NAB 2000 was not the scene of spectacular announcements or major technological deployments. Each year the NAB convention was associated with a particular event: New regulations, the launch of a product, the demonstration of a new technology... but the character of the fair is changing along with that of the industry.
That's not to say it was a bad year... developments were seen in all areas. A big turn of the industry towards the Internet. Great improvements in cameras, graphics production, servers and connectivity. Very important developments in post-production. Very interesting market movements. Many new things, but all foreseeable within the development of an industry that has regained stability. And none that alone affects the industry as a whole.
For the first time in the last five or six years we had the opportunity to see an industry with clear trends and that is successfully responding to the pressures of the convergence market. And that is precisely what makes NAB 2000 a different fair than in previous years. This year's convention showed us that despite all the difficulties the television industry is prepared to take on the challenges of the coming years.
The price of convergence.
Convergence is the name of the change in recent years. And it is evident in the evolution of the technological apparatus that we handle every day. But the bottom line is not that conventional television operations have been invaded by a tangle of interconnected computers. The real problem is what our space in the convergence market is going to be.
When referring to NAB 2000 we are talking about the largest convention in history, with more than one hundred thousand attendees, thousands of new products and an exhibition area that almost doubles that of 1996. Why this growth? Fundamentally because of convergence we move to integration, and many companies dedicated to connectivity and multimedia are claiming a space in the industry. Some of these companies will become our partners or suppliers... and many in our competitors.
Convergence changed the face of the competition. And it also forces us to embrace the breakneck pace of the computer and consumer electronics industry. In addition to solving the problems of their business, traditional television operations have to acquire the necessary flexibility to be able to accommodate the demands of the entertainment market during the coming years. The clearest route for traditional TV operations is to become content providers for online applications. And the most desirable thing would be that they could do it without ceasing to be the owners of the business.
The convergence market also provides us with solutions to these problems. The problem is that many times these solutions are in the hands of newcomers. They know what needs to be done and we are just learning. NAB 2000 also showed us that convergence has to come to the business space: If you can't beat them, join them.
Clear trends
Traditional industry topics also had direct responses at NAB 2000. Equipment manufacturers have put their proposals on the table, which fortunately have begun to respond to standards accepted by the majority. This greatly facilitates the decision-making process for those who need to acquire new equipment, although an important factor must be taken into account: The market finally opted for a scheme that involves the use of different formats for production and distribution of the material.
Following this line, the industry adopted as a de facto standard for HD production the 1920 24-frame line system initially proposed by Sony, Snell & Wilcox and other major manufacturers. Now most manufacturers speak the same language, at least when it comes to high-end production. This means that formats reasonably compatible with Sony's HDCAM will be used for mastering and lower resolution copies (or "versions") will be generated according to the broadcast standards of each market.
There is still a significant supply of equipment specifically designed to produce in the most widely accepted ATSC formats. A producer who needs to support live DTV applications can choose to mount their operation in 480i, 720p or 1080i, but one thing we can be sure of: Our near future is going to be full of converters and "translators" of all kinds. The universal format is dead... and perhaps universal TVs too.
Click, please!
We're sure to see scalable streaming operations – aimed at viewers who may have the option to decide how far they want to go. Can I only get enough for an SD TV? That's perfect... as long as I can watch a "stripped-down" version of the HD stream of tonight's movie... But since I don't have premium access to free-to-air TV channels I will surely watch a good part of the program in 4:3 while the rest of the screen is filled with advertising. Of course, when I get bored I can press the magical red button, pay a couple of dollars and free myself from the warnings.
And while I watch TV placidly my cable box (which perhaps looks more like a PC than anything else) will be monitoring the 116 channels I receive to record my favorite video clips to your hard drive. As always, of course, at the end of the film the annoying indicator that informs me that some inconsiderate sent me an urgent e-mail will appear on the screen... As soon as the movie ends I make a couple of clicks to order a pizza while I start receiving the personalized version of the 11 o'clock newscast. I answer the e-mail... and after some thought I check the statement of my Internet Plus access service. C___! Who would be the who invented gigabyte billing?
The appearance of a scenario as variegated as the last paragraphs is closer than we think... the technology to achieve this was in NAB 2000. And it's ready, waiting for a world traversed by broadband networks that is ready to receive it.
What's left...
NAB 2000 presented us with the state of an industry that has regained dominance of itself after several years of uncertainty. That does not mean that it does not have problems, economic crisis of open television, market segmentation, migration to DTV, expansion of the base of "connected" consumers, cost of digital receivers ... The difference is in the ability that our industry has acquired to generate solutions to these problems.
The Latin American market manages its own restrictions... perhaps in the near future a per capita bandwidth indicator will be adopted that would demonstrate our pitiful state in terms of global connectivity. Add to this the depression of our markets, the limitations of our consumer base, our big training problems... What is the right attitude to this situation? One option is to settle for trading as a peripheral market. And the other is to look for solutions that allow "taking a cut" of the interconnected market. You have the floor...
