It has been two years since
I attended NAB. In the previous 20
years, I had been every year since opening my business. Frankly, I stopped coming to the show because
I had grown weary of Vegas and because suppliers had become incredibly
proficient at releasing all of the necessary information on their latest
technological advances via the Internet.
Furthermore, many of the distributors in Houston began following up the
show with hands-on events allowing local content producers to ogle at the
latest hardware. When I made the
decision to attend this year, I felt I needed to approach the show from a new
angle. Instead of tackling the Bataan
death march of media tech I opted to attend post-production world.
I must say that this has
been a marvelous adventure so far.
Richard Harrington and his team have designed an informative and
thoughtful line-up of training within multiple disciplines. Early in my career I lamented that nothing
surprising was likely to happen with the technology of photography; I could not
have been more wrong. As attendees
waited for the release of HD through the 80s and 90s, I worried that the return
on my investment in SD camera systems may not be realized. Ironically, the year NAB released HD, there
was a small booth in the corner of the central hall devoted to super HD
sponsored by NHK.
Joel Brinkley’s book, DefiningVision: How Broadcasters Lured the Government into Inciting a Revolution inTelevision (1998) changed the way I saw the industry for the rest of my
career. I began to realize how fear
promoted a government-backed commoditization of the media industry. Simultaneously, manufacturers of video tech
realized that content producers would perpetually seek greater resolution to
realize their individual visions. As
this, battle has raged on, an industry that was once isolated to a few major
players in production has become a cornucopia of boutique operators. Today, anyone can walk into an electronic
retail outlet and purchase a camcorder that has greater resolution and lower
light capability than any of us could have imagined 15 years ago.
While this is a marvelous
result of digital innovation, understanding the standards of the industry has
become more and more confusing.
Currently, there are nine flavors of HD acquisition. HD, 2K, 3KHD, 3K, UHD, 4K, 5K, 6K and now we
face the release of 8K and countless codecs for transcoding to ingest one's
dynamic footage. Compounding the sea of
visual standards are 70 documented aspect ratios in the history of film
production on 70, 35 and 16mm ranging from 1.33:1 to 4.00:1 (1909 – 2013). Within the history of broadcast, there have
been over 50 helical-scan formats ranging from Quad (1956) to HDV (2001). Currently, all of these flavors need to be
packaged into 1.78:1, the HDTV standard more commonly known as 16x9. I bring this up because I remember a sales
pitch suggesting that HD would normalize the standards of television, yet it
seems that the only standard will be standard one sets for themselves.
Although the production landscape has been altered by the course of innovation, distribution has remained somewhat undisturbed, but that could radically change in the next few years. Microsoft has long sought to encompass the distribution of entertainment to the masses and this year the lines between broadcast and computer technology have become even grayer. Virtual reality is poised to change the way entertainment will be received and created forever.
As the keynote address on
technology began, Arthur van Hoff quickly pointed out that VR has made
tremendous leaps in the last decade, opening the door to more immersive
experiences for consumers.
High-resolution screens with faster refresh rates, gyroscopes, and
accelerometers have made devices like the Oculus possible. Currently, there are even a few VR devices
with eye tracking technology that is so refined it can enhance the display where
one is looking to create a depth of field effect for the viewer. There is even a new generation of ViewMasters
available to tantalize a generation of children with amazingly realistic VR
images. Ultimately the goal is to
generate the holodeck experience for the user, allowing them to roam within the
experience without the worry of reality.
However, Microsoft has counteracted this trend with the hololens, an
augmented reality platform that allows the user to experience a VR/Google
Glass-like platform of interactivity.
This frontier of communications is breathtaking to me. Its potential as a training and educational platform is the pinnacle of what I have always wanted. At the same time, the sea of technological confusion regarding deliverables cannot be ignored. Each manufacturer will continue to maintain their proprietary hold on their creations in hopes that they will be the chosen platform. Producers will continue to bridge the gap between technology and budgets with their projects, always chasing the greatest resolution available. While consumers continue to buy higher resolution televisions, computers, phones, and other interactive devices to achieve what they believe is the most significant experience.
From a broadcast
perspective, this is where I believe the joke is on us. HD hit the industry at a financial level that
brought many small market station owners to their knees. The cost of transmission towers exceeded the
revenues of some of these markets by more than 20 years of their earnings. The argument broadcasters made in Congress to
hold the upper bandwidth of airwaves for HD then became a scramble to
maintain. More than 80% of television
viewers in the United States watch both local and pay television providers via
cable, satellite, or Internet. I suspect
that someday in my lifetime, free television will all but disappear. I wonder, what will happen to those airwaves
agreements then?
In the meantime, as
consumers rush to their local electronics retailer to buy that new 4K, 108”
television, what will they actually see?
Oh, that’s right, some amalgamation of an MPEG format that has squeezed
all the velvety goodness of my 24K video down to an acceptable packet size for
transmission over the Internet via fiber.
I’m just an old dog. I’ve seen many changes in the industry, and
they all have been very exciting. My
frustration comes from the illusion we chase as content providers. Customers are more educated, yet what they
think they know is often at odds with what they need or can handle in their
environment. Finding a balance in
business is an uncomfortable position to find oneself in as an artist. NAB solidifies this for me as I drool over
what I can’t afford. My mantra has
become, “Don’t buy what you want, buy what you need and only when you need
it.” More than ever, I believe there is
a greater need for collaboration and leverage within the industry to meet our
customer’s demands. If we can come
together as a village to share our resources and get past our egos, imagine
what we could do.
Good shooting everyone, and
I hope to see you in the halls of NAB!
