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People visit NAB Shows for many reasons. Some are there to investigate and examine new solutions. Some are shopping with a budget ready to spend. Others visit to gather ideas and figures for next year’s budget. Many visit to accomplish all this and make time to learn the latest relevant information from the industry experts at BEIT Conferences.
After two years of virtual gathering, broadcasters convening in person for this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas will see a lot of new faces due to management and staff changes at the various vendors. One notable “new” figure will be Dr. Andrew Cross, formerly with NewTek, Vizrt and now the new CEO of Grass Valley (GV).
Sitting at home watching the Olympics 400m Women’s hurdles final live on NBC’s 4K HDR channel, home audiences were captivated by the sweat and effort displayed on screen with immersive sound of the runners’ feet hitting the track. Viewers thousands of miles away could be excused for thinking they had the best seat in the Japan National Stadium. The live 4K HDR broadcast of NBC’s primetime show throughout the Games were an extrasensory experience unlike any previous Olympics telecasts.
With mature, cloud-based services now prevalent across the industry, helping to process and distribute content faster and more accurately than ever before, the long sought-after promise of producing content in the cloud—reducing cost and physical barriers—prompted broadcasters and production companies to experiment with new ways to make it a common reality.
There was a time when the mere mention of bringing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning into the media industry brought visions of robots replacing humans. Today that is certainly not the case—although we might be getting close: I saw a robotic camera operator move the cameras for a national television news show from his converted kitchen table. On-air, viewers never saw a difference from the programs they always watch.
If there’s one thing the production community has learned during the pandemic, it’s that ensuring the safety of the crew on site or in the studio should always be first and foremost in people’s minds. The second takeaway is that sending less people on site and implementing more remote support is the new normal that the industry is, somewhat begrudgingly, coming to terms with.
This is the second instalment of our extended article exploring the use of Microservices.
Computer systems are driving forward broadcast innovation and the introduction of microservices is having a major impact on the way we think about software. This not only delivers improved productivity through more efficient workflow solutions for broadcasters, but also helps vendors to work more effectively to further improve the broadcaster experience.