We concluded the event with our first annual Bitmovin Innovators Network partner awards to recognize and celebrate the amazing work of our partners who embrace the fact that the industry is “Better Together”, by creating solutions with partners that are designed to simplify customers’ video workload needs and advance the viewing experience for audiences.

I am incredibly proud to share the winners of the Bitmovin Innovators Network partner awards below, and the contributions they’ve made: 

Accenture – Global Systems Integrator of the Year:

Accenture and Bitmovin exemplify the “better together” approach through their close strategic partnership, including an ongoing collaboration with the world’s largest motorsports content owners that led to joint engagements with several of the largest sports and media brands in the world.

Broadpeak – Global ISV Partner of the Year:

Broadpeak embodies the “Better Together” spirit through its unwavering strategic collaboration with Bitmovin. This powerful partnership has yielded several key benefits. Together, they have developed solutions that integrated with Bitmovin’s encoder, player, and analytics, resulting in improved workflows for customers; created a consistent two-way communication between sales teams which has resulted in successful deals with European media brands, and joint marketing and PR initiatives at local events to strengthen their joint brand presence.

MediaKind –  Global Service Provider Partner of the Year:

MediaKind and Bitmovin have developed and maintained a robust strategic partnership that has launched sports applications for world-renowned sports leagues. These applications, including launching an app with a sports league on Apple Vision Pro that garnered rave reviews at the Apple launch event, have significantly boosted market visibility for both brands.

Microsoft Azure Marketplace – Cloud Marketplace of the Year:

Bitmovin has had unprecedented success with the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, including more than 200 new customer wins since June 2023. Azure Marketplace has quickly become Bitmovin’s largest and most successful sales channel.

Nomad Media – Americas Regional Channel Partner of the Year:

Nomad Media has deployed over 30 customers on the Bitmovin Play platform in 2023 alone as part of its Nomad Media platform. Nomad Media has also innovated on the player capabilities with dynamic multi-view capabilities. These advancements were showcased to major US clients, propelling both companies forward. This collaboration not only built a strong pipeline but also significantly boosted brand recognition in the US market.

G&L Geißendörfer & Leschinsky – EMEA Regional Channel Partner of the Year:

G&L is a proactive and committed industry partner, who has worked with Bitmovin on both successful sales and marketing initiatives. The collaboration between the two companies resulted in joint revenue, a new logo, and G&L also exhibited on the Bitmovin stand at IBC 2023 where it highlighted how the two companies’ solutions work together. Bitmovin and G&L also hosted a joint CMCD webinar together, which attracted attendees from key German broadcasters and various telecoms and content providers, and it recently published an e-commerce case study with Home Shopping Europe.

Viet Communications – APAC Regional Channel Partner of the Year

Vietcoms was the first licensee for the Bitmovin Player in the Asia Pacific region. Vietcoms was selected for its hard work and efforts in securing our impressive player business in Vietnam and developing agile operational models to meet the specific customer and TelCo business needs and technical requirements.

Once again, I’d like to give huge congratulations to all the winners. A huge thank you to everyone who attended the Bitmovin Innovators Network Partner Executive Networking Event, and to every single one of our partners who continue to embrace the spirit of “Better Together.” IBC is just around the corner, and we will have some exciting initiatives and announcements coming soon to share with you ahead of the show.

The post The Bitmovin Innovators Network “Better Together” Award Winners! appeared first on Bitmovin.

For the past few years, AI has been one of the top buzzwords at the NAB Show. While other hot topics like “web3” seem to have peaked and faded, interest in video AI has continued to grow and this year there were more practical solutions being showcased than ever before. A personal highlight for Bitmovin was winning a TV Technology Best of Show award for our AI-powered Analytics session interpreter. Keep reading to learn more about other interesting and useful applications of AI that we saw at NAB 2024.

