LAS VEGAS—Now in its eighth year, the IP Showcase has evolved into a must-see exhibit for anyone deploying IP technology. Over the years, AIMS and other major technical and standards organizations within the broadcast industry have taken advantage of large industry events like the NAB Show to highlight vendor products, technical presentations, and real-life case studies of IP deployments, while providing attendees with networking opportunities with access to the experts that make open IP standards a reality.
As the NAB Show celebrates its 100th anniversary, we couldn’t be more excited to be there again, as well as welcoming our newest members—Megapixel VR and NETGEAR—to the IP Showcase.
Demonstrating Interoperability
In the beginning, the IP Showcase started out as a way to demonstrate to the industry that IP standards work and to highlight their interoperability. However, in listening to feedback from attendees on what they’re hoping to see and what they need from the Showcase, we quickly learned that there’s a lot of hunger out there for education on a wide range of topics.
Part of this need is met by the IP Showcase Theater, where industry professionals give 20-minute presentations on case studies and other topics. As in previous years, this will be a centerpiece of the IP Showcase at the 2023 NAB Show. In addition, the “IP in Action” wall will be back, which will display additional information about different IP installations that have taken place.
We’ll also have people on the ground to answer questions about today’s hot topics, such as ground-to-cloud, cloud-to-ground, and of course, the IPMX set of open standards and specifications for AV-over-IP deployments being developed by AIMS.
There’s also been a lot of work going on with codecs in our various groups, and we’ll be there to educate people on the flurry of activity around standards over the last year, including work around JPEG XS, H.264, and EDID. In addition, the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) recently published its guide for implementing NMOS controllers, and its work on stream compatibility management is moving to the next phase of testing and interoperability.
The Video Services Forum (VSF) has also released the first draft of TR-10-1 for system timing in IPMX—with revisions active and ongoing—and the HDCP Key Exchange Protocol draft specification. We’re expecting these to be popular topics of discussion at the show.
Knowledge Sharing
Education is certainly at the forefront of attendees’ expectations for the IP Showcase; however, we’ve also learned that organizations and individual professionals aren’t strictly looking for information and insight, they are also eager to share ideas.
So, this year at NAB Show, we decided we really wanted to emphasize the social aspect of the IP Showcase and provide attendees with the opportunity to get together and have these conversations. And we’re doing that with the introduction of a new element: the meetup section. This is going to be an open space with flexible seating, where attendees can come in and host conversations revolving around IP media systems that are important to them.
And while we’re normally very selective about who can give presentations at the IP Showcase, we’re opening the meetup space to just about anybody who wants to have a conversation regarding anything related to AV-over-IP, SMPTE 2110, or even other proprietary protocols out there. As long as the topic is centered around IP media systems and making them work, anyone can host a conversation; they don’t need to belong to AIMS or any other organization.
The reason for this inclusivity is that we envision this new section not only as a place to support our community of open-standards-based solutions, but to also hear from users in general. We want to find out what you’re doing in IP, the problems you’re facing, and your success stories.
Sharing such information at the IP Showcase is a really exciting prospect, and we’re anticipating that a lot of smaller groups will want to take advantage of it. So, we’ve been casting a wide net for participants, sending out a sign-up sheet via social media and other outlets. All people have to do is fill out a form, and they’re given a time slot for their conversation.
We’ll also have industry experts come in to address groups that want to discuss certain topics. So, for example, if there’s a group that wants to discuss network convergence or issues they’re having when setting up IP systems, we’ll bring in experts from companies in our organization that specialize in those topics, and they’ll be available for those meetups.
And finally, we’re opening up the space to groups that already meet within standards organizations over Zoom and elsewhere to have face-to-face meetings at the NAB Show. There are so many possibilities to use this new space as an educational opportunity, and we can’t wait to see what people do with it. It’s going to make the 2023 NAB Show 2023 one to remember, and we look forward to seeing everybody there.
Visit us during exhibit hours at Booth W2867 in the West Hall of the LVCC.
Register for the 2023 NAB Show at nabshow.com/2023.
