Key areas for Eyevinn Research and Development

Live Production in the Cloud, Interactivity in Broadcast and Sustainability are key areas for technology and innovation according to Jonas Birmé, VP R&D Eyevinn Technology.

Technology innovations have always had a great impact on how we produce and consume media over the years. One example is the shift from VTR tape-based to file-based production workflows and playout that made it possible to shorten the lead time to air, as stories can now be copied and transferred faster than real-time. TV-distribution over satellite made it possible to reach an audience outside of the country borders and gave us TV consumers more TV-channels as it opened for new broadcasters to establish on the market. Internet and the possibility of distributing video in high quality gave us streaming services and on-demand binge viewing wherever and whenever we want.

Eyevinn Technology, world leading independent experts in sustainable video streaming technology, is taking an active role in helping the media industry to innovate and adopt new technology. Our R&D division develops proof-of-concepts to test and validate ideas and innovations and works actively in developing and proposing new open standards where there is a gap. We share the lessons learned when building the proof-of-concepts and share the developed components as open source. By making the code available we give the industry the option to adapt and continue build from the worked that has already been done. Either by themselves or with the help from our video-dev professional services team.

We have identified three areas which we believe will have a key impact in the media industry in the way we both produce and consume TV and media. These will be the focus area of our R&D division and where we will make our investments.

Live Production in the Cloud

When technology exists that makes it possible to fully move the live production to the cloud and over standard Internet and even without the need of OB buses you would be able to fully utilize a distributed and remote workforce. It opens the opportunity for SaaS products that could lower the barrier and up-front tech investments that are normally associated with live event production. It could fundamentally change the economy around premium live event production.

Interactivity in Broadcast

The main challenge for a true interactive experience in broadcast is the delay (or latency) from the stage and the online audience. Even though it may be only 5-10 seconds of a delay the feedback loop is too large for most types of interactivities. These two time zones need to be brought much closer together. When this challenge has been solved only the imagination would limit us in what types of interactive experience a global TV audience could be part of.

Sustainability

This is an area where we all need to be engaged in. Not only the media industry but we need to do our part. Not limited to only more efficient encoding but also the way we produce and distribute the content. Technologies such as VOD2Live makes it possible to provide a linear TV experience by reusing already transcoded files instead of re-transcoding it in real-time. The only sustainable way to offer super-niched or even personalized TV channels. Another thing that can be questioned is why video segments that are never accessed are created in the first place. A lot of things can be done in this area that could make both small and big differences. All worth doing in our opinion.

We already have initiatives in some of these areas such as our open source VOD2Live engine that originates from a proof-of-concept back in 2018, our efforts in standardizing WebRTC based distribution in broadcast and open-source tools to automate the VMAF-based process to optimize transcoding profiles. Our crew visiting IBC this year can tell you more about these initiatives. Book a meeting by sending a request to sales@eyevinn.se