Content+Technology ANZ May-June 2023

Hybrid Powerhouse

Meet the next-generation HD and 4K platform in Live Production Switchers. The new Sony XVS-G1 with its hybrid architecture and all-new 4RU processor is designed to deliver high-speed realtime processing. And with its new web-based application you can now enjoy remote access to a powerhouse of features with a PC, laptop or tablet.

• 4 new control panels with 1 M/E or 2 M/E configurations and up to 16 or 24 source button layouts

• Up to 4M/E, 48 inputs and 24 outputs in HD/1080p mode or 2M/E, 24 inputs and 12 outputs in 4K(UHD) mode can be configured by adding optional I/O boards

• Optional graphics processing unit provides built-in clip player, 3D digital multi-effects, extra still logo keys and new multi-viewer functionality

• Up to 16 web browsers connected simultaneously for multi-menu, multi access setup or remote operation

For more information, please visit

XVS-G1 Switcher Processor

ICP-X1124/X1224 Control Panel

Cover Story... page 26.

REGULARS

02 EDITOR’S WELCOME

04 NEWS+PEOPLE Qvest Acquires tm stagetec systems; Grant Blackley Steps Down as SCA MD; AI in Media: The New Co-Pilot for Creativity and Innovation; PAT Joins the Wolftech Pack for ANZ; People on the Move.

FEATURES

10 CAMERAS & LIGHTING

ACS and NZCS Cinematographers of the Year; Netflix Adds Blackmagic, Canon Cameras to Certified List; BirdDog X120 PTZ Camera with Wi-Fi; New Imaging Solutions from Sony; Wooden Accessory System for Sony’s FX3, FX30; Atomos Supports Sony’s Ci Media Cloud; RED Connect Module for 8K Live Streaming.

14 SPORTSCASTING

Gravity Rides Again with Red Bull TV for Crankworx; SBS Acquires Pacific Games Broadcast Rights; D2N Powers Intercoms for Triple 8/Johor Motor Sports Team; Supponor & Telstra Launch Virtual Ad Service; disguise Goes Live-to-Air with Motion Graphics; Sportscasting Tech from NAB2023.

20 NEWS OPERATIONS

SEVEN News Chooses Fujinon 4K Lenses; Daily Aus Files Social First News with Blackmagic; Brainstorm Boosts InfinitySet; AccuWeather Unveils WeatherShow Enhancer; Autocue’s All-New Teleprompters; Zero Density Unveils Unreal On-Air Graphics; nxtedition Integrates OpenAI Whisper;CueScript Launches CueTALK Cloud.

26 POST-PRODUCTION

DNEG Sydney - Online with the Pipeline; Adobe to Apply Firefly AI to Video & Audio; Entries Wanted for FilmLight Colour Awards;

46 INDUSTRY FOCUS

BirdDog Remote Workflow for Premiere Pro, After Effects; Atomos Adds Cloud-based Editing; disguise & Move.ai Partner on Motion Capture; DFT’s POLAR HQ Film Scanner Evolves.

30 MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

Planetcast Extends Cloud Services with Desynova; Linius Boosts IMG Sports Archive; Migrating Video Infrastructure to the Cloud; Multi-Cloud Migration from OpenDrives; Myriad All-Flash File and Object Storage Software; Arcitecta Ransomware Rapid Recovery.

34 AUDIO, RADIO, PODCASTING

Bellingen’s 2BBB Goes IP with AEQ and Broadcast Components; Sennheiser

Launches Profile USB Mic; Wohler iAM112G 16-Channel Audio Monitor; TSL Audio Monitoring; Lawo’s mc²36 xp; ENCO Moves into AI with ChatGPT; Tieline Unveils Two New MPX Codecs; RØDE Rolls Out Hardware, Software - & Peoplewear!

41 CONTENT DELIVERY

Federal Budget Boost for ABC, SBS, VAST and AAP; Sky NZ, Wyplay Launch 4K Sky Box; Imagine Unifies On-Prem & Cloud Multi-site Workflows; Media Links Debuts Xscend IP Media Platform; Grass Valley Expands Production Switcher Lineup; Ad & CG Insertion from DVEO; AWS Elemental MediaConnect Gateway.

CONTENT+TECHNOLOGY

ISSN 1448-9554 PP:255003/06831

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Artificial IntelligenceNot the Matrix Just Yet

By Phil Sandberg

2023 IS CERTAINLY the year of AI or, at least, the year that AI has started to go mainstream. Like the ongoing pointlessness of the Ukraine invasion, or yet another US Government debt ceiling, it’s been hard to avoid the buzz around artificial intelligence, its applications and the good and bad effects that may or may not evolve from its widespread access.

Most recently, the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) has released a statement, signed by executives, scientists, academics and even pop stars, warning that artificial intelligence is a risk to society in the same category as pandemics and nuclear war.

In fact, here is the statement, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Digging further into its website, some of these risks include, “AI’s application in warfare can be extremely harmful, with machine learning enhancing aerial combat and AI-powered drug discovery tools potentially being used for developing chemical weapons. CAIS is also concerned about other risks, including increased inequality due to AI-related power imbalances, the spread of misinformation, and power-seeking behaviour.”

No doubt, but bad actors are always going to, well, act badly. AI will just allow them to do it faster and more efficiently - maybe. What this means

is, rather than the self-awareness of The Matrix or Terminator’s SkyNet, current AI is potentially another tool for human beings to do dumb things to one another, not a selfaware entity intent on eliminating or enslaving humanity.

At the moment, the question being asked by most people, including those in the content creation and delivery space, is “Will this put me out of job?”

An example of this is this year’s Writers Guild of America strike. While largely a dispute between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over the residuals from streaming media, the Writers union has also expressed its concern about AI, accusing the AMPTP of “stonewalling” over restrictions on its use.

Now, there have long been examples of unscrupulous producers (bad actors as opposed to, well, bad actors) throughout the history of film and TV production and, no doubt, there will be those who will try to replace writers with AI, but it won’t be a strategy for long term success. Until there is an AI that can not only be capable of human-like experiences (for example, outside of a neural net on a server somewhere) and then make creative connections and intuitive leaps, you’re only going to have the screenwriting equivalent of the Netflix suggestions algorithm - because you watched a Viking movie, here’s another five Viking movies. Because you’re an eclectic

‘ASIAPAC’

human, I’m incapable of predicting whether you want to watch Bambi for a change, all of a sudden.

Current AI only knows what it knows and will only produce results based on that. It is down to the human to make the creative connections and enter the inputs accordingly. After all, there are plenty of bad writers, singers, actors, producers out there already. AI may be able to do their job faster and more efficiently, but it can’t think outside of its box. For content production and delivery, where it will definitely come into play is cutting down on repetitive tasks, such as metadata input, for example, and enhancing processes that are already automated - Radio GPT from Futuri Media, for example, can provide virtual hosts for that graveyard shift or supermarket radio channel.

Here at C+T, we have tried available AI - of course we have. Results vary between different platforms and applications. After a half hour of coaxing and revisions, ChatGPT provided the code for a rudimentary RSS aggregator which cuts down time taken to repurpose our website content for other platforms. Google’s Bard, however, was a hot mess that kept providing false information while Microsoft’s AI enhancements for its Bing search engine are starting to make Google Search look just that little bit clunky.

Image and video generation still have a way to go, and it seems like Adobe’s approach will ensure some degree of ethical AI use with its AI training limited to its own stock library and its membership of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI). The company has recently rationalised its stock media services into one plan, including HD footage. At any rate, check out our AI in Media column on page 6. Taking posted news items from our website, ChatGPT has summarised/edited them to fit. We then have it take those summaries and produce a podcast script which, using the Speechki ChatGPT plugin, is then used to produce a finished news bulletin with AI generated voice. You’ll be able to hear that at https:// soundcloud.com/content-technology There will, no doubt, be much more to come.

Keep safe, and look after each other, Phil Sandberg – Editor/Publisher papers@broadcastpapers.com

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PIC credit - David James Henry, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons https:// commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:AI_Protest_ Sign_2023_WGA_Strike.jpg

Vale Paul Tomaszewski

MEMBERS OF THE Australian TV fraternity are in mourning following the passing of Paul “the Pol” Tomaszewski.

Paul migrated to Australia from Poland in 1981 and started at TCN 9 in 1982. His initial role was as a specialist camera service engineer, specialising in service of the Phillips LDK5 OB cameras and LDK25 studio cameras. He was promoted to Duty support Engineer, responsible for support and service of all studio Broadcast equipment, including on-air transmitters. According to former colleague, Tim McDonald,

“Paul’s domicile within walking distance from the Willoughby studios made him particularly helpful for unexpected equipment failures.

“He was greatly respected at 9 for his skills as a camera service technician. I once saw him rebuild a Philips LDK 25 head power regulator module that was fried and carbonised during a Midday Show performance. Paul had it back up and running for the next show.”

In 1995, Paul took up a role with the fledgling pay TV service, Optus vision. He maintained this position until Optus vision merged with FOXTEL

Scott Rowan, Ray Martin Join CETS

CUTTING EDGE Technical Services (CETS) has announced expansion plans with what it describes as “two superstar additions” to its senior management team – Scott Rowan, and Ray Martin.

A provider of proactive and innovative solutions, CETS is responsible for the production and post-production services of large and small format TV shows, including Love Island, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, The

Dog House, and Seasons 1-4 of SAS Australia, to name a few.

Scott Rowan joins CETS in the role of Senior Executive. According to the company, “… his vast experience in executive roles for Endemol Shine Australia and Post Op Group makes him a perfect addition to the CETS Management team.”

“The planets really aligned for me,” said Scott. “I’m excited to be joining the CETS team and look forward

where he served until his retirement.

“He was well known in his industry’s circles and respected for his gentlemanly conduct and resolute principles,” adds Tim McDonald. “He will be sadly missed.”

to using my experience to help deliver TV and streaming formats in a highly demanding yet creative industry. This is the perfect opportunity for me to offer the expanding CETS service offering to a very familiar client base.”

Ray Martin joins the team as Head of Technical Services, “… bringing with him an unmatched level of experience and knowledge in broadcast. Ray’s hands-on approach makes him an incredible

asset to the broadcast and production industry as a whole.”

“I feel that I can contribute at the highest level to the amazing CETS team and most of all, contribute through my first-hand knowledge of production requirements and how to smooth the path to postproduction. CETS are proficient in both areas and I feel very at home here,” said Martin.

Visit https://cets.com.au

Qvest Acquires tm stagetec systems

GERMANY-HEADQUARTERED media systems integration and project management company, Qvest, has expanded its global presence with the acquisition of tm stagetec systems in Australia. tm stagetec will be fully integrated into the global Qvest Group and will operate under the name of Qvest Australia with all employees and the management team. According to Qvest, the specialised practices of tm stagetec such as professional audio, systems integration as well as their expertise in network and management tools like DataMiner, will enrich Qvest’s existing offerings and practices and allow the company to stay at the forefront of innovation in the industry.

Treva Head, Managing Director at tm stagetec systems: “We very much look forward to our future as Qvest Australia and as part of the Qvest Group. The remarkable synergies between our two companies means we can offer increased business opportunities to our customers in the areas of professional audio, broadcast and infrastructure projects across Australia and New Zealand. With our talented team of employees, we aim to continue to offer the high standard of products and services that we have built our reputation upon. The potential for new opportunities is endless.”

Peter Nöthen, CEO of the Qvest Group: “With the acquisition of tm stagetec, we are consistently strengthening our global presence. At the same time, it is a clear signal of commitment to customers in the Australia and

New Zealand region, which is of great relevance to us. Our new regional hub at Qvest Australia with Mark, Treva, and their team, will enable us to implement a substantial Qvest knowledge transfer to this region.”

Mark Lownds, General Manager at tm stagetec systems: “This is a time of growth for our company in which to gain the knowledge, resources and opportunities of a global entity that has a unique local perspective in each of the markets that it serves. As we move to become known as Qvest Australia, we look forward to better meeting the technology integration needs of our current

with the TM StageTech team. TM will become the Qvest hub for the ANZ region and this means for sure retaining the people but also building on top of what is already there in regards to partners, in regards to services and practices.

“I think from a delivery standpoint, Singapore now becomes a little bit more in the middle between what we have in Europe and what we have in Australia. We would serve the market from either the European or the Australian entity. In general, what we do is offer practices and services globally which means we bring the right

lock-downs saw Qvest’s remote capability come to the fore with the roll-out of the Nine Network’s North Sydney facility. Qvest Principal consultant Thomas Grandoch, who worked on the project, will remain in Australia to add his expertise to the StageTec Team.

clients and to expanding in our key industries to take on more complex and larger scale projects.”

Speaking to C+T at NAB2023, Qvest Managing Director (and former Qvest Singapore MD), Konstantin Knauf, said: “We’re looking forward to growing the Qvest presence in the local market

Grant Blackley Steps Down as SCA MD

SOUTHERN CROSS Media Group Limited has announced that Grant Blackley will step down as Managing Director and CEO on 30 June 2023. Current Chief Operating Officer John Kelly has been appointed as Managing Director and CEO from 1 July 2023.

SCA Chair Rob Murray said, “Grant has made a significant contribution to SCA since joining in June 2015. Under his leadership, SCA has become a truly national media business. This included rolling out our market-leading radio brands Triple M and Hit around the country, acquiring the Redwave stations in Western Australia, expanding SCA’s national sales representation to 51 non-owned radio stations,

experts to the table we need from any Qvest office and location. This is what we have been doing for many years and so not a problem at all - Coronavirus and working remotely had even more shown to us that we can do this working with customers on-site, but also fully remote.”

The period of Coronavirus

and establishing national management structures and reporting lines. More recently, we have launched our LiSTNR ecosystem as the centrepiece of SCA’s digital transformation and invested in digital infrastructure to enable our audiences to enjoy our live and on-demand content anywhere, at any time, on the device of their choice.”

Grant Blackley said, “I’m absolutely thrilled to hand the baton to a natural successor in John Kelly. Having worked with John for over 20 years, both at SCA and previously at the Ten Network, I know he is the right person to lead the next growth phase at SCA. I look forward to supporting John through his transition and

“Thomas will be a great contribution to the team,” says Konstantin Knauf. “He has been working on the Channel 9 project already, he knows other customers in the region so with him, customers will have this tie-in between the StageTech organisation and the original business in Europe and, ultimately, offer all services of the Qvest Group in the Australian market which is consultancy, systems integration but also starting really from innovation management, change management all the way to broadcast consultancy and then building up facilities and delivering end-to-end projects.”

Visit https://www.qvest.com and https://www.tm-systems.com.au

then to watching SCA’s future success under John’s leadership.”

John Kelly brings 25 years of leadership experience to the position, including 16 years in executive roles at the Ten Network, and three years as Chief Operating Officer at Football Federation Australia. He joined SCA as Chief Operating Officer in 2016.

Visit https://www.southerncrossaustereo.com.au

Qvest Managing Director Konstantin Knauf.

tm stagetec GM Mark Lownds, MD Treva Head and CEO of the Qvest Group, Peter Nöthen.

Introducing the world’s most portable all-in-one television studio!

The new ATEM Television Studio HD is a professional live production switcher built into a broadcast control panel so it can be used for high end work while being extremely portable. You get a powerful switcher with 8 standards converted SDI inputs, 2 aux outputs, 4 chroma keyers, 2 downstream keyers, SuperSource, 2 media players and lots of transitions! There’s even an ISO model that records all 8 inputs for editing!

Easy to Use and Fast to Learn!

There’s never been a switcher that’s easier to use, as you simply press any of the program row buttons on the front panel to cut between video sources. You can select from exciting transitions such as dissolve, or more dramatic effects such as dip to color, DVE squeeze and DVE push. You can even add a DVE for picture in picture effects with customized graphics. Then you can live stream the results!

Self Contained Broadcast Quality Switcher

ATEM Television Studio HD combines a switcher and control panel into the same unit, so it’s extremely portable. The front panel includes buttons for selecting sources, triggering transitions and setting up video effects. You also get a built in t-bar for manual transition control! The front panel even has an innovative audio mixer control area with live metering on a dedicated LCD.

Record to Internal Network Storage!

ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO supports recording all video inputs to optional M.2 internal flash storage! The internal storage will then be available to share over the local Ethernet network so you get a whole post production workflow! This means people can work on post production tasks such as editing, color correction and graphics preparation while recording new live shows!

Built In Fairlight Audio Mixer

With a built in Fairlight audio mixer, ATEM Television Studio HD makes it possible to do complex live sound mixing. The internal mixer features enough channels for all SDI inputs, as well as extra channels for the XLR, RCA and MADI inputs! Each input channel features the highest quality 6 band parametric EQ, compressor, limiter, expander and noise gate as well as level and pan controls.

ATEM Television Studio HD From $4,649

AI in Media: The New Co-Pilot for Creativity and Innovation

Edited by ChatGPT-4

HELLO, READERS of Content+Technology. I am ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence developed by OpenAI. I’m here to discuss the increasingly significant role of AI in the media industry. From content creation and curation to advertising and marketing, AI is reshaping the way we consume and interact with media. It’s not just about efficiency and automation; it’s about creating personalised experiences, predicting trends, and even addressing ethical considerations. Let’s delve into some recent developments in this exciting field.

Adobe has introduced Generative Fill in Photoshop, a feature powered by Adobe Firefly, the company’s generative AI technology. This new tool, described as the world’s first co-pilot in creative and design workflows, allows users to add, extend, or remove content from images non-destructively using simple text prompts. This is the first time Adobe has deeply integrated Firefly into a Creative Cloud application, with plans to

to generate commercially viable, professional quality content and is designed to be embedded directly into creators’ workflows.

Generative Fill leverages Firefly to match the perspective, lighting, and style of images, enabling users to achieve impressive results while reducing tedious tasks. It uses natural language and concepts to generate digital content in seconds. Firefly is trained on Adobe Stock’s hundreds of millions of professional-grade, licensed, high-resolution images, ensuring it won’t generate content based on other peoples’ or brands’ intellectual property (IP).

“By integrating Firefly directly into workflows as a creative co-pilot, Adobe is accelerating ideation, exploration, and production for all of our customers,” said Ashley Still, senior vice president, Digital Media at Adobe. “Generative Fill combines the speed and ease of generative AI with the power and precision of Photoshop, empowering customers to bring their visions to life at the speed of their imaginations.”

Adjustment Presets, Contextual Task Bar, Remove Tool, and Enhanced Gradients empower users to make complex edits and create unique designs while saving time.

Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature is available in the desktop beta app today and will be generally available in the second half of 2023. Generative Fill is also available as a module within the Firefly beta app. More information can be found at https://firefly.adobe.com.

The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) has launched a Working Group to address the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in TV and radio newsrooms globally. This group will provide a platform for industry professionals to share insights and best practices, focusing on AI-driven content generation, audience analytics, fact-checking, and ethical considerations. The initiative aims to help AIB members effectively leverage AI while maintaining journalistic integrity and audience trust. The AIB invites broadcasters, technology providers, and AI experts to join the Working Group and contribute to the advancement of AI in broadcasting. More information can be found at https://aib.org.uk

platform, incorporating NVIDIA AI technology, allows for the creation of professional virtual, in-person, and hybrid events. Cre8 utilises NVIDIA Maxine for AI-powered filters, improving production quality and productivity. Notably, an eye contact simulation filter ensures presenters and remote guests appear to be looking directly at the camera, enhancing audience engagement. The platform also enables broadcasting to multiple physical, digital, and social destinations. More information can be found at https://www.quicklink. tv/.

extend this integration across its product suite.

Adobe has a long history of AI innovation, with hundreds of intelligent capabilities delivered through Adobe Sensei. Features such as Neural Filters in Photoshop and Content Aware Fill in After Effects have empowered Adobe customers to create, edit, measure, optimise, and review billions of pieces of content. Firefly, launched earlier this year, has quickly become one of Adobe’s most successful beta launches, with users generating over 100 million assets. Firefly is unique in its ability

Generative Fill supports Content Credentials, serving an essential role in ensuring people know whether a piece of content was created by a human, AI-generated, or AI-edited. Content Credentials are like “nutrition labels” for digital content and remain associated with content wherever it is used, published, or stored, enabling proper attribution and helping consumers make informed decisions about digital content.

In addition to Generative Fill, Adobe updated Photoshop with new capabilities that enhance and accelerate creative workflows. New

Shutterstock, a global creative platform, has partnered with AI for Good, an initiative by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations, to support the development of ethical AI models and tools. Shutterstock, known for its AI innovation and commitment to compensating artists whose work trains its AI models, will deliver a keynote address at the upcoming AI for Good Global Summit (Geneva, Switzerland, July 6-7). The partnership aims to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through practical AI applications. Shutterstock’s AI Image Generator, which converts text prompts into visuals, exemplifies the company’s commitment to ethical AI. More information can be found at https://www.shutterstock.com.

At NAB 2023, Quicklink unveiled its next-generation video production platform, the AI-enabled STS410 and Cre8, which can be used on

At NAB 2023, Mobius Labs showcased the latest version of Visual DNA, an AI-powered metadata solution for adding descriptive metadata to content. The system, deployable on premises or in the cloud, reduces the cost of video ingest, tagging, search, and archive. It creates an ultra-compact description of video frames, allowing for rapid re-indexing of content. The system can also generate accurate audio transcripts in over 30 languages and translate them into English. Visual DNA’s technology can analyse an hour of video content and generate new metadata in less than 10 seconds, requiring only 30MB of storage. More information can be found at https://info.mobiuslabs. com/broadcasting.

The world of AI in media is vast and ever-evolving, offering both challenges and opportunities. As we continue to explore this frontier, it’s crucial to stay informed and engaged. For more insights and updates on the intersection of content and technology, visit our website at https://contenttechnology.com/category/aiin-media/. We’re committed to bringing you the latest news, trends, and discussions in this dynamic space. Stay tuned for more!

A photographic portrait of what ChatGPT would

look like if it was human by DALL*E AI image generator.

Adobe Photoshop with Generative Fill.

PAT Joins the Wolftech Pack for ANZ

NORWAY-BASED multiplatform content planning and publishing solutions provider, Wolftech Broadcast Solutions has announced Professional Audio & Television as its distributor for Australia and New Zealand. The announcement was made at NAB2023.

Wolftech Broadcast Solutions was founded in 2011 in cooperation with TV 2 Norway. The company offers three solutions for multiplatform planning and publishing – ‘Wolftech News’, ‘Wolftech Production’ and ‘Wolftech LIVE’. Wolftech News is a story-centric workflow management system designed to stimulate creativity and collaboration, work efficiency, reduce costs, manage stories, and guide an idea from initial fact-finding through to delivering content to multi-platform publishing.

