With Paris 2024 just around the corner, I can’t help looking back on the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, where I had the privilege of working with one of Imagine Communications’ broadcast customers. In all the excitement, one thing that struck me the most was the sheer size and complexity of the International Broadcast Centre (IBC). Broadcasters from all around the world had packed the space with a massive amount of equipment — including multiple control rooms and dozens of full editing suites — and thousands of people were working tirelessly to produce their programs. It was a spectacle on par with the games themselves.
Brightcove – Embracing UltraHD: The next phase of visual and auditory experience
As technology advances, the demand for higher quality visual and auditory experiences grows. Ultra-High Definition (UltraHD) formats, which significantly exceed the quality of traditional High Definition (HD), are becoming increasingly common across various devices. However, despite the progress, the industry still faces challenges in ensuring these formats effectively reach all users.
Imagine Communications – From concept to reality: a year in live HDR production
This time last year, there was a strong expectation that by 2024, live HDR production would be poised to take the broadcast industry by storm. This forecast has indeed materialized, with HDR production being used more and more, but with a twist. Within the industry, there has been a common tendency to conflate UHD and HDR — a presumption that live productions would predominately feature UHD with HDR. However, as the broadcast community delves deeper into consumer preferences and factors that drive consumer behavior, it has become evident that HDR stands out as the driver of consumer sentiment.
PHABRIX QxP: BaM Shortlist – Support
PHABRIX is pleased to present its first example of a traditional ‘Waveform Monitor’ – but with a twist. Inheriting all the class leading features and flexibility of the QxL Rasterizer, the QxP additionally features an integral 3U multi-touch 1920×1200 LCD screen, speaker, integral V-Mount (or G-Mount) battery plate, integral mains PSU and 12v external DC input. You now have 12G SDI and 25G ST 2110 compliance monitoring in a portable form factor using industry standard Camera Batteries.
The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin): Laboratory for Image and Video Engineering (LIVE)
Researchers in UT-Austin’s LIVE (UT-LIVE), Directed by Professor Al Bovik, have singularly pioneered the use of visual neuroscience to create picture and video quality measurement and monitoring tools that control the quality and bandwidths of a large percentage of all streaming videos, television, and social media. Their breakthrough inventions include the iconic Structural Similarity (SSIM), Multi-scale SSIM (MS-SSIM), and Visual Information Fidelity (VIF) “reference” visual quality tools, which delivered dramatic leaps in performance when introduced, and are still dominant today. These tools are used today to control the quality of most streaming and social media pictures and videos in the US and beyond. Bovik and his team also disrupted the field by inventing the first accurate and practical “blind” visual quality models (BRISQUE and NIQE), using models of neuro-statistical distances, at the neural level, between distorted and distortion-free visual signals. These tools are also globally marketed and used in numerous industry applications, including inspection of streaming and social video uploads, control of cameras, and remote video transcoding in the Cloud.
Pixotope: BaM Shortlist – Produce
Pixotope is at the forefront of democratizing virtual production and empowering content creators with accessible solutions for boundary-pushing immersive storytelling. Our XR Edition, based on our award-winning virtual production graphics software, was developed in response to the growing use of LED volumes in virtual production and the resulting need for hardware optimization as well as simplified, efficient, and resilient workflows. XR Edition removes the need for bespoke set ups and proprietary hardware to power extended reality (XR) workflows and environments. The result is an off-the-shelf software solution featuring a range of purpose-built tools that simplify setup and operation.
Mo-Sys bMR: a flexible route to LED content studios
Mo-Sys partnered with on-air graphics specialist Erizos Studios to develop bMR (broadcast mixed reality). This solution uniquely combines Erizos’ expertise in broadcast graphics and MOS based news/sports workflows, with Mo-Sys’ innovation in LED virtual studios and precision camera tracking.
In Conversation with Telos Alliance
In this IABM TV interview, Scott Stiefel (Co-CEO of Telos Alliance) discusses Telos Alliance’s plans to reemerge onto the global conference and exhibition landscape by participating in-person with an exhibit booth at IBC2022.
The controversial sunset of ATSC1
With this North America focus on Nextgen TV, Stan Moote with cover various topics with the experts on Nextgen TV, including the recent ATSC3.0 markets to go on-air, set deployment, where does UHD 4K fit in, the practicalities of Non-Real Time data (NRT data), and the sunset of ATSC 1.0.
Balancing cost and quality
We do not need to talk around the concept of IP connectivity in media: that argument has already been won. For contribution circuits – from remote events and locations back to base – there is also an acceptance that IP is the way to go.