AWS for media and entertainment (M&E) solutions for NAB 2024 include more than 30 generative artificial intelligence (AI) demonstrations, confirming the weight AI is having on the industry.

“How generative AI is changing the game” is the title of an AI-centric discussion to be held on Monday, April 15, from 11:30am-12:30pm. This NAB main stage presentation features Dr. Matt Wood, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence products at AWS and Julie Souza, Global Leader, Strategic Business Development, Sports at AWS, join Aaron Amendolia, NFL Deputy CIO, and Scott Gutterman, PGA TOUR Senior Vice President Digital Operations, for a discussion moderated by Thursday Night Football’s Kaylee Hartung.

For those who want to get a hands-on experience on AI, AWS generative AI golf experience, in the Upper South Hall, allows NAB attendees to step into the tee box of some of golf’s most iconic courses with Full Swing, the Official Simulator Partner of the PGA TOUR. Full Swing’s technology delivers a realistic off-the-course experience showing your real ball flight, powered by AWS. After perfecting their swings, attendees can design their dream golf courses with AWS generative AI tools, and walk away with customized golf posters. Check it out at SU3126.

New for 2024, AWS will run a cloud-based live news broadcast during NAB. Each day will kick off with a one-hour “Good Morning, NAB!” show, which will be programmed like a news show. The broadcast setup will include a production set with a news desk and cameras in the West Hall lobby of the LVCC and a Production Control Room in the AWS booth (W1701) that attendees can visit.

Vision and audio mixing will be done on site in the Production Control Room; graphics overlay, editing, and other tasks will be done remotely to highlight the geo-diverse crewing possibilities of Live Cloud Production (LCP) on AWS using NVIDIA GPU-backed Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) G4 and G5 instances. In addition to NVIDIA, several other AWS partners are contributing to this activation, including AP ENPS, Ross Video, Telos Alliance, LiveU, Haivision, CaptionHub, Zixi, Alpha, Aoto, and Ikan.

NAB Show LIVE can be viewed in the AWS booth, on the NAB Show website, and on select screens located across the conference halls. Live broadcasts will also be conducted from the show floor by roving reporters.

The AWS NAB booth experience

Returning to its double-decker layout in the West Hall, the AWS NAB booth space has grown to accommodate a new “Builder Zone” where attendees can connect with experts from AWS service teams to help build bespoke solutions for M&E challenges. The booth will feature application-tailored demos, including:

– Broadcast & Live Production – In addition to the “NAB Show Live” newsroom in the cloud program, Broadcast & Live Production demonstrations comprise LCP for sports events, Infrastructure as Code for automated deployment, streamlined playout and master control management to optimize distribution strategies using AWS Elemental solutions, alongside ISV technology aimed at delivering ATSC 3.0 and improving monitoring/observability capabilities.

– Monetization – Monetization demonstrations include converged TV ad sales in local and national markets; unified measurement solutions to enable alternate currencies; next-gen ad formats including virtual product placement and shoppable video; self-service privacy-enhanced data collaboration in AWS Clean Rooms; customer data solutions for finding, activating, and retaining audience; generative AI for ad creative generation and moderation, contextual advertising, and deriving audience insights; and integrations with Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Amazon Publisher Cloud (APS), AMC + Amazon demand-side platform (ADSP) Integration, and Amazon Anywhere.

– Direct-to-Consumer – Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) demonstrations include 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 delivery featuring AWS Elemental MediaPackage v2, interactive enhancements to streaming video, and integrated monitoring & observability. Additionally, live streaming with dynamic SSAI using live produced news content; video on-demand (VOD) programming options; personalized free ad-supported television (FAST) from VOD assets; and integrated monitoring and observability will be showcased for newsrooms in the cloud.

– Media Supply Chain & Archive – Media Supply Chain & Archive (MSCA) demonstrations highlight how customers can save money and create value from the content. Use cases include packaged file-based content (such as sports highlights) for live-to-air, live ingest to VOD/FAST, and AI-based content summarization (sports results). Newsroom demonstrations will include workflow automation, intelligent QC, clipping / editing, archive search, storefront (asset monetization), and AI audio splitting. Additional demonstrations include supply chain orchestration, dubbing and localization using generative AI, analytics visualizations, rights management, asset management, and packaging / distribution.

– Data Science & Analytics – Data Science & Analytics (DSA) demonstrations will highlight how building data, analytics, and AI-enabled media workflows can enhance the viewer experience and streamline live production, as well as video content analysis and summarization. DSA solutions applicable to the “newsroom in the cloud” include contextual search for real-time news, contextual ads for real-time news, and AI-driven news summarization. Most of the DSA demos feature generative AI capabilities, including for media intelligence, personalization, and asset generation / transformation.

– Content Production – Content Production demonstrations create a holistic studio in the cloud composed of generative AI-assisted virtual production using Unreal Engine and Cuebric, featuring Wacom Tablets; VFX and rendering featuring 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. This workflow will showcase the making of a 90-second movie trailer from start to finish for the (faux) upcoming sci-fi/comedy film “Cowgirls on the Moon”, which will be featured during commercial breaks for the “Good Morning NAB!”

The AWS Builder Zone will feature AWS services for AWS Elemental, Storage, Edge Computing, and AI/ML. Included in the Builder Zone is a “generative AI playground” where Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Q, and Partyrock (an Amazon Bedrock Playground) will be featured to further educate attendees on AWS’s generative AI capabilities, offerings, and differentiators.