IBC 2016: As Industry Transitions, Imagine Comms To Showcase Latest IP Offerings,

Imagine Communications (Stand 4.A01) will utilize IBC 2016 to spotlight the current state of the media and entertainment industry’s evolution to a new technology foundation and how its solution can help broadcasters, service providers, and other media companies accelerate the modernization of their production, playout, and distribution facilities. IBC 2016 will also be the venue for Imagine Communications, a founding member of the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), to unveil its latest innovations, demonstrate the interoperability of its solutions, and present a series of seminars featuring thought leaders from across the media and entertainment and IT industries.

Media companies, recognizing the need to increase the flexibility and versatility of traditional operations to meet rapidly evolving consumption requirements, have spent much of the past few years gaining familiarity with next-generation architectures and technologies, including IP, software-defined networking and virtualization. With dozens of media companies now actively deploying these advanced solutions to gracefully transform their live production, playout, multiscreen distribution and ad management operations, Imagine Communications sees IBC2016 as a significant milestone in the technology transformation of the media and entertainment industry.

”The last few years have been about accepting the need to transform and overcoming uncertainties that IT-oriented, generic compute and networking platforms are able to deliver the robustness, precision and reliability needed to handle the most demanding media operations,” says Charlie Vogt, CEO of Imagine Communications. ”We are now entering another phase of the transformation of the industry and that is the practical and growing adoption of next-generation architectures that enable media companies to expand their businesses and maintain their competitive edge without sacrificing quality, reliability or disrupting their current operations and investment cycles. At IBC2016, Imagine Communications will demonstrate how we are delivering to our customers the future of TV, today.”

An additional IBC2016 objective for Imagine Communications is to demonstrate how it is working with leading IT companies, standards bodies and its customers to overcome any lingering concerns, both cultural and technical, that are prompting some media companies to delay the modernization of their operations. A strong presence in multiple standards bodies and trade organizations, Imagine Communications will participate in and host multiple interoperability demonstrations that illustrate industry-wide support for field-proven procedures and specifications, including SMPTE 2022, AES-67, and VSF TR-04/TR-03.

“One of our top priorities at IBC2016 is to help reduce the anxiety associated with making strategic investments — today or in the future — that still hinder the decision making of some media companies,” adds Vogt. “At this year’s IBC we will be demonstrating our commitment to widespread compatibility and the graceful integration of the media and IT domains through live interoperability exercises and by sharing some of our recent customer successes.”

IBC2016 will mark the European debut of several product innovations from Imagine Communications. Attendees will experience the latest solutions from Imagine Communications in live production, playout, multiscreen delivery, advertising management and the transition to virtualized environments and the cloud.

Live Production
Hybrid SDI-IP routing and multiviewer solutions empower media companies to transform live production operations and leverage commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) IT-equipment without squandering investments in traditional broadcast technology or sacrificing performance. Imagine Communications’ production and contribution portfolio provides ultra-low latency encoding and decoding and the delivery of uncompressed media over IP transport, as well as support for Sony Network Media Interface (NMI) and intoPIX TICO mezzanine compression for UHD operations. Imagine’s live production portfolio also supports the most recent UHD processing technologies, including up/down conversion and the latest standards for delivering media over IP networks, high dynamic range (HDR) image quality and precision timing.

Playout
Imagine Communications’ Versio UHD playout and graphic workflow solutions support compressed or uncompressed IP-based playout, advanced multichannel, and UHD playback and branding. Also featured will be a new user interface, new automation features and the company’s native IP and hybrid playout and master control solutions, which seamlessly unify playout, automation and graphics supporting fully virtualized deployment for cloud environments.

Multiscreen Delivery
Imagine’s multiscreen delivery portfolio supports high-density and high video quality transcoding and delivery for OTT linear and VOD services. 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 dynamic ad insertion and unified distribution portfolios enable content distributors to consolidate and simplify their infrastructures to reduce costs and explore new monetization opportunities.

Advertising Management
Imagine’s end-to-end, omniplatform ad management portfolio features open, modular systems that help maximize ad revenue. Highlighted capabilities include sales, scheduling and analytics for linear and nonlinear delivery. The company will also demonstrate integration of playout and scheduling achieved through the unification of its Versio and xG Schedule solutions.

Transition to Virtualized Environments
Close collaboration with IT giants Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) will be highlighted at IBC 2016 throughout Imagine Communications’ booth. Microsoft Azure Certified solutions based on Imagine Communications’ 100% software based playout and live-encoding solutions will be featured, as will media cloud services that leverage HPE’s cloud-based, virtualized, and orchestrated network services. Imagine Communications will also showcase how its next-generation offerings, including processing, playout and monitoring, are powered by Zenium, the company’s workflow management platform.

ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions
Imagine Communications will again host its popular ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions, a series of presentations and interactive discussions featuring prominent executives and subject matter experts from Imagine Communications and its partners and customers from across the IT and media and entertainment industries, at its booth (Amtrium, Stand 4.A01). Twice a day, for the duration of the show, attendees will have first-hand access to information and insight on the trends and events that are influencing the decisions of media industry professionals today and into the future. A schedule and full description of ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions will be available several weeks prior to IBC 2016.