Content+Technology Asia September 2013

PP: 255003/06831

ASIA VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 SEPTEMBER 2013

MEDIA + PRODUCTION + MANAGEMENT + DELIVERY

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REVIEW

A Toast to Post

Acquisition

ISSN 1448-9554

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Contact Magna Systems today on sales@magnasys.tv to arrange a meeting at IBC with one of our team.

www.magnasys.tv Contact your local Magna Systems & Engineering ofямБce today and see how we can provide you with the best products and solutions available.

Auckland +64 9520 1582

Hong Kong +852 2563 4453

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Jakarta +62 8181 43923

Singapore +65 6282 3613

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Email sales@magnasys.tv

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VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 SEPTEMBER 2013

Also see C+T in PDF at www.content-technology.com

Cover Story – GlobeCast Asia’s Ideal Facility

23 REGULARS 02 03

EDITOR’S WELCOME NEWS HP Powers Oriental DreamWorks, Sohonet’s New Service, StarHub HTTP Live Streaming

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CLASSIFIEDS AND EVENTS OFF-AIR TIME SHIFTER 10th Anniversary of Singapore Short Cuts

TAKING STOCK Techtel Consolidates AsiaPac Operations, Gencom Strengthens Focus with Broadcast One

21 FEATURES 14 19

IBC REVIEW Conference Review ACQUISITION Shooting with the Sony F55, Atomos Samurai Blade, Tripods and Tornadoes

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COVER STORY Ideal Systems Builds

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SPORTSCASTING Olympic Rights in Bulk,

GlobeCast Asia’s New Facility

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More I-MOVIX for CCTV, Glasgow 2014 Diaries Part 3

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NEWS OPERATIONS Broadcasters Going Mobile with TVU, Pakistan’s First HD News Station, AP User-Generated Video Platform

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POST-PRODUCTION Gatsby – A Toast to

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Scale Out Digital Storage

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RADIO Vietnam Hosts DAB+ Demonstrations, 2WCOM’s New Satellite Receivers

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AUDIO Draft Standard for Streaming Audio-Over-IP, 3D Audio Standard, Trilogy Appoints Danmon

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TRANSMISSION Taiwan Rolling Out World’s Biggest Short-Wave Upgrade, Biznet Launches Broadband TV

Post, Mistika 3D Finishing

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CONTENT+TECHNOLOGY: ISSN 1448-9554 PP:255003/06831 Broadcastpapers Pty Ltd (ABN: 34 095 653 277) PO Box 259, Darlinghurst, NSW 1300 Australia www.broadcastpapers.com PUBLISHER: Phil Sandberg Tel: +61-(0)2-9211 8205 Fax: +61-(0)2-9211 8208 Mob: +61-(0)414-671-811 papers@broadcastpapers.com

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SUB-EDITOR: Keith Ford PRODUCTION MANAGER: Lucy Salmon Tel: +61-(0)29211 8205 production@broadcastpapers.com DESIGN & LAYOUT: Wide Open Media Tel: +61-2-9690 2835 info@wideopenmedia.com.au PRINTING: DAI Rubicon, Singapore COPYRIGHT NOTICE: All material in Broadcastpapers’ Content+Technology Magazine is protected under

Australian Commonwealth Copyright Laws.

No material may be reproduced in part or whole in any manner without prior consent of the Publisher and/or copyright holder.

DISCLAIMER: Broadcastpapers Pty Ltd accepts no responsibility for omissions or mistakes made within, claims made or information provided by advertisers.

12/09/13 1:41 PM

EDITOR’S WELCOME

Over-the-Top – Friend, Not Foe?

By Phil Sandberg UP UNTIL RECENTLY, the discussion around OTT/IPTV technology has been framed in terms of its potential to disrupt and undermine the traditional business of broadcast, but what if its powers could be “harnessed for good, not evil”?

the traditional fixed cable/satellite installation, Foxtel Play offers customers access to content as soon as they sign up and enables them to subscribe by the month and pay as they go. Subscribers can stop and start their subscription month-to-month, to suit their circumstances or viewing choices.

After all, OTT is just another method of delivering content to those who want to consume it and there are plenty of examples of incumbent operators adopting disruptive technologies to further their own ends.

Foxtel Play subscribers will also have access to the Foxtel Go service, launched as a smartphone/tablet extension service for existing set-top box subscribers.

Providing a booster for channel owners looking to get a foothold in the region, GlobeCast recently announced the launch of an over-the top “Incubator Platform” for Asia designed to help new channels gain visibility and secure carriage agreements with Asian Pay TV platforms.

According to Richard Freudenstein, Foxtel Chief Executive, “Foxtel Play gives even more Australians who might not be able to access the core service the freedom and flexibility to enjoy Foxtel across multiple connected devices and at price points to suit different budgets and tastes.”

If you subscribe to the philosophy that 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing, Foxtel’s OTT strategy makes a lot of sense, especially as its traditional “fixed” installation take-up rate sits around 30% of households – high by global standards – and any further increase in this rate is likely to be incremental. If one compares the ROI in making these incremental gains with that of delivering content via OTT to paying subscribers not interested in the traditional set-top model, it’s a pretty compelling argument for co-opting disruptive technology. Visit foxtelplay.com.au

Available on iOS and Android tablets and smartphones, the OTT platform will eliminate the need for such broadcasters to make costly investments in regional playout and satellite distribution before gaining carriage agreements in Asia — an investment that is not sustainable for many niche mid-tier channels.

According to GlobeCast, broadcasters can get their live channels evaluated

by Asian Pay TV operators at a fraction of the cost, giving them a low-risk way to evaluate their prospects in Asia and secure regional carriage deals. Where GlobeCast hopes to benefit is by offering those who have successfully obtained carriage an upgrade in distribution to one of GlobeCast’s existing satellite platforms in Asia. GlobeCast runs satellite platforms on Measat 3a, Apstar 7, and AsiaSat 3S from its teleports in Hong Kong and from the brandnew teleport facility in Singapore.

This is a smart example of turning a potential threat (Internet carriage) into an asset for an existing business model (satellite delivery). Visit www.globecast.com Meanwhile, in Australia, the dominant pay TV provider, Foxtel, has launched a new OTT service under the brand of Foxtel Play.

Seemingly at odds with its core cable/satellite business, the new internet TV service will be delivered initially to compatible Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox 360 consoles, and PC and Mac computers. The service enables customers with a broadband connection to watch programs live or on catch-up with no lock-in contract and no installation costs.

Speaking of disruptive, our next issue marks the first birthday for C+T Asia edition. What began as a way for us to better reach a wider regional audience – printing and mailing from Singapore – has evolved into a true alternative, a publication with its own identity and focus – and one we readily admit is still evolving.

We’d like to thank all our supporters, both readers and advertisers, and look forward to providing you with even better service throughout our second year.

Thanks for reading Phil Sandberg Editor/Publisher papers@broadcastpapers.com T: +61-(0)2-9211 8205

In a move which not only addresses the growth in delivery platforms available, but also recognises that not all consumers are in a position to sign up for

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NEWS + PEOPLE For the latest news visit www.content-technology.com

Ericsson Advances HD Services for Thailand’s TrueVisions TRUEVISIONS, the largest satellite and cable TV provider in Thailand, has upgraded its existing video compression system with Ericsson, enabling it to offer more high-definition channels and greater quality of service to its subscribers.

Vichai Sernvongsat, CTO, TrueVisions, says, “We have a strong commitment to our viewers to deliver high-quality content from across Thailand and around the world. As part of that, we place a huge amount of importance on picture quality and overall experience. Our long-established partnership with Ericsson left us in no doubt that this upgrade to our existing system would provide the quality and reliability we need to provide more high-definition services to our subscribers.”

TrueVisions selected Ericsson’s VPC/ EN8100 MPEG -2 encoding lineup for the technology refresh and VPC/ EN8190 encoder lineup for the expansion of HD MPEG-4 AVC services, gaining more than six extra channels per transponder. Offering major advances in performance and bit-rate reductions, Ericsson’s compression solutions enable operators to reduce transmission OpEx, launch additional new services within existing transmission bandwidths, and to decrease running costs through reduced power and cooling requirements.

Visit www.ericsson.com

HP Powers Oriental DreamWorks HP HAS BEEN SELECTED as the official technology partner to Oriental DreamWorks, the joint venture between the China consortium led by China Media Capital (CMC) and Hollywood’s DreamWorks Animation.

Oriental DreamWorks says its mission is to provide unique and creative content by becoming a China-based family brand that regularly creates entertainment in China — for China, and for export to the rest of the world.

The company is based in Shanghai.

This announcement builds on a decade-long collaboration between HP and DreamWorks Animation SKG. HP solutions have been the technology backbone for the development of blockbuster films such as the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise, “Puss in Boots,” the “Shrek” series and “How to Train Your Dragon.” Oriental DreamWorks will partner with DreamWorks Animation for the upcoming “Kung Fu Panda 3” film.

As a part of this relationship, Oriental DreamWorks will leverage the broad portfolio of integrated solutions such as HP Converged Infrastructure comprising HP Moonshot servers, HP StoreAll 9700 and HP StoreServ 7000, HP’s public and private cloud, and HP networking solutions. These products will work together to power Oriental DreamWorks behind the scenes — from the data centre to the studio.

Oriental DreamWorks also will utilise the latest personal systems innovations from HP such as the HP ElitePad 900, HP Z1 and Z820 workstations, flow printers, and digitisation and print services.

Visit www.hp.com

NEWS + PEOPLE

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NEWS + PEOPLE

Sohonet Launches New Service in Singapore SOHONET, the specialist in connectivity and data management for the media and entertainment industry, has announced the availability of its Sohonet Media Network in Singapore, as part of a significant expansion program.

Sohonet will offer a range of local and international connectivity options including dedicated, private bandwidth between Singapore, Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London, as well infrastructure services like secure file transfer, production quality storage as a service, and high performance compute clusters. These services are provided through Sohonet’s simple to use community web portal, the Sohonet Hub, which ties infrastructure and service layers together.

Sohonet recently received their telecommunications license from the Info-Communications Development Authority of Singapore, making

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the Sohonet Media Network available to customers in Singapore immediately.

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After ten years with Sohonet in Australia and New Zealand, local Director for ANZ and Asia, David Edgar will be the driving force in deploying the Sohonet Media Network in Singapore.

Edgar said: “It has always been our plan to grow the network out from ANZ to Asia and then back to the UK to complete our global diversity and we are really excited about the opportunity to work with new customers in this region. Singapore is the ideal first step for Sohonet and a natural progression from Sydney.”

Contact David Edgar via +61 41 855 3738 or anzsales@sohonet.com.au Visit www.sohonet.com

StarHub Deploys HTTP Live Streaming with Broadpeak BROADPEAK, a leading provider of content delivery networks (CDN) and video-on-demand (VOD) servers for cable, IPTV, OTT, and hybrid TV operators worldwide, has announced that Singapore-based communications provider StarHub has deployed Broadpeak’s BkM100 Mediator content delivery network manager and BkS300 multiformat video streaming servers to power its live video services. Utilizing Broadpeak’s highly flexible and customizable CDN and video server solutions, StarHub can cost-effectively deliver live television content in a variety of adaptive streaming formats, including Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), providing end users with a superior quality of service.

“Broadpeak solutions now enable us to support HLS adaptive bitrate streaming ensuring, for the first time, that we can deliver high-quality video in this popular format to our customers,” said Lin Shu Fen, Head of Home Solutions, StarHub. “Broadpeak CDN management and streaming server solutions dramatically improve the quality of our live television services in addition to providing us with the flexibility to support additional

MRTV Myanmar Selects Grass Valley for SE Asian Games MRTV MYANMAR, Myanmar’s national broadcaster, has purchased

NEWS + PEOPLE

several Grass Valley solutions to broadcast live HD coverage of the 2013 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, which will be held in three cities across Myanmar during December 2013. Grass Valley designed and delivered two turnkey flight packs and a complete outdoor broadcast (OB) van to enable MRTV to deliver first-class coverage of the Games from multiple cities, marking the first ever HD live coverage in Myanmar.

Included in MRTV’s systems purchase are a range of Grass Valley solutions including 18 units of LDX Première software upgradable cameras and XCU eXchangeable Control Unit base stations — which will allow the broadcaster to easily move camera chains between systems, providing a highly mobile and cost-efficient scalable solution for live production. MRTV has also selected Grass Valley’s Kayak production switcher, Concerto routers, four K2 Dyno Replay Systems, and various other live production solutions. Grass Valley provided the complete design, on-site support, turnkey integration and user training.

Visit www.grassvalley.com.

applications like VOD without having to make costly changes to our global architecture.”

Designed to handle the growing demand for multiplatform content delivery, Broadpeak’s high-performance BkS300 servers streamline the delivery of video over managed or open Internet networks to a wide range of devices.

The highly efficient platform provides operators with a unified solution for video streaming in popular formats such as Microsoft® Silverlight Smooth Streaming and Apple HLS for both live and on-demand applications, enabling the provider to easily add VOD functionality when needed.

Broadpeak’s BkM100 CDN Manager streamlines content delivery based on the type of service and customer location. By continuously monitoring the popularity of content based on usage patterns, it automatically pushes popular content to the edge of the servers, while long-tail content remains on the larger central library, lowering StarHub’s storage use and operating expenses.

Visit www.broadpeak.tv.

Video Collaboration Powers Indonesian Battery TVC A TESTAMENT TO INTERNATIONAL WORKFLOW COLLABORATION, the latest animated campaign for ABC Alkaline batteries from Indonesian ad agency Chou Senko Such involved six companies across three continents, speaking three different languages.

The agency briefed Jakarta production house Square Box to develop an animated 45-second TVC with an ambitious creative brief – ‘Batteries literally come to life on and energetically jump, skip and dance on a computer keyboard before giving life to household appliances’.

Post-production was carried out by Blu Post Asia, also of Jakarta, while visual effects were completed by Mirage VFX (Sydney, Australia) and animation undertaken by Vanda Studio (Barcelona, Spain).

Enter Frankie, the video-sharing platform developed by Australian company Cospective that enables multiple parties around the world to collaborate in real time at various stages of post-production, seamlessly, clearly and irrespective of internet speeds. According to the developers, “showing, rather than explaining, eliminates ambiguity and overcomes potential language barriers”.

Frankie is offered on a monthly subscription basis, allowing users to activate it as needed for individual projects. Users can try Frankie for free, using a fully featured trial account, then later convert it to a paid subscription with all the same account details.

Visit www.cospective.com

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TVT Installs AmberFin iCR in Singapore, Sydney THIS YEAR’S BROADCASTASIA show saw AmberFin, a developer of file-based media ingest and transcoding solutions, announce a contract with international media facility, TVT. The project sees the company’s iCR software-based media ingest, transcode and quality control platform integrated within TVT’s file-based workflows at a new media facility in Sydney, Australia. The new facility is contributing to TVT’s successful APAC region new business drive, building on the success of its Singapore operation where AmberFin iCR already plays a central role in enabling efficient file-based media operations.

Established in 1994, TVT has seen considerable growth in its international operations over recent years, especially within the APAC region. In 2011 in Singapore, it established a file-based facility which can digitise, transcode, create rich metadata for content, edit, create subtitles and provide language, video restoration, VOD and OTT support services.

Fully operational by 1st June this year, TVT’s new Sydney facility has already secured major contracts to provide all media preparation services for the BBC and UKTV channels in Australia and New Zealand.

Once again, in Sydney, TVT is using the AmberFin iCR platform to enable all media ingest, transcode and QC operations.

Also at BroadcastAsia, AmberFin announced a sales and marketing agreement covering Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar with Danmon Asia.

Visit www.amberfin.com and www.danmonasia.com

Tvinci Powers Blink OTT Movie Service for the Philippines TVINCI HAS ANNOUNCED that its OTT 2.0 platform will power a new premium and personal over-the-top (OTT) TV service in the Philippines called ‘Blink’. Content will be provided by Deluxe OnDemand, and consist of Hollywood blockbusters and prime time TV series.

Launching in Q4 2013 with an extensive catalogue of Hollywood blockbusters, Blink packages will allow for unlimited access to the latest major studio releases on a subscription or a la carte model. The service will initially roll out in the Philippines, and already boasts a total of 500 movies, 2,000 hours of TV series and general entertainment channels from leading Hollywood studios. In addition, the service will have six live channels with full EPG support, and plans to launch more by the end of 2013.

“We have chosen to work with Tvinci and Deluxe OnDemand because of the confidence of the Hollywood studios in these partners and their track record in the digital media business,” said Ronan K Deguzman, COO of Omni and EVPresident of Solar Entertainment.

Tvinci’s OTT 2.0 platform also supports video on demand (VOD), subscription video on demand (SVOD) and pay-per-view (PPV) models that will allow Blink to expand by creating packages based on language and/or currencies across its international entertainment and sports content.

Blink will be deployed with a fast time to market by using Tvinci’s turnkey solution with front-end templates and support for multi-tenancy. This means that the service is positioned for rollout in the Philippines and across the region.

The service will be deployed across PCs, Macs and iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Tvinci’s support of multiple currencies, business models, dubbing and subtitles will future-proof Blink and the service’s expansion across other territories in Asia.

Visit www.tvinci.com

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NEWS + PEOPLE

ASIA NEWS CHINA SNELL HAS ANNOUNCED that China’s Jilin Television (JLTV) has installed Kahuna SD/HD multi-format production switchers in a brandnew 16-channel HD outside broadcasting (OB) van and in a new electronic field production (EFP) system. Supplied by systems integrator Beijing Xingguang Sanitec Science & Technology Co., Ltd., JLTV has complemented its new Kahuna systems with a Kudos Plus TBS800 SD/HD/3Gbps format converter.

Visit www.snellgroup.com

PAKISTAN THE NEW CENTAURUS CINEPLEX has opened its doors, outfitted with multiple high-lumen DCS Digital Cinema Solutions from Kinoton. High-end D-Cinema projection solutions have been installed in all five of its auditoriums. Throughout the multiplex, programs are controlled and managed by Kinoton’s Theater Management System (TMS).

All of the connected systems can also be remotely maintained and monitored via the Kinoton Remote System (KRS).

Visit www.kinoton.com

INDIA NETHERLAND-BASED Exset B.V. and Indian cable operator Darsh Cable have entered into an agreement, which will see the companies provide the Exset’s Digital Monetisation System (DMS) platform to Darsh Cable’s customer base. Exset B.V. will be responsible for providing DMS CAS and Middleware to Darsh Cable for its digital cable platform.

Visit www.exset.com and www.darshdigital.com

THAILAND SES HAS ANNOUNCED that Thailand’s IPMTV has broadened its partnership with SES. The broadcaster has contracted additional capacity on SES-8 and has renewed its multiyear capacity deal on NSS-6. SES-8 is expected to be launched later in 2013 and will be co-located with NSS-6 at the prime orbital location of 95 degrees East.

Visit www.ses.com

MALAYSIA

NEWS + PEOPLE

ON THE VERGE OF launching its nextgeneration satellite constellation, O3b Networks has announced a major long-term capacity deal, providing fibre equivalent capacity to Malaysian telecoms provider Maju Nusa. The multi-million dollar, multiyear deal, will allow Maju Nusa to deploy mobile data services significantly further into mobile operators’ networks, reaching rural communities in Malaysia where there is little or no access to broadband.

SINGAPORE

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INTERRA SYSTEMS, a leader in Content QC and Monitoring, has announced that Baton is delivering File-based QC at GlobeCast Asia. Baton is chosen for the quality check of content at multiple points within the production and transmission chain in GlobeCast Asia’s new digital broadcast facility at Mediapolis@one north in Singapore.

Visit www.interrasystems.com and www.globecast.com

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SES HAS ANNOUNCED a new multi-year, multi-transponder deal with one of its largest customers in the Philippines, MediaScape Inc, on SES-7 at 108.2 degrees East. The new capacity expansion will allow MediaScape, through Cignal Digital TV – its Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite television service provider – to further expand its services for the provision of DTH satellite TV in the Philippines.

Visit www.ses.com

INDONESIA VIACCESS-ORCA has announced that Indonesian satellite TV provider PT. Global Comm Nusantara (GCN) has selected its Smartcard Conditional Access System (CAS) to support an upcoming interactive satellitebased DTH service called “neotv.” Using Viaccess-Orca’s CAS, GCN will have the ability to deliver educational and cultural content to subscribers.

AUSTRALIA JULY 31 SAW DARWIN, the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory, become that country’s twelfth region to switch to digital-only free-to-air TV, when analogue TV signals were permanently switched off at 9 am. Sydney is next in line switching on 3 December 2013, Melbourne and Remote and Central Eastern Australia will follow on 10 December 2013, to complete the roll out.

Visit www.digitalready.gov.au

NEW ZEALAND XYTECH, a leader in facility management software for the broadcast and media services industries, announced that Avalon Studios has chosen the company’s Media Pulse Express solution to support its studio production operations. MediaPulse Express helps the busy studio manage its varied facilities, as well as staff, resources, and back office operations.

Visit www.xytechsystems.com

NEWS + PEOPLE

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New Technology Director for ABU DR AMAL PUNCHIHEWA has been appointed as Director for the Asia

the National Television Training Institute in Sri Lanka as CEO/Director.

Pacific Broadcasting Union.

In 2002, he joined the Institute of Information Sciences and Technology at Massey University in New Zealand where he was supervising research and teaching students in the fields of broadcast engineering, frequency spectrum management, broadcast network design and planning, satellites in broadcasting, as well as digital radio and TV broadcasting.

Dr Amal worked held the position of Engineer, Research & Planning, at the national TV broadcaster in Sri Lanka, then as a Senior Lecturer in the Facility of Engineering at the University of Moratuwa.

In 1997, he was seconded to the national TV broadcast in Sri Lanka to serve as Head of Engineering. From 1996 to 2002, he also spearheaded

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Gefen Expands Asian Team

Call to Form SMPTE SE-Asia

DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY SOLUTIONS PROVIDER, Gefen, has added

EVERY SINGLE DAY, the work of those in the production and broadcast

two industry veterans to its sales and support team in Asia overseeing and operating throughout the region. Philip Hay will cover Southeast Asia while Ashok Sharma will cover the countries of Sri Lanka, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

sectors is shaped by technical standards created by SMPTE - the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, an organisation whose work dates back to 1916.

Philip Hay brings more than ten years’ experience working in the professional audio/video market. Hay will be based in Singapore and focused on local countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and other areas.

Motivated by a group of locally-based industry champions, the Society has recognised the need for a non-commercial, industry standards and knowledge-based organisation to have an active presence in South-East Asia - recognised as one of the pivotal centres for broadcast and content production in the Asia-Pacific.

Ashok Sharma has a vast knowledge of simulation and control room applications, which will be invaluable in expanding project-based sales in the region. He will be based in Mumbai and will focus on working with local partners to promote Gefen products in the region.

SMPTE is exploring the idea of starting a Section so it might offer educational and professional development activities, including technical presentations at regular seminars, sponsorship of awards and scholarships for students in the motion imaging disciplines.

Led by Rod Sommerich, Far East and Pacific Rim regional sales director, the team will provide direct support to resellers and distributors and assist them with sales and support of their customers.

For a Section to be formed, a minimum of 50 members is needed for Society recognition. Existing members or those interested in joining are encouraged to register their interest.

Visit www.gefen.com

Please email Adrian Smith at smpte@outlook.com

Asia Appointments for Pebble Beach

Dalet Appoints Country Managers

PEBBLE BEACH SYSTEMS, the broadcast automation, channel in a

DALET DIGITAL MEDIA SYSTEMS has appointed Jae Sun Ryu as Country Manager, Dalet-Korea and Vitalis Noble Martin as Country Manager, Dalet-India & Sri Lanka.

box, and integrated channel technology provider, has made two key regional appointments.

NEWS + PEOPLE

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Iain Wood joins the company as Regional Sales Manager – India. Having held a number of senior sales positions in the broadcast sector, Iain has an in-depth knowledge of automation and play-out technologies, and extensive experience of addressing the needs of the Indian broadcast community. The company has also strengthened its presence in APAC, with the appointment of Stuart Wood (no relation to Iain) to provide local support to customers from the company’s Singapore office.

Ryu, a seasoned industry professional with expertise in key account management, sales and support roles, leads the local Dalet team from the company’s new office in Seoul.

Visit www.pebble.tv

Visit www.dalet.com.

Noble, an India-based technology veteran with a proven track record in broadcast sales and project management, leads Dalet’s customer initiatives in both India and Sri Lanka. His prior experience includes similar roles with KIT Digital and Shaf Broadcast.

Cobham Appoints Gilks for Asia Pacific

Digital Vision Appoints Beard to APAC Sales

RF SPECIALIST COMPANY COBHAM has added broadcast technology sales and support to its Singapore office with the appointment of Sue Gilks as Broadcast Sales Manager, Asia-Pacific. Gilks will provide a direct sales, service and support connection for Cobham customers in the region.

DIGITAL VISION HAS APPOINTED Brian Beard to the role of Head of Sales, Asia Pacific. He will be responsible for expanding Digital Vision’s distribution network and developing sales opportunities in the region.

Gilks has been a senior manager for a number of world-leading technology companies in the international broadcast market for more than 25 years.

With Cobham, Gilks will be responsible for sales throughout Asia Pacific, including Australia and China, as well as support for Cobham’s existing VAR network in India and throughout Southeast Asia.

Brian brings a wealth of real-world film making experience and DI workflow expertise to the role. He joins Digital Vision from Runway Inc., a leading rental house where his role as Workflow Specialist included developing the company’s Dailies and DI pipelines in 2D and 3D, as well as building custom Colour/Conform suites and workflows for TV and feature film projects.

Visit www.cobham.com

Visit www.digitalvision.sev

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Briefs THE HONG KONG Communications Authority has approved an application by Sun Television Cybernetworks Enterprise Limited for renewal of its non-domestic television programme service licence for 12 years, from 8 November 2013 to 7 November 2025. Sun TV was founded in Hong Kong in 2000 and broadcasts a 24-hour Chinese satellite channel carrying history, culture, finance, current affairs programs, and documentaries.

