The SCTE and IBC, 2006.

IBC 2006 7 - 12 September The IBC is the premier event for all professionals involved in entertainment content creation, management and delivery. This year, Tim Jenks, Senior Executive of the CAI, visited IBC as the SCTE's guest. Here's his report on the experience to his CAI colleagues.		The entrance to IBC2006.

Sony's imposing stand at IBC2006.	'From camera to the living room' Our brothers and sisters at the SCTE are one of 6 partners that deliver the largest exhibition I have ever attended. Before I progress my sincere thanks to the SCTE executive for making it possible for me attend over the weekend in Amsterdam. The location has been home for 'IBC' (an acronym, which according to my hosts has no meaning anymore) for over a decade. Humble beginnings were in Brighton and now the Netherlands houses arguably the largest exhibition for this audience anywhere in the world. Every race, tongue and creed appears to mill around the exhibition halls. Over 12 halls - from Olympic swimming pool to football pitch size - house everything concerning broadcast content to delivery. From camera to the living room, it was all here. Over 1,200 stands to wander around until the legs ached. It became obvious that 2 full days is not enough if you have business that is concerned with content capture and the production side of TV programming. Add to that the politics of TV broadcasting and you have a very over-full weekend.

'You have to focus' With the abundance spread before you, you have to focus. Seminars and debate on broadcast content abounded and it was the same with management of delivery systems. There were racks and racks of structured network delivery hardware to view. Flat screens are well and truly imbedded in society and stands dedicated to visual content reflected the new norm. Small portables that were plasma or LCD and in widescreen shared the stages with screens to fill one corner of a stadium. One theatre type stand had the latest that will supersede HDTV - 'Ultra' High Definition. As stunning as the presentation was, this will be a quantum leap for those in society yet to take the transition to digital on board. For now, this has purely stadium type large screens as the target customer base. However, the seed is sown for many looking to move swiftly on to the next cause.		Ultra High Definition set to replace HDTV.

Arqiva's stand at IBC2006.	'500 people milling around' An imposing Sony stand would have been a bad choice of meeting post to join up with a colleague. Sony occupied nearly a quarter of Hall 9 with a capacity crowd of around 500 people milling around it. From what could be viewed over the heads of the throng it seemed like Sony were exhibiting everything they are involved in from cameras to TV. SES, under various guises, seems to exist only to purchase companies these days. An extensive stand area spread over at least half an acre was dedicated to latest acquisitions relating to more satellite footprint coverage and therefore more transponders to lease. The ASTRA logo is well known to me personally as the CAI has a firm relationship dating back to the heady days of satellite TV launch across the UK in 1989. The obligatory HDTV screens adorned the show area. The various programmes available clearly demonstrated DTH satellite is the prime mover on delivering high definition viewing in the home at the moment. For those of us a little biased to the terrestrial broadcast side of the game the only major player seemed to be Arqiva. These are the folk who inherited all that were NTL's transmission network for everything independent in UK TV. Those times are long gone. The landscape of transmitter ownership has changed dramatically and attention here was easily drawn to the UK's digital switch with some graphic pictures of transmitter engineering now underway at a number of UK locations.

'The magnificence of scale' The magnificence of scale is where IBC benefits. A show of this magnitude can draw or attract a massive audience because of its diversity. There is a sector of this conference for everyone in broadcasting. From an aerial-man's standpoint our industry is naturally specialist and therefore confined to a determinate size of audience. Attending IBC galvanised my view that our trade shows and roadshows 'sink or swim' on the message needed at that time. We also, somehow, have to attract all those involved. Not to mention only having a short time to deliver the message. It is also noticeable the exposure being invested by South East Asia in the broadcast industry is immense. IBC reflects in its probable 40k delegate audience that there is still room for these massive exhibitions that focus, but at the same time are able to have that essential mix of product that attracts such a large number of visitors.		Harmonic, a regular visitor to IBC.

	More Information To obtain more information about IBC, please visit the IBC website.
© Society of Cable Telecommunication Engineers.