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virtual NAB Innovation Conference

vNAB Innovation Conference

The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC will host its third annual NAB Virtual Conference on March 20th & 21st, 2017 at Google in Venice, CA. This year, the 2-day extension of the April NAB Innovation Conference presents “Next Generation Media Technology: AI, VR and Cloud Innovations”. Join thought leaders and catalysts from the entertainment, and service industries for an insider’s look into the emerging technologies disrupting everything from the creative process to business models and consumer behavior.

Topics covered include:

  • Emergence of Artificial Intelligence
  • Innovations in Cloud Technology and Cyber Security
  • Rapid Development of Augmented and Virtual Reality in Entertainment Media

Keynotes include:

    • “Cloud Transition Patterns for Media Enterprises”— Shailendra Mathur, VP of Architecture, Avid
    • “Hollywood at Netflix Scale”— Casey Wilms, Content Platform Engineering, Netflix
    • “Video metadata platforms: How to futureproof automation”—Anthony, Disney
    • “VR For Everyone: Daydream and Google Play Apps”—Serge Kassardjian, Global Head of Media Apps Business Development, Google Play

Please click here to view/download the event brochure.

Monday March 20th, 2017

TimeTopic
8:45 am - 9:15 amRegistration
9:15 am - 9:30 amConference Welcome
Erik Weaver, Global Director Strategy M&E, HGST
9:30 am - 10:00 amSecuring Content in the Cloud
The last 3 years have seen a major shift in how Hollywood film studios view public cloud usage. WIth an increased awareness and generally acceptance of the security and scalability these clouds offers to the VFX and animation vendors creating pre-release content, the focus has now shifted to ensuring best practices implementation.
Adrian Graham, Google
For the deck/ppt click here
10:00 am - 10:30 amBLOCKCHAIN & THE HOLLYWOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
The global system behind a viewer’s transaction of watching a movie or TV show impacts viewers and show creators every day. What if all stakeholders had the same facts – Writers, Producers, Directors, Unions, Studios, Networks, Distributors, Theaters, Broadcasters, Cable Providers, Satellite providers, OTT providers and viewers? Blockchains offer precisely this opportunity. In this article we are going to explore new methods for enabling accountability in pre-production, production, post production, distribution, consumption and reporting with a secure chain of custody and metadata to be accessed, including key social attributes such as viewing method, display usage, rights compliance, and digital rights management.
Steve Wong, HPE
For the deck/ppt click here
10:30 am - 11:00 amHacking IoT: the new threat for content assets
Connected devices play an important role in creating and consuming both theatrical and broadcast content, ranging from smart TVs, to connected cameras, to wireless routers, and more. However, these same devices also introduce new security risk, and new attack surfaces against which malicious adversaries can launch their campaigns. Presented by the elite security research group behind esteemed hacking concepts such as IoT Village, this session examines data-based industry trends, the ways in which connected devices are compromised, and what to do about it.
Ted Harrington, ISE
For the deck/ppt click here
11:00 am - 11:30 amWhen brands come alive…
Incredible (and tiny) innovations in technology have inspired brands to invent new modes of engagement. Some of those customer experiences have, in turn, recoded our behavior and expectations. Today, brands have an opportunity and an obligation to be behave as living entities – conscious, intelligent, empathetic, hyper-personalized. The implications are immense and thrilling.
Tali Krakowsky, prophet.com
11:30 am - 12:00 pmBuilding Highly Scalable Immersive Media Solutions on AWS
Immersive media content such as 360 degree video places a unique set of demands on cloud-based infrastructure from a complete end to end solution point of view. A key goal for any solution of this nature is to keep costs low while not impacting availability, scale and compute performance. In this talk we will look at how to solve ingest, processing, storage and delivery of live and on-demand content for immersive media delivery, and present a reference design for 360 degree streaming using best-practice architectural patterns.
Konstantin Wilms, Principal Solutions Architect M&E, AWS and Chad Schmutzer, Specialist Solutions Architect SPOT, AWS
For the deck/ppt click here
Lunch
1:00 pm - 1:30 pmThe Future of Visual Effects in the Cloud
"The Cloud has provided a fundamental shift in the way studios are able to approach large scale rendering workloads. We’ll examine the history of feature film workloads on cloud and how visual experiences such as VR are impacting the delivery pipeline and workflows."
Todd Prives, Google
For the deck/ppt click here
1:30 pm - 2:00 pmVisual Effects in the Cloud: Power and Control
Visual Effects Supervisor Kevin Baillie had a hunch to bet on cloud computing 6 years ago. That bet birthed award winning visual effects studio Atomic Fiction and software company Conductor Technologies. Baillie will share visuals from blockbusters such as Deadpool and Star Trek Beyond to illustrate the cloud’s immense power, and share cautionary tales of the importance of control in the face of such massive resources.
Kevin Baile, CEO, Atomic Fiction
