Latest / The Scene Projects / Igor Oreper on Streaming Innovation, AI in Media, and Democratizing Content Creation

Transcript

Igor Oreper on Streaming Innovation, AI in Media, and Democratizing Content Creation · The Scene Projects

• 0:12
  Welcome in to another exciting episode of Real Biz.
• 0:15
  I am your host, Bubba Starts.
• 0:17
  And with me today from Bitmovin', Igor Oropur.
• 0:20
  Igor, welcome to the show.
• 0:22
  Hey, Bubba.
• 0:23
  Nice nice to be here.
• 0:24
  Yeah.
• 0:25
  And and a pleasure to have you back.
• 0:27
  We got to have a lengthy discovery call in which, my mind was blown by what Bitmovin, has
• 0:34
  been doing in the industry for a long time now and what the future holds for streaming and
• 0:41
  just video content.
• 0:43
  But before we get into all of that, really just wanted to kinda give you the floor here for a
• 0:48
  few minutes.
• 0:49
  Let you give us a, glimpse into your background and then how you started working with Bitmovin,
• 0:55
  and then we'll kinda pick it up from there.
• 0:58
  Sounds great.
• 0:58
  Yeah.
• 1:00
  So as said, happy to be here.
• 1:03
  I'm a I'm a techie at heart.
• 1:05
  I always have been, You know, going back to to being a teenager, tinkering with tech, I went
• 1:11
  to Drexel University in Philly.
• 1:13
  I did their co op program, and then I I bounced around a bit, IT support, customer service.
• 1:21
  I did some stuff at Godiva Chocolatier as a as an engineer in the early days.
• 1:27
  And and I worked for a little fintech startup, back then as well.
• 1:31
  And so that kinda gave me a grounding in in technology in the corporate world.
• 1:37
  And I started around 2006, 2007.
• 1:41
  I I joined PWAC's advisory practice, and that's where I really got into the entertainment and
• 1:47
  media space.
• 1:49
  I worked across lots of projects, lots of different accounts, and I just I I fell in love
• 1:56
  with this intersection of media and technology.
• 1:59
  And after doing that for a while, I I wanted to start a family, so I needed to stop full time
• 2:06
  travel.
• 2:07
  I moved into Comcast here in Philly, and and I spent eight years there.
• 2:14
  I learned quite a lot.
• 2:16
  And one of the big things I did at Comcast, was I worked for a division that made Comcast
• 2:21
  technology available to the industry at large.
• 2:25
  And, after spending, you know, fifteen over fifteen years in in big corporations, I I
• 2:33
  wanted to try something different.
• 2:35
  That's when I went to Bitmovin.
• 2:37
  It's a little Austrian startup.
• 2:40
  Came out of some university research, and they've already had some awards and and
• 2:46
  accolades for streaming technology.
• 2:49
  So I took the leap, and I've been with Bitmovin about eight years.
• 2:56
  Lots of different roles.
• 2:57
  And my role today, is a a chief strategy officer and architect, and, frankly, it's the
• 3:03
  most fun I've had in my career so far.
• 3:08
  Yeah.
• 3:08
  It sounds like an ride.
• 3:11
  It's been for you, you know, a huge congratulations to you being able to kinda
• 3:16
  carve this space out for yourself now with a smaller company, having worked in a you know,
• 3:24
  for some large factories and being one of the low men on the totem pole at that.
• 3:29
  I know how grueling and it can be to be be a cog in a machine and how gratifying it must be
• 3:36
  to work for a much smaller company in Bitmovin that is doing just as groundbreaking stuff as a
• 3:43
  Comcast could.
• 3:44
  And that's really the beauty of, the business world, today in this age of information.
• 3:50
  Exactly.
• 3:51
  And and now, you know, some of those larger businesses are customers of ours.
• 3:56
  And and so, yeah, we do we do some pretty innovative, innovative things in the streaming
• 4:01
  tech industry at Bitmovin.
• 4:03
  Well, and maybe this is a good point to, have you give us a little bit of the background.
• 4:07
  You mentioned that Bitmovin was kind of formed out of university.
• 4:11
  I I love that story.
• 4:13
  And in our discovery call, we touched on that a little bit.
• 4:15
  Would would love for you to share a little bit of the bit moving background and then kinda
• 4:20
  moving into what the the company and you in the company are doing now.
• 4:24
  Sure.
• 4:25
  Yeah.
• 4:25
  So just a little more background.
• 4:27
  About thirteen years ago, our cofounders came out of a postgraduate program, at the
• 4:33
  University of Klogenfurt in Austria.
• 4:36
  And, you know, they they cofounded some some pretty techy things like the Dash streaming
• 4:41
  standard.
• 4:42
  It's one of the two ways that, content is streamed over the Internet today globally.
• 4:49
  And that program is still in existence.
