BURLINGTON, Mass., and SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Avid and Google Cloud have expanded their strategic partnership with the introduction of browser-based Avid Media Composer and an upgraded Avid Content Core content data platform and are showcasing their agentic workflow at IBC2026, Sept. 11-14, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

By embedding Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise and Google BigQuery directly into Avid’s post-production environment alongside media-specific AI agents and Avid tools, creators can remove the constraints of physical hardware and administrative friction. As a result, editors and directors can collaborate seamlessly from anywhere, automate repetitive tasks and focus on storytelling.

Media production houses today face two competing pressures. Content demand is soaring, yet creative teams remain bogged down by administrative overhead. Editors often spend substantial portions of their day tagging footage, organizing timelines and searching through fragmented archives. Additionally, professional editing historically has required heavy, on-premises workstations, making adoption of remote global collaboration slow and cost-prohibitive.

The next phase of the Avid and Google Cloud partnership embeds Gemini Enterprise directly into Media Composer and Content Core to accelerate the creative process. Connecting an intelligent, searchable media archive directly to a browser-based timeline X streamlines media discovery and timeline organization bottlenecks.

The expanded partnership included four tech integrations, including:

• Browser-based Media Composer and agentic editing, making the editing solution available in the Google Chrome Browser, enabling creators to edit timelines in Avid Content Core. Within Media Composer, agentic AI capabilities in Avid’s Ready to Edit allow editors to use natural language prompts to sync media, transcribe and align dialog and organize project bins, putting the focus back on editorial storytelling.
• Semantic search in Content Core to speed up media discovery. Using Google Cloud technologies to analyze and enrich media as it is imported, Avid Content Core and Gemini Enterprise automatically generate transcripts and semantic descriptions, eliminating hours of manual logging.
• Connected workflows from newsroom to timeline. Through Content Core Insights—built with Gemini Enterprise and BigQuery—organizations can bridge the data gap between how content is produced and how it performs. Newsrooms can plan stories and assign teams in Content Core Planning and Rundown, which coordinate assignments, resources, and program rundowns, while editors can pull matching footage into their timelines via natural language search. Final cuts then sync back to broadcast programming.
• Flexible, secure hybrid cloud deployment. The Avid Content Core Site Engine links customer Google Cloud environments directly to Content Core, ensuring media processing, production intelligence and agentic workflows are managed centrally, while compute and high-res assets remain in the user’s own cloud environment.

See Avid at IBC2026 stand 7.B59 and Google in the Accelerator Program location in Hall 14 and Content Everywhere community in Hall 5.

More information is available on the Avid website.

NEW YORK—Media software technology provider Dalet has promoted Brian Doheny to chief executive officer.

Doheny had led the company in April as president and chief revenue officer, leading the company’s go-to-market and customer experience organizations. As CEO, he will lead Dalet’s global strategy and operations.

Dalet provides enterprise media asset management systems, newsroom computer systems and content supply-chain orchestration platforms to broadcasters, studios and enterprise content owners.

“Since joining Dalet, I have had the opportunity to spend time with our customers, partners, and teams around the world, and one thing is very clear: the pace of change in our industry is only accelerating, and Dalet is uniquely positioned to lead the way,” Doheny said. “Our opportunity is not simply to respond to that change. It is to anticipate it. We need to understand the challenges our customers face today, anticipate the ones they’ll face in the future, and how Dalet will help address them with speed and confidence.”

Doheny, a 30-year technology industry veteran, was chief revenue officer at risk management software provider Veriforce before joining Dalet. He also held senior leadership posts at TIBCO and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, among other companies.

“Brian has brought strong strategic focus and operational discipline to Dalet, while keeping customer value at the center of the company’s strategy,” said Will Brennan, managing partner of Dalet owner Long Path Partners. “His appointment as CEO reflects our confidence in his ability to lead Dalet through its next phase and ensure we continue to innovate around the evolving needs of our customers and the broader media industry.”

AMSTERDAM—Ceeblue, a Dutch-based provider of ultra-low-latency video streaming technology and Australian media technology company Layercake, today announced the expansion of their partnership with the full production rollout of an advanced Digital Rights Management (DRM) framework alongside revolutionary Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI).

Building directly upon the integration of Ceeblue’s sub-second WebRTS streaming with Layercake’s orchestration and workflow management platform, Streamcake, the two companies now support studio-grade content protection in live production on sub-second streams.

The upgraded feature set supports both major industry encryption schemes, CENC and CBCS, which unlocks full coverage across the Widevine, PlayReady, and FairPlay DRM ecosystems over DASH, HLS/CMAF, Low-Latency HLS, and WebRTS delivery channels.

Engineered for efficiency and extreme security, the DRM architecture introduces three strategically vital innovations:

• Encrypt Once at Ingest: Encryption metadata is computed and persisted at the origin, eliminating redundant processing and ensuring content is encrypted only once rather than per-output;
• Passthrough at the Edge: Edge and relay nodes forward protected streams without ever holding decryption keys, drastically lowering edge compute costs while materially reducing the key-exposure attack surface, and
• Open Integration Architecture: Built-in trigger hooks allow seamless interoperability with self-managed or third-party KMS/DRM backends, currently supporting Google Secret Manager.

This production capability directly addresses contractual content-protection requirements, unblocking deals for premium tier-1 live sports and entertainment streaming that were previously relegated to much higher latencies by the limitations of HLS/DASH streaming.

Alongside robust content protection, the expanded integration delivers Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). Until now, operators had to choose between latency and monetization. But now, the combination of sub-second delivery, full-fledged DRM, and seamless SSAI running on standard CDNs gives sports and live broadcast operators a huge incentive to go ultra-low latency.

By coupling Streamcake’s automated cloud control plane, which makes management and scaling intuitive and reliable, with Ceeblue’s WebRTS origins, the combined solution delivers targeted value across core verticals:

• OTT Sports & Betting: Eliminates the "spoiler effect" by aligning digital delivery precisely with live play. Feeds delivered under one second expand live-betting windows, combat courtsiding, and protect high-value rights with DRM;
• iGaming & Live Auctions: Provides real-time interactivity to thousands of global users at the same time, allowing hybrid on-site and remote play / bidding. The immediacy of real-time interactivity maximizes Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) and engagement, and ensures auction integrity, and
• Corporate Comms & Live Commerce: Drives interactive corporate town halls over HTTP, which easily traverses strict enterprise firewalls, while empowering live commerce platforms to handle massive viral traffic surges with automatic edge scaling.

The production DRM framework capabilities are available immediately across the integrated Ceeblue and Streamcake deployment options. Customers can deploy the unified solution across major CDNs, including Akamai, Orange CDN, Fastly, and many more.

Visitors to the 2026 IBC Show can see demos at Ceeblue (5.C43) and Layercake Partner Pod on the Grass Valley Stand (9.A01).

MONTREAL and NEW YORK—Haivision has announced that it is integrating Chyron LIVE into its live video contribution ecosystem, simplifying camera-to-cloud live production. Chyron LIVE is Chyron’s cloud-native platform for vision mixing, broadcast-grade graphics, data display, remote commentary, and illustrated replay. The joint solution will be showcased at IBC2026.

The combined solution will allow broadcasters to capture, transport, and contribute high-quality live video from virtually any location into Chyron LIVE, streamlining live production workflows while delivering the performance, reliability, and ease of use required for professional broadcasting.

Built for sports, news, and live event productions, the integrated workflow combines Haivision's live video contribution products, including Haivision mobile video transmitters (Falkon, Pro, and Air) and Makito video encoders and decoders, with Chyron LIVE, powered by Chyron’s PRIME Platform which is developed natively on AWS. The combined solution enables broadcasters to reliably contribute live video over cellular networks, the internet, satellite, and IP networks directly into cloud-based production workflows, according to the companies.

“Broadcasters are increasingly looking for flexible, cloud-native production workflows that simplify live content acquisition,” said Nikole McStanley, senior vice president of product, Chyron. “Together with Haivision, we're enabling customers to bring high-quality live video into Chyron LIVE more efficiently, giving production teams greater flexibility to produce live content from anywhere with ease.”

Visitors to IBC2026 can see the integrated workflow firsthand at Haivision (2.B32) and Chyron (7.A23) .

AMSTERDAM—swXtch.io, a global provider of software-defined networking solutions for media, has launched an AI-based broadcast engineer platform which it says is designed to remove the infrastructure and networking complexity behind live media workflows.

abbe removes the requirement for operators to configure networks, cloud infrastructure, compute resources, and AI software in media routing and interface workflows, according to the company.

abbe takes a conversational description of the desired outcome and deploys the necessary infrastructure, networking, and software required to make the workflow run and does so in the most economical way while meeting performance requirements.

abbe is a cloud-agnostic orchestration layer, able to deploy live media and AI workflows across any provider including Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Workloads are located based on user requirements including optimizations for cost and latency, without forcing the operator to design a different solution for each cloud environment.

The initial capabilities being shown at IBC focus on two areas where live media teams face significant operational complexity: managing live media transport and deploying AI into production workflows.

For live media networking, abbe provides SRT management and control, enabling operators to ingest, monitor and distribute streams globally without manually configuring the underlying infrastructure. abbe is designed to automate decisions around where and how live media moves, helping operators maintain reliable, high-quality feeds while reducing the manual intervention traditionally required to respond to changing network conditions.

For AI workflows abbe will demonstrate a live audio processing workflow using NVIDIA models and other select partners. An operator can describe the desired outcome and abbe stands up the cloud infrastructure, networking, security, and software required for the audio processing use case.

The future of abbe is much broader than the initial iteration being shown at IBC, swXtch.io said.

abbe treats AI models as interchangeable components within a live workflow. Operators can select and test different models, chain models together, compare performance, and swap from one model to another easily and quickly. abbe separates what an operator wants to accomplish from the increasingly complex infrastructure, networking, and knowledge required to accomplish it.

NVIDIA models provide the foundation for abbe's initial real-time AI capabilities and swXtch.io is already expanding abbe's support across additional NVIDIA AI models and capabilities over time.

“The AI models are becoming incredibly capable but putting them into a live production still requires expertise across networking, cloud infrastructure, and AI software,” said Brent Yates, CEO of. “abbe is designed to remove that complexity. You describe what you want to accomplish, and abbe stands up everything needed to make it work. And because workflows are not locked to one model, you can easily optimize it as the technology changes. abbe simplifies AI for live media.”

NEW YORK—The software-based realtime media monitoring, multiviewing and quality control (QC) provider TAG Video Systems has announced TAG Blue, a cloud platform that gives every company on a delivery chain shared visibility of their workflow, and uses AI to turn that visibility an analysis of root causes and recommendations for dealing with issues.

TAG Blue will be previewed at IBC2026, Stand 1.D33, RAI Amsterdam, 11–14 September.

TAG’s Core platform already gives broadcasters complete visibility inside their own operation. The challenge is what happens beyond that boundary. As content moves across more entities, facilities, partners and workflows, visibility breaks down in two distinct ways. First, every entity on the chain sees only its own leg of the workflow. No one sees the full path. Second, the telemetry each deployment generates is rich enough to explain what went wrong, but connecting the dots across companies to a root cause and a next step is impossible or takes too much time and money.

TAG Blue gives every entity in a delivery chain visibility into the workflow points they have in common using TAG technology, with no new instrumentation required. AI technology then correlates errors across the defined path, finds the potential root cause, and recommends the steps to fix the issue.

Operators can also ask TAG Blue directly what happened, powered by a large language model (LLM) built into the platform, and get an answer instantly instead of digging through logs.

In a live sports broadcast, for example, shared visibility between production and takers is crucial. From the venue all the way to the platforms airing it, TAG Blue lets them all see the same picture, end to end. If something breaks along the way, everyone already knows where and why, instead of each side checking its own system while the clock is running.

TAG is working with other leading media technology vendors to extend that same shared visibility further across the industry.

"Traditionally, every entity on the chain could see what was happening inside its own walls and almost nothing beyond them. When something goes wrong, the phone starts ringing. TAG Blue changes that. It gives them real visibility across the chain, securely, without giving up control, and its AI turns that into a root cause and solutions. Now broadcasters, service providers and operators can solve the problem and avoid unnecessary costs related to service outages," said Ziv Mor, chief growth officer, TAG Video Systems.

TAG Blue is in development, with design partners and is expected to be available before the end of the year. TAG will preview TAG Blue at IBC2026, Stand 1.D33, RAI Amsterdam, 11–14 September 2026.

LIEGE, Belgium and MONTREAL—EVS and Matrox Video are combining their respective platforms to accelerate the broadcast industry's transition to software-defined live production. Aligned with the European Broadcasting Union's Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) initiative, the collaboration pairs EVS's orchestration and workflow management capabilities with Matrox ORIGIN’s software-defined media transport and processing to help broadcasters build more flexible, resource-driven production environments.

DMF architectures enable production resources to be provisioned and assigned according to operational needs rather than permanently tied to individual workflows or dedicated hardware.

Matrox ORIGIN gives EVS a software-defined media processing foundation designed to run broadcast workloads on standard compute infrastructure, while supporting open, interoperable approaches including the EBU’s Media eXchange Layer (MXL) and IPMX. Its scalable architecture allows media processing resources to be deployed and allocated dynamically, aligning closely with the resource-driven principles of the DMF. As an OEM building on Matrox ORIGIN, EVS can focus its engineering investment on the orchestration, automation, and operational layers where it delivers differentiated value to broadcasters.

EVS provides the orchestration and operational layer that enables broadcasters to align infrastructure resources with evolving production requirements. Through Production Resource Manager (PRM), a key component of EVS's Flexible Control Room solution, processing resources can be dynamically deployed, configured, and reconfigured based on the specific needs of each production. This allows broadcasters to maximize infrastructure utilization, increase operational agility, and reduce total cost of ownership, according to the company.

Complementing this approach, EVS’s Tactiq UI provides a modern, workflow-driven user experience that abstracts the complexity of the underlying technology stack, allowing operators to focus on producing content rather than managing infrastructure. In parallel, Cerebrum delivers the same simplification for engineering and operations teams, providing a unified control layer across SDI, IP, on-premises, and cloud environments.

Today, EVS' Cerebrum broadcast control and orchestration platform integrates with Matrox Video's Avio 2 IP KVM extenders and ConvertIP baseband to IP converters and encoders/decoders, enabling centralized control and routing across IP-based production environments.

The companies said they will continue collaborating on technologies that advance the industry's transition "toward more dynamic, scalable, and software-defined production infrastructure."

BERKELEY, Calif.—Eluvio today announced its plans for the 2026 IBC Show, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam, focusing on new advanced features in its Global Broadcast Fabric, the latest generation of the Content Fabric protocol and global infrastructure, as well as new advances in its Universal & Dynamic Video Intelligence architecture and Eluvio Video Intelligence Editor (EVIE)

At IBC, Eluvio will demonstrate the Global Broadcast Fabric’s live broadcast distribution architecture—a decentralized, zero-copy system that replaces satellite distribution, fiber point-to-point connections, and ground-to-cloud multi-point egress for live broadcast feed distribution, extended with new live-operations and monetization capabilities. One decentralized Content Fabric distribution simultaneously serves every downstream taker just-in-time — B2B broadcast affiliates and D2C consumer endpoints — from a single ingest workflow without duplication, according to the company.

Eluvio says Content Fabric “is powering thousands of D2C live games and streaming events and hosts hundreds of thousands of live, archive, and library titles for premium brands and creators — with 10x cost savings over legacy CDN and media cloud infrastructure at scale.

Improvements include :

• 8x increase in live stream cross-variant serving; <=30ms segment delivery latency; up to 4x scale of DRM encryption variants; zero-impact global maintenance; and instant-on HFR streaming.
• Stereoscopic HFR 4K (SBS and MV-HEVC), Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, HDR/HDR10+, full Widevine parameterization, AV1 (upcoming), optimized asset structure for hundreds of language and subtitle tracks.
• Powered by new Media Wallet v3 and Creator Studio CMS, allowing Eluvio to provide best-in-class TV, browser, and mobile native white label D2C OTT properties with advanced UX branding, interactive experiences, and configurable live, VOD and clip based content presentation and management.
• The ability to configure and deploy unlimited D2C OTT streaming and archive monetization apps for TV/mobile/browser, B2B portals, and Pocket TV microsites with fast multi-view, integrated DVR, automatic live and VoD content slating, and up-next autoplay. New multi-view sidebar, “In This Video” AI data panel, and expanded entertainment and sports layout options provide a flexible and outstanding UX experience for fans with no code deployment. Fully integrated with the Eluvio Video Intelligence Editor (EVIE), browse and publish zero-copy EVIE clips and compositions.
• Full SVOD/TVOD (rental and ownership) entitlements, match-based live entitlements, seamless JWT/SSO, and fully integrated Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Stripe in a single checkout flow. CableLabs-compliant Title Metadata API with territory-based offers and delta-only global updates.
• A fully white-labeled microsite for live and episodic content sales with zero friction: no login required, single-click Apple Pay and Google Pay, and magic links for return access. No PII collected. Instantly embeddable as a URL in any social post, paid ad, or CRM email. Deployed by a Tier 1 US broadcast network in 2026.
• Real-time analytics spanning B2B SRT/TS and D2C HTTP streams; global receiver map with per-receiver performance stats; expanded audience metrics; client-side QoS stats; and sales transaction reporting by currency, product, and country.