2:00 pm - 2:30 pmSupercharge performance using GPUs in the cloud
GPUs have thousands of compute cores and when coupled with lightning fast memory access they accelerate machine learning, gaming, database queries, video rendering and transcoding, computational finance, molecular dynamics and many other applications. With GPUs in the cloud, you can scale your calculation-heavy application without constructing your own data center. We'll give an overview of what we're offering in Google Cloud and talk about how to put GPUs to work. We will also showcase a number of commercial applications which require GPUs.
John Barrus, Google
For the deck/ppt click here
2:30 pm - 3:00 pmCloud Transition Patterns for Media Enterprises
On one hand media enterprises using workflows involving thick apps and traditional server based workflows have business opportunities of lifting and shifting from on-prem infrastructure to off-prem cloud or centralized data centers. On the other hand, cloud native micro-services architectures and web apps provide options to implement new services and apps rapidly and dynamically. This talk provides insights into the different hosting patterns observed from these media enterprises, and discusses a common framework provided by Avid’s Media Central Platform to realize the business opportunities under the different hosting models.
Shailendra Mathur, VP Architecture, AVID
For the deck/ppt click here
3:00 pm - 3:30 pmHybrid Redefined and the future of digital assets
Learn how HGST accelerates, simplifies and preserves digital assets in hybrid workflows. HGST’s scale-out object store provides a high performance and cost efficient data lake that prevents cloud lock-in for hybrid media workflows; from post-production to content distribution.
Joan Wrabetz, VP Marketing at HGST, Western Digital
3:30 pm - 4:00 pmThe distributive aspect of cloud on the digital world
The shift to digital is requiring all types of companies to implement new commerce and collaboration models to engage customers, partners and employees, and support new connectivity and data models for analytics, IoT, and other digital services. To sustainably survive digital disruption, traditional organizations in media and entertainment are transforming their business architectures and IT delivery architectures together. Jason will highlight some specific customer case studies in media and entertainment and talk about how preparing for this shift is of paramount importance to the industry.
Jason Sherwood, Sr. Manager, Equinix Global Solutions Architects, Equinix
For the deck/ppt click here
4:00 pm - 4:30 pmIP for Sports broadcast
Using IP technologies to replace traditional video transmission for remote event production has opened up a world of possibilities for increased production values and richer content exchange. This tech can bring improvements to productions, large and small.
Michael Harabin, V.P., Technology, Engineering & Media Management, Pac-12 Networks
For the deck/ppt click here
4:30 pm - 5:00 pmCloud Apps for Media Processing: IMF Packaging-on-Demand
This talk will address how IMF can benefit a facility where versions matter. It will briefly consider how IMF works and then look at use cases of where automation can be used to ensure optimal handling of titles both at the point of creation and also over time as versions are created, managed and distributed. Developed as an effort to reduce complexity and costs for multi-version content publishing for production, post-production and program preparation workflows, the Dalet xN IMF Maker service will be presented as an example.
Eric Carson, Senior Business Development Manager, Dalet
For the deck/ppt click here
5:00 pm - 5:30 pmEnd to End Media Workflow in the Cloud
How would traditional workflows of Production, Post Production and Content Distribution change with the scale and economics of cloud ? We’ll discuss the current of state of art with examples and demos.
Jeff Kember, Technical Director, Media, Office of the CTO, Google
5:30 pm - 6:00 pmThe Truth: Massive Scale Deployments in the Cloud
Although cloud is becoming the norm for most IT-infrastructure refreshes, the scale, growth and specificity of rich media content (HD, HDR, 4k, 8k) driving our industry seemingly prevent the wide-scale abandonment of long-term, on-prem “heavy metal” asset handling, processing and storage deployments.
Brian Campanotti, Director of Business Development, Oracle
6:00 pm - 6:30 pmMulti-cloud content workflows- leveraging the unique characteristic of Cloud
"Multi-cloud content workflows- leveraging the unique characteristics of each cloud infrastructure provider with high-speed content transfer and workflow automation across multiple cloud vendors."
Jay Migliaccio, Director of Cloud Services, ASPERA
Keynotes
6:30 pm - 7:00 pmHollywood at Netflix Scale
Netflix will release 1000 hours of Original programming in 2017. Learn how Netflix is building the infrastructure to manage assets at the world's largest studio.
Casey Wilms, Content Platform Engineering, Netflix
7:00 pm - 7:30 pmAvalanche - Global File Management with C4
Avalanche.io is releasing a powerful new file navigator based on the open source C4 framework. C4 dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of remote file management, and Avalanche makes it drag and drop. This talk will go behind the scenes to show how C4 is used to solve the most fundamental challenges of production in the cloud.
Joshua Kolden, CEO, Avalanche
7:30 pm - 9:00 pmCocktail Reception

