Veterans of the North Hall were somewhat surprised at the brisk activity through the hall during the day.
Karl Winkler of Lectrosonics said, "It's been incredibly busy all day... We're feeling pretty good."
Rich Foersman, is attending the NAB Show for Comcast in Chicago. Watching a demo at the Lectrosonics booth he said, "We are going to be adding additional channels to our system and so I'm looking at servers for HD and SD playout … and I'm taking a general look at production equipment to see what's new and what are the latest innovations in the market."
Not surprising, the seemingly busiest section of the North Hall was around the Harris booth, or perhaps compound would be a better word.
But Harris was given a run for their money by the appearance of Miss America at the NAB Public Service Pavilion. Miss America 2009, Katie Stam, is at the NAB Show to promote volunteerism and she drew quite a crowd at the back of the hall.
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Utah Scientific's Producer Panel
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MUST SEE
Top of the "Cool, Had to See" list (besides Miss America) were touchscreen switchers and monitors.
Wolhler's Touch-it features a pair of 7-inch screens, one with up to 16 thumbnails and the other featuring full screen HD/SD clips selected from the thumbnails.
Carl Dempsey, president of Wohler said, "Press the one you want and you get the larger version … so you can monitor 16 channels, HD or SD from this very small screen."
Utah Scientific, not to be outdone, had its "Producer Panel." Scott Brosen explained, "The panel has a multiviewer built in so the producer can sit in the control room and choose which shot he wants just by touching that shot."
One of the big preshow announcements was the acquisition of codec maker APT by Audemat Group of France. According to Christophe Poulain who runs Audemat's operations in the Americas indicated that many APT personnel would be retained in key sales positions. He also described the new Ecreso Next FM processor/transmitter line: "What is very exciting for us is the introduction of the Ecreso FM transmitter line … something we are going to push in the U.S."
Winkler of Lectrosonics demoed a digital plug-on, the HM. "It uses AA batteries for long life. It's a digital hybrid so it's noncompanded audio. It has an LCD and a membrane switch. Sounds wonderful and it's easy to use."
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Christophe Poulain and the New Next FM
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Looking in a different microphone direction, Audio-Techica's Steve Savanyu said, "The new BP896 is our new 2.5 millimeter subminiature lav; unobtrusive on camera, high-quality sound, easy to hide." He also showed the new "extra" long shotgun mic, BP4071L.
He added that A-T has audio seminars going on everyday. Dennis Baxter, sound designer for the recent Olympic games is hosting 5.1 seminars and Fred Ginsberg is demonstrating how to place lavalier microphones — an especially sensitive practice.
Over at the Genelec booth, Will Eggleston was demoing the smallest Genelec units yet. He said: "The 6010 system is a very compact monitoring system. It's got a matching subwoofer. It's the smallest Genelec you've ever seen and it's got the biggest sound you would ever imagine."
He added: "The show's been great. First time in the North Hall in four or five years, and it's nice to be some place where it's a little mellower, where people can actually listen to the product and hear something."
Pro Products Brand Manager for D&M Professional Karl Gustafson also had a positive thought for the first day of the show. "The show's going fairly well compared to what people were saying and I was anticipating. For the first day it's been very busy," he said.
He showed the latest Marantz offering, the PMD661, a handheld SD media recorder. "We think it's going to be fairly successful because Marantz has a reliable reputation in the broadcast market plus the 661 has all the new technical advances that allows flexibility for about every aspect of broadcast acquisition."