SMPTE 2012 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition

Ryan Salazar Post Production Engineer | Columnist | Speaker Ft. Lauderdale Florida USA ©2012 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Ryan Salazar brings us highlights from SMPTE's annual convention - three days of highly-technical sessions with the industry's top masters, hosted by the accredited industry standards-setting body, which is also the industry's leading nonprofit association providing technology education and information to the motion imaging industry.

There is no doubt that the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) is the leading technical society for the motion imaging industry. Although SMPTE members are spread throughout 64 countries worldwide with over 200 Sustaining (institutional) Members and other members, consisting of the likes of engineers, technical directors, cameramen, editors, technicians, manufacturers, designers, educators, consultants and field users in networking, compression, encryption, everyone looks forward to the Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition which, this year, is being held at Loews Hollywood Hotel (formerly the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa) 1755 North Highland Ave., Hollywood, CA 90028, USA.

The SMPTE 2012 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition is THE premier annual event for motion imaging and media technology, production and operations, where you can network with world-renowned technology thought-leaders in the motion picture studios, broadcast and distribution networks, production and post-production community, software companies, systems integrators, manufacturers, display technologies and distribution providers. According to their website, SMPTE is an accredited industry standards-setting body, and is also the industry's leading nonprofit association providing technology education and information to the motion imaging industry.

Anything can happen when the attendees range from engineers and technical professionals to high-level business leaders in the motion picture studios, broadcast and cable networks, production and post-production community, software companies, systems integrators, manufacturers, display technologies and even distribution providers!

2013 SMPTE President Wendy Aylsworth

This is an exciting time for SMPTE, as its newly elected officers and governors, including the Society's first female president, Wendy Aylsworth, will assume office 1 January 2013. No stranger to SMPTE, Aylsworth was also the first woman to serve (in her current capacity) as SMPTE Executive Vice President, and is the Senior Vice President of technology at Warner Bros.

SMPTE Executive Director Barbara Lange

"With this election, the Society renews its emphasis on the three pillars of membership, standards and education; signifying the Society's focus on supporting a diverse, worldwide engineering workforce that can keep pace with rapid proliferation of technologies in our digital media ecosystem," said Barbara Lange, executive director of SMPTE.

SMPTE is known for being involved in all facets of the studio industry, from creation and management, to distribution and display of the moving image. The annual convention boasts three days of highly-technical sessions with the industry's top masters, a high-tech exhibition hall and unequalled networking opportunities - a truly exceptional opportunity! But in case you weren't able to attend, I wanted to present some of the highlights of the show.

When considering the numerous technical sessions, the technology-focused exhibit hall, the exciting welcome reception in the exhibit hall, the high-profile Industry Keynote Luncheon,the prestigious Honors & Awards Ceremony & Dinner and the invaluable opportunities provided by networking with top industry leaders, you almost lose sight of all the fantastic products and sponsors on display!

The exhibit hall is always the most amazing place at the SMPTE Show, and this year offers no less the amazement! AJA, Blackmagic, Grass Valley, Adobe and Telestream are all there, of course, and also Signiant, with its spectacular product!

Media Shuttle was shown-off to all the attendees, allowing them to see the speeds this no-subscription no-file limits transfer service is! Any time... any size... through his own branded portal! And although the files are moved along the cloud, they are not stored there - they are stored on his own internal network. Delivery is assured, with auto re-start and email delivery notifications... The Enterprise options are something to see and explore - scalability... security... it'a all there! Seeing it in action makes everyone a believer!

AJA put together a spectacular Show Reel, as they've done for the past several years... seeing is far better than seeing - so feast your squinties on this:





It was all about the Hyperdeck Studio for Blackmagic Design,with its familiar features, including VTR controls with a jog/shuttle wheel, illuminated transport buttons, RS-422 control and an LCD for video preview and timecode information. But it's the solid state disks (ssd) that feature incredibly fast read/write speeds that are perfect for uncompressed video recording! As long as you keep switching the disks out, it literally is the world's first SSD video recorder that lets you record forever! It's awesome - you have to check it out!

The SMPTE Technical Conference had presentations from the BBC, Belden, Cisco, Dolby Laboratories, Ericsson, FUJIFILM, Harmonic, Harris, HBO, IBM, Microsoft, NHK, NVIDIA, Motorola Mobility, Qualcomm, Snell, Skywalker Sound, Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Technicolor, and Verizon.

The opening keynote speaker at this year's technical conferencewas none other than the inventor of the digital video recorder (DVR) Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood! Roku, the newest little gizmo that provides streaming content to your television, is to be the demise of the DVR, Wood predicted. The founder of ReplayTV, where he served as President and CEO before the company's acquisition and subsequent sale to DirecTV, believes that the future is streaming television, with content available in any language at any time.

Although higher frames rates of 48, 60, and 120 frames/secondis the promise of digital technology and was the central focus of the show, many of the technical conferences were about topics such as "Applying File-Based Workflows" with experts in the field such as Christopher J Lennon (Harris Corporation, USA), Harold Geller (AD-Id, USA), Ian Hamilton (Signiant, Inc., Canada) & Tony Vasile (Signiant, Canada), and "Real-Time Workflows" featuring the likes of Thomas True (NVIDIA Corporation, USA) & Andrew Page (NVIDIA Corporation, USA), and Heiko Sparenberg (Fraunhofer IIS, Germany) & Siegfried Foessel (Fraunhofer IIS, Germany).

"Performance Issues in File-Based Workflows," "Algorithms and Compression," "Acquisition," "Finishing," "Advances in 3D Workflow" and "Sound Techniques" were among the other conferences. A full listing and synopsis of each is available here:
https://www.edas.info/p12219.

All things considered, this year's SMPTE Show was a smashing success! You wonder what they'll come up with next year to WOW us - but they do it each and every year! I often think that it's the technology that has to keep-up with SMPTE, not the other way around!

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