M+E Connections

LAS VEGAS – Between showing off solutions on the show floor, having its experts speaking on a slew of panels, hosting its own two-day series of hands-on labs and workshops, and sponsoring the premiere charity event of the week, few tech companies can match the presence Amazon Web Services is bringing to the 2019 NAB Show.

A full range of cloud and on-premises video solutions — for ingesting, producing, processing, and delivering media content — will be on display, including brand new offerings and upgrades to some of the company’s most popular services.

Here’s a look at what AWS has on tap for Las Vegas:

At the Booth

Visitors to AWS’ booth will find demonstrations of advanced, cloud-based media and machine learning services, tackling all points of the media supply chain, with a specific spotlight on content creation, including the company’s “studio in the cloud” services supporting visual effects, animation, and editing workloads.

One AWS innovation new to this year’s NAB is Media2Cloud, a framework for media archive ingest to the cloud. The serverless ingest offering that supports both production and archive migrations within one workflow, expanding and contracting to match processing needs around the creation of standardized assets and descriptive metadata.

“The launch of our new Media2Cloud solution is an example of how serverless can reinvent ingest workflows and simplify the process of placing video content under management in AWS, and more importantly, back in the control of the content owner,” wrote Jack Wenzinger, global M&E partners SA for Amazon Web Services, when Media2Cloud was announced in February.

For video processing, AWS will show how it can help simplify video delivery, by ingesting IMF packages and creating CMAF outputs (MediaConvert and AWS Step Functions).

To engage viewers, the company will show how customers can create an end-to-end cloud DVR workflow (using AWS Elemental MediaPackage), allowing video providers to quickly launch cloud services and integrate time-shift features. For live sports, Amazon Rekognition, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Machine Learning Services, combined with AWS Media Services, can be used to track action in real time, ID players, and streamline metadata tagging.

AWS will have solutions for content distribution (secure and reliable video transport of live video over IP, serverless video playout, personalized ad insertion), media supply chain, (media-to-cloud migration, smart language workflows, searchable media libraries with machine learning), and content protection (the Secure Packager and Encoder Key Exchange, or SPEKE, standard).

AWS will also host several members of its Amazon Partner Network (APN) at its booth, SU2202, including two members of the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA): GrayMeta and Deluxe.

On the Panels

All week at NAB, AWS will bring both its experts and its technologies to panel discussions:

• On April 8, AWS will produce an exclusive NAB main stage keynote session — “Beyond the Field: How Sports Pioneers are Powering the 360 Audience Experience in the Cloud” — featuring executives from CBS Sports, Hulu, the L.A. Clippers, and Pac-12 Networks. The session will be encoded and live-streamed via https://live.awsevents.com, with AWS using Amazon EC2, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, AWS Elemental Media Services, Amazon Route 53, and Amazon CloudFront.

• For the “Future of Transportation” block of panel discussions April 8, Hector Leano, M&E industry marketing lead for AWS, will be among the first speakers.

• On April 8, Ian McPherson, head of M&E partnerships for AWS, will take part in the session “The Power of Machine Learning Within the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

• At the NAB Streaming Summit April 9, Ian McPherson head of M&E partnerships for the Americas for AWS, will take part in the “Fireside Chat: Embracing the Evolution, Accelerating Innovation through the Cloud” with Andy Shenkler, chief product officer for Deluxe.

• Alex Dunlap, GM of AWS Elemental at AWS, will be on the April 9 panel “Video Storytelling as a Service: How Cloud Helps Broadcasters Streamline and Become Go-to Digital Destinations,” along with speakers from “The Washington Post” and Graham Media Group.

• Alex Zhang, principal product manager for AWS Elemental, will take part in the April 10 panel, “Cross Platform Addressable Advertising – Today’s Opportunity.”

• On both April 9 and April 10, AWS will host, its own “Tech Talks: IMF Workflows, the Cloud Generation” at its booth, with Bruce Devlin, CEO at Mr. MXF and SMPTE standards VP, and Dan Germain, senior product manager at AWS.

On its Own

On April 9-10 at Ballroom D at the Westgate Resort & Casino, AWS will host its own hands-on workshops for media experts.

The April 9 “AWS Spotlight Labs for Media” day-long offering will see the company’s training and certification team offering a series of entry-level, hands-on labs, sharing how adopting AWS Media Services can result in the creation of professional quality media experiences.

The April 10 “AWS Build-On Media Workshop” will see the AWS M&E solutions architect team lead three advanced level workshops, with hands-on learning about how to design and build well-architected, serverless media solutions using AWS Elemental and Amazon Web Services. Both workshops are free.

On the Run

AWS Elemental is again producing the “4K 4Charity Fun Run” event at NAB for the fifth straight year, with 100% of all registration fees directly supporting the nonprofit Girls Who Code organization.

The 4K (2.49-mile) run and walk event has regularly raised funds for nonprofit organizations that focus on diversity and inclusion, and thanks to an anonymous donor, an added $30,000 will be donated to the cause, should the event exceed 750 participants.

This year’s event kicks off April 9 at 7:30 a.m. in Sunset Park.