HDTV All Over CES

I just got back from this year's annual geekfest, the Consumer Electronics Show, and it was quite the spectacle. I'll highlight some of the more signficant developments in HDTV in separate posts, but wanted to say a few words about CES itself.

I think it's gotten to be too much.

I know people who didn't make the pilgrimage to Vegas this year because with 150,000 attendees and almost 3,000 exhibitors, it's simply grown too large. The lines for taxis and shuttles can be as long as an hour. It took my shuttle over an hour to get from the convention center to the Venetian yesterday afternoon -- a distance of five blocks (it was so bad that I got off the bus halfway through and walked the rest of the way because it was quicker).

It's nearly impossible to get a restaurant table. Hotels that normally cost $100 a night get marked up to $400.

And as for the show itself, it's incredibly chaotic. Six separate convention venues make it a nightmare to get around (three convention halls plus the Hilton, the Sands and this year meeting rooms in the Venetian for the first time). If you're in the north hall and have a meeting in the south hall, you'd better allow a good 20 minutes to get there unless you want to be dripping sweat when you arrive. There are so many different little conferences going on within the main convention that it's nearly impossible to keep track of what's what, and where you need to be. And for whatever reason, the amount of swag and other freebies has declined considerably over the last few years to the point where I came home virtually empty-handed other than product marketing packets (which did have the positive effect of making my suitcase lighter).

That said, it's still the place to see everything and everyone in this industry. Company executives often help man their own booths and I even bumped into the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Martin, at the Digeo booth. For HDTV afficionados, there are more LCDs, plasmas, DLPs and prototypes than you will ever see in your life. There is so much to see and do at CES that it does make the utter hassle of it all mostly worth it.

I just don't have to like it.