TLDR: The IBC has announced the finalists for its 2025 Innovation Awards, recognizing collaborative projects that showcase transformative innovation in media, entertainment, and technology. Several nominated projects feature significant AI integration, including AI-assisted video remastering and AI-powered content identification for short-form video. The awards will be presented on September 14, 2025, in Amsterdam.
IBC has revealed the finalists for its prestigious 2025 Innovation Awards, celebrating groundbreaking collaborative projects that address real-world challenges and drive transformative innovation across the media, entertainment, and technology landscape. The awards span five key categories: Content Creation, Content Distribution, Content Everywhere, Social Impact, and Environment & Sustainability, honoring both technical excellence and social progress.
Fergal Ringrose, Chair of the 2025 Innovation Awards Jury, commented on the high standard of entries from around the globe, noting a clear evolution in innovation. He highlighted a shift from technology adaptations enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic towards more refined innovations within the electronic media content creation, distribution, and consumption ecosystem, often propelled by advancements in AI, hybrid, and cloud-enhanced workflows.
Among the notable finalists in the Content Creation category is the collaboration between MBC, Pixtree, and SK Telecom for their AI-assisted remastering project. This initiative focuses on the commercialization of a generalized AI-based video remastering system for the Korean terrestrial broadcaster MBC. Another significant AI-related project is by Cignal, powered by Quickplay Shorts and Twelve Labs, which utilizes AI to identify, clip, and reformat VOD and Live-to-VOD content for their ‘Pilipinas Live Shorts’ vertical infinite-scroll featuring user-generated content.
Other finalists include NBC Olympics’ IP-based multiviewer editorial workflow for Paris 2024 gymnastics coverage, and NHK Japan’s ‘Deep Ocean: Kingdom of the Coelacanth,’ an 8K and 22.2 sound documentary capturing the world’s first video footage of a group of coelacanths. In Content Distribution, nominees include the global live-streaming of the Crunchyroll Anime Awards and Sky Group’s MediaMesh, a cloud-native broadcast transformation project. The Content Everywhere category features Claro tv+ and Omni Devices for unifying football passion, and SVT-AV1 by Alliance for Open Media, Intel, and Meta for enhancing video streaming efficiency on low-end mobile devices.
In the Environment & Sustainability category, Nanlux’s Evoke 5000B, an advanced film and TV lighting solution, is recognized for its energy efficiency, reducing energy use by approximately 75%. SK Telecom and Pixtree also feature in this category for their energy-efficient UHD upscaling with NPU acceleration, which significantly reduces energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
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The winners of the IBC2025 Innovation Awards will be announced on Sunday, September 14, 2025, at 18:00 CEST, during the main stage ceremony of the IBC Conference in the RAI Amsterdam.
