Cisco @IBC 2018: “Dailies” to “Hourlies;” Venues to Studios: How Our Media Blueprint is Reaching into Film and S …

Hi, Rog again. Last blog, I hinted at more details to come about our current work to industrialize the implementation of IP and cloud technologies into adjacent media segments. Specifically, film and sports.

This blog aims to do just that: Give you a deeper look into the ways our film and sports partners are intensifying their involvement with our Media Blueprint — spanning the infrastructure and software components to help our media partners power new ways to create, manage and distribute digital content.

Let’s start with film. The movies. The silver screen: IP and cloud techniques matter for Hollywood and movie-making because they expand collaboration, automate how content elements are made (like trailers, as one of several examples), and accelerate critical workloads. Raw footage, captured into “dailies,” or “rushes,” can and is becoming more like “hourlies.” Blockbuster films, which can employ as many as 3,000 people, can be worked on collaboratively, in real-time, and across time zones.

In our (super exciting!) partnership with the Walt Disney Studios StudioLAB, for instance, we’re collaborating in three key ways. One is in bringing together internal Disney teams and their post-production partners scattered all over the world — to edit and collaboratively work, over IP video, in real time. Read what Light Reading had to say following their tour of the Walt Disney Studios StudioLAB.

Two is in capture: When on a shoot, gathering the footage and making it available almost instantaneously, for previewing and editing. (Hence “hourlies not dailies,” but it could just as accurately be “minute-ies” or “second-ies,” although neither exactly rolls off the tongue.)

Our third area of collaboration with the Disney StudioLAB is in post-production workflows, which can be more easily and cost-effectively virtualized and manipulated with Software-Defined Networking (SDN).  SDN and virtualization matter especially for post-production, to be able to very quickly scale up what you need, where you need it. It’s the part that makes the IT work as magical as the storytelling. (Ok, almost as magical.)

All three areas of work represent the growing (and necessary) trend that is the coming together of Hollywood, and Silicon Valley; of creatives, and technologists.

IP industrialization is happening in sports, too, in a big way. In a nutshell, it’s about outfitting venues with studio capabilities, to make sure everyone “downstream” that needs a studio feed, gets it — securely, in the highest possible quality, with the lowest possible latency. Think about it: There are lots and lots more content sources these days than “just” the game in the arena. More camera angles, real-time data feeds from the game and the Internet, replays, and more – all of which need to be accurate and secure to ensure the best fan experience, while preserving the sports brand.

A recent proof point for the IP industrialization of sports is our continued relationship with the NBA, to secure its vast and growing amount of IP-based infrastructure. The NBA has a rich history of leveraging our technologies in unique and interesting ways, I must say — they’re mavericks, risk-takers, and, as a result, leaders in the sector. It started with live interviews between two or more remotely-located subjects, and is advancing toward how wireless techniques are applied to benefit coaches and athletic personnel (and their devices.)

Right now, we’re working with the sports owners and leagues in more than 350 stadiums, around the globe, engaging hundreds of millions of fans — which requires a digital transformation. It’s the network, the scalable infrastructure, and the security for everything connected to it, from devices to corporate IT to broadcast. It’s also the collaborative tools that keep experts engaged in producing the experience, and delivering new forms of immersive engagement with fans. And from that, more data insights traversing the network — stats, trivia, web stats, user behaviors — all in real time, all in IP, all supported by cloud.

At IBC, we’ll be there with some of our Disney and NBA colleagues to share more details about our partnerships.

So: That’s what’s been going on around here, and around the world, with our Media Blueprint, as it advances into additional media segments like movies and sports.

Come by for more info! Thanks and hope to see you there. September 14-18. Stand 1.A71.