IBC is an important arena for many of the cluster companies. This year, six of our members had their own booths at the expo.
Vizrt
Our first stop was at the Vizrt booth. Vizrt is a worldwide market leader in real-time 3D graphics, studio automation, sports analysis and asset management tools for the media and entertainment industry, and is a driving force in the innovation projects taking place in Media City Bergen.
The study tour got off to a flying start with «The Big AR Show», the biggest augmented reality show at the IBC, hosted by Corporate Comms. Manager in Vizrt, Chris Black.
Chris Black entertaining the crowd
Elin Sjødin Drange, Head of Business Dev. at the Municipality of Bergen, assisting Chris Black in his AR show.
The Big AR Show. Video: Vizrt
Petter Ole Jakobsen, CTO at Vizrt, presenting the company for the study tour group.
Future Zone
One can not tour IBC without visiting The Future Zone, where all the latest ideas, innovations and technologies from the industry is crammed into a single, specially-curated showcase area. Here, our guests could experience multi-sensory virtual worlds and imagery of the future, including mixed reality, 3D audio, incredible video displays and holographic projections first hand. 
Hilde Gudvangen, project advisor for The Municipality of Smøla, trying on Hololens-glasses
Arne Møller, Founder and Creative Director, SpeakLab, testing a pair of AR-glasses.
(More from the Future Zone here)
Mediability
Next up was Mediability, a Scandinavian provider of products, systems, solutions, consultancy, services and support to the broadcast and media industry. Ingrid Agasøster, CMO at Mediability, welcomed the delegation from the cluster, and told the story about how the company was founded in 2016, when three of Scandinavia’s best providers of media-production solutions were gathered into one group.
Mediability know how to use the newest technology to customer’s advantage and they offer top of the line equipment, guidance and they always tailor solutions to specific needs. Mediability has had a very successful first year at IBC, winning three awards: The Sachtler Supporting Partner of the Year Award, The ETL Systems Partner of the Year and The LiveU Partner Award for Outstanding Annual Growth.
Ingrid Agasøster, CMO at Mediability.
Electric Friends
Robots on rails! Electric Friends has developed one of the most sophisticated robotic camera systems for the broadcast industry. Leaps ahead of their international competitors, Electric Friend are now entering the global market.
Concept developer and founder, Anders Tomren, demoing the camera robot.
Anders Tomren, concept developer and founder of Electric Friends, demonstrated to the group how the next generation camera robots will change the game completely and explained that their product was the subject of massive attention from visitors and competitors alike. The camera robot will soon be installed in TV 2’s impressive Premier League studio in Media City Bergen.
Sixty
CEO of Sixty, Kjetil Horneland, greeted the group at the Sixty booth. Sixty is a globally oriented design and development agency for the future of TV. Kjetil Horneland gave attendees of the study tour a live demo of Ease Live, a product that makes on-air graphics become clickable and interactive on any connected device.
Sixty merges the well known television experience with the possibilities of online video.
CEO of Sixty, Kjetil Horneland, presenting Ease Live to the study group - a solution that can change the television experience as we know it.
From right: Bjørn Arne Skogstad, CEO of Norwegian Innovation Clusters, quizzing Kjetil Horneland, CEO of Sixty.
Vimond
At the Vimond booth Ketil Moland Olsen, Matias Høibraaten and Helge Høibraaten welcomed the group. Vimond provides cloud or enterprise video platform software, video post-production and editorial tools, amongst different other services.
Helge Høibraaten, CEO of Vimond, welcomes the group to Vimond's booth.
Our guests got a live demo of Vimond Highlights and Vimond IO, presented by Matias Høibraaten and Ketil Moland Olsen. The storytelling tools simplifies the process of producing broadcast-quality video stories from any computer, and publish them immediately. The tools embodies the Vimond mission: «To make amazing TV stories come to life online using best in class technology by combining deep broadcasting expertise and a healthy dose of passion in everything they do. The result: Viewers enjoying their favorite shows, movies, news and sports, anytime, anywhere».
Helge Høibraaten, CEO, with Matias Høibraaten, Sales Manager, Europe.
VP Product Dev at Vimond, Ketil Moland Olsen demoing Vimond Highlights and Vimond IO together with Matias Høibraaten.
Vimond's Ketil Moland Olsen, proud to be part of Media City Bergen.
Wolftech
Wolftech was co-located with Vimond at their stand. The company is a spin off from TV 2, and a technologically advanced supplier of unique production systems for live sports, and story based multi-platform workflow
– for both broadcast and non-broadcast markets. Robert Strand, Chief of Sales and Innovation, told the group that Wolftech's focus is to deliver innovative new solutions, helping broadcasters and other media companies deliver news and sports content faster and more cost efficiently.
Robert Strand, Chief of Sales and Innovation in Wolftech
IBM
After all the cluster companies had showcased, demoed and presented their solutions, IBM was next. The media lab's technology partner was the last stop on the study tour, as the group visited the IBM Watson booth. Tom Darlington, services executive Global Media and Entertainment, and consultant Rick Taffer, showed the group what IBM Watson is capable of. Attendees got an introduction to IBM Cloud, as well as information about the tools IBM will bring to the media lab. This will provide all our members with first class world leading technology and competence.
Rick Taffer, consultant at IBM, with Tom Darlington, IBM services executive Global Media and Entertainment.
Valuable insight
Hilde Gudvangen, project advisor for The Municipality of Smøla, was one of the guests attending the study tour. She is currently working on an early-stage AR project, and found the tour highly relevant.
– This is exactly what we came for. It was great to visit all the NCE Media cluster companies. It makes me realize there are companies here in Bergen that we can learn from, or even collaborate with. Also the IBC Future Zone was great to visit for valuable insight from companies that had done similar projects to ours. From this we learned what's ahead, and who the key providers are when it comes to technical solutions for the future, Gudvangen concluded.
Arne Møller, Creative Director and Founder of SpeakLab, was also pleased with the visit to IBC.
– A great experience. Meeting people from all over the world working on high-end innovation. Seeing that Bergen is taking a lead. That was very motivational, he said.