Tuesday March 21st, 2017

8:45 am - 9:15 amDoors open
9:15 am - 9:30 amLooking beyond the script – The practical use of computational linguistics for story adaptation and project development
A short case study on the use of natural language processing techniques to support the screenplay adaptation of a popular young-adult novel series. Rather than trying to ‘crack the code’, Double Bishop supports development strategies by revealing hidden insights and bridging interpretive feedback with objective analysis and recommendations.
Anton Andreacchio, Managing Director, Double Bishop/JumpgateVR
For the deck/ppt click here
9:30 am - 10:00 amIntelligence Content Discovery through Machine Learning
Machine Learning has enabled Google to change the experience within products like Photos and YouTube. ML has allowed us to understand the content of images and videos, so that we can recommend and search for your favorite clip or photo. With Cloud Machine Learning, we are now bringing that technology closer to you. With the new Video Intelligence and Vision products, you can now find entities and faces within your video content.
Ram Ramanathan, Product Management - Cloud and Machine Learning, Google
10:30 am - 11:00 amVideo metadata platforms: How to futureproof automation
With all the vendors, promises and demos around automated metadata and machine learning, it can be overwhelming to plan a path forward. In this talk we’ll cover a modular and futureproof descriptive metadata architecture and explain how we’re implementing machine learning and automation to avoid vendor lock-in.
Anthony Accardo , Director R&D at Disney ABC Television Group, Disney
11:00 am - 11:30 amImprove Efficiency by Double Digits – Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
How will artificial intelligence and machine learning help drive efficiency throughout the M&E Industry? In this talk, John Motz will explore the future of machine learning and how it is enabling companies to automate manual workflows to become more efficient and more productive.
John Motz, CTO, GrayMeta
11:30 am - 12:00 pmHow broadcasters can get in the VR game with sports
"With new distribution deals from the NFL on Twitter to ESPN on Sling ­ how we watch TV is now driven by the
consumer demand to do more while we watch tune in to watch our favorite team. Enter virtual reality. VR is the first truly transformative technology for sports broadcasting in years – to date, the biggest improvements we've seen have been HD (just better picture) and ""the yellow line."" With VR, we can actually take you to the game, like you're sitting courtside or on the 50­year line, while still being able to check their Twitter, trash talk and follow their team in real­time. "

