Before software is going to eat the world, as Marc Andreessen famously declared, video is going to eat the Internet.

A report from Cisco Systems Inc., released in February, showed that IP video traffic would comprise 82% of the Internet by 2022. The bottom line is that streaming of live events and a tidal wave of video content are creating a major transition within the traditional broadcast industry. And cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC are lining up to cash in.

“It’s a time of transition and the business model is going to change, especially for traditional broadcasters,” Mark Kramer, vice president of engineering and technology at Pac-12 Networks, said during an appearance at the annual National Association of Broadcasters conference on Monday in Las Vegas. “We believe that the future of TV is software-defined.”

In November, the Pac-12 Conference announced that it would go “all-in” on AWS, leveraging the cloud provider’s machine learning, storage and digital media services to deliver sports broadcasting for its 12 universities. The conference is using cloud services for production workflows-at-scale, live-to-video-on-demand content and over-the-top streaming.

“We don’t see video as video,” Kramer said. “We see video as data.”

Watson powers World Cup

That key distinction is leading a number of leading broadcasters to embrace not only cloud services but tools such as artificial intelligence to manage content. When FOX Sports was preparing to broadcast the World Cup soccer tournament last year, the network was confronted with a significant problem. It had a mountain of clips from matches played during the World Cup dating back to 1958 and no realistic way to catalog them all into a useful database of highlights.

FOX turned to IBM Corp. and its Watson AI platform for help building a database of clips it could use. The result was the Ultimate World Cup Highlight Machine, a complete database of over 300 matches analyzed by Watson and sorted by year, team, player and game.

“AI is working its way into the nooks and crannies of media entertainment,” David Mowrey, vice president of product management for IBM Watson Media and Cloud Video, said during a panel session Monday.

Intel’s Visual Cloud

Several major tech players took advantage of the NAB gathering to make a number of announcements tailored for the changing landscape in the world of media entertainment. On Monday, Intel Corp. and Netflix Inc. announced a joint project to make AV1, an open-source video codec, available on GitHub. The chipmaker also announced the Open Visual Cloud Project, designed to offer software tools which can develop new applications for live streaming, AI-based ad insertion and content delivery.

“We believe that the Visual Cloud completely changes the game,” said Lynn Comp, vice president of the Network Platforms Group and general manager of the Visual Cloud Division at Intel Corp. “As people move globally, they want to take their content with them.”

Google Cloud announced a number of media-related partnerships this week, including a deal with MediaKind to offer its customers Google’s capabilities in TensorFlow and Kubernetes Engine to help facilitate video production in the cloud. Google also announced the integration of its AI and machine learning products with Ooyala Inc., a provider of video workflow management solutions.

And Microsoft announced, a few days ahead of NAB, new cloud services and updates designed to help with video rendering and storage tied to the Azure platform. The company also added new video-related partnerships with firms like Akamai and Verizon while boosting its AI portfolio with additional services to curate footage and transcribe dialogue.

“The next frontier will be the application of AI to intelligent distribution,” Sudheer Sirivara, general manager of Azure Media and AI at Microsoft, said in an exclusive interview with SiliconANGLE. “We believe this type of model is the future of TV.”

Signs of friction

Despite the blending of the technology world with major broadcast players at NAB this week, there were signs of underlying friction as well. NAB Chief Executive Gordon Smith used his conference keynote address on Monday to criticize large tech companies for refusing to integrate broadcast chips in smartphones.

Known as ATSC 3.0 or Next-Gen TV, the chips merge over-the-air signals with mobile devices. Watching local TV stations on smartphones can be done today, but it requires a device attachment, something that Smith believes puts the U.S. public at risk in the event of a public emergency.

“In fact, we may be on the cusp of a new era of manufacturing that should and could include broadcast reception in devices,” Smith said. “But to date, manufacturers, Apple being one, refuse to enable broadcast chips in their devices. And it begs the question: Why?”

The growing influence of cloud providers in the media world is also raising questions around the future of video and broadcast equipment manufacturers. How much hardware is the media entertainment industry going to ultimately need?

Although bandwidth has been a roadblock in the past, the coming of the new 5G wireless standard is expected to improve transmission speeds a lot. And major cloud providers have all the storage that content makers need.

Asked whether he had an interest in any of the big boxes on display at NAB’s exhibition in Las Vegas, Pac-12 Networks Kramer was blunt. “It’s obsolete in 15 minutes,” Kramer said. “Every single game that we broadcast ends up in S3 storage on AWS. By going all-in on the cloud, we can use infrastructure-as-code or DevOps.”

One of the leaders tasked with understanding the future direction of the media entertainment industry doesn’t work for a technology company at all. Ted Schilowitz holds the title of futurist at Paramount Pictures. He moved there after holding an identical position for Twentieth Century Fox and his job is to advise the studio on new and emerging technologies.

Speaking at a Cisco-organized event during NAB, Schilowitz was direct in his assessment of the new world facing the entertainment industry today.

“The world that we live in now is an IP-delivered world,” Schilowitz said. “There is a lot of change afoot.”

Photo: Mark Albertson/SiliconANGLE