HITS

(This is the second of two stories previewing what MESA and its members are up to at the NAB Show. The first can be found here)

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:

MediaSilo

After announcing its merger with Wiredrive in February, creating the world’s largest SaaS platform for video-driven creative workflows, with more than 1,800 enterprise customers, MediaSilo will share how its developing and rolling out a new collaboration platform with workflow-specific solutions.

The company will show off Screeners, its new secure screening room solution, and provide a sneak peek of what its working on in the dailies area.

MediaSilo will be at booth SL12705.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure will have its latest hybrid cloud tools and resources on hand at the NAB Show, including a free Cloud Migration Assessment, which helps companies discover the servers across their IT environment, analyzing their hardware configurations, and providing detailed cost-benefit reports. Azure Site Recovery is another tool that will be showcased.

Microsoft will be located at booth SL6710.

NeuLion

NeuLion will be among the more prevalent MESA members featured at the NAB Show, with NAB selecting NeuLion to produce and stream a series of thought leadership via its newly developed and launched M.E.T. 360˚ Studio. NeuLion and NAB Show will showcase interviews from the M.E.T. 360˚ Studio, which will be streamed live and on-demand to PC or mobile devices, leveraging the NeuLion Digital Platform. The M.E.T. 360˚ Studio will be located in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center, booth L-7.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with NAB Show to build a broadcast studio and online platform to showcase the thought leaders from the media and entertainment space,” said Chris Wagner, EVP of NeuLion. “M.E.T. 360˚ Live gives both show attendees and non-show attendees the opportunity to not miss any action happening at the show.”

M.E.T. 360˚ Studio content will be available 24/7 throughout the show, allowing viewers to watch on an internet connected device. Viewers will be able to watch all interviews on M.E.T. 360˚ Live, which includes features such as DVR playback, a dynamic program schedule and event timeline markers. The NeuLion Digital Platform, along with Broadcast Beat Magazine, have also created an all-internet TV Studio, cloud technology infrastructure and distribution platform to reach NAB Show viewers all over the world.

NexGuard

NexGuard, a Kudelski Group company and a top provider of forensic watermarking technology and solutions, will demonstrate how its forensic watermarking product portfolio adapts to deter the latest piracy threats and help content owners and providers secure their revenue.

“Piracy costs the content industry $6 billion every year according to the Motion Picture Association of America. In order to secure its revenues as it continues to embrace global distribution of content, the creative industry needs technological solutions that can effectively deter piracy,” said Harrie Tholen, managing director at NexGuard. “Our solutions empower broadcasters, content owners and distributors to identify weak links in their distribution, and act accordingly. At NAB Show 2017, we will show how we have expanded our product portfolio to tackle the latest illicit redistribution threats and help the content industry stay one step ahead of pirates.

NexGuard will demonstrate a variety of products at booth SU3424.

Ooyala

Ooyala, a global provider of video monetization technology and services, will showcase the full breadth of its video solutions for media and entertainment companies at the NAB Show 2017 in Las Vegas, April 22–27 in stand SV1000, outside the North Hall in the Silver Lot.

With its full set of offerings, Ooyala is leading the way towards delivering a fully Integrated Video Platform (IVP) specifically to meet the needs of today’s modern media content owners and production companies. With a common data set to drive insights and inform strategies, IVP is the next generation of OVP, evolving well beyond online video platform capabilities to deliver sophisticated solutions to understand the costs and return-on-investment of video content.

“Publishing video online today is a rather mundane task, but building a sustainable business model around online video is a totally different animal,” said Frost and Sullivan Senior Director, Mukul Krishna. “IVPs, or Integrated Video Platforms, better reflect the new demands placed on the traditional OVP. An Integrated Video Platform extends traditional OVPs capabilities to include functionality to meet challenges spanning production, distribution and monetization.”

Ooyala will be at booth SV1000.

OpenText

OpenText will share what’s it’s doing to help companies deliver content experiences that engage audiences at every moment of interaction, including the latest with its OpenText Media Management v16 and Media Management Cloud Edition, its digital asset management platforms that “create, curate, manage and distribute digital media for the entire enterprise.”

OpenText will be at booths N5034MR and N6806.