Saswat Panda, CTO, Livelikevr and Michael Davies, SVP Fox Sports
For the deck/ppt click here
Lunch
1:00 pm - 1:30 pmTechnical Introduction 360 / VR / AR / MR
All The “R”s. The technical basics, the differences, and real-world examples of 360 video, VR, AR, and MR. The emotional connection they each make, and where they shine in creative, B2B, and B2C presentations.
Lucas Wilson, CEO, Superspherevr
For the deck/ppt click here
1:30 pm - 2:00 pmThe future VR and Panoramic Cinema experiences. - Panel Moderated by Lelyveld
Multiplexes and arcades are once again faced with the challenge of drawing an audience as home entertainment improves and an explosion of entertainment and social engagement options vie for their time. This series of talks will explore ideas multiplexes and arcades are considering; from offering wider and bigger screen experiences to rethinking the spaces as multi-sensory group immersive experiences.
Ted Schilowitz, Greg Downing, Richard W. Taylor II, Phil Lelyveld, Greg Ciaccio, ETC
2:00 pm - 2:30 pmVR For Everyone: Daydream and Google Play Apps
Google Play has become a critical platform for app developers to reach a wide and diverse audience. As VR is a nascent technology, both platform and developers have an opportunity to create a marketplace that offers a similarly broad and diverse catalog. In this talk, Serge Kassardjian shares how Google Play is adapting its store management approach to programming the launch portfolio of apps for Daydream – with the goal of moving VR from a novelty to a mainstream movement.
Serge Kassardjian, Global Head of Media Apps Business Development, Google Play
2:30 pm - 3:00 pmFrictionless Adoption: Removing Barriers to Creating, Distributing and Experiencing Immersive Experiences
Marcie Jastrow, SVP of Immersive Media, Technicolor and Head of the Technicolor Experience, discusses the current state of immersive experiences and how we are working toward a ‘frictionless’ adoption by consumers. By exploring the methodology of how consumers embraced past technologies, Marcie explores what needs to happen in order for immersive media to be accepted into mainstream culture. What is that breakthrough piece of content that will bring people into the headset, and how do we keep them engaged? Marcie explains how, through education, the Technicolor Experience Center is working toward a seamless ecosystem to drive the adoption of this emerging medium.
Marcie Jastrow, SVP Technicolor Immersive Center
3:00 pm - 3:30 pmBeyond Gaming: Incredible, Useful & Interesting Ways VR is Used Today
When you think of VR you likely picture a gamer wearing a VR headset, immersed in an animated battle against dark and evil forces. But VR goes so far beyond gaming - cutting across music, non-profits, sports, filmmaking and commercials to name just a few. In this session, you’ll hear from experts who have focused their life’s work on creating immersive experiences thanks to VR.
Laura Williams Argilla, Adobe
3:30 pm - 4:00 pmCreating a Diverse and Inclusive VR/AR Industry: A Cornerstone for the Future of Storytelling
Diversity has long been an important yet misunderstood topic, and this appears to be especially true in the emerging industry of VR/AR. This session will explore VR as a storytelling medium, the impact of diverse voices on culture, and current initiatives in the VR/AR industry to create an inclusive industry. The talk will also cover best practices for fighting our own biases in the workplace.
Jenn Duong and Julie Young, Co-founders, SH//FT
4:00 pm - 4:30 pmFinding the Superhero Within: Social Change in VR
Explore how VR experiences can be an effective tool in understanding social issues with the creators of Wonder Buffalo.
Ned Atkins, Christina Berg, Drew Diamond, Brian Frager, ETC
Keynotes:
4:30 pm - 5:00 pmSidestepping the Uncanny Valley: Physical Asset Capture in Wonder Buffalo VR
Let’s talk the Holy Grail of this emergent storytelling medium: photoreal fidelity in a real-time rendered experience. Light fields hold immense promise to break down these barriers in time, but what can be done today? The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC teamed up with major studio and technology partners to explore the cutting edge of physical asset capture in an interactive VR experience, exploring the very real computing and workflow challenges along the way. Learn best practices and pitfalls uncovered in the creation of Wonder Buffalo VR, a real-time rendered Unity experience that made waves at Sundance and SXSW 2017 through its integration of photogrammetry, volumetric video and interactive CG elements.
Brian Fager
For the deck/ppt click here
5:00 pm - 5:45 pmVolumetric Capture, Panel Moderated by Schwartz
Rainer Gombos (Realtra), Tim Milliron (Lytro), Ben Stein (8i), Andrew Schwartz (Radiant Image)
5:45 pm - 9:00 pmCocktail reception

virtual NAB Cloud Innovation Conference

vNAB Cloud Innovation Conference

 
The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC will host its second annual vNAB Cloud Innovation Conference on March 2-3, 2016 in the Venice, California offices of Google. This year, the 2-day extension of the April NAB Cloud Innovation Conference presents “Masters of the Media Cloud Lifecycle” with 32 Media & Entertainment (M&E) superstars, panelists and keynotes presenting TED-style talks focused on cloud-related topics designed to keep senior leaders up to date on an ever-changing world.​

 

To download the program details click here

 

Topics covered include:

  • Cloud based NLE’s (Non-Linear editing)
  • IOA (Interconnect Oriented Architectures)
  • SDS (Software Defined Storage)
  • Indelible Metadata
  • Multi-cloud/Containers Strategies
  • and more

Keynotes include:

    • “Riding the Tidal Wave of Change: How Constellation Guided Technicolor’s Journey to the Cloud”— Mark Dickerson, VP, Technicolor

 

    • “Media Innovation @ Netflix Scale”— Vinod Viswanathan, Engineering Director, Netflix

 

    • “How can public cloud help broadcasters and content producers reach consumers directly”— Miles Ward, Global Head, Solutions at Google Cloud Platform

 

    • “Algorithmic Anthologies”— Tali Krakowsky, Design Partner, Prophet

 

    • “Migrating Fox’s Media Supply Chains to the Cloud”— Chris Blandy, EVP, Fox

 

