Our Streaming Media Connect 2021 program this August offers three days of FREE online webinars that will provide practical advice and inspiring thought leadership from the world’s leading organizations.
Tuesday, August 24: 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. (ET) / 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. (PT)
In this special keynote presentation, Streaming Media's Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen and Tim Siglin will be joined by Olga Kornienko from research partner EZDRM to present the findings of original research into the latest trends and challenges around digital rights management and other forms of content protection, followed by a provocative discussion about the results and a question-and-answer session with our audience.
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, CMO, Norsk
Timothy Fore-Siglin, Founder, Help Me Stream Research Foundation
Olga Kornienko, COO & Co-Founder, EZDRM
Tuesday, August 24: 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (ET) / 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. (PT)
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to that question; it all depends on your content and your audience. But if you're delivering live video of any kind, latency is at the top of your list of concerns. This panel will discuss and debate best practices as well as the various technologies available to help you meet your latency targets.
Oliver Lietz, CEO, nanocosmos
Krystal Mejia, Senior Software Engineer, Video Technology Group, ViacomCBS
Robert Reinhardt, Streaming Solutions Architect, videoRx
Tuesday, August 24: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (ET) / 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. (PT)
Chances are, if you haven't moved most or all of your streaming and broadcast workflows to the cloud, you're planning on it. Benefits include cost savings, quicker response times, and reduced delivery costs, but how do you get there? Our panel of experts will help you make the right strategic and purchasing decisions.
Jeff Malkin, President, Encoding.com
Maxim Levkov, Principal Engineer, Architect, Video Engineering & Infrastructure, Crunchyroll
Jef Kethley, Executive Director/President, LiveSports, LLC
Tuesday, August 24: 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. (ET) / 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (PT)
Leading technology and service providers share their insights into the crucial challenges facing the streaming industry and how best to solve them. No sales pitches—just real talk about what works and what doesn’t.
This presentation will discuss the state-of-the-art video encoding and processing techniques that are facilitated by the use of machine learning for both VOD and Live streaming scenarios to provide the highest visual quality with minimal bandwidth consumption. The talk will show how an AI enhanced encoder performs content adaptive compression, ROI (region-of-interest) based rate control, parallel processing for low delay, perceptual coding for visual quality optimization, and pseudo HDR for contrast boosting transformation over super dark or super bright regions within a frame.
Zoe Liu, Co-Founder, President, CTO, Visionular
Tuesday, August 24: 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (ET) / 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (PT)
By some estimates, connected television (CTV) advertising grew by more than 40% in the last year, and more and more brands are shifting their spends to OTT. And while technological challenges remain, the targeting afforded by CTV offers marketers unparalleled opportunities to reach audiences with advertising that is more relevant and more effective than ever before.
Derek Gatts, VP of Ad Products, WarnerMedia
Jake Piasecki, Co-Head of East Coast Ad Sales, Roku
Jon Giegengack, Principal and Founder, Hub Entertainment Research
Stanley Wong, Co-Founder, DistroTV
Lexie Knauer, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Brightcove
Wednesday, August 25: 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. (ET) / 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. (PT)
The last year found most live producers in triage mode, as onsite productions became remote by necessity. Now, it's time to work smarter rather than harder, finding efficiencies in those remote production workflows without sacrificing the high quality that audiences expect. We'll talk to producers who've honed their skills in both the field and "at home" to find out how they're doing it.
Marty Jenoff, President, Focal Point Productions
Daniel Webster, VP Strategic Accounts - Americas, Blackbird
Jef Kethley, Executive Director/President, LiveSports, LLC
Ben Ratner, Director/Technical Director, Sports Illustrated, The Street, Maven
Anna Cowdery, Producer, Independant and Happily, LiveX
Wednesday, August 25: 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (ET) / 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. (PT)
More and more viewers discovered OTT while they were stuck at home, and both operators and content providers had to adapt quickly to make sure their services could meet the unprecedented demand. One thing is clear: OTT usage isn't going to slow down, and services need to be ready for rapidly growing audiences. So how do they deal with subscriber growth and unpredictable viewing spikes? Join this panel to find out.
Chris Pfaff, CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech Media and Producers Guild of America (PGA), VR AR Association (VRARA)
Nicole Fencel, Senior Manager, The Roku Channel SVOD, Roku
Rick Allen, CEO, ViewLift
Emily Powers, Executive Vice President & Head, BritBox North America
Dave Lankford, VP, Product, Disney Streaming
Wednesday, August 25: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (ET) / 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. (PT)
We're moving into OTT Phase 2, where both established providers and new entrants must focus on making their workflows more productive and efficient from glass to glass. This panel will provide insights into how both minor refinements and major revisions to workflows can provide cost savings without sacrificing the quality of the product for consumers.
Tom Hurlbutt, Senior Director of Product Management, Crunchyroll
Tony Stott, Head of Streaming Performance, Sky
Arthur T. Cuyugan, Executive Director, Global Distribution Technology & Strategy, ViacomCBS/Paramount Pictures
Steven Tripsas, Principal Product Architect, Zype
Wednesday, August 25: 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. (ET) / 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (PT)
Leading technology and service providers share their insights into the crucial challenges facing the streaming industry and how best to solve them. No sales pitches—just real talk about what works and what doesn’t.
