BIT Experience brings together 72 top-level speakers in the audiovisual world in two days

BIT Experience brings together 72 top-level speakers in the audiovisual world in two days.

What has already become the most important event for debate and knowledge of the audiovisual sector in Southern Europe, BIT Experience, started this Wednesday at the Madrid Fair.

Organized by IFEMA, in collaboration with Panorama Audiovisual, a total of 72 speakers at the highest national and international level participate in the BIT Experience sessions at Feria de Madrid.

The person in charge of opening this edition of BIT Experience was Andy Townend with the presentation A brave (video) world. Profound changes are sweeping the world of broadcasting, are we prepared? Under this suggestive title, with a nod to the novel by the English writer Aldous Huxley (A Brave New World), Townend has contributed his particular vision on the future of the media.

Licenciado en Químicas por el King’s College de Londres, pronto descubrió que, lejos de los laboratorios, la comunicación sería su verdadera pasión. Tras sus primeros pasos profesionales en auditoras y consultoras como PKF, KPMG o Ernst&Young, en 1999 comienza a trabajar para la BBC.

Considered one of the world's greatest experts in digital television, he piloted the migration to DTT in the United Kingdom as Chief Operating Officer (COO) in the Digital UK consortium and later in Australia as Deputy Secretary of the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy of the Australian government.

Since 2013, he has directed programming at the leading broadband cable service operator in Belgium, Telenet (of Liberty Global), with one of his objectives being to place Flanders at the top of the list of regions with the best digital infrastructure in Europe.

Subsequently, Gustavo Robles, commercial director of AEQ-Kroma, provided clues as to how the IP environment is also revolutionizing audio in radio and television, both in contribution and signal management and distribution.

Much of the morning of this first day of BIT Experience is dedicated to the management of the radio spectrum and the tension that exists between telcos and broadcasters to obtain in one cases, and conserve in others, that precious asset such as the ether through which the waves travel.

Elena Puigrefagut, Telecommunications Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and since 2000 Senior Engineer at the European Broadcasting Union, has presented the vision of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) regarding this thorny issue.

At the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference to be held next November in Geneva (WRC-2015), doubts about the future of the radio spectrum and the extension of the allocation of the mobile communications service in co-primary service with broadcasting services in the entire UHF Band IV/V (470-862 MHz) in the medium-long term will be definitively resolved.

For his part, Josep Ventosa, responsible for the operations of Cellnex (formerly Abertis Telecom) in Spain, has shared his vision on the impact that future spectrum management may have on the creative and cultural industries in Europe, based on the fact that more than 250 million Europeans access content through DTT... Ventosa, a telecommunications engineer from the Polytechnic of Catalonia, is a member of the Board, chairman of the Policy Working Group of Broadcast Networks Europe (BNE), and member of the Board of the European Wireless Infrastructures Association (EWIA).

The morning concluded with an interesting round table on new forms of television distribution in an IPTV framework in which Chema Casaos, director of Television Solutions and Services for Iberia, Ericsson, participated; Ignacio Fernández-Vega, director of Movistar TV at Telefónica Spain; José Antonio Guzmán, director of Orange TV; Jesús Moreno, general director of Nubeox; and Miguel Pingarrón, business development director of SES Astra.

At the table, moderated by the director of Panorama Audiovisual, Antonio Castillo, issues such as the situation of the deployment of broadband networks in Spain were addressed; the state of the art in technological development in headend, distribution, access network and residential; the use of codecs in IPTV; the future of ultra high definition over IP; or the impact of IP development on traditional terrestrial or satellite operators.

The BIT Experience 2015 conferences have the gold sponsorship of Abacanto, Aicox, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Cellnex, Crosspoint-Grass Valley, Ericsson, Eurocom, Grupo Broadcast, Panasonic, SES Astra, Sony, Tedial, VSN and Xeltec, as well as Axion and Cires 21 as silver sponsors; and AEQ and KBN as bronze.