devices.
• Stagetec USA had plenty on display at its booth, but Stagetec USA President Rusty Waite had one overwhelming focus: “routers, routers, and routers.”
• Chris Fichera, VP of audio for distributor Group One, was confident that his DiGiCo audio consoles will make some headway in the notoriously conservative U.S. market.
• After acquiring an additional 22,000 sq. ft. of construction space inside the Sunbury, Ohio, Industrial Park, Fred Gerling has begun referring to Gerling & Associates’ headquarters as “the Gerling Campus.”
• Like many companies on the show floor, Origin Digital CEO Darcy Lorincz has embraced the cloud and believes it is one of the keys to the company’s success in the future.
• Tata Communications’ Julian Wheeler explained the value of globalization and expansion to new platforms.
• Fred Wright of Beck Associates noted the growing number of colleges and universities that have created a single control room to produce sports events and programming from venues across the campus.
• Corplex President/partner Scott West has seen a shift in the mobile-production industry as sports fans watch more content online and on mobile devices. Corplex must now provide broadcasts with “more capacity to twist and turn all those signals.”

Among other highlights of the NAB Show:

• A suite of intercom products unveiled as part of a strategic joint development partnership between Clear-Com and Optocore GmbH
• Civolution’s second-screen–synchronization application, which automatically links a tablet or mobile device with the program being shown on television by identifying the audio coming from the television
• Active Storage’s new ActiveSAN, a server-based metadata-controller appliance for XSAN and StorNext networks that provides a much-needed alternative for operations left in the lurch when Apple discontinued its line of Xserve servers last year.

If you missed them earlier this week, be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of SVG’s NAB 2011 in Review.