IBC is big - big in terms of size, ideas and possibilities. That was the overriding impression of IBC from debutante and RTS Young Technologist of the year Peter Sellar who declared “The amount of technology and innovation on offer is astonishing.”
Even trade show veterans would have to admit that IBC2011 was a bumper year, helped by the record attendance of over 50,000 professionals spread from right across the electronic media and entertainment industry, from student to ceo and Hollywood royalty.
There’s no doubt that such a positive response indicates that IBC is bringing more of the right conversations to more people in a stimulating trading and learning environment. There’s also no doubt that these figures show the resilience of an industry rebounding back after three years in the doldrums.
In a report unveiled in a free conference session at IBC2011, the IABM backed this up. Peter White, director general of the association, told delegates that despite some challenges there was a greater sense of optimism both from the demand side of the business as well as the supply side. The IABM predict that the industry would have passed its pre-recessionary levels in three years.
The can-do attitude that will see this industry survive and thrive was evident on the showfloor where 13 halls were packed with more than 1,300 exhibitors each with a multitude of exciting messages of innovation and problem solving ideas.
Over $20m worth of business was signed during the show including 70 sales of Sony’s F65 CineAlta camera which is capable of capturing images at 4K resolution.
If it is ‘K’ you want then you need look no further than the astonishing Super Hi-Vision which contains sixteen times the amount of HD resolution and continues to be pushed as a broadcast format by NHK. Live Super Hi-Vision transmissions from a static camera overlooking BBC Broadcasting House in London were shown in the Future Zone.
Picking up an IBC Conference award for a technical paper on Super Hi-Vision, the head of NHK’s R&D lab Dr Keiichi Kubot said significant progress had been made: “We have developed an 8-channel switcher and a slow motion replay system to sit alongside a camera and recording unit making a live production of sports events a possibility.”
A probability, because the BBC intends to transmit the Olympics to large screens around London next year using Super Hi-Vision, while FIFA is also mulling its use in Brazil two years later.
Understanding how consumer behavior impacts decision making right up the content production, distribution and manufacturing chain is of increasing importance to media organisations which is what a dedicated hall grouping developments in IPTV and mobile TV was designed to explore within the IBC Connected World.
A special Demonstration Area within the IBC Connected World allowed attendees to understand more of the practicalities of how media can be delivered and consumed in and around the home on different screens and by different family members.
Linked Exhibition Business Briefings led by Ericsson, IBM, TV Genius, Harris and IBC Connected World Platinum Sponsor Cisco, delved deeper into key issues emerging from the “Connected World”. Ericsson’s head of TV Staffan Perhrson suggested in The Networked Society will be Televised that “We are all living through the early stages of an extraordinary revolution connecting not just people but communities, systems and intelligence. With everything connected our world changes. A connected world is just the beginning. We are on the brink of the Networked Society.”
The networked agenda was on the minds of the world’s three biggest standards organisations - the EBU, SMPTE and AMWA - when they met at IBC to formalise an agreement that will see them co-operating on future digital media-related standards.
“The aim is to identify common points where we have issues to discuss and digital workflows are high on the agenda,” explained EBU deputy technical director and SMPTE engineering VP Hans Hoffman.
Part of its investigation will no doubt involve the way files are transported and stored, QCed, transcoded and mastered in off-site servers accessed only via the internet - in other words the Cloud.
A flurry of announcements from the post production area (Hall 7) of IBC saw Cloud production gain traction. Sky Sports News announced it was the first European broadcaster to use the Axis Cloud-based graphics creation system from Chyron. Sky head of operations Darren Long was on site to highlight the deal. Quantel landed Rogers Media as the first customer of its Cloud edit and review service Qtube after the Canadian media company came to IBC2010 searching for such a solution; Digital Rapids and Building4Media were others taking production systems into the Cloud while Prime Focus launched the Domain Centric Cloud (DCC) platform, already operational in India, to a wider market.
The latest figures from Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, as noted by EMEA president Chris Dedicoat at the IBC Leaders’ Summit, estimates that the sum of all forms of video (TV, VoD, internet, and P2P) will be approximately 90% of global consumer internet traffic by 2015. Even if those figures are out there can be no doubt in the power of video as a communications tool nor in the high importance of new tools to acquire images in the first place.
At the coalface are producers and camera-ops who visited the IBC Production Village to try out the most cutting edge commercially available cameras, camera systems and accessories on the market. These include the Meduza 4K camera; 3Ality Technica rigs and Stereo Image Processors and high speed imagers from Vision Research.
Connecting the theory of how such cameras work on a showfloor with their practical use on live productions is where Inside Knowledge came in. This informal set of presentations adjacent to the IBC Production Village gave attendees a candid insight into how their peers had used technologies in anger. Combining overview and opinion into new technology with practical demonstrations of it in action is what IBC is all about.
This union is celebrated at the annual IBC Innovation Awards, a red carpet event which this year featured breakthrough achievements in stereo 3D, global news production and next generation digital delivery.
There can be few better places to sit back and simply marvel at the astonishing visual creations that filmmakers like Atlantic Productions’ ceo and executive producer Anthony Geffen or Avatar director James Cameron have musterered than the IBC Big Screen, host to the IBC Innovation Awards and this year home to some spectacular 3D treats.
Atlantic Production’s Flying Monsters 3D with Sir David Attenborough was lauded with an IBC Special Award for an outstanding use of technology in the service of creativity. He was on hand to show the full 60 minute programme as well as works in progress including Kew, a three part series about Kew gardens plant life which includes never before seen 3D timelapse photography.
Cameron delivered IBC a coup when he personally presented an 18 minute sequence from Titanic which has been given a 4K digital remaster from the original negative print and then a painstaking 2D-3D conversion.
The very vocal round of applause that this received from an audience that would normally consider themselves sceptics, showed not only their appreciation for the quality of this cinematic experience but also that they were among the first to share it. These things happen, only at IBC.
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