• 4:52
  They still do a lot of very forward looking adaptive streaming research.
• 4:57
  We get to benefit from it as a as a company because we still, sponsor that program.
• 5:03
  It's called the Athena Lab, at the university, and we get some really cool innovations coming
• 5:09
  out of that lab.
• 5:11
  So it's a a little bit of, you know, academia meets, the the commercial world.
• 5:18
  And, you know, some of those some of those innovations are, effectively our products
• 5:23
  today.
• 5:24
  So what we do, what Bitmovin does is, we provide software tooling to streaming services
• 5:31
  around the globe.
• 5:32
  So think direct to consumer streaming services.
• 5:35
  They may have, you know, a handful of viewers and subscribers.
• 5:40
  They may have millions of viewers and subscribers.
• 5:42
  So we really service the industry at large.
• 5:46
  Those companies, those streaming services take our technology.
• 5:50
  They integrate it into their platforms, and they offer a really great, high quality product
• 5:56
  to their end customers, and they're able to do it really efficiently and at scale.
• 6:01
  So that's really kind of the the high level, description of what we do.
• 6:07
  Yeah.
• 6:07
  And just incredible.
• 6:08
  And I love the relationship with the university that the the company was born out of, but the
• 6:15
  way that they're giving back into academia, and it really becomes this beautiful synergistic
• 6:20
  relationship because they fund these programs and and the program at the university that
• 6:26
  develops the groundbreaking tech that they can then use as a service and back and forth.
• 6:32
  I think that's just beautiful.
• 6:34
  And they kinda have that from Jump Street.
• 6:36
  I I think it's very rare.
• 6:38
  It it is.
• 6:39
  You know, we look, kind of to the left and right at, other vendors in the space, other
• 6:45
  tech vendors in the space, and there are a handful that do something similar or that have
• 6:50
  similar stories.
• 6:51
  But, you know, I do think that we're very unique in that way.
• 6:56
  Absolutely incredible stuff.
• 6:58
  Well, you you mentioned a little bit, about what you guys do.
• 7:01
  Now, obviously, extremely valuable to the sports world, and I know you guys work with
• 7:07
  some of the biggest, corporations out there that are putting out sports content on the
• 7:13
  planet.
• 7:14
  Talk about why, I guess, why it is that sports are the the leader, really, of the streaming
• 7:23
  world?
• 7:26
  Yeah.
• 7:26
  It's interesting that, you you know, I think I I don't know if they're the leader.
• 7:31
  Right?
• 7:32
  I mean, there's a lot of leaders out there each in their own genre, right, I would say.
• 7:38
  But what's interesting about sports in particular is that, you know, sports and
• 7:44
  entertainment are really starting to merge into one thing.
• 7:47
  Right?
• 7:47
  Every sports leagues now thinks of itself as an entertainment company.
• 7:52
  So right?
• 7:53
  So the NFL isn't just selling a football game.
• 7:55
  They're selling the Netflix documentary about the quarterback's life, the athlete's podcast,
• 8:01
  the behind the scenes content, the live game, and it's all in one package.
• 8:06
  Right?
• 8:06
  So it's really a lifestyle ecosystem.
• 8:09
  It's not just the sports itself.
• 8:12
  You know, some examples are are, the drive to survive, series.
• 8:17
  Right?
• 8:17
  It turned casual viewers into Formula one fans.
• 8:22
  So it's really the storytelling that created the audience and not the sport itself, or like
• 8:27
  the Kelsey brothers.
• 8:28
  Right?
• 8:29
  They built a media empire from a podcast.
• 8:32
  And now you have Amazon, Apple, Netflix.
• 8:35
  They're now all live sports broadcasters.
• 8:38
  And so, you know, the lines between the tech company and the media company are kind of gone.
• 8:44
  And so when we're serving, content, from a cinematic documentary to a live game, that's
• 8:54
  happening in the moment, the tech underneath that has to handle both.
• 8:59
  Right?
• 8:59
  It can't just be, you know, tailored to documentary or tailored to this to the live
• 9:05
  event itself.
• 9:06
  And that's what we do.
• 9:07
  We make sure that the video quality matches the content quality, whether it's, you know,
• 9:12
  beautifully shot documentary or it's a live event with millions of people watching at once,
• 9:18
  that cannot go down, right, where resilience and reliability is really key.
• 9:25
  Talk about some of the challenges that you guys face, I guess, maybe less of the technological
• 9:30
  ones or maybe just an overview because I I'm not a techie from the word go, and some of the
• 9:37
  things that you deal with over time and on a daily basis and some of the challenges.
• 9:44
  Yeah.
• 9:45
  So lots of challenges.
• 9:47
  You know, we like to think of ourselves as, you know, we're we're the engineers that solve the
• 9:52
  technical challenges.
