The annual NAB Show is about to descend on Las Vegas once more. Here’s what to expect at the show, as well as some information on what we will be doing ourselves on Booth #W1272.
This year is a bit of a landmark for the NAB Show as it celebrates exactly 100 years since the then National Association of Radio Broadcasters held its first event, and there are plenty of centennial celebrations planned to mark the occasion. Back in 1923, 23 attendees from 16 US radio stations met at a hotel in New York City; on April 16 2023 a predicted 70,000 people from around 155 countries and over 1000 exhibitors will pack the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Centre, NAB Show’s official home since 1991.
The show may not be the size it was pre-Covid, and even the 91,500 registered in 2019 were less than the record 115,500 attendance in 2000, but it is still incredibly important and influential; only really rivalled on the global stage by IBC which takes place in September. So, what can we expect from the 2023 edition of NAB Show? More on that below, as well as a first look at what you can expect to see from VO on Booth #W1272.
Main trends at NAB 2023
First of all, AI will be everywhere. We’ve talked about some of this recently in ChatGPT and the increasing impact of AI in the video industry, where we looked at the impact that the new generations of generative AI can have on the creative pipeline. This is only part of its impact though. For a start, generative AI has already moved on significantly even in the few short months since that article, and we are now seeing the first video created by the process.
But while it has hogged many of the recent headlines, AI is much more than just ChatGPT. Our CTO, Alain Nochimowski, characterises AI as moving into industrial mode in 2023 and starting to find widespread applications everywhere. It is already integrated into all of VO’s product lines in one shape or form, and this is a trend that we expect to see replicated throughout the industry as its use leads in the initial stages to increasing automation and optimisation, and then increasingly to new applications entirely.
Elsewhere, we expect to see the continuing evolution and further optimisation of existing trends. So, we will see more about the move to IP-based broadcast ecosystems, more about virtualisation and the wholesale shift towards cloud-based solutions, and an increasing focus on 5G production at the show as live broadcasts, and sports in particular, look to utilise private 5G networks to create genuinely untethered broadcast systems.
At the other end of that particular chain, latency is of course an issue when it comes to viewer satisfaction. We’ve been active in that field, working with colleagues at Broadpeak to install a solution at Israeli operator Cellcom that delivered live matches from the 2022 FIFA World Cup to viewers in 4K at a latency as low as three seconds.
It will be interesting to note the health of next gen TV in the US market and how the rollout of ATSC 3.0 is progressing. That, of course, will further crack open the market opportunity for targeted advertising in the US market and elsewhere, and we expect to find discussions of Targeted TV Advertising becoming a popular topic on our booth.
VO demos and more
On Booth #W1272 we will have three main demo areas where customers old and new can catch the latest developments in our technologies, as well as talk with us about the roadmap to the future and what may be coming down the pipeline.
Alongside demonstrations of the aforementioned Targeted TV Advertising, a close look at our End-to-End TV platform includes a looks at the content ingest, discovery, distribution, and monetization for FAST channels; end-to-end TV monitoring and analytics, from the user experience to the backend; a look at the unified backend that ensures seamless, cost-effective content, service, and device operations; and multiscreen TVaaS (TV as-a-Service) apps that show the VO Secure Video Player working on a smartphone, tablet, and STB with live and VOD targeted TV ad insertion.
We will also be hosting demos that highlight how you can engage your viewers with advanced features such as Multiview functionality and Watch Party hosting, as well as protect it with the award-winning services of our Anti-Piracy Center. This is a truly cutting edge content protection service that combines the very latest technology with our decades of expertise in the area to detect everything from the new threat of CDN Leeching, through to breach detection, and the ongoing drain on revenue and resources that is caused by credential sharing.
VO will also be streaming live deployments of its services in real-time by various operators throughout the Americas, showing visitors how they work, the features they offer, and how they provide a competitive advantage in some of the most crowded and keenly contested markets in the world.
And lastly, our Secure Video Player will also be used by our partner Ateme, in a joint demo showcasing a greener way to stream at the Futures Park Zone. Sustainability is one of the meta trends we have yet to mention at this year’s show, and this is an important part of our work with the NESTED project (New vidEo STandards for Enhanced Delivery), a united effort to achieve sustainable video streaming over 5G with partners including Orange, Ateme, Enensys Technologies, and IETR.
All in all, NAB 2023 looks highly promising for VO, for the industry as a whole, for the 70,000 expected visitors, and for hundreds of thousands more who will follow it online. Don’t miss out on the excitement and book an appointment for a meeting and a demo with our NAB team at the link below, and don’t forget to follow us online on LinkedIn and Twitter to keep up with all our news from Vegas and beyond.