NAB Video AI Highlights: 2024

While there was some variation in implementation and features, the majority of the AI solutions I encountered at NAB fell into one of these categories:

• Generative AI (genAI) for video creation, post-production, or summaries and descriptions
• Automatic subtitling and captioning with multi-language translations
• Object or event detection and indexing
• Video quality enhancement

This summary is definitely not exhaustive, but highlights some of the things that stood out to me on the show floor and in the conference sessions. Please let us know in the comments if you saw anything else noteworthy.

Booths and Exhibits

Adobe

Adobe has been showing AI-powered editing and post-production tools as part of their creative suite for a couple years now and they seem to be continuously improving. They teased a new Firefly video model that will be coming to Premiere Pro later this year that will enable a few new Photoshop-like tools for video. Generative Extend will allow you to extend clips with AI generated frames for perfectly timed edits and the new Firefly model will also enable object removal, addition, and replacement. They’ve also implemented content credentials into the platform that will signal when generative AI was used in the creation process and which models were used, as they prepare for supporting 3rd party genAI models like OpenAI’s Sora.  

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS had one of the busiest booths in the West hall and were showcasing several AI-powered solutions, including using genAI for creating personalized ads and Intel’s Video Super Resolution upscaling. But they also had the most eye-catching and fun application of AI in the South Hall, a genAI golf simulator where you could design and play your own course.

axle.ai

Axle.ai was sharing their face, object, and logo recognition technology that can index recognized objects and search for matching objects in other videos or clips. Their software also has automatic voice transcription and translation capabilities. It can run either on-premises or in the cloud and integrates with Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro and other editing suites. While other companies offer similar capabilities, they stood out as being particularly focused on these use cases.

BLUEDOT

BLUEDOT was showcasing a few different solutions for improving QoE in the encoding and processing stage. Their DeepField-SR video super resolution product uses a proprietary deep neural network to upscale video up to 4K resolution, leveraging FPGAs. They were also showing AI-driven perceptual quality optimized video encoding.

Twelve Labs

Twelve Labs was featuring their multimodal AI for Media & Entertainment workflows, aiming to bring human-like understanding to video content. They use both video and audio information to inform object and event detection and indexing.  This enables you to easily find moments in a video, like when a certain player scores or when a product is mentioned. They also power generative text descriptions of videos and clips. Their solution seemed more flexible than others I saw and can be integrated into media asset management systems, editing software or OTT streaming workflows.

Conference Sessions and Presentations

Beyond the Hype: A Critical look at AI in Video Streaming

In this session, as the title suggests, Jan Ozer took a close look at the current state of AI applications for video streaming workflows. He conducted several interviews with executives and product leaders ahead of NAB and shared his notes and links to the full interviews. He also called out a few times that many of the companies featured, including Bitmovin, have been researching and working on AI-powered video solutions for several years now, even before the current wave of hype. He shared Bitmovin’s new Analytics session interpreter and our Super Resolution capabilities, which you can hear more about in his interview with our VP of Product, Reinhard Grandl.

Some other things that stood out for me included Interra Systems’ BATON Captions, which uses natural language processing to break text in a more natural, human readable way. This is a small, subtle feature that can really make a big difference in improving accessibility and the viewer experience, that I haven’t heard anyone else focus on. DeepRender also caught my attention with their claims of an AI-based video codec that will have 45% better compression than VVC by the end of 2024. That’s a really bold claim and I’ll be watching to see if they live up to the hype. Video of the session is available here, thanks to Dan Rayburn and the Streaming Summit.

Running OpenAI’s Whisper Automatic Speech Recognition on a Live Video Transcoding Server

This was a joint presentation led by NETINT’s COO Alex Liu and Ampere’s Chief Evangelist Sean Varley. They presented a practical demo of real-time live transcoding and subtitling using NETINT’s T1U Video Processing Unit (VPU) together with Ampere’s Altra Max CPU running OpenAI Whisper. The NETINT VPU is capable of creating dozens of simultaneous adaptive bitrate outputs with H.264, H.265 and AV1 codecs. The Ampere processor was being positioned as a more environmentally-friendly option for AI inference workflows, consuming less power than similarly capable GPUs. While there were some hiccups with the in-room A/V system, the live captioning demo was impressive and worked very well. Video of the session is available here, again thanks to Dan Rayburn and the Streaming Summit.

