EBU joint project wins IBC Judges' Prize

The IBC2012 Awards Ceremony will be held in the RAI Auditorium, in Amsterdam, on Sunday 9 September.

A joint EBU-Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) project that will enable broadcasters to save money and work smarter has won the prestigious Judges' Prize of the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC).

The Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS) is an open standard for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for media that, in simple terms, overcomes expensive, disruptive incompatibilities in IT-based broadcast production technologies.

IT-based solutions are supplanting dedicated video and audio equipment as broadcasters seek media format flexibility, extensive metadata management and cost reduction by using general purpose PCs and networks. Yet despite the long-established role of IT in media production, system incompatibilities still cause inefficiencies and drive up costs.

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EBU FIMS Project Leader Jean-Pierre Evain said: "A few years ago I gave a presentation at the IBC conference about Service Oriented Architectures, and I would never have dreamed of results coming to market so quickly. My colleagues working on FIMS have been exemplary, and the industry has recognized these efforts."

EBU Director of Technology & Innovation, Lieven Vermaele, welcomed the honour, saying: "Our support of the FIMS project will continue, as we expect its results to have a concrete impact on reducing costs and complexity of integration for EBU Members in the long run. This award brings deserved recognition of the work done so far. FIMS has now delivered a solid base-layer specification, but it will grow in terms of services and functionalities demanded by new applications and use cases."

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Chairman of the IBC Innovation Awards, Michael Lumley, said: "IBC values sharing knowledge above all else, and in developing practical standards so quickly, the FIMS partners had to share their knowledge if the resulting standards were going to be robust enough to be useful globally. I am delighted that we can honour EBU and AMWA for their efforts in driving the FIMS project."

The IBC Judges’ Prize will be presented to FIMS, along with the International Honour for Excellence to NHK. In addition, the IBC Innovation Awards, Exhibition Design Awards, Special Award and the Best Conference Paper Award, which will be given to the Fraunhofer Institute for telecommunications Heinrich Hertz Institute will be announced during the IBC2012 Awards Ceremony. The ceremony will be held in the RAI Auditorium at 18:30 on Sunday 9 September. Doors open at 18:00 and all IBC attendees are invited to come to the ceremony.

For a more information about the FIMS project, EBU experts and materials will be available at stand 10.F20 from 7 – 11 September.

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