Eluvio will also showcase Eluvio AI and Eluvio AI and the Eluvio Video Intelligence Editor (EVIE), a new architecture for universal dynamic video intelligence.

According to the company, Eluvio AI is "the first commercially available inline, frame-accurate, multimodal AI built natively into a media platform — running inference on live and VOD content at frame and segment level with zero file copies, zero file movement, and zero transcoding, across open-source, custom, and third-party models."

The Eluvio Video Intelligence Editor (EVIE) provides the media-facing application layer for this intelligence, allowing users to inspect, search, validate, edit, and act upon AI data while remaining synchronized to the underlying video. The new EVIE Titles & Events experience brings the complete AI stack together around a title—such as a film or television program—or an event, such as a live sports match.

“Eluvio AI is fundamentally different from point AI solutions because the intelligence runs inline, with frame accuracy, across live and archival content — without the cost and delay of copying and re-transcoding media before it can be processed and ensembling the power of individual models with frame-accuracy,” said Michelle Munson, CEO and co-founder of Eluvio. “The AI is built directly into the video pipeline of the Content Fabric, rather than added afterward as a separate cloud workflow.

“Everything from identifying action, players, celebrities, speakers, or brands to turning that intelligence into highlights, vertical videos, compliance reels, or personalized content happens in place against the source media and has no limits on size, duration, or ensemble scale,” Munson added. “The result is dramatically greater efficiency and speed, while making AI intelligence immediately actionable for personalization and monetization. At IBC, we’re excited to show broadcasters and rights holders these capabilities running across both live sports and premium content.”

Eluvio will be in Stand 8.MS5 at the show. For more details, visit https://ibc.eluv.io.

LEXINGTON, Mass.—Signiant will showcase the latest evolution of the Signiant Platform at the 2026 IBC Show, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam.

Topping the list is Media Shuttle's new Intelligent Transport, which allows customers to take greater advantage of all their high-bandwidth infrastructure with multi-threaded and multi-gigabit transfers that adapt to live network conditions.

Also new is Signiant Pulse, a new line of secure connected services designed to help media organizations work with content where it sits.

Signiant Pulse includes:

• Pulse Essentials: Unified content visibility, access, and action across every connected storage location, included free with the Signiant Platform
• Pulse Review & Approve: Collaborative, frame-accurate content review without needing to upload or download content
• Pulse Plus: AI-generated descriptions, tags and transcripts using the customer's chosen AI provider rather than a vendor-hosted model
• Pulse AI Studio: Multi-step AI agent workflows across enriched content libraries, with MCP-governed access and usage-based cost controls
• Signiant MCP Server: Connects MCP-capable AI clients, including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, enabling agents to search, validate and route content while operating within existing permissions and audit controls that govern transfers

Signiant will also showcase Signiant Verify, which enables media to be checked against delivery specifications before it is transferred. Content that fails validation can be held and suppliers will be notified before submission, rather than after delivery as well as Verify aiQC, which extend Verify’s capability with deeper inspection of the picture and sound.

Signiant will be in Stand 5.C74.

BRUSSELS, Belgium—Mediagenix, a provider of smart content solutions “Mediagenix Curation,” a new solution for managing content presentation and discovery across streaming services.

The announcement comes a year after the company announced the integration of Spideo’s humanized content recommendations, personalized discovery, and catalog exploration capabilities into its flagship Title Management solution. Mediagenix acquired Spideo in 2024.

The company says Mediagenix Curation solves the complexities of delivering personalized experiences at scale by combining editorial control with automation and personalization “to execute content presentation strategies at scale.”

Integrated across the Mediagenix ecosystem, the new curation solution helps media companies unify editorial and algorithmic curation by combining human creativity and editorial control with data-driven recommendations in one workflow; give editorial and product teams direct control over content presentation; launch and iterate pages and rails faster without engineering dependency, and increase engagement and retention by surfacing the right content at the right time for the right audience.

“Streaming has moved beyond the question of simply having great content; the challenge now is making sure every viewer can discover the right content at the right moment. That creates a tension between the scale and intelligence that automation can bring, and the editorial judgment that gives a service its identity. With Mediagenix Curation, we’re bringing those two forces together, giving editorial teams the control to shape the experience while using automation and personalization to execute their strategy at scale,” said Patricia Blanco, Product Manager of Mediagenix On Demand and Curation.

“Over time, our ambition is to connect that viewer experience much more closely with the wider content lifecycle, so that what audiences discover and engage with can help inform how media companies plan, schedule and ultimately get more value from their content.”

Mediagenix will demo Mediagenix Curation at Stand 1.B57 during the 2026 IBC Shoiw, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam.

GRASS VALLEY, Calif.—AJA Video Systems today unveiled OG-FiDO-4, a new family of openGear-compatible cards offering four channels of conversion between 12G-/3G-SDI and fiber, expanding the OG-FiDO-4 family to nine different modules. The product line is designed to enable reliable, uncompressed SDI transport over LC fiber and includes DashBoard software support for centralized monitoring.

The new cards will be demonstrated at the IBC Show, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam.

“At a time when multicamera setups are growing in size and complexity across broadcast, live production, and proAV environments, extending SDI infrastructure over fiber has never mattered more. The OG-FiDO-4 family delivers practical, cost-efficient solutions with the channel density, signal integrity, and dependability that mission-critical environments demand,” said AJA President Nick Rashby.

The nine models available include the base card and AJA Fiber SFP variations such as 12G-SDI, 3G-SDI, single-mode, and multi-mode models. Each model features independent, isolated SDI-BNC connectors that enable different rates to be carried simultaneously and an integrated rear I/O card unlocks high-density transport, up to 40 channels in an openGear frame.

DashBoard software streamlines installation, configuration, monitoring, and service updates on Windows and macOS with support for HDR video and pass-through of SDI metadata.

The models also feature Input Present and Input SMPTE Lock LEDs, automatic data rate detection and reclocking and are compatible with current AJA FIBERLC TX and RX SFP Modules, as well as the OG-X-FR and OG-3-FR openGear frames. Power consumption is 8W maximum.

The OG-FiDO-4 family will be available soon for purchase through AJA’s network of resellers starting at $2,295 and $2,695 US MSRP.

AJA will be in Stand 7.B25 during the show.

ATLANTA—East India regional broadcaster Odisha Television Network (OTV) has selected Quortex to replace its legacy hardware with advanced video processing software and to manage its end-to-end on-premises network.

The broadcaster is Odisha’s largest broadcast and digital media network. It reaches 45 million Odia speakers worldwide across satellite and digital platforms.

OTV has gone live with encoding, multiplexing and scrambling using Quortex virtualized Digital Content Manager (vDCM), the company’s software-centric, cloud-native video processing and delivery platform. It is also using Quortex Video Service Manager (VSM) to centralize the configuration and control of its complex video distribution workflows.

“Odisha Television needed a partner who could support them locally, at scale and around the clock,” said Elke Hungenaert, head of products at Quortex. “By transitioning their video processing from hardware to software, we’ve established a flexible foundation that supports their critical business needs today and scales for the journey ahead.”

The Quortex Global Network Operations Center (GNOC) in Bangalore is providing OTV with 24/7 premium technical support, including proactive maintenance and incident management across its entire network infrastructure, including third-party components.

“Partnering with Quortex delivered a seamless migration to a future-proof software platform,” said Litisha Panda, head of business at Odisha Television Network. “We gained immediate operational efficiency and complete peace of mind knowing Quortex is managing our broadcast operations.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance will highlight its latest product line for TV, streaming, and radio at the 2026 IBC Show, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam.

Visitors to Stand 8.D37 will find two European product debuts as well as major updates and additions across intercom, live production audio, and file-based audio workflow tools.

New this year for Jünger Audio flexAI, is flexAI CastCompanion. Powered by JAIC, the Jünger Audio Intelligent Companion, flexAI autonomously manages live voice sources that may arrive at very different levels, with varying quality and background noise. JAIC analyzes the incoming audio and helps optimize parameters, while Jünger’s deterministic algorithms handle the actual processing, delivering predictable latency and broadcast reliability. CastCompanion combines automixing, AI-assisted de-noising, voice enhancement, and loudness management to create consistent, intelligible mixes without an operator constantly riding levels.

Telos Alliance will show new flexAI support for 12G-SDI and NDI and will demonstrate how flexAI now integrates with the TVU MediaMesh cloud-native live production platform, allowing producers to extend Jünger’s powerful processing ecosystem across hardware, server, IP, partner, and cloud workflows.

The company will also highlight new Infinity MK2 hardware panels for the Telos Infinity IP intercom range. Designed for use in the studio and in the field, the larger buttons feature bright TFT displays, programmable colors, flexible Talk/Listen controls, three shift pages, a Reply to Last Caller function, and four-way “compass” controls.

For sports commentators, Infinity VCP Virtual Commentator Panel now integrates directly with Elgato Stream Deck+, adding compact physical controls to its browser-based commentary environment without requiring a traditional dedicated commentary box. VCP also uses adaptive bitrate control to help maintain contribution audio intelligibility and network reliability.

Also making its debut in Europe is Axia Pulsar, a compact AoIP console, that features an 8-fader Master Module that uses dual operating layers to provide access to 16 inputs; an optional Expansion Module gives physical access to all 16 faders. Axia Pulsar features bright TFT displays, touch-sensitive encoders, spill-proof 100mm motorized faders, programmable controls, Show Profiles, and integrated EBU R128 loudness metering. Powered by the 2RU StudioCore engine, the compact Pulsar integrates directly into all Livewire and AES67 environments. Optional Pulsar Soft browser-based control also makes remote operation possible from a computer, tablet, or smartphone, according to Telos Alliance.

Minnetoka AudioTools Server v7 will debut at IBC, with new A.I./machine-learning modules that include Language Detection, Dialog Intelligibility, and a powerful new tool, AudioTools Source Separation by AudioShake. This new subscription module can extract dialogue, music, and effects from finished program audio to give broadcasters, studios, streaming providers, and content owners new ways to work with existing material when original multitrack sessions are unavailable or incomplete.

Dialogue can be isolated for dubbing or intelligibility enhancement, music can be replaced for creative or licensing reasons, and clean M&E tracks can be created for alternate-language versions and new distribution opportunities. Because source separation runs inside AudioTools Server, it can also be combined with existing loudness, QC, transcoding, language, and delivery processes to create repeatable, automated workflows at scale.

For radio, the Omnia XII will mark its European debut at the show. Its new processing architecture combines wideband AGC, five bands of intelligent multiband AGC and compressors, six bands of multiband limiting, smart dynamic EQ, refined bass management, and a new “Clemenza” clipper, designed to deliver competitive loudness without the distortion and listener fatigue that can come with aggressive processing.

Along with products featured at IBC, Telos Alliance will showcase its work with industry partners to advance interoperability and more consistent audio workflows.

As part of the IBC Accelerator “Crystal Clear” project, Telos Alliance is collaborating with Nugen Audio, RTW, Steinberg, Fraunhofer IDMT, Channel 4, BBC, ITV, and others on standardized dialogue intelligibility measurement across the industry.

Telos Alliance will take part in Grass Valley's AMPP demo, with Minnetonka Audio ARC loudness processing and UPMAX up/down/cross-mixing interconnected via MXL to enable higher-quality, lower-latency audio processing within AMPP workflows.

Telos Alliance will also participate in Qvest’s Dynamic Media Facility demonstration, a portable, multi-vendor production environment handling live feeds, real-time audio and video processing, Dolby Atmos upmixing, signal monitoring, and multiviewing. Telos Alliance processing will operate alongside tools from other vendors, with MXL providing the common connection between applications. The demo shows how MXL can simplify integration and reduce latency across on-prem and cloud workflows.

Telos Alliance will be in Stand 8.D37.

OSLO, Norway—Bridge Technologies has announced that its flagship VB440 production probe now supports monitoring of Blackmagic Design's IP10 codec and will provide demos in its booth as well as Blackmagic’s booth at the upcoming 2026 IBC Show, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam.

IP10 is Blackmagic's lightweight, low-latency codec designed to address a specific challenge in ST 2110 environments: fitting high-frame-rate Ultra HD video through a 10 GigE connection while maintaining broadcast-quality, 10-bit 4:2:2 colour performance.

With a latency of just eight-pixel samples and an extremely small FPGA footprint, IP10 is license-free and open, allowing broadcasters to deploy ST 2110 workflows without the expense of 25GE or 200GE switching infrastructure. For broadcasters operating in OB trucks, remote locations, or smaller facilities where high-speed network infrastructure is not available, IP10 offers a pragmatic path to uncompressed-quality IP production over widely available 10GE links, Bridge said.

The VB440 itself is equipped with dual 200 GigE interfaces, capable of handling uncompressed ST 2110 streams at the highest data rates. But in contexts where the wider network infrastructure is operating on smaller bandwidth channels—with IP10 being used precisely to address that limitation—the VB440's native support for the codec means engineers can monitor IP10-encoded streams with the same depth of visibility they expect from uncompressed workflows, according to the company. This ensures that even in bandwidth-constrained environments, the VB440 remains a viable and powerful monitoring presence.

Facilities using IP10 as an underlying codec will thus have full access to the extensive range of tools present within the VB440, which itself represents a uniquely powerful production tool that combines both network monitoring and a full suite of practical production tools within a single RU appliance, thus drastically truck roll weight, energy consumption and the cost and space associated with screens and cabling, Bridge said.

The demos will take place at Bridge Technologies stand (Booth 1.A71) and Blackmagic’s (7.C49) during the show.

CYPRESS, Calif.—For-A has announced the expansion of viztrick AiDi into an overarching AI technology brand encompassing two dedicated products: Go Vertical! AiDi and AiDi Sports Hub. Developed by Nippon TV and delivered globally by For-A, viztrick AiDi brings advanced AI capabilities directly into live production workflows, with on-device processing designed to deliver the speed and responsiveness live content demands.

The new product structure makes it easier for broadcasters, sports producers, and other content creators to choose the AI tools that fit their needs, according to the company. Go Vertical! AiDi addresses the growing demand for mobile-first video delivered in a 9:16 format, while AiDi Sports Hub applies AI to create more engaging live coverage with tools that provide additional context.

“AI is becoming an increasingly practical part of live production, but customers don’t need technology simply for technology’s sake,” said Hiro Tanoue, Director, Alliance Department at For-A Company Limited. “They need tools that solve real production challenges without adding complexity. By establishing viztrick AiDi as our overall AI technology brand and introducing Go Vertical! AiDi and AiDi Sports Hub as dedicated products, we can make it much clearer for customers to identify the capabilities that can make a difference in their workflows.”

Previously introduced at the 2026 NAB Show as a feature of viztrick AiDi, Go Vertical! AiDi is now a dedicated product built around AI-driven, real-time 9:16 cropping, For-A said. The system analyzes live video and automatically creates vertically formatted output optimized for social media and mobile viewing.

For broadcasters and content owners, that means existing 16:9 programming can be adapted for mobile audiences as the action happens, without creating an entirely separate production workflow. Go Vertical! AiDi supports automated tracking modes for sports including basketball, soccer, and baseball, as well as group subjects. Operators can also identify and track specific subjects, with the system automatically resuming tracking if a registered subject temporarily disappears.

The technology operates on-device rather than depending upon cloud processing - an important advantage when immediacy matters. Go Vertical AiDi features near-real-time processing for live 9:16 production, avoiding the five-to-ten-second delay associated with some competing approaches.

Go Vertical! AiDi also supports mobile-first coverage of news, conferences, red carpets, entertainment programming, and other live events where audiences increasingly consume content vertically.

AiDi Sports Hub takes viztrick AiDi technology in another direction, giving sports production teams AI-assisted tools that can add information, context, and visual storytelling to live coverage.

The system's capabilities include telestration, player tracking, player speed, distance and angle measurement, baseball runner speed, automated score graphics, and facial-recognition graphics. For-A said it is also developing additional capabilities including 2.5D/3D graphics, ball-trajectory visualization, sensor-based golf-ball trajectory, and AI-assisted automated program production.

Both Go Vertical! AiDi and AiDi Sports Hub are now available globally.

For more information about viztrick AiDi, Go Vertical! AiDi and AiDi Sports Hub, visit www.for-a.com.

MARLOW, UK—At IBC2026, TSL will present a series of enhancements and expansions to its monitoring, control, orchestration, and power management solution with the goal of operating IP and hybrid infrastructures more efficiently.

TSL will showcase new network-based control integrations within the TSL Hummingbird ecosystem, helping broadcasters manage increasingly diverse IP infrastructures. Dante router control will be on show at IBC2026 for the first time. Together with support for NMOS, the expansion enables broadcasters to control multi-vendor environments across SDI, ST 2110, NDI and Dante workflows operating side-by-side.

TSL will also highlight how it has improved Hummingbird support for NDI, Amagi Tally, TSL v5 Server and VDCP-IP. The additions enable broader integration with third-party production, routing, and playout systems, giving broadcasters greater flexibility to build interoperable IP workflows, the company said.

TSL says it will also launch a new software app that supports complex workflow virtualization and automation at scale at the show.

