UPDATED (5/5): With the 2020 NAB Show removed from its original April dates and next steps for the annual industry conference still being determined, a number of companies that were set to exhibit on the Las Vegas Convention Center floor have either already announced or are exploring options to share their latest news and technology to industry professionals virtually.

Here is a list of exhibitors’ plans:

NAB's Gordon Smith has announced that the 2020 NAB Show is officially cancelled, bu that the show will offer a digital experience called NAB Show Express. There are also plans to enhance the experience at the 2020 NAB Show New York scheduled for October.

Vizrt Group is one such company that has its virtual plan figured out. Prior to the NAB Show’s cancellation, Vizrt Group announced that it had created “digital first” communications platforms, VizrTV and NewTekTV. The company will use these virtual channels to deliver product awareness, innovation and support messages to consumers.

Sony is providing updates via pro.sony/event-nab.

Vela, the smart logging multiviewer platform developer, will roll out its own Virtual-NAB Experience that is produced from its headquarters in Clearwater, Fla. The company will livestream video and offer an interactive screen-share demonstration that will introduce version 7.0 of its Luna+ and Encompass systems for compliance monitoring, QA, multiviewing and logging. Private online “Test-Drives” of v7.0 software will also be available. 

Zixi has scheduled a two week virtual showcase called “Zixi Powered!” that will include a series of video meetings and webinars presenting Zixi’s latest innovations and announcements, including updates to Zixi’s Software-Defined Virtual Platform. Additional components will be individual customer and partner meetings; a panel on streaming live over IP; and live partner demonstrations for integrated video solutions. “Zixi Powered!” will begin on April 20 and run through May 1.

Dalet has announced it has planned digital experiences that will include videos and live streams, as well as smaller locally hosted events. It expects to send out communications detailing its offerings in the coming week.

Maxon has announced its full lineup for a virtual NAB presence that will be hosted on C4Dlive.com. Taking place from April 20-23, presenters will share production tips, techniques and inspiration for using Maxon equipment. 

Harmonic is rolling out a 30-day virtual showcase, Live Connection, which will highlight Harmonic's latest video streaming technology. The online interactive series will begin on April 16 and feature live webinars, a virtual showroom and offer one-on-one meetings with Harmonic team members. One of the topics covered in Live Connection will be Harmonic's EyeQ CAE technology, which is designed to reduce streaming congestion, and will be available for free for the next 90 days.

Ross Video has announced that it will kick off its Ross Live program starting on April 28. Ross Live will be a 10 week program that will feature product launches, solution updates and live production seminars. The complete schedule Ross Live is available online.

Nugen Audio has created a "Staying Home, Staying Creative" program that features videos, interviews and articles on new approaches for post-production workflows. The company is also offering temporary two-month licenses for current iLok customers and an additional Challenge Response license code authorization.

Interra Systems is offering free educational webinars that focus on the company's range of quality control, monitoring, analysis and classification technology. 

Logitek will host a webinar on Friday, May 22, during which it will show the products that would have been introduced at the 2020 NAB Show. Advanced registration is required.

Grass Valley conducted "GV Live Presents" to engage with consumers in place of the 2020 NAB Show. GV provided details on its latest products and strategic updates.

Telos Alliance is hosting a series of webinars that will detail the latest Telos Alliance products and solutions from May 18-21.

The SMPTE-produced Future of Cinema Conference that was going to take place during the 2020 NAB Show may be done virtually. In addition, SMPTE has announced that its webcasts are available for free for members and the public, and that virtual classes are available for 50% off. SMPTE's usual operations are continuing as normal as of March 16.

Other companies, including TVU Networks, GatesAir, Harmonic and Ross Video, as well as the IABM and LPTV Rights Coalition, have announced they are exploring virtual alternatives but have not announced official plans.

TV Tech will update this page as more companies announce plans.

WASHINGTON—Exhale, uncross your fingers and stop knocking on wood; the answer is in. There will be no 2020 NAB Show this year.

“While we recognize that much of our show community is focused on other issues at the moment, we have heard from many of you over the last week who are eager for an update on our plans,” said NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith. “For that reason, we wanted to convey now that, in light of the current circumstances, it is impossible to hold a rescheduled 2020 NAB Show this year.”

In making the announcement, Smith noted that Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak has suspended all nonessential business operations in the state, and that national authorities “are imploring Americans to telework wherever possible.”

Smith announced a two-pronged approach to filling the vacuum created by the cancellation of the industry’s premier event. 

In terms of a physical event, the association plans to enhance programs and experiences offered at its NAB Show New York, scheduled to take place at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, Oct. 21-22.

“We're thrilled to join NAB at this year's show in New York, and look forward to having a large presence there,” Grass Valley President Tim Shoulders was quoted by NAB. 

On the virtual side of the equation, the association next month will launch NAB Show Express, a “digital conduit” for exhibitors to demo products and presenters to offer content that would have been presented in Las Vegas.

Planning has also started for the 2021 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 11-14, Smith said.

“We look forward to connecting with you, and hope that you and your loved ones remain safe in the months to come,” he said.

More information is available on the NAB website.

The necessary and prudent decision by the NAB to move or cancel its big spring show obviously causes a lot of understandable questions and short-term uncertainty in our industry. We’d like to take a moment to explain what TV Technology readers and advertisers can expect from us in the coming weeks.

Our core ongoing mission is to bring together buyers and sellers of specialized media technology, and to help media industry technologists and managers advance in their jobs and careers by exploring key technical and business trends.

Those goals usually converge at the annual convention, which we’ve covered in depth for 37 years; that’s why so many of our stories and ads are created during the spring show season.

Our team members were already making plans around a possible show postponement. Now we are working hard to adjust our familiar offerings to these unique circumstances.

The key point for us right now is that commerce goes on. We have no doubt that the NAB Show will return vigorously next year (and possibly in some form yet this year). But in the meantime, media technologists and managers need to buy new products ... trends that would have been discussed during the show conferences are still newsworthy ... and manufacturers need to get their word out to professional consumers.

As the TV broadcast industry’s leading technology brand, TV Technology has a crucial role to play in the coming weeks. We will continue and expand our coverage under our “Spring Show @ Home” initiative.

Expect us to continue to report on new products that would have been shown at NAB Show, while also exploring new ways to put them before you. Our Best of Show Awards program, webinars and Sneak Peeks and Must See newsletters all will be offered in slightly modified form as part of the Spring Show @ Home series. If anything, we feel these information channels have an even more important role than ever in helping shine a spotlight on new offerings.

All of these are being created with the idea of helping you to do your job—whether you are a user of technology or a creator of that technology.

Meanwhile, we also seek to cover the ongoing impact of the coronavirus on the industry in a responsible manner. And we want to hear from our readers as well as our advertising partners about how we can best serve you.

Thanks for bearing with us as we adjust our own processes to serve you best. We welcome hearing from you on this or any matter.

Tom Butts
Editor in Chief
TV Technology
tom.butts@futurenet.com

WASHINGTON—“There’s sadness in this building today.”

NAB Executive Vice President of Communications Dennis Wharton told TV Technology's sister publication Radio World that the decision not to hold the NAB Show next month made for a “poignant moment” Wednesday. “It was a tough call, but it was the right call.”

Whether the convention will be rescheduled or replaced with something else later this year is uncertain. NAB did not use the words cancel or postponement in its announcement, and Wharton confirmed that the association has been discussing various options.

But the sheer immensity of the annual spring event and the complexity of planning needed from exhibitors, speakers and attendees would certainly seem to limit the choices.

Some observers have speculated that NAB could hold an event in Las Vegas in the summer, or somehow modify its fall NAB Show New York. Wharton declined to comment and said it’s too early to discuss possible outcomes.

“The last few days [we] have been focused on rolling out this announcement responsibly and professionally, and assuaging some concerns of our members and exhibitor base,” he said.

He declined to estimate the potential cost to NAB of the decision or to discuss any insurance arrangements, other than saying “It’s obviously a financial hit.”

Wharton, who has attended every spring show for more than three decades, expressed sadness for others who have made the spring trek to Las Vegas part of their professional life.

The first of what became the NAB Show was held in 1923, in the earliest days of the modern radio industry. The only cancellation was in 1945.

WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters will not hold the NAB Show in April due to public health concerns about coronavirus.

NAB President/CEO Gordon Smith made the announcement. See the full text at bottom of this article.

“We are currently considering a number of potential alternatives to create the best possible experience for our community,” Smith said.

The show markets itself the world’s “largest and most comprehensive convention encompassing the convergence of media, entertainment and technology.” It drew approximately 91,400 people to Las Vegas in 2019, and featured some 1,600+ exhibitors.

International attendance is an important part of the event; last year about 26% of people came from abroad. Of those, about 30% were from Asia.

As of Wednesday afternoon the show’s website proclaimed “The show is on” and continued its message that organizers were “moving forward responsibly” while taking direction from the WHO and CDC. But the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared coronavirus a pandemic, and the NAB announcement followed quickly. The number of U.S. cases surpassed 1,000 this week, according to a dashboard published by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. 

“This was not an easy decision. Fortunately, we did not have to make this decision alone, and are grateful to our NAB Show community for engaging with us as we grappled with the rapidly-evolving situation,” Smith said.

Recent days had seen an increasing number of exhibitor cancellations including familiar video names like Ross Video, Avid and Adobe, and some separate conferences that had timed their events to the big show pulled out, such as PBS TechCon, as other event organizers watched and worried.

Beyond broadcasting, a number of major events in cities around the United States have been cancelled or postponed. In many cases their planners say they intend to conduct virtual events or to offer other platforms for dissemination of show content and product information.

Here is the NAB statement:

Dear NAB Show community,

As you know, we have been carefully monitoring coronavirus developments both domestically and globally over the past few weeks.

In the interest of addressing the health and safety concerns of our stakeholders and in consultation with partners throughout the media and entertainment industry, we have decided not to move forward with NAB Show in April. We are currently considering a number of potential alternatives to create the best possible experience for our community.

This was not an easy decision. Fortunately, we did not have to make this decision alone, and are grateful to our NAB Show community for engaging with us as we grappled with the rapidly-evolving situation. This Show is as much yours as it is ours, and it is important to us that we move forward together.

For nearly 100 years, NAB Show has provided superior value and the best possible experience for exhibitors and attendees. We knew that if we could not deliver on those expectations, we would not move forward. More importantly, keeping the community safe and healthy is NAB’s highest priority; therefore, we are deferring to the developing consensus from public health authorities on the challenges posed by coronavirus.

We are still weighing the best potential path forward, and we ask you for your patience as we do so. We are committed to exploring all possible alternatives so that we can provide a productive setting where the industry can engage with the latest technology, hear from industry thought leaders and make the game-changing connections that drive our industry forward.

I want to stress that despite our disappointment at how this year’s Show has been impacted by global public health concerns, we are more excited than ever about the future of NAB Show and our relationship with you.

We are grateful for each and every member of our Show community. It is your passion for the industry that makes NAB Show a success year after year, and it is that same passion that will drive us into the future as we look ahead to new possibilities later this year and beyond.

TV TECHNOLOGY: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2020 NAB Show?

