HITS

By Jeff Berman and Chris Tribbey

From advanced machine learning services to scalable object storage offerings, members of the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) will be well-represented in the cloud solutions space at the NAB Show. Here’s a look at what Amazon Web Services, Aspera, Caringo, Cisco, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Prime Focus Technologies are bringing to the show:

Amazon Web Services/AWS Elemental – The Amazon Web Services (AWS) booth at NAB will present a “fully integrated AWS effort,” according to the company, touting cloud-based video solutions enriched by machine learning services “for ingest, production [and] processing.”

“At the 2018 NAB Show, we will showcase intelligent video solutions — on-premises and cloud video solutions that help media companies around the world work smarter, faster, and more efficiently,” according to Aslam Khader, chief product officer for AWS Elemental.

The company’s booth will feature “new solutions for the next generation of content delivery,” he said, adding highlights will include: video processing and “delivery workflows that bend the cost curve for streaming video quality, cut end-to-end latency to faster-than-broadcast, and support massive VOD libraries; advanced media formats, including conversion and playout of HDR and HLG video, Dolby Vision processing for VOD distribution, live and VOD packaging and delivery in fMP4/CMAF formats, and IMF content processing; and, machine learning demonstrations that unlock the value of content libraries through metadata extraction, automated clipping, captioning, and translation.”

The company will also highlight the new AWS Media Services, which he said are “a family of fully managed services that make it easy to build reliable, broadcast-quality video workflows in the cloud.”

They include five cloud services based on AWS Elemental video solutions he said were “designed to let customers build end-to-end workflows for both live and on-demand video with the professional features, image quality, and reliability needed to deliver premium video experiences to viewers across a multitude of devices.”

The services integrate with complementary AWS services including Amazon CloudFront, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon CloudWatch and third-party applications for security, management and production “to provide a complete set of tools for processing and delivering live and on-demand video content,” he said.

The AWS-produced April 11 keynote “will explore the latest cloud-based media workflows combined with advanced machine learning to deliver next-level, immersive viewing experiences,” the company said, adding the keynote will be divided into three parts, concluding with a panel discussion between high-profile media brand and scientific technology leaders who are leveraging cloud media workflows and looking to AI and ML to enrich those processes.

The keynote starts 11 a.m. on the NAB Show Main Stage in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The event will be encoded and delivered by AWS and AWS Elemental will deliver a live stream of the event via an AWS media workflow that includes Amazon EC2, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Route 53 and Amazon CloudFront for public access at https://live.awsevents.com. A video-on- demand (VOD) asset will be available after the event, at https://live.awsevents.com. SU2202, [email protected]

Aspera

At this year’s NAB Show, Aspera will be announcing innovations related to cloud and live streaming, it said. On April 11, from 3:20-3:40 p.m., Jay Migliaccio, director, cloud platforms and services, will present a session on “Best Practices for Cloud Media Workflows.” On April 12, from 9-9:20 a.m. Mike Flathers, chief technologist, Aspera Developer Platform, will present a session on “Live Streaming Broadcast-quality Video over Commodity Internet Networks.” The sessions will be held during the Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology Conference at NAB, in room N256. SL5910, [email protected]

Caringo
Caringo will be demonstrating how media and entertainment (M&E) organizations “can leverage object storage to get all the benefits of cloud storage without sending data to a cloud,” according to Adrian Herrera, its marketing VP. “This enables you to optimize media storage, access and protection for post-production, delivery and archive workflows,” he told the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA).

Caringo will be providing multiple opportunities for customers and partners to experience “hassle-free storage administration, expansion, and security for rapidly scaling media libraries” at the show, it said. Attendees will be able to see demonstrations of the company’s “integration with leading asset managers, apply for a no-charge 100 TB Swarm software license, and enjoy happy hour with the Caringo team while learning more about hassle-free, limitless storage expansion for their digital assets,” the company said in a news release.

Caringo will have storage experts there who will “showcase how Swarm hassle-free object-based storage can be readily implemented as a target with widely used asset managers including Pixit Media, CatDV and ReachEngine,” Caringo said, adding: “With limitless scale, the ability for 1 administrator to manage hundreds of petabytes, and built-in protection from hacks and ransomware, Swarm is the ideal storage platform for keeping rapidly scaling media libraries securely accessible during all stages of the M&E workflow from creation to delivery and archive.” SL11807, [email protected]

Cisco
Cisco will again be touting its IP networking and security solutions, as well as its overall Media Blueprint set of infrastructure and software solutions that it first unveiled at the show in 2016.

