Content+Technology ANZ December 2021 by Content+Technology

PP: 255003/06831

VOLUME 18/ISSUE 6

DECEMBER 2021

MEDIA + PRODUCTION + MANAGEMENT + DELIVERY www.content-technology.com

PLUS: SEN in NZ, Olympic Ad Serving The wait is finally over!

TSL Products SAM-Q-NET is the worlds first dedicated network audio monitor ISSN 1448-9554

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VOLUME 18/ISSUE 6

DECEMBER 2021

Cover Story... page 20. REGULARS 02 EDITOR’S WELCOME 03 NEWS+PEOPLE Sky NZ’s New Set-Top

46 INDUSTRY FOCUS

Box; Changes for Production Offsets; MEDIAGENIX to Open Sydney Office; Amber Buys Connected Media; FATS Media Lab New Sydney HQ; People on the Move.

FEATURES 11 CAMERAS & LIGHTING Fujinon Scores at

MCG; NewDrone Safety Apps; Blonde Robot Partners with RED; Sony Unveils VENICE 2; Fujifilm Launches 4K Lens and Zoom Rate Demand Unit; Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2; Full Frame Lenses from Cooke; 8K V-RAPTOR from RED; Hollyland COSMO C1 SDI/HDMI wireless link system.

18 SPORTSCASTING RTS Connects ICC Men’s

T20 Cricket; EVS Signs FIFA World Cup Contract; NBL1 Shoots Hoops with LiveU; Ross Unveils XPression 10.5; Dream Chip Adds ND Filter-Holder.

22 NEWS OPERATIONS SBS to Launch Free-

to-Air Multilingual News Channel; Pasifika TV Taps Into LiveU for Content Distribution; Vinten Weatherproof Robotic Pan and Tilt Head; Etere NDI PTZ Camera Control; Dalet’s Cloud-Native, Unified News Operations; Vizrt Out-of-the-Box Virtual Graphics; Avid Expands IP Content Sources.

30 MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Gravity Media Goes for Gold with Digistor and Infortrend; Nine Adds Spectra Logic StorCycle; The Impact of Self-serve Content Access; AJA Diskover Media Edition; Intertrust Consolidates DRM and Content Security; Signiant Boosts SaaS with Levels Beyond; EditShare Optimises Tech Stack, Remote Workflows; FUJIFILM and iRODS Partner on Archiving; and more.

34 AUDIO, RADIO, PODCASTING MCEC Makes Quantum Leap with DiGiCo; Evertz Commits to Studer; ARN Partners with AudioMob for In-Game Audio Ads; Nine Connects with Riedel; SEN Goes Remote with AVC Across NZ.

42 CONTENT DELIVERY MediaHub Deploys

Full-IP Ateme Solution for VAST News Services; DVB Goes 8K; VSF Enhances RIST; Foxtel Takes on Sky Glass Connected TV; Ad Delivery, Personalisation Come Alive for Seven and Mediacorp at Tokyo Games.

26 POST-PRODUCTION Unity Buys Weta

44 CONTENT+TECHNOLOGY ISSN 1448-9554 PP:255003/06831 Broadcastpapers Pty Ltd (ABN 34 095 653 277) PO Box 165 Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia www.broadcastpapers.com PUBLISHER: Phil Sandberg Tel +61 (0)2 4368 4569 Mob +61 (0)414 671 811 papers@broadcastpapers.com

Technology; Netflix Buys Scanline VFX; Boris FX Unveils Sapphire and Continuum 2022; Maxon’s Trapcode Suite 17.1; Hedge Extends Avid Editing Workflows into the Cloud; Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 17.4; Pomfort Integrates with Filmlight; Maxon Redshift for The Render Network; Cineware for Unreal Plugin.

ADVERTISING MANAGER: Adam Buick Mob +61 (0)413 007 144 adam@broadcastpapers.com PRODUCTION MANAGER: Lucy Salmon Mob +61(0)412 479 662 production@broadcastpapers.com DESIGN & LAYOUT Wide Open Media Mob +61 (0)419 225 348 www.wideopenmedia.com.au PRINTING: SOS Printing, Sydney

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.

EW NEWS +DNAPEOPLE TES!

For the latest news visit www.content-technology.com

M A R C H 1 5 – 1 7, 2 0 2 2

Media + Entertainment Tech Expo International Convention Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney

T R A T K I C KS GET SET! The first major live industry event timed to set you up for the year ahead! Plan to meet at the industry’s premier conference and exhibition. New event format makes it easier to get around and connect with key contacts. Ensure you have everything you need to kickstart the future and lock it in your diary now, for more information visit

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EDITOR’S WELCOME

This Time It’s Personal…

theft than any other business, and that equal attention must be paid to data breaches and exfiltration as well as the traditional worry of illegal content distribution. IT services company Atos recently launched a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) cybersecurity service for the media and entertainment industry, addressing media and video content piracy and protecting media organisations against targeted cyber threats. Managed by a team of cybersecurity experts and powered by artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and edge computing, the MDR service includes Viaccess-Orca’s anti-piracy center, with its dynamic watermarking service. “Media and entertainment companies are highly vulnerable to cyber threats and face attacks from unique APT groups, hacktivists, for-profit cybercriminals, among other types of hackers,” says Chris Moret, Senior Vice President, Head of Cybersecurity Services at Atos. “Our new ‘MDR for media’ offering considers the unique needs of these organisations and offers them the best protection against such attacks.”

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“Normally, getting a channel up and running requires extensive time, money, and engineering expertise, but with Channel Assembly, our content operators can assemble channels on the fly.” As the Games kicked off, Everitt and team hit the ground running with the launch of a replay channel focused on action sports highlights from the event spanning BMX, surfing, skateboarding, and more. Seeing how the content appealed to a younger audience, the team developed a series of pop-up action sports channels, building on available assets, and also launched an Australian sports highlight channel. “AWS Channel Assembly is allowing us to derive value from our content library in ways that we can’t with traditional playout, and at a fraction of the price; it’s proven a paradigm shift for our programming team,” Everitt noted. “We now have this nimbleness that makes experimentation low cost and less risky, which are essential considerations when you’re a newer player in the streaming market competing against seasoned streaming behemoths.” As Head of Programmatic Sales for Seven West Media, Luke Smith, reported in our story on p44, 7Plus increased its user registrations over the course of the Games by 44 percent, leaving the Network in a position where it now has a one-toone relationship with some 10 million Australian individuals/households. A position that promises many opportunities for personalisation and targeted advertising. Of course, the other side of the coin of this one-to-one relationship is the security of the information exchange. We know from the cases of TV5Monde, Sony Pictures and, closer to home, Nine Entertainment, that media companies are no less immune to cyber attack and information 22:00

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PERSONALISATION is a key plank in any media operation these days. While there is validity to the criticism that it leaves audiences trapped in a feedback loop of similar content choices, ignoring the fact that most people have varied tastes or, after a while, do get sick of the same thing over and over again, personalisation has been the key to more refined targeting of both content and advertising. Lead by online platforms and streaming services, effective personalisation has eluded traditional broadcasters, hampered as they were by the one-to-many broadcast model and manual, often analogue, methods of audience feedback collection. With the advent of Broadcast Video-on-Demand (BVOD), traditional operators have been catching up to the streaming giants with 2021 and the Tokyo Olympics (see story page 44) proving to be a watershed in audience profiling, targeting of advertising and delivery of niche content to niche audiences. Being an Olympics Broadcast Rights Holder has given Australia’s Seven West Media somewhat of a leg-up in this process. Following successful experiments with popup channels dedicated to archived content from such programmes as Big Brother, Better Homes and Gardens, Holey Moley and Blue Healers, Seven turned its attention to niche Olympic Channels with the help of AWS Channel Assembly functionality available with AWS Elemental MediaTailor. “Personalisation, watch lists and favourites can go a long way in making content more discoverable, but streaming channels are unique in that they’re always front and centre in the streaming menu,” said Will Everitt, director product solutions, Seven West Media. 16:00

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By Phil Sandberg

As the complexity of how media organisations operate continues to increase, it will no doubt bring new opportunities and challenges in equal measure. We look forward to sharing that journey with you throughout 2022. Keep safe, thanks for supporting us, and look after each other. Phil Sandberg – Editor/Publisher papers@broadcastpapers.com +61(0)414671811

ersburg Moscow

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Sydney

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ASIA EDITION

ASIA

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Sky NZ Boosts Exec Team SKY NZ Chief Executive Sophie Moloney has made a number of appointments to her Executive Leadership Team. The new Executive Leadership Team is:

of Sky Broadband and has also led the Sky Box Priority Team. He is responsible for the customer growth strategy, customer propositions and personalisation, and leading the teams delivering Sky Box, Neon, Sky Sport Now and Sky Broadband to consumer and business customers.

• Sophie Moloney, Chief Executive • Tom Gordon, Chief Financial Officer. He has extensive strategic and operational finance experience, as well as strong knowledge of the telecommunications and media sectors, and was previously Head of Finance and Interim CFO for Vodafone New Zealand. He will join Sky on 15 December. • Jonathon Errington, Chief Content and Commercial Officer. This will be an expansion of Jonny’s current role. He will be responsible for core content origination and acquisition, in addition to driving Sky’s new business initiatives and non-subscription revenues. • Antony Welton, Chief Operations and People Officer. Antony is a highly skilled executive with extensive experience in operations, people and strategy, including a number of years with Vodafone New Zealand. Antony will join Sky in early 2022. • Daniel Kelly, Chief Customer Officer. Dan joined Sky in 2020 as the inaugural Head 130 PAT TSL C&T HP HR.pdf

16/11/21

Agile Partners with RFE Broadcast AGILE BROADCAST has been named exclusive distributor for RFE Broadcast in Australia and New Zealand.

• Chris Major, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer. Chris has been at Sky since 2013 as Director of External Affairs, and takes on an expanded brief across Sky’s communications, publicity, Government relations, legal and regulatory, CSR and key stakeholder engagement.

According to Ian Thomson of Agile, “RFE Broadcast offer a comprehensive range of broadcast radio transmitters combined with excellent product support, this ticks every box for our customers. The FM Transmitters utilise the latest LD-MOS technology and are packed with standard features that are only options on nearly every other brand – these devices are excellent value to purchase and provide excellent value in running costs.”

• Jason Foden, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer (acting). Jason is an experienced senior leader with a background in the telecommunications and media sectors. He is driving Sky’s technology roadmap and ensuring a centre of excellence for the development of Sky’s products and experiences, working closely with Director of Technology Prabhu Singh.

RFE is based in Padova, Italy, and started life in the early 1970s when the President Luciano Ditadi started his first transmitter manufacturing company. In 2015, Luciano Ditadi founded RFE Broadcast in order to continue the international approach to the broadcast world, producing FM & TV transmitters, antennas, radio links, audio over IP links and amplifiers. RFE transmitters range from 30 Watts to as high as 40kW.

Visit https://www.sky.co.nz

Visit www.agilebroadcast.com.au

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Ceci Heads The Rebel Fleet in Oz THE REBEL FLEET, “Our business continues to grow and Stephen’s background in operations combined with his deep understanding of post-production technologies will allow him to hit the ground running as demand increases in the region,” says The Rebel Fleet CEO Michael Urban. “Bringing Stephen’s expertise in building world class post-production workflows Down Under is a clear sign to Hollywood that Australia is open for business.” Ceci has over 20 years of experience in postproduction. He most recently served as director of sales for post-production at Technicolor Creative Services. Prior to that role, he was the head of west coast front-end services and operations for Harbor Picture Company. Ceci began his career in a digital lab, constructing image processing pipelines and managing assets and deliverables. His credits include The Eternals, Black Widow, WandaVision, The Way Back, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and Black Panther. “I’m excited for this fantastic opportunity to lead a talented team in opening a new market,” says Ceci. “The Rebel Fleet is a nimble

innovator helping productions adapt and customize their workflows with creative, flexible and scalable solutions. With production services being quickly redefined right now, we’re excited to expand our capabilities to Australia to meet those challenges.” The Rebel Fleet has worked with Netflix, Disney, Warner Brothers, Endeavour Content, Blumhouse, Amazon and more. The addition of Ceci reinforces the company’s commitment to productions in Australia and beyond. “We collaborate with productions of all sizes to create solutions to big problems,” adds Urban. “Through efficient, customized workflows and skilled crews, our focus remains steadfast on fulfilling the needs of local projects and studio clients at the highest creative and technical levels.” Visit www.rebelfleet.com.au

Converging Audiences for Tansley at SWM SEVEN WEST MEDIA has appointed Alex Tansley as Head of Convergence Audience Trading. Mr Tansley’s appointment follows Seven’s recent announcement of its Australia-first project with Salesforce, the global leaders in CRM, to transform and enhance its media trading platform as a key component in the launch of CODE 7+. In the newly created position, Mr Tansley will be responsible for developing and delivering Seven’s strategy across dynamic and converged audience trading solutions through CODE 7+, CRM and developing new operating models and products. Mr Tansley has extensive industry experience in commercial strategy roles, having previously held senior positions at MCN, Foxtel Media and, most recently, at Seven West Media as Revenue

Strategy Manager, where he was responsible for driving a range of advanced advertising projects as part of Seven’s Enhanced Advertiser and Viewer Experience [E.A.V.E.] initiative. Mr Tansley reports to Seven West Media Network Director of Sales, Natalie Harvey, and Network Digital Sales Director, Nicole Bence. Seven West Media Chief Revenue Officer, Kurt Burnette, said: “Alex comes to this role with a deep knowledge, brilliant strategic thinking and the capability to help drive Seven’s future capabilities in dynamic, converged television buying through CODE 7+.

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“This new, innovative role will support Seven’s transformation and our ambition to enable customers to engage and execute with ease and speed across Seven, 7plus and other audience platforms.” Visit www.sevenwestmedia.com.au

Midwich Partners with Fusion Signage

Fusion Signage CMS offers exact and streamlined tools to assist businesses with elevating their relevance, customer experience and bring excitement to audiences in an affordable, flexible solution with an emphasis on functionality. Designed with ease-of-use in mind, Fusion Signage is a cloud-based product with features based on feedback from end users and an intuitive interface built to be simple, yet powerful. Businesses may schedule content

in advance and deliver automatic updates, as required. Flexibility is delivered via no lock-in contracts and a variety of subscription license options with annual, 3-year or 5-year licences available. The software is compatible with a range of platforms such as Android, BrightSign, ChromeOS, Linux, Tizen, WebOS and Windows Backed by a reputable team and with a sharp focus on continual innovation, Fusion Signage also affords security via its offline capability allowing the system to continue operating should there be any interruption to connectivity. Scheduled playlists will continue to run without a problem. Visit https://bit.ly/3068a2S

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MIDWICH AUSTRALIA, the specialist tradeonly audio visual distributor, has announced a distribution partnership with Australian digital signage and content management software (CMS) company, Fusion Signage.

empowering innovation sales@magnasys.tv www.magnasys.tv

Australia | Hong Kong | Indonesia | New Zealand | Singapore

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Sky NZ Selects Partners for New Hybrid Set-Top Box SKY NZ REPORTS that development of its new hybrid set top box is progressing at pace, with the selection of international partners to advance various components of the new Sky Box.