Following TSL’s acquisition of JL Cooper Electronics earlier this year, IBC2026 offers the first major opportunity to showcase how its specialist human-machine interface (HMI) and machine-to-machine interface (MMI) technologies expand TSL Hummingbird control options for broadcast, proAV, education, live events and creator workflows.

The latest generation of TSL’s AMUs will be integrated into new workflow displays at IBC, with updated hardware and firmware to meet the critical demands of modern IP and hybrid live production environments. Multiple price-point and form factor options are available for users across Analogue, 3G-SDI, 12G-SDI, Madi, Dante, Ravenna, ST2110-30, AES3, AES67 and Dolby also featuring added resiliency with ST2022-7 redundancy.

TSL will also showcase its latest release for its range of intelligent, managed PDUs, extending operational visibility and control beyond media to the critical power and IT infrastructure that underpins mission critical operations. Designed for data centers, live production facilities and central machine rooms, the PDUs provide engineers with real-time power monitoring, remote diagnostics, and remote management and control to improve resilience and operational efficiency and help drive down costs and power usage to support sustainability goals, according to the company.

“The conversation has shifted from simply moving media over IP to efficient and easy-to-deploy control and orchestration across both multi-vendor and multi-technology environments,” said Matthew Quade, CEO, TSL. “Broadcasters need solutions that bring together unified control, intuitive operation and open interoperability, without locking them into single vendor systems or adding complexity, as well as wanting choice for deployment options in software and hardware.

"By extending TSL Hummingbird’s capabilities, expanding our range of HMI and MMI control interfaces and continuing to invest in response to market demands across audio monitoring and power, customers have the flexibility to manage today’s infrastructures more efficiently while building in future-readiness to enable change at their pace and within their budgets,” he added.

TSL team will be Stand 7.B12.

BOSTON—EditShare will unveil new developments across EFS, FLOW AI, MediaSilo and EditShare One at the 2026 IBC Show, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam.

EditShare will launch new all-in-one Ultimate EFS configurations for EFS 310 and EFS 410 with FLOW media management and GPU-powered FLOW AI processing built into the nodes. By combining shared storage, media management and AI processing, the new configurations provide a more accessible route to AI-assisted media discovery for teams that do not require the processing scale of a dedicated standalone GPU system, the company said.

FLOW AI has now expanded transcription support across 13 languages: English, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish, with Hebrew and Arabic following shortly after. The expanded language support will help broadcasters, production companies and post-production teams apply AI-assisted search and discovery across a wider range of international content.

EditShare will also preview how MediaSilo is expanding beyond review and approval into a broader production media hub. Media Drives, a new connected-storage capability, will allow authorized users to access approved S3-compatible storage directly through MediaSilo, including on-prem EFS storage presented through S3 and supported third-party on-prem and cloud platforms.

Teams will be able to browse folders, search mounted media by filename and preview content where it is stored. They can then copy only the files they need into MediaSilo, rather than transferring everything before they know what is needed.

Once there, MediaSilo AI allows users to search transcripts, on-screen text, people, logos and scenes. The same workspace supports timecoded feedback, version management, dailies, approval tracking and protected external review.

EditShare will also demonstrate the latest developments in EditShare One, giving users a faster and more intuitive way to access and manage content across EFS and FLOW.

Users can archive and restore complete media spaces or folders directly from EditShare One, making it easier to manage large collections without handling assets individually. The expanded archive workflow also supports integrations with Telestream DIVA Archive and Spectra Logic Rio MediaEngine in addition to the currently supported 3rd party storage capabilities within FLOW.

EditShare will be in booth 7.B18.

GENEVA, Switzerland—GlobalM today announced that it is integrating its GMX software-defined media platform with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), bringing together Oracle’s global cloud infrastructure with GlobalM’s technology for live media contribution, processing, and distribution.

The integration will enable GMX Cloud services to run across OCI regions, giving broadcasters, sports organizations, and media companies access to a significantly expanded global footprint for live media workflows, GlobalM said.

At enable improved automation, GMX creates a software-defined media network on OCI, automatically deploying the compute, networking, media processing, and routing resources required for each service. Infrastructure is spun up and configured on demand, point to multipoint contribution and distribution paths are established automatically, and resources can be scaled as requirements change before being automatically released when services finish.

This allows broadcasters to schedule and consume OCI infrastructure dynamically without having to manually build and configure the underlying cloud environment for every production, the company said.

OCI is particularly well-suited to professional broadcast applications because of its high-performance networking and flexible compute architecture. OCI Flexible Shapes allow compute and memory resources to be configured according to individual workload requirements, enabling GMX to optimize infrastructure for applications ranging from SRT and RIST gateways to transcoding, remultiplexing and high-throughput media distribution.

Oracle’s global cloud footprint also complements GlobalM’s distributed architecture. GMX processing and routing nodes can be automatically deployed across OCI locations, allowing contribution feeds to enter the cloud close to their source and receiving broadcasters to connect through infrastructure close to their destination. This helps keep the unmanaged first and last miles as short as practical while the core media workflow operates across managed cloud infrastructure.

The collaboration will also extend GlobalM’s hybrid capabilities. GMX1 processing and routing nodes deployed within customer facilities will be able to operate alongside GMX Cloud resources running on OCI. Combined with Oracle’s hybrid cloud capabilities, this will allow broadcasters to integrate existing facilities with dynamically deployed cloud processing, international distribution, additional capacity, redundancy, and disaster recovery.

GlobalM (1.A11) and Oracle (5.A21) will showcase GMX running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure at their booths during the 2026 IBC Show, Sept. 11-14 at the RAI Amsterdam.

A PBS station in St. Louis is taking a data center provider to court to retrieve what the station says is “more than 70 years of history.”

In a lawsuit filed with the Denver District Court against Iron Mountain Data Centers in late July, Nine PBS (KETC) says that Iron Mountain is refusing to release more than 50 TB of archived programming housed at Iron Mountain's data center in Denver. According to the lawsuit, Open Source Storage, the cloud service hosting the archives, went out of business earlier this year and shut off Nine PBS’s access to its material.

Iron Mountain says since OSS owned “the physical services housing the data,” it would not return access to the archives to Nine PBS, according to a story in Current.

The district court judge granted Nine PBS’s request to prevent Iron Mountain from deleting, modifying or overwriting the archives and a hearing was held on Wednesday.

In a statement to Current, Nine PBS Vice President and Chief Content Officer Leah Freemansaid the broadcaster is “committed to ensuring we can recover and restore full access to this valuable content, which Nine PBS rightfully owns, as it holds significant historical importance for St. Louis.”

Nine PBS had a contract with OSS (identified in the lawsuit as OSS’ predecessor’) starting in 2019 and said in its lawsuit that it had not received any response from OSS earlier this year when it attempted to renew its contract for 2026. Although the contract required 30 days notice before termination, the lawsuit claims that OSS abruptly ended Nine PBS’s access to its archives on March 6 and that it was only after this that the broadcaster discovered that the cloud provider had gone out of business.

Iron Mountain told TV Tech that it "has acted appropriately and responsibly at every step to safeguard customer data and honor our contractual commitments to OSS. Throughout this process, we have been transparent with Nine PBS about our role in this dispute, that we do not have access to their data, and we have made consistent efforts to help them resolve the issue."

The term “cloud” originated from diagrams of large-scale data networks and, for a long time, the cloud was just a “means to transfer information from one place to another using someone else’s computer.” In time, privately controlled services emerged that allowed users to store data with “cloud service providers,” new businesses that permitted access to their “private” data from anywhere.

In truth, the user’s data lived on computer systems owned and hosted by a cloud service provider. Those physical places became known as data centers, consisting of racks and racks of computers, storage devices and networking devices that communicate and/or support many compute functions. Such services must be capable of expanding—as necessary—to meet the user demands for short-term, long-term and immediately accessible data housed in locations typically unknown to those end users.

Private Clouds
Large companies often have their own “scaled” data centers located at their physical buildings, which allow for personalized management and cost a great deal to fabricate, support and manage.

Today, there are two general meanings of this “data center” terminology:

• It’s where the term “on-prem”—meaning “on the premises” comes from—inferring that self-managed compute services (usually servers and computer elements), storage and input/output network management are physically placed in the company’s owned-and-operated facility (such as a hardened warehouse full of electronics, cooling, backup power and security).
• You can host your data in your own datacenter “on prem,” or you can host it with another service “as in the cloud.” Private companies are now building entire data centers to either outsource/lease space (only) or house entire systems solutions for users to place their own gear into or rent the service provider’s systems on a “square-foot” basis or a “rack-by-rack” space basis—with or without maintenance or support by a third-party organization.

Cloud Structure
A cloud can be considered a business when it is owned and operated by a “recognized” entity such as Amazon (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft (Azure), Google, etc. But they may not be the only “cloud resources”—companies that offer software services under their own “private” cloud (e.g., Wasabi or Comcast). Such cloud organizations or structures may also provide intercloud offerings, allowing them to scale across larger data sets, bridge various specialized “data centers” or even sublet entire facilities to a particular single entity as needed.

For on-prem solutions or even large-scale public data centers, monitoring platforms are “managed over-the-top subsystems” that may drive an entire solution set platform (data center) or link groups of data centers. For an on-prem environment, such a platform could require a large up-front commitment by the organization.

If your organization is employing a cloud-based DevOps solution with rapid iteration and continued live or real-time practices that involve continuous results reporting and direct-to-developer feedback, though, it may be difficult to predict or understand the depth of commitment necessary on the front end, let alone what might occur as the systems scale upward in response to growing needs for client services or compute and storage expandability.

Self-deployed monitoring systems may also generate a lot of unused capacity and wasted resources. That is unpredictable as the software-solutions processes move through the various “bring-to-market” stages. Even when the DevOps solution is built for internal or local operations only, the self-built/self-managed monitoring platform can overwhelm the IT or engineering services with unpredictable consequences.

Today, there are many potential open-source monitoring solutions available to organizations; some strictly on-prem and others entirely cloud-based. Any improperly integrated solution could generate a lot of unused capacity and wasted resources—as reported by service providers, vendors and end users.

That’s not to mean an experienced organization familiar with today’s most relevant trends (and with sufficient cloud management solutions experts in-house) should not or cannot develop a comprehensive, scalable monitoring solution that fits its needs. However, the risks and costs can escalate as the environment expands or as the scale mushrooms. It is a complex balancing act that can make or break the organization’s performance or profitability.

Before venturing into this domain, be sure to understand the overall solutions development processes—especially the real-time management core initiatives and the harmonization of the operation’s IT functions.

First, Defining DevOps
DevOps is a collaborative approach that merges software development and IT operations—and is nearly always a live or real-time environment. DevOps typically combines people, processes and automated tools to build, test and release software much faster and with greater reliability.

Throughout the DevOps process, software is constantly monitored while in development or in use. During the testing and “spinning up” process, user issues generate large amounts of data and feedback that go directly back to developers to be quickly improved. Once deployed, the procedures usually continue and may require more capabilities than an “on-prem” solution might be able to handle.

In the cloud, DevOps may function by using “on-demand” cloud infrastructure (Fig. 1) to automate software delivery, manage infrastructure through code and auto-scale resources dynamically to meet delivery needs, adjusting the flows by reacting to anomalies, including failures, crashes or data overruns. In the cloud, instead of manually configuring physical servers, teams write code to provision environments, test automatically and deploy updates while continuously monitoring application health.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the process by which operations teams define network servers, databases and environments using configuration files (such as Terraform or AWS CloudFormation) rather than manual clicks in a portal.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) is an accompanying cloud-native service (such as AWS CodePipeline or GitHub Actions) that permits the automatic testing of code as soon as developers commit it. Once verified, the cloud platform automatically pushes the software update into production.

Data Centers
One of the “DIY” challenges is when an organization is driven to write all of the integrations itself and then forced to manage those integrations long-term. Novel “open-source solutions” require a great deal of upkeep, attention and maintenance.

Users report they almost need to have a Ph.D. to set up effective and sufficient monitoring capabilities that can address the ever-growing needs of a DevOps environment.

Some (but certainly not all) system solutions vendors may either make it difficult to figure things out intentionally or require long-term solutions support contracts, resorting to extensive Googling or digging into all kinds of online forums for answers. Much of that information will likely be inapplicable to the organization’s actual needs without considerable DevOps adoption (while under live operations).

Monitoring for Success
Effective end-to-end monitoring is crucial for enterprise DevOps teams to ensure high-quality, scalable and secure software delivery across complex environments.

Key requirements for enterprise DevOps monitoring platforms (Fig. 2) must be properly selected to ensure scalable, reliable and efficient software development and operations. The cloud on its own is not generally designed to develop those platforms without a considerable amount of code or structured elements that are specifically fashioned to the needs of the user’s organization.

Effective end-to-end monitoring is crucial for enterprise DevOps teams to ensure high-quality, scalable, and secure software delivery across complex environments.

In our next installment, we will dig deeper into issues on dynamic scaling, integration and vendor support, the importance of documentation, how to establish real-time notification and developer access without infrastructure exposure and end-to-end data capture across the DevOps lifecycle.

For the better part of a decade, there's a word the broadcast industry has been using to describe the move from traditional to software-defined production.

That word is transition.

But transition implies a journey from one state to another. What broadcasters are really living through is more permanent than that. They're not crossing a bridge. They're building one while keeping traffic moving on both sides.

The hybrid reality that most production operations face today isn't a phase. It's the terrain they're operating in. And the industry is only beginning to work out what that really demands.

Two Worlds, One Team
As IP and cloud-based production matured, the assumption in most technology strategies was that organizations would eventually retire traditional hardware workflows. But that hasn’t happened. Client commitments, capital cycles, rights agreements and the genuine complexity of software-defined environments have all kept legacy infrastructure in service.

This means that production teams manage both at the same time, and engineers who once worked in a single signal chain are now expected to be fluent across various architectures. That pressure isn’t always obvious, until something goes wrong.

Client expectations are moving in different directions at the same time. Some rights holders won't compromise on premium quality. Others are under real pressure to deliver faster and cheaper, sometimes for the same content through a different window. In some cases both demands land in the same contract.

The Cost of Keeping Both Engines Running
Operating in a hybrid environment is costly in ways that aren’t always easy to quantify. Maintaining two categories of infrastructure, training staff on both and building workflows that flex between them: the obvious costs are significant. But the subtler ones are too.

Every infrastructure decision now has a strategic dimension to it. Whether to extend the life of traditional kit, push harder toward software workflows and take on the short-term risk that comes with it, or route projects through different models depending on the brief, none of it is straightforward and each path brings its own complexity.

None of these are easy calls. They involve trade-offs between cost, speed, quality and flexibility. The right answer shifts with each client and project. The teams that navigate this skillfully have stopped looking for one cohesive answer and instead relied on the judgment to make the call differently each time.

Remote and Cloud: Real Gains and Real Limits
Remote and cloud production have proven their worth. The ability to draw on the right talent wherever they are, scale infrastructure around event demand and cut crew travel has truly changed how operations plan and staff major events.

But the limits of working fully distributed are also getting clearer. Some productions benefit greatly when people are in the same room, where decisions need to be made quickly and creative judgment is built through proximity. The best hybrid operations aren’t choosing between remote and on-site. They’re developing the discipline to recognize which approach will work best for any given brief, and then investing in the infrastructure to support both.

Flexibility: The Baseline Requirement
The most important shift in thinking may be that flexibility isn’t something to sell anymore. Clients expect workflows that flex to last-minute changes, support teams who are spread across different technical environments and scale without everything falling apart.

That’s a structural challenge. Not a technology challenge. The tools exist, but what production operations are still building is the confidence to lean on them and the organizational design to deploy them well.

The broadcasters and service providers who define the next phase of this industry will not be those who complete the move to software-defined production fastest. They will be those who build the judgment and workflows to operate effectively in a world where both models coexist, indefinitely, at the same time.

Hybrid production isn’t a problem to be solved. It’s the operating environment. The sooner the industry plans accordingly, the better.

The cloud is playing an ever increasing role in media production, with broadcasters increasingly deploying hybrid platforms that combine the cloud with on-prem solutions that take advantage of advances in processing, connectivity and AI.

In our latest Guide to Cloud Solutions, we examine the current landscape of cloud-based production and how media companies are adopting the best of both worlds to make workflows simpler and more efficient.

Download your free guide here.

STUDIOS IN SWANSEA, U.K.—QuickLink will debut its new StudioPro AnywhereTally system during IBC 2026, Sept. 11-14, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

Purpose-built for QuickLink StudioPro, AnywhereTally extends tally control beyond traditional local workflows, delivering reliable, real-time on-air indication over the internet for multi-camera productions operating across multiple locations.

Designed for the future of cloud-enabled production, StudioPro AnywhereTally integrates natively with the brand’s StudioPro Proton and StudioPro Fusion control panels, creating a unified workflow across software, control surfaces and remote tally devices. With support for four, eight or 12 tally light configurations, the system provides the flexibility required for everything from compact studio setups to large, distributed productions.

“StudioPro AnywhereTally is a first-of-its-kind cloud tally solution, designed to meet the evolving needs of modern live production. Built for cloud-based workflows while supporting traditional on-premises environments, it gives production teams the flexibility to extend professional tally capabilities wherever they operate,” says Richard Rees, CEO of QuickLink. “By combining real-time remote tally, seamless StudioPro ecosystem integration and professional-grade wireless performance, AnywhereTally enables more connected, flexible and efficient production workflows.”

