The other day, a member of our talented development team commented, quite accurately, that every time we return from an NAB Show, we nearly always refer to it as the biggest, busiest and best NAB ever.
 
If you’ve ever watched or read one of my presentations or blogs on workflow, you may recollect that I’m a fan of the Toyota Production System and the “Kaizen” concept of continuous improvement. However, I do confess that, following my colleagues’ observation, I momentarily felt a certain amount of pressure to come back from NAB 2015 with evidence that it really was bigger, busier and better than previous years.
 
However, earlier today I was talking to the editor of one of our excellent industry magazines about the most likely themes and trends for this year’s show and something struck me. Although I’m not much of a fan of “buzzword bingo,” given the host of announcements we at Dalet have for this year’s show, I’d place a bet on us sweeping the board.
 
Even before the show, we’ll bring UHD to Dalet AmberFin – supporting UHD inputs in our next release at the end of March. By decoupling format from transport mechanism, Video over IP is one of the most revolutionary changes to the industry in some time, and our Dalet Brio video server platform is spearheading that charge. Building on all of this, Dalet Galaxy, our media asset management platform, continues to facilitate and enhance collaborative workflows with new features for user interaction and geographically dispersed operations –I can barely contain myself from mentioning the “C” word!
 
It doesn’t stop there though. Back in September, we got quite emotional about being one of the first vendors to have a product certified for the creation of UK DPP files. The DPP has led the way in specifying standards and operational guidelines for file delivery and as other regions has followed, Dalet has been right there supporting them. Demonstrating our continued commitment to international standards that improve, ease and simplify the lives of our customers, we’ve now implemented the FIMS capture service in the Brio video server. I believe that initiatives like FIMS become ever more important as the video world increasingly leverages IT technology and, specifically, interaction between control and capture devices as we move to an era of hybrid SDI and IP acquisition.
 
Despite regulatory rulings in the US and elsewhere, captioning and subtitling technology has seen little innovation in the last few years. Since Dalet and AmberFin came together a year ago, we’ve really focused on this as an area where our knowledge and expertise can benefit the industry as a whole. We’re now ready to show you what we’ve been up to and how we can simplify captioning workflows and bring them into multi-platform, multi-version workflows in an effective and efficient way.
 
You’re probably aware of the Dalet Academy, which was launched with much fanfare in January this year. The response from the wider industry has simply been immense, and we now have many thousands of followers subscribed to the Bruce’s Shorts videos and reading our educational blog. For NAB 2015, we’ll be donning our robes and mortarboards to bring the Dalet Academy to the stage, live on our booth (SL4525). Bruce will be there – in his actual shorts – to present special live editions of the video series with support from other Dalet and industry experts for more short seminars. All of the presentations at the show will be followed by a special round-table discussion (limited seating). And while you’re keeping your media knowledge in good shape, there will also be an opportunity to win prizes that are sure to keep you in good shape too!
 
To make sure the excitement doesn’t overwhelm too much, we’re keeping a couple of bits of news to ourselves until the show itself, but if you want to find out more on any of the topics I’ve touched on here, be sure to get in touch, book an appointment, or read more on our dedicated NAB page.
 
As for our development team – sorry guys, I can already tell you that this year is going to be the biggest, busiest and best NAB Show so far!