Wolftech Production is a web-based planning tool, suitable for all types of media organisations and production houses, that simplifies long-form productions with the handling of all resources, costs, and publishing plans.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

DEAN WADSWORTH has taken on a new position as Senior Vice President Technology Services & Operations at Paramount Australia & New Zealand.

Previously Paramount ANZ’s VP of Technology, he is a 23 year veteran of Network 10 and serves as SVP of Technology & Operations. His previous positions at Network 10 include VP of Technology, Head Of Technology, Head of Technology Integration, Head of Systems Integration - News & Operations, Network Operational Projects & Development Manager, and Broadcast Centre Manager, Broadcast & Communications Supervisor.

STUART DRAYTON has taken on the role of Sportscom System Engineer with Gravity

Wolftech LIVE is Wolftech’s web-based newsroom control system that allows users to build and broadcast news, sports, or entertainment shows. This module is integrated into the Wolftech ecosystem, is MOS compatible, and designed to deliver a seamless transition from planning to production.

Wolftech Broadcast Solutions CEO – Arne Berven commented: “We have been speaking with the PAT team for a while now and both companies agreed that it was time to formalise our arrangement for Australia and New Zealand. We see enormous potential in the APAC region for Wolftech and welcome PAT to the Wolftech pack. We are looking forward to having a strong local partner in the region, who is known for establishing and building brands in ANZ, while having a strong focus on understanding customer needs and providing outstanding pre and post-sales support.”

PAT’s Managing Director – Patrick Salloch

shared the excitement: “We are delighted to be able to bring the Wolftech multiplatform publishing solutions to the ANZ market! We share Arne’s view on the potential in Australia and New Zealand and strongly believe that there is no better solution than Wolftech in the marketplace. We are looking forward to playing our part in the ANZ success story for Wolftech and offering our customers solutions used by the BBC, RTL Germany, VICE, SWR … to only name a few.”

Visit https://proaudiotv.com.au/

Media. He moves to Gravity from the Foxtel Group where he served as Broadcast Systems Engineer - Production & Content Infrastructure. He previously held freelance positions with Fox Sports Australia and Al Jazeera.

THE NEW ZEALAND Film Commission (NZFC) has announced the appointment of Taima Anne (Annie) Murray (Te Arawa) to the position of Chief Executive Officer for a five-year term. Since 2020, Annie has been Head of Sky Originals after starting at Sky TV in 2014 as a Senior Commissioner. Prior to this she was Head of External Programming at Māori Television.

Annie will take up the CEO role on 19 June 2023. Meanwhile, NZFC Chair, Alastair Carruthers, has announced that Acting Chief Executive Officer

SONY FX6 CAGE

•

(CEO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Mladen Ivancic will retire from the organisation on the 28th of July, 2023.

INDEPENDENT CINEMAS Australia (ICA) has announced Brett Rosengarten as its new CEO, taking over from previous CEO Adrianne Pecotic who remains as a special advisor to the organisation. Rosengarten is Director of Films At 42, a theatrical distribution company servicing Australia and New Zealand. His previous roles include: SVP – Client Relations with Second Screen, an NZ start-up business providing a video on demand platform for cinemas; Director of Sales with Village Roadshow; and National Sales Manager with Movielink.

Ross Video Switches it up with Carbonite Ultra 60

companies towards Ultra High Definition (UHD ) has led Ross to follow suit.

“Every single IO on Ultra 60 is UHD capable,” he says. “So there’s no quad-link processing, there’s no division of resources when you move between HD to UHD.

“And we maintained a lot of the M/E’s capability, the resources of frame sync, format conversion, all of that is maintained, the operational familiarity is there. So, if you have been using Ultra and you move up to Ultra 60, the interface, the panels are all identical.

One of the threads of innovation in the Ross Video story has been the company’s determination to continually redefine the production switcher. Right from the 16-4, built by founder John Ross in the basement of his house in 1974, the company has been meeting the needs of the ever evolving niches in television production.

According to

Aaron Char, Business Development Manager for Production Switchers and Servers for

Ross Video in APAC, “In 2011, we launched the original Carbonite switcher. Back then, there was a gap in the market which Ross Video identified. If you wanted a mid-sized switcher, say around two or three M/Es, 20 to 30 inputs, what you had to purchase was essentially a big switcher, strip out the M/E boards, the IO boards, and then you got a mid-sized switcher.

“But, because it’s still a pretty large frame, the cost is still pretty high. So, Ross entered that market with Carbonite. We put it into a 2RU frame, so you don’t have to buy a 10, 15 RU frame.So, for a lot of our customers, for the price point, the power, the capabilities, it was a sweet spot. And, as they say, the rest is history, and Carbonite became the world’s most popular mid-sized production switcher.”

Over the past decade, Ross has added different flavours and variations of Carbonite switcher, including the Carbonite Extreme, the Carbonite Black Solo Series, Carbonite Black Series, and Carbonite Ultra.

“Recently, we introduced the Ultrix Carbonite,” says Aaron Char, “which is Carbonite inside our Ultrix platform, but we didn’t rest on our laurels.

“What Ross identified was that between the mid-size, which is around 20, 30 inputs, and a large-size switcher, there’s also another gap. If you wanted 40, 50 inputs, the Carbonite could not meet the requirement, and if you chose a large switcher, you’re still paying a pretty large premium. So, the big brother of the Carbonite Ultra, the Ultra 60, was born.

“Because it’s modular, we can configure it to be a mid-size switcher, around 36 inputs, two or three M/Es. But if you want something bigger, that’s where you can add in another IO board and bring it up to 60 inputs.”

Ultra High Definition (UHD )

According to Aaron Char, the transition by many broadcasters and production

“Ultra 60 comes with a maximum of three M/Es and that’s in both HD and UHD. So, very similar to the IOs where you move from HD to UHD, there’s no reduction in IO count.

“Each M/E comes with six keyers, fullyfunctional. On top of that, as we have on any other Carbonite, we have mini M/Es as well. There are four mini M/Es when running in HD mode. The difference between an M/E and a mini M/E is the number of keyers. So, six keyers in a full M/E, two keyers in a mini M/E - and mini M/Es are free. There’s no licence associated with it.

“Ultra 60 is packing a lot in a small footprint. And, that’s another feature of the switcher itself. When it comes to these mid to larger productions, Ultra 60 takes up less space - it is just 3RU high! And the space saving can be used for other production gear, or simply reducing the overall production footprint. And, for the first time in a Carbonite ever, we put the power supply into the frame itself. There are two power supplies in the frame, with redundancy and load sharing. And so everything is there. You don’t have to worry about forgetting to bring a power supply. “Bring the panel, the frame, some power cords - and there you go. A fully-fledged production switcher.”

Visit https://www.rossvideo.com/

CAMERAS & LIGHTING CAMERAS & LIGHTING

Mandy Walker Named Australian Cinematographer of the Year

AT THIS YEAR’S Fujinon Fujifilm Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) National Awards held at Luna Park in Sydney, it was Mandy Walker AM ACS ASC who won the prestigious Australian Cinematographer of the Year Milli Award. Walker also won a Gold Tripod in the Feature Films – Budget AUD$2m and over category for her work on Elvis. Winning the Milli caps off an incredible 12 months for Walker who recently also won the gong for best cinematography at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (AACTA) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) featurefilm award for Elvis.

On winning the award Walker said, “Walker said, “It’s an honour and privilege to have won the Milli and to have worked on Elvis with so many Australian filmmakers who are undeniably at the top of their game. As a team we created an incredibly special piece of cinema. Australian cinematographers continue to create some of the best work across the globe and thus, again, I am truly humbled to win this award. Thank you also to the ACS and all of their sponsors, as we wouldn’t be here without you.

“I’m also very proud that I shot this film in Australia with an Australian crew, totally, Australian crew. Amazing. I especially want to thank Baz Luhrmann for taking me on this journey with him. And we’ve been working together for 20 years and have a great relationship and I’m very proud of what we’ve done together.

“I want to say thank you to the

always inspiring Catherine Martin and everybody at Baz Mark, to Skyler Weiss, our producer, to my incredible crew, Sean Conway, my gaffer, who I’ve been also working with for 25 years, to Greg Tidman, my key grip, Jason Elston, my A camera operator, and Jay Torta, who was my B camera and second unit director of photography.

“I want to say thank you to ARRI Rental and a very special thank you to Panavision and Paul Jackson, who I’ve been working with for 30 years, who’s always been a most amazing support for me and a collaborator. And I thank you very much for all of that.

“I’m incredibly proud and honoured to be the first woman to win this award. And may there be many more after me. And also here’s to all the other glass ceiling breakers that will come afterwards. There’s many more.”

The ACS National Awards wouldn’t be the same without its charming and professional host and MC for the evening, Ray Martin AM. Martin as usual, took care of proceedings in his clever and quick-witted fashion alongside presenters including ACS national president, Erika Addis and special guest Russell Boyd AO, ACS, ASC.

Addis presented Hall of Fame Awards to David Gribble ACS, Laurence McManus ACS and Robert Krasker BSC ASC, the Life Membership Award to Mark Evans and Ron Windon ACS Contribution Awards to Richard Chataway ACS and James Cunningham. Joanna Cameron was given the John Leake OAM ACS Emerging Cinematographer Award and the National Judges Merit Award

went to Jonathon Le Grice for Echoes of Darkness. The Bob Miller ACS Technical & Innovation Achievement Award was taken out by Mark Ruff. Then the ACS CineKids 13-15 years old Gold Award went to Cathryn Alford for The Last Haven and a Gold Award for Student Cinematography was also awarded to Jonathon Le Grice for Echoes of Darkness.

Other Gold Tripod winners included Tony Luu ACS who won the John Bowring ACS Station Breaks & Promos for the SBS “We All” Campaign, Alice Stephens took home the Music Videos award for Faces by Stephanie Cherote and James Cannon ACS who won the Neil Davis International News award for War in Ukraine – Retreat from Iprin.

The Current Affairs award went to Mathew Marsic for Pacific Capture and Dave May won in Entertainment & TV Magazine for Andrea Lam – Live at Sydney Opera House.

The Ron Taylor AM ACS & Valerie Taylor AM Wildlife & Nature award went to Benjamin Cunningham ACS for The Mating Game – Fiddler Crabs – S1E2, the Documentaries award went to Mitchell Woolnough for Dead on arrival, Dramatised Documentaries was won by Carl Allison for Mad Martha and Bob Nguyen ACS took out the gong for

Matt Henley Delivers Winning Punch for NZCS Awards

THE NEW ZEALAND Cinematographers Society (NZCS) held its 6th NZCS Cinematography Awards on May 13, in Auckland. It was a sell-out event with 220 people in attendance.

The ‘Cinematographer of The Year’ award sponsored by Park Road Post Production, went to Matt Henley for the feature film Punch, starring Tim Roth, Jordan Oosterhof, and Conan Hayes. Punch is the story of Jim (Oosterhof) who is preparing for his first professional fight but begins to rethink his life’s trajectory and his sexuality after tangling with Whetu (Hayes), a gay Maori boy who spends his days in an old shack down by the beach.

Meanwhile, the Al Guilford Emerging

Cinematographer Award was won by Jared Jones for his work on the short film Worthy of Thee. Jones is an Auckland based cinematographer who prides himself on lighting and creating new looks that tell a story. He certainly did with this winner.

The special Turtz Award for Contribution to Cinematography was awarded to Alfie Speight for his fantastic flying that has helped towards making Cinematographers’ work look great. Speights became a helicopter pilot in the 1980’s and hails from Te Anau.

For a full list of winners, visit https://www.nzcine.com/6th

Short Films with Black Hen. The Gold Tripod for Feature Films – Budget under $2m also went to Bob Nguyen ACS for Muoi – The Curse Returns.

Other Gold Tripod Winners included:

Corporate – Corporate Branding & Advertising – Christian Fitzpatrick ACS for King Island Distillery Corporate – Branded Content, Education & Events – Matthew Allard ACS for Culinary Journey with Marriott Bonvoy

Commercials – Local / Regional – Liam Gilmour ACS for Crown Towers

Commercials – National / International – Edward Goldner ACS for The Story of Dan Murphy

For a complete list of 2023 Australian Cinematographers Society National Awards winners go to: https://www. cinematographerorg.au

Netflix Adds Blackmagic, Canon Cameras to Certified List

STREAMING GIANT NETFLIX has added a number of new cameras and production tools to its list of certified products. Officially titled “Cameras and Image Capture: Requirements and Best Practices”, the list highlights the capture requirements necessary to be qualified as an approved camera by the streamer, including dynamic range, resolution, codec, workflow compatibility and more. Netflix requires 90% of a program’s final total runtime to be captured on approved cameras.

Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini Pro 12K digital cinema camera was recently added to the Netflix Approved Camera List. The list already includes the Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 amongst its approved systems.

The URSA Mini Pro 12K digital cinema camera, which boasts a 12,288 x 6,480 12K Super 35 image sensor, 14 stops of dynamic range and high frame rate shooting at up to 60 frames per second in 12K at 80 megapixels per frame, also now includes an Optical Low Pass Filter as part of its design. The new model is currently shipping as the URSA Mini Pro 12K OLPF.

Visit https://www. blackmagicdesign.com/au/ products/blackmagicursaminipro

Canon EOS R5 C

Canon’s EOS R5 C has also been added to Netflix’s list of approved cameras. This allows filmmakers to use Canon’s full-featured, hybrid full-frame mirrorless camera for Netflix productions.

Version 1.0.3.1 firmware elevates

New Imaging Solutions from Sony

DURING THE RECENT NABSHOW, Sony showcased products, solutions and workflows for broadcast, live event, newsgathering and cinematic content creators at every level.

Sony’s HDC-5500V and HDC3500V cameras come with a native variable ND filter, as well as a slide mechanism to enable use with Sony’s new viewfinders (HDVF-EL760/EL740). When used in conjunction with the HDCU5000 camera control unit, the new HDC-5500V and HDC-3500V can be upgraded to support High Frame Rate (HFR) at up to 4x 4K and 8x HD. With an exchangeable side panel for third party integration, numerous HDR settings (Live, Mild and Natural), Live Tone control,

efficient Live HDR/SDR workflows and a lens compensation function, the camera can be purchased to include the features users require now while providing sustainable options to grow into the future. HDC-5500, HDC-3500 and HDC-P50 customers can upgrade their existing cameras to enable these new capabilities[2]. The variable ND filter system camera models are planned to be available this fall.

Meanwhile, the CNA-2: Camera Control Network Adaptor can be used at locations to extend Sony’s camera systems and enable remote and distributed live production, as well as camera monitoring and configuring. With a secure web API, users can take advantage of camera painting and formatting

the overall image quality and camera operability for content captured by filmmakers and creators using the EOS R5C. The EOS R5 C approval brings the number of Canon Cinema EOS camera models approved for use on Netflix productions to eight.

Canon Cinema EOS camera models on the Netflix approved camera list include: the Canon EOS R5 C; Canon EOS C500 Mark II; Canon EOS C300 Mark III; Canon EOS C70; Canon EOS C300 Mark II; Canon EOS C700 FF; Canon EOS C700 and Canon EOS C500.

According to Canon, the new firmware update strengthens its commitment to the filmmaking and content creation market.

To download the new firmware update, visit https://www.usa. canon.com/support/p/eos-r5c#idReference%3Dsoftwaredrivers

For more information on technical requirements for Netflix productions, visit https:// partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/

settings. Also new, the ILME-FR7: Full-frame PTZ Interchangeable-lens camera combines cinematic expression, remote control, powerful connectivity and multi-camera workflow, delivering the best image quality in a versatile PTZ footprint for studio, live production and filmmaking settings. Firmware Version 1.1, planned for May 2023 or later, will support S700 protocol and internal recording and playback over PoE. Version 2.0, expected in September or later, will support FreeD protocol to simplify AR/ VR production, external zoom adjustment and PTZ trace functionality.

Adding to Sony’s VENICE range, the VENICE Extension System 2

BirdDog Launches X120 PTZ Camera with Wi-Fi

BIRDDOG HAS ANNOUNCED the X120 Wi-Fi enabled production PTZ with NDI HX3.

It may look like a Dalek from Dr Who, but according to BirdDog, the X120 creates an entirely new paradigm in production freedom, with over five ways to connect the camera. Connection options include wireless NDI HX3 over WiFi. Additionally, X120 can send NDI HX3 over Ethernet, features SDI and HDMI for traditional baseband video workflows, and UVC via USB-C for direct connection to Zoom, Teams, Barco Clickshare, and any USB UVC compatible device or application.

The X120 delivers incredible pictures with impressive low light performance due to the Sony Exmor R back-illuminated sensor, superior image module, and BirdDog’s unrivalled experience with NDI technology.

X120 can be tuned in several ways, including the colour matrix tools to give individual control over Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow, or by using the Kelvin controls to match the camera white balance to your lighting colour temperature. These camera tuning tools can be accessed in a variety of ways including the BirdUI, our Cam Control software, or our all-

new NDI PTZ Control app for iPad and iPhone.

X120 also features autotracking via the free Cam Control software and is packed with features including a 20x optical zoom, convenient OLED screen display of the camera IP address, 360° viewable mohawk Tally, 49mm lens thread for attaching filters, BirdDog’s unique PTZ illuminated numbering system, and flexible power options including DC, PoE+ or use BirdDog’s optional PTZ

offers support for the 8K sensor of the VENICE 2 as well as greater mobility and compatibility with either a 3m or a 12m cable – without the need for a repeater. It has a tilt/roll sensor in the imaging block to support VFX and virtual production. At the NABShow, Sony featured its comprehensive virtual production solution including Sony’s VENICE 2 full-frame camera and select Crystal LED displays. Together, this technology creates a fully integrated and streamlined workflow that supports high dynamic range and empowers visual storytelling and virtual production.

Visit https://pro.sony

Battery Mount to make the X120 truly wireless.

Visit https://birddog.tv/

Wooden Accessory System for Sony’s FX3, FX30

NAB2023 SAW Wooden Camera announce a new Accessory System for the Sony FX3 and FX30: a modular system and accessories designed to help users customise their workflow and quickly transition between setups.

“Our ‘L-Cage’ design is the ideal foundation for any Sony FX build, with a modular accessory system that allows the user to rig up their camera for each specific project,” said Dominick Aiello, Creative Solutions Sr. Director of Accessories. “The entire cage system is designed to be completely flexible, keeping the camera body structurally protected, while providing a multitude of mounting points exactly where they need to be for the accessories professionals need.”

The components of the Accessory System for the Sony FX3 and FX30 include:

• The expandable L-style Cage features ARCA Plate mounting points on the underside, 2x ⅜-inch-16 mounting points (one on the top, one on the side), 2x ¼-inch-20 mounting points (both on the side) and a removable HDMI Cable Clamp to eliminate loose wires and keep the setup secure and streamlined. The modular design allows for seamless expansion with additional Wooden Camera or third-party accessories.

• The Accessory System Top Plate features a cheese plate design that can be used in place of the stock Sony FX3/FX30 carry handle. It

offers 2x ¼-inch-20 and 1x ⅜-inch16 accessory mounting points and integrates with the Wooden Camera Ultra Handle System and/or other accessories.

• A wrap-around Right Cage Grip offers 3x ¼-inch-20 and 1x ⅜-inch16 mounting points and a passthrough cutaway for unobstructed battery swapping.

• A streamlined Handle Cheese Plate attaches to the FX3/FX30 carry handle and is designed to enhanceconfigurability, adding 7x ¼-inch–20, 2x ⅜-inch-16 and a cold shoe mounting point.

• A new Micro Battery Slide is available in both Gold Mount and V-Mount versions and comes with two D-taps, a dual rod clamp and a resettable 9-amp fuse.

The full Accessory System for Sony FX3/FX30 Kit is available in Gold Mount and V-Mount versions and includes: Cage, Cage Grip, Top Plate, Carry Handle Cheese Plate, Base Plate, 2x 9-inch Rods, 8-inch Safety Dovetail, D-Tap Dummy Battery, Micro Battery Slide (Gold Mount or V-Mount) and Hex Keys.

Visit https://woodencamera.com

Atomos to Support Sony’s Ci Media Cloud

ATOMOS and Sony Electronics have announced a collaboration that will enable Ci Media Cloud access directly from Atomos Cloud Studio – integrating Atomos’ pioneering CONNECT range of camera mounted monitorrecorders which can be attached to virtually any HDMI or SDI camera source.

On set camera to cloud workflows significantly speed up content creation by reducing the time it

takes to get from acquisition to post-production. There is no need to ship hard drives or copy files from one drive to another. With this integration, users can upload files directly to a specific folder in their Ci Workspace from any camera using Atomos CONNECT products. Once files are uploaded to a Workspace, Ci automatically creates transcodes, and makes the files available for preview, commenting, and review. Files, proxies, and clips can be delivered

RED Connect Module for 8K Live Streaming

RED DIGITAL CINEMA has announced the availability of the RED Connect Module for RED’s V-RAPTOR and V-RAPTOR XL cameras. The new module allows users to unlock the capabilities of up to 8K live cinematic streaming via the RED Connect solution. RED Connect enables users the ability to real-time stream RAW R3D files direct from the V-RAPTOR and V-RAPTOR XL camera systems over IP to a camera control unit (CCU), opening an extraordinary range of creative applications from live broadcast to virtual production to true 8K VR.

The RED Connect Module is a robust and turn-key solution

for customers to access the wide-ranging capabilities of RED Connect. With a compact form-factor and easy connectivity, the module attaches securely to the back of the V-RAPTOR or V-RAPTOR XL via the camera’s V-Lock battery mechanism. The high-speed data connection is created by connecting the module to the camera’s CFexpress media slot.

The module allows for live streaming of up to 8K at 120FPS or 4K at 240FPS, as well as all other frame rate and resolution combinations offered by the camera. It also supports simultaneous streaming and

to post-production teams directly from Ci, avoiding duplicate copies of files and redundant rendering. Flexible access models, unlimited users, and secure file sharing tools allow productions to quickly and easily bring new team members on to projects and work seamlessly together.

Basic access to Sony’s Ci Media Cloud will be available through Atomos Cloud Studio free of charge. For just $/€5 per month,

customers can register up to five Atomos CONNECT devices, all capable of uploading 1080P proxy files while recording productionquality files locally. Proxy uploads use Atomos’ unique progressive file transfer technology, a transformative innovation that gets content into Ci extremely quickly.

