LAS VEGAS: Mark Schubin is likely in competition for the man with the most NAB shows under his belt, having just logged his 37th. The engineer-in-charge at New York’s Metropolitan Opera media department scours the floor looking for equipment and innovations that can make life easier and/or more interesting for him and his colleagues. Here are some of Schubin’s notes and notables from the show floor…
“I think it’s interesting that Sony is showing and promoting CompactFlash storage in its new products instead of Sony-developed MemoryStick,” he said of the Tokyo electronics giant. Others on the floor noted Sony’s direction away from its long-held strategy of using proprietary technology. Sir Howard Stringer is thought to be behind the company’s move toward open-standard technology, according to a former colleague. Stringer recently took over as chief executive of all of Sony and reorganized the divisions to increase communications and collaboration across divisions.
The following items caught Schubin’s eye this year on the floor:
- Roland Edirol VC-50 video field converter goes between IEEE-1394 and HD-SDI.
- Fusion-io ioDrive is an extraordinarily fast solid-state drive; great demo shows 1024 different streams playing simultaneously from a single drive.
- Panasonic AG-HMR10, records 3 hours at highest quality on 32 GB SD $2,650 card. Tiny HD-SDI recorders like the AG-HMR10 are also available from Convergent Design (shown last year as a prototype), and Fraunhofer/Mikrom (new).
- Rushworks “The Bridge” is a complete TV station except the transmitter, including the console.
- White Sands AirBNC and the ICM BNCHD, both combine the crimping and sleeving process that is more electronically sound.
- Sky Dolly Powered Paraglider Dolly at the Silicon Imaging can be powered for 2.5 hours, but can turn it off and glide. It has a remote control for camera, so the pilot just has to pilot. It works with Silicon Imaging cameras that can do hi-def and 3D2K.
- Blackmagic Studio Videohub is one of two new models in their exceptionally inexpensive routers; this one is just two rack-units high.
- Inition Stereo Brain converts 3D to various formats of 2D for transmission and monitoring.
- NICT “No longer just a dream” interactive panoramic video technologies, multi-sensory interaction system, spatial sound, virtual touch-screen (dandelion), manipulating box, multi-projector screen and electronic holography.