The start of the New Year offers a vantage point from which we are able to look back on dominant technological trends that have been shaping our industry, even as we attempt to track its evolution, going forward.

As is tradition, Asia Image speaks to regional honchos of leading technology companies to gain insights into what was hot in 2007; and brewing for 2008, featured under a new regular section, TechnoSpeak.

With the Beijing Olympics approaching in summer, last year’s hottest topic – HD – is showing no signs of fizzle yet. Industry pundits view the much-hyped sporting event as being the most complex undertaking in broadcast history, involving more broadband capacity, hours of live programming, and HD content than all the previous Olympics combined.

The Olympics is just one of the reasons HD gained traction in 2007. According to Shunichi Fujioka, division manager, content creation products marketing division, broadcast and professional Pacific Asia company (a division of Sony Corporation of Hong Kong Ltd), the broad implementation of HD is merely in keeping with the ongoing digital revolution. Calling 2007 “another year of high definition”, Fujioka avers: “Transition to digital broadcasting and entertainment accelerated the enhancement of HD products and its solutions.”

Last year’s buzz from the Sony camp surrounded the F23 digital cinema camera, along with networked HD technology. Attesting that “HD will continue to take centrestage in 2008”, Fujioka predicts: “We foresee that applications of HD broadcast and production technologies will continue to increase in the broadcast arena as well as in new and non-traditional usage.”

Sharing Fujioka’s sentiments, Chander-Kishore Madan, vice president, commercial systems unit, personal systems group, Asia Pacific and Japan, Hewlett Packard, concurs: “2007 saw the high definition ecosystem bloom into maturity as HDTVs, industrial HD broadcast and content creation systems, as well as HD content itself, grow at the fastest rates in history.”

In the past year, content creators in particular have greatly leveraged on HP’s new breed of dual core and quad-core processor workstations, based on Intel Xeon processors. In the near future, Madan believes that “regional markets like China” that have gone HD, “should fuel a strong and sustained push for HD content in the region.”

Beyond the HD phenomenon, techno guru Jeff Rosica, senior vice president, broadcast & professional solutions, Thomson, touches on 2007’s emerging technologies, such as the CMOS Imager. Convinced that it is fast becoming the de-facto standard in low-cost and mid-range camcorders, Rosica asserts: “We should also see more cameras, perhaps cameras at the higher end, moving from 2/3-inch CCDs to 2/3-inch CMOS imagers.” Could Rosica be hinting at CMOS technology finally good enough to capture true HD images?

We’re currently in what I’d like to call the ‘pre-NAB’ phase – NAB, the world’s largest launch pad for TV/Film technologies, opens its doors in April. In three months, new products and their surrounding buzz would usually come crawling out of the woodwork. By then, will HD continue its reign? Will a new contender step up to the challenge? Watch this space for the answer!