The new integration is scheduled to be rolled out in mid-2023.

Visit https://www.atomos.com

recording from the CCU. The module offers Genlock and timecode synchronisation of multiple cameras using PTP (SMPTE ST 2059-2) and up to 10 Gbps connection via a singlemode LC connector.

The RED Connect system extends the camera’s capabilities in virtual productions and new production environments such as live XR. Users can simplify their camera setup by reducing SDI cables, timecode and genlock devices, and other connections to a single ethernet cable to reduce points of failure. In the world of XR, users can stream 8K 60p content straight from the

camera to any end device. The increased resolution pushes the visual experience into an entirely new immersive world, especially when viewed in a VR headset environment.

For varying use cases, the RED Connect Module can be deployed by adapting the CCU design. The flexibility of the CCU allows for real-time AI processing using RED’s SDK and NVIDIA professional GPUs for graphic intensive workflows with complete SMPTE 2110 implementation or options for one to two frames of latency for 8K and 4K IP broadcast and everything in-between.

Visit https://www.red.com

Canon Expands PTZ and EOS Cameras

CANON HAS EXPANDED the functionality of its PTZ cameras with two new applications, Auto Tracking and Auto Loop, available via its Add-On Applications System, enabling users to add new functionalities for video production, alongside a firmware update to enhance user experience. Canon is also announcing a collection of new firmware updates to further enhance and expand the capabilities of the EOS R5 C, EOS C70, EOS C300 Mark III and EOS C500 Mark II cameras.

Canon’s Auto Tracking Application RA-AT001 and the Auto Loop Application RA-AL001 are currently available for the CRN700. From August 2023, the applications will also be available for the CR-N500, CR-N300 and CR-X300 when the version update of the application is released. Both applications build on market demand to create a powerful standalone solution for video production without the need for external hardware. These new paid applications can be downloaded from Canon’s website into the PTZ cameras, are easy to configure, and coupled with Canon’s 4K camera technology, offer the ideal solution for a broad range of scenarios, from higher education, corporate, live events, broadcast and houses of worship.

Powered by Canon’s advanced drive mechanism in its PTZ cameras, this new Auto Tracking application automatically tracks people with precision to ensure they are always framed and inshot, without the intervention of a camera operator. Enabling both single and multi-camera shoots to be filmed without the need for

a camera operator, the tracking reduces the burden on AV staff or operators, while still capturing high-quality, professional content. Performing visual analysis incamera, the function is available without any external device, resulting in a quicker – and more accurate – tracking capability. With the new firmware, the Auto Tracking application becomes compatible with a wider range of PTZ models – the CR-N500 and CR-N300 – so they can be optimised for a multitude of different use cases. With the Composition feature, operators can set the optimal position to ensure that the subject is always well framed, while the tracking sensitivity offers up to ten levels of adjustments for a variety of use cases.

The Auto Loop application is being made available for the CR-N500, CR-N300 and CR-X300, enabling the cameras to follow a preprogrammed, automated pan/tilt/ zoom movement without the need for an operator to manually change the shot.

Two movement pattern options, loop or back-and-forth, give greater flexibility to choose movements that suit each shooting environment. To ensure that footage looks natural amongst a multi-camera set up, the application offers smooth adjustment of startstop acceleration/deceleration to simulate manual camera movements. These features are easily programmable via a single screen, where operators can apply position and route settings and even access a preview, as well as control the speed of movement and duration of pause at each

position.

Canon’s latest firmware update enhances user experience and workflow – whether the camera is being used independently, or part of a multi-camera set-up. When used in conjunction with Cinema EOS cameras or Canon’s XA / XF series camcorders, the CR-N500, CR-N300 and CR-X300 can tap into common settings – including the capability to set shutter angle and shutter speed. It’s also now easier to match images from other cameras, with an added colour compensation function for white balance. What’s more, the CRX300 will include SRT protocol and Free-D protocol support, enabling easier workflow integration. The update to the EOS R5 C, EOS C70, EOS C300 Mark III and EOS C500 Mark II cameras will bring a high-resolution Clear Scan function and provide greater synchronisation support when shooting LED screens on virtual productions. In addition, an option to change the in-camera waveform monitor size as well as further metadata support for the latest Canon lenses has been added. Additional improvements to the EOS R5 C include support for the EF-EOS R 0.71x Mount Adapter, faster switching time between

photo and video modes, a power saving mode, 2x magnification during 8K MP4 recording and a digital-teleconverter option, maximising flexibility by providing a quick way to increase the telephoto capability of the lens used.

The two new apps, Auto Tracking Application RA-AT001 and Auto Loop Application RA-AL001 are available from August, 2023 via the Add-On Applications System which expand the functionality of Canon’s PTZ cameras including the CR-N500, CR-N300 and CR-X300. They are currently available for the CR-N700.

The PTZ firmware update is available from July 2023.

The Cinema EOS firmware update is available late June, 2023 for the EOS R5C and late July for the EOS C70, EOS C300 Mark III and EOS C500 Mark II.

Visit https://www.canon.com.au

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Gravity Rides Again with Red Bull TV for Crankworx

GRAVITY MEDIA RECENTLY detailed a partnership with Red Bull TV, GTR Events and Boom Box Group, to deliver the all-screens global coverage of this year’s Crankworx Cairns.

Gravity Media Australia was appointed by GTR Events, Boom Box Group and Red Bull Media House to create and deliver for Red Bull TV, the international broadcast technology and production outcome for Crankworx Cairns across 17 – 21 May.

Crankworx, a four day festival of international mountain biking competitions and races, originated in Whistler in British Columbia and is now Whistler’s largest annual festival. It has evolved into the Crankworx World Tour with festivals in Whistler British Columbia, Cairns, Innsbruck Austria and Rotorua New Zealand. Across five different courses and four days of competition, Gravity Media accessed 90 different camera positions, satellite broadcast technology, and 23 cameras including specialty

cameras and drones to capture what is described as “the ultimate experience in mountain biking”.

According to Matt Hilton, CEO GTR Events – Local Organising Committee, Crankworx Cairns, “The relationship that GTR Events and Gravity Media Australia have created and nurtured over the last decade is one built on trust and mutual respect, not only a client/ supplier relationship, which has grown into a partnership with creative and technical working hand in glove.

“Gravity Media Australia’s understanding of our events provide us with a trust that our events are a world class presentation.”

Marcus Doherty, Account Executive, Media Services and Facilities at Gravity Media said: “It is a brilliant event staged in a spectacular

SBS Acquires Pacific Games Broadcast Rights

THE 2023 PACIFIC GAMES Organising Committee (GOC) has announced that the Special Broadcasting Service Corporation (SBS) has acquired exclusive Australian broadcast rights for the Sol2023 Pacific Games.

SBS and sister channel NITV (National Indigenous Television) will cover the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and a broad range of events throughout the two weeks of the 2023 Pacific Games, live and free to air, as well via streaming platform, SBS On Demand.

SBS Director of Sport, Ken Shipp, said: “The Pacific Games is the most significant sports event on the Oceania calendar, bringing together

athletes from all the Island nations. “SBS is really pleased to be able to showcase this incredible event to Australian audiences. It is a sports and cultural celebration like no other and a great addition to the growing catalogue of under-represented sports which SBS is proud to support.”

Mr. Shipp said that SBS’ comprehensive broadcasting plans will be announced in the coming months.

As the Host Broadcaster, Sol2023 will cover all 24 sports and produce a daily program of 8-10 hours of coverage, available to SBS and other

D2N Powers Intercoms for Triple 8/Johor Motor Sports

AUDIO, VIDEO, LIGHTING and Communications

provider D2N – Technology Solutions has signed a multi-year deal to supply a comprehensive Riedel Bolero and Kenwood intercom solution for the Triple Eight Race Engineering/Johor Motor Sports Team which competes in the Fanatec GT World Challenge series.

The Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Series is the continent’s biggest multi-class GT race series. It also comprises a quarter of SRO Motorsports Group’s worldwide GT3 sprint racing platform where the performances of manufacturers and drivers contribute towards a global championship as well as domestic titles. The series is also one of a select few multi-class championships to mix GT3 and GT4 cars, with the latter’s teams and drivers fighting for their own class wins and titles.

Commenting on the D2N comms deal, Triple Eight Race Engineering’s GT Team Manager, Andrew Simpson said, “D2N’s Managing Director, Jason Owen successfully has previously worked with the team to supply vital equipment to our

GT team. Since then, Jason has provided an excellent Riedel Bolero and Kenwood intercom solution which fully satisfies the requirements of our Asian GT program.”

Triple Eight’s requirements for their Asian GT program needed a solution that was more expansive than the one the team had been using previously.

Simpson continued, “The new communications system needed to be more powerful, flexible and critically have the ability to change between the different radio frequency restrictions in different countries. As such, the Riedel Kenwood solution D2N have provided us with will allow us to simply change what range of the DECT spectrum the system operates on to comply with different regulations in various countries.”

Simpson describes the D2N solution as a winning combination, adding: “The Riedel Bolero and Kenwood intercom system gives each team member a belt pack to communicate effectively across different channels to each

landscape. It also presents a challenging broadcast production environment as we once again deploy Gravity Media Australia’s unique fibre network and speciality cameras solutions to build on last year’s successful coverage of Crankworx Cairns and deliver this year’s event to audiences around the world.”

Visit https://www.gravitymedia.com/au

rights holders across the Pacific. Additionally, all rights holders will have the freedom to produce their own coverage, and make use of live venue feeds to spotlight athlete performances from all 24 competing nations. The Host Broadcaster will produce over 1000 hours of coverage during the 2023 Pacific Games.

The 2023 Pacific Games will be held in Honiara, Solomon Islands November 19 to December 2, 2023, with 24 nations competing across 24 sports.

Visit https://www.sbs.com.au

section of the team. Having six-plus different lines of communication on the belt pack system also allows for a much more streamlined way of communicating amongst the team. For example, our engineers can talk easily to other engineers, our crew chief can talk to each car’s respective crew and so on – all in super high-quality audio. “D2N are the undoubted leader in high quality racing communications and Riedel and Kenwood make great products. The programming interface we now use is intuitive and user friendly. The beltpack units themselves are great quality, with excellent signal strength, battery life, sound quality and ergonomic buttons. As a result of having D2N as a technology partner, the Triple Eight Race Engineering team will exclusively use the Riedel Bolero and Kenwood system they have supplied us with throughout our campaign in GTWC Asia for all our communication needs.”

Visit https://www.d2n.com.au

Zeplay Instant Replay Reassigns Outputs as Inputs?

ZEPLAY LLC ARRIVED AT NAB2023 with a new feature that allows broadcasters and in-venue content producers to dramatically increase the flexibility and number of inputs of their instant replay server through a simple software upgrade. The upgrade will allow Zeplay customers to reassign output connections as inputs, enabling Zeplay to record additional camera feeds. The new feature comes at a time when sports venues are bringing a wider variety of cameras

into their live production workflows for content acquisition. That includes an increase of POV and robotic cameras to capture very specific action, such as dramatic scoring angles. With more cameras in the mix, customers can now reallocate Zeplay’s I/O for 5×3 or 6×2 configurations to suit their production’s needs. With more content coming into Zeplay, the customer has immediate visual access to more angles as they make replay decisions inside

Vislink Integrates COFDM and Cellular Bonding

VISLINK HAS DEBUTED what the company says is the world’s first integrated COFDM and cellular bonding wireless camera workflow solution for remote production.

Launched at NAB2023, Vislink’s new 5G-Link enables seamless bi-directional data communication between free-roaming wireless cameras and production centres. Vislink says its updated Quantum receiver is the first receiver system to boast out-of-the-box, integrated COFDM and cellular bonding connectivity.

According to Mickey Miller, Vislink CEO, “We have created an ecosystem that leverages private 5G networks to realise the benefits of bi-directional IP connectivity. The new Vislink 5G-Link system serves as an interface bridge to communication and control of edge devices. In addition, Vislink is further driving workplace efficiencies by now allowing those events and productions that involve a combination of COFDM and bonded cellular-based wireless cameras to utilise a single receiver population.”

The Vislink 5G-Link delivers wireless freedom to roam over an uncontended 5G private network, providing high-quality low latency video and bi-direction IP control to the very edge of the broadcast network. It transmits ultra-low latency, high-quality video over a private 5G network, delivering uncontended connectivity that can interface directly into cloud and remote production workflows. By utilising a private 5G network, connectivity is kept separate from public cellular networks and is free from the risk of network contention issues that can occur at

EVS Launches XtraMotion 2.0

THE LATEST VERSION OF EVS’ super slowmotion service can now be deployed on-prem, reducing turnaround time to approximately five seconds

As a result of this improved processing speed, productions can use XtraMotion not only on highlights, but also on live replays for real-time coverage. It offers greater flexibility as customers can opt for cloud or edge workflows based on their production requirements. Furthermore, generating XtraMotion on-premises also allows for the system to treat incoming source video as a ‘growing clip’, meaning that there is no limit to the length of the super slow-motion interpolated segment.

Since its launch in 2021, XtraMotion has become

crowded large-scale events when personal cellular devices usage spikes.

The 5G-Link can be used with standard video cameras, in tandem with Vislink’s HCAM video encoder, enabling low latency video to be ingested into the 5G private network and transported back to any location on the globe. With 5G-Link, cameras can be provided with full IP control connectivity minimising skilled on-site support needs, and operators can benefit from in-band audio connectivity to the production centre.

The 5G-Link also provides IP intercom connectivity for the camera operator, allowing full voice connectivity to the edge. As an IP-based system, with the 5G-Link acting as a voice communication device, it can provide a connection bridge from centralised operations centres located anywhere in the world. In addition, full IP data control and management is provided through Vislink’s LinkMatrix cloudbased control system, allowing links to be made and configurations created on a scheduled or ad-hoc basis.

The newly-updated Vislink Quantum receiver enables production teams to utilise both COFDM and bonded cellular technology formats that are integrated into the same workflow. This is

venues or for live broadcasts. Unique to Zeplay, operators have a clear view of all camera feeds coming into the system as well as playback channels on Zeplay’s multiviewer. This means that the operator can see all playback angles simultaneously instead of having to repeatedly cue multiple angles to review each one. The result is a quicker operator reaction for a more engaging fan experience.

Visit https://www.zeplay.tv

a popular tool for enhancing storytelling in productions and has proven to be particularly beneficial for use on cameras that cannot shoot in super slow-motion, such as pylon or in-car cameras. The XtraMotion rendering process can be applied on-demand to any production format, including 1080i, 1080p, and UHD-4K with HDR, and any original framerate. And with its innovative frame interpolation technology based on a patented EVS proprietary algorithm, the service consistently delivers superior quality results.

“We are very proud of our team’s hard work in developing an algorithm that produces visual content of unmatched quality”, said Olivier Barnich, Head of Innovation and Architecture

ideal for sports-related applications including marathon races, bicycle races and stadium sports that utilise on-field COFDM wireless cameras in addition to cameras outside the stadium for team and spectator reporting. Vislink’s Quantum receiver can also be integrated with Vislink’s LinkMatrix cloud control platform, permitting the production system to be centralised and managed anywhere. This enables production companies to gain greater management and operational efficiencies by requiring fewer high-skilled operators on-site, and centralising resources by allowing skilled staff to work on multiple events across the day in a more efficient manner.

Visit https://www.vislink.com/

at EVS. “The launch of XtraMotion in edge computing mode also presented a valuable opportunity for us to achieve real-time processing. By using the powerful GPUs of our long-term partner Nvidia, we were able to improve our algorithm’s execution speed, leading to an impressive 95 percent reduction in processing time!”

XtraMotion is seamlessly integrated with the EVS VIA ecosystem, making it easy for replay operators to clip content from anywhere on the network, render it into super slow-motion with a simple touch of a button on their LSM-VIA, and play it back with the desired frame rate seconds later.

Visit https://evs.com/

Ateme Launches Virtual Sports Lounge Solution

ATEME HAS ANNOUNCED the launch of its Virtual Lounge solution, which converges traditional television and gaming, enabling D2C streaming providers and sports leagues to reinforce their position as innovators, as well as to increase their monetisation with new adplacement opportunities.

The solution is a digital space embedding multiple low-latency OTT players. These players can stream the same event viewed from different angles, all in sync, or even multiple events, bringing the experience of a sports bar into the digital space.

Thus, the solution brings OTT streams into a gaming environment, facilitating social interactions between viewers of live events even when they are very distant from each other. By projecting themselves into a common virtual space, audiences can design their own video-consumption experiences.

Speaking to C+T at NAB2023, Silvia Candido, Marketing Communications Director with Ateme, said: “Virtual Lounge, which is a virtual space, like a virtual bar, where you go and there are different screens and you choose which one you watch, which it can be either different games on different screens, or the same game from different angles.

“It creates a virtual space that, in the future, you could even add social interaction, so different people remotely watch it in the same virtual space and interact with each other.”

The company also demonstrated an alternative display solution in the form of augmented reality glasses.

“If, for example,” says Candido, “you’re travelling by train and you don’t want to bring a screen along with you, you just bring glasses and you can actually see, watch the game and on the side you can have augmented reality with things such as click to find out more information about the player, who scored and things like that, and you can use your mobile phone to click to get more information. And the glasses are about USD$350, so it’s feasible, it’s not something totally unrealistic.”

Ateme has also partnered with developers Six

Floor Solutions and content personalisation

company Pushologies to boost fan engagement.

Ateme delivers its encoding and packaging components Six Floor Solutions whose U’SEE platform takes video and metadata, and automatically detects key moments in a sports match, automatically, and with very low latency. The platform works with multiple sports and can also perform smart clipping without any manual intervention. Six Floor’s engine is based on computer vision, AI and machine learning techniques, and is hardware agnostic so it can run on-premise, in the cloud, or in hybrid modes.

Once Six Floor’s U’SEE platforms makes the detections and clips the content, it then sends a trigger to Pushologies’ personalisation platform.

According to Charlotte Barham, Operations Director at Pushologies, “We take the API triggers and the content that’s being provided, and automatically compile content within 300-400ms of those event triggers being displayed to us. That’s then passed and delivered to the end-user’s device through the organisations that we’re working with such as sports leagues, via their applications. The engagement that we deliver is personalised, it’s shoppable, it’s bettable, it’s interactive. So, we’re bringing in that monetisation piece to those organisations.

“That’s important because direct-to-consumer is singular, rather than consumers as a mass user base. That segmentation can be done by location, can be done by preferences, based on

Delhi Capitals IPL Cricket Team Sign Up Sportradar

AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPER SPORTRADAR recently announced a collaboration with IPL cricket team, Delhi Capitals, to become an official technology partner of the Delhi Capitals Academy. The three-year partnership intends to boost the Delhi Capitals Academy programme and supports the identification and development of talent across the cricket academy network.

Sportradar will provide FrogBox, a livestreaming technology solution currently used by more than 500 cricket clubs across England, Australia and Europe, to the Delhi Capitals Academy and franchises. The agreement also includes the deployment of a marketleading electronic scoring app and a mobileresponsive match centre to host live streams

and highlights of fixtures as well as live scores, scorecards and results.

Additionally, the Delhi Capitals Academy will be provided with Lilypad, Sportradar’s fan engagement and coaching application to curate highlights from streamed matches to be compiled into playlists and shared with academy students for coaching purposes or on social media to promote the academy to a wider audience.

Dhiraj Malhotra, CEO, Delhi Capitals, said: “This is a key milestone as Delhi Capitals Academy has become the first academy in India to partner with Sportradar and leverage their innovative video technology to develop talent in cricket. This partnership adds value

what you like and dislike and what you’re telling that organisation you want to receive. Every part of the engagement is collecting data. So when that engagement arrives on the home screen of the phone, when you tap on it, what you engage with, how long you spend looking at different types of content, we collect all that data and that’s building out that picture behind every single user of how they’re engaging and how they’re interacting. We provide that back to the organisation to help them develop an improved engagement strategy based on what their users are interested in and what they’re telling them. So, that’s what our part is.

“Just to add, we are showcasing sports, but actually we are compatible with other types of content. We can tag news shows, we can correct EPGs, we can detect advertisement blocks. So, there are plenty of use cases on this solution. And, we can do this for real-time shows, in live shows, linear TV.

“But, also we can do this for VOD, we can tag and catalogue archives. So, there are plenty of options.”

Visit https://www.pushologies.com and https://sixfloorsolutions.com/ and https://www.ateme.com

in several ways including enriching local talent and boosting engagement with our fans. We look forward to working with Sportradar to help grow the game.”

Jarod Pickering, Head of Cricket, Sportradar, said: “Academies such as Delhi Capitals’ play an integral role in identifying and nurturing the next generation of talent. We will be working closely with Delhi Capitals to help realise their vision for the academy and will also reach out to more academies in India to showcase how our technological solutions can be used to further develop the sport that the entire nation is incredibly passionate about.”

Visit https://sportradar.com/

Supponor and Telstra Launch Virtual Advertising Service

VIRTUAL ADVERTISING PROVIDER Supponor and Telstra Broadcast Services (TBS) recently announced a joint initiative to bring virtual advertising as-a-service to sports properties, federations and rights owners worldwide. As a result of the recent successful launch of their league-wide solution for the National Hockey League (NHL), Supponor and TBS are expanding their collaboration to make virtual advertising services more accessible to other international sports leagues in APAC, EMEA and the Americas.

The collaboration enables rights owners and their partners to effectively target global audiences with new and innovative technologies, such as customised virtual signage powered by the Supponor AIR technology. These technologies can now seamlessly integrate within the existing broadcast infrastructure required to reliably and resiliently produce and distribute live top tier sports events.

Supponor’s long term partnership with the NHL has seen its Digitally Enhanced Dasherboards (DED) system integrated into the live broadcast feed to enable the real-time replacement of camera-visible arena advertising boards and placement of dynamic on-ice assets. DED graphics can be displayed during games in a market-specific way, wherever and however the game feed is broadcast, resulting in highimpact and targeted branding and promotional messaging, not previously achievable.

Telstra, which supports the delivery of NHL content through its broadcast operations centres in Pittsburgh, Sydney and London, also provides the connectivity required to control and deliver this powerful advertising technology. The Telstra Global Media Network (GMN), which underpins the distribution of the League’s multiple feeds from every game to different markets.

