tag:blog.heff.me,2013:/feedVideo Hacks2012-08-13T22:42:00-07:00Steve Heffernanhttp://blog.heff.meSvbtle.comtag:blog.heff.me,2013:Post/european-video-conference-tour2012-08-13T22:42:00-07:002012-08-13T22:42:00-07:00European Video Conference Tour 2012<p><a href="http://img.svbtle.com/heff_24211404922410_raw.png"><img src="http://img.svbtle.com/inline_heff_24211404922410_raw.png" alt="european-tour-2012.png"></a></p>
<p>There’s a convenient string of video conferences this year in September, and I doubt I’m the only one using it as an excuse to get to Europe. Two of the conferences will be developer focused while the other two will be more business focused.</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.videolan.org/videolan/events/vdd12/">VideoLAN Dev Days</a></h3>
<p><em>Paris, September 1-2</em></p>
<p>VideoLAN is the group that gave us <a href="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html">VLC</a>, the desktop video player. Among the attendees will be developers from FFmpeg and x264, a few open source tools that power the majority of video transcoding on the web. I’ve never attended an event focused on these tools before so I’m interested to see what it’s like.</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.foms-workshop.org/foms2012/">Foundations of Open Media (FOMS)</a></h3>
<p><em>Paris, September 3-4</em></p>
<p>I’ve attended two FOMS before this when they’ve piggybacked the <a href="http://openvideoconference.org">Open Video Conference</a>, and it’s definitely one of my favorite events of the year. It brings together some of the most influential developers from across the video space to discuss the future of video standards. At last year’s FOMS for example, Mark Watson (Netfix) discussed a proposal for HTML5 video content protection (encryption/DRM) with developers from all the major browsers, YouTube, WebM, and other player developers like myself. The conclusion at the time was that it’s basically impossible to achieve, but it was a starting point and the conversations have continued since then.</p>
<p>I’ll be interested to see how moving the conference to Europe affects who comes out.</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.ibc.org">IBC</a></h3>
<p><em>Amsterdam, September 6-11</em></p>
<p>This will be my first IBC (International Broadcasting Convention), but I’ve been told it’s the largest video conference in Europe, and that Amsterdam gets taken over by conference attendees in the process. While the previously mentioned conferences are centered on free and open video technology, IBC will cover the commercial side of video. It should be an interested contrast.</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.dmexco.de">dmexco</a></h3>
<p><em>Cologne, September 12-13</em></p>
<p>I had not heard of dmexco before a week ago, and now that I dig in it’s probably more accurate to call it a digital marketing conference. Still, some of my new brethren from Brightcove are going so I’m tagging along to represent Zencoder, and looking forward to visiting Germany for the first time. If anything the <a href="http://www.dmexco.de/Party-e.html">party</a> looks promising. :)</p>
<p>Keep an eye on this space for updates from the conferences.</p>