• 9:54
  And a lot of those technical challenges, the viewer doesn't even see.
• 9:58
  Right?
• 9:59
  Because, ideally, they're solved before they become a challenge, before they become evident,
• 10:04
  to a viewer and and impact them.
• 10:07
  So I won't bore you with the technical details.
• 10:10
  Just know that there's a lot that's happening behind the scenes, to make sure that viewers
• 10:16
  are able to start the stream.
• 10:19
  They're able to continue watching that stream without interruption, that their level of
• 10:24
  visual quality, is as high as possible given their specific and unique circumstances, you
• 10:32
  know, Wi Fi at home or maybe they're on the go.
• 10:35
  So there's kind of those technical blocking and tackling challenges that we're handling behind
• 10:40
  the scenes.
• 10:42
  And then, of course, there are some, logistical challenges.
• 10:45
  So, for example, for a a sporting event, right, you want that content delivered in real time or
• 10:53
  as close to real time as possible.
• 10:55
  We call it near real time.
• 10:57
  So really reducing the broadcast delay from the field, to the viewer, who is watching at home
• 11:04
  or on the go.
• 11:06
  There's also some interesting challenges around synchronization of content.
• 11:11
  Right?
• 11:11
  So with the Internet, in the old broadcast days, you would watch at the same time that
• 11:16
  everyone else watched, and that was a pretty reliable thing.
• 11:21
  But with streaming, you may be watching ten seconds behind live.
• 11:25
  Your neighbor might be watching twenty seconds behind live.
• 11:28
  You're both potentially on some social media apps having a real time conversation about
• 11:34
  what's happening on the field.
• 11:35
  So there's some challenges that we try to solve around synchronizing, the timing, right, for
• 11:42
  for those live events, and things like turnaround time.
• 11:46
  Right?
• 11:46
  Think about, highlights of, some, you know, some interesting moment in the event.
• 11:54
  Well, you probably wanna create that highlight really quickly and make it available on Insta
• 12:00
  or, you know, name name your favorite social media app, to to draw in that audience.
• 12:07
  So those are just some of the challenges.
• 12:10
  There's there's quite a lot, that goes into it as you can imagine.
• 12:14
  Well and really trying to catch up to the over the air broadcast world, which has been
• 12:20
  ubiquitous for us for so long, but has its own limitations.
• 12:25
  Right?
• 12:25
  You you can't broadcast those things to a cell phone, which is how we are all consuming
• 12:31
  content now, whether it's in, you know, short form content just on your social media or
• 12:37
  you're streaming games while you're on the bus traveling through the city and watching things
• 12:42
  in real time, it's pretty incredible to think that, you know, even ten years ago, a lot of
• 12:48
  what we take for granted, I feel like now as consumers didn't even exist.
• 12:53
  And that's been because of companies like Bitmovin out there that are solving the
• 12:59
  problems and and thinking farther down the line about that user experience.
• 13:05
  For me, consuming sports content and and an app like the NHL app that that I think really has
• 13:12
  something incredible to offer in that.
• 13:15
  I don't know if that's you guys behind that or not, but they're able to, you know, provide the
• 13:21
  video replays just a few minutes after as a goal is scored.
• 13:25
  And I'm sure there's others that are using something similar.
• 13:28
  But even if I'm just listening to the audio feed on the app, when the goal is scored, it's
• 13:33
  maybe two or three minutes, and now I have the replay also available in the app to be able to
• 13:38
  click into that.
• 13:39
  And to it's an incredible lift, I'm sure, on the technological side to bring that to
• 13:47
  fruition.
• 13:47
  It's it's unreal to me what we're able to do now as consumers.
• 13:53
  Totally agree.
• 13:55
  And and, you know, I think the the main point you're describing is that, you know, creators
• 13:59
  and teams are becoming their own broadcasters.
• 14:02
  Right?
• 14:02
  They're no longer dependent on someone else to provide that broadcast experience.
• 14:09
  And so, you know, I think of it it it's sort of exactly what's happening.
• 14:13
  What's happening in sports is exactly what's happening in indie music or in a podcast world
• 14:18
  that people are going direct to their audience.
• 14:21
  The NFL built, NFL plus.
• 14:24
  NBA has league pass.
• 14:27
  National rugby league in Australia built their own streaming platform, and and those are just
• 14:32
  a few examples.
• 14:33
  Right?
• 14:33
  But they don't want to be dependent on the middleman anymore.
• 14:37
  They still go through broadcasters and other aggregators, but they also need to offer this
• 14:43
  direct to consumer experience, which effectively means they're rebuilding that whole
• 14:48
  thing from scratch.
• 14:50
  And so, you know, what what we do think of us as the plumbing.
• 14:54
  Right?
