XL8, a Silicon Valley tech company providing AI-powered machine translation technology optimized for media content, will unveil its MediaCAT platform for seamless, AI-based media localization at IBC 2022. This powerful web-based platform adds asset management, editing, and automation capabilities to complement XL8’s existing content services.

MediaCAT can automatically extract lines from media content, match the timecode, and translate content to the desired language pair — or multiple language pairs simultaneously. The platform enables in-line post-editing and the addition of synthetic dubbing or voice-overs, allowing users to audition specific voices quickly with just a few clicks.

“Content owners and service providers are under increasing pressure to meet the exploding worldwide demand for media titles and deliver hyper-localized translated media to a growing number of platforms,” said Janice Pearson, SVP of Sales and Strategy at XL8. “They need tools that not only automate and streamline the process but also scale to work at the speed of their business.”

Adding these new capabilities to XL8’s existing suite of Machine Translation Post-Edit (MTPE) services makes MediaCAT the most convenient and unified translation solution available for human translators. MediaCAT will allow users to edit timecode and set limits per segment for a translated subtitle in-line within the tool. These features significantly reduce tedious and repetitive tasks often associated with traditional translation workflows since XL8’s translation engine is specifically optimized for media content translation.

At IBC, XL8 is also previewing its EventCAT platform, which will complement XL8’s existing live subtitling capabilities for live broadcasts and events and provide an on/offline interpretation platform supported by a global network of thousands of interpreters.

The combination of MediaCAT and EventCAT allows linguists to streamline their workflows while unlocking the full power of Artificial Intelligence to support efficient and cost-effective media and conversational localization. All products and services are designed to help localization professionals with the power of XL8’s human-like machine translation engine.

XL8’s full array of media content services includes text and subtitle translations; auto subtitling based on speech recognition through ASR, auto-captioning, and synchronization; and synthesized dubbing and voice-overs. The company’s translation technology is distinguished from other competitive offerings through its use of Context Awareness models to translate colloquial phrases better. Context awareness allows the technology to truly “localize” content instead of simply translating it “word for word.” XL8’s translation engines can also incorporate specific language formalities by recognizing the relationships between words and characters.

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Yospace, the pioneer of server-side ad insertion (SSAI), will demonstrate the latest advances in its technology at IBC 2022. The company’s latest innovations, which include a new orchestration system and non-linear live streaming, are designed to maximise the monetisation opportunities and user experience of live sports.

IBC 2022 comes 10 years after Yospace’s one-to-one advertising solution for live streaming was first recognised by the IBC Innovation Awards with its seminal project with UK broadcaster ITV. In the intervening time, the company has led the way in driving the technology forward, specifically in delivering programmatic advertising on a global scale. The company’s work on reducing ad load in live streams won the IBC Innovation Awards in 2018. Long-term tier 1 customers include DIRECTV in the U.S.; BT Sport, ITV, and Sky in the UK; TV4 in Europe; Nine and Seven West Media in Australia.

Orchestration of sports events

Yospace’s orchestration solution for live sports enables rights-holders to easily power linear OTT channels up and down for each event, freeing them from the challenge of managing a 24/7 channel and the usual overheads associated with publishing event-based live channels. The solution empowers sports rights-holders to broadcast and monetise the full calendar of events they have invested in, ensuring dedicated sports fans never miss a moment of the action.

“Sporting events are highly dynamic in terms of their scheduling, ad breaks and audience demand,” said David Springall, CTO and Founder at Yospace. “We’ve orchestrated the process of operating ‘pop-up’ channels such that they are as reliable as 24/7 channels, with no practical limit to the number that can be supported simultaneously. What really sets this solution apart is the way in which we can ensure that the operations teams can get the most important real-time metrics for their audience and advertising performance as their live content offering scales up and down.”

Non-linear live streaming

Yospace’s non-linear live streaming functionality enables viewers of live events to rewind a live stream if, for example, they miss a goal in a football match. Advertising is dynamically replaced at the point an ad break is viewed, with accurate impression reporting, even when the viewer is in non-linear playback mode. Non-linear live streaming has already been deployed by several major sports broadcasters, including BT Sport.

“Yospace has been an important partner of BT Sport since 2016 and is a true innovator of live session management at scale,” said Jeremy Rosenberg, Director of Advertising Partnerships at BT Sport. “While initially we needed a monetisation solution, what we have today is a partner that is quick to adapt to new challenges and provides innovative solutions, to ensure its ahead of the curve, in an ever evolving market.”

