Digital Video Assets Past and Future

The possible future of digital video assets. Flickr photo by Marco Senche Last week was NAB 2011. For those of you unfamiliar with NAB, it stands for the National Association of Broadcasters. Held every year in Las Vegas, NAB is the biggest show of the year for companies that build tools for video. All of the biggest players such as Apple, Avid Technology and Sony make their major announcements at NAB.

I went to my first NAB in 1993 when I was working for Avid Technology. At Avid, it was my responsibility to make sure that all 200+ systems were set up and working properly before the start of the show. This was not the most relaxing position to be in. Sometimes the hardware just didn’t want to cooperate. The worst years were the ones when the computer maker decided to reduce the number of card slots, requiring us to strap on a trouble-prone expansion chassis. My stomach is turning just typing about it.

During my tradeshow tenure, new technologies were continually announced. It was during the early 90’s that discussion of a network-based video post collaboration workflow began to make the rounds. The mid-90’s saw the first file-based professional video camera. Fast forward to 2011 – both network-based workflows and file-originated video editing are the norms. With more and more full-digital workflows (meaning no analog at any stage), the need for a digital asset management system to store and retrieve your digital assets becomes all the more important.

I’ll be interested to hear readers impressions of the biggest announcements this year.

Posted by James Burke
Flickr photo by Marco Senche

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