VISIONARY SOLUTIONS, INC. (VSI) has appointed Asia Media Products (AMP) as its new manufacturing representative for the Asia-Pacific region. AMP will offer the complete range of Visionary Solutions’ IPTV and Internet encoding products to customers, improving the company’s global visibility and sales efforts.

GRASS VALLEY HAS PRESENTED two of its Asia-Pacific resellers Platinum Awards to celebrate their achievements in supporting the company’s extensive partner network throughout the region. Both PL International and Strong Brothers 1961 were presented with their awards at BroadcastAsia2013, held in Singapore.

Visit www.vsicam.com and www.asiamediaproducts.com

PL International began its partnership with Grass Valley this year and has already exceeded its targets. The company is also being recognised for breaking into the emerging market of Myanmar.

MYANMAR HAS GRANTED licenses to

Strong Brothers 1961 is Grass Valley’s key reseller in Thailand, having been a partner for 15 years, exceeding its targets with consistent sales in products and services for OB vans - particularly cameras and switchers. Visit www.grassvalley.com

Visit www.coms-auth.hk

ORAD HI-TEC SYSTEMS has announced that a leading, unnamed, Asia Pacific TV network has selected it to provide graphics and sports production solutions for a new regional network.

The deal is said to be valued at over US$600K.

Norway’s Telenor and Qatar’s Ooredoo to build and operate the country’s first foreign-owned mobile phone networks. Telenor says it will build a state-of-the-art mobile network using HSPA and LTE-ready technologies.

The enterprise production infrastructure will feature Orad’s TD Control studio production automation solution, CyberGraphics augmented reality with infrared Xync tracking, and ProSet virtual studio. The deal also includes Orad PlayMaker sports replay server and the MVP sports solution for live game analysis.

Qatar-based Ooredoo, meanwhile, is a majority shareholder in Indosat, an active investor in Starhub, and also an investor in LTC. The company also operates wi-tribe, a broadband network provider with operations in Pakistan and the Philippines.

Visit www.orad.tv

Visit www.ooredoo.com and www.telenor.com

CIVOLUTION, the provider of technology and solutions for media protection, media interaction and media intelligence, has announced a move to new Asia-Pacific offices. The new address and contact details are: Unit 505, 5F, Tesbury Centre, 28 Queen’s Road East, Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Tel: +852 3527 0977. Fax: +31 40 4100 299.

Visit www.civolution.com

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TAKING STOCK Moves in the business of content + technology

www.content-technology.com/mediabusiness

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company Broadcast ONE acquire the shares of all companies in the Gencom Technology Group.

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Gencom’s distribution/SI operations include offices in Auckland, Sydney, Singapore, and Johannesburg while Broadcast ONE is headquartered in Sydney and operates an office in Manila.

C+T asked outgoing Gencom CEO Ray Sanders about the company’s new relationship as part of the Broadcast ONE family.

According to Sanders, “At Gencom, we were getting to a point where some of the shareholders were looking at an exit strategy and for us to do that properly we wanted to do it as a whole shareholding team. So we looked for somebody to purchase us but we wanted it to be in a way that we could retain the company culture, we could retain the branding and the credibility that we’ve built up over the years without being perhaps swallowed by another corporation and without people feeling that they didn’t have the same company culture.

“So, for us, it was important — and, in looking at that, to do it with Broadcast ONE and their CEO Darren Kirsop-Frearson, made sense because the new company culture is similar to ours. We’re able to be ‘lean and mean’ and move quickly on things rather than get bogged down in a lot of bureaucracy.

“Going forward, each of the companies in the group will retain their own identities, their own structure and branding and everything else.

We’ll apply new initiatives to some areas, but it’s business as usual with a new thrust that provides Broadcast One with Synergies — because, they being more of a transmission company and us being more of an everything-up-to-that-point company, means that we can do whole turnkey solutions and do it across the whole region.”

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Broadcast ONE/Gencom VP of Business Development, Ray Sanders.

retirement, Sanders is embracing a new role in the expanded Broadcast ONE/Gencom organisation.

“A lot of people have said, ‘Oh you must be retiring’, but it’s quite the opposite,” he says. “I’ve spent a lot of time in this industry and I want to stay engaged and, from that standpoint, I’m going to continue working with Gencom and Broadcast One, and my new title is VP Business Development.

“It encompasses many things: strategy, company strategy, partner relationships, major projects and special projects, marketing and branding - those sorts of aspects in support of each of the companies across the group and in conjunction with Darren.”

This role will be especially brought to bear on leveraging the expanded geographical footprint of the new Broadcast ONE/Gencom Group.

TAKING STOCK

According to Managing Director of the restructured Techtel Group, David Elsmore, “It gives us the ability to share a knowledge base, share resources, and present a more solid solution, particularly to the South-East Asian market. We’ve also got the ability to draw on resources in Singapore that might add value to what we’re doing elsewhere.

David Elsmore, MD, Techtel Group.

ROSS VIDEO HAS ANNOUNCED the acquisition of Montalto, a research and development company established by former Harris/Leitch staff, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA. The Ross Virginia team will take responsibility for advancing the Ross routing systems line, as well as contributing technology and products to Ross’ openGear product portfolio.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to join such a engaged leadership team who have developed a culture of innovation and ‘can-do’ attitudes where customer focus and market leadership are core to the company’s values,” said Mark Sizemore, Managing Director, Montalto and now Director of Routing Soutions, Ross Video. “It’s been a dream of the Montalto team to get back to our core passion, and we’re able to do that again with Ross.”

“We’ve got a headcount of five in Singapore but we’re looking to expand that. We’re looking to expand our regional operations, to maybe push a little bit further East out of the Singapore operation. We’ve got a good product set there, but we’re looking also looking to get more involved in systems work.”

“Ross Video is thrilled to add the Montalto team to our Infrastructure group – they are a great group of guys and fit right in with our culture,” commented David Ross, CEO, Ross Video.

Visit www.techtel.com.sg

Visit www.rossvideo.com

As a result of the acquisition, Ross has opened a development lab in Virginia Beach as a base of operation for routing systems development. This new location creates a third R&D component in the USA, adding to development labs in Boston and California. Ross Video also has R&D facilities in Ottawa, Canada; Brussels, Belgium; Hilversum, The Netherlands; and Melbourne, Australia.

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Visit www.gencom.com and www.broadcastone.com.au

Techtel Poised for Regional Expansion Ross Integrates Former Harris/Leitch R&D Team DISTRIBUTION AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION company Techtel is poised for regional expansion following closer integration of operations in Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. The move comes after the retirement of Techtel founder Ray Holland who had been guiding operations in SouthEast Asia.

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Qvest Media Establishes New Location in Singapore QVEST MEDIA, PART of the German Wellen+Noethen Group, is further expanding its international business with the establishment of Qvest Media Singapore which, the company says, will give it a strong position in the South-East Asian market. Its business units include Consulting & Development, Systems Integration and Technology Support Services with which the company specifically addresses the broadcast, media and telecommunications sectors.

In addition to Singapore and Malaysia, Qvest Media says the new location is also in good proximity to such markets as Australia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

In terms of its portfolio of services, the company says it will first focus on its Consulting & Development (C&D), Systems Integration (SI) and Technology Support Services (TSS) business divisions. At the same time, the company does not rule out the possibility of the Group’s product sales and rental businesses also supplying the region.

“Initial talks with German and European manufacturers are already taking place to discuss our taking over local representation for them. Our focus clearly lies on cooperation with providers of innovative software and hardware solutions for broadcast IT applications,” says Peter Noethen, coowner of the Wellen+Noethen Group.

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Noethen also sees business potential for turn-key solutions in the rental business, for example those required for major events and sports coverage.

“For decades we have been among the preferred suppliers for numerous global sporting events, such as the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

We possess an extremely high level of competence for finding solutions for the technical, organisational and logistical implementation of such projects and in the mid-term we are also planning to offer these services in the region,” Noethen adds.

Noethen says the company’s other locations demonstrate how the five business divisions of its service spectrum can be combined intelligently to generate high synergy potential for the Group.

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“Between our core businesses and our locations we greatly profit from the synergies of technical, administrative, personnel-related and management factors, which we will once again expand through our new branch office

Nielsen Draws Link Between Twitter, TV Viewing RESEARCH COMPANY NIELSEN has released findings, which it

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says, for the first time, provide statistical evidence of a two-way causal influence between broadcast TV tune-in for a program and the Twitter conversation around that program.

Nielsen’s Twitter Causation Study included time series analysis to determine if Twitter activity drives increased tune-in rates for broadcast TV and if broadcast TV tune-in leads to increased Twitter activity. This latest study follows research released earlier this year that quantified the correlation between TV ratings and Twitter.

Analyzing minute-to-minute trends in Nielsen’s Live TV Ratings and Tweets for 221 broadcast primetime program episodes using Nielsen’s SocialGuide, the findings show that Live TV ratings had a statistically significant impact in related Tweets among 48 percent of the episodes sampled, and that the volume of Tweets caused statistically significant changes in Live TV Ratings among 29 percent of the episodes.

The time series analysis methodology used for this study was developed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Clive Granger, and is widely used in the fields of econometrics, physics, and neuroscience, among others.

Visit www.nielsen.com

in Singapore,“ explains Noethen. “Another very important success factor was facing technological changes in our market very early on. Since then, we have been investing heavily and continuously in personnel know-how in the areas of technology management and broadcast IT (BIT).

For this reason, we are today one of the leading providers for realization of technology projects in the BIT sector, with the know-how as well as the resources for supporting our clients, even on the biggest infrastructure projects, along the entire value-added chain.”

Peter Noethen, co-owner of the Wellen+Noethen Group

Noethen says these factors will help Qvest Media to also be successful in Singapore, and he has ambitious goals.

“From the project business we expect revenues of approx. 20 to 30 million US$ over the first two years.”

The focus of the Singapore location will be on on organic growth, as opposed to acquisitions. In the 100%-owned new branch office, the core team will contain experienced specialists from the Group, who will successively develop business in the region in their capacity as Business Development Team. Stephan Koelsch has been named head of the Business Development Team in Singapore. Koelsch successfully developed the Qvest Media location in Dubai, first in his position as Business Development Manager and later as General Manager.

Visit www.wellen-noethen.com

Ofcom Publishes 10th Annual Communications Market Report UK REGULATOR OFCOM HAS published its annual Communications Market Report into the UK’s TV, radio, broadband, telecoms and postal industries. This year’s report shows that people are still coming together to watch TV in the living room – 91% of all viewing is on the main TV set up from 88% in 2002; however more than half (53%) of UK adults regularly multi-task using other media while watching TV. A quarter of adults (25%) also regularly interact with or communicate about TV shows while watching TV. Additionally, half of adults (51%) now own a smartphone and a quarter of households (24%) owns a tablet computer.

James Thickett, Ofcom’s Director of Research, said: “ Our research shows that increasingly families are gathering in the living room to watch TV just as they were in the 1950s – but now delivered on bigger, wider and more sophisticated sets. Unlike the 1950s family, however, they are also doing their own thing. They are tweeting about a TV show, surfing the net or watching different content altogether on a tablet.

“Just a few years ago, we would be talking about last night’s TV at work or at school. Now, we’re having those conversations live while watching TV – using social media, text and instant messaging.”

According to the report, the huge growth in take-up of smartphones and tablets is turning the UK into a nation of media multi-taskers, transforming the traditional living room of their parents and grandparents into a digital media hub.

Visit www.ofcom.org.uk

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TAKING STOCK

Ericsson to Acquire Red Bee Media ERICSSON (NASDAQ:ERIC) has announced its intention to acquire Red Bee Media, the media services company headquartered in the UK, from an entity controlled by Macquarie Advanced Investment Partners, L.P. The acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, supports Ericsson’s strategy to grow in the broadcast services market and takes advantage of its technology and services leadership to help broadcasters and content owners address the convergence of video and mobility. It will bring 1500 highly-skilled employees, as well as media services and operations facilities in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Australia. This will further strengthen Ericsson’s broadcast services business, which was started in 2007 and expanded in 2012 with the acquisition of Technicolor’s Broadcast Services Division.

With 1,240 of Red Bee Media employees being based in the UK, Ericsson’s UK business would grow to around 4,000 employees and, with more than one-third working in the media services business, the UK will become a global media hub for Ericsson.

Since its foundation in 2005, Red Bee Media has established itself as a strong and diverse business with a growing number of customers around the world. It provides a range of media services; from media asset management to playout and digital video publishing, metadata services, multilingual

Sinclair to Buy Assets of Dielectric SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP, INC. (NASDAQ: SBGI) has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the assets of Dielectric from SPX Corporation, for an immaterial and leverage neutral purchase price. Dielectric is the USA’s largest manufacturer of broadcast television, radio and wireless antennas, transmission lines, and RF systems.

TAKING STOCK

Commenting on the transaction, David Smith, President and CEO of Sinclair, stated, “Dielectric has supplied more than two-thirds of the TV industry’s high power antennas and its name is synonymous with expert engineering and quality products. We feel fortunate to have this opportunity to acquire the Dielectric intellectual property and assets related to our most critical infrastructure.”

Dielectric will be operated as a whollyowned subsidiary of Sinclair (Dielectric, LLC) with a management and operational team drawn from current Dielectric staff.

Visit www.sbgi.net.

access services and creative services to major broadcasters and broadband platforms.

Red Bee Media, which is known for its high quality playout services and is also the largest editorial metadata provider in Europe, delivers more than 100,000 hours of subtitling per year for leading broadcasters.

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“Ericsson is making a step change to our business, cementing our commitment to TV and broadcast services and continuing a journey we started in 2007,” says Magnus Mandersson, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Unit Global Services, Ericsson. “We can create value for broadcasters by making digital content more accessible, enabling monetisation of TV content more efficiently. Video traffic shows very strong uptake in the mobile networks and Ericsson can address the need of both broadcasters and telecom operators through our technology expertise and services capabilities.”

The closing of the acquisition is subject to approval from relevant regulatory authorities and other contractual conditions.

After completion, Red Bee Media will be incorporated into Ericsson’s Business Unit Global Services.

Visit http://www.redbeemedia.com and www.ericsson.com

Out-of-Home Buoyant with Half-Yearly Growth ACCORDING TO THE OUTDOOR MEDIA Association (OMA), Australia’s Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising industry is moving from strength to strength, recording 5.2% growth in the second quarter for 2013, with an increase in sales revenue to AUD$126.5 million.

Year to date revenue has increased by 4%, tracking at $248.7 million, up from $239 million for the same time last year.

“The OOH industry continues to remain at the competitive forefront of today’s changing media landscape by understanding its audiences, embracing technology, being a responsible community player, and showcasing the medium’s unlimited creative potential,” said Charmaine Moldrich, CEO of the OMA. Category figures for 2013 include: Roadside Billboards: $39.8 million (Q2), $82.5 million (Year-to-Date June 2013); Roadside Other: $45.1 million (Q2), $89.4 million (YTD); Transport (including airports): $21.1 million (Q2), $40.7 million (YTD); and Retail: $20.5 million (Q2), $36.1 million (YTD).

Visit www.oma.org.au

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Hb “Ericsson is making a step change to our business” - Magnus Mandersson, EVP and Head of Business Unit Global Services, Ericsson.

Calls to Restore ERT in Greece THE DISPUTE OVER the cost-saving closure of Greek public broadcaster ERT by the Greek Government has cast doubt over the network’s entire operations.

After the Greek Government took ERT off air on 11 June, the country’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, ordered the return to air of public service broadcasting as soon as possible. Fifty public service media (PSM) leaders in 39 countries rallied behind the broadcaster by signing an EBU-led statement calling for the station to be restored to air immediately.

This was followed by a declaration at the 70th EBU General Assembly in Malta expressing grave concern with the continued “black screens” and silence of Greece’s public broadcaster.

According to the declaration, “The EBU membership welcomes the court’s interim ruling, which reaffirms the pivotal role of public service media in democratic society.

Yet the Greek Government still has not succeeded in restoring services, and ERT channels remain black and silent.”

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TECHNICAL STANDARDS www.content-technology.com/standards

Intelsat, Ericsson Demonstrate 4K Via Satellite INTELSAT S.A. AND ERICSSON have announced the successful demonstration of a true 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD), end-to-end video transmission over satellite to Turner Broadcasting’s facilities in Atlanta, Ga. This was the first transmission of a UHD signal over satellite in North America, and the two companies say the demonstration proves that the satellite delivery chain can accommodate the next-generation signals as soon as broadcasters are ready to offer them.

During the demonstration, Intelsat’s Galaxy 13 satellite delivered a 4:2:2 10-bit, 4K UHD signal at 60 frames per second. The 100 Mbps video feed was encoded and decoded in real time by Ericsson, using its AVP 2000 contribution encoders and RX8200 receivers, capable of 4K UHD operations as well as HD and SD contribution at the highest quality.

Newtec provided the modulation and demodulation hardware, featuring Clean Channel Technology, and the satellite downlink antenna was provided by Turner Broadcasting.

An earlier test between Newtec and satellite transmission provider PSSI Global Services, which was conducted in preparation for the UHD

demonstration, achieved 140 Mbps over a 36 MHz transponder on Galaxy 13 to a 4.6-metre antenna.

“4K UHD is the next evolutionary step for television broadcasting, and just as Intelsat supported the smooth transition from SD to HD, so too will we be ready to support the transition to full-time distribution in this new format,” said Peter Ostapiuk, Intelsat’s vice president of media product management.

“We are tremendously pleased with the outcome of today’s demonstration,” said Giles Wilson, head of TV compression business, Ericsson. “It shows what is feasible in terms of meeting consumer demand for the highest quality possible. Demonstrations such as this show operators that it is possible to start building the necessary ecosystem and a library of UHD TV content now as the industry readies itself for the rollout of commercial services in the coming years. Ericsson has always been a pioneer of next-generation compression systems, and we are pleased to have worked with Intelsat to lead the way for UHD TV over satellite.”

Visit www.ericsson.com and www.intelsat.com

HbbTV Consortium Ramps up Worldwide Activity THE HBBTV CONSORTIUM, a pan-European initiative dedicated to providing an open standard for the delivery of broadcast and broadband services through connected TVs and set-top boxes, is launching a strategic marketing campaign aimed at increasing global acceptance of the HbbTV standard. As newly appointed co-chairs of the consortium’s marketing group, industry experts Kirk Edwardson and Régis Saint Girons will work with the HbbTV membership to increase market awareness of HbbTV and accelerate the worldwide deployment of the standard.

The HbbTV consortium was formally established in 2010 and is made up of more than 60 TV broadcasters and consumer electronics companies. The HbbTV standard provides the industry with an open and business-neutral

technology platform that combines TV services delivered via broadcast with services delivered via broadband, in addition to enabling access to Internetonly services on connected TVs and set-top boxes.

The standard is already deployed in various European countries including Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Turkey, and a large majority of all connected TV sets sold in Western Europe implements the HbbTV standard. Future HbbTV deployments have also been announced in Europe, Australia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The HbbTV standard is also rapidly gaining additional supporters all around the world including the Americas and Asia.

Visit www.hbbtv.org

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THE IEEE BROADCAST TECHNOLOGY SOCIETY (BTS) is taking advantage of social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to better reach the global broadcast technology community, including its members. IEEE BTS will use these networking platforms for instant, effective communications with those active in the broadcast technology space and to disseminate information about its programs and educational activities in a timely manner.

The IEEE BTS has about 2000 members and chapters worldwide, offering timely, quality education through a variety of engaging technical

publications, local chapter meetings, workshops, and international conferences. The social networking platforms will serve to complement the mission of the BTS, allowing for the creation of a close-knit virtual community to foster technological innovation and excellence.

Link to Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/IEEEBTSociety Link to Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/IEEEBTSociety Link to LinkedIn page: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/IEEE-BroadcastTechnology-Society-IEEE-4937489 Additional information about the IEEE BTS and its activities is available at http://bts.ieee.org/.

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IBC 2013 REVIEW

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Director Sir Peter Jackson Honoured by IBC

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THE IBC 2013 International Honour for Excellence, the highest award

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IBC bestows, will go to New Zealand film director Sir Peter Jackson. He is currently completing the second part of The Hobbit Trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug.

engagingly. For The Hobbit he has adopted high frame rate production and presentation to make the 3D more engaging and immersive.

Of his continual quest, he said, “I set my team these challenges, but I know the real discussions between them and their key suppliers start at IBC.”

The IBC International Honour for Excellence is presented each year to an outstanding individual or organisation which has fostered, contributed to or built upon the relationship between technology and creativity. Recent recipients have included the Science and Technology Research Laboratories of Japanese national broadcaster, NHK, and Sir David Attenborough.

“I am particularly delighted to accept the IBC International Honour for Excellence, because those conversations which happen every year at IBC are critical to the future of our industry,” he continued. “Thank you, IBC, for this award, and long may you be the place where story-tellers and technologists can meet.”

The award is in the gift of the IBC Council. Chairman Peter Owen said, “In the world of the cinema, few directors have pushed the technology barrier harder or farther than Sir Peter.”

Also making the shortlist for the IBC Innovation Awards was Park Road Post Production, along with SGO Mistika, for the world’s first HFR 3D post on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

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His life was changed at the age of nine when he first saw the 1933 movie King Kong and vowed to remake it. He set about learning the skills of movie-making and effects, always pushing himself on to ever-more elaborate effects.

SGO’s Mistika was selected as the core platform for all HFR-3D media, and an extraordinary relationship developed – extending the toolset so that the Mistika is at the very heart of a complete workflow from camera through editorial to final deliverables.

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This immense project has created a new technical and aesthetic standard. HFR3D is now available to film-makers and audiences worldwide, and is arguably one of the most significant developments in the last 80 years of cinema.

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Jackson’s movies have now won 20 Oscars, four Golden Globes, and 14 BAFTAs, among many other awards. As well as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and his current project, The Hobbit Trilogy, in 2005 he achieved his ambition of remaking King Kong, a movie which contributed three of the Oscars.

He continually drives technology forward to help him tell stories more

Visit www.ibc.org/awards

Nationwide SDN for Uncompressed HDTV in Japan JAPAN COMMERCIAL BROADCASTERS ASSOCIATION (JBA) and technical partners NTT Communications, Fujitsu, and Juniper Networks, are nominated for an IBC award in the content delivery category. This successful project, led by NTT Communications, demonstrates both close collaboration and application of patent-pending innovative technologies.

Switching (MPLS) technologies. This enables the newly-developed video interfaces in TV stations, which connect to the transmission network edges, to consolidate all the service functions - such as flexible circuit reservation, dynamic network-path setup and hitless protection – into fast, standard Internet Protocol (IP) implementations.

The JBA was seeking a solution to construct a cost-effective, highlyreliable, highly-stable, easy-to-use, uncompressed, digital, terrestrial HDTV network on a nationwide scale.

In addition to pre-planned circuit reservations, users can flexibly contribute/distribute video content in a timescale of seconds, providing virtually instant demand service using easy one-click access.

The solution was engineered with state-of-the-art Multi-Protocol Label

Visit www.j-ba.or.jp

FOX SPORTS Australia, GlobeCam Finalists for IBC Award AUSTRALIAN SPORTS BROADCASTER, FOX SPORTS, and GlobeCam, a GlobeCast Australia live, point of view camera technology, have been jointly shortlisted for the Content Creation category of the IBC Awards. GlobeCam is a lightweight and compact camera worn by sportspeople, umpires and referees to place viewers in the middle of the action.

IBC 2013 REVIEW

In a world first, viewers experienced what it was like having 145km per/ hour thunderbolts bowled directly at them as GlobeCam transmitted live HD vision from cricketing batsman Shane Watson during last season’s KFC T20 Big Bash League coverage on FOX SPORTS. FOX SPORTS, via its production team headed by Gary Burns and Innovation team headed by Todd Proctor, commissioned GlobeCast Australia to develop Helmet Cam in 2012.

GlobeCam uses low latency digital link technology in various forms to suit the application. From short-range, low-powered miniature links to the more traditional 2GHz microwave link technology, GlobeCam pictures

are transmitted Live and in HD directly from the field-of-play. A diversity antennae and receiver system located on the camera deck within the grandstand receives and decodes the pictures for integration with the Outside Broadcast production.

Todd Proctor said, “We really do pride ourselves on breaking new ground in sports coverage and we are thrilled to be acknowledged with this nomination for broadcast innovation. Providing greater entertainment to our viewers is the ultimate objective and “helmet cam” achieved that by bringing them closer to the game with a live camera angle never seen before.”

Simon Farnsworth, CEO of GlobeCast Australia, said, “We are extremely honoured that GlobeCam has been recognised internationally with this nomination. In tandem with our partner FOX SPORTS, we are committed to providing viewers with exciting vision through our cutting edge camera and broadcast delivery technology.”

Visit www.foxsports.com.au and www.globecast.com.au

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IBC 2013 REVIEW

Thomson Showcases Multi-Platform and HEVC AT IBC 2013, Thomson Video Networks has demonstrated several innovations that enhance the viewer experience while maximising available bandwidth and video quality.

Thomson also showcased an HEVC playout system, powered by its own HEVC technology, which enables broadcasters to trial and demonstrate Ultra-HD content on their networks.

The company showed off its versatile ViBE EM4000 eight-channel SD/HD premium encoder that enables broadcasting in a single 1RU chassis. As a complete DVB-S2, QAM, or DVB-T2 compression system for HD live content, the ViBE EM4000 is the highest-density premium encoding solution in the industry.

Also on display was a solution for HbbTV1.5/MPEG-DASH streaming that harmonises the delivery of broadcast and broadband services. This

solution relies on both the ViBE EM4000 and ViBE VS7000 multiscreen video platforms as well as Thomson’s Flextream 2.0 statistical multiplexing technology.

Thomson showcased both real-time and offline HEVC encoding on the ViBE VS7000 platform for multi-screen and OTT applications, using MPEG-Dash packaging to tablets, smart phones, and connected TVs. Visit www.thomson-networks.com

Softron’s New Smart Playout Engine AT IBC 2013, SOFTRON released their playout solutions OnTheAir Video

the internet for WebTV – or both simultaneously.