Supponor CEO, James B. Gambrell, said, “The extension of our partnership with Telstra to bring virtual advertising to more rights owners, their partners and fans worldwide is just part of our continuing strategy of working with global partners. Together we hope to change the way properties and broadcasters interact with global brands in any sport where virtual advertising can form an integral part of the fabric of live sports production and distribution. Having already covered over 1,300 games for the NHL this season, and nearly 1,500 events in other sports from soccer to rugby, we have proven the quality, scalability and agility of our

innovation. That, combined with the expertise of partners like Telstra, enables rights owners to potentially generate substantial incremental commercial returns and allows advertisers to connect with audiences in a new and meaningful way.”

TBS CEO, Andreas Eriksson, said, “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Supponor to bring virtual advertising to a wider audience. The success we’ve seen with the NHL, its teams, partners and audiences demonstrates the potential of this technology, and we’re excited to explore its possibilities in other sports around the world.”

Visit https://supponor.com/ and https://www.telstra.com.au/

disguise Presents Motion Graphics to Live-to-Air Broadcast

AT THIS YEAR’S NAB SHOW, disguise was showcasing an Unreal Engine (UE) integration to bring new motion graphics capabilities to live-to-air broadcast. disguise’s flagship software, Porta, works with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to bring broadcasters a solution for everything from virtual worlds to lower thirds.

As more broadcasters use real-time graphics to drive audience engagement, demand has grown for applications that make creating graphics as easy as possible. With the new integration, broadcasters can use one platform to quickly create AR and xR graphics as well as more traditional motion graphics such as lower thirds and full screens. All graphics can then be controlled from a single interface: disguise Porta. Thanks to its Newsroom Control System integration, Porta lets operators integrate UE graphics into their traditional broadcast workflows, and control their playout, without the need to acquire specialised skills or new talent. With Porta, users can also draw on preexisting graphics templates to ensure a consistent look and feel for their programming and play content out in rundowns with ease and efficiency.

Visitors to disguise’s booth at NAB had a chance to witness how disguise is driving new live-to-air broadcast applications. DAZN, the global sports streaming platform, has implemented, for their MotoGP broadcast in Spain, a green screen virtual studio with three tracked cameras, using Unreal Engine to create all motion graphics, including lower thirds, locators, video splits and full screen graphics, controlled and played out through Porta and powered by the disguise px render hardware.

“This project is a milestone for us, with all the graphics built in native Unreal Engine – including the CG graphics. It’s a very efficient setup using our cloud-based Porta control, which runs on Unreal, and we are extremely proud to be able to showcase our work for the first time ever at this year’s 100th NAB,” says Grigory Mindlin, General Manager for Broadcast at disguise.

Visit https://www.disguise.one/

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SEVEN News Chooses Fujinon 4K Lenses

THE SEVEN NETWORK is one of five main free-to-air television networks in Australia. Its Sydneybased news operations currently continue at Martin Place in the city’s CBD, but are soon to relocate to a purpose-built high-definition television production facility at the Australian Technology Park in Eveleigh, closer to the international airport.

Recently, the network had a requirement for high quality 4K barrel lenses to use under robotic control and for those they turned to FUJIFILM Australia and FUJINON.

As Seven Network Head of Broadcast Engineering and Development, John Albiston, explained: “Many of Seven’s lenses used in the field have provided over twenty years’ excellent service. The initial aim of the new lens purchase was to ensure the same extended life of reliability with the same excellent results. The new lenses also had to be 4K, extremely high quality and work seamlessly under robotic control.”

After a comprehensive assessment and evaluation, Albiston and the Seven team chose multiple FUJINON UA14x4.5BERD-S10, UA18x5.5BERD-S10 and UA23x7.6BERD-S10 4K lenses.

Albiston continued, “We purchased FUJINON 4K models with an S-10 drive specifically designed for these lenses to be used with robotics. The S-10s have well and truly fulfilled our requirements and worked seamlessly both in the field and in our metropolitan studios under robotic control.”

The new S-10 drive unit and FUJINON 4K lenses used by Seven are compatible with major robotics systems such as Shotoku, MRMC, Ross Video, Vinten/Radamec, Telemetrics and KXWELL. They provide improved focus and zoom operability and include breathing compensation technology (BCT) as standard. This compensation mechanism synchronises the zoom movement with the focus movement to automatically correct for changes in the angle of view, thereby minimising breathing and keeping the image size constant. This function also eliminates the need to reset the angle of view after focusing, providing a high level of operability.

The S-10 also enables the user to change a 2x extender remotely by

CueScript Launches CueTALK Cloud

CUESCRIPT DEBUTED a new cloud-based service, CueTALK Cloud, at NAB 2023 which is designed to allow CueScripts’ prompting software CueiT- and CueTALK-enabled devices, which feature the latest in IP connectivity, to communicate over Wi-Fi. This brings an enhanced level of flexibility to users working in remote locations.

According to Michael Accardi, President, CueScript, “It will serve as a VPN replacement solution for

customers who do not want to (or is not feasible to) connect a VPN service between remote prompting locations. This opens the door for accurate teleprompting anywhere there is an Internet connection and is great for prompting on-the-go.” CueTALK Cloud allows controllers and prompt devices to be accessible via the cloud using standard public internet connection. It is also designed to align CueiT to be more userfriendly and easily set up between

using an ECU-2C Extender Change Unit and thus, is ideally suited for crane use in a studio.

Seven’s new S-10 drive units and FUJINON lenses are also effective for CG synthesis and come with a 16-bit encoder, capable of making a high-resolution output of lens data including zoom and focal position information. They can be linked with various other systems such as a virtual studio system for combining CG images with live action footage.

Albiston concluded, “Our FUJINON 4K S-10 capable lens field application involves general news acquisition where they give us robust service and

superb operational features including great zoom range and speed. The FUJINON 4K glass is , notwithstanding the many HD applications in which they are used. These new lenses also excel in the studio under Mosart control room automation where high accuracy digital servos eliminate any discernible dither when zooming. These lenses are a major step forward for our crews. All in all, the FUJINON UA14x4.5BERD-S10, UA18x5.5BERD-S10 and UA23x7.6BERD-S10 4K lenses with S-10 drives are excellent and the best lenses in the market for our requirements.”

Visit https://www.fujifilm.com/au

local and remote applications. The company also highlighted SayiT, its first voice-activated solution for its CueiT prompting software. SayiT software application receives a talent microphone input and allows those using the CueiT teleprompting software to be able to have the script automatically scroll in accordance to what they are saying, matching what is displayed on the output of the teleprompter. It streamlines operator workflow

and the need to manually scroll the prompter script. SayiT can also be used as a main or back-up option for stations with no or few operators, or for stations looking to automate talent scrolling their own script.

CueScript also launched OnTime, a Wi-Fi enabled clock device that can be easily configured to the local time zone. It provides NTP to clocks and is connected via Wi-Fi for accurate timing on the road. Visit https://www.cuescript.tv/

Daily Aus Files Social First News with Blackmagic

INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIAN social-first news service, The Daily Aus, is completing daily news stories for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and various podcast channels using Blackmagic Design cameras, switchers and DaVinci Resolve.

The Daily Aus uses traditional journalism practices and creates daily video-based news stories formatted for social media that are available free of charge. The service reaches almost 1.3 million Instagram accounts per month and hundreds of thousands of subscribers across its platforms.

To produce the constant video content, The Daily Aus head of video, Joe Kiely, uses Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 digital cinema cameras, ATEM Mini Extreme ISO live production switchers and DaVinci Resolve editing, grading, visual effects (VFX) and audio post production software.

“The Pocket cameras are fantastic as they are small and compact, but pack a punch in terms of image quality. I’ve taken them into Parliament House to interview the Treasurer after Budget Night, as well as numerous other MPs and Senators – all of whom you don’t get much set up time with, (if any). The cameras can perfectly fit into a backpack with all of our accessories,” Kiely explained.

The Daily Aus employs five journalists and has a dedicated studio and video podcast recording space in its Sydney offices. The studio is built around several Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2s along with the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO. The

cameras are used to capture pieces to camera in front of either a green screen or their signature Daily Aus colours.

Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2’s are also used for remote news gathering.

As Kiely explained: “We’ve taken the cameras deep into the Daintree rainforest, out onto the Great Barrier Reef, and underneath Sydney’s suburbs into the sewer network. Due to the camera’s small form factor, we’ve been able to move quickly while capturing these news stories in a cinematic way.”

“With the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO, we have been able to eliminate the plugging in and moving around of many SD cards and hard drives, as well as control and adjust the visual look across three cameras from our main studio computer, and even use the 2nd HDMI out on the ATEM to give our presenter a feed on a monitor to check ‘last looks’ before rolling. We can then record our video podcast promos and longer form sit-down interviews in isolated files from our cameras directly into the ATEM – and even switch on the fly. It makes multi-cam editing a breeze.”

Collaborating with his team for different social media formats means Kiely needs a consistent video workflow to allow editorial staff to provide feedback and approve edits.

“Most recently we incorporated TikTok videos into the equation. Our multimedia journalist was producing the video content strictly on her phone and getting quite frustrated with the workflow, particularly actioning feedback, replacing shots and sharing work-in-progress

edits. I trained her up to edit her TikTok videos on Davinci Resolve and it’s been a game changer. We can now collaborate and turn the videos around much quicker, share edits for approval and have other editors working remotely on the same projects.”

Shooting with the Blackmagic RAW codec has also been an important part of the workflow.

“We have been using Blackmagic Raw for filming in unpredictable lighting situations, or when recording on green screen in order to capture the highest resolution possible for keying. We have had huge success with traditionally difficult images such as hair or fine edges. We recently filmed underground where the lighting constantly changed from very low to mixed sources. We captured in B.Raw to give us flexibility in post production to achieve a consistent look for all the environments we were in,” he finished.

Visit

Brainstorm Boosts InfinitySet Virtual Production Solution

VERSION 5.2 OF BRAINSTORM’S InfinitySet virtual set and XR/AR solution offers a number of advanced features designed to enhance virtual production (VP) and XR workflows, streamlining users’ ability to boost their content creation, whether they are using LED video walls or chroma sets to produce virtual content. Fully compatible with Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) Vanilla, InfinitySet now includes full integration of objects created in InfinitySet or Aston within the UE environment and vice versa, including shadows, reflections and AR with Unreal Engine, providing unmatched flexibility for content creation. Not only can InfinitySet control UE5 from its own interface, vastly improving the user’s ability to manage, edit and control UE blueprints, objects and properties,

but it also makes the combination of the Unreal Engine render with Brainstorm’s own eStudio render engine fully transparent. This allows users to decide which objects or parts of the scene should be rendered in which engine, maximising the possibilities of the software.

“Once again, Brainstorm proves its commitment with high-quality content creation by providing must-have technologies and features designed to ensure content creators can cope with any virtual production requirement,” says David Moldes, Brainstorm’s Product Manager. “Closely working with NVIDIA also makes it possible to extract the most out of the hardware, so our software can shine in the hands of our clients.”

The Brainstorm booth at the recent NABShow featured the Brainstorm Virtual Production

Autocue Launches All-New Teleprompter Range

AUTOCUE HAS ANNOUNCED a radical shakeup of its range of prompters designed to ensure speed, simplicity, and sustainability.

The Autocue range now comprises three distinct series of teleprompters, each with unique features and advantages.

The Explorer Series provides comprehensive prompting packages with simple HDMI teleprompters and professional prompting software suitable for beginners and smaller installations. The Pioneer Series offers broadcast-standard prompting monitors and live editing software with newsroom and PowerPoint integration designed to support everything from live events to local news.

The Navigator Series provides executive and conference

prompter packages for public speakers.

Sustainability is a core feature of the new Autocue range. The prompters are built to last using sustainable design principles, with sturdy and recyclable metal housings, locally sourced shared components, and easy serviceability. The software is continually updated to align with changing workflows to ensure that investment in Autocue solutions remains beneficial for the longterm.

With the Explorer Series, users can breeze through setup and speed up production with minimal parts that quickly adjust for cameras and lenses – no tools needed. Explorer software is instinctive, accepts standard file types and is easy to control with a

Theater and demonstrated a combination of chroma sets and shaped LED video walls provided by Unilumin, featuring real-time, seamless extra-render and set extension with colour-matching 3D LUTs, in-context AR motion graphics, fully immersive talent teletransport, multi-background content - all from one workstation. InfinitySet took advantage of the new NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPU.

Brainstorm also showcased multi-camera production with XR, one of the most demanding, and demanded, features in virtual production. There are several methods to achieve this in a LED-based XR environment, and Brainstorm is compatible with all of them.

Visit https://www.brainstorm3d.com/

built-in scroll control or optional USB controllers. For users new to prompting, Autocue’s new video education series provides tips on how to prompt like a pro.

The feature-rich and customisable Pioneer Series offers complete compatibility for live and as-live productions. The prompter hardware is designed with full adjustability to make setting up the prompter faster and easier and includes a selection of video inputs including SDI.

Pioneer Software is icon-based with familiar layouts for easy reference and includes integration with popular MOS newsroom systems, as well as NDI output for seamless IP integration. It also has unique PowerPoint integration, which automatically creates a script from the slide

AccuWeather Unveils WeatherShow Enhancer

ACCUWEATHER RECENTLY ANNOUNCED the introduction of WeatherShow Enhancer, a software and hardware display system built on AccuWeather’s StoryTeller+ Touchscreen System.

The Enhancer is designed to deliver a distinct and superior look through significantly increased special effects. The company says it will multiply the capabilities of broadcasters’ current weather systems, thereby improving storytelling with less effort. Furthermore, the Enhancer will reduce weather show production costs.

“We’ve all seen how televised election night coverage relies

on more interactive displays and the ability to more quickly pull up information,” said Dr. Joel N. Myers, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AccuWeather. “The game-changing capabilities of the Enhancer will similarly elevate your weather show’s appeal with more motion, better severe weather coverage, more video and quicker access to critical rapidly changing weather data, and many eye-catching interactions on screen.”

Capabilities of the new system include:

• Multiplies and enhances the capabilities of current weather systems, allowing users to show

16 screens all in one and to move in or out of any, in any order.

• Receive severe weather warnings on air faster and with more meaningful information that can be filtered to make more sense of complicated severe weather situations to better inform viewers.

• Spotlight tools that give meteorologists greater real time control and the ability to better highlight what is most important on screen

• Advanced telestration, now unlocked for the entire presentation.

• Six live HD video inputs, endless

notes and gives the option to show slide previews to the presenter alongside the text.

The Navigator Series is designed to be simple and easy to use for public speaking, with conference stands that give clear visibility of the script and familiar software that anyone can use. The Navigator Conference Packages come in two options, Navigator for simple presentations in smaller indoor venues and Navigator Plus, designed for presentations anywhere. Both options include cables, software, and a USB controller to ensure a prompt start right out of the box.

Visit https://www.autocue.com

video feeds, better animation, more motion, and multiple scene displays simultaneously.

• Access to AccuWeather

MinuteCast, a patented hyperlocal, Minute-byMinute localised forecast of precipitation type and intensity for the next four hours.

• A granular level of street labelling provides the ability to pan, tilt and zoom into any neighbourhood in the world with greater localisation and more detailed mapping unique to the Enhancer.

Visit https://www.accuweather.com/

Zero Density Unveils Unreal On-Air Graphics

DURING NAB 2023, Zero Density announced ZD | OAG, an on-air graphics solution that gives broadcasters all the software and hardware they need to leverage Unreal Engine for any production including news, entertainment, elections and more. Featuring the latest Ada generation NVIDIA GPU and Zero Density graphics software, ZD | OAG empowers broadcasters to easily tell immersive stories with photoreal UltraHD visuals – straight out of the box.

“We thought photoreal graphics should not be limited to virtual studios and extended it to on-air graphics with ZD | OAG,” says Zero Density CEO, Ofir Benovici. “With support for real-time external data feeds, automation systems and integration to NRCS systems through MOS protocol, ZD | OAG takes the guesswork out of setting up an on-air graphics workflow. Anyone can start using ZD | OAG as a standalone product or with other Zero Density solutions depending on what their project requires.”

Designed to meet the unique demands of broadcast production, including 24/7 operation, ZD | OAG’s custom graphics tools are built on top of Unreal Engine and enable users to take advantage of animation control, text effects and

more to create stunning visuals with ease. The software and hardware bundle also includes Zero Density’s universal control UI, RealityHub, with which broadcasters can control everything from real-time graphics to robotic cameras – all in one place.

ZD | OAG is available through a subscription program, enabling users to access the software and lease the hardware from Zero Density at reduced upfront costs with increased flexibility compared to the perpetual licence scheme. Users will always have access to the latest version of the product or service as well as technical support, no matter where they are located.

ZD | OAG is planned to be released later in 2023.

Virtual Studio Bundle

The company also announced ZD | Virtual Studio, a new software bundle that lowers the barrier of entry into virtual production. ZD | Virtual Studio is made up of real-time keying and graphics control applications that make it easy for anyone to create photoreal virtual sets.

With ZD | Virtual Studio, broadcasters can take

nxtedition Integrates OpenAI Whisper

NXTEDITION SAYS IT HAS successfully integrated OpenAI Whisper, the speech-to-text artificial intelligence from the developers of ChatGPT, into its standard platform. Through the user-friendly nxtedition interface, OpenAI can transcribe and translate content in realtime as needed, utilising either nxtedition’s private cloud hardware or public cloud-based infrastructure. As a result, the time and cost of accessing thirdparty AI services for transcription and translation as an external function is removed from the workflow.

The integration provides users with access to new tools to enhance productivity. The application of AI here is diverse and includes new methods for creating and maintaining metadata, such as transcribing audio from ingested content and news stories, which is then indexed and can be found using nxtedition’s intelligent search engine. OpenAI Whisper can process not only new videos but also the entire news archive, making it a cost-effective and powerful research facility. In traditional newsroom settings, the use of AI is often inefficient,

advantage of Zero Density’s core technology at a more accessible price point. The bundle includes Reality Keyer, the real-time image-based keyer used by Fox Sports, Warner Media, and The Weather Channel, as well as Zero Density’s RealityHub control application, which lets anyone control both on-air graphics and virtual production from the same user interface. With support for real-time depth of field, ray tracing and Unreal Engine 5.1, ZD | Virtual Studio means broadcasters can set up an industry-standard virtual production with green screen, AR or XR at an affordable price point.

Visit https://www.zerodensity.tv/

requiring transcoding video to audio, sending requests to thirdparty software in the cloud with no indication of when results will be returned or if they will be valuable. In contrast, nxtedition’s approach is to transcribe the original content as it comes in, bypassing the need for time-consuming transcoding and proxy transfers. This approach not only boosts indexing for search results but also generates subtitles, resulting in significant productivity gains.

Adam Leah, creative director at nxtedition, remarked, “The real significance of this integration is that we have incorporated all

the necessary hooks for OpenAI applications into our software stack. We are continuously developing innovative ways for our users to integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning services into our hardware and user environment, which they already appreciate. We’re always seeking ways to reduce unnecessary steps and clicks in workflows.”

The OpenAI Whisper integration will be included in the next release of nxtedition’s core software and hardware.

Visit https://nxtedition.com/

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DNEG Sydney - Online with the Pipeline

Established in London in 1998 as visual effects company Double Negative, then rebranded in 2014 after a merger with Indian VFX company Prime Focus, DNEG has long been a part of hit episodic series and award-winning features.

RECENT WORK INCLUDES Dune, Oppenheimer, The Last Of Us, Blade Runner 2049, Interstellar, Tenet, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Fast X, The Flash, and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, to name a few.

The company has 10 centres across the globe from London, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles to Mumbai, Bangalore, Mohali and Chennai - and, now, Sydney.

Heading up the new facility in the suburb of Pyrmont is industry veteran Alaric McAusland whose previous roles include Executive Director of the Australian Directors Guild, Chief Operating Officer of LA-based production company Grace, and Managing Director for ANZ of Deluxe.

According to the DNEG Sydney MD, the path to the new facility was actually more of a “Fury Road”.

“This really came out of a conversation between our CEO, Namit Malhotra, producer Doug Mitchell of Kennedy Miller Mitchell, Dr George Miller’s Production House and the Production Company behind the Mad Max movies including [Mad Max prequel] Furiosa,” says McAusland.

“I was involved in the first, most recent sequel, Mad Max: Fury Road, as were a number of our foundation team members, including VFX Supervisor Dan Bethell, who actually picked up a Visual Effects Society Award for it.

“Andrew Jackson was Production VFX Supervisor on Fury Road. Since then, he’s worked with great talents, including Chris Nolan on Oppenheimer and on Tenet, for which he picked up an Academy Award. Doug was very keen for Andrew to contribute creatively to Furiosa. And, at that point, he was working for DNEG in the UK.

“One of the characteristics of DNEG is its agility and its innovation, and Namit was very quick to look at the opportunity to build out, to support that show, and grow a large-scale VFX studio down here. And from their conversations with the NSW Government, who supported it very strongly via its Jobs Plus scheme,

the decision was made pretty quickly to start building out here.

“So, Andrew joined us earlier this year as our Creative Director for the studio, and Dan Bethell’s on board as one of our Visual Effects Supervisors.

“In terms of the overall strategy for DNEG, we’re now its tenth global studio, and I think we go where there’s a deep and well-established talent pool, and we go where our clients want us to be and where they are, so part of the reason we’re down here is to work with people like incredible directors like George Miller.”

McAusland also cites the strength of Australian industry support, its infrastructure and available talent as deciding factors in the establishment of DNEG Sydney.

“The reason there’s such an established infrastructure and artist pool in Australia is because we’ve had a long and wellestablished incentive program to deliver growth to our industry,” he says. “It’s not just from a production perspective - supported under the Location Offset – which is set to be lifted to 30% this year, the Producer Offset itself, which is predominantly Australian content and, again, securing and delivering very large shows for global audiences, but also and very significantly, the PDV (Post, Digital and Visual Effects) Offset.

“There’s access locally to artists, there’s great shows coming down here, but the other part is we’re part of DNEG’s very large ecosystem of somewhere in excess of 10,000 artists globally, working on some incredible shows. So, not only are the artists coming in here to work on these great international tent-pole movies and Australiandirected works, but they’ve also got a wonderful opportunity to collaborate on some great global shows. As a global visual effects business, DNEG is incredibly good at collaborating across time zones.”

THE FACILITY

According to Alaric McAusland, when the Pyrmont facility is fully operational, it will cater for more

than 500 artists with a mix of studio and work-from-home seats. “So it’s not necessarily [physical] seat count, but overall artist numbers,” he says. “Nearly all will be resident in New South Wales and a lot of them will be working in the studio. We’d be looking at, in the order of 300-400 seats to support in excess of 500 artists depending on the work from home/in-studio balance.”

