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MESA Members to Spotlight AI, DAM and Much More at NAB

(This is the first of two stories previewing what MESA and its members are up to at the NAB Show)

Members of the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) will be out in force at this year’s NAB Show, April 22-27 in Las Vegas. Of the more than 1,700 companies expected to be exhibiting at the annual confab, more than 40 of them will be MESA members showcasing their latest products, services and technologies.

MESA will highlight what its members have on hand with two tours (starting at 2:15 p.m. on both April 24 and 25) of companies specializing in digital asset management (DAM). MediaSilo, G-Technology, NeuLion, RSG Media, Vistex, OpenText and FilmTrack are scheduled for day one. Prime Focus Technologies, 5th Kind, GrayMeta, Qumulo, Adobe, Crawford Media Services and Sony DADC are scheduled for day two.

The Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA), meanwhile, has been named the official association sponsor of the new NAB Cyber & Content Security Pavilion on the show floor (Central Hall). As a result, MESA will be “camping out” right next door, in booth C3631CS, throughout the show.

Additionally, MESA will host an NAB reception for its members Tuesday, April 25 at 6:30 p.m. at the 1 Oak in the Mirage.

Here’s what MESA’s members at NAB are planning for the show:

5th Kind

5th Kind is debuting a new version of its DAM application at the show, which includes a streamlined ingest, distribution and review workflow for dailies work across desktop, mobile and even Apple TV.

In the works for more than two years, the updated 5th Kind offering features a ground-up rebuild and redesign, according to company CEO Stephen Cronan, offering a streamlined, dynamic user experience, with advanced security, “super-fast” performance, drag-and-drop functionality, an event-driven framework for advanced integration through its APIs, and a contextual sharing module, allowing for a streamlined experience for dailies review, distribution, photo kills, bidding workflows and more.

5th Kind will be showing off its latest offering in collaboration with Aspera, at booth SL8124. To book an appointment, visit 5thkind.com/appointments/, or email [email protected].

Accenture

At the Wynn hotel, Accenture will be demonstrating the Accenture Next-Generation Ad Sales Solution that is made up of the Accenture Multimedia Ad Sales Automation Solution focused on improving sales operations and an Accenture Video Analytics offering with a machine learning capability designed to extend the reach of targeted ads. French TV broadcasting company M6 is using the latter offering, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to more accurately predict customer advertising preferences and serve targeted ads more effectively. Accenture will also be holding workshops on machine learning for yield management, ad tech integration, and multimedia ad sales automation. “Our overall focus will be on redefining cost, data and infrastructure, reinventing the customer experience, and re-imagining the digital video business,” Accenture spokesman Charles Hartley told MESA.

Adobe

At NAB 2017, Adobe will unveil the latest updates for its Creative Cloud tools for video and audio, including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Character Animator, Adobe Stock and Adobe Primetime, it said. New tools for graphics and titling, polishing audio, refining color and sharing assets will be announced, combining performance and efficiency. “With today’s tight production schedules, Adobe Creative Cloud gives you the power to create, collaborate, and streamline your video workflow from start to finish to keep your projects on track,” Adobe said. The company will also have “marquee customers” and product experts presenting at NAB on their use of Creative Cloud, it said. The company can be found at booth SL4010.

Advantage Video Systems

Advantage Video Systems which has built numerous VFX houses, production and post facilities and has completed more than 250 TV stations nationwide, is working with numerous vendors to host a mega raffle at the show, with drawings each day at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. at booth SL13318.

OWC, G-Technology, AFG, XuseMedia, axleVideo, Glyph Tech, Moza Lite II, Videon, Hollyland Cosmo 400, Moza Mini C, Infortrend, Teledyne LeCroy, LumberJack, Luma Forge, Piper Digital, Marshall Electronics, BROADCAST PIX, Apace Systems, Softron Media Services, AKITIO, Contour Design, KB Covers, Cinedeck, QNAP, Sonnet Technologies, Hive Lighting, SpectraCal, Wowza Media Systems, LaCie, Areca CineRAID, Tiger Technology, Active Storage, Promise Technology, Red Giant, Maxon, iZotope, Telestream, mLogic and others are participating.

Applicaster

Applicaster said it’s arriving at NAB this year with new customer success stories to share and present. Its customers’ apps have powered high-profile live events and tournaments, including the Super Bowl with DirecTV’S “The Dan Patrick Show,” it said. Whether for a single program, a single channel, or a multi-channel app, Applicaster’s app publishing Zapp platform quickly delivers a feature-rich interactive experience for any type of content, it said. This year, the company is expanding into new markets — both in terms of geography and customer focus. In the first half of 2017, its customers are launching new apps in Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the U.S., it said.

The company is also working on new apps geared specifically towards sports channels with unique features for that genre, and Applicaster has also strengthened its baby and kids’ apps offerings, it said. A new plan for the company’s customers, meanwhile, is Zapp for developers, an open platform that it said allows customers to build and integrate their own unique set of features, tailored for their needs, or select to add any of Applicaster’s shelf products directly into their applications.

