M+E Daily

If cloud technology is your thing, you won’t be disappointed at this month’s NAB Show.

The two-day Cloud Innovation Conference runs Tuesday April 19 and Wednesday April 20, and features top technologists — many of them members of the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) discussing how the media and entertainment industry is rapidly migrating to the cloud on all fronts.

“We have some really fantastic speakers sharing how the cloud is helping their organization, including some heavy hitters for keynotes,” said Erik Weaver, project manager for the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California’s (ETC@USC) production in the cloud efforts. He organized the NAB cloud conference.

Among the keynotes: Andy Shenkler, EVP and chief Solutions and technology officer for Sony DADC New Media Solutions, will speak 1:30-2:15 p.m. on Tuesday in room S219 (where all cloud panels will be held). Before he gets on the stage, Eric Brewer, VP of Google Cloud Platform, will kick off the two-day event at 9:10 a.m. with a keynote on how the data created and distributed by the media industry is exploding, and how the cloud is proving to be a savior.

In the keynote “Building a Better On-Ramp to Media in the Cloud,” Sam Blackman, CEO and co-founder of Elemental Technologies, will tackle how content distributors can reduce total cost of ownership by moving video operations into the cloud, using Amazon Web Services.

And several highlights can be found among the slew of panels tackling the Hollywood and the cloud:

• “Women in Technology Hollywood – Cloud and a Changing World” at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday sees consultant Christy King leading a panel of top tech women from Aspera (CEO and co-founder Michelle Munson), Wendy Aylsworth with SyncOnSet,
Darcy Antonellis, CEO of Vubiquity and Ginny Davis, CIO of Technicolor, discussing how their companies manage the cloud.

• The 9:40 a.m. panel “Leadership for Key Players in the Industry” has players from each phase of the content chain offering an overview of current cloud technologies used in the media and entertainment industry, with panelists including Bill Roberts, senior director of professional video product management at Adobe, William Law chief architect of media for Akamai, Rashid Desai, SVP and CTO of Avid, and Ross Piper, VP of enterprise solutions for Dropbox.

• Weaver himself will kick off the event Tuesday at 9 a.m. with a “Cloud Leadership” presentation, discussing the solutions attendees will hear about during the two days.

• In “A Walk in the Cloud” on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. has panelists discussing how the cloud has shaped the media and entertainment industry over the last three years, and will feature Christine Thomas, senior director of content solutions for Dolby, Brian Lillie, CIO of Equinix, Spencer Stephens, CTO for Sony, Chris Blandy, EVP of technology solutions for Fox Networks Group, Douglas Reinart, SVP of strategy and operations for ContentBridge Systems, and Google’s Brewer.

• In “Lessons in the Cloud-based Workflows” on Tuesday at 2:15 p.m., Joshua Kolden
C4 framework architect for StudioPyxis, Shane Archiquette, CTO of communications and media entertainment for Hitachi Data Systems, Matthew Turner, CTO of media and entertainment for MarkLogic Corporation, and Daniel De La Rosa, director of film production technologies for Universal Pictures talking about all the workflow issues that pop up when dealing with the cloud.

• “VFX & Rendering in the Cloud” on Wednesday at 10 a.m. sees Srikanth Belwadi, senior product manager for Google Cloud Platform, Chris Bond, founder, CEO and president of Thinkbox Software, Ron Bianchini, CEO of Avere Systems and others talking about the challenges of doing the heavy digital stuff in the cloud.