InterBEE 2010 Report InterBEE 2010 Report By John Westland, Head Content Distribution, ABC Radio Australia1


Before arriving at InterBEE 2010 I didn’t believe I needed glasses. How wrong I was... There were two standout themes to this year’s trade show and conference: 3D TV (hence my new found need for glasses) and digital workflows. And, while a wide range of suppliers were there, demonstrating an equally wide range of hardware, software, management systems and testing equipment, I found it impossible not to be drawn to the impressive advances made in the creation and display of 3D vision.


It’s also particularly interesting, coming from a broadcasting market that still broadly shares audience media time between television, radio and, increasingly, IP delivered content, to see the overwhelming bias towards television and IP based content. Is Australia that much out of step? Coming from my particular domain of analogue FM broadcasting, I felt particularly out of place. Oh, analogue – so yesterday. But most of the markets for radio and television in this part of the world still use analogue as their main means of distribution and will do so for many years to come.


And there lay the challenge for me at InterBEE 2010... How to make the advances in digital production and content gathering relevant to analogue distribution, or, to see how additional distribution could supplement our current output.


The whole Japan experience is critical to the InterBEE experience. As a first time visitor to the country I was particularly interested to observe media usage – on public


A state-of-the-art camera on display at Inter Bee


transport and in private homes. (Fortunately I had a local contact). As a confirmed radio man the first shock was how little usage of radio there appeared to be. Of course the best judgements are made in a snap, and that one came after two local train journeys. I was also highly impressed with the flexibility brought about by digital delivery, especially with the capacity to mix text and vision in “non-traditional” ways.


While the big manufacturers were focussed on 3D from ingress to delivery by whatever means, equally impressive was the Hitachi Super Hi Vision system with ultra high definition cameras and displays. This presented images with a claimed 16 times more resolution than standard HDTV (7680 pixels by 4320 lines at 60 frames a second); truly impressive in detail and depth. I didn’t however get to experience the 22.2 audio channels from the static display.


InterBEE hosted specialist pavilions for IPTV and Mobile TV and, though this year they were relatively small, given my observations in Tokyo generally they will get much bigger in future. And, while IP and other mobile delivery systems for TV will only grow, the real challenge for me is the development and refinement of glasses-free 3D.


Part of the exhibition area at Inter Bee 2010


John Westland Head Content Distribution ABC Radio Australia


1 The author travelled to Japan and participated in the InterBEE show, thanks to a bursary kindly provided by the InterBEE organisers. 31


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48