This expansion follows a pilot program conducted in 2023, in which Scripps’ stations effectively utilized Waymark’s technology to enhance local advertising sales. This adoption by Scripps marks the latest in a series of collaborations for Waymark, following partnerships with industry leaders such as Fox TV Stations, Nine (Australia), Spectrum Reach, Gray Television, Beasley Media Group, and Morgan Murphy Media.

Additionally, Waymark’s technology is featured in the creative directories of prominent streaming platforms like Hulu and Roku, aiding ad managers in producing high-quality video advertisements.

The collaboration between Scripps and Waymark empowers Scripps to offer its local advertising clients access to quick, cost-effective video creative solutions. This initiative addresses traditional challenges in video advertising by streamlining and automating the ad creation process. Waymark’s AI-driven video platform is particularly beneficial for small businesses, providing them the capability to craft ads which were previously unattainable due to budget, time, or expertise constraints.

It is important to note that this agreement does not involve the newsrooms of any Scripps property.

Brian Norris, EVP and CRO at The E.W. Scripps Company, emphasized their commitment to aligning with audience and client interests. He underscored the significance of leveraging rapid technological advancements to offer real-time services to clients, aiming for agility and efficiency in reaching audiences beyond the scope of social media.

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This initiative has emerged in response to the growing concern over the unauthorized use of media content by AI platforms, a situation that has seen media companies either blocking AI crawlers or resorting to legal actions, such as the recent lawsuit by The New York Times against OpenAI.

Verify is unique in its dual purpose.

It allows media companies to register their content, thereby establishing usage rights for AI platforms, including attribution and potential compensation. This is achieved through a blockchain-based system of ‘smart contracts.’ Simultaneously, Verify provides consumers with a tool to confirm the authenticity of content, particularly images and article links, from recognized sources.

The public release of Verify, along with its first application – the Verify Tool – marks Fox Corp’s commitment to addressing the twin issues of intellectual property infringement and content verification in the digital age. The Verify Tool, a web-based solution, allows users to authenticate the origin of images and articles, ostensibly ensuring their credibility and source accuracy.

Developed by the Fox Technology team in collaboration with Polygon Labs, Verify leverages blockchain technology to sign pieces of content cryptographically and is hosted on GitHub.

This establishes their origin and allows consumers to independently verify said origins. The integration with Fox’s content management system (CMS) indicates the protocol’s potential for seamless adoption in online publishing workflows.

It is important to note the distinction that Verify can only confirm if the content is “authentic” and was published by an entity. It cannot confirm or verify if the content is misinformation, fake, or AI-generated.

There is a bit of irony in the launch of Verify, however, given the litigation surrounding coverage of Dominion Voting Systems by Fox and later defamation lawsuit settlement by the network for $787.5 million. The network is currently facing a second defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic.

In our testing of the Verify Tool, content such as a 2022 midterm election recap and a story about Michigan’s national football title quickly passed verification.

However, Fox’s editorial story noting the settlement between the network and Dominion Voting Systems in April 2023 would not verify. NewscastStudio has contacted Fox Corporation for more details about why one article would verify and another, more recent article on the same CMS platform, would not.

The introduction of the Verify protocol by Fox represents a significant step in addressing the complex challenges posed by AI in the media industry and will surely not be the only solution brought to the table.

Verify could serve as a prototype for the industry’s engagement with emerging technologies by safeguarding intellectual property rights and ensuring content authenticity.

Verify is also the brand name for a fact-checking and anti-misinformation franchise created by Tegna and used by most of its television stations in markets across the country. 

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Led by producer and director Scott Zabielski and entrepreneur Adam Mosam, this initiative aims to introduce a new era in news broadcasting, blending AI’s capabilities with traditional journalistic values. But is this leap forward a cause for celebration or concern?

Channel 1 plans to launch in February 2024 on FAST services such as Tubi and Crackle and has released a 20-minute teaser, including a simulated newscast.

The video includes synthetic anchors created from scans of real people, with digitally generated voices that can speak in any language.

Promise and perils of AI in news

The concept is innovative: AI avatars deliver news sourced from established outlets like the Associated Press and Reuters.

However, using AI raises critical questions about authenticity and trust in media. And frankly, launching this in an election year raises even more questions.

While the technology offers unprecedented scalability and efficiency, it also brings the specter of deepfakes and misinformation. How can viewers discern between AI-enhanced storytelling and manipulated content?

