What is NAB?
For more than a century, the National Broadcast Association has put on NAB Show to serve as a place to exchange ideas around radio, television, and media technology. According to NAB, the technologies shared at the annual event “have impacted our industry’s evolution.” We have to agree, especially after attending this April’s event!
Vimeo’s presence at NAB 2025
This year marked Vimeo’s biggest post-pandemic appearance at NAB, and we were happy to be back. The buzz was undeniable — thousands of video professionals, tech enthusiasts, and industry leaders came together to talk about and test the latest advancements in video production, streaming, and broadcasting. Vimeo’s booth in the West Hall was a hub of activity, featuring live presentations on Vimeo Streaming, Vimeo Enterprise, and our AI capabilities.
As a sponsor of the Streaming Summit, Vimeo was at the heart of the streaming conversation. We hosted a live session with the visionary founders of World of Wonder, who shared stories from their streaming journey and insights into their usage of Vimeo. In the session, creators Randy and Fenton emphasized their long-term vision of connecting directly with their audience to create authentic content, highlighting the shift from traditional distribution to their successful direct-to-consumer model with WOW Presents Plus.
We also hosted special sessions with our friends from Adobe, NPAW, and Nikon — and partnered with Nikon to give away seven (yes, seven!) cameras throughout the event. We also held a Staff Picks screening, highlighting five short films, including “Opulent Round Edible Object,” “The Debutant,” and “The Sidewalk Artist.” It’s always a delight to see the talent of the Vimeo community on display.
Trends and takeaways from NAB
In addition to hanging out with customers and new friends at our booth, the Vimeo team explored the entire conference, where there were booths and keynotes on everything from cinema trends in Hollywood to emerging technologies. We observed a few trends during our time investigating.
Streaming and the creator economy
Streaming was a central theme at the event overall, and of course at the Streaming Summit, of which Vimeo was a proud sponsor. We’re incredibly passionate about helping our customers take ownership of their content and monetize it on their terms with our recent launch of Vimeo Streaming. It makes launching your own branded mobile or TV apps super simple.
Explore Vimeo Streaming →
We also observed that some camera manufacturers, like Sony, are adding live streaming via Wi-Fi directly to their cameras. Additionally, Blackmagic unveiled new livestream encoding and decoding boxes with RTMP and SRT.
AI, AR, and VR are all the rage
Lots of two-letter words were present at this year’s event. We saw various AI capabilities on display, including our own video summary generator, highlight reels, and auto translations. Adobe shared its latest Premiere Pro update, featuring AI enhancements like dubbing, generative extend for video, and media intelligence search. We noted that, while many companies touted AI, major leaders like OpenAI (Sora), Runway, and Descript were absent. It’s good to see humans are still at the forefront of artificial intelligence.
AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) also made a splash. Blackmagic demonstrated the Ursa Cine Immersive, the first all-in-one camera for shooting in Apple Immersive Video format, with powerful editing tools for 180-degree and special videos (which are supported through our Apple Vision Pro (AVP) app. Blackmagic also highlighted the latest AI features for DaVinci Resolve, including AI voice convert, AI multicam switch, and FX Depth Map 2.
The Vimeo team’s predictions after attending NAB 2025
- We see a growing trend of creators operating more like digital media brands with a focus on expanding their audience beyond social media’s algorithms. We predict that more content creators will cultivate direct relationships with their audiences by managing their distribution channels through platforms like Vimeo Streaming.
- We expect the rise of 180 and 360-degree action cameras to lead to more immersive films like “currents” by Vimeo Staff Pick winner Jake Oleson, as well as more simulated learning and development courses.
- Content security is becoming more important than ever. More global enterprises will see the need for a place to securely store their videos, protect them with tools like digital rights management (DRM) and geo-blocking, digitize massive archives, and analyze and summarize the content they have using AI. Vimeo Enterprise can help.
- We’re crossing our fingers that at least one Staff Pick will be filmed on one of the Nikon cameras we gave away at our booth!
We had a blast at NAB 2025 — thanks to everyone who made it such a rewarding event.