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and OnTheAir Node with the totally new Smart Playout Engine – seen for the first time in Europe. They also announced the next big evolution of MovieRecorder with the Smart Record Engine.

Softron featured a technology demonstration of the upcoming MovieRecorder 3 incorporating a new Smart Record Engine, featuring a new interface design, support for all major codecs, and other features.

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The new Smart Playout Engine provides greater power and flexibility at the core of Softron’s applications. Outputting all major codecs including i-Frame, long-GOP, H.264, MPEG2, and XDCAM HD in both QuickTime and MXF containers, the engine dynamically overlays graphics and CG over the video output. Intelligent resizing allows formats to be mixed and matched, and playout can be directed to a video card (in RGB or YUV) or streamed directly to

OnTheAir Manager offers single or multichannel playout reliability on the MacOS platform. Taking broadcast scheduling to a new level by offering a calendar-like interface coupled with an advanced playlist editor, OnTheAir Manager features media validation, clip and event attributes, hierarchical playlists, built-in switcher support, EAS, EPG, and CG.

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Visit www.softron.tv

TMD Focussing on Mediaflex CI TMD HAS USED IBC 2013 to focus on the way that its Mediaflex platform offers a new, hands-on approach to developing workflows, not least to support the rapidly evolving multi-platform distribution environment in which content has to be prepared in a number of formats, resolutions, and wrappers.

Previously the realm of only the largest enterprises, Mediaflex CI (Content Intelligence) provides the ability to design workflows and use business analytics to derive valuable information. More than just automating processes, the use of analytics means that the system itself can make intelligent decisions based on business rules developed by the organisation, delivering huge productivity benefits.

Mediaflex CI is at the heart of FAST, the enterprise-wide file-based infrastructure now implemented at Irish national broadcaster RTÉ, and is ready to transform service-oriented broadcast architectures worldwide. FAST and the TMD asset management and workflow engine was also a finalist for the IBC2013 Innovation Award.

The same intelligent decision-making makes Mediaflex CI a particularly powerful workflow engine in multi-platform delivery. Rules can be established which drive content through transcoding and transwrapping farms to automatically generate content that is quality assured and with the right metadata in the right places.

TMD also demonstrated the latest additions to its cloud-enabled i-mediaflex application environment.

Additionally, TMD demonstrated the latest additions to its Mediaflex Collections module. This included the ability to import and manage bulk data for large ingests, together with tracking and reporting on the acquisitions and accession process.

Visit www.tmd.tv

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IBC 2013 REVIEW

Enhancements to DEV’s Mosart Updates Newscast Automation OPTRIBUTION Portfolio plan the full studio production in a newsroom computer system (NRCS).

DEV SYSTEMTECHNIK’S OPTRIBUTION

With Mosart Newscast Automation 3.4, users can assign more advanced content sequences to shortcuts. Further functionality allows users to send such content directly to the studio walls. Mosart also has enhanced the drivers for CasperCG and ORAD graphics, as well as Studer audio (now using EmBER), and the automation system now supports an unlimited number of video server channels.

product family was presented during IBC 2013.

DEV has expanded its portfolio and now offers modules to be used in their OPTRIBUTION Chassis based on DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technology.

With DEV’s OPTRIBUTION System for DWDM, 48 signals can be transmitted over one single optical fibre simultaneously with a maximum signal quality over a distance of more than 200 kilometres. A DEV OPTRIBUTION Chassis of 3 RU can be equipped with a 16:1 DWDM System.

In addition, a DEV Matrix with optical inputs was launched at IBC. Bringing together optical reception and RF Matrix functionality, the new system can be realised and upgraded to any size up to 1024 x 1024 and is easy to manage with one CPU and Web-Interface regardless of size.

Visit www.dev-systemtechnik.com

AT IBC 2013, MOSART MEDIALAB has showed off the latest version of its Newscast Automation, as well as the Mosart Multi-Studio Solution.

Mosart Newscast Automation controls more than 55 broadcast devices: vision and audio mixers, video servers, graphics systems, camera robots, studio video walls, light desks, and other systems through dedicated protocols. The user can

Mosart Multi-Studio Solution is a software package for larger broadcasters with multiple studios. Combining Mosart Media Router and Mosart Template Sharing, the package enables sharing of resources and coordination across several control rooms. New for 2013, the Mosart Media Router now also provides sharing of video wall, lighting, and camera resources.

Visit www.mosart.no

an entirely new QoE (Quality of Experience) solution at IBC, enabling operators of Bridge systems to bring the industry’s most sophisticated QoS capability together with state of the art QoE monitoring – all running on the same Bridgetech infrastructure, and with support for QoE monitoring of regionallyinserted material. Full details of this new solution are not yet available, but will be revealed at IBC. Bridge Technologies’ 2nd generation OTT Engine makes MPEG-DASH support a core part of the user’s OTT monitoring capability, is compatible with all Bridge Technologies 1G and 10G probes, and part of the iOS and Android

Technologies systems introduces support for Bridge’s build-to-order probe hardware with internal 16, 32 or 64 GB flash memory and onboard recording of transport streams or PCAP files. Version 5.0 also introduces many more new features..

The first of a new line of products, the VB273 Satellite Redundancy Switch is designed for Bridge Technologies’ new carrier-grade intelligent redundancy switching solution for satellite uplinks. The VB273 module works with a VB272 and VB120 in a redundant chassis to monitor two signals from dual production chains and switch to the backup chain if the main chain fails.

Bridge Technologies also showed another industry first with the VB266 DVB-C2 RF Interface card. Coding and modulation techniques in the new DVB-C2 allows cable operators to achieve greater than 30% higher spectrum efficiency under the same conditions, with downstream channel capacity gains greater than 60% for optimised HFC networks.

Version 5.0 of the system software for Bridge

Visit www.bridgetech.tv

AUTOCUE LAUNCHED the first prompter

and microphones to be deployed.

designed specifically for a DSLR at IBC 2013.

The DSLR prompter will be available in two variants – the first uses a universal iPad mount (including the iPad Mini and other tablets) and the second an 8” monitor. Both variants provide two solutions in one – a traditional set-up or a detachable straight-read mount for simple magicarm applications. Software will be included.

IBC 2013 REVIEW

The use of DSLRs in video shoots has increased significantly over the last few years and has resulted in increasing demand for a prompter that is fit for purpose. Whilst various existing teleprompter solutions can accommodate DSLR cameras, they are far from a perfect fit.

The prompter mounts in front of the DSLR, directly to a standard set of 15mm DSLR rails, making the prompter extremely lightweight. This means that DSLR users can mount a range of accessories onto the rails as normal. Autocue also sells its own 15mm rail camera mounting kit.

There will also be an optional bar at the top of the hood with a number of ¼ width threads to allow further accessories like on-camera lights

Autocue launched a brand new prompting app at IBC, called iAutocue. Autocue has also debuted its new folding hood for ultimate portability of its Professional and Master Series prompters.

Together with the new app, this folding hood significantly reduces the (weight of the) kit required for OB shoots and rental jobs.

Visit www.autocue.com

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NOA Showcases New Enhancements FROM IBC 2013, NOA Audio Solutions’ mediARC has featured new enhancements for the inclusion of rich media including full support for videoscene detection, updated streaming servers for easier intranet content preview of rich content and video content, and the ability to launch retranscoding export operations via API from lossless compressed videoarchive formats.

The actLINE range includes full mediABUTLER support for WMV, and open source video formats such as ffv1, and the integration of third-party transcoders for all typical production formats. NOA will also be demonstrating a new QC module for video quality control, and will announce several strategic partnerships.

Visit www.noa-audio.com

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PocketProbe mobile monitoring apps. To ensure the widest possible compatibility with future, current and legacy OTT operations, Bridge Technologies’ new OTT Engine extends its HLS, Smoothstream and MPEG-DASH capability by adding support for RTMP and subtitle tracks.

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BLM Launches New Interfaces BLUE LUCY MEDIA (BLM), a UK-based software developer in the field of production workflow modernisation for IT environments, has launched two new, browser-based interfaces to its product tool-set, “Miura ProductionWeb” and “Miura StoreFront” at IBC. Miura ProductionWeb is a new production interface that provides global access to BLM’s media management and video processing tools. Miura ProductionWeb enables all production workflow management operations to be managed through a highly customisable operational interface from anywhere with Internet access.

Miura StoreFront enables content owners to realise the value of assets by providing a public-facing portal through which material can easily be searched, retrieved and

Digital Connectivity for Ultra HD From Gefen PROFESSIONALS PREPARING FOR 4K Ultra HD can look to Gefen for a selection of signal distribution, extension, and integration solutions.

Video over IP solutions and customisable matrix switchers were also among the new products on display at Gefen’s booth during IBC. Ultra HD Splitters for HDMI 4K/2K provide 1:2, 1:4 and 1:8 signal distributions. Each splitter includes automatic EDID management to support size and resolution of each display on the output.

Gefen Fast Switching Technology (FST) is also used to prevent system disconnects.

A 4×1 Ultra HD Switcher for HDMI 4K/2K integrates up to four 4K sources with one 4K display. Users can switch between all sources using the same hi-def or Ultra HD display.

The 4×4 Ultra HD Matrix switches between four sources and four displays. The 6×2 Ultra HD Matrix switches between six sources and two displays. Both use a new Ultra HD chip technology that allows switching between all sources and displays.

The 16×16 Modular Matrix w/ELR routes up to 16 sources to any or all 16 extended outputs.

The 32×32 Modular Matrix w/ELR routes any 32 sources to any or all 32 extended outputs. Users can tailor the outputs for local or extended mode using HDBaseT. Gefen’s integrated, network matrix switching system uses Video over IP technology to combine a Gigabit Ethernet switch with Gefen’s HDMI over IP extenders. It is flexible with a 1080p signal distribution and switching with optional automation using GAVA (Gefen A/V Automation).

The GefenPRO HDVI to 3GSDI Scaler, GefenPRO 3GSDI to 3GSDI Scaler, and the DisplayPort KVM Extender over CAT-7 was also shown.

Visit www.gefen.com

purchased. Fundamentally, Miura StoreFront is a white-label content publishing and point-ofsale platform that provides a simple and highly automated system for content owners to showcase and monetise their media catalogue.

Operationally, consumers can search for content, browse material and select clips, or sections of clips, for use in new production packages. Following a simple check-out process the material is automatically restored from a master content repository and delivered to the client’s facility in the desired format using BLM’s video processing services.

Miura StoreFront also provides interfaces to billing and CRM systems to provide a completely automated store function.

Visit www.bluelucy.com

Crystal Vision Shows Keyer Range AT IBC 2013 CRYSTAL Vision has shown a keyer for every application.

The recently shipping Safire 3 real-time chroma keyer works with 3Gb/s, HD and SD sources and is ideal for all live virtual productions from studio to sport. Safire 3 makes it easy to quickly set up a chroma key using multi-point sampling to automatically get the best possible default settings, and features a range of fine-tuning tools to optimise the picture.

The second new modular keyer demonstrated at IBC was be the MultiLogo HD/SD three-layer logo keyer. MultiLogo provides three layers of keying from a variety of internal and external sources, including a 4 GB or 8 GB video store.

The big new feature introduced in this version is the extensive audio capabilities. It can embed up to four audio groups into its video outputs, with audio mixing allowing the output audio to be generated from a mix of the audio embedded on the video input and a voiceover sourced from either the two internal audio stores or from an external AES input.

The third new keyer is LKEY 3 – a featurepacked and space-saving linear keyer designed for the simple keying of graphics over 3Gb/s, HD or SD video streams. LKEY 3 brings with it a number of new features appearing for the first time.

Crystal Vision also showed its new audio metadata handling features for the TANDEM 310 embedder/de-embedder and SYNNER 310 synchroniser.

Visit www.crystalvision.tv

Yellowtec Exhibits a Full Range YELLOWTEC HAS DISPLAYED ITS full range of solutions for studio and broadcast applications, including: iXm, a high-quality pro microphone with built-in recording and Yellowtec’s LEA Engine; m!ka, the studio mic and monitor mounting and lighting system; Intellimix, the desktop audio mixing system; litt, a programmable visual signalling system; b-line XT and b-line bold, a system for talk show and game show broadcasters; VIP/Digital, a personalised voice processing system for radio studios; and the PUC2 hi-definition USB audio interface.

Hanno Mahr, CEO Yellowtec GmbH, said, “Following Yellowtec’s successful launch at NAB, we are very pleased to present our full range of products for studios and broadcasting professionals at IBC 2013.”

Visit www.yellowtec.com

LYNX Takes Centre Stage FRONT PORCH DIGITAL HAS featured a broad range of products at IBC 2013, beginning with LYNX. LYNX is the industry’s first enterprisescale cloud implementation of content storage management (CSM).

The company showed LYNXdr and LYNXlocal at IBC 2013. LYNXdr is a hosted disaster recovery service that allows global media enterprises to centralise critical assets and consolidate operations, and LYNXlocal is a simple extension to LYNX that operates locally as an appliance, caching cloud content and providing integration to specialised systems if needed.

DIVAdirector V5.2 is the latest version of Front Porch Digital’s media asset management (MAM) system, a permission-based Web application that enables complete access to file-based content stored by DIVArchive CSM systems. With support for multiple audio channels for different language tracks, users can provide multiple language options for a given video file.

At IBC 2013, Front Porch Digital showcased its DIVArchive V7.1 CSM system. The new AXF Explorer offers an intuitive interface for parsing Archive eXchange Format (AXF) objects, with straightforward operations that are performed using drag-and-drop procedures. DIVArchive V7.1 also enables a complete range of world-class video transcoding and workflows and is directly integrated with Telestream’s Vantage Transcode and Vantage Transcode Pro. Front Porch Digital also showcased its SAMMA product lines at IBC. These solutions are the first of their kind to automate the digitisation of videotape, moving content into secure, accessible, and searchable digital storage.

SAMMArobot and SAMMAsolo take content from videotape on the shelf into the digital environment.

Visit http://fpdigital.com

IBC 2013 REVIEW

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IBC 2013 REVIEW

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IBC 2013 REVIEW

I-MOVIX Shows Off d-flicker

2wcom Introduces the FMC01

FOR THE FIRST TIME at IBC 2013, I-MOVIX has

FMC01, a compact codec for high-quality FM MPX contribution and distribution via IP or E1 (G.703).

In an industry first, the FMC01 can combine Encoder and Decoder functions in the same unit, offering significant infrastructure savings. With 100% lossless audio encoding/decoding and optimised bandwidth technology that delivers maximum FM quality, the FMC01 is a point-tomultipoint distribution solution that redefines the cost/performance equation for radio networks.

shown d-flicker, its new automatic de-flickering solution, designed for use with SprintCam Vvs HD and X10/X10+ systems. This product is the world’s first and only fast processing turnkey system providing an efficient solution to the flickering problem encountered by any highspeed camera user. Simple to use, d-flicker delivers flicker-free ultra slow motion shots in real-time, revealing the beauty of the action, and solving distracting problems caused by lighting issues.

The I-MOVIX X10 is a live ultra-motion solution that delivers a 10 times super slow motion output at native HD resolution and image quality.

The X10+ system can operate on an extreme slow motion mode at frame rates up to 2,600 fps in 1080i50 or up to 5,600 fps in 720p60.

Visit www.i-movix.com

AT IBC 2013 2wcom has introduced the new

IRD for audio contribution via satellite and IP 2wcom’s FlexDSR02+ and FlexDSR04+ offer a combination of capabilities in a compact 1U IRD for professional audio contribution via satellite and IP. Far more versatile, powerful and effectively integrated than the previous generation of satellite receivers, the FlexDSR02+ and FlexDSR04+ feature versatile inputs for up to four different programs with analogue or

digital output, a full regional insert solution, SIRC for inband control via satellite, and automatic weightbalancing of quality parameters and program source switching (satellite, IP-line, ASI, SD card) in case of failure.

The 2wcom FlexNsert DAB+ Distribution Inserter receives a DAB ETI data stream (according to EN 300799), converts the stream into a standard MPEG2-TS-signal and outputs it via ASI or Ethernet transport stream interfaces. The FlexXtract+ DAB+ Distribution Extractor demodulates a data stream (2048 kbps) from a DVB-S or DVB-S2 signal and converts the data into a standard ETI-signal according to EN 300799 or EDI-signal according to TS 102 693 to feed DAB or DAB+ transmitters. Both units offer optional advanced bandwidth saving technology for up to 45% greater efficiency, together with a multi-program regionalisation management option.

Visit www.2wcom.com

SGL Looking Flash at IBC SGL’S FLASHNET content management solution, shown at IBC 2013, is designed to integrate with NRCS, MAM or automation control systems to provide significant improvements to workflow efficiency without intruding on the users’ familiar desktop.

Whether customers’ are looking for a single site archive system; main and back-up operation or a hub and spoke configuration, FlashNet can accommodate their requirements.

SGL’s Open System architecture provides broadcasters, post production facilities, and news/sport organisations with reliable, scalable solutions with substantial cost and workflow benefits.

LTFS has switched the traditional ingest workflow around by enabling material to be transferred directly into the archive, opening up an array of

new workflows and creating substantial time and cost benefits. Taking the next step in this transition, SGL will demonstrate its Notification Service. Using this new subscription service, management of the archive is further enhanced by the addition of intelligent amalgamation services – optimising tape and tape-head usage without limiting access to individual files. The separate elements of an amalgamated archive can still be identified and easily retrieved and the addition of the SGL Notification service means that users can subscribe to messaging about processes, material and hardware for workflow monitoring.

SGL has further highlighted its support for LTFS at IBC 2013. Broadcasters and content owners now have true interoperability between what were once disparate systems. Material can be acquired

LiveU Bonding at IBC LIVEU HAS demonstrated its complete range of bonded 3G/4G uplink solutions for broadcast and online media, offering a one-stop-shop for live news, sports, and event coverage.

Based on the fourth-generation of LiveU’s disruptive technology, the portfolio includes a wide choice of solutions to meet customers’ different needs:

IBC 2013 REVIEW

Professional-grade LU70 backpack, with its internal and external antenna arrays; Belt-clip or camera-mounted LU40-S device, weighing less than 700 grammes (1.5 pounds), with new live newsgathering features; LU-Smart mobile app solutions, bringing bonded transmission to mobile phones and

tablets (iOS and Android devices), including its Smart Grip device with its chargeable battery and MiFi channel in a handheld monopod; LU-Lite software-only solution (Win and Mac), enabling file transfer and live video over multiple platforms, from fixed locations, in the field and on-the-move; LiveU integrated Xtender antenna for extrastrong resiliency in extreme scenarios.

All LiveU products are incorporated into the LiveU Total ecosystem by LiveU’s unified management platform, enabling control rooms to manage multiple video feeds from LiveU units operating in diverse locations.

Visit www.liveu.tv

directly to disk and then dragged and dropped to data tape and transported back to the facility removing the need to re-ingest content to the archive and enabling large amounts of data to be transported and archived on a single LTO tape.

This puts the archive much further forward in the production process placing it alongside the ingest element of the chain.

SGL demonstrated FlashBrowse, its archive management application. FlashBrowse can be configured to provide at-archive browse creation, automatically generating browse resolution copies of clips as the high resolution versions are archived. The FlashBrowse interface can be used to instigate restores or partial file restores directly from the desktop.

Visit www.sglbroadcast.com

Trilogy Communications Sends Messenger AT IBC 2013, Trilogy Communications featured its new Messenger intercom system, making its European debut. Messenger is an affordable yet powerful matrix-based intercom that includes comprehensive features and functionality.

Messenger bridges the gap between the constraints of low-end, two-wire party line systems and the cost and complexity of high-end broadcast communication systems.

Trilogy also showed Gemini, the company’s distributed matrix intercom and IP panel rang; and Mentor XL, a master reference generator that includes a new GPS option board.

Visit www.trilogycomms.com

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By Keith Ford During the BroadcastAsia Exhibition and Conference, freelance DP and Sony ICE (Independent Certified Expert) Alister Chapman gave a presentation on the Sony PMW-F55 and F5 4K Digital Cinema Cameras, their features, and how to effectively use them.

SOME OF THE AREAS that Chapman focussed on were the cameras’ versatility, the appeal and benefits of 4K, working with the different codecs, the sensor, and why frame image scanning matters.

Alister Chapman primarily shoots extreme environments, such as volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and just about any other type of extreme weather event. A cinema camera is probably not what most people would expect to be used in these situations, but Chapman says the camera is surprisingly suitable for quick shooting.

“I’m filming often in very strong winds, winds that may be 60 or 70 miles an hour where I’m standing and I have to get the shots very, very quickly, and one of the great things, actually, about the F5 and F55 cameras is, if they’re configured right, they are very quick cameras to use,” explained Chapman. “With the right lens it behaves like an ENG camera, like a 2/3-inch mount camera, so you can just grab shots very, very quickly with it. It’s not just a camera for film and for movie production.

“I do also shoot commercials in the UK, actually cinema commercials, and F5 and F55 cameras are really great for that application. But it’s a camera that can be used for many different applications. So, at the high end you could be shooting a movie with it and at the same time, with the same camera, just by swapping the lens mount and a few other things, you can use it equally well for documentaries and for ENG style shooting.”

The obvious question that is inevitably raised in relation to 4K is: Why do I need it? There is currently only a very small amount of 4K displays on the market for consumers, with 3 models from Sony and one from LG, all of which are too expensive right now for mass take-up, making the cinema the only place that most people can experience 4K. Even then a large proportion of cinemas are unable to project in 4K yet, though they are certainly moving that way. So why does 4K matter outside of large scale cinema releases?

“One of the things with all video cameras; is they incorporate something called an anti-alias filter - a low-pass filter. Without it you would have all sorts of image artefacts on fine patterns and textures, so if somebody wore a stripy shirt or a checked shirt, you’d get coloured banding over it. You actually have to reduce the resolution of the image falling on the sensor to below the resolution of the sensor and all professional video cameras have this. So if you’re shooting with an HD video camera, what you’re actually recording, the resolution is actually lower than HD. It has to be otherwise we’d have aliasing issues,” said Chapman.

“So by shooting with a 4K camera your HD, when you’re shooting for HD, looks much sharper, much clearer, has much greater clarity to it and it really is very noticeable. The HD footage that I’m getting off the F5 and F55 looks far better than anything I’ve had off any HD camera. It also allows you to reframe your shot in post-production if you need to crop in a little bit, maybe a microphone’s come into the top of your shot. You can crop into that and

you have no resolution loss.”

Chapman also pointed out that image stabilisation can be easily completed easily, due to the ability to crop in without affecting resolution, and keying and compositing for green screen work is of a much higher quality.

Talking specifically about the F5 and F55, one of the largest benefits is the number of codec’s that can be used, including simultaneously. Ulike most cameras that allow for the use of a single codec, these 4K cameras offer XDCAM, HDCAM, and the new XAVC, as well as the option of RAW recording in both 4K and, following a recent firmware update, 2K. “You can shoot in 4K, in 2K, and HD using compression - much like any other video camera that you have now, you can record a compressed recording that you can play back instantly; it’s all full cover, that’s your white balance and gain and everything else, just like any other video camera. But you can also add on the R5 recorder and that gives you the ability to record in RAW, and that’s really where these cameras come into their own,” commented Chapman.

“Codec wise, this is normal conventional compressed recording, we can do that with these cameras, but we have a choice of codecs: We have XDCAM HD422, this is 50 megabits per second. A nice, small, compact codec, doesn’t take up much space on your memory cards. You can edit it off USB2 hard drives,” explained Chapman. “This has been around for six years and is really well supported, really easy to deal with, really easy to archive and things like that, but it’s only 8-bit, so 8-bit’s not great for grading, but it’s really good for news and for fast turnaround.

“If you want better quality we have HDCAM SStP. Now this is a very high quality codec, this is basically the HDCAM SR codec and this can be 422 or 444. So, if you are doing a lot of grading or blue screen and green screen the 444 is very good but at 440 megabits per second it’s gonna chew through media really fast! You need USB3 or e-SATA drives to work with this.”

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ACQUISITION The new XAVC codec sits somewhere between the XDCAM and HDCAM, in terms of quality and file size “XAVC is scalable, it’s very advanced, and it’s 10-bit. It can do HD, 2K, and 4K. It’s 422, it’s 10 bits so it grades very, very well and the bit rate will vary depending on the frame rate and the frame size that you’re recording at,” added Chapman. “If you shoot at 24 frames per second HD it’s 80 megabits per second, so it’s only twice the size of XDCAM, it’s not huge, and going all the way up to 660 megabits per second if you’re shooting at high speed in 2K. If you’re shooting 24 frames per second in 4K it’s around about 220 megabits per second. So it’s still quite a lot of data, but it’s actually quite manageable.”

The benefit of recording in RAW on the F5 and F55 is not just that you get much higher image quality, which leads to considerably large file sizes than any of the codecs, but that it can be recorded simultaneously with another codec, say XDCAM. This makes the post-production workflow run a lot smoother.

“So for the editing for your workflow you would take the XDCAM material which will have the same filename, the same time code, the same everything else as the RAW, and you edit with the XDCAM and you just do your edit because when you’re editing it’s all about flow: it’s about pace and flow,” explained Chapman. “By using the XDCAM, the computer will handle it really easily. Then, when you’re happy with your edit, you take a file from the edit suite - an AAF or an XML file - into your grading suite and at that point you put away your XDCAM and you bring in the RAW files and you do your

finishing from the RAW files.”

Going hand-in-hand with the choice of codec, one of the most important factors on image quality is the sensor; something that Alister Chapman feels is particularly impressive about Sony’s 4K Cameras.

“With any video camera it doesn’t matter what you record on or how you record it, if your sensor isn’t any good your recordings won’t be any good.