• 14:54
  So they they focus on the content and the community, and we make sure that video works
• 15:01
  everywhere and for everyone for the specific features that they want to launch that may be
• 15:06
  very unique to their sport or unique to their fans.
• 15:12
  And so, you know, that's that's sort of the democratization, of content and the
• 15:21
  broadcasting experience that's happening in sports, which we've seen happen in in music and
• 15:27
  podcasting already.
• 15:30
  Yeah.
• 15:30
  And it's really changed the relationship between the leagues and the broadcasters that
• 15:36
  they're working with.
• 15:37
  And it it's really interesting to watch the old guard and the way things have traditionally
• 15:44
  been done kinda crumbling right before our eyes as more teams and leagues, catch on to this
• 15:52
  because the selling points are far beyond just, you know, the broadcast of the games.
• 15:57
  It it really comes down to data.
• 16:00
  The more users that you have in that information, the more you're able to sell to
• 16:04
  them on the backside and to communicate with the fans of your product on an individual
• 16:10
  level.
• 16:11
  I think that may be something that gets lost on a lot of, you know, consumers.
• 16:15
  They're not thinking about it that way when they sign up for this service or that, but
• 16:20
  that's really what it is.
• 16:22
  It's now by providing that information in a login that you have now, you know, kinda opened
• 16:28
  the door for them to market to you a whole slew of other products and services that they may be
• 16:35
  offering.
• 16:36
  And that's really where the world is going.
• 16:40
  Yeah.
• 16:41
  Totally agreed.
• 16:42
  And, I mean, that's been the holy grail, I think, for a lot of the content rights owners
• 16:48
  is having the relationship directly with their consumers because that opens up the world to so
• 16:56
  many other things beyond the content consumption itself.
• 17:01
  And, you know, the the, if you think of it from the perspective of the viewer, right, the the
• 17:07
  next generation of fans, they don't just want to watch.
• 17:10
  They want to participate.
• 17:12
  Right?
• 17:12
  So the experience has to be interactive.
• 17:15
  It has to be immersive.
• 17:17
  Choose your own camera angle.
• 17:19
  You know, watch and bet at the same time.
• 17:21
  Chat with other fans in real time while the game is happening.
• 17:25
  Multi view experiences, where you're watching, you know, multiple games at once or maybe
• 17:32
  you're watching multiple camera angles, from a Formula one event, or an NBA event.
• 17:38
  And so now that experience can be so much more personalized and and sent viewer centric.
• 17:46
  So, again, you know, all of those, all of those things are really incredible, and they're
• 17:54
  possible to do in this direct to consumer streaming environment.
• 17:58
  But, of course, you know, all of that can fall apart if the video is thirty seconds behind
• 18:03
  reality, or, you know, if you're if you're betting on a live game and, you know, Twitter
• 18:10
  or x spoils the result before your stream catches up.
• 18:13
  Right?
• 18:13
  That's, that becomes a very, tangible spoiler effect just, using one example.
• 18:20
  And so in that situation, what what we try to do is we try to provide that low latency
• 18:26
  streaming infrastructure that makes those interactive features possible, and we make sure
• 18:31
  it's actually working across the many devices that users have.
• 18:37
  Someone may be streaming on their Samsung TV, and someone else may be streaming on their
• 18:41
  iPhone in a subway.
• 18:43
  And you really want that experience to work, at you know, as consistently as possible across,
• 18:49
  that that very fragmented environment.
• 18:52
  We are so spoiled, and I think the, consumer takes a lot of things for granted when it comes
• 19:00
  down to thinking, know, especially about the technological, you know, issues just to get it
• 19:07
  to the level that it is now.
• 19:09
  And with the advent of, you know, AR and VR and now, you know, the overarching XR reality that
• 19:18
  we have now of the, you know, the immersive experience, at whole, whether it's on, you
• 19:25
  know, a headset like an Oculus or now with the glasses that that are going to become, I think
• 19:32
  ubiquitous across the board in the next five to ten years as the price point comes down to that
• 19:38
  of being readily available for all users.
• 19:42
  It's it's amazing where we're going to go, not just as consumers not there, but also being
• 19:48
  just at the game.
• 19:49
  That you're going to have an opportunity to watch all the angles, not just your first
• 19:54
  person view from there, but being able to consume all of the angles of it in real time on
• 20:00
  a device that you're wearing on your face.
• 20:02
  It's really incredible to me where we're going.
• 20:07
  Yeah.
• 20:07
  Yeah.
• 20:07
  I agree with that.
• 20:08
  And, you know, for sports, I think of, you know, kind of your traditional experiences that
• 20:14
  we've been talking about, right, where you're looking at a at a two dimensional device.
• 20:20
  But what if you're in the stadium?
• 20:22
  Now you have the option to have secondary screen experiences while you're at the event
• 20:29
  live.
• 20:30
  Right?
