NAB-2001, perhaps the industry’s premier trade show for production, post, broadcast and Internet technologies, wrapped up in Las Vegas on April 26. The event always attracts a large Canadian contingent, and Playback approached three players in the commercial biz to summarize their missions in the desert oasis.

Jon Robertson, VP, Vancouver operations, Command Post and Transfer, says at this year’s show he and his team didn’t find ‘anything over-the-top brand new.’ But they were impressed by certain technology advancements.

High-definition telecines that ‘really came around two years ago [are finally] becoming mature products,’ Robertson says. Even though the telecines at Command Post/TOYBOX West have been doing the job for the past couple of years, Robertson acknowledges earlier versions ‘probably [didn’t work] as well as they do today.’

Like many other NAB 2001 attendees, Robertson is excited about Quantel’s new offering, iQ. He explains: ‘What [iQ] says to me is there are answers for how to get back and forth between what we’re currently doing and tomorrow’s HD environment.’

Robertson estimates the HD changeover will probably happen in five years.

‘But what do you do with all the stuff you have to leave behind?’ he queries. ‘And how do you deal with moving all that source material back and forth? It looks like the industry will be able to move into a world where you just dump it all onto a hard drive and tell it what you want to see. Whether it’s HD, standard definition or maybe even beyond that to the 2K file format, back and forth you can go.’

Ian Morehead, senior compositor at Toronto’s Flashcut, was one of that shop’s staff who walked the show floor at NAB2001. He had a vested interest in the new releases from Montreal-headquartered Discreet, given it is Flashcut’s brand of choice. ‘I went mainly for [Discreet’s] stuff and anything related to it and its competition as far as compositing software goes,’ he says.

Morehead also took note of companies displaying equipment geared toward realtime HD software. He went to NAB last year and has noted vast improvements in that area. Work-flow in compositing and editing software, animation and broadband seems to be the main issue.

‘It’s a matter of making all the software a lot more user-friendly and simpler,’ he says. He was also impressed with major gains in DVD technology and pricing in the past 12 months.

‘Last year it would cost $30,000 to set a system that would burn DVDs,’ says Morehead. ‘Now it has come down a lot. Apple has put out a pretty amazing system, and I think some systems are $10,000 or less now.’

DVD, he adds, is a hot topic with agencies looking to ditch their 3/4′ show reels and screening cassettes in favor of higher-quality and smaller discs.

On the sound side of the fence, Sy Potma, audio technology supervisor at Manta Digital Sound and Picture in Toronto, admits it’s easy to be diverted by NAB’s 1,600-plus exhibitors.

‘Being that my focus is mainly audio and related technologies, that narrows the focus somewhat,’ he says. ‘My primary mission this time was looking more seriously at digital audio mixing consoles.’

Manta DSP, formerly DAVE Audio and Video, installed a digital console in its facility one year ago, prior to the shop’s recent acquisition by Command Post. Potma has to discern whether this change in ownership, which will see the company formerly called Manta Sound moving its studios into the Manta DSP Ontario Street complex, would necessitate a change in the type of consoles the shop uses.

High on Manta DSP’s to-do list is replacing analog consoles that remain in some of its rooms with digital ones. Potma used his NAB visit to gauge just how far the digital manufacturers have gotten.

‘[They haven’t made] big strides,’ he concludes. ‘But all of the suppliers are a little more solidified and the feature set has matured to the point where what you used to be able to do on analog consoles is becoming a little more user-friendly. The practicalities and ergonomics involved in operating the console are getting a little more humanly tactile, which has always been an issue.’

Potma says there is an advantage in sticking to the audio gear of one manufacturer in terms of the synergy and compatibility among rooms, but by the same token, it is risky if troubled times befall that manufacturer. Manta DSP has already installed a Studer console in its facility, and so Potma considered the NAB offerings from that company as well as those from AMS Neve, Soundtracs, Euphonix and Harrison.

-www.compt.com (Command Post and Transfer)

-www.flashcut.com

With files from Dave Lazar, Dustin Dinoff and Mark Dillon