Highlights from NAB Show 2024

More than 61,000 media and entertainment (M&E) industry professionals from 163 countries gathered in Las Vegas, Nevada, earlier this month to network, explore emerging technologies, and discuss the trends shaping the future of content production, delivery, and monetization at NAB Show 2024. Amazon Web Services (AWS) pulled out all the stops for the show, including its NAB Show LIVE cloud newsroom production collaboration with NVIDIA, double-decker booth packed with demos and a new “Builder Zone” featuring a generative AI playground, adjacent AWS Partner Village and Learning Lounge, and an AI golf experience in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC).

AWS leadership also participated in an NAB Main Stage Presentation on generative AI alongside speakers from the NFL and PGA TOUR, “#GALSNGEAR CONNECT,” and other panels and talks throughout the show. Additional highlights included the second annual NAB Excellence in Sustainability Awards ceremony, which AWS sponsored for the second consecutive year, and four NAB Awards that AWS earned for technological advancements on display at the show. Continue reading for a full recap.

NAB Show LIVE showcases the power of the cloud in live production

Illustrating the possibilities of Live Cloud Production (LCP) on AWS in a real-world setting using NVIDIA GPU-backed Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) G4 and G5 instances, AWS ran a cloud-based live news broadcast during NAB 2024. Production kicked off each day with a one-hour “Good Morning, NAB!” news show, shot on a news desk in the West Hall lobby of the LVCC using pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras, with the help of a production control room in the AWS booth (W1701) where vision and audio mixing were done, and a remote team that worked on graphics overlays, editing, and other tasks.

Following the morning show, NAB reporters broadcast daily live interviews from the show floor as they made their way across conference halls. Programming was available to watch at the AWS booth, on the NAB Show website, and on select screens located throughout the LVCC. Several additional AWS Partners contributed to the broadcast, including AP ENPS, Ross Video, Telos Alliance, LiveU, Haivision, CaptionHub, Zixi, Alpha, Aoto, and Ikan. Segment recordings are available here.

Booth demos highlight innovative AWS applications for M&E

Solution-specific demos covering the six M&E solution areas filled the AWS booth, which also included a new “Builder Zone” with a generative AI playground. The space offered attendees a chance to connect with AWS experts to learn more about AWS Media Services, cloud storage, edge computing, and generative AI services and applications including Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Q, and Partyrock.

Several Broadcast & Live Production demos were on display in the booth, including Live Cloud Production (LCP) for sports events, Infrastructure as Code for automated deployment, streamlined playout and control management to optimize distribution strategies, and third-party technology aimed at delivering ATSC 3.0 and improving monitoring/observability capabilities.

A host of Monetization demos covered everything from converged TV ad sales in local and national markets to unified measurement solutions to enable alternate currencies, next-generation ad formats including virtual product placement and shoppable video, self-service privacy-enhanced data collaboration in AWS Clean Rooms, generative AI for ad creative generation and moderation, contextual advertising, and deriving audience insights, and more.

AWS showcased Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) offerings at the booth, including end-to-end delivery capabilities, personalized experiences, server-side ad insertion (SSAI) at scale, sports streaming, cloud DVR integration, automated multi-language subtitling, low-latency video delivery, interactive enhancements to streaming video, integrated monitoring and observability, live streaming with dynamic SSAI, video on-demand (VOD) programming options, personalized free ad-supported television (FAST) from VOD assets, and beyond.

Media Supply Chain & Archive (MSCA) demos highlighted how customers can save money and create value from content via packaged file-based content for live-to-air, live ingest to VOD/FAST, and AI-based content summarization. Workflow automation, intelligent QC, clipping/editing, archive search, storefront, and AI audio splitting were also part of the demo lineup, as were supply chain orchestration, generative AI-powered dubbing and localization, analytics visualizations, rights and asset management, and packaging and distribution.