SCOTT MURRAY: There are certainly a number of trends we’ve been watching. Demand for programming continues to trend up, both in terms of traditional programming and increasingly, streaming of live events such as sports and concerts. This demand for more content is fueling the growth in OTT video services and technologies. Programmers now engage directly with their customers, while retaining maximum control over the media and its distribution. Delivering quality content to both traditional and OTT methods efficiently while monitoring along every point in the chain, demands new workflows and tools. Telestream has been laser-focused on solving those challenges for our customers, regardless of what platform they are using in the cloud.

And while OTT is indeed a growing trend, there are others that are of significance as well. There’s the demand for HDR content (as evidenced by Fox streaming the Super Bowl simultaneously in both SDR and HDR). The cloud is still a significant trend in that everyone is discussing what they should do about their next round of capex investments (i.e. “Do I build a next-gen data center or move to the cloud?”). Full IP production is another significant trend because broadcast infrastructures are now being built around IP routing with the ability to handle video, audio and metadata (SMPTE 2110) with mixed formats. State-of-the-art trucks and broadcast centers are now being built around an IP infrastructure.

It’s important that we allow machines to do what they do best—sorting through data, managing redundant processes and making intelligent business decisions based on clear sets of business rules. This frees up humans to do what they do best—advancing the creative craft of storytelling and designing new business models to compete for viewers. Organizations are actively moving parts of their workflows to the cloud where and when it makes sense, so figuring out how to best use the cloud continues to trend. For distribution, we’re seeing more content owners going direct to viewers. That makes them responsible for monitoring quality, and we supply the tools to do that.

Our strategy has been to support all of these trends. We offer on-prem and cloud multiscreen encoding with monitoring of the distribution content for OTT. Vantage, Lightspeed Live Stream and PRISM support HDR workflows. Vantage Cloud Port obviously supports the cloud, and PRISM supports test and measurement for IP production.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

MURRAY: With so many products, it’s hard to pick out the most important news. Based on customer feedback, the continued evolution of Vantage Cloud Port is turning a lot of heads. Being cloud-agnostic and multicloud, and seamlessly moving processing to the cloud provider of your choice all while having a transparent view of how much services cost. Our overarching goal is to meet customers where they are with regards to their cloud transformation needs. 

Other important news is in regard to supporting the latest workflows in IMF package delivery, and supporting wide color gamut, HDR, Dolby Vision and object-based audio within automated processing of the Vantage world. Test and measurement of these new color standards during production and post has equally become critical with our PRISM media analysis platform. For monitoring streaming quality at every point in the distribution chain, our OptiQ Monitor and our iQ products give programmers instant feedback on where issues are occurring, hopefully before customers notice a significant loss in quality.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

MURRAY: Thanks to the strategic acquisitions Telestream has made, we are uniquely positioned to provide customers with automated media processing and transformation across the entire media value chain. Only Telestream delivers these lens-to-device workflows with quality monitoring and measurement at every stage of the acquisition, post and delivery processes. Everything we’ve ever done has led us to this moment, so it’s really great to be a market leader at such a transformative time in the media and entertainment business. Of course, the beauty of all these solutions coming from one company is that we can develop them as our customers evolve their business models and their viewers evolve their consumption habits.

TVT: What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

MURRAY: The NAB Show is the number one place to engage with customers and prospects to understand their needs and business goals. It’s also the best place to get validation from our customers on all the hard work we’ve been doing—much of it based on their direct feedback. The relationship between customers and manufacturers has changed. We are more like partners with our customers than mere manufacturers or vendors. The new world of IP-video, virtualization and cloud requires conversations and innovation between parties. Our customers rely on that relationship and know that we’re in it for the long haul. The days of selling boxes and just parting ways is long gone, and I like doing business this way much better. The NAB Show makes all these face-to-face interactions possible on a massive scale.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread across the globe and the broadcast industry is not excluded from its impact, including at one of the industry’s marquee events, the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas. 

NAB SHOW NOT HAPPENING IN APRIL

The coronavirus has officially been labeled a global pandemic by the World Health Organization—with more than 118,000 reported cases as of March 11—and now the NAB has announced that it will not be holding its annual NAB Show conference as planned in April.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there have been between one and five confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nevada as of March 11. A March 9 report from U.S. News reports that there have been four confirmed cases in the state, two of which are in Clark County. Las Vegas resides in Clark County. 

In a statement, NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith said the following:

"In the interest of addressing the health and safety concerns of our stakeholders and in consultation with partners throughout the media and entertainment industry, we have decided not to move forward with NAB Show in April. We are currently considering a number of potential alternatives to create the best possible experience for our community.

"We are committed to exploring all possible alternatives so that we can provide a productive setting where the industry can engage with the latest technology, hear from industry thought leaders and make the game-changing connection that drive our industry forward."

PBS TechCon, which was scheduled to go concurrently with the NAB Show, announced last week that it was cancelling its event due to coronavirus concerns.

In addition, the Broadcasters Foundation of America has announced that is has suspended its annual breakfast and the Philip J. Lombardo Charity Golf Tournament that was scheduled for the week of the NAB Show. BFA plans to reschedule both events and will provide more details at a later time.

EXHIBITORS EXPLORING PLAN B's 

Prior to the NAB's announcement of the show's postponement, a number of exhibitors had announced that they were not going to participate on-location in Las Vegas.

Here is the list of companies that had pulled out of the conference as of March 11:

• Adobe
• AJA
• Avid
• Bitcentral
• Boris FX
• EVS
• Imagine Products
• MRMC
• Nikon
• Red Bee Media
• Ross Video
• Streann Media 
• TVU Networks
• Western Digital
• Zaxcom

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition had also announced that it is cancelling its event in Las Vegas that was scheduled to take place on April 19 during the NAB Show. The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has also announced it is postponing the Tech & Engineering Awards dinner, which was scheduled to take place during the NAB Show, to the fall. 

Some of the above companies, and others, had also announced that they were working on some kind of virtual presence to share with those not able to attend the show.

Vizrt Group, for example, announced that it will offer a pair of digital communication platforms, VizrTV and NewTekTV, to help share announcements regarding new technology.

This article will be updated as new information becomes available.

NEW YORK—The 71st Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards dinner is shifting its event originally planned to take place during the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas to the NAB Show New York event in the fall because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced.

The annual ceremony was scheduled to take place on April 19 in Las Vegas, helping to kickoff the NAB Show.

“In consultation with health officials, award recipients and other prospective attendees, we determined that it was no longer prudent nor viable to move forward with our ceremony,” said NATAS President & CEO Adam Sharp in a statement. “The NAB Show has been a wonderful home for the Tech Emmys, and we intend to reschedule the ceremony to correspond instead with NAB’s fall convention in New York.”

NATAS did say that it does plan to move forward with other upcoming events, including the Sports Emmy Awards on April 28 in New York; the Daytime Emmy Awards on June 12-14 in Pasadena, Calif., and the News & Documentary Emmy Awards in September in New York.

“We are closely monitoring public health authorities’ guidance, seeking feedback from our awards communities and evaluating the flexibility of our venue and production partners as we make determinations around these other events based on day-to-day developments,” Sharp added.

“In every case, the health and safety of our event attendees and staff will remain our paramount concern. We are particularly grateful to and proud of the thousands of NATAS members across America’s local newsrooms who are going the front-line work of informing the public in this time of anxiety, confusion and ever-changing information.”

Here is the list of Tech & Engineering Emmy winners that will be honored this year.

TVT is keeping track of all the latest news involving the coronavirus’ impact on the 2020 NAB Show. 

WASHINGTON—The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition has announced it is cancelling its annual event at the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas, citing coronavirus (COVID-19) as its primary reason.

Prior to making its decision, the coalition surveyed its members and general newsletter readers. The results showed that 64.7% of respondents were no longer planning to attend the NAB Show, with 47% saying it was not best for them to attend because of the coronavirus. 

The coalition also sought information on the ages of respondents, as coronavirus is supposed to be more dangerous to older individuals. The survey showed that 80% of respondents were over 51 years old and 50% were over 60.

In addition, 71% of respondents said they would welcome receiving the information that was going to be presented at the event in alternative ways. The coalition says it is currently exploring possible alternatives to replace the canceled event.

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition event was scheduled to take place April 19 at the Convention Center Westgate Hotel.

The 2020 NAB Show is still scheduled to occur as planned.

“The coalition understands that the NAB needs to make its own decision for this economically important event to them,” the LPTV Spectrum Right Coalition’s statement read. “But when the CDC urgently is recommending against travel for those 60 and above, and not to attend events larger than 10, and when the FCC chair cancels a major event just 20 blocks from the FCC office, the NAB needs to be more responsible in the matter. Not many, if any, LPTV licensees can book a private jet to the NAB Show.”

TVT is keeping track of all the latest news involving the coronavirus’ impact on the 2020 NAB Show. 

BURLINGTON, Mass.—Avid has made the determination to pull out the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas due to concerns about coronavirus (COVID-19). In its official announcement, the company said that it will cancel participation in all trade conferences and other large face-to-face events globally for at least the next 60 days.

This decision will also result in the cancellation of the Avid Connect 2020 conference that was slated to take place in Las Vegas in mid-April.

“While these were difficult decisions for Avid, and for me personally, we feel strongly that helping stop the spread of severity of the COVID-19 virus is not just the job of governments and healthcare providers, but the responsibility of every individual, organization and corporation around the globe,” said Jeff Rosica, CEO and president of Avid. “We will take this opportunity to try new methods and experiment with different approaches to better engage with our clients, users and the community around the globe. Avid remains supportive of the NAB Show and looks forward to next year’s event.”

Rather than the in-person gatherings the NAB Show and Connect 2020 would have offered, Avid has announced that it will host an online broadcast to introduce all of its new products that were set to be unveiled during the two conferences. 

Later in the year, “when public safety can be assured,” Avid and the Avid Customer Association plan to host regional Connect events in multiple locations worldwide, though no details were given at this time.

Avid is the latest company to announce that it will not be attending this year’s NAB Show due to the coronavirus, following previous announcements from AJA, Nikon, Ross Video and more.

TVT is keeping track of all the latest news involving the coronavirus’ impact on the 2020 NAB Show. 

BERGEN, Norway—While reports of exhibitors backing out of the upcoming NAB Show are occurring on an almost daily basis, one major exhibitor says it stays committed to being in Las Vegas next month. 

Acknowledging the seriousness of the worldwide coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Steve Wind-Mozley, CMO of Vizrt Group, said the company’s priority was the safety of its employees, customers, partners colleagues and family members. 

Here is his statement in full:

"COVID-19 is a serious threat to the health and well-being of many, with the elderly and vulnerable particularly at risk. For Vizrt Group, like many other organizations, the safety of all our people, be they customers, partners, colleagues or family members is of paramount importance.

We say that people are our superpower, and we mean it. People, in the form of our engineers, create our products that other people, in the shape of our customers, use to help inform another group of people, their audiences, about the world. And right now this is a major story and information about can help save lives and keep others safe from harm.

Vizrt Group is committed to supporting our customers and our partners during these challenging times precisely because we passionately believe that our customers, as the world’s storytellers, have a vital role to play today.

Our people share this belief. We are working to ensure we can continue to connect with our customers to help them utilize IP-based software-defined visual storytelling to keep their worlds informed. If our customers want to meet us at shows like NAB, then we plan on being there. Of course we will continue to monitor the situation and will abide by the latest health authority guidance to keep all our people safe.

