Toured the north and central halls today. Not so much relevant for what I am using, as they cover pre-production, production and acquirement. Still, there was quite enough to look at when it comes to audio solutions, lighting, cameras and some media asset management. Also found an interesting streaming and storage solution from a small British firm, will need to do a followup on that one.
Another interesting booth used iPhones and iPads to drive small portable teleprompters, quite ingenious. The sony stand was quite big, even by NAB standards, and packed with people. Getting ahold of a Sony representative was impossible, but should be easier tomorrow.
Automatic metadata generation is quite an interesting field. Saw a couple of solutions today who accurately detected scene changed, did text to speach, and mapped the text to the speach for easy replay and searchability.
Even though both the central and northern halls are smaller than the southern walls, it is still quite a walk to see it all, so resting my legs feels quite wonderfull atm.
Today I bring you some pictures of the north and central halls, nowhere near as packed as the south halls, but still lively. I will fix the Las Vegas by night pictures as well in the previous post.
Did a nice little tour tonight. Started at the Stratosphere, going up to the top, taking some nice overview pictures of Las Vegas (which in reality now includes the townships of Las Vegas, Winchester and Paradise. All hotels on the strip may however address themselves as being in Las Vegas regardless of actual township.)
Then on to Bellagio to see some nice artwork and a spring setting, along with its famed water and lightshow, although the wind contained it to a minimal version. (Been quite windy in Las Vegas lately.)
Further on, the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, followed by the Fremont Street experience in downtown Las Vegas, definetly worth to see.
(Note, these are unedited, so a few not so good pictures along with the rest.)
The Las Vegas convention center south hall was actually bigger than I remebered. It is divided between two floors, and even though I was there from 8:30 to 15:30, I barely got through most of the stands there, a few still remain. The good news is that even though both central and north halls remain, the majority of interesting vendors are in the south hall, which houses post-production and delivery, along with some production.
3D appears to be the must have of this NABShow, or as one of the exhibitors said, this year, if you don’t have 3D, you might as well pack up your bags and go home. All of the 3D I saw demonstrated used polarized screens / projectors, and could use the same glasses. While all new TVs released this year uses active glasses and are not interoperable. (Not to mention, active glasses cost 100 to 200 USD, while passive costs 1 to 30 USD.) I foresee an issue with those using glasses for normal vision, and the use of these glasses to see 3D content. I know I suffered eye fatigue pretty quickly when viewing some of the demos. What is more surprising, is that none of the demos are the in your face kind of 3D movies that they tried to push ten to fifteen years ago, but instead more realistic footage in 3D.
I doubt 3D with glasses will be a hit in the home, simply because of restrictions in viewing angle. For use in cinemas and in front of a computer it works great, but when you want to watch TV lying on the couch, it causes issues, such as the 3D effect going AWOL.
There were quite a few interesting live streaming solutions as well, so I already think that this trip is a success, even though I’ll be there all day tomorrow and wednesday too. On wednesday and maybe tuesday I’ll try to catch some of the conference tracks as well, depending on how far I get before lunch tomorrow.
But I need to give myself a few more breaks, as my legs are really feeling it walking around all day on that hard concrete floor.
This post gives you some pictures from the south hall, both upper and lower floors to try to give an impression of what it is like.
Will probably be a post later tonight with quite a few pictures of Las Vegas by night, but now, it is time to grab some dinner.
Its that time of the year again, and yesterday I flew from Oslo to Las Vegas (see http://blog.andreasb.net/2008/04/15/las-vegas-the-trip-down/ from last time, it includes a GPS map.)
The trip down was uneventfull, plenty of legspace this time, but registration at Harrahs, where I am staying, was terrible. They used 30 minutes to process 15 customers. Breakfast in the buffet was nice though, quite a wide array of dishes, including compose your own omelett, and not only fat food. I think I will eat more than melon for breakfast this year
This year I am looking for an encoder for a small mobile streaming solution for university/college use, but also for Media Asset Management systems along with the latest in 3D video technology and automatic metadata content generation.
I spent the day at the Las Vegas Convention center. First at registration, as the badge had not reached me a month after I registered, mail from the US to Norway can be incredibly slow at times. Then I looked at the NAB Store and bought myself a couple of T-shirts. After a light lunch of sallad, I headed over to the Digital Cinema Summit conference track, which talked about 3D.
It was quite an interesting session, detailing where 3D is today, the technologies used, format and standards issues and nonissues along with a look at what is coming.
It also gave me a reminder that recharging your laptop and camera can be a good thing, both nearly ran out of power, along with my iPhone, but they will all be fully charged come tomorrow.
Then back to Harrahs to write this post, get some dinner and do something. Not sure what yet.
Ate dinner at a chinese restaurant on the hotel. Tried Peking Duck. Probably the best duck I ever tasted, quite delicius. Played craps for a couple of hours, started with 200 USD, came out of it with 190, so a cheap evening
As I always document the hotelroom, there is a couple of pictures of it, a few overview photoes of the entrance section of the central hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, along with a couple of shots from the Digital Cinema Summit. Also the conference bag, its quite a nice bag, with holders for pens and other stuff inside, and lastly, the Peking Duck.
