What I want to see at NAB 2006: beyond faster, better, cheaper.(issues)

Every year I join the spring pilgrimage to Las Vegas and worship at the shrine of unaffordable and unavailable equipment. Every NAB I'm impressed, inspired and frustrated; sometimes all by the same vendor. But like a moth, every year I'm drawn back to the flame because I have real equipment needs. And I like flashing lights. This year is all about HD, so here is what I want to see in Vegas for production and post.

Everything shown at NAB 2005 but shipping now. Come on, manufacturers. You've had 12 months. Some NAB exhibits seem like experiments to provide data proving the mythical Osborne effect. So show me shipping versions of what I saw last year!

Mid-range HD cameras. With so many of us buying HD cameras this year, let's see economies of scale kick in for HD cameras and lenses. I mean beyond HDV. I'm not looking for five-dollar prime lenses. HDCAM and DVCPRO HD are good mid-range HD formats. What can you sell me for $20,000 to $30,000?

Industrial HD lenses. Lenses for HD cinematography look great and cost a fortune. The lenses on HD prosumer cameras are passable. What about the middle ground? For those mid-range HD cameras, I want to see the HD equivalent of moderately priced industrial SD lenses for low-cost HD cameras.

Higher bit-rate HDV. Both 19 Mbps 720p and 25 Mbps 1080i HDV look better than they should. The 6-frame GOP on JVC's GY-HD100U HDV camera is appealing. Sony's HDV-like 35 MBps XD-CAM HD is intriguing. Why not 50 Mbps HDV with a 6-frame GOP? HDV isn't the right term, but it's so much more concise than the anti-euphonic quartet of long-GOP MPEG-2 MP@H-14, MP@HL, 422P@H-14 and 422P@HL.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

New acquisition compression formats. HDV, DVCPRO HD and HDCAM are fine. But what about JPEG2000 and all the other great ideas engineers have developed? Let's see more compression options in cameras.