Gilli's IBC Diary

Today began in the shadow of last night’s IBC Awards Ceremony. The highest award, the International Honour for Excellence, went to the Science and Technical Research Laboratories of NHK. First established in 1930 in Tokyo, the labs have been part of amazing innovations including colour television, HD, satellite broadcasting and the plasma display.
Another big win went to FIMS, the Framework for Interoperable Media Systems. The initiative who recognised the need for standardisation in file-based content exchange won the Judges' Prize.
Jean-Pierre Evain of EBU, who jointly promoted the initiative with AMW, commented: "A few years ago I made a presentation at the IBC conference about service orientated architectures, and I would never have dreamed of results coming so fast to the market. The people who have been working on FIMS have been excellent, and the industry is recognising this effort."
Another notable award was for the Best Conference Paper, it went to Christian Reichert of the Fraunhofer Institute and his co-authors for their paper which describes the algorithms required to convert stereoscopic 3D television into multichannel signals needed for autostereoscopic screens. Their work is set be implemented to bring glasses-free 3D to the masses.
The IBC Innovation Awards winners were FX UK, Red Bee Media and Civolution, whose iPad app was synchronised to the television using audio watermarking, allowing the audience to time-shift a programme but still enjoy the added value.
In the content management category, American motorsport NASCAR were awarded for a new application developed by technology partner Telestream which gives race officials instant replays of incidents and accidents from multiple angles. 4oD, the on-demand service from Channel 4,was honoured for its innovative work in content delivery. Kit Digital created an app for the Microsoft Xbox and Kinect to allow viewers at home to use gestures and voice commands to find the programmes they want.
I visited the Vislink stand in one of my first appointments of the day. The wireless, video and IP technologies company is featuring its Advent Mantis MSAT Portable Data Terminal at the show. The MSAT product is designed to address the emerging Ka-Band satellite newsgathering requirements of broadcasters around the world. Stephen Rudd, CEO Vislink International Ltd said: "Mantis MSAT is an exciting departure for Vislink's Advent Satellite product portfolio. Never before have we had the combination of speed, flexibility and lightweight construction bundled into a single product. The combination is clearly the right one because our customers have made it the fastest-selling satellite terminal product in our 30-year history."
At the Strategy & Technology stand I discovered that it is now possible to stream television channels to Freeview set-top-boxes and connected TVs, typically at a fraction of the cost of traditional broadcasting. Synapse TV brings together SimpleStream, S&T and Vision21(V21) to deliver a one-stop solution to integrate over the top internet video into digital broadcasting systems.
Over at Blue Lucy Media the buzz surrounded the launch of a metered licencing system for all of its software-based content acquisition, production tool and metadata management products. The software is deployed on IT hardware in the normal way, but users only pay for time when the software is in production use this automatic licensing eliminates manual key entry, and quarterly billing for the service enables users to stay on budget. The firm believe that the broadcast and video production industry has not yet experienced the full benefit of cloud-based services, largely due to bandwidth/cost constraints associated with storing, moving and processing large video files.
With "TV everywhere" a top priority for many broadcasters, Yospace unveilied its CSM Cloud Network at the show, the first distributed network of servers specialising in OTT simulcast delivery with dynamic content replacement capabilities. The first phase of the network has been rolled out throughout North America and Europe and allows broadcasters to quickly establish simulcast streaming services with personalised content replacement without the need to move from their established content delivery network partners. "The Yospace CSM Cloud Network adds a lightweight control layer to HTTP-based streaming, potentially for a global audience," said David Springall, CTO of Yospace. "Through its integration with ad/content decision platforms, it delivers personalised advertising or content replacement for live or linear streaming while using existing CDNs to deliver the heavyweight video data, so is complementary to existing delivery networks."
Equinix, a global platform of high performance data centres, were today celebrating FACT Certification.The EMEA International Business ExchangeTM (IBX®) data centers have reached the necessary standard required to receive the key data protection. "Achieving FACT certification underlines our commitment to the European content and digital media industry, currently a significant growth driver for our business," said Dick Theunissen, CMO, Equinix EMEA. "It adds a sector-specific layer to our existing ISO security standards, making it clear to content owners and handlers that Equinix takes their security concerns seriously and can provide them with a turnkey solution."
Tonight is set to be another exciting evening at IBC as there will be a world exclusive taking place. That is the first complete screening of a feature length 3D movie Hugo using laser projection, specially prepared for a 14ft lambert presentation (2D brightness levels with 3D glasses) courtesy of Paramount Pictures International, Christie and XPAND 3D.
(GK)