The sensors in both the F5 and F55 are superb and a lot of that comes from the quality of the colour filters that are used on the sensor. The accuracy and how precise those colour filters are is very important. If you’re shooting people, if you’re shooting faces and skin tones, the differences between different parts of people’s skin are very, very subtle. Those are very small differences and if your colour filters are more precise, the camera’s better able to separate out those very small, very subtle differences. That’s what makes skins tones look really good,” said Chapman.

The new Samurai Blade offers a 1280 x 720 SuperAtom IPS touchscreen, at 325ppi 179-degree viewing, 400nit brightness and multi-frequency (48/50/60Hz) operation, depending on video input, giving super smooth monitoring and playback. Every screen is calibrated to SMPTE Rec 709 colour space and a D65 white point with 100% gamut from factory. On the fly screen calibration is built into every Samurai Blade so you are always accurate in any shooting environment.

Samurai Blade adds essential set up tools with full waveform monitor functions, including vectorscope, RGB and LUMA parades with transparent overlay and bottom right, lower 3rd or full screen positioning, making it an extremely flexible tool.

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“Skew is a CMOS artefact: most cameras that use a CMOS sensor, when you pan very quickly the image appears to bend a little bit because the image is scanned from top to bottom. The F55 works differently, so it doesn’t have this effect,” explained Chapman.

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Visit http://pro.sony-asia.com

monitor and deck, and the Connect-AC converters. Ronin is a rackmountable solution for both fixed-facility and on-location production, based on the Samurai design. It can operate on location with battery or DC power, but it also has AC power built-in, standard HD/SD-SDI BNC connectors and balanced XLR inputs and outputs.

The portable and versatile battery-powered HDMI/HD-SDI converter, Atomos Connect, with built-in test pattern generator and audio tone, is now joined by its fixed-facility counterpart, Connect-AC. Stand-alone or rack-mountable, Connect-AC converters are powered by a standard figure-of-8 IEC cable and offer all the functionality of Connect while rendering ‘wall-warts’ a thing of the past.

Visit www.atomos.com

“The new screen is truly spectacular,” adds Jeromy Young, CEO and Founder of Atomos.

“With AtomOS 5 now offering waveform as well as monitor assist, I believe we have really raised the bar in the affordable monitor and field recorder segment. We’re the first to combine professional monitor functionality with recording and deck playout, all in a spacesaving, camera-mountable unit. Customers are continually amazed at the speed and low cost workflow we offer, Blade is no different”.

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Sony and Chapman also say that the newly developed frame image scan, which the F55 utilises, completely removes any type of skew, wobble, and flash banding. However, this is not a feature included on the F5.

Atomos Samurai Blade Cut Loose ATOMOS, THE CREATOR of camera mounted recorders Ninja-2 and Samurai, and the Connect converter range, have commenced shipment of their latest recorder/monitor, the Samurai Blade.

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Like its Ninja-2 and Samurai predecessors, Samurai Blade allows the recording 10-bit images from the camera sensor directly to inexpensive HDD or SSD drives, captured using Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHD codecs.

Waveform, vectorscope and monitor assist tools, such as tri-level focus peaking, zebra, false colour, and blue-only, offer a very comprehensive test and shot setup tool kit. The Samurai Blade has standard BNC connectors.

Also shipping are the Ronin portable recorder,

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Miller Compass 15 Solo Tripod System Review

By Alister Chapman MBKS I travel a lot, so I was looking for a lightweight tripod that could carry my PMW-F5 kit.

The main use for this tripod was for my self-funded storm chasing and natural extremes stock footage shoots as well as for the many film making workshops I run all over the world. A tripod I have had my eye on for a while is the Miller Solo Compass 15 tripod package, so I decided to give one a try.

THE SOLO IS UNLIKE most professional video tripods as the legs are of the single tube, telescoping variety as opposed to the more traditional double tube variety.

They are constructed from Carbon Fibre, so they are very light, yet they can extend very high (1.87m for the legs alone), which is a great thing to have on news shoots or at an event or conference where you need to get the camera up above the heads of an audience. There is no mid-level or floor spreader with this tripod, the spread of the legs is governed by latches at the tops of the legs that have 3 different positions, each one restricting the maximum leg spread by a different amount. At the same time as being able to go very tall by lifting a latch at the top of each tripod leg the legs extend outwards almost flat to the ground and this allows you to get very low down at a height similar to a Hi-Hat yet the tripod remains very stable and solid.

The Compass 15 head is a middle weight fluid head with a 75mm bowl for levelling. The drag for the pan and tilt is varied using click stop rings, each with six settings from zero to 5. The drag range is very good with position 5 giving considerable drag, something useful when you working with a long lens or trying to do very slow pans. For counterbalance there is another click stop ring, this time with four different counterbalance settings.

The difference between the minimum and maximum counterbalance settings isn’t huge, but adequate provided you camera is within the heads payload range.

My first major project for this tripod was a bit of a baptism by fire. Every year, I spend around 6 to

8 weeks shooting severe storms and tornadoes in the USA for stock footage. These shoots are always tough. You have to be extremely mobile.

As I’m based in the UK, first of all there are the initial flights across the Atlantic to the USA. Once in the US, I will typically drive between 400 to 600 miles a on an active storm day. In a month I’ll clock up around 10,000 miles. I don’t have an assistant on these shoots so have to do all the kit lugging myself. As well as the camera kit there is also 20kg of additional equipment needed to get real time weather data via satellite, two way radios, laptops, hard hats and safety gear. So, anything I can do to save weight and bulk elsewhere is welcome and the Solo tripod scores highly for portability.

Filming a tornado is challenging. Very often the only way to get a good view of a tornado is by being in its path. Lots of rain and hail falls behind a tornado obscuring it from view and a strong, sometimes deadly wind called the RFD occurs around the back of a tornado, so, you need to be in front of it. A tornado can travel across the ground at speeds of up to 70mph, so if you’re two miles from a fast moving tornado you have only got about 90 seconds to get out of the car, set up your tripod, get a couple of shots, jump back in the car and drive out of its way. For this, the Miller Solo was fantastic. With no spreader to getting in the way, but the leg spread limited by the adjustable stops, I found it a very fast tripod to deploy and pack away.

At the same time it was also very stable. It is not as stable as a bigger, heavier tripod but still remarkably solid given its light weight. I’ve used bigger tripods in the past and it really

helps having that extra bulk when shooting in the often strong winds that surround the storms I shoot. But because these took longer to deploy I wasn’t always able to use them, reverting to handheld when time was short.

The Solo’s portability meant I was able to use it much often, so although some shots taken in high winds do suffer from a bit of wobble and buffeting, the more frequent tripod use means that I came away with a lot more steady and stable shots from this assignment than I would have with a heavier conventional tripod. I guess, really for me, I will have to consider taking two tripods if I can - something substantial and heavy for use when the wind is really strong and the Solo for everything else.

Talking of everything else, what about shots done when things are not so frantic? Well, a big part of the storm shoot is to document the whole life cycle of the storms. This means shooting a lot of panoramas and landscapes, often with very slow pans. One of the things that really took me by surprise with the Compass 15 head was the smoothness of the pan and tilt drag. This really is one of the best tripod heads that I have ever owned. The pan and tilt drag really is silky smooth and there is no perceptible backlash. It really is a delight to use. It’s so good that I think I’m going to have to take a close look at some of Millers larger tripods for when I want a heavy weight option.

Smooth, slow pans were easy to achieve, even at longer focal lengths. One small criticism of the tripod kit is that the single tube Solo legs twist a little more than most traditional double tube tripod legs, but then that’s the price you pay for going light weight.

So overall I think this combination of Compass 15 head with Miller Solo legs is fantastic. I’ve used a lot of tripods over the years, and this one stands out from the crowd. But, as I said at the start there is no such thing as a tripod that works for every application. I would not recommend the Solo legs for long lens work, they just don’t quite have the stability that can be obtained with a larger set of legs. That said, for portability and great performance in most everyday applications the Miller Solo and Compass 15 is a delight and I highly recommend it.

Me shooting a tornado with the PMW-F5 and AXS-R5 on my Miller Solo tripod.

Visit www.alisterchapman.com

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Semi-Shoulder Mount Camcorder SONY HAS ANNOUNCED the PMW-300 XDCAM camcorder, equipped with 1/2”-type Exmor Full-HD 3CMOS sensors capable of delivering incredible images even in low-light conditions. The PMW-300 is designed for broadcast producers and corporate event camera operators who require a flexible semi-shoulder mounted camcorder that can easily be adapted to suit a wide range of production environments.

An evolution of Sony’s PMW-EX3, the PMW-300 is able to record 50Mbps HD material in MPEG HD422, meeting broadcast standards around the world for HD broadcast acquisition. The high bit rate ensures excellent capture of fast moving objects, while its chroma subsampling is perfect for a wide range of video encoding areas such as VFX and green screen applications. The camcorder can also be upgraded in the future to support Sony’s XAVC codec, extending the lifecycle of the product to ensure maximum return on investment.

The 1/2”-type Exmor Full-HD 3CMOS sensors offer high light sensitivity and low image noise. As a consequence, it delivers clear high-resolution images even when filming in low-light conditions. The camcorder also includes Sony’s advanced signal processing technology, which suppresses noise effectively and thus creates noticeably clearer images.

The PMW-300 features the same EX-mount interchangeable lens system as the

Camera Corps Upgrades PTZF Mini Joystick

PMW-EX3, making it compatible with a wide range of 1/2 inch and 2/3 inch lenses. There are two types of lens packages planned to be available for the PMW-300. One is with a 14 times zoom lens (PMW-300K1), and the other is with a 16 times zoom lens (PMW-K2). Both lenses have a focus ring for quick switching between auto and manual focus, in addition to the dedicated zoom and iris rings.

An HD-resolution 3.5-inch colour LCD viewfinder (960x540 pixels) enables precision focusing for HD filming, while the 8-pin remote control and multi-camera operation capability allows the PMW-300 to be used in 3D configurations and high-end camera systems.

With HD-SD/SDI and HDMI outputs, the PMW-300 connects not only to broadcast infrastructures, but also to consumer devices equipped with HDMI inputs.

Based on customer feedback the PMW-300 features a semi-shoulder design that has a rotary hand grip, allowing comfortable recording over long periods of time. Its magnesium metal body ensures the camcorder is robust and can withstand even the harshest production environments.

Users can choose to record on Sony’s professional SxS memory card as well as other media such as SD, Memory Stick, and XQD cards depending upon their budget and application.

Sony has also confirmed that an optional wireless adapter currently in development will enhance proxy recording, wireless transfers, Wi-Fi viewing and metadata input.

The PMW-300K1 with a 14 times zoom lens will be available from October 2013. The PMW-300K2 with a 16 times zoom lens release date is still to be confirmed. XAVC support for HD will be available in 2014.

Visit http://pro.sony-asia.com

Tiffen Steadicam Silver Workshops

CAMERA CORPS HAS ANNOUNCED the latest version of its ultracompact PTZF Mini Joystick, designed for restricted-space applications such as commentator-camera control or outside-broadcast vehicles.

It can control up to five pan and tilt heads from a wide range of manufacturers.

The new PTZF Mini Joystick Version 3 is optimised for use with up to five Camera Corps Q-Ball Pre-Set remotely controlled pan/tilt/zoom/ focus heads. Ten positions per head can be assigned and recalled.

Individual control reverses are provided for pan/tilt/zoom/focus and stored separately for each of the five heads. Data input from an external camera control unit, data output and incoming power can all be carried via a single connector at the rear of the controller.

ACQUISITION

Space on the PTZF Mini Joystick panel is saved by using a twist action on the joystick to provide zoom control. Three rotary controls below the joystick provide individual adjustment of pan, tilt and zoom speed and can be set to different values for each of the five Q-Ball Pre-Set heads. The same rotary controls can be used to adjust functions such as manual and auto iris and red/blue gain.

The standard Camera Corps audio data communication system is employed to allow unlimited operating distances between Mini Joystick Control and the remote heads. Each of the five channels has its own red and green cue/tally light switch. Individual channels can be locked to prevent inadvertent alteration of presets. Focus can be remote-adjusted manually or switched between manual and automatic when working with cameras that support these features.

Visit www.cameracorps.co.uk

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JUNE AND JULY SAW a successful series of Steadicam Silver workshops held in New Zealand, Singapore and Australia. The Singapore workshop (class pictured here) was held at Lasalle College, Singapore, under the guidance of lead instructor Park Sang Hoon of South Korea (visit www. aquacam.kr).

The three-day factory-certified workshops followed on from two highly successful five-day Gold workshops in Australia and Malaysia, where the objective was to enhance camera operator technique by adding stabiliser control to their employable skill set.

Tiffen will hold Bronze Workshops from September through to December taking in Australia, Auckland, Jakarta, Singapore, Manila, and Hong Kong.

These are designed for those operators using hand-held Merlin 2 and lightweight Steadicam Pilot or similar stabilisers with lightweight camera payloads from .5kg to 4.5kg. Tiffen is also planning a series of Specialist Multi-Camera Steadicam workshops.

For more details, contact Brett Smith at Tiffen International.

Email: bsmith@tiffen.com v

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GlobeCast Asia: Top Shelf Service from Tier-One Facility Media management and content delivery provider, GlobeCast Asia, is poised to enter a new era of growth through broader service offerings and greater efficiencies with the construction

by Ideal Systems of a brand new facility in Singapore’s emerging media city precinct, Mediapolis@one-north. GlobeCast Asia has offices across the Asia-Pacific, with teleports in Singapore as well as in Hong Kong. The new Singapore HQ is located at Infinite Studios, a 10-story purpose-built structure with a gross floor area of 24,078 square metres.

CONTENT+TECHNOLOGY spoke to GlobeCast Asia CEO, Darby Sanchez, and Vice President of Operations, Sabil Salim, about the change in technology and business model.

According to Darby Sanchez, one of the main drivers in building the new facility was an evolution at GlobeCast Asia toward providing more value-added services, in addition to its traditional transmission/distribution business.

“Over the course of the last few years,” says Sanchez, “we have expanded our portfolio of services like playout, creative services, OTT and so on. So, we felt that we needed to relook at where we were in terms of the building we were in and the infrastructure that we had, and really rethink it to position us to be able to grow without too many constraints over the next 10, 15 years - if not more.”

Sanchez says the new Singapore HQ will also

allow the company to offer their services to a greater range of channel operators.

She cites the example of one of the company’s newest clients, the Hello Japan channel.

“The newer section of our infrastructure is appropriate to target tier-one international broadcasters, no doubt about it. It has all the bells and whistles,” she says. “I would feel very comfortable that we are capable of providing the quality of service and the operational standards that international broadcasters would expect, but within our customer mix we also have channels that are let’s say local channels that have been launched in this region.

There are Asian channels that are also looking for services beyond Asia. So, we truly believe we have to be capable of providing the correct service for each one of these niches.”

“It was created here at Globecast Asia with content that belongs to multiple entities in Japan and we have helped to create the look of the channel through our creative services department and helped them to understand what it is to create a channel and put it out there successfully.

So, it’s not just the classic old time broadcasters.“

The GlobeCast Asia CEO anticipates that those niches will include more and more operators who do not fit the mould of the traditional broadcaster.

According to Ms Sanchez, GlobeCast is also working at a group level to provide OTT services.

This has resulted in the launch of an over-the top “Incubator Platform” for Asia designed to help new channels gain visibility and secure carriage agreements with Asian Pay TV platforms. An OTT offering is also available for traditional broadcast customers looking to make their content available on a variety of platforms.

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GlobeCast Asia’s new Singapore facility at Mediapolis@one-north.

GlobeCast Asia CEO Darby Sanchez.

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This is who we are – a visitor-eye view of GlobeCast Asia’s new Singapore facility at Mediapolis@one-north.

“To give you an example, CTN out of Cambodia has been a long-time client and the traditional business that we did with them was to put them on a satellite platform to address the ethic market of Cambodian ex-pats overseas. Today, we have them still on satellite. We also deliver them to several IPTV platforms in Europe and we also have developed for them, both for Apple and for Android, a mobile solution.

“It’s pretty indicative of the way we would like to go and how we would like to be able to position our services to customers to say to them, we can help you address the different markets in the manner that’s suitable for that market or the device that’s suitable for that market,” concludes Darby Sanchez.

OPEN AND COLLABORATIVE When the idea of moving to a new facility was first mooted, a debate within GlobeCast Asia developed as to what sort of capabilities the company needed, and what type of system it would need to deliver those capabilities.

According to GlobeCast Asia Vice President of Operations, Sabil Salim, debate centred around whether the company wanted a mix of solutions which they would then need to integrate, or could a solution be found that was homogenous and under one umbrella?

“There was no real decision in that sense,” says Salim, “but more in a sense that when we went to Ideal Systems - and Ideal weren’t the only ones, there were others as well – and said this is what the business wants to achieve, and that was the ability to do cost efficient multi-channel operations, the ability to do new media spin-offs, OTT and mobile.

So, come back to us with some ideas.

“We wanted asset management capabilities as well as we were dealing with content and we wanted to ensure that we had the right solution that clients wanted because, that’s the question we get every time. What sort of automation system do you use? What kind of video service do you use? How do you manage my content? How do I know it’s safe? How do you deal with proxy

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materials? Can I access that proxy material?”

At that point, Ideal Systems was a relatively new player in Singapore, setting up its business and working as a representative for Evertz, which had just acquired Pharos, one of GlobeCast Asia’s existing automation providers.

“When we and Ideal got together last year, we painted the picture of what we wanted and gave them an insight into our business. With the equipment that they represented and the solutions that they could find what we were saying is ‘let’s make it an open discussion’. If you find something that’s interesting that we could use as a solution, let’s talk about it and how we can make it a useful product in our situation.

“So, I believe this is a partnership that will go on for a period of time, but it’s not the only partnership that we will have in the market. Ideal has been good in our building and our offices, they have been here for many months now and I would say they are almost like an extension of us.

“We don’t want to be tied to one particular solution, there could be a lot more other interesting ones but it’s still a discussion to see what else is new out there? What can we offer to a client? It may not necessarily be a solution just for the client, but to improve what we have.

“It would be incorrect to say that Ideal was the only one that put the solutions forward,” says Salim, “but it was the collaboration between Ideal, ourselves and Evertz - when they were brought to the table. It’s a very collaborative approach, allowing Ideal and Evertz to use GlobeCast to propagate their business, but also we benefit from using their technology to make our facility a lot more efficiently run.”

And those efficiencies apply right across the board at the new GlobeCast Asia facility – from operations right through to troubleshooting.

“I would anticipate that we would be able to squeeze out more channels without having to invest in human resources,” says the GlobeCast Asia VP of Operations, “but that’s going to be if we are able to get the type of business we are

Sabil Salim, VP Operations, GlobeCast Asia.

going after. One operator could be operating a few more channels quite easily.

“What we are trying to do is be able to have two or three people on duty, including play-out and MCR to manage a lot more than what we have been able to do. Currently, we run about 10 to 12 channels with about 20 or 30 feeds, we should be able to double that and the increase to the resources needed will be fractional. ”Where we are going is a situation that’s less reliant on operators and engineers trying to run around looking at diagrams to figure out where a fault is. Everything in the new system will be at their fingertips using touch screens. They can actually see the signal fault. It will actually give you an indication of the system if it is not working right. So, you can actually do pre-emptive actions to keep the ‘service in service’ a lot more, so reducing down-time.”

One example of this comes not from within the new GlobeCast Asia headquarters, but from its roof where the company has established a new satellite farm.

“We have dishes on the roof that will allow us direct access to various satellites and we will grow that particular satellite farm in the coming year,” says Sabil Salim. “We used to have to depend on third parties like Singtel. That increased our cost of operations. So, by having our own dish, we actually are less reliant on a third party, improving our business, but also improving on our points of failure.

“If you reduce that, you have it all within your control. Using the Evertz signal monitoring solution, the guys can actually handle the signals over their desk without having to leave the MCR. So, all of that can be pre-arranged and changed at the flick of a switch.

“Response time is a lot quicker, reaction to issues is a lot quicker, which translates to better service at the end to the client and I think that’s the aim here. We provide tier one quality material regardless whether the client is paying us whatever fee. He gets the standard GlobeCast service which we try to keep at a very high standard.”

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Ideal Partner According to Darby Sanchez, CEO of GlobeCast Asia, “Ideal Systems is a tier-1 broadcast systems integration company with a vast experience in designing and building complete broadcast systems and facilities across Asia. Ideal Systems has provided us the solution to ensure our new headquarters is a leading facility that supports our continued growth in the region and has the latest technology to allow us deliver new multiplatform broadcast services.”

THAT TECHNOLOGY, according to Ideal Systems Project Manager, PJ Morgan, not only enables GlobeCast to tackle new services, but also streamlines the company’s operations and brings with it overall greater efficiencies.

“Due to the Growth of GlobeCast’s business” says Morgan. “GlobeCast was outgrowing their existing facility - from a space perspective, a power perspective, an air-con perspective. They’d grown organically utilising a broad spectrum of broadcast technologies and platforms and over the years, which was becoming harder to scale and manage, as often is the case with expanding broadcasters. So, Ideal was called in.”

At the existing facility in Singapore’s Parkview Square, GlobeCast’s organic expansion had resulted in the playout of a number of channels being spread across different automation systems and platforms. This mix included Snell Morpheus automation with Omneon Spectrum servers, Evertz Mediator 3 automation with Omneon Mediadeck servers, and Mediator 4 Playtime Automation with Evertz Overture RT “Channel in a Box” play-out. Another channel was controlled by a Playbox channel-in-box system provided by the channel owner itself.

At the new Mediapolis facility, this arrangement has been optimised and streamlined to a single and highly scalable MAM/automation system from Evertz, Mediator 4, which is currently controlling over 15 channels (including HD and SD versions) across a mix of Evertz EMS and Omneon/Harmonic servers. The new facility also handles a number of live pass-through channels.

According to Ideal’s PJ Morgan, migrating content, metadata, process and services to the new system was a big challenge, “We had to deal with a number of separate databases of content. This content resided on a variety of servers and storage devices and systems, from Omneon MediaDeck, Omneon Spectrum, Evertz Overture RT Live, Isilon to a Front Porch DIVArchive,” he says. “Obviously, migrating hundreds of Terabytes of content from multiple systems in multiple formats and combining the workflows from disparate automation systems and playout devices was a very big part of our challenge.

Each of the different systems managed content and data in different proprietary ways. The team at Ideal had to map and remap the legacy databases, to a common more robust Linux-based system for copying data and content between the two sites. This was a tricky operation as it required in-depth knowledge of all of the existing systems in order to correctly enable the migration

and standardisation in the new Mediator Media Asset Management System at the new site.

“This was part of Ideal’s job, to remove lot of headaches and a lot of hassles from GlobeCast and let them concentrate on other tasks of which there were many. We were able to say to them, ‘we’ll take all your databases, we’ll get all your metadata from the old site to the new site and we’ll also get all your content from the old site to the new site. Give us that, we will take that off and we will give you daily update reports on what content is copied across and any issues we found’. This is an example of one of the many sub projects within the main project.”

The “main project”, says Morgan, was the build of the new State of the Art broadcast system at Mediapolis, the new system is underpinned by Evertz, with up to 80 per cent of the technology at GlobeCast’s new facility coming from the Canada-based hardware and software provider.

“The three main components of the new system are the Mediator MAM and Automation, the VistaLINK monitoring and control which also includes state of the art monitoring by exception, and VUE which is a next generation intelligent and intuitive touch screen customizable graphical application that visually uni?es Evertz components like the Enterprise Class EQX 3G HD/ SD router, and MVP, Evertz, leading Multi-Image Display System and also can interface with other devices.

“Using VUE, you can choose your incoming source. You can say okay there’s a transport stream coming in. I need to decode that back to baseband. I need to put it through a standards converter. I need to re-encode it as MPEG4 because it came in as MPEG2 and I need to send it out to my customer in Japan. They can do that from a touch screen and they can do that within five, 10, 15 seconds max.

here and a terminal here and something else there. They can now do all that. The operator can sit in one chair and do an ad-hoc, turnaround feed in 20 per cent of the time - all from one interface.”

In addition to the Evertz platforms underpinning GlobeCast Asia’s new facility, Ideal Systems called upon a number of specialist vendors to provide complementary technology which would not only update, but future-proof GlobeCast’s operations.

As part of the project, Ideal installed the Mediaproxy Compliance recording system. A first for Singapore, Ideal systems have been successfully deploying Mediaproxy elsewhere in Asia for over eight years.

“Mediaproxy is being used for all compliance logging,” says Morgan. “It’s what a compliance logging device should be. It’s a RAID array, it’s IP. The guys in the GlobeCast can access it from their desktop PCs and if they get a phone call from the customer to say, ‘hey my advert didn’t go out’, they can just from the comfort of their own desk access the media proxy via a web interface and check that content back.

On the media archive side, because the MAM functionality in Mediator is highly advanced and has such a strong ability to manage data about content, it reduces the requirement to have another MAM in the Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) system. This allowed Ideal to recommend and deploy the first XenData system in Singapore for GlobeCast’s archive management. The XenData LTO Archive manager leverages the intelligence of the Mediator MAM system so that it is not duplicating MAM functions. As such, XenData is much more cost effective to run and deploy and allows migration away from older more costly legacy HSM systems.

“Again, from the VUE screen they can do a satellite ad hoc turnaround feed which in their old facility they would have had to go to three or four stations. They would have to go to a KVM

“With XenData, the nice thing is the file structure is Windows based,” says Morgan. “You could, for example, use an LTO tape out of the XenDatamanaged Quantum tape library and access it from a small, single LTO drive connected to a workstation. All archive and restore operations

The new GlobeCast Master Control Room.

Ideal Systems Project Manager PJ Morgan.

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are performed using Windows Explorer. The XenData software extends Explorer’s capabilities to transfer files to and from LTO using drag and drop or copy and paste. Making complex tasks simple is always a good strategy.

“In the case of the GlobeCast installation, the new Mediator 4 is both an enterprise MAM and fully featured automation solution. All you need is Mediator to say, right this bit of content has come in. It’s gone through my TX workflow. It’s been auto QC’d by Baton. It’s been five point spot checked by the operator. The compliance officer has said approved. The transmission guys have said it’s approved. Then the Mediator can say, okay, I’ve sent one copy to the archive via XenData and I will put one copy on the Evertz EMS server, so it’s available off the TX. It’s seamless.”