StudioPro AnywhereTally delivers high‑performance wireless reliability with up to 7,200‑ft range, strong wall penetration and 20ms low‑latency response using military‑grade wireless technology, ensuring dependable tally performance in demanding environments.

Built for long production days, it provides 20 to 40 hours of battery life, USB‑C charging and a clear battery status indicator. It’s compact, lightweight aluminum alloy design supports both hot‑shoe and 1/4‑inch mounting for fast, flexible deployment. With cloud‑controllable operation through StudioPro Cloud instances, AnywhereTally enables production teams to stay coordinated and connected regardless of physical location.

With cloud-controllable operation through StudioPro Cloud instances, StudioPro AnywhereTally enables production teams to stay coordinated and connected regardless of physical location, bridging the gap between cloud-based and traditional production environments.

See QuickLink at IBC stand 7.C19.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) has revealed some of its plans for the next Summer Olympics, taking place in Los Angeles in 2028.

At a meeting of rights holders last week, OBS said it intends to provide approximately 3,800 to 4,000 hours of competition and Ceremonies coverage.

The host broadcaster added it is expanding its use of first-person-view (FPV) drones, real-time 360° and stroboscopic replays, point-of-view (POV) cameras, microphones on officials and coaches, dynamic graphics, back-of-house access and enhanced digital content at LA28.

The broadcast ecosystem will be designed around virtualization, cloud-based workflows and AI-ready infrastructure, said OBS, to deliver increased flexibility, resilience and operational efficiency across broadcast operations.

Plans include expanded cloud services, AI-assisted production workflows, enhanced digital content delivery and new approaches to content distribution.

Work on the IBC fit-out will begin in early 2027, added OBS.

This article originally appeared on TV Tech sister brand TVBEurope.

AMSTERDAM—Pebble will discuss its future-facing developments for the new generation of media operations at IBC 2026, Sept. 11-14, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

Development leaders will be on hand to discuss Pebble's roadmap for virtualization and cloud-based playout, alongside the technologies, standards and operational models, including Dynamic Media Facility (DMF), cloud infrastructure and AI-assisted operations.

“Broadcasters and media enterprises around the world are changing fast, and they're asking us for more adaptable infrastructures, more flexible deployment and more intelligent workflows,” said Pebble CEO Peter Mayhead. “At IBC, we'll show how we're answering that, with a virtualization and cloud roadmap that lets operators deploy on-premises, in the cloud or hybrid environments, on their own terms. The same principle applies to AI."

"Used judiciously, AI can be transformative, but in playout it earns its place working around our core engine, not inside it,” Mayhead continued. “Frame-accurate execution has to stay deterministic, so we’re adding intelligence around that engine. Since NAB we’ve continued to develop that approach, exploring how AI can support monitoring, operational workflows and decision-making."

“Our approach to cloud and hybrid architectures is no different,” he added. “They build on the security and reliability our customers already trust from their on-premises systems.”

Pebble continues its active engagement with industry bodies including the DPP and JT-DMF, the Joint EBU/AMWA Task Force on Dynamic Media Facilities. Through its involvement in these initiatives, Pebble is helping shape the standards and operational approaches that will underpin future media infrastructures, ensuring its product roadmap reflects the real-world expectations of broadcasters and media organizations.

Those expectations include the agility to support new business models, operational methods and content delivery workflows. In turn, they will drive the deployment of increasingly flexible software architectures and the tactical choice of on-premises, cloud or hybrid environments.

That flexibility is reflected in Pebble's roadmap, with ongoing work to evolve Pebble Automation towards a cloud-native architecture while continuing to enhance Pebble Integrated Channel and Pebble Remote.

See Pebble at IBC 2026 stand 8.C58.

More information is available on the company’s website.

As broadcasters continue transitioning to IP-based workflows, industry leaders are exploring new approaches that could improve interoperability, collaboration and operational flexibility.

At the heart of these discussions is the Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) and related Media eXchange Layer (MXL), emerging frameworks intended to help broadcasters determine how the next generation of software-defined workflows could work.

The topic was explored during a panel hosted by the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), in conjunction with the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), featuring moderator Steve Reynolds, CEO, Imagine Communications, and guest speakers Naveed Aslam, senior vice president of Production Technology and Engineering, CBS/Paramount; John Mailhot, senior vice president of Product Management, Imagine Communications; Willem Vermost, senior IP media technology architect, EBU; and Andy Rayner, CTO, Appear.

“Much of media processing now runs in software, in a combination of on-premises and in the cloud,” Reynolds said. “And so, if everything is now moving to software, we have to ask the question: are we still designing our facilities in the right way?”

Panelists said DMF was created to address this question, driving the industry forward while solving key business challenges such as how to improve efficiency and allow broadcasters and their partners to share “very expensive resources” amongst more productions.

“I think, from our perspective, SMPTE ST 2110 and IP-based workflows have largely been understood and embraced as being the next industry evolutionary step,” Aslam said. “From our perspective, the DMF initiative is truly the key to start unlocking the practical and technological benefits that we can derive from an IP infrastructure, the opportunities that arise from that, and it just truly starts to give us an opportunity to explore what IP workflows can be.”

The panel explained that neither DMF nor MXL are meant to replace SMPTE ST 2110, the technical standards that gives broadcasters a means to transport broadcast-quality signals over IP networks, enabling them to scale workflows and providing a foundation for interoperability.

Rather, all three are designed to work together: DMF provides a framework for the next generation of more dynamic, software-defined facilities, while MXL provides a specific mode for connecting applications and services, effectively enabling interoperability inside of a computing cluster.

“It’s really the goal of the DMF to organize those upper layers so that you can actually have a dynamic facility,” Mailhot said. “I think that 2110 and MXL will work together to achieve that, but there’s a lot of work to do to fill in all those blanks.”

“If we work in an asynchronous way, suddenly more media functions can be run than ever before. Within the same time frame, of a frame, multiple operations can be run,” Vermost said.

“If you look at it from that point of view, it seems like a revolution. But, if you look at it from your broadcast plant and how you operate it, it’s an evolution. We’ll get there step by step.”

Panel discussion is available on demand on NABA's YouTube channel.

For most of broadcast history, captioning was treated as a metadata problem. QC systems checked whether caption data was present, whether files were correctly formatted, and whether character encoding was valid. If a CEA-608 or CEA-708 stream was embedded and a sidecar file — SCC, SRT, WebVTT — was properly formed, the asset passed. Whether the captions accurately reflected what was spoken was largely outside the scope of automated review.

FCC requirements in the United States and emerging mandates across Europe have moved from nominal compliance gates to substantive quality standards. Caption files that pass every technical check can still fail on accuracy, synchronization, or readability.

What broadcast and streaming organizations need is content-level validation: verifying that captions are accurate, properly timed, readable, and ready for multiplatform delivery. Captioning is becoming part of the broader media intelligence layer — one that evaluates a caption track against the content it accompanies, treating accuracy, timing, readability, and compliance as properties the system actively measures.

Caption Accuracy Starts With the Audio Track
The practical difference between metadata validation and content validation shows up in what each one misses. A traditional QC pass confirms that a caption file is present and well- formed. It does not detect dialogue that was misheard during transcription, lines that were omitted, or text that lags consistently behind speech — all failure modes that reach viewers and, increasingly, regulators.

Content-intelligent captioning systems work directly with audio. Modern automatic speech recognition (ASR) models transcribe spoken dialogue from the audio track, producing a reference against which existing captions can be checked, or generating a new track directly. Current-generation ASR achieves word error rates below 5% on standard broadcast dialogue — comparable to experienced human transcribers, and substantially lower than error rates produced under the time pressure of manual captioning at scale.

Accurate transcription addresses what is said; alignment addresses when it appears. AI alignment engines analyze audio waveforms to synchronize caption timing against actual speech, accounting for pace variation and pausing that fixed-offset methods miss. Captions that drift from dialogue constitute a real accessibility failure, and automated alignment catches those errors systematically across an entire content library. These systems can also surface compliance risk before delivery, flagging assets where timing drift, word error rate, or reading speed exceeds regulatory thresholds.

How Captions Render on Screen
A caption that is correctly transcribed and timed can still be difficult to follow if segmented poorly. Breaking mid-phrase or mid-clause forces viewers to piece together meaning across display windows. This presents a functional problem for all audiences and a more significant one for viewers with hearing impairments who rely on captions as their primary communication channel.

Rather than breaking text at fixed character counts, machine learning models identify natural language boundaries, such as clause endings, breath pauses, and semantic units, then segment accordingly. The result is captions that read more naturally. Emerging standards reflect this: quality evaluation is increasingly extending from file validity to content readability, including reading speed, display duration, and caption segmentation.

A complete evaluation also requires reference to the video frame. Text that covers a speaker's face, obscures on-screen graphics, or overlaps burnt-in text creates problems that fall outside the scope of transcription-level review. Managing visual placement has traditionally required frame-by-frame manual review or post-production adjustment — both slow and unsystematic at the scale modern workflows demand.

Video analysis integrated into current captioning platforms detects faces, on-screen graphics, and critical visual elements, then adjusts caption positioning automatically. These tools can also prevent captions from spanning scene-change boundaries, a source of visual discontinuity invisible to metadata validation. The caption track is evaluated against the full audio-visual context of the content it serves — a quality assurance step that operates where file-level checks end.

From One Validated Track to Many
Once a base caption track has been validated, the same content intelligence can carry through to multilingual delivery. Machine translation pipelines generate multilingual versions from that source track without a proportional increase in localization effort. Additionally, systems incorporating large language models can preserve timing, segmentation logic, and reading-speed compliance across the target language, so translated tracks inherit the quality properties of the source without a separate QC cycle.

Broadcast, OTT, and streaming platforms each impose distinct caption format requirements, and a caption track that passes QC for one delivery destination may fail for another. Generating and validating multiple output formats — SCC, WebVTT, TTML, and others — within the same pipeline means format-specific compliance is confirmed once, upstream, before distribution splits across platforms.

Accuracy That Compounds With Use
One persistent limitation of traditional captioning pipelines is that errors recur without systematic correction. When a captioning process mishandles a recurring term, such as a character name, an athlete, or a brand, that error propagates across multiple assets with no mechanism to resolve it at the source.

Content-intelligent platforms address this through a continuous learning loop. When operators review and correct AI-generated captions, those corrections are captured and used to fine-tune the underlying model. Over successive production cycles, the system becomes progressively more accurate for that organization's specific content mix, speakers, and terminology. This provides a meaningful advantage over static vendor relationships, where the same errors resurface without correction.

Moving Quality Decisions Upstream
These capabilities move captioning from a production checkpoint into a media quality system. Content-intelligent workflows generate structured, validated caption data that feeds directly into MAM systems, localization platforms, and distribution pipelines. The caption track arrives at each stage as a verified asset, ready for use without additional QC. That changes where quality decisions happen. Compliance risk is surfaced before delivery.

Multilingual tracks inherit the quality properties of the source. Format-specific requirements are confirmed once, before distribution splits across platforms. The underlying shift is from discovering caption failures at the point of delivery, where correction is costly and timelines are unforgiving, to catching them at the point of production.

LONDON—Gravity Media, a global provider of production, content, media services and facilities, is powering an innovative reverse remote production setup for ITV’s FIFA Football World Cup coverage, connecting Gravity Media’s London Production Centre with ITV Sport’s live studio operations in New York through a fully integrated workflow.

In this three-hub production model, match feeds are received via the International Broadcast Center in Dallas and transmitted to Gravity Media’s London Production Centre, where production galleries are operated and enhanced with live editorial and presentation content.

Meanwhile, ITV Sport’s presenting team based in New York delivers the live studio segments, creating a seamless workflow across three international locations rather than a traditional single-site production. The result is a highly resilient, flexible production model that brings together transatlantic collaboration and state-of-the-art infrastructure.

The production also incorporates venue injects, with game-side presentation elements seamlessly integrated into Gravity Media’s London galleries, elevating storytelling and live coverage.

This project highlights Gravity Media’s continued investment in advanced remote production technologies and its ability to deliver complex, multi-location workflows at scale for major international sporting events, according to Kate Rendle, Global Sales Director at Gravity Media.

“This is a perfect example of how Gravity Media is redefining what’s possible in remote production. By integrating our London Production Centre with live presentation in New York, we’re able to deliver a seamless, resilient and highly creative workflow for one of the world’s biggest sporting events. Our investment in infrastructure ensures that we can support our clients with true operational flexibility and continuity, no matter what challenges arise. It’s about delivering innovation and reliability at scale, and we’re proud to be doing that for ITV.”

ITVX says it achieved its strongest monthly performance to date in June, crossing the 400 million monthly streams milestone for the first time in its history.

ITV Sport showed seven out of the top ten biggest matches in the group stages, including England's two winning games, with peak audiences of 16.4 million and 13.8 million respectively, as well as the opening match of the tournament, Mexico vs South Africa, Norway vs France, Netherlands vs Japan, Scotland vs Morocco, and Germany vs Cote D’Ivoire.

JERSEY CITY, N.J.—Fox Television Stations, XR (Extreme Reach) and LTN completed a successful four-week live syndication initiative in May for game show “25 Words or Less LIVE,” using IP-based distribution to deliver the program to stations and let viewers play along.

“Live programming creates unique opportunities for stations to engage viewers in real time,” said Stephen Brown, EVP Programming and Development, Fox Television Stations, Fox First Run. “This initiative demonstrated how innovative distribution strategies can support new programming models while maintaining the reliability broadcasters require.”

Produced for Fox First Run and hosted by Meredith Vieira, “25 Words or Less LIVE” aired weekdays from May 4–28, originating from Parlay Studios in Jersey City, N.J. More than 38 live episodes were delivered twice a day to 18 stations, many of which were Fox-owned-and- operated stations in key U.S. markets.

The workflow was powered by Extreme Reach’s syndication services and LTN’s managed IP video transport network.

The milestone project proved the viability of live syndicated television workflows that let broadcasters create more immediate and interactive viewing experiences, the companies said. Live delivery created new opportunities for stations to engage with viewers through social media, local promotions and real-time audience participation, allowing fans to play along with contestants.

XR and LTN delivered a live syndication workflow that allowed Fox to distribute the programming to participating stations nationwide. XR managed the show’s distribution through its syndication platform, while LTN provided fully managed IP transport and master control services connecting Fox’s production facility to local stations.

Together, the companies leveraged XR’s content-delivery expertise and LTN’s proven broadcast infrastructure to bring the excitement of live television to viewers nationwide, allowing fans to watch, interact and play along with the show as it happened.

“Delivering live syndicated programming requires coordination, precision and dependable technology partners,” Matt Pagen, general manager of XR Media, said. “Together with Fox and LTN, we created a workflow that helps broadcasters and syndicators engage audiences in new ways while maximizing their content investments. This combined offering delivered the performance we needed, while providing a more cost-efficient alternative to traditional satellite distribution.”

The initiative received positive feedback from participating stations. It showed how cloud-based and IP-enabled distribution models can support live television workflows that typically depend on legacy infrastructure. It also highlighted the potential for significant cost savings compared to traditional satellite distribution, without sacrificing the reliability, scale or viewer experience required for live television.

“This project represents the kind of innovation content creators and broadcasters are actively exploring as they modernize their distribution strategies,” LTN Senior Vice President of Global Products Rick Young said. “By combining Extreme Reach’s syndication expertise with LTN’s managed IP network and operational services, we enabled a reliable live television experience to stations across the country.”

More information is available on the XR Extreme Reach and LTN websites.

SAN FRANCISCO—LucidLink has expanded its workflow integration with Adobe Frame.io, giving globally distributed production teams unified access to their Frame.io projects and offering support for production media in separate cloud storage environments.

By extending the Frame.io ecosystem, LucidLink said it provides a complete production workflow where editors and producers can access Frame.io assets alongside all supporting production media, including B-roll, audio, graphics and archives—all within a unified LucidLink file space.

Using LucidLink Connect, files stored in such cloud environments as Microsoft SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and Amazon S3 appear instantly for the editor. No data migration, downloads or file duplication is required and existing cloud-storage systems remain unchanged.

This approach extends LucidLink’s file-streaming technology to assets outside Frame.io, bringing local, real-time performance to the rest of the production workflow. Creative teams can collaborate in Frame.io while keeping assets synchronized across the rest of the production toolchain, providing a true camera-to-timeline experience, LucidLink said.

“Creative teams don't work in a single application anymore,” LucidLink CEO Peter Thompson said. “They move across NLEs, MAMs, review and approval tools and VFX platforms. Our integration with Adobe Frame.io means customers can enjoy an exceptional review and collaboration experience, while LucidLink provides the persistent, tool-agnostic storage layer behind it. You get the best of both worlds: a seamless Frame.io workflow and a cloud filespace that serves every other tool in the production.”

As more vendors introduce their own integrated storage options, many media organizations are re-evaluating how to architect their workflows. While application-specific storage can simplify narrow use cases, it often creates silos when content needs to move beyond a single platform.

