Sound Impressions from IBC 2024. Connectivity or Networks?

Following a few intense days in the extremely warm and dry environment in Berlin, attending IFA 2024 - the Big CE Supermarket as I called it in my 2015 report - it felt great to move on to Amsterdam and attend the vibrant International Broadcasting Convention (IBC). Great, if it wasn't for the sudden change in weather with unexpected rain and a sudden drastic drop in temperature. IBC 2024 was a vibrant show with historical announcements from Sennheiser and Genelec, but our report also highlights the impressive expansion of Dante audio networking in this important industry segment. And many other reasons why everyone was happy to be at IBC.

Already recognized for its industry-beating real-time speech-to-text transcription engine used daily by large broadcasters, Speechmatics now has launched groundbreaking real-time translation capabilities in 69 language pairs to accompany its highly accurate transcription offering. This integration will enable Speechmatics' customers to benefit from the company's real-time engine in an all-in-one API.

Simon Says is a company from San Francisco, specializing in timecode-based AI transcription, which now announced the launch of Simon Says Assemble, a new product and significant expansion to the Simon Says platform that makes video editing as simple as copying and pasting text. According to the company, the new application, which is directly supported by popular NLE and MAM applications, brings the story forward with modern tools and narrative-driven editing capabilities that enable collaboration and speed up video workflows.

It's been an interesting week! Just prior to the IBC 2017 show, Apple made its traditional event for the launch of the new iPhone 8 and iPhone X (and those Augmented Reality demos were amazing!), also debuting the new Apple TV 4K. And before Samsung and all the other Smartphone manufacturers start announcing their own versions of "X" models, we had a series of interesting corporate and technology announcements, culminating by Amazon's announcement of a series of new Alexa-based hardware devices...