IBC2017. Immersion into profession

      We continue to publish materials about the trip of the winners of the International Conference "The digital and information technology in the electronic media industry" in Amsterdam at IBC Congress broadcasters. Author of following notes is Anastasiia Kuvaeva, CG and animation, St.Petersburg State University of Film and Television.

How did I get there

      This September I attended anniversary 50th International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam thanks to my participation in conference "The digital and information technologies in the electronic media industry" which I won. For this competition I had prepared a presentation about a practical test of stereocamera Panasonic AG-3DA1E for defining an optimal shooting distance. I arrived in Amsterdam 13th September in the time of my autumn student internship, because me and my teacher consider IBC the best student internship could be and many students from my university, who started their career from attending IBC now work in good companies. Sometime they were winners of the conference like me now. After winning me and my colleague Alexei Bukhalov received the task from IABM to shoot a short film about IBC and our feeling about it.

(Martin Salter congratulates me)

Search direction

      I study computer graphics and animation in St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television. This year I started to shoot 360 video with action-camera Nikon Keymission 360. According to my future profession, the things I expected to see at the exhibition the most were new software for combining 360 and animation and new 360 cameras and another devices for filming and watching VR to compare with what I have dealt with before. Also, I wished to meet executives of the leading animation studios and companies producing software for 3D computer graphics.
      The IBC impressed me by its grandeur. I needed half an hour to discover a desired stands. Everywhere I heard lively discussions between the groups of close friends who meet at IBC year by year and enjoy its atmosphere of festivity.

Visiting stands one by one

      The first VR experience on IBC I got on the first day in the Forum Lounge where the representative of the company Vantrix was offering to watch high-quality VR movies in VR glasses. I was interested and then found their stand. It was joint to the stand of Artesyn Embedded Technologies, the company which enables live broadcast including 360 VR/AR lens-to-glass delivery platform. For these goals they invented the camera that has a sensor with 5000x5000 pixels and can stream to the cloud and transcoding out to the devices with 2000x2000 resolution. The camera is connected to the powerful workstation that is plug into the internet and contains 16 terabytes of storage for studio recordings. The shots of video I’ve seen in VR glasses were really challenging – recordings of open-air concerts in night, but thanks to HDR it looked very well! Kjell Kolstad, Vice President of Cloud Services, explained us how does it work and we took our first interview there.

(Comparison of two cameras: Nikon Keymission 360 and Vantrix PRO25)

      Then we took part in a raffle at the Sennheiser stand. We wanted to win a prize - the VR microphone, but did not succeed. However, I found a man who could show me four multidirectional microphones under the cap and let me listen a surround sound depending on turning the head. AMBEO® VR MIC was designed especially for capturing VR sound and was showcased in Future Zone. The field of 3D audio is an innovative media format that complete the perfect illusion in virtual reality applications. Then we tried to visit all stands and sessions related to VR. In my opinion, the technical part of this new branch of industry is developing more consistently while its theoretical part bustle with ideas but without practical realization.

(VR microphone by the Sennheiser Company)