On the transmission side, Ideal deployed Thomson Netprocessor 9030/40 encoders and Sapphire servers.

According to Ideal’s PJ Morgan, “In my opinion, Thomson MPEG encoders are some of the best on the market. They really do fine tune their MPEG2 to MPEG-4 algorithms. Some of the cheaper manufacturers will only go for the main building blocks in the MPEG tool box whereas Thomson really do maximise everything. So that was one of the choices for getting Thomson in.

“With the new NetProcessors and the Thomson Sapphire servers that we now have on site, that then opens the door for GlobeCast to do transport streams, splicing and ad insertion which then can be done at a more cost effective price point. “

INTERIOR DESIGN – ICING ON THE CAKE To cap off a solid technology implementation,

Ideal Systems also provided console design, control room visualisation and construction of specialised broadcast operation consoles for the GlobeCast Mediapolis project.

As PJ Morgan explains, “Most people walking in the door don’t get excited about transport stream splicing, they get excited by a sexy looking control room.”

Ideal has been amassing expertise in broadcast interior design and console construction for many years with many control rooms and studios designed and built by Ideal in Taiwan, China, India and Hong Kong, where Ideal is known for cutting edge designs such as that at Phoenix TV. This led to an expansion of Ideal’s creative interior design team which now includes a team of architects and artists who specialise in broadcast architectural visualisation.

“It’s been a good thing for Ideal that we now have the capacity and the guys with the creative mindset to design,” says PJ Morgan.

“Be it newsrooms, be it studios or, in the case of

GlobeCast, the MCR, PCR, and break-out rooms.

Not only do they look sexy, but due to the high specification multimedia consoles that Ideal designed and built, they are also highly functional and operator friendly.

“The net result of Ideal’s broadcast design and GlobeCast’s corporate interior design is fantastic, when you come in the door at GlobeCast the first thing you are greeted by a wall of glass and behind which is the PCR, the MCR and the breakout rooms. Now, they’ve done that for a reason because when you come into the facility it’s like, wow, you get it.”

The facility has been designed to give this impression as soon as visitors exit the lifts. After walking through a set of glass doors, they are met by a wall of glass with a view of the control rooms and the slight curve of the monitor walls.

“I think 10 or 15 years ago you would hide the control rooms in the basement of the building or something,” says Morgan. “Now, they’ve done it so you come into the reception and you are greeted by probably 100 video images on the multi viewers and on the screens in front of you.

It’s quite a clever move from GlobeCast because it says, this is who we are.

“It’s been an amazing experience working on this project with the GlobeCast and Evertz teams, and the different people with diverse disciplines and skills from all around the world.

“With the many planning meetings and design meetings held to agree RF, baseband and filebased system architectures, technology choices, rack planning - with hundreds of AutoCAD schematics - and then tying these all together with over 30 kilometres of cabling and many tens of thousands of components, the result is definitely one of the finest broadcast facilities in Asia.”

Visit www.idealsys.com

C+T COVER STORY

Floorplan of the new facility.

CONTENT+TECHNOLOGY: ISSN 1448-9554 PP:255003/06831 Broadcastpapers Pty Ltd (ABN: 34 095 653 277) PO Box 259, Darlinghurst, NSW 1300 Australia www.broadcastpapers.com PUBLISHER: Phil Sandberg Tel: +61-(0)2-9211 8205 Fax: +61-(0)2-9211 8208 Mob: +61-(0)414-671-811 papers@broadcastpapers.com

Content + Technology covers management and technology issues confronting media companies for managers, operators and engineers - from Software to Hardware, Regulation to Practice, Established and Emerging Standards.

C+T is published in two editions - Asia and AustraliaNew Zealand. Each edition is published bi-monthly and are both complemented by our weekly C+Tmail eNewsletter.

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12/09/13 12:57 PM

SPORTSCASTING Bulk Olympic Rights Deals for South and Central Asia

www.content-technology.com/sportscasting

Encompass Selects AsiaSat to Distribute Edge Sport HD

TAKING A PAN-REGIONAL APPROACH to broadcast rights, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded Olympic broadcast rights for seven countries in South Asia to STAR India, while advertising industry giant Dentsu has secured rights for Central Asia.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS CO. LTD. (ASIASAT) has announced that Encompass Digital Media Asia has selected AsiaSat’s DVB-S2 MCPC platform, operated from its Tai Po Earth Station in Hong Kong, to distribute Edge Sport HD, a 24-hour action sports channel, on AsiaSat 5.

Covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, STAR India is rights holder for the XXII Olympic Winter Games (2014) in Sochi, Russia; the Games of the XXXI Olympiad (2016) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games (2014) in Nanjing, China. STAR India acquired the rights to all media platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television, internet, and mobile.

Encompass Digital Media has worked with Edge Sport HD since its launch in Asia in 2012 managing playout and content distribution across the AsiaPacific. Edge Sport was the first 24-hour premium action sports HD channel tailored for the Asian market by IMG Media, part of IMG Worldwide, in 2012.

The channel offers action sports content such as surfing, snowboarding, BMX, mountain biking, skateboarding, supercross, skiing, base jumping, freestyle motocross, and wakeboarding.

Meanwhile, the IOC has awarded the broadcast rights in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to Dentsu Inc. for the XXII Olympic Winter Games and the Games of the XXXI Olympiad.

In addition to transponder capacity, AsiaSat will provide uplinking and transmission services, allowing Edge Sport HD to enjoy cost effective delivery to all major terrestrial TV networks and pay TV platforms across Asia, Middle East, and Australasia.

Visit www.olympic.org

CCTV Enlarges I-MOVIX SprintCam Fleet CCTV, CHINA’S NATIONAL TELEVISION station, has installed another SprintCam Vvs HD ultra slow motion system from I-MOVIX. The system will be used in a range of CCTV productions including sport events, documentaries, news documentaries, and entertainment.

CCTV initially encountered the SprintCam system when it was used in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, and they took delivery of their first SprintCam Vvs HD in 2011, supplied by INSTEC, the exclusive Chinese agent for I-MOVIX. The SprintCam Vvs HD broadcast system delivers from 25 to 2,600 fps in 1080i or up to 5,600 fps in 720p, with instant replay. The system comprises the latest generation Vision Research high-speed HD camera; an operational control panel that provides a real broadcast-quality colour matrix and control of frame-rate choice; a slow-motion remote that allows the user to select a video sequence and instantly replay it with an HD-SDI output for live broadcast or storage on any EVS server for a later use; and the camera control unit, which provides control of the slow-motion instant replay, camera control, and data interface between the camera and the EVS server.

Visit www.i-movix.com

KBS, Tieline Add Kick to Martial Arts Games TIELINE HAS ANNOUNCED THAT Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), South Korea’s largest television network, used Tieline i-Mix G3 codecs over IP and ISDN for commentary of various sports during the 4th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, held from June 29 to July 6 in Incheon, Korea. KBS was the host broadcaster for the event at which nine sports were featured.

Tieline Commander G3 rack mount codecs were used at the studio to decode program audio from the various events.

Contact sales@tieline.com.

Visit www.encompass.tv and www.asiasat.com

Media Asset Gold for DAMsmart and Olympic Council of Asia DAMSMART, THE AUSTRALIAN specialist audiovisual digitisation, management and access solution provider, has been appointed by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) to commission a Media Asset Management (MAM) system after completing 13,000 hours of video digitisation.

Based in Kuwait, the OCA oversees all sports in the region and is one of the five continental associations recognised by the International Olympic Committee. The OCA held a significant collection of audiovisual assets covering several decades of sanctioned sporting events. As part of its governing role, the OCA takes receipt of the vision captured by the host broadcaster at the conclusion of each event.

DAMsmart was initially appointed to undertake the digitisation of the OCA’s video collection in late 2012. The collection was temporarily relocated from OCA’s headquarters in Kuwait to DAMsmart’s Canberra facility. The collection’s content was housed on Digital Betacam, DVCPRO, DVCPRO HD, HDCAM, and VHS. The process delivered the OCA with IMX50 files for standard definition content and XDCAM files for high definition content, as well as H.264 proxy files. The collection was archived to LTO5 data tape written under Storage DNA’s DNA Evolution software to take full advantage of LTFS technology.

The OCA has now appointed DAMsmart to undertake its second recommendation, and deliver the organisation with a MAM solution.

DAMsmart will deliver the system using CatDV Media Asset Management software, from UK based company Squarebox, for collection access and control. The MAM application will be integrated with DNA Evolution LTO archiving software, from Storage DNA, configured with an LTO5 library for storage of the high-resolution files.

DAMsmart will commission the system in Australia, ingest the digitised content, and then return the prepopulated MAM back to Kuwait. The project is scheduled for completion this year.

Visit www.damsmart.com.au

SPORTSCASTING

Sport coverage worldwide

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22/08/13 11:23 AM

SPORTSCASTING

The Glasgow Diaries: Chapter 4

By David Bowers

“Just there. The new access way can join up to the right of that row of cars.”

HOST BROADCAST PROJECT DIRECTOR Andrew Quinn and I are standing outside the Scottish Exhibition and Convention Centre (SECC), our architect Cris Van Haren virtually beside us thanks to my iPad and Skype, as we progress plans for the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) design and build.

It’s a fine day and taking in the wider vista reinforces why the IBC will be located here.

Perched on the picturesque River Clyde, with large-scale exhibition halls, several adjacent hotels and next to the Clyde Auditorium and the new SSE Hydro, the precinct will host gymnastics, boxing, judo, netball, wrestling, weightlifting and powerlifting, as well as become home to the IBC and the Main Press Centre.

The SECC site also offers more than enough room to construct the IBC’s administrative, technical and working areas – which will span 2,800 sqm or more – with the Main Press Centre just a short walk away and easily connected to the IBC via fibre.

Although Cris and Andrew have combined

For maximum cost and space efficiency, the IBC will be a combination of modular portable buildings – similar to what many Australian schools use for temporary classrooms – with a large tent serving as the main entrance foyer.

This is not your run-of-the-mill function marquee, of course: at 25 x 20 metres it will house security, reception and lounge areas; the broadcast rights holders’ services booking centre; entrances to operational and technical areas; and an 88-seat cafe.

Andrew and I disconnect Cris (in the nicest possible way!) and walk back to the point at which the reception tent will end and modular areas begin. The actual barrier will be a glass wall, offering a view of the IBC control rooms, monitors and switching centre, and all the activity therein.

We are already working on plant including heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC)

time safe systems, the latter being especially critical to the technical areas, which even in the unpredictable Scottish summer weather will need to be several degrees cooler than the rest of the complex.

Housing the data centre and equipment racks, these areas will also be subject to additional security: of up to 200 people rostered to work at the IBC at any one time, only around 30 will have access to the restricted technical areas.

We know to the metre how much room the broadcast rights holders appointed to date will need, so have allocated all their requested production areas and can anticipate shift numbers, allowing us to estimate how many people will be in the complex at any point in

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Shotoku Serves Win for Tennis Championship Broadcasts

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SHOTOKU BROADCAST SYSTEMS,

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a leading international manufacturer of advanced camera support products, recently facilitated the introduction of Augmented Reality (AR) to BBC Sport for its live outside broadcasts of the Wimbledon 2013 tennis championships. Shotoku sales director James Eddershaw announced from the Company’s European headquarters in Staines, UK, that Shotoku provided BBC Sport with two TP90VR and SX300VR Tracking Pedestal & Head systems for its temporary OB studio during its live outdoor coverage of the Lawn Tennis Championships.

AR was introduced on the first day of the tournament and continued to be used for every studio broadcast throughout the two-week tournament. The level of use and complexity of the graphics adapted as the tournament progressed, right up to the final day. In the UK alone, more than 17m viewers watched the men’s final broadcast.

SPORTSCASTING

experience on five Olympic and Commonwealth Games, this is the first time any of us has situated an IBC in a completely temporary facility!

It was Shotoku’s VR tracking technology that made transferring systems more typically found in permanent studio installations, into the temporary OB studio possible. Using highly accurate internal encoders to monitor all moving axes and combine with simple in-studio referencing technology, allowed

Shotoku to drastically reduce the time required for installation and calibration.

“We are delighted to have been able to work with BBC Sport to help them deliver AR for the first time at an Outside Broadcast, especially at such a prestigious event as the Wimbledon tennis championships,” said Eddershaw. “We are particularly pleased with the reaction of the camera operators who used the equipment for the first time in an OB environment. Any changes to their normal operation came simply from working with the in-shot graphics, not the equipment.”

Shotoku’s recently introduced SX-300VR virtual tracking EFP head features precise tracking and uncompromised operation.

Based on the popular SX300 EFP head, the ergonomic design with decades of extensive VR experience behind it provides a robust, reliable platform for a wide range of camera and lens configurations. The SX-300VR provides high-accuracy, real-time data output

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with no loss in manual performance.

Like all Shotoku VR systems, the unit combines with the Serial Position Interface (SPI) for frame-synchronised high-resolution data tracking, compatible with all leading VR graphics systems. The head may be simply mounted on a tripod, or for real-time full 3D tracking, one of Shotoku’s VR pedestals such as the lightweight, 3-stage TP-90VR, used in this application. While both are typically employed for a range of studio configurations, the SX-300VR and TP-90VR proved to be robust, flexible and reliable in a challenging OB studio application.

Visit www.shotoku.co.uk

28 C+T ASIA_Aug-Sept_BACK.indd 28

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easy retrieval.

For example, if Australia scores a goal in the hockey, that footage will come in to the IBC in real time, be tagged, time-stamped and archived, and within 10 seconds of the actual event any rights holder – whether in Glasgow or their home countries/offices – can retrieve it for use in their own reports.

time. This in turn means we can now finalise fire, safety and evacuation plans, too.

We’ve also got a handle on the likely demand for terrestrial and satellite communications links.

We’ve planned for all the outgoing circuits to accommodate simultaneous use by every rights holder – i.e., if they all decided to do live reports back to their home studios at once we could cope.

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Just to the right of the IBC entrance will be the satellite ‘farm’, where dozens of uplink dishes will play their part in the transition path.

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While we can distribute signals to satellite directly from Glasgow, we can also redistribute them out of London via the BT Tower. This gives us both extra capacity and redundancy in case we need it.

s,

Meanwhile the vast amount of material that will come from the venues and events into the IBC will be logged and stored on hard disc drive for

We are working with a third-party software provider to build the system and databases, using a combination of existing technologies. It will mean, for instance, that a producer working at Australian rights holder Network Ten’s Sydney station will be able to browse low-res images via a secure VPN, select what they want and make a call to have the broadcast quality footage transmitted. Because they can look for content that is relevant to them on the day, this will not only save a lot of time, but mean rights holders won’t need to send as many people to Glasgow to deliver their Games coverage.

Our testing so far has been very positive, and we plan to reveal the system design at the next broadcasters’ meeting in mid-July, at which time the rights holders will be able to sign off on their individual broadcaster plans, needs, budgets and finer details.

It’s the next major milestone on our critical path to Glasgow 2014, and auspiciously timed nearly a year to the day from the Opening Ceremony.

David Bowers is head of engineering and technical operations for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Host Broadcaster contract.

Camera Corps Robotic Cameras at Wimbledon ROBOTIC CAMERAS and control systems from Camera Corps were chosen as key elements in coverage of the 2013 Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships. Q-Ball remotely controlled pan/tilt/zoom/focus cameras, MiniShot remote pan/tilt heads with Hitachi DKH-100 cameras, long-range optical and electro-optical video/audio links, joystick control panels and RCP remote camera control panels were installed for the duration of the event.

“Our involvement with the Lawn Tennis Championships has increased steadily year on year since we first provided MiniShot robotic pan/tilt heads and cameras in comcam roles in 2003,” comments Equipment Manager, Neil Ashworth. “The cameras and supporting equipment have become much more compact over the past decade. Q-Ball heads will be used this year to televise the commentators.

MiniShots will be installed in the players’ lounge to cover the action between games.

“Venue-wide images will be sourced from HotShot heads mounted on and above the canopy. The entire production is in digital highdefinition so we have installed a combination of single-mode optical and Simply SMPTE dual-mode electro-optical long-range links between the cameras and the control

In-Stadium Replays to Smartphones SPORTS SOFTWARE DEVELOPER, Sporting Innovations, and EVS recently unveiled their new C-Cast technology at Sporting Park in Kansas City, KS, allowing visitors the unprecedented opportunity to view replays from multiple angles on their mobile devices, immediately following key moments.

Sporting Kansas City fans were able to access the feature, branded Playback by Sporting Innovations, through the debut of the team’s new Sporting Club Uphoria mobile experience on July 13, 2013. The multi-angle replay functionality integrates C-Cast, EVS’ second-screen technology solution, with Sporting Park’s existing Cisco and EVS technology infrastructure.

Sporting Innovation’s Managing Partner, Asim Pasha, said, “EVS’ C-Cast has been instrumental in delivering the type of fan experiences that align with our vision for the sports industry. We’ve developed a very high standard for delivering innovative and unique fan experiences, and Playback eclipses this standard with the help of C-Cast and our existing infrastructure.”

Visit www.evs.com and www.sportinginnovations.com

EditShare Wins Big With New Geevs Sports SPORTS SOFTWARE DEVELOPER, EditShare has announced the availability of Geevs Sports, a brand new turnkey solution tailored to the unique needs of multi-channel, fast-paced sports and live events coverage. A comprehensive sports production solution, Geevs Sports includes the Geevs Sports Replay multi-channel HD server; an integrated Multiviewer, a tactile Controller; and the Geevs Sports Assistant web client for logging events with pre-defined markers and subclips.

areas. Nick Bonner and Ben Elms from our Brooklands headquarters were at Wimbledon for initial rigging, Nick remaining there for the duration.”

The Wimbledon tennis tournament is the world’s oldest of its kind. Held at the All England Club in southwest London since 1877, it is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and the only event of its type still played on grass. The tournament takes place over two weeks in late June and early July, culminating with singles finals. Each year, five major events are contested, as well as four junior events and four invitational events.

Visit www.cameracorps.co.uk

Geevs Sports integrates with EditShare’s storage and Flow asset management solutions, making it a complete sports production platform for broadcasters, outside broadcast companies (OBs), and in-stadium television producers.

Sports Replay’s Multiviewer lets users view all four inputs and two outputs simultaneously, with clip, transport status, audio presence, and tally all within one screen. Sports Assistant logs requirements of different sports with pre-defined markers and subclips. Users can also create templates to better suit the logging requirements of different events.

Seamless integration across the EditShare product line means that sports production teams can capture to and playback directly from EditShare shared storage, centralising sports content for rapid production.

Visit www.editshare.com

SPORTSCASTING

the ble eral

SPORTSCASTING

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22/08/13 11:40 AM

NEWS OPERATIONS www.content-technology.com/newsoperations

THE

Broadcasters Go Mobile with TVU TVU NETWORKS, THE developer of live mobile electronic newsgathering (ENG) solutions, has announced that Thailand’s BBTV Channel 7 and Somoy TV of Bangladesh have both selected the company’s TVUPack mobile cellular uplink solutions to expand their live broadcast capabilities.

TVUPack’s ability to give field crews more flexibility. “With TVUPack we can also use its store and forward functionality that enables our reporters to shoot and edit several packages in the field and use the aggregated data connections to send finished stories back to our server,” explained Chalitpipul.

As one of the largest national broadcasters in Thailand, BBTV Channel 7 has become increasingly reliant on the ability to provide live coverage of important news and events to its viewers. Over the past year, BBTV Channel 7 began testing a number of cellular uplink solutions in order to expand its live broadcast capabilities. After an exhaustive evaluation process of a number of different cellular uplink products, BBTV Channel 7 selected TVUPack because of its portability, ease of use, flexibility and superior picture quality.

TVUPack has also provided BBTV Channel 7 with a cost-effective solution to cover news outside of Thailand.

“We operate in a highly competitive market, and TVUPack gives us the edge, enabling us to report breaking news faster. Moreover, the TVUPack is not only easy to operate, but it’s easy to move between locations allowing for lightning fast setup and teardown during our live shots,” said Mr. Tassikorn Chalitpipul, News Department, BBTV Channel 7. “Whether it be a political disturbance or a tsunami, TVUPack’s portability lets us report the news in every environment, no matter the location.”

Another advantage for BBTV Channel 7 is

“We first used the TVUPack as we were covering the U.S. presidential elections, and we were able to broadcast live from the United States to Thailand for a fraction of the cost of a satellite truck,” said Chalitpipul. “On top of that, the TVUPack is so portable, versatile and easy to use that we feel we can go live from just about anywhere.”

Somoy TV, meanwhile, is a leading 24-hour news network based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that delivers live breaking domestic and international news. In order to expand its mobile ENG capabilities beyond using traditional DSNG vehicles, Somoy TV deployed TVUPack 3G/4G/LTE cellular uplink solutions because of its flexibility, ease-of-use, picture quality and dual-encoding engine.

“As our need and demand for live broadcast grew, it was time for us to look for an alternative to our existing live remote newsgathering capabilities, which at the time consisted of

NEWS OPERATIONS

First HD News Station for Pakistan HARRIS BROADCAST IS providing a complete turnkey system for Channel 92, the first HD news broadcaster in Pakistan.

The station, owned by Galaxy Broadcasting, is based in Lahore and is scheduled to launch in August 2013. The system is being implemented with the support of AA Systems and Benchmark Systems, while Master Media is providing consultancy and Advisory services.

The central infrastructure in the newsroom and studio is based on Harris Broadcast technology, including NEXIO AMP and NEXIO Volt servers with NEXIO Farad shared storage.

Content is managed and transmitted using the Harris Broadcast NEXIO MOS playlist manager in conjunction with the company’s ADC playout automation driving an IconMaster master control switcher.

To complete the project Harris Broadcast is providing two Platinum routers, one of which includes an integrated HView SX Pro multiviewer to handle facility-wide signal

routing and monitoring. This router will take signals from incoming news feeds and up-convert them while also handling frame synchronisation. Harris Broadcast 6800+ modular solutions, X50 and X85 systems will handle additional signal processing, distribution and signal conversion tasks, while the company’s Videotek TVM Series of multiplatform HD/SD waveform monitor and vectorscopes will monitor critical equipment operation and ensure complete signal integrity.

“Channel 92 is an important venture for us and a dramatic step forward in news broadcasting in Pakistan,” said Mian Mohammed Rasheed, CEO of Galaxy Broadcasting. “Our aim is to get on air as quickly as possible, and for that we needed a technology supplier who could demonstrate all the skills to build a system that is intuitive to operate as well as ensuring long-term reliability.”

Visit www.harrisbroadcast.com

DSNG vehicles and a laptop. As we deployed TVUPack, we found that the system was extremely flexible and allowed us to transmit more live breaking stories to our audience than ever before,” said Mohammed Akther Hossain, Head of Admin and Operations, Somoy TV. Somoy TV has used TVUPack to broadcast a number of important events throughout Bangladesh. One of the network’s greatest successes with TVUPack came as they covered the events surrounding the death of former Bangladeshi president Zillur Rahman in March of 2013. As Rahman’s body was transported from the airport to the presidential residence, Somoy followed the funeral procession, broadcasting the events live from a moving vehicle with the TVUPack. The live broadcast resulted in unprecedented viewership for the network and received national attention, as the state owned television channel BTV as well as 16 other television networks in Bangladesh picked up and relayed the live video as it was broadcast.

“This was a story of tremendous national importance, and because of our new ability to go live from a moving vehicle, Somoy TV was the only broadcaster able to deliver this compelling footage to the people of Bangladesh. The mourning nation was able to watch the story unfold, and it was all possible because of the TVUPack,” said Hossain.

Visit www.tvupack.com

TAS Taiwan Boosts SNG, Distribution with SES SATELLITE COMPANY SES HAS announced that Taiwanese communications provider Teleport Access Services (TAS) has renewed capacity with SES to deliver a variety of TV programmes and live coverage of breaking news throughout Taiwan via SES’ NSS-11 satellite located at 108.2 degrees East.

TAS, a longstanding SES customer and the largest distributor of cable channels to cable headends in Taiwan, will use the capacity to broadcast TV content and provide satellite news gathering (SNG) services across the island.

Michael Kuo, President of TAS, said, “Taiwan is one of the most competitive media landscapes in Asia, with a high TV penetration rate and audiences that are accustomed to receiving breaking news immediately. Having been able to rely on SES for the past four years, we chose to extend our partnership and continue to utilise NSS-11.”

Visit www.ses.com

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AP Invests in User-Generated Video Platform THE ASSOCIATED PRESS has announced the purchase of a minority stake in Bambuser, the live video service that allows users to broadcast, watch and share live video through mobile phones and computers. The investment builds on the exclusive editorial relationship that the AP has with Bambuser and further strengthens the AP’s world-leading capability to source and stream live video news from eyewitnesses.

Under terms of the deal AP’s director of global video news, Sandy MacIntyre, will join Bambuser’s board as a non-executive director.

It is the culmination of a three-year relationship with Bambuser that last year saw the AP sign an operational agreement providing news agency exclusivity for real-time video syndication of content from participating Bambuser users.

AP’s investment follows the successful development by Bambuser of both its technology and user base. Bambuser has a proven track record for enabling real-time creation, solicitation and distribution of usergenerated content (UGC), especially for newsrelated content. This is supported by a broad product portfolio and clear product roadmap designed to target the needs of a rapidly changing and evolving news media landscape By making this investment, AP says it is cementing its leadership in UGC newsgathering.

The AP already uses UGC-sourced and verified content as an everyday part of the news agency’s newsgathering activities, and there is increasing demand for live video content from broadcasters and online publishers.

Through Bambuser, AP can source UGC video news live from the scene from eyewitnesses exclusively for its broadcast and online publisher customers. This not only ensures that the AP remains the foremost global provider of live video news, but also helps its customers overcome their own UGC challenges.

