Each year, NAB provides those folks working in the film/show production and postproduction industries with the latest technology to assist them in their craft. And this year, vendors did not disappoint, offering a range of new products—many of them powered by AI—ranging from HD and UHD video conversion tools, virtual production support, and anti-AI scraping capabilities, to those facilitating captioning/translation, color management, deep searches, and more.
“Somebody, please beam me out of here.” – Stevie Wayne, “The Fog,” Revolution Studios, 2005
Okay, April 2025 didn’t exactly start out as we envisioned, but there were still a lot of forced smiles and optimism at CinemaCon in Las Vegas at the beginning of the month, followed by more of the same the following week at NAB. How much fun, “excitement” can the film/show industry stand? It started with Cinema United’s (new name for National Association of Theater Owners, or NATO) CEO Mike O’Leary drawing a weak line in the sand, saying that a 45-day theatrical window was the absolute minimum they needed to ensure a film’s box-office success and meet consumers’ demands.
Sure, industry observer Stephen Follows has recently noted that the traditional theatrical industry continues to shrink along with broadcast TV, while streaming is just hitting its stride, using cinemas primarily as a way to build buzz, qualify for awards, and maximize viewer reach/revenue.
Speaking to the “hometown” issue, MPA’s (Motion Picture Association’s) Charles Rivkin encouraged studios/filmmakers to bring production back to the US despite the uncertainty of political fog. In a recent report, Follows noted the UK and EU film/show production industries were experiencing a record boom—up 31%—largely due to the US streaming firms’ global project commitment, which is good for local studios and creative/production teams but tough for mid-budget projects and indies.
Because of hybrid distribution, AI-driven production, and industry reinvention, which Follows emphasized is well underway, we took a closer look at these areas at NAB this past week.
As you would expect, you couldn’t turn around on the show floor without bumping into some company that didn’t have the definitive AI-enabled solution. Most of the folks didn’t know what flavor of AI they were using—OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, IBM, Cohere, Meta, H2O.ai, Palantir, DeepSeek…—but they had the answer. The problem was hardware or software folks were suddenly not certain exactly when the stuff would be delivered and what the cost will be.
More important, there is a sharp disagreement as to how much AI is too much. Ask the AI peddlers and they’ll say, while appealing to studios, that they can do it all, better, quicker… and less expensively. Talk to the reputable hardware/software firms that support the tens of thousands of creatives around the world, and they’ll say just enough to get rid of the tedious, boring stuff.
We spent our time with the latter because we think only people can deliver emotion-packed creativity. Of course, NAB was supposed to be a time you could see the stuff, ask when it will be delivered, and inquire as to how much it will cost. Cost suddenly became a “soft” subject. After all, someone got the dumb idea that “tariffs are a beautiful thing,” and no one talked about cost. But the industry will get past this—it always has!
If you wanted to know what’s what in AI, you followed the crowd to Nvidia’s area because they seem to be the foundation for all of the emerging AI tools and technologies folks are or will be using to streamline workflow, production, and distribution. The company has become the home for leading-edge AI technology for almost every industry, but they’ve become the linchpin for almost every aspect of the content/entertainment industry with their Blackwell platform, microservices, and blueprint for products, tools, and solutions the industry has come to rely on.
It was evident across the floor that AI isn’t simply emerging but is delivering strategic advantage that still relies on human creativity to improve workflows. We just have to constantly remember and remind folks that AI is an enabler… not a replacement.
Too many people—especially the AI wunderkinds—envision the technology as automatically delivering insanely good entertainment. But without a strong creative hand, it’s just…. Some of the intelligent Nvidia partners at the show included Amazon Web Services, V-Nova, Vizrt, Beamr, Dell, HP, Qvest, Telestream, Speechmatics, VAST, TwelveLabs, and more. In other words, AI permeated every aspect of content creation, distribution, and consumption discussions at the show, whether it is on the big screen, home set, or screen in the hand, because for the consumer, it’s all just entertainment.
We didn’t try to hit all of the booths, since Central Hall was closed this year and getting around was a real pain. Instead, we focused on the companies that, in our opinion, are leading the way for tomorrow.
Two of Nvidia’s partners that got a lot of attention at the show were Qvest and Cinnafilm. Qvest introduced two solutions for the industry that enable and simplify data extraction for faster, more reliable multi-camera work as well as automatically analyzing complex content production and sports coverage to minimize workflow media asset review and selection. They’re important, detail-oriented tasks that most people dread doing. The company’s AI solutions do it for hours on end, and no one seems to mind.
Cinnafilm’s new PixelStrings platform delivers a new AI-driven solution for HD and UHD video conversion, and it was intriguing to see in action. In addition to standards conversions, the new platform provides frame rate adjustment, noise re-education, retiming, and resolution scaling. Taking advantage of Nvidia’s SDK, Cinnafilm has been able to deliver real-time, super-resolution workflow and quickly transforms low-resolution content to dynamite UHD content.
One of the biggest concerns media companies and content owners have—which had been an ongoing “discussion” with AI firms—is the unauthorized use of their content by organizations, whether it’s for training their AI solutions or simply “borrowed” for other applications. Sam Bogoch, CEO of Axle AI, has been focused on media asset management (MAM) for years and has been constantly improving and enhancing the firm’s MAM and cloud solutions.
Unlike more general cloud services, Axle AI’s solutions are designed specifically to protect content from unauthorized use and are available in on-prem or cloud solutions that are fully self-contained and don’t require media or metadata to be sent to outside sources. Their high-resolution video and proxy media, metadata (both AI and user-generated), and user accounts remain private at all times, unlike most cloud-based systems in which media is stored on public accounts and may be subject to AI-based scraping and LLM training by large Internet vendors. It’s just one less thing a content creator/owner has to worry about.
