scte News
Richard Reis, Bursary winner If there is one event in the calendar year that is a must to attend, then it is IBC at the RAI in Amsterdam, and this time my visit was sponsored as a Bursary from the SCTE, for which I am grateful. My focus is usually to check out the latest and greatest in the content making and delivery world, rather than sit through the presentations numerous if that’s your bag) and with 14 large halls and some very sore feet later, I still did not get to see everything. Each year there is a buzz word, and no surprises it was AI’s turn this year. Some of it was relevant, mostly in the content creation field, but there was also an element of “must be in the race” with rather dubious applications, dare I say bordering on snake oil at times. The world of content creation and delivery has certainly changed over the years, with linear TV playing less and less a part and streaming based technologies really coming through. This somewhat dumbs down the technology; it is about capturing content on a smartphone, compressing the data in the handheld device, uploading to and editing in cloud, therefore reducing a TV station to one person and an internet connection. It is good job the world is adopting fibre with high bandwidth for streaming; we are definitely experiencing quantity of content rather than quality, which was something I mused over with the original advent of digital TV and compression, allowing many channels to squeeze into one analogue channel. That seems like history; so long ago now. I was keen to understand what the industry looks like to attract new entrants; the golden oldies like myself can’t go on forever, but to some extent I don’t think it’s that big an issue, as long as you are creative enough to make content, getting to grips with the technology itself is not the challenge it used to be. The IBC conference wrapped up on the Sunday and so I had the opportunity to meet the SCTE team for an excellent dinner and meet my fellow bursary winners and compare notes. Monday gave me time to explore the myriad exhibitors as well as attend the SCTE Benelux lecture meeting where we learned about diverse applications of AI from advanced video codecs to vision based fall detection in sheltered housing. As part of my personal mission to explore employment opportunities, I met with some industry-specific recruiters as well as some of my old work colleagues and companies I have worked closely with in the past – giving me the chance to explore some consulting or part-time work out of my visit. Finally, it was great to meet with the SCTE leadership team and understand some of the challenges and opportunities ahead as the SCTE adapts to meet the needs of the industry and its members – I really appreciated the opportunity to attend IBC and would encourage other members to consider applying in future. targeting the YouTube Generation - who follow brands and shows and have little to no channel affiliation.(e.g. the www.sosh.fr) - this was also echoed by other conference speakers. As well has having the opportunity to attend the conference - my main goal for coming to IBC was to reacquaint myself with the industry after a 5 year break, re- kindle some professional relationships and explore potential opportunities. AI is clearly a big theme; with a dedicated exhibition hall and pretty much every exhibitor having some kind of AI headline on their booth – this theme was also reflected in the conference where we learnt from Olympics.com and the preparation for the 2024 Paris Olympiad (which was 10 years in planning!), and had the opportunity to embrace the rapidly emerging capabilities of AI in video production and data analytics. Their pragmatic approach of keeping ‘humans in the loop’, whilst embracing editorial co-pilots increased productivity and efficiency without introducing bias or hallucinations (the current bugbears of AI models today).
DECEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.4
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