Paris-headquartered Thomson’s Grass Valley challenged the industry to support open technologies and to leverage IT-based tools during its recent Worldwide Media Event, a two-day precursor to the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, which will be held April 22-27 in Las Vegas.
“We have to adopt new ways of thinking,” asserted Jeff Rosica, Grass Valley’s VP of strategic marketing and business development. “We must put an end to proprietary systems and closed technology. If we all work toward open, IT-based systems, customers will not be restricted in their choices.”
“It will help us to overcome dictated formats and closed solutions,” he added. “It also will allow us to work with data files from camera to playout.”
Rosica emphasized that this need is particularly critical today. “In the near future, customers will be able to access content anywhere, anytime and on any device.” Therefore, he asserted, mutidistribution models now mean that “broadcast and media companies are in competition with new providers, notably telcos–and moving from format to format has to be seamless.”
And a Grass Valley goal, said Rosica, is to recognize that multidistribution is vital–that content will be moved as files and will be repurposed.
Restating the “HD for everyone” message that major manufacturers have been shouting for the past year, Rosica also suggested that with a high resolution option like high definition available, “it makes perfect sense to use HD and create all deliverables from that one format. If you don’t, your options are severely limited.”
Developments in HD distribution were outlined during the media event, from broadcast to event content such as the General Motors Reveal ’05, from which Grass Valley screened highlights.
In broadcast news, the BBC’s Paul Chessbrough reported that BBC HD trials are scheduled to begin this summer. In addressing its suppliers at post houses, he offered, “We met some resistance from independent post houses with expensive infrastructures…The high end will continue to operate [fairly unchanged]. Others need to rely more on talent than kit provision.”
HBO’s senior VP of broadcast and studio operations Charles Calado reported that HBO Networks currently offer four HD networks.
He also gave a nod to the mobile future, explaining that two premium HBO channels are currently being tested that would be distributed exclusively to domestic markets on Cingular’s cell phone video service. He added that internationally HBO is distributing four new channels for Vodafone’s cell phone video service, which is offered in regions such as South Africa, Belgium, Austria and the UK.
An in-depth look at mobile opportunities was also provided by Omar Javaid, senior director at Qualcomm, which is currently testing its MediaFlo technology for the delivery of content to mobile devices. The target for a nationwide launch of the service is Q4 of ’06. The “Flo Forum”–of which Thomson is a member–was established in ’05 to make this happen.
When asked about entertainment and advertising content, Javaid reported, “We are looking to strike content deals… We are very excited about advertising and it is a component of our model.”
But he added that he does not expect advertising to play a big role until the subscriber base hits a critical mass. “My feeling is it may happen quickly because we are talking about television [programming], which is easy to grasp,” he related. “Advertising will probably grow like Web advertising, which started just as banner ads.”
During the event, Grass Valley also previewed its NAB technology announcements. These will be detailed in SHOOT’s annual “Road to NAB” series.
SHOOT senior editor, technology and postproduction, Carolyn Giardina can be reached at 1 310-822-0211 or at cgiardina@shootonline.com.
