LONDON, Sept. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IBC celebrated its Awards on Sunday 9 September, with honours going to companion apps and asset management, the latest in home content delivery, an 80 year history of ground breaking broadcast developments, cutting edge research and the best in exhibition stand design. The ceremony featured content as diverse as zombies and ballroom dancing. Honoured on stage were media companies from North and South America, Europe and Japan.

The IBC International Honour for Excellence this year was presented to the Science and Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) of Japanese national broadcaster NHK. Its developments, over more than 80 years, have had an impact all along the content chain from broadcasters right into the home: the plasma display was one of its developments. The award, accepted by the president of NHK, Masayuki Matsumoto, set the tone for an awards ceremony which reflected the changing ways in which we all consume content.

"Our industry is changing, with new delivery platforms and business models expanding on the foundation of the long history of broadcasting," said Michael Crimp, IBC's CEO. "This year our awards have really reflected these changes, taking us right into the home with new ways of discovering and enjoying the finest content."

IBC2012 International Honour for Excellence

Japanese national broadcaster NHK formed its Science and Technology Research Laboratories in 1930. From the beginning, the results of its research had a direct impact on the viewer, including colour television, HD, satellite broadcasting, plasma displays and more. From the earliest days it recognised that broadcast technologies could be used in other industries: high definition television used as the basis for medical imaging, for example. This in turn put NHK STRL in the forefront as technologies converged, creating today's "TV everywhere" environment.

IBC was greatly honoured that the 2012 International Honour for Excellence was accepted by the president of NHK, Masayuki Matsumoto. "It is a great honour to receive this award on behalf of all the engineers at NHK," he said. "Broadcasting leaders meet at IBC. Innovators meet here. They discuss their visions and push the boundaries of our craft, so certainly I feel happy to accept this award."

"I have a firm belief in research and development," Mr Matsumoto added. "We will share what we have come up with through IBC. We hope that what we do will stimulate the industry,
provide a catalyst for new ideas, and enhance the future for all of us."

IBC2012 Innovation Awards

The IBC Innovation Awards are unique because they go not to a manufacturer for a new product, but to a broadcaster or media business which has taken the best of today's technology to create an innovative solution to a real creative, technical or commercial challenge. The three winners this year each delivered something genuinely new to the user. With multi-screening and social media one of the most debated topics at IBC2012, it was appropriate that the winner of the IBC Innovation Award for Content Creation was a second screen app, a way of adding to the viewer's enjoyment by synchronising interactivity on an iPad with a television programme. FX UK took the award for its companion app for The Walking Dead, developed by Red Bee Media and using audio watermarking technology from Civolution for synchronisation.

Highly commended projects in this category, and welcomed to the stage, were two further projects. ESPN was honoured for its use of graphics technology from Orad, Hawk-Eye and Spidercam to enhance its coverage of Grand Slam tennis, and TV Globo in Brazil for VATE, a new tool to support directors and cameramen working on live shows like Danca dos Famosos, its version of Dancing with the Stars.

Taking the IBC Innovation Award for Content Management was NASCAR, the high-thrills American motor sport. Its race officials needed instant access to pictures from 18 trackside HD cameras, to make judgements on incidents and accidents, setting penalties where required. Telestream, in association with Promise Technology and Quantum, developed a compact and powerful system which put control of multiple replays into the hands of the official. NASCAR was preceded on stage by two other highly commended projects.

Also from the world of sport was the new asset management system implemented by Turner Sports to keep track of 6,000 events and two million highlights a year. It was designed in-house using technology from Dalet, EVS, Stainless Code, Active Storage, NetApp, Quantum, Azurro Systems Integration, CineSys, Telecom Network Solutions and Enterprise Applications. Sky News Arabia needed a completely new production base in Abu Dhabi in time for the channel's launch in May this year. Systems Integrator TSL worked with a number of key suppliers, including ScheduALL, Miranda Technologies, EVS and Broadcast Bionics. The IBC Innovation Award for Content Delivery took us back to the hands of the viewer. 4oD, the video on demand service from Channel 4 in the UK, wanted to make its content available on platforms its viewers preferred, and saw the Xbox as an ideal way to deliver high quality VoD. With KIT digital, it developed an app for the Kinect controller which allows the viewer to use voice and gesture control to explore and select the content.

There were three other projects on the shortlist. First was another system for the home: a practical home networking solution developed by DIRECTV on open standards with technology partners Broadcom, Entropic Communications, Jethead Development, Pace and Samsung.

CBS Sports was congratulated for its use of VidyoCast technology to carry multiple HD cameras over the internet, allowing a popular radio show broadcast from Louisiana to be shown on television through the CBS production hub in New York. And ITV in the UK has developed a content replacement system, using seamless splicing from Yospace communicating with the Snell automation, to delivered tailored content to users on different platforms.

IBC2012 Judges' Prize

The team of international editors and consultants who judge the IBC Innovation Awards chose to honour FIMS, the Framework for Interoperable Media Services. This collaboration led by the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), jumpstarted the process of agreeing file exchange standardisation, vital if the real benefits of file-based workflows are to be realised.

AMWA and EBU brought together virtually all the manufacturers in the sector, and many of the major broadcasters. They rapidly developed the first version of the specification, released earlier this year, and the first implementations of FIMS-based technologies are on air, with Bloomberg Television and its technology partner Triskel. Bloomberg estimates that the development of a new workflow has fallen from six weeks to three days thanks to FIMS.

For its broad collaboration to address an issue that was limiting the development of broadcast operations, FIMS took the IBC2012 Judges' Prize. It was accepted on stage by Brad Gilmer of AMWA, Jean-Pierre Evain of EBU and Roman Mackiewicz of Bloomberg.

IBC2012 Best Conference Paper Award

The award for the technical paper which best communicates cutting edge research was won by a team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich Hertz Institute: Christian Riechert, Frederik Zilly, Peter Kauff, Jens Guther and Ralf Schafer.

Their paper describes core work on auto-stereoscopic television: 3D without glasses. Auto-stereoscopic displays require five, ten or even more channels to create the impression of depth for viewers at different viewing angles. These have to be created in receiver from the incoming two channel stereoscopic 3D signal. The Fraunhofer work is on the algorithms required to achieve a flexible solution, and how they might be implemented in a relatively low-cost chip for mass manufacture.

"This is a great honour for me and all my co-authors," said Reichert, who collected the award on behalf of his colleagues. "Realtime conversion of stereo content to multi-view for auto-stereoscopic displays is indeed a hot potato in the 3D community. It is a pleasure for a team of researchers like ours to be able to offer solutions to such a challenging task."

IBC2012 Exhibition Design Awards

IBC presents awards for the most practical and attractive stand design, in three categories. Winning for the Most Imaginative Use of Shell Scheme Space was Marvell Semiconductors: the judges praised its "wow feeling". Highly Commended was LogicKeyboard.

For free design stands up to 100m2, DPA Microphones and DTS were Highly Commended, with Netgem taking the award for its "open, welcoming living room". SES won the award for Larger Free Design Stand impressing the judges with its futuristic feel. Vimond Media Solutions was Highly Commended in this category.

About IBC

IBC is the premier annual event for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment and news content worldwide.

IBC2013 Dates

Conference 12 – 17 September 2012 Exhibition 13 – 17 September 2013

Additional Information
Find out more about the IBC Awards at www.ibc.org/awards

SOURCE IBC