Connections

Todd Collart, GM and SVP of Deluxe Digital Distribution, has been to his fair share of IBC conferences. And he sees this week’s Sept. 8-13 confab in Amsterdam offering more than any previous IBC in the four-plus decades it’s brought together broadcastings best and brightest.

“Keeping pace with the changing TV landscape is forcing content owners and distributors to rethink where and how to invest to make more content available across more distribution and viewing options,” Collart said. “Given the complexity of delivering content in all of the new formats, to an expanding number of platforms, we’re seeing tremendous interest in outsourced managed services as an alternative to investing in nascent technologies and new workflows.”

Record attendance (55,000-plus), a record number of exhibitors (1,700-plus) and a record number of panels and presentations (with two completely new session tracks: Platform Futures and Audiences and Advertising) are expected this week at IBC, and the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) will be well represented, with nearly 30 MESA members exhibiting.

“The video landscape is evolving at a breakneck speed, faster than we’ve ever really seen before,” said Campbell Foster, marketing director for Adobe Primetime. “Consumers these days have little adherence to traditional formats, where consuming content via a connected TV device or on social media are behaviors that can cement in very short periods of time.

“For the industry, it makes an event like IBC ever more important.”

Here’s a quick look at what some of MESA’s members are up to this week at IBC:

Adobe

Adobe Primetime is getting an upgrade at IBC, with Adobe promising more personalization for clients and their customers, and a better, buffer-free cross-platform experience overall.

Adobe is introducing live-linear ad replacement for every screen, allowing media companies to easily replace broadcast TV ad spots with dynamically targeted ads. Primetime clients will be able to access a host of data points — from

Devices and audience behaviors to Nielsen segments and psychographic data — to help deliver personalized ads, which Adobe is offering via a hybrid approach (both server-side and client-side) for live and on-demand streaming.

On the Adobe Analytics front, the company is promising new and improved measurement for both content and the ads around the content. Viewer time spent, impressions, ad performance, geography, devices, bounce rates, and more are part of the upgraded service.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services will spend its IBC time showing off its secure and on-demand cloud services, enabling media and entertainment companies to automate their media supply chain, as well as their broadcast workflows.

Applicaster

Israel’s Applicaster comes into IBC with a major win already under its belt: One of the largest independent media groups in Europe teamed with the company to bring TV channels on mobile platforms across Europe.

ProSiebenSat.1 Group — with more than 42 million TV homes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland — had Applicaster develop six new apps for its TV channels in Germany, using Applicaster’s app-publishing platform Zapp, a SaaS that offers broadcasters a way to launch and maintain feature-filled video apps.

The apps — ProSieben, SAT.1, kabel eins, SAT.1 Gold, sixx and ProSieben MAXX —place a strong emphasis on live TV viewing (with a free live stream of each channel) and also have VOD features for the latest TV episodes.

Peter Cassidy, GM of Europe for Applicaster, touted Zapp’s ability to allow apps to be managed remotely, without requiring updates on the user side.

“We are very proud to work with ProSiebenSat.1 on this groundbreaking project and to deliver six beautiful new apps that their viewers can enjoy to watch live TV, catch up and interact with their favorite shows,” Cassidy said.

Aspera

IBM’s Aspera has been racking up some major wins of late: The company announced heading into IBC that Sky, Europe’s biggest entertainment distributor, has tapped Aspera for its high-speed data solutions. And before that major announcement, the company had shared that MLBAM, Digital Media Services, BASE Media Cloud and others had signed on to use Aspera Files, a multi-tenant SaaS solution running on IBM Cloud.

At IBC, Aspera will also be showcasing FASPStream, its new, turnkey application software line, aimed at enabling live streaming of broadcast-quality video worldwide, using commodity Internet networks, with simple playout and very little start-up time. Aspera will also be showing off its new Aspera Virtual Catcher (AVC) application, which works in conjunction with Aspera Cargo or Point to Point.

On Sept. 10 at 5 p.m. at its booth (Hall 7 #G20, upper deck) Aspera will showcase what FASPStream is capable of.

Deluxe

Deluxe will be showing off its range of media management workflows and video delivery technologies, for both linear and VOD delivery in the home, along with OTT and broadcast solutions.

Simplifying the packaging and delivery of assets — regardless of devices, platforms or territories — is what Deluxe has been after with its solutions, including enabling the launch of new channels over IP, and meeting the needs of companies looking to deliver 4K and high-dynamic range (HDR) video.

Dolby

There won’t be a shortage of screens at IBC, but one screen dwarfs the rest: The Big Screen Experience, which features a session of tracks dedicated to the visual and audio experience. For 2016, Dolby helped give IBC’s projection technology an upgrade, including Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos for presentations.