NDI® 5 is the biggest revolution within broadcast and video production in decades. As you consider how to leverage its power, make sure you understand how you can get even more out of NDI with products from the company that invented it. With the release of NDI 5, every NewTek visual storytelling solution has received an awesome upgrade because we engineer NDI into the fabric of our technology from the get go.
NDI 5 Tools combined with TriCaster deliver the most flexible connections to software applications. Choose your audio return channel independently through Webcam Input. This allows for easier mix-minus configurations. Expanded choices for Screen Capture give control over bandwidth and resources (important for esports and gamers) or region of interest extraction. Even better, any webcam can become an NDI signal available to your production. NDI 5 means that you can:
- Connect your Studios, not just your sources
- Swiftly and easily bring in remote sources to your NewTek based production over your WAN or public internet
- Enjoy more resilient and reliable network connectivity while making connections easier
- Enhance and Expand your audio mix with NDI Audio Direct
- Capture your Live Production – Speed up your Post Production
Chris Burgos, NewTek Sales Engineer, NewTek
This talk will present the progression of hardware-based video encoding as large scale video services and platforms are being forced to ring costs out of their operations, while reducing carbon footprints. The presentation will compare GPU, FPGA, and the new entrant, ASIC hardware-based video encoding approaches for the data center. Attendees will leave with a good understanding of how the technologies and platforms compare along with the specific use cases where ASICs are able to unlock new video applications and improve the economic viability of existing solutions.
Daniel Zhou, Technical Director & Software Architect, NETINT
In a recent survey of the post-production community, half of the respondents reported they don’t automatically back up their work in progress (WIP) daily, and only 41% reported using cloud storage. Given the high value of work and the time-sensitive nature of most projects, it was shocking to learn more don’t take precautions, especially when modern cloud tools are readily available. This talk reviews the results of the survey and discusses modern, easy, and cost-effective tools to protect your work.
Jon Finegold, CMO, Signiant
Wednesday, August 25: 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (ET) / 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (PT)
Unlike broadcast and cable, OTT isn't limited by borders. At least, it shouldn't be, but licensing limitations, differences in device preferences, and delivery hurdles must be overcome to make global OTT a reality. We'll talk to experts both from the U.S. and international markets to find out how they have expanded their reach in spite of these challenges.
Rebekah Mueller, Sr. Director, Product, Disney Streaming
Carlos Morell, Vice President, Zenlayer
Emily Powers, Executive Vice President & Head, BritBox North America
Rajesh Nair, VP - Business Development/Content Acquisition, DistroTV
Thursday, August 26: 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. (ET) / 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. (PT)
Audiences and teams are returning to venues, and fans are filling stadiums once again. But the pandemic proved that live event streaming has legs beyond being a substitute for the real thing. After all, there will always be more people who want to see the concert or the game than can actually attend, and that way lies uncharted revenue territory. So how can live concert, theater, and sports producers keep the streams going in ways that go hand-in-hand with the in-person events? Tune in to find out.
Chris Pfaff, CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech Media and Producers Guild of America (PGA), VR AR Association (VRARA)
Fabrice Sergent, CEO, BandsInTown
Jordan Gremli, Head of Artist Development, DICE
Bonnie Comley, Founder, BroadwayHD
Thursday, August 26: 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (ET) / 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. (PT)
It's not just advertisers that benefit from user data. Content providers can leverage that data to provide their viewers with more personalized content on their platforms. And consumers seem more willing than ever to share their information in exchange for better experiences. Of course, there's a delicate balance between collecting and using data in ways that viewers appreciate and doing so in ways that alienate them. This panel explores how to walk that line.
Thursday, August 26: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (ET) / 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. (PT)
The big monetization story of the last 18 months has been advertising, but the average household still has subscriptions to four or more SVOD services. Now, even the subscription services are jumping on the advertising train, using a hybrid approach to lower the cost to consumers while keeping their revenue streams flowing. So how can OTT services decide which models are best for their audience and content?
Euan McLeod, Vice President, HBO Max
DeShuna Spencer, Founder & CEO, kweliTV
Eugene Liew, CTO, Struum
Yolanda Macias, Chief Content Officer, Cinedigm
Chris Bassolino, Co-Founder / EVP of Sales, Zype
Thursday, August 26: 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (ET) / 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (PT)
We'll close our Streaming Media Connect panels with a look at the big picture, exploring what the future will look like from all angles—technology, devices, audiences, and business models. Will the trend towards AVOD continue? Will mobile viewing increase? What technologies are going to take hold that will allow OTT services to deliver better quality while keeping costs down? Join us for a lively debate about the future of OTT.
Lauren Devillier, CEO & Co-Founder, Struum
Brett Sappington, Vice President, Interpret
Jeff Clanagan, President & Chief Distribution Officer, HARTBEAT
Mike Green, VP Strategic Development & Alliances, Brightcove
Kevin Shepela, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer, Fandango