IBC 2011

By LEVI SHAPIRO
IBC, occurring this week in Amsterdam, is Europe''s largest trade show (48,000 attendees, 1400 exhibitors) for broadcast TV technology.  In addition to a keynote from James Cameron, there is a swarm of product announcements for OTT (Over the Top), Connected and 3DTV''s and social TV. More than thirty Israeli technology companies exhibited at the Israeli Export Institute pavilion including two that won awards. Tvinci, took the CSI Award for "Best WebTV Technology" while justAd.TV nabbed first prize by the Connected World Forum for "Revenue Generation Technology".
AB on Air: Enables the transmission of video content – over the air – directly from a camera to a news truck, without the need for cable deployment. The device is compact and lightweight and attaches to any handheld camera.
BetterView: Technology solution to deliver improvements to digital video streams. One example is Real SD to HD Conversion, which presents a substantial improvement to the video optical resolution.
Broadtec: Their MYTV integrated broadcast management system incorporates sophisticated playlist scheduling, planning, logistics, rights management, Commercials, media production & inventory. MYTV is the all-inclusive software that reduces playlist production time and improves the efficiency of Contents’ commercials and playlist management.
Celeno: Vendor of standard-based WiFi silicon solutions capable of distributing up to 4 HD video streams, with full home coverage (over 500 sqm) and carrier grade robustness.
Channelot: Provider of mobile TV and digital TV integrated transmitter and repeater stations. Products include a comprehensive drop-in solution for the low- and medium-power TV transmission site and provides coverage wherever legacy broadcast equipment is either inadequate or prohibitively expensive, such as dense metro centers or remote, rural areas.
Craze Productions: Offers full feature length movies, TV programming and music related content for distribution online, on mobile telephones, on Connected TV and via many other viewing platforms.
Discretix: Experts in content protection solutions for service providers to extend video on demand (VOD) and Over-the-Top (OTT) services to any connected device including Smartphones, tablets, netbooks, internet enabled TVs and hybrid STBs. Available as both an embedded and downloadable software application, the solution allows secure content streaming and downloading.
Elrom Studios: The Israeli leader for subtitling, translation, closed captioning and dubbing, has developed over the last years its exclusive software, ELRStudio for all these tasks.
Gilat Satcom: Offers broadcasters a fully managed TV channel distribution over C or KU band satellites at an attractive price. This solution is based on a large variety of satellite beams.
Imagine Communications: The first video processing solution to combine highest quality video compression for MPEG-2, H.264 and multi-screen, the ICE Video Platform is for Every Screen video processing and distribution.
IP Gallery: GroupView enables concurrent group viewing of any content from any source anywhere, anytime, with anyone, on any device, regardless of the group member’s present social community login or service provider subscription or viewing location.
justAd TV: Allows Pay-TV providers (Cable, IPTV & Satellite) to harness the power of Internet advertising by applying it to non-linear TV experiences. Focused on delivering easy-to-deploy solutions, its patent-pending technology fits into existing TV provider networks, involves minimal costs and provides quick ROI.
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Kaltura: Kaltura provides the first Open Source platform for video management, creation, interaction and collaboration.
Live Definition: Helps content owners and rights owners to create a video platform and to quickly monetize content—with no heavy commitments. LiveDefinition is a cloud based SaaS, and designed to provide a full solution to content and right owners.
LiveU: One of the pioneers of broadcast-quality, video-over-cellular solutions allowing live video transmission (HD and SD) from any location or event in the world wide, such as the Royal Wedding (UK), World Cup (SA), Oscars, etc.
Magic Software Enterprise: The Multi-Channel Broadcasting System is provided as software-as-a-service (SaaS) or as an on-site system. It covers all aspects of linear/non-linear scheduling (new media): rights management, scheduling, interstitial management, ad sales, etc.
Meltzer Communications: Specializing in the management and supervision of Turn-Key projects for customers locally and internationally. They install and maintain earth station antennas, VSAT systems and affiliated transmission equipment.
Orca Interactive: offers RighTv– An IPTV middleware platform for delivering interactive TV services. The platform includes an SDK allowing operators to control their UI, and add new services and new devices. Also, COMPASS– a comprehensive content discovery platform, enables TV subscribers and operators to benefit from the content-rich world of interactive television.
PeerTV: Allows Content Providers, ISPs and Operators to deliver OTT (Over-the-Top) TV services including live channels VOD and free public content over the open Internet such as PODCASTS. This combines the Peerstation internet-based Set Top Boxes and the MX 3.0 Middleware which integrate with leading complementary components such as CDN (Content Delivery Network) & DRM.
Pilat Media: Based on 13 years of experience, IBMS (Integrated Broadcast Management System) is an enterprise class business management software for broadcasters. This modular solution manages content, programming, rights, scheduling, airtimes sales and media trafficking for multi-channel and multi-platform TV, video-on-demand and other media services.
Playcast Media Systems: Playcast brings next generation video games to existing VoD systems, by streaming games audiovisual content as standard MPEG video. The solution includes full service, including systems and content.  It is deployed across a variety of cable, IPTV, Hybrid DBS and OTT.
Primesense: The technology behind Microsoft Kinnect - PrimeSense is developing and marketing gesture recognition mass-market solutions for native 3D machine vision technologies targeted at consumer markets in the fields of Television, IPTV, Media centers, Set-top boxes and more.
Snapkeys: A simplified form of keyboard entry for mobile devices that has been modified for TV remote control content search and discovery.
Shiron SatCom: A two-way broadband satellite communications system, InterSKY. This is an efficient multi service platform, supporting wide ranging IP applications in even the most remote locations, for both military and commercial projects.
Tango Tec: Allows customers to distribute IP based services over home/building existing infrastructure such as Powerline, Telephony (RJ11), Coax (CATV/Satellite), CAT5/6 as well as Wireless. This includes distribution of IPTV, IP-Telephony Internet Gaming, High speed internet access and other IP services. The company’s networking solutions are aimed for the Residential and Retail segments (following the evolving G.hn standard) as well as commercial/ enterprise markets.
Tvinci: A paid Over-the-Top TV platform for the management of video content & user experience. They specialize in solutions for content owners, pay-TV & multi-play operators seeking to generate revenues online from premium content displayed on internet connected devices.
VBox Communications: VBox is a provider of products and solutions converging DVB (broadcast) and IP networks, offering innovative payTV receivers. VBox covers market segments that benefit from its core technology competencies: broadcast and IP convergence, full payTV CAS (Conditional Access Systems) and DRM integration, TV for any IP enabled device and support for any Operating System (Windows, Mac, Linux).
Waze: A free, crowd-sourced, mobile navigation application allowing drivers to build and use live maps, real-time traffic updates and turn-by-turn navigation to improve their commute. Waze also has a social element to actively update others on traffic, police traps, construction, speed cams and more. Because it is 100% user-generated, the more Waze users, the richer the experience.
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The talk at this year''s IBC has finally moved beyond "the death of television" meme. Instead, the digital TV industry may have entered a period of pragmatism and commercial maturity, as broadcasters and Pay TV operators collaborate with start-ups. As Joanna Shields, Managing Director EMEA at Facebook, said in her Keynote address: "Partnership is the way forward for all of us".