CABSAT 2024 successfully concludes with several new announcements, partnerships, and MoUs in media, entertainment, and satellite sectors
The 30th edition of CABSAT, the flagship conference for the broadcast, satellite, content creation, production, distribution, and entertainment industries, drew to a successful conclusion on May 23, 2024, organised by the Dubai World Trade Centre with record-breaking turnout. The third day of the conference, which welcomed over 18,000 visitors, featured announcements of collaborations, and Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) between exhibiting organisations, in addition to highlighting emerging trends and technologies, and encouraging insightful discussions.
Almanasa, Iraq’s OTT streaming platform, announced a strategic partnership with Roya Media Group, a provider of premium digital content. This collaboration aims to deliver a streaming experience to audiences across Iraq by combining the strengths of both platforms to offer a diverse and extensive library of entertainment options. The partnership was announced at the CABSAT Co-Production Salon, a dedicated meeting lounge for business opportunities in investment in Arabic content.
As well as the Co-Production Salon, CABSAT 2024 showcased several exclusive conference events, like the Content Congress and the SATExpo Summit, to global industry leaders, regional government officials, and other business stakeholders for three days of networking and knowledge sharing opportunities.
“Enabling and accelerating local talent is crucial to consistently secure the incredible expansion of the regional content creation economy, and Dubai Studio City is proud to have been a platform for more than 358,000 minutes of such unique stories to come to life in 2023,” said Majed Al Suwaidi, Senior Vice President of Dubai Media City, Dubai Studio City and Dubai Production City at TECOM Group PJSC. “Committed to unlocking the visions of Dubai Economic Agenda ‘D33’ and Dubai Creative Economy Strategy, we are proud to serve as a global platform for regional storytellers and were pleased to champion their vibrancy and creativity as Strategic Partner of CABSAT’s milestone 30th edition this year.”
The Content Congress witnessed significant success on its concluding day with major sessions in place – such as ‘How to Create a YT Channel with the Help of AI,’ led by Arjun Radhakrishna, Lead Senior Producer at Nas Daily Studios and ‘The Making of VFX for a Film that has over 4,500 Visual Effects Shots,’ led by Asif Bhushan, from Phantom Digital Effects.
Radhakrishna, guided participants through a summary of various artificial intelligence (AI) tools that enhance video production processes. From idea research and scriptwriting to film production and editing, attendees were taken on a comprehensive journey that ended up offering them key insights into the applications of AI, as well as the creation of a YouTube channel.
Senior Creative Head Bhushan shed light into the role of VFX in creating an exceptional visual experience. The session assessed the film ‘Ayalaan,’ which required a collaborative and meticulous process of combining creativity and technology to bring the film’s vision to life. The movie featured more than 4,500 visual effects shots, which is the most recorded for an Indian film.
Leonid Novoselov, Chief Product Officer, Carrot Broadcast, LLC, said: “We are pleased to have showcased our range of innovations and solutions at CABSAT 2024, the premier conference for the broadcast, satellite, and content sectors. At Carrot Broadcast, we specialise in developing software solutions for handling real-time graphics. CABSAT offered us an ideal platform to demonstrate our wealth of expertise in producing graphic content for TV shows and live broadcasts. We exhibited our advanced hardware and software, as well as designs and technical services, and expertise in implementing lower third, augmented reality, and virtual studios for television.”
In addition, the final day of CABSAT 2024 featured a session titled ‘Meet The in 5 Startups,’ presented by the enabling platform for entrepreneurs and startups, and headed by Iqbal Haider, Co-Founder & CEO, iinfinity media and technologies, Mustafa Hazam, Founder and CEO, Grambell, Olga Nayda, Co-founder and CEO, Glocal, along with Naser Jahednia, CEO, Lichi Studios,
Ross Tanner, Senior Vice President-EMEA, Magnifi, said: “CABSAT 2024 served as the ideal stage to unveil the Magnifi platform’s most recent enhancements, which showcases our commitment to advancing and transforming the content landscape. These new improvements are slated to maximise efficiency and creativity by providing companies with cutting-edge tools for immersive storytelling and improved audience engagement. During the event, we introduced our Intuitive video editor extension and announced our partnership with Adobe, which streamlines project construction in Premiere Pro by providing instant access to Magnifi-indexed asset libraries, key moment clips, and rule-based compilations within the editing interface. Furthermore, we unveiled the product map of our ground-breaking generative AI graphics platform, which uses code-based design systems and AI to automate data-driven graphics workflows across digital media assets.”
Pavel Potužák, CEO, Aveco, commented: “We are delighted to have participated and introduced our new revolutionary product – ASTRA Media Factory– at CABSAT 2024. This innovative product has already won this year’s Best of Show 2024 award at NAB in the TV tech category. ASTRA Media Factory is a single platform with three dimensions, with the first dimension referring to the suite of services, covering the whole lifecycle of assets, automating studio production, management, playout, and distribution. The second dimension is the environment, which refers to its ability to function in any combination of On-Prem, Remote, and Multi-Cloud. Integration is the third dimension, with a vast library of integrated third-party products available from Aveco. In all three dimensions, ASTRA Media Factory offers a unified user experience and expands unified workflows. It also enables media organisations to leverage on-prem technology investments and seamlessly expand to the cloud. The three-dimensional flexibility allows ASTRA Media Factory to get very close to the dreams of the customers, which further increased its popularity among visitors at this year’s CABSAT.”
This year’s landmark 30th edition also features demonstrations of technology that attendees were able to interact with. A big hit with visitors and exhibitors alike, the GlamBot, a high-speed camera attached to a robotic arm that is designed to snap dynamic images in a mirrored tunnelgave the conference a sense of Hollywood glamour and created covetable moments to share on social media.
This year’s edition CABSAT also enjoyed its own red carpet experience at the BroadcastProME Manufacturer Awards, which recognised firms for their products that make a difference in the region’s broadcast sector, with the team picking up a plaque for their contributions.
