In advance of the 2024 IBC Show, Sept. 13-16 at the RAI Amsterdam, TV Tech spoke with Stefan Lederer, CEO and co-founder of Bitmovin, who will be exhibiting at Stand 5.H48 in the show's Content Everywhere Zone.
TV Tech: Why did you choose to exhibit in the Content Everywhere Zone this year?
Stefan Lederer: Bitmovin was founded to shape the future of video, creating best in class video development solutions that enable customers to create memorable digital experiences, worldwide. This makes the Content Everywhere Zone our natural home at IBC, as it is the go-to-place for the latest trends and innovations in OTT streaming and the monetization of content.
Being in the Content Everywhere Zone not only puts us in the right place for current and potential customers looking for ways to play, encode and analyze video content simply, efficiently and with the highest quality imaginable, but it also gets us close to our partners covering a whole range of solutions across the OTT video space.
TVT: What will you be highlighting at your exhibit?
SL: As always, we will be presenting our latest innovations. This year, this spans a few key areas:
Live, live, live: In the past 18 months, our live encoding team has made huge advancements to our live encoder, and we already have a number of new customers successfully using it. OneFootball is a great example of this. OneFootball is using our live encoder on Akamai Cloud Computing to deliver high-quality live streams at scale to its millions of viewers. You can read more about this in the press release and case study. We will have further developments to our live encoder that we'll be sharing at the show.
Our presence in the sports industry: We announced a brand new feature called Multiview that provides a more compelling experience for audiences by enabling them to watch multiple streams simultaneously. Bitmovin’s Multiview is designed for use cases such as sports, esports, and live events, where it’s advantageous to provide the audience with the option of staying immersed in the content they want by removing the need to flick between different channels. We know this is a feature that a lot of sports customers want. We already have a number of sports customers, including ORF (which was a broadcaster for the 2024 Euros), Sportall, OneFootball and Globo.
AI will naturally continue to be a big talking point and our Bitmovin Analytics AI Session Interpreter will make its IBC debut. Launched ahead of NAB, it is a new feature for Bitmovin Analytics that aims to simplify data analysis and provide concise text summaries accessible to users with varying degrees of technical knowledge. It's an innovation we're proud of as it's making video streaming more accessible by presenting video analytics in a more accessible way so users can troubleshoot any streaming issues faster.
TVT: Which trends do you expect will be most important at the show this year?
SL: AI will certainly remain a huge topic as we head into this year’s IBC. We have already seen significant advancements in this area over recent months and I’m certain that the show will be awash with vendors launching solutions and services related to AI. Indeed, our most recent Video Developer Report found that over 90% of developers plan to use AI/ ML to improve the video experience for viewers. And it certainly makes a lot of sense when you consider the cost and resource efficiencies afforded by AI. Of course, we are no exception here. The Bitmovin Analytics AI Session Interpreter leverages the power of AI to help users better understand playback sessions with explanations and recommendations for improving their service.
Monetization will remain a big talking point. The industry has faced a number of challenges over the past couple of years. The global economic climate has led to a decrease in spend on video services, which in turn means the industry is focusing on cost-reduction. However, that won't drive growth. What we need now is to focus on new ways to create additional monetization opportunities to promote growth. This is beginning to happen with many video services introducing ad-funded tiers, for example. I believe we will see further innovation in this arena, with more technology and solutions emerging that make it easier than ever for video providers to diversify revenue streams.
TVT: What brings you back to IBC every year?
SL: Each year, IBC drives thought leadership, innovation, best practice and diversity across the 250,000-strong global community. As the flagship media and entertainment conference and trade show in Europe, IBC is one of the most important events in our calendar and a must-attend for us.
While the world has gone a lot more online, it is clear that face-to-face meetings remain invaluable. IBC delivers a unique opportunity to meet customers, prospects, and partners under one roof, helping us continue, or in some cases start, meaningful conversations and ultimately forge better relationships.
For more information, visit https://show.ibc.org/content-everywhere
