by Tim Jackson VP, Media and Distribution Platform Sales and Paul Kosac VP, Strategic Accts
“Satellite” is the annual trade show for all facets of the satellite communication industry, and held each winter in Washington DC. The event brings together satellite carriers such as Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, Telesat and others with users from every segment of the industry.
ATEME spent the show catching up with our media customers from North America as well as meeting with others that come to learn about video compression and transcoding technologies. At our demo suite adjacent to the convention center we welcomed several existing and prospective customers to show them the advances in HEVC encoding and to discuss their requirements and applications.
One of the unique aspects of the Satellite show is the myriad of user groups that attend. On the media side, news and sports contribution is heavily represented and a significant portion of the show and exhibit floor is represented by military communications and mobile satellite offerings. The traditional “telecom” markets of oil and gas and mobility are taking a much greater interest in video encoding and transcoding and convergence was in full force at Satellite 2014. For buyers of satellite equipment such as antennas, modulators, and transmission equipment this is the key show each year and was very well attended. I was impressed by the size of the exhibit hall compared to past years, indicating that companies are looking to expand their offerings and services.
- 4K/Ultra HD was a big topic of discussion, mostly from the satellite carriers. After all, they have a lot to gain by the increased bandwidth requirements of 4K while at ATEME we’re focused on the compression efficiencies of HEVC to make 4K more cost-effective to distribute.
- 4K/ HEVC was a topic of interest for new distribution models from theatres to cruise ships to into theatres to new OTT options.
- Traditional media customers were looking at hybrid satellite and terrestrial models as well as how “Cloud” plays into the future.
Overall, the tenor and activity of the Show was very good!