In addition, Bambuser provides the AP with access to an established community of video contributors who can act as effective “first

responders” across the world. AP’s journalists also use Bambuser as a newsgathering tool when out in the field.

The AP has been at the forefront of UGC usage for global newsgathering. From the outset, AP has applied the same high level of editorial standards for UGC as to its own newsgathering.

This includes the application of a strict verification process that ensures the robustness of the news output.

“User-generated video content of live and breaking news is the new frontier of news generation,” MacIntyre said. “Bambuser is the proven platform for eyewitnesses around the world to stream their video content and has been invaluable to the AP over the past year, allowing us to access footage of verifiable breaking news stories that would simply not have been possible before. Moreover, we have always been deeply impressed by the proven technology from the small but very talented team at Bambuser.”

Hans Eriksson, executive chairman at Bambuser, said, “Working so closely with the AP over the last year has proven the huge demand for usergenerated video content. This equity investment is an important milestone in Bambuser’s journey as it not only brings our two organisations closer, but enables us to share our expertise to an even greater extent.”

Eriksson added, “It also comes at a time of exciting developments within Bambuser.

Recently we initiated the rollout of new SDK [software development kit] that enables customers and partners to integrate and customise live video broadcasting capabilities directly into their consumer apps for iOS and Android with just a few lines of code, allowing anyone to be a live video reporter. This marks another milestone in Bambuser’s mission to bring live video broadcasting to the mass market and change newsgathering.”

Visit www.ap.org and http://bambuser.com

New iPad App Presents IMF Data THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND’S Finances iPad app is a completely new way to access information on the Fund finances in a format that is highly interactive and easily shared. The app works as a portable database that includes key Fund financial indicators as well as country and aggregate level financial positions, flows, and projections data. This is a powerful tool with excellent graphics and capabilities to quickly download data which brings a completely New Perspective on Fund Finances.

Visit www.imf.org

Orad’s Smart-Shot Triggers Graphics Fast ORAD, THE PROVIDER of video and broadcast graphic solutions, released its new graphics control panel playout solution, the Orad Smart-Shot. With one click, operators can easily and quickly access and trigger pre-assigned graphics.

Smart-Shot integrates with Orad’s graphic control applications for an end-to-end broadcast graphics workflow. Operators can assign any graphic template to any Smart-Shot button, allowing quick and easy access to all relevant pre-assigned graphic templates.

Operators can change the button’s assignment per production need, enabling Smart-Shot to be used effectively for multiple productions. Smart-Shot can instantly load different pre-sets/layouts per production to be used immediately.

Smart-Shot offers 28 LCD buttons, each updated with a relevant 128 x 128 pixel color image representing the associated graphic and its status. Smart-Shot provides 10 bank buttons, for a total of 280 quick access buttons.

An alternative to conventional keypads, the Smart-Shot touchscreen provides immediate feedback.

Visit www.orad.tv/smart-shot

Remote Control of Dejero ENG Systems DEJERO HAS LAUNCHED a remote control feature for its LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitter and LIVE+ VSET mobile ENG systems. Integrated with Dejero’s LIVE+ Portal intelligent online management system, this new feature enables broadcast organisations to manage and control their LIVE+ 20/20 or LIVE+ VSET transmitters from any location in the world using any Web browser, including those running on mobile devices.

Dejero’s LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitter is a portable and rugged solution for encoding and transmitting HD or SD video over 4G, 3G, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet, and the LIVE+ VSET is a 1-U vehiclemount transmitter designed for use in satellite and microwave trucks. With the Web-based LIVE+ Portal, operators now have an easy means of controlling both systems from a studio or other remote location using a Web browser and the familiar and intuitive LIVE+ 20/20 graphic interface. The remote control feature enables joint field/studio operation and provides an optional lock-out of hardware buttons on the transmitter for control from the studio only, giving operators on both ends a clear indication that the transmitter is under remote control.

Visit www.dejero.com.

NEWS OPERATIONS

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NEWS OPERATIONS

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POST PRODUCTION www.content-technology.com/postproduction

Gatsby – A Toast to Post

By Keith Ford F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a work that lives up to its title, heralded by many as the closest anyone has come to writing the “Great American Novel”, a quintessential take on the “American Dream”.

IN ADAPTING THE BOOK, director Baz Luhrmann had accepted quite a challenge. Indeed, it was one that many had baulked at previously.

Robert Towne refused a chance to write the screenplay for the 1974 film, despite a $175,000 salary, reportedly saying, “I didn’t want to be the unknown Hollywood screenwriter who f---ed up a literary classic.”

Assisting in bringing the book to life and, in the process, creating a visually stunning movie was a cadre of production and post-production staff. Among those was Lead Digital Intermediate (DI) Colorist, Adrian Hauser and Optical Designer and Compositor, Hugh Seville from Cutting Edge; Lighting Lead, Matt Estela from Animal Logic; and Editors, Matt Villa ASE and Jason Ballantine ASE.

THE GRADE GATSBY Luhrmann, much like the eponymous Jay Gatsby, has a flair for the extravagant, making the job of DI Colorist Adrian Hauser, who completed the full final 3D DI, a difficult one. Somewhat unusually for a drama, blockbuster though it may be, it was produced in stereoscopic 3D. The film is also incredibly bright and colourful, despite 3D’s tendency to dim the picture.

“From the grade conform side of it, the process was like a full stereoscopic conform that throughout the process had to be continually updated as the cut changed. Then a traditional 2D style grade on top of that, but then, because we were working in 3D meant we had to work out these really low light levels. He [Luhrmann] had such an amazing, and CM [Producer Catherine Martin] as well, has such an amazing attuned eye for colour detail, and separation, and all the references like classic colour or early colour films where they were just shot with so much light that’s you’ve got this amazing strike,” explained Hauser.

“So to try and get that result from a digital source, through a digital process at a really low light level in the 3D world - you can’t. Most of the grading time is spent creating that look that really shone and sparkled, in Baz’s words, at that low light level. Because a lot of films when they come out in 3D the colour gets a little bit bleached and the levels sit down and it’s not that glamorous.”

POST PRODUCTION

The final product, even in the dimmed 3D, is certainly bright and colourful, verging on the hyper-real.

“It was a really uncomfortable - for a colourist it’s the most uncomfortable place, or type of grade, because the more bright you make something and the more saturated you make something, the more the inconsistencies between shots and pickups stand out. Even though it’s really pushed, a lot of the scenes are incredibly delicate. If you look at the set design, it’s all this really classy, amazingly intricate, delicate differences in colour and subtle hues and things like that. When you push something that big it gets quite unwieldy,” Hauser said.

“Just in terms of the traditional role, the grade is to match stuff. On top of that if you have the opportunity to help create a new colour palette or something like that, that’s the fun bit, but in creating and enhancing the palette that’s there, it made it really difficult.”

[L-R]

Brightness was hardly the only part of the production that was made more difficult by the use of 3D. Matching shots for each eye, the way the film was shot, and using the right software, were among the issues brought about by the 3D. “If you’re in a complete CG movie, everything comes out of the camera perfect anyway because it’s CG cameras, for a live action two eyes are never 100 percent perfect. In a grading and finishing world there’s always something that doesn’t quite track or just tweaks your eye a little bit because there’s ever so slight differences in there,” said Hauser. “So that in itself that takes a lot more of the time as well. Not just having to come to streams for information and having to output to distinct deliverables, just that because optically, you can never find two pieces of glass that are exactly the same, so there’s always something that you can do better about the shot. Because it is two and a half hours in duration you’ve got to make sure that things are aligned as well as possible because your eye will always make up for the differences while you’re watching it in 3D, but that’s what gives you the headaches.”

He also added, “There’s heaps of over the shoulder shots, which in 3D people kept saying that you can’t shoot shallow focus or you can’t shoot over the shoulder or you can’t have things breaking the edge of frame, and they’re all rules that in a perfect world make it a 3D picture. There are kind of bits of transparent glass floating in the corner of your eye and it’s disturbing. So you’ve got to come up with tricks to make it not so disturbing.”

Compositor, Hugh Seville, found that Autodesk Flame was the perfect tool for Gatsby. “We did set up Smoke on Mac and the Flare, so we used Smoke on Mac for IO, the editorial, stereoscopic conforming and then translate all of Adrian’s figures, which he had created in his optical flow, translate it into Smoke and then into the effects side, which was Flare.

With the deadline not moving and the shots not coming in, we ended up having to put a Flame and another Flare in, and another artist, just because of the lateness of the deliverables.

“So there was a bit of a block at the end, but we definitely got there and it was really handy in the sense of using Flame as a design tool, because other tools like NUKE or After Effects are no good with stereo and NUKE doesn’t have much in the way of text ability or editorial. Whereas this seemed to cover all bases and the ability to open it up, and keep it open and change it, is perfect.”

On the DI side, Adrian Hauser was using FilmLight’s Baselight for grading.

“Well we had a Baselight EIGHT and a Baselight TWO. So it was a small DI department with myself, one other colorist [Vanessa Taylor], and Angela [Mclellan] as the conform artist. Which seemed - if we had four months to do it - quite a good team, but in the end we were all just working ridiculous hours to get it through,” Hauser explained. “Essentially the second base light machine became almost a conform machine that was pretty much constantly grading the film, keeping up-to-date with the new effect shots that were coming in, and trying to keep the stereo balance continual as well. Then the other machine was just physically keeping up-to-date with the cut changes and the new shots coming in.”

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“We did Happy Feet in 3D on it [Baselight], so we had a good understanding of how it could handle 3D timelines and delivery workflows. I think that kind of led, or gave us a natural progression to this job,” Hauser added.

While filming was taking place in Sydney’s Fox Studios, the Cutting Edge team essentially picked up and moved onto the lot to be closer to the production. So close, in fact, that Hugh even worked out of the boardroom at Iona, Luhrmann and Martin’s Darlinghurst mansion.

“We were in a little shed outside and then sound had to go in there. So they moved us up into Iona, and design was upstairs which was really handy. It was very convenient just to be able to pick it up and move, otherwise the tyranny of distance - even though it’s a 10 or 15 minute drive - can become a real nightmare. Whereas, this way they could just walk in and go, yes, no,” said Seville.

Editorial changes resulting from a number of studio screeners also created some challenges. It is also well known that Luhrmann has a tendency to change the cut of his films, including quite late in the process, and Gatsby was no different.

“I think there’s also, something that Baz does, there are a lot of editorial changes. Sometimes there was just no pickups, so environments had to be built without being specifically shot for that purpose,” explained Seville.

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“Having those six screeners for Warners over the last 12 months helped us, because I think the first screeners they had, the audiences were pretty - had pretty sore heads from the 3D. So that helped us work out how to make the 3D work,” added Hauser.

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THE LIGHT ON THE DOCK

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Speaking at a ‘Tools for Award Winners’ event hosted by Autodesk, Lighting Lead on Gatsby, Animal Logic’s Matt Estela detailed the software the company used for the film and the work that goes into making lighting work in an effects heavy environment.

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“Maya was used across all of our departments except for Comp, so it was the core tool in modelling, surfacing, effects, and lighting. The crowd scenes were done in MASSIVE and they were then moved across to MayaMan as procedural. The massive amounts of vegetations and trees meant that they couldn’t be hand modelled so we had to use some tools to help us do that,” explained Estela. “We used SpeedTree for the trees, while bushes, ivy, flower beds, ferns, topiaries, all kinds of smaller things, were all done with Paint FX. RenderMan was our main renderer, we used Snoop for Comp, and there’s a lot more. So there’s MARI for plain textures and surfacing, there’s a bit of ZBrush for displacement, through to Equaliser for tracking, Photoshop for matte painting, Maya Fluids for smoke and dust, and other bits and pieces in various departments, as well as quite a lot of internally developed software.

“Focussing on lighting, we used a smaller set of tools. MayaMan was our main bridge to RenderMan, which is our proprietary Maya to RenderMan Explorer. PHX is our lighting and shading engine. RSS (Render Sub-Script) is a text-based, python-based pass system for defining and sending passes to the farm. Shot Set Up, which is our asset management tool for tracking assets that get collapsed into Maya references to be put into

Shop Lighting and Nuke for lighting precomps.

“PHX is a physically-based, ray tracing-based lighting and shading engine developed inside RenderMan. It was a large project for us and it was replacing a bridge system called Impasto, which was the primary lighting and shading engine used in Animal for several years. Gatsby and Dino [Walking with Dinosaurs 3D] were the first shows to use PHX, but we started delivering shots first, so I think we were the first to use it. It’s a path tracer implemented inside RenderMan so it shares certain commonalities with, say, V-Ray or Arnold, but it’s still slightly different.

You might ask why we didn’t just go with Arnold or V-Ray then. The answer was we had a lot of existing technology that’s based around RenderMan and it would have been a huge amount of time to redevelop all those tools, so we decided that we just didn’t have that kind of time.”

There are a number of advantages to using a path tracer, based on ray tracing, compared to a standard RenderMan renderer. Most notable is removing all of the pre-passes required before you can get to the main render. The materials are much cleaner for surfacing work, wires need less lights, and you don’t have to assemble passes or perform lighting in composition. Not everything about ray tracing is easy, however.

“The curse of ray tracing, which is path tracing, is noise. One of the core things within a path tracer is randomness; so a beam of light will actually hit a surface and will bounce and will scatter, in many directions. To capture all those possibilities we have to follow every single ray. It might take an infinite amount of time. We don’t have that so we have to limit the amount of rays and bounces and samples that get fired. If you don’t have enough samples to capture the kind of light effects you’re after, then it will manifest as noise in the image,” said Estela.

On the positive side, implementing everything within an existing renderer, in this case RenderMan, that the artist’s know and use regularly, is that they can utilise all of the hacks and tricks to create shortcuts. One such trick is parallax mapping, a technique borrowed from videogame technology, to provide the city’s buildings with depth without having to build rooms behind every window.

“What you see up until filming renders is just a cube. We would be given priorities on a shader, which would give us the amount of floors going up and rooms going horizontally, randomisation for wallpaper, lights, and textures, and it would give you this illusion of having room detail,” explained Estela. “The advantage with this is that when modelling we are building the hundreds of buildings that had to be built, but we no longer had to build rooms behind the windows. They would just make a flat polygon for the window, we would then assign this shader and we would get the illusion of having rooms behind every window.”

There was quite a large time-frame between the first trailer for the film and the actual release, or completion, of the movie. This was, in part, due to the initial release date being much earlier. It also meant that work on the trailer needed to be completed well ahead of time.

“We had several massive shots, one of the biggest ones being a pullout of the Queensboro Bridge. At the end of the shot we see Manhattan on the far side, complete with traffic. This shot came up for the trailer, so the middle of last year, and we still didn’t have all of our tech sorted and rendering that amount of crowd and cars, at that distance, of that size,

POST PRODUCTION

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[L-R] : Lead DI Colorist Adrian Hauser; Optical Designer and Compositor Hugh Seville; Editors [L-R] Jonathan Redmond, Jason Ballantine ASE, and Matt Villa ASE

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was just crashing all of our renders. What the hell were we going to do?” said Estela. “Well, between comp and lighting we came up with clever solution. So lighting renders per turntable with a few extra passes for a matte for the car colour and a few other bits and pieces.

“Animation exported locators for where the crowd cars were, which would rotate them about, and we gave all these things to Alex Frye, one of our comp leads. So with some funky comp expression magic he made this little demo where he copied the turntable sequence onto each locator and, based upon the rotation of the locator, he would then find the matching frame from the spinning car turntable sequence. Because we had mattes for the car paints we could then modify car colours going and coming full crazy,” continued Estela.

“He used the P pumps, which basically encodes the XYZ position of each pixel into an RGB colour that you can use to essentially make a little, almost point cloud, like a bas-relief version of the car, which you can then project the car renders back onto, which would then let you do rudimentary 3D moves around it. So if you rendered these things fullscreen they would look a little bit ropey, damaged, and matrixy pixelar, but when they were small they looked great.”

CUTTING GATSBY The Gatsby editorial team consisted of Matt Villa ASE, Jason Ballantine ASE, and Jonathan Redmond. Matt and Jason recently spoke about the lengthy process of editing the film, a project on which they both worked for a total of 16 months. In comparison, Ballantine’s work on Wish You Were Here was completed in just 12 weeks.

“The shoot started in September of 2011 and Jason had been on for a couple of months getting things set up. We always knew it was going to be a pretty monumental shoot,” said Villa.

Much like the Cutting Edge contingent, as well as Animal Logic whose offices are located at Fox Studios, the editors were also being kept close to the production.

POST PRODUCTION

“When the shoot began, Baz realised pretty early that he wanted to have an on-set cutting station,” Villa continued. “So we put together a little, portable Avid to take around with us. It was mainly shooting on sets in Fox Studios, but we were using a number of different stages and this portable Avid would travel around to whichever stage they were shooting on. The main cutting room was also fully operational on the Fox lot.”

It wasn’t until shooting wrapped and the production moved into post that Gatsby became a more regular project, even if it was quite long. The length of the shoot was not the only challenge faced by the editorial team. Much like the other facets of the production, working in stereoscopic 3D brought about some technical issues.

“It was shot in stereo, so we were able to cut in stereo or at least had that full time option available. We were working with side-by-side

Muxed media at a great resolution in DNX115, even though because it was side-by-side it was immediately halved in its resolution when you look at the picture full-screen,” explained Ballantine. “As simple as it sounds that we just cut it in stereo, great lengths were taken to prepare the rushes prior to Matt and I being able to cut it. There was even an onset Stereographer.”

The biggest constraint was that they had to use Avid Media Composer 5.5, as Media Composer 6 had not been released when production began, just a few weeks before the official software release, and the studio was unwilling to take a chance on software that was yet to be finalised. This meant that they were tied to the older system throughout, and could not take advantage of the improvements that came with the new version.

“Working in MC5 and not MC6 meant that we were not using stereo clips format that MC6 had, and so did not translate re-positions, and resizes within a stereo framework. This would ‘break’ the 3D,” explained 1st Assistant Editor, Christine Cheung. “We had a few machines running MC6 that the 2nd Assistant Editors, and the 3rd Assistant Editor, would create a side-by-side version to keep as a proxy in the AVID.” Digital Cinematography has changed, and is still changing, the film landscape on every level. It has contributed many advancements and benefits, whilst also offering up challenges. Chief among these, for editors at least, is the ability to continue recording without having to change the film, allowing more footage to be shot.

“Ratio is a big consideration for an editor. Traditionally, shooting on film for low-budget productions there was a 12:1 ratio, so for every minute on screen there was another 11 minutes shot. Nowadays, I don’t know who is doing that,” said Ballantine. “For all the beautiful flexibility that digital technologies have brought to shooting, you can throw more cameras on set because they are cheaper to rent, even people setting them in places knowing that they will be destroyed just to get a better angle, there is just such a different mindset now.

“The accumulation of footage is just crazy. Baz’s previous film, Australia, shot at around a 180:1 ratio, so for every minute on screen there was three hours of footage unused. I’m not sure on the exact number, but Gatsby would have had to have been in the same realm.”

“I think it is still a good thing, because it allows the director to capture more performances to choose from, but for us back in the cutting room the volume can just explode,” added Villa. “Sometimes there can be too much, but it’s our job to deal with that.”

Shared storage of footage however is an area that both editors felt is a huge benefit to come out of the move to digital, with Ballantine saying, “I think that the workflows in the cutting room are probably the most efficient that you could hope for. The picture quality, the resolution you’re working on is great now.”

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Mistika From Start-toFinish on Gatsby SGO MISTIKA’S STEREO 3D tools and advanced metadata-based stereo workflow were used from start to finish on “The Great Gatsby” directed by Baz Luhrmann. The corrective stereo colour balancing was achieved using Mistika.

Production Company Bazmark Film III’s VFX Department, headed by VFX Supervisor Chris Godfrey, purchased a Mistika system from SGO’s Australasian partner Mojo Media Solutions. The Mistika was in use constantly by Bazmark from the first day of the shoot and right the way through to the end of the DI. In addition, a second Mistika system supplied by Soundfirm Sydney was brought in for the sixteen week finishing period as a key part of the DI pipeline designed in tandem by VFX Supervisor / Digital Color Timer Tony Cole and Post Production Supervisor Henry Karjalainen. Australian feature sound mixing and editing facility, Soundfirm invested in a Mistika 2K finishing system with advanced DI colour grading and Stereo 3D options back in January 2012 as they expanded into the world of DI and Stereo 3D finishing.

Bazmark Film III’s VFX Department utilised Mistika on a daily basis for all of the RAW 5K stereo footage being shot in Red Epic-X cameras by Director of Photography Simon Duggan ACS. All of the takes, which were time-synchronised in Mistika, were also processed through the SGO system operated by Tony Cole and VFX Online Editor Justin Tran. Tony Cole designed a customised colour conversion procedure, where a first pass of stereoscopic 3D corrections for size, colour, and geometry were added, all in metadata form at the initial stage of the process. As the Editorial and VFX teams identified the candidate VFX shots, Tony and Justin pulled the shots from the large media storage pool attached to Mistika, where they would re-load the existing Mistika metadata and refine them to make additional, and even more precise, stereo corrections.

Mistika’s optical flow-based processing was used to provide pixel-based colour matching between the two eyes, an issue caused by polarisation, filters, mirror, and lens differences in 3D camera rigs. Many of the VFX shots involved resizing, which consequently affects the Inter-Axial (IA) separation of the two eyes.

The second Mistika system, supplied by Soundfirm Sydney, was used as a core piece of a DI pipeline that was designed in tandem by Tony Cole and Henry Karjalainen. The DI took place in the Soundfirm DI theatre, located around 400 metres away from the Bazmark VFX offices. Bazmark installed a high-speed data connection between the two buildings so that the Soundfirm Mistika could access the same media storage that was being used by the Bazmark VFX Department, where all of the raw camera files were already available on spinning disks. This timesaving set-up prevented the need to create an expensive duplicate copy of over 300TB of raw footage just for the DI team to use.

Making this connection to the existing Mistika’s storage also gave Mistika DI and Finishing Operator, Nir Shelter direct access to the already existing Mistika metadata previously created over the preceding eighteen months work by the Bazmark VFX Department. This was of huge benefit to the conform and finishing process as the EDL’s being supplied by Editorial contained only Left Eye timecodes, yet due to Mistika’s ability to conform against its own metadata, it was still able to conform both eyes from a Left Eye only EDL, in a single step, even though the Right Eye source timecodes were often a few frames different. This provided instantly synchronised conformed stereo sequences from the raw RED Epic 5K files, and these conformed shots already had stereo corrections via metadata prepared earlier by Tony and Justin.

Stuart Monksfield, CEO of Mojo Media Solutions, explains, “The unique capability of Mistika to recursively conform against its own metadata is a huge advantage where editorial changes continue to be made after the DI finishing process has begun. In the case of a stereo project where an EDL is not available for the second eye, the last thing you want to do,

Image: Gatsby [CAPTION: (L-R) TOBEY MAGUIRE as Nick Carraway, LEONARDO DiCAPRIO as Jay Gatsby, CAREY MULLIGAN as Daisy Buchanan and JOEL EDGERTON as Tom Buchanan in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ drama “THE GREAT GATSBY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures]

is spend time eye matching the second eye each time an updated EDL is issued. The DI pipeline Henry Karjalainen designed for this project is a great example of how Mistika’s power and flexibility can help give back time to a project.”

Nir Shelter was one of the 3D engineers during principle photography aligning and working with the 3D camera rigs onset. Later on in the pickup shoots, he was a 3D engineer and the Data Manager before moving on to use Mistika within the DI phase of the post process.

Nir used Mistika to check and adjust stereo alignments, geometry, colour balance of all non-VFX processed shots and he also re-created complicated dynamic timewarp speed change effects at full resolution in Mistika. The values of the dynamic re-times done in one tool in Mistika were made available to be re-used in other re-time effects. This meant that once a desired re-time had been plotted out on a graph it would be possible to apply the same values to other re-time effects to achieve different looks.

Nir relied on the optical flow processing in Mistika to adjust some of the shots that went over depth budget due to enlargement for re-framing purposes achieved during the DI. The re-compositing of certain shots were later fixed in Mistika after reviews on the larger DI grading screen.

Nir Shelter explains, “Outside of the ‘Stereo Correction’ tool one of the most powerful stereo tools Mistika has is the ‘3D Comp’ tool. This was often used in the project’s DI for isolating specific regions of the frame, which required a different correction to the rest of the frame. Then with the use of the propagation function it was possible to apply identical values to the same parameters on multiple clips from a single take on the one timeline. This was a huge time saver as the clips with the propagated values would just need a quick tweak rather than creating new corrections from scratch.”

Henry Karjalainen says, “The Mistika is a great finishing tool. We were certainly left with no surprises after the planning and development stage for The Great Gatsby. Nir really hit the ground running with the Mistika using the 3D RED Epic 5K footage - everything just worked in the most brilliant way.”

Miguel Angel Doncel, CEO of SGO, the Spanish firm that develops and manufacturers the Mistika technology, adds, “We feel immensely proud to have played a role in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and it is another stunning testimony of how Mistika is being used to produce the highest quality Stereo 3D images and workflows for high profile productions.”

Executive Vice President Feature Post Production at Warner Bros., Marc Solomon, states, “SGO has shown that it is a cutting edge, forward thinking company with expansive digital tools and experienced professionals. Their contribution to the post of The Great Gatsby helped us to provide a spectacular looking film.”

Visit www.mojomediasolutions.com and www.sgo.es

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & DAM

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By Charles Sevior, CTO (APJ), EMC² ISILON OUR INDUSTRY HAS RAPIDLY ADOPTED a fully digital workflow - where all media content assets are stored, managed, and manipulated in the form of digital files.

This is true in the production of content, where linear videotape acquisition has been replaced with digital acquisition. Editing of content is moving from bespoke digital workstations to large and open collaborative editing platforms built on shared storage.

This is also true in the consumption of content, where viewers whilst continuing to access broadcast media streams, are increasingly choosing unicast (or connected) media streams via mobile phones, IPTV/OTT connected screens, and tablets for main and secondary entertainment.