We’ve always been impressed with the “go slow, carefully, and thoroughly test” approach Adobe has taken when the company released their Firefly-powered Premiere Pro products, and this year they continued their steady delivery of high-performance solutions for content production teams. This year, they rolled out generative resolution extension to 4K, added media intelligence, and updated color management and auto-translate captioning in 27 languages.
The AI-supported deep-search function works within the app and offline to act as assistant editor by looking for key terms and quickly loading them for easy editing. In addition, the metadata keywords provide even broader selection to expedite production. Additionally, Adobe has steadily updated and improved their color management system to take the guesswork out of ultra-dense, complicated color management with the ability to match multiple cameras and skin tone matching next on the “to-do” list. Meanwhile, Adobe’s Premiere Pro focus continues to become more indispensable in postproduction.
We’ve been impressed with Blackmagic Design for years, back when Founder Grant Petty very simply spelled out his goal for the company: simply to be the best camera firm in the industry. They did that this year with the new Cine 12K camera, which again expanded their price/performance production capabilities but at the same time made DaVinci Resolve 20 even more indispensable in the postproduction arena.
Keeping the heat on the competition, the company continues to develop/turn out a wild array of film and sports production solutions. It has come to the point that Blackmagic Design is providing an entertainment production/creation solution in almost every area. As with Adobe, about the time you think that they’ve done about as much as they can with DaVinci Resolve, they roll out 100-plus features and an array of AI tools including IntelliScript, Animated Subtitles, Multicam SmartSwitch, Audio Assistant, and more.
We were lucky at this year’s NAB to catch up with two longtime friends at the same time when we stopped by Larry Jordan’s podcast booth at the show. He has been a media industry trainer, consultant, and no-BS podcaster for years, and this year we arrived at his booth just as he was interviewing Larry O’Connor, CEO of OWC. Jordan provides an ongoing stream of information and education to content creation/production folks around the globe with his online podcasts and newsletters. We’ve always respected the other Larry, O’Connor, for founding OWC as a teenager and steadily growing the company and product line of tools that content creation/production people can consistently count on with dependable, economic, quality solutions the industry needs to succeed.
OWC introduced two new additions to their shared storage lineup this year with the Jellyfish B24 and S24 designed to meet the needs of today’s fast-moving creative teams for seamless, high-capacity collaboration and nearline video workflow backup for video editors, post teams, and creators. Designed for large and small video teams, OWC Jellyfish provides desktop or rack-mounted storage that provides easily expandable SSD storage for 4K, 6K, or 8K files with intuitive software management tools to help post teams and protect video files.
Speaking of improving quality and lowering costs, it was inevitable that someone would figure out how to put virtual production into an application and special effects capabilities into a camera. Foundry rolled out their Nuke Stage at NAB specifically for virtual production, from preproduction to final output. The new application brings VFX expertise into the creative decision-making production process. Supporting industry-standard formats, Nuke Stage provides VFX artists with the tools they need for seamless transitions between preproduction, real-time on-set integration, and postproduction refinement.
To help content owners work with and monetize all their broadcast and production content, Harmonic unveiled a new family of hybrid cloud and on premises AI-powered solutions. To lower providers’ video infrastructure costs, the company rolled out a cloud-native on-premises and cloud solution that includes live and time-shifting capabilities to enable broadcasters to move linear channels from any CDN. The company also unveiled workflow features including automatic ad break detection, AI-powered speech-to-text, advanced video compression, and AI-driven voice cloning and overdubbing. In addition, the company announced a number of strategic ad delivery/placement, managed cloud, and prem service partnership.
When he swept the Oscars with his film Parasite, Bong Joon Ho helped remove the stigma of audio translation and subtitles. But Netflix set the bar for subtitle and dubbed films/shows to enable subscribers to watch and understand/follow the project in more than 30 languages. The translation and subtitles have become so popular that the company reports many subscribers are using the added service to improve their multilingual capabilities. Suddenly, we’re not just mindlessly watching a great movie from another country… we’re studying.
Because people increasingly enjoy shows/films from around the globe, a number of organizations unveiled AI dubbing and subtitle capabilities, including very accurate voice cloning, translation, timing, and lip sync. Firms including Lexi Voice, AWS, Latakoo, Enco, and others unveiled their AI-powered translation and captioning products, along with the added features/capabilities of Adobe’s Premiere Pro, Avid’s advanced content suites, and SyncWords AI live subtitling and voice translation that supports 100 languages. It’s proving that people want to enjoy films/shows regardless of where they were created and where they are viewed.
More than 60,000 people attended this year’s NAB. They came from 160 countries to hear and see what is new for the content creation, production, and delivery industry, regardless of, or despite, the global political gyrations, because at the end of the day, we know people want the best entertainment, news, and sports play possible.
AI does enrich a lot of tools that creatives use by handling all of the garbage, but that was previously work that interns did as they learned how to create movies/shows from the ground up. We know there’s no holding back the technical advances the industry needs, but it can’t come at the cost of displacing the next generation of creatives. We need to bring them along as well. It’s what keeps the industry moving forward. And after folks go back to the office and begin creating new content, they will hear consumers say something similar to what Tom Malone said in The Fog when he told Nick, “You tell your pal, when he thaws out, he better have a damn good story.”
People want their movies/shows regardless of the screen they view them on. Content is still king! And theatres will have to up their game—more Dolby/AMC projects—to get more seats in their seats. Technology is just something folks use to move a great creative idea from the minds of those involved to the screen.
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