Wednesday March 2nd, 2016

TimeTopic
8:45 am - 9:15 amRegistration
9:15 am - 9:30 amConference Welcome
Erik Weaver, Project Cloud, ETC
NLE's & Production
9:30 am - 10:00 amEditing in the Cloud: Redefining Media & Entertainment Workflows
Bruce Long discusses Media & Entertainment’s vital evolution to the Cloud, with a focus on financial and workflow efficiencies created by enabling cloud-based editing and graphic-intensive processes. Long will provide perspective on how M&E companies can fully realize cloud-based strategies to properly manage and protect their assets while still delivering on the business realities driving trends in the film editing industry.
Bruce Long, CEO, Bebop
10:00 am - 10:30 amOrigins of the Media Lifecycle: Practical Implementation of Cloud in Production
Discussion of the practical implementation of cloud media ingest, dailies, and metadata procurement during production. Camera to cloud on television productions demonstrating efficiencies and cost savings while enabling greater oversight.
Aubuchon Guillaume, CTO, DigitalFilm Tree
10:30 am - 11:00 amIntroducing Aspera Files - A SaaS platform to solve the media file exchange problem
This presentation will examine the technology behind a new SaaS platform that allows any organization, small to large, to establish a branded web-based presence for the fast, easy and secure exchange and delivery of any size file-based media or data between end users across separate organizations, combining multiple storage platforms. It will explore how content can be stored and easily accessed in multiple cloud and on-premise storage systems, and sharing between users and trusted organizations can be as easy as drag-and-drop regardless of where the content is located.
Michelle Munson, CEO, Aspera
11:00 am - 11:30 amSecure Content creation and Managment in the Cloud at any scale
Steve Cronan from 5th Kind and David Catzel from Microsoft will discuss how leveraging the Azure Platform as a Service has allowed 5th Kind to extend their Backbone to meet the needs of any studio or production and accommodate content creation and management in the cloud. From infinitely scalable tiered storage to advanced meta data automation with open API throughout the entire ecosystem, the powerful combination of technologies will allow any workflow to integrate seamlessly into this unique solution.
Steve Cronan, CEO, 5th Kind
David Catzel, Business Development M&E, Microsoft
11:30 am - 12:00 pmEnabling the Artist: How can scalable compute resources help create VFX that was not possible before
Advances in cloud computing have enabled VFX artists to push the bounds of the imagery they create. We'll examine how both the studios and the developers of the content creation software they rely on are adopting the move to cloud with technologies built around the scalability and flexibility it offers.
Todd Prives, Product Manager, Google
Lunch
Storage & DAM's
1:00 pm - 1:30 pmTrust No One: Cracking the X-Files of Content Security
As content producers, we want to believe in the innate goodness of people, from our trusted inner production circle to dispersed freelancers, all the way down to our viewers and subscribers. But experience should teach us to trust no one. Pre- and post-production leaks can jeopardize revenue, buzz and careers, yet most media and entertainment companies are failing to enforce clear policies around security. Luckily, the truth is out there...technology and protocols exist that present an ideal compromise between security, ease of use and cost, fitting into existing workflows and appeasing both Mulders (production teams) and Scullys (IT).
Kai Pradel, CEO, Media Silo
1:30 pm - 2:00 pmA DAM Secure File System: Defending Data with a Shrewd Offense
Data owners are constantly playing defense to protect their valuable assets. Why not turn the tables and integrate countermeasures directly into the data and data containers? This talk will review how dynamic combinations of Encryption, Watermarks, Fingerprints, Security Contexts, Honey Tokens and Relationship-Based Access can be used to bring an offensive posture to the discipline of digital asset defense.
Paul Evans, CTO, Daystrom
2:00 pm - 2:30 pmThe Data Dilemma - What lies ahead for Managing your Content / Data and how to position yourself for success
Dealing with the inconceivable content/data dynamics in the Industry:Adoption of Cloud based Computing, Global Explosion of Data, Business & Process Transformation. Architecting for the Future of Your Content, enabling Rapid Innovation, and accepting Continuous Change ConvergeIO, a developer of Software defined Storage Solutions will share a perspective on the Market dynamics that are changing the landscape for Content/Data Management and provide a view to The Future of Data Storage in an environment filled with significant new technologies and methods that are now available to Content Creators.
Tom Gallivan, CEO, ConvergIO
