The race is on.(National Association of Broadcasters show)(Editorial)

It's a safe assumption that a number of NAB attendees and exhibitors, in town for the show, lost a dollar or two at the Las Vegas gaming tables. After all, the odds favor the house. But, there were many NAB vendors that made what can be considered a safe bet: products supporting HD.

For the past few years, the trade floor has been abuzz with software and hardware vendors pitching their so-called HD products. Some companies actually came out of the gate early, and at full gallop, with high-definition offerings and support, while others trotted gingerly around the track with tools to handle "pseudo HD." And there were those that decided to ignore the sound of the starter's pistol and wait for wider HD adoption. However, after this year's conference, there should be no doubt that the HD race is on, and that it is in full swing.

Among those companies that are well into their first few laps are the founding members of Adobe's OpenHD initiative, created by industry leaders to deliver integrated, certified Windows-based HD solutions that make the move from SD to HD easier and more affordable. Last April, the alliance started with Dell, HP, Intel, and Microsoft, and has since expanded to include 10 additional partners within the digital media segment--AJA, AMD, Blackmagic, Bluefish, CineForm, Focusrite, Ciprico, Matrox, Nvidia, and Rorke Data. The result is the creation of new turnkey solutions supporting HD, from HDV to real-time compressed and uncompressed HD. Moreover, "A-list" companies Apple, Avid, and Autodesk, as well as others, have been gearing up for HD for quite some time and have the supported hardware (and software) to show for their efforts. For example, Apple--the first to support native uncompressed editing not long ago--now, with its move to PCI Express on a bus architecture, supports three streams of uncompressed ...