THE FRONT LINE: APRIL 24, 2007
NAB 2007: An Industry In Transition
This year’s NAB show was relatively quiet when it came to news of breakthrough products.
If there was an overarching theme to NAB 2007, it was the impending digital TV transition. And there was no way you could forget the date, not with all of the posters, signs, handouts and booths that prominently featured “February 17, 2009” on them.
Tempus fugit! At my first NAB in 1995, the largest banners belonged to the digital TV Grand Alliance. Twelve years later, many of those original members (AT&T, Zenith, General Instrument) have disappeared from the scene due to consolidation and acquisitions, while others (Thomson Consumer Electronics) have been reduced to also-rans.
NAB itself has undergone several changes. Back in ’95, the central hall was jam-packed with people for the first two days of the show, and you could hardly maneuver around in the tight booths. Even the north hall was heavily trafficked.
Since then, most of the action has moved to the south hall, where Sony, Canon, Apple, Adobe, and Avid have held sway. The north hall was in danger of becoming a ghost town, so Thomson, Harris, and Dolby all relocated there for 2007.
And the once crowded central hall? Not so crowded anymore, particularly with smaller booths from companies such as Hitachi and Ikegami. Even Panasonic’s enormous stand was noticeably narrower this year. It was relatively easy to walk through the central hall, which was largely empty towards the rear.
According to the official NAB press release, there were 108,322 registered attendees for 2007, up about 3,000 from last year. If so, it was hard to figure out where they all were hiding. Whatever the reason for the reduced crowds, it made walking around the show much easier. As usual, I did find some items of interest here and there amongst the hype and window dressing.
One thing that surprised me as I waltzed through the rear of the central hall was the number of small interface companies present, all selling HDMI, DVI, and related digital interfaces. HDMI is first and foremost a consumer interface, but apparently there has been interest from the professional sector in supporting it.
Figure 1. Christie’s Twist edge-blending solution is a single-card
plug-in for most Christie DLP projectors.
One typical company was QVS (www.qvs.com), based in Romulus, Michigan. In addition to numerous interface boxes, they also showed “swivel” head HDMI adapter plugs and cables for tight corners and installations. The cables are available in 6’, 9’, and 15’ lengths, and the adapters come with various HDMI and DVI genders.
Another trend I spotted was 3 Gb/s SDI products. Some manufacturers claim 3 Gb/s backbones are infrastructure are need for broadcasters who want to run a variety of HD and SD services through their plant, including HD plus multiple SD programs for Web and mobile video delivery. Gennum (www.gennum.com) showed a 3 Gb/s router and distribution amplifier and an equalizer array plus sync regenerators for long cable lengths.
Low-cost video scaling is now the order of the day. Kramer Electronics (www.kramerus.com) had their $595 VP-419xl out for inspection, and it will scale NTSC, S-video, or component 480i to 480p, 576p, 720p, and 1080i, plus VGA, SVGA, XGA, and SXGA. All signals are delivered in the 15-pin VGA format.
A few aisles over, Analog Way (www.anlogway.com) had two new, lower-cost scaler/switchers on display. The Easy Fade (Model EFD341) and Easy Cut (Model ESC341) combine high resolution video scaling to 1600x1200) with audio video switching. Each has 4 video inputs, frame conversion, and time base correction. The Easy Fade can cut or fade between a PC and any Video source, while the Easy Cut operates in Cut and Smooth Switching modes.
Figure 2. Sony’s XDCAM EX camcorder may signal costumer preference
for non-proprietary flash memory over optical disc recording.
Over in the Christie booth (www.christiedigital.com), there was a clever single-card, plug-in seamless edge blending solution (Twist) that allowed stacked portrait mode and even convex screen projection with little geometric distortion. Christie now has a range of three-chip 1080p projectors for digital cinema and post applications, and the HD5KC (5000 lumens) looks to be popular. It has five interchangeable lenses and uses a xenon projection lamp.
