THE FRONT LINE: APRIL 27, 2005

NAB 2005: WHERE’D EVERYBODY GO?

by Peter H. Putman, CTS

Why, to the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, of course! Where else would you find Sony, Apple, Avid, Thomson, Canon, Tandberg, Sanyo, Barco, Evertz, Grass Valley – well, you get the picture…

Although NAB claimed an ‘official’ pre-registered attendance of just over 104,000, it was hard to tell where exactly all of those people were at any given time during the show. From the looks of things, about 100,00 of them camped in and around the Apple booth for the entire show. Others would say a good part of that crowd swamped the Sony booth for several days.

One thing is for certain – less than half were walking about the Center and North Halls. The former had its back 100’ of space draped off, while about a third of the North Hall was similarly vacant, other than for the NAB HD demonstration station. This reduced traffic made it much easier to get around town by cab and monorail, not to mention walk over to the Las Vegas Hilton for off-site meetings.

The ‘hot’ topic this year was the HDV production format. In addition to Sony, JVC (GY-HD100U) and Panasonic (AG-HVX200) both showed new HDV cameras, plus a raft of accessories including hard drive recorders and editing software support from companies like Lumiere and Avid.

Figure 1. JVC’s GY-HD100U ProHD camcorder was a very,
VERY popular item at NAB, and was fully tricked-out with
interchangeable lenses and accessories.

The JVC camera can record native 1280x720p at 24Hz or 30Hz to DV tapes and an accessory hard drive, plus it can stream 720p/60 through a high-speed digital output. Interchangeable lenses, matte boxes, and dual balanced audio inputs are standard. Panasonic’s camera was also intriguing, although demos were limited.

Figure 2. Panasonic’s AG-HVX200 was not operating when I came by,
so I had to settle for this static view of the camcorder under cover.

Unlike the JVC camera, the AG-HVX200 is a DVCPRO HD system, recording only SDTV (480i, 480p) to DV tapes and requiring P2 solid-state memory for HD recording (720p and 1080i). Panasonic will start marketing 8 GB P2 ‘sticks’ later this fall, which will allow almost an hour of 4:2:0 HD recording.

As far as displays and interfaces went, there wasn’t a whole lot to see this year. Many big-name projector, monitor, and interface manufacturers were conspicuous by their absence. Still, there were a few gems to be found here and there, if you dug deeply enough.

Barco had an enormous booth filled with projection and monitor ‘solutions’. One of the more interesting was the iCon H600, a widescreen LCD installation projector with networking capability and tiling. It’s aimed at the corporate and educational market. Down the way, Christie had the new DW6K, a three-chip 1280x720 DLP projector with xenon lamp for high-end home theater and production applications.

One of the cooler products on display was TV One’s C2-7000 dual channel video processor. Carrying on the ‘Swiss Army knife’ tradition of previous TV One interfaces, this box will accept any two analog or digital video or computer signals and allow you to scale, tile, and key them in pretty much any output format you desire.

Figure 3. If there’s a video or PC format the TV One C2-7200
can’t scale, tile, switch, or key, I sure haven’t heard about it.

It offers SDTV to HDTV conversion, DVI to HD-SDI conversion, standards conversion, multi-format windowing, chroma and luma keying, seamless switching, video scaling, and scan conversion. It also washes dishes, changes your oil, feeds the cats, scales fish, pays bills online, and tracks stocks and sports scores 24/7. (OK, I’m stretching it a bit there…) All for $8,995, a price that raised numerous eyebrows.

Another ‘find’ just around the corner in the Central Hall was Frontniche, a specialty OEM company in the U.K. that is bringing a line of professional LCD monitors to market. They’re available in sizes from 7” (rack mount) to 46” (1080p) and SDI and HD-SDI interfaces are standard, as is a unique fast motion interpolation system developed by the BBC, adjustable gamma and white balance, adjustable backlight, and embedded audio delay for correcting latency.

Figure 4. Frontniche’s 37-inch 1280x768 LCD monitor
had very nice color and grayscale performance.

I was impressed with the image quality on a few of these monitors, particularly the lower black levels and saturated hues. The 46-inch 1080p offering was up and running in the Tandberg booth, but apparently wasn’t completely calibrated and didn’t have the adjustable backlight, so it looked a bit washed-out.