Aspera

The Aspera team is introducing significant advances in its new Aspera Files and Aspera Transfer Service SaaS platforms for high-speed file exchange, synchronization, and distribution of media content across all major public clouds and on premise storage.  At a press event 5 p.m. April 25 at booth SL8124 in the South Hall, Aspera will showcase what it said are the best of the new features and preview upcoming Live Streaming Service capabilities in the platform.

Aspera co-founder and CEO Michelle Munson and the Aspera team will introduce innovations for: the new Aspera Transfer Service for transferring content at maximum speed, with security, to or from its native cloud storage; the Aspera Files SaaS platform for a fully integrated collaborative file sharing experience including package sending/receiving, cloud-to-cloud and on-premise transfer, and easy, brandable project-based secure management; and the upcoming Aspera Streaming Platform for high-quality live video and data streaming at any distance.

Cisco

Cisco and tech partners Intel, Grass Valley and Presidio will be joined by the chair of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council, for an invitation-only NAB breakfast Tuesday, April 25, where they’ll discuss the rapidly evolving media and broadcast landscapes.

The breakfast panel will address the complex questions facing content owners and end users in today’s evolving digital media ecosystem for delivering interactive, anyscreen experiences.

The panel will feature an open dialog on everything from ensuring end-to-end content security with maximum visibility for authorized users, in an era of IP and offsite storage, and how industry initiatives like FD.io (the fast data, input/output initiative which aids software-defined network developers in their software-based packet processing efforts) and other top projects work for open source network management can offer speedier, scalable network with more flexibility.

The breakfast is by invitation only.

Crawford Media Services

One of the “main points of focus” of Crawford Media Services at NAB will be Metaforce, its descriptive metadata service, Mktg. Mgr. Jeremy Hill told MESA. For a recent metadata project, the company worked with Viacom as part of the ongoing MTV Vault Project, he pointed out, adding: “Last year alone, Metaforce was able to create over 350,000 fully described unique events across more than 50,000 assets for Viacom.”

Additionally, Crawford will be discussing its second-generation digital archive storage solution, Crawford AMBER. AMBER uses Quantum’s Lattus object storage to support mass migration of clients’ legacy content to digital formats, including ongoing media storage and management, he said. “Using a cutting-edge technology known as erasure code, Lattus provides a level of immunity to system failure and data corruption not previously achievable,” he added. Crawford will be exhibiting at booth SU8510.

Dell EMC

Dell EMC will share its solutions for media and entertainment companies that are facing today’s digital disruption reality.

The company will showcase its offerings for M&E firms to:

• Create new media such as with live television, sports, news films and animation.
• Manage production such as with video and rendering, transcoding and media asset management.
• Deliver media to customers such as with broadcast, cable, satellite and over the top video including Netflix, Hulu and others.

The Dell EMC booth is located at SL9111.

Deluxe

“In the global content market, where release windows are shattering and technology is driving the business, the opportunities are enormous – and so are the complexities,” according to Deluxe. At booth SU11416, the company will be showing “how we’re untangling them with five simple solutions to Transform, Localize, Catalog, Distribute, and Play content for every screen and region on the planet,” it said. In addition to providing demonstrations, Deluxe experts will discuss how it’s “embracing and advancing on all fronts” via new formats including Ultra High-Def (UHD), High Dynamic Range and virtual reality.

Dolby

Dolby will discuss how it’s enabling next-generation audio and imaging experiences for home entertainment and mobile. A variety of topics will be featured, including Dolby AC-4 being selected as part of ATSC 3.0, the first audio/video receiver to support Dolby Atmos through a 2.1.2. and 3.1.2. configuration (recently announced by Pioneer), growing Dolby Vision partner momentum including new use cases like mobile and UHD Blu-ray, and the company’s recent Dolby Atmos momentum, including the live weekly broadcast of Dolby Atmos soccer games via BT Sport.

For NAB attendees interested in a demo of Dolby’s latest audio and imaging technologies, Dolby’s booth, SU1702, will be located on the second floor of the South Hall.

FilmTrack

The FilmTrack team will showcase the company’s industry leading rights management platform at booth N5324. “From production all the way through collection, FilmTrack unites the efforts of business units so all data related to contracts, rights, royalties, and financials are accessible in one unified rights management hub,” it said. Visitors to the booth will also be able to play a hand of Texas hold ‘em poker to be entered into a contest to win an Amazon Echo Dot.

During the Sessions on the Deck series, meanwhile, the company will “navigate through the evolving landscape” of the media and entertainment industry and how new advancements by top leading solution providers like it are solving the latest challenges, it said.

“NAB is one of the highlights of the year for us,” FilmTrack CEO and co-founder Jason Kassin said.

