The IBC2013 Innovation Awards committee June 3 named its shortlist finalist for the honor, which recognizes both new technological innovation and its application.
The finalists, 10 from nine different countries, include entries ranging from a new approach to getting viewers closer to sports action to interactive delivery of content. "This year our shortlist reflects the remarkable breadth of our industry, from a blockbuster movie to the research behind getting the best possible HD quality to the home," said Michael Lumley, chairman of the IBC2013 Innovation Awards judging panel.
The IBC Innovation Awards are presented to those who have brought together the technology partners and collaborators to realize a creative, commercial or technical goal. There are three categories: content creation, content management and content delivery. The winners will be announced during the IBC Awards Ceremony, Sunday, Sept. 15, in Amsterdam.
In the Content Creation category, the shortlist includes:
The first of the four nominations for most innovative content creation project goes to
- Fox Sports in Australia, which wanted to give cricket fans a real idea of what it feels like to face the world's best bowlers. Working with Globecast it developed a helmet camera for use by batsmen and wicket keepers, using wireless HDMI.
- The BBC for showing every moment of the 8000mi, 70-day Olympic torch relay around the UK.
- ITV in the UK, which is working with Adobe on its Story project, and using the collaborative tool on two primetime soap operas for script development, scheduling shoots and other tasks.
- Park Road Post Production from Wellington, New Zealand, along with its technology partner SGO. for posting “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first high-frame-rate, high-dynamic-range 3-D mainstream movie.
In the content management category, the shortlist includes:
- T-2 in Slovenia, which has developed an IPTV service that is accessible on smart televisions, connected STBs, computers, and Android and iOS mobile devices. Vision247 and For a collaborated on the project.
- Irish national broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann, which developed a file-based infrastructure allowing users to create and control their own automated workflows. RTE worked with TMD.
- RTBF in Belgium and partners Perfect Memory and Memnon, which developed GEMS, a system that lets the broadcaster conduct semantic searches, automated speech to text conversions, natural language processing and open data connections.
In the content delivery category, finalists include:
- Dutch cable company Ziggo, which wanted to deliver advanced interactive services without a new range of STBs. The tech partnership included ActiveVideo, Seachange, Samsung, Humax, Unitid and Webadvance.
- Japanese national broadcaster NHK, which has worked with NTT Communications, Fujitsu and Juniper Networks, on a next generation platform to deliver terrestrial HD television, using multiprotocol label switching (MPLS).
- Abertis Telecom in Spain, which worked with Harmonic and Nagra to develop a cloud-based multiscreen delivery platform with support for the MPEG-DASH specification.