Sky has selected middleware software company Wyplay as its primary set top box system integrator. Wyplay is responsible for managing the complexity of the Android TV hybrid platform for the different partners in the development of the Sky Box, including Sky, Irdeto and Kaonmedia.

The new Sky Box is expected to be in customers’ homes by the middle of 2022 and is part of Sky’s strategy to be the primary entertainment provider in New Zealand homes.

Wyplay is also responsible for the core digital video broadcasting software stack, with middleware to sit on Android TV to provide satellite channel tuning functionality and personal video recording management.

The hybrid box will combine both satellite and Internet technology. Having selected Google’s Android TV Operator Tier as the operating system for the new box, Sky has now selected Wyplay, Irdeto and Kaonmedia as partners to develop components of both the Sky Box’s software and hardware.

Sky has partnered with Kaonmedia to design and build the hybrid set top box hardware, integrating the Android TV operating system and pre-installed apps. It includes a one terabyte hard drive for recording content. The new hardware will give Sky customers access to a complete suite of Sky entertainment and sport content, as well as many more Android TV applications from the Google Play Store.

Sky Chief Executive Sophie Moloney says: “We are excited to be evolving our Sky Box to give customers an even better viewing experience and using innovative technology to meet their future needs as well as attracting new customers. “Feedback from our customers has been at the heart of the Sky Box development programme from day one, and these new partnerships with Wyplay, Irdeto and Kaonmedia will allow us to deliver on what matters most to customers for the new box.”

UReady

Electronics with embedded microphones will also allow a subscriber to use voice search for content on their Sky Box. Irdeto will provide Sky with Cloaked CA – the compay’s cardless conditional access system for broadcast and IPTV operators – as the core security technology to protect its content. Android TV Security components from Irdeto such as watermarking and fingerprinting will be deployed to further protect Sky’s content. Irdeto will deploy and operate a fully scalable cloud-based solution for Sky’s conditional access platform. Sky will also implement Irdeto App Watch for Android TV – a solution that will ensure the integrity of the apps running on the new Sky Box while reaping the benefits that the Android TV platform brings. It also gives oversight and targeted control of the apps on the Sky Box, allowing Sky to take steps to restrict problematic apps and plug-ins. Visit https://www.sky.co.nz

The new box will feature integrated Wi-Fi 6 technology to accommodate the best wireless connection for seamless 4K video streams, and eight tuners for connection to a Satellite receiver for free-to-air channels and Irdetoencrypted programs. A Bluetooth remote control from Universal

A new level of clarity, performance and ease. Densitron’s UReady display panels provide superb smartphone quality graphics in ready-to-go rack displays. Densitron’s unique UReady range offers superb optical quality. IPS technology ensures viewability from every angle and high performance TFT displays make pixilation a thing of the past. Check out Densitron’s range of UReady modular design of HMI control surfaces which is suitable for applications in Broadcast, Telecommunications, and other networked control and monitoring systems.

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For further information or an obligation free demo, contact the PAT Team.

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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Vale Jeanette Taylor

DEAN DEZIUS has been appointed to the role of General Manager with Freeview Australia. He was previously Vice President - Entertainment Channels with FOX Networks Group Asia.

MEDIA TECHNOLOGY distribution, rentals and technical services company Videocraft has announced the sudden passing of co-founder, Jeanette Taylor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------MICHAEL URBAN has been named as CEO of The Rebel Fleet. A co-founder of the company, his previous role was as Managing Director. Visit https://www.rebelfleet.co.nz -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------SCOTT ROWAN has taken on the role of Chief Operating Officer at Amoda Media Pty Ltd, incorporating Post OP Group, FATS Media Lab and Clinic Productions. He previously served as Director of Post Production & Technical Services with Endemol Shine Australia and, prior to that, as Director Of Post Production with Company FremantleMedia. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------CLINTON JONES has been appointed as Project Manager, Technology, with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. His previous roles include Project Manager with Techfront Australia and Senior Technical Project Manager with SKY Racing.

In a statement, the company said, “She has been an integral part of Videocraft since its inception almost 50 years ago and had been a key driver behind Videocraft becoming the industry leader it is today. “Jeanette’s genuine care for people made her the ‘heart’ of Videocraft, and she had touched many with her kind support and encouragement when they most needed it. She was a much-loved mother and grandmother, respected businesswoman and a great friend to many.”

Industry Applauds Offset Changes AUSTRALIA’S SCREEN SECTOR has welcomed the passage through Federal Parliament of measures to increase the level of support for screen content provided through tax incentives. That is the message from the ‘Make it Australian’ coalition, supported by the Australian Directors’ Guild (ADG), the Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG), the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and Screen Producers Australia (SPA). The Federal Parliament passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 5) Bill 2021, which includes a much-anticipated increase in the Producer Offset for television productions from 20% to 30%. The Federal Parliament also passed a series of amendments, moved by the ALP and supported by the Greens and others, and ultimately the Government, to protect access to the Producer and Post, Digital and Visual Effects Offsets. Changes which would have

restricted access to the tax offsets for some in the industry were ultimately rejected by the Parliament. “The Parliament’s actions mark the beginning of an exciting new chapter for small screen production and will boost the amount and quality of Australian content reaching Australian audiences on the small screen,” said Alaric McAusland, Executive Director of the ADG.

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“We appreciate that the Parliament was able to secure passage of this measure, and unite behind crucial amendments, to end a period of uncertainty for many in the sector,” said Matthew Deaner, CEO of SPA. “We look forward to continuing to work with Government on the other central part of the Make it Australian platform, the need for new Australian content safeguards for booming digital streaming platforms.”

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Australia | Hong Kong | Indonesia | New Zealand | Singapore

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MEDIAGENIX to Open Sydney Office MEDIAGENIX, the company behind Media Business Management Platform WHATS’ON, has taken another step in its commitment to the Asia-Pacific region opening an office in Sydney to serve growing demand and strengthen its current market position in Australia and New Zealand.

AMBER TECHNOLOGY has acquired Connected Media Australia (CMA), the Australian distributor of RTI and Bluesound Professional. RTI is a top-tier manufacturer of control and media distribution products for the residential and commercial markets. The brand has a long and successful presence in Australia. RTI will add significantly to Amber’s ability to deliver a complete solution in both markets.

Johan Vanmarcke, Managing Director MEDIAGENIX APAC, will manage the company’s offices in Bangkok, Singapore and Sydney as one team and head Business Development in the APAC region. “The decision to open an office in Sydney came naturally as we continue to expand our business operations in the Australia & New Zealand region,” said Johan Vanmarcke. “The timing is right as the Australian and New Zealand media industry is transitioning to Digital First and MEDIAGENIX has a proven track record in helping media companies in this digital transformation journey. So we are there to help and we will grow as we go together with our existing and new clients in the region. It is in our DNA to be sensitive to our clients’ wish for proximity and the value this creates in building evolving solutions that enable our clients to increase their ROI in Content.” Fabrice Maquignon, CEO of MEDIAGENIX, said: “This new office is the continuation of our strategy to serve every market as global leader in the field of innovative Content Supply Chain Management solutions. Proximity to our clients is key to us and we are looking forward to helping broadcasting and media companies

in Australia and New Zealand streamline their operations, engage their audiences, monetize their content, and ultimately profitably grow their business.” Johan Vanmarcke added: “We offer Australia & New Zealand based media companies the future-proof business management platform and the continuity they need. We are fully focused on our only product, and we will always keep investing in its continuous development, in close cooperation and co-creation with our clients. Working this way in a cross-cultural and multilingual environment is in the genes of MEDIAGENIX as the company has been working on an international level all through its 30 years’ existence. Our client portfolio currently includes clients in APAC, Europe, the Middle East, the US, and Latin America.” Visit www.mediagenix.tv

FATS Media Lab Moves Sydney HQ FATS MEDIA LAB Lab has moved its Sydney HQ to a new purpose-built facility in the suburb of St Leonards. The newly fitted out 1000sqm facility has an increased capacity in all service areas, increased security, new warehouse management capabilities, with almost all of the business’ IT capability (other than those items that need on premise access) now housed in Interactive’s datacentre, also in St Leonards, with redundant links to a second datacentre in Alexandria.

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FATS Media Lab. is the reincarnation of the multimedia division of Fats Digital acquired from Geoff and Rob Angell in November 2019.

FATS Media Lab. Director, Richard White Smith said, “Much has changed since the inception of the old Film and Tape Sales and Digital business, and that includes the need for offices that have been designed for the specialist service requirements of FATS Media Lab. This move is a fundamental part of an investment into and repositioning program of this business”.

Amber Buys Connected Media Australia

“Since acquiring the business in 2019, the FATS Media Lab management team has been focused on consolidating and assessing the investment needs of the core media services of the previous organisation and to examine where we can add value and additional services and capacity to existing operations. Key to that program is a physical purposebuilt facility that provides the infrastructure to enable FATS Media Lab. to improve and expand the capacities of those services.” FATS Media Lab. services include: Film Scanning and Video, Audio and Stills Digitisation; Content Aggregation; Technical QC; Digital Cinema Print Mastering, Duplication and Delivery, Media Asset Management and the Creative Services involved in supporting these services.

Part of the Lenbrook family of brands, Bluesound Professional is the world’s first modern music distribution ecosystem for commercial spaces. It includes components from streaming sources to loudspeakers to facilitate easy design, installation, setup and use of complete music systems in installations from one zone to large multi-zone facilities. The nature of the acquisition – the result of close co-operation between the CMA shareholders and Amber management – removes the need for any rushed changes or interruptions to customers of either company. CMA will continue to operate ‘business as usual’ through to the end of 2021, with plans underway for the CMA brands to be transacted through Amber systems from January 2022. Visit www.ambertech.com.au

TMS Named Oz Distributor of Dante AV from Bolin TM STAGETEC SYSTEMS has been announced as an Australian Distributor for the new Bolin Technology D Series Dante AV Line. This partnership brings with it a further way for tm stagetec systems to enhance its position as a Dante Networking expert and offer superior systems integration to clients in the Australian market. With U.S. headquarters is in Brea, California, Bolin has developed the D Series Dante AV Line. The line includes the Bolin D Series Dante AV PTZ camera. The world’s first Dante AV hardware enabled pan, tilt, zoom camera. This interfaces video and audio in a standard 1 Gbps network, and provides uncompromised video quality with extremely low latency and AV

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with existing Dante systems.

ACQUISITION & LIGHTING ACOUISITION MKTG Sports + Entertainment Scores at MCG with Fujinon MKTG SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT is a globally integrated agency which operates the MCG Scoreboard Control as part of the commercial rights agreement to deliver the AFL. It produces in-venue coverage of AFL matches for the two big screens separate from the broadcast coverage. The match coverage is provided primarily through two fixed stand cameras, a tight shot provided by an 87x lens and a 40x for wider shots, and an AFL-owned portable RF camera that completes the production. Recently there was a requirement for a newer, more powerful lens and for that they chose the Fujinon UA107. As MKTG’s GM Operations & Technology, Mike Lewis, explained, “The two stand cameras need to be very agile and closely follow or anticipate the play. The existing Fujinon 87x lens had served us well after 15 years of service and required replacement. The MCC, the equipment owner, agreed replacement was required and asked MKTG to facilitate options for replacement.” The lens’ requirements needed to be futureproofed for the MCC, and according to Lewis, the 4K UA 107 was the right choice for the application.

He added, “Fan engagement and brand activation are essential considerations in entertaining crowds before matches or during breaks in play. The Fujinon UA 107 allows the operator to shoot very tight, keep up with the play, and easily single out spectators for big-screen coverage. The MCC asked us to provide options for them that would be best in class and ensure that they were futureproofed with compatible 4K capability, the Fujinon lens met that requirement. Feedback from the operators and producers has been excellent.” MCC’s General Manager – IT & Innovation, Rey Sumaru, said, “The MCC has an obligation to provide the best possible experience for our members, their guests, fans and all those who come to the MCG. In addition, the investment in

this new Fujinon lens sees a commitment to the future ensuring our technological purchases keep us current and ensure we have an eye on future 4K development.” Visit: https://www.fujifilm.com.au

Blonde Robot Partners with RED in ANZ The agreement centres on the KOMODO 6K compact cinema camera, which features high image quality, colour science, and groundbreaking global shutter sensor technology in a small and versatile form factor. KOMODO is a new addition to the RED family of cinema cameras allowing users to take advantage of a versatile RF mount for maximum lens choice flexibility and the latest evolution of REDCODE codec. The KOMODO also features a high-resolution touchscreen for navigating menus and reviewing footage, phase-detect auto-focus, 4K output, and compatibility with the all-new RED CONTROL app for wired or wireless control.

“Australia and New Zealand are important markets for RED and we are excited to partner with Blonde Robot as we continue to grow our global reseller network,” explains Lee Lim, Managing Director, RED Asia Pacific. “Blonde Robot has a proven commitment to content creators. When RED reviewed their distribution range of products, we quickly understood our KOMODO camera would be a brilliant enhancement to that range and fit nicely with selected resellers throughout Australia and New Zealand.” Designed for professional filmmakers and content creators who want high-end visuals in an easy-to-use, compact, and versatile camera, the KOMODO 6K camera system is the result of extensive engineering and incorporates production-tested innovations, including a breakthrough global shutter sensor

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(27.03mm x 14.26mm) maintaining RED’s high standard of image quality and dynamic range. The camera is packaged in a small 101.6 mm form factor and weighs less than a kilogram. “RED has an enviable reputation across the globe and we are excited to bring this leadingedge technology to our dealers,” notes Chris Horsley-Wyatt, Chief Executive Officer, Blonde Robot. The KOMODO 6K compact cinema camera is available to order now from Blonde Robot dealers. Enquiries may be directed to sales@ blonde-robot.com.au

FOR OUR ADVERTISING RATES AND OPTIONS Contact Adam Buick adam@broadcastpapers.com or +61 (0) 413 007 144

ACQUISITION

BLONDE ROBOT has announced it has signed a distribution agreement with Red Digital Cinema, LLC the manufacturer of professional digital cinema cameras.

ACQUISITION & LIGHTING

Sony Unveils VENICE 2 Digital Cinema Camera SONY HAS INTRODUCED VENICE 2, the addition to its line-up of high-end digital cinema cameras. The VENICE 2 builds upon the strength of the original VENICE with new features including a compact design, internal recording and the option for two different sensors: the newly developed full-frame 8.6K sensor or the original 6K VENICE sensor.  The VENICE 2 also inherits features from the original VENICE including colour science, Dual Base ISO and 8-stops of built-in ND filters. New VENICE 2 also features compact body design, internal X-OCN recording and ability to interchange sensors between models to further enhance its operability and versatility Paired with a newly-developed 8.6K (8640 x 5760) full-frame CMOS image sensor, the VENICE 2 offers excellent image quality with 16 stops of total latitude[i] to capture beautiful images with excellent colour separation and shadow detail. The camera also inherits its colour science from the original VENICE, which is highly regarded for its natural skin tones. The VENICE 2 8K CineAlta camera has a unique dual base ISO of 800/3200 which allows filmmakers to capture incredibly clean, film-like images under a wide range of lighting conditions. It supports everything from full-frame, full-frame anamorphic[ii] to Super35, all at a minimum of 4K resolution, resulting in an outstanding and versatile camera system for cinematographers and productions. The VENICE 2 maintains many of the features which made the original VENICE a success including Dual Base ISO, 8-stops built-in ND filters, compatibility with a wide range of lenses, including all PL mount and Sony’s native E-mount that enables adapters for a multitude of lenses.