• 20:30
  So you can you can, There are apps on your, smart devices that you can use.
• 20:37
  There are, immersive, apps, as you said, that you can wear in your face now, while you're in
• 20:45
  the stadium that complement, and augment the, real experience that you have in front of you.
• 20:52
  And then likewise, if you're at home, well, you know, how do you bring that, real life
• 20:58
  immersive sports experience into the home through, things like, your Oculus, or your
• 21:06
  Apple Vision Pro device?
• 21:09
  I mean, the the tech that's available is, really incredible.
• 21:15
  And, yes, you know, to to support those things, you have to you have to build quite a lot of
• 21:21
  technology and maintain that technology to to make sure it's actually working.
• 21:25
  And then okay.
• 21:25
  Well, now you have this immersive experience, but how do you put advertising into that
• 21:30
  experience?
• 21:31
  How do you put a a transactional ecommerce into that experience?
• 21:36
  Like, oh, I saw some a player, or a celebrity wearing something that is interesting to me or
• 21:43
  something that I may I may want to find find out more about.
• 21:47
  Well, let me double click on that while I'm watching the game, and maybe, place an order on
• 21:54
  the side.
• 21:55
  So the the interactive and immersive experiences are really exciting, and I agree.
• 22:01
  I mean, we're we're very spoiled and very lucky, to have the experiences that are
• 22:07
  available now.
• 22:08
  Yeah.
• 22:09
  We don't I got kids that are you know, my my son and daughter, the youngest, are nine and
• 22:14
  10, and we don't let them get a lot of screen time now that it's inevitable that eventually
• 22:19
  they're going to be using these.
• 22:20
  And they have iPads at school that they use.
• 22:22
  So it's not like they're missing out on how to use them.
• 22:26
  But by the time that they really get these things in their hands, you know, as teenagers,
• 22:31
  later in their lives, the experience that they're going to I grew up on Nintendo, Igor.
• 22:37
  So
• 22:38
  Same same years.
• 22:39
  Same year.
• 22:40
  That's been in thirty years that we've had, and it seems to be moving so much faster now.
• 22:46
  Obviously, we've talked a lot about, you know, some of the biggest brands in sports and
• 22:50
  entertainment a lot on this, but Bitmovin isn't just for them.
• 22:56
  This technology is available to content creators like myself or others out there, to
• 23:02
  bring that experience for their fans to, you know, to a much smaller as much smaller level.
• 23:10
  Yeah.
• 23:10
  I heard you signed up for an account earlier.
• 23:13
  Yeah.
• 23:13
  Well, I had to.
• 23:14
  Right?
• 23:14
  When when once I realized that it wasn't and I think, you know, leaving our discovery call
• 23:19
  that it was like, oh, okay.
• 23:20
  Well, yeah, They have Fox Sports and those people are a piece of that.
• 23:24
  You kinda build it up in your mind that something like this wouldn't be available to a
• 23:28
  a small time content creator like myself.
• 23:32
  But, yeah, once I realized that that was not the case, you bet your butt I I got on there
• 23:37
  and got it done.
• 23:39
  Yeah.
• 23:39
  And and it's a good point.
• 23:41
  Right?
• 23:41
  There is kind of this, inherent, I don't know, sort of a blocker.
• 23:48
  Right?
• 23:49
  It's it's a it's like a gap tool.
• 23:51
  I don't know anything about streaming.
• 23:53
  We do try to make that easy.
• 23:55
  And, yes, we do have a lot of big brands as as customers, but also a lot of small brands, and,
• 24:02
  you know, what I would call individuals and prosumers who maybe have smaller audiences, but
• 24:09
  still need all of the same capabilities for their direct to consumer experience.
• 24:14
  And, you know, sure, you can go to YouTube and you can stream there or, you know, StreamYard
• 24:20
  as as as some may use.
• 24:24
  And those technologies are great, but your, you know, YouTube is or Google in that case is
• 24:32
  taking 30% of revenue generated, right, from that experience, or maybe you have fees that
• 24:39
  you have to pay.
• 24:40
  And so by leveraging other tools that are really technology services on their own.
• 24:48
  Right?
• 24:48
  I mean, we we charge for usage of our product.
• 24:51
  We don't ask for a share of your revenue.
• 24:56
  You know, doing that is a viable option even for smaller brands and individuals who are, you
• 25:04
  know, willing to roll up their sleeves and and get their hands a little bit dirty and maybe
• 25:09
  build a a direct to consumer streaming app themselves.
• 25:13
  And so you can definitely use our tools to do that.
• 25:16
  Everything's available through self-service sign up right on our website.
• 25:21
  It's really straightforward.
• 25:23
  Again, you know, we have over a thousand customers.
• 25:26
  Sure.
• 25:27
  Yeah.
