Viewer demand for multiplatform content delivery looks set to continue to grow with 56.9% of respondents in the second annual Avid Customer Association (ACA) vote agreeing that the trend will continue to dominate the industry. 

Picture multiscreen april

 

Those working within the broadcast, video and audio sectors indicated multiplatform content delivery is the most important trend because it enables content to be available on all distribution platforms with 17% foreseeing it to facilitate new revenue streams. 

More than 4,800 people working across all aspects of the media supply chain took part in the vote which represents 3,500 organisations in 117 countries and aims to help shape the strategic opportunities and product innovation for 2018 and beyond.

Remote production and 4K ultra high definition (UHD) were the other biggest technology priorities - 47.9% and 22.6% respectively - indicating investment priorities and business strategies for media companies are shifting against the heightened competitive landscape.  

Remote production was noted as the second most important trend based on the cost-saving of productions compared to on-premise event production. Some 17.4% said that remote production makes better use of technology infrastructures within existing facilities whilst also improving the quality of event production capabilities at 13.9%. 

The growth in 4K content production and delivery will continue to dominate the industry, with respondents stating that investing in 4K UHD content is a necessity to remain competitive. 

UHD was highlighted for its significant uptake across several categories including encoding and transcoding, graphics and branding, production servers and video editing. 

Industry limitations: cost and interoperability 

According to the report, the greatest obstacles to successfully integrating and achieving goals within these trends were cost and interoperability. When looking at end users’ budgets and their plans to allocate resources over the next 12-18 months:

  • 50% say they will upgrade audio capabilities
  • 25% say they will invest in cloud services and technology
  • 25% say they will upgrade their infrastructure for 4K/UHD operations

The evolving business dynamics, emerging trends and digital disruption is impacting content creation, management, delivery and monetisation, this was reflected in this year’s vote which was focussed on workflows and the products to help key workflows possible. 

Avid Chief Executive and President Jeff Rosica said: “The Avid Customer Association continues to take important strides to give anyone in the media industry a voice that can positively influence the direction of the industry and Avid’s technical contributions.

“Over the past 12 months, we’ve delivered two major waves of product innovations based on last year’s ACA Vote, and we’ll begin to deliver on these latest voter priorities with the next big wave we’ll be announcing at IBC2018.” 

The ACA architecture 

The ACA Board introduced a new structure to align more effectively within the industry. Key changes include expanding collaborations, the addition of several new product-related committees, including Newsroom and News Production and a more diverse breakdown of committees related to strategy and future direction.

The board and committees are comprised of nearly 200 industry professionals.

For the complete ACA results see here