The VENICE 2 was designed with a smaller and more lightweight body than the original VENICE while keeping its intuitive operability. Despite being 44mm smaller and approximately 10% lighter, the chassis of VENICE 2 allows X-OCN and Apple 4K ProRes 4444 and 422 HQ internal recording without the AXS-R7 recorder, offering advanced usability in a compact and lightweight body.  User-selectable capture resolution of the 8.6K image sensor allow shooting in various modes including:  • 8.6K, 3:2, 30FPS, Full-Frame • 8.2K, 17:9, 60FPS, Full-Frame • 5.8K, 6:5 Anamorphic, 48FPS, Super35 • 5.8K, 17:9, 90FPS, Super35 For even more flexibility on-site, the chassis adds the unique feature of interchanging the image sensor block. The camera can be used with the 8.6K sensor as well as the original 6K sensor block[v]. The camera body automatically recognizes the change and will start-up without any firmware exchanges or reinstalls. In addition, the original 6K sensor will allow higher frame rates. Small, lightweight but solidly built, the VENICE 2 leverages new high-speed 6.6Gbps AXS card, the AXS-A1TS66 for 8K 60p recording. Existing

Fujifilm Launches 4K Lens and Zoom Rate Demand Unit FUJIFILM HAS LAUNCHED the “FUJINON UA107x8.4BESM-T45” (UA107x8.4), a 4K-compatible broadcast lens equipped with a new image-stabilisation mechanism and customisation capabilities, and the zoom rate demand unit “FUJINON ERD-50A-D01” (ERD-50A) featuring a large LCD panel.

ACQUISITION

The UA107x8.4 is a 107x zoom model with a newly-redesigned imagestabilisation mechanism and makes 4K video-shooting easier than ever when combined with the ERD-50A.

AXS Memory Card Readers, including the AXSAR3 via Thunderbolt 3 interface, are compatible with the new media as well.   Other updates to the VENICE 2 include: 4K output with LUT applied; Improved 3D LUT processing to improve picture quality; EI changes directly applied to S-Log3 outputs; LUT/ASC-CDL control via Ethernet/Wi-Fi; Zoom to Fit (Full-Frame recording with 17:9/16:9 monitoring) operation; Ethernet connector position changed to Camera Assistant side; Lemo 2pin 12V output connector; and Internal microphone installed. The VENICE 2 camera with 8.6K image sensor is scheduled to start shipping in February 2022 and VENICE 2 camera with 6K image sensor in March 2022. In addition, the VENICE 2 6K can be used with the existing VENICE Extension System and a next-generation Extension System for VENICE 2 8K is planned to be released by early 2023. Visit https://pro.sony/new-cinealta

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The new UA107x8.4 is a 4K-compatible broadcast lens that offers an ultra-high 107x magnification zoom, covering the focal length range from 8.4 mm to 900 mm. Equipped with the newlyredesigned image-stabilisation mechanism with enhanced performance, the new lens can accurately correct image blurs caused by winds or shaking of the footing without any time lag, providing added stability in video shooting. It is newly equipped with a built-in LCD panel, which allows users to adjust shooting settings in detail.

unit that features a highly-visible LCD panel and a four-way operation button for intuitive and uncomplicated operability. When combined with a 4K-compatible broadcast zoom lens such as the UA107x8.4, the unit allows users to choose the zoom curve optimum to a given shooting scene out of 200 options. The unit also carries an AUX button, to which a frequently used function can be assigned, and comes with a display for checking shooting settings, including functions assigned to the AUX button and the on/off status of image stabilisation, whilst shooting video.

The ERD-50A, meanwhile, is a zoom rate demand

Visit https://www.fujifilm.com

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ACQUISITION

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ACQUISITION & LIGHTING

Blackmagic Unveils Next-Gen URSA Broadcast Camera and Viewfinder BLACKMAGIC DESIGN has announced the Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2, a next generation professional broadcast camera with 6K digital film sensor that brings digital film quality to both traditional and online broadcasters. The advanced 6144 x 3456 digital film sensor provides exceptional low light performance with dual gain ISO of up to +36dB as well as 13 stops of dynamic range. Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 also includes H.265 and Blackmagic RAW file formats, Blackmagic generation 5 colour science, as well as a USB-C expansion port for external disk recording, and more. The Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2’s “3 cameras in 1” design allows it to work as a 4K production camera, a 4K studio camera or a 6K digital film camera. Users can record to SD cards, UHS-II cards, CFast 2.0 cards or external USB disks, using file formats such as H.265, Apple ProRes and Blackmagic RAW. The 6K sensor features a resolution of 6144 x 3456. When using B4 lenses, users get a 4K window of the sensor for Ultra HD broadcast use. Then, if users change to a PL or EF lens mount, they can use the full 6K resolution of the sensor for digital film. The camera’s 13 stops of dynamic range mean more flexibility for colour correction. Robust low light performance allows users to shoot using ambient light or even moonlight. The Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 features gain from -12dB (100 ISO) up to +36dB (25,600 ISO) so it’s optimised to reduce grain and noise in images, while maintaining the full dynamic range of the sensor. The gain can be set via a camera switch, the LCD menu or remotely using the SDI remote camera control protocol. The URSA Broadcast G2 features a B4 broadcast lens mount that includes optics specifically designed to match the camera’s sensor. The B4 lens mount lets users use modern Ultra HD lenses or lower cost HD lenses. Users also get full electronic lens control to adjust focus, iris and zoom using the camera’s controls, or remotely. If users want to use alternative lenses, they can change the mount to PL, EF and more. URSA Broadcast G2 features high quality

neutral density (ND) filters that let users quickly reduce the amount of light entering the camera. The 1/4, 1/16th and 1/64th stop filters have been specifically designed to match the image sensor and colour science of URSA Broadcast G2, providing users with additional latitude and better colourimetry. This lets users use different combinations of aperture and shutter angle, in a wider range of situations. The IR filters have been designed to evenly filter both optical and IR wavelengths, eliminating IR contamination. Plus, the filter status on the LCD can be displayed as a fraction, number, or stop reduction. Optional zoom and focus demands allow users to use photography lenses for live production. The focus and zoom demands have USB-C connections so they control the lens via the camera’s electronic lens control. Each zoom and focus demand has two USB-C ports, so users can daisy chain them and then connect to the camera with a single USB connection. A shoulder mount kit, V-Lock battery plate and top handle are included with the URSA

Broadcast G2. Users also get a spare EF lens mount if they don’t own a B4 lens and would like to start out using a photography lens. An optional fibre converter can power the camera from 2km away via a single SMPTE fibre. The URSA Mini Recorder also gives the option to record to external SSDs. Lastly, Blackmagic Design has also announced a new studio viewfinder model, the Blackmagic URSA Viewfinder G2. Features include: integrated V-Lock mounting plate for quick setup; Bright 2000 nit, 7” display; detachable metal sunshade; large grip handles and variable tension pivot points; physical dials, knobs and customisable function buttons; large RGB LED tally indicator with clip-on perspex camera numbers; connects to SDI input and power from camera, so no extra cables or power supplies needed; and compatibility with Blackmagic SDI Control Protocol for full control of camera functions. Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

New Full Frame Lenses from Cooke

ACQUISITION

COOKE OPTICS HAS ANNOUNCED additions to its expanding range of Full Frame lenses. Two new Varotal/i FF zoom lenses bring leadingedge modern design and materials to this historic line of zoom lenses that were first seen in 1971, while the extensive Panchro/i Classic FF range offers the beloved vintage Speed Panchro look for full frame sensors.

The Varotal/i T2.9 zoom lenses cover all full frame sensors and are matched in resolution, colour and fall-off to the Cooke S7/i range, thus providing a complete suite of Cooke full frame spherical lenses. The focal lengths of the zoom lenses are 30-95mm and 85-215mm respectively. The mounts can be chosen as either PL or LPL at time of order. The Varotal/i zoom lenses include /i Technology

to record lens data. The lenses are designed for all shooting applications, including handheld and Steadicam. The Panchro/i Classic FF range offers full frame film makers the ability to capture the classic Panchro Look, as well as the Cooke Look, in their full frame productions. The focal lengths 18mm, 21mm, 27mm, 32mm, 35mm, 40mm, and 50mm have been specially redesigned to fill full frame image circles. The 65mm MACRO, 75mm, 100mm, 135mm and 152mm in the standard Panchro/i Classic range were already capable of filling a full frame image circle, so no optical or mechanical alterations have been made for these focal lengths. Additional FF scale covers are available for 65mm MACRO upwards if required to harmonise rental fleets.

The optics are designed to give maximum performance at full aperture with superior control of flare, distortion and spherical aberration. Cooke’s Academy Award-winning cam-style focus movement coupled with the added benefit of a large lens barrel diameter, allows for an increased number of focus markings, particularly at close focus. Every focus mark is individually calibrated and engraved on both sides of the focus barrel. Like the standard Panchro/i Classic prime lenses, the FF lenses are colour balanced, colour matched and compatible with all Cooke lenses. They also feature /i Technology. Visit https://www.cookeoptics.com

ACQUISITION & LIGHTING

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ACQUISITION

* NDI® is a registered trademark of the Vizrt group.

ACQUISITION & LIGHTING

V-RAPTOR from RED Digital Cinema RED DIGITAL CINEMA has announced the V-RAPTOR camera featuring a multiformat 8K sensor (40.96mm x 21.60mm) with the ability to shoot 8K large format or 6K Super 35.

PROVIDING A COMPLETE SOLUTION for video streaming and cloud-sharing, Hollyland’s COSMO C1 SDI/HDMI wireless link system features real-time video monitoring at up to 300m line-of-sight, thanks to Hollyland’s new HEVO wireless transmission technology.

V-RAPTOR is the first entrant into the DSMC3 (Digital Stills and Motion Camera) ecosystem which builds on the lessons of RED’s DSMC1 and DSMC2 coupled with form factor and UI ideas from the RED Komodo. The V-RAPTOR 8K VV 35.4 Megapixel CMOS sensor measures 40.96 mm x 21.60 mm (Diagonal: 46.31 mm), features 8192 × 4320 effective pixels, and a dynamic range of 17+ stops. The camera comes with integrated RF mount with RF lens support, supports Canon EF lenses via compatible Canon RF to EF mount adapters, and accepts other Canon RF mount-based lens adaptors. It features maximum data rates of up to 800 MB/s using RED branded or other qualified CFexpress media cards. REDCODE RAW maximum frame rates available include; • 120 fps at 8K 17:9 (8192 x 4320), 150 fps at 8K 2.4:1 (8192 x 3456) • 140 fps at 7K 17:9 (7168 x 3780), 175 fps at 7K 2.4:1 (7168 x 3024) • 160 fps at 6K 17:9 (6144 x 3240), 200 fps at 6K 2.4:1 (6144 x 2592) • 192 fps at 5K 17:9 (5120 x 2700), 240 fps at 5K 2.4:1 (5120 x 2160) • 240 fps at 4K 17:9 (4096 x 2160), 300 fps at 4K 2.4:1 (4096 x 1728) • 320 fps at 3K 17:9 (3072 x 1620), 400 fps at 3K 2.4:1 (3072 x 1296) • 480 fps at 2K 17:9 (2048 x 1080), 600 fps at 2K 2.4:1 (2048 x 864) Available REDCODE settings include: • REDCODE HQ, MQ and LQ at 8K 17:9 (8192 x 4320) up to 60 fps • REDCODE LQ at 8K 17:9 (8192 x 4320) up to 120 fps

The V-RAPTOR comes in a 15.2cm x 10.78cm x 10.78cm (L x W x H) aluminium alloy housing weighing 1.82kg (without body cap and CFexpress card), and comes with integrated V-Lock battery interface optimised for Micro V-Lock Batteries. There is also a 11-17V via 6-pin DC input. The V-RAPTOR’s colour management features Image Processing Pipeline 2 (IPP2). It supports 33×33×33 3D LUTs, as well as import of CDLs.

According to Hollyland , the HEVO video encoding engine improves encoding efficiency up to 30% and includes antiinterference capabilities in the 5.1-5.8GHz spectrum, even in complex environments. The HEVO engine also provides the COSMO C1 with the optional capability of using high-speed Adaptive Frequency Hopping technology (AFH) – changing TX & RX frequency in only one one-thousandth of a second. HEVO also incorporates seamless packet re-transmission technologies for use in challenging physical and/or RF environments. Users can simultaneously run four COSMO C1 video transmission systems at one location without compromising on smooth video delivery.

For audio capture, there are integrated dual-channel digital mono microphones (uncompressed, 24-bit 48 kHz), and an integrated dual channel mic/line/+48V input via 5-pin Audio Port (uncompressed, 24-bit 48 kHz). Remote control includes Wi-Fi for camera control via an interchangeable dual band (2.4 GHz/5 GHz) antenna mounted to a female RPSMA connector; Genlock, Timecode-in, GPIO and Ctrl (RS-232) via the integrated 9-pin EXT Port; and Wired control via USB-C or Gigabit Ethernet (compatible USB-C to Ethernet adapter required) allowing remote camera control, live MJPEG preview video feed and remote media offload. Monitor outputs include: • Integrated dual 12G-SDI with 6G-SDI, 3G-SDI and 1.5G-SDI modes • 12G-SDI: Up to 4096 x 2160 4:2:2 for 60p

• REDCODE MQ and LQ at 6K 17:9 (6144 x 3240) up to 160 fps

• 3G-SDI: Up to 2048 x 1080 4:2:2 for 60p • 1.5G-SDI: Up to 2048 x 1080 4:2:2 for 30p, 25p, 24p

Full UVC (USB Video Capture) compatibility is also provided via a single USB-C connection to a computer for full 1080P60 HD live streaming or integration into social media feeds. No external video capture device is needed.

• 5K 17:9 (5120 x 2700), 2:1, 2.4:1, 16:9, 1:1

The RED CONTROL app for full camera controls and live preview, either wirelessly or wired via USB-C, for iOS or Android devices is also available.

The COSMO C1 supports HDMI and SDI connections on both TX and RX units, plus an SDI loop-out on the TX unit. It can work with any mainstream camera, monitor, or switcher. There are three power supply options: DC power via a 240VAC adaptor (provided), NP-F/L-series battery and power-capable USB-C port. A “low battery” indicator alerts users when 20 minutes of battery power is left.