2:30 pm - 3:00 pmData Growth in Studios and Broadcasting: Why it will accelerate into 2022?
What will be driving global data growth through 2022 and how to create tiered structures to handle this onslaught of data. Is it all due to the move to 4K ? Multiple copies?....how many and why? Object storage and media clouds: do they really deliver on their promise?
Barbara Murphy, Global VP, HGST
Keynotes
3:00 pm - 3:30 pmState of Preservation – Straight from the Archivist’s mouth
Moving image preservation has moved from film and tape to file-based. The members of the Association of Moving Image Archivists must not only grapple with this but make sure all moving image technology continues to be well understood. This update reports on the active work archival experts are doing to preserve both new productions and classic titles.
Andrea Kalas, President, AMIA
3:30 pm - 4:00 pmRon Burgundy goes Digital: OTT Trends and the Future of Local Television
Local TV has historically been a powerhouse of both influence and profits in the US. With digital and OTT trends transforming the competitive landscape for consumer attention and time spent, the talk explores major tech trends, challenges and disruptions that can position local TV and media to take back its dominant alpha dog status (or not!).
Steve Chung, CEO, Frankly Inc.
Big Data & Metadata
4:30 pm - 5:00 pmSimplifying Data Collection for Content Creators
Alex LoVerde will share his thoughts on how valuable data can be collected during production through applications that solve real problems for content creators. This talk will focus on costume departments as a case study- showing what the workflow had been (only three years ago) to the current digital standard for nearly 50% of US scripted TV series. At the end, examples will be given as to what the future holds for viewing experiences that leverage this newly captured data.
Alex LoVerde, CEO, Wymsee
5:00 pm - 5:30 pmCreation of a plan for the 3 V's of big data
All media and entertainment companies need to address the three V’s (velocity, volume, and variety) of big data. Putting a plan in place that takes into account the unique obstacles of having media content be a large proportion of your volume and velocity is absolutely critical for generating the fourth 'V'; value. We will look at how M&E companies can create a plan to tackle their big data problems.
Aaron Edell, COO, Graymeta
5:30 pm - 6:00 pmThe Rise of Data: How Smart Content is at the Heart of the New Entertainment
Data is taking Hollywood by storm and its impact can be felt across every part of the content creation and distribution lifecycle. Connecting all this data and investing in Smart Content, the intelligence to link it together, has never been more valuable . . . or closer to reality. Taking new approaches to managing data, organizations are looking across all their data to connect with users, drive new ways to partner with advertisers, drive efficiencies and help better understand the value of their content. In this session Michael Malgeri and Nancy Silver will look at the impact of Smart Content across the entertainment lifecycle and highlight some organizations putting it all together and making an impact not only in who we work with content but in great new experiences we can now create for our users and fans.
Nancy Silver, Principal Solution Architect, MarkLogic
Michael Malgeri, Principal Technologist, MarkLogic
6:00 pm - 6:30 pmAlgorithmic Anthologies
This very virtual, hyper intelligent world has redefined one of the most fundamental aspects of our humanity – storytelling. Meta-data, coupled with algorithms, are creating a new paradigm for how stories are created and experienced. Using artificial intelligence, data points can be woven together to create personalized meaning to the right audience at the right time in the right place. This talk is about how we can begin to conceive, code and experience these algorithmic anthologies.
Tali Krakowsky, Design Partner, Prophet
Keynotes
6:30 pm - 7:00 pmPowering creativity: the role of collaboration in media IT
In an industry increasingly reliant on dispersed workforces of freelancers, new studios, and global partnerships – tapping into the right collaboration network is critical to staying ahead of the competition. Learn more about the trends shaping the way we collaborate today, and how you can leverage your workflows and productivity tools to power creativity and enable innovation.
Ross Piper, VP of Entertainment Strategy, Dropbox
7:00 pm - 7:30 pm"Media Innovation @ Netflix Scale"
The talk will be focused on Netflix media cloud platform and services that power our large scale media processing platform. Give some insights into how we harness an elastic compute/storage facility like AWS to drive agility in how our media innovation reaches our large customer base.
Vinod Viswanathan, Engineering Director, Netflix
7:30 pm - 9:00 pmCocktail reception - RoseCafe Venice CA

