NAB is once again as hot as the desert sun.

The U.S. National Association of Broadcasters’ annual confab is poised to host more than 100,000 attendees for the first time since before 9/11 when it gets underway in Las Vegas, April 16-21. Although attendance figures won’t be announced until the exhibit floor opens (April 18), the Washington, DC-based NAB organization reports that, barring unforeseen circumstances (such as the war on Iraq in 2003), this year’s show is on track for a bigger turnout than NAB2004. Last year, 97,544 crossed the threshold of the Las Vegas Convention Center, an 11% increase over NAB2003.

So why the big renewed push to Sin City?

A large part of the answer lies in the successful take-up of digital television in the U.S., heartily backed by the Federal Communications Commission. According to NAB, 99% of U.S. television households are in a market now served by a digital signal, and the country has more than 1,300 TV stations broadcasting in digital.

‘With so much going on in so many different areas in the transition to digital, [the high attendance] is not surprising,’ says NAB spokesperson John Milner.

Canadian broadcasters are lagging behind, however, and can take the opportunity of NAB2005 to educate themselves. According to industry organization Canadian Digital Television, only eight stations in Toronto and one in Montreal are currently broadcasting in digital, with more planned later this year in Montreal and Vancouver.

HD, the premium digital broadcast format, will be front and center at NAB2005’s many industry sessions and keynotes as well as at the 1,400 production, post, broadcast and multimedia exhibitor booths (63 of which are Canadian). To show broadcasters how it’s done, this year’s NAB-HD exhibit will demo a fully functional HDTV station right on the exhibit floor, broadcasting to screens on the premises and at some local hotels.

Meanwhile, instead of going after the high end, camera manufacturers will be pushing affordable HD cameras on producers and broadcasters looking for entry into the HD world. This should also be of particular interest to Canadian attendees (who traditionally number over 3,000), as the volume of HD programming here is not keeping up with demand, says CDTV.

The digital world is still a new one, and NAB2005 will address not only the technology required, but also the new business opportunities and many issues it raises.

Among NAB2005’s new offerings are the 5.1 Pavilion, which will feature manufacturers of 5.1 audio products exhibiting their wares, and the Satellite Business & Technology Pavilion, which will demo gear and solutions that add value to content and help distribute it.

Meanwhile, a session entitled ‘Convergence and Content on the Move: Riding the Digital, Mobile, Virtual and Personal Wave’ (April 18) will feature a panel of European and American executives discussing progress and revenue potential in distributing digital media over wireless platforms. The next day, participants at the Mobile TV and Video Forum (located at the new Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel) will explain why they foresee services such as TV broadcasting on cell phones booming this year.

The keynote speaker at the all-industry opening ceremony (April 18) will be Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO of telecom giant Verizon Communications, a pioneer in consumer-to-business fiber-optic hookup. Seidenberg will discuss how this development has opened up wide-spanning possibilities – not only in terms of voice delivery, but also in broadband Internet and video services.

This is followed by the NAB MultiMedia World Keynote, in which Hector Ruiz, CEO of processor solutions giant Advanced Micro Devices, will lead a group of film, broadcast and music artists in demonstrating how new technologies help them do their thing faster and expand creativity. Guests at AMD’s booth are set to include Rick McCallum, producer of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, DreamWorks cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Jacob Rosenberd, editor of the massive off-road-race doc Dust to Glory.

Sessions this year will tackle digital intermediates, 24p universal mastering, the production value of HD, and that industry hot-button topic for the digital age – piracy. Session information is available at www.nabshow.com/events.asp.

The NAB Post|Production World Conference returns for a second year, expanding to 230 training sessions on video and audio editing from 167 at NAB2004. The conference, aimed at users with varying levels of experience, gives attendees multiple opportunities to learn the ins and outs of software packages from Avid, Apple, Adobe, Discreet, Macromedia and Sony.

Tied into the post conference are the Individual Creative Excellence Awards, which spotlight innovation and quality in digital production and post in various categories. Last year’s winners included Quebec director Édouard Lock and DOP André Turpin, who won for non-broadcast editing for the dance special Amelia.

This year’s deadline information can be found at www.nabshow.com/iceawards.asp.

-www.nabshow.com