For example, Channel 1 notes they will use AI image generation tools (such as MidJourney or DALL·E 3) to create visuals for stories that may not otherwise have imagery – such as a court case or for a high-profile meeting.

Channel 1 promises transparency, especially when AI-generated imagery supplements news stories. But does this assurance suffice in an era increasingly wary of ‘fake news’? The line between enhancing viewer understanding and potentially misleading them is razor-thin.

See the highest quality AI footage in the world.

– Our generated anchors deliver stories that are informative, heartfelt and entertaining.

Watch the showcase episode of our upcoming news network now. pic.twitter.com/61TaG6Kix3

— Channel 1 (@channel1_ai) December 12, 2023

What is the role of AI in journalism?

The introduction of AI anchors and generated content could significantly impact the media landscape… On one hand, it promises more personalized, diverse and accessible news. On the other, it risks diminishing the human element that grounds journalism in empathy and ethical judgment.

The creators’ ambition to produce up to 1,000 segments daily could also reshape news consumption patterns. However, this volume raises concerns about the depth of reporting and the potential for AI to prioritize quantity over quality.

With so much content, what helps Channel 1 rise above being just a video factory, pumping out carefully tuned stories that don’t have much meat or depth?

AI has potential in news to speed up workflows and is already being leveraged for production and automation behind the scenes. This endeavor, however, is the first to aim for the public-facing side of broadcast squarely.

Channel 1 is undoubtedly a bold step and a shot at breaking the uncanny valley. 

It represents a significant technological advancement and a potential turning point in how we value human touch in journalism.

As we approach 2024, with AI’s role in media becoming more pronounced, it’s crucial to balance technological innovation with ethical considerations. The industry must navigate these waters carefully, ensuring that in our pursuit of the future, we don’t lose sight of journalism’s core values: truth, integrity, and accountability.

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Das brings a wealth of venture capital and operating experience to VideoVerse from nearly a decade as a Partner and founding member at Moneta Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, which grew from $0 to $300M in AUM during Das’ time with the firm. At Moneta, he successfully led numerous investments in several early-stage companies, working closely with founders and teams to shape strategy, operations, sales, and finance. His expertise enabled these startups to scale operations, raise capital from top investors, and eventually grow through to successful exits. Das joined VideoVerse’s board after leading the company’s Series A financing through Moneta, and has partnered closely with the company and continued to serve on the company’s board since then.

“VideoVerse’s AI platform uniquely disrupts how video content is created and shared in the sports, news, and entertainment sectors,” remarked Das. “It truly propels the media industry forward. Having worked closely with this exceptional team as an investor and board member over the years, I’m incredibly excited to continue this journey alongside them and feel fortunate to have the opportunity to shape the company’s future trajectory.”

In his new role, Das will collaborate closely with the CEO and CRO and oversee VideoVerse’s overall U.S. strategy, business development, and operations. He will focus on fundraising, corporate development, and establishing VideoVerse’s position as a leader in North America’s competitive video technology landscape.

Das’s passion for transforming founders’ ideas into thriving businesses drew him to VideoVerse. He holds a BS in Cognitive Science and Computational Modeling from UC Berkeley and has earned recognition on the Sacramento Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 list.

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To meet viewers’ heightened expectations, the “Next Big Trend” in broadcasting is emerging as IP content delivery and AI-based subtitling come together to redefine the industry once again.

Industry reports project continued growth in this space. According to Valuates Reports, the global captioning and subtitling solution market will average an annual growth rate of 7.7%, reaching $476.9 Million (USD) by 2028.

Acknowledging this trend, XL8 has recently partnered with Zixi to integrate its LiveSubs AI-powered translation engine with Zixi’s IP streaming technologies, enabling real-time subtitles to be generated “on the fly” from source languages to more than 70 global language pairs, to support live events.

The changing face of broadcast

Broadcasts for major sports or entertainment events were, until very recently, exclusively the domain of fixed line connectivity and expensive and logistically challenging on-site production technology. Today, “broadcasting” has emerged into new territory.

It’s now common to see hybrid content delivery options –— mixing subsea fiber, satellite, over the Internet or a combination of each. The internet, for example, has emerged as a reliable and cost-effective option — especially for broadcast events that don’t always justify the costs of traditional production and dedicated connectivity.