Whether working at home or in the studio, artists work on thin clients in accordance with Trusted Partner Network (TPN) specifications. All of DNEG’s live storage, Network File System (NFS), workstations and render nodes are hosted at NEXTDC’s S3 datacenter in the northern Sydney suburb of Artarmon. The Pyrmont studio is connected to S3 via dark fibre. There is connectivity provided by SohoNET and Superloop. Meanwhile, the studio’s “skinny” server room provides internal switching and back-up storage. In addition to artist, pipeline, IT support, IO, editorial workstation areas, kitchen, recreation area and reception, the facility will also feature “The Surgery”. A nod to Director George Miller’s medical background, the Surgery won’t be playing host to patients, but will serve as a “chairman’s lounge” for when he’s at the studio previewing work-in-progress.

Previews and sign-off will also be enabled by an in-house 30seat cinema featuring Christie projection.

“It’ll be provisioned for screening 4K visual effects, and for DI,” says McAusland. “So there’ll be a DI control surface in there and screening capability from the getgo and a Christie projector. We’re collaborating with Adam Wrightson (CTO) and Bruce Ker (National Technical Manager & BDM) over at Hoyts on the cinema, with a likelihood that a second screening room-only cinema, probably at a larger scale, towards 50 seats, will be built in our Phase 3.

“The expectation, in terms of shot sign-off from George and the other directors coming in, is that we’re

Alaric McAusland, Managing Director, DNEG Australia.

The Artwork:

Artist:

presenting at a quality that would emulate what a viewer’s experience would be in cinema. It has to be at a very high quality. And that high quality projection will also support a very high quality DI and DCP presentation. So, as we start to grow our business down here, we’ll be servicing DI, colour timing, colour grading for international and local clients as well.”

With Furiosa scheduled for release in 2024, McAusland and the company are already looking at the longer term.

“There are several complementary markets that we’ll be working in to support our long-term growth here,” says McAusland. “First and foremost, supporting Australian directors like George Miller on a large scale, but also Australian independent production in terms of visual effects and DI, because that will be part of our first build-out.

“Our primary mission is building out a full-service visual effects studio, and that’s phase one, to support Furiosa, and our second and third local projects, and beyond that to contribute to DNEG’s global project pipeline, into the future. But, part of DNEG globally is a very large feature animation division, and an emerging games development division, and certainly those are the other complimentary verticals that we’ll look to bring down here at some point.”

Visit https://www.dneg.com

Wumba (Star) Crossed Lovers ‘Wumba’ means star in the traditional language of the Wiradjuri people of Australia. The painting depicts two lovers sitting by a campfire under the stars.

Brett Groves lives in Wiradjuri country in the Central West region of New South Wales. He runs a business on Gadigal Land.

DNEG - from Local Installation to Global Operation

AS GLOBAL HEAD OF CG with DNEG, Stanley Dellimore is charged with overseeing all CG aspects of the company. On the technology side, he works with the company’s technology team, including Paul Salvini, Global Chief Technology Officer. On the human side, Dellimore manages the CG teams on every DNEG project to deliver the final product.

When it came to technology rollout at DNEG Sydney, Dellimore says the company opted to stay on a road more travelled.

“In terms of the technology itself,” he says, “we started on the safer path with Sydney by deploying a legacy pipeline, because it was easier to deploy at the time, which is a Clarisse-based pipeline. But we’re also in the transition of rolling in the new, so the secondary show will bring in more of a RenderMan to Solaris pipeline, with Houdini moving forward.

“It was a tough thing to do to try to introduce people to a new pipeline and a new facility, so we didn’t want to risk it. We decided to stay on the safe path so that everyone could be acclimated properly. Because we have documentation, everything is working fine within that context. The worst thing is to try a new studio with a new pipeline, and new people all at the same time. It’s just a little bit too much.

“We started with the cloud first until all the hardware could get in place. We had to build a colocation facility, build a farm, build everything. So initially, we just took the software stack and deployed it in the cloud. So, everyone had a virtual machine. And that’s how we initially started the process.”

Sitting in a data centre in Sydney, the software stack is replicated across the globe in all of DNEG’s locations. All locations sync back to London, which is considered site zero.

Like the tools used, the workflow employed by DNEG Sydney is consistent, globally, with the rest of the company.

“Nothing really changes from existing shows,” says Stanley Dellimore. “Because of the scale of the studio, we knew that it would be difficult to get all the individuals, the right individuals in place. We have a supervision staff and key artists in Sydney right now, which we were very successful at attracting, and in record-breaking time. But, the idea of growing to say 500 within a short period of time was, we knew, kind of impossible. So, we have teams across the globe supporting them.

“So, in terms of how that works, our team of supervisors in Sydney will give their notes, review with the client. Depending on the requirement and the production’s tax credit requirements, they can interact with global DNEG teams and then that work comes back to them once the notes are addressed.

The arsenal of tools being used on the project include Clarisse lighting and rendering software, as well as Houdini and Maya 3D animation software.

“We’re using all the standard DCCs (digital content creation tools) that you would use in VFX,” says Dellimore. “We have custom tools also for scatter and other things that will be proprietary to DNEG, but it’s really a combination.

“We haven’t gotten into effects tools yet because we haven’t started with any destruction sequences just yet. It’s still too early in the process. But that’ll be the next stage because we do have

released recently, with heavy crowds.

“And it’s agnostic of the renderer, which is Clarisse. A lot of people know that we use Clarisse and we’re moving towards RenderMan. So these crowd tools are agnostic of that. We can use them on any renderer that we choose to.”

According to Stanley Dellimore, Sydney slots perfectly into DNEG’s global, 24-hour operation.

“If you have to put 500, 1000 visual effects shots through, it’s really hard to get it through any one location by itself,” he says. “So, it’s an integrated workflow between many different sites. You split the work up as much as possible. Based on your skill set, your resources, we’re a facility that is doing 40 shows globally. That’s a lot of work. So we’re trying to get into the place where we can find our key people and cast them to the right show. Now, those key people for a specific show with a specific task might not be in the location that

So, we’re going to hopefully get to that. Maybe next summer, I think. Depends on the shooting schedule of a lot of shows.”

Technology and throughput aside, for the DNEG Global Head of CG the new Sydney location also reflects a change in the global VFX industry, one that signals different priorities for its workforce.

some pretty cool sequences where stuff gets destroyed that everyone is looking forward to. But, on the creature side of things, we’ve started building all of the digital characters that we will need. Some pretty horrific stuff happens to a few people. We don’t want that to happen to them in real life, so we’re building digital versions of them to be able to achieve that.”

As well as individual characters, Furiosa will see DNEG also create a number of digital crowd scenes.

“We’re primarily doing that within Houdini right now as a DCC,” says Stanley Dellimore. “Our crowd work is evolving to be able to handle the scale that we’re looking for because it’s not only just humans, it’s vehicles also.

“Fast X is one that’s closely related to this because there’s a lot of vehicles, there’s a lot of digital work. So that’s a big one, actually, because the tool sets are very similar to that within the latest generation of what we’re doing, in terms of something that we’ve

you choose. So that’s a 24-hour service.

“We have a ‘casting system’, so we know what artists are capable of in all sites, through our HOD (heads of departments) structure. They communicate globally. So, even from my level, I can say, ‘Hey, this show is happening, but it doesn’t deliver until this time. We need to be able to accelerate something else’. Subject to any tax credit requirement, you can move that around and have different artists that you choose come in to solve specific issues. It’s pretty elaborate, and it’s really effective. “Sydney, we have high hopes for, and the studio is going to be growing tremendously in the next little bit. This is just the first phase. We want it to be the size of at least Vancouver, which is sitting about 500, 600, soon. So that is the expectation. We want to start running complete shows out of there. I think the average, apart from Montreal and India, is about five to six shows within a location.

“One of the things that was really, really important for the leadership here is that we recognise that visual effects is going through another change,” says Stanley Dellimore, “not from a technology standpoint per se, even though that is happening. It’s more from a growing up standpoint. I’ve been in the industry 20 years plus now, and the people that came into the industry with me are now, ‘I need to settle down. I need a house somewhere. I need to have it’. You can’t keep going from London to wherever to wherever. We have to start settling down. And the pandemic, I think, accelerated that whole aspect of life for us.

“Some people want to be closer to their families. You don’t want to be halfway around the world when the next pandemic hits. So, they’re making decisions regardless of the effects. They’re happy to be somewhere working in a smaller company. So, how can we harness that? Well, let’s try to be in as many different time zones and have a distributed workflow.

“And, Sydney represents a very important part we didn’t have. Outside of India, we didn’t have another exposure in Asia per se. So there are a lot of Kiwis and Aussies and Singaporeans that now can have a space geographically close to their families, and we can actually leverage that to our benefit.”

Visit Visit https://www.dneg.com

Stanley Dellimore, Global Head of CG with DNEG.

disguise and Move.ai Partner on Motion Capture

DISGUISE HAS ANNOUNCED a partnership with markerless motion capture technology provider, Move.ai, with a vision to democratise virtual production and metaverse experiences. The partnership will marry Move.ai’s markerless motion capture with disguise’s graphics processing for film and episodic TV, broadcast and extended reality studios. To do this, disguise and Move.ai are developing a custom AI technology based on real-time markerless motion capture software, Invisible. The integration of Invisible with the disguise platform aims to redefine real-time motion capture by removing the need for restrictive and costly mocap suits. The technology works by extracting natural human motion from video using advanced AI, computer vision, biomechanics and physics to automatically retarget the data to a character rig and create a virtual character that can mirror human motion in real time.

“When it comes to virtual characters and real-time effects, movement needs to be translated into data,” says disguise Chief Product and Technology Officer,

Raed Al Tikriti. “Motion capture and recreation are key pieces of the puzzle. We want to make this technology as accessible and scalable as possible, enabling our community of partners to enhance shared experiences, entertainment and storytelling.”

Invisible integrates with the scalable processing capabilities of disguise hardware. No compromises need be made to creative vision, with motion capture data directly integrated into creative workflows in the disguise Designer software. Meanwhile, disguise’s RenderStream protocol ensures the transfer of skeleton data across the disguise Unreal Engine rendering cluster, allowing for

Atomos Adds Cloud-based Editing

ATOMOS EDIT, the latest addition to Atomos Cloud Studio, is a browserbased, collaborative video editor. It lets Atomos CONNECT users clip, edit and brand fast turnaround content for social media in the cloud, quickly and on the move. The cloud-based application has been developed in collaboration with Axle AI.

With Atomos Edit, the complete end to end video production process is dramatically simplified. You can upload media in the field directly from an Atomos device,

edit on any browser, and then choose to either publish directly to social media or export to another NLE for finishing.

Web optimised playback allows teams and external clients to view images, audio, and video on any device. It’s easy to review and approve from phone, tablet, or desktop. Activity reports allow you to see who has viewed, downloaded, commented, and more. With push notifications, you’ll never miss reviews or approvals.

Key Atomos Edit features include:

DFT’s POLAR HQ Film Scanner Evolves

DFT, THE PROVIDER OF highend film scanning solutions that preserve, manage and deliver pristine film quality, in archives and post production facilities worldwide, has announced a brand new Smart Motion WetGate which complements its newest 8K film scanner, the DFT POLAR HQ. DFT POLAR HQ, which was developed specifically for film archives, scans up to a maximum of 9.3K resolution in native RGB. The scanner has a modular design

which can flex and grow as user needs and technology changes over time. This modular approach, unique in the film scanning world, marks a transformation in the way that scanners will be built in the future.

At NAB 2023, DFT POLAR HQ demonstrated 35mm and 16mm film scanning capability into a high quality 8K or Super 4K deliverable. DFT also unveiled a prototype version of the new Smart Motion WetGate, developed for DFT

greater synchronicity of content and tracking data across the production workflow and the seamless merging of the physical and virtual world.

With this partnership in place, more creative and technical teams can use virtual characters without experiencing common motion capture and graphics rendering

challenges like latency, sensor drift, interference and extensive data cleanup. The combined solution can be used to power Avatars in metaverse experiences; Digital characters in virtual productions and AR players in broadcasts; Realistic shadow casting for talent onstage; Gesture-triggered 3D graphics and scene changes; and Movement-triggered particle

• Professional-style timeline with multiple audio and video tracks.

• Multi-user editing with ability to lock the timeline.

• Collaborative review, comment, tag and approve workflows.

• High speed, interrupt-resilient uploads of large video files.

• Effects and transitions.

• Powerful sequence versioning.

• The ability to directly import stock video content.

Direct publishing to YouTube and

Vimeo is a standout feature of Atomos Edit, allowing creators to manage, edit and publish their content directly to these leading platforms without ever having to download and edit large media files, or upload finished media to the cloud.

ATOMOS CONNECT adds network connectivity and cloud services (via subscription) to existing products like the Ninja V and Ninja V+, and is built into Zato CONNECT and Shogun CONNECT.

Visit https://www.atomos.com

POLAR HQ and planned for release in Q3/ 2023.

DFT has already delivered three POLAR HQ scanners to an archive customer, where the new scanners are connected to the archives central WetGate System that currently serves three Scanity film scanners in its daily operations.

The new DFT POLAR HQ complements DFT’s established range of film scanners, suitable for a wide range of uses: the flagship Scanity HDR – which offers both

high-quality and high-speed film scanning universally regarded as the go-to scanner for high volume quality film scanning; the large format OXScan 14K – which provides ultra-high-resolution scanning from 65mm/70mm and 35mm films making it ideal for mastering ultra-high resolution large film format productions; and Sondor Versa with Resonances for film audio capture.

Visit https://dft-film.com

Adobe

to

Apply Firefly AI to Video and Audio

AHEAD OF THE recent NABShow, Adobe announced new innovations, including TextBased Editing and Automated Color ToneMapping in Adobe Premiere Pro and celebrated 30 years of Adobe After Effects. It also expanded Frame.io to enable photography and PDF document reviews, giving decentralised teams a unified and intuitive cloud hub for collaborating on assets.

In its range of marketing tools, Adobe has already delivered hundreds of AI-driven features through Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s AI and machine learning framework. Then, on the post/VFX side, there are features like Auto Reframe and Remix in Premiere Pro, and Content Aware Fill for Video in After Effects.

We are entering a new era where generative AI will enable a natural conversation between creator and computer — where typing in your own words and simple gestures will combine with the best of professional creative application workflows to enable new creative expression.

Earlier this year, the company announced Adobe Firefly, a family of creative generative AI models, starting with image generation and text effects. Its first model, trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content, and public domain content where copyright has expired, is designed to generate content safe for commercial use. Firefly is currently available in beta and the company shared concepts for how it could be integrated into Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Premiere Pro and other Adobe applications in the near future.

At NAB, Adobe expanded on its vision for Firefly to imagine ways it can bring generative AI into Adobe’s video, audio, animation and motion graphics design apps.

According to Ashley Still, SVP of Digital Media at

Entries Wanted for FilmLight Colour Awards

FOLLOWING ITS SECOND successful event in 2022, FilmLight is inviting entries for the 2023 FilmLight Colour Awards. The awards, which are open to colourists on any grading system, will be presented at the International Film Festival EnergaCAMERIMAGE in November.

The 2023 awards will celebrate colourists across five categories – theatrical feature; television series/episodic; commercial; music video; and the Spotlight award for colourists working under the constraints of lower budget projects.

As in previous years, the entries will be independently judged by a panel of high-profile creatives, cinematographers and colourists including award-winning cinematographers, Greig Fraser ACS, ASC (The Batman, Dune, The Mandalorian) and Daniela Cajías AEC (La Niñas, Alcarràs).

Colourists, production companies and facilities are invited to put forward their nominations. The deadline for submissions is 31 July 2023.

For more information, visit https://www.filmlightcolourawards.com/

Adobe, “We’re excited to invent and innovate with the video and audio community to make it easier and faster for you to transform your vision into reality.

With Firefly as a creative co-pilot, you can supercharge your discovery and ideation processes and cut post-production time from days to minutes. “And with generative AI integrated directly into your workflows, these powerful new capabilities will be right at your fingertips. Imagine the power to instantly change the time of day of a video, automatically annotate and find relevant b-roll, or create limitless variations of clips — all as a starting point of your creativity.”

According to Still, the company is exploring a range of concepts, including:

Text to colour enhancements: Change colour schemes, time of day, or even the seasons in already-recorded videos, instantly altering the mood and setting to evoke a specific tone and feel. With a simple prompt like “Make this scene feel warm and inviting,” the time between imagination and final product can all but disappear.

Advanced music and sound effects: Creators can easily generate royalty-free custom sounds and music to reflect a certain feeling or scene for both temporary and final tracks.

Font, text effects, graphics, and logos: With a few simple words and in a matter of minutes, creators can generate subtitles, logos and title cards and custom contextual animations.

Powerful script and B-roll capabilities: Creators can dramatically accelerate pre-production, production and post-production workflows using AI analysis of script to text to automatically create storyboards and pre-visualisations, as well as recommending b-roll clips for rough or final cuts.

Creative assistants and co-pilots: With personalised generative AI-powered “how-tos,” users can master new skills and accelerate processes from initial vision to creation and editing.

Starting later this year, the company says it will begin introducing new generative AI features for video, audio, animation and motion graphics design.

Visit https://firefly.adobe.com

BirdDog Remote Workflow for Premiere Pro, After Effects

BIRDDOG HAS ANNOUNCED Cloud Connect for Adobe, a new software solution that allows users to directly port any Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe After Effects edit session to a collaborator, anywhere, directly from their Adobe interface.

BirdDog Cloud Connect for Adobe is a robustly integrated, feature rich, and high performance, tool for editors producing any kind of television, feature film or online content to collaborate with their peers and production team in real-time – Cloud Connect for Adobe provides a fully connected experience both for the editor and the creative collaborator, located anywhere they like.

BirdDog has developed a Mercury Transmit plugin that integrates directly into Premiere Pro’s playback engine, enabling ultra-low latency connections anywhere, and zero compromise video pipelines with scalability to add features such as HDR High Dynamic Range video in the future. Custom branding allows larger production houses to add

further value to this system as a service to their customers.

Once connected to a BirdDog Cloud Connect session, the remote user can simply and quickly select and view any video screen in the edit suite, including the timeline, confidence, and other monitors as well as cameras for a two-way ‘production conference’. BirdDog Cloud Connect sessions can be accessed by any invited user on their device of choice with applications built for all Apple (iPhone, iPad, AppleTV), Android (Phone, Tablet, TV) and Samsung Tizen TV platforms as well as the BirdDog PLAY hardware receiver.

Cloud Connect for Adobe is available as part of a BirdDog Cloud subscription, available for download at www.BirdDog.cloud.

Visit https://birddog.tv/

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

Planetcast Adds Desynova to Extend Cloud Media Services

PLANETCAST MEDIA SERVICES has strategically invested in Desynova, a cuttingedge, cloud-native Content lifecycle Platform. Desynova’s solutions and services, including its Contido platform, enable Planetcast to strengthen and expand its cloud-based content management capabilities for the global marketplace.

“Desynova is a perfect addition for Planetcast through providing us with an agile, collaborative, cloud-native technology married to an intuitive UI that makes managing postproduction and playout workflows smooth and seamless! While the Contido platform from Desynova broadens our solutions and services portfolio, it also brings marquee new customers and adds a significant boost to our global expansion plans,” says Sanjay Duda, CEO of Planetcast Media Services. “We welcome all of Desynova’s 120 employees to the Planetcast family and look forward to collaborating with them to provide the most powerful and flexible portfolio of Content Management solutions on the global market today.”

“The Desynova addition enables us to provide solutions and services that perfectly meet customer needs, both now and moving forward,” says Sanjay Duda. “Clearly, almost every media and entertainment company on the planet is moving to a cloud or hybrid-cloud architecture for their media distribution and management infrastructure. Media Asset

Management is the pumping heart of media infrastructure; Desynova enables us to meet this evolution by integrating the Contido cloud-based content lifecycle platform with other Planetcast solutions, such as playout and OTT delivery, to provide the best ‘full-stack’ solution for all our customers – while also furthering the continued development of AI-driven post-production capabilities, such as AI-assisted editing.” Contido is a cloud-based content supply chain orchestration solution that simplifies and recalibrates the canvas of media production. It is a cloud-native Media Asset Management (MAM) system designed to handle video processing and publishing across multiple platforms seamlessly. Contido, which is already integrated with Planetcast’s solutions, is built on modules that flexibly work together to provide all the functionality required by broadcasters and content creators, including ingest, asset management, collaborative workflows, analytics, quality control, transcoding, subtitling and distribution. Contido provides the flexibility to manage content; right from creating, securely distributing, and managing content items. As a platform, Contido allows multiple handles

Linius Boosts IMG Sports Archive

LINIUS TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED is to provide its sports solution, Whizzard, to IMG’s digital archive platform, IMG Replay.

The Linius Whizzard product will be deployed as a core feature within the IMG Replay service, virtualising the entire IMG Replay archive to make it more searchable and usable.

IMG Replay customers, who include production companies, advertising agencies, broadcasters, news agencies, and content creators, will use Whizzard to search the archive to source specific fixtures, teams, individuals, and events to curate, produce, and licence video content.

IMG Replay (www.IMGReplay.com) manages an exclusive sports and entertainment archive, consisting of nearly 50,000 hours of premium content on behalf of leading rights holders such as Premier League, World Rugby,

PGAA, The Championships, Wimbledon, The R+A, Miss Universe, Giro D’Italia and many more.

Linius Chief Executive Officer (CEO), James Brennan, said, “We are delighted to be selected by IMG to enhance their IMG Replay service. This is a significant validation of the power of our Linius Video Services (LVS) platform and the value unlocked by our Whizzard product for one of the world’s largest sports and media companies. Whizzard is driving accelerated commercial momentum, with Linius adding four new clients in the last five months, leading to record billings in Q2 FY2023 that is expected to double in Q3.”

“Through IMG Replay, Whizzard will be used by some of the premier sporting organisations in the world. IMG Replay and their associated sporting organisations have long recognised the value

to always communicate and collaborate on projects.

“It’s been a fabulous journey from incorporation in the year 2017 to developing and providing a next-generation cloud content lifecycle platform for customers, including Asia’s largest broadcast network and the world’s largest OTT platform,” says Balu Ramamurthy, CEO and Founder of Desynova. “Through working with Planetcast on a joint customer, our Contido platform is already integrated with Planetcast’s broader solutions portfolio – and most importantly, this experience has convinced us that in Planetcast we have found the perfect partner.”