• 4K 17:9 (4096 x 2160), 2:1, 2.4:1, 16:9, 1:1

Visit https://www.red.com

Visit www.hollyland.com.au

REDCODE RAW acquisition formats include: • 8K 17:9 (8192 x 4320), 2:1, 2.4:1, 16:9, 1:1 and Anamorphic 2x, 1.8x, 1.6x, 1.5x, 1.3x, 1.25x • 7K 17:9 (7168 x 3780), 2:1, 2.4:1, 16:9, 1:1 and Anamorphic 2x, 1.8x, 1.6x • 6K 17:9 (6144 x 3240), 2:1, 2.4:1, 16:9, 1:1 and Anamorphic 1.5x, 1.3x, 1.25x

ACQUISITION

• 2K 17:9 (2048 x 1080), 2:1, 2.4:1, 16:9, 1:1

• 6G-SDI: Up to 4096 x 2160 4:2:2 for 30p, 25p, 24p

• REDCODE HQ, MQ and LQ at 2K 17:9 (2048 x 1080) up to 480 fps

• 3K 17:9 (3072 x 1620), 2:1, 2.4:1, 16:9, 1:1

• REDCODE HQ, MQ and LQ at 6K 17:9 (6144 x 3240) up to 96 fps

• REDCODE HQ, MQ and LQ at 4K 17:9 (4096 x 2160) up to 240 fps

SDI/HDMI Wireless Link System

• SMPTE Timecode, HANC Metadata, 24-bit 48 kHz Audio Monitor options include: DSMC3 RED Touch 7.0” LCD; Wireless 1080p live preview video feed via 2.4Ghz/5Ghz Wi-Fi for framing; and integrated 2.4” LCD for camera control (no preview video).

ACQUISITION

ACQUISITION & LIGHTING

SPORTSCASTING RTS Connects ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup As Australia were crowned the new ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Champions, the events of the historic final against New Zealand at the Dubai International Stadium were broadcast to the world with the help of RTS intercoms. DUE TO A CHALLENGING COVID-19 situation, the month-long tournament moved from its original host nation of India to Oman and the UAE and broadcast from a variety of stadia across the two countries. To make the production as smooth as possible, three crews and four fly-packs were deployed to deliver the same production values at each venue. “We have had to deploy 51 RTS keypanels with a mixture of legacy RTS equipment and KP-4016 panels,” explained comms engineer Michael Southgate. Utilising wide angle TFT displays for quality resolution and longer display life, the KPSeries keypanels have been used over various areas including the main broadcast control room and commentary production area, as well as the edit facilities and match officials’ areas. Providing enhanced digital audio quality, free of noise, delay and other artifacts, the RTS panels ensure all communication is perfectly clear, ideal for a live sporting event. At the heart of the system is the ADAM matrix frame, providing fully redundant communication with dual-purpose ports for both keypanel and four-wire audio. The modular matrix intercom utilizes a patented time-division multiplexing (TDM) technique, meaning it grows linearly as users are added. For the purposes of live broadcasting, the ADAM system supports redundant controllers, allowing for automatic changeover in the event of failure.

The combined RTS system ensured a flawless production across the different venues. The OMNEO IP-based media networking architecture meant the solution could be easily combined with other elements in workflow, such as the audio console and that every member of the crew could benefit from crystal-clear comms. RTS recently-launched the RTS Digital Beltpack (DBP), the new member of the RTS Digital Partyline intercom product family, and the latest addition to the OMNEO portfolio of IP intercom solutions. DBP is a four-channel/four-button wired beltpack that runs on PoE (Power over Ethernet 802.3af and 802.3at) and connects using OMNEO IP technology. Its unique hybrid design supports both digital partyline and matrix keypanel modes: for use as a digital partyline device, DBP connects to an OMS; for use as a portable keypanel, including functionality like point-topoint communication, DBP can be connected to any RTS digital/IP matrix product using OMNEO – including OMI cards in ADAM/ADAM-M frames or OMNEO ports on ODIN frames. DBP automatically selects the correct mode of operation (digital partyline/OMS or keypanel/matrix) when connected and switched on. DBP’s PoE-driven design gives it scalability and makes it easy to add new users. In and Out PoE ports (two etherCON locking RJ45 connectors) allow up to six DBP devices to be daisy-chained

SPORTSCASTING

EVS Signs FIFA World Cup Contract

EVS, THE PROVIDER OF of live video technology for broadcast and new media productions, has announced it has signed a major contract with HBS AG in relation to the FIFA World Cup that will be held in Qatar from November 21 to December 18, 2022. EVS will deliver a turnkey solution consisting of all broadcast equipment and services required to provide Live Replay facilities for all the venues, including the International Broadcast Center (IBC). The broadcast equipment to be supplied by EVS includes the live production and replay solution LiveCeption as well as its live

production asset management solution MediaCeption. All eight of Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 stadiums have now been completed. The finishing touches were recently applied to Lusail Stadium – the 80,000-capacity venue that will host next year’s final on 18 December. Lusail is one of seven venues to have been built from scratch, while Khalifa International Stadium was extensively redeveloped in preparation for the 22nd edition of football’s flagship international tournament. Visit www.evs.com

together from the same PoE switch port when used in partyline mode. Up to 40 DBPs can be connected to an OMS, allowing for the creation of an extensive digital partyline system – all in addition to the other wired and wireless devices OMS supports. Depending on the matrix model/ configuration, up to 64 DBPs can be connected to an OMI card for ADAM matrices, and up to 128 DBPs can be connected to one ODIN. DBP is suitable for new users or current partyline users looking to grow from analogue systems into the superior sound quality and flexible connectivity of digital/IP communications, such as theatres, houses of worship, educational facilities, mobile applications and AV rental. Key features of the DBP include: • Hybrid functionality – Operate DBP in partyline mode with OMS (OMNEO Main Station) or in portable keypanel mode with an RTS matrix (ODIN/ADAM) – one device covers it all • Daisy chaining – Connect DBP to a PoE switch via OMS/ODIN/ADAM and up to six DBPs can be daisy chained together • User friendly – Lightweight and ergonomic design with full-colour icon-based menu navigation for quick setup and intuitive operation Visit www.rtsintercoms.com and https://magnasys.tv

Optus Extends Soccer Streaming Rights OPTUS SPORT has extended its rights to continue streaming exclusive coverage of the Premier League for six years until 2028, and FA Women’s Super League until after the FIFA Women’s World Cup into 2024. The announcement means Optus remains the Premier League’s exclusive Australian partner to almost the end of the decade and sees the service extend its coverage of the WSL to 2024,

well beyond the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 hosted in Australia. Optus says the historic deal is a win for fans of the “beautiful game”, with the renewal meaning every Premier League match will be available to watch live and exclusive, on demand replay, and via the Mini Match edits through Optus Sport. Visit https://www.optus.com.au

SPORTSCASTING

Ross Unveils XPression 10.5 ROSS VIDEO HAS ANNOUNCED the arrival of the latest version 10.5 of its XPression real-time graphics platform which contains an array of enhancements and feature updates. Used by broadcasters, sports stadia, esports and corporate brands, this latest version of XPression includes features to enhance the collaborative workflow between two or more users working on the same program. A Single Scene import and export function enables users to export a single scene which can then be shared to another user on another XPression system. This creates a file-based workflow similar to legacy graphics systems that operators and designers used to work on. Version 10.5 also adds additional font management tools, including the ability to lock fonts from changes or deletion, enabling fonts to be cloned (for a specific scene, rather than changed globally in the project), and adds notes on fonts to help other users identify how or where the font is used. With version 10.5, XPression designers can now colour-code template data fields to guide operators and MOS newsroom users on which fields need to be used for specific situations. XPression version 10.5 also introduces several new Visual Logic Blocks including one which enables artists to show or hide template fields based on conditional use of other

fields. This means that unused fields do not have to be shown, improving accuracy and saving decision making time by hiding unnecessary fields from the user. To help with the deployment of XPression updates, version 10.5 introduces the new XPression Status Client. The Status Client dramatically simplifies the life of the tech or IT team responsible for software updates. With Status Client, a single user can see the status of all the XPression systems on a network from one machine and can push new XPression software and install it on each XPression system in a matter of seconds. Finally, version 10.5 introduces the new XPression Video Codec 2, a backwards-compatible codec enabling users to work with HDR content and in Wide Colour Gamut. Ross recognizes that not everyone can retool their stations to UHD hardware, but we know customers may want the benefit of the improved High Dynamic Range and Wide Colour Gamut, and so this new codec addresses that requirement directly. Importantly, this new codec is compatible with legacy content and does not require customers to re-encode it or throw it away – it remains fully functional. Visit www.rossvideo.com

Dream Chip Adds ND Filter-Holder DREAM CHIP HAS ADDED an ND filter-holder to a range of its AtomOne mini cameras, including the flagship AtomOne mini, AtomOne mini AIR, and the AtomOne mini Waterproof, to enhance performance in conditions with harsh or rapidly changing light conditions. This brings particular benefit in sports where the camera is mounted on something moving – making it a crucial advancement for the realm of motorsport, with a number of high-profile racing competitions already integrating versions of the AtomOne mini and ND filter-holder addition into their broadcast setup.

With the AtomOne mini - which is little larger than a euro coin and weighs just 45g – and the addition of an ND filter, all of the compromises to competitor are eliminated, whilst on the broadcast side, the image quality offered by the HDR, 10-bit and full shading capabilities all mean that producers can be confident they are getting the highest quality images, with reliability due to the rugged build quality of Dream Chip products, and seamless integration with a wider camera network and controller set. Visit www.atom-one.de and https://proaudiotv.com.au/

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NBL1 – Top of the Mountain with LiveU By Phil Sandberg ESTABLISHED IN 2019, NBL1 is a semi-professional basketball league, consisting of South, North, Central, West Conferences and East Conferences with both men’s and women’s competitions. Each conference is run by their respective state governing body, with the league including 71 clubs from Victoria (16), Queensland (15), Western Australia (14), South Australia (11), New South Wales (11), Tasmania (3) and the Australian Capital Territory (1). According to Dean Anglin, General Manager of NBL1, the League is “… an evolution between Basketball Victoria and the National Basketball League. The concept of NBL1 was to utilise a lot of the technology-driven assets of the NBL to increase the profile of State League Basketball Leagues and then find a way to create that evolution into a national footprint. “We made a commitment right from the start to stream a hundred percent of our games, for multiple reasons. Obviously, it gave us content that we were able to deliver for the leagues through WSC and through other platforms, but it also obviously then created the opportunity for us to commercialise the vision through the betting markets and/or through standard commercialisation strategies and sponsorships.” In its first year, the league scheduled some 378 games with most of those being streamed via YouTube. Activities then ceased in 2020 with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Springing back in 2021, the League comprised four conferences - North (Queensland), South (Victoria and Tasmania), Central (South Australia) and West (Western Australia). As the League grew so, too, did the complexity of its streaming coverage.

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“We needed to start to put in some strategies that were going to allow us to livestream and to be consistent with what we’re doing,” says Dean Anglin, “and this is the year where we started to add in LiveU as an option for us, and instead of relying on our clubs to be delivery partners on us, we took a lot of that in-house and created the content ourselves.”

In 2021, the NBL1 had some 1136 games scheduled. While some were affected by ongoing COVID restrictions, 911 were livestreamed using LiveU Solo 4G-bonded technology and delivered to audiences via OTT platform Sportradar. With the addition of Northern and Eastern Conferences, 2022 will see the League evolve become truly national in scope with a schedule of around 1500 games and, in addition to Sportradar, 10 games per week broadcast on Foxtel’s Kayo sport OTT platform. Whereas, in 2019, NBL1 provided commentary

equipment, but relied on individual clubs to provide video cameras, computers and encoding software (Wirecast, OBS, vMix, etc.), every club has now been provided with a LiveU Solo, Canon XA40 camera, and commentary equipment.

The concept

of NBL1 was to utilise a lot of

the technology-

Match coverage is sent to online production platform Cloudmix, developed by broadcast services company 5Stream, where footage is mixed, instant replays produced, and graphics and commentary added – all in the cloud. According to Tim Kelly, CEO of 5stream, the NBL1 coverage represents “… cloud production at scale. It’s great to have a system in place where there’s set, constant equipment at every game, which means we can really get some workflows together to be pumping up upwards of sometimes 50 games a night when NBL1 is in full swing.

driven assets of the NBL to increase the profile of State League Basketball Leagues and then find a

way to create that evolution into a national footprint.

“For NBL1, the cloud production workflow, this is all happening not on site but up in the cloud,” he says. “That stream from the bonded internet of the LiveU Solo hits Cloudmix, which is hosted on Amazon Web Services, then we get automated HTML graphics overlaid, and they’re from Synergy Sports and their EVO product, and they’re automated from the scoring data which is happening on site, and then within

Cloud MIX that compositing happens of adding the graphic overlay, adding video ads which can come through as part of the overlay as well, and different image slates, and before the program feed is created. So, you get the clean feed up to the cloud, you process it and then you’re sending it out to wherever it needs to go. “At 5Stream MCR, we have operators sitting there basically just using a standard desktop computer and Chrome browser to be controlling the Solos, controlling and creating the program feed and sending it out, and as you can imagine, if you’re covering something like 50 games in an evening or in a day, it’s a lot of communications, so we use a shared slack channel for each of the different leagues for NBL1 to make sure we’re talking to the right people to give some confidence checking as it all goes on. “Our rule of thumb would be we’d have around about one operator covering five games for NBL1, and that would sort of be up and down. That’s a matter of line checking. Can we see that feed from the Solo coming through, is there commentary, is everything good? Great. Let’s start streaming with a holding slate, let’s put a countdown up and then let’s put the vision live when it goes on, and all being well we’re relatively hands off from there but there’s always something that needs to happen in terms of connections or something like that, so our team is there ready to go. “From my point of view, it was really pleasing to see the shift from the vMix and the OBS and the non-standard equipment on site into standardised Solos with a really good network connection from that bonding going up and out because there’s so much less that can go wrong once you’ve got that first mile from the on site up to the cloud running.” As well as overlaying of match statistics, cloudbased automation of graphics via Synergy’s EVO system has given the NBL1 the ability to broadcast pre-produced sponsorship spots. “From an NBL1 point of view we use Synergy Stats,” says GM of NBL1 Dean Anglin, “which is a product that is used courtside, from trained statisticians charting everything that happens on the game, from every pass, every assist, every point scored, every foul gets tracked in Synergy Stats, and that data then creates the

