Objectives

• Present a perspective on Media & Entertainment
• Discuss scope, trends, and long-term evolution
• Adopt the document within the Interest Group?

Overview of Media Technologies on the Web

Overview of Media Technologies on the Web

• Mentions past, ongoing and upcoming media related activities
• Identifies possible technical gaps, no priority
• List of technical specs, no business story
• Focus on media. What about Entertainment?
• Short- to Mid-term vision (1-2 years). What about longer-term (5-10 years)?

Scope

From the M&E Interest Group charter:

Continuous media [...] is here defined as videos, sound recordings, and their associated technologies such as timed text

… but that seems to exclude games and other immersive experiences which, I argue, should be in scope as well.

Definitions

Timeline.

A mapping from time to positions in that content.

Continuous media

Content whose timeline is purely dependent on time.

Continuous experiences

Experiences that somehow engage the user into some consumption / interaction rhythm. Feature immersive content that captures the user's attention and that has an internal timeline (timeline that is not purely triggered by user interaction).

Refined scope

Media & Entertainment is the part of the industry that makes business entertaining people through continuous experiences.

Question:
Would it better to talk about content with narrative?
(but books should remain out of scope…)

Media pipeline

• Pre-production
  screenplay, storyboard, scheduling, etc.
• Production
  media capture, production studio, etc.
• Post-production
  artistic processing to produce a mezzanine file. Mixing, special effects, etc.
• Distribution
  transcoding, content protection, etc. to produce variants
  broadcasting, streaming, ad-insertion, etc.
• Rendering
  theater, video player, XR headset, digital signage, etc.

Media content

• Pre-recorded content
  continuous media produced once in advance of viewing
  Ex: movies, TV series, shows
• Live content
  continuous media produced and distributed in real-time.
  Ex: sporting events, music shows, news
• Interactive content
  content for which progress along its timeline also depends on user's actions
  Ex: games, immersive experiences

Content consumption mechanisms

• On-demand viewing
  user chooses the content, freedom over what she can watch and when, pre-recorded content
• Linear viewing
  user selects a channel, timing imposed, live and pre-recorded content
• Immersive viewing
  interactive content experience

Money flows

Content is king. Money mostly spent on:

• Content production
  (pre-production, production and post-production)
• Distribution
  (network infrastructure & encoding technologies)

Question: What about device manufacturing?

Money flows

Money gets made through:

• Intermediary steps (B2B contracts along the media pipeline)
• Content licensing (B2B contracts and B2C grants of license)
• Subscriptions (SVOD, SLIN)
• Ads (external, product placement)
• Taxes (public broadcasters)
• By-products (goodies, toys)

Trend: Reduce device fragmentation

• The M&E industry has embraced Web technologies for interactive content
• The Web has moved to an evergreen model
  … but CE devices cannot easily be updated once sold
• No clear definition of the Web platform
• Different iTV systems define a baseline
• Focus of the CTA WAVE project and Web Media API CG
• Web Platform tests to the rescue

Trend: Improve content quality

• HDR
• Wide-gamut color
• UHD / 4K
• Audio spatialization

Trend: Move to IP

• Distribution over IP
  Unicast distribution, use of CDNs. Looking into WebRTC distribution.
  Triggers work on common formats and distribution technologies.
  Ex: CMAF, CENC, AV1, DASH, MSE
• Production over IP
  IP to replace SDI. Remote production. Need for REST-based APIs.
  Ex: AMWA's NMOS
• Cloud-based processing
  Hardware becoming a commodity, SaaS and PaaS. More REST-based APIs.
  Ex: EBU's Media Cloud and Microservice Architecture (MCMA)

Trend: Personalize content

• Convergence between on-demand viewing and linear viewing
  … at least from an end-user perspective
• Companies want to create user specific linear viewing experiences
• Includes improving Web advertising

Trend: Explore XR/360° scenarios

• XR used in production studios
  (bold claim heard at IBC: cameras will disappear!)
• More a research space from a pure media perspective
  (VR/360° videos do not show in movie theaters)
• Push will come from interactive content
  (Hello VR games!)
• Immersive live experiences
  (sporting events, music shows)

Next Big Thing

?

Next Previous Big Thing

The Web has already delivered on its “Next Big Thing” promise to become a major platform for continuous media experiences.

Next Big Thing

• Convergence between on-demand and linear already ongoing
  … to keep the user engaged
• Immersive viewing creates more engaging experiences
• More powerful devices: XR headsets, better performance
• More natural interaction mechanisms: voice, gestures
• Democratization of AI for real-time analyses
• The Web allows to handle interactions with users securely, and is the social and sharing platform by excellence.

Prediction: The Web will be at the heart of the convergence of the three main content consumption mechanisms (on-demand, linear, immersive).

Some scenarios

• Immersive live experiences
  projects users into the stadium to watch some live event, or interact with actual players
• “Choose your own adventure movies”
  … or better: “Movies you can play”
  … where users influence the scenario in real time

Flight Deck

WRC+ All Live

High-level requirements

Questions

• Is the scope correct?
• Are trends correct?
• What about the convergence prediction?
• Is this Next Big Thing exercise useful?
• Would the IG be willing to work on the document and publish it as an IG note?