The 49 th edition of IBC 2016 held at Amsterdam’s RAI convention centre between 8-13 September 2016 resulted in streets, hotel lobbies, trams, restaurants, bars, cafes, and even the infamous red light district brimming over with techies and business executives.
Statistics released by the IBC office reveal that 55,796 professionals attended the six-day exhibition-cum-conference, coming from 160 countries. 668 more attended this year compared to 2015. 435 speakers took part in more than 100 sessions including keynotes and panel discussions during the IBC conferences.
On the exhibition side, 1,800 exhibitors set up tent in the RAI with stands. 249 of them were newbies to the trade show.
One important addition to the feature areas in the exhibition was the IBC IP Interoperability Zone, an initiative to push forward open standards in new connectivity. Supported by AIMS and the IABM and working with AES,AMWA, the EBU, SMPTE and VSF, IBC created a dedicated exhibit which demonstrated verified technical progress in IP interoperability and featured the award-winning VRT-EBU LiveIP studio which was used for IBCTV’s production at this year’s show.
IBC chief executive Michael Crimp was thrilled to bits. Said he: “IBC really is the only forum that attracts a global audience, the most comprehensive exhibition, and the best thought-leaders to spark the debate. Above all else, it is about bringing people together to share knowledge and to do business. It is clear, from the buzz around the whole show, that this has been a great year.”
It probably had a record participation this year from India too. Specific numbers were not available but they definitely were in excess of 300. CTOs of broadcast majors, cable ops roamed the aisles trying to get to grips the technological upheaval the world of television. OTT, cable TV is going through. Dish TV’s Jawahar Goel, Tata Sky’s Harit Nagpal, Videocon d2h Himanshu Patil were spotted meeting their tech suppliers. GTPL’s Anirudh Singh Jadeja was checking out the latest in STBs and billing solutions.
Among the major Indian exhibitors figured: Media Guru, Amagi, Wasp3D, Canara Lighting, Tata Elxsi, and Prime Focus Technologies.
Media Guru’s Sanjay Salil said he had back to back meetings with clients which kept him on his toes throughout the six days.
According to Goel, the transformation of the industries towards the cloud,IP and streaming services is going to change the way everyone in traditional television delivers and creates content. In the process, this is going to put pressure on vendor pricing – especially those who are continuing to work in the old linear television broadcast ways.
Amongst the key trends noticed were the increasing shift towards augmented reality, virtual reality filming equipment, processing and VR and AR video delivery. Ultra HD, HDR, OTT platforms and app development and deployment were some of the major key words heard during the six days.
