IBC Show Previews E – F
Ease Live – Stand 1.B79
Ease Live (an Evertz company), the interactive sports experts, has developed the capability for its interactive platform to provide perfectly synced interactive experiences on Connected TVs, on top of its existing ability to enable TV viewers to interact with the action on mobiles, PCs and tablets. In addition, IBC will also see Ease Live launch and demonstrate a new soccer pack that is integrated with leading sports data providers, and includes templates and functionality designed specifically for operators with soccer rights.
As an industry first, Ease Live recently launched Connected TV interactivity for a major US regional sports network, which enabled fans to engage with interactive baseball overlays on Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV and Google TV as well as mobile devices.
“That the Ease Live platform now enables sports video to be interactive on all connected screens is a huge step forward in engaging the audiences across the screens,” said Chris Wagner, Managing Partner, OTT Advisors. “It’s really a game changer for broadcasters and operators with sports rights looking to drive fan engagement while also unlocking new ad inventory and monetization opportunities.”
Ease Live is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution embraced by sports leagues, broadcasters, and content providers globally. This interactive graphics platform gives leagues and media companies streaming live sports and other live events the necessary tools to create, build, and provide interactivity to millions of fans and other viewers across multiple platforms in real time. The platform delivers edge-rendered graphic overlays, adding interactive experiences to existing TV, Over-The-Top (OTT) services and apps. With Ease Live, sports fans can interact with in-game statistics, participate in watch parties, polls, trivia, access instant replays and gaming — all without leaving the event.
Ease Live has enabled streaming service operators to boost viewing duration and engagement by over 50% through interactivity synced to the TV and accessed via PCs, tablets and mobile. The result is that Ease Live helps its customers create exciting new advertising inventory and monetization opportunities.
“Interactivity on mobile and tablets drives sports fan engagement and lengthens duration of viewing, leading to increased revenue opportunities,” said Kjetil Horneland, CEO, Ease Live. “The new Connected TV interactivity we’re launching at IBC enables sports leagues, broadcasters and OTT service providers to make all of this possible on the primary screen in the home, the Connected TV, and control the experience through the TV remote. In addition, we are launching a new Soccer pack, that is pre-integrated with feeds from leading sports data providers. By combining ease of launch with device universality and packs for all major sports, Ease Live enables broadcasters and operators to get interactive quickly on all connected devices, while fans can get closer to the action through interacting however they choose, with the sport they love.”
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Edgio – Stand 5.F18
Edgio, the platform of choice for speed, security and simplicity at the edge, will showcase its newly enhanced, award-winning Uplynk solution at IBC2023. Uplynk empowers media companies to seamlessly deliver the highest-quality streaming experiences to global audiences, while reducing time-to-market and driving operational scale.
At IBC, Edgio will demonstrate how media companies can create a complete streaming solution built on Uplynk’s best-in-class components that deliver exceptional viewing quality and reliability while maximizing monetization through advanced advertising. Built on 10+ years of major live events, AVOD, and FAST for the world’s biggest media organizations, Edgio’s tried-and-tested solution, coupled with its deep expertise, provides an exceptionally quick time-to-market and improves ROI. In 2022 alone, Edgio’s streaming technology generated 2.4 billion event views, 3.3 billion hours of streamed video, and more than 220 million hours of advertising.
Edgio will also share details of its latest partnerships and integrations that see Uplynk’s offering expand to solve all the complexities of video streaming today, from ingestion to delivery and analytics.
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Eluvio – Stand 8.MS5
In advance of the IBC Show 2023, Content Fabric pioneer, Eluvio, has announced the availability of a suite of new capabilities to deliver and monetize live, FAST channels, PVOD, and interactive media experiences using the Eluvio Content Fabric and a new, complementary Eluvio Media Wallet for Connected TVs. Eluvio also announced the appointment of industry veteran, Jerry Scheibeler, as Global Vice President of Sales, and opened registration for its exclusive keynotes and demonstration events at IBC.
The Eluvio Content Fabric is an open and decentralized, streaming, content distribution, and storage network built for the third generation Internet. The Fabric delivers live streams with deterministic end-to-end latencies of 2 seconds globally to standard streaming clients (DASH/HLS over HTTP), and provides a complete full-featured media stack to publish, store and deliver content at scale including personalization, access control, content protection and proof of engagement. At IBC 2023, Eluvio will introduce and demonstrate turn-key premium live streaming, PVOD, and FAST Channel streaming from the Fabric now with forensic watermarking, personalized (‘server side’) ad insertion at scale, and a complete media stack including AI/ML content tagging and search.
All features are available to standard streaming clients and can also be coupled with the new Eluvio Media Wallet, a universal personal media vault now available for all major Connected TV platforms that expands the streaming and unique content ownership features of the Content Fabric to mainstream consumers at scale. The Media Wallet, shortlisted for the 2023 IABM BAM Award, breaks the mold of traditional content economics with direct peering between publishers and audience at scale.
