Joshua Cohen
Q. What broad technology trends do you think will be front-and-centre at IBC2010?
With the implementation of file-based workflows and the ever-growing number of digital distribution platforms, businesses in the media space will be increasingly focused on how content can be located, monetized and protected. Control of content is the issue.
Q. Any thoughts on how the current economic climate will affect the show?
As the economy remains unstable, with increased economic concern spilling over to the EU, companies will be cautious in their buying decisions and will need to show higher ROI numbers in order to justify expenditures. With limited budgets, buyers will continue to make purchases, especially to facilitate their movement toward file-based workflows. Together, ongoing market instability and tight purchasing budgets will ensure strong competition with respect to pricing.
Q. What's new that you will show at IBC2010 and that broadcasters should look for there?
We have streamlined the iPharro MediaSeeker™ Core platform configurable content identification engine, refining both our customer-facing services and the platform's core technology to make it more readily adaptable to customer needs and uses. Media companies are discovering that our system is optimized to compare content, quickly identify assets at any point in their workflows, and quickly recreate EDLs or high-resolution versions of older content based on previously existing low-resolution versions.
Q. How is your new product offering different from what's available on the market?
iPharro is alone in the marketplace in offering a highly versatile fingerprinting engine that can be integrated into any workflow to allow customers to handle all of their content identification needs. Competitors have focused on offering video fingerprinting services in which fingerprints are stored for subsequent content identification. At iPharro, we believe that customers want to control their own media assets, their own workflows and ultimately their own fingerprints so that content can be identified at any time in the production, storage or distribution process.
Q. Where are you based, and how many employees do you have? Anything else we should know about your company?
iPharro is based in Darmstadt, Germany, and has 20 employees. At the heart of iPharro products and services is an award-winning, patent-pending video fingerprinting technology developed at Germany's esteemed Fraunhofer institute. We stand alone in offering our customers a versatile fingerprinting engine, designed to enable them to freely integrate fingerprinting into their workflows.
Q. How many years have you been going to the IBC show and what's your fondest memory? What's your favorite restaurant or pub?
This will be my fourth IBC show. I've always been intrigued by the city's architecture, canals, and artwork.
Q. 3D – Hope or Hype or In Between, or wait and see?
3D will not solve some key problems plaguing the film industry, such as shrinking distribution windows and decreasing theatre attendance due to Web distribution of content. That being said, content viewing – both private and public – will inevitably move toward 3D-based systems, despite the fact that not all content will necessarily be appropriate for these purposes (action-intensive films and sports content are the most appropriate genres for 3D.) While there clearly is some hype on the part of those who believe 3D is a panacea for the media industry's problems, the technology will, without doubt, become a part of mainstream media consumption.