On the Data Science & Analytics (DSA) front, AWS illustrated how data, analytics, and AI-enabled media workflows can enhance viewer experiences and streamline live production, video content analysis, and summarization. Booth demos also featured generative AI capabilities for everything from media intelligence to personalization, and asset generation and transformation, as well as DSA solutions applicable to the “newsroom in the cloud,” and contextual search and ads for real-time news and AI-driven news summarization.

Content Production demos drew in a continuous flow of booth visitors, providing a glimpse into a holistic studio in the cloud and a 90-second movie trailer for the (faux) upcoming sci-fi/comedy film “Cowgirls on the Moon.” The demo comprised generative AI-assisted virtual production using Unreal Engine and Cuebric, featuring Wacom Tablets; VFX and rendering with the new AWS Deadline Cloud service, supported by Foundry’s Nuke and SideFX’s Houdini; editing in the cloud with real-time video preview using Adobe Premiere and Streambox, and production asset management with Frame.io; and cloud studio management using Leostream and Qumulo.

Near the AWS booth, the AWS Partner Village included an AWS Theater and a Learning Lounge where hands-on training workshops were offered. The theater included presentations by AWS customers and partners, dedicated pods provided an opportunity to interact with AWS Partners such as Amagi, Anypoint Media, Arc XP, Ateliere, Bedrock Streaming, CSG, Datazoom, EPAM, GlobalLogic, Imagine Communications, IMDb, Irdeto, JW Player, M2A, MASV, Merapar, Stringr, Tagboard, and Veritone.

NAB attendees take a swing at the generative AI golf experience

Across the LVCC in the South Upper Hall, NAB attendees had the opportunity to perfect their golf swings and design virtual courses with the help of generative AI tools and services on AWS and Full Swing, the Official Simulator Partner of the PGA TOUR. The activation let attendees step into the tee box of some of golf’s most iconic courses and get data-driven insight into their real ball flight. Attendees were also invited to create a custom golf course using Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock, where they could print a poster and take it home as a keepsake.

AWS thought leaders get candid about industry challenges and opportunities

On the second day of the show, AWS Vice President of AI Products Dr. Matt Wood and AWS Global Leader of Strategic Business Development for Sports Julie Souza joined NFL Deputy CIO Aaron Amendolia and PGA TOUR Senior Vice President of Digital Operations Scott Gutterman on the NAB Main Stage for an AI-centric discussion moderated by Thursday Night Football’s Kaylee Hartung. Throughout the panel, the group covered a broad range of topics, from AI’s potential impact on scalability and operational efficiency to the ways generative AI can transform the fan experience, emerging opportunities for using AI and ML to better leverage data across sports, and much more. Catch a full recording of the session here.

On Tuesday, April 16, Samira Bakhtiar, AWS General Manager of Media & Entertainment, Games, and Sports, kicked off “#GALSNGEAR CONNECT” Women’s Leadership Summit with the opening keynote. AWS was a sponsor of the half-day program, which brought new opportunities to help participants level up their career journeys and build their professional brands in media and entertainment.

AWS and NAB celebrate sustainability champions in M&E

NAB hosted its Excellence in Sustainability Awards ceremony for the second consecutive year, with AWS returning as the main event sponsor. The event recognized individuals, companies, and products/services in media and entertainment championing sustainability. More details about this year’s winners can be found in NAB’s announcement.

Streaming Summit at NAB Show

AWS sponsored The Streaming Summit at NAB Show, a premium co-located event focused on the business of streaming media, hosted by Dan Rayburn and featuring some of the largest OTT platforms, sports leagues, broadcasters, and content owners in M&E. As part of the program, AWS and NBCUniversal presented a case study and deep dive into the tech behind Peacock’s record-breaking NFL Wild Card exclusive. View the session, and all recorded programming from the event, here.

NAB 2024 marked AWS’s biggest show yet. A huge thanks goes out to all who contributed to its success! We look forward to seeing you next year in Las Vegas, and perhaps, even sooner in Amsterdam if you’re headed to IBC this fall. Stay tuned for more exciting developments from AWS in the coming months.