BUSINESS: SHOW REVIEW
InterBEE 2019
Visitors flocked to the Makuhari Messe to bear witness to a mature and innovative Japanese AV market
As Tokyo 2020 approaches, sports was the theme for InterBEE
The Sennheiser booth held Ambeo immersive audio demos
Artwiz’s Kai Seita Mutsuro and Allen & Heath’s Val Gilbert launch the new Avantis console
Hibino Intersound’s audio brands were exhibited alongside the Harman portfolio
8K screens around the show provided visitors with a distraction
WITH THE RUGBY WORLD CUP DONE AND DUSTED AND the 2020 Summer Olympics on the horizon, it was no surprise that InterBEE 2019 was declared a ‘sports-themed event’ by show organiser, Japan Electronics Show Association (JESA). ‘It’s an exciting time to be in Japan, the first country to broadcast the Olympics in 8K,’ said NAB president and CEO, Gordon Smith, as he addressed the largely Japanese audience at his keynote speech on the opening morning. ‘Your country’s broadcasters are demonstrating a commitment to enhancing the viewing experience using the latest technology.’ Smith’s words were borne out by the array of cutting-edge AV solutions on display, as established technology rubbed shoulders with an increased presence of gear for non-traditional broadcasting, including streaming, digital apps and social media. It goes without saying that AVoIP has become the main theme of most industry tradeshows. Raising the bar at InterBEE, an AVoIP remote production network had been created for the first time, linking manufacturers across the show. This included a Calrec Artemis console on the Hibino stand in Hall 1, a Lawo VSM broadcast control system, V_matrix on Otaritec’s Hall 2 booth together with a Riedel Artist 32 and Bolero BP, also in Hall 2, and a Tektronix Prism monitoring solution and Seiko servers in Hall 3. Grass Valley transceivers in Hall 4, Itochu cable systems in Hall 5 and an EVS XT-VIA production server in Hall 6 joined the network, and, over in Hall 7, more equipment including an Ikegami camera, Arista Networks CloudVision
78 PRO AVL ASIA Januar y–Februar y 2020
A young visitor to the Mix Wave stand gets a demo on the API Audio 2248 console
Amphion’s Anssi Hyvonen on the Mix Wave stand
Roland’s Tomoya Nakauchi demonstrates the VR-50HK multi-format AV mixer
cloud networking solution and a Harmonic Spectrum X media server completed the entire production workflow. Audinate was exhibiting Dante AV, Dante Domain Manager, Dante AVIO adapters and a wide range of Dante-enabled products in the midst of Hall 2, while the spread of Dante-enabled products continued apace across the show floor. ‘InterBEE attracts a very client-focused crowd and the main focus is on IP,’ said Boon Siong Tan, Lawo’s sales director for Southeast Asia. ‘Education is what is needed in an IP workflow as it is very complex, and many visitors come to us for that. We are showing audio, video, monitoring and control so they can see and appreciate how an IP workflow functions.’ Another theme of the contemporary AV tradeshow was also very much in evidence, with many loudspeaker manufacturers offering immersive audio demos on their stands. This included d&b audiotechnik, which had created an impressive demo room and hosted the Asian launch of its new A Series augmented array system, and Genelec, which also introduced the latest members of The Ones studio monitors, the 8351B and the 8361A, to Japan. Astro Spatial Audio teamed up with Martin Audio and Brax LED panels to completely immerse the audience in sound and images to demonstrate its objectbased solution, Sara II. Away from the show floor, Meyer Sound and distributor Artwiz took a separate room for a demo based around its new Ultra-X40 point source and UPQ-D1 wide coverage speakers and D-Mitri digital audio platform,
