- Breadth of Innovation Reflected in IBC2013 Awards

LONDON, June 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The shortlist of finalists for the IBC2013 Innovation Awards has been announced. With more nominations than ever before, the shortlist reflects the dynamic changes running through the industry, all ultimately leading to a better, more engaging and more immersive experience for consumers.

The ten finalists come from nine different countries as far apart as Slovenia and New Zealand. They include achievements from a new way to get close to sports action through dynamic workflow management to the latest in delivering interactivity. All share the unique quality of the IBC Innovation Awards: they honour the end user and the commitment to improving the experience for the audience.

"This year our shortlist reflects the remarkable breadth of our industry, from a blockbuster movie to the research behind getting the best possible HD quality to the home," said Michael Lumley, chairman of the IBC2013 Innovation Awards judging panel. "We have a remarkably diverse and fascinating shortlist this year, and like everyone I am keenly awaiting the ceremony at IBC and the announcement of the winners."

The IBC Innovation Awards recognise not just new technology but its application. The award goes to the end user who has brought together the technology partners and collaborators to realise a creative, commercial or technical goal. There are three categories, for projects in content creation, content management and content delivery, and the finalists in each category are announced today. The winners will be announced during the IBC Awards Ceremony, to be held on Sunday 15 September.

Content Creation

The first of the four nominations for most innovative content creation project goes to Fox Sports in Australia, who wanted to give cricket fans a real idea of what it feels like to face the world's best bowlers. Working with Globecast it developed a helmet camera for use by batsmen and wicket keepers, using wireless HDMI to keep the weight down, with signals converted and relayed by transceivers carried by the umpires, who have their own cap cameras.

The BBC built audience anticipation for last year's Olympic Games by showing every moment of the 13,000km, 70 day torch relay around the UK. Providing pictures of every runner in the relay was a communications challenge involving technical partners including Antares, Bradley Engineering, Cobham, LiveU and Mobile Viewpoint.

Engrossing television starts with a solid script, and ITV in the UK has recently been working with Adobe on its Story project. This is now used on two primetime soap operas, not just for collaborative script development but for production management to plan shooting schedules around the actors.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey grabbed the headlines as the first high frame rate, high dynamic range 3D mainstream movie. The post production was a hugely challenging technical and creative task, and for its remarkable efforts Park Road Post Production from Wellington, New Zealand is the fourth finalist, along with its technology partner SGO.

Content Management

Meeting the challenges of multi-platform delivery head-on, T-2 in Slovenia has developed an IPTV service which is accessible on smart televisions, connected set-top boxes, computers, and Android and iOS mobile devices. Managing the content to meet all these formats called for a technology development with Vision247 and Fora, and earned recognition as the first of three finalists for the IBC2013 Innovation Award for Content Management.

Irish national broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann needed to move rapidly to a file-based infrastructure, with users creating and controlling their own automated workflows. In a clever two-stage project in which the first stage proved the concept for senior management and allowed key workflows to be developed alongside staff familiarisation, RTE worked with TMD.

RTBF in Belgium wanted to make the most of its huge multimedia archive, so with its technology partners Perfect Memory and Memnon it developed GEMS. Through semantic search, automated speech to text conversion, natural language processing and open data connections GEMS delivers interesting – and sometimes surprising – media and information through an intuitive graphical interface.

Content Delivery

Dutch cable company Ziggo wanted to deliver advanced interactive services but without a new range of set-top boxes. Its vision was to put all the complexity into the cloud, allowing its subscribers to run a very rich graphical user interface on their existing hardware. A technology partnership led by ActiveVideo and including Seachange, Samsung, Humax, Unitid and Webadvance met the challenges of packing a powerful user interface into the limited processing power of legacy set-top boxes.

In 2012 the research labs of Japanese national broadcaster NHK were honoured at IBC, and this year the Japanese Commercial Broadcasters Association has earned a place on the shortlist. It has been working, with NTT Communications, Fujitsu and Juniper Networks, on a next generation platform to deliver terrestrial HD television, using multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), a cutting edge IP transmission technique.

The third finalist in content delivery is Abertis Telecom in Spain. Working with Harmonic and Nagra it has developed a cloud-based multi-screen delivery platform. To ensure compatibility with as many devices as practical, it is set to be the first commercial implementation of the MPEG-DASH specification. A collaborative development, built on new open standards, makes it a very worthy member of the shortlist for the IBC2013 Innovation Awards.

Ceremony

The IBC Awards Ceremony takes place at 18.30 on Sunday 15 September, in the Auditorium in the RAI Centre. As well as the Innovation Awards, the ceremony will also see the announcement of the Judges' Prize, also in the gift of the same panel of international editors and consultants judging the Innovation Awards.

The IBC International Honour for Excellence, IBC's highest award, will also be presented during the ceremony, along with awards for best conference paper and for exhibition stand design.

The lively ceremony also includes entertaining and dramatic entertainment on the big screen. It is free to all IBC visitors.

Full details of the shortlist can be found at:   http://www.ibc.org/2013AwardsShortlist

About IBC

IBC is the premier annual event for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment and news content worldwide. The event's unparalleled exhibition and agenda setting conference encompass the very latest developments in broadcasting, mobile TV, IPTV, digital signage and R&D making it essential for everyone's understanding of the industry and its future.

IBC2013 Dates

Conference 12 – 17 September 2013 Exhibition 13 – 17 September 2013

Additional Information

For more information on the IBC2013 visit www.ibc.org

SOURCE IBC