In advance of the 2024 IBC Show, Sept. 13-16 at the RAI Amsterdam, TV Tech spoke with Eric Ott, CEO of Mediaproxy, who will be exhibiting at Stand 5.D72 in the show's Content Everywhere Zone.
TV Tech: Why did you choose to exhibit in the Content Everywhere Zone this year?
Eric Ott: The Content Everywhere zone has become central to our key competences. The IBC halls are well-structured to provide customers and vendors with zones of interest. A lot of our partners are also in the hall, providing everyone with a kind of symbiosis platform. It’s also physically located in a central spot, making it easier for customers to get to meetings. The ‘Content Everywhere’ label also resonates with what we are providing to the industry as our technology has become very versatile, providing tools across a wide range of formats.
TVT: What will you be highlighting at your exhibit?
EO: We are showing the latest incarnation of our LogServer platform. After almost 25 years, it is well-established as the global standard for regulatory compliance, but also straddles across multiple disciplines of the monitoring chain. This nowadays includes best-of-breed SCTE-104/35 ad insertion monitoring across the playout chain to OTT and cloud-native monitoring.
Another growing part in the portfolio is our Monwall IP multiviewer. We have taken a modern approach to what IP monitoring needs to look like these days, especially at scale. The traditional methods only provide a certain amount of, mainly passive, functionality. For Monwall we have taken a more interactive approach to reduce the time it takes for operators and engineers to resolve incidents. We look forward to introducing more broadcasters to that concept.
TVT: Which trends do you expect will be most important at the show this year?
EO: The current trend with bleeding more AI into products will be proving a lot of the novelty. This conversation will certainly continue at the IBC Show. AI does have a great deal of potential in being able to learn and repeat common or more basic operational tasks in broadcasting, which has particular applications in monitoring. It will be interesting to see how the legal implications around this will determine more widely spread uptake in the short term.
After the Olympics, HDR would also have to creep up on everyone’s interest or to-do list. It looks like 4K has become less of a target as civilians appear to be responding to the extended colour range more than resolution. As an upsell, it seems to make more sense at this stage at least. Also, the migration from SDI to IP is progressing. I guess we all remember when the ‘SDI is dead’ posters lined the passage between halls 7 and 8 at IBC a few years back. The then amusingly provocative proclamation, has clearly not yet materialised. However, with a finally growing ecosystem of products and more cost-effective glue equipment surfacing rapidly, we should see this tip in IP’s favour now.
TVT: What brings you back to IBC every year?
EO: Certainly not the taxi queue at Schiphol airport! On a more serious note, IBC provides us with the opportunity to bring our global teams together and meet with both existing and new clients to discuss their needs. Nothing beats face to face and on stand demos are key to the work we do (and what we achieve) at the show.
For more information, visit https://show.ibc.org/content-everywhere
