3D at home: The mirage

With ESPN announcing it’s plan to shut down it’s 3D channel at the end of the year, it becomes clearer that 3D at home will be a missed opportunity. Without a serious sports channel, it is not possible to built a “3D tier” at the distributors’ level and without that there will be no money…

NAB 2013: And the magic wand this year is… 4K! (and 3DTV was a fraud)

The National Association of Broadcasters convention has a conference program for sure but first and foremost it is the industry largest trade shows. When you are taking about trade shows you are taking first about sales. In an industry whose budget is shrinking everyone is searching for some magic to restore their organizations to their…

NAB 2013: The paradox of the larger but cheaper market

Each year at NAB I make sure that I walk the entire show floor to make sure that I see if there an hidden gem somewhere, especially in the new and small organizations. I have been doing that basically since 1987 when the NAB was held in Dallas. I certainly have the impression that there…

IBC: Many still skeptical about 3DTV

Now that IBC 2012 is history, I was reflecting on the perception that industry members have of 3DTV. While some people are strong believers (and have strong economic interest like James Cameron) there still a lot that don’t see the benefits. For instance at the London Olympics, the director of BBC sports was clearly not…

IBC Conference Saturday: Sports Day

On Saturday at IBC 2012 the main theme around that conference was sports. In the morning it was all about London 2012 and in late afternoon there was a session on the need to change the live production workflow in sports. Overall, a much better day than the first two days. There was some insightful…

Travel Day

The sky was grey over New Jersey this morning but it was not a big issue since the plane quickly left Newark airport (apparently it DOES happen some time) and we met the blue sky soon. This is travel day, IBC 2012 for me begins on Thursday with the conference program so I have to…

3DTV: The Olympics were no “Avatar”

Almost a year ago Panasonic hosted a large press event to tell the press how great was 3DTV and how the 2012 London’s Olympics would be it’s “Avatar”. Now that the Olympics are done, I see no parallels at all! The event was held one night during the IBC 2011 (International Broadcasting Convention) in Amsterdam…

Do broadcasters understand 3D?

Let’s be honest, broadcasters are not the most agile and the fastest to adopt new technology. Generally, they will stick to old workflows, old ways of doing things until they have no choices. At this year’s NAB in Las Vegas, I have the feeling that a large part of the broadcast community still don’t understand…

Is that a laser in your projector?

For the majority, NAB is a large trade show that will begin this Monday. However, the root of the “National Association of Broadcasters” annual convention are the conferences and that started today (on Saturday). Part of the program is called the “Technology Summit on Cinema” organized in collaboration with SMPTE and as you may imagine,…