NAB Predictions

It's that time of year again where I go out on a limb and make my predictions for NewTek's new products at NAB.

Remember I have no insider knowledge, just 28 years of observing NewTek so I could be entirely off base. Definitely don't make any purchase decisions based on my wild-ass guesses!

New low end machine.
A sub TC Mini (TC Micro?) machine aimed at the educational market. This may be wishful thinking but with the discontinuation of the long in the tooth TC40 NewTek isn't price competitive in the Elementary school market. Software based competitors like Livestream Studio, vMix and WireCast are making inroads into what had, since the Video Toaster days, been a NewTek stronghold.

What I'd like to see is either a big price drop on the Mini (which I doubt will happen) or a new stripped down model. The only way I see NewTek being able to do this is by leaving out the custom I/O hardware and making the machine NDI only. Leave a single HDMI output so it can be connected to an external device like an ATSC or streaming encoder and use the standard PC audio hardware so you can connect an external mixer and speakers but otherwise make it completely IP based.

Pare down the feature set a little (max 4 inputs, fewer output mixes, one record channel, a single  streaming channel etc.) then sell it for $2k. The school can hang a couple of PTZ1 cameras or Connect Sparks on it and get the job done. This would keep the lower end customer in the NewTek ecosystem without cannibalizing sales of the higher end models too badly. I'd prefer a 1U rackmount because I'm not a big fan of the Mini's form factor.

New 3Play(s).
I'm thinking either a 3Play with more (8) inputs or a way to chain two 3P1's together. Or maybe a way to leverage the record function of an NC1 I/O to add more channels to the 3P1. I then see the 3P 440 and 4800 being discontinued as redundant.

I'd like to see an updated replacement for the 3P 425. We sell a lot more of these then the other 3Play models because of it's price point but I'd like to see the low end 3Play get something more like the 3P1 user interface. So I propose an NDI only 3Play, leave out all the SDI I/O hardware and keep the price low, like under $10k. This could replace both the 425 and the discontinued 3Play Mini.

A 4k PTZ camera
The OEM for the NewTek PTZ1 has a 4k camera so I can see NewTek popping in some NDI firmware and bringing it to market as the PTZ4k.

Smaller Features
I'm expecting small upgrades here and there, the one I hope for most is the ability to have Alpha on the output of an M/E. This way you can do fancy multi-layer graphics in the M/E then display them on a DSK with full transparency.

Will NewTek do any of this stuff? I hope so but that'a a lot of new products for one trade show. So these products could be spread out over the next 6 to 9 months.