September for me has meant (at least for the past several years) a trip to Amsterdam to take part in IBC.  This year is no different, though i'm heading out a little early to speak at a workshop the European Broadcaster's Union has put together at their headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.  They describe this program (called OCEAN) as:

OCEAN stands for “Open ContEnt Aware Networks”. It is a 3 year European Commission funded project (STREP) which started on 1st February 2010. Its mission is to design and develop a second-generation open content delivery system (CDN). The OCEAN system performs content caching in the broadband cabinets and exchanges, thus bringing the media files much closer to the end user than traditional CDNs. This additional caching layer is complementary to the traditional CDNs (such as Akamai, Limelight, Level3) and is interoperable with them. OCEAN deploys a network-controlled, content-aware, highly scalable and adaptive content delivery techniques. To this end, OCEAN may significantly improve the efficiency of the overall internet distribution mechanism.

For my part, I'll be there representing SeaWell (remember, my day time job?) and discussing using technologies like H.264 SVC as a way to reduce the number of encodes needed to deliver content to all the screens and resolutions they hope to reach.  It should be an interesting day and having never been to Geneva, I'm hoping to fit in a little tourist time before or after the event.

Then its off to Amsterdam and the International Broadcaster's Conference (or European NAB as I often think of it).  IBC is always a fun, and tiring event - it is a vast show with everything from High-end production equipment, mobile network delivery companies, and even a variety of transmission and radio companies (it's not a show without checking out the latest folding parabolic transmitter i'll never use).  It is also a reunion of sorts, as I'll run into old college friends, former work colleagues, and random people i've met in my time of working in the online video industry.  I'm also hoping to catch up with those attending the show who've read my book or followed my work in compression - its always fun grabbing a beer and chatting about the geekiest of production topics.  If you happen to be attending the show, use the RWVC contact form to drop me a note and we can plan to get together!  If you aren't attending the show, don't worry, i'll be posting a few notes during the show about some of the cooler things i see while i'm there.