An overall very positive feeling
“It was great to be in face-to-face contact with the customers, colleagues, exchange experiences and to feel that after three years we are back and reloaded with all the energy to listen, offer and discuss alternatives and solutions.”
“IBC this year was like a back-on-the-road again, like a fresh air after the covid-19 disaster.”
Those quotes, from David Peredo, Sales Director; and Key Aavoja, Pre-Sales Manager at Broadpeak express what seems to have been the general feeling around IBC2022: an overall positive feeling about returning to Amsterdam as if it was returning to visit an old friend.
Many in-person events were held this year, but IBC, one of the biggest in-person events in the industry was especially awaited for traditionally being the place where pioneering media experts present and discuss cutting-edge concepts, technologies, and business models that will drive the next years. After two editions were canceled consecutively due to the pandemic, the International Broadcasting Convention could finally return to the RAI Amsterdam, its home since 1992.
It was a very busy four days for our team that, on top of meetings, participated in a few panels and events:
Jacques Le Mancq, Broadpeak’s CEO joined the partner session ‘The Bigger Picture of Video Streaming’ hosted by ST Engineering iDirect which covered the hot topics about OTT and Quality of Experience.
Xavier Leclercq, VP of Business Development, participated in the panel “The State of Video Technology”, an interesting panel about the development of video technologies and the main bets for the future of video streaming.
We also joined the Streamers Meet Up at the IBC Beach with Greening of Streaming, Streaming Video Technology Alliance, Women in Streaming Media, and CDN Alliance. Those four leading organizations are helping streamers develop the industry for the better and as members of Greening of Streaming and Streaming Video Technology Alliance we were there to exchange ideas on how to improve the industry and make streaming more sustainable.
Despite the full schedule, we had reserved a special time to spend with some of our customers on a get-together evening on Friday:
“On September 9th, we organized our first in-person event mixing customers from several countries. This event we called “Brews and Tails in Amsterdam” has been designed to thank our customers for their trust over the years. After a boat tour on the canals, we all shared some drinks and food by the water at the RAI’s Beach.” Said Mathilde Jouault, Field Marketing Manager at Broadpeak.
Main themes and trends in the Post-COVID-19 pandemic’s IBC edition
Broadpeakers shared here the predominant themes and challenges they identified at IBC 2022 and those that will prevail in the years to come:
“If 2022’s edition of IBC had to be summarized in two words, they could be sobriety and conviviality. Sobriety because the messages displayed on the booths and the announcements have been rather reasonable compared to some hyperbolic promises heavily advertised in previous editions. Some themes, such as Open Caching, FAST, or AI, have however proved to be more recurring than others and probably draw a trend for the near future. The subject of the environmental impact of streaming is also making its way and starts to be quietly expressed in a few places.
Despite the apparent modesty of this 2022 edition, it appears that the feedbacks from exhibitors and visitors are overwhelmingly positive, pointing out both the value of the content exposed and the quality of the conversations in general. All in all, it seems that the industry was mainly focused on the pleasure of getting together again and having real-life exchanges that three years of virtual events never really managed to match.”
Damien Sterkers, Video Solutions Marketing Director at Broadpeak
“IBC 2022: What a blast! Beyond the fact that the show floor was very busy, I was amazed by the genuine interest visitors had in understanding what options current and future technology is giving them to make streaming better and simpler. TV and streaming industry changes are accelerating across all dimensions. Broadcast to OTT shift, subscriptions vs advertisement models, user experience predominance, device usage, consumption patterns, all with still a strong link to the social component. In the end, my feeling is that everyone was paying attention to how technologies will make a difference. All actors are trying to ensure that they will still be able to have a compelling value proposition in the future but also to adapt through the forthcoming transitions.”
Olivier Karra, Cloud Solution Marketing Director
See more about the main trends at IBC 2022:
Awards & broadpeak.io
An undeniable hot topic at IBC was new business models and the rise of ad-funded services such as FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV services) channels, as mentioned by Damien, and the personalized approach for the advertisement since keeping the users’ engagement is crucial after the pandemic and the decrease in the subscription’s numbers. The evidence of this is the two awards granted to broadpeak.io.
broadpeak.io, Broadpeak’s SaaS launched in January of this year, is an API video platform that adapts in the moment for an individualized streaming experience. That is, content is delivered based on the end-user, right down to the type of device and location the content is being viewed on.
During IBC 2022 broadpeak.io took home two awards: The TV Tech Best of Show 2022 and the CSI award for best cloud or virtualisation innovation. Mathias Guille, was glad about the tremendous interest in broadpeak.io during the show, especially for its latest application Dynamic Ad Insertion as-a-Service. But that’s not all:
“Our demo with Spideo for Personalized Virtual Channel was, in my opinion, the most disruptive as it questions Video Services Providers on how to raise the engagement of their viewers. It demonstrates the market’s maturity – we are now in a phase where Streaming Services Providers are looking to optimize their platform after a period of Build. Finally, FAST has been on every lip during the show, and we were well positioned there with our demo with Alpha Networks. We got confirmation during the show that the FAST ecosystem is moving quite quickly. The platforms (Roku, Samsung, …) are frequently changing requirements for distribution. Our approach responds well to that: broadpeak.io being fully built using CI-CD and DevOps methodology, we can answer any technical pivot experienced in the FAST delivery chain.”
Mathias Guille, head of Cloud Platform at Broadpeak
You can watch these interviews made during IBC 2022 to learn more about broadpeak.io and its applications:
To sum up
No review of IBC 2022 would be complete without mentioning the chaos at Schiphol airport. The Schiphol airport problems made the way back home difficult and made some speculate another “home” to host the event for the next editions.
To summarize, IBC2022 was marked by a smaller audience and problems at the airport to fly back home. On the other hand, counting on the amazing positive energy and exchanges, remaining the place to discuss and connect business face-to-face. For Broadpeak, it was an amazing edition, or, in the words of Jacques Le Mancq, Broadpeak’s CEO, “the greatest ever IBC show”.