We know that not all of our amazing customers will be able to, or will want to, attend the show, so we will bring the show to them via VizrTV and NewTekTV. As a global organization, we have friends and colleagues in the most affected areas, as have many of our customers and partners, so we know that we are all in this together. We will not opt out of the global community we serve, so whilst we respect the difficult decisions some of our industry colleagues have made with regards to show attendance, we choose a different path. We remain focused on supporting our customers to the best of our ability and if that means greeting them on our booth at NAB and it’s safe to do so, we’ll have the coffee on.

We are Vizrt Group and we are here to support the industry, be that online or in-person. Let’s take care of all of our people and help keep the world informed."

For the latest updates on how the coronavirus is impacting the NAB Show, please visit the NAB Show’s dedicated page, as well as TV Technology’s coronavirus updates. 

MONTREAL—Grass Valley is unveiling new cloud-native solutions that drive efficiency and flexibility in live production environments and virtualized systems to leverage commodity hardware this spring.

The company’s new product introductions include:

• GV Stratus One Pro, a new media asset management, ingest, playout, storage and editing system for high-end broadcast applications; 
• GV Orbit, a solution that simplifies IP network deployment delivering system-wide control and device discovery; 
• GV Pace, a production automation control environment with tablet-based automation assisted control for live, unscripted productions to improve viewer engagement 

The company will also highlight its end-to-end HDR production chain for live remote production workflows.

For more information, visit www.grassvalley.com.  

This story was originally published in TVT's March print issue, previewing the 2020 NAB Show. As of March 11, the NAB Show has been postponed indefinitely. 

Camera technology has seen a rapid transition from purely HD acquisition to 4K. In fact, the transition from HD to 4K was a far more rapid one than from SD to HD. Most of us can remember lengthy discussions about whether any of our clients or broadcast outlets “really cared” about HD sufficiently for a complete upgrade of systems practically from the ground up. But as we look at trends over the years, HD happened, 3D failed, and now 4K is being augmented with the dissemination of 4K HDR and even 8K is on the table.

I’ve always remarked that NAB follows CES not only in the calendar year but also in terms of what the content delivery manufacturers and vendors show at CES. Driving a market for consumer demand in turn drives the acquisition and delivery chain of vendors and creators to satisfy that demand.

IMAGE ENHANCING

Topping the list of camera advances is HDR, according to Rob Wilcox, director of marketing for Sony Electronics.

“HDR is now ubiquitous in our broadcast studio and our shoulder camcorder lineup,” Wilcox said. ”All cameras are now CMOS, with the high-end equipped with global shutter technology. This means that they can handle lighting and other image magnification-related issues as well as the best generation of CCD’s.”

Wilcox said Sony has collaborated on HDR workflows with many customers, presenting a number of proposals to sports producers.

”HDR is rapidly gaining traction and our task is to simplify the workflows as much as possible for today’s craftspeople to be as comfortable as they are with SDR production,” he said.

Another popular trend is the transition from 1080P to higher resolutions, Wilcox added.

“Our customers are also demanding 1080P HDR solutions with a path to 4K,” he said. “We offer studio and shoulder cameras that have 1080P, Rec. 2020 colorimetry, HDR, 4K and 1080P outputs at multiple pricing/performance levels.”

Wilcox said that producers are ready to move from older 8-bit SDR formats to full 10-bit, HDR, 4K and Rec. 2020 capable systems.

“We have seen keen interest in our PXW-Z450 and PXW-750 4K 2/3-inch shoulder camcorders,” he said. “The cameras are ultra-feature laden with beautiful image capture capabilities. The ability to use 2/3-inch lenses means that many of the long reach lenses used in natural history production can now migrate to 4K camcorders. Two-thirds-inch for many is more versatile than trying to re-create their production using 35mm systems.

“Another exciting facet is we can offer 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x, and even 16x super motion on a variety of platforms,” Wilcox added. “Many sports content creators are running most of their game cameras at 2x now. With the introduction of the HDC-P50 box camera, we can offer a system that goes to 6x at a very reasonable cost. This will enable college and regional sports to get the type of storytelling tools that the majors enjoy.”

The new SMPTE 2110 video transport over IP standard has been incorporated into Sony cameras as well, Wilcox said.

“We can configure our new flagship HDC-5500 system to image up to 8x over IP using SMPTE ST 2110,” he said. “This offers incredible image quality along with the versatility of IP for OB. All of our HDC-level studio cameras now have built-in HDR and optional IP capabilities. Also, all of our professional studio line-up have a path to 4K, either through native imaging or conversion from 1080P.”

8K is another tool that will have its place as producers discover its possibilities in today’s lower resolution productions, according to Wilcox.

“One application is creating content for our NAB centerpiece, a native 8K resolution OLED display,” he said. “The images created by the UHC-8300 3 CMOS at 8K 120P are breathtaking.”

Mirrorless camera acquisition now pervades every level of production from new media to broadcast to even cinema, according to El-Deane Naude, senior product manager for Sony Digital Imaging.

Sony offers an APS-C sensor as well as full frame options with up to 4K UHD resolutions in their Alpha series. Naude notes, however, that Sony is not seeing demand for 8K in either the mirrorless or Super35 series of camcorders such as the FS-5 or FS-7 series. Yet these larger sensor cameras are beginning to find their way not just into scripted production or unscripted reality TV but even into ENG uses.

To reiterate a point made by Wilcox, though, it is significant to note that despite the miniaturization of cameras used for field acquisition, the three-chip 2/3-inch cameras are alive and well.

Particularly in ENG, there is often little incentive to move beyond a technology that simply works. As more than just an interested observer, I always seek to edge just a little closer to ENG crews on the street just to see what they are shooting. And I still see more than a fair share of 15-year-old optical disk-based cameras still shooting 1440 resolution. Why? Because it is such a viable workflow for quick ENG turnaround and archiving on disks that in many cases are actually cheaper than Betacam or DigiBetacam tapes (remember those?).

WHAT ABOUT 8K?

Of course, trends move on and older gear and infrastructure does and will continue to need replacement. Development of future 8K applications continues, spurred on not just by the introduction of 8K televisions at CES (for which there is at the moment a lack of content) but also by the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

Many of us NAB attendees remember the Hitachi-NHK technology demo several years ago in the Hitachi NAB booth and are aware of even on-air experimentation in Japan of 8K broadcast. John Humphrey, vice president of business development of Hitachi Kokusai Electric America noted that the move to 4K is more on the immediate horizon with 8K a more distant target.

“Hitachi Kokusai continues to be a world leader in the continuing development of 8K camera technology, from our first commercial 8K camera many years ago to a brand new high speed 8K camera developed for the Tokyo Summer sporting event,” Humphrey said. “In terms of widespread market demand, however, we see 8K to be further out.

“In fact, we’re still seeing some very high-profile events being produced in 1080P with HDR and upconverted to 4K for delivery, rather than natively acquired and produced in 4K,” Humphrey added. “With native 4K acquisition and production still in a growth phase and not yet truly the norm, we expect it to be a while before 8K really takes off.”

Dave Van Hoy, president of systems integrator Advanced Systems Group agreed that 8K is on the horizon but not commonplace yet.

“In acquisition, 8K is definitely a trend, in live production, [but] it’s not a real thing yet,” he said. “4K is a done deal, but I have had no requests yet for attempting to do anything in the world of 8K live production.”

Van Hoy says mirrorless cameras are becoming more popular with independent DSLR shooters. “At the moment, the winner in this market segment is Sony with its A7 series, though Leica is seeing a big resurgence with its mirrorless cameras and lenses,” he said. “As DSLR shooters move to mirrorless cameras, they can take advantage of lenses with the 4/3 mount from Canon, Fujinon, Leica, Sony, and others. That’s a big shift.”

ADVANCES IN LENSES

In trying to get a feel for trends in lens technologies, we spoke with Fujinon Director of Marketing Tom Fletcher who sees the Tokyo Olympics as driving demand for 8K cameras and lenses but for more general applications, Fujinon is looking for ways to enhance communication between cameras and lenses in such areas as exposure, autofocus, metadata, and stabilization.

Canon has teased us with the 8K mirrorless EOS R5 which, while just in the development stage, indicates that manufacturers feel the need to position themselves for greater than 4K resolutions. Indeed the Sony Venice, Panasonic EVA-1, Blackmagic Pocket 6K and Red cameras to name a few, are already shooting at beyond 4K resolutions, destined at this point much more for the new media or cinema market.

While at this early date, specific product introductions are premature and we will have to wait until the NAB Show itself or the few weeks before for any inkling of new products, it’s plain that 4K and HDR are the immediate focus with 8K more distant in the broadcast world but an increasing part of other deliverables.

GatesAir is set to introduce the first Maxiva liquid-cooled transmitter line for VHF television and DAB Radio and several ATSC 3.0 software innovations addressing the IP networking architecture and security requirements of NextGen TV this spring.

The new VLX-OP series of Maxiva liquid-cooled transmitters, like the company’s ULXTE UHF transmitters, uses liquid cooling pumps that move the heat created by the transmitter to the outside of buildings. Doing so reduces the need for cooling transmitter buildings, thus lowering power bills, especially for medium and high-power uses, said GatesAir.

The new VHF transmitters also leverages the power density of Maxiva transmitters to cut down on size and weight and their hot-swappable modular design for ease of maintenance.

Of particular benefit to ATSC broadcasters, the Maxiva VLX-OP series transmits at the same power level for ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 broadcasts—from 1.8 kW to 43 kW—simplifying and reducing the cost of transitioning to NextGen TV.

GatesAir will also introduce new 3.0 software features for NextGen TV, including STL Security that encrypts the 3.0 content path from the studio to the transmitter, and a secure HTML5 web interface. These advancements will be available for all Maxiva UHF and VHF transmitters.

“GatesAir has been focused on development roadmaps for ATSC 3.0 for years, and has tested and validated the basic feature sets of the standard,” said Ray Miklius, vice president and general manager, TV products, at GatesAir. “We have now turned our attention to software development for advanced ATSC 3.0 features, including access control and improved user account management. These innovations ensure that our customers are fully prepared for NextGen TV operations.”

GatesAir will also unveil innovations developed in cooperation with GatesAir Europe, a division recently acquired by the parent company. They include:

• The Maxiva PMTX-1 Pole-Mount Transmitter series, an outdoor pole-mounted 50 W post-filer unit that can be configured to be a transmitter, translator or on-channel gap filler for all UHF and VHF standards as well as DAB Radio;
• The Maxiva IMTX-70 Multi-Transmitter Desktop, which is designed around a compact case that can hold up to six 70 W transmitters and/or translators/transposers; and
• The Maxiva MultiD Multi-Carrier DAB Transmitter, which brings together three DAB transmitters in a compact 1RU chassis

For more information, visit www.gatesair.com.

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Avid said on Monday, March 9, that it will publicly announce later this week whether it will exhibit at the 2020 NAB Show next month. 

“Right now we are in active discussions with NAB and the Avid Customer Association Board of Directors to make a decision that we think is in the best interest of our employees, customers and partners,” said Avid President Jeff Rosica. “We expect to make an announcement later this week regarding our participation—well, our participation at NAB and what we'll be doing about Connect. So I would say stay tuned. But generally I think we're going to probably have to lean to be a little more safe with our decisions.”

