Shining a spotlight on pivotal media industry trends, IBC2024 has unveiled the eight new projects it has selected for the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme. With projects covering trends including artificial intelligence, sustainability, countering disinformation, digital talent provenance and live production, it gathers together a mix of companies from across the global media, entertainment and technology communities to explore solutions to critical challenges the industry faces today.
Announced following the IBC’s Kickstart Day at the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), this year’s Accelerator Programme also includes a “Special Incubator Project” that builds on live production technologies established by previous projects.
The projects selected for development for this 2024 cycle are:
ECOFLOW: Energy-Conserving Optimization for Future-ready, Low-impact Online Workflows: A project proposed by Humans Not Robots and Accedo and supported by Champions ITV and BBC. This project tackles the environmental impact of media consumption by developing consolidated metrics for energy consumption at major steps of the end-to-end technology supply chain, aligning best-of-breed energy-saving features into a unified user experience.
Connecting Live Performances of the Future with ULL-AVLM (Ultra-Low Latency Audio, Video, Light and Media Data): A project proposed by d&b Solutions and Championed by the University of Strathclyde, plus others. It aims to develop a solution for delivering data between venues in sync and with private 5G to unlock ultra-low latencies.
Solving the IP (Internet Protocol) Identity Crisis: A project proposed by Eviden and supported by Champions BBC, EBU, IMG, and Solent University. This project looks to address challenges around IP infrastructure within broadcast facilities created by the orchestration of media flows – namely, how to find the correct device, sender or receiver when there might be thousands in a facility.
Design Your Weapons in the Fight Against Disinformation: A project proposed by Champions BBC and CBS News and Paramount Global. The goals of this project are to develop an industry-wide understanding on the challenges and abuses being faced today by all media outlets in identifying disinformation and helping audiences identify trustworthy news and information.
Evolution of the Control Room – Leveraging XR, Voice, AI & HTML-Based Graphics Solutions: Proposed by Champions TRANSMIXR, ITN, BBC and TV2 Denmark with support from Champions HSLU, TCD, TG4, TUS and the University of Strathclyde. The project combines two original Accelerator challenge proposals into a transformative, overarching project exploring the evolution of live production workflows – with two key streams of development – the Evolution of the Control Room, leveraging XR, Voice, AI and HTML Based Graphic Solutions.
Digital Replicas and Talent ID: Provenance, Verification and New Automated Workflows: Project proposed by HAND Human & Digital with Champions to be confirmed. This challenge addresses the evolving disruption within the media and entertainment industry in the authentication and management of talent in today’s digital landscape.
Scalable Ultra-Low Latency Streaming for Premium Sports: Proposed by Champion Comcast, this project seeks to achieve Twitter-equivalent latency and near-instant playback start using standard HTTP streaming technical stack and infrastructure.
AI MEDIA PRODUCTION LAB: In an IBC Accelerators first, the 2024 Programme will feature very special challenges under an umbrella theme of ‘AI Media Production Lab’, which sets out to explore a series of specific AI concepts in various production scenarios. This encompasses researching and developing learnings around the various AI tools and techniques in terms of how to improve creativity, bias and efficiency in this fast-moving, disruptive area of media and technology. These case studies are:
- Generative AI in Action: Proposed by Champions RAI and EBU, this strand looks at how content creators can leverage AI in creative storytelling and production, using several AI platforms to make a pilot.
- AI Audience Validation Assistant (AAVA): Proposed by Champion Zwart and Evangelische Omroep (EO) and supported by Co-Champions BNNVARA, this challenge has a core focus aimed at the entire industry and audience perceptions, utilising AI as a tool to combat bias detection, AI hallucinations and promote inclusion and diversity for audiences and focus groups at early content production and development stages.
- Changing the Game: Predictive Generative AI: Proposed by Champion Verizon, this case study will look at AI as a production tool for Live Sports and Live Events to assist directors and production teams to potentially predict next frames and next moves for swifter edits, content detection, and better workflows.
Special Incubator Project: Connect and Produce Anywhere, Phase II – Proposed by Champions BBC, BT Media & Broadcast, and TV2 Denmark, with others to be confirmed. This special project follows the build and development of an all-IP, edge-first, multi-cloud, multi-software test bed environment that was created in the 2023 Accelerator Programme.
To date, more than 180 organisations have participated in the Accelerator Programme since 2019, delivering POCs for 35 projects
More details of IBC’s 2024 Accelerator Programme can be found here.
