NAB 2018: The year of Artificial Intelligence - Screen Africa

This year attendance at NAB 2018 was down on previous years but despite the lower visitor numbers the conference content and exhibition produced the buzz and excitement that NAB is synonymous for. This year's show had a little bit of everything, but the main trends seem to revolve around RGB lighting, large format cameras, and a game changing codec, whilst the conference sessions followed some interesting threads under the umbrella of next-generation technologies, namely artificial intelligence (AI), immersive media and cyber security. From production to distribution, artificial intelligence has taken the broadcast and filmmaking industries by storm. The 2018 edition of NAB dedicated time and space to showcase some of the developments in AI with conference sessions like "Machine Intelligence: The Evolution of Content Production Aided by Machine Learning", "Optimising Production with Neural Networks", "How Machine Intelligence is Transforming Editorial", "New Frontiers in Animation and Computer Graphics", "From Dailies to Master – Machine Intelligence Comes to Video Workflows" and, finally, "The Future of Content with Machine Intelligence". The series of sessions looked at machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence technologies and at how studios, networks and creative service companies can use them to help produce content.