Following up on yesterday’s post about new tech trends on music, SingularDTV’s Director, Content Operations Adam Lesh highlights breakthrough technologies in media and entertainment from the NAB Show (National Association of Broadcasters) that took place in Las Vegas from April 7 to 12.

For three days, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) hosted conversational sessions and exhibits featuring innovations across media, entertainment and technology.

From huge booths with giant screens playing non-stop videos and presentations and robots in constant motion to the thousands of attendees strolling through the floor, “It was a never-ending barrage of sight and sound”, commented Adam. “It was sensory overload!”

Adam was there to meet with a variety of potential partners for developing SingularDTV’s digital platform. “We believe we need to offer content creators/owners, reasonably priced tools and services which they can use at their own discretion,” he explained. “Services that they would ordinarily get from those entities at a steep cost, such as subtitling, dubbing, transcoding, content protection etc.”

Attendees on the NAB show floor. Photo by Robb Cohen Photography & Video

The first highlight was the fact that many traditional hardware and software vendors now offer their technology as cloud-hosted or SaaS (Software as a Service). “The move to the cloud is a huge benefit for SingularDTV since we have ambitions to be able to spin up new territories quickly,” he continued. “This would be both costly and timeframe-challenging using a hardware model.”

Up until recently, the best-in-class tools for production and post-production have relied heavily on dedicated hardware, which would mean big computer rooms with lots of expensive storage, servers and custom hardware in order to get the best results when processing content. “By hosting SingularDTV’s artist services in the cloud, we will be able to manage and distribute content in a new territory with virtually the push of a button.”

For SingularDTV-produced content, cloud-based dailies, editing, color correction, etc. could make managing worldwide productions effective and efficient. “I was particularly impressed with the aggressive offerings from Adobe,” mentioned Adam. “Premiere has evolved from software best suited for UGC (user-generated content) to a professional editing tool and, when combined with other Adobe tools such as After Effects, a complete post-production suite.”

A live recording in the podcast studio in the Central Lobby. Photo by Robb Cohen Photography & Video

Another NAB highlight was new and expanded AI/machine learning offerings, especially around content and data analytics for OTT (over-the-top) services. Software can now analyze content, not only to detect specific types of video (such as inappropriate adult content), but also, for example, to identify actors in a scene via facial recognition to generate scene-specific metadata, pull dialog and on-screen text for automated script creation (for subtitling and dubbing) and quality control for video defects. “This information can be used to enhance the consumer experience, reduce costs for content owners and automatically quarantine content for human review,” specified Adam.

Activity data (number of downloads/streams, time viewed, page impressions, etc.) on the platform can be used to offer groups of users (e.g., those at high risk for exiting the platform), special promotions and incentives, identify potential technical issues, help artists determine which of their content is most popular and drive their fans to new token offerings. “Clearly, there is a great deal of sensitivity around the abuse of data collection and we are committed to never selling or removing the data from our systems or using it for external product advertising. In addition, providing personal user data (e.g., age, gender, etc.) would be optional. SingularDTV’s goal for generating these analytics is strictly to continuously improve the consumer experience and help artists monetize their content and reach the widest possible audience.”

Editing power on the conference floor. Photo by Robb Cohen Photography & Video

NAB also included a lot of new offerings in broadcast, green screen, camera, Steadicam and robotic camera rigs, sound recording and other production tools. Everything is getting smaller, more powerful and more automated.

One word noticeably nearly absent was “blockchain.” The conference included a panel or two, but while everyone has heard of it, very few vendors have started to look at how they can utilize blockchain technology. “The vendors I spoke with about what SingularDTV is doing were very excited to talk about blockchain with a company that is so far down the road. Several have been very eager about getting into business with us.”

“One word I’d use for NAB 2018? “Change.” Not only are the old ways of creating and monetizing content rapidly evolving, but also it is becoming easier to open up new distribution channels with sophisticated tools to operate them,” concluded Adam. “It’s an exciting time for SingularDTV to be jumping into this space”