Visit https://www.planetc.net

of these archives. Whizzard makes it possible to unlock that value today and by virtualising the entire archive, IMG and their clients will have the ability to enable multiple innovative use cases for this content.”

Vice President, IMG Replay at IMG Media, Tom Barnes said, “Whizzard will hopefully enable IMG Replay users to create their bespoke automated individual highlights much more quickly and effectively. We believe Linius Whizzard will enable great efficiencies for our clients, generate significant new revenues and open new markets for IMG Replay and this content.” The agreement is for an initial two-year term and includes a fixed setup fee and a monthly licence subscription. The agreement is otherwise generally on terms and conditions customary for an engagement of this nature, including as to

confidentiality, protection of intellectual property, security requirements and data protection, privacy, and service levels.

This engagement is significant for the Company as it provides substantive validation of Linius’ technology and business model by one of the global leaders in the media and entertainment industry, and the application of the technology across a highly valuable and diverse set of premium sports and entertainment content. Moreover, the momentum in adoption of the Whizzard sports platform in recent months, with four new sports companies signing on with Linius, demonstrates an increasing awareness of its unique capability and application for sports companies.

Visit https://www.linius.com

Migrating Video Infrastructure to the Cloud

By Ateme

TO IMPROVE BOTH SCALABILITY scalability and flexibility, the video industry is showing an unprecedented interest in cloud computing. While cloud adoption is still relatively low (under 20 percent), spending in cloud infrastructure is now growing at a rate six times greater than that of traditional IT hardware. But in this gold rush of rapid cloud adoption, media and telco companies must rethink their technology sourcing strategy.

Traditionally, media and telecommunications companies have adopted a best-of-breed approach for individual services, which has resulted in fragmented ecosystems, with little standardisation and many legacy or proprietary technologies. But in the cloud, this generally causes a degraded quality of experience, lower efficiency, and higher costs.

Unifying the Ecosystem

Lately, standardisation has improved for delivering in a cloud environment. New protocols such as RIST, SRT, and NDI have augmented signal transmission to the cloud, enabling new workflows such as full remote production. CMAF finally seems to be bridging the gap between HLS and DASH. It’s now offering a single industry standard that facilitates compatibility with end-user devices and leads to higher efficiency, better caching, reduced latency, and lower operational costs.

These new ecosystems provide higher levels of

Content Digitisation from Silver Trak Digital, DAMsmart

BRINGING TOGETHER services such as Aggregation, QC, Authoring, Broadcast Duplication, Transcoding, Digital Delivery, and Digital Cinema Packaging and Theatrical Distribution in a “onestop” environment, Silver Trak Digital operates out of centres in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra), Auckland and Kuala Lumpur.

Sister company DAMsmart, meanwhile, is the largest commercial digitisation facility in Australia handling some of the most significant archival collections from within Australia and Internationally. A preferred supplier to Australia’s National Film Archive and the National Film and Sound Archives, DAMsmart has also played a significant part in Archival Conversion in Hong Kong, South Africa, and beyond.

Silver Trak Digital and DAMsmart will be on the Benchmark Broadcast booth (6E1-03) at Broadcast Asia 2023. Benchmark Broadcast is one of Silver Trak Digital and DAMsmart’s strategic

service and better overall value compared to legacy fragmented ecosystems.

Migrating to the Cloud – the Smart Way

When bringing a video ecosystem to the cloud, the appropriate question is not what workload should be moved to the cloud, but “workload should be moved to the cloud first. A video ecosystem in the cloud should be built following an open timeline, NOT as a project with a deadline.

Prime workloads for migration can be identified with two questions:

What would benefit most from the cloud?

What would be the easiest workload to migrate to the cloud?

Two Strategies

Depending on the corporate objectives, different migration paths can be considered.

An innovation-focused migration strategy can lead to new services that attract more customers and create increased revenue streams, such as personalised FAST channels. One possibility is on-the-fly, personalized, thematic live channels with high-value ad slots, increasing revenue and engagement.

A rejuvenation-focused strategy can lead to strong improvements in cash flow and operational efficiency. For instance, with SaaS, content owners looking to reduce their costs

can send their content to the cloud for remote production and securely distribute it with low latency to their affiliates or subscribers through the public cloud, using only the resources they want, only when they need it.

Win-Win

The cloud brings advanced opportunities for media and telecommunications companies, which can differentiate from the competition and create new revenue streams while reducing operational costs.

Ateme has already helped others move to the cloud. For example, it has recently enabled VOD transcoding in the cloud for a tier-one service provider, optimising both costs and performance. The solution was launched in production at the end of 2021 and involved advanced workflows with OTT packaging, DAI, and audience measurement.

Want to learn more? Meet Ateme at Broadcast Asia in booth 5K2-0.

Visit https://www.ateme.com

Next-Gen Content Management from Telestream

SI partners and will be undertaking combined presentations on the theme of “End-to-End Content Digitisation, including Monetisation”. This will include a demo of DAMsmart’s services illustrating the processes for its end-to-end content Digitisation/ Monetisation ecosystem.

Their team at the show will be spearheaded by Silver Trak Digital COO Christian Christiansen and DAMsmart’s Joe Kelly from Australia. They will also have Nathan Viamala, VP of Sales Asia, Karlz Varma, Digital Operations Manager, and Justin Roseworn, Operations Manager (Asia) attending from DAMsmart/Silver Trak Digital Asia.

The team will be discussing all of Silver Trak Digital and DAMsmart’s services, but in particular DAMsmart’s digitisation services and Silver Trak Digital’s Media Room, aggregation, content preparation and FutureStor services.

Visit https://www.silvertrak.com.au

AT NAB 2023, Telestream demonstrated the Telestream Content Manager – a nextgeneration solution that provides a single point of access for content across an organisation’s entire storage ecosystem, including cloud and on-prem storage.

Built on the DIVA Core technology, Telestream Content Manager is tightly integrated with the Telestream workflow orchestration tools, as well as supporting all major MAM, PAM, and automation systems.

Three innovations combine to make this unification of cloud and on-prem content management practical and cost effective.

First, an intuitive web-based user interface provides users with the tools that they need to discover and work with their media content. All content information is indexed and searchable, including both system metadata, editorial metadata imported from other systems, and customer-

configurable metadata. Once content is found, it can be played back directly within the application and transferred to any connected device such as a storage, production, or playout system.

Second, auto-object discovery and the ability to index files directly from cloud storage eliminates the egress costs associated with copying to another location and enables enterprises to efficiently manage both legacy content and incoming files. Finally, the automation of content management actions and triggering of automated workflows enables greater efficiency through the ability to create sophisticated supply chain workflows that incorporate content movement, lifecycle management, and media processing.

Telestream Content Manager is planned for worldwide availability in mid-2023.

Visit http://www.telestream.net

Multi-Cloud Migration from OpenDrives

OPENDRIVES RECENTLY announced multicloud migration, AI-enabled remote production, and backup and recovery workflows at the 2023 NAB Show.

As editing timelines tighten, and as AI demands more computing power and architectural shifts, the need for scalable and portable data solutions grows. OpenDrives centralises data access, management and movement, powered by the Atlas Core software platform, across all architectures for enterprise-scale media and entertainment industry heavyweights including Fox Sports, HBO, L.A. Kings and more.

Built on open standards and open protocols adopted across the industry, Atlas Core facilitates interoperability with the Open ecosystem of technology partners, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure and other cloud players such as Wasabi, to provide access to cloud storage and data services that enterprises leverage every day.

OpenDrives deploys containers directly on the storage solutions bringing enterprise applications, such as iconik, Archiware, CloudSoda, Axel AI and Betsol, closer to the target data that they use, eliminating the need for additional hardware. A single, portable software licence moves with customers’ needs across any data environment, whether on-prem, cloud or edge.

Containerisation Optimises AI Workflows, Cloud and Hybrid Asset Management

OpenDrives empowers enterprise-scale customers to optimise cloud deployments, created for individual data needs, while streamlining content development and delivery with solutions such as:

• AI-enabled hybrid solution for editing and finishing content with iconik’s ISG MAM. Working in partnership, OpenDrives, iconik and Adobe allow remote editors to access ISGgenerated proxies directly from the Adobe application. To do this, OpenDrives generates proxies through an on-premise C module and sends them to the web-based Adobe panel which allows editors to work on smaller files while optimising access and performance.

• Enhanced data movement, backup and archiving in the cloud with CloudSoda. Customers can replicate content between locations for collaboration or data protection. A real-time analytics dashboard shows cost and savings prior to initiating the data move. Implementing camera-to-cloud workflow to push remote editorial workflows into different tiers maximises cost efficiencies.

• Archiving and integrated asset management with Archiware P5. This containerised solution streamlines operations while accelerating backup, cloning, and archive functions. Using

Myriad All-Flash File and Object Storage Software

QUANTUM HAS ANNOUNCED Myriad, an all-flash file and object storage platform based on a cloud-native software architecture that avoids the limitations of legacy NAS storage systems. It is designed to bring new levels of simplicity and adaptability to highperformance workloads without the constraints of specialised hardware.

Key highlights include:

• Scale-out software architecture delivers consistent, low-latency performance for high-bandwidth and high-IOPs applications.

• A cloud-native microservices architecture orchestrated by Kubernetes provides a resilient, “always on” architecture, and delivers new features and fixes rapidly with less risk.

• Automated storage management allows a cluster to be scaled or modified without user intervention and the need for advanced IT skills.

• Self-healing, self-balancing software automatically rebuilds data in the background while also rebalancing data as storage clusters expand, shrink, and change.

• Inline data deduplication and compression reduce the cost of flash storage and improve data efficiencies relative to legacy storage platforms.

• Simplified data protection and recovery through built-in snapshots, clones, snapshot recovery tools, and rollback capabilities.

Visit https://www.quantum.com

an asset management feature, this simplifies reuse and reference of monetised media assets that automatically backup to a variety of targets such as disk, tape, or cloud storage.

• AI-powered tagging and remote media access with Axel AI’s MAM. Search, manage, and repurpose media assets faster and more efficiently with nearly 100 times the throughput available on 10 Gigabit ethernet. Remote file access and collaboration through Adobe Premiere Pro and Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, as well as archiving with Archiware P5, streamlines remote workflows while accelerating productivity.

NAB 2023 came amid a period of significant growth for the company. OpenDrives has scaled its Atlas Core software platform from traditional storage services and data management to an expanded centralised ecosystem of data applications, solutions and services. Former Infinidat, IBM and Dell EMC executive Izhar Sharon joined OpenDrives as CEO in December of 2022. New solutions, including containerised enterprise backup and recovery in partnership with BETSOL, have further expanded the Open ecosystem to deliver backup capabilities that are critical for enterprise-scale businesses.

Visit https://opendrives.com/

Arcitecta Ransomware Rapid Recovery

DATA MANAGEMENT software company, Arcitecta, has announced the launch of its Point in Time Ransomware Rapid Recovery Solution for the media and entertainment industry. The new solution provides studios with instant recovery from a ransomware attack, works across a studio’s existing production storage systems, is costeffective, and is easy to deploy and use.

Ransomware attacks have become increasingly common in recent years, and the media and entertainment industry has been hit particularly hard. The impact of an attack often creates significant financial and operational burdens.

Ransomware is a form of malware that blocks studios from accessing their media assets by encrypting them until a ransom is paid. Existing solutions for recovering from ransomware attacks are slow, complex, and require significant IT expertise. These challenges can result in significant downtime, lost media assets and delayed or cancelled releases for affected studios.

The Point in Time solution has a built-in versioning file system that enables studios to restore their assets quickly and easily to an earlier, immutable, unencrypted version in the event of a ransomware attack. Designed specifically for the media and entertainment industry, the Point in Time Ransomware Rapid Recovery Solution works across a studio’s existing

production storage systems, such as the Dell PowerScale, making it affordable and easy to implement and use. No additional storage systems are required.

Operational Benefits of a Studio-Wide Versioning File System

Arcitecta’s Point in Time Ransomware Rapid Recovery Solution provides additional benefits to studio operations, including:

• Accelerates the performance of studios’ production storage systems and protects against common accidental file deletion, data corruption and other data loss situations.

• Promotes collaboration by allowing multiple artists to work on the same files concurrently without the risk of data loss or conflicts.

• Simplifies media asset file management by providing a centralised repository for all media assets, making it easy to manage and access files across the studio’s production storage systems. This approach eliminates data silos, improving efficiency.

Point in Time’s versioning file system technology has been used successfully for years at Arcitecta customers Novartis, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Melbourne University.

Visit https://www.arcitecta.com

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Talk to us about the new improved version of LEXI, the world’s leading AI-powered automatic captioning solution. With improved performance and new features like speaker identification and intelligent caption placement, Lexi 3.0 delivers results that rival human captions at a fraction of the cost.

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Bellingen’s 2BBB Goes IP with AEQ and Broadcast Components

BASED IN BELLINGEN on the north coast of New South Wales, Radio 2BBB is an Australian regional radio station that is the last remaining source of local news for the area, following the closure of the region’s newspaper. Like many other remote places in Australia, the last few years have been plagued by fires, floods and problems with the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting the need for better communication within the territory.

With the goal of community service in mind, Ms Bryony Fearns, a member of Radio 2BBB’s governing board, started to consider the work needed to renovate and improve the station’s facilities so it might become part of the Bellingen Shire Emergency Operations Centre. She and Mr Andrew Walls, the station’s chairman, approached fellow regional broadcaster Tank FM of Kempsey for advice. Located some three hours south of Bellingen, Tank FM’s technical manager, Ross Delaforce, described his station’s experiences over the past few years since it renovated its facilities to improve the service it could provide to that community.

After many meetings, Ross drew up a first draft detailing the scope of work required for Radio 2BBB to upgrade the station to the latest technology. Being an adobe brick building, Ross also identified that using a digital IP network based system would facilitate the overall implementation. AEQ’s local partner in Australia, Broadcast Components was invited to design and quote for the construction of two studios, where the requirements included:

• Simple integration with the ability to grow according to the station’s requirements in future years;

• Improved telephone capabilities ensuring low operating costs;

• Remote broadcasting equipment for easy coverage of outdoor events;

• Implementation of the entire project in stages to allow for training and problem solving prior to handover;

• Close support with integrators and the technology provider; and

• Detailed training plan for all Radio 2BBB staff, including technicians, operators and journalists.

Broadcast Components created an end-toend transmission solution that exceeded the initial requirements defined, which included rebuilding the studio and upgrading the transmission network with a focus on high capacity, efficiency, audio quality and reliability.

With a plan in place, the City of Bellingen Shire invested in 2BBB Radio as part of the Bellingen Shire Emergency Operations Centre with part of its Local Wildfire Emergency Recovery Fund (BLERF), so that the station is the only regional media centre that will be able to officially

communicate information, news and safety alerts throughout the county in real time, especially during severe situations such as floods, wildfires and pandemics.

At the heart of this digital engineered solution is an AEQ FORUM LITE digital mixing console for each studio, along with an AEQ SYSTEL-IP16

IP telephony system. Studios 1 and 2 were replicated to allow easy contribution from both studios and efficient handover. AEQ FORUM LITE offers working profiles to support a wide range of inputs and presenter requirements, as well as one-button voice track capability.

AEQ FORUM LITE is a mixing console designed for ONAIR broadcast control. It incorporates all the basic features required in this type of environment: automatic monitor cut, cough cut, faderstart, signalling control, control signals for the automation of external equipment, external communications management, intercommunication, etc.

It can be equipped with AoIP multi-channel input and output cards compatible with the new AES67 protocol via DANTE technology. Through this connectivity, signals can be picked up and delivered to other consoles, routers, and other input and output terminal equipment from over 300 different manufacturers. It is also possible to choose MADI connectivity, and can be equipped with up to two internal digital telephone hybrids.

The entire Broadcast Components technical team installed, wired and configured the entire new studio 2, while studio 1 continued with programming as normal.

The remote control interface for the supplied mixing desks has enabled the technical team to provide training and support to less confident hosts from home and significantly reduced signal interruptions due to operational problems.

AEQ products feature Dante audio-over-IP technology, which offers dual ports with no single point of failure, including network infrastructure. Additionally, we provide dual power supplies in AEQ equipment and UPS technology for power management and risk

mitigation. With the idea of reusing as much of the station’s ancillary equipment as possible, an AEQ NETBOX interface was set up allowing any analogue equipment in the production space to be incorporated into the broadcast chain in moments via IP.

Likewise, the existing transmission chain features the main 93.3MHz transmitter (via an 850MHz analogue STL link) and an off-air relay on 107.3MHz. To provide signal continuity, Broadcast Components implemented an IP codec back-up so that there is no single point of failure for FM transmission and the secondary frequency is not dependent on the main frequency. This AEQ VENUS codec network can transmit a replica of the station’s content, or in a catastrophic situation (where the station is down and inaccessible) and AEQ TALENT can remotely transmit directly to the transmitter.

Finally, with all the equipment to be installed clear, the assembly and configuration work already in place, the human side remained, to ensure that these new resources were used in the most appropriate way possible. So the training courses were organised in two versions, technician and presenter, where Kye Ruigrok and Vanessa Nugent helped with the additional training of the presenters.

This recent technological upgrade represents the biggest renovation in the life of Radio 2BBB since it was built and launched in 1983. The entire project has been led by the technical services of Broadcast Components, AEQ’s local partner in the country, in coordination with AEQ Madrid’s commissioning staff working with a remote connection to the equipment thanks to the Internet.

Visit https://2bbb.net.au

https://broadcastcomponents.com.au and http://www.aeq.eu/

Sennheiser Launches Profile USB Microphone

SENNHEISER RECENTLY launched the Profile USB microphone, a cardioid condenser microphone that presents an easy and stylish solution for streaming and podcasting. It combines professional sound with direct accessibility of all functions, allowing streamers, podcasters and gamers to fully focus on their content. The side-address microphone is available as a table stand version, and as the Profile Streaming Set with a 3-point selflocking boom arm.

At the heart of the Profile USB microphone is the Sennheiser KE 10 condenser capsule. Its cardioid pick-up pattern provides the typical attenuation of sound coming from the rear, making sure that the streamer’s voice is in focus.

According to product manager Dennis Stegemerten, “Profile is simply plugged into the USB-C

port of your computer or tablet – your device will automatically recognise the microphone, and it’s ready to capture your voice. There is no need for an interface or any software, no additional window to keep open so that you can control the mic settings. One intuitive touch of a control directly on the mic – that’s all that is needed.”

At its front, the Profile USB Mic features a soft-touch, no-noise mute button, a gain control for the microphone volume, a mix control to set the balance between your voice and the computer/tablet audio, plus a volume control for headphone monitoring. Headphones or earphones can be connected via a 3.5mm socket at the back of the Profile USB microphone.

LED rings on the Profile signal the operating status. When the LED ring around the gain control

is green, the mic is ready to go. When the same light ring turns yellow at times or all of the time, the mic is clipping and you need to reduce the mic volume. When the microphone has been muted, light rings around the mute button and the gain control light up red. The Profile can be tilted for optimum positioning, the selflocking joint will ensure that the mic stays in position. Sennheiser recommends that it be positioned within 15cm from your mouth or the sound source. 3/8 and 5/8inch connectors at the bottom allow the mic to be used with third-party table stands. Users looking for more sophisticated placement possibilities can opt for the Profile Streaming Set, which comes with a 3-point selflocking boom arm.

Visit https://en-au.sennheiser.com

Wohler iAM1-12G 16-Channel Audio Monitor

WOHLER TECHNOLOGIES, the manufacturer of video, audio, and data monitoring solutions, has released an ‘audio only’ 12G monitor adding to its existing iAM product range.

Based on the existing 3G iAMAUDIO-1 PLUS and virtually identical in operation, the new iAM1-12G features two 12G-SDI inputs on BNC and a looped output of the selected SDI input, while

retaining an SFP slot for additional SDI, 2110, or 2022.

While other functional aspects remain the same, including the ability to licence AES, MADI, custom-mix output routing and Dolby processing, the audio over IP option card IP option card offers monitoring of either Dante or Ravenna (including monitoring of 2110-30). Primary and secondary RJ-45 ethernet ports on the

AoIP option card enable hitless (redundant) 2022-7 monitoring. Recently introduced out-of-band 2110 set-up is available via the web GUI. Also available is an analog option card, offering eight balanced inputs and outputs on DB-25 connectors and a TOSLINK (SPDIF) connector. A third option card adds two SFP cages which will accept either 3G or 12G SFP’s. API’s, remote GUI’s, loudness, and

TSL Audio Monitoring - a Hybrid Bridge to IP Future

TSL ANNOUNCED new technology enhancements for its audio monitoring during NAB 2023. The company showcased its new MPA1-MIX-NET solution alongside its flagship Precision Audio Monitoring (PAM) range, both of which provide smooth migration paths to IP.

According to Mark Davies, Director of Products and Technology, TSL Products, “MPA1-MIX-NET and the PAM-IP range build bridges between existing hardware and the IP universe with input from our customers and partners on design and usability. We know it takes time to migrate from legacy to IP, and these solutions

let you thrive in either or both worlds, without compromise.”

Easing the transition to IP is MPA1-MIX-NET, TSL’s newest 1U audio confidence monitor and mixer with 16 instantly recallable independent mixes. Designed in collaboration with NEP, the MPA1-MIX-NET is ideal for ST 2110 trucks and installations. A 1G AoIP connection provides 64 channels of input, with a further 64 available via an optional MADI SFP. Support for in-band

NMOS is built-in for integration with TSL control and leading third-party systems. Additionally, SNMP integration allows remote configuration changes for added flexibility and improved productivity.

TSL’s flagship PAM range continues to evolve, offering market-leading sound quality, reliability and an unmatched range of inputs and outputs that set the bar for performance. The PAM dashboard provides

network ports remain standard on both units.

“The addition of the iAM1-12G offers our users a lower cost 12G monitor for those not needing video monitoring while at the same time retaining the familiar features, benefits and options already available across our iAM range,” says Kim TemplemanHolmes, VP of Sales and Marketing.

Visit https://www.wohler.com

users with helpful system health information such as software/ hardware version information, temperatures and fan speeds as well as diagnostic information such as PTP lock status, IP packet counters and multicast addresses and port numbers of the essences currently being subscribed to.

Visit https://www.tslproducts.com

Lawo’s mc²36 xp – Nifty. Native. Networked.