LucidLink Connect addresses this challenge by acting as an enterprise-grade access layer across the entire production workflow, the company said. Content reviewed and approved in Frame.io can simultaneously be used by other tools, such as NLEs, finishing systems, MAMs or AI services without additional exports, syncs or manual handoffs.

Key benefits of the LucidLink and Adobe Frame.io integration include immediate camera-to-timeline workflows, access to everything in one place, no need to move or duplicate files and enterprise-ready orchestration, the companies said.

“Over the years, Adobe and LucidLink have teamed up to help organizations like Brut, Casual and Minute Media, plus hundreds of other joint customers, do their best work. That success continuously informs our roadmap,” Thompson said. “This integration isn't about choosing one storage option over another. It gives customers the flexibility to design workflows that match the way they actually work. LucidLink Connect provides a neutral, high-performance storage layer that lets Adobe Frame.io shine at what it does best, while ensuring assets are always ready for the next stage in production.”

From high-end episodic and feature projects to live sports and fast-turnaround social content, organizations are increasingly relying on hybrid and fully cloud-based workflows, the company said. The LucidLink and Adobe Frame.io integration is designed for media and entertainment studios, broadcasters, sports and live event producers, agencies, brands, in-house creative teams and enterprise video teams.

More information is available on the LucidLink website.

HACKENSACK, NJ—LAt the 2026 IBC Show, Sept. 11-14, LiveU will showcase what it refers to as its "Q Era," which uses AI-driven connectivity intelligence in a modular, open IP-video EcoSystem to automate live production workflows across news, sports, entertainment and other live events.

Among the highlights at its booth are the LU900Q, LiveU's Intelligent Production Unit, the first unit built natively around LiveU IQ (LIQ). The unit applies AI-driven connectivity intelligence and smart operator selection to optimize performance in real time, helping crews stay reliably connected in challenging conditions, according to the company.

Built for multi-camera workflows, the LU900Q combines native LIQ connectivity, advanced eSIM technology, optimized 5G modems and a MIMO antenna array with support for SDI, HDMI, USB and IP camera input. It delivers HD/4K transmission with 10-bit HDR 4:2:2 encoding, up to 32 audio channels, dual video return, dual intercom with built-in Bluetooth audio and wireless file transfer for faster field-to-production turnaround.

LiveU will also showcase its expanded collaboration with Sony Corporation, first announced at the 2026 NAB Show. On display, and currently available, will be the LiveU TX1—a compact, camera-mounted unit purpose-built for Sony's professional camera range—delivering fast, reliable bonded file transfer directly from the camera. Also demonstrated will be the Sony RXS Connection License, enabling direct file transfer from compatible Sony cameras to the PWA-RXS solution via supported LiveU field units, starting with the compact LU300S.

LiveU has also announced that Cuez has signed up as its latest EcoSystem partner, extending workflow automation into cloud-based newsroom and rundown management.

As a member of the EBU's working group, LiveU is actively involved in advancing the MXL shared-memory architecture – enabling multiple applications to access the same video frame simultaneously, eliminating redundant processing and reducing latency.

Together, these developments reflect the broader LiveU EcoSystem approach, supporting the full arc of live production, across live and file-based workflows.

Also at the LiveU booth is LiveU Nexus, a universal gateway for digital and IP workflows that converts, normalizes, and routes feeds across LRT, SRT, and RTMP, bridging social, online, and remote sources with traditional broadcast operations. As well as offering seamless digital source integration for Zoom, Teams and YouTube, it can be used as a scan converter for any web content, the company said.

LiveU Studio is a cloud-native production service for video switching, audio mixing, graphics, and more. It enables multi-output cloud production, allowing teams to deliver multiple feeds in multiple formats from a single production. Together, Nexus and Studio give newsrooms and digital teams a faster, leaner path from live event to published content—across every platform simultaneously.

Also on tap, LiveU Ingest, which replaces fragmented, manual processes with a single story-centric workflow for live and file based—from planning and scheduling through ingest, and metadata enrichment.

Actus Digital, a LiveU company, will showcase the latest capabilities of Actus X – a modular, browser-based platform that unifies compliance logging, low-latency multiviewing, QA monitoring, clip creation, and AI-powered media intelligence.

LiveU will be in Stand 7.C24 at the RAI Amsterdam.

Over the years we have all gone through numerous video content format introductions with new formats raising the bar as the world moved from black and white to color and then the subsequent format and technology increases in quality—sometimes major and at other times incremental—in resolution, frame rate, color sampling, dynamic range, overall color palette and so forth. Some have been easier than others depending on what is needed at each step in the path from content creation to viewing on the display at the end of the chain.

That said, they all involved a collection of components to hold up the advancement’s three-legged stool. One is the bucket of things needed to create content, including cameras, mixing/processing, post and editing. Another is the devices needed to display the content for audio and video; amps speakers and display screens and projectors.

The third leg is often overlooked, but without it the other two can’t hold things up. After all, even when the content is superbly created and devices are available to show it with pristine clarity, you have to have a means of distribution. Imagine farmers, bakers or ranchers with all the things needed for meals and a restaurant on other end ready to cook, prepare and a table to serve without the trucks and other transportation routes to get everything from one end to the other.

The Missing Link
That brings us to 8K. It’s not new. All the elements of the content side and display sides of the stool are there, but for the consumer market that middle segment has for the most part been missing: the delivery playback means to get the content to its end destination.

Now, that has changed with the introduction of the Kaleidescape Strato K Movie Player, the first consumer storage and playback product that can deliver 8K content as part of an ecosystem that will offer a wide range of content in resolution up to 4320/30p. Equally important, with Kaleidescape’s new 4K Cinematic format, this is the first consumer device capable of playing back content in 4K with full 4:4:4 chroma sampling and up to 2160p/60/12-bit delivery.

Fine, you might say, but you’re reading TV Tech from the perspective of a professional, and likely high-end, content creator, not as a home entertainment purveyor or installer so why should you care about this new device? Let’s go into the details before answering the question and hopefully the answer will reveal itself.

If you are not familiar with Kaleidescape they are a 25-year-old company that offers high-end content playback devices that deliver reference quality video and lossless audio with a huge library that includes movies, concerts, TV series and more that are downloaded to the device rather than played from an optical disc or streamed.

Using a “rental or purchase” model, once downloaded, the content is stored locally so there are no compression artifacts, no buffering, and course, no ads. Combined with a masterfully simple user interface, Kaleidescape products have become the de facto standard for content playback in high end home theaters.

The product in question is the new Strato K Movie Player from Kaleidescape.

The Strato K Movie Player’s ability to deliver two media playback formats to consumers that have not previously been available outside of your control and mastering suites is important as it helps justify the complaints about the added file size requirements for 8K and 4:4:4 versions of the content you are involved. It enables the Premium Large Format experience beyond specialized theatrical exhibition that we see with the likes of Dolby Cinema, PRIME and XL at AMC venues and PRX and PLF at Regal Cinemas. What is in large part is now driving the theatrical side of the distribution market is now available in the home.

The Details
As you will see going forward in my new “From The Other Side” articles in TV Tech starting next month, there is another important reason to bring this to your attention. As a content business professional you are someone that friends, relatives, co-workers and those C-Suite executives that depend on you will look at for expert knowledge on how they can get the best images and sound not only in the office and facilities you work in, but also in their homes. For that reason, some additional details on this breakthrough product are in order.

The Strato K is available now and 8K content will soon be available in SDR and HDR10. For the 4K Cinematic format there are already well over 150 movies already available, and it is worth noting that the 4:4:4 material is newly rendered out to 4:4:4 and is NOT interpolated.

The Player itself, can play out immersive audio formats as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X along with other lossless audio such as Dolby TrueHD and Dolby MAT, DTS-HD High Resolution and linear PCM at 96kHz/24 bit. On the video side there is HDR10 up to 8K (SMPTE ST 2084 and ST 2086) and Dolby Vision up to 4K (of course, all formats are dependent on the specific content). Color spaces up to BT.2020 are supported as are a variety of aspect ratios including 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 with automatic or user interface selectability.

For those already familiar with Kaleidescape, while the 4K Cinematic 4:4:4 titles will obviously have a larger file size, the rental or purchase price is the same as the standard 4:2:0 versions. Even better, if a current Kaleidescape owner upgrades to a Strato 4K there is no extra charge to download the newer version. 8K titles will, however, require a new download at a higher price.

On the storage side, the Strato K has enough onboard storage to hold seven 4K Cinematic files or 10 standard 4K files on its internal drive. Additional storage may be added via the Terra or Terra Prime servers or previously downloaded movies that were purchased, rather than rented, from Kaleidescape may be downloaded again.

There is no front panel display as most installations will use Kaleidescape’s own control system over ethernet through the likes of Crestron, Control4 or other systems or with a smartphone app or an optional remote. From an installation standpoint note that the Strato K requires a wired Gigabit network connection drop for the main unit and any additional Strato K or other Kaleidescape players in a multi-zone system.

By providing the needed third leg of the 8K ecosystem stool as well as giving home viewers higher quality image reproduction thanks to the 4K Cinematic mode, professionals may now have yet another rationale for 8K or high-color sampling content creation as a means of playing it back in the home—or in your viewing rooms—is now available.

The price? At $5,000 US, with availability in Canada at $CN7,05, the UK at £4500 GBP or in Australia at $AUS $7,999. For applications that don’t require 8K or 4:4:4 content delivery/display, the price of the existing Strato V has been reduced to $3,995.

Since its introduction, 8K has been derided by some as having great pictures that can be displayed on large projectors, dvLED walls or the growing segment of 88-to over 100-inch flat panel displays but no way to get native or new 8K scanned transfers, not upscaled, content.

The arrival of the Kaleidescape Strato K puts that objection to rest once and for all as those displays now have viable, certified, way to have a library of that long sought after 8K content delivered. For you, as a TV professional, the excuse no longer holds water. 8K as an end-to-end ecosystem is truly complete and those beautiful displays and projectors will no longer be starved for feature content.

MONTREAL—Grass Valley is launching AMPP Edge Live, a purpose-built production system designed to bring professional production capabilities to enterprise teams. The company will unveil AMPP Edge Live at InfoComm 2026 in Las Vegas, June 17 to 19 (North Hall: N7369-MR).

Media production teams within enterprise organizations such as education, government, corporate communications, houses of worship and live events are often asked to do more with limited resources, yet existing production systems often lack the flexibility to support new workflows without significant additional investment, Grass Valley said.

AMPP Edge Live addresses this challenge by providing a flexible production foundation that grows with organizational needs, by combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration and AMPP OS in a single solution, according to the company.

“Production requirements are constantly evolving as audience expectations shift, creating challenges for enterprise organizations whose production infrastructures were not designed for today’s demands,” said Jonathan Lyth, Product Director for Enterprise Media, Grass Valley. “Businesses need production platforms that combine operational agility with the confidence of reliable performance. AMPP Edge Live delivers both, enabling organizations to adapt and scale production capabilities without adding operational complexity.”

The solution is available in two models that serve different production demands:

AMPP Edge Live 4000 is ideal for live event production and provides the performance to run solutions such as Event Producer X, which brings production switching, graphics, audio mixing, recording, streaming, monitoring and production control into a single browser-based interface.

AMPP Edge Live 6000 adds processing performance for more demanding production requirements and supports Sport Producer X, which combines switching, graphics, scoring, timing, data integration and instant replay for sports production.

Across both models, operators can manage workflows that previously required multiple specialist systems and dedicated personnel, all through one production environment, Grass Valley said.

AMPP Edge Live also simplifies lifecycle management through a unified ownership model. Grass Valley designs, validates and supports AMPP Edge Live as a complete solution, managing hardware validation, software compatibility, updates and support through a single point of accountability. This removes much of the integration burden associated with multi-vendor environments while helping ensure organizations remain ready for future production requirements.

AMPP Edge Live is built on a short-depth 4 RU chassis with redundant power and modular AMPP I/O cards, so connectivity can be tailored to each workflow. It includes enterprise-grade security, centralized management and role-based access controls, and forms part of the Grass Valley Media Universe, supporting on-premise, hybrid and cloud-connected workflows.

AMPP Edge Live is available now in the L4000 and L6000 appliance models, with SDI 8 and SDI 12 AMPP I/O card options and media storage choices of 2 TB or 4 TB.

VIENNA—Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, is collaborating with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to extend playback to TiVo OS smart TVs and devices.

Under the new partnership, Bitmovin and Simplestream have created a fully integrated streaming platform combining Simplestream’s content management and application framework with Bitmovin’s advanced playback technology.

The consolidated platform enables video providers to deliver a consistent, high-quality user experience to viewers with TiVo OS devices, the companies said. Bitmovin’s automated testing system uses AI analysis to process and analyze over a million tests each week to pinpoint root causes of playback issues faster and with greater accuracy to ensure the highest quality viewing experiences. Bitmovin first extended support to include TiVo OS in October 2025.

The companies claimed that the joint solution will help media companies and operators simplify their technology stack to reduce operational complexity and integration risk, while ensuring consistent and reliable playback across devices. It also enables flexible monetization capabilities including support for a range of ad formats such as pre-roll ads and pause ads, as well as standardized accessibility features that support inclusive viewing experiences.

“This collaboration represents an important step forward in simplifying and modernizing OTT delivery for our customers,” said Ashley Reynolds-Horne, Technical Director for Simplestream. “By combining Simplestream’s end-to-end platform capabilities with Bitmovin’s proven playback technology, we’re enabling media companies and operators to deliver reliable, scalable streaming experiences while unlocking new opportunities for monetization and service growth.”

James Varndell, Senior Director of Product Management, Bitmovin, commented: “Video providers want their service to be accessible by as many viewers as possible including those running TiVo OS, which is rapidly gaining traction. By extending support to include TiVo OS and collaborating with Simplestream to simplify launching on TiVo OS, we’re supporting customers to reach more viewers across a wider range of devices.”

Stephane David, Senior Director, Content Partnerships and Business Development EMEA, Xperi, added: “TiVo OS is designed to put great content front and centre. Collaborating with Bitmovin and Simplestream will help more streaming services to launch on TiVo OS with a high‑quality, consistent playback experience, so audiences can find, watch and enjoy more of what they love.”

Developed by Xperi and launched in 2022, TiVo OS is a content‑first operating system designed to make it easier for viewers to find, watch and enjoy great television. The platform powers smart TVs from leading brands, as well as a range of smart TV devices including set‑top boxes.

READING, Pa. and CHESTERTON, In—Miri Technologies has just signed a new distribution partnership with Midwich, a distributor of audio-visual and unified communications solutions for the United States and Canada. The agreement reinforces Miri's channel partnership strategy for meeting the rapidly growing demand for the X510 dual-cellular bonding router and the new V410 4K live encoder/decoder in the world’s largest commercial market.

The Miri X510 router enables resilient internet connectivity anywhere by forging multiple wired and wireless links—including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 4G, 5G and satellite—together to overcome speed limitations and withstand network disruptions even in challenging environments, according to the company. Powered by Speedify channel bonding technology from Connectify, the X510 bolsters internet connectivity for any type of data and supports use cases ranging from live streaming and remote broadcast contribution to trade shows and disaster response.

The Miri V410 live 4K encoder/decoder combines intuitive interfaces with rich functionality, robust connectivity and flexible format support for live streaming, IP-based production and AV-over-IP distribution. It can encode one 4K Ultra HD output at 60FPS or two simultaneous QHD (2560x1440) channels, and can also transcode from NDI® sources to streaming formats. As a decoder, the device can decode two 4K Ultra HD streams concurrently from most supported source formats.

Midwich sees Miri as a great addition to its offering in the Broadcast & Media/Entertainment sector.

“The channel partners we service are constantly looking to create the most complete solutions that solve problems, simplify workflows and open the door to new revenue streams,” said Rich D’Angelo, Midwich executive director of business management for Media & Entertainment. “Miri solutions will complement our existing brands in helping our resellers and integrators achieve these goals. Miri's approach to resilient connectivity and the powerful yet simple interfaces in their products combine with class-leading levels of flexibility and insight that truly set them apart.”

“We’re excited to expand the availability of our solutions by partnering with Midwich,” said David Cohen, vice president of sales and business development at Miri Technologies. “We see tremendous opportunities for synergy between Miri and the many brands that Midwich represents and we're looking forward to growing our footprint across the continent with their support.”

As new advances in efficiency and vendor interoperability fuel momentum behind broadcasters’ reliance on production in the hybrid private/public cloud domain, cost challenges posed by AI resource scarcities are moving to the top of industry suppliers’ to-do lists.

The latest, frequently AI-enhanced solutions that came to light at April’s NAB Show have made the hybrid cloud model more attractive than ever amid waning enthusiasm for exclusive reliance on either public cloud or proprietary hardware resources.

In the case of Grass Valley’s customers, for example, “whether broadcasters choose to host aspects to their production workflows on premises or in the cloud can be decided on the basis of architectural complexity and what makes sense for the tasks at hand,” Chief Product Officer Adam Marshall said. “That’s what they’re looking for.”

Like just about everywhere else, AI is playing an ever-greater role at Grass Valley. Marshall said the company uses AI “to accelerate our ability to deliver what our clients need” and to provide a “third-party front door” that allows customers to add their own AI application layers.

