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IBC2024 ACCELERATORS: AI MEDIA INNOVATION LABS AND IP NETWORKS


The fi nal day of the 2024 IBC Accelerator programme sees AI and IP topping the agenda on the Innovation Stage. First up, three project streams explore the practicality of using AI in audience validation, creative storytelling, and live sports and event production in ‘AI Media Innovation Labs’. The ‘AI Audience Validation Assistant (AAVA)’


Project was proposed by Champions Zwart and Evangelische Omroep (EO) and supported by Co-Champions BNN VARA, Channel 4 and YLE. The central plank of the project is to use AI as a tool to combat bias while promoting inclusion and diversity by developing a broad range of AI personas that represent the complexity of today’s society. These AI personas will then be able to guide media organisations to create more engaging content, being available at an early production and development stage without the cost and complexity of current methods such as focus groups. The ultimate endgame would be to create a


standardised interface to query the personas. “Another option would be to select or fi lter characteristics which eventually result in one or more multiple digital twins (personas), or a more sophisticated way would be to give users the ability to ask questions about/describe a specifi c persona,” says O’Jay Medina, Data Engineer at Zwart. Proposed by Champions Rai and EBU, ‘Generative AI in Action’ aims to leverage AI in creative storytelling and production by using a range of AI tools to make a pilot with the help of Participants Pluxbox, Plan IX Labs, Respeecher, Xansr Media, Infuse Video, RKG Group and Somersault Agency.


Roberto Iacoviello, Lead Research Engineer, Rai, has been masterminding the ambitious project. As he summarised in his initial pitch: “This project will investigate the impact of AI in the broadcast environment to produce an animated and live-action TV series, leveraging AI for the script development, starting from an input by creatives, then visual storyboarding and fi nally multimedia production, such as 3D images, audio and music, with the aim of increasing workfl ow automation, effi ciency and innovation.” “The innovation here is that we don’t want to use just one tool,” he explained. “We want to lay out the entire broadcast pipeline based on generative AI, and this is not only going to change how we produce content, but also what stories we can tell and how we interact with our audience.”


Last but by no means least in this trio, ErinRose Widner, Global Head of Business


Verizon’s ErinRose Widner at the IBC Accelerator Kickstarter Day earlier this year


Strategy, Emerging and Creative Technologies, Media & Entertainment, Verizon Business, is spearheading a project that looks at AI as a production tool for live sports and live events to assist directors and production teams to potentially predict the next moves for swifter edits, content detection and personalised predictive interactivity. The challenge was proposed by Verizon Business, and includes Champions Paramount Global and Al Jazeera, and Participants Xansr Media and Magnifi .


“Authenticity is at the core of the architecture we are building out” ErinRose Widner, Verizon Business


At the IBC2024 Accelerator Kickstarter Day,


Widner was keen to emphasise that humanity and authenticity create the core of this proposal, a stance that has been successfully carried into the workfl ow: “Authenticity is at the core of the architecture we are building out now. Not only are we looking to delve into a person’s preferences (based on the information they provide), we are currently also planning to have a calibration element in the workfl ow to ensure that the information we plan to tailor feels right to the viewer.


“The goal is to take a piece of live content that can be personalised in real-time, using the preferences that we have gathered at the beginning from a viewer and maximising low-latency connectivity to ensure it feels like an authentic interaction.” This afternoon, ‘IP Networks: Finding the needle in the haystack’, a project proposed by Eviden and supported by Champions BBC, EBU, IMG, ITN and Solent University, will take to the stage. Working with Participants Eviden, dB


Broadcast and Techex, this project looks to address challenges around IP infrastructure


within broadcast facilities created by the orchestration of media fl ows – namely, how to fi nd the correct device, sender or receiver when there might be thousands in a facility. The project has focused on a use case involving the management of IP resources in a live broadcast environment. This was selected to demonstrate the practical challenges that broadcasters face when managing large networks of IP devices and to validate the effectiveness of the proposed NMOS specifi cations in addressing these challenges. During today’s demo, the project team will showcase a fully functional system that integrates the new NMOS specifi cations. This system will demonstrate how broadcasters can use standardised annotations to effi ciently manage and identify IP resources within their networks. The demo will also highlight the collaborative efforts between broadcasters and vendors, showcasing how these NMOS specifi cations have been integrated into existing products.


Peter Brightwell, Research Engineer at the BBC and one of the leaders of the project, explains: “We’ve had input from broadcasters and system integrators about how they currently use spreadsheets, etc, as workarounds for dealing with large numbers of devices, sources and destinations in their facilities. We’re experimenting with AMWA BCP-002-02 and IS-13 as a more manageable alternative, and we’ll present how this has progressed, give a simulated demonstration of a large facility, and discuss what more is needed for industry adoption.”


AI Media Innovation Labs takes place from 10:45-11:45 today on the Innovation Stage in Hall 3. It is followed by IP Networks: Finding the needle in the haystack from 12:15-13:15.


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