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compression standard in the 1990s, and then
H.264, which quickly replaced MPEG-2 as
the compression standard of choice starting
in about 2003.”
FUTURE. Beyond enhancing current
specifications and protocols, what do our
industry experts see as future trends in
storage, processing power and network
intelligence? Visser notes that raw media
processing such as graphics rendering, video
and audio decoding and processing will need
to reside at the point of media consumption.
“The discussion on where the application
processing needs to reside is mostly linked
with the overall reliability of the system
(avoiding single points of failure) and cost of
ownership. As technologies mature, a shift in
both directions is possible. Cloud-based
approaches are attractive due to the way this
standardises the software interfaces and
maintenance structure (centrally located,
managed environments).”
ContentBridge’s VP of Engineering
Manfred Van Ursel, says the company
believes in the power of automation to
unlock the value of digital content supply
chains. “So we see a future with far more
intelligent ‘routings’ of content to capitalise
on the best combination of storage,
encoding/transcoding, and transport –
possibly across different cloud service
providers - to suit a specific distribution
event. We also see the potential for
delivering encoding, packaging, and other
media services to the point of content
storage, reversing the common model, that
has existed pretty much forever, that
required moving content (e.g., large media
files) to the location of processing and
distribution. For the pay-TV providers, we
should expect to see a much tighter
integration between mobile offerings and
fixed, in-home services.”
“Moore’s Law and its corollaries in
storage, processing power, and software
provide for fantastical projections,” enthuses
Dale. “Some early indicators of where we are
headed can be seen in projects such as webdelivered, software-defined codecs, cloud
based computing for gaming and more
immersive VR systems. Personalisation and
the disappearance of device-specific
functionality as we fully shift towards a
software-defined experience across screens
will be the most immediate