The digital revolution is coming to live entertainment.
From 5G and remote production to AI and machine learning, innovative projects showcased at the recent IBC Show aim to solve the complex technology and business challenges in the media and entertainment arena.
Attendees of IBC Show, a global conference that brings together the content and technology industries, can see demos of this work in the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program, which is supported by NVIDIA.
Designed to encourage innovation, the program tackles challenges in a project-based, collaborative approach between “Champions” — the broadcasters, studios, platforms and content providers who define the challenge — and “Participants” — the vendors, developers and manufacturers who help design the solutions.
The Accelerator Program and NVIDIA have extended this platform to its partners — including those in NVIDIA Inception, a program that nurtures technology startups revolutionizing the industry — and its customers to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible in broadcast with cutting-edge ideas and technologies.
The exploration of new ideas within this program and subsequent findings enable those in the media and entertainment industry to remain aligned with changing audiences and trends.
AI in the Broadcast Workflow
One example of how AI can create efficiencies that accelerate production workflows is the project Smart Remote Production for Real-Time Animation.
Featuring NVIDIA Inception members RADiCAL and Respeecher, the project explores various approaches for script-to-3D character creation using real-time render engines and remote collaboration tools. The project presents AI-based markerless pose estimation, speech-to-facial animation and the development of animated content in a remote workflow.
Immersive and Sustainable Live Production
NVIDIA Inception members Tvori and Masterpiece Studio showed how the future of live entertainment is immersive, with RT-3D Interactive Content Creation for Multi-Platform Distribution.
This project touches on the creation of assets using the latest XR software and real-time collaboration tools combined with traditional production applications.
The “Sustainability in Live Production” session explores new approaches and technologies that can reduce the environmental impact of live TV production.
It features NVIDIA partners including AWS, Microsoft, Zixi and Inception member Blackbird collaborating with sports broadcasters such as BBC Sport, NBCUniversal, Premier League, and Sky Sports.
The Rise of 5G
A live demonstration at IBC 2020 showcased a 5G-enabled remote production running across four locations around the world. This year, even more projects highlighted 5G’s advanced capabilities.
5G Location-Based Extended Realities is a project that experiments with NVIDIA CloudXR, among other tools, to improve and empower how companies approach location-based entertainment experiences in extended realities, including virtual and augmented reality, and esports. NVIDIA partner Quark.XR was among the project participants.
NVIDIA partners Grass Valley and Evertz, as well as major broadcasters like Al Jazeera, BBC, Fox Sports and ViacomCBS, worked together to explore multi-access edge computing, multicloud deployments, private 5G networks (so-called “Networks in a Box”) and low-earth orbit satellites in the session, 5G & Innovation in Live Workflows.
Grass Valley and Evertz were also involved in 5G & Remote Production in Live Sports along with NVIDIA partners Mobile Viewpoint and Microsoft. The project examines the capabilities that 5G can bring to some of the biggest sporting events of the year, including the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Watch these project demos and more on demand on IBC Digital.
To submit a project for the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program, check out the call for the 2022 Challenge.
Learn more and apply to join NVIDIA Inception.
Discover how NVIDIA is driving the future of broadcast at GTC, taking place March 21-24. Register for free and get the latest news on groundbreaking technologies in media and entertainment.
Featured image courtesy of IBC.