Rosica made his comments during the company’s quarterly earnings report conference call on Monday, in which it reported total revenue in the fourth quarter was up 3.2% year-over-year, “benefiting from ongoing growth in our creative software subscriptions business and our audio integrated solutions business and continued relative strength in our maintenance business,” the company said. 

The impact that the coronavirus (COVID-19) could have on Avid’s bottom line was also discussed.

“We are continuing to carefully track any potential impact of the evolving COVID-19 situation in our business,” said Avid CFO Ken Gayron. “Our transition of our supply chain out of Southeast Asia during 2019 has lessened any impact we may have otherwise felt to date. However, as the situation evolves there could be potential risk to our Q1 results, any of which to the extent realized would likely be timing differences as opposed to permanent in nature. Accordingly, we have widened our guidance ranges for the quarter to the downside, given the risk of COVID-19.”

TVT is keeping track of the latest information on the coronavirus and the NAB Show. 

WASHINGTON—The NAB says the 2020 NAB Show is still on, as of Tuesday, March 10. 

A spokesperson told TV Technology that “the show is moving forward as planned.” The association updated its coronavirus update page on Tuesday, announcing that it is “continuing to evaluate the national and international situation carefully.”

The NAB says it is taking its direction from global, federal and local health officials, like the WHO and CDC, which at this time have put no travel notices or restrictions on public gatherings for the U.S.

Concerns over the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on large gatherings has prompted a number of cancellations, including SXSW, which was expected to attract several hundred thousands to Austin, Texas, this month. PBS TechCon, which holds its annual gathering in Las Vegas just prior to the NAB Show, also cancelled its event last Friday. 

Several high profile exhibitors backed out of the show on Monday, including Ross and Adobe. NAB says that 96% of its exhibitors are still planning to attend, and of the 4% no longer attending, the association claims more than 80% would be coming from China, which has implemented travel restrictions.

“Ross has been at every NAB since 1974 and this has not been an easy decision to take, but we have a clear duty to our employees, our customers and families,” the company announced, adding that is was looking for alternative “virtual” ways to get its NAB Show news out to its customers and attendees. 

Adobe said in a blog post: “Over the past few weeks, we have been closely monitoring and evaluating the situation around COVID-19 and have made the difficult but important decision to cancel our presence at the show this year.” Adobe had previously cancelled its summit that was also scheduled to be held in Las Vegas. 

NAB is working on ways to both minimize the risk of transmission on the show floor—including implementing a "no handshake" policy—and to add value to in-person attendees remotely.

For the latest updates on how the coronavirus is impacting the NAB Show, please visit the NAB Show’s dedicated page, as well as TV Technology’s coronavirus updates. 

OTTAWA—Ross Video has announced that it will not participate on-site at the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas, citing health and safety concerns over the coronavirus (COVD-19) as it continues to spread and has caused many travel restrictions.

“Ross Video regrets to announce that we are withdrawing from the NAB Show 2020,” the company said in a statement. “Ross has been at every NAB since 1974 and this has not been an easy decision to take, but we have a clear duty to our employees, our customers and families.”

Ross noted that as the number of COVD-19 cases has increased around the world, many companies have put travel restrictions in place, including AJA, Nikon, TVU Networks and others.

CEO David Ross said in the statement that Ross Video is developing contingency plans and intends to virtualize elements of the show to make sure customers learn about the new offerings from Ross.

In addition, according to ProVideo Coalition, Adobe also plans to pull out of the NAB Show.

The 2020 NAB Show is still scheduled to go on as planned, April 18-22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

TVT is keeping track of all the latest news involving the coronavirus’ impact on the 2020 NAB Show.  

Digital Nirvana’s spring demonstration of products will focus on its latest tech designed to help streamline broadcast monitoring and content generation.

The first such product is Trance, a cloud-based transcription, closed captioning and translation workflow. The cloud-based architecture supports an integrated automatic speech-to-text engine and easy-to-use interface. The system allows for captions to be generated per presets that can conform with specific style guides. Trance can automatically generate transcripts, including in multiple languages. It can also centralize workflows like job allocation, caption edits, role assignment, report generation and status monitoring. The ability to ingest Avid assets directly for caption generation and/or metadata enhancement is available as well. Users can access media assets from cloud storage, Avid Media Central, SFTP, local servers or via an API.

The next generation MonitorIQ 7.0 compliance and broadcast monitoring system will also be on hand. This latest version features one-touch access to content and associated metadata for content review, analysis, troubleshooting and proof of performance. It has advanced analysis for comparing SCTE messages. There are also new Clip and Share tools for content sharing and collaboration. In addition, MonitorIQ 7.0 can be integrated with Digital Nirvana’s Media Service IQ, which adds AI-based cloud microservices that include transcript generation for ads and content, caption quality assessment, caption realignment and video intelligence for objects, ads, logos and facial recognition.

Metadator rounds out Digital Nirvana’s offerings. This software-as-a-service platform automates metadata generation for production, preproduction and live content, and now can integrate with Avid Interplay for the creation of automatic transcripts, labels for objects, faces, logos and other metadata with locators for Avid users. Additional features include on-screen text recognition, shot-change detection and explicit content detection.

For more information, visit www.digital-nirvana.com.  

Velocix plans to feature its new ultra-high density CDN edge caching software that provides up to four times the streaming output over prior generations of servers as part of its spring product lineup.

The software is optimized to run on commercial-off-the-shelf platforms with AMD chips and NVMe solid state hard drives, reducing how much hardware is needed to scale IPTV and OTT video service delivered via wireline and 5G wireless networks, the company said.

“With traditional video subscribers increasingly transitioning to new multiscreen IP video services, network operators are facing complex scaling challenges that will continue to intensify as stream demand and mobile viewership over 5G networks flourishes,” said Craig Sinasac, vice president, Development and Technology at Velocix. “Our software is carefully tuned to supercharge the capabilities of the foundational hardware platform to maximize stream density and CDN efficiency, resulting in a richer return on investment for our customers.”

The company also will feature its programmatic TV advertising solution and managed services offering.

More information is available on the Velocix website.

LAS VEGAS—When tens of thousands of attendees descend on this desert city this April, there will be much to discuss: NextGen TV and advanced advertising; cloud virtualization and OTT; the repack and 5G. But there’s an important task to accomplish before then.

Consider as we head into the 2020 NAB Show: What does the future look like for your organization? And how do you want to get there? “The thing I’d encourage [is not] to really focus on specific topics,” said Rick Ducey, managing director of the consulting firm BIA/Kelsey. Technologies like 5G and IP are important, he said, but the real question is, what ultimately do broadcasters want to do about them when it comes to their long-term business strategy.

“It’s a bit like going to the grocery store, loading your basket, getting home and then saying, ‘now what?’ You need a plan and a strategy,” he said.

INTERDEPENDENT BUT UNIQUE

Attendees at the NAB Show, April 18-22, should start by considering what products and services are they building for the future, to serve what needs and demands, in what markets and what business models.

“Gone are the days of one simple flowchart that can fully explain that entire ecosystem,” said Chris Brown, NAB executive vice president of conventions and business operations. “With the growth of the show and the rapid evolution of the media and entertainment industry, what has emerged is a very interdependent set of disciplines and sub-sectors that each has a unique perspective and set of needs.”

Where to begin? This year’s show will underscore major trends facing the industry and will be broken into three major elements: creation and production, distribution and monetization, and content and consumption.

Leading the way: The impact of streaming and OTT on the media industry that will be covered during the two-day Streaming Summit, which returns this year. The streaming market has grown much more crowded since the last time the industry gathered in Las Vegas.

“Streaming has moved well beyond just a trend bubbling in the background,” Brown said. “The continued growth in consumption of streamed content as well as the rollout of several new services by major entertainment brands means that streaming is becoming more and more a part of mainstream content distribution.”

There will be abundant proof of this when attendees walk through the doors of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Here, 12 separate living room spaces will be set up in the middle of the lobby as part of “The Streaming Experience,” a new OTT demo area that will offer more than 50 OTT platforms across 80 devices, including streaming boxes, smart TVs, tablets and mobile devices. The goal is to make comparisons that an ordinary viewer wouldn’t get the opportunity to make—such as contrasting content, video quality, ad formats, playback features and delivery methods, according to Dan Rayburn, Streaming Summit chairman.

What makes this experience different from many of the other buzzwords floating around the show, Rayburn said, is that this technology is tangible and real.

“A lot of the buzzwords that people talk about are not real. 5G is not yet real; no one can see it,” he said. “Everything … [in the Streaming Experience] is real-world right now. You can see it, buy it, use it, touch it.”

The area will include streaming content from Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix and others, and will include hardware—which will be raffled off at the show’s conclusion—from the likes of Amazon, PlayStation, Apple and Samsung.

As cozy as this living room setup may be, the goal is to give attendees the chance to test out nearly every live and on-demand streaming service on the market today.

The chief technology officer of Warner-Media, Jeremy Legg, will give a keynote at the summit and is expected to touch on the challenges of transitioning thousands of consumers from one streaming platform to another—namely the recently announced HBOMax streaming platform that is set to debut in May. WarnerMedia is one example of a company that is attempting to harness disparate brands under its umbrella—including HBO, DC Comics and CNN—and loop them into a new streaming venture.

This opens up a key opportunity for the media industry.

What’s key for broadcasters to understand is that they maintain a critical and valued role in the local video ecosystem as both content creators and distributors, said Ducey. Television will not be jumping ship from its core audience and goals anytime soon, he said, even as streaming and OTT continues to thrive.

“For generations, local audiences connected with their favorite TV content first over-the-air and then via MVPD systems,” he said. “Local TV broadcasters have now extended the ways they connect with audiences leveraging newer, exciting and highly impactful IP-based technologies, more bandwidth and better processing from smart TVs, mobile devices along with PCs, laptops and tablets. As audiences migrate to these new distribution and consumption environments, so too must broadcasters.”

Today, it’s connected TV that is attracting most of the viewing and ad spending, Ducey said, including smart TVs that access various TV apps, AVOD (free ad-supported on-demand streaming video services) and subscription-based VOD services. While there is certainly successful viewing of OTT video on non-TV devices, broadcasters should be aware that ad units on smart TVs are more engaging and attractive to buyers, Ducey said.

NEXTGEN OPPORTUNITIES

Broadcasters should also pay close attention to reports like the recent one in Variety that revealed that traditional pay TV providers dropped 6 million customers in 2019, a 7% year-over-year decline. Those customers are turning to streaming packages like Netflix, Hulu and others. That represents a key opportunity for broadcasters, who are marking 2020 by rolling out NextGen TV—which combines over the air broadcasts with OTT—to dozens of markets in 2020.

“Local broadcasters are building out their new NextGen TV platforms to provide greatly enhanced video, audio and data along with robust mobile and IoT services,” Ducey said, adding that analysts are already seeing an increase in TV antenna sales. “With NextGen TVs, I expect local TV groups will find their investments in their own local TV distribution platform will yield significant returns from not just traditional but new services.”

NextGen TV (aka ATSC 3.0) will be a prime focus at the show, according to Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC. In addition to broadcasters in the top 40 markets deploying NextGen TV this year, retailers will begin offering “20 in 2020”— or 20 different receiver models from Samsung, LG and Sony by the holiday shopping season.