The public internet offers an accessible and cost-effective platform for delivering popular programming and promoting less-known events of any size to a wider audience. The technology powering this process, particularly IP video streaming, has significantly improved in terms of reliability and security, matching the standards of traditional broadcast television.

This rise in technology development and quality of service coincides with heightened audience expectations, which have risen from accepting “good enough” quality to now demanding the highest quality. Video delivery solutions must be reliable enough to reach their intended destinations and meet the expectations of all parties. Low latency, reliability, and security will only help to legitimize online content delivery and provide the stable infrastructure and bandwidth required for broadcast-quality video feeds.

It’s no different with subtitling…

As online viewing continues to connect people across the globe, language barriers pose a significant challenge, as an increasing number of viewers worldwide demand content to be localized not just for their country, but also for their region.

The XL8 and Zixi integration has the potential to reimagine the worlds of live sports and news, enabling content owners to expand their reach to wider audiences and beyond their physical audience demographics. For example, football (not the American kind) is popular worldwide, except in North America. This integration could change that by bringing the sport to more viewers and giving them easy access to matches broadcast in their language of choice. The same holds true for other traditionally “lower-tier” sports that, while also popular, often don’t draw the type of crowds or sponsorships to warrant the expense of localizing the content.

The integration of XL8’s AI-powered machine translation and LiveSubs technology with Zixi means subtitles for broadcasts and live streams can be created and ingested in real-time with no additional conversion points required. That’s a critical factor for achieving the latency needed if online viewing ever hopes to rival broadcast as a mainstream platform for large global audiences. The integration also provides a low-cost method of exploring the viability of entering new content markets.

Keeping pace with the trend in IP-based video delivery is AI-powered machine translation for maintaining the highest level of subtitling accuracy possible. XL8’s LiveSubs engine will keep pace and draw in viewers for broadcasters from around the world.

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“Using the award-winning Chyron LIVE platform is like having a production assistant built into the system,” said Kristy Weir, product manager at Chyron. “By de-skilling what it takes to get broadcast-grade, pro-level production value, LIVE fits into our company’s grand plan of making all sports production tasks very simple, approachable, and accessible. The new AI-based instant replay tool — in addition to other upgrades such as automatic replay transitions, telestration improvements, and the ability to illustrate plays for deep sports analysis — ultimately changes the way users can capture and analyze game moments, enhancing any crew’s ability to provide engaging and insightful sports coverage.”

Chyron LIVE is an end-to-end production platform that provides operators with an all-in-one, browser-based interface for live video and audio mixing, graphic overlays, 3D telestration analysis, and more. Using the platform, operators can cut/mix live sources, adjust audio levels across all feeds, play out PRIME-quality graphic packages, create unlimited multimedia playlists, and produce live replays with telestration.

Version 1.4’s AI-based instant replay tool enhances production crews’ ability to create replay clips from live feeds. When the algorithm watches the camera inputs and recognizes an interesting play, such as a player taking a shot on net or a goal being scored, a small brain icon will light up in the bottom-left corner of the interface. When the operator clicks the icon, the platform generates a replay clip around that point of interest. For greater control and flexibility, users can manually adjust the start point of the AI-generated clip. This tool is especially useful for productions with a single operator or few staff, who can effortlessly generate broadcast-grade replays while handling their other tasks.

In addition to the instant replay tool, Chyron LIVE 1.4 also features an automatic replay transition effect and improvements to video telestration. The automatic replay transition effect triggers several actions that are commonly involved in a replay: queue up a transition wipe, play the graphic, start the clip, and animate the clip off with another transition, saving the operator the time of executing each action individually and bringing enterprise switcher efficiency to Chyron LIVE. Version 1.4 also makes the management of telestration effects much more intuitive, allowing operators to adjust the pathing keyframes and effect duration, and to delete specific effects from a saved clip without needing to start over.

Following Chyron LIVE’s previous 1.3 debut at the 2023 NAB Show, the new Matchpad module enabled users to seamlessly manage dynamic motion graphics for live soccer production via a visually intuitive control panel. With Matchpad, users can easily highlight important game elements — goals, yellow / red flags, lineups, substitutions, and more — as well as bring in sponsor graphics during key game moments. These graphic design elements are populated automatically from a simple configuration spreadsheet in which users can fill out team and player information and branding elements prior to the game. In Chyron LIVE 1.4, users have more time control tools in Matchpad with the ability to edit the game clock and add stoppage time to the clock at the end of each half, as well as a new list of hotkeys for rapid keyboard control over this essential tool.

