NAB Show Product Review

Helped along by the IP and cellular revolution, there are more ways than ever to get a broadcast-quality signal from Point A to Point B.

Broadcast test gear has traditionally been discrete devices, such as waveform monitors, vectorscopes, spectrum analyzers and field-strength meters.

Where the past couple of NABs have seen all sorts of drone camera platforms, some little more than toys, the 2017 exhibit floor saw fewer but more targeted unmanned aerial vehicles.

With OTT now the fastest-growing method for distributing news and entertainment, the technology for streaming was everywhere on the NAB Show exhibit floor.

Less than four years ago, a well-regarded expert on the subject of coaxial cable told me that creating affordable and practical 12G coax was not going to happen.

We’ve now arrived at the doorstep of another big era of change in the television industry, ushering in UHD imaging, wider color gamuts, high dynamic range and virtualization.

Video monitors as seen at the 2017 NAB Show are no longer just display devices.

April’s major themes in this evolving category were cloud, IP and orchestration. Multiple vendors stood ready and willing to make “sweet music” of their clients’ cacophonous workflows.

It’ll hardly come as a surprise that the cloud is booming—as a secure archiving repository, as a host for live and linear channel playout, as a way to sync clients and to manage VOD depositories.

If there were any television transmitters on the NAB Show floor that used IOTs or other tubes, I did not see them.