While the Canadian TV market is still grappling with widespread adoption of HD, the talk as the National Association of Broadcasters conference opened was about next-generation Ultra HDTV.

Apple’s iTunes Canada seemed to be the frontrunner in the race for Hollywood’s digital content, but in what could be a sign of the times, Bell Mobility recently signed short-term contracts with Disney and Sony that will allow subscribers to download movies such as Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest to handsets for a limited viewing time. The Internet movie distribution pipeline is still wide open in Canada. So what, you say?

With headliners that include the who’s who from Google, TiVo, HP, Sling Media and NHK, this year’s National Association of Broadcasters conference that runs from April 14-19 in Las Vegas may mark the shift of NAB from a hardware-driven extravaganza to an exhaustive multimedia state of the union.

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.

Continuing the pervasive theme at NAB2007 of ‘anytime content,’ the second annual MoTV: Mobile Video and TV Forum on April 17 looks to bring together key industry players and spark some interesting discussion about the technologies needed and the opportunities out there to make content mobile, interactive – and lucrative.

If you’ve got a Canadian passport, you might as well fit yourself for an eyepatch and tricorn hat. The Americans have lately been crowing that we’re a band of content pirates, but Hollywood can help itself by doing business with iTunes Canada and providing a library of legal content to download. That, and some stronger legislation from Ottawa, would go a long way to keeping us honest.

When they put the handcuffs on a twentysomething in L.A. last month for uploading Flushed Away and Happy Feet to the Internet, it was thanks to a hot tip received by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And it wasn’t CSI: LA that cracked the case, but Deluxe Postproduction Toronto.

Fido

The projected number of HDTVs in the Canadian marketplace by 2010 – a year after the analog shutoff date in the U.S. – is 11 million.

When Martin Scorsese stepped up to the podium to accept the Academy Award he feared was never coming, he looked out to scruffy writer William Monahan and thanked him for the screenplay for The Departed, which got him ‘into all this trouble in the first place.’

Shooting in HD is like hiring an architect to put an addition on your house. The idea seems exciting and promising – until you get the itemized bill. We asked post experts who will be sharing their insight at Playback’s upcoming Production Innovations Forum on March 8 how to avoid HD ‘sticker shock.’