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Matthew D. Loeb of IATSE, emphasized the importance of understanding AI’s impact on the industry and its members in a statement. He compared the significance of this technological shift to the transition from silent films to “talkies” and the introduction of color in movies. 

“Just as when silent films became talkies and as the big screen went from black-and-white to full color, the IATSE Commission on Artificial Intelligence is part of our commitment to embracing new technologies. We will work to equip our members with the skills to navigate this technological advancement, and to ensure that the transition into this new era prioritizes the interests and well-being of our members and all entertainment workers.”

The commission will study AI technologies and their potential effects on jobs within the entertainment industry, particularly those under IATSE’s jurisdiction.

Additionally, it will explore how contract provisions, legislation, and training programs can be adapted to ensure equitable distribution of the benefits resulting from increased productivity through AI among all stakeholders.

The IATSE Commission on Artificial Intelligence will comprise representatives from various areas within IATSE’s jurisdiction and subject matter experts from academia and the tech industry. The commission will begin its work immediately, with its findings and recommendations scheduled for presentation at the IATSE General Executive Board’s Midsummer meeting in July 2023.

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Offering seamless integration with the Perifery Transporter on-set media appliance, Swarm software, and Perifery Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro, Perifery AI+ enables media and entertainment companies to perform critical preprocessing tasks at the edge of their workflows. Perifery AI+ empowers customers to improve their workflow efficiency, reduce costs, speed up time of delivery, and monetize digital assets faster.

“Many media production organizations have adopted AI cloud-based apps and services to process their digital assets. But the cloud has an unpredictable cost model and requires significant time and effort to upload, download, and manage processing services coming from various sources,” said Abhijit Dey, general manager of Perifery. “Perifery AI+ is a game changer for the media industry because it provides AI preprocessing services in a single user interface. Introducing Perifery AI+ just after acquiring Object Matrix demonstrates our innovation in the storage and workflow intelligence categories, providing customers with a foundation for media production at the edge.”

Prior to Perifery AI+, processing services with AI were typically only available in the public cloud. Perifery AI+ takes AI-enabled preprocessing functionalities to the edge (i.e., a remote location), saving media companies a substantial amount of money and time during content production. The first preprocessing functionalities available on Perifery AI+ will include object recognition and smart archiving.

Perifery will demonstrate its Perifery Transporter running containerized Swarm with Perifery AI+ and third-party object recognition software at the 2023 NAB Show in Las Vegas at booth N1331. 

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Frederic Petitpont, co-founder and CTO of Newsbridge, said MXT-1 represents a significant breakthrough in content indexing and discovery. The technology combines multiple AI modalities, including computer vision, speech processing, and natural language models, to produce impressive results.

MXT-1 is specifically trained on a vast range of media, entertainment, and sports audiovisual content, making it highly effective for indexing and search purposes in these industries.

Newsbridge expects MXT-1 to dramatically reduces the cost of using AI at scale, enabling mass indexing of media assets to become a business reality. MXT-1’s reduced energy consumption makes AI indexing seven times more cost-efficient than mono or unimodal AI systems.

One of MXT-1’s key advantages is its ability to describe scenes in natural language. The technology links raw modalities, such as face, text, logo, landmark, object, action, and shot type detection, as well as transcription, to generate a semantic description for enhanced searchability. MXT-1 is a considerable improvement over existing AI indexing solutions, which often produce a disorganized collection of tags that fail to provide the necessary information for content owners.

Currently in beta mode, MXT-1 is being gradually incorporated into all of Newsbridge’s cloud solutions, including Just Index, Media Hub, Media Marketplace, and Live Asset Manager.

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As part of our Industry Insights series, leading vendors gathered to discuss the current challenges and explore the potential of cloud-based MAM systems along with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to address these pain points. Central to the discussion is the importance of seamless collaboration, navigating the complex storage options landscape, managing high operational costs for new formats, and prioritizing flexibility and openness in MAM systems.

The roundtable participants acknowledge that cloud adoption for MAM and storage has gained significant traction, primarily due to the coronavirus pandemic, which emphasized the need for remote access and greater flexibility. However, professionals in the industry often operate within storage silos and face challenges in unlocking the full value of stored assets for distribution and monetization. As a solution, hybrid cloud models, which combine both on-premise and cloud storage, are emerging as a practical and efficient approach for many organizations.