The need to secure cloud operations, including vulnerability analysis of the type delivered by Anthropic’s new Mythos AI model, has added to AI processing requirements. Grass Valley will make the technology available if and when Anthropic lifts current restrictions on its release, Marshall said.

Inference Costs
A late 2025 report from Deloitte Insights underscored the immensity of the AI usage challenges facing all industries. That report found enterprises everywhere “are discovering their existing infrastructure strategies aren’t designed for AI’s demands,” Deloitte said.

The mismatch results from “inference,” or the incessant processing required as AI models generate new information based on changing conditions. “While inference costs have plummeted, dropping 280-fold over the last two years, explosive growth in overall AI spending… has dramatically outpaced cost reduction,” Deloitte said.

“Dependence on high-performance compute in the public cloud can get expensive,” Jonathan Gryckiewicz, business development director for cloud solutions at Ross Video, said.

Businesses are adjusting to the new realities “incredibly fast,” he said, but for now, “it seems largely the case that to get benefits from AI, we need to connect the media environment to the [public] cloud” where processing is “gobbling up GPU capacity and prices are getting higher and higher.”

Ross Video’s latest cloud- and AI-related contributions include support for its XPression real-time browser-based graphics creation and monitoring tools via a scalable on-demand service called XPression.cloud, which can be used instead of local XPression hardware. XPression.cloud uses AI to identify appropriate XPression templates and expedite graphics-related asset retrieval, creativity and generation.

XPression.cloud offers customers “a more sophisticated way to manage graphics on their own” without “shipping boxes around,” Gryckiewicz said.

Matrox Video is also riding the market surge toward hybrid cloud-optimized converged production solutions. For the past two years, Matrox has promoted its ORIGIN media-aware content transfer fabric as a way to control high-performance multiprotocol transport and scalability without dedicated hardware. ORIGIN was again a big focus for Matrox at this year’s NAB Show, but with a different emphasis this time, Product Manager Daniel Robinson said.

“We hadn’t seen very many use cases emerging until now,” Robinson said, noting uptake this year involves the likes of industry suppliers Amagi, EVS and TSL, as well as the Canadian multiservice giant Rogers Communications. The difference lies with Matrox’s success in using AI to make it easier for customers to put ORIGIN to work in their products and services, Robinson said.

“We’re not running AI on the software but using AI tools to build things quickly,” he explained, which means executing on projects that might have taken days or longer in a matter of hours. “It’s about shortcutting discovery of information. If you didn’t do that, you’d have AI searching through thousands and thousands of lines of documentation with outcomes that may or may not be the right ones.”

AI Supply Chain
Such uses of AI on the build side of supplier innovation are fueling acceleration in product development for cloud- and hardware-based solutions alike. While these applications don’t incur the ongoing inference processing costs associated with AI applications used in live production workflows, they are vulnerable to hardware capacity and cost trends, noted Stephan Stadler, chief product officer at Appear.

“Being a hardware manufacturer, the AI supply chain is top of mind,” Stadler said, citing Appear’s use of AI not only in “how we plan and build things” but in discovering new opportunities and creating sales messaging. “The big challenge is memory chips for everyone who builds hardware products in this industry,” he added.

Appear has moved into the hybrid cloud production space with the recent introduction of the VX Media (VXM) Gateway, which uses open-source interfaces to enable interoperability with other vendor solutions in commodity cloud support for the dispersed REMI production versatility enabled by its hardware-based X Production portfolio.

“VXM doesn’t replace XP,” Stadler noted. “It’s just an extension of that.”

The company’s release of VXM—even as it registered another big hardware win, with Fox Sports using its X platform to deploy its REMI production workflow for the 2026 FIFA World Cup—reflects the growing pull of the virtualized hybrid cloud opportunity across the traditional broadcast-production hardware supply chain.

Another case in point is the expanded support for cloud production introduced by Sony Electronics’ Nevion unit. Nevion has integrated MOXELA, a new cloud-native software platform, with its cloud-based VideoIPath media orchestration layer to transport, process and monitor production workflows encompassing output from cameras and other equipment supplied by Sony and by other vendors.

“The big problem we’re solving with MOXELA is producers’ need for flexibility to adapt to different workflows by running various processing functions for different streams in parallel across on-prem and public cloud clusters,” Nevion Head of Product and Solutions Jan Helgesen said.

The Impact of MXL
MOXELA aligns with common frameworks like SMPTE ST 2110 and NDI, as well as the emerging industry guidelines shaped by the European Broadcast Union’s open-source Digital Media Facility (DMF) initiative, including the Media eXchange Layer (MXL) specifying containerized microservice support for real-time, in-memory exchanges of uncompressed audio, video and metadata across multiple vendor software applications. This is a big step toward enabling cloud-based live sports and other productions, but there’s much more to come, Helgesen said.

“We’re currently on a cloud production journey from Tiers 3 and 2 to Tier 1,” he explained, noting that getting to Tier 1 still “requires some technical development that’s not completely there yet.” It’s a staged road map that will also bring AI into play to automate the complex troubleshooting, planning and setups that big cloud productions will require, he added.

Implementations of MXL in vendor product lines—facilitated by the Linux Foundation’s release of the first MXL Software Development Kit (SDK)—are fast becoming the norm. This is because the shift toward hybrid cloud production has made just-in-time activations of COTS resources with cross-vendor interoperability essential to cost containment.

Sony, along with a new commitment to the protocol by Ross Video, adds to a list of MLX supporters that includes Appear, AWS, Grass Valley, Imagine Communications, Intel, Lawo, Matrox, NVIDIA, Riedel Communications and Telos Alliance.

Pay As You Go
For Lawo, the growing consensus around the hybrid cloud approach to broadcast production is right in stride with its longstanding promotion of the Lawo HOME management and orchestration platform. HOME runs on commodity servers in private or public clouds to enable discovery, authentication, security management and monitoring of all production-connected devices from a single user interface.

To address cost uncertainties as the hybrid cloud production model takes hold, Lawo has introduced Flex, a payment system built on credits that makes it easier for customers to adjust to changing dynamics in private vs. public cloud resource usage.

“You can buy and use Flex credits like chips in a casino to spend on any HOME app,” Chris Scheck, head of marketing content for Lawo, said. The hybrid cloud model “is where we’re heading,” he added, but uncertainties mandate offering customers as much flexibility as possible in choosing how to spend on cloud resources.

For example, while customers would rather maximize use of private resources, “right now, servers have almost tripled in price because of chip shortages, and it can take six months to get them,” Scheck said. At the same time, as Grass Valley’s Marshall observed, in the public cloud space “we’ve seen processing costs rising at record rates, up 40% during the first part of the year and now up 80%.”

Factor in the complications added by the AI squeeze and it’s clear the hybrid cloud model might not be the cost-saving slam dunk it once appeared to be. But in a live-production environment that needs to accommodate fragmented workflows delivered through ST 2100, NDI, SDI and other pipelines while enabling browser support for executing editing tasks across dispersed locations, the advantages of cloud-based accessibility, agility and efficiency are too compelling to be ignored.

This puts a premium on cloud cost-containment know-how. As Marshall noted, at a moment of growing confusion among producers, figuring out what will work for each customer has much to do with knowing which questions to ask.

Let’s review some of the important feature sets typically found in a cloud solutions provider.

First, the cloud provider should almost always store or process your data in multiple locations, aka data centers. These data centers provide the physical elements for connecting all of your data, anywhere. Data access will generally include cloud apps, databases and hundreds to thousands of both on-prem and off-prem systems, using “prebuilt” connectors that integrate the solutions handling your data and allow it to be processed through established services.

A cloud provider should be able to effectively leverage your existing infrastructure with an ability to query or analyze your data with features including replication, movement/migration and “rework.”

‘AI-Ready’ Data
Given the global emphasis on artificial intelligence, one would almost expect this service-level statement—“all our data is AI-ready”—given the levels of artificial intelligence that the marketplace continually promotes, irrespective of the reference or workplace. Fig. 1 depicts a workflow inside a cloud that could aid in preparing data for AI-ready states or actions—ideas shown in Fig. 2 generally feed back into systems, as shown in Fig. 1.

AI-ready data means that your information has been systematically prepared, evaluated, managed and governed to meet the needs of AI projects. With financial-related data, expectations are that transaction records are properly prepared before that data is fed into an AI model.

Assume certain checks that your (cloud) services provider can include or package can identify patterns (or repetitive series of characters that could flag harmful routines that might represent fraudulent transactions, loops or means to generate a code sequence that would alter, falsify or get a back door to an unwanted action).

In retail applications, your cloud provider might offer “AI prep” capabilities and readiness for applications such as “demand forecasting,” which uses historical data on sales volumes and costs, as well as comparative product details that can be shared across hybrid and multiple cloud providers located regionally, globally or both.

For organizations (like original equipment manufacturers) storing preventative or predictive maintenance for industrial purposes such as aircraft maintenance, the cloud services provider should be capable of tracking and cataloging short-term and long-term historical data, plus real-time data derived from sensors and performance variables. Applications for the cloud-storage systems would leverage and train AI models to accurately predict equipment repair times, schedules and relative downtime.

Sometimes referred to as a “digital vault,” immutable storage is a paradigm where information, once written, cannot be modified, overwritten or deleted for a specified retention period. It is also referred to as WORM (write-once, read-many) storage or object-locked storage. The opposite term is “mutable storage,” which can be edited, replaced, modified or destroyed at any time.

Unlike mutable values, an immutable value or content cannot be changed without creating an entirely new value. For example, in JavaScript, primitive values are immutable—once a primitive value is created, it cannot be changed, although the variable it holds may be reassigned to another value.

Supply-Chain Security
In an “open source” age, malicious activities are common and almost expected in nearly every software and data system—and especially in cloud services. In e-commerce services (such as eBay or Etsy), users place assurance expectations on their vendor’s services, who in turn rely on the respective e-commerce company to “pre-protect” the data and services of their customers and clients, using industry best practices and some of the services listed in the following:

• For an in-depth understanding of how certain software is protected, Software Composition Analysis (SCA) emphasizes control over inventory, dependency mapping via Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) and license tracking, as well as enforcement policies in pull requests (PR) and continuous integration (CI) before release.

Note that SCA also stands for Strong Customer Authentication, a regulatory requirement under the European Union’s Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), designed to reduce fraud in online payments. Strong Customer Authentication requires at least two of three elements—knowledge (password), possession (phone) or inherence (fingerprint)—for payment validation.

• CVE is a standardized, international dictionary of publicly known cybersecurity vulnerabilities in software and hardware. Managed by the MITRE Corp. with U.S. government support, it provides a unique ID (e.g., CVE-2024-1234) for tracking flaws. It facilitates fast, secure communication about threats and feeds the National Vulnerability Database. There are currently over 330,000 CVE Records accessible via download or keyword search.

Securing Against Ransomware
A “zero-trust” architecture does not implicitly mean “don’t trust anything,” but it does signify an architecture that is harder to breach and is an upgrade to your access control and much more. Zero-trust often demands multifactor authentication at all access points and insists that all connected devices are regularly updated and well-maintained.

Hybrid Cloud Vulnerability
In today’s hybrid cloud world, enterprises struggle to keep track of the slew of certificates managed by different siloed teams and tools. The lack of a centralized view of health increases the risk of application disruptions due to expired certificates. In the AI and open-source era, vulnerabilities in open-source dependencies expose applications leading to unwanted attacks.

Ignoring production usage of open-source packages can lead to breaches and disruptions. Malicious bad guys often weaponize disclosed vulnerabilities quickly, shrinking your remediation window at each cloud source transition (e.g., in hybrid or multi­cloud). You’ll need regular, thorough monitoring to be sure your access control is tight. And you must improve management by limiting access to individual components in the network.

A Flexible and Forward-Thinking Approach
There’s segmentation, and then there’s ZTS (“Zero Trust Segmentation”). You can be certain of some things—the big ones include:

• Cyberattacks are unavoidable: Statistics show this to be true, yet for many organizations there’s a surprising lack of preparedness.
• Cybersecurity mindsets are often outdated: Even with continued investment in perimeter controls, organizations still get breached. When you recognize and accept that breaches are inevitable and start to assume breach, you can focus on isolating them and stopping their spread. ZTS is by far the fastest and easiest way to do that.

ZTS is a flexible and forward-thinking approach that is “AE strengthened” by default. “AE strengthened” refers to key applications, including structural health monitoring using Acoustic Emission (AE) monitoring or, contextually, the bolstering of organizational or technical capabilities (e.g., AE engineer, Advanced Energy—refer to Fig. 2 for example details).

Who’s Responsible?
Essentially, it is the duty of the cloud service provider and end user management to ensure appropriate safety factors are in place and routinely updated before opening the door to widespread public use of cloud-service capabilities. In a future discussion, we’ll look at cloud egress fees and egress payments, an area that’s becoming a bigger part of modern cloud operations.

HEBDEN BRIDGE, England—Calrec Audio has updated its ImPulseV Virtualised Audio Mixing Engine to expand the market for virtualized audio workflows.

The ImPulseV portfolio now includes two new, smaller DSP package options—96- and 140-path configurations—alongside the existing 256-processing path option. Tailored for smaller systems that still demand uncompromising, broadcast-grade audio performance, all three packages share the same comprehensive feature set, including full processing on every path and support for 5.1 and immersive audio formats up to 7.1.4. DSP resources can also be dynamically allocated across channel and bus paths in real time, ensuring maximum efficiency for any production setup.

Calrec has also introduced shorter, more flexible licensing terms—one year, 12 weeks and four weeks—lowering the barrier to entry and allowing broadcasters to scale their production capabilities with no need for long-term commitments or high upfront costs, according to the company. This makes ImPulseV “an ideal solution for boosting resources for temporary, variable, or one-off productions,” Calrec said.

“Traditional broadcasters are reinventing their operations so that they can produce more content for less, faster and across more diverse platforms,” said Henry Goodman, director of product management at Calrec. “Remote and distributed production, combined with virtualization, reflect the broader trajectory of live production: away from fixed infrastructure and towards flexible, hybrid workflows that blend on-premise, cloud and distributed resources.

“This transition is enabling broadcasters to increase agility and cost efficiency through new business models," Goodman added. “Hybrid workflows that incorporate a blend of existing and new infrastructure allow broadcasters to build resource efficiency into every production—and that is quite an attractive proposition.”

Chyron is introducing PRIME Scorebug, a purpose-built scorebug solution suitable for any sport. Built on the company's PRIME Platform, PRIME Scorebug offers Chyron broadcast-grade graphics along with ease-of-use,, flexibility and unparalleled data integration. Additionally, Chyron LIVE now offers a SaaS scorebug with purpose-built scorebugs and specialized controls as part of its all-in-one workflow.

“In working closely with our sports customers across all tiers, it is clear that the scorebug is the most important graphic element of any live sports production. Scorebugs are not ‘just another graphic.’ They have to be highly dynamic and accurate, and enhance the viewer experience,” said Steve Papadakis, senior vice president of sales, Americas, at Chyron. “Our product offerings are always evolving, and are always based on our customers’ priorities, regardless of whether in the cloud, on-prem, SaaS, subscription or perpetual licensing.”

Key features of PRIME Scorebug include intuitive operator control orchestration, complete API-based data integration, and client-specific choreography.

Since PRIME Scorebug is built on the PRIME Platform, creative teams can easily apply the same assets to scorebugs that they use for all their live graphics overlays, ensuring efficiency and brand consistency, Chyron said. PRIME Scorebug and PRIME CG offers the additional advantage of redundancy, since a single system could be configured to run both the scorebug and CG graphics. Alternatively, organizations may elect to lower costs by investing in a single system to run both PRIME Scorebug and PRIME CG with a single operator.

“Prior to today’s official release, several key customers have successfully put PRIME Scorebug through its paces in real-world sports events and now use it on a regular basis,” states Mark Friedman, vice president of sports sales, North America. “From my career in graphics and design for professional sports broadcast, to the commercial conversations I have now with broadcasters and regional sports networks, I know this is an unbeatable solution for scorebugs. We take the simplicity of specialty scorebug products and blend that with the power of PRIME graphics to offer an ideal solution.”

Scorebugs have also been added to Chyron LIVE, which typically serves lower-cost broadcast needs by offering SaaS all-in-one camera switching, graphics and replay. A primary segment for Chyron LIVE is mid- and lower-tier collegiate sports, one-off events, and large organizations or events that may need to occasionally scale up from their existing control-oom capacity. Recognizing that scorebugs play an important part in the visual storytelling and data display for these audiences, Chyron LIVE now includes purpose-built scorebug graphics, data integration services and dedicated scorebug controls, according to the company.

“Sports audiences across all tiers are more sophisticated and demanding than ever before,” says Friedman. “At Chyron, we ensure that broadcasters of any size can exceed viewer expectations, attract sponsors and advertisers and keep costs low with efficient workflows.”

For more information, visit chyron.com.

SINGAPORE—Globecast has completed a major renovation of its facility here transforming broadcast operations into a state-of-the-art, IP-enabled hub that puts its customers across the Asia-Pacific region at the forefront of technological innovation.