The media industry has been “one of the fastest adopters” of new technology, Yoav Schreiber, Cisco product marketing manager, told MESA in a recent briefing ahead of this year’s NAB. But he said: “It’s been a long process in terms of proving that IP can deliver the same quality and resiliency” that media companies are “used to” from traditional architectures and “without changing the workflow.”

The “good news,” however, is “there are plenty of customers that we’ve been working with and around the industry that are now adopting and already making the changes in their architectures to incorporate IP and different parts of cloud technology,” he said.

Some media organizations are already migrating live production to IP across broadcast centers, stadiums and trucks, as well as: evolving content distribution and collaboration with IP to engage audiences; accelerating media operations with content supply chains based on cloud and IP technology; and adopting security approaches across networks, data centers, devices and workflows, according to Cisco.

Schreiber told MESA: “What we’re really focusing on at NAB” this time is “how do we industrialize it? How do we make what has been a technology change and a technology adoption trajectory to be really industrialized in the sense that [it’s] plug-and-play and you know it’s going to work?”

Cisco has been “working behind the scenes with a lot of our partners that you’ll see at our booth – both demonstrating as well as integrating their technology or their components with our underlying infrastructure,” he said. “We’re going to have the involvement of a lot of these partners at our booth” during NAB and Cisco will have a presence with them at other booths also, he said, noting that Cisco and its partners will collectively communicate at the booths and in conference keynotes how the industry is moving towards more IP and cloud. SU8502CM, [email protected]

Google Cloud
Google Cloud Platform (GCP), its wide range of services, and its even wider range of big-name partners will be on hand at the NAB Show, showing off everything from data analytics and machine learning services, to G Suite, GCP’s cloud-based productivity suite for enterprise, covering a host of Google offerings, including Drive, Docs, Gmail, and Calendar.

GCP will also highlight its security functions, and how it protects customer data and intellectual property by detecting anomalous behaviors, and by proactively preventing security incidents using machine intelligence.

On the speaker front, Google Cloud brass will be featured heavily at the show, including Adrian Graham, cloud solutions architect for media and entertainment, speaking Tuesday, April 10 (“Machine Intelligence: From Dailies to Master, Machine Intelligence Comes to Video Workflows”) and Jeff Kember, technical director, office of the CTO, speaking Wednesday, April 11 (“Innovation in the Cloud: Building Comprehensive Media Solutions”). SU218, [email protected]

Microsoft Azure
Azure’s comprehensive set of services, infrastructure, and tools, will be on hand at the NAB Show. The company will share how it’s helping broadcasters and others build AI-powered experiences — including bots that naturally interact with users — to develop breakthrough apps with built-in intelligence. As broadcasters transform to TV and OSP’s, they’re increasingly leverage software and data to engage with their customers, enhance products, and optimize operations.

Joel Sloss, senior program manager for Microsoft Azure, will be on hand April 8 at the Cyber Security & Content Protection Summit (https://www.mesaonline.org/conferences/cdsa-nab-2018), to look at how using tools embraced by top studios and broadcasters, artists and editors alike can take advantage of the scale, creative control, and security enabled by content workflows in the cloud, in the presentation “Limitless Creativity (Secure and on Schedule) in the Cloud.” SL6716, [email protected]

Prime Focus Technologies
Built around its CLEAR Media ERP’s Emmy-award winning DAX Production Cloud software and Cloud MAM software modules, Prime Focus Technologies will be using the NAB Show to launch CLEAR Digital Lab, a solution which aims to bring together various stakeholders and suppliers engaged in production and post production processes with supply chain vendors.

Covering editorial, VFX, post production, sound, localization, mastering, and downstream distribution, CLEAR Digital Lab promises to automate the content supply chain, connecting the production ecosystem, and acting as a “media universe” for secure content operations, from content acquisition through distribution and archiving.

“CLEAR Digital Lab revolutionizes the way content makers manage their content by connecting the various contributors engaged in the content creation process,” said Ramki Sankaranarayanan, founder and global CEO of Prime Focus Technologies. “The frequency and speed with which original content is being generated has been increasing at a rate never before seen in the industry, with more and more people working on content than ever across the supply chain. CLEAR Digital Lab makes these collaborations easy and secure.

“We’ve always had a pioneering mindset when solving challenges in the industry with the power of technology, and we are extremely proud to see the launch of Digital Lab which brings the industry together and accelerates the content creation process through automation.”

PFT has partnered with Microsoft to have Azure as its preferred cloud hosting platform to implement Digital Lab. SL9605, [email protected]