NAB 2009年亮点

This year's National Association of Broadcasters' show was a bit surreal. Wedged between the original February and proposed June dates for the digital television (DTV) transition, during a time of economic uncertainty when broadcasters' advertising revenues continue to plummet, coupled with equipment budgets already stressed by the move to digital over-the-air (OTA) equipment costs, it was easy to see why NAB 2009 could have been a non-starter.

Some companies and potential attendees chose to forego the convention (while others sent smaller delegations than usual), 注册人数下降了20%，只有84人,000, 包括1个以上,200位记者. 实际出席人数尚未公布, but anecdotal evidence—including the length of cab lines and conversations with cabbies—put the number quite a bit lower.

对于那些参加了展览的人, 然而, t在这里 were key product demonstrations and easy access to vendors which provided a few "Eureka!“时刻.

就在NAB之前，Tim写了一篇文章 article suggesting four areas to watch at the show: 自动化, HD, Metdata and 移动. He also suggested a few companies that would be of interest to those who attended the show. This week we're following up on those same four topic areas.

移动
At 移动 World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in February, the DVB-H transmission standard for OTA television transmissions was all the rage, but at NAB a group of broadcasters and electronics companies showed off packet-based delivery via IP and streaming. 该集团, 叫做开放移动视频联盟, 说CBS, 美国全国广播公司, PBS和福克斯在华盛顿的分支机构, DC were conducting field trials of content to wireless devices, including mobile phones and laptops as well as transmissions to car entertainment systems.

Noting that Atlanta and Seattle are being discussed as potential field trial markets, this joint effort with the ATSC standards body means that a potential standard for mobile devices may be forthcoming, and prototype devices from Dell (an Inspiron laptop) and Samsung and LG Electronics (mobile phones) were shown at NAB.

One potential stumbling block, 然而, is the need to convince mobile service providers such as AT&T and Verizon to subsidize the handsets and mobile data devices that compete with services that these carriers already have, which are based on either Qualcomm's MediaFLO or MobiTV.

Speaking of MobiTV, 媒体Excel showed off an enhancement to its Hera 4000 line of transcoders. 媒体Excel uses Texas Instruments' Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chips to transcode live content from one format/delivery platform to another, and the enhancement centers on the ability for the Hera 4000 line to deliver HTTP streams to iPhones. 因为这些编码设备是可现场升级的, and the new feature is available as a free upgrade to existing Hera 4000 customers, 媒体Excel stated its confidence in its ability to drive market value through the transcoding of content for the iPhone.

"iPhone enables an exciting set of features for live video delivery and HERA 4000 allows operators and content aggregators alike to take full advantage of those immediately", Nikos Kyriopoulos说, 媒体Excel的产品经理. "We intrinsically support iPhone’s streaming protocol including segmentation, 加密和网络速率适应."

Wowza, 展示其高级服务器的预览版, also noted the benefit of being able to deliver to the iPhone as a potential game changer.

"Sixty of the best mobile service providers are selling the iPhone,Wowza首席执行官Dave Stubenvoll说, "so we think this is a very addressable market for our new server.”(点击 在这里 接受Stubenvoll的播客采访.)

自动化
RipCode's recently appointed VP of marketing Neal Hartsell, sat down to talk briefly about "transactional transcoding"—a term RipCode is using to describe its business-rule driven, real-time transcoding to meet various needs and platforms. Hartsell, 他是RipCode高级团队的最新成员, 格雷格·洛维茨, 公司的新销售副总裁, both come out of the telecommunication and video server space, 分别, so they are familiar with addressing scalability issues that online video providers are now facing.

The whole RipCode transcoding platform has been rebranded with the TransAct moniker, 但有一个特别的工具, 叫做TransAct Monetizer, 对国民银行有兴趣吗. Monetizer allows dynamic appending of pre- or post-roll video to any requested video asset, 设备优化. RipCode's philosophy is that by transcoding video ads on-demand in a cloud-computing scenario that still maintains the security benefits of an enterprise or service-provider deployement, advertisers have the flexibility to provide unique ads based on up-to-date video content requests, further enhancing the ability to target content by viewer location, 观看时间和网络影响.