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“The EVO package is set up so that it has some key trigger points throughout the game. Three minutes before the game the listed starting five of each team would show up as part of the graphics package automatically. We have the ability within EVO to add commercials, so TVCs into it in a number of different spots, so pre-game and half-time, and then in the middle, so the quarter-time break, the half-time break and the three-quarter time break, all have a statistics carousel that runs around, whether that’s a box score, team shooting scores, et cetera, so stuff that is relevant to a basketball audience, and at the end of the game, again, it has then another carousel that runs to give the final game stats for it. All of it is completely automated. The only people that are touching anything are the statisticians on courtside. “We have an arrangement with Kayo that our vision will show as it is, including our ads, so we’re allowed to insert commercials into the Kayo stream that goes out as well, so they’ll be there. “We’re really fortunate, through the partnership with the NBL that that gives us the financial backing to be able to support an evolution into consistent streaming and really put a fiveyear lens on it and say, ‘We’re going to have an upfront cost. We’ll amortise that cost out over the five years and then let’s go and pick up our partners.’ “Coles Express came on board this year as a Naming Rights Partner for the next three years. We’ve picked that up, we’ve obviously got some other parties that are commercial sponsors, and then we’ve got a rights agreement as well now, so it’s pretty well underwritten now for the five years.” Over the course of that five-year period, Anglin says the League will be looking to further refine its production technology. “I think probably the next step for us is to go away from manually operated cameras to automated cameras, so that’s a project we’re working on with Synergy as well,” he says. “We’ve got six stadiums, at least, across our network that have got their automated key motion camera installed and so we’ll continue to work through that one while the technology evolves a little bit. With all of those key motion cameras, because of the desire to have a delivery redundancy, we’re coming SDI out of the on-site server into a LiveU Solo and then delivering it through LiveU, so we’re not just using the normal delivery method of the key motion camera, we’re using a LiveU to continue to deliver it exactly the same way that we’re delivering all of the other venues as well. “If we looked at it, we would walk away from the need to have an on-site production person, really only having an on-site tech support if something desperately went wrong, but the rest of the automated stuff is as it is. It turns on itself, it picks up the vision, it uses its algorithms to create a panned version of the game and sends it up for us. I think that’s the next thing for us. We’ve already started, we’ve already got six stadiums that have got it in, so it’s just a matter of whether or not we continue to go down that track or what we do next.” Visit www.liveu.tv and www.pacificlivemedia.com

Ross Releases PIERO V17.0 ROSS HAS ANNOUNCED the release of version 17.0 of PIERO, the sports graphics analysis solution that uses image recognition and state-of-the-art graphic overlays to augment sports content with visually engaging and informative effects. The latest version sees a significant update to the Virtual Presenter chromakeyer, which offers the same keying quality viewers would expect from a news studio and provides much sharper and cleaner edges when the presenter is closer to the camera. Also, camera tracking has been improved and this enables PIERO to better manage zoomed in shots where pitch or field lines may be much less visible. PIERO Touch – the touchscreen-compatible version of the solution – has also been given several improvements around customisation and dynamic new graphics effects. There’s easy-to-use pre-sets, clip loading, and on-thefly colour correction for the screen. The PIERO user interface has also been given an improved and brighter Light theme, and the recently launched Down & Distance feature for American Football has also been improved to ensure greater accuracy and consistency. Version 17.0 also sees PIERO integrating with Ross Video’s Voyager rendering solution for virtual studio, augmented reality and extended reality applications. Based on the Unreal engine from Epic Games, Voyager sets new standards for photo-realistic graphics rendering, and this latest integration will enable content creators to introduce sport graphics directly into a virtual or augmented studio production. The Voyager plugin will

enable operators to do things like change camera angles, move players on a team line-up, add spotlights or arrows, and if thirdparty data is available - heat maps, shots on goal or passes, for example – these can be manipulated as well. “We’re extremely excited by this new version which sees the important addition of integration with Voyager for AR/VS production environments,” notes Vincent Noyer, Director of Sports Graphics Analysis at Ross. “We know that our customers are always looking for new creative ways to keep their audiences engaged, and the ability to use sports graphics directly within an AR or VS environment will open up some amazing creative possibilities. I’m also very pleased to see so much direct customer feedback making its way into this release. It feels like only a very short time ago we were talking about the updates in version 16, and our customer base has expanded a great deal since then. This new release gives customers many additional features they asked for, and that’s a great testament to their engagement with us and the fantastic partnerships we have built with them.” Visit www.rossvideo.com

Grass Valley, Broadcast Solutions Group Sign Enterprise Pricing Deal GRASS VALLEY announces it has signed an enterprise pricing deal with leading outside broadcast (OB) truck manufacturing company and systems integrator Broadcast Solutions Group. The deal will see Broadcast Solutions commit to an investment of US$31 million over a five-year period to deliver on its strategic vision to develop mission-critical premium live content solutions for global media companies. The deal underlines Grass Valley’s mission to be the digital transformation partner of choice for the world’s leading creators and providers of premium live content. As part of its commitment to be at the cutting edge of cloud-based technologies, Broadcast Solutions Group’s Nordic Team will establish a

new competence centre in Helsinki based on Grass Valley’s Agile Media Processing Platform (AMPP) and build scalable, state-of-the-art Live Production Solutions. The companies are also working on the Grass Valley edition of IP OB Vans, known collectively as Streamline. These trucks support 12-24 camera set-ups and will be ready next year. With its Streamline series, Broadcast Solutions Group says it has transformed the manufacturing of an OB van from a highly complex and planning intensive project to a nearly “off-the-shelf” product. Visit www.grassvalley.com and https://broadcast-solutions.de

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EVO graphics package that we overlay over the top of it.

NEWS OPERTAIONS OPERATIONS SBS to Launch Free-to-Air Multilingual News Channel in 2022 SBS AUSTRALIA HAS ANNOUNCED that it will further expand its multilingual services in 2022, with the launch of a new free-to-air television channel providing news from around the world to Australian audiences. The new channel, to be called SBS WorldWatch, will feature an extensive line-up of bulletins from leading international broadcasters in more than 30 languages, and will also be the free-to air television home to new 30-minute Arabic and Mandarin language TV news programs, to be produced locally by SBS, and broadcast in prime time every weeknight. These new services – SBS ‫ يبرع‬News and

SBS 中文 News – will provide Australia’s large and diverse Arabic- and Mandarin-speaking communities with trusted coverage, context and insight into the major national and international stories of the day. Produced and presented by SBS journalists for an Australian audience, they will premiere on SBS On Demand in January ahead of the new channel launch. SBS says these new initiatives build on its commitment to providing comprehensive news and information across its network – in English, through SBS World News, and in more than 60 languages across SBS Radio services, podcasting, and digital platforms – and the multilingual services it has been delivering for more than 45 years. They follow the launch earlier this year of SBS 中文  - a dedicated digital service for Australia’s Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking communities. They also come in addition to SBS’s investment in a growing collection of current affairs, documentaries and dramas

available with subtitles in six languages on SBS On Demand (including Arabic and Simplified Chinese), where audiences can also login and navigate the platform in those languages. SBS Director of News and Current Affairs, Mandi Wicks, said that SBS’s plans for 2022 cement the network as the provider of the most comprehensive global news and current affairs offering for Australian audiences. “SBS is uniquely placed to reach and engage the many Australians who speak a language other than English, and our truly global newsroom is a real point of difference in the media landscape. “In 2022, we’re thrilled to be increasing our commitment to more multilingual news through a new, dedicated channel, as well as adding bespoke SBS news programs for two of the nation’s largest and fastest growing language groups, Arabic and Mandarin. Ensuring access to relevant, up-to-date news and information for all Australians promotes civic, cultural and social participation, which is at the heart of our purpose.” When launched, the new free-to-air channel

will become a destination for the SBS Arabic and SBS Mandarin TV news services, in addition to many of the television news bulletins in languages other than English from around the world currently broadcast on SBS and SBS VICELAND. SBS is also adding more bulletins to its already extensive collection, with all programs to be available on SBS On Demand. SBS WorldWatch will be SBS’s sixth free-toair television channel, joining SBS, National Indigenous Television (NITV), SBS VICELAND, SBS Food and SBS World Movies. SBS says it will share further details about the new channel in the new year, and in the lead up to its launch will also be providing audiences with more information about how to access news in their language. Visit https://www.sbs.com.au/

Pasifika TV Taps Into LiveU Content Distribution Solution

NEWS OPERATIONS

PASIFIKA TV IS EXPANDING its deployment of LiveU’s live streaming solutions across the region to increase media communications between the Pacific Islands and New Zealand (NZ). Using LiveU’s IP bonding technology, the TV channel brings newsworthy, valuable live content to people across a wide geographical area heavily impacted by the pandemic. The equipment and service are being provided by LiveU’s longstanding local partner, Pacific Live Media.

Pasifika TV provides 24/7 breaking news and live sports coverage to 24 broadcasters in NZ and across the Pacific Islands, reaching millions of viewers. Originally set up as a pilot, the “PacHub” project based on LiveU’s live production workflow is now being expanded to eight islands in the region using a combination of LU300 portable units, LU300e fixed encoders and servers. The remote production is managed out of Auckland, New Zealand, where the production team monitors and curates live and non-live content, adds

graphics and handles the post-production. During the lockdown, LiveU’s solution has enabled Pasifika TV to maintain communications, and become a critical source of live content to, and from, the islands. In Samoa, for example, on the day after the historic election, the local broadcaster was able to provide live interviews with a political commentator into New Zealand Pacific current affairs show, Tagata Pasifika, when travel to the island for other journalists was impossible. LiveU technology has also been used to stream live sports coverage, such as rugby league, handball, volleyball and the Cook Island Games, the first major sports event in the island since the beginning of the pandemic. Natasha Meleisea, Chief Executive Officer, Pasifika TV, explained, “Connectivity is key; with mobility a challenge, the immediacy of creating live content has never been easy in this region. LiveU’s mobile solution enables high-quality live content to be transmitted to a far wider audience than before, more cost-

effectively than if we used other methods. From one-way traffic – sharing content from New Zealand to the Pacific Islands – LiveU is now enabling a two-way dialog with live content also being transmitted from the islands back to New Zealand. All the NZ broadcasters are keen to use our service once the expansion is complete. The next stage will be sharing content island to island, allowing Pacific broadcasters to connect, and learn from each other what’s happening in the region.” Meleisea continued, “During the pandemic, real-time communication has played a critical role uniting and enabling people to support each other on a journey of resilience and recovery. With the revival of tourism and international sports events, we see many opportunities for live events, most notably the 2023 Pacific Games.” Visit www.liveu.com

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Cloud-Native, Unified News Operations DALET HAS ANNOUNCED general availability of its Dalet Pyramid cloud-native, unified news operations platform. Dalet Pyramid combines planning, content creation, asset and resource management, playout and multiplatform distribution into a single platform to enable production of fastbreaking, digital and live news, current affairs shows, and more. According to Raoul Cospen, Director of Product Strategy, News at Dalet, “The new agile architecture design facilitates collaboration at story-level with the industry’s first Storytelling 360 approach and enables a truly virtual newsroom. Just like all Dalet offerings, Dalet Pyramid is a cloud-agnostic solution that supports multiple cloud providers, including industry leader Amazon Web Services. It can also run in virtualised environments, offering unprecedented mobility that supports the industry’s continued pivot to solutions designed to support remote productions.”

The AI-powered Dalet Media Cortex, a standard offering at entry-level within Dalet Pyramid, provides a variety of speech-to-text features, including assisted captioning and translation, with AI services that automatically index or recommend content to news professionals and storytellers. Robust APIs and panels, such as Dalet Xtend for Adobe Creative Cloud, enable extensive custom integrations, allowing users to tailor their workflows according to their needs.

Dalet Pyramid’s web-based user interface makes it easy to onboard staff and freelancers quickly, reducing training time. Users can contribute, produce and manage the full news story lifecycle from anywhere using smartphones, tablets and laptops connected to basic internet. The underlying Dalet asset management and

Dalet Pyramid is available as a flexible, subscription-based solution which can run with a range of cloud providers, including AWS, onpremises, or a hybrid of both. Users looking for a SaaS option will benefit from having Dalet host, deploy and manage the solution, supporting the constant ebb and flow of resource fluctuations

NEWS OPERATIONS

without increasing their capital investment. Existing Dalet Galaxy five customers can migrate their license to a subscription and benefit from packaged Dalet Pyramid offerings that bring additional functionality to their newsroom. New capabilities include seamless remote contribution, multiplatform digital production and distribution, web-based editing, as well as planning and resource management. Fully compatible with Dalet Galaxy five, Dalet Pyramid introduces deployment flexibility without compromising on functionality. Visit www.dalet.com

Avid Expands IP Content Sources for Live Workflows

Out-of-the-Box Virtual Graphics

AVID HAS ANNOUNCED interoperability of Sony and TVU Networks IP-connected devices with MediaCentral | Stream to expand the pool of journalists, producers and other production resources who can contribute live streams from anywhere for news and remote live production workflows. MediaCentral | Stream is a rapidly deployed, software-only solution that immediately opens the MediaCentral platform to contributions over IP from sources anywhere using any device.

VIZRT HAS ANNOUNCED availability of a fully-equipped, virtual studio-in-a-box — XR Set Express. XR Set Express comes with pre-configured and pre-calibrated features enabling quick setup and instantaneous use.

With MediaCentral | Stream, production teams can ingest multiple incoming IP streams in on-premises and cloud-based scenarios without changes or interruptions to their existing workflows. Users can preview incoming IP streams, record them in productionready formats, or edit an incoming stream simultaneous with its recording to create stories for digital distribution and linear broadcast. With end-to-end encryption and authentication processes, teams achieve simple, secure and reliable contribution from any camera, encoder and mobile device running Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) or Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), including products from Sony and TVU Networks in addition to those from Haivision, Teradek, LiveU, and other thirdparties.

orchestration engine facilitates content flow from ingest through planning to distribution and archive.

“News and other live TV production teams can escalate volume and speed with reliable, secure IP content ingest from any device, anywhere, at any time through MediaCentral l Stream,” said

Raul Alba, Director of Solutions Marketing, Media and Cloud at Avid. “Avid’s customers continue to rely on Sony and TVU in the field and it’s crucial to boost productions with our seamless interoperability. We’re taking an open approach based on common protocols with a strategy to add more in the future, so customers can bring more content contributors into their live productions.” “We’re proud to play a key role in helping the industry’s most creative production teams simplify the many complex processes involved in remote IP contributions,” said Martin Lindsay, Product Manager at Sony. “With Sony’s network connected camcorders, RTMP streams can deliver content quickly and securely into the Avid MediaCentral | Stream environment.” “With Covid-19 still pervasive, we’ll surely be seeing more crews having to lend their talents remotely,” said Paul Shen, CEO at TVU Networks. “We believe that a data-driven media supply chain is what broadcasters need to be able to serve their audiences on all platforms. This integration allows TVU and Avid to not only reliably deliver raw material in real-time, but to deliver it with the metadata needed to really reinvent workflows for our clients.”

Features include a fully functional scene, ready to produce with Viz Arc control surface, a Panasonic UE100 PTZ, pre-configured hardware and software, and pre-calibrated lens and additional simplified lens settings. XR Set Express leverages Vizrt’s Virtual Studio capabilities alongside the connected workflows of the NDI IP-video standard. NDI is used to enable video, tracking data and full control of the Panasonic UE100 PTZ camera through a single cable connection. The Viz Arc control surface provides intuitive and flexible control for studio setup and configuration. Positioning of graphics, studio customisation, keyer auto-setting, pre-setting of desired camera positions, and more can be accomplished with a few clicks.