Pearl TV, the consortium of broadcasters and manufacturers focused on developing the framework for NextGen TV has also gotten bigger with the addition of Sinclair Broadcast Group, announced last month.

“Pearl TV has been able to galvanize the industry around what this new TV service will be like,” Noland said. The addition of Sinclair gives “the industry a clear understanding that a majority of broadcasters are going to be aligned around the initial [set of] features of ATSC,” she said. Other Pearl TV members include Cox Media Group, Hearst Television and Nexstar Media, among others.

Noland also pointed to the Phoenix Model Market initiative, a collaborative beta program created to streamline the transition to NextGen TV. “This model has been extremely important to get all of the stakeholders in one area to experiment with the technology, from interoperability to channel-sharing agreements,” she said.

Companies will showcase examples of NextGen TV-enhanced audio, emergency alerting, car navigation system updates and mobile delivery demonstrations. “I think you’ll probably see a large number of vendors and manufacturers showing different products to engage the 3.0 ecosystem, many of which will blossom in 2020,” said Noland, who added that the organization will have a booth and demonstration area on the show floor this year. “It’s going to be a real tidal wave of ATSC 3.0 demonstrations.”

As of press time, the organization said about a dozen stations are testing ATSC 3.0 signals and more are expected by the end of April. “I would anticipate that there would be commercial broadcasters on the air by the time NAB 2020 rolls around,” Noland said.

PROTECTING INFRASTRUCTURE

Change for the broadcast industry is coming from regulatory quarters too, both in the form of existing technologies as well as emerging ones like 5G.

The FCC wants to sell off sections of C-Band spectrum, which is currently used by satellite operators to deliver video and audio to broadcasters, cable systems and other content distributors. The subsequent public auction will make 280 MHz of the spectrum available to spur 5G development, despite concerns shared by radio and TV broadcasters about protecting existing users who rely on C-Band.

The NAB is carefully monitoring the process, urging the commission to establish “quality control” for the transition in order to prevent lost services or interference, adding that it “looks forward to working with the FCC towards a solution that benefits both current and new users of the spectrum band.”

The auction is expected to take place in December 2020.

The FCC has also made additional moves to promote 5G deployment, including supporting the development and use of virtualized radio access networks. At the show, sessions like “5G is Coming, Whether We’re Ready or Not” will look at where things stand on this next-generation wireless network and how the media and entertainment industry can prepare. Other sessions will look at how 5G can be used to revolutionize digital newsgathering applications and remote production capabilities.

The show will also provide an update on the TV-band repack, scheduled to be completed by this summer. The Broadcast Engineering and IT Conference will walk attendees through the steps to take after a TV channel is repacked and how to interpret the commissioning documentation a station might receive to maintain and troubleshoot a transmission system.

IP will also be in the spotlight. Sessions will touch on how media companies are sending live broadcast-quality video over managed IP networks. Other sessions will look at why major media companies—such as the PBS Network Operations Center—decided to transition its HD-SDI facility to a fully IP-based facility and how the technology is meeting PBS’s need for a more tightly integrated workflow.

EARLIER START

This year, the exhibit floor will open at noon on Sunday, April 19 (traditionally, the show floor opens Monday morning).

“We changed the opening day to Sunday in direct response to what we were hearing from a big portion of the show’s audience,” said Brown, adding that individuals from the production and post industries in particular were looking for that Sunday start time to make the show more accessible for their schedules.

Also new this year: “CineCentral,” a new demo and learning area in the Central Hall; the “NSpire” conference that brings together next-gen content creators with industry pros; and “Birds of a Feather,” in which creators share best practices in a peer-to-peer format. Also new: an AWS Theater that features a lineup of immersive industry sessions led by AWS industry experts, partners and customers.

More information about the show can be found at NABshow.com.

StreamGear Inc., after making its public debut at CES 2020, is ready present its VidiMo live production system for streaming from a smartphone to the world.

VidiMo is short for Video Director on Mobile. The technology turns a smartphone and HDMI video source (like a camera) into a virtual production and transmission studio, enabling the production of multisource, TV-style shows that can be streamed live, recorded or both.

The system works by combining VidiMo Go hardware with the VidiMo Show app, with VidiMo Go hardware doubling as an HDMI capture device and camera mounting system, while the app provides a complete live production toolkit on the smartphone. The technology captures the camera’s HDMI signal into iOS and Android smartphones for livestreaming. In addition, the app can create live shows that combine the HDMI input with the phone’s camera and other sources.

Users can switch between six customizable layouts that mix live video and audio sources with graphics, text and pre-recorded media clips. There is a two-button remote control that enables users to trigger app functions when they are in front of the camera.

Content from VidiMo can be streamed to third-party services like YouTube Live, Facebook Live and Twitch.

For more information, visit www.streamgear.io.  

Solid State Logic’s spring product lineup will put the focus on new Audio over IP capabilities, as well as new features for its System T broadcast audio platform.

Many of the new developments for the System T platform are designed for advanced AoIP integrations or new immersive/Next Generation Audio (NGO) workflows. SSL will show how the System T architecture provides processing for multiple audio formats for immersive and three-dimensional audio. There is also a new partnership with Sennheiser AMBEO that adds on-board conversion support for the AMBEO VR mic, with a 360 transcoder. The platform also supports multiple formats, including ATSC 3.0, Dolby Atmos and MPEG-H.

Another technology that SSL plans to highlight is its Dante-based IP Network I/O portfolio, including the HC Bridge SRC. This I/O device provides 256 bi-directional channels of sample rate conversion for AoIP networks and also facilities connecting audio between devices running at different sample rates or in different clock domains on Dante, AES67 or ST 2110-30 networks. The network connections can be physically or virtually separate networks.

SSL also will feature the latest update for its range of console control surfaces. This covers the configurable S500 and S500m surface, as well as pre-configured surface options in the S300. The consoles run a Dante AoIP backbone and are compliant with AES67/2110 protocols. With System T, the consoles can integrate into an existing or future AoIP infrastructure. 

For more information, visit www.solidstatelogic.com. 

LAS VEGAS—Vizrt Group, the parent company of Vizrt, NewTek and NDI, will be going digital to help share its news and announcements from the upcoming 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas for those unable to attend because of the coronavirus (COVID-19). It will do so via new VizrTV and NewTekTV “digital-first” communications platforms.

The VizrTV and NewTekTV channels are designed to deliver key product awareness, innovation and support messages to customers. While it will be prominently used at first as a way to share information related to the 2020 NAB Show to people not on the show floor—as well as at CABSAT in Dubai—Vizrt Group says it can help adapt people “to changing market environments.”

The channels will utilize IP-based, software-defined visual storytelling to share information through these platforms.

“Because we are leading the industry with adaptive and software-defined visual storytelling products, we are uniquely positioned to use VizrTV and NewTekTV to deliver our message, using our own tools in a very tailored way, to a screen that is convenient to our customers,” said Michael Hallén, CEO of Vizrt Group.

Even with this option, Vizrt Group says it will still exhibit at the 2020 NAB Show—Vizrt at booth SL4516, NewTek at booth SL4511 and NDI at booth SL4711—but that it is monitoring local and global health authority advice and guidelines, saying its primary concern “is for the health of its people, be they customers, partners, colleagues or family.”

TVT is keeping track of all the latest news involving the coronavirus’ impact on the 2020 NAB Show.  

JVC plans to present its new KA-EN200G H.265/HEVC encoder, which aims to provide higher quality, lower bitrate streaming for the CONNECTED CAM series, this spring.

The KA-EN200G encoder is a plug-in module that can fit into the expansion slot of any CONNECTED CAM model of camcorder (GY-HC900, GY-HC500 and GY-HC550). JVC says that this results in higher quality images with up to 50% reduced bandwidth and enables the use of 10-bit 4:2:2.

“We recognize that HEVC offers more advantages over the H.264/AVC compression standard,” said Edgar Shane, general manager, engineering at JVC. “JVC allows its customers to future-proof the investment they’ve made in JVC’s CONNECTED CAM line.”

For more information, visit pro.jvc.com. 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—TVU Networks has announced that it will no longer have an exhibit on the show floor at the 2020 NAB Show because of concerns over coronavirus (COVID-19), instead it seeks to find an alternative way to participate in the show.

Citing the health and safety of its employees and colleagues, TVU Networks will not be traveling to Las Vegas for the show, still scheduled to take place April 18-22. However, the company does say it is working with NAB organizers to explore other ways to take part in the annual industry conference, including using digital technologies to reach customers, partners and colleagues both attending or not attending in person.

“While we will miss being there in person to meet with our colleagues from all over the world at this key industry event, we’re prioritizing the well-being of our staff, colleagues and their families at this very critical time,” said Paul Shen, CEO of TVU Networks. “TVU has been an ardent supporter of the NAB Show, and we will continue to participate in the future. Although we will not physically be in Las Vegas, we are exploring with the NAB alternative ways to share the news and demonstrations we planned for the April Show.”

TVU is now the fourth company to announce that it won't attend the NAB Show in Las Vegas, following previous announcements from AJA, Nikon and MRMC.

NAB Show, and the Las Vegas Convention Center where it will take place, have taken steps to keep attendees aware and share best practices for preventing the transmission of COVID-19.

TVT is keeping track of all the latest news involving the coronavirus’ impact on the 2020 NAB Show. 

As the U.S. distributor for Mobile Viewpoint, CP Communications will be the one showcasing the company’s IQ Sports Producer family of automated live sports production systems this spring.

IQ Sports Producer is designed for single-operator use and remote productions to deliver live and on-demand sports. The system can support up to three 180-degree panoramic 4x4 cameras. The output, meanwhile can be AI-based to follow the action, including automated zooming and game tracking technology.

The IQSP system also supports three additional virtual streams defined within the system to follow designated action. Users can drag and drop varied fields of view into the image and add overlays including scoreboard content, sideline and goal views, instant replay content and automatic summaries and highlights. Operators can select and analyze other streams from the field of play during and after the event.

Mobile Viewpoint others two models for IQSP—IQSP Pro and IQSP Plus. Each are built around a 2RU Mobile Viewpoint server with IQSP software, 10 bonded 4G IP connections and AVC/H.264 and HEVC/H.265 compression.

IQSP Pro features an IQ-xCam four-lens panoramic camera system that can shoot 4K at 60 fps and has an F2.2 aperture with 5mm focal length. The camera has AI technology to automatically follow the action, as well as wrapping and de-stitching technology. Mobile Viewpoint’s Clipper application is also included, which integrates with a LinkMatrix dashboard for editing and sharing highlights.

IQSP Plus is designed to be a more streamlined version for live sports streaming to the web. It’s panoramic camera uses four CMOS sensors and four 4mm fixed lenses to capture content in 4K at 30 fps. It also includes four IR LEDs and options for the Clipper app, scoreboard, subtitles, commentary and game summary capabilities.

For more information, visit www.cpcomms.com.  

ChyronHego's spring plans will be to showcase the latest updates to its graphic offerings that cover news, sports and other programming.

Part of ChyronHego’s offerings will include the latest version of its universal graphics platform, PRIME Graphics 3.6. PRIME Graphics provides a single 4K-, HDR-, IP-ready graphics design, authoring and playout platform that can create design packages like lower thirds/news tickers, video walls and interactive touch screens. The show will also serve as the debut of PRIME AR, the augmented reality application of the PRIME Graphics platform.

