It’s that NAB time of year
It’s April, which can only mean one thing: NAB Show. The largest and most important fixture in the broadcast technology convention calendar, NAB is the annual showcase for the latest shiny hardware and bleeding edge tech. It’s a must-attend event for anyone in the broadcast technology sector and this year M2A Media’s CEO, Marina Kalkanis, and Head of Account Management, Guy Taylor, are heading to Las Vegas to check out the next big things in broadcast.
Without doubt VR enabled stands will be a strong feature this year, with either VR hardware or systems on display. It is now a trade show staple to see smartly attired business people wearing VR headsets, flailing around and grasping at thin air, whilst colleagues post gently mocking pictures to the company Twitter feed. However, VR still seems to be chasing that elusive tipping point, where adoption becomes the norm, not the exception, with no single game or service driving uptake. For now, VR is stuck with a niche product tag, despite significant industry investment and we at M2A have yet to see any demand for delivering VR content.
What we’ll be on the lookout for at NAB
For M2A our interest lies in technology that will drive improvements in the Quality of Experience for our content-owner customers and their end-users. We will be looking for companies that can provide solutions to three critical areas of focus: 1) increasing picture quality; 2) reducing bitrates & lowering bandwidth usage, and 3) lowering latency. To this end we’ll be looking at encoding solutions that offer 4K, HDR and content aware encoding.
As we seek greater efficiencies in our video processing services and look for scope to increase layers of automation (be it in encoding, resource optimisation, real-time analytics or monitoring), Machine Learning and AI enabled products will also be on our radar.
We’ll be taking the temperature of cloud adoption within the industry and analysing how many businesses now offer ‘cloud-enabled’ products or services. Are we now at a point where a broadcaster can be entirely based in the cloud, from glass to glass? We’ll certainly be looking for opportunities to leverage the need to orchestrate an ever-greater range of cloud-based services.
What we’ll be bringing to NAB
Most importantly, though, we’ll be looking forward to the multitude of new business and networking opportunities that NAB provides. With party invites confirmed and meetings scheduled, we’re excited to be meeting with existing customers and new. We’ll be talking about our newly developed Dynamic Content Insertion product (watch this space), plus the recent enhancements to our Live Capture service that helps drive VOD viewership of live events. We’ll be explaining how M2A’s cloud-based video solutions help broadcasters worldwide tap into the full potential of the cloud, allowing them to move away from complex and expensive CAPEX models to efficient and cost-effective cloud-based OPEX models.
We’re also looking forward to strengthening existing partnerships with peers within our sector, and to developing new exciting partnerships helping us bring an ever greater service to our customers.
If you’re going to be at the show we’d love to see you there! Please do get in touch and book an appointment via our online event planner.
Viva Las Vegas!
