David
J. Danto
Principal
Consultant, Collaboration / Multimedia / Video / AV
Dimension Data
Director of
Emerging Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com 
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News: @NJDavidD
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A View From The Road Volume 8, Number 3
-2014 Interop & NAB
With
the Interop and NAB conferences happening on back to back weeks this year I
decided to attend both.
Interop
– Including the “Cloud Connect Summit” covered such topics as mobility,
software-defined networking, infrastructure, cloud computing and virtualization
and collaboration.
Interop
is one of the few remaining “generalist” IT conferences. It has a wide breadth of topics which
actually makes it one of the smaller industry shows – with about 12K attendees. Cloud specialists go to cloud shows, Network
experts attend network conferences. Interop
attendees are usually IT generalists that are looking for one opportunity to
cover many topics at a single event. My
focus at this conference was on the collaboration track, so my comments will be
strictly in that area.
The collaboration
track had a number of sessions covering the state of videoconference rooms, WebRTC and other interesting topics. One of the most widely attended was Brent Kelly’s presentation
on Cisco and Microsoft.
Both
firms are in a pitched battle to be the leader in enterprise unified
communications, with Microsoft having the more ubiquitous and easier to use “Lync”
front end, and Cisco competing with their “Jabber” front end connected to the much
more robust Cisco control and infrastructure offerings. As he
pointed out (and I often say) the decision between Cisco and Microsoft within
an enterprise is often not a technical one, but rather one that resembles a religious
holy war. End users and enterprise
administrators in both camps are often blindly loyal despite any facts that
contradict their beliefs. Still, Brent
did an admirable job walking the attendees through each solution’s pluses and
minuses. My only minor criticism of his
excellent presentation was that he skipped over the products coming to the
market that allow users to keep the best of both (Microsoft at the desktop with
Cisco’s superior VOIP and infrastructure.)
This is a direction that adds complexity and requires third-party
solutions as gateways, but more and more organizations are opting for this
approach.
On the
last day of the conference I and my Dimension Data colleagues presented a
session on Emerging Video Technology. One
of our key points was the current state of AV/IT convergence and how that has
impacted the enterprise “videoconference room.”
Our
industry has a real problem with expensive, overly complex rooms on one end of
the spectrum, and cheap, webcam based offerings way over on the other side. It’s something I call “The Goldilocks Syndrome,”
with organizations in a very difficult search to find solutions that are “just
right” for all their circumstances. Rather
than continuing to describe what my team spoke about from our own perspective,
here is a link from TPO News’ David Maldow giving his
impressions of our session - http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2014/04/interop_expo_las_vegas_emergin/
. His article has a link to a publically
available version of the slides we presented.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After
a brief non-technical respite on Saturday (when I was able to catch the new
Marvel movie – Captain
America and the Winter Soldier in IMAX.) It was time to change gears and
attend the pre-show events of the National Association of Broadcasters
conference. (As some of you may be
aware, I have been attending the NAB conference for over 20 years as a “pick-hits
judge” for Broadcast Engineering Magazine.
Sadly this year I was not, as the Broadcast
Engineering publication closed-down last November – a sad comment on the
changing model of news consumption.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
NAB Show – and in all honesty the entire Broadcasting industry - is struggling
with change. Having attended this
conference for more than two decades it’s interesting to see it continue to
grasp for relevance in the middle of an explosion of new technologies and
trends. Having acknowledged the urgency
to change its business model with such past themes as “Broader-Casting” and
“Metamorphosis”, the conference organizers this year presented the over 90K
attendees with the amorphous theme of “Channel Opportunity.”
Was
that supposed to mean that there are new distribution channels opening up to
broadcasters…or did it refer to the fact that while most US national
programming is just a plain disgrace to the medium, on Sunday evenings we have
the rare opportunity to change channels and choose between two excellent
programs - The Good Wife
and the new Cosmos?