Updates will also be shown of ChyronHego’s Camio end-to-end content creation, production and playout workflow. Among this is the integration of the re-skinning feature with PRIME’s Style Sheets to create a consistent look. Then there’s the new Camio 4.9 media engine for rapid browsing, fulfilling and importing PRIME Graphics templates directly via MOS plug-in into a compliant nonlinear editor. 

For virtual studio and augmented reality graphics, ChyronHego’s Fresh 1.4 is available, now with full 4K support as well as UE 4.24 features like the 3D plug-in Datasmith. Additional features include support for higher resolutions, more inputs and outputs, a new scripting library and improved web panels.

ChryonHego also plans to highlight a couple of products that boost sports broadcasts, Paint 8.2 and Virtual Placement 7.3. Paint 8.2 is a telestration and analysis tool that now boasts HDR recording for the creation of Illustrated Replays in 1080p and 4K HDR, and new usability features such as auto-save, enhanced timeline functionality and richer editing features. Virtual Place 7.3, meanwhile, added an automatic chroma keyer for using AI to help add virtual graphics to live productions.

For weather broadcasts, the Metacast platform helps with unified content creation across linear and nonlinear productions. Its new features include a new 3D font, built-in HEVC clip encoding and decoding, H.264 clip export and an automation Rest API for the option to use an external automation system to drive Metacast.

Additional technologies from ChryonHego include Click Effects PRIME for venue graphics, a new Chyron Classic Keyboard and new modules of Axis World Graphics.

For more information, visit www.chyronhego.com.

LAS VEGAS—#GALSNGEAR, a group that works to ensure that women in media production gain visibility at industry events and provide access to the latest technology and high-level networking opportunities, has announced its programming schedule for the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

There are three events currently scheduled to take place on Tuesday, April 21, during the show:

•  8:30-9 a.m. - Networking coffee in the Central Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center, hosted by Blackmagic Design 
•  9-10 a.m. - Panel discussion and equipment demonstrations broadcast on “NAB Show LIVE” with industry experts on production, post, streaming and more, co-hosted by Crowded TV founder Adryenn Ashely and #GALSNGEAR founder Amy DeLouise 
•  1:30-2:30 p.m. - “Is Tech Changing Story?”, a discussion of the impact of post-production, cloud and streaming technology on how audiences participate in content 

There will also be two #GALSNGEAR Podcast hosts Women in Tech events on Monday, April 20, and Wednesday, April 22, from 10-11 a.m. in the Central Lobby of the LVCC. A cocktail reception hosted by Dolby will also take place on April 22 at a to be determined time and place.

#GALSNGEAR is done in partnership with the NAB and Women in Film and Video.

“We’re proud to partner with NAB to highlight female participation on NAB Show stages, sharing unique insights on leading trends and new technology that affect storytelling production, post-production and distribution,” said DeLouise.

“Our goal is to ensure women in media tech have a visible and strong presence at such an important industry event,” said Robin Noonan-Price, WIFV president.

More information on the #GALSNGEAR program is available online.

The 2020 NAB Show will take place April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS—EditShare aims to help consumers simplify the process of storytelling, and plan do so this spring by demonstrating its shared storage and collaborative media management products, EFS and Flow.

EFS 2020 is the platform’s latest edition and is designed to power faster EditShare storage nodes and networks on-premise, in the cloud and in hybrid configurations. With EFS 2020, organizations can build collaborative workflows, including Flow 2020. Features of EFS 2020 include security improvements and enhanced throughput performance gains, as well as a set of RESTful APIs for automating advanced storage management workflows.

The Flow 2020 unit is designed to manage the entire media technology stack. It tracks and supervises asset movement across tiered storage environments, including on-premise, nearline, object storage and cloud. The system features panel support for integration with Adobe Premiere Pro and has practical applications of AI, like indexing and organizing hours of video content, eliminating manual logging and standardizing content indexing.

In addition to the products it will have on display, EditShare has created presentations on industry trends and technology topics. Presentations include “Remote Productions: On Ramp to the Cloud,” “Advanced APIs: The Power of Openness” and “Security Best Practices: Keeping Content Safe and Creativity Flowing.”

For more information, visit www.editshare.com.  

MELVILLE, N.Y.—Nikon has opted to bow out of the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas over concerns from the coronavirus (COVID-19). The decision also covers MRMC, a Nikon Group company.

This is the second exhibitor to announce that they will not be attending this year’s NAB Show due to coronavirus, following AJA’s exit earlier this week.

“Nikon’s first priority is always the health and safety of our employees, partners and customers,” Nikon’s statement read. “As we continue to closely monitor and gauge the impact of COVID-19, Nikon Inc. and MRMC … have made the decision not to participate in NAB 2020. We will continue to closely evaluate our travel policies, programs and activities to mitigate risk.”

NAB has maintained that the 2020 NAB Show will go on as scheduled, taking place April 18-22, and that it is not seeing an unusual spike in exhibitor cancellations and that its attendee registration is on par with past years. The organization has provided a coronavirus resource page to teach show attendees things they should know about the coronavirus and best practices. The Las Vegas Convention Center, which will serve as the host of the conference, has also announced its measures to prevent transmission. 

InSync Technology specializes in video conversion and plans to showcase a range of its software video conversion products this spring that are able to support live and file-based workflows, as well as be used on premise or in the cloud.

The first of the planned products is the FrameFormer Link software engine, which brings live conversion of UHD/4K streams. This frame rate conversion software can be integrated into any live production platform, or can be made available through a service provider. With software that requires CPU-only processing with cross-platform support, it can also support cloud-based workflows.

There’s then FrameFormer Live, which uses InSync’s live conversion capability within a turnkey application that can handle frame rate conversion of any format up to UHD/4K. The product has the FrameFormer software engine built into a standalone environment that includes handling of popular streaming formats plus support for emerging SRT transport protocol.

Rounding out InSync’s offerings is the FLICS | SOLO FF powered by InSync FrameFormer. This is a content preparation application, developed by InSync’s partner HiScale GmbH, that offers automated transcoding and frame rate conversion for formats up to UHD/4K. It also offers codec support for ProRes, AVC-I, DNxHD, H.264 and H.265, as well as ABR encoding for VOD delivery. This software is available as a turnkey application or in the cloud.

For more information, visit www.insync.tv. 

LAS VEGAS—The National Association of Broadcasters have tapped Jim Stenberg, principal broadcast RF engineer for American Tower Corporation, as the recipient of the 2020 NAB Television Engineering Achievement Award.

The Engineering Achievement Awards, which have been given out by the NAB since 1959, are awarded based on peer nominations of individuals for their “significant contributions to advancing broadcast engineer,” per the NAB.

At American Tower Corporation since 2013, Stenberg serves as the subject matter expert on broadcast antenna systems on the company’s towers throughout the U.S. He is the holder of nine patents and helped design numerous RF system products. In addition, Stenbreg has co-written a handbook on digital television implementation and has presented technical papers at NAB, SBE and IEEE conferences, as well as others. 

Throughout his 33-year broadcast career, Stenberg has worked for several antenna and RF system manufacturers, and also ran his own consulting and field service business for eight years.

The NAB also announced that Jeff Welton of Nautel will receive the 2020 NAB Radio Engineering Achievement Award. For more information on Welton’s career, visit TVT’s sister publication Radio World.

Stenberg and Welton will be presented with their awards on Tuesday, April 21, at the We Are Broadcasters Celebration during the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas. 

Hitachi Kokusai Electric America plans to make its recently launched CU-HD550 camera control unit the center of spring offerings, with a number of new features to showcase.

The CU-HD550 was first introduced at the 2019 NAB Show New York, designed for 1080p60 video production. Now, Hitachi provides new dual-workflow functionality for CU-HD550 that enables parallel HDR/SDR acquisition with a single camera by providing separate video sharing adjustments for HDR and SDR outputs.

CU-HD550 also has added a configuration for single-link 12G-SDI output for transforming natively-acquired 1080p video to 4K resolution. This 4K output functionality supports HDR when used with an HDR-enabled camera, while the color matrix of the 12Gbps SDI output can be switched between ITU-Rec.709 and BT.2020 color spaces.

In addition to the CU-HD550, Hitachi plans to offer its companion CA-HF550 camera adapter and its SK-HD1800 studio and field production camera.

For more information, visit Hitachi’s website.

TV TECHNOLOGY: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2020 NAB Show?

ERIC GALLIER: At this year’s NAB Show, we can expect to see several key technology trends. A major highlight will be around public cloud and cloud-native solutions that are increasingly being used for a broad scope of media workflows, including file-based workflows and live streaming for OTT and broadcast applications. Combining on-premises and public cloud resources for many of those workflows is an extremely compelling proposition moving forward, enabling better agility, more convenience for temporary usage and a faster time to market for new video offerings, among other benefits. This applies to all cloud, hybrid cloud and appliance applications.

At the show this year, there will also be a strong focus on any type of technology that makes streaming as good as broadcast delivery, especially for live sports events. Some of the issues that the industry is looking to tackle include latency, scalable delivery and video quality.

Moreover, hybrid broadband and broadcast services are improving quality of experience (QoE) for viewers, and I expect that trend to continue, as well as the use of cloud and the internet for distribution—replacing satellite. Also, multicloud and multi-CDN solutions have emerged to improve the scalability and security of OTT distribution.

And last but not least, SMPTE ST 2110 (up to UHD) with NMOS-04 and NMOS-05 support is another technology that helps streamline and quickly deploy any studio and playout workflow.

We already have production deployments that extensively make use of all of those technologies.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

GALLIER: Our product portfolio is structured around on-premises solutions and two fully managed, cloud-native platforms targeting live OTT streaming as well as channel origination. At the 2020 NAB Show, we will unveil new and important features related to the technology trends mentioned above. Some of the enhancements we’ll show include more scalable video delivery for OTT services, hybrid on-premises and cloud playout workflows, media workflow portability to the cloud and SMPTE ST 2110 for any type of signal, including UHD HDR and state-of-the-art ASTC 3.0 capabilities.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

GALLIER: Our solutions are unique to the market because they cover all aspects of media processing, from ingesting file-based and live content, including uncompressed video over IP, to creating schedules, playing out new channels and processing all content for OTT streaming and broadcast delivery. In other words, it is about source-to-screen playout, broadcast and OTT, including delivery workflows.

You can deploy our solutions on-premises using video appliances or software that runs on private data centers or all in the cloud. There is absolutely no compromise on performance, as it is the same technology for all solutions. You can easily and efficiently combine on-premises and public cloud resources by migrating video workflows back and forth.

Our fully managed platforms are cloud-neutral, meaning you can pick the cloud provider you want. Plus, we are open to any third-party partners such as CMS, DRM, automation and traffic systems vendors. Many of them are already pre-integrated into our solutions and our rich, fully documented API set makes it easy to integrate new partners. 

TVT: What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

GALLIER: The NAB Show is a premiere event for our industry, attracting leading media companies and broadcasters from North America and around the world. Exhibiting at the NAB Show and participating in its BEIT conference gives us an opportunity to meet and talk with customers and potential customers to learn about their challenges and show them how to cost-effectively deliver new revenue-generating services, including live sports streaming and linear channels, with the pristine quality, low latency and scalability required for success.