At IBC 2022, Yospace will also be discussing its landmark innovations in one-to-one stream management at scale over the last decade, which continue to define digital video monetisation, including:

• Broadcast-grade reliability:
  Providing 100% uptime with reliability proven for tens of millions of concurrent live streams
• Programmatic for live events at scale:
  Optimising third-party demand according to broadcaster priorities, such as CPM, industry, or programmatic tier
• “Total TV” advertising strategies across live and VOD:
  Empowering broadcasters to develop long-term data strategies. TV4 in Sweden was the first to take this approach and achieved the best financial results in its history within five years
• Client-side beaconing:
  Complimenting server-side stitching with client-side measurement to guarantee the best video experience and the most accurate real-time metrics
• HLS, MPEG-DASH and CMAF support:
  For a complete multi-platform, multi-DRM monetisation solution
• Granular Alternate Content Policies:
  The ability for broadcasters to meet their content licensing commitments by providing a mechanism to deliver alternate content to users based on highly granular regional targeting
• GDPR-compliance and data protection:
  The Yospace SSAI architecture is designed to support the most stringent implementation of user privacy regulation, while supporting third-party programmatic demand

“Since being the first to publicly demonstrate server-side ad insertion in a live stream in 2011, Yospace has risen to the challenge of providing monetisation at scale as audiences everywhere have embraced streaming,” said Tim Sewell, CEO, Yospace. “Time and again customers have come to us with specific problems and I’m incredibly proud of how the team has continued to adapt to them. Our orchestration and non-linear live streaming tools are the latest demonstration of industry progression, and we can’t wait to showcase our innovations again at IBC.”

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Zero Density – Stand 7.B01

Zixi, the industry leader for enabling dependable, live broadcast-quality video over any IP network, and provider of the award-winning Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP) is excited to announce a return to exhibition at IBC 2022.  Zixi will be showcasing a broad range of exciting product updates and demonstrating unparalleled live video delivery performance at this year’s conference.

Zixi will be demonstrating new product updates and showcasing low latency, high throughput, scaled video contribution, processing and distribution now available in the SDVP.  The SDVP is a comprehensive platform for delivering live video on any IP network, any protocol, any cloud provider to any edge device.  In addition to individually scheduled private meetings, the Zixi team will also be presenting opportunities for participants to learn from Zixi leadership, integrated partners, and top media companies at the Devoncroft Executive Summit on September 8th at Amsterdam’s Tuschinski Theatre, and panel at the prestigious Showcase Theatre on September 9th. Representatives from customers including Paramount, NEP, and others will be joining CEO Gordon Brooks to discuss trends in the market and how Zixi’s innovation has helped them address specific problems of live event management, solutions for efficiently delivering not only 24 x 7 live linear but also OU and event applications, as well as their needs for actionable analytics, data visualization and RCA (root cause analysis) reporting for cost efficiencies required in dynamic, modern live IP video broadcasting workflows.

As part of the showcase, Zixi will be exhibiting new and existing capabilities of the SDVP, including:

Live Events Optimized Scheduling and Operational Management in ZEN Master

• Dynamically manage live event schedules and allocate resources in ZEN Master
• Define event stages and rules templates including pre and post-event stream behavior
• Switch between live and slate sources, trigger blackout content replacement, enable bandwidth bonding and failover options, and distribute target-optimized ultra-low latency feeds
• Leverage video-optimized ZaaS Cloud Infrastructure or deploy SDVP instances within your own on-prem, hybrid, or cloud operating environments
• Real-time live event operations dashboard with manual override controls provides visibility into event status from pre-production through post-live stages

Zixi-as-a-Service (ZaaS) for OU/Events

• ZaaS delivers all the functionality of the SDVP with managed high-performance cloud infrastructure to deliver a powerful comprehensive solution for efficiently delivering OU/Event applications
• OU on ZaaS provides a turnkey experience for managing live video contribution and distribution workflows, including integrated low-latency live transcoding, production formats support, and OTT stream packaging
• Updated ZEN Master live events management simplifies complex live event schedules and orchestrating event stages
• Expanded geographic ingress points deliver consistent ultra-low latency performance over diverse signal paths for production backhaul to cloud or distributed processing and playout centers

Zixi Broadcaster v16 Debuts with Enhanced Performance and Zixi AgentZ Telemetrics