He added: “FilmTrack is excited to be showing off its latest and greatest developments at NAB 2017. As our product suite is driven by ever-evolving industry requirements, we’re particularly eager to share features with immediate impact to our clients’ business processes. This includes enhanced support for more granular revenue recognition, simplified entry of complex rights, and a holistically new approach to integrations and services via SSO and enhanced API’s.”

Fortium

At NAB, Fortium is showing its new Live Folder solution that it said provides a way to simply turn any folder on one’s system into a live encrypted folder. The user simply copies a file into the Live Folder and it automatically encrypts on the fly. Better still, when a user creates new files from within the Live Folder they automatically become encrypted with preset access controls. With cyber threats increasing, people want to make their own content safe, as do the content owners, and seamless tools like these make it easy to do so. Demos can be seen at the Fortium booth, SU11708 CM, and at the Aspera booth, SL8124.

DVD and Blu-ray, meanwhile, are not dead yet and, for now, demand continues. Academy members apparently still want to keep their copies of the Award screeners they receive and why not? There is a trend to move away from physical home entertainment inventory and instead to manufacture on demand, which saves money, time and space. But discs need protecting and Fortium will be talking at NAB about its protection strategy and successful case studies in protecting against over 100 Mac and Windows rippers. Fortium is also hosting a security panel at NAB with key speakers from Film Nation, Avid, Aspera, Telestream and CDSA debating “Can security be frictionless in your post-production workflows?” 10.30-11 a.m. April 25 at the Connected Media IP Debate Theatre on the exhibition floor (South Hall Upper).

G-Technology

At booth SL3824, G-Technology will share its latest enterprise-class external storage solutions, with creative performance, workflow, and capacity needs in mind.

The company’s portfolio promises “unmatched throughput, reliability, and best-in-class durability for Mac and PC users alike.” The solutions cover everything from general storage to high-performance RAID solutions for intensive video editing.

GrayMeta

At booth S201LMR, the GrayMeta Platform will be on display, showing how it helps companies tackle big data and metadata problems to save time and money.

The GrayMeta Platform helps companies build context and searchability from assets, combining technical and embedded metadata from any file type across all file systems, with databases, data feeds, or the results from computer vision technologies, such as speech to text, facial recognition, objects recognition and more.

HGST

HGST will focus on how it’s enabling production, broadcast and distribution companies to deliver fast, flexible and scalable storage to create, leverage and preserve data while improving productivity and lowering total cost for every stage of 2K, 4K, 6K, high frame rate and UHD workflows, it said. At booth SL10105, the company will provide demonstrations showing how its ActiveScale system and InfiniFlash platform provide reliability, massive scalability and breakthrough economics for post-production, content acquisition, content distribution and archiving. Also, Joan Wrabetz, HGST Mktg. VP, will speak about AI in a panel session called “A View From the Frontier: How AI & Machine Learning Will Change the Game,” April 26 at 10 a.m., at N262-264.

IBM

At booth SL3305, IBM said it will showcase new services and partner collaborations that “tap into the cognitive capabilities of IBM Watson, allowing media and entertainment companies to uncover insights that drive more informed decisions.” IBM will demonstrate how Watson is helping media and entertainment enterprises deliver better viewer experiences, including cognitive solutions for audience and content insights and Watson-powered video solutions for more enhanced multi-screen streaming and better video workflow.

Independent Security Evaluators

The cybersecurity experts from Independent Security Evaluators will be at the show sharing how, in the media and entertainment space, ISE’s team of analysts and developers take scientific approaches to tackle clients’ overall security postures, protect their digital assets, secure infrastructures, and work with development teams before anything is deployed.

MarkLogic

At NAB, MarkLogic will be part of the Cybersecurity and Content Protection Pavilion and talk about how the importance of data –collecting all the data around content and taking a smart content approach – now means taking a look at data security to protect those core assets, it said. From the company’s experience with security work in the intelligence space and commercial industry, it’s learned that network or perimeter security isn’t enough in today’s mixed and distributed work environments, it said, adding that: “Instead, the focus has to be within the organization with situation intelligence to monitor and react to events.

And it also means looking at new ways of managing the data itself.” Consistent with the smart content concept, the data layer must be flexible to accommodate all the different data around the content. But it also has to be secure – and MarkLogic is “pioneering ways to manage and enable access to data while maintaining the highest levels of security,” it said. That will be the theme of its talk and also the main topic for it at NAB, MarkLogic said, adding that, as data becomes the focal point of the industry, making sure it’s available and secure are “the priorities our entertainment industry customers are focusing on.”

Mediamorph

At booth N5711 Mediamorph will share its place in the M&E industry as a bridge connecting content providers and content platforms in the increasingly complex world of video distribution. Its cloud-based enterprise software and data management platform streamlines the content supply chain, helping companies manage deals and content rights, track content consumption, and enable data-driven decisions to maximize revenues.