Thursday March 3rd, 2016

TimeTopic
8:45 am - 9:15 amRegistration
9:15 am - 9:30 amConference Welcome
Erik Weaver, Project Cloud, ETC
Transport & Ingest
9:30 am - 10:00 amVideo Creators, the New Broadcasters and the Democratization of Video
Steve Forde, Group Product Manager, Adobe
10:00 am - 10:30 amIOA for Media and Entertainment
Explore how Interconnection Oriented Architecture™ integrates the physical and virtual worlds, shifting the fundamental delivery architecture of IT from siloed and centralized to internetworked and collocated, which can help solve the challenge of the increasing amount of digital media content and the drive to cloud-based solutions.
Jason Sherwood, Solution Innovator, Equinix
10:30 am - 11:00 amThe Magic of C4
Indelible metadata, agreement without communication, and other magic. Using C4 in production.
Joshua Kolden, CEO/Framework Architect, Studio Pyxis/ETC
11:00 am - 11:30 amCloud workflows in the REAL world ­ Rendering in the Cloud
Discussing with the audience how the changing nature of the film and TV industry is driving the VFX artists to alter the way they render their creatives. Looking at the need for quick, burstable cloud rendering tools, and how to utilize the benefits of the cloud and still remain secure.
Chuck Parker, CEO, Sohonet
11:30 am - 12:00 pmSmart Storage: Your content is more useful when you can collaborate better
Jeff Kember, Cloud Solutions Architect, Google
Lunch
ROI & Innovation
1:00 pm - 1:30 pmCreating nimble and efficient media organizations through interconnected rights management systems
According to PwC and World Intellectual Property Organization, the aggregate spending on media and Entertainment intellectual property is valued at 4.2 trillion dollars and the total value of that IP is 7 trillion in 2016. These incredible numbers makes breaking down barriers between business units (Film, TV, Home Entertainment) and their respective systems managing rights, assets, contracts, sales, finance, legal and business affairs, ops, etc. a business imperative. Jason Kassin, CEO and Co-Founder of FilmTrack, the global leader in Rights Management Software, will present a case on why asset management systems must be connected with rights and contracts in order to create nimble and efficient media organizations.
Jason Kassin, CEO, Filmtrack
1:30 pm - 2:00 pmDoes Your Forecast Call for Cloud?
So you want to move your workflow to the cloud … or do you? One of the decade’s great buzzwords, the “cloud” promises tremendous efficiencies, lower CAPEX and near-limitless flexibility. This presentation will define the cloud within the context of media applications, outline pros and cons of typical cloud-based models and demonstrate what situations are most suited to take advantage of the cloud through real-world examples.
Ben Bloom, Sr. Manager, Akamai
2:00 pm - 2:30 pmRiding the Tidal Wave of Change: How Constellation Guided Technicolor’s Journey to the Cloud
To maintain our leadership position in an intensely competitive and dynamic entertainment technology market, Technicolor’s IT organization is tasked with ensuring that internal business units quickly adapt to ever this changing landscape. As disruptive forces in the entertainment technology arena gathered steam over the past few years, it became clear that rigid, legacy IT systems and infrastructures could not deliver the agility, operational efficiency and cost-effective flexibility needed to support our community. Technicolor needed a better way of elevating and maintaining higher levels of availability and performance for content creators, software developers, and business teams. Constellation is Technicolor’s integrated, managed, and secured Cloud computing environment; it provides our teams with the highly responsive technology resources and services needed to deliver award winning solutions to theaters, homes and mobile devices. Constellation features central management dashboards, tools, reporting, and various other features and utilities that allow our teams to gain visibility and control of processes across Cloud platforms. This has been achieved by standardizing environments and automating operations to reduce the need for manual work and processes.
Mark Dickerson, VP-Cloud, Technicolor
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm"Video, Cloud, Cognitive"
With a constantly changing marketplace, businesses must now address the rising expectations of their customers, by personalizing their products and services. It is becoming clear that video can help businesses meet these needs. Video overcomes the physical inhibitors present in the real world while leveraging the benefits of the digital world. It shortens the time to insights while eliminating the challenge of distance. As we enter the cognitive era, speed matters. Business systems are challenged by the requirement to rapidly gain insight about all their users, both internal and external. These systems must adapt in real time, to immediately learn from those insights, and to swiftly respond. By leveraging global Cloud architectures, businesses can provide agile and scalable platforms that connect immediately with people all over the world. And, increasingly that connection will be ‘video’.
Steve Cenepa, Head of M&E, IBM
Streaming & OTT
3:00 pm - 3:30 pmHitachi Data Systems (HDS)

3:30 pm - 4:00 pmTechnical considerations for linear channel origination in the public cloud
"Is the public cloud ready for prime-time broadcast channel origination? We think it’s time to start the move.
In this session we will cover the application and infrastructure considerations needed to originate linear channels for broadcast from the Cloud. We’ll discuss the design considerations needed to support the output, methods for monitoring playout quality and the downstream requirements for distribution. At the cloud infrastructure layer we’ll look at security, architecture design, processing, storage and failover considerations needed to support the business SLAs and technical performance needed for broadcasting."

