Navigating the technology can be daunting, let alone the expanded show floor and the multitude of conferences, sessions and exhibits. If last year’s NAB showcased the coming digital revolution, 2007’s version reveals just how much the media landscape has shifted into hyperdrive. Playback has picked five no-brainers that will help you stay on the curve.

Digital Cinema – A Studio Perspective, April 14 @ 1:30 p.m.

According to Texas Instruments, as of Jan. 10, nearly 2,000 of the 38,400 movie screens in the U.S. have gone digital. That contrasts with 194 less than two years ago. But D-cinema is coming to signify more than exhibition.

Whether it’s managing digital assets in production and beyond to theatrical, DVD, HD or the Internet, Warner Bros. has been at the leading edge of the consolidation.

Hailed as the father of Digital End to End architecture (DEDE), Warner’s chief technology officer Christopher J. Cookson will share his views in the keynote address of the Digital Cinema Summit on the main issues surrounding managing and protecting content through a complex digital delivery pipeline.

Other sessions at the DCS will examine areas such as the state of the digital cinema rollout, the post-production pipeline and in-theater piracy.

Destination in Broadcast Technology – From Mobile to Ultra-HDTV, April 15 @ 9 a.m.

The Japan Broadcasting Corporation, or NHK, has come a long way since it was created using the BBC radio model back in 1926. This keynote for the Broadcast Engineering Conference, which runs from April 14-19, provides a rare insight into the tech-savvy pubcaster from managing director Hirokazu Nishiyama, who will speak to everything from mobile, HDTV, IPTV and VOD.

One of the first to go digital (in 2000), NHK’s vision involves positioning itself to take advantage of the changes in display technology and portable devices in order to keep in step with consumers and changing viewer habits. Nishiyama also sheds some light on the much-anticipated technology known as Ultra-HDTV, which reportedly boasts 16 times the resolution of HDTV.

Super Session – Innovators Spotlight: View From the Top, April 16 @ 4 p.m.

It’s both a verb and a noun. And two hundred million times a day we’re all doing it around the globe. CEO Eric Schmidt ventures away from the Googleplex in Silicon Valley to headline this year’s NAB super session View from the Top, and share his insights into how Google has become the most profitable and feared new media machine on the planet.

Despite never having made a TV commercial the company has – virtually by word of mouth – come to dominate the search and communicate nature of the Net.

Schmidt, a Princeton engineering alum and multi-billionaire, was head of Sun Microsystems before being wooed away to the place where he says ‘we delight in doing everything differently.’

John Seigenthaler, anchor and correspondent at NBC and MSNBC moderates.

Super Session – The Revolutionizing Impact of Broadband Video, April 17 @ 10:30 a.m.

You can never get enough inside dope from Google on the past, present and future of broadband video – especially now that they have YouTube, which has cut licensing deals with an estimated 1,000 media companies and is adding partners at the rate of 200 per quarter.

But this NAB super session is the mother of all doubleheaders. It opens with a keynote from David Eun, Google’s VP, content partnership, and then follows with a high-powered lineup of executive panelists including Gary Gannaway, president, CEO and chairman, WorldNow; Shawn Gold, chief marketing officer, MySpace; George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer, NBC Universal; Blake Krikorian, CEO, Sling Media; and Daniel Scheinman, SVP and GM, Cisco Media Solutions Group.

IPTV World – The Battle for Eyeballs, April 18 @ 10:40 a.m.

This past November, a day after it added the ubiquitous YouTube to its cell phones, communications giant Verizon signed on viral site Revver. But as telcos continue to emulate and then diversify their offerings from cable and satellite companies, it begs the question: What exactly is the future of Internet Protocol TV? And more importantly, how can broadcasters and content producers benefit from this telco-delivered, rapidly evolving distribution option?

Peggy Dau, director, broadband and media, CME, Hewlett-Packard, and Peter Lee, e president, corporate business development, new technology at Walt Disney, offer their insights.