• 25:27
  A few of them are big logos, but we've got quite a few smaller accounts across media and
• 25:35
  entertainment as well as sports, who leverage our products on a day to day.
• 25:40
  And now more than ever that it is required, I think, to have an option like this or at least
• 25:48
  be aware of it, you know, to kinda date this interview a little bit.
• 25:53
  Some massive judgments being handed down, in The United States, in the favor of the
• 26:00
  plaintiffs against these large corporations of YouTube and Meta, because of that.
• 26:07
  So with that, inevitably, there is going to be change in the way that these, platforms are
• 26:14
  run.
• 26:15
  And people have to be and ones who are making you know, I just had an interview early today
• 26:20
  with, my good friend, Zach, who has a, YouTube channel with a million subscribers.
• 26:26
  Right?
• 26:26
  He's paying his bills with the content that he's creating every month on YouTube, but he is
• 26:33
  one, you know, one change at the top away from maybe losing everything.
• 26:40
  And and that's an extremely scary prospect when you've kinda put your eggs into one of these
• 26:46
  corporations basket.
• 26:48
  Yeah.
• 26:49
  Exactly.
• 26:49
  And, you know, I think the barriers to broadcasting are gone.
• 26:53
  Right?
• 26:54
  So what used to require a cable TV deal and, you know, millions of dollars or, you know,
• 27:01
  distribution deal through YouTube, you can do that now by yourself with the cloud from the
• 27:07
  cloud.
• 27:08
  So you have a lot more control.
• 27:10
  And at the end of the day, content is king.
• 27:14
  Right?
• 27:14
  So the the way that you deliver that content I mean, people want to come and watch your
• 27:19
  content.
• 27:20
  They'll find that content if you make it available.
• 27:23
  The way that you deliver it now, you have a lot of options.
• 27:27
  Right?
• 27:29
  Yeah.
• 27:30
  It's incredible to me where, things have gone, just in the last fifteen years has been
• 27:37
  absolutely astounding to kinda live through it.
• 27:40
  Things happen so fast.
• 27:42
  And by the time you feel like you're caught up, you're behind again.
• 27:47
  And, I've been very grateful to have conversations with people like you, Igor, that
• 27:51
  are putting me towards the forefront and introducing me to things that I I may not have
• 27:57
  heard about for another two to three years, in which case, I'm once again behind the eight
• 28:02
  ball where now it's about, okay.
• 28:04
  You know what you know.
• 28:05
  How do you stay on top of that and continue to go out there and to build it?
• 28:11
  And I kinda mentioned, when we first jumped on that, we are in the age that Andy Warhol
• 28:16
  foresaw in the nineteen sixties that everyone will get their fifteen seconds of fame.
• 28:22
  And now you have the ability to create not just that moment, but to create an entire broadcast
• 28:29
  channel from that.
• 28:31
  And I don't know if anyone in the last fifty years foresaw that coming from the age of, you
• 28:36
  know, three network you know, broadcast networks and now moving into literally millions
• 28:44
  of them, available to everyone and this beautiful tech providing it not just to the
• 28:50
  large corporations, but to anyone who has the gumption to create and to chase that down on
• 28:56
  their own.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:59
  I agree.
• 29:00
  It's pretty incredible.
• 29:01
  I mean, I've I've been in this industry, as I said, since probably 2007.
• 29:07
  I can confidently say I've been focused on media and media tech and streaming.
• 29:11
  And, you know, that if you think back, that's when a lot of it really started, and what drove
• 29:18
  adoption at that time was the iPhone.
• 29:22
  Right?
• 29:23
  Everyone was all of a sudden able to stream right in their pocket.
• 29:27
  And even at that time, you know, there were a lot of there were a lot of predictions.
• 29:33
  There are a lot of, really lofty lofty goals that folks were talking about, and I don't
• 29:38
  think anyone was talking about where we would be today.
• 29:42
  And and and also, you know, where are things going?
• 29:46
  I mean, I'm I'm really excited about, where the the direction of where things are going and
• 29:54
  especially the role that generative AI is playing in the space.
• 29:58
  I know a lot of folks are very cautious about generative AI in in the media and entertainment
• 30:06
  space in general, but we really see it as a as a big opportunity.
• 30:11
  You know, we think that that there's some things are converging.
• 30:14
  Right?
• 30:15
  You have AI that's going to personalize everything.
• 30:18
  Right?
• 30:18
  So imagine every viewer is getting a a custom highlight reel based on their favorite player.
• 30:24
  That's happening right now already, and it's only accelerating.
• 30:29
  You have the volume of content that's exploding because you've got every angle, every practice.
• 30:35
  Right?
• 30:35
  Everything is getting recorded, plus you have content that is happening around the event
• 30:41
  itself.
• 30:43
  And you have consumers who are getting subscription fatigue.
