In Conversation with GB Labs

In this IABM TV interview, Dominic Harland (CEO & CTO, GB Labs) discusses the launch of their new product, FastNAS second generation.

Adoption Trends: Blockchain

IABM Adoption Trends reports annually track the adoption of specific emerging technologies within the broadcast and media sector. The purpose of these reports is to enable member companies to better understand what is driving the adoption of emerging technologies within customer organizations. This will provide member companies more insight to better address the challenges lying ahead, from new product development to marketing strategy. These reports contain a discussion on the state of adoption of a specific emerging technology in broadcast and media, as well as an analysis of significant customer deployments.

Report highlights:

o Blockchain adoption in the sector has grown significantly from 4% during the pandemic to 16% post-pandemic (2021-2022).
o IABM data also shows that while blockchain is deployed throughout the content supply chain, most use cases are in Monetize and Produce.
o In content creation and production, blockchain gives content creators more control over their digital assets. Deployment areas in these segments include activities such as verifying user-generated content and combating fake news.
o In content monetization, blockchain allows for content optimization through data analytics.
o In content delivery, blockchain-based decentralized CDNs allow content providers to spread the downtime risk across network nodes run by independent companies and optimize storage space by utilizing the shared unused storage.

View the interactive report below or click here to access the PDF.

(Updated December 2022)

Media Tech Intelligence Briefing: Streaming & Interactivity

IABM research has repeatedly highlighted in 2021 the massive opportunity for media businesses to leverage interactivity in streaming experiences. In October 2021, we published a Briefing on Content Distribution & Monetization and called attention to the importance of consumer engagement in the sector, singling out interactivity as the key tool to improve this. Media and technology businesses have continued to invest in interactivity since then, which has led us to re-examine the topic in this Briefing. The topics covered in this Briefing include:

  • The origins and endgame of media convergence
  • FuboTV case study and other media initiatives
  • The impact on technology
  • Blockchain, the metaverse and a futuristic outlook

View the interactive briefing below or click here to view the PDF.

In Conversation with Imagine Products

In this IABM TV interview, Dan Montgomery (President, Imagine Products) discusses how pre-production is changing, and how they are responding to remote workflow needs.

In Conversation with Easel TV

In this IABM TV interview, Joe Foster (CEO, Easel TV) discusses Easel TV’s journey as an outsourced streaming service provider during the pandemic, as well as their experiences of working with the likes of Fleabag, StagePlayer+ and Sky News.

Azimuth Soft Provides Kultura TV Channel with Broadcast Automation Solutions

In October 2021 the Russian nationwide Kultura channel started broadcasting from the new Azimuth Soft playout system in the Shabolovka facility in Moscow. This important milestone concluded the broadcaster’s transition from legacy systems to Azimuth Soft solutions in all sections of their production workflows.

The cooperation between Kultura (also known as Russia-K, a part of the VGTRK state-owned conglomerate) and Azimuth Soft began in 2014 from comisioning a small backup playout system based on multichannel Azimuth videoservers.

In 2019 Kultura launched full-scale news production and playout using the AutoPlay enterprise media workflow automation platform and the NewsHouse NRCS. The news playout was designed to accommodate the operating mode preferred on the Russian market, with separate gallery workplaces for the Director (show time tracking and MOS device control using the NewsAir playout module), the Technical Director (ABCD-roll in the Air24 playout module + videoservers controlled from the switcher console), and the On-Air Graphics operator (manual CG playout from the TitleStation Mix graphics module).

The final modernization stage included a new main playout system for Kultura’s 4 TV channels. Two 4-channel Azimuth videoservers are employed in a 1+1 redundancy configuration, two more are kept in reserve and perform manual QC and gallery rundown preview tasks during normal operation (Azimuth videoservers are produced by our partner BRAM Technologies).

A mediaserver with a 140TB fast fault-tolerant array is used for production storage. Two high-performance BRAM Technologies servers handle file transcoding and low-res creation duties. By customer requirement the system also includes separate physical servers for emergency and clock graphics playout.

The new facility also includes the latest version of Azimuth Soft’s compliance recording solution, AirMonitor 5. With its help any authorized user can view recordings from all 4 main playout channels, footage from control room CCTV cameras and screen capture video from PCR workstations from any computer on the production network, via a modern cross-platform web client.

A turnkey integration with an existing ViPlanner scheduling system was delivered as part of the project. To comply with the workflows in place with the broadcaster, a new system for purging old material from production storage was created, where all delete requests are electronically signed by authorized personnel. A new module was developed for “over-the-shoulder” connection to playout control, simplifying control room staff training and supervision.

The training and certification of engineers, media processing operators and on-air teams was concluded within a month, with the last ten days dedicated to practice broadcasts.

While Azimuth Soft highly values the cooperation with system integrator partners, due to some peculiarities of this project it was completed directly by Azimuth Soft Professional services with assistance from the customer’s personnel. Its smooth delivery has proven the viability of this approach even for larger, more complex installations.

The successful completion of the comprehensive technical modernization of the Kultura channel confirm the suitability of Azimuth Soft products for the automation of all workflows in TV broadcasting operations, even in high load and strict reliability requirement scenarios typical for nationwide broadcasters.

About Azimuth Soft

We are committed to creating and implementing state-of-the art TV broadcast automation solutions to ensure our customers are empowered with smart and scalable technology. Our goal is to enable our customers perform better and grow as the industry evolves. From a business standpoint, we have a history of having the ability to identify unique customer needs and to design solutions and provide technical support which solve those needs, along with consistent excellent quality. But our vision is not simply about great products, it is more a reflection of the kind of future we all want to live and work.

For more information on Azimuth Soft, visit www.azimuthsoft.tv

NTV – On-air with subtitle insertion on Azimuth-TT videoservers

We’re proud to announce that one of Azimuth Soft’s largest customers, the nationwide NTV channel (part of the Gazprom-Media holding), has started broadcasting for the Moscow region with close caption insertion performed on our specialized Azimuth-TT videoservers.

In this workflow the Program feed is routed to the Azimuth-TT server from a 3rd party videoserver. The software running on the Azimuth-TT receives the ID of the currently playing media file from the same 3rd party vendor’s broadcast automation system, reads a subtitle file a network share with a filename matching that ID, then inserts the subtitles into the pass-through feed. If no subtitles are available, a pre-configured message is displayed in compliance with the regulator’s demands.

The simplicity of set-up, fully automatic operation with no required maintenance, and the reliability and security of the Linux operating system that powers the Azimuth-TT video servers allows for them to be employed even in the most mission-critical workflows of national broadcasters.

Find out more about Azimuth Soft subtitle and teletext solutions on https://azimuthsoft.tv/solution/teletextsuite/

About Azimuth Soft

We are committed to creating and implementing state-of-the art TV broadcast automation solutions to ensure our customers are empowered with smart and scalable technology. Our goal is to enable our customers perform better and grow as the industry evolves. From a business standpoint, we have a history of having the ability to identify unique customer needs and to design solutions and provide technical support which solve those needs, along with consistent excellent quality. But our vision is not simply about great products, it is more a reflection of the kind of future we all want to live and work.

For more information on Azimuth Soft, visit www.azimuthsoft.tv

In Conversation with Digital Nirvana

In this IABM TV interview, Hiren Hindocha (Co-Founder, President & CEO – Digital Nirvana) discusses the latest trends of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, and how the needs of customers have changed during the pandemic.