The upgrade follows the recent opening of Globecast’s Westlake Village facility in California, further strengthening the company’s global strategy to modernize its infrastructure. This initiative ensures Globecast’s operations are aligned with the growing demand for hybrid, software-defined media workflows, enabling its customers to leverage flexible, resilient and future-ready solutions worldwide.

Established more than a decade ago with a focus on traditional linear broadcast operations, the Singapore facility has been completely re-imagined to meet today’s cloud-centric landscape. The transformation includes a significant reduction and optimization of physical space, complemented by a strategic shift towards integrated cloud, IP and OTT workflows. These advancements minimize dependency on legacy hardware while enhancing operational agility and flexibility.

At the core of the upgrade is a comprehensive reconfiguration of essential technical areas, including the technical operations center, master control room, and playout control room, which now are optimized to integrate cloud-based processing, IP connectivity and centralized monitoring and control systems, resulting in more efficient, flexible and scalable operations.

In addition to improving operational efficiency and scalability, the upgraded facility offers a more modern working environment for staff. It is also designed to accommodate future developments, such as increased network capacity and strengthened cybersecurity capabilities.

As a fully hybrid environment, the facility can seamlessly support both traditional broadcast services and next-generation IP and cloud workflows. It remains a key point of presence in Singapore, providing connectivity, teleport services, playout and media management for hundreds of channels and services across the region.

“This project went beyond simply upgrading infrastructure,” said Chris Pulis, chief technology officer of Globecast. “It was a complete redefinition of a modern broadcast facility. By integrating cloud, IP and advanced monitoring capabilities into a unified environment, we have an operations base in Asia that is more efficient, adaptable and prepared to support the next generation of media services across the region. It also represents a significant step forward with our broader strategic plan of transforming our operations worldwide.”

The project was largely executed through Globecast’s in-house integration expertise. Its engineering teams oversaw the design, migration and implementation processes.

A central focus throughout the nine-month transformation was ensuring uninterrupted service delivery. Globecast successfully completed the upgrade while maintaining full operational continuity, providing seamless support for customers without any service disruption.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Mounting demand for a next-generation video streaming solution that surpasses the latency and unidirectional limitations imposed by the currently dominant streaming architecture is generating strong support for a new standard known simply as "MOQ" (Media over QUIC).

While by all accounts, it will take at least a few more months before the Internet Engineering Task Force finalizes the MOQ specifications, there are now multiple projects underway allowing producers to try out this new multidirectional, multi-latency approach to streaming.

“There’s a buzz and excitement in the air about MOQ we’ve never seen before,” says Will Law, chief architect for the cloud technology group at Akamai and a leader in the IETF MOQ initiative.

HEIGHTENED INTEREST AT NAB
This was evident at the recent NAB Show where MOQ demos abounded on the exhibit floor and an overflow crowd filled the large meeting room devoted to the NAB’s first-ever session on the standard. Entities announcing infrastructure support for MOQ included public CDN operators Broadpeak, CacheFly, Cloudflare, and CDN77 as well as cloud compute platform providers Akamai, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

Streaming software system suppliers demonstrating delivery of payloads and advanced features over MOQ-enabled facilities included Ateme, Bitmovin, EZDRM, Nomad Media, Norsk Media, Oracle Media, Synamedia, Red5 and Wowza,.

While proprietary real-time streaming systems supporting video conferencing and a host of other applications have been around for several years, MOQ is meant to satisfy the need for a standardized, ubiquitously available two-way superhighway over which video flows in any direction at any scale with latencies attuned to specific use-case requirements. That’s why Red5, a successful provider of a highly scalable WebRTC-based streaming platform, is throwing its weight behind MOQ, says Red5 CEO and co-founder Chris Allen.

“WebRTC was designed as a peer-to-peer protocol, which means there’s no standard for scaling the way we do by building out clustered cloud resources,” Allen says. “MOQ was designed from the get-go as a scalable broadcast technology for the internet, which we believe will accelerate adoption of next-generation streaming.”

The foundational set of MOQ specifications, known as MOQ Transport (MOQT), marks an incompatible break with conventional streaming modes like HLS and MPEG DASH that are based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). As a so-called connectionless platform, MOQT employs a simple publish/subscribe approach to streaming by signaling the start and end points of a session while avoiding the thousands of request/response exchanges that transpire between clients and servers in HTTP streaming.

QUIC is a modern transport protocol built on UDP that is designed to make web connections faster, more secure, and more resilient. It was originally developed by Google and later standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force as RFC 9000

Moreover, the new standard provides a way to automatically tune end-to-end latencies to whatever levels meet user requirements, including real-time 200-400ms latencies that are imperceptible to humans as well as what Law calls “interactive live” at 2 seconds for use in sports betting, online casino gambling, banking and similar applications and “conservative live” supporting ironclad HD, 4K, and, eventually, 8K quality persistency at 5 seconds.

ALL YOU NEED IS CACHE
With decoding and other device rendering processes managed through leading browsers, MOQ in most instances doesn’t require client plug-in software. And depending on how MOQ-ready CDNs are designed, MOQ can also support recording live content for short-term replay and catchup and long-term storage for VOD archives and cloud DVR applications. “VOD just means my cache is big enough to hold stuff that was live a while ago,” Law says.

Paralleling MOQT development, there are other initiatives within IETF and through the closely affiliated ad hoc organization known as the OpenMOQ Software Consortium that are aimed at creating a practical operating environment for the transport protocol. They include media layer streaming formats emerging from IETF, a new client player template developed by Red5 and endorsed by the consortium, and several ready-to-deploy players, , including a MOQ-based plug-in for Bitmovin’s new multi-purpose Player Web X platform.

“We have an array of features we enable, and each is treated as an individual plug-in,” says Bitmovin product manager Jacob Arends, who describes Player X as the latest, completely rebuilt version of its popular Web X player. “From a player [configuration] perspective there’s not much more to it than that,” but with MOQ playback departing from the HTTP norms, “it takes a lot of heavy lifting on the cloud side.”

While much of the focus on MOQ has to do with overcoming the limitations of conventional B2C streaming, the protocol also needs to be accommodated in post-production playouts to producers’ broadcast and OTT affiliates, notes Gwendal Simon, senior director for video network technology at Synamedia. “We’re bringing MOQ into our Quortex PowerVu multitrack contribution management system,” Simon says.

NEW YORK— Media technology company Amagi has unveiled a major improvements to its CLOUDPORT platform.

“Over the past year, Amagi has prioritized a fundamental shift in how broadcast infrastructure is designed—moving beyond simple cloud migration to re-engineering the core of playout operations,” said Srinivasan KA, co-founder and president—global business at Amagi. “The latest set of upgrades directly impacts uptime, control and scalability for broadcasters operating in high-pressure, always-on environments.”

With more than 250 features shipped in fiscal year 2025-26, the platform now supports over 100 concurrent feeds with 200-player multi-AZ redundancy in a single tenant, enabling large-scale, distributed deployments with consistent performance and built-in resilience.

The latest upgrade introduces Amagi Monitoring, a proactive monitoring platform purpose-built for CLOUDPORT deployments that is designed to anticipate and mitigate operational risks before they impact on-air output.

The tool surfaces missing assets, schedule gaps, ingest failures, audio misconfigurations and delivery anomalies, while delivering customer-level analytics on playout duration and asset processing. Since late 2025, Amagi Monitoring has helped avert over 80% of potential disruption scenarios, the company said.

Security remains foundational to CLOUDPORT, reinforced through continuous platform-wide modernization. The platform has achieved SOC 2 Type II certification for the second consecutive year, ensuring robust controls across infrastructure, access and data protection.

CLOUDPORT is designed for 99.999% availability, with resiliency embedded across network, infrastructure and operational layers.

At the network level, support for SMPTE ST 2022-7 enables hitless protection switching for RTP-based workflows, ensuring uninterrupted playout even in the presence of network failures.

At the infrastructure level, Active-Active multi-region redundancy and multi-availability-zone deployments, supported by flexible deployment models, eliminate single points of failure while allowing broadcasters to align resiliency with operational priorities. The on-premises Disaster Recovery Box ensures localized continuity in the event of extended cloud or network outages, with support for up to 72 hours of survivability.

CLOUDPORT shifts the broadcast paradigm from static control to adaptive, operator-centric workflows, headlined by about 70% faster playlist publishing via new show-level playlist editing and publishing. The platform introduces a horizontal timeline view for proactive conflict management and consolidates multi-channel operations through a unified interface capable of 16-channel synchronized playout. By offering configurable widgets and streamlined control, CLOUDPORT reduces manual intervention and cognitive load, allowing broadcasters to scale regional and variant feeds with greater agility.

CLOUDPORT advances the standards of modern broadcasting by integrating ultra-low-latency JPEG-XS workflows that reduce transmission lag by up to 1.3 seconds, a critical leap for live sports and interactive viewing. The platform further elevates the viewer experience with support for 4K HDR 10-bit video and Dolby Atmos audio, ensuring premium, cinematic fidelity across HDR10 and HLG formats. To meet global accessibility needs, CLOUDPORT now features Google Speech-to-Text V2 for real-time AI captioning and translation, alongside enhanced HTML-triggered graphics automation for precise, production-grade on-air presentation at scale.

The product further strengthens its cloud-native foundation through a deeper integration with AWS, leveraging next-generation compute instances and Amazon EKS to drive superior playout performance. By implementing Karpenter-based autoscaling and migrating to GP3 storage, the platform significantly improves resource efficiency and deployment agility. These infrastructure optimizations enable broadcasters to benefit from cloud-native advancements, improving scalability, performance and deployment agility without introducing architectural complexity.

The latest enhancements are available as part of the ongoing CLOUDPORT 4.x release cycle.

More information is available on the company’s website.

When you’ve spent enough time around broadcast systems, you start to notice a pattern: every facility grows in layers.

A new requirement comes along, so another piece of gear gets added. Then another. Over time, what started as a clean design becomes harder to follow, harder to maintain, and harder to change. Nobody plans it that way. It just happens. You solve the problem in front of you, then move on to the next one.

For a long time, that was simply how infrastructure evolved. And to be fair, it worked. Broadcasters built serious, dependable operations that way. But the downside always showed up eventually.

More hardware meant more cabling, power, cooling, and space which means more things to manage when something went wrong not to mention trying to sort your way through the additional cables that have accumulated on top of your neatly dressed cable bundles. A modest change could potentially have a large impact. That’s why the conversation around infrastructure has changed over the last few years.

The Consequences of Changing Focus
Reliability and speed are still the primary drivers in live production. However, there is a lot more attention on flexibility and efficiency, and for good reasons. Production teams are being asked to support more formats, take on more responsibility, all while dealing with more variation in how a show gets managed from one day to the next.

The production and audience changes, but the core need remains the same. Teams want systems that can handle change quickly without requiring significant downtime. That sounds simple, but it has real consequences for system design. It affects how much functionality can be tied to software and whether a system has room to grow without major changes to the tech stack.

And it affects costs in a very practical way. This is one reason software-defined infrastructure is getting so much attention. There is a steady interest in systems that can do more over time without demanding a new hardware investment every time the workflow shifts. That matters because most facilities are not static anymore.

A production may still be based on-site, but some of the people operating it may be somewhere else. A plant may still be centered on SDI, but some form of IP may already be part of the picture. A system may be installed for one main use case, then quickly be asked to support something broader once people see what is possible.

Infrastructure is Becoming Part of the Solution
That last part is important. In my experience, users almost always find applications and ways to use equipment that they did not fully predict at the start. Once they get comfortable, they push. They ask for more I/O, processing and monitoring. More ways to adapt the system to the work at hand. That is usually a good sign. It means the infrastructure is becoming part of the solution instead of something they must work around.

It also explains why software defined hardware keeps coming up in these discussions. When teams can reduce the amount of separate gear needed to accomplish the same job, the benefits are immediate. The system takes up less space. It draws less power. It is easier to deploy and easier to support and typically provides significant cost savings. The net effect is that the efficiency adds up.

That is really where broadcast infrastructure is today. Not aiming at a complete reinvention or some theoretical universal model that fits every operation. The smarter path is usually more measured than that.

Build systems that leave room to move. That may be the most useful lesson right now. Because the facilities that will hold up best over time are the ones that can adapt without becoming more complicated. That’s where the industry is headed. Not through a dramatic reset, but through smarter decisions made one practical step at a time.

VIENNA—MUBI, a worldwide film distributor and producer, has selected Bitmovin as the cloud video-on-demand (VOD) encoding partner for its streaming platform.

MUBI replaced its legacy on-premises encoding technology stack with Bitmovin’s encoding infrastructure. The move brings greater scalability and faster turnaround times to MUBI’s growing film catalog, Bitmovin said.

Bitmovin is providing support for three-pass encoding UHD and a multicodec strategy, supporting AVC, HEVC and AV1 for film-grade quality optimization via a managed cloud service, the company said.

“At MUBI, every film we deliver deserves the highest possible quality. We needed an encoding partner who could match our ambitions, not just for today’s catalog, but for where we’re taking our platform,” MUBI Chief Technology Officer Andy Dust said. “Bitmovin’s HDR and AV1 expertise, fast response times and collaborative approach made the decision straightforward. We’re excited to build our next chapter of premium content delivery together.”

A close collaboration between Bitmovin and MUBI has enabled the company to complete a rapid integration and full encoding workflow migration from its legacy solution to the cloud encoding service ahead of a hard deadline for decommissioning the previous approach. The migration took place without disrupting MUBI’s ability to deliver films from its catalog, according to Bitmovin.

“With its carefully curated catalog of film content, MUBI brings quality cinema to film lovers globally. Bitmovin’s VOD encoder delivers outstanding quality of experience as well as multi-codec streaming support, so it is well positioned to support MUBI in this endeavor,” Bitmovin co-CEO Ian Baglow said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

GHENT, Belgium—Limecraft has released Limecraft 2026.3 featuring improvements to make production and post-production workflows more structured and reliable as well as easier to automate at scale.

Limecraft, an AI-powered production platform, enables content creators to store, manage and share projects from initial rushes to thousands of masters. Limecraft workspaces can be customized for specific formats, such as scripted TV, documentaries and non-scripted entertainment, and can manage massive volumes due to finetuned AI services at its core.

The third platform update in its 2026 release cycle, Limecraft 2026.3 focuses on three key areas: file verification with ASC Media Hash List (MHL) support, extended AAF export configuration and faster transcription with broader language coverage.

Ingest workflows now support ASC Media Hash List files using Limecraft Edge. MHL files are created upon card offloads, establishing a persistent, interoperable record of file integrity. As part of this enhancement, users can choose the checksum algorithm employed for file verification. In addition to legacy MD5, Limecraft now supports xxHash64 and xxHash3 64-bit algorithms.

To improve interaction with the editorial workflow, Limecraft 2026.3 extends AAF export templates introduced in the previous release. Users can now define more precisely which material lands on which track in the resulting edit sequence.

Advanced track mapping automatically composes the intended sequence track by track, including master clips or auto-generated group clips, camera and audio device selection, auto-select camera angles, custom labels and per-subtrack labels for multi-channel audio. This is particularly relevant for multicamera, multitrack and high-volume productions where manual timeline preparation is repetitive and prone to errors.

Additionally, Limecraft 2026.3 introduces improvements to automatic transcription. Processing performance has been significantly improved, now accurately transcribing one hour of audio to text in less than a minute. This helps journalists, researchers, editors and subtitle operators use timecoded transcripts more quickly.

The release also broadens transcription language and locale support. Limecraft 2026.3 adds 35 newly supported languages and locales, including Latin American Spanish, Pashto, Somali, Maori, Luxembourgish, Belarusian and Kyrgyz, as well as a broad set of African languages, including Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Wolof, Lingala, Shona, Sepedi, Nyanja, Ganda, Oromo, Kamba and Luo.

Limecraft 2026.3 also offers a range of smaller improvements across the platform. These include workspace-level metadata, improved performance for bulk uploads via shared links, the addition of metadata changes in the Workflow & Activity pane, refinements to configurable AAF export templates and fixes relating to custom status display, table sorting, comments in shares, clip detail URLs, DNxHR transcoding and card offload job visibility in Limecraft Edge.

Limecraft 2026.3 is available now. Limecraft will host a live webinar on May 7 demonstrating the new features and their impact on production and post-production workflows. RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/.

See Limecraft at the Media Production & Technology Show, May 13-14, at Olympia London in stand F70.

More information is available on the company’s website.

NEW YORK—Amagi has announced that AccuWeather has successfully completed a major upgrade of its broadcast ecosystem. As part of the upgrade, AccuWeather moved from traditional broadcast infrastructure to a cloud-based, internet-driven system that manages both linear TV and streaming in one place. This eliminates separate workflows, making distribution more efficient, flexible, and easier to scale across platforms.

“At AccuWeather, delivering timely continuous weather content, forecasts and severe weather coverage requires a modern, scalable distribution infrastructure, which is why we partnered with Amagi,” said Helen Swenson, chief content officer at AccuWeather. “By consolidating our linear and OTT distribution on Amagi’s platform, we are simplifying operations and improving efficiency enabling our team to focus on high-quality content and delivering forecasts with proven Superior Accuracy™ our audiences trust.”

The transformation, anchored at Amagi’s state-of-the-art Master Control Room (MCR) in Princeton, N.J., brings both the technology stack and managed operations under a single provider. This enables AccuWeather to achieve a high level of agility and rapid customization of its channel.

