“Nothing should be left on the cutting room floor. It is all about re-use” – Gary Greenfield, Avid
Glorious Las Vegas: Inside NAB 2012, cold hard economic reality led the technology discussions
The new NAB business model
Dick Hobbsleads off our lean-back NAB reflection section, with a look at core broadcast infrastructure. Deliverable cost-effectiveness dominated throughout, whether in multiscreen, social media, storage, MAM or playout automation
“SINCLAIR IS a sales organisation: technology is just a tool. It’s all about the money.” Those words were uttered by Del Parks of US station chain Sinclair Broadcast, at the Harris press conference on the eve of NAB this year. It was a prescient view of what to me was the prevailing message coming out of this year’s event. With one or two exceptions
there was not much technology for technology’s sake. Sony and Panasonic both tried to push the
4Kagenda, but there seemed little interest. Talking subsequently to Andy King of BBC Vision Production, he was bemused by the pressure to push acquisition quality up by some vendors, while another told him, in so many words, “if it is good enough for Skype it is good enough to broadcast”. In general, though, the
manufacturers were tackling the real issues we face at the moment, including the integration of traditional broadcast and IP infrastructures and the need to
address multi-screening and social media, with the major emphasis on cost-effectiveness. Michel Proulx, CTO of
Miranda, made the point that “Multi-platform is the curve ball the industry has thrown us. It’s a remain-in-business platform — there is no revenue. The old business model is at breaking point. You need a simpler model with fewer moving parts”. One of the ways of reducing
moving parts is around social media. Several exhibitors,
including Miranda and Chyron had new applications which put Twitter feeds and other social media within the news production process, rather than as an afterthought, ensuring that the comments had the same editorial authority as the news story itself. The Ross offering, Inception, seemed to me to be particularly well integrated. It is a plug-in for a production system that tracks the social feeds along with the rest of the production and playout workflow.
That allows what David Ross described as a call to action feed. If there is an interesting scoop coming up, a tweet timed for a minute or so before the story is broadcast could call those interested to turn on their televisions or tune to the appropriate channel. Because Inception is a plug-in to the newsroom, the tweet will be sent out at the right moment even if the running order of the news broadcast changes. Yes, I suspect that the biggest use will be for