Sony (www.sony.com) has finally announced a replacement for their BVM-series CRT monitors, which are no longer in production. It’s the BVM-L professional LCD monitor, which will first be available in the 23-inch BVM-L230, a 10-bit S-IPS display with 1920x1080 resolution, LED backlights, and advanced look-up tables to support REC.709, EBU, and DCI color spaces. A 42-inch prototype was also shown for fall 2007 delivery.
Sony also appeared to bow to marketplace demand and showed a prototype XDCAM HDV camcorder that will record directly to SD memory cards. (Wow, what an idea!) The XDCAM EX will accept one or two 16GB ExpressCard arrays, manufactured solely by SanDisk. It uses three ½-inch imagers and will record a variety of progressive and interlaced HD formats, all using MPEG2 compression. Look for it in the fourth quarter.
A small booth nestled amongst the satellite hardware companies showed OEM promise. Acogito (www.acogito.com), a Korean manufacturer, had their versions of the SlingBox Internet media player on display, available both as a single-tuner ATSC/NTSC/QAM receiver (ACO-210HP) and as a dual-tuner HD DVR (ACO-200HDP). A DVB version is also in the works, as are 32- and 42-inch integrated LCD HDTVs.
Not far away, Hoodman (www.HoodmanUSA.com) was showing a line of collapsible LCD monitor hoods for HDV camcorders and high-performance P2 card arrays for Panasonic camcorders. The collapsible hoods provide excellent shielding against ambient light and complement their line of full-size viewfinder hoods. The P2 cards are based on souped-up SD HC memory cards and the initial product, available in June, will be a 16GB array.
Figure 3. Communications Specialties’ 7500 interfaces can jam DVI over 6 miles of fiber.
Communications Specialties (www.commspecial.com), who has long been the lone voice for fiber in the pro AV industry, unveiled their 7500-series DVI-over-fiber transmitters and receivers. The 7500 can transmit single-link DVI signals up to 1920x1200 resolution over 10 km (6.25 miles) of single-mode optical fiber, and DVI cables as long as 45 feet will work at either end.
Sencore (www.sencore.com) had a few new gadgets on their counters, including an HDMI/HDCP compatibility tester. It can quickly identify a troublesome HDMI source (set-top box, receiver, DVD player) or sink (HDTV, monitor, or switcher/scaler). There was also a neat compact VSB/QAM RF analyzer about the size of a tiny lunchbox that featured a built-in color LCD screen. No price, model number, or availability yet on this piece.
IEEE BTS TUTORIAL
While there weren’t all that many displays to see at NAB (a curious thing in itself), there was a seminar the Saturday before the show about the new crop of display technologies – how to measure them, what the contenders are, and how much of a difference it makes to the average viewer when HD content is viewed as 720p, 1080i, and 1080p.
The IEEE BTS session on displays was well attended and probably raised more questions than it answered. The fact is, CRTs are pretty much gone from the professional and broadcast monitoring space, replaced with LCDs and some plasma models for direct-view setups, and rear-projection DLP and LCOS for multiple applications.
Figure 4. Panasonic’s 103-inch plasma was on prominent display throughout the booth.
Are any of these contenders ready for prime time? Perhaps so, in some applications. LCDs still have issues with black levels, viewing angles, and motion blur, although there were a few LCD monitors using fast refresh (120Hz scanning) to address the problem. Panasonic showed a 103-inch 1080p plasma monitor for “critical applications,” although it wasn’t clear what that meant.
JVC’s 48-inch LCOS rear-projection studio monitor was complemented by their DLA-RS1 front projector, and both had considerable eye appeal. Sony’s new 23-incher was accompanied by a bevy of LUMA LCD monitors that looked good with scenes of average to high luminance, but needed deeper blacks.
The truth is, we’re still at the cusp of change when it comes to professional monitoring. There is no one perfect solution yet, and even those with great promise (such as the SED) remain mired in technological and legal delays that may eventually do them in altogether.
Still, it is interesting to see companies like Sony, Panasonic, and JVC take the lead in advocating LCD and LCOS technologies as a replacement for the age-old CRT, and you can be sure we’ll have a lot more product to inspect at NAB 2008.