MediaCentral | Stream is available with a MediaCentral subscription.

The addition of a fully functional virtual scene, with its three main areas and pre-built AR graphics, provides users the ability to hit the ground running to tell engaging visual stories from day one. XR Set Express’ built-in flexibility allows users to still run any virtual studio created, in-house.

Visit www.avid.com

Visit www.vizrt.com

NEWS OPERATIONS

Weatherproof Robotic Pan and Tilt Head VINTEN HAS INTRODUCED the new FHR-155E — a robotic pan and tilt head designed to support full-size broadcast cameras and lenses as remote-controlled robotic devices in outdoor locations. The FHR-155E is designed for areas where it would be impractical to deploy a manual camera operator such as broadcast weather cameras, inaccessible areas of sports arenas or religious gatherings. With a maximum payload capacity of 90kg/200lb, the FHR-155E combines sophisticated software and mechanical engineering to enable accurate, smooth, and quiet camera movements in challenging open-air environments. Designed to military specification for use in desert conditions, the IP65 rated FHR-155E is insulated against extreme temperatures with an operating range of 4°C to 50°C and features a remotecontrolled wiper with optional jet wash for a clear field of view. The weatherproof camera enclosure is pressurized to prevent any dust

Deliver multi-cam live productions on-demand

being drawn into the enclosure and is available with an optional Cooler Module that is independently regulated by an internal thermostatic control to maintain a constant optimum operating temperature. With IP network connectivity, camera operators can make intuitive and smooth pan-and-tilt movements remotely using the familiar Vinten HD-VRC control system used in studio robotics. The FHR-155E features a pan range of 359° and a tilt range of ±30° (±179° with extended cradle arm) and is designed to be near-silent when in motion — making it suitable for environments with noise limitations. Visit www.vinten.com

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Newsroom NDI PTZ Camera Control

Etere Nunzio Newsroom delivers the ability to control Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras directly from the rundown. Etere’s integrated PTZ camera control enhances news production values by allowing recording from multiple sources and with multiple perspectives from the newsroom studio. The upgrade provides ultra-low latency and manages high speed panning and tilting for the coverage of larger areas. From the Etere camera control panel, the operator is able to adjust the camera shuttle, gain, zoom, focus and iris controls. With a single ethernet network, users can remotely control multiple PTZ

cameras in real-time. An intuitive layout enables a single operator to control a live newsroom. Etere Camera Control supports SDI, IP and NDI connectivity. Automatic pre-set controls are also available for a fast and easy setup, as are responsive virtual and USB joystick controls. Other features include: Precise iris, focus, shuttle, gain, zoom controls; Automatic Gain Control (AGC); On-the-fly switch between cameras with a single click; Assign any image or graphics to a pre-set for easy organisation; Limits camera movements to the X-axis only with X-Joystick; Visual pad opens pre-set and visualizer in a separate window; Crops image from the screen and saves them as image file with snip tool; Soft speed acceleration with soft mode; Limit top speed with slow mode; and Activate pre-set tiles. Visit www.etere.com

Go live from anywhere.

pa c i f i c

www.pacificlivemedia.com sales@pacificlivemedia.com +61 2 8458 0701

NEWS OPERATIONS

ETERE HAS UPGRADED its PanTilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera control driver. Central to the design of this technology is the flexibility to view multiple sources in realtime, store and retrieve pre-set profiles directly from the rundown panel, all without additional studio automation hardware.

POST PRODUCTION Unity Acquires Weta Technology, Engineering Team for US$1.625 Billion Unity, the platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D (RT3D) content, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Weta Digital’s tools, pipeline, technology, and engineering talent. THE COMPANY SAYS the acquisition is designed to put Weta’s sophisticated visual effects (VFX) tools into the hands of millions of creators and artists around the world, and once integrated onto the Unity platform, “enable the next generation of RT3D creativity and shape the future of the metaverse”.

for any artist, from any industry, to be able to leverage these incredibly creative and powerful tools. Offering aspiring creatives access to Weta Digital’s technology will be nothing short of game changing and Unity is just the company to bring this vision to life.”

Weta Digital will join Unity’s Create Solutions focused on the continual evolution of Weta Digital’s dozens of proprietary graphics and VFX tools, such as Manuka, Lumberjack, Loki, Squid, Barbershop, HighDef, CityBuilder, and many more. In the future, with Unity’s deep expertise in real-time, these world-class artist tools will be available to creators through an accessible cloud-based workflow.

With this transaction, Unity will acquire:

Weta Digital’s Academy AwardWinning VFX teams will continue to exist as a standalone entity known as WetaFX and is expected to become Unity’s largest customer in the Media and Entertainment space. WetaFX will still be under majority ownership by Sir Peter Jackson and helmed by CEO Prem Akkaraju. “Weta Digital’s tools created unlimited possibilities for us to bring to life the worlds and creatures that originally lived in our imaginations,” said Sir Peter Jackson, Chairman & Co-Founder, Weta Digital. “Together, Unity and Weta Digital can create a pathway

• Weta’s engineering talent of 275 engineers that are known for architecting, building, and maintaining Weta Digital tools and core pipeline; • Dozens of industry-leading tools such as Manuka, Gazebo, Barbershop, Lumberjack, Loki, Squid, Koru, and more, all integrated seamlessly into Weta’s industrial strength production pipeline; • A foundational data platform for interoperable 3D art creation, making it easy for hundreds of artists to work seamlessly together; and • A library of thousands of assets that the WetaFX team will continue to accumulate as they create world class VFX in the years to come. “Weta Digital’s sophistication is represented by dozens of tools that all build on the same, unified pipeline. Alone, each tool

is uniquely powerful, but as a complete platform, they represent a quantum shift in our ability to make it easy for artists to bring their imagination to life and work together like never before,” said Marc Whitten, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Unity Create. “We are excited to work closely with WetaFX to continue to push the edge of the art of possible with these tools and to bring them to VFX, entertainment and, eventually, gaming and other artists as we evolve our pipeline for content creators.” Unity and Weta Digital say they are empowering the growing number of game developers, artists, and potentially millions of consumer creators with highly sophisticated content creation tools and a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) subscription model.

Under the terms of the agreement, Unity will acquire Weta Digital for US$1.625B in a combination of cash and stock. Prem Akkaraju, who joined Weta Digital as CEO in early 2020 and is the creator of Weta’s cloud commercial service, will remain Chief Executive Officer of WetaFX. Joe Marks, Weta Chief Technology Officer, will join Unity as Chief Technology Officer of Weta Digital. The proposed acquisition is expected to close during Unity’s fourth quarter 2021 and is subject to customary closing conditions. The Raine Group served as exclusive financial advisor to Weta Digital. Visit www.unity.com and www.wetafx.co.nz

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Netflix Acquires Scanline VFX

STREAMING GIANT NETFLIX has announced the acquisition of Scanline VFX, known for its complex, photorealistic effects and expertise in virtual production, which was founded in 1989 and is now led by Stephan Trojansky, a trailblazing VFX Supervisor whose proprietary fluid rendering system Flowline won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2008. The company has offices in Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles, London, Munich, Stuttgart, and Seoul.

infrastructure and workforce and continue to support the pioneering virtual production work of Scanline’s Eyeline Studios.

Netflix will invest in Scanline’s pipeline,

According to a Netflix statement, “We’ll also

In addition to working with Netflix, Scanline has done ground-breaking work on everything from Game of Thrones to Godzilla vs Kong and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Going forward, the company will continue to operate as a standalone business and work with their variety of clients.

continue to rely on many other studios around the world for our VFX needs so we can continue to ensure that our creators have access to the world’s most innovative tech, and continue to bring the most compelling and cutting-edge storytelling to our members.” The acquisition, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, is expected to close in Q1, 2022. Visit www.netflix.com and https://www.scanlinevfx.com

POST PRODUCTION

Pomfort’s Livegrade Studio Integrates with Filmlight’s BLG Colour Workflow FILM PRODUCTION technology developers Pomfort and FilmLight have announced a collaboration aimed at professional colour workflows. Pomfort’s on-set digital imaging software Livegrade Studio now integrates with the FilmLight ecosystem, bringing together look-related production processes on-set and in post-production. A new dedicated grading mode in Livegrade Studio allows grading in FilmLight’s colour pipeline and the exchange of looks via FilmLight’s proprietary file format BLG. Thus, FilmLight and Pomfort combine their respective expertise to offer customers a comprehensive solution for colour management across the whole production – from on-set grading to dailies creation and finishing. “We are delighted that Livegrade 5.5’s new support for BLG files provides a simple, elegant way for colourists and cinematographers to exchange and refine sophisticated looks,” said Steve Chapman, Co-founder and Director at FilmLight. “Livegrade’s ability to load and export BLG files allows for seamless integration with Daylight or Baselight, as the full grading stack can be be automatically re-instantiated by matching media metadata with the metadata stored within each BLG.” A show look designed in FilmLight’s Daylight or Baselight can now be imported into Livegrade

Studio as a BLG file. FilmLight’s specific input and output transform parameters, such as “Input Colour Space” and “Working Colour Space” as well as output transform parameters “DRT” and “Viewing Colour Space”, can be natively used and exported for further processing. Additional grading layers of the look are merged into a “Grade” node within Livegrade’s grade editor. On export, all layers in the grade stack are automatically preserved in the BLG file, ensuring full editability in succeeding applications. With its set of powerful grading controls, Livegrade Studio can adjust all imported BLG looks via ASC-CDL corrections. CDL nodes added in Livegrade Studio are also transferred into the BLG file, so that the DP’s creative decisions regarding the

on-set look remain editable in dailies creation and finishing. As footage delivered to FilmLight’s Baselight is now consistent and much closer to the DP’s creative intent, colourists can devote more time to polishing the look and making aesthetic enhancements. Visit http://pomfort.com and http://www.filmlight.ltd.uk

New Cineware for Unreal Plugin MAXON, THE DEVELOPER OF developer of professional software solutions for motion designers and visual effects artists, has announced the immediate availability of an update to the Cineware for Unreal plugin. This new plugin for Unreal Engine 4.27 features workflow improvements such as dynamic import of C4D content without pre-caching, and the ability to modify Cinema 4D content and attributes directly within the Unreal Editor. New Features include: Import Cinema 4D Content: With Cinema 4D it’s easy to create 3D models and animations you can use when creating games, real-time

graphics or other interactive content in Unreal Engine. It’s now easier and more reliable than ever to import C4D files directly into Unreal. An updated Datasmith import uses the Cinema 4D installation already on your computer to dynamically import your complete C4D scene without the need to generate any caches. This keeps files small and enables new interactive workflows with Unreal. Update Cinema 4D Content from within Unreal: With the Cineware for Unreal plugin you can adjust specific attributes within a Cinema 4D file directly within Unreal Engine. Adjust text and other scene settings within a panel or

using the Blueprint editor and a simple click will reimport the Cinema 4D file with your changes applied. Use Cineware to Import Files from Other Applications: The C4D file format is much bigger than just Cinema 4D - many of Maxon’s partners have adopted this robust 3D file format. For instance, Datasmith import of Cinema 4D files can be used with files coming from Allplan, ArchiCAD and Vectorworks offering a great starting point for architectural walkthroughs and visualizations using Unreal Engine. Visit https://www.maxon.net

PARTNERSHIP WITH MAXON provides users access to millions of distributed GPUs, future plans include the development of native integration for Cinema 4D OTOY and Maxon have announced that Redshift, Maxon’s GPU-accelerated renderer, will be coming to the Render Network, OTOY Inc’s blockchain GPU rendering network and 3D marketplace. The agreement will give Redshift users the ability to scale GPU rendering jobs to millions of distributed GPUs on the Render Network. As part of the partnership, OTOY and Maxon will also be developing a native integration of

Cinema 4D on the Render Network, providing a one-click solution for uploading to the Render Network, bypassing the need for timeconsuming scene conversion and exporting processes. With Redshift on the Render Network, users will be able to frictionlessly move between render engines, providing a toolchain agnostic platform for scaling GPU rendering tasks across millions of decentralised GPUs. Its usage-based licensing options for cloud GPU rendering workflows, will empower Redshift artists to scale GPU rendering tasks on-demand without the need to pay large up-front licensing costs.

The Render Network already supports all of the industry’s leading 3D tool sets across VFX, gaming, motion design, architectural visualisation and simulation, with 20+ DCC integrations, including native support for Unity3D and Unreal Engine. This partnership expands in The Render Network’s Multi-Render initiative to support the industry’s leading GPU render engines, starting with OctaneRender, Redshift and Arnold Render. Redshift support on the Render Network is planned for the first half of 2022 and will be available at https://render.x.io.

POST PRODUCTION

OTOY Adds Maxon Redshift Support to the Render Network

POST PRODUCTION

Trapcode Suite 17.1 MAXON HAS ANNOUNCED a new version of its Trapcode particle simulation and 3D effects suite for motion graphics and VFX. Trapcode Suite 17.1 contains workflow and performance enhancements, as well as several minor bug fixes for Particular. Performance Enhancements Include: • The ‘Create Null’ button now becomes ‘Unlink Null’ when a null has been created to allow for easier decoupling (if desired). • Undoing ‘Create Null’ is now a one step process.

• Improved performance for Fluid Dynamics during longer renders. • Improved Cinema 4D spline shape support, including the ability to emit from Edges in addition to Vertices.

• Improved system multiselect behaviour in the Designer to eliminate cases of unintentionally selecting multiple systems. • Custom system names are now reflected in the ‘Emit from

Parent System’ menu for child systems in the Designer. • Added After Effects beta as an install path. Visit https://www.maxon.net

Boris FX Unveils Sapphire and Continuum 2022 BORIS FX, THE DEVELOPER OF visual effects plugins, has announced updates to two of its flagship collections. According to the company, Sapphire 2022 and Continuum 2022 deliver the fastest workflows yet with Adobe Multi-Frame Rendering and native Apple M1 support, new creative effects and functionality, and timesaving tools for video editors, motion graphic designers, and visual effects artists. “We’re excited to follow our Mocha Pro 2022 release with the rollout of two more of the post-production community’s favourite toolkits. Sapphire 2022 and Continuum 2022 come packed with new effects and features to help editors and artists work at their best inside Adobe, Avid, and OFX workflows,” says Boris Yamnitsky, President & Founder, Boris FX. “Among the most anticipated new features are the addition of Adobe Photoshop as a host application to Sapphire (free to all Sapphire 2022 users) and the introduction of fluid dynamics to Continuum’s Particle Illusion which allows users to add organic flowing motion to 3D particle animations.” Sapphire adds Adobe Photoshop as a host application with a free add-on available to Sapphire 2022 users (new licences, subscriptions, and upgrade & support plans). Resolution independent, non-destructive, and supports up to 32-bit images, it includes 3000 pre-sets and a one-of-a-kind nodal-based effects compositor. Graphic designers can now seamlessly pass imagery designed with Sapphire in Photoshop directly to other team members using Sapphire regardless of the video host application.

