Washington DC

May 2006


About 27 members and guests attended the NAB 2006 Wrap meeting held May 25 at the Washington DC headquarters of the National Association of Broadcasters.  Lynn Claudy, Graham Jones, and Kelly Williams from NAB Science and Technology and guest speaker Mark Schubin, currently SMPTE's Editorial Director - Television, gave their view of some of the speeches, events, and exhibits at the convention.

Lynn Claudy described some of the industry trends and developments, including discussion on the firm date set for the end of analog broadcasting. He summarized the key points made by the new NAB President, David Rehr, in his opening address at the convention. This included the commitment that NAB would be working to ensure that broadcaster's output would be available everywhere on every type of platform. Lynn also described a project now under way for development of a low-cost DTV converter box that NAB and MSTV have commissioned. This is intended to feed analog sets after the changeover to digital-only transmissions. Graham Jones followed this with a description of how the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference is planned, gave a summary of the papers program, and showed extracts from some of the presentations. Kelly Williams outlined some of the keynote speeches that set the tone and themes for the various conferences and played clips from the speech given at the Engineering Luncheon by Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine.

Mark Schubin then talked about what he had seen at the convention and presented his perspective on the most significant exhibits at the convention, covering the areas of acquisition, storage, processing, distribution, presentation, and test and measurement. He gave his usual insightful assessment of the performance and features of equipment on offer, in particular the sharpness and resolution of cameras, making clear than things are not always what they seem. The evening concluded with some interesting questions and discussions on issues raised in the presentations.

Many thanks are extended to Mark Schubin for traveling from New York to be at the meeting, and to NAB for their hospitality.

-Graham Jones, Section Manager/Program Chair


Speakers at the NAB 2006 Wrapup: Kelly Williams, Lynn Claudy, Mark Schubin, and Graham Jones


Lynn Claudy presentation (PDF)

Graham Jones presentation (PDF)

Mark Schubin presentation (PDF)