PILOT, NAB’s innovation arm, is a coalition of innovators, educators and advocates dedicated to advancing broadcast technologies and cultivating new media opportunities. Catch up with PILOT’s latest events and initiatives below.
Innovation Challenge
This week, the annual PILOT Innovation Challenge opened submissions. Each year, the Challenge poses a new prompt aimed at pushing broadcasting technology forward. Past winners include UNC-TV, which won in 2017 for their proposed efforts to address the continued use of analog voice pagers by first responders in North Carolina, and how Next Generation TV might help get messages to first responders faster.
This year’s Challenge will showcase emerging products or prototypes that are poised to help broadcasters seize opportunities they are likely to encounter over the next two to three years.
- Products that leverage edge technologies to drive new revenue opportunities for broadcasters.
- Technologies that enhance broadcast journalism to help viewers and listeners get more from their most trusted source of local news.
- In-vehicle technologies that deliver more value out of broadcasting.
Click here for more details and to submit your application.
2021 Technology Awards
Join PILOT on NAB Amplify June 17 at 2 p.m. ET as we announce and celebrate the 2021 recipients of the NAB Engineering Achievement Awards, the Digital Leadership Award and the Service to Broadcast Engineering Award.
This special session, titled “The Future of Media and NAB Technology Awards,” will include a keynote conversation with Mike Chapman, partner and Americas Media Lead at Kearney, a management consulting firm specializing in corporate and growth strategy and business transformation. Chapman will discuss the future of media, including trends to watch, with Sam Matheny, executive vice president and chief technology officer, NAB. You must have an NAB Amplify account to join the session.
Edge Technology for Broadcasters Report
In partnership with PILOT member Verizon Media, PILOT commissioned Kearney to explore the attitudes and expertise from a variety of executives in TV, radio and digital video and audio to provide insight into the future impact of edge technologies on the broadcast industry. The study also examines where edge technologies could fit into a broadcaster’s operations, from content creation to delivery and distribution to users’ consumption and experience.
Click here to download the report.
Next Gen TV Interoperability Event
NAB has partnered with News-Press & Gazette (NPG) to host the fifth Next Generation TV interoperability event (InterOp). The goal of InterOp is to exercise different features of the Next Gen TV – or ATSC 3.0 – standard using various combinations of broadcast equipment and consumer Next Gen TV receivers to resolve any potential issues thus helping to facilitate consumer adoption of ATSC 3.0. This virtual event will run throughout the summer. Click here to learn more.
