Archive of the NAB 2006 Category

Before Tichenor’s keynote, Chas Smith, general manager of Avid Video, gave a brief presentation on his company’s take on the evolution toward HD. (HD is present in about 12 percent of American homes, he reported.) His points were quite simple: Traditional I-frame-only 1080i video contains about 6X the pixels as NTSC. That means 6X the required storage for 1080i compared to 480i. HDV, which is compressed to allay that challenge (among others), presents problems for postproduction.

The long-GOP structure of HDV means that in the editing processing, a lot of cuts will begin on an incomplete non-I-frame. This requires re-encoding around the edit to create a new legalized GOP around that cut. This essentially introduces a second generation of the media. Also, rendering for output after, say, color correction requires another re-encode. Finally, horizontal sub-sampling (1440 pixels across vs. 1920) that’s common to HDV camcorders requires compression and decompression cycles during monitoring and compositing. more

Well, I made it. I’m here at NAB 2006 and I’m attending Post Production World sessions all day. Co-produced by Future Media Concepts and NAB, PPW offers a wealth of classes in a whole bunch of disciplines related to professional video production. Some of the “tracks” available to Post Production World attendees are Digital Video Production, Audio for Video, and specific tracks for specific production tools (Adobe, Apple, and Avid).

New this year is the Podcasting track. Art Morrison led a session this morning entitled “Advanced Podcasting Production Techniques.” I have to admit, as audio is not my strong suit, a lot of it was over my head. It was heartening to learn, however, that due to the compressed nature of audio that’s delivered over the Internet (i.e., any podcast), many advanced audio concepts become somewhat moot, such as EQing. Essentially, though, producing professional podcasts is like producing audio for broadcast: it’s gotta be good. Morrison and his panelists discussed concepts necessary for achieving professional-sounding results, such as multi-band compression, dynamic range, and attack (the rate at which a compressor/limiter expands the sound). more

Welcome to our second annual NABlog, from the editors of Digital Content Producer and Millimeter. During this year’s National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas, we’ll be covering the news from the show live, as it happens.

NAB is the biggest annual gathering of the tribes for the broadcast, film, video, and multimedia industries, with attendance always hovering around six figures. It’s also the best place to see brand-new gear— new cameras, editing software, and anything else that helps capture images from the real world, package them, and send them out to display screens.

So for us, the editors, NAB presents a wealth of opportunities to interact with the people and the companies that create and manufacture gear as well as those who produce programming. With this blog, we’re able to share our experiences and fresh knowledge—we’ll be posting several daily updates from press conferences, parties, booth visits, panel discussions, and off-the-cuff interactions with industry mavens.

New for the NABlog this year are audio podcasts. Check in daily for new MP3 segments. Technical Editor Dan Ochiva talks with manufacturers (such as Adobe, Ascent Media, and HP) about the companies’ plans for the NAB show and the future of digital content production. Contributing writer and product reviewer Jan Ozer will be filing daily reports from the show floor, with guest spots from senior editor Michael Goldman.

Whether you’re getting ready to fly to Las Vegas or you’re planning on checking in on NAB news remotely, NABlog has you covered. Check back with us starting Saturday night—we’ll be blogging continuously. Well, almost.