When this newsletter reaches you, the 2015 Musikmesse and Prolight+Sound shows in Frankfurt, Germany, will be under way and
audioXpress is there covering one of the most exciting weeks of technology news and product announcements the professional audio industry has witnessed in many years.
We will publish the most important updates on our audioxpress.com website and you will be able to follow the announcements via our social media pages, from Facebook to Twitter with regular picture updates through Instagram.
From Las Vegas, NV, where the 2015 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show is about to close its doors, we have undoubtedly seen an extraordinary string of technology announcements in the broadcast and digital media industries. At the 2015 NAB show, IP technology was clearly the dominant force in audio and video production and distribution. With 4K UHD video becoming the norm, we would expect an important increment in all the underlying infrastructure technologies and audio is also benefiting from the widespread AVB, Dante, and AES67 AoIP protocols on the production side.
While visiting a huge technology show such as NAB, it certainly is strange to follow the ongoing debate about high resolution audio (HRA) on the consumer market. Because on the professional content production side, the highest quality levels are already widely implemented, both in uncompressed workflows and in distribution where the most efficient compression schemes have to be applied. It also seems that television, film, and games production will quickly push the industry forward toward objected-oriented audio production.
That's why the recent ATSC 3.0 trial announcements and the competing proposals from Dolby (Atmos), DTS (DTS:X), and the MPEG-H consortium are indeed very relevant. From a production perspective, all major audio recording, mixing console, and DAW manufacturers have already demonstrated the tools needed to generate great immersive audio experiences. And as DTS already made it clear, the consumer audio electronic industry is going to follow suit.
But this week, we are "immersed" in interesting announcements from the live sound and performance industries, with the sound reinforcement segment showing an impressive vitality. At the Prolight+Sound show in Frankfurt, every single PA and console manufacturer has made impressive product launches and the pace of innovation in professional audio is clearly accelerating. I honestly don't recall being at a show with so many "revolutionary" product announcements in Live Sound as Prolight+Sound 2015.
And because Prolight+Sound is just a segment of the larger 2015 Musikmesse, the largest music industry show in the world, there's a good reason why those announcements cause such an impact, with an extensive program of events on all four days. Where else can you listen to live appearances from piano virtuoso Lang Lang and heavy-metal legend Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) in the same day? With more than 1,000 concerts, autograph sessions, workshops, presentations, and performances, Musikmesse offers something for everyone.
