SAM’s Digital Fact Book used by IABM to create industry-wide glossary

The IABM Glossary, which has been unveiled at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, is designed to be a one-stop, online knowledge base for everyone involved in broadcast and media.

It will continue to build on the foundations of SAM’s Digital Fact Book, using IABM’s own technology experts to add definitions and explanations of new developments as they happen across the industry.

IABM will also be encouraging contributions from other in the indsutry including standards bodies, industry organisations, vendors, system integrators, end-users and individuals to ensure the glossary meets and maintains its ambition to be a universal knowledge resource for everyone in the industry.

Progressive resource

More than 250,000 copies of the Digital Fact Book have been given away by SAM and its predecessor, Quantel, over the 30 years since it was first published. It is also available online.

Throughout that time, it has been widely regarded as a key industry resource by everyone from engineers to educators.

The brainchild of David Scammell at Quantel, the Digital Fact Book was conceived as an unbiased, comprehensive and authoritative reference resource for the industry as it began to move from analogue to digital working.

‘SAM’s enormously generous gesture will be applauded by the industry – a fine example of the new collaborative broadcast and media world, where we are all stronger working together’ - Peter White, IABM

As the pace of change accelerated and new technologies were adopted by the industry, the Digital Fact Book continued to keep track, going through 14 major updates until it went online in 2015.

Bob Pank, then product manager at Quantel, took over the reins in the early 1990s and has edited every subsequent edition.

“With the ever-increasing rate of change and the entry of a whole new raft of technologies from outside the traditional broadcast space, it’s no longer practical for a single company to keep such a wide-ranging resource current,” commented SAM Chief Business Development and Marketing Officer Said Bacho.

“With its industry-wide reach, IABM is ideally placed to grow this invaluable resource, and we, at SAM, look forward to helping it continue to develop and carry forward its SAM founding principles into a new age.”

Online reference tool

“One of the first things I was given when I came into this industry was a copy of the Digital Fact Book,” added Peter White, IABM Chief Executive.

“It was invaluable to me then in gaining an understanding of the technologies that make our industry tick – and I still regularly refer to it online today.

“SAM’s enormously generous gesture will be applauded by the industry – a fine example of the new collaborative broadcast and media world, where we are all stronger working together.

“We will build on the solid foundations of SAM’s Digital Fact Book to give the industry a comprehensive knowledge base in The IABM Glossary that I hope will become a bookmark on everyone’s browsers.”