Leveraging Azure AI for Media Production and Content Monetization Workflows

Microsoft’s Andy Beach and MediaKind’s Amit Tank led this discussion and showcase of using genAI in media and entertainment workflows. They discussed how AI can help with each part of the production and delivery workflow to boost monetization. This included things like brand detection, contextual ad placements, metadata automation, translations, captioning and personalization. One area they discussed that I hadn’t heard anyone else talk about was using AI for content localization, not just for language translation via captions and dubbing, but for compliance with local and regional norms and in some cases regulations. For example, some areas and countries may prefer or even require removal or censorship of things like alcohol and drug use or guns and excessive violence, so AI can help automate content preparation in different ways for a global audience. They also shared their own personal “most-used” AI applications, which included Microsoft’s Copilot and related AI add-ons to Teams and other Microsoft products.

Did you see an interesting or innovative use of AI at NAB that wasn’t mentioned here? Please let us know in the comments!

The post NAB Video AI Highlights appeared first on Bitmovin.

Say hello to Reinhard Grandl, who oversees Bitmovin’s product department, and develops the company’s product strategy and ensures it is optimized for customers. 

Discover his insights into the big trends at NAB 2023 and how to enjoy the show.

This year will be the 100th year of NAB!  What are your favourite memories from NAB?

My favorite memories always occur at the parties!

The video streaming industry has undergone significant changes in the last few years. Which trends do you expect to dominate discussions on the show floor?

The only constant in the industry is change. Macroeconomic factors have influenced the most recent changes, requiring companies to become more nimble and quickly respond to economic fluctuations. I expect this to be a dominant topic at the show.

Sustainability in video streaming will also generate a lot of discussions. The industry must take responsibility for its carbon footprint and collectively develop strategies to mitigate negative consequences for future generations.

Which Bitmovin innovations are a must-see for NAB attendees?

There are definitely some I wouldn’t want to miss. The first is Player Web X, our next-generation video player, which defines a new standard for playback performance, especially for more challenging platforms such as SmartTVs. Smart Chunking is a major advancement for our VOD Encoding, which significantly impacts video quality by optimizing chunk lengths and bitrate distribution, improving visual quality throughout the asset faster than before.

Last but not least is StreamLab. It’s a hugely exciting, innovative automated stream testing solution; it allows video developers to test and guarantee the quality of experience for their audience across more devices & platforms. In a world where more and more devices are entering the consumer market, StreamLab truly helps solve the issue of device fragmentation and ensures flawless playback on every device.

Bitmovin has been exhibiting at NAB Show since the company’s early days, what tips would you give to other startups looking to make the show a success? 

For young companies, tradeshows are a great way to meet industry peers and develop a good understanding of the market and its dynamics. For most startups going to a big show like NAB means a major investment, even more so when having a booth. So, make sure you set up the right meetings on and off the show floor and book them well in advance to maximize your chances of success. Last but not least – have fun!

Describe NAB in three words.

Impressive. Technology. People.

The post NAB Preview [2023]: 5 minutes with….Reinhard Grandl, VP Product, Bitmovin. appeared first on Bitmovin.

After almost three years without a major industry trade show, being back in Las Vegas for NAB Show almost felt like a mirage because we had waited so long for it. Despite fewer attendees than in previous years and much-needed COVID-19 health and safety guidelines to protect our well-being and the newly built West Hall, it quickly felt normal to be back on the show floor to meet customers, partners, and industry friends. For Bitmovin, it was the busiest and most successful show we have ever had! Despite a three-year absence of industry trade shows, Bitmovin made a big splash. We reaffirmed our position as the category leader in video streaming infrastructure thanks to our fantastic team, which I am incredibly proud of.

