This session will present Beamr’s content-adaptive technology and its role as a stand-alone bitrate optimizer for already compressed H.264 files, and Beamr’s content-adaptive rate-control which when integrated with the encoder enables HEVC 1080p at just 1.5Mbps. Attendees will learn why the fixed recipe approach to encoding is not sufficient to achieve the low bitrates that congested networks require with the quality that is being demanded by consumers.

Attend this session for your chance to win: For every qualified OTT content distributor, managed service operator, telco, or media & entertainment company who attends the session, Beamr will grant a free 45-day evaluation license of up to ten (10) Beamr 5 or Beamr Optimizer instances. Beamr 5 is the world’s best HEVC software encoder SDK and Beamr Optimizer, formerly known as Beamr Video, is widely acclaimed for it’s ability to reduce bitrates by up to 50% without video quality degradation. For those looking to experience the benefits of the Beamr optimization process as part of their HEVC encoding workflow, Beamr will grant an upgrade to Beamr 5x which is the world's highest quality HEVC encoder able to produce 4K at less than 10Mbps and 1080p at just 1.5Mbps. A small administrative fee will be required, but qualified customers will have the option of putting these files into their production workflows. Not every company will qualify and Beamr reserves the right to deny any evaluation or upgrade request.

Video is changing the way companies function. Advanced Enterprise Video Platforms (EVPs) power corporate intranets and allow marketers to reach customers via multiple channels. The key element that is changing the market is how content creation has shifted from using professionally designed content to employee-generated content. For this shift to be successful, EVP tools must be easy to use for employees at all levels. Plus, EVPs also must serve as the central integration hub for video-related technologies, from intranet CDNs to 360° VR video. In this presentation, we will focus on how video is changing the way companies like DHL, Volkswagen, Vodafone and Allianz operate, how video can be used to improve the customer experience, key integration challenges and the importance of having added levels of security within the EVP.

The bandwidth savings and encoding performance of HEVC is undeniable, but how does it fit into existing workflows? This discussion will cover the pros and cons of moving to H.265, how to get the most out the new compression standard, and best practices for integrating HEVC without reinventing your workflow.

While the price of success is high, the cost of failure is even higher. Using operational streaming analytics to monitor and support streaming media deployments is as important as—and in many cases more mission critical than—just deploying an in-player streaming analytics solution. In-player and last mile solutions focus on issues as they affect the customers, which is often too late and does little to improve customer retention and minimize churn. Operational streaming analytics alert content distributors and live streaming solution providers to delivery problems as they happen and provide immediate solution responses, before they become end user issues.

Attend this session for your chance to win: GoPro Hero 5 ($399 value)

Social media streaming is exploding right now for businesses of all sizes. Learn about the tools needed to deliver a professional production to take advantage of the interactivity and massive subscriber base of Facebook Live, YouTube and other social services. We'll walk you through encoding setups for a budget of any size to include dedicated audio, pro HD cameras, API integration and multi-streaming.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Epiphan Webcaster social media streaming device ($299.95 value)

Today's CDN platforms are upgrading and building out infrastructure to reach increasingly larger numbers of consumers' mobile devices and SmartTVs across North America, Europe and Asia, and extending their reach to the rest of the world. IBM Cloud Object Storage can provide CDN long tail and origin storage with the advantages of its patented object storage: nearly infinite scalability, 10+ nines of reliability and availability, and the lowest total cost of ownership of any storage platform available today. This presentation will provide all stakeholders in the digital supply chain with usable information about your options for CDN storage.

The business of TV is continuously shifting toward the internet and viewers are demanding that OTT content be at their fingertips. In this multi-CDN case study, Ed will discuss how one major publisher has been working with Conviva to deliver one of the best streaming experiences available, leveraging the publisher's proprietary technology stack in concert with Conviva’s data. This solution automatically selects the best CDN based on real-time CDN throughput, cost-efficiency, and bandwidth.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Roku Premiere ($80 value)

Starting from scratch, we’ll show how to do 4K live streaming in minutes. Using technologies from Wowza and others, we'll deliver live adaptive bitrate streaming, record the video for on-demand playback, and deliver the live feed with global any-screen streaming. In the remaining time, you’ll see how to leverage 4K to create an immersive VR/360 experience.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Insta360 Nano ($199 value)

You've carefully compressed. You've strategically transcoded. But that still doesn't guarantee the best streaming video experience for your viewers. Get best practices from behind the scenes and make sure your media delivers around the world without interruptions, without degradation, and without fail.

Attend this session for your chance to win: An iPad Mini with a custom skin ($460 value)

Instantaneously delivering high quality video worldwide to every screen typically leads to complex publishing workflows – but it doesn’t have to. In this session, we’ll discuss how to create scalable processes that streamline operations without sacrificing the video quality your audiences want and expect. We’ll also use real-world examples to show how companies are tackling critical workflow challenges.

Attend this session for your chance to win: GoPro Hero5 Black 4K Action camera ($400 value)

Learn how Ontario Hospital Association uses video to engage members, create valuable new partnerships and generate new revenue without new staff or fundraising. The non-profit reaches more than twice the number of people using webcasts than it would through face-to-face meetings and achieved a 280% ROI in less than a year.

