Back to the future: A 2019 technical retrospective

2019 saw traditional broadcasters and OTT streamers alike pushing quality higher than ever across the whole production cycle. Media didn’t just go over IP and the cloud but used virtualised components and smart delivery too. Environmental concerns were more in the spotlight this year, with the move towards remote production among trends that could cut the carbon cost, while data centres came under scrutiny over the rising energy demands of streaming. But did we just see incremental changes?

“I don’t think there were huge technology developments in 2019,” says Graham Sharp,

CEO of Broadcast Pix. “What we saw was the acceptance of the developments over the last few years in things such as IP, automation and remote working.”

Rowan de Pomerai, head of delivery & growth for media industry body the DPP, says 2019 was defined “more by maturing technology than by hype”.

“Overall, 2019 felt like the year that the media industry got down to business,” he says. “We saw production teams using the cloud like never before, with remote editing now practical at large scale. Broadcasters and distributors were working hard on deploying…