Oracle

At booth SL8011, Oracle will share its portfolio of media and entertainment solutions for the convergence of broadcast and the cloud, highlighting how Oracle’s digital media solutions enable the media and entertainment ecosystem, from the Oracle Digital Media Cloud Marketplace (where content is created and enhanced), to Oracle’s Hybrid cloud, PaaS and IaaS offerings for NAS storage, content management, and archiving.

Prime Focus Technologies

Prime Focus Technologies will unveil new IMF support, including an IMF Player and Mastering Automation solution as part of its flagship product, CLEAR Media ERP.

CLEAR’s IMF solution includes an IMF Player that provides the ability to preview, playback, review and distribute over a streaming proxy a Composition Playlist (CPL) with all its essences including video, audio and captions. This enables collaboration and decision making in the workflow without having to necessarily access the original IMF package each time a CPL has to be played back, thereby easing content transfer loads and optimizing storage consumption across streaming locations.

“The latest additions make CLEAR Cloud MAM more powerful than ever. The IMF Media Player is the first step in our innovation driven product roadmap towards IMF readiness. Both the new launches offer smart possibilities with automation, and are well positioned to deliver more speed, more control and much lower Total Cost of Operations (TCOP) to M&E companies,” said Ramki Sankaranarayanan, founder and CEO of Prime Focus Technologies. “Our message to the industry is simple – look beyond traditional MAM systems and seek more from technology to give more to your consumers. Be More.”

Qumulo

At booth SL6605 Qumulo will share how it’s helping to empower content creators in today’s digital world, handling the data intensive workloads associated with VR, animation rendering and 4K, all of which need modern scale-out storage.

The integration of storage as part of end-to-end solutions for post-production and asset management, accelerating 4K and 5K R3D editing, leveraging storage for real-time encoding and broadcast in the cloud, and use of Qumulo Core for real-time analytics for files will be on display.

RSG Media

At booth N1716, RSG Media Systems will share what it’s doing to increase its clients’ content return-on-investment and advertising revenue. The RSG Media team will be presenting a newly released solution under the flagship product Media Mantra. This solution – Content Scheduling Optimization – allows program planners and schedulers to build schedules that aim to generate organic audience growth and flow from program to program, across dayparts.

Signiant

Media Links and Signiant have scheduled a joint demonstration in the Media Links booth, SU5021 at NAB 2017, to show the transport of mission-critical media files.

On display will be Signiant’s Manager+Agents software solution that automates the delivery of large media files across geographically dispersed locations, operating in conjunction with Media Links’ new 10Gb/s Hitless Data feature for its MD8000 Media over IP transport platform. The demonstration will highlight how media & entertainment carriers, broadcasters and sports producers across the globe can take further advantage of ever-increasing bandwidth available at stadiums and other edge venues to move more and more data in addition to conventional broadcast video and audio signals. All over longer distances, and across borders and continents with faster speeds, throughput and resiliency than ever before.

“Used by the world’s top media and entertainment companies, Signiant’s flagship Manager+Agents solution is the gold standard for automated system-to-system file movement at scale. Showcasing Manager+Agents with Media Links’ MD8000 Media over IP transport platform demonstrates the synergy that can be achieved in utilizing both products, particularly for those highest profile, mission critical media events where Media Links solutions are most prevalent,” said Margaret Craig, CEO of Signiant.

Source Digital

At the NAB Show (Booth SU10226), Source Digital, a technology product and service provider specializing in monetization strategies around digital content, will demonstrate how content owners can effectively integrate marketing technologies into their strategy to further monetize their productions. Video distributors will also learn how personalization, smart content and omni-screen use increases consumer engagement and can create new business opportunities in advertising and branding. Source Digital’s SourceSync.io® platform enables a range of capabilities that include content as a storefront for monetization, brand and product engagement, second level story lines, content discovery and more.

Source Digital will exhibit a series of exciting ways content owners and brands can utilize its SourceSync.io platform to create viewer engagement and monetization strategies for multi-screen viewing. The technology enables viewers to intuitively and instantly discover and access related experiences while viewing programming on any device – smart phone, tablet, computer and traditional TV. The company will also be demonstrating patented solutions that enable a range of user engagement capabilities.

