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.
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.
So day 1 in Las Vegas. I decided to visit what was named the Roundtable Buffet here at the Excalibur. Quite nice, loads to choose from, not very healthy, but livable.
Then into the courtesy bus and onwards to the Las Vegas Convention Center and the NABShow 2008. I must say, that is a very, very, very big convention center. I spent an entire day in what they call South hall, lower floor, with a short peek on the upper floor, and still there is a central and a northern hall to visit. Suffice to say, the chances of seeing everything is very low. On the other hand, I did find three or four companies with HD live streaming solutions, along with three more I need to check up on come Wednesday.
It was a long, interesting, but tiresome day of walking, and my day at the Convention Center ended with a cocktail reception held by VBrick, which unfortunately did not have any public information on a HD system, although they were supposedly working on something.
Then it was off to the Atlantic Air Terminal for a heli tour over Las Vegas from a company called Best Tours. It was quite a nice tour, giving an overview over Las Vegas, the strip with its hotels is an immence world covering very little space, but holding 18 of the 20 largest hotels in the world. Las Vegas itself, is so much larger. Home to 2 250 000 inhabitants officially, but probably 3 250 000 inhabitants adding illegial immigrants, Las Vegas has come a long way since the mafia set up the casinos right after WW2.
In the last 20 years, Las Vegas has turned further away from its roots, and is now a lot more of a familiy place to visist than stricly adults only.
The Excalibur is quite a large hotel. Featuring 2 towers with 30 floors, each floor with at least 76 rooms, in can hold quite a large number of people. It has six resturants managed by the hotel, two starbucks coffe shops, and a food court, with amongst other things, a small McDonalds.
Tired, but happy, I head to bed.
Photos taken from the helicopter are available by clicking on the link below.
I am going to Las Vegas, Nevada, to check out the NAB Show, looking for live HD streaming technology to use in our projects.
Unfortunately, its quite a long way from Norway to the westcoast of the US, so the trip took 17 hours, including a 2.5 hour stopover in Newark Liberty Airport, New York, to pass through customs and immigrations and change the plane.
Flying Continental Airways on economy class is like most other trips in a Boing 737. There is a bit more leg room than a short-range 737, actually it was more than enough for me.
17 hours later, and with a TZ difference of approx -9, I arrive in Las Vegas. And what is the first thing you see when you get into the terminal? Slot machines, quite a lot of slotmachines. Even more interesting is that we have to take a subway from the landing terminal over to the part where we can retrieve our baggage.
Then it is off to the Excalibur Hotel and some well deserved sleep.
And for those of you who wonder what the hotelroom might look like:
I moved into a new office at work after Christmas, and decided to buy some decorations to liven it up.
I tried something called sandart, which gives a new piece of art every day. Using just different sands and water, it creates some incredible landscapes and pictures. I will try to document the more beautifull ones in this thread. Sandart 16-01-2008
So, I am a little more awake now than when I wrote the Galla Dinner post earlier today, not much, but a little. Bah, I was almost sleepwalking at that time, conferences are existing but oh so tiring as well.
You really should not follow as many lectures as I did, or you will get as tired as I did. But still, I enjoyed it immensely, and now only the long train journey home remains. Should be home around 23:00 today. *Yawns*
First today I went on a BOF workshop about large storage needs, it was interesting, I think, I really was not awake enough to get much of what was said.
Then the time had come for us to present what we do. I only listened today though, two of my colleagues, a professor and a coworker held the presentations. Strangely enough there were not as many people around today in total. I wonder if hangovers and sleepneed is the culprit
But all in all, it has been a very interesting conference, and tomorrow, tomorrow is a day for sleeping, much sleeping.
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