This is the third book from the young and promising author, Christopher Paolini, in the series that started with Eragon.
Brisingr continues where the last book, Eldest, left off. The Varden has started their assault on the Empire, the elves are marching to war, and the dwarves are discussing who will be their next king.
Amidst all of this, we follow Eragon, and his cousin, Roarn, one a dragonrider learning what it truly means to be one, the other a soldier and leader to be. They both struggle with their horror of killing, and wonder what makes their taking of lives just.
We learn how the dwarves select their new king, gain an insight in how the Gods function, learn about the positive sides of Eragons parents, and the truth of Murtaughs multiple hearts.
All in all, this is a very good continuation of the series, I got the book on Saturday around 12ish, and did not put the book away until I had finished reading it.
Yesterday was a success. We streamed the introduction by the head of Lillehammer Kino, Ruth Mjøen, and the invited guest, Tor Åge Bringsværd to cinenemas in Oslo, Tromsø and Trondheim, and to be in SD made with VLC, in quite good quality.
Tonight, and two additional nights will repeat this, with new guests, and as such, our first test of this use of technology, has proven to be a success.
We are going to test our streaming plans by streaming parts of a Literature festival, and I am excited to see how it will go, even though it will only be in SD for this event.
I close this short post up with pictures of the hotelroom. Very nice, and quite cheap. Expensive hotels tend to be small rooms, cheaper ones give you better rooms in my experience
Finally home again. Probably gonna feel the jetlag tomorrow, but I am happy all the same
I watched a show last night, called the Tournament of Kings, set in the Arthurian era, fittingly enough, for a hotel called Excalibur. It was one of the most athletic and fun shows I have seen, along with some nice horsecontrol, which even included jousting. If you are ever in Vegas, visiting the Tournament of Kings dinner show is something I can strongly recommend.
I even played a bit more craps, I love that game, and the sudden cameraderie that develops amongst the players as everyone hopes for the shooter to roll the good dice. Quite fun.
However, I am not very impressed by the so called heightened security on US airports. Its nothing more than was standard in Norway pre 9/11. Heading back, I passed through one security checkpoint. Heading into the US, i had to pass four at Gardermoen. First the security scan, then into the international airport lounge, then a passport control, and then another passport contral and security scan at Continentals lounge at Gardermoen. I guess for some reason, letting terrorists out of the US is OK, while letting them in is a big no no, its crazy, but nothing I can do anything about.
Ah well, spring has come to Norway as well, so I am happy, tired, but happy.
Having found what I came for at NAB yesterday, I decided to take today off, and see and do other Las Vegas things. I walked a significant part of the strip, from the Excalibur to the Fashion Show Mall, and that photo series will be available through the read more link.
I originally planned to photo everything before 12:00, when there was a free craps lesson, but my camera ran out of battery power halfway through, so I took the Deuce back to the hotel to charge it up, and take the craps lesson.
The Deuce, is the name of the busroute going up and down the Las Vegas strip, 24/7. One trip costs 2 dollars, a 24 hour pass costs 5 dollars, having bought one yesterday, and also using it a couple of times today, it was certainly worth the money, and also a good example of how public transport should be. Cheap and easily available.
Craps is an interesting game, and almost everyone have seen people play it in any move involving casinos. I must say, it looks like a complication game, buts its not. It is really easy and fun. Its now my number one gambling game, displacing roulette which I learned on a cruise a few years back.
In the afternoon of day four, I must say I have loved staying in Las Vegas. Its not a city, its an experience, and I have seen soo little of it, and I am definitely going back.
Some have called it the Disneyworld of adults, and I agree, even though they have added many things for the kids the past 20 years, its still a haven for adults. So many different shows, so many casinos, so many sights to see.
They have a saying in London: “When you are tired of London, you are tired of life.”, I think that would be better phrased as “When you are tired of Las Vegas, you are tired of life.”
A new day at the convention center, almost as tired as Monday, but I took the courtesy buss back to the hotel with a good feeling. Today yielded four or five additional companies with 1U live HD streaming solutions, along with a couple of other interesting companies. I will probably use couple of days once I get back to Norway, just going through the documentation and getting pricequotes, but still, I am quite optimistic about having found the right technology in one of the companies I found. They range from the world wide superbrands to the unknown brands, each with strengths and weaknesses.
Otherwise I am still planning what to do tonight. Probably buy some suvenirs from the the Excaliburs giftshops, perhaps head over to the Luxor, which is a pyramid with an egyption temple style building in front, and see what that is like.
As for tomorrow, I am unsure. I will go to downtown Las Vegas to see the sights and get a few more pictures, perhaps another tour of the Convention Center, but I believe I have seen what I need to see, at least for this year. The halls are big, and I have probably only seen a small part in detail, but I would estimate at least ten full days to truly dig into the bottom of every exhibitor. In addition comes all the keynotes and supersessions, I only managed to attend one of those, which was the technology luncheon. I think going back here next year would be very interesting indeed.
Who knows, perhaps I will even have time to gamble a bit tonight, its a bit silly having been in Vegas for full three days now, and not gambled one cent.
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