NAB 2017: Imagine Communications Seeks To Help Media Companies Transition to Next-Gen Tech

Imagine Communications (Booth SL1516) will showcase its latest product and solutions aimed at helping broadcasters and other media companies modernize production, playout, and distribution. It will demonstrate how its innovations are used to evolve current infrastructures and operations into the modernized facilities of the future. The company is also making its South Hall debut, expanding its presence at the show, and unveiling a new booth design.

One of the biggest challenges facing today’s broadcasters and other media companies is the seamless and disruption-free adoption of the next-generation architectures that will be required to meet the future consumption demands.

“The once murky image of the media facility of the future has come into sharp focus over the past year, providing both content creators and distributors with a clearly defined destination at the end of their next-generation journeys,” says CEO Charlie Vogt. “By demonstrating Innovation at Work at NAB 2017, Imagine Communications is showcasing its commitment to helping our customers manage the ‘how to’ stage of the migration of their operations through breakthroughs in microservices design, cloud-native applications, and our modular approach to solving their most demanding business challenges.”

The Zenium platform for building smarter virtual applications and services features an open architecture.

Imagine will spotlight key module-based platforms — Selenio One, xG, Versio, Zenium — designed to enable media companies to construct and evolve their workflows at their own pace and aligned with market demands, seamlessly integrating the latest technologies and capabilities as they become available.  The company will also demonstrate its end-to-end portfolio, which spans ad management, linear and nonlinear, broadcast and OTT — including ATSC 3.0 — and enables unprecedented integration capabilities across workflows and all media and business operations.

ImagineLIVE Power Sessions
At the booth, the company will offer ImagineLIVE Power Sessions, featuring executives and subject-matter experts from Imagine Communications and its partners and customers from IT, media, and entertainment. Twice daily, attendees will have first-hand access to information and insight on trends and events influencing the decisions of media-industry professionals.

Topics will range from implementations of next-gen technologies to product introductions and include the following:

• The impact of the adoption of cloud-native and microservices-based applications
• Technology offering early support for the processing of uncompressed UHD signals over IP in conformance with SMPTE ST 2110
• How the capabilities being introduced in cloud-centric content origination and via the advanced delivery technologies of ATSC 3.0 will enhance business models and technical implementations
• Monetization and cost-saving benefits of Imagine’s Unified Distribution architecture, which calls for a full embrace of OTT transport and moving all services to a single network based on fragmented-video technology
• Ways in which media companies are using virtualized environments to revitalize operations and generate new revenue
• How a platform-based modular model for both operations and business systems introduces cost-efficiencies, provides greater agility, and facilitates seamless integration across the end-to-end workflow

A detailed description and schedule of all ImagineLIVE Power Sessions will be made available several weeks before the show.

The booth will also offer demonstrations that highlight the capabilities of the company’s current market-leading live-production, playout, multiscreen-delivery, and ad-management solutions.

Live Production
Hybrid SDI-IP routing and multiviewer solutions enable media companies to transform sports, in-venue, and other live-production operations by leveraging standard IT equipment without investing in traditional broadcast technology or sacrificing performance. Imagine Communications’ production and contribution portfolio provides ultra-low-latency encoding and decoding and delivery of standards-based uncompressed media over IP for HD and UHD, as well as third-party lightweight compression technologies. The live-production portfolio also supports the most recent UHD processing technologies, including up/downconversion, high-dynamic-range (HDR) image quality, and precision timing.

Imagine Communications will also participate in the NAB 2017 IP Showcase, a cooperation of multiple standards organizations and the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) dedicated to demonstrating the interoperability of the SMPTE 2110 specification (currently being drafted) and highlighting the creative and business-building benefits of IP technology.

Playout
Nexio and Versio playout and graphics workflow solutions support compressed or uncompressed IP-based playout, advanced multichannel and UHD playback, and branding. Also demonstrated will be a new user interface, new automation features and the company’s native-IP and hybrid playout and master-control solutions, which unify playout, automation, and graphics supporting fully virtualized deployments for cloud environments. Showcasing storage capabilities, Imagine will highlight Versio IOX, which provides sharable and scalable storage — SAN and NAS — throughout the content lifecycle while offering the highest levels of digital-asset protection.

Multiscreen Delivery
Imagine’s comprehensive multiscreen-delivery portfolio supports high-density and high-video-quality transcoding and delivery for OTT linear and on-demand services, all supported by advanced dynamic ad-insertion (DAI). An end-to-end cloud DVR solution, including recorders and packagers, is supported by advanced storage-optimization capabilities that enable video-service providers to cost-effectively meet various legal and copyright requirements, including private-copy laws. The company’s next-generation DAI and unified distribution portfolios enable content distributors to consolidate and simplify infrastructures to reduce costs and explore new monetization opportunities.

Advertising Management
Imagine’s multiplatform ad-management portfolio features open, modular systems that help manage, connect, deliver, and optimize ad revenue. Highlighted capabilities include sales, scheduling, and analytics for linear and nonlinear monetization. The company will also demonstrate integration of playout and scheduling achieved through the unification of its Versio and xG Schedule solutions, as well as hyperlocalized monetization models that leverage the capabilities of ATSC 3.0.

Imagine Communications will also showcase many of its solutions as cloud services available through Microsoft Azure. Similarly, the company will highlight the power of Zenium, its microservices-based platform for building smarter applications and services for virtualized environments.

Adoption of a true microservices-based design architecture, which enables creation of cloud-native applications that fully exploit the benefits of virtualized environments, is a critical component of any next-generation strategy, and media companies are increasingly partnering with technology partners that embrace microservices-design principles. In a forthcoming survey of more than 400 media professionals, nearly 75% of respondents identified cloud-native application and an underlying microservices-based architecture as an important component of the media facility of the future.