This year’s NAB had a bit more energy among television broadcasters than the NAB show last year and almost all of it was around the mobile DTV plans and testing currently going on. Despite the interest in mobile DTV and the NAB claiming ~105,000 registered attendees, the North and Central halls were only mildly busy. Attendance, as judged by “elbow room” has significantly waned year after year and it is easier to navigate the halls and major vendor booths. Broadcasting & Cable agrees with me on this.
The South upper and lower halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, by way of contrast, were significantly more energetic, crowded and younger! Since the South halls were occupied by film production/support companies and smaller “new media” (read: Internet related or centric) businesses this comes as little surprise to me. Two notable companies that abstained from attending NAB this year were Avid and Apple. Apple really didn’t have a need to attend this trade show, but Avid’s considerable customer base for their product, outside of film, is the broadcast community and their absence does not portent good business sense or, more importantly, sales for the future and their stock price seems to reflect that.
During the show I did notice more DTV transmitters on the floor than last year. Continue reading ‘NAB 2008 In Review.’
No “film at 11″ drama here; yes, it works and it works surprisingly well for a $60 piece of electronics ($20 after the $40 coupon is applied).
For those that don’t know, this Insignia brand NS-DXA1 DTV converter box is one of a few available devices which are part of the US government’s effort to make it possible for people to view over-the-air DTV broadcasts on older, analog-only televisions when the analog transmitters (about 1,700 of them nationwide) are required to cease operations on February 17th, 2009. The coupon program’s plan is to provide a way for those on fixed incomes, or the inability to replace their existing set with one that has a digital OTA tuner in it, to continue to view their favorite local broadcast stations. Continue reading ‘DTV “coupon” converter box put to the test. Does it work?’
All across the nation there are TV stations headed toward the analog shutdown mandated by congress on February 17th, 2009. At which point, only the station’s high power digital transmitter will be authorized to stay on the air along with the Class ‘A’ and low-power TV stations and their low-power translators (for the moment).
So, until that happy day arrives and the engineers can toss a hand grenade in the analog transmitter cabinet and run out the building laughing we need to keep these antiques running. This is one such story… Continue reading ‘Treating analog TV transmitters like sickly inmates on death row. Keep ‘em alive… For now…’
For several years I have been attending the NAB convention and this year I was asked to craft a report for my current employer: ION Media Networks.
>General Observations:
The last few years I have noticed a progressive thinning of broadcast television specific technology and a steady shift toward digital media primarily focusing on its creation, storage, automation and management.The attendees are less and less broadcast engineers and more production people (video editors, sound personnel, cameramen, etc.), a lot of whom are independents and small shops. Then there are the attendees of the RTNDA annexed into NAB which, since 2003, has been entertaining in that you get to see all the 22-year-old journalism majors dressed to the nines trying to impress some news director in the hall with their résumé. Good times.
Continue reading ‘NAB 2007 REVIEW’
