Big names and first-time exhibitors prepare to unveil latest innovations at IBC2024

New for this year, AWS is hosting the Innovation Village in partnership with Nvidia, which will feature AWS Partners and their innovations utilising generative AI. Located in the newly opened Hall 14, it will feature companies including MASV, Deltatre, Stripe, Veritone, Ateliere, Red Space, Kaltura, Arc XP and more showcasing the very latest in AI and generative AI capabilities. AWS will also showcase over 25 generative AI demos across six solution areas, alongside a dedicated generative AI pod featuring services such as Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Q, as well as PartyRock — an application that helps attendees get hands-on and build generative AI applications without any programming or coding required. 

In Hall 11, Canon will be showcasing the EOS C400, its first high-end RF-mount cinema camera, packing a lot of features into a more compact system, as well as introducing its Dual Pixel CMOS AF II to its cinema EOS system, for improved autofocus that promises faster, more precise performance. It includes face/eye/body tracking and animal detection and tracking. 

Other cameras making their debut include the LDX 135 5G and LDX 135 RF from Grass Valley. These are engineered to meet the rigorous demands of live productions by integrating high-quality wireless camera feeds into production workflows. Both provide the same technology as the wired LDX 135, but with integrated wireless transmission via RF or 5G bonded cellular. 

For those wanting to shoot 3D or spatial videos, suitable for creating content for headsets such as Apple’s Vision Pro or for 3D projection, the new PDMovie 3D Air is on show in Hall 12. It uses LiDAR for automatic focus tracking, supporting simultaneous automatic focus for two lens sets, and is compatible with a variety of mainstream cameras and lens combinations, making it easy for a single user to operate the entire system independently. 

Among a number of debuts on the Ross Video stand is Artimo, a robotic system engineered to move smoothly across virtually any studio floor. It can extend from the lowest floor angle to above head height, enabling sweeping, dynamic shots and eliminating the need for additional dollies and jibs.  

The company is also focusing on how it “empowers organisations across the broadcast industry to deliver exceptional video experiences and impressive live productions, whether in the cloud, virtual studios, newsrooms, or anywhere else”. 

New from Zero Density is EVO II, a render engine that has been purpose-built for game engine-based real-time rendering, compositing and video input/output for virtual production. The company says that the ability to combine the specifications of gaming hardware with operational features such as redundant power supplies and rackmount capabilities in one package, makes EVO II an industry first.  

Another first sure to attract attention is the Sun Dragon the “world’s first 99% sun spectrum-accurate, five-colour HDR LED production light in LED strip form”. It represents a first leap into lighting for Atomos. Sun Dragon is a 1kg flexible strip of ultra-dense LED lights that avoids annoying micro shadows, which can require diffusers on regular thin LED light strips, and significantly increases the relative brightness. 

LED manufacturer INFiLED, meanwhile, is marking its 15th anniversary at IBC with a host of XR and virtual production tools on show. New for the Studio series are the ultra-black DBmk2 1.9 and curved Xmk2 1.9. Both are equipped with the company’s CBSF (Colour & Brightness Shift Free) technology, which claims to eliminate colour shift and uneven brightness. Magcube, a new cube-shaped LED solution for rental-staging applications is also debuting, offering compatibility with several of the company’s rental products for creative display applications.  

Also making its debut is Avio 2 from Matrix, claimed to be the world’s first open-standards-based, IPMX/ST 2110-ready IP KVM system. Designed to provide 24/7 reliability, robust security and flexible configuration as a transmitter or receiver, Avio 2 is intended as a highly interoperable KVM solution that opens new workflows across environments including control rooms, broadcast studios and OB vans, and live event production. 

On the audio front, Calrec is not only celebrating its diamond jubilee at IBC, but its ImPulseV cloud-based DSP processing core is also making its global debut in Hall 8. The ImPulseV delivers the same audio quality and feature set as Calrec’s hardware-based ImPulse processing cores, but is hosted entirely in a public cloud environment like AWS and can be accessed from anywhere in the world. 

In addition, first-time exhibitor Aeitech is not only bringing the noise to Amsterdam with its B9audio brand of miniature condenser microphones but is also showcasing the world’s first mini preamp that can accommodate up to 15 capsules. 

The B9audio mini preamp can offer a range of polar patterns, including omnidirectional, wide cardioid, cardioid, super cardioid, hyper cardioid and figure of eight. This preamp can also accommodate a C7 shotgun microphone capsule, which Aeitech says is an option that few other brands can offer. 

First-time exhibitors 

Other first-time exhibitors include Antenna Hungária, which will be showing its 18-camera OB7 unit in the Outside Exhibits area. Capable of recording in 4K/UHD and handling HDR cameras, the 16.5m OB7 features a 5.1.4 Dolby Atmos surround sound system and up to 20 workspaces. It boasts a Sony MVS-8000X multi-format switcher with a 3ME control panel, a Lawo mc²56 MKII audio console, Riedel Artist comms system and a Grass Valley multiviewer. 

CaptionHub, meanwhile, is unveiling upgrades to CaptionHub Voiceover in Hall 14. Central to this release is a new integration with a native AI voice engine from ElevenLabs, which provides support for more languages and voices, including voice cloning. 

According to Blair Harrison, Founder and CEO of Frequency, the company has “decided to take our presence at the show to a new level to address the huge interest we are seeing across the media and entertainment industry in FAST channels”. 

This includes the European launch of its Managed Channel Services (MCS) business unit. 

Finally, new functionality for the cloudSwXtch intelligent media network that helps broadcasters move live production workflows to the cloud, will be in focus on the swXtch.io stand. New for IBC, cloudSwXtch supports JPEG XS compression flows, which swXtch.io claims allows customers to move visually lossless video at very low latency into and through the cloud.