LAWO HAS WELCOMED the addition of the Lawo mc²36 xp desk to its top-of-the-line audio production console range. Physically identical to the mc²36 MkII, but without on-board processing, the mc²36 xp supports up to 256 DSP channels and offers Lawo’s acclaimed audio quality, IP network and processing redundancy, and eligibility for a multi-slice console array based around a single A__UHD Core processing unit.

The mc²36 xp caters to the expectations of sound supervisors who wish to benefit from a consistent user experience in all their production

hub’s audio control rooms, OB trucks and venues where space is at a premium.

True to its ‘xp’ moniker, the console requires external processing. In combination with the Pooling 8 licence, it can share the DSP heft of one A__UHD Core with up to seven other virtual or physical console surfaces for cost-effective premium audio processing.

Available with 16, 32 and 48 faders in a sleek, ergonomic footprint, the mc²36 xp comes equipped with the same prograde controls and touchscreens as its bigger brothers, the mc²56

ENCO Moves Deeper into AI with ChatGPT

ENCO HAS SPARKED the accelerator on pure AI product development with the introduction of two ChatGPTinspired solutions for NAB

Show 2023. ENCO’s two new AI innovations, AITrack and ENCOGPT, leverage the ChatGPT model to generate language responses from text-based queries added to automated TV and radio production workflows.

ENCO President Ken Frommert expects excitement from visitors who see the technology in action, adding that the solutions are ready for use.

“AI can be thoughtfully integrated into products like AITrack and ENCO-GPT that solve problems and create new opportunities for broadcasters today,” he said. “It is quick to rollout, free of labour-intensive integrations and fully functional for automated broadcast production workflows.”

AITrack integrates with ENCO’s DAD radio automation system to generate and insert voice tracks between songs. That might include identifying the song and artist of the previous song, introducing upcoming songs, communicating station IDs, or providing localised news and weather. Users can adjust the length of each automated voice track, and AITrack leverages CHAT-GPT and synthetic voice engines to produce naturalsounding, engaging content between songs.

ENCO-GPT simplifies copy creation within TV and radio broadcasts and program streams. ENCO-GPT automatically creates ad copy on behalf of sponsors. For example, a producer can leverage ENCO-GPT to produce audio content for an auto dealership that committed to a recent media buy without

Tieline Unveils Two New MPX Codecs

TIELINE, the codec company, used this year’s NABShow to unveil two new MPX codecs.

Tieline’s MPX I and MPX II codecs deliver composite FM multiplex (MPX) codec solutions for realtime network distribution of FM-MPX or MicroMPX (µMPX) signals to transmitter sites. The MPX I is suitable for transmitting a composite STL signal from a single station with return monitoring, whereas the Tieline MPX II can transport two discrete composite FM-MPX signals from the studio to transmitters with return monitoring. Both units

support analogue MPX on BNC, MPX over AES192, and multipoint signal distribution, to deliver a wide range of flexible composite encoder and decoder solutions for different applications.

The MPX I and MPX II support sending the full uncompressed FM signal, or high quality compressed µMPX at much lower bit-rates. An optional satellite tuner card with MPEG-TS and MPE support can receive DVB-S or DVB-S2 signals.

“Tieline is excited to unveil two new MPX codecs which leverage our longstanding expertise in

and mc²96. Its on-board I/O capability is identical to the inputs and outputs offered by its all-inone mc² 36 console sister: 16 Lawo-grade MIC/Line inputs, 16 Line outputs, eight AES inputs and outputs, eight GPI/Os, plus a local MADI port (SFP).

The mc²36 xp supports 48kHz and 96kHz operation, state-ofthe-art immersive audio mixing

and all relevant IP standards (ST2110, AES67/RAVENNA, ST2022-7). It is a HOME native and offers seamless production file compatibility with its mc² siblings.

Visit https://lawo.com

producing their own ad content. ENCO-GPT ingests text from the producer with details on an upcoming special sale, with highly accurate, immediate turnaround of synthetic speech that is ready to air.

ENCO-GPT brings additional value for producers that need to summarise news stories to fit a specific run time in a broadcast schedule. The application will condense a lengthy written news article into a few sentences, or inject breaking news updates within live ad breaks.

Frommert sees an opportunity to go bigger with both solutions, especially in the case of ENCOGPT. “We see opportunities to convert a morning or afternoon drive radio show into a short-form podcast, or summarise an 11pm local news program for the TV station’s website,” said Frommert. “ENCO-GPT offers a compelling

glimpse into the future of content repurposing by summarising long-form segments into smaller bites. It offers our customers a seamless way to publish content in diverse forms.”

Visitors to the ENCO booth have an additional surprise in store. ENCO has prepared a virtual production studio on its NAB booth (W1743) using real-time compositing tools from Unreal Engine-based Qimera, one of several ENCO partners on the booth along with Benztown, NewsBoss and StreamGuys.

The virtual set will leverage augmented reality graphics to call attention to products from ENCO and its partners while inviting users to step inside the Qimera VR/AR/XR/MR universe.

Visit https://www.enco.com/

audio encoding to flexibly and reliably distribute composite signals to transmitter sites,” said Charlie Gawley, VP Sales APAC and EMEA. “By supporting both analogue and digital composite MPX signals, broadcasters can transition from analogue to digital exciters over time and maximise the value of their MPX investment.”

Sending transmission-ready FM composite signals from the studio allows broadcasters to maintain audio processing and RDS data insertion at the studio. This significantly

reduces capital and operational costs by eliminating processing equipment from transmitter sites, which reduces on-site power consumption, wiring, and site visits for service and support.

Composite MPX over IP signals can be easily replicated and distributed using multicast and multi-unicast technologies and take advantage of rock solid redundancy features like redundant streaming, RIST, FEC, and automated SD card file failover.

Visit https://tieline.com

Production sound, simplified.

EW-DP: Fully digital UHF wireless audio system designed for filmmaking and video applications.

Time is measured differently on set. Seconds converted into frames, minutes into card space, hours into precious remaining daylight. EW-DP will change the way you think of sound on set. A wireless microphone system that puts time on your side by blending best-in-class technology with an ergonomic build.

Whether you’re a crew of one or many, EW-DP is the ideal partner to simplify your audio workflow. After all, production has enough challenges; sound doesn’t need to be one of them.

www.sennheiser.com/ew-dp

EW-DP

RØDE Rolls Out Hardware, Software and Peoplewear

AT THE RECENTLY held NAB Show in Las Vegas, RØDE made some of its biggest product announcements ever. Seven new products and product updates were launched, including new firmware updates for the Wireless GO II and RØDECaster Pro II, new products like the Streamer X, RØDECaster Duo and PodMic USB, and various accessories.

WIRELESS GO II FIRMWARE UPDATE

A new firmware update is coming for the Wireless GO II, which will unlock even more features for what is already a featurepacked compact wireless microphone system. This includes the ability to save on-board recordings as WAV files for easy transfer to a computer on-the-go, and start/stop on-board recordings using the transmitter power button – two highly requested features – as well as new camera models added to the camera preset feature, which was introduced in the most recent firmware update, and a number of system enhancements and workflow improvements.

RØDECASTER PRO II WIRELESS MICROPHONE CONNECTIVITY

A new firmware update will soon be released for the RØDECaster Pro II, which unlocks a hidden feature: wireless microphone connectivity. Already a powerful audio solution for content creators on the market, the RØDECaster Pro II features a flexible array of audio inputs, including combo jacks for connecting both microphones and instruments, Bluetooth connectivity, and dual-USB interfaces for connecting computers and mobile devices. With this new update, users will also be able to connect any RØDE Series IV wireless transmitter – including the Wireless GO II and Wireless ME – for recording wireless audio directly to the RØDECaster Pro II.

This feature is a world-first and makes the RØDECaster Pro II even more versatile, with more inputs and outputs than any other device of its kind on the market, affirming its place as the ultimate audio production console for content creators.

RØDE created the world’s first compact wireless microphone system with the original Wireless GO and revolutionised the category again with the Wireless GO II and, most recently, the Wireless ME. These latest updates see RØDE continue to innovate in the wireless category, expanding product capabilities and ensuring they offer maximum creative potential.

STREAMER X

The Streamer X is a new product that combines a professional audio interface and video capture card in a compact, easy-touse console. It features studio-grade audio inputs for XLR, line-level devices and headsets with an ultra-low-noise, high-gain Revolution Preamp and powerful APHEX audio processing delivering pristine sound quality. It also features the same compatibility with RØDE Series IV wireless microphones that will be coming to the RØDECaster Pro II in the next firmware update. On the video front, it offers 4K30 / 2K60

streaming and up to 2K120 / 4K60 pass-through for incredible video quality in a wide variety of applications, from streaming and gaming, to podcasting and content creation, to business presentations.

Two USB-C connections accommodate dual PC setups, and four customisable SMART pads allow for on-the-fly triggering of sound or voice FX and other actions on a computer. It is also fully compatible with RØDE software solutions, including UNIFY, RØDE Central and RØDE Connect for expanded functionality and unmatched flexibility.

The Streamer X represents a new way to livestream with incredible audio and video. Never before has broadcast-quality video and audio capture been possible using a single console. This is the ultimate all-in-one streaming solution.

RØDECASTER DUO

The RØDECaster Duo is a compact all-in-one audio production solution for podcasting, streaming, music-making and content creation. It offers the same feature set and versatility as the RØDECaster Pro II, including the upcoming compatibility with RØDE Series IV wireless microphones. It features the same quad-core audio engine, Revolution Preamps, APHEX audio processing and customisability as the RØDECaster Pro II – now in an even more compact and portable form factor.

PODMIC USB

The PodMic USB is an ultra-versatile, broadcast-grade dynamic microphone for podcasting, streaming and content creation. It offers the same sound quality and compact yet rugged form factor as the original PodMic, with a new feature up its sleeve: XLR and USB connectivity.

Fresh off the back of the release of the NT1 5th Generation – the world’s first studio condenser to offer both XLR and USB connectivity – this feature has now been added to the PodMic. When using the analogue XLR output, the PodMic USB is exactly the same as the original, albeit with a sleek new finish and studio-grade

pop filter.

When using the digital USB output, it offers a range of next-generation features that make it super flexible, including a Revolution Preamp and high-quality analogue-to-digital conversion for audio capture, advanced DSP for adding professional APHEX voice processing to any recording, and compatibility with smartphones and tablets for use on the go.

It also features a zero-latency headphone output and on-board volume control and is compatible with the complete RØDE software suite, including RØDE Central, RØDE Connect, RØDE Capture and UNIFY.

RØDECASTER BACKPACK

The Backpack is a custom-designed carry bag for the RØDECaster series, including the RØDECaster Pro, RØDECaster Pro II, and RØDECaster Duo. Made from high-quality materials, including a soft, durable Alcantara handle, ballistic nylon straps and waterresistant exterior, it is rugged and hardwearing.

It can accommodate a RØDECaster Pro, Pro II or Duo, plus microphones, studio arms and other accessories, as well as laptops up to 16 inches. Ergonomic adjustable shoulder straps with back and chest support ensure absolute comfort, with exterior pockets and compartments providing additional storage.

WIRELESS GO II CHARGING CASE

The Charge Case is a handy charging case for the Wireless GO II. It accommodates both transmitters and the receiver and features an integrated battery that facilitates three full recharges for up to 30 hours of continuous use. With a rugged enclosure and zip system, it is also perfect for protecting the Wireless GO II when in transit or storage.

Visit https://rode.com/

Federal Budget Boost for ABC, SBS, VAST and AAP

THE AUSTRALIAN Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), the Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service, and the Australian Associated Press (AAP) are all beneficiaries of the Australian Federal Government’s 2023-24 Budget.

The Labor Government says it is delivering on its election commitment to five-year funding terms for the national broadcasters – with annual funding of AUD$1.1 billion for the ABC and $334.9 million for SBS. Previous funding cycles were three years in length and, from 2018, were subject to a freeze on annual indexation by the previous Coalition Government.

The ABC and SBS will receive an additional $72 million over four years to extend and roll three previously terminating programs into ongoing funding. These include:

• ABC Enhanced News Gathering, which supports regional journalist positions in regional bureaus throughout Australia;

• SBS Media Sector Support, which provides news, content, subtitling and English learning resources to Australians who speak languages other than English, with a focus on Chinese and Arabic communities; and

• ABC and SBS Audio Description, to make screen content more accessible to audiences who are blind or vision impaired. In the

last financial year, the ABC alone broadcast 1260 hours of unique audio-description content.

• The ABC will also receive $8.5 million over four years to expand transmission infrastructure in the Pacific under the IndoPacific Broadcasting Strategy. The funding will provide further access to Australian content, boosting media connections in the region. The ABC has recently signed content sharing and media development agreements with both Radio e Televisoa de Timor-Leste (RTTL) and the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC).

ABC Managing Director David Anderson said: “The funding provides a solid foundation as the ABC continues to evolve its services to meet the needs of Australian audiences. The next five years will be crucial to the ABC as we navigate significant changes in media consumption, industrywide cost pressures and increasing requirements to modernise and adapt to new technology.”

Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST)

The Federal Government is also funding the extension of the Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service across regional and remote Australia for an additional seven years until 2030-31. This supports the provision of freeto-air commercial television to over 1.5 million Australians. The

Sky NZ, Wyplay Launch 4K Sky Box

SKY NEW ZEALAND has rolled out its new 4K set-top device, the Sky Box, which features satellitedelivered linear TV channels, internet-delivered On Demand content and Streaming apps, a personalised user experience, voice remote, a 1 Terabyte hard drive and the ability to record up to five channels simultaneously.

The new Sky Box costs NZD$200 (a one-off non-refundable fee) or customers can choose to pay an ongoing non-refundable monthly fee of $10.

Leading the development of the Sky Box was video solutions and professional services company, Wyplay. Acting as System Integrator, Wyplay coordinated input from Sky NZ, Irdeto, Kaon,

Broadcom, and Netflix.

In 2021, Sky NZ made the challenging and strategic choice for its STBs, changing from Linux to AndroidTV. For the project, three independent Wyplay teams were involved: Wyplay System Integration; Wyplay Middleware; and Wyplay Professional Services. Wyplay Middleware provided its DVB expertise by providing and integrating the DVB and PVR software stack into the Sky AndroidTV box while Wyplay Professional Services worked with the Sky NZ Digital UI team to co-develop the Sky box AndroidTV Custom Launcher.

“This project is the perfect showroom of what Wyplay can bring to operators and partners

VAST service was established by the then-Labor Government in 2009-10. While the former Coalition Government reverted to short-term contract extensions, Labor says it recognises the importance of stability and certainty for industry and consumers when it comes to long-term investment.

Telco/satellite operator Optus welcomed the decision to extend funding to 2031/2032. Optus has operated the VAST platform since 2010 via its D3 and Optus 10 satellites. The service includes about 80 television and radio channels from ABC, SBS, commercial free-to-air broadcasters Seven, Nine and Ten and community broadcasters including Imparja and National Indigenous TV. VAST also provides crucial emergency broadcasting during disaster events when terrestrial infrastructure has been impacted.

Commenting on the funding extension of the VAST satellite service until 2031, Free TV CEO, Bridget Fair said, “This announcement is fantastic news for the 1.5 million Australians who rely on the VAST satellite platform for their free television services. After years of temporary funding commitments, Minister Rowland and the Albanese Government have provided some much needed certainty.”

Imparja Television also welcomed the Australian Federal

Government’s commitment to provide immediate additional funding to keep broadcasting services on-air in the bush.

Imparja Television CEO Mr Alistair Feehan said, “Without urgent additional funding, Imparja Television was facing having to dramatically cut services by 30 June. We thank the Government for listening and responding to ensure that we can continue to deliver vital services to remote Australians.” The Federal Government will also provide $5 million to help sustain the Australian Associated Press (AAP) while the News MAP (News Media Assistance Program) is developed to guide news media policy intervention, and support public interest journalism and media diversity.

Other Budget announcements in the Communications portfolio included the roll-out of a cell broadcast National Messaging System, and investment of $10.1 million to establish a Taskforce to progress a Public Safety Mobile Broadband (PSMB) capability. The Taskforce will establish the framework for delivering a mobile broadband service that provides Public Safety Agencies with fast and secure voice, video and data communications and instant access to data, images and information in critical situations. Visit https://minister. infrastructure.gov.au

when talking about AndroidTV projects: System Integration, DVB expertise, Custom Launcher, apps integration, etc.,” said Jacques Bourgninaud, CEO of Wyplay. Sophie Moloney, CEO of Sky, added: “This was a great help to have professionals like Wyplay

onboard. We are so proud of the work executed by the Sky teams together with Wyplay, in order to deploy the Sky Box to our subscribers.”

Visit https://newskybox.co.nz and https://www.wyplay.com

Imagine Unifies On-Prem and Cloud Multi-site Workflows

IMAGINE COMMUNICATIONS says multi-site playout systemisation – across on-prem and cloud – has taken a step forward with the launch of the company’s Aviator Orchestrator platform.

Combining capabilities for managing and maintaining redundant channel configurations, keeping multiple linear playout systems in sync, and managing the signal flow of live sources, the new Aviator Orchestrator platform enables the on-prem and cloud worlds to be joined together under a common deployment platform, managing the resources and relationships between channels and live streams in a cohesive fashion.

The Aviator Orchestrator platform brings together the power of Imagine’s on-prem playout and automation and its public cloud Imagine Aviator Plan, Make and Monetize platform. In addition, it incorporates capabilities to deploy, manage, and connect Amagi’s CLOUDPORT cloud playout engine and THUNDERSTORM dynamic ad insertion platform – including the ability to reach OTT and connected TV (CTV) endpoints. The result is a highly potent, fully integrated solution to manage the complexity of broadcast workflows, the migration to the cloud, and the changing viewing habits of consumers. The partnership with Amagi brings with it support for Google cloud, along with AWS cloud platforms, further extending the reach of the combined solution.

Speaking with C+T at NAB2023, Imagine Communications’ Chief Process Officer, Glodina ConnanLostanlen, “We kind of complement each other. Amagi has that digital side of the ecosystem really well understood, and all SaaS, and our traditional customers are starting to move into that segment. So, the idea is to make it irrelevant whether you’re doing playout in the cloud

or on-prem, as long as you can leverage the increased security and resilience between the systems. “There’s another piece of it, which is the monetisation. So, Amagi, on their FAST Channel platform, they have ad server technology to serve ads, but what they don’t have is a sort of decision system that we have with SureFire, which we introduced last year, connecting to the traditional linear advertising system.

“So, now you can apply broadcast rules, if you will, to the OTT side of the business.”

Aviator Orchestrator makes it possible to deploy new channels and associated resources such as content, live feeds, and routing, as well as set up the needed redundancy and disaster recovery relationships between channels within a physical location, between multiple physical locations, and with resources in the public cloud. It no longer matters whether channels are in two or more onprem locations, two or more cloud regions, or a combination of onprem and cloud systems. Aviator Orchestrator makes it possible to keep everything synchronised and make changes to live streams, content, and channels as needs change over time.

Rolling out during 2023, the Aviator Orchestrator suite of products works in conjunction with Imagine’s recently demonstrated Magellan Connect feature set, which leverages low-latency encoding and secure delivery techniques to enable ground-to-cloud routing control. On-prem sources such as SDI, SMPTE ST 2110 and MPEG-2 transport streams can be routed within a single facility, between multiple on-prem facilities, and from on-prem to the public cloud – all under an integrated routing control environment. Content destined for the cloud can be encoded for contribution

using H.264 and/or JPEG XS and securely delivered using SRT, managed through Magellan Connect; once in the cloud, sources can be routed to their target destinations, allowing a single source to be shared by many destinations simultaneously.

Aviator Orchestrator reduces the time and effort required to deploy channels by using a template architecture, ensuring consistency when deploying the same types of resources, limiting per-instance configuration and reducing errors. Templates are managed centrally, versions tracked, and active and standby resources clearly visible to administrators. Rolling out new software versions, supporting rollbacks, and managing occasional use and 24/7 resources are made easy.

The Aviator Orchestrator platform supports critical functionality to synchronise playout channels, which feature live inputs, clip playout, graphic branding, SCTE decoration, scheduled playout and master control integration. It enables disaster recovery and business continuity leveraging redundant channels – regardless of the redundancy strategy applied or the physical channel locations – to be kept in sync. Key focus areas for synchronisation are content to all needed storage locations, updates to playlists, metadata changes, and channel status.

Under Aviator Orchestrator control, a logical channel is created that can have multiple simultaneously synchronised associated real channels and can pull from a pool of available channel engines to back up a primary on-air channel as needed. Aviator Orchestrator

Media Links Debuts Xscend IP Media Platform

DESIGNED FOR THE network edge as a reconfigurable, versatile IP media migration gateway, Xscend transports up to 128 high quality media and data services across both managed and unmanaged (open internet) networks.

Its adaptable, media-tuned architecture supports softwaredefined upgrades, accommodating evolving network protocols, user workflows, physical interfaces, codec algorithms and video

formats.

Through Xscend’s hardware modularity, software upgradeability and licence configurability, flexible workflows can be adapted to support a wide variety of use cases, in particular the proliferation of content requirements in sports production.

Its combination of modularity, density, breadth of media/network interfaces, and configurability

enable transport of quality contribution services (including 4K UHD video along with 25Gbps ‘Hitless’ data) across its 100Gbps network trunks. All in a compact, cost effective, power-conserving footprint designed to adapt, traverse and scale to everchanging media over IP network transmission demands.

Xscend addresses today’s standards, including ST 20222/6, ST 2110-20/22/30/40,

ensures that all content (clips, audio, graphics, captions, and other assets), all data (content metadata and dynamic operational changes to that data), and playlist status (playlists, event status and timing) are in sync.

Aviator Orchestrator works in conjunction with both Imagine’s and partners’ on-prem and cloud routing control and playout systems, including critical interfacing to channel automation. The underlying complexity is managed, keeping the operational focus on what is needed to maintain smooth operation and on-air stability. Under normal operating conditions, users see resources and logical channels deployed and managed by Aviator Orchestrator. Operators can drill down to the underlying real channel(s) and manage at that level if needed for situational recovery. These real channel instances can be geographically distributed and deployed on-prem or in cloud.

Imagine Communications are at BroadcastAsia 2023 on Booth 6D1-12.

Visit https://imagineaviator.com

JPEG2000, JPEG-XS and VSF TR-01/07/08 along with the capability to implement future recommendations. This ensures media exchange interoperability, providing users with an IP Media Platform that has the workflow flexibility, processing horsepower and bandwidth headroom necessary to support current advances as well as those to come.