We kicked off NAB with our highly coveted Bitmovin opening party, with over 500 guests who we hosted at the Marquee nightclub! Bitmovin’s NAB party is infamous and the show’s highlight for the creme-de-la-creme of the media and entertainment technology industry. On the show floor, we surpassed our target number of meetings with prospects, existing customers, partners, future partners, and renowned industry influencers. We also had an overwhelming amount of interest and positive feedback about the value of our products, especially our Next-Generation VOD Encoder and Stream Lab. We also saw a strong interest in our analytics product, and there’s a lot of excitement about our upcoming solutions for live events. Stay tuned to see what solutions we’re adding to our product suite to drive forward innovations in video streaming infrastructure!

NAB ended on a high with MPEG-DASH winning an Emmy® award! Our co-founder and CIO Christian Timmerer played a leading role in developing MPEG-DASH, the only commercially used and open international standard technology for media streaming over HTTP. MPEG-DASH formed the foundation for the success of Bitmovin because it was co-created by our founders, with our solutions being the first made for this streaming standard. Congratulations again to the MPEG-DASH team!

Overall, while Bitmovin managed to successfully pivot to virtual events and meetings during the height of the pandemic, the return of NAB clarified my thoughts on the value of in-person events. Video is a powerful form of communication that serves as a source of entertainment, information, and education and helps us remain connected even when we’re physically apart. The mental and emotional toll of the pandemic would have been so much harder without video streaming. However, nothing beats in-person interactions!
For some people, the success of NAB was going to indicate the future of in-person events. There have been discussions that industry trade shows are too costly and the ROI is too low. However, it’s those chance encounters on the show floor and those impromptu coffees that often lead to new customers and successful partnerships, or extremely valuable feedback on our products or trends in the industry, and that’s what makes the ROI of in-person events priceless. 
Roll on IBC!

The post Message from the CEO: Thanks for a great NAB Las Vegas 2022 appeared first on Bitmovin.

The full impact of the NAB Show 2018 is still settling in around Bitmovin’s global offices – record number of Bitmovers and meetings, bigger booth and more and bigger parties. But the real stars were the technologies revolutionizing video delivery on the internet.

This year Bitmovin launched so many exciting innovations that it’s hard to fit them all into one post. From products making an impact today, such as Per-Title Encoding, recently adopted by iflix streaming service to deliver HD content over low-bandwidth mobile networks, to groundbreaking technologies, like A.I. Encoding and AV1, the royalty-free codec from the Alliance for Open Media set to deliver 30-40% bandwidth reduction over HEVC & VP9.
AV1 enjoyed an incredible reception at NAB! Bolstered by content providers and browser vendors like Google, Facebook, Firefox & Microsoft among others who praised the new codec for its significant performance gains and transparent, royalty-free licensing terms. In fact, Facebook video just announced trial support for AV1 following their recent benchmarking tests. It’s easy to see why this technology is rattling some in the industry and we will dedicate the first installment of our NAB recap to all things AV1 at NAB.

Leading up to the launch

Last year, Bitmovin received Streaming Media’s Best of NAB Award for world’s first AV1 livestream (almost a year before the codec was formally launched). This year we had so much more to celebrate. At last year’s IBC our team showed the same live stream with more than 80% reduction in CPU usage. In November, we partnered with Mozilla to bring AV1 playback to Firefox, as the first browser to play AV1 DASH/HLS streams.

AV1 @ NAB 2018

With the public release of the AOMedia Video Codec 1.0 (AV1) specification just weeks before the show, NAB was abuzz with excitement. Many in the industry met the news optimistically, even as they were trying to make sense of what it all means for the future of media delivery. Bitmovin execs and engineers participated in a number of events with leaders of Strategy and Engineering teams at Facebook, Google, Harmonic, Intel and Microsoft examining the future of internet video and the impact of the AV1 codec.

Bitmovin Codec Engineer Christian Feldmann presenting end-to-end AV1 workflow at NAB
These panels, organized by AOMedia, BEITC (Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology Conference) and the Streaming Summit at NAB, presented the first opportunity for the wider industry to learn about the impact of the AV1 – from the on-demand video, sports, and live events to real-time communications. Panelists discussed the uniqueness of AV1 in creating a royalty-free standard addressing real bottlenecks for unleashing the highest-quality video for the entire ecosystem.

