Sound & Communications April 2008 issue

My Top Five Things To See At NAB!
A short list of house of worship interests.
Let’s play word association. Here
goes: Enlightening, Mysterious,
Miraculous, Inspirational. What
event comes to your mind I’m
thinking, a wonderful worship
experience
Or, how about NAB The National
Association of Broadcasters convention
is here again! In fact, you may
be reading this while attending one
of the most enlightening events held
for our industry. Although we do not
specifically address broadcasting in
Sound & Communications, many
NAB exhibitors display products and
disseminate information that is vital
for our success as systems integrators,
including those of us who focus
on the House of Worship segment.
This month, I am going to give
you my Top Five things to see at
NAB. My short list represents items
that are currently hot in Houses of
Worship. Here we go!
• The first items I will see are
visual display systems of every
available type. Visual presentation
technologies remain high on the
wanted list for mega, large, medium
and small facilities. Projection
systems continue to be hot-ticket
items for first-time installations and
for worship facilities that desire to
upgrade from 4:3 to 16:9 or to HD.
In addition, HD flat screen displays
are desired for use inside
NAB exhibitors display
products and disseminate
information that is vital
for our success.
sanctuaries as additional eye candy
and for use as digital signage in
lobbies, hallways, classrooms and
other locations.
• Number two on my list are
technologies that generate, edit,
manage and deliver the content that
will be presented on visual display
systems. Included are video cameras,
presentation switchers and
presentation software.
Presentation software is a hot
topic today. In my view, to date,
“mysterious” has been the term
associated with presentation software.
Rarely have products delivered
what they advertised, although
you should be able to find some to
round out your NAB experience.
• Third on my list are audio and
video distribution technologies. In
particular, I will check out the latest
CD and DVD recording units that
can create multiple units in one
pass. I also plan to gander at printers
that print directly onto CDs and
DVDs. And, of course, systems that
record and print using automation.
• Fourth is to check out everything
possible regarding HDTV. Although
there seems to be a sense of stability
emerging in the HDTV debate (at
least in the Blu-ray/HD-DVD war),
much remains that must be sorted
out. For example, HDTV
uncompressed, HDV compressed
and many tricky issues tied to
HDTV content and distribution that
surely will be addressed at NAB. I
doubt there will be many conclusions,
though.
However, we can hope for a
miracle. We should be able to walk
away from NAB with a sense of the
trends in HDTV and information
that we can pass on to our clients in
the house of worship market who
are frantically trying to make sense
of HDTV and how to use it effectively.
• Fifth on my list is wireless audio
technologies, in particular, wireless
microphones. The reason this is
important is that wireless microphone
use will continue to be
affected in numerous markets as
more stations begin broadcasting in
HDTV. There is more data than ever
to help us determine where and how
HDTV broadcasts will alter certain
microphone/frequency use. But
there are many questions yet to be
answered by the wireless companies
and the future frequency paths they
are pursuing. The overarching issue
in this debate is wireless compatibility
among all the new and emerging
audio and video wireless technologies.
We must understand wireless
issues holistically so we can effectively
consult and serve the house of
worship sector.
(continued on page 115)
David Lee Jr., PhD, CEO of Lee Communication Inc., Orlando FL, is a licensed minister
and has more than 25 years of experience as a systems integrator. He is a member of Sound
& Communications’ Technical Council. Send comments to dlee@testa.com.
26 Sound & Communications
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