The transformative impact of AI in media is redefining the entire content production pipeline and therefore the industry. Jamy Lyu, President of Huawei Cloud Media Services, discusses Huawei’s commitment to shaping the evolution of the industry via the launch of Huawei Cloud E³ Media Services, as well as investment in more informed advertising methods that will contribute to achieving sustainable business models.
The Huawei Cloud Media & Entertainment Summit held in September gathered industry leaders from across the globe. The summit focused on leveraging AI to revolutionise the media and entertainment (M&E) industry and nurturing an ecosystem that promises a more vibrant and prosperous future.
What was the key takeaway from the Huawei Cloud Media & Entertainment Summit and how will you apply this to your strategic roadmap?
According to typical workflows in the Media & Entertainment industry and based on our insights of pain points of this industry, the strategic roadmap of Huawei Cloud focuses on three solutions: content production; direct to consumer (distribution); and monetisation. During the IBC event, we shared on the topic of ‘Building AI-Native Media Infrastructure for a Smarter Media Industry’ and released Huawei Cloud E³ Media Services, offering the value proposition of new efficiency, new experience and new evolution made possible by technology.
How can AI be leveraged to nurture an ecosystem that promises a more vibrant and prosperous future for the media and entertainment industry?
Every media company is also an enterprise. Huawei Cloud Media Services and Solutions have empowered Huawei to support enterprises to release more productivity with the help of AI, covering marketing, training, sales and operations. In terms of enterprise marketing, virtual humans have been used at the Huawei Connect Conference and in the Huawei exhibition hall for production introductions. For enterprise training, the virtual human solution has been used for many training courses. For enterprise sales activities, the integration of virtual humans into e-commerce has been seen across many different industries in China. Our virtual human solution can support 20+ languages for video translations, subtitles and video dubbing.
Can you tell us about the launch of Huawei Cloud E³ Media Services and what this means for new efficiency, new experience and new evolution within the industry?
Huawei Cloud E³ Media Services support typical workflows in the media industry and focus on content production, direct to consumer (distribution) and monetisation.
In terms of new efficiency, the virtual human solution shortens the short video production cycle from days to minutes. Virtual humans created on MetaStudio can handle more than 20 languages with consistent performance. A lip sync accuracy of 98% and smooth motion make MetaStudio virtual humans qualified to serve as brand ambassadors, TV news anchors, online education trainers, tour guides and more.
In terms of new experience, sectors such as sports, gaming and e-commerce are calling for livestreaming upgrades to reduce latency for smooth real-time interaction among a large number of users. Our in-house RTP transmission has kept the glass-to-glass latency (referring to the time duration of the entire chain of the video pipeline) within 500ms. In 2022, low latency live streaming has helped our media customers stream all World Cup games to millions of viewers. During the World Cup finals, the traffic reached a peak of 40TB/s, with 20 million users simultaneously watching on Huawei Cloud. Another noticeable trend is the transition from one-way communication to group interaction. We can watch videos and give ‘likes’ or send on-screen comments and gifts to interact with the streamer during a livestream. Enhanced interaction will drive a larger audience and bring more loyalty to the platform.
In terms of new evolution, with AI’s contextual understanding of video, traditional ads can be replaced with those that fit into the video. The replacement can be performed at the CDN edge in real time and personalised for each user. In this way, in-scene ads are seamlessly integrated into the video without interrupting playback. The ultimate business transformation goal is to connect more users with all kinds of terminals for powerful monetisation, from a successful content provider to a service provider.
How will Huawei Cloud collaborate with media organisations to drive innovation, share insightful expertise and industry-leading practices?
Huawei Cloud has a global presence with 33 regions, 93 AZs, 2800+ Edge PoPs and serving 170+ countries and regions. As a hyperscale cloud infrastructure vendor, our position in the content production pipeline with MetaStudio – powered by Huawei Pangu Models and our rich ecosystem – will continue to drive technology innovations for virtual avatars, AI dubbing, video translation and more.
How is Huawei Cloud contributing to the evolution of the media industry and significant user and revenue growth?
First, we believe low latency live streaming with real time group interaction experience will bring a wider audience and increase loyalty to the streaming platform. The low-latency in-sync experience will also generate higher value transactions such as auctions and e-commerce.
Second, in order to help media organisations generate significant revenue growth through varied monetisation methods, Huawei Cloud will continue to invest in ad tech such as In-Scene Ads so that both publishers and advertisers will benefit from contextual awareness ad targeting without interrupting the customer viewing experience. This will contribute to achieving more sustainable business models.
Can you shed light on some of the conversations you had with your customers and partners at the summit?
UOL OS, a customer of ours from Brazil, estimated that one in every 10 Internet users access UOL monthly. Working with Huawei Cloud, the organisation is able to significantly improve the overall user experience. Huawei Cloud computing and CDN enables dynamic scaling and innovation in content delivery, as exemplified by TV UOL and UOL Play.
Mobvoi, our multilingual emotion-based AIGC partner, provides DupDub (AI Dubbing) with 600+ voice styles, multiple emotions and 50+ languages. DupDub works together with Huawei Cloud MetaStudio to provide Virtual Human and Video Translation services.
