[Tig] NAB newsflash

[Rob Lingelbach]

 From UPI/Reuters

LAS VEGAS, NV USA   April 1, 2008

The National Association of Broadcasters found itself
scrambling at the very last minute to find a home for
April's 2008 Convention, as the agreement with the City
of Las Vegas and its Convention Center was voided
yesterday after acrimonious last-minute talks.

The NAB Convention has been moved to the Baltimore
Convention Center, and airlines are preparing special
shuttles to ferry the expected 50,000 participants and
their displays to the new location. The Hotel Shuttle Bus
Association will also introduce new Ride-Fly options that
will allow the vehicles to enter, without fee, directly
into the fuselages of specially-equipped Airbus
SuperJumbo cargo planes provided by Steve Wynn, thereby
launching his new auto-Airbus service, WynnBus, with an
eye to future revenue.  "We're extremely happy to serve the NAB  
community, and already feel an extraordinary contact" with  
conventioneers, says Wynn.

For the 2008 convention, NAB is expected to unveil two
new proposals of transmission standards for continental
US television: ANALTAL, and DIGALOG. Combining innovative
features of wideband analog signals withthe lossless
potential of digital schemes, these new standards will be
incompatible with existing viewing technology but ready
to usher in a new decade of progress, particularly with
respect to monitoring, in 2010. ANALTAL presents the SDI
signal in biological, rectal-linear/biologarithmic space,
while DIGALOG displays will make use of highly
viewer-specific iterative-mechano-precise responses,
based on feedback, as provided by probes. Universal,
Sony, Thomson/Grass Valley, and Microsoft have endorsed
DIGALOG, while Disney Studios and Time/Warner have formed
a consortium backing ANALTAL. Microsoft has adapted
DIGALOG in a proprietary manner, thus possibly forming a
third option for 2010. "These new standards have
everything we need to face a content-oriented future, and
will prove a boon to manufacturers and vendors alike,
when the technology is ready," stated NAB Director
Phyllis Diller. "The market will decide, and we're
confident the more powerful consortium will be the best."

The phlegmatic Wayne Newton, who hasn't been out of Las
Vegas for 6 decades, has promised to join the
conventioneers in Baltimore to help provide that venue
with "the exoticism, that flash and sparkle" for which
Las Vegas is known.

More information available at
http://www.colorist.org/NAB_top_page1e.jpg