Popular knowledge-sharing sessions to focus on how Imagine Communications and others are delivering the Future of Television, Today

Imagine Communications, empowering the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation, today announced the schedule and speaker lineup for the IBC2016 edition of the company’s ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions, a series of presentations and interactive discussions featuring prominent executives and subject matter experts from across the media and entertainment and IT industries. Presented at Imagine’s exclusive location (Amtrium, Stand 4.A01) and free to all attendees, the ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions provide an interactive forum for discussing the latest information and trends shaping the media and entertainment industry and influencing the direction of evolving business models and technology adoption.

ImagineLIVE! IBC2016 will feature afternoon and early-evening sessions throughout the exhibition. Designed to emphasize the theme that many broadcasters and other media companies around the world are moving into the adoption stage of the modernization of their networks, the IBC2016 edition of the ImagineLIVE! Power Session series will include testimonials from customers and highlights from the company’s more than 25 IP-based live deployments. Several of the sessions will also focus on industry-wide collaboration toward the adoption of common standards and procedures, as well as illustrate the unique way Imagine is working with leading IT companies to bring broadcast-quality performance, precision and reliability to IP environments based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) platforms.

Companies and organizations represented in the ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions include the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), Cisco, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), EVS, FOX Networks, Microsoft, Sky, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Video Services Forum (VSF) and the VRT.

“In just three years the media industry has come full circle on the transition of operations to a new technology foundation based on next-generation architectures that leverage IP, common compute and networking resources, virtualisation and other IT technology attributes,” said Imagine Communications CEO Charlie Vogt. “Since Imagine first made public its vision for a sweeping technology transition at IBC2013, the industry has gone from rigorous debate to experimentation and is now well into the adoption phase. The ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions spotlight many of these early deployments and provide valuable insights into the remaining challenges and future opportunities facing today’s media and entertainment industry.”

ImagineLIVE! Power Sessions schedule and speakers:

Friday, 9 Sept., 13:00-13:45
AIMS – A Look at Today’s IP Implementations (Steve Reynolds, CTO, Imagine Communications; Felix Poulin, Senior Engineer and Project Manager, Media Production Technologies, European Broadcasting Union; Richard Friedel, Executive VP and GM, FOX Networks and Engineering & Operations Director, Video Services Forum; Thomas Edwards, VP, Engineering and Development at FOX Networks Engineering and Operations; Karel De Bondt, Project Manager, VRT; and Michel De Wolf, Director at DWESAM Engineering)

Friday, 9 Sept., 17:00-17:30
Transformation 2016: Media Technology using IP, Cloud and Virtualisation (Charlie Vogt, CEO, Imagine Communications; Jeff Eales, Director of Systems & Development, Sky Media; and Tim Taylor, Head of Broadcast and Airtime Sales ADM, Sky Media)

Saturday, 10 Sept., 12:00-12:30
Next-Generation Media Technology for Cloud and Datacenter (Brick Eksten, Chief Product Officer, Imagine Communications)

Saturday, 10 Sept., 17:00-17:30
The Latest in Cloud Technologies: Driving Online Video Streaming to an All-time High (Martin Wahl, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft Azure Media Services Engineering Group, Microsoft Corporation)

Sunday, 11 Sept., 12:00-12:30
Cisco + Imagine: Cybersecurity for Media Systems (Dave Ward, Senior Vice President, Chief Architect & CTO – Engineering, Cisco; and Steve Epstein, Distinguished Consulting Engineer, Cisco)

Sunday, 11 Sept., 17:00-17:30
Live Production in an IP World (Kerry Wheeles, CTO of Networking, Imagine Communications; Bryan Bedford, Global Business Development, Global Partner Organization Vertical Ecosystems: Sports, Media & Entertainment, Cisco; and James Stellpflug, VP Product Marketing, EVS Broadcast Equipment)

Monday, 12 Sept., 12:00-12:30
Moving Media Processing and Playout to the Cloud – Use Cases and Benefits (Rainer Kellerhals, Industry Lead Media & Cable EMEA, Microsoft Corporation)

Monday, 12 Sept, 15:00-15:30
Powering Your Broadcast Business with Next-Gen Ad Management (Sarah Foss, VP, Product Management, Advertising Management Systems, Imagine Communications)

IBC2016 will also mark the debut of several product innovations from Imagine Communications that bring generational advances to today’s media operations and practices. Attendees will be the first to experience the latest solutions from Imagine Communications in live production, playout, multiscreen delivery, advertising management and the transition to virtualised environments and the cloud. The company is also highlighting an array of IT and strategic partner solutions that combine with Imagine Communications’ leading-edge, software-defined technologies to provide the industry’s next generation of innovative IP, cloud and virtualised solutions.

Imagine Communications will also participate in and host multiple interoperability demonstrations that validate industry-wide support for field-proven procedures and specifications for transporting media over IP-based network, including VSF TR-03 and TR-04, AES67, SMPTE 2110 and AMWA Network Media Open Specification (NMOS) Discovery and Registration Specification (IS-04). Imagine is a founding member of the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), an industry association dedicated to the promotion of the widespread interoperability of solutions supporting the transport of media over IP.

Press and media are invited to a press conference at the Imagine Communications booth on Thursday, 8 Sept., beginning at 17:00.

For more information about Imagine Communications’ products and solutions, please visit www.imaginecommunications.com.

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About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, future-proof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.