NAB 2007: 12 New Products to Watch
Event DV 
This was the 15th year I attended the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention (NAB) since I first visited the video industry’s biggest annual expo as a college senior in 1992. It has always been a fascinating educational experience. Exhibits range in size from tens of thousands of square feet to as little as 30 square feet. Size doesn’t matter at NAB, though. A booth that consists of a folding table and a few demos could return next year as one of the big ones if the product it highlights this year hits paydirt. While this year’s show didn’t have as many wows as last year’s, there were a number of new products and technologies unveiled that will certainly have an impact on the event videography market in the coming year and beyond. Before I get on to this year’s list, I’ll just mention one strong trend I saw at the show this year. People have been talking about the death of tape for a couple years. In Panasonic’s booth, they were leading the tapeless parade with P2 and AVCHD cameras and “decks†based on “solid-state†flash media-based acquisition technology. Sony, which has been delivering its own brand of tapeless acquisition in its high-end cameras for several years, using blue laser-based PDD optical media, showed its first flash-based camera, the $8,000 CineAlta XDCAM EX. But realizing that solid-state media is cost-prohibitive for many producers (though, significantly, Sony says its flash acquisition media will debut with enough capacity to record two full hours of HD video while P2 languishes in the sub-30-minute range), Sony also previewed a full-size (think DSR 250) HDV camcorder. More about that later. Without further ado, here are my top products of NAB 2007, in no particular order, with no ranking implied. read more...
This was the 15th year I attended the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention (NAB) since I first visited the video industry’s biggest annual expo as a college senior in 1992. It has always been a fascinating educational experience. Exhibits range in size from tens of thousands of square feet to as little as 30 square feet. Size doesn’t matter at NAB, though. A booth that consists of a folding table and a few demos could return next year as one of the big ones if the product it highlights this year hits paydirt. While this year’s show didn’t have as many wows as last year’s, there were a number of new products and technologies unveiled that will certainly have an impact on the event videography market in the coming year and beyond. Before I get on to this year’s list, I’ll just mention one strong trend I saw at the show this year. People have been talking about the death of tape for a couple years. In Panasonic’s booth, they were leading the tapeless parade with P2 and AVCHD cameras and “decks†based on “solid-state†flash media-based acquisition technology. Sony, which has been delivering its own brand of tapeless acquisition in its high-end cameras for several years, using blue laser-based PDD optical media, showed its first flash-based camera, the $8,000 CineAlta XDCAM EX. But realizing that solid-state media is cost-prohibitive for many producers (though, significantly, Sony says its flash acquisition media will debut with enough capacity to record two full hours of HD video while P2 languishes in the sub-30-minute range), Sony also previewed a full-size (think DSR 250) HDV camcorder. More about that later. Without further ado, here are my top products of NAB 2007, in no particular order, with no ranking implied. read more...
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