NAB 2013 -- Monday

Rain? In Las Vegas? Really? yes. and on the 23rd floor, snow flurries were seen. yes, really. the concierge will back me up on that.

It's not often one steps off of the shuttle bus into the convention center and sees something noteworthy, let alone cool.

but... first thing at the Sony booth was just that something.

it was a video switcher that used "4K" imaging to cover a sporting event.

basically, the cameras are shooting a picture that is 3840 pixels × 2160 pixels (8.3 mega pixel in a 16:9 aspect ratio) which is larger than what we currently use for HD video (1920pixels : 1080pixels). since the image is bigger than the screen, you can then digitally "zoom in" on the video to get a close up look. (think of the pinch motion on an iPhone to zoom in on that vacation picture you're showing Uncle Harriet.) 

The upper part of the screen, the "panoramic image" is shot by two stationary 4K cameras sitting right next to each other, and then stitched together at the half court line. 

 the switcher then "crops" the image, in real time, to make the tight shot you want (the two lower images).

in this picture, you can see the two blue-ish bounding boxes which outline the tighter shots.

 the cool thing is that then the entire court is recorded.  then, when it's time for a replay, the cameras have captured everything that is happening. you then can crop down on the action.
the picture looked really good to about a full body shot of a person, then it was zoomed in too far and the quality dropped off.

of course, after seeing this, i couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a "4K imaging solution," making this the 3D-TV of 2013. (in other words, the thing that is neat, but really doesn't have a practical application to us).

Suddenly... there was free cake from the 100th birthday of the American Cancer Society.

while coming back from a meeting with our MyNetwork TV Representative, this small group of union picketers/strikers were walking down the street towards the convention center, and giving cabbies a right tongue-lashing.

in asking them what was going on, one of them explained to me they were angry about being fired for not following routes as set up by their cab company... basically saying that they as cabbies are forced to take a longer route to inflate fares or "long hauling." about 90 mins later, the group on the corner had really swelled and was getting their point across.


interesting day indeed.