One guy was going around IBC on a segway that was modified for steadycam work. Rising from the platform was a rest where you could put your legs to keep upright whilst to the side the steadycam mount was free to move for steady shots. That’s just one of the contraptions. Simple automated camera heads could be found at Sony’s stand, JVC and other companies. Each one had a remote control which would allow you to select between up to 18 cameras depending on the cofiguration.
IBC is a big show. There are a lot of things to see. Some of those are fun and innovative whilst others are less interesting. I’ve noticed that there are quite a few companies showing mobile and IPTV solutions. Many of them are multiplatform, web tv, mobile and other. they work on a variety of codecs. Anothr aspect is the virtual studio and automated processes. We see many remote camera rigs, remote jibs, remote 3d modeling cameras and to some extent virtual modelling and sets before any of the shooting is ever done.
One of the advantages of going to IBC is that you get to play with toys like the N96. I did this at the Nokia Ovi stand. They were demonstrating the possibilities of OVI as well as DVB-H. DVB-H is one method of getting live television broadcasts to the phone using a different part of spectrum than usual GSM. The number of channels is limited to BBC HD, CNN and a few more channels.