NAB 2023: Blackbird Collaborates With Microsoft On Professional Web Editing

Blackbird plc, the technology licensor, developer and seller of a cloud native video editing platform, Blackbird, today announced that the company is collaborating with Microsoft at NAB 2023 (April 16-19 at the Las Vegas Convention Center) to highlight the speed and cost benefits of professional web editing. Blackbird will be exhibiting at the Microsoft booth (W1529) and its own booth (W1375).

At this year’s NAB, Blackbird will showcase the multiple benefits of its cloud native video editing and publishing platform with Microsoft. “Providing instant access to content, browser-based Blackbird enables the fast creation of clips, highlights and long form content for rapid publishing to digital channels. Blackbird also significantly reduces time and resources for content reversioning and enables universal content access for creation and distribution,” the company says.

It adds: “Due to its highly efficient cloud native architecture, Blackbird reduces production infrastructure costs by up to 75% and carbon emissions by up to 91% has also been shown to be up to 4 times faster than on-premise editing platforms for popular workflows.”

Blackbird Edge can be deployed on the Microsoft Azure public cloud platform in minutes. Blackbird supports the use of Azure Blob Storage of video for ingest and publishing which enables transparency of operation between traditional and cloud workflows for high quality content creation and delivery to any device. Blackbird integrates Azure services for stream handling and video-on-demand (VOD) encoding of edits.

Last year, Blackbird was successfully deployed on Azure by a global sporting federation for a major international event to make near-live match content available to fans instantly on their OTT channel. Other leading organizations running Blackbird on Azure include Deltatre and the National Rugby League (NRL).

During NAB, Blackbird will demonstrate how its platform runs on Azure and integrates seamlessly with other leading media production platforms for the fast, efficient turnaround of live content.

Blackbird CEO Ian McDonough said: “We are delighted to once again collaborate with Microsoft at this major trade show. In late 2022 the companies successfully combined forces on one of the world’s largest sporting events with the organizing federation. As more and more businesses move to the cloud the importance of speed, functionality and cost becomes increasingly evident. As trade shows are now back in full swing we are looking forward to an exciting week in Vegas.”

Simon Crownshaw, Microsoft worldwide strategy director, media and entertainment, said: “We’re pleased to collaborate at NAB again with Blackbird. Our companies share the same vision of providing organizations with cost and carbon efficient tools that accelerate content creation and distribution. We welcome visitors to our booth to see the multiple benefits Blackbird running on Microsoft Azure delivers.”