Silicon Valley Video News
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Tech Firms Flock To ‘Media Cloud City’ (Seattle Part II)
By Jeff Berman, Editor
As more companies start turning to the cloud for storage and other computer system resources, a growing number of technology firms have started calling the Seattle metro area – home of Amazon and Microsoft, two of the largest cloud computing companies – their homes also.
The cloud computing revolution that Amazon and Microsoft helped create through their Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure divisions has led to an even wider assortment of tech firms flocking to the Seattle metro area over the past 10 years, giving the city the nickname, “Media Cloud City.”
Following Amazon and Microsoft or being located near them, however, is not the main reason why so many media and tech firms have been moving to Seattle, according to Michael Schutzler, CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA).
The big draw, he notes, is “access to a highly skilled workforce” that includes a lot of tech talent graduates from the University of Washington.”
Seattle also boasts a “strong tech ecosystem” that serves as an “innovation hub,” he said, explaining: “Seattle is known for its innovation, especially in cloud computing, AI, and e-commerce. This creates a fertile environment for startups and established companies alike.”
There is also a “supportive network,” he said. “The presence of numerous venture capital firms that syndicate often with top tier valley firms, incubators, and accelerators (including WTIA) helps tech companies grow and scale” there, with no state income tax, he said, noting that “can be attractive to both employees and businesses.”
Then there is the strong quality of life provided by Seattle and surrounding cities including Bellevue. And there is also access to international markets and global connectivity, he said, pointing out “Seattle’s location on the West Coast provides deep connections and partnerships with [the] EU and Asia, which are about equivalent distance via flights from SeaTac” (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport). The Port of Seattle, meanwhile, is a “major gateway for international trade, especially with Asia, which can be advantageous for companies involved in global logistics and commerce,” he said.
He also pointed to the “tech-friendly” policies of the local government and Seattle’s strong community and networking opportunities” that include many tech meetups and conferences, and the city’s “collaborative culture,” he said, noting, “Seattle’s tech community is known for being collaborative rather than purely competitive, fostering an environment where companies often share knowledge and resources.”
In that spirit, Riot Games, Meta and Microsoft were among the companies whose video teams recently hosted a two-day studio crawl for 30 members of the local video production community. Riot recently selected the Seattle area to open its second remote broadcast center (RBC).
“We considered several cities” on the West Coast as the “site for our second RBC,” Allyson Gormley, director of Global Operations, Remote Broadcast & Production at Riot Games, recently told Silicon Valley Video News.
However, she recalled: “Seattle really stood out for a number of reasons including the amount of potential locations in close proximity to SeaTac airport and ports for shipping/receiving, while offering a blank space for our team to build for scale around our unique needs.”, Seattle also has “strong industry roots across sports, technology, media production, and gaming, all areas that intersect within the walls of our RBC and support our ability to hire the best talent,” she said.
Echoing Schutzler, she said: “With so many reputable brands across technology, traditional sports, media, and gaming planting roots in Seattle, it has created a deep and diverse pool of talent across these industries that is not only great for our recruitment efforts, but it also fuels opportunities for meaningful networking and collaboration. The common thread found among these industries is the value put on innovation and next-level thinking, which is a central tenet for us to create the best experience for our players. Additionally, the quality of life offered in living in the Seattle area is really special. The natural surroundings and access to so many recreational activities, plus a vibrant culture scene really make Seattle a great place for our team to call home.”
Also playing a key role in Riot's decision was its existing presence in Seattle. “In fact, while we were constructing the RBC, Riot was also renovating a new footprint in Mercer Island for its Seattle-based team focused on game development, esports, infrastructure, and enterprise which opened in June. This provides efficiencies in our ability to utilize department support teams for our day-to-day building operations.”
And then significantly there was the fact that Seattle is also the headquarters of AWS, which she emphasized is “our global partner powering our RBCs, which also lends to better communication and collaboration.”
Events
Sept. 13-16: International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) 2024 (RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Sept. 18-20: Unity 2024 (Barcelona, Spain)
Sept. 25-26: 2024 SVG Remote Production Forum (Embassy Suites by Hilton Charlotte Concord Golf Resort & Spa, Concord, North Carolina)
Sept. 30-Oct. 2: Enterprise Connect AI (Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, California)
Jobs
News
At IBC2024, software solutions company Ateliere Creative Technologies will highlight the latest in generative AI (GenAI) media supply innovation and live production best practices for sustainable, cost-effective remote workflows, it said.
In the latest round of MLPerf industry benchmarks, Inference v4.1 NVIDIA platforms “delivered leading performance across all data center tests,” meeting the demands of enterprises racing to adopt generative AI, the firm said. The first submission of the upcoming NVIDIA Blackwell platform revealed up to 4x more performance than the NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU on MLPerf’s biggest LLM workload, Llama 2 70B.
Sony Group company Nevion, a provider of virtualized media production solutions, extended the cloud capabilities of its media orchestration platform, VideoIPath, to enable routing of flows between processing resources in the cloud, including spinning-up and down the resources, as needed. This functionality enables seamless hybrid live production workflows involving ground and cloud resources, and also ensures that cloud resources are only running when needed, maximizing the potential benefits of pay-per-use cloud business models by minimizing the costs and the environmental footprint, the company said. VideoIPath is a key component of Sony’s Networked Live offering and is widely deployed by broadcasters and telecom service providers all over the globe in applications that include remote production, Nevion said.
Hollyland Technology will spotlight its audio and video production tools at IBC 2024 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Sept. 13-16, including new and upgraded products that it said will be the center of attention, it said.
Enhancing video operations with Datazoom and Amazon CloudFront (AWS for M&E Blog)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) explains how to gain video player and content delivery network (CDN) observability by integrating Datazoom’s video data platform with the Amazon CloudFront CDN. The solution enables real-time monitoring of client-side player data correlated with CDN performance data, helping video operations reduce time to resolution, according to AWS.
RT Software Releases Latest Version of Swift Studio for Augmented Reality and Virtual Studios (Sports Video Group)
RT Software released the latest version of Swift Studio, its virtual studio and augmented reality (AR) graphics system. Swift Studio can also be used for full virtual studio sets, where a green screen background is removed using a keyer. Until now, many broadcasters would typically opt for a separate hardware keyer to ensure the best-quality keying result.