      While choosing the events to attend I noticed a significant number of sessions dedicated to VR and AR. The most highlighted was “Leaving the Hype Behind: Next Frontier in VR, AR, MR and Other Realities in Between” on 17 September, which I visited. This session seriously came to the question of growing popularity of VR as an entertainment while big companies still hesitate to invest in it. There were plenty of interesting panelists: Edward Tang, co-founder of Avegant; Leen Segers, co-founder and CEO of LucidWeb, a VR content development and distribution company; and Tony Mugavero, CEO of LittlStar, a global network platform dedicated to VR and 360 content. They were demonstrating successful VR experiences across platforms, from entertainment to sports content, imagine VR calls and documentaries about descending into the sea and came to the conclusion that VR is very strong (or the strongest) media for delivering feelings. And, as I think, our world tend to engage all organs of sense, intensify their feelings or try to create feelings that have never been before. And for me there is no doubt that next year’s VR industry will gain large financial support, and we will see creating multiplayer VR online games, artificial universes and other big projects as Google Earth VR. There is no lack of ideas.
      While revenue forecasts for VR and AR over the next three years run predict a multi-billion dollar business, many companies are still hesitant to invest. The panel discussion, promises an illuminating session on the realities of VR and AV. Success stories, insight into the projects in R&D, and a pragmatic discussion about what will it take for VR and AR technologies to reach their potential will all feature. Panelists include Edward Tang, Co-Founder and CTO of Avegant, a company that has developed ground-breaking Retinal Imaging Technology; Leen Segers, co-founder and CEO of LucidWeb, a pioneer in VR content development and distribution; and Tony Mugavero, CEO of LittlStar, a global network platform dedicated to VR and 360 content.
      Also taking place on 17 September, the Startup Forum offers an invaluable day for established media houses, startups and investors working in VR, AR and MR to share their opinions on the future for these advanced media technologies. Speakers include Marco DeMiroz, Co-Founder of The Venture Reality Fund (The VR Fund), a company that invests in early-stage VR, AR and MR startups.
      IBC has also curated a choice selection of conference papers on this hot topic, in a session entitled “VR and AR – The Production, The Potential and The Pitfalls”. Speakers will share some of the lessons that have been learned so far, as well as discussing the exciting potential of live-action VR captured with camera arrays, the potential adverse effects of VR and AR – and how to avoid them.
      The IBC Future Zone is set to deliver the latest ideas and innovations as a specially selected group of companies, including BBC R&D, Generic Robotics, NHK. Sennheiser and Immersia TV, showcases technologies including mixed reality, 3D audio and holographic projection, with a focus on multi-sensory virtual worlds and imagery of the future.
My colleague, Alexei Bukhalov had a chance to feel like Neo from Matrix, being shot by several cameras around in the Future Zone. Also, in future zone we stepped into 360 cinema dome and corridor composed of screens on sides, ceiling and bottom. This was a simple cubic representation of virtual surrounding.

(The corridor in the Future Zone)

      The same type of representation of VR is used in new Adobe After Effects CC 2018 where the new functions of editing VR were added. Because placing flat objects on the sides of cube is much easier for animation. The toolkit for VR in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 was near to perfection. The functions of panning and bugfix sloping horizon only could improve all my spoilt videos that I was tempted to delete. This revelation delighted me. It was a weird feeling when you are listening presentation about new programs coming from people whose names are displayed in the opening dialog of familiar program. After presentation I encountered with principal Evangelist of Adobe Jason Levine, we talked and he gave me a T-shirt with Adobe logo as a gift. I hope this was an initiation ritual.
      The Maxon stand where I listened presentations about the fine points of 3D modelling also delighted me. The speaker explained how he was working on CG objects in “Ghost in the Shell’’ movie.

Taking a look at innovations of another area

      Also I visited sessions not related to my profession but highly interesting. This was, of course, ‘’The Future with Robots that Are Like Us’’ by Dr. Hadson. Artificial Intelligence, without doubt, makes progress. I asked myself – do processes in their brains copy our way of thinking or this is particularly new type of functioning the mind? Really there is still not anything more perfect than human body and brain.
      But what impressed me more than robots was the Dolby Atmos sound on the session sponsored by Dolby Laboratories where we were listening old songs in new Multichannel Sound System. Then we were watching Kraftwerks’s music video in stereo glasses with remastered sound. This was a kind of video art where technology wholly works on idea and creates a unique immersive experience, that is unrealizable to replay at home, and this is important for my profession.

The conclusion

      Visiting IBC made me estimate adequately the level of technology in the world's industry and the level of equipment of my University (including actuality of programs we use and teaching methods of animation we study). It became obvious that if we want to go abreast with time we should buy new versions of the programs every year at least for a one computer. I visited workshops of 3D modelling and recorded presentations to retry it on lessons in my University, to understand things that those professionals do. I understood that Russian CG makers can do the same but the skill of further promotion of product is not developed and this stops our animation industry expanding. I have seen that creating new technical devices is not an obscure branch of technical science but a vivid field of creativeness where people compete and share their knowledge. The future of broadcasting, in my opinion, is to break the boundaries between types of media and in to make delivery of content more personal, maybe directly into the brain. I've seen the international community of broadcasters and inventors devoted to their job that unites them despite all differences in language and nationalities. I’ve seen that television is not a decaying media, it changes abreast the time, and now we have so many ways for delivering images, film and music, that we can’t even separate them. For me it was the clearest overview of industry’s statement, and I will encourage other students to visit IBC.
      And I am deeply thankful to IABM Educational Foundation and its director Martin Salter especially for giving me such an opportunity for visiting 50th anniversary IBC in Amsterdam.

Anastasiia Kuvaeva,

St.Petersburg State University of Film and Television