In addition to embracing cloud solutions, the impact of AI and ML on broadcast workflows is becoming increasingly apparent.

Monetizing MAM: How to make your stored content work for you

These technologies have the potential to streamline operations through improved metadata management, automatic transcription and translation, and intelligent indexing of content. This allows media professionals to focus on creating and delivering high-quality content in a competitive market. As the industry evolves, leveraging these cutting-edge technologies will be essential for success and maintaining a competitive edge.

Industry Insights: Security and APIs in broadcast media asset management

Make sure to also read part two of our roundtable which dives into cloud security, APIs and current MAM offerings. 

What are the current pain points in broadcast storage and MAM?

Sunil Mudholkar, VP of product management, EditShare: Current pain points I think are focused on making collaboration easier across locations that are more dispersed than ever. Whether this is performant, remote access to media or keeping NLE projects in sync across tools and creators/producers.

Jon Finegold, CMO, Signiant: The sheer variety of storage options and MAM vendors make it a very confusing landscape. There are so many different choices between on-prem and cloud, different tiers of storage, file and object storage, etc. IT teams have a lot of flexibility to balance cost and performance but that choice also creates complexity.

Toni Vilalta, director of product development, VSN: New formats, such as 4K or 8K, make the operational costs too high. With cloud or hybrid storage architectures, MAM systems should provide support for critical security services like encryption or cryptographic protocols. Another challenge of MAM systems is to be able to manage enormous amounts of content in storage, adding AI capabilities for automatic cataloging.

Sam Peterson, COO, Bitcentral: There is no “one size fits all approach” because customers and the industry as a whole will have varying business requirements and they’re constantly evolving depending on their needs and the market landscape. For some in the industry, there is also a resistance to change, which is undermining successful projects. Changing these attitudes can have a positive impact going forward.

Andy Shenkler, CEO and co-founder, TMT Insights: As people have shifted their supply chains to become predominantly cloud based, their assets continue to exist in a both a legacy on-prem storage model as well as single or multi-cloud. Processing of content must be co-located with your assets in order to be economically viable. Large content libraries are not easily migrated, and often times require clean-up before being viable for automated processing, all of which comes at a cost of both money and time.

Aaron Kroger, product marketing manager for media workflows, Dalet: Many people find themselves with aging on-premises infrastructure managed by an out-of-date monolithic MAM that is lacking the connectivity and scalability they need to achieve their business goals. Replacing this equipment comes at a high cost and leads people towards the cloud. While the cloud can alleviate many of the current pain points, it’s not without creating some new ones and raising questions such as what are the true costs, how do I migrate all my data, and is my data secure?

Savva Mueller, director of business development, Telestream: In this constantly shifting market, media companies do not want to be locked into any one vendor’s solution, and they need their content to be accessible to all of their business systems instead of being stored in a proprietary format. For these reasons, they are looking for more open approaches to asset management and storage.

Stephanie Lone, director of solutions architecture in media and entertainment, AWS: While our M&E customers are in varying stages of their digital transformation journeys, common pain points include: operating in storage silos; navigating the sheer volume of assets that require storage; unlocking the value of these stored assets for distribution and monetization; and localizing content for broader distribution. Presently, many of our customers operate multiple lines of business that use different MAM and storage solutions, making it challenging to uncover and unlock the value of all the assets across their enterprise. Often, they find that their on-premises storage capacity can’t accommodate the growing volume of video footage being acquired.

Melanie Ciotti, marketing manager, Studio Network Solutions: Lack of speed, collaboration, ease-of-use, and organization are repeat workflow offenders, and creative teams are looking to solve those shortcomings when they set out to find their first shared storage and MAM solution. What they don’t always consider is the flexibility of that system, which becomes an issue after it’s been in use for some time. Accessing the shared storage and MAM system remotely, adding users easily and cost-effectively, and scaling the system as your team grows are all pain points we see when well-established teams come to us to fix their existing storage or MAM workflow. 

Geoff Stedman, CMO, SDVI: Users must select an archive format, a tape format, a tape library and drives, and a hierarchical storage management system. They also must continually keep track of milestones such as hardware and software end-of-life, and tape format or drive migrations. MAM systems were typically deployed to manage what assets were stored where, but most have significant gaps in metadata, making it difficult to find what a user is looking for.

