Sharing stories on-air, online, and OTT: A NAB 2018 interview with Vizrt

TVBEurope interviewed Alex Micallef, Vizrts General Manager, UK and Ireland, about the state of the media industry and Vizrts NAB 2018 plans.

Originally published by TVBEurope.

What are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market?For Vizrt, as well as for our customers, the need to publish content to a steadily growing list of new platforms is a real challenge for allocating personnel and technology to accommodate these platforms. There is a real need in the market for fast, efficient, and automated tools to make multi-platform publishing a reality.

What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? The conversion from traditional SDI workflows to IP-based workflows is on the radar of broadcasters everywhere. It's not a question of if they will make the conversion, it's when. When the change happens it affects their entire infrastructure, from video ingest, to live production and distribution. It forces broadcasters to make a choice on what will be their new standard . Do they choose SMPTE 2110, NDI, or a new format that might pop up next week? Vizrt has built its systems to be agile in this respect, so that we can work with any standard that arises, this ensures that the broadcaster's investment in our software is well protected.

How much of your business is non-broadcast? Are you seeing a growing demand for your expertise from different industries? Non-broadcast customers make up close to 10% of our business. We've seen that grow in a relatively short time, with the number of media companies that are now producing video content for online and digital. Media companies such as newspapers and digital publishers face, in many ways, the same video production needs as a traditional broadcaster, but without having the legacy of traditional production tools. This means we are able to adapt for them the very latest IP tools for live video production and publishing without being held back by legacy workflows. What's been really interesting is to see new workflows and ways of working that we're learning from outside of broadcast and being able to implement these ideas and ways of working into the changing broadcast landscape.

What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? NAB is going to be all about publishing or broadcasting your content anywhere and adapting for every channel (i.e. broadcast, online, OTT, social media, etc.) where viewers consume content. From a tools perspective we expect to see a continuation of the themes from recent years - cloud computing, higher resolutions and HDR as well as the increased use of Augmented and Virtual Reality in storytelling.

What are you showcasing at NAB? We will be demonstrating the latest tools for media companies to create and share their stories on-air, online, and OTT with local and cloud-based production systems. We are also going to highlight the latest capabilities of augmented reality tools in the studio as well as how media companies can use videowalls for powerful storytelling. 2018 is also a major sports year with the Olympics and the World Cup, so we are highlighting how to captivate and engage audiences with high-quality sports analysis while generating new revenue streams from sports rights.

What is your business focus for the remainder of the year?As the market leader for broadcast graphics and enhancements, we will continue on our path to bring more powerful, automated tools that deliver visually compelling stories to TV audiences. We will also provide broadcasters with automated tools for branding their content on digital video platforms. Since it is a big sports year, we are also debuting a new tool for advanced sports analysis in the studio, showing efficient tools to drive content in stadium screens, and giving sports rights holders new ways to monetize their live games.

Tead the full interview from TVBEurope.

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LINK:	http://www.vizrt.com/news/newsgrid/54697/Sharing_stories_on-air_online...
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