In addition, the requirements for data capture and analysis particularly of consumption and sentiment metrics are rapidly increasing as media businesses learn new tricks to generate new revenue streams.

Consequently the need for storage at the core of all of these activities has never been greater.

Specific architecture approaches must be considered and compared when mapping out the appropriate technology infrastructure roadmap for your particular business requirements and growth plans. It is a matter of critical importance that will result in either an efficient scalable digital storage architecture or a collection of storage silos with ongoing growth restrictions and management overheads.

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & DAM

We have evolved over the last 30 years from the storage of content on videotape and the manipulation of media via linear process to a current environment where most content is acquired and stored in a digital format, creating vastly improved processes based on non-linear and parallel access to these digital media assets.

The simple replacement of legacy linear systems with digital solutions with their inherent advantages of numerically precise copies and transformation is now giving way to a digital media infrastructure “2.0”, which is based on virtualised workloads and virtualised infrastructure. Although previously restricted to vendor-certified bespoke hardware platforms, most forward-looking professional media vendors realise that their future lies in innovative applications that work well in virtualised environments. This allows the abstraction of physical infrastructure from the application, leading to flexible and inherently more reliable solutions.

As IT infrastructure becomes more broadly applicable to demanding real-time media workloads, this removes the need for media

application vendors to align with specific IT vendors, whilst still developing specific hardware platforms where extremely high-performance interfaces and processing requirements fall outside of current generation x86 architectures.

This is a not insignificant business change for vendors specialising in the M&E sector and has brought a period of product re-alignment, ownership changes, and consolidation to reflect the changing commercial business models and revenue streams.

As end-users get greater access to large-scale technology companies, they also get the benefit of larger economies of scale and delivery of significant performance improvements and cost reductions via the continued realisation of Moore’s Law. Avoiding proprietary vendorspecific solutions opens up greater competition for generic IT components such as compute, network, and storage. The choice differentiators then become price, performance and applicability to other requirements across the enterprise – rather than suitability to a specific M&E workload.

These changes are also impacting the way in which technology is managed in the end-user environment, with a much greater integration of the previously separate expertise domains of “Broadcast” and “IT”. Most media organisations now have broadcast engineers very savvy on VM management and authentication zones, and IT engineers who understand the requirements of media production and real-time broadcast streams.

To some extent, compute and network components are reasonably well understood and can be applied in virtualised environments under VMware or similar to M&E-specific workloads.

There are more flavours of storage to consider and the domain of the enterprise storage architect is quite broad, so we shall review these in more detail.

STORAGE CATEGORIES DAS (Direct Attached Storage) Disk drives contained within the computer cabinet and connected to the CPU via PCI or some other peripheral bus. Most users’ computers and most servers have direct attached storage (DAS). By definition these are not a shared storage device.

SAN (Storage Array Network) An array of disk drives in a self-contained unit. In large enterprises, SANs serve as pools of storage for the servers in the network. Compared to managing disks attached to each server, SANs

improve system administration. The SAN transfers data between servers and disks at the same fast peripheral channel speeds as if directly attached, and Fibre Channel has been the traditional interface.

NAS (Network Attached Storage) A specialised file server connected to a network.

A NAS device contains a slimmed-down operating system and a file system and processes only I/O requests by supporting the popular file sharing protocols, primarily CIFS (SMB) for Windows and NFS for Unix. Using traditional LAN protocols such as TCP/IP over Ethernet, the NAS enables additional storage to be quickly added by plugging it into a network switch. As network transmission rates have increased from Fast Ethernet to Gigabit and 10Gb Ethernet, NAS devices are approaching speed parity with DAS devices.

Scale-Up A NAS architecture based on access to storage arrays via a “head” server that allows scaling of capacity as required by adding additional storage volumes.

Scale-Out A NAS architecture based on symmetrical design of an array of nodes that allows scaling of both capacity and throughput as required by adding additional storage, compute, and IO resources to the storage cluster.

Tiered Storage A data storage system made up of two or more types of storage based on their access speed.

This provides a price – performance trade-off for the enterprise architect to optimise storage capacity to total cost.

The best analogy for tiered storage is airport car parking. As you park your car closer to the airport, with greater speed of access to your vehicle, you pay more for the privilege. Compare the rates of valet parking to long-term parking (or even off-site park & fly sites) and you will understand the concept!

Archive Long-term storage of information usually in a lower-cost higher density format. The storage medium must be both reliable and stable and, as large quantities of information need to be stored, cost is of major importance. Currently the lowest raw price/TB is magnetic tape (e.g. LTO5/6) but there is increasing interest in using commodity high-capacity disk drives as possibly the best compromise between TCO and data accessibility.

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Capacity - storage volume in TB/TiB [base 1000 / 1024] or PB

There are three main cloud storage models: Public cloud storage services, such as Windows Azure Storage or Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), provide a multi-tenant storage environment that’s most suitable for unstructured data.

Private cloud storage services provide a dedicated environment protected behind an organisation’s firewall. Private clouds are appropriate for users who need customisation and more control over their data.

Hybrid cloud storage is a combination of the other two models that includes at least one private cloud and one public cloud infrastructure. An organisation might, for example, store actively used and structured data in a private cloud and inactive unstructured and archival data in a public cloud.

STORAGE DEVICES In the M&E sector, the most commonly utilised storage devices are spinning disks, flash memory and data tape.

SATA (Serial ATA) Currently the most widely deployed high-capacity hard disk technology spanning the gamut from a typical workstation to very large disk arrays.

These are available in a range of speeds (RPM & throughput) and quality grades (consumer, enterprise). Available today in 4TB capacity and growing.

SAS (Serial-Attached SCSI) The highest performance drives and generally more costly than SATA. These are taking over from Fibre-Channel (FC) drives at the top-end.

Available today in 4TB (3.5”) and 1.2TB (2.5”) capacity and growing.

SSD (Solid-State Disk) An application of flash memory bundled into a hard disk form-factor for ease of integration.

These are much faster than hard drives, but also much more costly and limited to the number of write-cycles per cell (i.e. shorter life span).

Available today in 800GB and 2TB capacity and growing.

LTO (Linear Tape Open) The dominant data tape format now available in the latest LTO-6 version, with a raw capacity of 2.5TB per tape.

Optical Disk In the media sector this is predominantly the domain of Sony with the XDCAM product, available today with a raw capacity of up to 0.1TB (128GB quad layer).

PERFORMANCE METRICS Different categories of storage come with different performance and price points. The key

Throughput – sustained read/write in MByte/s or GByte/s Variations: Sequential / Random / Single stream / Total / Protocol IOPS – number of file system Input or Output operations per second Latency – the delay (usually in ms) between request and fulfilment (of data or metadata) The art of the enterprise storage architect is to match the appropriate class of storage and workload in a manner which provides the required performance within the available infrastructure budget. This invariably involves trade-offs between the amount of storage capacity allocated to high-performance workloads and nearline or archive workloads.

Having separate storage volumes to meet these varying requirements implies making hard decisions about the capacity of each sub-system, plus the additional network and management overhead of copying files between the multiple storage pools.

OPTIMAL ARCHITECTURE Given the above trade-off, the apparent nirvana is a single scalable storage volume consisting of multiple tiers of storage (each with specific performance and capacity characteristics). Ideally, the positioning of files within each tier should be based on flexible policy settings allowing for the automated movement of file between tiers as their usage requirements change (e.g. files greater then 10MB not accessed for 14 days move to a slower tier).

Typical enterprise IT architecture has a 4-5 tier model, with Tier 1 (or sometimes Tier 0) storage representing the fastest pool for the most critical or complex business requirement down to Tier 4 for archived content. The actual speed metrics vary, based on the nature of your business requirements, so these can be somewhat relative measures.

The storage technology being applied to the tiered architecture is changing as concepts like a “hot edge” of flash memory storage (either server-side flash or SSD in NAS) act as an active file cache and commodity cloud storage or dense consumer-grade SATA disks works as the “cold core” of online storage.

This multi-tier architecture should still allow expansion of any given tier as business requirements change. Over the years, older storage pools can be relegated to higher tiers of storage until the costs of rack space and power consumed in return for the capacity provided force them to be scrapped (a common result of Moore’s Law).

RECOMMENDED CONSIDERATIONS Decisions about the best architecture and vendor are critical. With the adoption of standards across the storage and IT industries, we are in a much better position to make independent selection decisions rather than being locked into a storage solution tied to a specific application vendor.

A good storage provider should be able to offer certified solutions with multiple M&E equipment and application vendors to provide certainty about performance of the complete architecture against YOUR specific workload requirements.

QUESTIONS TO ASK The following range of questions hopefully hit the key criteria for comparison and selection of this very important part of broadcast-IT infrastructure.

These can be used when putting together an RFP. Does the NAS support a range of open file protocols?

Is a client-side driver required to gain access to the NAS? If so, what platforms and OS’s is the driver available for?

Can you select from a choice of drive technologies to suit applications at different tiers of performance & cost? Can you mix and match SSD’s and hard drives for the storage of metadata, data or both?

What is the process to add additional storage to an existing pool?

Can you expand capacity without data migration, volume reconfiguration or a shutdown of the NAS? What is the process to upgrade NAS software over the life of the storage pool? Does it offer a non-disruptive upgrade?

Will the storage pool support a heterogeneous mix of storage arrays purchased and added over a series of hardware generations?

When planning for storage growth over 5-7 years, is it necessary to provision a higher capacity (more expensive) controller up front?

What is the protection scheme in place to secure the data? Is it flexible and granular or configured on a per volume basis? Can protection levels be altered as business priorities change?

Can the storage solution meet your varying recover point objectives and recover time objectives for specific data categories via snapshot and backup tools?

What are the capacity KPI’s? Some typical benchmark comparison points are $/TB, RU/TB, KW/TB, Staff/PB What are the performance KPI’s? Usually measured as throughput in TB/s or GB/s for Read / Write, Sequential, Random, Mixed, Per Protocol.

What are the capacity limits of the storage pool? Maximum storage capacity, total number of files, depth of directories, files per directory, number of active/idle client connections, number of open files, number of shares etc.

Considering your specific workload estimates for capacity and performance, how closely and cost-effectively can the solution offered meet your needs, whilst still able to scale for additional and possibly quite different workloads across your enterprise in subsequent years?

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LATE JULY SAW a three-day DAB+ Technology Workshop and Transmission Demonstration conducted in Hanoi, Vietnam. The event was jointly organised

by WorldDMB and Voice of Vietnam (VOV) and was supported by the AsiaPacific Broadcasting Union (ABU).

The workshop, organised in the lead up to the Radio Asia conference, 29 – 31 July, was attended by more than 90 delegates from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Macau, and reflects growing interest in the DAB+ standard in the Asia Pacific.

WorldDMB Asia Pacific Committee Chair, Joan Warner, who spoke at the workshop, said, “WorldDMB offers broadcasters information on all aspects of the switch from analogue to digital. These workshops and demonstrations are tried and tested services that WorldDMB has offered to other markets that are also planning their rollout of DAB+.”

Showcasing DAB+ equipment and expertise from Australia, Hong Kong, and Europe, where digital radio is on air, delegates were the first to hear and see VOV radio stations live on air in DAB+. Delegates gained firsthand knowledge of the transmission equipment and experienced the digital quality audio and

Radio Assist 8.2 Automation AT IBC2013 NETIA IS unveiling version 8.2 of the company’s RadioAssist digital audio software suite. This latest release of NETIA’s flagship software boasts three powerful enhancements.

The introduction of cloud-based management for Radio-Assist gives users the ability to access the system database from any networkconnected workstation. Particularly valuable for multisite radio broadcasters, this capability enables authorised users anywhere to access, retrieve, and work on the same content, without the need for time-consuming media transfers. In addition to enabling faster, more productive operations through shared media access, cloud-based management enables broadcasters to reduce reliance on server infrastructures and, in turn, lower the total cost of ownership.

By storing content in the cloud, Radio-Assist can serve as an online production database or as an online content archive. Radio-Assist archiving tools enable seamless management of the archive/ restoration process in the cloud. Users can simply trigger the archiving process as a background task and subsequently use simple search requests to retrieve content. In disaster recovery situations, the content stored in the cloud by Radio-Assist can help to ensure continuity of service even when ground-based facilities are compromised.

The Snippet range of editing tools available within the Radio-Assist automation products is now available for iOS devices. Sharing the same look and ergonomic principles as the Snippet desktop interface, the new iPhone- and iPad-compatible iSnippet tool allows field reporters and other remote users to enjoy the Radio-Assist audio editing capabilities — familiar from the desktop — on their portable devices.

RADIO

The new teleprompter module for the Radio-Assist suite gives presenters and journalists convenient visual access to news scripts, which scroll continuously down the presenter’s screen and is linked to the playout system in the studio. Customisable features may be configured in user profiles that are tailored to presenter preferences.

Visit www.netia.com

Voice of Vietnam, World DMB & Commercial Radio Australia organisers of the DAB+ demonstrations in Hanoi.

new text and slideshow features on a wide range of receivers.

A live drive test demonstration was conducted in vehicles in Hanoi, showing even a low powered demonstration can reach significant audiences. Advice was provided on network planning, content development, and the structural and regulatory considerations which will be needed when Vietnam plans the roll out of permanent high powered digital radio services. Vietnam is well advanced in the digitisation of its broadcast systems and this workshop will advance the planning for digital radio services.

Visit www.worlddab.org and www.digitalradioplus.com.au

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Digital Audio Satellite Receivers 2WCOM’S NEW FLEXDSR02+ AND FLEXDSR04+ digital satellite receivers enable audio contribution via satellite and IP, offering more versatility, power, and integration than the company’s previous generation of satellite receivers. The FlexDSR02+ and FlexDSR04+ support all major audio formats, provide fail-safe dedicated hardware, automatic program switching, full regionalisation capabilities, SIRC remote control through satellite, and more.

The FlexDSR02+/04+ accepts input from satellite (DVB-S/S2), internet (IP), and synchronous transmission lines (STL with ASI). With its SD card-based internal memory capacity, FlexDSR02+/04+ facilitates a wide variety of additional back-up solutions and transmission scenarios.

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2wcom’s SIRC (Satellite Inband Remote Control) provides remote control and management of the entire network of IRDs via satellite, without requiring an additional backline. These advanced control facilities make it possible for radio stations to streamline the integration of profitable regionalised commercials and other content. Full standard control via SNMP and web interface is also provided.

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FlexDSR02+/04+ deliver a more secure and high-quality experience for both operator and listener. Automatic weightbalancing of quality parameters and failover switching to alternative program input sources (satellite, IP-line, ASI, SD card) is complemented by seamless audio fading between different sources (backup lines or SD card).

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Supporting up to four audio inputs, the FlexDSR02+ and FlexDSR04+ are 19” 1U units prepared for a rack installation with display and jogwheel, diverse tuner models, remote control, SNMP v2c, a wide range of professional audio analogue and digital outputs, Gigabit IP, ASI, relays and inputs, and internal memory.

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Users can chose between MPEG 1/2 Layer 1,2,3, MPEG 2/4 AAC LC, HEv1&v2 and AC3, to achieve the optimum operational efficiency. In addition, the unit provides built-in monitoring of important operational RF signal and MPEG parameters, with monitoring of audio via an internet backline also possible.

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38 C+T ASIA_Aug-Sept_BACK.indd 38

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THE SECOND GENERATION OF International Datacasting’s STAR Pro Audio Solution opens up new revenue generating opportunities for radio networks by providing localised ad insertion. The new platform also enables time-shifting functionality, allowing broadcasters to play the right content at the desired time.

In addition to increasing ad revenues and improving flexibility, the STAR Pro Audio Solution significantly lowers per-channel costs through shared hub support. Additionally, IDC says it uses up to 70% less bandwidth compared to other solutions.

According to Doug Lowther, President and CEO, International Datacasting, “The platform increases advertising revenues because it enables highly localised ad insertion. The ability to sell more targeted ads — by location, demographic, time zone, or language — means more revenue opportunities across the entire network.”

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The STAR Pro Audio Solution includes a copy split capability that allows operators to send select ads to specific regions or specific receivers. Stored audio files can be inserted into live or recorded programming. Cost savings are realised through shared hub support which enables multiple radio networks to share one 4-channel receiver instead of having each network deploy its own stand-alone, single channel receiver. Additionally, the STAR Pro Audio Solution requires just 120kHz space segment for stereo.

Visit www.datacast.com.

StreamGuys First with New Ogg Opus CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK STREAMGUYS says it will give radio broadcasters more options for high-quality, low-latency audio streams through support of Ogg Opus, the new versatile, open-source audio codec standardised by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

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Ogg Opus incorporates technology from the Skype-developed, speechoriented SILK codec and the low-latency CELT, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation as a next-generation music codec. Ogg Opus is able to scale from 8kb/s lo-fi audio all the way to full-band, high-fidelity music and surround sound.

For the benefit of broadcasters, Ogg Opus offers both exceptional audio quality and very low delay, distinguishing itself from audio codecs that excel in one category but lack in the other. For example, MP3 supports broadcastquality audio but often lags noticeably behind real-time broadcasts. Ogg Opus also offers a natural transition to the similar Ogg Vorbis by delivering higher audio quality at a lower bitrate.

StreamGuys is the first CDN to give broadcasters that option by efficiently transcoding live Icecast feeds into Ogg Opus streams. Monty Montgomery, Executive Director at the Xiph.Org Foundation, believes that StreamGuys will be instrumental in driving greater demand for Ogg Opus streams in the broadcast space, which he notes is currently split across many different, older codecs — a splintering he views as a potential disadvantage to the broadcast industry.

According to Montgomery, “Opus, as one codec, does a better job at the same bitrate, and can scale across an entire range of speech, music and interactive uses — seamlessly and dynamically in the same stream, and without the need to license, pay or request permission. It is technology available to everyone just like the Internet itself.”

Montgomery adds that its royalty-free status further simplifies adoption through compatibility with free media player software, including VLC, WinAmp and Firefox Mozilla, which natively supports Ogg Opus through its HTML5 audio tag.

Eduardo Martinez, Director of Technology for StreamGuys, emphasises that StreamGuys will maintain its position as a codec-agnostic CDN, and simply offer Ogg Opus as a new option. He notes that StreamGuys’ cloud-based architecture is capable of simultaneously transcoding live feeds into multiple formats (mp3, HE-AAC, Ogg Vorbis, etc.) and bitrates to meet a variety of broadcaster requirements around the world.

Visit www.streamguys.com

Report on Possible Low-Cost DAB Platform for Small Stations THE UK MEDIA REGULATOR, Ofcom, has made available a report on the results of an investigation into low cost DAB solutions. An experimental DAB multiplex was set up in the English seaside town of Brighton between 14th September 2012 and 27th January 2013 using new lower-cost technologies.

The experiment was privately-funded, and the research conducted in the author’s spare time. As no similar study had previously been carried out, the test was deemed a valuable exercise to inform policy makers of the practicalities of low cost DAB solutions when used to serve small areas, particularly from a single transmitter. The transmissions were operated under a Non-Operational Test and Development licence issued by Ofcom.

As well as testing the viability and reliability of new wireless techniques for generating a Eureka 147 DAB compliant signal in a real world scenario, it also allowed various measurements, and comparisons with existing multiplexes to be made. The experiment successfully demonstrated that much of the infrastructure can now easily be implemented in software, and that integration with public IP networks improves accessibility while reducing the capital and operating costs quite dramatically.

It was also demonstrated that a trade-off in power amplifier selection could remove the need for large and costly cavity filters to meet ITU spectral masks. The trade-off is a reduction in power efficiency, but the cost of this is negligible at low power levels. Some thought was also applied as to how a small-scale multiplex could fit in with the current and future radio broadcasting spectrum landscapes. It was also shown that a low-cost, low power approach could deliver a reliable, high quality service at minimal opportunity cost by using interleaved spectrum, which is unsuitable for use by larger networks.

The experiment also highlighted the importance of ‘site over might’.

Low power transmitters sited in urban population centres can often deliver the field strengths required for reliable indoor reception much more effectively than might be achieved with a higher-powered site on the periphery of the population centre.

Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI) to other DAB services was anticipated and thoroughly checked for, but none was found. It seems that ACI ‘holes’ are not created by low power DAB transmitters sited in an area where the wanted signal levels from other multiplex services transmitted from elsewhere are sufficiently high.

Ofcom says the work demonstrated that it is feasible to deliver DAB transmission infrastructure at much lower cost than currently required for equipment to deliver wide-area coverage. Nevertheless, significant further work is required to identify suitable spectrum for services making use of these technologies. In addition, it will be necessary to consider how they might be licensed to cover particular areas, especially in circumstances where there is a requirement to carry more than one service on the multiplex. When these issues have been resolved, these new techniques could find particular application for Community Radio or smaller scale commercial radio stations. These techniques might also assist in rolling out existing networks to serve more remote population areas where existing approaches might not prove to be cost-effective.

The report is intentionally light on engineering details as the goal is to provide an outline of new concepts that can be understood by an audience with varying depths of understanding in technical matters.

Finally, Ofcom stresses that while a wide range of products and tools are referred to, their inclusion as a reference in the document should not be taken as an endorsement of these products and tools.

The report can be found at: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/marketdata-research/other/radio-research/Software-DAB-Research/?utmsour ce=updates&utmmedium=email&utm_campaign=lowcostDABresearch

RADIO

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AES Releases Draft Streaming Audio-Over-IP Standard THE AUDIO ENGINEERING SOCIETY (AES) has released the draft standard AES67-xxxx – High Performance Streaming Audio-Over-IP Interoperability. According to the AES, high-performance media networks now support professional quality audio (16 bit, 44,1 kHz and higher) with low latencies (less than 10 milliseconds) compatible with live sound reinforcement. The level of network performance required to meet these requirements is available on local-area networks and is achievable on enterprise-scale networks.

A number of networked audio systems have been developed to support high performance media networking but until now there were no recommendations for operating these systems in an interoperable manner.

To view the draft standard, visit http://www.aes.org/standards/comments/ drafts/aes67-xxxx-130729-cfc.pdf

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TSL Products, Argosy Partner in AsiaPac ARGOSY BROADCAST ASIA Sdn Bhd (ABA), and TSL Products have joined forces to provide local customer support and stock availability, as well as a distribution capability that will strengthen the companies’ presence across the Asia Pacific region.

As part of the agreement, TSL Products will provide ABA with a comprehensive range of its surround sound microphones, audio processing, broadcast control systems and power management products to stock at Argosy’s recently expanded facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ABA will keep stock of the main products for warranty exchange and will provide local support for any first level technical support issues.

selected technology for the MPEG-H 3D Audio standard (ISO/IEC 23008-3) based on responses submitted to the Call for Proposals issued in January 2013. The selected technology supports content in multiple formats: channel-based, channels and objects (C+O), and scene-based Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA). A total of seven submissions were reviewed: four based on C+O technology and three based on HOA. The submissions were evaluated using a comprehensive set of subjective listening tests in which the resulting statistical analysis guided the selection.

A submitted technology was selected for each of the C+O and HOA signal sets. At the highest bitrate of 1.2 Mb/s for the coding of a signal supporting a 22.2 loudspeaker configuration, both of the selected technologies have achieved excellent quality and are very close to true transparency, i.e. listeners cannot distinguish from a hidden reference. It is expected that the C+O and HOA technologies will be merged into a unified architecture during the standardisation process.

MPEG has committed to a short standardisation timeline to produce Version 1 of MPEG-H 3D Audio that is focused on higher bitrates (e.g. 1.2 Mb/s to 256 kb/s) with the Committee Draft, Draft International Standard, and International Standard expected to be complete in March, 2014, July, 2014, January, 2015, respectively.

The 105th Meeting also saw MPEG issue a Call for Proposals for Program Level and Dynamic Range Control technology. While MPEG has Dynamic Range Control (DRC) capability integrated with the MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) profile coders, as in the AAC IMDCT-based multi-band DRC, it is interested in pursuing technology that could be more broadly applicable, be a significant advance with respect to AAC technology, and take into account recent developments in the field, including regulatory developments.

Submissions for the Call for Proposals are requested to compare the performance of proposed technology to that of the MPEG-4 AAC-based DRC technology. Submissions to the Call are due in October 2013 at the 106th meeting.

Visit http://mpeg.chiariglione.org

Trilogy Appoints Danmon Asia TRILOGY, the supplier of voice communications technologies for the broadcast, industrial and commercial sectors, has appointed Danmon Asia as its official distributor in Indochina for its range of professional intercom products.

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Danmon Asia, located in Hanoi, Vietnam, is part of the Dan Technologies Group, one of the world’s leading suppliers of audio, video, transmission products, digital media solutions, systems integration, service and support. Danmon Asia will carry Trilogy’s range of intercom solutions including the flagship “Gemini” distributed matrix and new, entry-level “Messenger” systems.

“We are delighted to represent Trilogy in the Indochina market,” said Robert Rosenberg, Managing Director of Danmon Asia. “We offer broadcasters in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar the best performing, best-value hardware, software, and systems, and Trilogy’s intercom systems have an acknowledged reputation for excellence on both counts.”

Trilogy’s Gemini intercom system is readily scalable to venues of any size and is a “true” intercom system, meaning that operators can easily interface to all existing audio circuits with instant control over levels and key configurations.

The newly launched Messenger is a smaller intercom package that supports the same SIP-style IP interfaces as Gemini and addresses a gap in the market for professional, entry-level systems that can be readily be scaled up for medium to large scale applications.

Trilogy’s Director of Business Development, Mark Ellis, said, “Danmon Asia has a highly respected reputation for working very closely with its partners and customers to ensure that the right system is sourced and deployed for the right application, meeting precisely the needs of the end user. What’s more, they have the deep well of expertise from their parent company, Dan Technologies Group, to draw from.”

Visit www.trilogycomms.com

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MPEG Selects Technology for MPEG-H 3D Audio Standard AT ITS RECENT 105TH meeting, the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG)

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The Radial ProMS2 is completely passive and “100 percent discrete” to ensure optimal signal flow. The engine inside is an Eclipse ET-MS10 transformer that features a linear response from 20Hz to 20kHz while exhibiting less than 0.01% distortion at 20Hz. The Eclipse transformer is equipped with a mu-metal can that shields the sensitive circuit from outside electro-magnetic fields.