Julián Fernández-Campón, CTO, Tedial: The physical location of files and the obsolescence of hardware leading to hardware replacement and content migration from time to time.

Alex Grossman, VP of product management and marketing, Perifery, a division of DataCore: One of the most common pain points we hear is the overall complexity in setting and using most MAM systems, and the on-going difficulty in configuring for change.

James Fraser, VP of U.S. sales, Newsbridge: The biggest pain point that exists is undoubtedly content discovery. Every prospect and customer we speak to highlights the poor searchability within their existing infrastructure as a real headache that costs them time and money. Poor searchability limits them from not being able to find assets for long periods of time or worse, purchasing content from competitors that they know they own, but simply can’t locate.

Another pain point is how much they rely on archivists to be the internal knowledge base for locating content. They need a solution that enables journalists and content creators to be truly autonomous and find what they want. Furthermore, content not being centralized is a challenge. We commonly see content stored in multiple locations and not accessible to everyone. Finally, expensive SLAs are an issue. Customers are fed up with paying thousands of dollars and still having to wait for a call or email back from vendors to help them with an issue. This is why we introduced intercom, a direct communication line into our operations and support team that has a response time of under two minutes.

Where are we in terms of cloud adoption for MAM and storage?

Sunil Mudholkar: I think it’s practically in the main line at this point. Virtually every opportunity we are involved with has some sort of cloud component whether it be MAM or storage or both. Use cases range from simple archival to full cloud editing.

Jon Finegold: On the MAM side, it seems most deployments are still on-prem but there are some innovative approaches to media management leveraging cloud technology. Media Engine isn’t a MAM, but it does leverage the power of the Signiant Platform and cloud technology to offer lightweight media management capabilities in a disruptive way.

Roberto Pascual, head of sales, VSN: The adoption of cloud technology in terms of MAM and storage has been accelerated for the last four years, especially after the Covid-19 outbreak, and it will continue as we discussed a few months ago on FIAT/IFTA World Conference.

Sam Peterson: MAM has generated more interest in recent times, and we are seeing more and more media companies make the transition to the cloud. This was accelerated due to the pandemic, but its evolution in a short space of time has really helped the whole value chain thrive in this new era for broadcasting.

Andy Shenkler: Cloud adoption for core MAM services has finally reached a crescendo and most go-forward activities now are being done in the cloud. Along with that adoption is a cloud-first model for storage, but trepidation still exists around mismanaged costs and lack of control. There is still emotional comfort that comes from having a “fixed” based cost model for storage that has been the predominant way on-prem storage has been thought of for so long.

Aaron Kroger: The industry is well on its way to transitioning to the cloud, but it’s happening in steps. Having a cloud-native solution such as Dalet Flex that can also be deployed on-premises or hybrid, is a popular option allowing for the best of both worlds. There are still some links in the chain that have not migrated to the cloud so a hybrid solution can create better connectivity to those today and be ready for the transition to a fully cloud-hosted business in the future.

Savva Mueller: Pre-2020, cloud adoption was still fairly low. While many customers were investigating hosting critical systems and storage in the cloud, very few had near-term plans to do so, and even fewer had already made the move. The Covid pandemic accelerated the move to cloud storage and cloud processing. This was most pronounced in North America. Other regions have seen a slower adoption.

Stephanie Lone: Challenges remain in defining the best practices for how the industry should build media supply chains for enhanced localization when it comes to MAM and storage. To this end, the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) Accelerator Initiative Cloud Localization Blueprint is working to standardize practices and formats to ultimately empower the entire industry to save time and money.

Melanie Ciotti: The cloud is everywhere—it’s on our phones; it’s in our workflows; it’s omnipresent. And while the cloud has made its way into a majority of broadcast and post-production workflows across the nation (and around the world), very rarely is the cloud managing 100% of that workflow. It is much more common to see a hybrid approach with both on-premise and cloud storage working together—which truly offers the best of both worlds.

Geoff Stedman: Today, the cloud has become a central location for media storage, as users have become much more comfortable with the reliability, security, and affordability of the cloud for content archives. In many cases, what started out as a secondary, or backup, location for content storage turned into the primary storage location as people discovered the ease with which they could access and collaborate on content from anywhere. 

Julián Fernández-Campón: Storage in the cloud has been adopted for some specific use cases, but not widely. Often a second, low-res copy is used for redundancy or native storage for workflows that are executed in the cloud, such as massive distribution or collaboration workflows.

