Complete Coverage: IBC 2012
Winners of IBC Awards this year included a number of prominent broadcasters and vendors, with the IBC International Honor for Excellence being presented to the Science and Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) of Japanese national broadcaster NHK.
"Our industry is changing, with new delivery platforms and business models expanding on the foundation of the long history of broadcasting," said Michael Crimp, IBC's CEO, in a statement. "This year our awards have really reflected these changes, taking us right into the home with new ways of discovering and enjoying the finest content."
In giving STRL the Honor for Excellence Award, the IBC cited STRL's involvement in a number of major technological advances since its founding in 1930, including color television, HD, satellite broadcasting and plasma displays.
Three IBC2012 Innovation Awards were also given out, with the winner of the IBC Innovation Award for Content Creation being awarded for a second screen app called "The Walking Dead" from FX UK. Developed by Red Bee Media, the app used audio watermarking technology from Civolution for synchronization with live content.
Other finalists in this category includes ESPN for its use of graphics technology from Orad, Hawk-Eye and Spidercam to enhance its coverage of Grand Slam tennis; and TV Globo in Brazil for VATE, a new tool for developers and cameramen working on live TV production.
The IBC Innovation Award for Content Management was given to NASCAR, where Telestream, working in association with Promise Technology and Quantum, developed a compact and powerful system for multiple replays.
Other finalists in this category included the new asset management system implemented by Turner Sports to keep track of 6,000 events and two million highlights a year. The system was designed in-house using technology from Dalet, EVS, Stainless Code, Active Storage, NetApp, Quantum, Azurro Systems Integration, CineSys, Telecom Network Solutions and Enterprise Applications.
A second finalist was Sky News Arabia for a completely new production base in Abu Dhabi that was set up with systems Integrator TSL working with such suppliers as ScheduALL, Miranda Technologies, EVS and Broadcast Bionics.
The IBC Innovation Award for Content Delivery went to 4oD, the video on demand service from Channel 4 in the UK, which made content available on Xbox. It worked with KIT digital to develop an app for the Kinect controller that allows the viewer to use voice and gesture control to explore and select the content.
Three of finalists for this award include a home networking solution developed by DIRECTV with technology partners Broadcom, Entropic Communications, Jethead Development, Pace and Samsung; CBS Sports for its use of VidyoCast technology; and the ITV in the UK, for its a content replacement system that used seamless splicing from Yospace communicating with the Snell automation.
As previously reported IBC2012 Judges' Prize was given to FIMS, the Framework for Interoperable Media Services, an effort that was spearheaded by Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Finally, the award for the technical paper was won by a team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich Hertz Institute that describes work on auto-stereoscopic television or glasses free 3D.
