LAS VEGAS—TV Technology asked a cross-section of NAB Show-goers a series of five questions regarding what they considered the main themes, evidence of those, whether or not these initiatives will take hold, and what promising technologies from past NAB Shows did not see daylight. (A complete list of quotes from respondents and links to their full 5Qs is at “NAB 2016 in 21 Quotes.”)
Simon Eldridge, chief product officer at SDVI:
Q1. How many NAB Shows have you attended?
S.E. 2016 was my 16th straight.
Q2. What, in your opinion, were the main themes of the show this year?
S.E. Content supply chains, cloud migration, IP.
Q3. What were some examples of these themes?
S.E. AIMS, the growing presence of cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft), IP production everywhere, and every software vendor providing ‘cloud’ versions, or at least the ability to be virtualized—this is now a must have checklist item.
Q4. Do you foresee any or all of these technologies or initiatives taking hold?
S.E. I believe that ultimately the transition to IP instead of SDI is a short-term solution that will ultimately be replaced by completely hybrid cloud solutions. Standardization in this area is critical in the short term. I also believe that the notion of migrating the media business to that of a content supply chain (industrialization) will dramatically increase the ability to make intelligent, informed business decisions, which has not always been the case.
Q5. What technology that impressed you most at a past show didn't see the light of day?
S.E. AI production. There are still glimpses in to this area, but it’s not yet been fully realized.