Last year, Eluvio received the prestigious TV Tech “Best of Show” Award at IBC. Some of the companies, artists and brands whose premium video distribution initiatives have been powered by Eluvio include FOX Entertainment, Globo, MGM Studios, Microsoft, SONY Pictures, Telstra, Dolly Parton, WWE and most recently WB Movieverse from Warner Bros— which notably won the IBC 2023 International Honour for Excellence (IHFE) Award on its 100th anniversary.
“We are bringing radical efficiency, simplicity, performance, and openness to the premium video supply chain,” said Michelle Munson, co-founder and CEO of Eluvio. “The Eluvio Content Fabric was specifically created to remove the limitations of legacy distribution and transform and simplify premium video and digital media delivery and its profitability for publishers. We’ve completed the feature set in the Content Fabric to now take on some of the most challenging problems for streaming video, and we’re excited to demonstrate all of this at IBC. We’re also very proud that joining us will be Jerry Scheibeler, our new vice president of sales, a proven commercial leader experienced in internet video infrastructure, to help us expand our reach to customers around the globe.”
Third Generation Internet Video Delivery
Unlike legacy content distribution networks and media clouds, the Eluvio Content Fabric is an open global network implementing a content-native protocol that allows all forms of media to be published once and distributed at scale globally. Key attributes of the Content Fabric include being:
- Hyper efficient – Over 10x cost saving and carbon saving at scale over legacy CDNs and media clouds;
- Open – An open network of nodes running the Content Fabric Protocol as a utility blockchain network;
- Fast – Decentralized, high-performance content streaming, distribution and storage including 4K live, PVOD, and interactive content;
- Simple – All media cloud and CDN functions in one dynamic protocol;
- Secure – Trustless content encryption, forensic watermarking, DRM, and access control built in and end-to-end;
- Transparent – Tamper-free, Web3 native, and PII (personal identification information) neutral; and
- Just-in-time and Personalized – Content and ad insertion at scale (e.g., FAST).
The Eluvio Content Fabric also enables new monetization opportunities such as live streamed events, Web3 digital collectables and interactive multimedia/video NFTs; XR experiences; and loyalty and fan engagement programs with integrated ticketing, tokens, and payments.
Audiences can discover, own, enjoy, and if authorized, retrade in these experiences via seamless blockchain ownership, authorization and windowing enabled by the Content Fabric. No legacy CDN, media cloud or user PII is required. Built-in ML/AI content tagging also allows content companies to search, organize, and monetize archives and video libraries to automatically generate clips and other customized video marketplaces. Eluvio offers Web3-native turnkey and brandable websites, storefronts, and video marketplaces, and a native Media Wallet. The distribution maximizes the return for the publisher, the efficiency of the distribution, and the engagement opportunities for the consumer.
Eluvio Media Wallet, FAST Channels, & Personalized Ad Insertion
The Eluvio Media Wallet is a consumer application and embeddable API for discovering, streaming, owning, and enjoying content directly from its publishers via the Content Fabric. It is available on web/mobile browsers, and now across all major Connected TV platforms, including Apple TV, Android TV, and Fire TV. With more than 1,600 device platforms and growing, the Eluvio Media Wallet expands the reach of the Eluvio Content Fabric to mainstream consumers at scale.
The Wallet premiered on Connected TV with Warner Bros.’ release of “The Flash” under a first-ever, personal sell-through ownership window directly to fans. For movies, the master film and all associated bonus footage, extras, and interactive experiences are streamed to fans’ Media Wallets via the Content Fabric. International release windows are implemented with no separate rights management system via on-chain policies and backed by the Fabric’s end-to-end content security and DRM. Similarly, the Eluvio Media Wallet allows publishers to offer content under any sell through model and window (ownership, subscription pass, or ad supported).
Most of today’s FAST channel solutions trade off content personalization against latency, scalability, and privacy. Traditional server-side ad insertion limits the range of ads in exchange for scalability to large streaming audiences. Conventional client side or “edge” insertion technologies allow for greater personalization, but they encumber the client/network with specialized logic limiting scalability, and often require the client to load multiple streams concurrently, resulting in latency and load. Both ad approaches have conventionally stored cookies or turned to differential privacy to protect the personal identification information (PII) of streaming clients.
At IBC, Eluvio will demonstrate how publishers can distribute subscription PVOD and Live Channels, and FAST channels, where ad and programming content is inserted on-demand by the Content Fabric for that particular wallet. The content is published once, and is secured, streamed and authorized by the Content Fabric. Personalization is flexible and scalable in the Fabric using its dynamic bitcode.
The Eluvio Content Fabric supports individually personalized insertion of content within live and on-demand streams to scale audiences with low latency and no custom players required (e.g., 2 seconds for live streams using standard HLS and fragmented MP4 packaging to standard ABR players). User sessions are authorized using the user’s on-chain address tied to the Media Wallet address rather than personal identity (PII).
The Media Wallet is a direct channel from publisher to audience with unlimited customizable offers and transactions, and allows for new engagement opportunities including:
- Bundled movie tickets, early access titles, redeemable offers in retail, and continuous content updates;
- Exclusive access/super fan channels;
- Interactive experiences with AR/VR and other on-screen “hot spots”;
- User-contributions such as user-generated clips, content feedback, on-chain tipping, re-trading marketplaces and more.
