Microsoft’s Booth-#S3510, located in the TV, Video and Film Exhibit Area at the Sands Expo Center, Level 2-is the focal point of Microsoft’s presence NAB98 in Las Vegas this week. Other highlights of the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual conference include:
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Softimage, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft that develops high-end, non-linear editing and animation tools, will be demonstrating two significant upgrades to their SOFTIMAGE|3D and SOFTIMAGE|DS products (booth #6654 in the Las Vegas Convention Center). SOFTIMAGE|3D version 3.8 brings new features for character animation, and SOFTIMAGE|3D 2.0 introduces a wide range of capabilities, including dual-stream support, that will reinforce the product’s increasingly strong position in the production and broadcast industries. Softimage also will demonstrate enhanced DTV technology content creation in Microsoft’s booth. This demonstration will show, for the first time, how content creators will combine video and audio with HTML to create compelling content with increased entertainment value for DTV broadcast.
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Also at NAB98, Microsoft, along with seven professional media companies, is announcing the Advanced Authoring Format (AAF), a media interchange format specification that enables content creators to develop content in any application and reuse the same content in another application. AAF is a particularly compelling technology for high-end content creators, such as those who develop film and video content for broadcast.
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With broadcasters poised to announce their strategy for digital television at NAB98, Microsoft is confident that many will embrace the progressive DTV standards it has proposed to accelerate the transition to digital TV in the United States and offer more compelling offerings to consumers.
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Microsoft’s WebTV group is demonstrating upgrades that extend the richness of the highly popular WebTV Plus Network Service. New “better TV” features, which will be available free to subscribers this summer, include TV integration, single-click VCR Record, Searchable TV Listings, and automatic notification when shows of interest are scheduled.
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Content developers working with Microsoft tools, such as Tribune Company, Avid, Digital Renaissance, Colby Effler & Partners, and others will be discussing progress in the development of new, interactive content.