• 30:48
  So, you know, I think we'll probably see a lot more bundling and aggregation of, content into,
• 30:55
  you know, super apps, if if you wanna think of it that way, that are gonna combine content
• 31:01
  across multiple leagues, events, and and, types of of sports content.
• 31:07
  So I'm really excited about that.
• 31:10
  I'm really excited about the role that Bitmovin is playing in in this evolution.
• 31:16
  You know, AI, it's it's already a part of what we do.
• 31:19
  We use AI to compress the video very intelligently.
• 31:24
  We wanna make it really accessible and easy to deliver across the Internet.
• 31:29
  We analyze all of the content, in in that video and audio, to figure out, you know, what's the
• 31:36
  what's the best way to deliver it to the user and to save and and reduce, on the cost of
• 31:44
  doing it, including reducing carbon emissions.
• 31:47
  Right?
• 31:47
  It's pretty wild to think, that a a video tech company like us are are having an impact on the
• 31:56
  environment, a positive impact on the environment.
• 32:00
  Because with so many people streaming, right, think about how much power each device is using
• 32:06
  to stream that content.
• 32:07
  Well, what if we can reduce it just a little bit for each of those devices?
• 32:11
  That makes a big impact.
• 32:14
  And then, you know, we're we're building some really interesting AI features into our
• 32:19
  products for the streaming services, to make use of, AI in in the, analysis of the content
• 32:29
  itself.
• 32:30
  Right?
• 32:31
  Not only, do we have this explosion of content, well, you have to know what's in the content.
• 32:37
  Right?
• 32:37
  Who are the characters?
• 32:40
  What are the scenes like?
• 32:42
  You know?
• 32:43
  How are people consuming that content?
• 32:45
  So the telemetry around the the, production and consumption of the content is also, growing at
• 32:53
  a really rapid clip.
• 32:55
  So having the tools to be able to look deep inside and understand what's actually going on
• 33:00
  is really critical, for the for the service operators.
• 33:06
  The future is exciting.
• 33:09
  For sure.
• 33:10
  I would to put to put it mildly, but I am biased.
• 33:15
  No.
• 33:16
  And so am I.
• 33:17
  Because with that and with things becoming easier to do and with AI changing how
• 33:23
  businesses are run, we use a lot of it here for our editing, to help us, you know, streamline
• 33:30
  our business for the most part.
• 33:33
  My entire, you know, platform, although we do have some team members, everything kinda runs
• 33:39
  through me.
• 33:40
  I would never be able to do this even just a few years ago with what I'm able to put out.
• 33:46
  I I mean, it's it's incredible to me, what's possible and how it's going to, like you say,
• 33:53
  change the future for the better.
• 33:55
  And I think we're a a lot of people looking at how it, you know, the detriments of it.
• 34:01
  And and for me, I can't help but look at the positive side of it and go, this far outweighs,
• 34:07
  whatever negative aspects there may be, as long as humans, are conscious of the, you know, the
• 34:16
  negative possibilities.
• 34:18
  And I think that we are and that as a society, we we we will become hyper aware of them, you
• 34:25
  know, especially in the next probably three years as it reaches not necessarily a zenith,
• 34:31
  but it it only continues to speed up.
• 34:34
  And that's what's really incredible to to sit back and and watch, what was not even on our
• 34:42
  radar and possible two years ago is now ubiquitous.
• 34:47
  And, what does that mean for the next five years to me is thrilling.
• 34:53
  Same.
• 34:54
  Yeah.
• 34:54
  I couldn't agree more.
• 34:55
  And, you know, I think it's important to balance all the excitement with a little bit of
• 35:01
  safety and caution.
• 35:02
  And, I you know, I'm an optimist, and I think that, humans in general do a good job of that.
• 35:11
  So I'm not I'm not worried about the sky falling down with an AI taking over the world,
• 35:17
  but who knows?
• 35:19
  You know?
• 35:19
  Talk to me in a year that that opinion might change.
• 35:22
  I just don't have time in my, busy life, to worry about things of that nature.
• 35:28
  I'm trying to solve the problems that are right in front of me.
• 35:32
  And one of those was where does all this content that we're shooting and filming all the
• 35:37
  time, where does it belong and where does it go?
• 35:40
  And really, inside of our own house, now that I know that that's possible to bring that out
• 35:47
  there is really the first option and to just grow one space and to stop sending our
• 35:54
  attention that we're bringing to ourselves and sending that attention elsewhere by inviting
• 36:00
  people into another platform, especially with policy changes, very likely heading our way,
• 36:08
  extremely soon for small creators on some of these platforms like a YouTube or others.
• 36:14
  Yeah.
• 36:15
  Yeah.
• 36:15
  I I I do agree with that.
• 36:17
  And, you know, the I think one of the from a policy, perspective, what I love about the
• 36:26
  streaming industry is it makes opt more options available to content owners or rights holders
• 36:33
  and to distributors.
