NAB 2004: Convergence Continues

By David Em, Alex Pournelle, Dan Spisak

May 17, 2004

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The NAB Show, the National Association of Broadcasters' annual convention, is unsurprisingly the most important show for the television industry. In 2004, The NAB Show (just "NAB" for short) was also one of the most important for the computing industry, if excitement and relevant product announcements are the yardsticks.

In just a few short days, our team saw: a new standard for consumer/prosumer Hi-Definition cameras; major announcements from two of the three top 3D graphics companies and a pre-announcement from the third; a complete high end product refresh from Adobe; similarly important software and hardware announcements from Apple; the complete acceptance of workstation grade PCs (and Macs) as production tools, and related interest in the evolution of the PC standard, especially PCI Express and Serial ATA (S-ATA); 100 percent tapeless video production products from Panasonic; high end electronic cinema products on offer from Philips and DALSA. There were at least a dozen other announcements which would have been headlines to the graphics savvy in any other year. Most of these announcements are relevant to BYTE.com's readers. Many of them will be affordable within a year, and they were all premiered at NAB.

Welcome to Las Vegas, home of more video nerds than you can shake a slot machine at. Nearly every inch of the 1.5 million square foot LV Convention Center was home to NAB, the largest video and motion picture production show in the world. (All photos by Dan Spisak.)

As well, these announcements will drive major changes in production techniques. Compared to the IT community, Television production staffers have long been conservative about technology—motion picture even more so—but innovations were thick on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The same headlong rush to "try the new," long the mark of the computer industry, is now ingrained in the production world.

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