Key Trends in Broadcast to Watch for in 2024

The start of a new year always brings us new ideas and innovations and presents a great opportunity to check in with Haivision’s experts to get their input on the biggest upcoming broadcast industry trends.

Keep reading to learn what Jean-Marc Racine, Chief Product Officer, Colin Coyle, Senior Vice President of Sales, and Ghislain Collette, Vice President of Product Management, believe some of the most important trends of 2024 will be.

Remote production and the cloud

Last year saw a continued shift to remote production and cloud workflows and it’s a trend our experts feel will continue in 2024. As the industry continues to learn how to better leverage the cloud and their own budget limitations, broadcasters and media organizations are being more strategic on how and when to use the cloud.

As Jean-Marc Racine told TVBEurope:

“I believe in 2024 we will see the balance between cloud and on-premise workflows reach a point of maturity. We’re seeing that broadcasters are gaining a better understanding of cloud production and can identify the pros and cons of when to leverage it, taking into account aspects such as total cost, flexibility, latency, and best use of existing investments. I think we’ll start seeing a pattern that repeats itself from broadcaster to broadcaster on how the cloud is leveraged and we see this as a sign of maturity regarding how the industry approaches cloud moving forward.”

Colin Coyle agrees that the industry’s approach towards remote production has matured but also believes vendor solutions, like Haivision StreamHub, are playing a key role in that growth:

“I agree that it’s going to be a continuation of what we’ve been seeing for the last several years as the industry’s approach to remote workflows has matured. Three years ago, there weren’t many good REMI solutions for most workflows, but we’ve seen a burst of innovation that are closing those gaps. During the pandemic, we saw customers using their existing solutions in ad hoc ways to power remote workflows but we’re not seeing that anymore because better, purpose-built technology exists,” he says.

When it comes to the cloud, Coyle sees budget playing a big part on whether broadcasters decide to fully adopt the cloud or not in 2024:

“We’ve seen fewer and fewer customers say they’re transitioning fully to the cloud because it is an expensive proposition. The trend now is that more customers are leveraging a hybrid set-up, which means they’re powering their workflows with the cloud but only where it offers clear benefits over on-prem and when it’s within budget.”

SMPTE ST 2110 finally arrives

The industry’s continued transition to IP workflows comes with changes to both the equipment and methods of broadcasting. For the past few years, many believed that SMPTE ST 2110, the suite of standards defining the transport, routing, and delivery of professional media over an IP network, would become the industry standard. While it has made great strides since its inception, 2024 could finally see the universal adoption of SMPTE ST 2110 as industry leaders learn how to maximize its potential.

“If there was ever any doubt about SMPTE ST 2110 before, there won’t be in 2024. The complexities of SMPTE ST 2110 have been mastered and people have been trained and are more comfortable with it,” said Ghislain Collette. “In theory, adopting SMPTE ST 2110 gives users more flexibility, but not everyone is ready to take advantage of that yet. Right now, it’s more of just an IP conversion, so people aren’t taking advantage of this flexibility when they use 2110 for content. What they want out of SMPTE ST 2110 is what they have with SDI, so it’s just the technology that has changed. Hopefully, we’ll start to see more creativity with how users leverage SMPTE ST 2110 in the new year and onwards.”

Similar to the adoption of remote production and the cloud, budget limitations remain a concern when transitioning away from traditional SDI and this has a direct effect on when and if broadcasters fully adopt IP and SMPTE ST 2110:

“Broadcasters are starting to power their productions with SMPTE ST 2110 for several reasons including budget. We’ve heard from customers that they have plans to build new studios, either late this year or next, that will be outfitted for 2110 because it’s less expensive when building from the ground up. But for those transitioning from SDI to IP, it’s more costly,” says Coyle. “And because of that, broadcasters are being much more careful with how much they’re spending this year. I would say that this is the tipping year for broadcasters making new purchases between a traditional SDI infrastructure or whether they build new facilities equipped for SMPTE ST 2110.”

5G use with private networks

In 2023, we saw numerous ground-breaking implementations of live video transmission leveraging non-public (or private) networks from companies including Neutral Wireless who were central to the IBC Innovation Award-winning project to cover the coronation of King Charles III. This technology now has been successfully leveraged in many high-profile projects, especially in Europe, so 2024 should see the technology become further established.

“With the growing adoption of 5G private networks, we anticipate a wider deployment of wireless and cellular bonding video solutions, such as the Haivision Pro mobile video transmitter, supporting more use cases in newsgathering and sports broadcasting. And we expect to see the big successes from Europe catching on in the United States and other parts of the world,” said Collette.

Is 2024 the year of AI in broadcast?

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is one of the most talked about topics today and it’s no different in broadcast. While AI is already being leveraged in several different markets, including media and entertainment, will we be seeing it influence the direction of broadcast technology in 2024?

“Right now, AI hasn’t yet had the impact it’s had on the creative side of the entertainment industry. When it comes to broadcast technology, I think it’s important to talk about what people hope AI will do, which is not to replace them or their jobs but to do things faster and smarter. However, I don’t think we’re there yet. Leveraging AI for workflow automation and its search capabilities and identifying assets and resources is what the industry is looking for from AI right now,” said Colin Coyle.

“Right now, I don’t see broadcast contribution being significantly impacted by AI. The technology is still in its infancy and people are still trying to better understand it,” adds Collette. “I agree that in our space people are asking what they should do with it as opposed to incorporating AI into what they’re currently doing. There will be an answer at one point, but I don’t think it’s going to be in 2024. Much like with the cloud, there will be lots of experimentation before we start to see widely adopted approaches.”