SMNYC 2024: id3as CMO Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen Talks Norsk, Low-Code, No-Code & Streaming Media Past and Future
At Streaming Media NYC 2024, Tim Siglin, Founding Executive Director, Help Me Stream Research Foundation, and Contributing Editor, Streaming Media, interviews Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, Chief Marketing Officer, id3as, a UK-based software development startup. He introduces Norsk, a live media server with a low code SDK that allows users to build complex, scalable, live streaming workflows. Rasmussen predicts a trend towards no-code solutions in the industry and emphasizes the importance of making streaming accessible to non-experts.
What is id3as?
Siglin mentions that when he started writing for Streaming Media Magazine in 2003, Schumacher-Rasmussen was the editor there, eventually becoming the Streaming Media Conference Chair, and that last year’s Streaming Media East conference in Boston was his final year in that role. Just prior to that, Siglin says, he took on a role at id3as, and he asks Schumacher-Rasmussen to describe the company and what it does.
“It's a software development startup based in the UK,” Schumacher-Rasmussen says. “I'd known the principles there, Dom Robinson, Adrian Roe, and Steve Strong, for almost 20 years, since about the time I started editing your work at Streaming Media Magazine. And so I joined their company as their Chief Marketing Officer in 2022 and stayed on.”
The new format and feel of Streaming Media NYC
Siglin notes that Streaming Media NYC is Schumacher-Rasmussen’s first time at a Streaming Media conference as a visitor. “What are your observations on the show this year?” he asks.
“I think the content of the show is great,” Schumacher-Rasmussen says. “Evan Shapiro has done a terrific job in putting together a new look and new feel and new approach to the industry that I think is really needed. And I think that's reflected by so many new faces that I see here that I've never seen in a Streaming Media show.”
The primary features of Norsk
Siglin asks Schumacher-Rasmussen to talk about id3as’s primary product Norsk.
“Norsk is a live media server that comes with a low code SDK that allows users to build very complicated, very custom dynamic, scalable, live streaming workflows in just a few lines of code,” Schumacher-Rasmussen says. “The team at id3as realize that it's very easy to tell another human being what you want a live streaming workflow to look like. ‘I have three SRT cameras. I need to do a multi-camera switcher. I want to do a lower third overlay, and I want to output to low latency HLS and WebRTC.' I've just told you that. Now try telling that to a computer, right?
“At NAB, we rolled out Norsk Studio, which is a no-code interface that gives you the drag-and-drop canvas to take prebuilt components like an SRT input or a multi-camera switcher, drag it out of the canvas, literally connect the dots, press play, and go. But it's also extensible, so it can still be customized because, as our CEO likes to say, drag and drop interfaces, but no-code interfaces are great until they're not.”
Siglin says, “So, just to be clear, while Norsk has been out for just a brief period of time, it's all based on code that was for bespoke projects for really big companies that Id3as did projects for.”
“So Id3as as a company launched in 2010,” Schumacher-Rasmussen says. “It was a consultancy building live streaming systems for the likes of Thomson Reuters, which became Nasdaq, which became Notified. We built projects for DAZN, Stats Perform, Limelight, now [called] Edgio.” He says that about four years ago, the company decided to take that expertise and productize it. “Norsk allows you to buy something that helps you more easily build exactly what you want.”
Near-term emerging industry trends
Siglin asks, “What are you seeing as trends for the next six months or so? When we show up at IBC, what do you expect we'll see in the industry?”
Schumacher-Rasmussen thinks there is a trend towards no-code solutions, though there is still a ways to go until that trend reaches maturity. “Things that we thought had changed and already been adopted in, let's say, 2010, really don't get adopted by the market until much later,” he says. “And so I think no-code will be slowly on the rise. And we’ll still be talking about latency.”
“At the end of the day with low-code or no-code, is the idea to allow somebody who isn't a streaming expert to set up the production?” Siglin asks.
“Right, exactly,” Schumacher-Rasmussen says. “You need to be a developer to use Norsk, or to be at least a power user of Norsk. But you don't need to be a video engineer. You don't need to know on a deep level what's going on in the codecs or what's going on in the protocols.”
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