Technicolor

In addition to having numerous speakers during panel sessions featured in the April 22-23 “Future of Cinema” pre-NAB event, Technicolor is also sponsoring the NAB Virtual Reality Pavilion, with Lane Cooper, ‎VP of corporate communications, moderating numerous discussions.

Technicolor representatives will also be well-represented on panels discussing high-dynamic range, cloud-delivered content and wide color gamut technologies.

TiVo

At this month’s NAB Show, TiVo will debut Studio, Broadcast and Network Metadata Packages for the content side, incorporating themes, keywords, images and related programs, allowing studios, broadcasters and networks to better use their catalogs of content.

“A lot of what we’ve done in the past has really been around metadata optimization, packaging and enhancements for the service provider, CE manufacturers and distributors,” a TiVo spokesman said. “But what we’re finding is strong demand on the content side, where the owners themselves are needing more and better metadata solutions.

“We’re making these metadata solutions available to the content owners themselves. The content owners are recognizing and seeing the formats that need to be supported multiplying.”

Verizon Digital Media Solutions

Jason Friedlander, director of marketing communications at Verizon Digital Media Services (VDMS), knows the phrase “first of its kind” gets thrown around a lot in the OTT and online video distribution services space.

But what VDMS has on tap with its Verizon Media Xperience (MX) Studio might just merit that distinction: a cloud-based “content intelligence system,” VDMS’s new offering promises rights holders an automated online video production and distribution system, one that bundles together an easy-to-launch OTT service with all the data needed to find out how their owned and licensed content is performing.

“We’ve been working on this product for a while now, and since the news of the AOL acquisition we’ve been trying to figure out how to bring all the things we’ve been doing internally to help our customers better monetize, understand and produce their content,” Friedlander said. “That’s where we came up with the idea of this content intelligence system.”

VDMS will demo its Media Xperience Studio later this month at the 2017 NAB Show (booth SU3605).

Vubiquity

At booth SU7110, Vubiquity will share the latest work on linear and OTT services with MX1, the availability of the new 4K content licensing, and how companies can increase both ratings and revenue using its live-to-VOD services.

Wazee Digital

At the 2017 NAB Show, Wazee Digital will highlight the Wazee Digital Core, an asset management solution built from the ground up to operate in the cloud. Core offers secure cloud storage that scales with the size of the digital library.

Core, which is the center of the Wazee Digital content management system, serves as the foundation of the company’s many services and capabilities. These include the management of video acquisition tasks and metadata, automated delivery, and multiscreen video logistics with workflow intelligence to give content owners maximum operational efficiencies and control.

Wazee Digital will also promote Live Event Services, which enables content capture, management, and access to content, including live sports and events highlights. It supports highlights production and publishing, an interview and highlights newswire, sponsor activation, dynamic ingest and licensing.

You.i TV

Jason Flick, co-founder and CEO of You.i TV, will share his views on how new disruptive technologies are revolutionizing user expectations, overcoming traditional UX/UI limitations and creating new mobile and monetizable experiences when he speaks on a pair of panels discussing the Future of TV at NAB 2017 next month.

Flick will speak on the Monday panel “The Mobile and App-Driven Video Revolution is Here” as well as the Tuesday panel “The Art (and Science) of In App Ads: Cracking Big Brand Budgets.”

You.i TV will be demonstrating You.i Engine and You.i Engine One, a comprehensive solution that halves the development time to create cross platform VOD and TV Everywhere user experiences, at SU12024MR.

ZOO Digital

At the NAB Show ZOO Digital is set to launch a new cloud-based dubbing platform — named ZOOdubs — a service the company promises will help improve the dubbing workflow for owners of premium TV and movie content.

The error-prone nature of current dubbing processes — offering content owners little in the way of workflow visibility, and engaging a limited pool of voice talent — results in lines of missed audio during recording sessions, leading to delays and additional costs (and frustration for clients), ZOO said in its announcement. The ZOOdubs platform aims to address those issues.

“ZOOdubs delivers a huge step forward for dubbing services. It addresses head-on the key challenges faced by content owners, and aims to shake up an industry which has been crying out for a service provider to do dubbing differently,” said Gordon Doran, president at ZOO Digital. “With ZOOdubs, the process is no longer a black hole but now an end-to-end workflow with complete visibility every step of the way.”

ZOOdubs will be showcased at ZOO Digital’s booth, SL5724.