In appreciation of the reporters, bloggers, and journalists covering the 2016 NAB Show [National Association of Broadcasters], and in a collaborative effort by NAB and ShowStoppers, the fifth annual ShowStoppers@NAB Show, the official press event of the show, took place Sunday, April 17, at the Wynn Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas.
By: Fredwill Hernandez
The well organized event made the press feel welcomed with complimentary food and beverages, two fully stocked bars, and self-serve food stations that ranged from hamburger sliders to hot wing style chicken sandwiches, a salad bar to Italian cuisine, and coffee to a variety of deserts.
The event gave companies such as Portrait Displays/Spectra Cal, Brother, DJI , Foxfury Lighting, LookAt, Sennheiser, Play on, among others, a chance to explain, preview and demonstrate, and also give journalists hands-on product introductions and to answer any questions.
Among things that stood out was Brother’s Air Scouter WD-200B, a cool wearable little gadget.
“What I am wearing today is our Air Scouter [WD-200B] an innovative viewfinder with overhead mounted display that lets you see what the camera is seeing [capturing] during low-angle shots, and you don’t have to guess what you’re your filming when you hold your camera over your head to shoot in a crowd allowing the user to film with ease,” explained Ayako Ohishi, Innovation Business Planning Group, of Brother’s [Electronic & Innovation Development Dept].
As I made my rounds I ran into a company with a colorful [booth] display, and as I enquired, this is how its co-CEO enlightened me.
“Portrait Displays just acquired a company called Spectra Cal, and our focus here tonight is intended to talk about the entire eco-system from production of displays to the user working with and controlling their notebook monitors all-in-one, and televisions, and the importance of color accuracy in the display world today. As you see there is a huge amount of change going on in the TV industry moving to HDR, the UHD Alliance is out there talking about high dynamic range, better viewing, better pixels, better resolution, and also the increasing in wide- gamut and increase in contrast ratio.
Our business simply put is focused on insuring that what the artist created is properly view on televisions, notebooks, all in ones, monitors, and the eco system of everything, that’s the simple message of our focus, making sure that color is accurate and is providing good content for controlling that objective,” eloquently expressed Martin E. Fishman, co CEO, Portrait Displays. “If you look at what were showing in the way of our software CalMAN is the preeminent software application throughout the world for working with the factories that are producing the displays to ensure that the consumers are buying accurate displays when they are buying systems or televisions in their world, and were that company that delivers that kind of end solution to the consumer and the key provider to the original equipment manufacturer [OEM] business.”
On the drone side of things, DJI, who has been on the forefront of drones long before drones became popular, took off and became cool to own and fly, made its presence felt.
As streaming begins to flourish and take flight, a new company aims to capitalize on that.
“PlayOn is the first ever SVR or Streaming Video Recorder. It allows users to record shows and movies from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video on Demand, Comedy Central, MTV or any of the top 100 streaming sites. Once users record their show or movie they can move it to a device like a tablet or a mobile phone and watch it when they’re offline. PlayOn users can set their recording to automatically skip the ads on play back; think of PlayOn as a DVR for streaming content,” explained Jim Holland, Marketing Director, PlayOn. “If you think of the DVR that connects to your cable box and can record all the content you get through cable – PlayOn can record all the shows and movies available for streaming on your PC. If the shows are taken offline you don’t have to worry because you can watch them when you have the time, instead of needing to worry about watching them before they’re taken offline. PlayOn also allows users to set up subscription recordings, so they can set it up to record a new episode of a show once it becomes available online. For example, when a new episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon comes on, PlayOn will automatically record and have it ready for you to watch it in the morning when you get up. It’s only $4.99 a month, $29.99 a year, or $49.99 for a lifetime subscription.”
“Today we are unveiling the MKE 440 camera microphone that uses a new type of stereo arrangement to create truly exceptional audio results for DSLR users,” explained Jeffrey Touzeau, PR Manager United States, Sennheiser [through Huming Bird Media]. “We are also unveiling both the HandMic digital and MK 4 digital, on the other hand, which has been created in a collaborative effort with audio interface company Apogee for users that prefer to record audio via their smart devices, they will yield excellent results, whether your producing podcasts, making studio-quality mobile audio recordings, or recording in a mobile journalism setting.”
