IP: Las Vegas Diary # 1 of 1

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

As some of you know I have been in Las Vegas attending the NAB 2000 
conference (National Association of Broadcasters). There were 130,000 
people there and most of them spent the whole time. LV is a zoo when 
that many people get in town. Taxi lines were long long long and the 
busses from one show site to the other were also had very long lines.

I gave the keynote at the NAB technical luncheon and have been told 
it was live webcasted and will also be on the NAB site in a few 
weeks. It was very well received but the highlight of the speech was 
when I invited the largely technical audience to come down to the FCC 
and tell us what they are doing and how we can help. I suggested they 
come without their lawyers in tow and got a rousing applause.

The show was billed as showing convergence , I assume between 
cyberspace and the broadcast industry. I saw lots and lots of devices 
-- endless cables, cameras, audio control systems , program control 
systems, etc etc etc and very few convergent integrated products.

The attitude  (not unanimous) was that the broadcasters controlled 
the program content and thus had a great future. -- very debatable. 
They have a future but what the form of that future is is yet to be 
determined.

The  interesting things at the show were the large number of HDTV 
cameras, displays (flat panel) etc. It was however difficult for me 
to tell the difference between DTV and HDTV. Both had artifacts due 
to  both on the displays available and the technology used .but I 
would love to have either.

The other interesting item was the Geocast system. 
(http://www.geocast.com). Geocast uses a data channel in the digital 
broadcast signals, from up to 4 stations,   to send to a unit 
attachable to a PC news, live feeds  etc with the stations 
quarantining about an average of 2 megabits/sec on average. The 
programtic material  is fed to the local stations via satellite with 
a capability of the insertion of local adds , news etc.  Anyway they 
had a unit set up and it worked well. They are broadcasting in the 
San Jose area but unfortunately not in DC. The staff seems to be ex- 
valley folk from the former netscape etc and appeared to be very 
good. Keep your eyes on them. The aim is to make the service free -- 
station commercials supported and have the subscriber purchase the 
interface unit in the $300 range (about $100 claimed subsidization ).


Dave

PS: I promised I would not issue disclaimers but just wish to remind 
everyone that my IP mailings etc ONLY represent my views and tastes 
NOT the FCC, UPenn  or anyone except myself and sometimes not even 
myself.