NAB post mortem

It's been a few weeks and I've been meaning to write a little about our experience at NAB 2013.

Our Nicole aka Natasha modeling the helmet cam

NAB is always great for us, and we all very much enjoy meeting with customers and dealers and friends and press and talking about what we've been up to all year (who wouldn't?). One big disappointment is the increasing tendency of radio networks not to send local and regional tech folks. We love talking to the network chiefs, but they often approach us already pretty glazed over from the amount of data they are expected to absorb at the show.

A particularly proud moment was a "Cool Stuff" award for our STAC VIP system from Radio World Magazine. The VIP product (and the companion app) are especially dear to me, as I'm a self-confessed evangelist for banning telephone audio on the radio. And VIP has the potential to do that.

We're finding VIP is finding it's place with folks that need to integrate VoIP phone lines to the studio. But word about the potential benefits of the wideband app and Skype capability is slow to get out. Behind the scenes, I'm working hard to make this case.  It's pretty obvious what STAC VIP does for radio when you get a live demo of it. In print or web ads, not so much. More on these efforts later.

So the makeup of NAB attendees is shifting slowly year-to-year. Much fewer traditional radio techs and many more new media representatives. But that not true of the Latin American visitors, who continue to send large contingents of traditional engineers and managers. Latin American visitors (from our perspective) are approaching 50% of our traffic. Very few European or Asian visitors this year.

What was cool at the show? General sentiment titled toward evolutionary changes rather than anything revolutionary. Lots of companies jumping in to compete with our LiveShot. And drone copters for news and film-making! (everyone loves those!). In video, 4K is becoming much more approachable from a hardware standpoint thanks to companies like Black Magic.

I know so many people who start technical careers and get left behind as they hit middle age simply because they didn't have the time or incentive to keep up with all the latest tech. It's such a fast-changing part of life in general that shows like this should be required attendance. I'm not saying a trip to Vegas is justified every year, but if haven't been educated about industry trends within five years or so, you are in danger of falling into that trap. Find a way to get to NAB. We're there to spend time with folks like you.

A little update on ISDN

There was a lot of talk at NAB about the demise of ISDN as noted here. Since then, there have been "clarifications" issued by Verizon that maybe the situation isn't quite as bad as once feared. I think the jury's still out, and I'll abstain from judgement until after the May 18 deadline. We'll talk then.