Imagine Communications – Anyscreen & the Cloud
April 2015 – Just before the start of the NAB expo, Imagine Communications held their press and customer event at the Hard Rock Hotel, with special guest Foreigner. The kick off for the event was a talk by CEO Charlie Vogt on his vision for the industry and Imagine Communications. The direction for the industry is still that traditional over the air broadcast will continue but the market is shifting from all you can throw out to the air waves for free to paid personalized TV & film content to “my personal” streaming solutions.
Imagine Communications End to End Cloud Solution
Imagine Communications is addressing the internet management & delivery side to all consumption devices – Terrestrial TV, Satellite TV, Cable TV, Internet/OTT, Mobile TV, Terrestrial Radio and Smart Devices. The vision they presented was push the ecosystem to the cloud to be able to manage the scale, diversity and functionality of the broadcast flow. The industry features a global delivery with high granularity localization for the monetization model. To address this they are moving toward a full cloud model that has Media, advertising, playout, network, distribution, and management tools in an integrated system that is globally accessible in the cloud. The overall workflow management is the Zenium solution along with Magellan and the Videotek test & measurement for QOE monitoring.
At the customer event, Vince Roberts EVP Global Operation and CTO of Disney/ABC Television Group announced an exclusive multi-year commitment to the Imagination cloud products and flow. A key potion of his talk was the understanding that at ABC these decisions are not about cost – they are about security and quality of the content being managed and delivered and the adherence to the monetization model that is presented. This strategy for the cloud that is presented by Imagine Communications includes Cloud DVR, Dynamic Ad Insertion, multi-device transcode, master control, playout and editing. Future directions include enhanced audio integration, social media & second screen integration and increasing resolution standards.
The customer event also featured a panel hosted by Debra Norville that had Direct TV, Microsoft, Disney and Comcast discussing the current state and issues of increasing headache on the internet delivery of content and both short term and long term challenges. The event also featured a concert by Foreigner. The concert was supplemented with CEO Charlie Vogt joining the band on stage and singing for the final encore to help lead the event to a close with a rendition of “hot blooded”.
