NAB CONVENTION SPOTLIGHT TO BE ON HDTV EQUIPMENT
593 Words
4136 Characters
02/16/98
AUDIO WEEK
(c) Copyright 1998 Warren Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Imminent arrival of DTV broadcasting is expected to make NAB convention
April 6-9 in Las Vegas one of biggest selling shows in history, broadcast
officials believe. "This show is going to be very big for those of us facing
November air dates," said Robert Niles, ABC vp-engineering. "This is kind of
a nutty time for everyone."
Sony illustrates increased focus on DTV at upcoming convention, said Lynn
Claudy, NAB senior vp-science & technology. Last year, Sony's DTV equipment
was confined to hard-to-find space in far-away Bally's Hotel. This year, full
set of DTV equipment will be centerpiece of Sony's main exhibit. "They are
the barometer of the industry and the biggest exhibitor," Claudy said. "This
shows the shift of attitude."
Convention will be "kind of a nervous time" for broadcasters, Niles said,
because to meet Nov. DTV startup schedules they need to buy equipment quickly,
some of which they actually won't see until convention. "I never thought it
was a good idea to buy at the show," Niles said, "but I don't think there is
any choice this year." Among equipment he expects to be evaluating at NAB
convention are switchers, microwave relay, test gear.
One of big concerns is encoders. Only company actually scheduled to show
production encoders is Mitsubishi, although Harris/Lucent partnership has
announced it will offer them. Scientific-Atlanta (SA) also announced that it
will build encoders and decoders for HDTV based on its PowerVu video
compression system. PowerVu HDTV products will be based on technology that
S-A developed to compress satellite signals, company said. "We need to see a
vibrant market in DTV encoders with a variety of capabilities to allocate data
streams," Claudy said. "Encoders could be a real bottleneck." Sony said it
doesn't plan to begin selling encoders until 2nd or 3rd quarter of 1999 (it
now has standard-definition DTV encoder). Some broadcasters hoped Leitch
would announce encoder, but it hadn't by weekend.
Test equipment could be problem because of need to try out quality of DTV
signal and of compressed image. Tektronix said it will show full set of test
products that it developed with Sarnoff Lab, and Leitch plans to debut its
test equipment, including test generator.
Transmitters and antennas seem to be well in hand, broadcasters said, with
* companies such as Acrodyne, Andrew, Comark, Dielectric, Harris and Larcan
* announcing raft of orders, and even some deliveries. Acrodyne plans to use
KBLR (Ch. 39) Paradise, Nev., for live demonstration at NAB convention of its
Adjacent Channel Technology, which allows both NTSC and DTV signals to be sent
via single transmitter, transmission line, antenna.
Convention will feature "resurgence" of DTV production equipment, notably
cameras that have moved from prototype to production quality, Claudy said.
Many of cameras will be able to put out variety of resolutions, from
standard-definition 480i (480-line interlaced) to 720p (720-line progressive),
1,080i. Among companies to display new DTV cameras are Hitachi, Ikegami, JVC,
Panasonic, Philips, Sony. Sony's equipment suite is based on MPEG-2 and 480i
or 1,080i, although it plans to move to progressive soon, including 1,080p
within 5 years, Senior Vp Larry Kaplan said. Suite includes DTV cameras,
camcorders, VTRs, video servers, switchers, digital effects, audio systems,
editing equipment, downconverter, monitors. Panasonic will be showing 525i,
525p and 1,125i production equipment, including VTRs, studio equipment,
converter, studio and production switchers, monitors.
Other DTV equipment at show is to include: (1) Leitch logo generator,
upconverter, video router, master control switcher. (2) Quantel effects,
editing and graphics equipment, and its first Java-enabled systems. (3)
Tektronix parallel-to-serial converter, codec, router, master control and
production switchers.
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