Gabe Frost (Microsoft), Matt Frost (Google), Zach Hamm (Intel), Stefan Lederer (Bitmovin), Mark Watson (Netflix) on a panel of AOMedia member representatives examining the future of internet video and the impact of the AV1

Mozilla-Bitmovin AV1 Popup

On Tuesday, our booth was even busier than usual as codec engineers from Mozilla and Bitmovin gave AV1 demonstrations and answered questions from the discerning audiences. Check out the AV1 demo video presented by Bitmovin Solutions Architect Paul MacDougall.

Nathan Egge (Mozilla), Brian Weeks (Bitmovin) and Christian Feldman (Bitmovin) showing AV1 demos during the Bitmovin-Mozilla AV1 Popup

AV1 Happy Hour

On Monday night, members of the Alliance for Open Media came together as streaming industry peers, leaders and trailblazers to celebrate the future of royalty-free video on the internet. President of the Alliance Gabe Frost delivered the opening address to roaring crowds, Bitmovin’s CEO Stefan Lederer presented a vision of the future enabled by open video on the Internet, and David Bryant, a Fellow at Mozilla, spoke about video as part of the organization’s mission of building the Internet as a global public resource open and accessible to all.

Party-goers enjoyed passed hors-d’ouevres and an #open bar, while contributing their work towards building the world’s first royalty-free AV1 LegoⓇ model.
Stay tuned for the next installment of our NAB recap!

If you’d like to learn more about AV1, we’ve put together some resources below.

• Introduction to AV1: Webinar recorded with Bitmovin and Mozilla codec engineers.
• AV1 Performance Evaluation: Scientific evaluation puts AV1 to the test against industry standard codecs
• Demo AV1 with Firefox: Watch content encoded in AV1 by Bitmovin and played back in Firefox Nightly.

The post NAB 2018 Recap: Royal Reception for AV1 Royalty-Free Codec appeared first on Bitmovin.

(The good part starts at #t=11m55s)

In addition to our cutting edge work in video compression, we also showcased our video solutions with real world use cases.
Our CEO, Stefan Lederer, led a NextGen TV session on delivering Immersive Media Streaming with High Quality of Experience – taking a deep dive into the end-to-end cloud-enabled workflows for VR & 360-degree video.

Our CRO, Sean Longworth, gave a fascinating presentation on a seemingly mundane subject of video encoding. The audiences tuned in to learn how cloud and on-premise video encoding will need to adapt in the era of increasing file sizes and high-compression codecs.

We also demoed our managed on-premise encoding solution with the team at Scality, illustrating how the Scality S3 Server enables enterprise customers to leverage the security of a virtual private cloud without compromising on features or performance of Bitmovin Cloud Encoding.

Later in the week, Stefan participated on a panel of industry experts to debate one of the more sensitive subjects in cloud workflows – CAPEX vs. OPEX of cloud-based services. With the technology proof points in place, TV and Content Providers consider the costs of making the switch to the cloud.

This year’s show was a ton of work for our entire team. From boots on the ground in Vegas (my FitBit counted triple the steps on the setup and takedown days), to our amazing team that stayed back to support us from the trenches, and everyone who worked tirelessly to create this amazing experience!
After working hard all day, we also had fun after hours. Not taking any chances scoring party invitations from the cool kids, we got together with the like-minded geeks at Mux, Peer5 and Unified Streaming to host our very own happy hour at the classy AquaKnox at the Venetian. We also gave out party invitations to the DASH-IF Networking event, joining media innovators devoted to the transformative technologies of MPEG-DASH for an evening of networking at The Bank Nightclub at the Bellagio. We hope you were there, advancing the cause of open standards in adaptive streaming!
 

The post Bitmovin Rocks The Show: Takes Home The Best of NAB Award appeared first on Bitmovin.