LTN Global, following a number of 2019 acquisitions that included Niles Media Group, Make.TV and Crystal Corporation, is ready to bare the fruits of those deals this spring in the form of its universal media technology ecosystem, which includes LTN Production, LTN Control, LTN Channel Management and LTN Transport.

LTN Production is a fully managed, centralized production services system developed from integrating Niles Media into LTN. As part of the LTN Production umbrella, LTN Flex supports end-to-end centralized production so users can create, command and transport content. LTN Production is available as a stand-alone service or as a complement to other LTN offerings.

The LTN Control comes from working with the Make.TV brand and is a live video cloud service that enables browser-based routing of live video feeds for content aggregation, publishing and distribution. The system allows users to acquire unlimited concurrent live feeds from professional cameras, encoders, mobile devices, drones and online sources, and then curate and route these live signals within a continuous-playback multiview to unlimited outputs. The live signals can then be distributed simultaneously to online and on-premise destinations.

Developed with technology from the Crystal Corporation acquisition, LTN Channel Management helps broaden distribution reach with LTN Connect and LTN Cue systems that power content localization and personalization of ads in cable, satellite and OTT distribution. LTN Connect is a stand-alone platform, while LTN Cue is integrated within the LTN Network.

LTN Transport, meanwhile,  is built on LTN’s advanced algorithms for Dynamic Multicarrier Routing and Rapid Error Recovery for transmission of video from source to destination. It ensures less than 200ms ultra-low-latency global video transmission and 99.99% SLA-backed transport reliability, according to LTN.

For more information, visit www.ltnglobal.com.  

Mediaproxy plans to feature upgrades for its LogServer logging, monitoring and analysis system this spring. 

The company will highlight its path toward support for the SMPTE ST 2110 suite of IP-based media transport and production standards, including ST 2110-20, -30 and -40 as well as the new compressed video essence ST 2110-22 standard for 4K HDR sources.

LogServer already supports SMPTE ST 2022-6 for logging and the Monwall multipanel live streaming multiviewer.

The company is now also offering ST 2022-7 support for seamless protection switching to provide flexibility even in virtual environments. LogServer also supports the Ember+ control protocol to avoid manual intervention in source switching, enhancing monitoring automation and redundancy.

Mediaproxy also plans to preview new technology that allows for AI detection against recorded content, showcase the latest version of its Monwall hybrid IP multiviewer and unveil a set of new APIs to automate news production and event monitoring workflows.

More information is available on the Mediaproxy website. 

LAS VEGAS—“America’s Funniest Home Videos” (AFV), which has been highlighting humorous real-life moments for 30 years, is being inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame at the 2020 NAB Show.

“AFV” is distributed in more than 100 territories around the world, has shown nearly 2 million video clips and has given more than $16 million in prize money throughout its history.

The show was created in 1989 by Vin Di Bona, who also serves as its executive producer, and was hosted by Bob Saget for the first eight seasons. Tom Bergeron began hosting the show in 2001 and would continue in that role for 15 seasons. In 2015, Alfonso Ribeiro took over hosting duties from Bergeron.

Di Bona, Ribeiro, Bergeron and Saget will be on hand to accept the honor and participate in a panel discussion.

“‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ is a timeless fixture in American broadcasting, crowdsourcing short, comedic films in the midst of the camcorder boom and continuing to thrive into the age of viral video sharing,” said NAB CEO and President Gordon Smith. “It is our honor to recognize a show that has entertained families for more than three decades.”

“AFV” will be inducted during the NAB Show Achievement in Broadcasting Dinner on Monday, April 20, at the Encore Las Vegas.

The 2020 NAB Show is scheduled for April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

TVU Networks looks to share this spring how it is attempting to update the media supply chain with the integration of AI, 5G and remote production technology.

Among the highlights for TVU is its MediaMind supply chain platform that has an AI real-time search engine that can index all media content from the beginning of the video production process. Using voice and object recognition technology, MediaMind can locate and index down to a frame within a live video clip.

The company also has 5G-ready technology, namely its portable and rack-mount 1080p60 HD and 4Kp60 HDR transmitters, including the TVU One mobile transmitter with HEVC and patented IS+ technology. The TVU equipment supports true 5G protocol.

A full line of remote production technology is also available, specifically TVU’s integrated cloud and IP-based platforms for REMI/At-home applications. This includes the TVU RPS for live, remote, synchronized multicamera production for news and sports that uses a broadcaster’s existing control room and public internet connection; the TVU Anywhere mobile app; the TVU Producer for multicamera, cloud-based live video production from a web browser; and the TVU Timelock for automatically synchronized transmission from multiple remote TVU mobile transmitters to an existing studio.

For more information, visit www.tvunetworks.com.  

Digital Alert Systems will have a handful of new products to showcase this spring, plus a couple of programs that are designed to boost customer experience.

Highlighting DAS’ offering at the show will be Visually Integrated Display Symbology, which was developed in collaboration with DigIt Signage Technologies/ChyTV. The goal of this VIDS technology is to improve the visual presentation of emergency alerting information on video displays, with the system guiding the implementation of emergency warning graphic interfaces, including the addition of dynamic elements. When used with DAS’ EAS-Net communications protocol, VIDS displays both a text crawl and symbolic element corresponding with the current alert state. In addition, icons for specific type of alerts can remain after the text has completed its required display cycle.

DAS also has a new version of its DASDEC software, v4.2, that it will display at the show. The upgrade is for the system to meet advanced Emergency Alert Systems/Common Alerting Protocol compliance. The latest features of this upgrade include new tools for managing digital security certificates, as well as expanding two additional secure interfaces under EAS-Net.

The latest version of the HALO specialized management system is also part of DAS’ plans. HALO combines engineering, operations and compliance functions into a single user interface and now features the Advanced Authentication Module, which supports integration with several single sign-on systems for monitoring EAS device status, gathering consolidated alert reporting and maintaining insight and control of an EAS infrastructure.

DAS will also tout a pair of customer service plans for attendees, a Software Assurance Plan and the UP-TRADE Program. The Software Assurance Plan provides all software updates in exchange for an annual fee ($200 per unit), as well as discounts on repairs and any software license keys. The UP-TRADE program, meanwhile, enables customers to upgrade their existing hardware at standard cost while transferring all license keys, configurations files, hardware options and EAS logs to a new platform for a labor charge.

For more information, visit www.digitalalertsystems.com. 

LAS VEGAS—AJA will not be taking part in the 2020 NAB Show, as the company announced that it was withdrawn from the annual industry conference in Las Vegas because of the risks from the coronavirus (COVID-19) and for the “health and safety of our employees and partners worldwide.”

AJA’s plans to share its NAB Show product announcements, demos, channel partner meeting and press conference instead as web-based video conferences. No date has been announced for these web-based video conferences.

This marks the first exhibitor to announce that they will not attend the 2020 NAB Show as a result of concerns over COVID-19.

NAB has said that plans for the show have not changed and is set to go on as scheduled in Las Vegas from April 18-22. The organization has made a resource page available for attendees to find best practices for preventing the spread of COVID-19. 

"Our thoughts are will all members of our show community who are affected by the coronavirus and cannot join us this year," NAB Show said on its resource page. "We are in contact with the exhibitors and attendees who are impacted by travel restrictions and working with them on options in the absence of being able to attend in 2020. With the exception of these extraordinary cases, we are not seeing any unusual cancellations from exhibitors. Likewise, our attendee registration continue to pace with the normal patterns we see year-over-year." 

The Las Vegas Convention Center has also announced its efforts in helping to prevent transmission. 

LAS VEGAS—Camera support manufacturer Cartoni plans to showcase its new Red Lock system of camera support gear, which combines its Red Lock tripod unit and its Focus family of fluid heads.

Cartoni’s Focus series includes the Focus 8, which features a payload capacity of 8 Kg, the Focus 12 (12 Kg) and the new Focus 10 (11 Kg). These fluid heads can be combined with the Red Lock tripod that utilizes red lock levers for quick set up. 

The Red Lock system also features Cartoni’s Smart Lock mid-level spreader, with dual extendable sections that enable tripod legs to spread wide for low shots, and which can fold up without binding of the legs.

Cartoni also touts the systems smooth panning and tilting movements.

Attendees can see the Red Lock system for themselves at Cartoni’s booth, C9120, during the 2020 NAB Show April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

For more information, visit inside.cartoni.com. 

LAS VEGAS—Jim Henson, the creator of some of the most beloved TV characters of all time, is being recognized by the NAB with its Distinguished Service Award at the 2020 NAB Show.

The Distinguished Service Award recognizes members of the broadcast community who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the industry and the American public. 

Henson, who passed away in 1990, was a puppeteer, animator, inventor, director and producer who is responsible for creating Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, Bert & Ernie for “Sesame Street” in 1969. In 1976, he created “The Muppet Show” and its iconic characters Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and others. He also was behind the TV shows “Fraggle Rock,” “Jim Henson’s The Storyteller,” “The Jim Henson Hour” and “Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies.”

The children of the late Henson, Brian and Lisa Henson, will accept the award on their father’s behalf. Brian and Lisa continue to run The Jim Henson Company today, Brian as chairman of the Board and Lisa as its CEO and president. In addition, Brian will recreate a sketch from “Sam and Friends,” an early program that aired on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., during the late Henson’s first year at the University of Maryland.

“At his core, my father was a pioneering, innovative artist with an insatiable curiosity,” said Lisa Henson. “In the earliest days of TV, he simply wanted to be part of this exciting technology that was the newest form of storytelling. Puppetry was his way in and he never looked back. We are grateful to the NAB for recognizing Jim Henson’s ongoing contributions to television.”

Past recipients of the Distinguished Service Award include Walter Cronkite, Bob Hope, Oprah Winfrey, Ronald Reagan, Cokie Roberts and last year’s winners Alan Alda. A full list of DSA winners is available online.

The NAB will present the Distinguished Service Award during the NAB Show Welcome on April 20. 

The 2020 NAB Show takes place from April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS—Quicklink will introduce its Skype-in-a-box broadcast video calling solution at the 2020 NAB Show. The all-in-one solution makes it possible for users to connect with studio quality to any broadcaster worldwide, says the company.

The plug-and-play Skype-in-a-box is a professional-grade unit with built-in Panasonic PTZ camera and lighting. It is easy to set up and requires no technical expertise, it says.

Built-in artificial intelligence along with the pan, tilt and zoom camera allows interviewers to frame head-and-shoulder shots easily with a single button click. The Skype-in-a-box is small enough to fit into a carry case, according to Quicklink.

More information is available on the company’s website.

See Quicklink at 2020 NAB Show booth SL5222 during the 2020 NAB Show, which takes place from April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS—As the spread of the coronavirus continues around the world and has begun to spread more in the U.S., the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which runs the Las Vegas Convention Center that will host the 2020 NAB Show, has revealed a number of efforts it is taking to help prevent the transmission of coronavirus.

To date, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19, the particular strand of coronavirus, in Clark County or the state of Nevada and there have been no domestic travel notices, precautions or guidance specific to travel. In addition, the LVCVA said that southern Nevada and resort properties have not been identified as being at higher risk for transmission.

Even so, LVCVA has announced that it is following CDC and Health District protocols for preventing spreading the disease, and has taken a number of steps at the Las Vegas Convention Center in that regard.

