AWS M&E Cloud Symposium in Los Angeles – Presentations available on-demand

If you missed our M&E Cloud Symposium on July 31, 2018, session recordings are now available for viewing.

PRESENTATIONS

Opening: State of Media and What’s New from AWS

Ben Masek (Global M&E BD Lead, AWS)

Usman Shakeel (Global M&E Tech Lead, AWS)

Chris Kuthan (M&E Solutions BD, AWS)

AWS M&E subject matter experts present AWS’s view on the fast-changing media landscape, along with an overview of relevant new AWS releases, including one-click solutions for common media use cases.

Keynote: Enhancing the Viewer Experience with Machine Learning: GrayMeta and the Sky News “Royal Wedding: Who’s Who App”

Josh Wiggins (Chief Commercial Officer, GrayMeta)

With the power of machine learning, the Sky News “Royal Wedding: Who’s Who” app – built in collaboration with AWS, GrayMeta, and UI Centric – enabled viewers to watch real-time updates of celebrity wedding guests as they entered St. George Chapel on May 19. This exciting Keynote will cover how GrayMeta leveraged Amazon Rekognition for real-time identification of guests and tagging with related information. You will also learn how Sky was able to launch this unique experience in less than four months using AWS Elemental Media Services for live video capture and multiscreen viewing optimization as well as Amazon CloudFront to unify the content for rapid distribution to viewers.

Track 1: Content Creation Presented by AWS Thinkbox

Production in the Cloud: Trends, Challenges, and Solutions

Chris Bond (Founder, AWS Thinkbox)

Jason Fotter (CTO and Co-Founder, FuseFX)

More production work is being done in the cloud than ever before, yet we have only begun to scratch the surface of the performance and scale that the cloud can bring to many facets of production. Join Chris Bond, Founder of Thinkbox Software and Director Product at AWS, to learn how some of our customers are making the transition and building stable pipelines to move their assets and shots to the cloud. He will also be joined by Jason Fotter, Co-Founder and CTO of FuseFX, who will focus on how FuseFX has taken advantage of the cloud with AWS and how they have tackled key rendering and storage problems.

Going Remote: Running VFX Virtual Workstations

Borislav “Bobo” Petrov (Sr. Solution Architect, AWS Thinkbox)

Ian Main (Technical Marketing Principal, Teradici)

Chuck Parker (CEO, Sohonet)

Learn how AWS, along with partners Teradici and Sohonet, enables a virtual workstation environment for VFX content creation. Using AWS G3 instances, this PCoIP solution for creative professionals delivers a pixel perfect, color accurate, fully-interactive native desktop experience for both Windows and Linux platforms. This is ideal for visual effects artists who also require various input peripherals such as latest generation Wacom 8K pressure sensitive tablets and Wacom Cintiq monitors to work as seamlessly as they do on-premises.

The State of GPU Rendering (Panel)

Moderator: Richard Kerris, AWS Connections & Former CTO, Lucasfilm

Panelists:

Nicolas Burtnyk, Co-Founder & CEO, Redshift

Jules Urbach, Founder & CEO, Otoy

Thiago Ize, Principal Developer, Arnold Core software development team, Autodesk

As advances in GPU rendering technology deliver increasingly compelling results, studios are experimenting and deciding whether they should use CPU or GPU based rendering software for their projects. What exactly is the state of GPU rendering, who is rendering on GPU, and where is this technology headed? Join AWS partners Redshift, Otoy, and TBD, along with moderator Richard Kerris, as we seek to answer these questions and more.

Track 2: Content Distribution 

Cloud-based Virtual Workstations: A Guided Tour of a Real World Implementation with Meredith and Bebop

Nathaniel Bonini (Director of Video Engineering, Meredith Corporation)

David Benson (CTO and Co-Founder, BeBop Technology)

M&E firms face continuous disruption through tech developments, new business models, industry consolidation, and/or reorganization. Despite this, we’re also all expected to continue delivering on time while innovating for the future, something not permitted in rigid, traditional on-premises architectures. In this session, we will walk through the implementation that BeBop and Meredith (formerly Time, Inc.) went through to deploy BeBop remote editorial workstations, storage, and content transport. Learn how Meredith, using virtual edit workstations, has driven efficiency and agility in their production and distribution pipeline. With cloud-based editing, Meredith now has the ability to fire up a remote, secure workstation with immediate access to the content needed for editing. Additionally, by shifting to virtual stations, Bebop has increased Meredith’s operational flexibility and potential for cost savings by utilizing editors in regions outside of NY or LA and be gaining the ability to quickly spin up for overflow or get rid of high-end workstations forever.

Universal Music Group: Consolidating Content and Workflows at the Speed of Sound with Sony|Ci and AWS

JR Yasgur (VP Business Architecture, UMG)

David Rosen (VP Cloud Application & Solutions, Sony|Ci)

Each day, Universal Music Group connects millions of fans to their favorite artists and helps fans discover new musical inspiration. To revolutionize its business, UMG is leveraging Sony | Ci and AWS to further integrate its creative pipeline, centralize digital assets, and capitalize on new monetization opportunities by capturing, creating, and delivering compelling content in the cloud. This presentation will examine how UMG is incorporating increased global cloud-based acquisition, content availability and discoverability to negotiate new distribution deals, to expedite content editing in compressed timelines, and to govern the policies of an expanding library of video content.