IBC celebrates global innovation


Because of the unique character of the IBC Innovation Awards – recognising the application of the best of new technology, not just the latest products – it continues to rise in stature and collect ever greater nominations from around the world. It takes collaboration as well as innovation to make it onto the shortlist of finalists, all of which were honoured last night. Winning the content creation category was the second screen app developed by Red Bee Media for FX UK, and using audio watermarking technology from Civolution for synchronisation whenever the consumer viewed the programme. It added another dimension to post-apocalyptic cult horror series The Walking Dead, allowing the viewer to pit their instincts against their heroes. Accepting the award, Cecilia Beacon of Fox International, parent of FX UK, said: “Having shown the potential that the second screen has for engaging our target audience and enhancing their television experience, we are looking forward to building on this success across our wider content portfolio. We would like to thank Red Bee Media and, of course, IBC for helping us to achieve this great honour.”


Congratulations also went to ESPN for the way it augments its


Continued from cover>>


“It is a great honour for us at NHK to receive this prestigious award,” Matsumoto added.


Co-op development is honoured by IBC The IBC Judges’ Prize has gone to FIMS, the Framework for Interoperable Media Services. It was presented to the Advanced Media Workflow Association and the European Broadcasting Union, the two bodies which drove the establishment of FIMS, and to Bloomberg Television, which with the help of its technology partner Triskel was the first broadcaster to implement it. With the move to file-based workflows and content exchange


coverage of Grand Slam tennis with realtime graphics. Developed by Orad with support from Hawk- Eye and Spidercam, it analyses, processes and presents a huge amount of data fast enough for commentators to illustrate key points as each match progresses. TV Globo in Brazil is a regular on the IBC awards shortlist, and last night it too was highly commended for another innovation. Developed for Dança dos Famosos – the Brazilian version of Dancing with the Stars or Strictly Come Dancing – their new system, Vate, memorises shots set up by the director and operators during rehearsals, then prompts them with the sequence of shots during the live broadcast, giving a foundation should the celebrity dancers not get their sequences quite perfect. In the second category, the most innovative application of technology in content management, the award went to American motor sport NASCAR. To keep track of the thrills and spills of the races, its officials want instant access to crystal clear HD pictures from the 18 trackside cameras. Telestream built a new system for them, in association with Promise Technology and Quantum. Chris Witmayer, NASCAR


director of broadcast, production


now unstoppable, there is a clear need for some industry standardisation on the way that core metadata should be stored and presented. Without it there can be no seamless exchange of content between the installations of different producers and broadcasters, and between the products of different vendors. When AMWA and EBU saw that de facto standards were not emerging, they came together to initiate the process. They recognised that the standard was needed urgently, but that it would be unlikely to succeed if it was imposed: it had to be agreed. The two bodies brought together in the FIMS initiative virtually all of the manufacturers in the sector, together with a large


and new media, said: “The replay system that Telestream created is enabling our officials to perform their jobs in an even more efficient and time-sensitive manner. We have worked hard to keep NASCAR at the digital video forefront, and it is truly a privilege to be part of the IBC2012 Innovation Awards.” NASCAR narrowly edged out another sports application. Turner Sports reached the shortlist for its new content management system developed to track, log and retrieve the 27,000 live recording hours of content from more than 6,000 individual events each with around 300 live logged highlights – around two million highlights captured each year. The system was developed in house with technology partners including Dalet Digital Media, EVS, Stainless Code, Active Storage, NetApp, Quantum, Azurro Systems Integration, CineSys, Telecom Network Solutions and Enterprise Applications. The third finalist in the category was one of the biggest system integration projects undertaken in recent years: the launch of Sky News Arabia. While the infrastructure is firmly file-based with as much emphasis on connection to social media as to ingest, the centre itself still has to


operate as a highly pressurised broadcast centre, and the build, by TSL, features some of the largest monitor walls ever constructed. Technology partners included ScheduALL, Miranda Technologies, EVS and Broadcast Bionics. Taking the award for content delivery was a consumer app, the use by 4oD in the UK of the Microsoft Xbox and Kinect as a video on demand platform. As well as proving a great way of delivering content, it allowed the app, developed by Kit Digital, to use the voice and gesture control of the Kinect to navigate the system and find content. “I am absolutely delighted to accept this IBC Innovation Award,” said Sarah Milton, head of VoD at Channel 4. “We initiated the Xbox project to help our audience connect with our content through the devices they were using, with the interface they liked. Finally shouting at the television has a real impact! Thank you IBC for the award, and thank you to all our viewers in the UK for making it such a runaway success.” Three other projects joined them on the shortlist, and each was highly commended by the judges. DIRECTV has tackled the challenges of home networking, allowing its subscribers to view their content in any room. Because


the Home Media Center is based on open standards including UPnP, DLNA and RVU, any compliant client device presents the standard user interface and shows content at the perfect resolution. Technology partners included Broadcom, Entropic Communications, Jethead Development, Pace and Samsung. ITV in the UK was recognised for its trial of a personalised content replacement system. Project Pulse inserts content tailored for different users on different platforms, seamlessly into live streaming outputs so audiences do not even realise the content has been replaced. The technology developed by Yospace works in close collaboration with ITV’s Snell playout automation. The final presentation went to CBS Sports for its innovative solution to the challenge of putting a popular radio chat show, broadcast from Louisiana, onto television through the CBS production hub in New York. The radio host, Tim Brando, appeared on screen in last night’s ceremony to explain how VidyoCast’s conferencing technology has been adapted to carry four HD robotic cameras over conventional public and private IP paths, minimising the impact on his show but making it available to a wider audience.


importantly, this year also saw the first implementations, with Bloomberg Television actively adopting the framework.


Roman Mackiewicz of Bloomberg said: “By leveraging a SOA [service oriented architecture] approach with FIMS services, we have been able to reduce our overall integration time for systems by 70%, taking a typical transcode integration which would average four to six weeks down to three days.”


FIMS was made possible by


Receiving the Judges’ Prize from IBC’s Michael Lumley (far right) are (L-R) Roman Mackiewicz of Bloomberg; Brad Gilmer of AMWA; and Jean-Pierre Evain of the EBU


number of broadcasters from around the world. They also impressed upon them that this standard was required,


and quickly. By February of this year version 1.0 of the standard was published, along with APIs and software test routines. More


remarkable cross-industry co- operation, which is very much the spirit of the IBC Awards. Chairman judging panel Michael Lumley handed awards to Brad Gilmer of AMWA, Jean-Pierre Evain of EBU and Roman Mackiewicz of Bloomberg.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84