IBC 2008 came to a close today, with final attendance figures topping the 47,000 mark, a record number of industry folk. Restaurants and bars seemed to back up the numbers, as crowds were the norm.

So what was the final buzz? What trends did the show hint at? Here’s a quick wrap-up:

3D HD, for both cinema and TV, is definitely in the sights of industry executives. Post-production tools from Quantel, display technologies from Philips eliminate the need to wear glasses, and the fact that 23 3D HD movies are in production are all one needs to know that it is coming and coming fast ... Meanwhile, mobile video, all the rage in years past at IBC, seems to be a technology hunting for a market. The technology works, but business models continue to be grappled with. Of course, the biggest challenge is that mobile video needs a “perfect storm” of events for consumers to REALLY want it. First, the consumer needs to be outside of viewing range of a regular TV set (harder and harder as sets hit public spaces, bars, and restaurants). Second, the consumer needs to be free from having to focus on other things, like driving, conversing, or reading. And third, consumers need to be able to receive a signal (which makes tuning in on a subway or plane out of the question). So that basically leaves three places where it makes sense: sitting in a waiting room, sitting in an airport, and sitting in the backseat of a car. That isn’t quite enough to drive subscriptions of $15 and up. ...

That said, good old-fashioned HDTV is still popular, but now increasing efficiencies in transmission via technology like DVB-T2 (with 50% gains over DVB) and Dirac (the BBC tech referred to elsewhere on the blog) make it cheaper and, more important, better.

So what should Europeans expect in 2009? More HD channels, more interest in 3D HD, and, possibly, more interest in mobile TV.

Let’s check back next September and see how it all shakes out!

Navigating around the RAI Centre for this year’s IBC has been an uneven experience. The building and improvement work has made getting to some halls far easier than before but, at the same time, made once familiar parts of the place extremely unfamiliar. Trying to get to appointments on time is further hampered by hordes of people dragging their luggage around behind them. The “bag on a stick” phenomenon is already threatening to bring transport systems to a grinding halt and will do the same for exhibitions if we’re not careful.

Getting past the rows of trucks outside the RAI is daunting, but weaving between the vehicles is worthwhile to get an idea of where OB technology is going. In the case of Gearhouse Broadcast, it’s Australia. The company’s new HD truck is not destined for the UK market; representatives were quick to point out that fellow Gravity group subsidiary O21 Television is the branding in Britain and there would be no sense in internal competition.

HD1 is a three-expander and will accommodate up to 28 Sony HDC-1500 cameras, 12 six-channel EVS servers, and four Sony HDCAM VTRs. The vehicle is still to be fully fitted out, but desks and console frames are in place, and cabling is due to begin this week. Other gear will include Pro-Bel routing and Riedel intercoms, but right now, the only piece of equipment that has been installed is the Calrec Audio Sigma mixing console, featuring Bluefin processing. HD1 is to be used for sports and entertainment programming in Australia and will make its long journey there in January.

Further up the road is SIS 3, the new HD production vehicle from SIS. It is part of an overall modernisation of the uplinking and sports-data company’s fleet and coincides with a rebrand that brings together three formerly separate divisions together as SIS Live. This umbrella name covers not only SISLink and FatPipe but also the recently formed SIS Outside Broadcasts, presumably so journalists will stop putting “previously BBC OBs” in parentheses when we write about it.

SIS 3 has up to 20 Sony HDC-1500 cameras, a Sony MVS8000G vision mixer, and the now almost obligatory Calrec Sigma with Bluefin, alongside three edit areas and a large production suite. SIS Live director Mark Tugwell (previously with BBC OBs) calls the truck “an important investment,” describing it as “the new design template for our fleet.” Managing director David Meynell says the rebrand was due to the “recent growth and expansion of the company,” which had allowed the creation of “a cohesive, recognisable identity for the broadcast elements of the business.”

As televising sport gets more competitive and complex, wilder and wackier equipment appears to do jobs that people didn’t even know existed a few years ago. Broadcast Pix launched its new take on the good old production switcher at NAB and, during IBC, not only gave the Slate a European premiere but added a few new features for good measure.

Darts is hugely popular in The Netherlands, which is perhaps why Broadcast Pix used it to demonstrate the touch-screen feature and the newly added joystick controller for a Panasonic camera. Using a graphical representation of the dartboard, the operator is able to hit, say, a double-top, which will automatically refocus the camera on that area and change the score. The Slate is able to hold 60 hours of clips, as well as offering character generation and connection to an XML database.

