It was show time again for India's broadcast and allied field professionals last week.

The best and biggest names from broadcasting corporates around the world converged at the Y B Chavan Centre in Mumbai on 30-31 October to participate in the 11th Broadcast India symposium, organised by Saicom Trade Fairs & Exhibitions.

The attacks on the WTC in New York and subsequent events took their toll on the number of delegates that attended the two-day symposium. Saicom founder Ramesh Meer, the man behind the event, however, averred that this year's show was a much bigger affair with more innovative equipment and visitors thronging the exhibition that followed for three days at the World Trade Centre in Mumbai.

The symposium attracted a host of speakers from companies all over the globe, and covered a range of topics ranging from the role of Interactive TV, envisaged as the future for television to a lecture-demonstration on JVC Digital D-9 format offering.

There were talks on digital broadcast and automation / asset management, workflow planning for growth and profit in today's scenario. Speakers included experts on routing technology, digital A / V recording and post-production. There was also a workshop for scriptwriters (Write serials you can watch with your children).

IBM's Jyoti Satyanathan spoke on the relevance of e-business in digital content creation ('e-business the key to the future'), while Seagate Technologies' Sharad Srivastava elaborated on the role played by hard disk drives for the film and television industry (disk drives, the drivers of industry).

The home crowd also got in-depth knowledge about the serious sport of gaming which has a cult status abroad, but is still in a fledgling state in India (Gaming gets serious). Executives from Panasonic and Matsushita Corp spoke of the potential of digital cinema (Digitalising cinema).

The serious sessions were interspersed with exhibits of special effects created by Meer's FX factory for the Hindi film industry recently (The future of film). The technical talks on content management, delivery and distribution were followed by interactive sessions on their effect on the technological scenario in India. Singapore based Da Vinci MD Scott Craig spoke about the concept of real time color correction (The many hues of colour correction).

SGI national sales manager L Sivasankaran spoke about his company, which looks after content management, delivery and distribution. (Content is king) UK-based Video Playback's Kevin Solway spoke about video assist playback and editing without time losses.This concept is handy for continuous monitoring as every movie or commercial uses computer graphics these days, he said. The hand held combo video assist uses a recorder, a monitor, a mixer and an online editor to render special effects when shooting. This combo transfers shoots to the hard disk, directly without cueing and time is saved by online corrections while shooting.


Representatives from Panasonic and Sony spoke about their latest offerings related to advances in digital cinema and media asset management (Banking on software). Finland headquartered Genelac's Clifford Pereira topped off the session with a lecture-demo on surround sound audio monitoring and on how to get the best sound effects (Sound sense).

What made these sessions interesting was the interactivity element with the audience hurling questions at the speakers and panelists.

The trade exhibition, held from 1-3 November, boasted 323 brand names. Manufacturers showcased their products, offering the latest technologies, products and solutions related to production and post-production, distribution and broadcast for the television and film industry. Meer, himself an expert on digital technology and special effects, said that at least 21,000 visitors went through the gates of the exhibition.

Various highly qualified and experienced professionals gave their views on the latest technologies available for the television and film Industry at the event.

The equipment spoken about at the symposium was on display at the exhibition. Products ranged from higher end production gizmos worth millions of dollars to cheaper varieties like connectors, cables and MP3 Chinese players.


Click here to read more about the exhibition…