POST PRODUCTION

The Sapphire ColorFuse effect allows users to create cinematic colour grades with a unique LUT effect. Choose from included Boris FX LUT pre-sets, combine up to three LUTs in different combinations and opacities to achieve custom looks, or upload .cube files. Colour representation is produced with OCIO standards.

Sapphire’s UltraZap adds Mocha splines to the effect, making it easy to create visual effects that can be tracked, traced, and rotoscoped for greater artistic control. Previously only available to After Effects users. Sapphire is available as a plugin with monthly/

annual subscription options, upgrade & support plans, and permanent licenses. Host application support includes Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and OFX workflows such as Autodesk Flame, Blackmagic Resolve, and Foundry’s Nuke. (Operating systems: macOS, Win, Linux). Meanwhile, Boris FX Continuum 2022 includes Particle Illusion, now with fluid dynamics. Quickly add organic 3D particle motion to existing emitters or create complex liquid animations that flow and swirl like in the real world. There are over 20 professionally designed pre-sets. Multiple emitters and parameters can be saved as a single pre-set in the pre-set library. There are also up to 5x speed increases across all supported host applications. Continuum 2022 also delivers speed gains inside After Effects with Adobe Multi-Frame Rendering support, zippier workflows with native Apple M1 support, and faster overall performance with the addition of more fully GPU-accelerated effects (BCC+). The cinematography toolkit (BCC+ effects) adds 60 movie/TV-inspired colour grade pre-sets, including The Wizard of Oz, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Stranger Things, 50 optical glass texture gobo pre-sets, and integrated Mocha tracking. Six speedy blur effects with 80 pre0sets give editors and artists more ways to rack focus, apply distortions, spin, zoom, and more. Each blur effect is fully GPU-accelerated and features user-selectable speed/quality options such as

box, pyramid, and gaussian. Additionally, the BCC+Prism effect generates prismatic colour separation and includes pixel twist and smear options. An improved PixelChooser has been added to all BCC+ effects. It features full GPU-processing, an easy-to-use interface and allows users to combine multiple mask shapes with gradients and image mattes to isolate filtered pixels. Continuum is available as a plugin with monthly/ annual subscription options, upgrade & support plans, and permanent licenses. Host application support includes Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and OFX workflows such as Blackmagic Resolve, Foundry’s Nuke, and VEGAS Pro. (Operating systems: macOS, Win). Visit www.borisfx.com

POST PRODUCTION

Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 17.4 BLACKMAGIC DESIGN has announced DaVinci Resolve 17.4 which transforms the speed of DaVinci Resolve to work up to five times faster on new Apple Mac models with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. With the speed increase, users can now play back, edit and grade 8K projects faster, and can work with up to 12 streams of 8K footage. DaVinci Resolve 17.4 also increases the decoding speed of 12K Blackmagic RAW files, making it over three times faster and H.265 rendering is also 1.5 times faster. Plus, DaVinci Neural Engine performance is up to four times faster, for real time facial recognition, object detection and smart reframing. Support for ProMotion 120Hz displays makes playback and editing smoother and HDR viewers are also supported on the new Apple MacBook HDR displays. DaVinci Resolve 17.4 also adds Dropbox Replay integration. Projects will flow smoothly from DaVinci Resolve Studio directly to Dropbox Replay for easy video review and approval. Frame accurate coloured markers, comments and annotations made in Dropbox Replay are almost instantaneously synced to the DaVinci Resolve timeline. Plus with a simple login, users will only have to sign in once. Other features include quick and easy render set up with dedicated Dropbox and Dropbox Replay pre-sets as well as automatic background uploads that are monitored for status and confirmed when complete. For subtitling, DaVinci Resolve 17.4 includes automatic resizing of backgrounds and cursor placement when creating captions, as well as nested timeline subtitle tracks now autopopulating the main timeline to speed up creating captions. There are also improvements to the edit page such as better functionality for position curves in the timeline, so users can more easily adjust the ease in and out points. This creates a more custom transition from one point to another when applying zoom or image position adjustments. Users will also now be able to

use DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor to switch between cameras in multi-cam clips on the edit page making it faster to cut programs together. Additional support for asymmetrical trimming allows users to adjust a transition’s in-point without affecting its out-point or vice versa, enabling them to fine tune work more quickly. With Fusion, users get additional support for languages with combined glyphs and those that may write right to left such as Arabic and Hebrew. Combined with improved vertical layouts, rotation and line direction when working with Text+, this will enable users to work in a wider range of languages and layouts. DaVinci Resolve 17.4 adds greater support for automatic colour management, making it faster and simpler to set up projects. Additionally, this update adds support for ACES 1.3, including gamut compression, so users can now more accurately display wide gamut images to be certain they are getting the best representation of the source image. A new Resolve FX called custom mixer allows

users to combine effects and make adjustments to grades with finer control. Plus, a new 3D keyer adds the ability to make finer adjustments to the key and matte finesse settings to make it easier to create clean masks with more accurate keys and finer edges. For DaVinci Resolve Studio, there’s also a new film halation which will add the effect of a glow or light reflections around high contrast edges, giving images a more filmic look. Fairlight audio now has support for Steinberg VST3 audio plugins, giving access to more audio effects so users can create the perfect soundtrack. Plus, there are keyboard shortcuts or click and drag to reorder, move and duplicate effects in the Fairlight mixer, displays single sided audio transitions as fades and added support for multi-channel audio outputs. When finishing projects users can now export projects with YouTube video chapters, improved encode settings for the YouTube render preset and the ability to use hardware accelerated H.265 on Windows. Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

Hedge Extends Avid Editing Workflows into the Cloud

Eliminating access gateways and the high-latency associated with cloud-media workflows, Postlab for Media Composer is intrinsically secure and doesn’t rely on slow and hard-to-configure VPNs, allowing editors to begin working immediately from anywhere, with no minimum requirement for an internet connection. Postlab keeps existing workspaces in sync and makes Avid’s useful Bin Locking feature work in the cloud so users can seamlessly collaborate on projects without overwriting each other’s work. Postlab for Media Composer features: IMMEDIATE ONBOARDING - Postlab has no

middleware, storage restrictions or other limiting factors. It’s a seamless transition from on-premise to cloud, with essential features and characteristics of your Nexis (or Avid compatible NAS/SAN) workflow intact. EDIT EVEN ON LIGHTWEIGHT CONNECTION - Postlab works with both fast and slow connections and where bandwidth is insufficient for real-time cloud operation, media files are prefetched and intelligently cached, so they’re available for immediate editing. Postlab’s Workspace feature also allows editors to cache a complete folder and its content locally, so only metadata and lock files require syncing, which is instantaneous. FAMILIAR WORKSPACE AND COLLABORATION Postlab for Media Composer extends Nexis and traditional Avid NAS/SAN storage workflows into the cloud, providing editors a familiar workspace, and capabilities like Bin Locking ensure that editors can collaborate without

overwriting important work - just as they’re used to. LOW CLOUD COSTS - Moving media files in and out of the cloud is often time-consuming and costly due to egress fees. Postlab for Media Composer cuts the costs along with the complexity of using the cloud through metadata and a “zero egress” policy; no hidden costs related to cloud storage. SCALABLE, WITHOUT VENDOR LOCK-IN - Payas-you-go based model allows facilities to pay a basic monthly fee and then add additional Postlab users as needed. Postlab for Media Composer works for all Avid Media Composer Ultimate editors, whether they’re working on-premise or from home, and supports all types of storage - an on-prem Nexis system, NAS or SAN - or no on-prem storage at all. Visit https://hedge.video/postlab-avid Visit www.aja.com/products/t-tap-pro

POST PRODUCTION

VIDEO SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Hedge has announced Postlab full support for Media Composer, a cloud-native solution to enable collaborative remote editing workflows for Avid editors. Postlab serves as an extension to an on-premise Nexis or other Avid-compatible NAS/SAN storage.

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Gravity Media Goes for Gold with Digistor and Infortrend THIS YEAR’S TOKYO OLYMPICS threw up challenges for all involved – not the least for the providers of broadcast services. When Gravity Media needed a high-throughput storage solution for the Games, it turned to Digistor and Infortrend. As Gravity Media’s Head of Technology, Adrian Jenner explained, “We have a good history with Digistor and mentioned our Olympics requirement to them and our workflow team worked with the Digistor engineering team to spec up a suitable storage solution.” Gravity specified requirements that included high transactional and high throughput bandwidth for simultaneous recording of mezzanine compressed streams and processing of growing files. In essence, they required a centralised high-performance storage system to act as the hub for their media workflow on the Olympics. The system needed to take feeds from multiple EVS systems and make these files available to multiple post production systems. It also needed to support more than 40 production staff that needed to browse content. Digistor proposed a dual redundant Infortrend GS4000 NAS system to deliver the high performance and capacity requirements. This was further refined with the help of Gravity’s engineers and combined, they settled on an 84-drive system which offered 1.3PB of RAW capacity and just over 1PB usable.

The system was pre-built and performance tested at Digistor HQ in Artarmon. Digistor then provided the necessary training to the Gravity engineers prior to the system being shipped to Gravity’s Olympic Production Hub in Melbourne. Adrian added, “Using 16TB NL SAS drives and Infortrend’s high density enclosures, the solution was relatively compact at only 8RU. For this application, we used quad 10Gb connections from each of the redundant RAID controllers to provide the necessary bandwidth and redundancy. The GS4000 also supports 25Gb and 40Gb connections and could scale to almost 900 drives and multiple PBs if required.” The system was in operation 24 hours a day for the Olympics and then continued to be used in the same manner for the Paralympics without a single issue – a fact that was not lost on Adrian. He continued, “The Infortrend solution didn’t miss a beat, it easily covered a full load-test of worst-case scenarios then proved its reliability through six weeks of solid operational use. This is particularly impressive as, after the initial commissioning and RAID build, the Infortrend solution was virtually plug and play to setup for the project. I have to mention the fact that Digistor were key in the initial commissioning phase and training of the systems features, as these were major advantages for us.”

storage for all of Gravity’s recorded media in both high res and low res formats, it also served as the central data pool for on-demand serving media to clients for the duration of the project. This was a serious storage solution with, some might say, exceptional Olympic-style performance. To watch the Infortrend build at Digistor go to: https://bit.ly/3pg7LUl Visit https://bit.ly/3peIycG and https://www.digistor.com.au

Throughout the Olympics and Paralympics the Infortrend solution served as the primary

Nine Adds Spectra Logic StorCycle to Streamline Workflows SILVER TRAK DIGITAL Nine has expanded its Spectra Logic storage ecosystem to include the new StorCycle software solution for storage lifecycle management. Following Nine’s 2018 upgrade from a legacy storage platform that saw it deploy replicating Spectra BlackPearl object storage solutions paired with Spectra T950 Tape Libraries, the company found that Spectra’s Storcycle software could potentially replace another legacy storage system during its recent Sydney relocation.

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

The storage workflow of the legacy system took graphics and compositing files created by Adobe After Effects and Autodesk Flame and moved these into a disparate tape archive and backup location. StorCycle replaces the need for this isolated equipment architecture through its native connectivity with Nine Network’s

centralised Spectra BlackPearl hybrid storage platform. StorCycle is a storage lifecycle management software solution that ensures data is stored on the right tier throughout its lifecycle for greater IT and budgetary efficiencies. Created for organizations that need lasting protection and access to data which is no longer active, but still critical to retain, StorCycle scans primary storage for inactive files and completed projects and migrates them based on set policies to a lower cost tier of storage, which includes any combination of cloud storage, object storage disk, network-attached storage (NAS) and tape. Interoperable with Linux and Windows, StorCycle migrates data, without changing original formats, and allows users to have easy access to all data, including data migrated to longer latency storage mediums like cloud “cold” tiers and tape.

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Dylan Van Dyke, Broadcast Tech Manager for Nine Network, said, “Our relocation gave us a unique opportunity to rethink some of our legacy systems and we were really pleased to see that StorCycle could address some workflows that had not been integrated into our main Spectra Object Storage Platform. StorCycle has been running now for some time and we’re really pleased with the results.” Matthew Hall, Business Development Manager for Techtel, added, “Nine Network’s object storage environment, underpinned by Spectra BlackPearl, is now even more capable with the addition of StorCycle. Pairing StorCycle and BlackPearl ensures Nine’s critical data is safe whilst demonstrating a cost savings over their previous workflow.” Visit www.techtel.com.au

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

The Impact of Self-serve Content Access After over a year of upheaval for media professionals, organisations are adapting to new ways of working. But it’s not just processes that are changing, mindsets are also undergoing a significant shift. By Nicholas Pearce, Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer, Object Matrix

Now that a return to offices and facilities seems in sight, getting the balance right between remote and on-premises content creation will be crucial for companies moving forward. The consensus seems to be that a hybrid working approach is the way to go. Organisations will need to move from the business continuity measures implemented during the pandemic, to long-term media storage solutions. The Cycle of Searching During the slowdown in production, media professionals have seen the value of archive content, both as creators and as consumers. New innovative formats have made the most of the archive and compiling footage has allowed teams to look at nostalgic clips with fresh eyes. While having a large library of content to mine is a great resource for creatives, accessing that content quickly and easily is a vital part of ensuring it can be monetised effectively.

“Producers are trapped in a cycle of searching for and requesting the assets they need, and this timeconsuming process forms a major roadblock in the creative workflow.

Unfortunately, many media organisations still require people to physically access, or manually service requests for archived content. There are a few reasons why this might be the case; assets could be stored on legacy archive technology such as LTO, the content might be in geographically dispersed locations or kept on multiple silos of storage, or it might be that the content requires human services to perform the access requests. Whatever the reason, the result is the same. Producers are trapped in a cycle of searching for and requesting the assets they need, and this time-consuming process forms a major roadblock in the creative workflow. Often, the individuals servicing the requests for content have a valuable skill set to offer, but they get stuck responding to tedious media management requests that could be automated. When combined with integrated workflows this automation would enable the whole team, as well as approved freelance staff, to access the content they need in an instant.

Productivity Fuels Creativity While LTO has been around for longer than some media professionals have been in the business, many are questioning its place in the workflow. Manually checking that content is usable, physically moving copies between sites and spending vast amounts of time locating what is needed, are some of the most common pain points. These challenges not only stall the creative process and impact productivity, but they also build barriers to repurposing years of valuable archive footage. Despite the limitations of LTO, organisations often feel tied to old methods. Even though automation offers significant operational benefits, companies end up sticking with time consuming workflows rather than investing in future proofing their business model. This is surprising, when most media professionals understand the potential value of the archive for content creation. But it may be that teams don’t realise exactly how much time is wasted searching for what they need. Creative professionals spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to find content. From a human resource perspective alone, this figure represents several barriers to revenue generation. Not only does searching for content impact productivity in a literal sense, as staff are wasting time on processes that could be automated. It also damages the overall motivation of a media organisation’s most valuable asset, its content creation team.