Among the more daunting pieces of technology on show is the Norwegian Squarehead AudioScope concept. This arrangement of a wide-angle camera and 300 microphones in a directive array is designed to allow “audio zooms,” homing in on what is being said during an incident on the pitch or court. Mind you, judging from some competitors’ creative language heard through more-conventional means, Squarehead might have to build a profanity delay or bleep into the product.

The cost of AudioScope has put off many potential buyers, but TV2 of Norway is showing national solidarity by being the first to buy the system. This is being used by the broadcaster’s outside broadcast division OB Team and went into operation at the end of the summer. Perhaps we could use the technology to find out what will be the big trend for next year’s show by listening in on conversations among IBC attendees. Or maybe we should let that come as a big surprise.

The newest SES Americom satellite, AMC-21, goes live over North America on Oct. 1 and is ideal for occasional-use situations ... The Yanks took home an IBC innovation award as NBC Universal won a Content Management award for its Micah production workflow. Put together with partners Digital Rapids and Signiant, it helps the NBC prepare and distribute content to multiple platforms ... The Hannah Montana 3D movie took home the top prize ... Turner Sports inked a deal with IVP to use the company’s Curator tapeless system. The deal calls for a system with 23 server inputs, 20 server playout channels, 21 logging stations, and 19 editing systems to be in place so that personnel can put together packages and highlights via low-res proxy, with the EDL then passed off to Apple Final Cut Pro ... Newtek’s LiveControl LC-11 switching surface is shipping, designed to help TDs react more quickly to events ... EVS has sold 10 XT[2] servers with 500 hours of HD storage to MediaPro in Spain for use on Gol TV, a new football channel ... EVS also expects to remain focused on the high end of the instant-replay market despite the rollout of Dyno from Thomson Grass Valley, a replay product that is initially targeted at venues and facilities that can’t afford EVS replay solutions.

One of the more intriguing technologies at IBC is the Dirac compression family developed by the BBC. The broadcaster, facing the challenge of distributing HD without replacing an existing national 270-Mbps network and SDI links, took matters into their own hands. The result? Dirac Pro 270, a compression technology that can deliver HDTV signals over SD 270-Mbps links. It was used successfully this past summer to deliver Summer Olympics signals from Beijing to London, and next-generation technology can deliver 1080p at 60 Hz over 1.5 Mbps (it can also deliver two 1.5-Mbps signals over the single 1.5-Mbps circuit, opening the door for 3D HD applications).

Even better? Latency is only 2.5 milliseconds, thanks to its “Group of Picture” and wavelet-based structure. Entropy coding, similar to that used for zip files, is also playing a role.

Most important, the BBC has made the technology open to anyone to use without paying royalties. Manufacturers can develop Dirac products, broadcasters and others can deploy it, and the BBC does not hold any patents for Dirac technology.

The buzz in the IBC Daily newsroom yesterday was the ongoing controversy swirling around UK plans to auction off spectrum. Catherine Smadja, head of special projects, policy, and strategy at the BBC, came out swinging against any ideas of auctioning off spectrum following the DTV transition in the UK. “I hope other countries will follow a different route,” she told Kate Bulkley of the IBC Daily about Ofcom plans to hold technology- and service-neutral auctions of spectrum.

While her words are wise, especially when it comes to the simple statement that the quick pace of technological change should cause a government to proceed modestly with auctions that will have long-term effects, don't expect any nation to step up — especially when it’s using taxpayer dollars to bail out financial institutions. Expect the desperate times to become more desperate.

For the record, Ofcom is still in the consulting phase with respect to post-DTV transition spectrum allocations.

Okay, so maybe it won’t be here for another 12 years, but heck, that’s five years earlier than previously thought! What is “it”? Super Hi-Vision, the next-generation (okay, maybe the next-next-next-generation) HD technology, which offers a whopping 33 million pixels and is also referred to as 8k.

I just returned from a stunning demo that involved some amazing uncompressed images plus some live fiber transmissions from London and live satellite transmissions from Torino, with the latter at 140 Mbps (courtesy of 16 MPEG-4 h.264 encoders working in parallel). Also expect it to eventually make use of BBC’s Dirac coding, which recently allowed HD transmissions from Beijing to arrive via pipes that previously handled SD.

In other Super Hi-Vision news, the DM-3400 56-inch LCD screen with 3,840 x 2,160 pixels from Astro offered even more wow factor with seemingly 3D images. Get over the $50,000 price tag and buy one today!

Last night, SVG held its third-annual Sport Technology reception at IBC, and, once again, all had a great time. Sponsored by Chyron, Linear Acoustic, SES Americom, and SOS Global, the party drew more than 200 SVG vendors and members, gathering to catch up on the latest news and gossip and also to honor Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (BOB) and all of the vendors who made the Summer Games a smashing hit around the world.