Advertising on CTV, OTT, and mobile streaming is a red-hot topic these days, in part because even formerly subscription-centric streaming services and platforms are increasingly adjusting their monetization models to build advertising revenue. It’s also because measuring and maximizing advertising in the ecosystem involves elusive art and science. This session confronts the current challenges (or, some would say, failures) to reliably deliver the right ads to viewers and measurable results to brands and discusses innovative technologies and strategies to make streaming ads perform.

Recent surveys reveal that more than 80% of web developers, marketers, and business leaders plan to increase the amount of video they’re delivering to their digital properties. Why? Because video immediately builds trust, instantly elevates brand awareness, and influences purchase. Unfortunately, post-production work such as creating video variants for different channels and devices delays video publication. Kim Matenchuk, managing director of video and Sam Brace, senior director of customer education and community, at Cloudinary, discuss the complexities of video post-production and how automation can streamline workflows and get your video, and all your products, live on your site faster. 

What we’ll discuss:

- How AI-driven video summarizations, automatic transcript, and subtitle generation improve the chances of making a sale.
- The many advantages of smart cropping, image-to-video transformation, adaptive bitrate streaming, and AI-powered tagging.
- How these tools simplify video management and ensure consistency and quality across all channels.
- How some of the world’s top brands are achieving higher conversion rates.

Join this session and see for yourself how today’s advanced technologies are eliminating the post-production bottlenecks and getting your products to market ahead of the competition.

Many of the ways AI is poised to alter the streaming ecosystem happen behind the scenes, involving the streamlining of workflows or the automation of repetitive production or delivery tasks. But AI also has the potential to transform viewing experiences, making them more personal and immersive. The panel explores what’s possible and what’s probable and how we can expect to see AI’s real-world impact on streaming experiences take shape in the months and years to come.

News broadcasting is one of the most exciting and quickly growing areas for FAST development, highlighted by the early 2024 announcement of the BBC/AMC 24-hour live FAST news channel. Other legacy media news broadcasters are betting big on the FAST news space, many of them with a focus on local content, bringing more dynamism to the FAST ecosystem. What are some of the current trends and challenges for FAST news delivery, and how is FAST performing as a news media medium?

Live streams at scale offer great payoffs for fans and brands alike for all kinds of events, from sports to concerts and festivals. Effective streams deliver personalized, interactive experiences that traditional broadcasts can’t match. But succeeding with live streaming at scale means facing heightened challenges for maintaining high-quality, consistent uptime and seamless ad experiences—all while keeping pirates at bay. This panel of large-scale event streaming experts delves into the ongoing challenges of delivering great streams at scale in 2024.

The emergence of the smart TV OEM has created increasing opportunities for platform distributors and challenges for content providers as distributors grab greater percentages of inventory and revenue splits to generate greater revenue upside to selling the hardware. How do programmers contend with the high costs of programming that require ad support among the next generation of walled gardens in smart TV OEMs that have burst on the scene with generous inventory splits and registered users? How does the universal identifier conundrum contend with the increasing importance of contextual alignment? Who can best govern fair business practices that allow the buy side to have equal access to the various supply channels, and how can all parties mutually prosper?

With the constant push and pull of market fragmentation and consolidation, streaming services that rely entirely or in part on sustained subscription revenue need more than great and plentiful content to fight churn and keep subscribers engaged. As consumer budgets tighten, free and ad-supported options multiply and emerge as new norms, so subscription-based streamers need to make it as easy and seamless as possible for consumers to discover and access the content they want. More and more, that means bundling and streamlining offerings. This panel’s mix of content owners and subscription management strategists and experts discuss the art and science of making subscriptions smoother, simpler, and as churn-proof as possible. 

This fireside chat between IMAX SVP Vikram Arumilli and Media Universe Cartographer Evan Shapiro will discuss:

- the state of the streaming business
- the importance of profitability and controlling costs 
- the role of streaming quality as a differentiator 
- what IMAX VisionScience is and how it is unique 
- use cases with Disney and NBA China 
- deployment of the IMAX XVS real-time perceptual quality metric in live sports streaming.  

Industry leaders discuss and present the latest cutting-edge solutions and strategies to help you maximize efficiencies and minimize costs in your streaming video workflow. ATTEND FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD!

With such a broad range of streaming content at our fingertips, delivering a standout stream requires attention to quality, latency, and so much more. Join AJA director of product management Paul Turner as he reveals the secrets to using AJA’s HELO Plus H.264 streamer/recorder to deliver live streams and recordings that impress and engage. 

The case for migrating streaming architecture and workflows to the cloud is usually made in terms of scalability, flexibility, and substantial cost-savings over the largely fixed-cost nature of on-prem streaming operations. But cloud-based streamers can incur substantial operation costs as well with egress fees and negligent tendencies to keep systems running at the wrong times. With the lion’s share of the industry already embracing cloud-based streaming, the conversation shifts to managing and streamlining cloud OpEx and implementing strategies and technologies for making those operations as cost-efficient as possible. This expert panel explains how.

What are the most critical business and technical challenges of live streaming in 2024? What platforms and protocols are in play, from acquisition and ingest to delivery? Is the transition to cloud workflows still a prevailing trend? What are realistic expectations for streaming latency, and where are streamers and audiences prioritizing it the highest? And how is the device landscape shaping up for live content consumption? Data takes center stage again at Streaming Media Connect as we report findings from Streaming Media’s latest live-streaming survey, conducted in June and July of this year, so the findings are fresh, and the analysis is even fresher.

Back by popular demand! In the “AI or Not to AI?” debate on “The Real Value of Artificial Intelligence” in today’s streaming ecosystem at Streaming Media NYC, our debate began with the premise that the rapid acceleration of AI technology and its implementation has brought us to an inflection point for the M&E industry, the workflows that drive it, and possibly the future of work itself. Is it truly adopt/adapt or die at this point? What is AI really worth, and where does it matter most to streaming practitioners in 2024? The debate rolls on at Streaming Media Connect, as key industry thought leaders and stakeholders take their stands and make their cases. Tune in to watch, learn, and ultimately pick the winners. Viewers decide, and only one side can take the prize!