Bhavik Vyas, AWS Partner Development Manager, Amazon
4:00 pm - 4:30 pmA Scalable Architecture for UHD Video on Demand and Live Streams
UHD (4k) video delivery requires massive scale out of video transcoding and hosting facilities. NFV orchestration and Openstack based virtualization can provide a manageable and scalable solution to bridge the "content gap" between the owners of hi-resolution content and the owners of 4k TV sets.
Werner Gold, Emerging Solutions Evangelist, Redhat
4:30 pm - 5:00 pmPure Play Video OTT: A Microservices Architecture in the Cloud
An end­to­end, over­the­top (OTT) video system is built of many interdependent architectural tiers, ranging from content preparation, content delivery, and subscriber and entitlement management, to analytics and recommendations. This talk will provide both a high­level discussion and a detailed exploration of how to architect a media platform that allows for growth, scalability, security, and business changes at each tier, based on real­world experiences delivering over 100 Gbps of concurrent video traffic with 24/7/365 linear TV requirements.
Shakeel Usman, AWS Principal Solutions Architect, Amazon
Keynotes
5:15 pm - 6:00 pmHow can public cloud help broadcasters and content producers reach consumers directly
Miles Ward, Global Head- Solutions at Google Cloud Platform, Google
6:00 pm - 6:45 pmMigrating Fox's Media Supply Chains to the Cloud
The Fox Network Engineering and Operations group collects, prepares, and packages all incoming media for multiplatform distribution, and creates the substantial infrastructure that supports this distribution. In conjunction with SDVI Corporation, the group has created an AWS-resident resource management system to share media processing workloads across the group's existing facility, a private cloud.
Chris Blandy, EVP, FOX
Simon Eldridge, Chief Product Officer, SDVI
6:45 pm - 7:30 pmCollaboration and Transformation Acceleration Through Cloud
Cloud has emerged as the key enabler of business transformation and collaboration among business units within any organization. In just a few years, the increase in adoption of practical applications has enabled a fundamental shift in the way workloads are managed across the enterprise and with business or service provider partners. As Cloud was born and proliferated, use cases in cost efficiency drove early adoption but ultimately it is business agility and visibility across siloed environments that is inspiring modern age businesses in Hollywood. This session explores how cloud acts as a catalyst in helping businesses deliver products quickly, respond to critical changes faster, facilitate collaboration, and more.
Guy Finley, Executive Director, MESA
7:30 pm - 9:00 pmCocktail reception

 

Sponsored by-

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EQIX

 

MESA

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Specification for Naming VFX Image Sequences Released

ETC’s VFX Working Group has published a specification for best practices naming image sequences such as plates and comps. File naming is an essential tool for organizing the multitude of frames that are inputs and outputs from the VFX process. Prior to the publication of this specification, each organization had its own naming scheme, requiring custom processes for each partner, which often resulted in confusion and miscommunication.

The new ETC@USC specification focuses primarily on sequences of individual images. The initial use case was VFX plates, typically delivered as OpenEXR or DPX files. However, the team soon realized that the same naming conventions can apply to virtually any image sequence. Consequently, the specification was written to handle a wide array of assets and use cases.

To ensure all requirements are represented, the working group included over 2 dozen participants representing studios, VFX houses, tool creators, creatives and others.  The ETC@USC also worked closely with MovieLabs to ensure that the specification could be integrated as part of their 2030 Vision.

A key design criteria for this specification is compatibility with existing practices.  Chair of the VFX working group, Horst Sarubin of Universal Pictures, said: “Our studio is committed to being at the forefront of designing best industry practices to modernize and simplify workflows, and we believe this white paper succeeded in building a new foundation for tools to transfer files in the most efficient manner.”

This specification is compatible with other initiatives such as the Visual Effects Society (VES) Transfer Specifications. “We wanted to make it as seamless as possible for everyone to adopt this specification,” said working group co-chair and ETC@USC’s Erik Weaver. “To ensure all perspectives were represented we created a team of industry experts familiar with the handling of these materials and collaborated with a number of industry groups.”

“Collaboration between MovieLabs and important industry groups like the ETC is critical to implementing the 2030 Vision,” said Craig Seidel, SVP of MovieLabs. “This specification is a key step in defining the foundations for better software-defined workflows. We look forward to continued partnership with the ETC on implementing other critical elements of the 2030 Vision.”

The specification is available online for anyone to use.

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