• 36:35
  And as I said earlier, I, you know, I do foresee super apps, right, and more and more
• 36:42
  aggregation of content, which is interesting after, you know, years of the sort of
• 36:48
  disaggregation of content.
• 36:50
  If you think about cable TV, you know, breaking up cable TV bundles, we're now kind of putting
• 36:56
  them back together.
• 36:58
  But now we're putting them back together in ways that offer consumers more choice.
• 37:03
  And not only do they offer consumer more choice, but they offer the content rights
• 37:09
  holders more choice in how that content is positioned, in how that content is delivered,
• 37:17
  how consumers are interacting with it.
• 37:19
  And so I think, again, going back to this idea of democrat ization, that word I cannot
• 37:27
  obviously pronounce, I do think that's that's the big change that's been happening, and and I
• 37:36
  really think we're at the at the cusp of, I'll say, completion.
• 37:42
  Right?
• 37:42
  Or we're we're close to the end of that of that cycle.
• 37:46
  But over the last, you know, twenty years effectively, we have we have split up the
• 37:52
  bundles.
• 37:52
  Now we're putting it back together, but at the same time, offering a lot of choice.
• 37:57
  I think they're smarter bundles as well.
• 38:00
  And I've never been more, I've never been more confident that the decision I made to dip into
• 38:07
  the media space two years ago and to leave everything that I had done up to that point
• 38:14
  behind and and to try something new was a vision of this, was realizing that there is a
• 38:21
  two to three year gap right now, and this was 2024.
• 38:26
  But when Elon Musk came out and said, we are the media, I had a, you know, tiny podcast with
• 38:31
  no following at that point, and I went, oh, he's talking to me.
• 38:35
  He's talking to us.
• 38:36
  Right?
• 38:37
  And and realizing that in the moment to to where we've come now and to to have
• 38:45
  conversations like this today where I know in my heart that I made the right decision.
• 38:51
  I've learned a lot more.
• 38:53
  And if I was just getting into it now, I would be two years behind where I would be if I
• 38:58
  hadn't made and taken the opportunity then.
• 39:01
  So very grateful for your time, Igor.
• 39:03
  It's been a beautiful conversation, touching on a lot of, positive moments, for the SCENE
• 39:10
  projects and our SCENE projects sports network, especially as we continue to, you know, bring
• 39:17
  our services and our broadcasting acumen, into independent leagues and more smaller, things
• 39:25
  that have fans.
• 39:27
  If you have fans that would want to consume your product, then let's find a way to get that
• 39:33
  out to them.
• 39:34
  And and through Bitmovin, all things move as does the water in any house.
• 39:40
  Right?
• 39:40
  It has to go through the plumbing.
• 39:42
  So how how interesting of a conversation, that we had today.
• 39:47
  I'm very grateful for your time, Igor.
• 39:49
  Thanks, Bubba.
• 39:50
  I could not agree more, and, really a pleasure to chat with you.
• 39:54
  Yeah.
• 39:55
  And one day, maybe in a a few years as I get more of an education, you can deep dive me on
• 40:01
  some more of the technical aspects of this.
• 40:04
  But I didn't wanna just sit here with a a silly look on my face as everything that came out of
• 40:10
  your mouth went over my head.
• 40:12
  I'm I'm ready whenever you are, so just hit me up.
• 40:15
  Always available.
• 40:16
  I I love this stuff.
• 40:17
  I love talking about it.
• 40:19
  And, you know, as I said, I'm a techie at at heart.
• 40:24
  That's what I've always done, and I love, applying technology to the real world.
• 40:30
  And if the real world, you know, in this case is media, even better.
• 40:35
  Right?
• 40:35
  I'm a media junkie as well.
• 40:38
  Incredible.
• 40:39
  Well, check out Bitmovin online at bitmovin.com.
• 40:44
  That is bitmovin.com.
• 40:48
  You can sign up if you're a independent creator or a major national international brand alike.
• 40:55
  You can sign up to get some of these services and to take your content to the next level and
• 41:02
  make it available right here at home on your own website or app or or really anything that's
• 41:09
  available right now in the tech industry.
• 41:11
  Igor, anything to add before I let you go?
• 41:15
  You know, vibe coding apps is easier than ever.
• 41:18
  I I was working on an app last night for a little hobby project of mine, so I wouldn't let
• 41:26
  that scare anyone off.
• 41:28
  And that's it.
• 41:30
  Yeah.
• 41:30
  I really appreciate the time and a really nice conversation with you, Bubba.
• 41:34
  Yes.
• 41:35
  This was this was amazing, and I'm very appreciative.
• 41:38
  So, Igor, thank you for taking some time for me today, and thank you for being part of the
• 41:42
  scene.
• 41:44
  Thanks.