The SCTE and NAB 2004

NAB 2004 The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show runs annually in Las Vegas and, as its name suggests, concentrates mainly on broadcast aspects of TV and Radio. As part of his role on the board of IBC, SCTE President, Dr. Roger Blakeway, attended this year's show.

The busy show floor.	97,000 Visitors Spells Success. Like many shows NAB is trying to broaden its scope to grow/survive in the convergent world of electronic media. The existence of alternative strong broadband shows such as the NCTA and SCTE Cable Expo obviously has some effect on how successful this strategy can be. According to the press release "NAB2004 was a HUGE success! Bringing together more than 97,000 broadcasting, motion picture, recording, streaming media, satellite, telecommunications, presentation and production professionals from around the globe, this year's show provided the most comprehensive collection of electronic media technology, tools and training in the world". Wow! Perhaps the hype is larger than reality but, for a first time visitor on the first couple of days, the sheer size and numbers were impressive with 1392 exhibiting companies and many miles of aisles to tramp. Old hands commented that the show was back to pre-9/11 days (there were over 22,000 international visitors) and that there was a general feeling that "things were picking up" although closer scrutiny suggested that optimism was not being translated into orders. In the keynotes and conference HDTV dominated the agenda together with the debate over advanced video encoding. The former, as seems to be the case in Europe, seems to be seen as the saviour for an general apathy by viewers to adopt digital television whilst the latter is entering the 'how much will the royalties be' stage and causing some concern. One of the few cable related papers of interest this side of the pond was by Motorola: a review of a 70 channel digital cable system had shown that the audio levels varied by as much as 32dB!! I hope things are not quite as bad in Europe but the point is well made that it is the originator that determines the level and the distribution chain has no easy way of ensuring a semblance order in what is delivered to the customer.



© Society of Cable Telecommunication Engineers.