60 HAPPENING IBC2019
Words by Neal Romanek
At this year’s IBC show, stability was in fashion, not rapid change – and that stability rests on IP
his year’s IBC confirmed what we saw at NAB – the broadcast technology industry is shunning splashy technology launches, and
happened. Although SDI and hardware- based technologies will remain essential probably for some years to come, using IP networks to build media has reached a point where you would have to work very hard to excise it from your business. It’s a journalistic requirement that an article written about media technology must begin: “The media tech ecosystem is changing at an ever-faster rate” (at FEED , we cut out that part before we go to press), but that tired cliche of breathtaking change is not always true. Just because there is a lot
happening – and there is a lot happening – doesn’t always mean there is a lot changing. Movement doesn’t always mean progress. When the first webcams made their appearance in the early nineties (that’s 25 years ago), we all knew it was only a matter of time before IP would be the centre of our video world. That technology has now finally matured and those companies at IBC that have been putting work into video over IP, whether in production, OTT delivery or anything in-between, are no longer the start-ups or pathfinders; they’re the establishment, they’re the providers of distribution happens in the IP space, the more fluid the processes are. Creative leaps and experimentation can become easier. But now this change and innovation is something that happens in software and inside servers. This is part of the reason there seems to be a cooling off of innovation at IBC. When more and more processes can be run in the cloud or on commercial off-the-shelf equipment, content creation migrates from the world of technology to the world of creativity. Some of that creativity might be creativity in software engineering or innovations in stable, future-proofed technology. The more content creation and
getting down to the serious, practical work of building a workable 21st-century media ecosystem. Even Hall 14, IBC’s ‘Content Everywhere’ section, has set aside its new- kid-on-the-block glitter and seems as much a part of the IBC tech taxonomy as tripods, lighting and satellite trucks. The transition to fully IP workflows is well underway – in fact, I would say it’s already
AMSTER-DAMN IBC2019 was the show where
vendors finally gave in to IP production
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