I often find some of the more unexpected new technology stories of NAB while walking from appointment to appointment. Today, walking from the South Hall to the North, I saw three people fooling with a laptop and a cynlindrical metal object that was mounted on a tripod. I thought at first that it was a bare-bones camera prototype that was recording directly to the laptop, but in actuality it was receiving (or trying to receive) a video signal from a standard Panasonic broadcast camera that was set up a few hundred yards away.

I took a flyer and learned that the team was from a New Zealand-based company called Powerbeat, and their product is called MegaMantis. The transmission protocol these guys were using (or trying to use — they were trying to calibrate the receiver with little luck in a chilly wind) was low-power LED. It wasn’t that long ago that LED made inroads into professional lighting for video, and apparently now you can use it to send video up to 5km. The MegaMantis units are sold in pairs, and they’re bi-directional in case you need to both send and receive from one location to another.

I couldn’t stay to see the video come through successfully, but Powerbeat is having an event tonight at the Marriott Suites Hotel if anyone’s interested - 4:30-8:30pm in the Mt. Charleston Room.

Update: When I was on my way back to the South Hall, the Powerbeat team had video up and running, but what I saw in the monitor was the remote end cameraman’s feet, essentially. Still…