Alex Grossman: Many organizations adopted a public cloud first initiative in 2018 or 2019 and archive was the most often preferred usage model. News and live broadcast saw the adoption of production/editing, but there has been a retraction due to unpredictable costs.

James Fraser: The cloud is finally becoming the new norm for small-to-medium sized media companies. The sports industry has been an innovation ambassador of transitioning to the cloud for media asset management. Large media companies are still not fully embracing the cloud for media asset management. Many are adopting hybrid models thanks to edge computing, which offers a more gradual transition path. There are a few challenges for major media and public companies to overcome with cloud adoption, such as data sovereignty regulations, security, vendor lock-in, skills gaps, existing data center investments and the capex and opex business model. 

What benefits come from moving to the cloud?

Sunil Mudholkar: MAM and storage can become easier to access for clients in varying sites. Utilizing tiered cloud storage for both block and object based, in an intelligent manner can be very cost effective for those that like OPEX style financial models with predictable infrastructure/software expenses. 

Jon Finegold: Elasticity is probably the biggest benefit, being able to manage surges. If you have lots of projects at once or a big influx of assets at one time, the cloud gives you tremendous elasticity. There are cases where cloud can be a lot more economical, but that depends on a lot of factors and your use case.

Roberto Pascual: Firstly, the cloud allows maximizing flexibility as well as minimizing capital investment in terms of business, which is significantly appreciated in times of upheaval or constant adaptation to new viewer demands. Secondly, cost is high but evolution of hybrid solutions Finally, there is a final reason to think about since maintenance and security might be one of the unexpected benefits from moving to the cloud.

Sam Peterson: There are many benefits for broadcasters and other media companies including greater flexibility and reliability. Cloud also enables a level of scalability that would be otherwise unaffordable through on-premise storage. Moving to the cloud provides the added capabilities regarding remote access to content and tools, which allows the industry greater opportunity to work more collaboratively.

Andy Shenkler: A clear benefit from moving to the cloud is the ability to scale dynamically without needing to invest ahead of an activity or needing to procure capacity for peak loads that become costly and sit idle for the majority of the time. In addition, flexibility around business continuity without needing to stand-up complete duplicate physical footprints certainly changes the mindset about your business and its options.

Aaron Kroger: Moving your MAM to the cloud enables you to have a highly accessible, auto-scalable, metadata-rich library that will decrease your TCO while increasing your collaboration and ultimately, your revenue. Being able to easily access content from anywhere allows you to reuse content already captured in new and creative ways or even directly monetize it. With cloud storage, you can automatically scale your storage volume and tier as you need, allowing you to find the correct balance between storage costs vs retrieval time.

Savva Mueller: The trend toward remote work has been a major factor in the increased adoption of cloud services since cloud services are designed to be accessible anywhere. Hosting systems and storage in the cloud also provides operational benefits including built-in business continuity through data replication and the reduction of organizations’ data center footprints and associated costs.

Stephanie Lone: Elasticity is one key benefit, as providing live coverage of tent-pole events such as the Super Bowl and March Madness to large-scale audiences requires the ability to quickly spin up resources on-demand. The cloud enables content providers to deploy hundreds, or even thousands, of servers in just minutes and then promptly spin them back down as their traffic patterns return to normal. Cost savings is another cloud advantage, as it alleviates customers’ need to wade through the lengthy hardware purchasing and provisioning processes required to house data centers, which typically takes months to plan, acquire, install, and provision.

Melanie Ciotti: When done right, a cloud or hybrid cloud workflow can be a major catalyst for productivity and creativity. The cloud can enable better remote editing, archival, file sharing, mobile workflows, and so much more for a production team. No hardware needed can also be a benefit.

Geoff Stedman: Companies of all sizes are realizing that they can become more efficient and agile when they take advantage of cloud technologies. With content in the cloud, it can be easily standardized into a common format, and the metadata can be enriched using cloud-based AI tools. Moving their archives and media processing to the cloud, even at relatively smaller scale, makes monetizing that content for the plethora of distribution platforms now available much easier and faster.

Julián Fernández-Campón: Benefits include redundancy, which is provided naturally for the storage service, scalability, and accessibility.

Alex Grossman: While most would say OpEx vs CapEx, the real benefits are derived from taking advantage of the apps and services provided by the cloud including AI/ML functionality.