This includes:

•  Increased cleaning protocols, including more frequent wiping and disinfecting of touch points (door handles, elevator buttons, handrails, restroom stall doors and sinks) during occupied show hours; 
•  Added additional hand sanitizer stations; 
•  Increased the outside air intake/air change rate during occupied show hours; 
•  Reinforced its standard employee health practices, including sending employees home and/or encouraging them to stay home if sick or demonstrating symptoms; 
•  Reinforce its standard food safety awareness programs, including making alcohol-based hand gel/rub available at every food station and every table at food outlets; and 
•  Continuing to participate in webinars and conference calls with the International Association of Venue Managers to stay up on new practices, protocols and guidance 

LVCVA also shared efforts being made by authorities in southern Nevada and CDC recommended best practices for individuals.

The 2020 NAB Show is scheduled to take place April 18-22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and as of now the show is set to continue as planned.

However, some individual companies are taking their own actions that could impact travel to the NAB Show. Amazon has said that it is restricting all nonessential employee travel in the U.S. until the end of April.

The virus is also having an industry impact beyond the NAB Show. Sony has reportedly warned investors that production of both image sensors and electronics “could be affected enormously” if the virus continues to spread.

LAS VEGAS—It’s all about the creative process for Primestream at the 2020 NAB Show, as the company will have on hand a number of tools that are designed to streamline and simplify content creation.

A new part of Primestream’s lineup of products for content creation is Creative Bridge, a Mac OS application that offers workflows between creative tools and Primestream Xchange. Creative Bridge gives Final Cut Pro X and Avid ProTools users access to folders of media to and from the MAM while adding metadata and maintaining folder structure.

Primestream further adds to its flagship Xchange platform with a new collaboration with Blackmagic Design, the Xchange DaVinci Workflow Panel. This panel is natively integrated with DaVinci Resolve via a Blackmagic Workflow Panel SDK, giving users direct access to content libraries housed in Primestream’s asset management platform. It also supports full roundtrip workflows between DaVinci Resolve and Xchange.

New Visual Watermarking technology will also get a spot in the Primestream booth. This platform allows for watermarks to be displayed dynamically based on the active user viewing the video. The watermark includes the name of the user, IP address of the system and a date and time stamp. Dynamic positioning helps prevent the use of masking to remove a watermark.

The show will also serve as the launch of a native Newsroom Framework with Octopus NRCS integration. The Newsroom Framework is built directly into the Primestream Workflow Server core, allowing for tight integration with newsroom platforms, delivering stability and supporting quick turnaround for new newsroom features.

In addition, Project Dashboard is set for a show debut, giving users the ability to view the status of all projects across Xchange throughout the supply chain.

Primestream will be set up at booth SL2605 for the 2020 NAB Show, running April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

For more information, visit www.primestream.com. 

LAS VEGAS—The 2020 NAB Show will be a chance for SDVI to spotlight the latest updates to its SDVI Rally platform, a could-native media supply chain system.

With SDVI’s Rally Gateway technology, the company plans to demonstrate the integration of Accurate Video. This new technology provides comprehensive browse and edit capabilities within a browser interface. Users can navigate time-based metadata and select multiple audio and caption tracks for preview, play or review as they perform review and approval, QC, compliance and simple edit operations.

Rally’s media supply chain management platform has also added enhanced visualization of the supply chain for better visibility into current state, history and diagnostics while also improving usability, says SDVI. 

SDVI will also share some recent good news that they received. First, SDVI was certified by AICPA for SOC-2 compliance, meeting its standards for SaaS companies’ data security policies and procedures, with expectations that it will receive SOC-2 Type 2 certification in August 2020. In addition, SDVI received a 2019 Technology and Engineering Emmy Award—shared with Discovery, Fox NE&O, Amazon Web Services and Evertz—for its work on public, cloud-based media supply chain for content ingest, management and delivery.

SDVI will reside at booth SU11707 during the 2020 NAB Show, running from April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

For more information, visit www.sdvi.com. 

LAS VEGAS—Zeplay is just about ready to roll out the latest version of its Zeplay instant replay software, which will become available for all Zeplay customers in March and then be on display at the 2020 NAB Show in April.

A key feature of v4.2 is the new presets for exporting video files, designed to streamline content sharing workflows. Users can define presets ahead of time and can easily send video files to different locations in different formats, as well as sending the same clip to multiple locations by storing location and codec information. Among the formats supported are Apple ProRes 422, XDCAM and Avid DXxHD.

This new export feature works with the watch folder introduced in Zeplay 4.1 software. With the watch folder, users can define a directory to be monitored, while any clips placed in the directory are automatically imported for use in things like highlight packages. An export preset can now be defined on one system, and used to export content directly to the watch folder on another system.

Zeplay has also added the ability to recall different screen layouts with a single keystroke, enabling operators to have different screens for different content.

The v4.2 software is included in all new Zeplay R7 systems, while current customers can access it in March with Zeplay’s annual update contract.

Zeplay will demonstrate the new software at its booth, SL4711, during the 2020 NAB Show, April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

For more information, visit www.zeplay.tv.  

LAS VEGAS—Cobalt Digital will showcase a new card-bases router series, a mini frame that saves space without compromising functionality and a range of distribution amplifiers with 12G-SDI signal support to address the rise of 4K at the 2020 NAB Show.

The new 9942-RTR series of 12G/3G/HD/SD-SDI/ASI/MADI routers for openGear are optimized for 12G support and fit into a compact 2RU frame. Besides standard openGear DashBoard support, the new router series includes built-in Ethernet ports for IP-based protocols like Cobalt’s ReFLEX and SW-P-08. The routers, available in 12x12 and 24x24 configurations, also support serial and GPIO interfaces.

Designed for applications in which space is limited, the new BBG-1300-F is a 1/3-rack-width, 1RU openGear compatible frame that can house two cards. A built-in network card is included.

Control and monitoring of openGear cards is supported via DashBoard. The openGear 3.0 chassis offers looping reference, redundant power supplies and high-power delivery (60W usable) support.

Up to three BBG-1300-FR units can fit on a single 1RU tray. The mini frame can be used in remote locations as a standalone. LCD buttons and control knobs make simple work of status monitoring and network setup.

Cobalt’s new 12G-SDI openGear distribution amplifiers for 4K signals are available in a variety of configurations. They include:

• the 9915DA-1x16-12G 12G/6G/3G/HD/SD-SDI 1x16 reclocking distribution amplifier; 
• the 9915DA-1x16-12G with optional SFP support for fiber input and DA outputs; 
• the 9915DA-2x16-XPT-12G, a 12G/6G/3G/HD/SD Quad-Channel multirate reclocking DA with x4 output crosspoint that supports two input channels, which can be crosspoint-routed to up to 16 DA outputs; 
• the 9915DA-4x16-XPT-12G 12G/6G/3G/HD/SD Quad-Channel multirate reclocking DA with 16 DA outputs; and 
• the 9915DA-4x16-XPT-12G and 9915-2x16-XPT-12G, which include optional SFP support. 

See Cobalt Digital at 2020 NAB Show booth SL3308. The 2020 NAB Show runs from April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

More information is available on the Cobalt Digital website. 

LAS VEGAS—TAG Video Systems’ display at the 2020 NAB Show will be all about how its technology can support the four major broadcast applications—live production, playout, delivery and OTT. Specifically, TAG plans to demonstrate its expanded support for new sources, interfaces and formats.

TAG technology can now support up to 48 1080i ST 2110 sources with 2022-7 on a single server, allowing facilities to handle more uncompressed content streams on one COTS server. Inputs can be freely mixed and matched with other uncompressed and compressed formats, including UHD.

Support is also now available for the Mellanox ConnectX-6, part of the Mellanox Smart Interconnect suite. This brings 200 Gb connectivity and, with TAG’s optimized network architecture and software, can enable greater channel capacities and increased opportunities for the use of 2022-7.

Common Media Application Format support is now available as well, which helps with streaming over the HLS and MPEG-DASH protocols.

There are additional technologies that TAG will showcase during the NAB Show. One is the introduction of the Mosaic audio output for flexible audio monitoring setup. There’s also updates to TAG’s Zer0 friction customer experience service, as well as support for additional encryption technologies, updated layout editor, advanced SCTE-35 monitoring features and configurable management proxy.

TAG Video Systems will be located at booth C2217 throughout the 2020 NAB Show, April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

For more information, visit www.tagvs.com.  

TV TECHNOLOGY: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2020 NAB Show?

NICK RASHBY: We’re going to see momentum for new products and technologies that support 8K/UltraHD workflows continue to build at the NAB Show as broadcasters prepare for 8K production and delivery of the upcoming Summer Games in Tokyo. In line with this trend, 12G-SDI technology will return as a key focus this year, supporting studios, venues and trucks with the bandwidth needed to transport higher raster content with simpler cabling. Though interest in high dynamic range has drawn attention at the show for a few years now, approaches to HDR broadcast, production and post are still evolving, so this year at the show we expect to see a range of advancements geared toward helping professionals perfect how they capture, edit, color, monitor and deliver HDR. Similarly, as adoption of IP continues to grow, a number of hybrid SDI/IP solutions are emerging, and technology providers are likely to demonstrate new tools that help them refine those approaches.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

RASHBY: The NAB Show is a big show for AJA, and one where we’ve established a history of announcing important technology for our customers. It’s also a time where we’re able to highlight products that have already been market-tested, and speak to how they’re being applied in different environments. Every one of our solutions on display is engineered to give customers more flexibility to create and deliver reliable, high-quality video. Attendees can also look forward to some exciting announcements from AJA at the show, focused on the technologies that our customers have asked for, with several major new products designed to move industry workflows ahead. 

Powering 8K HDR post production with the new Mac Pro, our KONA 5 will be on display driving 8K 60p imagery from within popular NLE software. For the latest HDR workflows, we will be showcasing our HDR Image Analyzer 12G, and the  powerful FS-HDR real-time HDR/WCG converter and frame synchronizer. Our broad range of 12G-SDI gear including Mini-Converters and KUMO routers will also be on display and make it easy to transport higher bandwidth content over a single cable. We’ll also highlight our family of Ki Pro digital video recorders, a variety of solutions for hybrid IP workflows and streaming tools that facilitate a range of workflows, including our standalone HELO H.264 streaming recorder. Drop by our booth in the lower South Hall (SL3316) to check out what we have on display and chat with one of our product experts.  

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

RASHBY: At AJA, we strive to develop a diverse range of solutions that answer common demands for professionals from live production to post production and distribution. All of our products are designed, assembled and tested at our headquarters in Grass Valley, Calif. Customers also receive access to our world-class technical support, advanced replacement policies and generous warranties. For more details on our latest product releases, visit: www.aja.com/whatsnew. Stay tuned for updates coming to the page on day one of NAB. 

TVT: What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year? 

RASHBY: The NAB Show draws the industry together. It’s a place where technology developers, customers and partners converge to catch up and also form new relationships. The one-on-one face time we get with partners, customers and friends is invaluable. The show is also a good testbed, in that we can talk to customers about the challenges they’re facing and how we can address them, as well as uncover how our products are being used in unexpected ways. Since most communication in the industry is done via email, phone and text, the NAB Show is a welcome reprieve through which we get a chance to put down our devices and engage with the community in person.