SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Audio Workshop Hits on Immersive, Virtualized, and Next-Gen Streaming Workflows

SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Audio Workshop Hits on Immersive, Virtualized, and Next-Gen Streaming WorkflowsBy SVG Staff

Wednesday, December 10, 2025 - 7:15 am

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The 2025 SVG Summit is fast approaching, and day one (Dec. 15 at the New York Hilton) will showcase some of the brightest minds and most influential brands in sports media. Among the can't-miss tracks is the SVG Audio Production & Distribution Workshop, which will focus on Immersive Everywhere, Virtualized Audio Production Workflows, and Next Generation Audio for Streaming.

During this last year the transition to direct-to-consumer distribution of sports content from legacy linear broadcasting has continued to accelerate. This is great news for audio. DTC enables improved encode-once straight audio paths to consumers. Streaming services are well positioned to layer-in next generation audio systems and take advantage of enhanced immersive experiences and consumer-friendly personalization and accessibly. Sports content now sits on premium services alongside Hollywood-derived immersive HDR content, occasioning a step-up in production quality. At the same time, some ad-supported services struggle to re-learn the basics of loudness management in the environment of third-party automatic ad insertion services.

As global rights for major events become a possibility for the largest services, the pressure to efficiently scale commentary and accessibility internationally becomes a challenge. On the production side, virtualization of workflow and infrastructure continue to leverage digital networking, software-based systems, and AI tools from the microphones on the field of play, to distributed console systems, all the way to QC, master control, and beyond.

Please join SVG Audio for an examination of the implications of evolving production and distribution technology and share perspectives and experiences from A1s, designers and technologists on recent and upcoming global events. Check ou the full agenda below:

1:30 pm 1:45 pm: Welcoming Remarks

Speakers:

Roger Charlesworth, SVG Audio, Executive Director

Jim Starzynski, NBC Universal, Director and Principal Audio Engineer, SVG Audio, Chairman

1:45 pm 2:15 pm: Compressed Contribution and Distribution Flows for Next-Generation Audio

The demands for increasingly higher channel counts for immersive audio, alternate music, multiple language support, and discrete object elements have completely outstripped the decades-old SDI-based channel counts common in program workflows throughout production and distribution. Can existing high-quality low-latency codecs be adapted into an open standard to synchronously transport significantly larger channels counts in existing transport stream bandwidth?

Speaker:

James Cowdery, Dolby Laboratories, Director Live Workflow Architecture, Entertainment Technology Group

2:15 pm 3:00 pm: IP-Enabled Digital Microphones

This year native-IP digital beam-forming microphones have emerged to play a significant role in live sports production. We will get an update from their designers and end-users and discuss the use-cases that have resonated with A1s.

Panelists:

Gary Dixon, Audio-Technica, Director, Broadcast Business Development

Colin Ritchie, Voyage Audio, Co-Founder & Lead Engineer

Everett Salyer, Shure Inc, Senior Specialist, Business Development

Glenn Stilwell, AppleTV Friday Night Baseball, Sound Supervisor; Dolby Laboratories, Live Mixing Consultant; NBC Olympics, Senior Audio Maintenance Engineer

3:00 pm 3:45 pm: Networking Break in Exhibits

3:45 pm 4:15 pm: Countdown to Milan Cortina 2026

A final check-in with Karl Malone on preparations for this winter's games and a glimpse at some of the audio innovations due for their first Olympic outing.

Speaker:

Karl Malone, NBC Sports and Olympics, Senior Director of Audio Engineering

4:15 pm 4:45 pm: AI Enabled Tools for QC and Analysis in Multi-Stream Production

Adapting to scaled-up program offerings is one of the key challenges faced in the transition to DTC. Similarly global-scale streamers must increasingly contend with multiple language support across international footprints. These factors make manual QC and analysis of live programming virtually impossible. We'll explore how AI based tools are evolving to perform detailed analysis of multiple concurrent live audio programs and are developing sophisticated.

Speaker:

Rob Oldfield, Salsa Sound, CEO and Co-Founder

4:45 pm 5:30 pm: Perspectives on Live Audio Production and Distribution

Our panel will share their perspectives on live audio production and distribution, including the role of direct-to-consumer models in opening up premium immersive and NGA formats, while expanding the volume of content production required.

Panelists:

Florian Brown, ESPN, Sound Supervisor

Karl Malone, NBC Sports and Olympics, Senior Director of Audio Engineering

Brian Rio, BVR Consultancy, Principal

Neal Roberts, Warner Bros. Discovery, Distinguished Video Platform Engineer

Ceri Thomas, IMMERSV, Founder

5:30 pm 6:30 pm: Opening Night Reception in Exhibits

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2025/12/10/svg-summit-2025-preview-audio-w...
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