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NAB 2022: Eluvio, Zixi, Arch Platform Technologies Round Out the Show

LAS VEGAS — From the cloud to the blockchain, from cybersecurity to anti-piracy, MESA members showcased technology for every corner of the Industry at the NAB Show.

Here’s a brief look at what some of the companies brought to the event:

Eluvio

On the Sunday night of NAB week, Eluvio, creators of Content Fabric, the utility blockchain network for owner-controlled storage, distribution, and monetization of digital content at scale, held a company get-together for developers and stakeholders, to go over the company’s roadmap and successes to date.

It was meant to last four hours. It went on for eight.

“The idea of blockchain media has arrived, and you can take ownership with token assets,” said Michelle Munson, CEO and co-founder of Eluvio. “The possibilities of that are huge and game changing. A couple of years ago this was theory. And we have the ownership part down, but we don’t have the media asset part on the chain.

“This problem has come to a head, because the consumer appetite for NFTs has really started to explode. The whole point of [the get-together] was to explain this opportunity that the Content Fabric offers.”

Eluvio’s Content Fabric is the backbone of Fox Entertainment’s Blockchain Creative Labs’ (BCL) technology, used to to launch “Dollyverse” (welcometodollyverse.com) Web3 experience at South by Southwest (SXSW) in March, letting Dolly Parton fans buy limited-edition NFTs of her new album “Run, Rose, Run,” along with NFT collectibles, and live-stream her performance at the festival.

The entire event was streamed live for free on “Dollyverse” by Eluvio, which powered the NFT sales, and offered in-person attendees at Parton’s performance a free NFT for attending.

Using a compositional and just-in-time protocol, Eluvio’s Content Fabric doesn’t make digital file copies and reduces network storage and usage requirements of traditional streaming and distribution systems.

And in October, Fox, which has an investment in Eluvio to accelerate the adoption of its blockchain platform across the media and entertainment industry, launched an NFT marketplace, “The Maskverse,” for its series “The Masked Singer,” marking broadcast’s first major NFT initiative.

The marketplace for digital collectables is powered by Eluvio’s blockchain is designed to make buying, selling and trading of NFTs of the show to mainstream consumers, while still being secure for crypto-centric enthusiasts. Throughout the season, “The MaskVerse” is releasing Mask Packs that include character cards from the series, unlocking a marketplace for fans to buy and sell cards to complete their sets. To date, more than 400,000 NFTs have moved through the platform.

“We’ve matured to the point where we’re showing the true capacity of NFTs, where the ownership part for media is convenient,” Munson said.

Zixi

Ken Haren, senior director of product marketing for video-over-IP specialist Zixi, was all smiles discussing the work his company has done with Verizon and Bloomberg Media, testing how 5G networks can power broadcast 4K content delivery, without the need for satellites.

Bloomberg is using Verizon 5G edge with AWS Wavelength and Zixi’s Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP) to package and deliver live feeds of Bloomberg TV+ in 4K, and test-streaming Bloomberg TV+ 4K UHD content via 5G and edge compute, powered by AWS, directly to consumers’ 5G-connected devices.

“The role we filled in that was to enable live IP distribution over the network and it’s proved an interesting use case for 5G, showing what’s possible,” Haren said. “It’s enabled Bllomberg to reduce subscriber churn, providing a solid and stable connection across multiple 5G towers. It’s proven to be a huge, low-latency benefit, offering significant cost savings.”

Zixi also used the NAB Show to tout adoption of its ContentXchange channel service, which allows content companies to sign new distribution agreements and share live linear and event feeds quickly, with end-to-end encryption. Additionally, Zixi shared results to date of usage of its Zixi as a Service (ZaaS), now being offered worldwide as a preferred way to deploy the SDVP.

Using those services, Zixi has onboarded more than 20,000 live linear channels, including 1,800-plus local TV stations, from more than 700 global programmers, to more than 350 MVPD and OTT services.

“This speaks to the benefit of the Zixi-connected network, where we let you just focus on building your subscriber service,” Haren said.

Arch Platform Technologies

Arch Platform Technologies was featured at the Amazon Web Services booth as a AWS partner for media solutions, with Arch showing how content companies can instantly spin up cloud-based digital content creation facilities for visual effects, postproduction, virtual production and other collaborative creative endeavors.

Highlighted was Arch’s intuitive enterprise-level SaaS dashboard to build and manage workstations, render farms, storage and licensing servers, as well as create users and teams and manage facility and project permissions, with access to applications like AWS Thinkbox Deadline, Autodesk ShotGrid, and Moxion.