Streaming directly to social media has exploded. Everyone is looking to enhance their content and expand what they produce on these platforms without a large budget or production team. LiveU’s VP of Engineering, Dan Pisarski will conduct a lively presentation where he looks at the ins and outs of live streaming to social media – and how to get broadcast quality productions out of cloud-based streaming solutions. How are brands and production companies producing content and syndicating online? Which software and service offerings are available to produce everything in the cloud? How can we expect the live production to evolve further? What does the live streaming workflow look like today and how can content creators prepare for the future?

Piracy monitoring systems must evolve from sending DMCA whackamole notices to real-time watermark detection. However, pirate content originates from multiple sources using different watermarking technologies. Using new audio/video watermark detection techniques, learn how torrent and cyberlocker monitoring providers can streamline piracy monitoring workflow to curtail the supply of unauthorized content.

Attend this session for your chance to win: DWA-branded mugs

Learn how to develop a cost-efficient, practical and scalable viewership growth strategy through new streaming television platforms (OTT/ConnectedTV) across all leading platforms such as Roku, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, AppleTV, SmartTVs, Gaming Consoles and Social Networks. Receive insights from the fastest OTT/ConnectedTV developers, explore best practices, learn how to avoid costly detours and delays, and secret tricks on how to boost viewership growth without spending money.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Amazon FireTV Box ($90 value) plus a $5,000 OTT/Connected TV ad campaign

Delivering OTT video is a complex process involving many challenges such as new standards, varied end-user devices, and changing video production and delivery formats. To deliver high quality OTT content, Broadcasters and Video Service Providers need enterprise class, end-to-end QC and monitoring tools. Using the right tools for live and VOD workflows at ingest and origin server will help assure superior QoS and QoE in the most efficient manner. In this session, we will discuss how this can be achieved.

Giveaway at the this session: Car mobile device holder

Viz Story allows media companies to quickly create compelling video stories with full real-time, state of the art 3D graphics and easily distribute them online and to social media.

Attend this session for your chance to win: 20 Vizrt portable power chargers (approximate value $40) and 20 Vizrt water bottles (approximate value $25)

How can I build an end-to-end interactive live streaming solution that is lightweight, cost-effective, easy to scale and robust? Creating low latency, live streaming applications for apps and plugin-free HTML5 is hard. Learn how to combine WebRTC, RTMP and low-latency HLS with nanoStream’s H5Live player to create your own ultra-low latency interactive solution for encoding, streaming and playback. Join our session to get a complete picture!

Attend this session for your chance to win: Free setup and usage of nanoStream hosted server on your own private instance or free consulting and testing of nanoStream Cloud for one month including WebRTC+H5Live.

The volume of content being brought online coupled with the increase in video processing to serve device-based consumption will far outpace content companies’ managed workflow growth, creating a need to expand encoding and streaming workflow capacity. Bitmovin will discuss this challenge, its hybrid cloud workflow and common myths regarding cloud-based encoding solutions.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Nintendo Switch, $299 value

Successfully stream high-quality near-live content over the Internet can quickly become a near impossible task. Bad network conditions, latency and distance are known to dramatically impair video streaming. Various products and services have been introduced, such as forward error correction over UDP, peer-to-peer distribution and CDNs. However, none provide the same universal quality and "zero-delay" transmission needed for a great experience. Aspera FASPStream is the first open video transport solution capable of live streaming high-quality video globally over commodity Internet networks with low buffering and negligible start-up time. This session will outline how to integrate the Aspera fasp.io software suite with standard RTMP, HLS and DASH workflows on browser, desktop, mobile and set-top box platforms.

Should you buy or build the video player of your video service? It's a key question every video service should answer when planning for a future full of video content, interaction and consumer engagement. As the video player is a critical part of the viewer experience, it is often seen as a key asset of the video service, resulting in a decision to build it in-house. But what is the true cost of building an in-house video player solution? And why do some video publishers, telco’s and broadcasters opt for buying a video solution in the interests of development and maintenance cost, scalability and quality of experience? During this session Pieter-Jan Speelmans will explore pros and cons of both options and will discuss with you how you can maximize your strategic investment.

Attend this session for your chance to win: A bag of Chokotoff Cote d'Or ($15 value)

Today very little Premium Video traffic is viewed primarily using IP delivery technologies. Primarily because users aren’t as satisfied with the quality of the delivery when compared to traditional Broadcast delivery. In this session we will discuss how close this “Quality” gap and even have IP delivery surpass the quality levels associated with Broadcast.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Deluxe 9 Piece Wine Tool Set ($20 value)

It doesn’t matter if you are a global media powerhouse brand or a startup content producer looking to find your niche, everyone needs the right strategy to reach consumers. Often times, managed services is the most efficient way to enable content owners to focus on creating the best programming and growing the business while leaving the infrastructure and technical operations to someone else. OTT best practices, use cases and lessons learned will be shared during this informative session.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Apple EarPods ($159 value)

The principle beneficiary of cloud deployments to date has been OTT distribution, but many are seeing an equally rapid and widespread transformation occurring in production provision. Ian Trow, Sr. Director Emerging Technology and Strategy, will spotlight deployments where cloud provision is most effective, areas where development will be concentrated, and functionality that will be beyond the reach of cloud.

Attend this session for your chance to win: A $200 Amazon gift card

Explore how Globecast, a subsidiary of Orange, S.A. and leading global provider of media management services to broadcasters, programmers, platform providers, and distributors is tackling the opportunities and challenges presented by the virtualization of content and cloud-based services across its global facilities.

Attend this session for your chance to win: A Globecast goodie bag worth $150, including Globecast merchandise and a $100 gift certificate to the Apple store