Each year at the NAB Show, some of the best and brightest come together in Las Vegas to discuss and debate everything related to “content.” That covers a lot, eh? It sure does, and at AMD we happen to have our technology in quite a few industries and sectors related to the creation, delivery and consumption of “content.” This spans all forms of digital media, home entertainment, professional graphics, movie-making and much more. Bottom line – it’s one of the most exciting shows of the year, and one I always circle on my calendar.

And, as AMD continues to demonstrate leadership in balanced platform technologies that deliver vivid digital experiences, this event only grows in importance for us. After all, we are focused on developing hardware, and then working with software partners and all the ecosystem players to make NAB’s tagline a reality: bring content to life. Hardware alone can’t do this – we are relying on our partners, many of whom are at NAB this year. Just last week AMD launched breakthrough performance and features with the ATI FirePro^TM V8800 professional graphics card. Several of our partners will be showcasing this exciting new product that brings ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology to workstations.

Come check out our sponsorship in the Sony Creative Software booth (LVCC Hall C4 #C10515). In the digital entertainment market, there are few players more important than Sony which is why we couldn’t be more pleased to have AMD’s own Charlie Boswell speaking at the Sony Creative Software Users Event on April 12 at 6:30. You can find more details here. Need more incentive to stop by? No problem there. Musician extraordinaire Dweezil Zappa also will be speaking at the event. You will also notice an ATI Eyefinity demo in Sony’s booth theater – showcasing how dazzling content is when it is driven across multiple screens by ATI FirePro V8800 graphics. We are also showcasing the great pairing of the Sony Vegas software family with multi-core AMD processors, making it easy for professionals and enthusiasts to import and edit movies, images and music.

A number of other AMD partners will be showing off incredibly impressive technology at the show. That includes MainConcept, a global supplier of video and audio codec technologies for Multimedia, Broadcast & Professional video production and other industries. As a respected middleware vendor, MainConcept works with with many leading software companies worldwide, including Adobe, Microsoft and Sony. We’ve been working with MainConcept on testing and development of the OpenCL™ standard, and they’ll be featuring a technology demo of their H.264/AVC Encoder Pro codec package on an ATI FirePro V8800 professional graphics board. In a nutshell, OpenCL allows software and middleware companies like MainConcept to accelerate encoding technology with GPU compute. They are one of the early adopters of this technology that you’ll surely be seeing more often. You can find MainConcept at booth LVCC Hall S3 #SU6825.

Don’t miss out on Vizrt at NAB. For those who don’t know, Vizrt is a software company that creates content production tools for the digital media industry – from 3D graphics and maps, to integrated video workflow solutions and online publishing tools. They’ll be discussing their recent certification of AMD’s ATI FirePro^TM V8750 professional graphics cards for their Viz Video Wall ER™  solution, a display content solution that revolutionized video wall setups, creating unique surroundings for viewers. Keep an eye on this space as there is lots of buzz among the broadcast industry for GPU computing solutions to power enhanced graphics. One such example is how CNN relied on Vizrt for their election coverage. Stop by their booth (LVCC Hall S1 #SL5408) and check them out yourself, and don’t miss the display wall that will be driven by the ATI S400 sync module plus two ATI FirePro V8800 professional graphics cards.

These are just a few of the things I’m excited about for NAB. What about you? Are you attending this year? What’s catching your eye in the world of content?

Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) is a Product Marketing Director at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.