NAB 2013 Blog from the Show Floor
Another April rolls around, and with it another NAB. As usual, Eurotek have a full team on hand to bring the latest news and trends from the show.
Our team this year consists of Kevin Moore, John Roche, Graham Lowen, and this year's Newbie, Roland Degroot. We have independent outside expertise coming in from friends and colleagues, including Liam O'Kelly of Airspeed Telecom, Greg Fahlstrom of HP USA, Dan Desjardins of Weather Central, and Julian Ramm of Scene & Heard, California. And of course we're getting the lowdown direct from the manufacturers in what can only be described as Super Sunday Product Update Day!
All the talk this year is about 4K production, and the range of products to support 4K workflows is phenomenal! Now there are different views on the whole 4K argument, and it remains to be seen if it takes of in a way that 3D didn't. It's fair to say that the 4K images do look absolutely stunning, and for feature production it probably makes a lot of sense to shoot 4K if the cost overhead isn't too great.
However, there are other viewpoints, and I must say I was particularly taken by a presentation by the renowned director James Cameron last year, in which he argued passionately that a higher frame-rate would have a greater impact on perceived image quality at 2K then a lower (or at least not increased) frame rate at 4K.
It's all about spatial vs. temporal resolution- something I remember talking about with the whole 720p vs 1080i argument. He shot a specially written drama piece with a number of different camera setups, ranging from 24 FPS to 60FPS, and demonstrated clearly that the higher frame rate produced a better picture on any shot with action- including panning shots, tracking shots, and action sequences. He argued that the 24fps frame rate originated because the studios back in the 1920s wouldn't pay for a single foot more of film than they had to, and 24fps was the minimum that didn't stutter on most footage, but we've lived with the legacy ever since! See http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=55897 for an interesting review of this topic.
However, there is a place for both, and with many of the new cameras being flexible enough to shoot at various frame sizes and frame rates, with a multiple of codecs to choose from, it's about choosing the one that suits your project best.
For broadcasters, it's unlikely that we'll see 4K transmission anytime soon, although both Netflix and You Tube have stated at they intend to support 4K production in the next year or so- possibly as a premium service. This could present an interesting challenge to traditional broadcasters, who are already finding the new online services are biting into their traditional markets, especially among younger viewers, who consume much more of their media online. 4K might present the broadcasters with a differentiator if they can find a way to economically transmit it, and of course the in-house infrastructure requirements to handle the media would need to be developed and introduced. Given that most broadcasters have either only recently, or are in the process of, moving to HD, it's hard to see how they could justify another upgrade, so I don't think it's going to feature too highly on most broadcasters shopping lists.
However, as with last year, the other big topic is OTT - or Over The Top Television. The mobile media market is growing exponentially, and its estimated that the quantity of video material online will quadruple by 2017. Broadcasters know they have to be part of this, and have to make their content available on a variety of Devices, from iPhone and Android devices to PCs, smart TVs, and tablets of all sizes and types. The problem is to find a way to monetize the content, and to find a way to generate advertising revenue from the online media. Alliances are forming between content producers and distributors, and there is some very interesting dialogue around the future model of broadcast that will enable the content owner and broadcaster to both receive a reward for making the content available.
But it's clear that no matter how they may prefer not to have to face this future, there is no escape- the genie isn't going back in the bottle, so eventually I'm sure a way will be found to let everyone get their share of the revenue. There are many companies showing platforms to enable broadcasters to do just that, and everything from the basic encoding to the CA and CRM systems to manage the users are all showing solutions to help resolve the challenge of the new world order. We'll be looking at some of this technology in later blogs.
I was looking through some of our posts from last year's NAB, and our former colleague, Lee Griffin, (now at Broadcast Pix), had an interesting observation-
It was interesting seeing the four big themes being pushed at the show: 4K , TV Everywhere ( re distribution), cloud based storage and Intel thunderbolt. Thinking about it, it is strange and almost comical that two things completely at the opposite scale of the business should dominate the business, 4 k and mobile
If you think about it Manufacturers are telling us they we need our clients to shoot 4K for normal production now because HD isn't good enough anymore. After working at 4 k throughout the post process, this material gets delivered on phones, iPad and YouTube which are mostly barely better than SD resolution and hugely compressed. So people spend all their time working with huge file formats and finally deliver it to this new world called TV anywhere , think the RTE Player or BBC I-player.
Still relevant today Lee!
So, that's the challenge facing the broadcasters.
But the other parts of the content production food-chain are not necessarily having an easy time of it either. The recent high-profile collapse of Hue & Cry in Hollywood- one of the most renowned VFX houses in the world- just as their most recent high-profile project, Ang Lee's Life of Pi scored an Oscar for Special Effects- highlighted the poor economics of the VFX business and how hard it is for the many companies competing in this market to make a profit. The advent of low-cost and powerful computing hardware, with equally low-cost and powerful VFX software, has opened up the market to multiple players, and has shifted the focus from a small number of highly talented artists, to bulk-processing of effects in low-cost economies, predominantly in Asia. It will be interesting to see how the VFX companies adapt to this new scenario, and it may herald a move to a model similar to the animation world, where the high-level creative work is completed locally and the labour-intensive rotoscoping, compositing, and painting is completed abroad.
So, a big transition in store for old business models across the board, and as equipment resellers, we're not immune. We have to find new ways to engage our customers, and help them to improve their business by providing the best advice, showcasing the latest technology and trends, and find our own way to compete with the lower cost suppliers.
That's why we at Eurotek continue to invest in market research, and why we come to shows like NAB and IBC, so we can keep our skills up to date and share the information with our customers.
As the show progresses, we hope to keep this blog updated with relevant and timely info from the show floor. Keep an eye on our Twitter feeds- @eurotekireland and @kevineurotek and our Facebook page- Eurotek Ireland.
Kevin.
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