If This Is NAB… Where Is Everybody?

If you look around the floor at NAB you’ll see thousands of bodies, but that’s not where the action is. This is a show about pre-set meetings … everyone who is anyone has a full dance card. One Sony exec had three “must attend” dinner invitations — an impressive calorie count for an old-fashioned “tech show.”

What’s really here? NTT showing workable HDTV signals using 2 Mbps (as opposed to the zillion it takes currently). Sony’s new XDCam and HDV A series cameras are relatively cheap and out-of-this-world. There are also several dozen companies showing off amazing amounts of storage and work flow technologies (like video servers with 10Gbps ethernet cards in them.) Translation: Super fast pipes to move big video files around the edit suite or newsroom at incredible speed. Want to see what NAB tech geeks call “real fun?” Have a look at MESoft’s Digital Dailies. Mark Kapczynski Co-Founder and CEO has taken this company to a new place.

That’s enough about Day 1 tech. There was plenty of Day 1 hype! Everyone has a broadband strategy (or at least they think they do.) Is it Internet Television, IPTV, IP Video, Broadband Video, Streaming Media, Downloadable Files? The answer is, “yes.” I have never heard so many people try to talk tech in my life. Actually, it’s quite charming. You won’t find too many businesses in the small booths that will make it until next year — and, truthfully, some of the business units demonstrating their “concepts” and “vaporware” may not make the cut either.

As first day’s go … NAB is off to a great start — if you can catch anyone to talk to between meetings.