James Fraser: A key benefit is flexibility. Cloud users are not limited by input-output on hardware. Opex and sustainability are additional advantages of the cloud. Newsbridge is running AI indexing on CPUs instead of GPUs, reducing cloud processing pipelines and media transit weight by 80%. Our approach provides significant cost efficiencies to our customers. In addition, it enables organizations to reduce their energy consumption.

How are AI and machine learning impacting broadcast workflows?

Sunil Mudholkar: AI is making it easier to add value to content through extended metadata with great accuracy and volume, reducing the need for manual resources. It’s also speeding up aspects of the remote workflow with features like automatic transcription.

Jon Finegold: There are some very practical applications of machine learning and AI that are in play today. One example is Signiant’s use of machine learning in its intelligent transport protocol to determine the most efficient way to move data over a network at any moment in time. There’s certainly a lot of buzz about using artificial intelligence to automatically translate content, to tag content, identify images in videos but that mostly seems in the early experimental phase but we’re on the cusp of some of that capability being used in more widespread ways.

Toni Vilalta: Thanks to AI, human tasks can be focused on supervising the metadata generated automatically, instead of wasting time and resources in manual cataloging. The automatic transcription and translation can save a lot of time too, and the closed captions or subtitle files can be easily generated, delivering packages to traditional broadcast or new multiple non-linear platforms. With machine learning capabilities, broadcast and media professionals can train their own archiving systems and create their own term structure, without worrying about the type of content or the localization of their companies. 

Sam Peterson: AI and machine learning have the potential for significant positive impacts on broadcast workflows as they are helping broadcasters make more informed decisions. One application where broadcasters are using AI and ML technology today is for intelligent indexing of content. These techniques are also improving workflow efficiencies which is crucial in today’s demanding market, allowing broadcasters time to focus on creating new products/productions.

Andy Shenkler: At the moment, the machine learning activities around broadcast workflows still remain heavily focused on reducing repetitive human tasks (i.e. identifying commercial breaks, credit points, augmented QC functions), not to say there isn’t other more sophisticated processes being deployed. As both the technology and the skillsets of the people leveraging that technology improve, we will begin to see greater adoption around compliance editing, localization and real-time enriched consumer experiences.

Aaron Kroger: AI enables you to identify what is in your content, what was said, who is in it, what logos are shown, and more. Today, this also allows you to increase the automation of your existing workflows. With richer metadata, you can trigger automated processes to send those clips to the next step in the process and the relevant audiences. 

Savva Mueller: Currently speech to text is being widely used, particularly to provide closed captioning and subtitles for content. The quality of these services has improved dramatically over the past decade. Visual recognition is not being used heavily today, both because of its costs and its effectiveness. Going forward, we expect that visual recognition services will become more effective, and that systems will provide more efficient ways to implement these services to reduce their costs.

Melanie Ciotti: AI and ML continue to astound me. ChatGPT and friends are making waves in every industry with well-written, well-researched content for virtually any purpose, and AI can add relevant metadata tags to video clips in ShareBrowser MAM at the click of a button, making decades’ worth of untagged media searchable within the media asset management system. AI is the present and future of broadcast workflows, and I’m waiting with bated breath to see what it does next.

Geoff Stedman: The use of AI and machine learning is still in its infancy for broadcast workflows, although it is starting to have a positive impact. One way that AI tools are being used is to analyze video and audio content to extract information about the content that can be used to enrich the metadata for those assets. AI is also being used to perform automated QC reviews, with results that then guide operators for manual reviews of only questionable points.

Julián Fernández-Campón: The impact of AI and machine learning is increasing in some use cases such as video analysis, image recognition, speech to text, but there are many features that currently exist as a result of AIs based on GPT 3 (Open AI) and others that claim to be able to do summaries, create pictures or videos.

Alex Grossman: The impact has been minimal compared to where it will go. As applications take advantage of AI/ML, the efficiencies provided will drive faster adoption.

James Fraser: AI is bringing overall business efficiencies to broadcasters and media companies. Thanks to automatic multimodal AI indexing, our clients are reporting improved time to market, reduced manual/human logging requirements and general improved efficiency of sourcing, editing and distributing content to both internal and external stakeholders.

Industry Insights: Security and APIs in broadcast media asset management

Make sure to also read part two of our roundtable which dives into cloud security, APIs and current MAM offerings. 

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