Kramer Electronics has upgraded its popular line of video switcher/scalers with the ProScale™ VP-725DS ($2,995, video only) and VP-725DSA ($3,175, video and audio).
Each has 18 video inputs, made up of five different signal type groups, one for composite video, one for s-Video (Y/C), one for component video (YUV or RGB), one for computer graphics video on 15-pin HD connectors and one for DVI signals. Four of the groups each have four inputs and one output. The DVI group accepts 2 DVI-D type inputs and has one output.

There’s a new player in the video scaling world. Calibre Technology, another U.K. startup, was exhibiting the PremierViewPro-LED, a video processor/LED display driver, and the PremierViewPro-AV, a video scaler for home theater and commercial use. The latter will accept composite, component, SDI, and DVI signals, scaling to a maximum of 1365x1024 PC and 1280x720 DTV resolution.

Down the aisle in the South Hall, Sanyo had a few new front projectors hung and lit. The PLC-HD15 is a souped-up version of their light valve 1920x1080 front projector (no price yet), while the PLV-70 WXGA large-venue projector has been upgraded to the PLV-80. High-resolution fans will be interested in the 5800-lumens PLC-EF60 with 1400x1050 native pixels ($29,995). There’s even a rear-projection LCD TV, the 55-inch PLV-55WM1 with 1280x720 resolution ($3,995).

Figure 5. Communications Specialties may yet find
a niche in the lower-cost fiber distribution market – particularly with
smaller TV stations and production houses.

Communications Specialties, which has for some time now been advocating a move to fiber optic signal transmission for the Pro AV industry, offers an expanded line of fiber ‘gozintas’ and ‘gozouttas’. The Pure Digital Fiberlink 7223, 7225, and 7227 are drop-and-repeat interfaces that will carry video to WXGA and 1080i resolution, plus stereo audio. Depending on configuration, you can take analog video and audio outputs from each while looping the fiber connection on to another receiver.

RGB Spectrum had a cool multi-channel real-time video processor, the MediaWall 2000. It can handle up to four projectors, monitors, or cubes, and provides super-fast processing of real-time video and PC signals with no dropped frames, even during fast zooms and motion tiling. Down the aisle, Analog Way unveiled the Ultra Vio, a three-input, single output video/PC format converter with SDI and HD-SDI output. It also accepts all analog and digital display formats.

Back in the Central Hall, JVC had a prototype 1920x1080 color-corrected reference rear-projection monitor, aimed squarely at the post-production marketplace. This 48-inch display is based on the DLA-HD2K front projection system, but adds full gamma correction and RGB drive and bias, plus it uses a negative gain screen for a very wide viewing angle. No MSRP yet, but $40K was being mentioned as a starting point (probably too high, $20K would be more market-friendly).

Figure 6. JVC’s 1920x1080 LCOS rear-projection reference monitor
was a dazzler, although its price tag is a bit steep.

Both Panasonic and Sony are expanding their line of professional LCD monitors, although only Sony had new models on display. The LUMA series includes rack mount, one-piece, and two-piece designs to 32 inches, and optional interface cards are available with SDI, HD-SDI, and IEEE1394 I/Os. Three models are currently available in 16:9 aspect ratios with 1280x768, the 17-inch LMD-172WS, the 23-inch LMD-232WS, and the 32-inch LMD-322WS.

Figure 7. Sony’s 32-inch LMD-322WS (1280x768) is the flagship
of their new LUMA flat panel monitor line.

So – what is the long-term forecast for this show? NAB still draws well in its ‘core’ product areas, which are video and audio production, distribution, transmission, and storage. But there’s no question that many display and interfacing companies have given up on NAB, largely because there are other smaller but more tightly focused shows for their products that generate better leads.

One must also keep in mind that more and more of the products being shown at NAB are software-based, or are a heck of a lot smaller than they were ten years ago. (The new HDV camcorders are a perfect example.) That, coupled with the increase in costs for booth space, has led many companies to make do with smaller spaces in which they can actually show more products.

Given these trends, it’s not inconceivable that NAB could shrink to a two-hall show as it used to be a decade ago, before the Multimedia World section spilled over into the Sands. That would be a welcome relief for those of us in the press who now need to see a foot doctor as a result of walking several miles back and forth through the convention halls every April!

Copyright ©2005 Peter H. Putman / Roam Consulting Inc.
All electronic and mechanical reproduction rights are reserved.