The Eluvio Media Wallet is a full EVM crypto wallet with an embeddable API. It can be easily dropped into existing streaming media properties through its single-sign on and deep link APIs. Consumers enjoy SSO or email sign on, or can choose native crypto wallet sign on. All engagement and purchasing is recorded transparently on the Content Fabric blockchain without middle parties, and any transaction can be incentivized through on-chain rewards/payments.
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everviz – Stand 7.D06
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Fabric – Stand 5.C90
Fabric, the leader in media and entertainment catalog management, will be exhibiting at IBC 2023 on the AWS stand in Hall 5, stand 5.C90 and will be demonstrating its award-winning data service products for content owners.
Fabric Origin
Fabric Origin is an award-winning data service for content owners that delivers all the trailers, clips, and value-add content that drive discovery and engagement and enhance viewer experience. Origin’s catalog of high-quality content is ideally complementary to other major suppliers of metadata, making it an essential addition to the world of entertainment data provision.
With Origin, Fabric is pioneering the use of AI to deliver custom synopsis editing, transformation and localization at volume for major studio clients. Fabric’s Origin data service also delivers up-to-the-minute in-depth platform availability, business insights, and trending data, for content owners to assess the competitive landscape for individual titles to help them drive intelligence-led acquisition strategy.
Fabric Studio
Fabric Studio provides a categorical source of truth for title catalog data within an organization preventing record duplication in the supply chain. Providing metadata enrichment, process automation, reporting and data insights, content review, and localization management, Studio unifies media supply chains with customized features and seamless integrations.
Rob Delf, CEO of Fabric, said: “IBC is a great meeting place for the industry to come together for live demonstrations and to meet the people behind the products. We look forward to discussing with platforms and content owners how Fabric’s products can help them streamline and integrate their data services into their existing title catalogs. Our integrated data services provide entertainment data and rich contextual multimedia assets and entertainment information to content owners, helping them make informed decisions.”
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farmerswife – Stand 6.A23
farmerswife, a leading software provider for resource scheduling, project management, and team collaboration in the media industry, will be showcasing for the first time, since the official market launch in June, the version 7.0 of the farmerswife tool, and the new features of the Cirkus project management solution, at IBC.
First showcased in April at the NAB Show in Las Vegas and later in May at the Media Production Technology Show in London, the version 7.0 of the farmerswife scheduling, management and reporting tool has incorporated several new features to make workflow management and collaboration easier, including:
- Dark mode: For those who are working late at night, in a low-light grading suite, or just want to reduce eye strain, farmerswife v7.0 offers its highly anticipated new dark theme
- QR Codes: The new “QR Code” element adds an extra layer of information to reports, making it easy for clients or colleagues to quickly access additional details or resources, such as a project overview, a budget breakdown, or a promotional video
- Sync Mode: The new “Sync Mode” option allows users to control which direction data is synced- from farmerswife to Cirkus, from Cirkus to farmerswife, or both ways. It can be configured independently for Projects, Bookings, Time Reports and/or Personnel Bookings
- Advanced Project Search: The latest release takes Project Search to a new level, making it easier for users to find what they need. The dropdown “Filter From” allows users to filter by Container, Project, Binders and Projects & Binders. Users can also “Edit View” or activate the “Load View” option to load a saved view from another user, which is useful for collaboration with remote team members
Cirkus, a cloud-based day-to-day task collaboration tool, also includes new features that improve the process of scheduling, assigning, and managing projects across an organisation and with external contractors.
The latest Cirkus versions allow you to assign resources to Tasks and see these bookings on the Schedule, also to book our teams using the Roles function.
Project requests and approvals have also been added to channel work and workload more effectively from all stakeholders
farmerswife and Cirkus can work together or as standalone products to address the specific needs of media organisations, with farmerswife providing in-house scheduling, resource management, and financial reporting, and Cirkus sharing information with distributed teams internally and externally.
“We are thrilled to be showcasing our flagship products farmerswife v7.0 and Cirkus for the first time since their official launch in the market at such an important show for the broadcast industry like IBC,” comments farmerswife CEO, Stephen Elliott. “Our end-to-end offering reflects the complex workflows that operate in the modern industry, with teams working on the same projects from different locations and departments, and sometimes with external vendors. Thanks to farmerswife and Cirkus, content creators and their teams can easily work together, no matter how far they are”.
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Frequency – Stand 5.C80
Frequency is the fastest growing linear streaming solution for OTT. With a mix of hundreds of content providers and distribution platforms, Frequency creates innovative solutions that are defining the future of TV. Frequency delivers channels to connected TVs globally, via the world’s leading Free Ad Supported TV (FAST) vMVPD and MVPD platforms.
The company will be demonstrating the latest version of Frequency Studio, its cloud-based SaaS platform for the creation, management, distribution, and monetization of linear channels on the booth of its partner AWS, and will hold media and analyst meetings in the IABM lounge.
Frequency CEO Blair Harrison and other senior team members are attending IBC and welcome the opportunity to meet with media and analysts to talk about market trends and show how Frequency empowers media companies to create content experiences that inspire, educate, and entertain audiences all over the world.
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