“Managed Services is at the heart of this engagement,” said Srinivasan KA, co-founder and president – global business, Amagi. “Our role is not just to provide cloud playout technology, but to actively operate, monitor, and optimize mission-critical broadcast environments with a unified approach. As the entire solution is based on Amagi’s tech stack and managed services, customizations are seamless and faster. With our Princeton MCR overseeing Linear and FAST channels, AccuWeather gains both cloud-native agility and broadcast-grade operational assurance—a combination that is critical, but rare in the market.”

The expanded engagement builds on a successful initiative launched in 2021, when AccuWeather introduced its FAST channels. Amagi described the advantages of its Managed Services model for AccuWeather:

• Enhanced Distribution Efficiency: Transition to a fully IP-based distribution model to improve reliability and reduced costs.
• Optimized Regionalization at Scale: Advanced sub-feed capabilities enable efficient management of multiple regional feeds with customized graphics.
• Real-Time Agility for Live Events: Faster workflows allowing for instant delivery of breaking news and critical weather updates across all platforms.
• Accelerated Innovation Cycles: A unified technology approach enables quicker deployment of new features and workflow enhancements.

For broadcasters and streamers, a migration to the cloud is no longer a simple technical upgrade. The era of merely replicating on-premise infrastructure in a virtual environment — the so-called lift and shift — is over.

The most successful organizations are embracing the journey as a fundamental operational and creative transformation, requiring a phased approach that addresses architectural resilience, cultural change and the accelerated adoption of new technologies like AI.

The initial hurdle for many is realizing that the journey to the cloud is less about IT infrastructure and more about people.

“Cloud migration isn’t just a technical decision. It’s a creative and operational one,” Sami Aziz, executive producer and founder of Pale Blue Originals and former head of live broadcasts at NASA, said.

“The organizations that navigate the move to cloud best treat it like a production: a phased approach, very clear communication, investment in training and intentional standardization across tools.”

Any move to the cloud comes with challenges, including managing real-time media workflows that demand low latency and high reliability.

“To tackle this, it’s important to ensure workflows are consistent to reduce training time and use real-time monitoring tools to keep an eye on network and media performance,” said Bryan Bedford, director of consumer industries and business solutions at Cisco Systems.

“Automation and orchestration can simplify operations and help scale efficiently. Plus, collaborating with vendors and adopting open standards ensures everything works well together.”

Reliability Concerns

Reliability, especially for real-time media workflows that demand low latency, remains a constant challenge. Organizations must design their systems to survive multiple problems, from public internet performance issues to data center and region outages.

Mike Pilone, enterprise architect at National Public Radio, suggested that any system deployed in the cloud has to “utilize multiple regions to ensure they can survive an interruption. Using multiple cloud providers can give you an additional layer of availability as well as flexibility if a provider is no longer attractive due to service or pricing changes.”

Content protection and ownership in a cloud-first world are also new challenges facing content owners, especially with the need to protect their assets and set clear parameters in case a platform goes down.

“Most broadcasters don’t ask these questions until something goes wrong,” Aziz said. “Redundancy and contracts with clear data ownership language are two critical starting points. Security should also be treated as an ongoing operational priority, not just a one-time setup. The same care you would apply to protecting a finished master should apply to every stage of your cloud pipeline.”

The growth of AI is also linked to the move beyond a basic cloud deployment. Most AI tools, such as automated captioning, content tagging and quality control, are cloud-based. AI models are resource-intensive operations that may only be practical in a shared computing environment such as the cloud.

“As we see more AI adoption in various use cases, we can expect to see greater use of the cloud to provide the core models and compute,” said Jon Cyphers, senior manager of product and support, distribution at NPR.

AI is transforming how broadcasters operate in the cloud, Bedford agreed, helping to automate and optimize media production and delivery, making workflows more efficient and reducing manual errors.

“Combining AI with cloud and edge computing opens up exciting possibilities like personalized content delivery and intelligent network orchestration,” he said.

“This integration helps broadcasters stay competitive by enhancing efficiency and creating new ways to engage audiences.”

According to Aziz, organizations that have already started migrating to the cloud will be able to adopt and adapt to AI incrementally, with human judgment still a large part of the workflow.

“Organizations still anchored to legacy systems will have a harder time making the leap all at once,” he said. “We’re all watching how quickly AI is evolving. The honest truth is, it’s moving faster than any of us can set editorial and ethical standards, and that’s a conversation our entire industry needs to be having.”

© 2026 NAB

Microsoft is no longer content being the silent backbone of the media industry. Heading into the 2026 NAB Show, April 19-22 in Las Vegas, the tech giant is pivoting from 'enterprise provider' to more of a software-defined broadcasting leader, powered by Agentic AI and high-profile sports partnerships.

In a recent Q&A with TV Tech, Simon Crownshaw, Worldwide Media and Entertainment Director at Microsoft, discussed the company’s plans for the NAB Show and how he thinks the company’s role in M&E is evolving.

Crownshaw admits that although Microsoft has been a household name for decades, the company wants to do a better job telling its story.

“Microsoft has been a bigger part of the media and entertainment industry—and sports, for quite some time,” he said. “I think we may not be the most vocal about how we engage and where our customers spend time with us, but obviously, we're one of the largest enterprise platforms in the world, and a lot of media companies over the past five years are really looking to extend how they think through that enterprise platform.”

The Increasing Value of Partnerships
Crownshaw says the value of Microsoft’s impact comes through its partnerships with some of the more “pure-play” media tech companies.

“We partner a lot with the likes of Avid and Adobe and we have other extended partnerships with Evertz as well and we’ve partnered with Vizrt and Ross Video, where we spend a lot of the time helping customers think through their production workflows,” Crownshaw said. “And I would argue that, as we've become more and more known for AI and everything else we're doing in that realm, we've now started to figure out ‘how do we bring the kind of core elements of our platform closer to media?’ But also with the expectation that our customers—who either have a traditional linear broadcasting feed or a stream platform—want to leverage more of their linear platform, more of their broadcasting platform, to do more with their enterprise components.”

Microsoft also has a large role in sports broadcasting as well, Crownshaw said.

“We have some pretty amazing sports partnerships; we do a lot of things with the NBA, NFL, the Premier League in the UK, everything from thinking through broadcast production workflows with partners like MediaKind for example,” he said. “And thinking about how we transform processes for SRT feeds using AI optimization of workflows and network components, and infrastructure to deal with issues of disaster recovery, and making sure that we can optimize for personalization at every level.”

Being that live sports is among the most valued franchises in media and entertainment, security is paramount. Although Microsoft retired its Azure Media Services in 2024, moving towards a partner-ecosystem model rather than a first-party service, Crownshaw stressed that its platform continues to emphasize the critical role Azure continues to play throughout its M&E offerings.

“With Azure Front Door, we have PlayReady from a DRM perspective, so for anything running on Windows it’s obviously using PlayReady from a DRM,” he said. “We spend a lot of time with customers, thinking through how they can use that security foundation and obviously, we're streaming platforms with a lot of leakage, whether that be through IPTV or others and working through that in a more rigorous way with new partners—that's the focus of our work with the NBA going on right now. And we're also working through the very first direct-to-consumer experience for the Premier League in Singapore with Premier League Plus.”

A Holistic View
For broadcasters who want to bridge the gap between traditional media and online streaming and social media, Crownshaw says Microsoft has the capability to help its customers view their media ecosystem holistically.

“Traditional broadcasters, especially the ones that we work with, have struggled to figure out how to modernize their technology stack,” he said. “They realize the platform proliferation, the fact that speed of service is really critical—especially if you're trying to compete with TikTok, for example—we spent some time with local broadcasters trying to figure out how we can do multiplatform publishing at the speed and size that like a Tiktok would do.”

“On our end, I think it's realizing that there is a place for everybody and those systems have to modernize,” he added. “There's security around data, there's security around content. There's also speed and agility around the systems that need to update and to be modernized to some degree. We do a lot of analysis on the content that comes in, figure out the metadata that could be deployed, make sure people can search for a faster client, and automate some of those processes. We also work with partners to figure out how to build new architectures.”

NAB Show Buzz
Crownshaw discussed what he thinks will be among the most important conversations will be around artificial intelligence at the NAB Show, including the use of agentic AI in the media production chain via its Copilot AI.

“We're leveraging Copilot to replace some of the automation that goes in or replacing some of the workflows that exist,” he said. “We may use Copilot Studio to build custom copies, where we can use agentic or agent-to-agent type workflows. We can basically start to replace commodity hardware or other processes with Copilot.”

Crownshaw used newsrooms as an example of how Copilot can enhance operations and workflows, highlighting the use of Copilot Studio to build "agent-to-agent" workflows that can replace commodity hardware. In a newsroom setting, this means a producer can task an AI agent to validate archives or run origination tasks automatically, significantly cutting down on manual search time, he added.

Microsoft’s message at the 2026 NAB Show will focus on the company’s role throughout the media chain, from origination to distribution, as well as its role in software-defined production, Crownshaw said.

“Microsoft plays a pretty critical role between what we do from a hyper-converged infrastructure perspective, and enabling the connective tissue between the intelligence of all of the different layers that exist within media—from everything coming directly off the camera, all the way to the the ingestion process, through to the production and through the distribution component,” he said. “I would argue that if you look at the things that we enable across our platform, we play a pretty important role. I cannot overstate the importance of the software-defined broadcasting process that I think we are at the forefront of.”

Microsoft will be in Booth W1731 in the West Hall of the LVCC.

LAS VEGAS—Sony Electronics has announced its lineup of new and returning products and services that it will be showing at the 2026 NAB Show, April 19-22 in Las Vegas, demonstrating the latest technologies designed to address emerging challenges and needs in broadcast and production.

“At this year’s NAB Show, Sony’s theme is ‘The Power Behind Your Story’ which demonstrates how our technologies are the driving force behind various forms of storytelling,” said Anthony Kable, CCS Group Manager, Sony Australia. “From products to workflows, and acquisition to delivery, Sony has the right people, tools and expertise to enable creators to capture their vision and communicate their truth with quality and authenticity.”

Sony says its new solutions address the entire production workflow, providing authenticity and provenance, creating more personalized and emotional viewing experiences, and supporting XR and spatial content creation.

At the Sony booth, the company will showcase its live production solutions including the evolution of Sony’s “Networked Live” ecosystem, as well as new system cameras, enhanced workflows for news production, the latest in virtual production tools and processes, and a comprehensive lineup of imaging solutions.

Cameras and Production Workflow
Sony will present its new “R Series” system camera range, which join the company’s existing HDC-5000 and HDC-3000 series camera lineup. The “R Series” significantly enhances image performance, allows system expansion through additional transmission pathways and infrastructure options, and usability that enables consistent color matching across models.

Additionally, the new series features an expanded dynamic range for enhanced details, and operation modes to address different lighting environments. Models include HDC-5500R, HDC-5500RV, HDC-3500R, HDC-3500RV, and HDC-3200R, along with related products such as the HDCU-3500R Camera Control Unit and the HKCU-LUT35 3D LUT option board. The models are expected to be available in mid-2026.

Sony will also demonstrate newly released firmware updates for the PTZ auto-framing cameras BRC-AM7 (Ver. 3.0), SRG-A40, and SRG-A12 (Ver. 4.0). Leveraging Sony’s latest AI technologies, these updates expand functionality to support increasingly diverse production needs, including sports broadcasting, education, and corporate content creation.

For the first time at NAB Show, Sony’s recently launched PXW-Z300 XDCAM handheld AI-powered camcorder—the world’s first to support the C2PA standard for video authenticity—will demonstrate the growing demand for trustworthy news reporting through authenticity and provenance.

Sony will also present an end-to-end workflow that leverages camera-originated authenticity files and metadata from the field through immediate production and editing. This workflow is achieved with the LiveU TX1, a compact IP bonding-capable data transmitter (announced in September 2025), the PDT-FP1 portable data transmitter, and the newly announced PWA-RXS Network RX Station.

In addition, LiveU has announced a further expansion of its integration with Sony’s PWA-RXS through an optional license. A reference demo will showcase a new workflow powered by Sony’s cellular connectivity management system, featuring real-time carrier optimization and seamless global connectivity for creators.

Sony will also show an expanded lineup of Alpha cameras and lenses, including the Alpha 7 V capable of 4K 60p capture without crop. The 33 MP (approx.) full-frame hybrid model incorporates a BIONZ XR2 processor with an integrated AI processing engine to facilitate subject recognition and Auto Framing. Additionally, the latest version (Ver. 2.6) of the Monitor & Control app, which enables video monitoring and remote control from smartphones, tablets, and Macs, will be showcased.

Sony’s diverse Cinema Line cameras will enhance their functionality. The FR7 cinematic PTZ camera recently added AI-based Auto Framing and support for OpenTrackIO protocol through a Ver. 4.0 firmware update, while the FX6 full-frame Cinema Line camera rolled out BIG 6 home screen display support for easy access to top functions.

Additionally, experience spatial content creation brought to life through the VENICE Extension System Mini (Rialto) combined with the glasses-free 3D Spatial Reality Display.

Media Processing
Sony will also demo MOXELA, a new software-based media processing platform running on COTS (commercial off the shelf) servers or in the cloud, designed to transform how broadcasters, production companies, and media organizations transport, process, and monitor live video, audio, and data.

Additionally, attendees will see demonstrations of new features for the MLS-X1 multi-format switcher, enabling efficient production by sharing input and output signals across multiple studios. Sony will also debut the ICP-X7000A, a control panel featuring a newly developed XPT operation panel that significantly improves visibility and operability and is planned to be available in late 2026.

Virtual Production and Spatial Content Creation
To manage its ecosystem of virtual production solutions that include cameras, camera tracking and LED walls, Sony will showcase firmware updates to its Virtual Production Tool Set Ver. 3.0.

Sony will also launch the XYN Spatial Capture Solution, which generates photorealistic 3DCG (3D Computer Graphics) assets from photographs taken with mirrorless cameras. This professional solution, which will be shown at NAB Show and is expected to be available mid-2026, is comprised of three tools designed for use across virtual production and a wide range of 3DCG content creation workflows. XYN Spatial Scan Navi is a smartphone app[5] that guides efficient image capture. XYN Spatial Scan is a web application that delivers studio-grade generation quality. Finally, the XYN Renderer Plugin, enables highly realistic rendering for virtual production studios.

Additionally, Sony will host many engaging presentations and talks on trending topics throughout the show featuring notable industry voices. For more details about the company’s presence, visit Sony’s NAB Show website.

Sony will be in Booth C8401 in the Central Hall of the LVCC.

Lawo and swXtch.io, a provider of software-defined networking for media workflows, have announced that groundSwXtch, swXtch.io’s software-defined multicast overlay for on-prem and hybrid ground/cloud networks will be integrated into Lawo’s HOME management platform for IP media infrastructures.

This integration integration “enables high-performance multicast IP networking across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments, delivering greater flexibility, scalability, and efficiency for live production, remote workflows, and compact infrastructure deployments,” the companies said.

groundSwXtch extends swXtch.io’s cloudSwXtch technology to physical, ground-based networks, providing software-based multicast capabilities, protocol flexibility, and low-latency media transport without reliance on traditional hardware switches.

“Partnering with swXtch.io allows us to further enhance the software-based capabilities of our HOME ecosystem and deliver even more agile solutions to our customers,” said Axel Kern, Senior Director of Cloud and Infrastructure Solutions, LAWO. “By integrating groundSwXtch, we hope to turn on-prem and cloud networking into a unified fabric, empowering broadcasters to handle dynamic production demands.”

The envisaged partnership supports several key customer use cases that will be highlighted during the NAB Show:

Use Case 1: Private Cloud-Based Production with Remote Contributions. Building on private-cloud-centric workflows, this scenario incorporates contributions from external remote sites such as arenas, town halls, or mobile production units.

Essences generated at remote locations feed into the local production environment, which is orchestrated and controlled from a central site. Program-ready signals are distributed to the main facility for final output and dissemination. The integration of groundSwXtch ensures reliable, low-latency transport between remote sites, cloud resources, and on-prem infrastructure.

Use Case 2: Peak Utilization and Cloud Bursting. Customers facing sudden spikes in demand — such as breaking news coverage or major sports events — can rapidly provision additional compute resources. Lawo HOME Apps run in the cloud with management and workflow control from the main site.

Media essences (audio and video) feed production tools including DSK/switchers, multiviewers, and video processors. IP streams return program signals and visualizations to the main facility, and finished program feeds route directly to distribution channels.

“groundSwXtch brings the power of software-defined multicast and hybrid networking directly to on-prem media operations,” said Brent Yates, CEO of swXtch.io. “Our collaboration with Lawo demonstrates how combining our virtual overlay technology with Lawo’s renowned open HOME platform create powerful new possibilities for broadcasters transitioning to IP and cloud-native workflows.”

Details about the LAWO-swXtch.io integration will be given at the NAB Show in Las Vegas (April 18–22, 2026). Interested visitors are invited to contact Axel Kern (Lawo, booth C2108) or Jerry Schall (swXtch.io, booth W1377HS).

For more information, visit www.lawo.com and www.swxtch.io.