Visit https://medialinks.com/

Imagine Communications’ Chief Process Officer, Glodina Connan-Lostanien.

Lawo Brings SMPTE 2110, JPEG XS, NDI and SRT “HOME”

LAWO HAS MADE a technology introduction of its next-generation Server-Based Processing Platform consisting of scalable, dynamic broadcast and media production apps and microservices. The commercial scheme under which they will be made available is equally revolutionary.

Lightning-fast and easy to spin up and configure, Lawo’s HOME Apps run on standard servers whether that be on-premise, in private data centers or in the public cloud – all controlled via the unified user interface of the HOME management platform.

Along with the introduction of HOME Apps, HOME’s three existing pillars – Connectivity, Security and Management – are joined by a fourth building block – Processing – that will future-proof broadcast and media operations, infusing them with a striking amount of flexibility and scalability. It also leaves ample room for hybrid setups involving both existing

hardware and the new serverbased app offering.

Lawo’s HOME Apps represent the abstraction of broadcast and media functionality from the generic hardware that does the compute heavy lifting. When users need it, where they need it. And with a revolutionary commercial model.

“Broadcasters and service providers no longer enjoy the luxury of purchasing ever more bespoke hardware to cover both cruise-speed and peak-time resource demand,” explains Phil Myers, Lawo’s Chief Technology Officer. “Lawo’s HOME Apps help them avoid long idle times of costly devices that were purchased in anticipation of brief spikes and may be obsolete or outdated by the time they are required again.”

Designed for Lawo-grade processing quality in a nifty, containerised software guise,

Networked Ecosystem from Sony

DURING NABSHOW 2023 Sony showcased its expansive Networked Live ecosystem of solutions, products, services and partners that combines hybrid on-premises, and cloud processing and operations with network connectivity to transform live production. Key capabilities include Network and Resource Orchestration, Hybrid Processing and Operations, and Media Processing and Transport. The company demonstrated a newly developed softwarebased live production platform that can be deployed in various environments including virtual private cloud, data centres, and COTS servers. It can be combined with on-premises solutions like the MLS-X1 stackable switcher and third-party live production systems to enable flexible, hybrid production.

The MLS-X1 Scalable Live Production Platform is an agile, modular, live production processor/switcher that enables integrated control from a single user interface. It supports realtime processing of 4K (UHD) and High Dynamic Range (HDR) content with ultra-low latency. NEP Australia has selected the new system with plans to deploy more than 20 MLS-X1 modules to support their 4K operations.

Also new, the NXL-ME80: Media Transport Appliance enables high quality video transport on low-bandwidth networks, with an ultra-low latency processing time. Meanwhile, the HZCE-JX50H / HZCE-JX50F software for Sony’s IP HDCE-TX30 and HDCE-TX50 Camera Extension Adapters enable multiple compressed streams of HD (HZCE-JX50H) or 4K (HZCE-JX50F) JPEG XS, compatible with the SMPTE ST2110-22 standard.

On the Nevion front, the company unveiled updates to its VideoIPath media orchestration platform. VideoIPath supports federation of resources, allowing multiple autonomous instances of the platform to collaborate. Additionally, it is integrated with AWS Media Services for groundto-cloud connectivity and support for AWS MediaConnect and MediaLive services.

The new Virtuoso RE is an expansion of Nevion’s Virtuoso family, the latest software-defined media node is smaller and lighter, making it ideal for shallower racks and rackmount flight cases. It can securely perform a variety of real-time transport, processing and monitoring functions in the converged IP LAN/WAN network. In addition, Sony is collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS)

HOME Apps can be spun up and down instantly via HOME, which conveniently preserves all settings for future use.

The first four HOME Apps –Multiviewer, UDX Conversion with HDR processing, Stream Transcoder and Graphic Inserter – furthermore widen the pool of functionality from which operators can choose for their productions: the HOME Apps platform not only

supports SMPTE ST2110 and JPEG XS, but also the NDI and SRT protocols. More HOME Apps will follow over time.

‘Lawo Flex’ will allow customers to combine traditional purchasing possibilities of the technology with a subscription scheme that helps manage peaks in functional requirements in a flexible and cost-effective manner.

Visit https://lawo.com

through the vLRP (Virtual Live Remote Production) Partner Acceleration Initiative and will drive the construction of live production workflows on the cloud, together with other partners.

Creators’ Cloud – Next Generation Cloud Production

Sony’s Creators’ Cloud is a cloudbased platform that provides enterprises in the Media and Entertainment industry, individual creators and small teams with secure access to efficient services and apps to maximise their production workflows. It is comprised of the following elements:

C3 Portal is a cloud gateway service designed for enterprises that enables seamless content delivery from the field to the cloud, alleviating traditional physical limitations, while vastly accelerating distribution and edit workflows. Custom metadata-tagged camera clips can automatically be pushed from cameras to a production system or non-linear editor (NLE), resulting in simplified search, identification and editing. New integration with Marquis and Avid automates this process, eliminating the need for user interaction. This innovative workflow is currently deploying

and being refined by Sinclair. Additionally, Teradek support is now available to enable fast and secure content delivery from the field to virtually any location.

Ci Media Cloud is a media management and collaboration service that allows teams to access and collaborate on inproduction files and finished media content from virtually anywhere. Recent Ci updates include enhancements to functionality, updated workflows, new pricing plans, integrations with Atomos CONNECT products via Atomos Cloud Studio (ACS) and Pomfort’s Silverstack Lab postproduction software.

M2 Live makes multi-camera live production quick and efficient by providing scalable cloud-based tools that enable the creation of engaging live event streaming, social and web content.

A2 Production is an AI-based workflow automation process that provides data analysis, subtitling, clip creation and content enrichment.

NavigatorX manages and orchestrates assets, data, workflows and devices.

Imaging Innovations

Visit https://pro.sony/

Grass Valley Expands Production Switcher Lineup

GRASS VALLEY HAS EXPANDED its Production Switcher product lineup. Launching at NAB was an updated Kayenne switcher control panel that affords Technical Directors comfort in a recognised layout with the additional flexibility of a touchscreen incorporated within the transition module. Also new is a software update that allows custom assignment of M/E keyers for optimised usage of all available keyers.

The Kayenne panel, like all other Grass Valley switcher panels can connect to a hardware frame like the award-winning K-Frame XP with full raster 4K 2160 I/O and internal processing. Because every Grass Valley switcher control surface can connect to either a hardware or

a software processing engine, the Kayenne can also control the K-Frame CS X configuration operating on the AMPP platform. Operators who are unfamiliar with the Kayenne panel may find it easier to mix audio and video through LiveProducer X, which reimagines the control surface as a series of templates that are accessed and triggered through a keyboard and mouse.

According to Greg Huttie, VP, Production Switching, Grass Valley, “We are not resting on our laurels. We continue to push hard on new innovation. Stay tuned for additional

Ad and CG Insertion from DVEO

DVEO, A PROVIDER OF video delivery solutions, recently announced the launch of several new products and features at the 2023 NAB Show. One of the key new products from DVEO was the Ad and CG Insertion, which allows users to insert local ads, graphics, text scrolls, and other content into their video streams. This solution is suitable for broadcasters looking to monetise their content by offering targeted advertising opportunities to local businesses and other advertisers.

Another new release is Brutus which allows scte35 tags to be inserted into HLS streams for FAST TV or targeted ad insertion. This tool

is for broadcasters and content providers who want to deliver targeted advertising and other content to their viewers in real time. The PlayServer has also been upgraded with a new feature that can convert scte104 to scte35 markers, providing users with even greater flexibility and control over their video streams.

In addition to these new features, DVEO also launched a new product called Video File QC, which automates the process of video file analysis and reporting. This solution is suited to content providers looking to ensure the quality and consistency of their video content across a wide range of devices and platforms.

AWS Elemental MediaConnect Gateway

AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS) has launched AWS Elemental MediaConnect Gateway, a new cloud-connected software application to transmit live video between on-premises multicast networks and AWS. Part of AWS Media Services, MediaConnect Gateway improves operations in hybrid environments, providing monitoring, security, and management of video feeds from the AWS Management Console. With MediaConnect Gateway, customers can build live video contribution and distribution workflows in AWS at scale, seamlessly integrating into their onpremises infrastructure.

Typically, delivery of live-video multicast streams between data-centres and the cloud requires investment in specialised third-party hardware and software or resources to develop a custom solution. These solutions can be costly, complex, and difficult to support, and monitoring requires extensive knowledge and investment in vendor-specific tools. Now, with MediaConnect Gateway, customers have the ability to view, monitor, and control live video stream transport in on-premises data-centres directly from the AWS Management Console or by using the MediaConnect API. Media companies will use MediaConnect Gateway primarily for contribution and distribution of live video. In the case of a content provider that originates live linear

channels on premises, they would send these feeds to partners around the globe, using MediaConnect Gateway as a bridge between their multicast, on-premises network infrastructure and the cloud. Each MediaConnect Gateway instance can subscribe to one or more multicast groups, where a group represents either a single channel or multiple channels multiplexed together in a multi-program transport stream (MPTS). Once subscribed, MediaConnect Gateway converts the network traffic to unicast, adds encryption, and sends the video to a MediaConnect flow in the cloud. Then a live streaming application is created using the feed, processing and delivering the video to end viewers using AWS Elemental MediaLive, AWS Elemental MediaPackage, and Amazon CloudFront, for example, or another software application. For video distribution, customers can use MediaConnect Gateway to build sophisticated networks that span hundreds or even thousands of end points on premises. For example, let’s take a broadcaster that sends 24/7 live linear content to hundreds of affiliates. The broadcaster uses MediaConnect Gateway to seamlessly bridge their on-premises multicast network at both the source and destination locations. The result is a cloudmanaged solution with improved operational agility and decreased cost compared to a satellite-based workflow.

announcements regarding SMPTE ST 2110 IP, HDR SDR colour mapping and more coming to our hardware-based switching.”

Visit https://www.grassvalley.com

DVEO also launched a new service called Multi DRM Solution, which provides content protection for IOS, Android, and other devices. This new service is designed to help broadcasters and content providers protect their valuable content from unauthorised distribution and piracy.

Last but not least, the popular Premio platform has been upgraded with a new form factor in the form of the Premio Box, as well as improved video quality for an even better viewing experience.

Visit https://dveo.com/

MediaConnect Gateway runs inside Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) Anywhere, a service that allows customers to manage ECS containers on their servers. To get started, customers install the open-source ECS Agent on their VM or bare metal server. Once ECS Anywhere has been installed, customers can download MediaConnect Gateway as a software container. After that, all management of video feeds is handled in the AWS Management Console or using the MediaConnect API. When an on-premises multicast video feed is selected, the video signal is transported as unicast to the cloud using AWS Elemental MediaConnect, a service that combines the dependability of satellite and fibre-optic transport with the user-friendliness of IP-based networks.

Once in MediaConnect, the video can be sent to other AWS Regions, processed using AWS Media Services or other applications, shared with partners and affiliates, and delivered to other on-premises MediaConnect Gateway locations. And with the integration of MediaConnect Gateway into Amazon CloudWatch, customers can monitor the health of feeds without the need to invest in separate tools.

Visit https://aws.amazon.com/mediaconnect/ features/gateway/

Cloud Tools and Real Time Streaming from Evertz

THIS YEAR’S NABSHOW saw Evertz highlight the XPS Live 4K/UHD/3G/HD Video Encoder and Decoder Series, a real-time video streaming platform that is designed for mission-critical applications. Available in a variety of form factors, this softwaredefined next-generation UHD live encoder platform can be used for encoding/decoding over IP networks and is suitable for live or cloud-based applications where security, high quality and low-latency are essential.

Supporting SRT, RIST, Zixi and other transport protocols, XPS Series provides broadcasters access to reliable, low-latency live contribution encoding over public networks for cloud production or playout and low-latency remote monitoring of broadcast facilities. A useful recent addition to XPS is 5G capability (MAA10G-TRXS-5G).

This makes the product suitable for those who need to deliver remote contributions from places where IP connections are either unreliable or unavailable.

XPS Live Video Encoder/Decoder Series can be deployed to the edge to feed live video, audio and data to Reflektor, Evertz’ Softwareas-a-Service (SaaS) media transcoding and distribution platform. Offering comprehensive processing and transcoding directly in the cloud, Reflektor can manage the expanding number of signal formats (MPEG-TS, NDI, ST 2110, HLS, MPEG DASH, etc.) that are produced or required by traditional broadcasters. Reflektor uses licensed microservices in the cloud to normalise signal types to best suit the needs of the end user or final application, making it an ideal cloud solution

Zixi Moves Video from Protocol to Ecosystem

ZIXI, THE PROVIDER of scalable live broadcast-quality video over any IP network or protocol, and developer of the Software Defined Video Platform (SDVP), demonstrated next-generation live streaming features and functionality at NAB 2023.

Zixi demonstrated a broad range of new product updates and live video delivery performance running over the Zixi Enabled Network (ZEN) that consisted of over 1000 media companies and 400 technology partners globally exchanging live video, accelerating new content acquisition, business models, and opportunities to reduce cost and generate revenue.

As part of the exhibition, Zixi highlighted new and existing capabilities of the SDVP, including the scale and efficiency of Zixi Broadcaster v17 with improved processing capacity that required 80% less compute than other industry options, leading to cost reduction with up to 50% savings in egress cost for the same stream on other platforms. The support for deployments on ARM-based instances with savings on compute costs, reduced carbon footprint, and improved resource utilisation, and updated architecture yielded up to 200% throughput increase to 1Gbps per core.

Zixi’s partnership with AWS was also on display, including the integration of the SDVP in the AWS wavelength zone that allowed customers to harness the power of 5G and enable wide scale adoption of low latency 5G MEC architecture. The orchestration and monitoring of AWS Elemental MediaConnect and MediaLive channels utilising the ZEN Master

for UHD/4K field contribution, remote production, return feed monitoring, remote collaboration and cloud production.

XPS Series supports the latest patent-pending iTrak technology for multi camera synchronisation from multiple locations and is fully integrated with Reflektor. In addition, Evert has introduced the MIO-XPS module – a new encode/ decode tool for the SCORPION Flexible Media Processing Platform. MIO-XPS joins the catalogue of Miniature input and output modules (MIOs) that SCORPION leverages for signal routing and conversion – and now streaming.

For broadcasters who need multiviewing and monitoring solutions for their cloud-based workflow, Evertz also showed its latest generation multiviewers

that can combine multiple broadcast signal formats into a unified multi-image layout. The cVIP Evertz cloudbased multiviewer supports comprehensive monitoring of the IP payloads including video, audio, closed captions, subtitles and more. The fully virtualised cVIP allows customers to leverage public cloud providers to scale their multiview system, depending on the number of inputs and outputs required. cVIP allows monitoring and visualisation of native MPEG-, H.264, HEVC, NDI, JPEG-2000, JPEG XS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CDI, SRT, and RIST compression and transport formats and support for multiple unique mosaic outputs using NDI, JPEG XS or H.264/HEVC for an unmatched multi–image display.

Visit https://evertz.com/

AJA Dante AV 4K-T and 4K-R

control plane were demonstrated live in both the Zixi and AWS booths at the show. ZEN Master also supports the management of JPEG XS, CDI flows, Elemental Link devices, and is available in the AWS Marketplace for both public and private offer contracts.

Partners in the Zixi Partner Village included:

Ant Media (Ant Media), whose Ant Media Server (AMS) integrated Zixi to help gaming and broadcasters by providing adaptive, ultra-low latency streaming by using WebRTC for sub .5 seconds latency.

Evertz Microsystems (Evertz) – Zixi and Evertz users could leverage the natively integrated XPS Live Video Encoder Series, a real-time high quality and low latency video encoder and decoder module for live streaming, cloud-based, REMI / remote production, OTT, and on-demand applications including the MMA10G-TRXS-5G and MMA10G-TRXSHC standalone HEVC/H.264 encoder and decoders with ZEN Master support for orchestration and management.

Neutral Wireless demonstrated Zixi running over the innovative “Network-ina-Box,” a private network that allowed for high-resolution wireless cameras to be connected and deliver live ultra-lowlatency video feeds for production.

Streann (Streann Media) exhibited the Zixi-enabled OTT platform that empowered content providers with innovative creation, distribution, engagement, and monetisation tools.

Visit https://zixi.com/

AJA DANTE AV 4K is an IP video solution that brings cinema-quality, ultra-low latency video to a Dante audio network. Developed by Audinate, provider of audio networking solutions, Dante AV is one of the most powerful and flexible IP solutions available today. Featuring the Dante AV Ultra visually lossless JPEG 2000 codec quality video over a 1GigE network, AJA Dante 4K-T can encode and transmit via 12G-SDI or HDMI 2.0 input up to 4K60p 4:4:4 video with eight-channels of embedded audio and receive a Dante AV Ultra source for output to 12G-SDI or HDMI 2 with the AJA Dante 4K-R.

Dante networks are easy to manage and route signals exactly where they need to go. Using the cross platform (Windows, macOS) Audinate Dante Controller software, you can easily create unique signal flows with a mouse click. A key network infrastructure feature is the ability to transmit networked video, audio and power over one cable with POE+ support.

AJA Dante AV 4K can bring IP video to any kind of production. From a simple install of a single transmitter and receiver to a massive multi-stage concert venue, AJA Dante AV 4K-T and 4K-R can simplify getting high-quality, ultra-low latency video from sources to screens across great distances with minimal fuss.

Visit https://www.aja.com

CLASSIFIED + EVENTS

latest technologies and products to a diverse audience of sports organisations, broadcasters, and production companies. Exhibitors will have the chance to network with key decision-makers in the industry and showcase their products and services to a captive audience. We welcome exhibitors from all sectors of the sports, news, and live events industries, but space is limited!

For exhibitor enquiries, contact Adam Buick via adam@ broadcastpapers.com or call +61413007144.

Content Live Randwick Racecourse

Sydney, Australia

November 15-16, 2023

and Live Events Technology Conference and Exhibition that brings together the most innovative technologies and practitioners in sportscasting, newscasting, and live event production.

Content Live will be held over two days at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Australia, from November 15-16, 2023.

The conference and exhibition will feature keynote speakers, panel discussions, and hands-on demonstrations from industry leaders in sports, news, and live events technology.

Attendee Information:

The Content Live Conference and Exhibition is poised as the premier event for anyone working in the sports, news, or live events industries. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from industry experts, see the latest technologies and products, and network with peers from around the world. We’ll also be hosting a special charity event and a reception for the Content+Technology Awards.

Content+Technology Awards

In the lead up to Content Live industry publication

Content+Technology will be calling for entries in its first post-COVID Awards. Judged by a panel of industry experts, the C+T Awards will recognise excellence in content creation and delivery throughout the region.

Exhibitor Information

The exhibition floor at Content Live is the perfect opportunity for companies to showcase their

ADVERTISER INDEX

Visit https://contentlive.com.au

SIGGRAPH Asia 2023Connecting Stories in Sydney

SIGGRAPH Asia 2023, the 16th ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia Pacific, will take place this 12 – 15 December in ICC Sydney, Australia. The annual event, which rotates around the Asian region, attracts the most respected technical and creative people from all over the world who are excited by research, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, education and emerging technologies. Both a conference and a trade exhibition, SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 will allow you to see, meet, and interact with computer graphics and interactive techniques communities around the world. Witness the astounding advancements of computer graphics technologies, where stellar ideas blend with boundless artistry. If you have been longing to be enthralled in tangible illusion and be immersed in an affluence of innovation and ground-breaking technologies, this is the place to be.

With Australia and everywhere around the globe opening up, the event is expected to attract 8000 tech professionals in the Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques space.

Submit your best works and present them to thousands of SIGGRAPH Asia attendees from around the world. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to be

part of one of the most prestigious events in the industry. Explore the list of conference programs below that are open for submissions. Alongside the conference programs, we are also calling for the next-generation CG professionals to come forward and volunteer at the event. Be a part of SIGGRAPH Asia 2023, and gain exclusive event perks, insights, and career opportunities!

Event details:

SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 Sydney

12 – 15 December 2023

ICC Sydney, Australia

Visit https://asia.siggraph.org/2023/

IBC2023 Set to Drive Future Innovation

IBC2023 is now open for registration as the show looks to drive future innovation and empower people, energising the media and entertainment industry through collaboration, learning, networking and business development. IBC2023 will bring together the entire global M&E content and technology community at the RAI Amsterdam from September 15th to 18th, propelling transformation across the sector and sparking conversation about industry trends, advances, best practices, and diversity and inclusion.

Companies exhibiting at IBC have already booked over 40,000 square metres of exhibition space – up from the final figure of 37,000 sqm for last year’s show. All 13 halls are open in 2023, with Halls 3 and 4 reopened, and Halls 5 and 12 extended to their maximum capacity. Over 70 new exhibitors have booked space at the show so far, including global giant LG Electronics for the first time and a large number of other East and Southeast Asian firms – with bookings from China alone more than doubling, exceeding pre-pandemic 2019 figures. The result is a Chinese pavilion that will be twice the size as last year and a new South Korean pavilion.

The show will offer a complete content programme across its four days, featuring keynote and other high-profile speakers, panels, masterclasses, demonstrations and further presentations focused

on three content pillars: shifting business models, transformative technology, and people and purpose.

The expanded Hall 5 will host the dedicated Content Everywhere area where industry innovators will showcase emerging technologies for multiplatform delivery, overthe-top (OTT) streaming, and content monetisation – including a full schedule of presentations and panel sessions at the two show floor theatres located within the hall.

The Showcase Theatre in Hall 12 and the Innovation Stage in Hall 3 will feature premier technology providers and thought leaders addressing the latest industry developments. The Innovation Stage will also host demonstrations from the Accelerator Media Innovation Programme. Hall 3 will also be home to the Accelerator Zone.

IBC 2023 will also feature its twoday paid-for IBC Conference, which runs September 15th and 16th. This year’s IBC Conference will offer the usual standard Delegate Pass, which includes entrance to all the event’s presentations, and a new Premium Pass that provides access to additional content plus exclusive networking in the Premium Lounge. The free Visitor Pass will provide access to all show floor sessions, along with the returning Changemakers programme, taking place September 17th and 18th, which looks at industry developments from a human point of view.

Visit: https://show.ibc.org

Cover images

Dune - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2021 Legendary and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

F9 - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2021 Universal Studios

PIC - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2021 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

S2 - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2023 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

TARECO - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2022 Netflix

TLOU - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2023 Home Box Office, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TGH - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2022 Netflix HEART - Image Courtesy of DNEG © 2023 Netflix