The 2013 Streaming Media All-Stars
CHRISTOPHER KELLY
PREVIOUS JOB TITLES
- Director of Media Services, QTS
- Streaming & Media Services Operations Manager, Globix
PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENTS
I have gotten to go to so many places and see so many incredible things since my first live streaming event in 1996. The most memorable include encoding the first X PRIZE live from the Mojave Desert, the Indianapolis 500, and Paris Fashion Week. Also being part of the teams that webcast the first ever events in RealVideo or helping tweak the encoding parameters when NetShow became Windows Media are up there too.
NEXT BIG THING
eSports and second screen experiences.
BIGGEST TREND
Unified viewing experiences, where you can watch on your computer, pause, and resume on any digital device, pause again, and resume at home on your game console or IPTV set top box.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE
The lack of standardized ad insertion for live streaming and the lack of third-party measurement systems to quantify a successful event for traditional advertisers and media industries.
TONY LAPOLITO
PREVIOUS JOB TITLES
- Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, BNI Video
- Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, Signiant
- Director of Product Management, SightPath
PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENTS
Being in the video business long enough to see the visions of VOD, TV Everywhere, and Cloud DVR go from pure science fiction to pure reality and working with true forward-thinking people to take on these major challenges. For example whem Telecom Italia Mobile said "let's build mobile video streaming CDN" when handsets could not play video or Comcast said "let's stream all the games of the NCAA Basketball Tournament" when the amount of IP traffic was more than their entire network capacity or NBC said "lets deliver the multi-platform Olympic experience" when the content was originating in Beijing - they were crazy, ambitious and thought leaders. Projects like these were difficult but paved the way for the new ways we consume content every day. People love the taste of sausage but don't want to know how its made.
NEXT BIG THING
Generation 3 CDN Products at Cisco -- ensuring that there is a Media Optimized Network to deliver any content over any network to any device to support any business model.
BIGGEST TREND
The proliferation of user consumption options. Having grown up with 4 snowy black and white channels – talk of 500 channels was blasphemy, VOD the holy grail and DVR a miracle. Now most consumers can't even keep track of all of the options to consume content – this is disruptive. Change is happening so fast that it really is an arms race with new technology arriving everyday – its a race to win what will be the defacto consumption habit of users - a much simpler world again. Who wins? To be determined but its exciting participating everyday in decisions that will dictate how future generations enjoy their entertainment experience.
The other thing is the role the cloud will play in delivering the next generation entertainment experience. Cisco's VideoScape Distribution Suite is the the content distribution platform that connects the Cloud-to-the-Client. With a Media Optimized Network – Content and Service Providers can leverage the cloud to deliver things CloudDVR and Mobile Video.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE
Simplicity. Consumers can’t be forced to call the geek squad or their relative who works at Cisco to connect this gizmo to that gadget. Or sort out things like "I watch movies from Netflix on my Apple TV, VOD on my iPad, HBO series on HBO GO on my computer, live news and sports on my QAM STB and … need I say more?
KEVIN LOUDEN
PREVIOUS JOB TITLE
I have been with Telestream since 1998. Previous to Telestream I worked as a freelance cinematographer.
PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT
I am particularly proud of the support that we give to the Cannes Film Festival every year. Being an avid film fan, this gives me great personal joy.
NEXT BIG THING
Bigger, better-looking content at smaller file sizes. There is always a new codec or format around the corner, like HEVC, and soon everyone will be streaming 4K to a screen in their living rooms.
BIGGEST TREND
One of the most exciting things I am seeing is the evolutions going on in the content creation space. Just like we have seen with the music industry, new outlets and revenue models are allowing more content creators, filmmakers, and show producers to create premium-level content and make it available to consumers.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE
Providing a simple-to-use and easy-to-understand web commerce environment for the consumer. It can be very challenging for nonsavvy consumers to navigate all of the “store fronts” available today, find the content they want, and enjoy it the way they want.
PETER MAAG
PREVIOUS JOB TITLES
- Vice President Business Development, Hyperchip
- Vice President Operations, Autodesk/Discreet
PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENTS
- Building businesses that make a difference in their little sandboxes, and adding “fun” to technology. Discreet impacted post-production; Hyperchip impacted core routing; Haivision is impacting the world of streaming.
- Bringing together like-minded groups and driving toward mutual goals - whether part of the channel, the ecosystem, or teaming within an M&A opportunity. Friends make success
NEXT BIG THING
- Integration. From the camera to the screen, video streaming workflows will be simplified for the masses.
- Intelligence. The world is creating and consuming video content at an exponential rate. The value of such vast amounts of video content is driven by automatic metadata tagging and content management.
BIGGEST TREND
One of the massive trends for the industry is the growing need to blend on-premise systems with cloud technology. Corporations are realizing that they don’t need to own everything, but completely external systems do not meet all of their needs. Broadcasters are realizing the flexibility of cloud services as part of their workflows. Blending premise and cloud technology with simple workflows is key.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE
The biggest challenge the industry is facing is how to make media easy. Content is king and in today’s world, everyone is a content producer – from employees within companies to consumers. We need to encourage people to make more content and let them know that it shouldn’t be scary! The other challenge lies in making it easy to manage and to distribute media to secure, targeted audiences. By helping fuel creativity, and making it easy to share, we’ll all get a more dynamic enterprise.
ROBERT REINHARDT
PREVIOUS JOB TITLES
- VP, Multimedia Applications Group, Schematic (now part of Possible Worldwide)
- Senior Program Developer, Rampt.com
- Author of best-selling Flash and web video books, including the Flash Bible series
PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENTS
- Training more than 5,000 web and video professionals at workshops, seminars, and conferences in the last decade.
- Building my own encoding and hosting platform at videoRx.com.
- Working on the team that produced the first Emmy-winning full episode Streaming Player for ABC.com.
NEXT BIG THING
The online video space in general has enormous opportunities, in almost every direction. I'm working on multiple projects, but I’m most excited about expanding videoRx.com offerings and focusing on customized development of online video products for client projects. On the consulting side, I'm in the middle of building a new video player for lynda.com, one of the largest established e-learning providers for a subscriber base of over 2 million. I'm also working with EVNTLIVE.com, a new tech startup, to enable an optimized encoding and streaming architecture for live events such as big-ticket music concerts. My clients in the health care sector continue to push into streaming video, with everything from live surgeries to live client care support.
BIGGEST TREND
The biggest trend right now for my business is building overhauled online video systems that work in an increasingly mobile world without the use of proprietary plug-ins such as Adobe Flash Player. Everyone wants the same capabilities as Flash Player in HTML5, but the lack of consistency with implementation of video makes that difficult (and in some cases, impossible).
BIGGEST CHALLENGE
The biggest challenge for those of us here in the U.S. is, in a word, bandwidth. Compared to our peers in other parts of the industrialized world, Americans pay more for less when it comes to internet connections.
This article appears in the April/May 2013 issue of Streaming Media magazine as "The 2013 Streaming Media All-Stars."
Related Articles
It's time once again to celebrate the people who made our industry great in the past year and continue to drive innovation. Presenting the ten new inductees to the Streaming Media All-Stars!
11 Apr 2012
Presenting the fourth-annual Streaming Media All-Stars, the 15 best and the brightest who had the greatest impact on our industry this year.
15 Jun 2011
Companies and Suppliers Mentioned