EMC

EMC will show off several new products and media workflow solutions, including interoperability with Isilon storage and the Venice Ingest and Production platform from and Rohde & Schwarz, a real-time, file-based ingest and playout server; a combined solution with NLTek enabling integration with Avid Interplay; advances in 4K workflows; a live channel playout solution with Imagine Communications; and a joint solution with Anevia that allows media companies to deliver cloud-based multi-platform OTT services.

EIDR

Don Dulchinos, executive director of the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR), knows exactly what he wants to come away with after Amsterdam. “At IBC, I will be looking for vendor systems that can integrate EIDR standard identifiers to speed time-to-market for avails of high-value broadcaster content to multichannel and online retail distributors,” he said.

EIDR is partnering with fellow MESA member RSG Media to launch the first-ever EIDR exhibit at IBC, located in the Content Everywhere section. Several companies, including reporter and piracy API firm Excipio, content discovery and video cloud technology company Cinfo, and French media giant Vivendi, will show how they incorporate EIDR into their businesses.

Fortium

Fortium Technologies’ MediaSeal file encryption technology will be on full display at IBC, as the company shares how content companies like NBC Universal, Disney, Sony, Warner, Lionsgate, Fox, Paramount and vendors like Deluxe and Technicolor rely on the encryption technology, to protect against loss.

Giant Interactive

Giant Interactive is using IBC to debut of a suite of iTunes Extras production tools, streamlining the development process of the iTunes Store’s digital bonus package, with the promise of reducing errors, and expediting client review and approval. A metadata creation tool, a verification tool and an emulator are included.

“These tools have increased the efficiency of the process tremendously and minimize the possibility of errors“, said Bhanu Srikanth, CTO of Giant Interactive. “They also solve several workflow and qualitative issues we have experienced that hindered efficient development. The verifier and emulator enable our team to conduct a thorough review before uploading to iTunes and also allow our clients to review and approve their content in advance, saving valuable time. Prior to the development of these tools, we would have to wait until the content is live to perform any QC.”

GrayMeta

GrayMeta’s next-gen MetaFarm Platform and IRIS Video Solutions 3.1 will be on display at IBC, with integration of Microsoft Office and PST magnets for MetaFarm, allowing users to search Word documents and email in combination with other data points.

MetaFarm aims to let clients find any asset in seconds and monetize those assets in ways they may not have thought of before. Key phrases, faces, logos and even emotions are built into the metadata solution and machine learning GrayMeta’s produced.

“We are delighted to offer solutions that allow our customers to transform their businesses and unleash productivity. We are also excited to have assembled this talented of a leadership team to turn this bold vision into reality,” said Tim Stockhaus, CEO of GrayMeta. “These are exciting times as Moore’s law of data, cognitive computing, and cloud computing usher in a sea change in how customers manage and monetize their data with unparalleled opportunities and challenges.”

GrayMeta also announced it has added John Motz as CTO, Josh Wiggins as CRO, Chuck Doud as CFO, Vishesh Kumar as CMO, and Rory Donnely as SVP of business development.

Kaltura and Microsoft Azure

Announced shortly before IBC, Kaltura’s partnership with Microsoft Azure has produced a new video technology offering that enables media companies to host and stream video at scale, across all devices, with a a cloud-based OTT platform that can encode, store, and deliver OTT TV content.

“Today’s content providers need more than just a great user experience,” says Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura co-founder, chairman, and CEO. “They need the reliability and flexibility of the cloud to ensure that their users will be able to access that experience from wherever they are. We’re delighted to couple our proven OTT solution with Microsoft Azure’s scalable cloud infrastructure to provide world-class OTT services to customers worldwide.”

MediaSilo

Video sharing platform MediaSilo announced right before IBC that its on-demand watermarking solution SafeStream would now have a forensic watermarking option, thanks to a new partnership with ContentArmor, integrating that company’s forensic watermarking technology into the service.

BBC, ITV and Hulu are among the companies currently using SafeStream to protect pre-release content.

“We’ve seen tremendous response to SafeStream, and our clients are now using it to introduce accountability into everything from rough cut review to the sales process to press screeners,” said Kai Pradel, CEO of MediaSilo. “But we’ve had many requests for an invisible alternative for situations when a visual mark may be interruptive to the viewing experience. We’re thrilled to be able to incorporate ContentArmor’s groundbreaking forensic watermarking technology into SafeStream, making it a flexible, holistic solution for all stages of the production process.”

Quantum

Quantum’s oft-praised Xcellis workflow storage system makes its IBC debut, with Quantum demonstrating how the converged capabilities of its solution “empower users to boost their efficiency, productivity and creativity in delivering the products and services that drive their businesses.”

Those who check out Xcellis at IBC will see full-resolution 4K and 6K VFX, animation and editorial workflow, all handled quickly.

To see what other MESA members have planned at IBC, stay tuned for the Sept. 7 edition of the M&E Daily.