Features include microphone input with -30dB pad to enable extra high level sources to be used without fear of saturating the transformer. There are three outputs: a direct-coupled output that is normally connected to the main FOH PA system mixer; a transformer isolated outpus; and a direct output with a ground lift switch.

Visit www.radialeng.com

JBL Professional 3 Series Studio Monitor HARMAN’S JBL PROFESSIONAL has introduced its 3 Series studio monitors. The first studio monitor line to incorporate JBL’s patent-pending Image Control Waveguide, 3 Series is designed to deliver exceptional imaging and detail in any listening environment. The new 3 Series is aimed at music, post and broadcast production customers working in stereo and surround sound formats.

The JBL 3 Series features two models: the LSR305, 5-inch powered studio monitor; and the LSR308, 8-inch powered studio monitor. The LSR305 boasts a response of 43Hz to 24 kHz and a peak SPL of 108 dB, while the LSR308 features a response of 37Hz to 24 kHz and a peak SPL of 112 dB. Leveraging new technology developed for JBL’s flagship M2 Master Reference Monitor, the 3 Series features JBL’s patent-pending Image Control Waveguide enabling the listener to hear greater depth and ambience in recordings. Surrounding the high frequency tweeter, and located directly above the woofer, the waveguide precisely controls the sound emanating from the monitor in the vertical and horizontal planes.

As the sound generating engines, the 3 Series’ long-throw woofer and its damped woven composite tweeter are designed from the ground up to reproduce the powerful transients and micro dynamics of any mix.

These drivers deliver impressive deep bass and smooth high-frequency response beyond the range of human hearing. JBL’s patented Slip Stream low-frequency port design works in concert with the woofer to produce deep bass response at all playback levels.

Each 3 Series model incorporates a range of features to integrate the loudspeakers into a broad range of environments including multiple inputs, a detented volume control and an input sensitivity switch for compatibility with professional and consumer equipment.

Visit www.jblpro.com

Sony Upgrades Audio Software SONY CREATIVE SOFTWARE HAS released new upgrades for two of its software applications, Sound Forge Pro 11 [WIN] and SpectraLayers Pro 2 [WIN/MAC].

Designed for audio recording on the PC, the new edition of Sound Forge Pro introduces more efficient recording and processing workflows and new signal and effects processing plug-ins for crafting broadcast-ready audio masters.

Meanwhile, the upgraded version of SpectraLayers Pro 2 audio spectrum editing environment features a faster processing engine and a host of new tools, methodologies and user interface improvements.

While Sound Forge Pro 11 and SpectraLayers Pro 2 are standalone applications, both are now configured to work with each other, providing a comprehensive editing environment that combines deep waveform and spectrum editing capabilities.

Sound Forge Pro 11 new features include: One-Touch Recording: Sound Forge Pro 11 features a completely redesigned recording interface that keeps you anchored in the workspace at all times while you shape and monitor incoming audio, arm and record takes, review work, and prepare for the next pass.

CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act) compliant metering: New metering features help you follow the new rules while maximising the dynamic range potential of your audio.

New Plug-in Chain Interface: Direct workspace access to every element of the plug-in processing environment.

Includes iZotope Nectar Elements plug-in: High end voice processing plugin with style presets in genres like rock, pop, folk, soul, and voiceover & dialogue.

New Restore and Repair Tools by iZotope: New in this edition is Declipper, Denoiser, Declicker.

New Waveform Display Options: More than just a simple strip that displays your exact location, this feature also serves as an excellent navigation and auditioning tool.

Input Bus Effects: Set the mood for your talent by sweetening your source signal with plug-in effects.

Broadcast Wave File Format Enhancements: Supports BEXT BWF version 2.0, iXML, and includes autofill and verification options as well as automatic repair of BWF data.

SpectraLayers Pro 2 new features include: Significantly Enhanced Performance: Enjoy faster spectral graph explorations in any scenario.

Spectral Casting/Molding: Cast the frequency signature of one layer over that of another to derive a derivative layer that can be phase-inverted to create free spectral space for hard-to-distinguish sounds to occupy in a mix. Try a spectral alternative to typical side-chain/ducking processes, or tap this feature’s creative potential for incredible sound design possibilities.

Shape Tool: Perfect for extracting drum sounds, simply point at a shape on the spectral graph and click to pull your hits over to a target layer.

Frequency Range Display Options: Display frequency ranges plotted on your choice of logarithmic scales.

One-Click Noise Extraction: A new one-click command executes your custom noiseprint over the target layer’s entire spectral expanse.

Looping: Define a time range and engage looped playback to audition fullspectrum selections as well as frequency bandwidth-limited selections.

New Resampling and Remixing Options: Freely define, route, and mix channels during the resampling process.

Visit www.sonycreativesoftware.com

AUDIO

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AUDIO

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TRANSMISSION Signal distribution, test & measurement

www.content-technology.com/transmission

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SES – Hot Birds in the Video Neighbourhood 2013 HAS SEEN satellite services operator SES cement its position as a leading platform for the delivery of broadcast and telecommunications services through the Asia-Pacific.

Recent wins have included a deal with Filipino direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV provider Global Satellite (GSAT), which has contracted its fourth transponder on NSS-11 (orbital position 108.2 degrees East).

GSAT, the satellite division of First United Broadcasting Corp (FUBC), launched its DTH service in 2008 on the NSS-11 Ku-band satellite, providing subscribers with access to an improved mix of international programmes including English, Mandarin, Korean, Tagalog, Japanese, and Spanish channels. With this additional capacity, GSAT will be offering 12 high definition (HD) channels and 47 standard definition (SD) channels to more than 200,000 subscribers across the Philippines archipelago.

Meanwhile, MNC Sky Vision, Indonesia’s premier satellite Pay-TV provider with its well-known brand, Indovision, recently announced it would use capacity on the SES-7 satellite to support Indovision’s future Chinese-language Directto-Home (DTH) package. The multi-transponder and multi-year deal provides Indovision with access to the Ku-band capacity aboard SES-7.

When launched, SES-9 will be the largest SES satellite dedicated to the Asia-Pacific region.

The new spacecraft will be providing expansion

In the telco arena, SES also recently announced a multi-year multi-million dollar contract renewal with Supernet, the Pakistani satellite

Taiwan Rolls Out World’s Biggest Short-Wave Upgrade Project

TRANSMISSION

The transmitters are manufactured in Turgi, Switzerland while the antennas are designed in and delivered from Schifferstadt, Germany.

At the first site near Taipei four transmitters and two antennas will be installed, at the second site six transmitters and ten antennas.

The new infrastructure has been partially on air since May 2013 with two transmitters and antennas and is planned to be completed in several steps until (northern) autumn 2014.

Of significant benefit is a reduction in energy consumption by replacing the old equipment

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The GSAT agreement follows a new multi-year, multi-transponder deal with MediaScape Inc, also of the Philippines, on SES-7 at 108.2 degrees East. That new capacity will allow MediaScape, through Cignal Digital TV – its Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite television service provider – to further expand its services for the provision of DTH satellite TV.

The multi-year deal will eventually see the transfer of current capacity usage by GSAT from NSS-11 to the new SES-9 satellite, currently scheduled for launch in 2015.

AMPEGON HAS RECEIVED the third part of an ongoing contract by RTI Radio Taiwan International to upgrade two radio transmission sites in Taiwan. In cooperation with the local partner Techway Engineering Ltd, Ampegon will manufacture, install and commission a total of ten 300 kW DRM shortwave transmitters and twelve rigid dipole broadcast antennas HR2/2/0.3 securing low and efficient maintenance works.

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capacity for DTH, enterprise, mobility and government services across the region.

Other recent wins for SES include Thailand’s IPMTV which has broadened its partnership with SES by contracting additional capacity on SES-8 and renewing its multi-year capacity deal on NSS-6. SES-8 is expected to be launched later in 2013 and will be co-located with NSS-6 at the orbital location 95 degrees East.

which leads to operation at higher efficiency rates. Savings in other operational costs are reached by a fully automated transmitter based on StationMaster Plus control system and because of a decrease in the amount of spare parts due to the market leading technology selected.

Visit www.ampegon.com

A 3D model image ofthe SES-9 satellite, scheduled for launch in 2015.

network service provider. The deal will see Supernet contract C-band capacity on the SES NSS-12 satellite at the prime orbital location of 57 degrees East.

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Visit www.ses.com

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VHF Broadband Channels for Hong Kong Cable TV

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THE HK COMMUNICATIONS AUTHORITY has decided to assign Hong Kong Cable Television Limited two 6-MHz In-building Coaxial Cable Distribution System (IBCCDS) channels in the VHF band (54 – 470 MHz) for the provision of a high speed broadband service.

The approval was subject to the condition that the high speed broadband service be capable of supporting a minimum download speed of 200 megabits per second (Mbit/s) and at least 10,000; 400,000; 1,000,000: and 2,000,000 premises be passed by HKCTV’s network using the assigned channels for the high speed broadband service within three months, one year, two years, and three years respectively. HKCTV will have to liaise direct and reach agreement with the owner of the IBCCDS (normally the owner or the estate management of the building) on the use of the IBCCDS channels in that building.

Visit www.coms-auth.hk

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TRANSMISSION

THE RECENT BROADCASTASIA2013 conference in Singapore saw Russia’s GS Group touting its experience with Cambodian digital Pay-Television operator One TV as a model which for streamlining digital adoption throughout Asia.

One TV is one of GS Group’s foreign broadcasting projects. It was launched in 2012 as a joint venture with the Royal Group of Companies, one of the largest private companies in Cambodia. Using a DVB-T transmission network installed by Rohde & Schwarz, conditional access from Exset and set-top boxes from Hyundai Digital Technology, One TV is the first nationwide digital terrestrial TV operator in the country.

Besides the capital, Phnom Penh, broadcasting is available in eight Cambodian provinces.

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The seminar “One TV Cambodia. How to launch the first digital operator in recordbreaking time?” covered different aspects and stages of Cambodian project development. GS Group marketing executive Anna Melnikova described the steps of One TV start-up and provided initial and current figures that help estimate the project’s success and major content preferences of Cambodian population.

In less than a year since One TV soft launch, the project has attracted over 25,000 subscribers connected over a three-month sales period.

The GS Group presentation at BroadcastAsia attracted international experts from market research agencies as well as content and integrated TV solutions providers from SouthEast Asia and beyond.

“We work a lot in Asia, mainly in the emerging markets. Cambodia is an extremely embryonic, small difficult fringe market, however, GS Group are doing the right thing,” said Stephane Chenard, Euroconsult Senior Associate Consultant. “The presentation showed that GS Group indeed have good results, that One TV has an impact. Cambodia is now coming into the range of countries that are of interest to the investors. But there is absolutely a place for specialists with experience like GS Group.”

“GS Group is not seeking easy ways. [Its] experience in the Cambodian market is remarkable and unique,” Stephen Wong of Newmedia Solutions PTE. “One TV’s model can be applied in other Asian countries – of course, with some changes and modifications because the market is diverse. But, for sure, it can speed up and facilitate digitalisation of the region.”

In addition to One TV, GS Group is currently preparing to launch the first DTH project in Pakistan. This will be followed by projects in Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Visit www.gs-group.com and www.onetv.com.kh

Amagi Localisation Platform for MAA TV MAA TELEVISION NETWORK, INDIA’S

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leading Telugu-language television network, is using Amagi’s Localization platform for creating customised local feeds to Singapore for its “Maa TV” and “Maa Movies” channels.

Maa TV has gone live with custom feeds on SingTel mio TV since April, 2013.

Broadcasters with common multi-country broadcast feeds can now adapt Amagi’s patentpending localisation platform to easily finetune programming played out in individual countries. Broadcasters can ‘opt out’ of specific programs or even specific spot advertising in a country and replace it with some other locally appropriate content for the country by utilising Amagi’s cloud-based localization platform.

Maa TV network uses its existing satellite feed playout for India as the base feed for Singapore as well, but masks few hours of programming and all advertising everyday on its feed to Singapore using Amagi’s localisation platform.

“We are able to ‘reliably’ and ‘cost effectively’ comply with all regulatory aspects related to programming and advertising for Singapore on both channels. Amagi gave us an end-to-end

solution which has seamlessly merged with our existing systems and workflows,” said J. Shekar, COO of Maa TV. Maa TV’s Sr. General Manager, P Masthanaiah, added, “We were looking for solution which would efficiently enable us to generate a local feed for Singapore from our India feed and Amagi offered just that. The technology is simple yet powerful and augments the existing systems effortlessly.”

“Regionalisation of content is a pressing need for broadcasters. Amagi’s platform can easily integrate with existing workflows and systems of a broadcaster and reliably address regionalisation needs like local advertising, local programming to meet audience preferences, content masking for regulatory or copyright restrictions, etc. We are extremely pleased by the positive response to our exclusive platform from global broadcasters and are delighted to add Maa TV network as the latest customer,” said Srividhya S, Cofounder and CTO. Visit www.amagi.com

Indonesia’s Biznet Launches Broadband TV with Harmonic HARMONIC HAS ANNOUNCED THAT Indonesian telecommunications provider Biznet Networks has deployed a comprehensive Harmonic solution to power its new Broadband Internet + Cable TV service called max3. Relying on a fully integrated IP-based head-end that features scalable video and edge processing solutions from Harmonic, Biznet Networks can cost-effectively deliver high-quality video content and an increased channel lineup to subscribers in Jakarta, and to viewers in Bandung and Bali in the near future.

“When launching Cable TV services, it was critical we install a bandwidth-efficient headend solution that not only ensures a superior quality of experience for our subscribers, but also provides us with a seamless path for future growth,” said Adi Kusma, president director of Biznet Networks. “We chose Harmonic’s IP-based video and edge processing systems based on their ability to deliver exceptional video quality while reducing our operating and capital expenses through increased scalability and density. The Harmonic solution will enable us to cost-effectively add more channels and services to our max3 television offering.”

The new video head-end is powered by a range of Harmonic video processing solutions, including Ellipse, Ion, and Electra encoding, ProView IRDs, and ProStream with ACE transcoding. Harmonic video processing solutions perform a wide range of tasks, including SD/HD, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 video and audio transcoding, encoding, and decoding; ASI to IP multiplexing; and scrambling from compact platforms, maximising operational efficiencies while optimising bandwidth allocation for the max3 service.

At the edge of the network, Harmonic’s NSG 9000 edgeQAM cost-effectively multiplexes broadcast content streamed over the IP network, scaling up to 72 QAM RF outputs per compact unit. In addition to offering an unparalleled output density and scalability, the NSG 9000 also supports MPEG processing and scrambling, further increasing the efficiency of Biznet Networks’ operational workflow.

“Biznet Networks is a leading Internet service provider in Indonesia. By launching high-quality cable TV services, Biznet will gain an even greater competitive advantage in the marketplace,” said Andrew Thornton, vice president of Asia/ Pacific sales at Harmonic. “Harmonic’s video infrastructure and edge processing solutions will provide an unmatched level of scalability, density, and performance that Biznet requires to simplify the delivery of high-quality video services.”

Visit www.harmonicinc.com and www.biznetnetworks.com.

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Cambodia’s One TV a Model for Asian Digitalisation

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TRANSMISSION

LYNX Technik Launches yelloGUI

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LYNX TECHNIK AG, a provider of modular interfaces, has developed the yelloGUI application for yellobriks, a new complementary software application that permits select yellobriks to be controlled and configured over USB using a PC.

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With the new yelloGUI, users have access to a host of advanced settings and adjustments of the individual yellobrik that were not possible before. Typically, yellobriks are controlled via the integrated module rotary switches, dip switches and indicators and, with the availability of yelloGUI, users now have an enhanced level of yellobrik control and configuration for advanced features and settings.

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The yelloGUI user interface, like the yellobrik modules, was designed to be simple and intuitive. Once the module is connected, a virtual image of the module is displayed showing the user all switches, controls and module indicators. yelloGUI also displays status information such as the detected video format, HDMI output resolution and frequency, as well as audio signals. Module settings can be changed with the click of a mouse. The internal signal flow inside the yellobrik is graphically displayed and dynamically changes when a setting is changed.

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The company also offers a new key feature for its APPolo Control System. The APPolo Control System is a user-friendly, intuitive, and self-configuring control system for remote control, status monitoring, and SNMP error reporting. Typically used with the Series 5000 CardModule system, APPolo is the heart of a centralised control system, which can easily be expanded to grow with your system.

AutoControl allows users to configure and set system conditions for any parameter in a system, which if met, will trigger pre-programmed and automated actions. For example: If it is required to change signal routing based on a given video format being detected elsewhere in the system, users can program the system to monitor the required input signal and then trigger a change to the signal routing settings on a distribution amplifier located anywhere in the system.

Multiple external GPI and GPO connections have also been added, which means users can create actions based on system triggers from external devices, or send commands to external devices.

Visit www.lynx-technik.com

Platinum VAX VHF Transmitters from Harris HARRIS BROADCAST’S PLATINUM VAX Compact Class range of VHF transmitters adapt the company’s compact, power-efficient transmission philosophy to low-power VHF applications.

The Platinum VAX Compact Class series is most suited for low-power transmitting stations and gap filler applications, and is especially useful for covering specific regions in extended markets or difficult terrains.

TRANSMISSION

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Platinum VAX Compact Class transmitters cover low-power VHF transmissions in a 2RU chassis design, with rack savings of up to 50 percent compared to previous-generation transmitters of equivalent power levels. The new series integrates Harris Broadcast Apex M2X exciters to enable simple modulation changes and analogue-todigital upgrades, supporting ATSC, DVB-T/T2 and ISDB-Tb among other standards — including DAB radio.

Visit www.harrisbroadcast.com

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R&S AVHE100 Headend Adds DVB-S /DVB-S2 FOLLOWING ITS MARKET LAUNCH in late 2012, where the focus was on DVB-T/DVB-T2, the R&S AVHE100 headend solution for encoding and multiplexing has been further enhanced for operation with DVB-S/DVB-S2.

The R&S AVHE100 integrates all essential functions for encoding and multiplexing in just a few hardware components. This makes the R&S AVHE100 one of the most compact systems on the market. Its core components are the R&S AVS100 processing platform and the R&S AVG100 audio/video gateway. In just two height units, these two components can, for example, be set up as a DVB-S2 headend that includes multiple HD-SDI or satellite inputs, decoders and encoders for up to 6 HD or 10 SD programs, multiplexers, and a workflow-oriented headend management system.

All audio and video signal processing functions have been implemented entirely with software-based modules in the R&S AVS100 processing platform. Signal distribution and communications inside the headend are fully IP-based. This simplifies installation and allows for flexible, customisable configuration and easy system upgrades. The R&S AVHE100 is well-suited for direct IP connections to and from the headend. The audio/ video gateway converts legacy signals such as SDI, ASI or AES to IP at the system boundaries. The A/V gateway can optionally house a satellite receiver with decryption module as well.

The headend can encode video streams in both H.264 and MPEG-2 format at professional broadcast quality. There is also an option to consolidate the streams into a statistical multiplex. This efficient utilisation of data rates makes it possible to transmit more programs and achieve higher picture quality. In the DVB multiplexer, the relevant program information is added.

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The integrated headend management system allows users to configure, control and monitor the individual system components. A straightforward, workflow-oriented graphical user interface – also available in touchscreen format – simplifies system operation. A unique redundancy concept provides an especially high degree of fail-safe performance.

The proprietary R&S CrossFlowIP uses IP switches to ensure uninterrupted signal switching during redundancy operation. R&S CrossFlowIP makes it possible to route the signal via the main path and redundancy path of the headend as required for the specific operating situation. This allows seamless signal switching during maintenance and in the event of faults.

Core R&S AVS100 processing platform and IP switch hardware components come with redundant power supplies to ensure high availability.

An optional video wall for the R&S AVHE100 enables quality control on all critical interfaces of the signal path. The video wall shows the quality of the programs supplied and of the output transport stream, displaying measured results graphically and numerically.

Visit www.rohde-schwarz.com

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what’s on SEPTEMBER

IBC 2013

RADIO ASIA

13 - 17 September 2013

3rd - 7th September 2013 Howard International House Taipei, Taiwan aprasc13.ntu.edu.tw

RAI, Amsterdam The Netherlands www.ibc.org

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OCTOBER

& Engineering..............................IFC Techtel .............................................. 9

IEEE BROADCAST SYMPOSIUM

Magna Systems

http://bts.ieee.org/ broadcastsymposium/

CASBAA COVENTION 2013 21-24 October, 2013 Grand Hyatt, Hong Kong www.casbaaconvention.com

SMPTE ANNUAL CONFERENCE

9 - 11 October 2013 Bombay Exhibition Centre Mumbai, India www.broadcastindiashow.com 9-11 October, 2013 The Westgate Hotel, San Diego, USA

21 - 24 October Loews Hollywood Hotel Hollywood, California, USA www.smpte.org

50TH ABU GENERAL ASSEMBLY Melia Hanoi Hotel, Vietnam 23–29 October, 2013 www.abuhanoi2013.com

– Load the Code To view these videos, make sure you have installed a QR code reader app on your tablet or smartphone, use the app to scan the associated QR code with your device’s camera, relax and enjoy informative the content from C+T and selected organisations.

AUTOMOBILE GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE ASIA PACIFIC

VERAMATRIX VIDEO ABS-CBN CARDLESS SECURITY CASE STUDY

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20th September 2013 Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi, India http://www.maels2013.com

BROADCAST INDIA

Advertiser Index Broadcast One/Gencom .............. 5 CASBAA......................................... IBC Digital Rapids ...............................15 Harris Broadcast....................... OBC Ideal Systems.................................. 3

LEX WITNESS 2ND ANNUAL MEDIA, ADVERTISING & ENTERTAINMENT LEGAL SUMMIT

Alternatively, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz1kpNPQnxQ&feature=youtu.be

SNELL AND THE HONG KONG JOCKEY CLUB

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A video presentation by Joan Warner, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Radio Australia and Chairman of the WorldDMB Asia Pacific Committee, was shown at the recent 5th WorldDMB European Automotive Event in Hamburg, Germany. The presentation gives a brief overview of DAB+ digital radio in the Asia Pacific, its growth and its impact on the automotive sector, as well as the opportunities offered by emerging markets throughout the region.

Alternatively, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72bVJ2PABdA

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SMPTE LOUDNESS MEETING

ed Alternatively, visit vimeo.com/67555547

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SHOOTING OBLIVION IN 4K WITH SONY’S F65 To see the full interview with Claudio Miranda ASC where he talks about shooting Oblivion with Sony F65 4K cameras, scan the above QR code or visit http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/video/relatedrecently_added/video-claudio_miranda

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Scan the codes to view presentations by Glenn Carrick, Chair, Free TV Australia Audio Group, and Adam Birch, Global Product Marketing Manager, Harris Broadcast (UK), speaking at the recent SMPTE Australia Section Meeting on Audio Loudness, or visit: http://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCUlpcworPCM6Atu4paH1x-Q Proudly sponsored by Techtel and Harris Broadcast.

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TIME shifter Singapore Short Cuts Celebrates 10th Anniversary Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Singapore Short Cuts – one of the longest running short film exhibitions in Singapore – has taken the opportunity to look back at the last decade of short films in Singapore.

HELD AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SINGAPORE across two weekends in early August, the Short Cuts program featured a diverse range of short films, featuring everything from documentaries to animation to experimental works, as well as post-screening discussions with the filmmakers themselves.

On the first weekend of the event, held on August 3 & 4, the short film festival showed a number of new films. Among these was the premiere of Nelson Yeo’s “The Story I Forgot to Tell,” a nineminute piece shot in Japan along train tracks, road, and escalators. The film follows a mysterious man who steals people’s dreams on the train.

Ang Geck Geck’s directorial debut, “Broken Crayon”, looks at the sexual abuse of a six yearold girl by her eight year-old cousin. Running 20 minutes, “Broken Crayon” won Best Fiction at the Singapore Short Film Awards in 2012.

On the more experimental side is visual artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s film “Gould,” which was also shown at the Art Basel fair this year. The film runs for just 1 minute and 49 seconds to a sped up version of Glenn Gould’s recital of Piano Sonata No. 10 in Major by Mozart, superimposed with an oscillating tone. It also depicts a disembodied gloved hand manipulating an albino man’s head.

August 11 is dedicated to Anthony Chen, who returned from the Cannes Film Festival in May this year where he became the first Singaporean to win the Camera d’Or, the coveted prize for best first feature film, with “Ilo Ilo”. Eight of his short films will be shown, including his graduating film for Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of Film & Media Studies, 2004’s “G-23”, and “Ah Ma (2007)”, about how a family reacts to an impending death. The latter also won a special mention when competing in the Palme d’Or at Cannes for short film in the same year.

After the screening, viewers engaged in a postshow discussion with Chen, where he looked back at his past works and discussed how the accumulated experiences shaped his development as a filmmaker.

Finally, for those who were unable to make it to the screenings, a selection of films from all previous editions of Short Cuts is available on Viddsee. The films include works by Eva Tang, Daniel Hui, Victric Thng, and Anthony Chen.

Visit www.nationalmuseum.sg and www.viddsee.com/ssc/

TIME SHIFTER

Along with these films, and a number of others, was a trip down memory lane on August 10.

Short Cuts will pay tribute to the Singapore Video Competition, showing a rare collection of films that were previously showcased in the 80s – including the winners from 1985-88 – by the pioneering showcase organised by the People’s Association and the Singapore Cine and Video Club.

This screening aims to expand the history of short filmmaking in Singapore by reframing a community of filmmakers who found a medium for expression through grassroots efforts and the growing accessibility of video cameras in the 80s.

During the period from 1979 to 1990, where no Singapore feature films were made, and before the resurgence of Singapore cinema in the 1990s, the Singapore Video Competition was the first national competition for filmmakers in Singapore and provided a vital platform.

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