Quality content is what makes the world go round. And for the professionals looking to bring it to life, the 2014 NAB Show directs the way! Hosted by the National Association of Broadcasters, the NAB Show is the world’s largest electronic media show covering the creation, management and delivery of content across all platforms. This year’s event in Las Vegas had more than 98,000 attendees from 150 countries and 1,600+ exhibitors. As you can imagine several emerging technologies and the latest innovations came into light during the event.
Unification of 4K and Internet video
NAB 2014 exhibited the march of evolution towards 4K video and Internet broadcasting. Manufacturers of the two products are planning a unified experience of the two seemingly opposite areas. A new codec: H.265 has already been made available this year. It is estimated that H.265 will substitute H.264 as the compression standard for next generation. The present container or wrapper for the H.264 is MPEG-4. For H.265, the new container is High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC). It is not only twice the compression ratio of H.264, but can also support files up to 8K. Manufacturers are expected to adopt it from the end of 2014.
Integrated solutions for online video
The number of video platforms offering an integrated solution is increasing. New entrants have increased and are joining the platform centric multi-bitrate streaming firms. Many companies are offering a wider range of platform services and also options for distribution like adaptive video streaming, video analytics, hosting and encoding.
LED and the lighting revolution
Litepanels brought into the market the Sola line fresnels, a LED line that utilizes only a fraction of power which the fresnels in the 20th century consumed. Another new line called Celeb 400 has been launched, which is a worthy successor to the LED Celeb 200. The new line not only promises the adjustment of luminance, but also the color temperature. It enables quick decision making on whether to make a balance for Daylight, Tungsten lighting or any other factor between the two.
Independents and remote broadcasting
Creative agencies and independent videographers now have a number of compact ways by which they can broadcast directly from the ENG shoot. Many companies have even launched backpack cellular solutions. A substantial range of protocols like HLS, RTMP and RTP permit you to stream high definition videos directly to the web via 4G or LTE USB modem or WiFi.