What’s graphics card vendor NVIDIA doing at NAB? Lots, as I learned in a fast paced 30 minute visit this afternoon.

I started with a look at the GeForce 3D vision, which via stereoscopic glasses gives gamers a 3D experience on hundreds of computer games. At NAB, NVIDIA previewed compatibility with content creation programs like Autodesk Maya, so designers can actually preview in 3D right from the program. The only downside is that you need an LCD panel that runs at 120 Hz, essentially 60 Hz for each eye. The largest current single LCD with this capability is only 22”, so NVIDIA showed an array of four 22” LCD panels using their Quadro Plex 2200 D2 visualization system.

Next up was NVIDIA’s Quadro Digital Video Pipeline, which combines a Quadro SDI capture card ($2,000, available in August, 2009), a Quadro SDI Output card ($4,000, available now) and a Quadro FX5800 (~$3,000, available now) graphics card to provide a real time overlay capability that used to require much more expensive systems. Basically, the SDI input card inputs the video, the graphic card overlays text, graphics and other data and then pushes the combined feed to the SDI output card for broadcast. If you’ve ever wondered how football games inserted the first down line, or similar graphics, it’s a system like this.

At the booth, NVIDIA was demonstrating videos from TNT’s major league baseball feed, which included local area specific advertising inserts in the boxes behind home plate, not to mention those totally cool lines that show the path of the baseball. As you can see from the screenshot, NBC news also used the technology to project informational overlays displayed during the 2008 election coverage.

Then I spoke with a rep from Elemental Technologies, who created the H.264 encoding software that ships with the NVIDIA Quadro CX. She showed me a revision planned for shipment in May that should speed H.264 encoding time within Adobe Media Encoder by about 100%, as well as adding color correction acceleration to Premiere Pro CS4. More importantly, the release will also enable AVCHD decoding on the graphics card, which could really accelerate the workflows of all AVCHD producers. A Mac version is also in the works, and NVIDIA plans to offer the Elemental bundle with a range of graphics cards, making it more affordable for all. That’s a nice move, since at $2,000, the original version was too costly for all but the most serious H.264 producers.

There was also another vendor in the booth showing Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) accelerated noise reduction and image stabilization that looked totally awesome. The overarching message coming from NVIDIA is that their GPUs provide incredible power that’s largely been untapped by digital content producers to date. After what I saw in the booth today, I totally agree.