• Zixi Broadcaster now supports deployment on ARM-based instances with significant savings on compute costs and lower GHG emissions per compute cycle
• Dramatically improved resource utilization and updated architecture yield up to 200% throughput increase per compute core over previous versions of the SDVP
• Zixi Broadcaster now supports workflows that require SPTS to MPTS multiplexing
• Zixi AgentZ: An updated telemetry polling architecture in the SDVP, improving the frequency and quality of metric data while adding access to powerful new performance KPIs and infrastructure insights
• Protected Multicast:  Unlock tremendous bandwidth savings while retaining full end-to-end content protection and delivery analytics with Zixi Protected Multicast

Actionable Analytics, Data Visualization, and RCA Reporting with Zixi Intelligent Data Platform (IDP)

• Zixi IDP leverages trained ML algorithms and AI analysis to sort vast telemetry data into actionable analysis
• Automated Incident Reporting with Correlated Multi-Object Impact Detection
• Multi-Object Incident Report Dashboard with Time Aligned Graphs
• Continuous Real-Time AI/ML Data Feeds
• Enhanced Algorithms Improve Zixi Health Score Delivering Accurate Future Performance Predictions
• Improved Attribution Yield More Rapidly Pinpoints Incident Root Cause

ContentXchange (CXE) Channel Service 

• Built to reliably connect the world’s most valuable content with the most-watched destinations
• Zixi secured transport rights speed time-to-market, unlocking thousands of premium linear and global event content partners
• Channel feeds curated, packaged, and normalized to customizable distribution endpoints
• Built on market-proven ZaaS technology, CXE delivers fully redundant geographically diverse distribution paths with hitless failover for every managed channel

AWS Support Delivers New Control Plane Options Across AWS MediaServices

• Updated management and monitoring of AWS MediaConnect Flows in ZEN Master
• Support for managing JPEG XS and AWS CDI flows in ZEN Master
• ZEN Master management of AWS Elemental Link devices
• Configuration and monitoring of AWS Elemental MediaLive Channels in ZEN Master
• SDVP and ZEN Master for AWS now available in AWS Marketplace with support for private offer contracts

Additional Showcase Features Available in the Zixi SDVP:

• Full Support for ARM architectures on AWS, Azure, and GCP, delivering increased sustainability and lower compute costs
• Automated failover triggers on TR101, Content Quality Analysis (CQA), and unrecovered packet alerts
• Real-time programmatic live stream multiplexing with Zixi Broadcaster v16
• Enhanced NDI support to include mapping NDI audio channels to MPEG-TS PIDs
• Updated RIST retransmission request timing to improve performance
• Added ML-based VMAF content quality estimation and improved PSNR estimation
• Audio level histograms added to content quality analysis reports
• Added support for accelerated transcoding with NVIDIA Ampere architecture, including AWS P4 instances and RTX A2000/A4000 NVIDIA PCIe cards
• Support for 4:4:4 video on NVIDIA transcoding pipeline
• Added ML-based adaptive rate control for x264 and NVIDIA transcode pipelines

Attendees can spend time deep diving into specific use cases and scenarios:

• Cost-efficient multi-cloud delivery strategy with ZaaS
• Bonded 5G delivery and Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) integration delivering live 4K video
• Building highly resilient, bandwidth efficient, low latency live event contribution workflows
• Remote orchestration and virtualized operations across the media supply chain
• Business impacts analysis with enhanced SCTE-35/CUE propagation monitoring
• Universal Gateway services that programmatically normalize thousands of concurrent linear channels

Zixi is excited to be supporting the IBC Accelerator Lab by participating in two IBC Accelerator Innovations Projects:

IBC Accelerator Projects will be featured in Hall 2.A14 at the RAI:

• Cloud Based Live Events, Analytics, and Low Latency Protocols:  Zixi is supporting dynamically provisioned live event delivery from venue to cloud to distribution partners
• 5G Remote Production… in the Middle of Nowhere:  Zixi is an integral partner in enabling delivery over bonded 5G/4G LTE and LEO Satellite Constellations are enabling truly untethered low latency live video productions

“After three years, Zixi is incredibly excited to be returning to IBC and meeting with our customers and partners in person. Since the 2019 conference, the adoption of IP video distribution has continued to accelerate and Zixi has seen incredible growth,” said Gordon Brooks, Executive Chairman, and CEO, Zixi. “We have been busy innovating to provide the market with live video solutions that are cost-efficient, autonomous, agile, and ecologically sustainable, and can’t wait to share the new technology in Amsterdam.”