Monday is the official start of the NAB exhibits (though there are talks already happening today), but folks from Inlet started arriving as early as Wednesday of last week to start the set up. I got into town Thursday evening, so yesterday was my first full day running around. The booth looks great and the equipment is already here for us to begin set up! Today and tomorrow are the big crunch as everyone else makes their way into town and we get everything staged and ready to run. SL5624 is home sweet home for the next week.

So what is Inlet showing off?

Inlet has a variety of new things to show off, the big ones are:

Live Smooth & Dynamic Streaming

We are the first company to show live streaming video working with Smooth Streaming. We haven't just announced it, its actually working and we're showing it in our and Microsoft's booth! What's Smooth Streaming? Its a new way of delivery video to consumers online - it makes it easy for the consumer to watch video and ensure the quality of delivery by never pausing or stuttering along as it plays. It was created by Microsoft and plays back through a Silverlight player. Dynamic Streaming is a very similar implementation of by Adobe for Flash. Adobe also recently announced new DVR capabilities and we are showing on both the Dynamic Streaming and the DVR capabilities in our booth as well.

Next Version of Armada

Armada is the new product we announced at NAB 2008 - it is a combination of Transcoding Management, File Analysis, and other Content related tools that allow users to create a fully automated workflow for converting media from one form to another. Well, this year we have delivered on all the various stages we originally highlighted. We'll be demonstrating a version of Armada that includes file verification (to keep you from encoding bad files), analysis & business rules for sorting media to the right kinds of templates, a whole host of encoding options from mobile to web to blu ray, and quality control steps that catch any errors that might have been created during the whole processing cycle. Its a very technical application, but very cool regardless and a real must have for anybody dealing with lots of content. I'm actually hoping more encoding companies start thinking about adding similar features, because its the right way to think about approaching the problem of video compression (faster encode times only get you so far people).

Talking, Talking, Talking

As I mentioned in my last post, I'll be speaking several times during the show. Since then, I've also been asked to take part in a recording of This Week in Media on Monday night (which I'm guessing will post later in the week). Its been almost 9 months since I was on the show and I'm looking forward to it! I also am trying to arrange a time to chat on camera with Jeff Brooks who is here covering the show for Beet.tv. I'll post more info about both those when they happen.

In the meantime, I'd best start unpacking agin, before the other Inlet folk start giving me dirty looks!