I decided short notice to go to the 2012 edition of the NAB show. And this year I left home without any expectations, this to avoid some kind of disappointment.

As in the previous year there was no next ‘big thing’. Left and right you could discover some improvements, or maturing technologies. The impact of the economic downturn becomes visible. Where in the previous years it was still possible to demonstrate the outcome of previous research and innovation programs, it becomes now more and more difficult. The reduced investments in research and innovation over the past years lead to anemia in the industry.

IBM booth in the North hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center

Finally, the use of service oriented architectures in the content production workflow becomes mature! Over 40 companies have now adopted the use of SOA into their offerings. I am still surprised that it took years to come to this point, the adoption seems to take-off and SOA is finding it's place in the production environments. The maturing Framework for Interoperable Media (FIMS), which is supported by leading vendors in the industry (e.g., Avid, Sony, IBM) and by industry associations (e.g., EBU), is a great step forward.

Cloud adoption will be the next challenge for the traditional content industry. At least this year a full day program at the conference with cloud on the agenda. However, similar to the previous year a bit disappointing, speakers were not synchronized on the agenda topic, they were just explaining their individual point of view with little real in depth interactions. The major discussion point where cloud was mentioned cloud, is the audience interaction through integration of social media. The use of public cloud compute and storage services was mentioned in some cases. Also here, it will take time to get to full understanding of the value of cloud and the impact on the business models in the content industry.

Stereoscopy was already shown over the past years at NAB. Again, this year also not the big thing. The image quality improved, the image size scaled up drastically, also the depth view becomes a real remarkable experience. Several stereoscopic displays can now be used without the uncomfortable 3D glasses! These displays remarkably work well from different viewing angles. The stereoscopy still gives me a slight headache, but luckily are quality and comfort continuously improving. Maybe, the big thing for next year?

Steve Canepa (GM Media IBM) gives a live web-interview