Ken Mac Neil is VP operations of Creative Post, a Toronto-based post-production facility offering creative solutions for broadcast television and interactive media. A veteran NAB attendee, here he writes about his strategy for the labyrinthine trade show and what he will be looking for.

The first time you go to the NAB trade show, the initial shocker – after your first night in Vegas – is how incredibly large the exhibit portion is. The maze of aisles, booths and people seems almost endless. If you are not focused, you can spend hours seeing nothing. You tend to tune out while you’re there and end up wandering from booth to booth getting the rundown on every latest cutting-edge gadget. During my first visit, I spent the better part of an hour getting the lowdown on a radio transmitter – not exactly time well spent for someone in post-production.

Now that I have a few more NABs under my belt, there are a few things I have learned to make it more productive for us. Putting a rough schedule in place before you head out makes life smoother. I also spend a lot of time on various post-production-related websites researching products that could be an asset to Creative Post. This gives me a clearer idea of trends and what products to check out on the NAB floor. I may have otherwise passed right by some of these interesting pieces of gear.

You really only have four days to see the exhibit, which is held in two separate buildings. I spend one day in each and use a third to revisit things of particular interest, after which time the hotel pool and the blackjack table tend to take over the schedule.

HD expansion

Last year’s NAB represented Creative Post’s first foray into high-definition, and this year is an expansion on that theme. Quantel iQ (an editing platform, processor and interface to a storage medium) was the talk of last year’s NAB, and we proceeded to acquire one. The iQ has introduced workflow scenarios that involve different formats and frame rates coming together on the same timeline and outputting in an entirely different format. At times things can become quite confusing, especially for the client.

Creative Post has worked on 24p HD projects incorporating archival material in both PAL and NTSC. Upconverting and frame-rate reduction to 24 frames per second is very often something a producer will not initially consider or understand until well into the offline, when there may not be budget left for unexpected conversions. Realtime or near realtime software or hardware conversions will make the process much more efficient and less costly. So this year I will be especially interested in new format/frame-rate converters, particularly from Miranda Technologies, which is proving a leader in this field.

Another stumbling block in HD post is the cost of the offline. Having an HD deck in the offline is not really a viable option, so HD material must be transferred to a standard-definition format. HD camcorder rentals, extra dubbing and tape can quickly price HD out of reach, so recently we have been developing ways to streamline the process and at least eliminate the need for dubbing. We already distribute broadcast video over broadband, so we are working with clients on delivering offline dailies in a similar fashion. On a large production, this can save considerable time and resources. So we will be exploring better solutions to interconnectivity in and out of our facility, especially when it comes to large bandwidth workflow.

So with several weeks of surfing completed and a rough plan in place, we expect to have a productive experience at NAB2002. If this will mark your first NAB show, remember to set your own rules of engagement and you too may just survive Vegas.

-www.creativepostinc.com

-www.thestudioupstairs.com