Whatever
it really meant, there is no doubt that the disjointed state of broadcasting in
the face of new technology is severely impacting the industry. With firms like Aereo on one end presenting compelling solutions that
existing laws cannot prevent (much to the consternation
of programmers), and on the other end firms like Netflix
and Amazon creating distribution channels that bypass broadcasters with
content that is superior in both technical and artistic quality, being a “broadcaster”
just doesn’t have the glory and honor it once did. At this year’s conference the industry
representatives began to take-on these new challenges. For example, as the FCC continues to
reallocate spectrum from traditional over-the-air broadcasters to modern
technologies, those representing the NAB warned
of the consequences. Gordon Smith,
NAB president and CEO, argued in his presentation to the conference that the
playing field is unfair.
He stated
that federal regulators have different sets of rules and requirements for
over-the-air radio and television stations then they do for the broadband
industry (which is distributing content via the internet and over data based
wireless devices.) “The wireless
industry covets our spectrum because they chew through their massive allocation
of spectrum, attempting to deliver the video we deliver far more efficiently,”
he said Monday. “And they continue to milk, bilk and bill by the bit.” While his thoughts on the lack of regulation
for the broadband industry are dead-on, he misses the point that broadband can
deliver desired content on-demand and with higher quality and resolution than
over the air broadcasters can do today.
In fact, 4K television programming will be delivered to the home by
broadband connected set-top-boxes long before any broadcaster can do it – which
once again questions the very definition of broadcasting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Changing
gears and speaking of 4K, it was definitely one of the big themes at the
conference. Many of the hardware
manufacturers at the show were showing new camera and infrastructure equipment
optimized for that 4,000 horizontal pixel resolution standard. New 4K cameras
were being shown by Sony, Aja, BlackMagic, Red and others. Prices are also plummeting. The new
BlackMagic Studio Camera carries a list price of $2995 for a full HD
configuration. (That’s 4K for 3K if
anyone’s paying attention…)
4K
workflow was also a very hot topic.
Trying to figure out how to manage the movement of high resolution
content from acquisition to distribution is a very complex problem. Many broadcasters are reluctant to refit
their infrastructure to this standard with even higher quality resolutions (8K)
waiting in the wings.
My
firm’s parent company, NTT, showed their version of a cloud based 4k workflow
which would offload much of the heavy lifting to a third party service. This is the first time I can remember seeing
a cloud story for HD broadcasting actually deliverable in an end-to-end
solution. The promise of cloud for
broadcasting has finally become reality.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For
the most part the exhibits floor was really a tale of two cities this year,
with nearly half of the exhibitors showing high-tech, high end, future ready
solutions, and nearly the other half showing low end devices – such as an iPad
mount for a tripod, or this new firm – BigBalance
– showing stabilizing mounts and handles for smartphones and pro-sumer devices.
As
with recent past NAB shows, the exhibitors were so all over the place that it
was hard to classify that many themes that will prove to be impactful going forward. One exception however is clearly in the area
of film and TV lighting. LED based
instruments took the leap from “cool new accessories” to “grown-up solutions”
for the first time anywhere at this conference.
Many new
lighting instruments from multiple manufacturers have used LED engines, but for
the first time the new releases are producing light levels with as much
illumination as industry standard incandescent fixtures – with the added
benefit of color temperature being adjustable from daylight to tungsten and
everything in between. This is a
milestone moment in production, where studios can now replace all their old
lighting instruments (granted at a significant cost) but also significantly
reduce their operating costs in both electrical drain and required
cooling. The promise has finally been
delivered. (Much thanks to David Landau for
helping with his expertise in this area.
Check out his forthcoming text
on lighting.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s
it for this edition of A View From The Road. My next edition will be from InfoComm 2014 in
Las Vegas in June. It will be an awesome
event, with the IMCCA producing a record 10 sessions on UC and my Dimension Data teammates showing
why we are the global leader in ICT.
==========================================================
This
article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own,
personal opinions. David has over three decades of experience providing problem
solving leadership and innovation in media and unified communications
technologies for various firms in the corporate, broadcasting and academic
worlds including AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley, NYU, Lehman
Brothers and JP Morgan Chase. He now works with Dimension Data as their Principal
Consultant for the collaboration, multimedia, video and AV disciplines. He is
also the IMCCA’s Director of
Emerging Technology. David can be reached at David.Danto@Dimensiondata.com
or DDanto@imcca.org and his full bio and
other blogs and articles can be seen at Danto.info. Please reach-out to David if you would like
to discuss how he can help your organization solve problems or develop a
future-proof collaboration strategy.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.