This piece was originally posted on IBC Daily
It is an exciting time to be a technology provider in video space. We are excited to be attending IBC (International Broadcasting Convention) in Amsterdam this week. For a change, we are seeing market needs driving innovation and product roadmaps rather than technology trying to influence market for the sake of coolness (remember 3D TV). On the consumption side people seem to have insatiable appetite for video, be it for entertainment or information, delivered to devices of their choice and at a time of their choosing. Google Chromecast flying off the shelves within hours of launch shows the extent of pent up demand for video consumption. On the production side, it is easier than ever to create and edit good quality content. Bridging the gap between production and consumption are technologies ranging from efficient workflow systems to transport and delivery – each of which is poised for product differentiation as video demand grows.
For video transport and delivery, the latest video compression standard called HEVC holds the promise of delivering more video within existing pipes. This is significant for segments that deal with bandwidth limited networks such as mobile video delivery or remote news gathering. As the technology matures and becomes more prevalent in endpoints, HEVC will find its way into standard broadcast enabling few channels of UltraHD resolution or higher quality video delivery.
While differentiation may mean a sleek product design for consumer segment, on the infrastructure side it boils down to power, channel density, reliability and a number of other factors associated with platform efficiency. For some segments such as encoders, decoders and transcoders, differentiation is closely tied to programmability – vendors want the ability to put their value-add IP to augment core algorithms. In addition, infrastructure vendors want to be ready for tomorrow’s need – more video and resolutions of UltraHD and beyond. What they need is a platform that can scale easily without ripping out existing gear. The KeyStone™ family of SOCs by Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) provides a programmable platform for realizing video processing solutions that can scale easily for future needs.
As video demand grows, two related video infrastructure trends that started a few years ago are gaining further steam. First, cloud based video transcoding is here to stay due to the number of coding formats and resolutions that need to be supported on ever increasing number of devices. Second, the movement towards employment of COTS cards for video processing is gaining traction due to fast time to market considerations - these cards can be used in standard server or custom chassis designs. Advantech Systems is leading the charge with video processing cards in a variety of form factors serving a number of market segments in addition to transcoding solutions. At IBC this year I expect you will see real world deployment of these cards in markets such as cloud gaming and remote desktop acceleration (CyWee) and high density mobile video streaming (Utelisys).
If you are at IBC this year, be sure to stop by the Advantech booth to check out a few of our demos that will showcase some of the latest video trends. What trends do you expect to see around the timing of IBC?