The monumental disaster continuing to plague Japan was felt throughout the NAB convention, as many companies, most with Japanese roots, said that while manufacturing had been stabilized in factories that had escaped initial earthquake and tsunami, many component suppliers had been negatively affected. This in turn, could cause a delay in product shipments later this year.

“On behalf of Sony, I want to thank all of you and our valued customers for generously reaching out with offers of help and donations to Japan relief organizations,” said Alec Shapiro, before delivering his opening remarks during the Sony press conference. “I’m happy to say that Sony employees escaped the tragedy without any personal harm and that our facilities are being restored.”

He said that Sony’s storage media factory in Sendai (in northern Japan) was affected and that production of the company’s HDCAM SR videotape is targeted to resume in early summer. In the mean time, Sony will work with its customers to mange their inventory needs “and will provide any necessary assistance to keep their companies operation as close to normal as possible.”

John Baisley, Panasonic’s executive vice president of media and products services, also addressed the issue at the top of his industry remarks during its press conference.

“We have received many questions about Panasonic’s personnel and infrastructure, and your outpouring of compassion has been heartwarming,” he said. “Although our factories came away from the disaster relatively unscathed, we are having issues with component suppliers, which were located in the affected area of Japan.”

Panasonic is working on the “model by model” impact, he said, “but suffice it to say that we will experience product availability issues in the short term.”

He added that shipments of the company’s solid-state P2 cards and other tape media will be unaffected.