18
NEWS & VIEWS
April 2016
ABU DBS 2016 innovates digital con
by shawn liew
KUALA LUMPUR – 4K/Ultra HD
(UHD), 8K, digital radio, cross-
platform media, over-the-top
(OTT) and integrated broadcast
broadband (IBB) were but some
of the key technologies and topics
that were fervently discussed at
the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (ABU)
Digital Broadcasting Symposium
(DBS) 2016, held at the Istana
Hotel in the Malaysian capital from
February 29-March 3.
While these discussions con-
tinue across the broadcast industry,
Dr Javad Mottaghi, ABU secretary-
general, reminded: “It is important
to understand that these technol-
ogies also provide forward-looking
broadcasters with new pathways
to enhance their services and ad-
ditional revenue streams.”
He went on to highlight the
importance of going on different
digital platforms so as to reap
the benefits of the digitally con-
nected era through innovative
and creative content. “This calls for
creative thinkers who can produce
content that will not only suit the
main screen, but will also enhance
the second screen — content will
remain king,” Dr Mottaghi added.
Content is like water — you can
put it in any form, on any platform,
described Jaya Mahajan, consultant
and author of online blog Factual
for Asia. “However, the nature of
content and how it is consumed
Measat’s Alex Tan (right) and Ilham Bakti Adnan, Measat’s senior executive,
Corporate Communications, showing off the company’s 4K IP multi-cast over
satellite demonstration.
has changed fundamentally,” she
cautioned. Some key shifts in con-
sumption broadcasters need to
bear in mind are: Audiences control
the time content is consumed,
not the media; audiences choose
stories according to recommenda-
tion, particularly from peers; and
portable devices today are akin to
extensions of one’s self.
She added: “Certainly, audienc-
es are no longer influenced by TV
guides, and you need to produce
interactive content because audi-
ences are no longer passive — they
want their say on how content is
crafted.”
This, in turn, puts social media
increasingly in the spotlight as a
potential tool for broadcasters to
more effectively reach out to their
target audiences.
Embrace the power of social
media, urged Aale Raza, director,
Whiteways Systems. “Media com-
panies can collaborate with adver-
The Caton Technology team, who was making a debut at ABU DBS 2016,
highlighted solutions such as its IVP3000 Integrated Video Processing system
and NVD1000D network video decoder.
tisers by analysing and interpreting
customer insights. They can also
develop their own brands by hav-
ing a powerful social media pres-
ence across different platforms,”
Raza shared. The challenges to
overcome, he added, include find-
ing out how to effectively analyse
the huge amount of information
that comes back to the broad-
caster, and how to monetise this
social media relationship.
Do not embrace social media
without fully understanding how
it impacts your business, cau-
tioned Poonam Sharma, director
at MediaGuru. “Listen to the voice
of ‘social media sentiment’; other
wise, social media is just noise,”
she added.
“Social media sentiment”, ac-
cording to Sharma, entails analytics
and the extraction of actionable
insights, or what MediaGuru calls
“sentiment analysis”, which is a
process of collating, analysing and
Dolby redefines multi-channel
audio and sets path to HDR
When it comes to producing the
best audio for broadcast tele
vision, Dolby Laboratories does
not view audio for 4K/Ultra HD
(UHD) any differently than audio
for HD — because it is always
possible to provide better audio
for both formats.
Speaking to APB at last
month’s Asia-Pacific Broadcasting
Union (ABU) Digital Broadcasting
Symposium (DBS) 2016, Craig
Todd, SVP and CTO, Dolby
Laboratories, said: “We develop
audio solutions such as Dolby
Atmos, which is just as good fo