“Often, the individuals servicing the requests for content have a valuable skill set to offer, but they get stuck responding to tedious media management requests that could be automated.

It has been welldocumented that repetitive tasks are the antithesis of creative productivity and are often a source of burn-out for employees. This report on the general state of workplace automation, found that mundane tasks meant over 63% of respondents felt they were missing an opportunity to show their best work. Now that the technology is available to support the creative process through automation, teams can reinvest their time into delivering great content. Access from Anywhere In their personal lives, media professionals are operating in an instant access world. Every piece of data, from the latest news

updates to all the contacts they’ve ever made, are available with a click or a scroll. While LTO still has a place, it is increasingly at odds with the way we are wired to search for information or inspiration. Most media managers acknowledge that LTO is not aligned with on-demand workflows. Increasingly Digital Content Governance and Object Storage technologies are being used to implement automation and maximise resources. This allows both producers and operational staff to use their skills to add value to the business. Self-serve access to content helps create seamless workflows, leveraging the full potential of content assets as well as human resources. We are currently undertaking a global shift in the way that the media industry conducts business. Now that organisations no longer need to duplicate office space and infrastructure, many are looking at opportunities in new markets. This shift to remote technology has allowed companies to consider a more wide-reaching pool of talent, rather than focusing solely on where their headquarters are based. Remote working has enabled teams to work from anywhere, but to do that effectively they need swift and secure access to content. Now that the pandemic has permanently changed the landscape of our working lives, it’s time to seriously consider where we go from here. By thinking of on-premise or hybrid cloud object storage and Digital Content Governance as an investment, rather than an expenditure, media companies can make the most of both their human and digital resources. This will deliver a clear ROI, as organisations pave the way to higher output, and much happier staff. Visit https://object-matrix.com/

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

IN SOME AREAS, the pandemic has highlighted an interdependence and a need for collaboration. In others, it has become clear that to work remotely in an effective way, individuals need more autonomy and control.

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

AJA Announces AJA Diskover Media Edition FOLLOWING THE ANNOUNCEMENT that it has taken a proactive equity stake in data analytics software developer Diskover Data, AJA Video Systems has launched AJA Diskover Media Edition. The new software is based on open-source roots and lets media and entertainment professionals (M&E) easily search, find, and analyse media asset data originating from on-premises, remote, and cloud storage – aggregating associated metadata into a unified global index. It also allows users to pinpoint misallocated resources saving companies time and expenditure by helping them to identify wasted storage space, ageing and unused files, data changes, and more. With AJA Diskover Media Edition, metadata can also be seamlessly harvested to add business context and insights to files to inform data decisions and business processes, and to streamline workflows. It includes custom plug-ins that address the specific needs of M&E professionals, regardless of the physical or virtual platforms utilised to store media content. AJA Diskover Media Edition further enables users to search across multiple platforms simultaneously, and discover and present data in a master index, while generating reports and cost analysis to a range of roles across productions or enterprises. Key highlights include: A single master index: Ensure that all files across cloud, remote, and on-premises storage are up to date, and that data access and rights can be easily controlled on a per-user level, with Diskover’s constant indexing and centrally located indexes. Snapshots in time: Tap into a history of indexes to easily compare storage over time and project

future growth demands, as well as identify areas of concern. Elasticsearch: Scale to any environment size and type with an opensource core that simplifies asset search and provides insights into associated storage costs. Easily integrate with external APIs and order management platforms. Tagging: Use tags to support workflow actions and approval processes, such as file deletion approval on an expired asset. Analysis: Advance media workflows and monetization efforts with access to robust technical metadata (i.e., codec, number of audio files, resolution, etc.) via a simple search. Gain insights that provide team members with indepth information about each asset and where it landed for more informed decision-making.

internet connection and easily deploy multiple indexers globally at other facilities, all reporting into one common platform and master index. Security: Read-only access to the file systems and a web-based UI not directly connected to the storage prevents file corruption, deletion, or unwanted changes to assets. Global asset overview: Provide remote teams and individuals with a global view of the assets for each given production, group of productions, or client – empowering their own relationship with the data.

Support for hybrid environments: Seamlessly run Diskover across on-premises storage solutions and cloud-based storage services.

Cost analysis tools: Make more informed datarelated decisions about time, resources, and investments to reduce operating costs.

An intuitive web-browser UI: Access AJA Diskover Media Edition from anywhere with an

Visit www.aja.com

Intertrust Consolidates DRM and Content Security SIGNIANT INC. Intertrust has united all of its media Digital Rights Management and content security products under a new, wholly-owned organisation called Intertrust Expressplay. ExpressPlay’s product line includes ExpressPlay DRM, a cloud-based multi-DRM service,

ExpressPlay XCA for broadcast TV security, ExpressPlay watermarking and anti-piracy services, and ExpressPlay offline DRM. Intertrust ExpressPlay is led by industry veteran Manas Mati who joined the company from Disney in 2017 and has been leading its

business efforts in India to date. According to Talal Shamoon, CEO, Intertrust Technologies, “Intertrust ExpressPlay is a new chapter in an epic journey that started in the late 1990s when we brought DRM to life for the entertainment industry. Today, we’re proud of our cloud-based ExpressPlay Media

Security Suite which, enhanced by a rich partner ecosystem, offers industry-leading robust protection and anti-piracy services optimised for both content rights owners and distributors of a wide variety of media types.” Visit www.expressplay.com

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

Signiant Boosts SaaS with Levels Beyond

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SIGNIANT INC. has acquired Levels Beyond, the company behind the media workflow software suite known as Reach Engine. Levels Beyond’s talent and technology will be used to extend the functionality of Signiant’s SaaS platform, adding new capabilities for simplifying and modernising media workflows. The company also recently

acquired Lesspain Software to facilitate organising, finding, and interacting with media assets, and the Levels Beyond acquisition will now extend Signiant’s offerings to include a range of configurable workflow building blocks. According to Signiant Chief Solutions Officer, Mike Flathers, “By leveraging know-how from Levels Beyond and the power

of the Signiant SaaS platform, we can give customers what they’re asking for — which is a much lighter-weight, simpler, more productised approach to workflow implementation. The industry demands best-of-breed optionality and a high level of configurability, but complex oneoff deployments simply cannot deliver the necessary flexibility

and economies of scale. It will be great to have the Levels Beyond team at the table to help turn our vision into reality.” Key members of the Levels Beyond team will continue to be based in Denver, where Signiant will operate a development centre. Visit http://www.signiant.com

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

EditShare Optimises Technology Stack, Enhances Remote Workflow EDITSHARE HAS ANNOUNCED updates to its FLOW media asset management (MAM) and EFS shared storage systems which bring enterprise-level availability and redundancy to FLOW, and time-saving administrative features to EFS that provide smart shortcuts, system transparency, and automation. FLOW’s high availability is achieved by giving its central database multiple points of redundancy to mitigate against hardware or network failures that would affect MAM client accessibility during active productions. Consistent with this, FLOW’s services are scalable and presented as multi-instance, redundant elements within the overall system. The FLOW platform also has new Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve panel capabilities and proxy support that further simplify working remotely. Users can now exchange FLOW sequences directly with Adobe Premiere Pro and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve thanks to the new FLOW Cuts List sequence import function.

Extended Metadata support lets team members add metadata information to sequences, including custom fields. This improves and enriches metadata associated with sequences. AirFLOW now shows sequence metadata in its user interface. Improved media relinking logic automatically imports and relinks Hi-Res source footage located within a project’s complex folder structure after completion of a proxy edit. In addition to standard streaming proxies, FLOW can now generate additional high quality ProRes Proxy and H.264 files. This simplifies relinking to complex clips with multichannel audio track layout in remote workflow scenarios.

The iRODS Consortium guides development and support of iRODS as free open-source software for data discovery, workflow automation, secure collaboration, and data virtualisation. The consortium is administered by RENCI, a research institute for applications of cyberinfrastructure located at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA. With this solution, FUJIFILM Object Archive becomes a deep tier archive storage target while iRODS provides a data management platform for users

EFS’ Control Maintenance Mode features new controls which allow maintenance users to manage files in certain media spaces while restricting other users to read-only access while Active Directory Single Sign On (ADSSO) enhancements enhance enterprise-level user management.

FLOW now fully supports the latest version of DNA Evolution by Storage DNA. Users can easily archive and restore FLOW assets from third-party LTO/LTFS and disk-based tiers.

Lastly, EditShare is deploying in-app guides and feedback messaging capabilities. As the company brings more and more features to the browser-based experience, its aim to guide these users to the new capabilities and solicit feedback directly within EFS Control and FLOW.

Meanwhile, EditShare Telemetry makes it

Visit https://editshare.com

FUJIFILM and iRODS Partner on Archive Solution FUJIFILM and the iRODS Consortium have announced a collaboration and integration creating a joint solution built upon FUJIFILM Object Archive software. The joint solution leverages the benefits of a tape storage tier, providing an automated archiving workflow for organisations that require storing large amounts of data.

easy for administrators to share Audit and Monitor data with EditShare’s secure network operations centre. Through Telemetry, EditShare can work with customers to ensure systems are running optimally through proactive monitoring and event alerting.

who produce massive amounts of research and analytics data. FUJIFILM Object Archive software has been tested with the iRODS S3 plugin and now fully supports the AMAZON S3 abstraction that iRODS provides. In addition to regular S3 compatibility, FUJIFILM and the iRODS Consortium worked together to add functionality to the iRODS S3 Resource Plugin. This new functionality will be available as part of the upcoming iRODS 4.2.11 release. Moving appropriate data to the tape tier provides the benefits of air-gap security and scalability while being very cost-effective and energy-efficient when compared to other storage media. Additionally, FUJIFILM Object Archive software supports the new, higher-capacity LTO-9 tape technology. Visit https://www.fujifilm.com.au

ATTO Support for LTO-9 ATTO TECHNOLOGY, INC., the provider of network, storage connectivity and infrastructure solutions for data-intensive computing environments, has announced support for LTO-9 tape technology across its product lines. Linear Tape-Open generation nine (LTO-9) technology improves upon the prior generation with more storage capacity and transfer speed. LTO-9 Ultrium tape stores up to 18TB uncompressed and 45TB compressed which is 50% greater capacity than LTO-8. Transfer speeds reach up to 400MB/s uncompressed and up to 1000MB/s compressed. LTO-9 drives are backward compatible with LTO-8 media. ATTO supports backup and archive processes end-to-end with a full range of connectivity solutions for every environment. Industryexclusive ATTO features and technologies allow for quicker and safer backups plus provide design flexibility otherwise unavailable to system designers. ATTO Advanced Data Streaming,

built into all ATTO HBAs, bridges and Thunderbolt devices, manages latency to provide controlled acceleration for smooth data streaming to maintain the highest consistent performance. When backing up data, write speed is the most important metric. ATTO SpeedWrite keeps paths between a host and ATTO XstreamCORE intelligent Bridge filled with data to boost write performance by up to 25% over a direct connect SAS HBA connection to tape drives. ATTO ThunderLink Thunderbolt adapters and ATTO ExpressSAS GT SAS HBAs deliver fast connections to LTO-9 SAS tape drives. Featuring a full range of port configurations and driver support, easy-to-use features, extensive industry qualifications and integrates with up to 16 tape drives per bridge. ATTO XstreamCORE intelligent Bridges enable the addition of direct-attached SAS tape to shared Ethernet networks, providing a flexible and easy way to scale and remotely share LTO-9 tape devices. Visit www.atto.com

CANTEMO, now part of Codemill, has announced the latest version of its flagship Media Asset Management Solution. Cantemo 5.1 features a new panel for Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as updates to the User Interface. Cantemo is a customisable,

modular, and scalable Media Asset Management platform. Integration with Adobe Premiere Pro CC enables post-production professionals to continue working in their familiar environment, with Cantemo working in the background on file management

tasks. Through the Cantemo integration, editors can directly access the functionality of Cantemo without leaving Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Cantemo 5.1 also features a number of User Interface enhancements, including edits to

the look and feel of pop-ups and thumbnails and aligning colours for status alerts. The media bin has been updated to enable entire collections to be moved simultaneously. Visit https://cantemo.com

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD

Cantemo 5.1

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AUDIO, RADIO RADIO, PODCAST AUDIO Digital soundwaves

MCEC Makes Quantum Leap with DiGiCo AS ONE OF MELBOURNE’S primary cultural institutions for over 25 years, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) has often been a first adopter of new technologies in the audio sector. With an extended history of investing in DiGiCo solutions for live audio, MCEC recently made the choice to add two new Quantum 338s to its digital mixing repertoire. Soundcorp - a Diversified company (SADC) is a leading supplier and integrator of professional AV systems nationwide. As one of MCEC’s approved suppliers, it was on hand to coordinate delivery of the consoles and provide local support. “The Quantum 338 offers a fairly dramatic step up in connectivity and processing within the DiGiCo workflow, and so was the logical choice when MCEC enquired about the acquisition of new workhorse systems,” notes SADC’s Scott Jamieson. “As its team are already very familiar with the DiGiCo ecosystem, we were excited to provide them with the latest Quantum iteration as the upgraded capabilities here are really impressive.” Hosting a large number of conventions, events, and live music each year, MCEC already owns an impressive fleet of DiGiCo consoles and equipment, with its iconic Plenary Theatre including a permanently installed DiGiCo SD-Rack and Optocore infrastructure.

“Currently MCEC has three SD11is, two SD9s, two SD8s, two SD10s, two Quantum 338s, and an S21, as well as several SD-Racks, SDMiNiracks, and a D-Rack in one of our theatres. We also utilise DiGiCo Little Red Boxes for flexible routing arrangements in a number of spaces,” explains Michael Pfundt, MCEC’s Audio Specialist. Sound technician Lance Krive at the DiGiCo Quantum 338 “We deliver “Stand out reasons for me were the enhanced hundreds of events every year and have a screen space and Nodal Processing. The large technical staff, so ease of use is really Mustard Processing and the Spice Rack are important to us. DiGiCo consoles provide also pretty great, and we’re looking forward a highly intuitive user interface, along with to the addition of more effects modules powerful processing and flexible routing being added to the Spice Rack soon. Also, capabilities, meaning that it’s easy for our having spent some quality time with them, crew to deliver what’s required by our clients. I’m impressed by how quiet they are. I think On top of this, the reliability of SD-Racks I’ve only heard the fans spin up twice and they and Optocore are important to us when we were barely audible.” are doing back-to-back shows and there is limited time for troubleshooting.

Visit www.digiconsoles.com

Evertz Reinforces Commitment to Studer Audio Brand FOLLOWING ITS ACQUISITION of Studer Audio, Evertz Technologies Ltd has reinforced its commitment to this iconic brand by relocating Studer’s manufacturing facilities from Hungary to Evertz headquarters in Canada. The move forms part of a long-term plan to develop next generation

products which the company says will meet the needs of future customers in the broadcast, live entertainment/concert events, sports, esports, stadium, arena and house of worship markets. Established in Switzerland in 1948, Studer initially manufactured professional tape decks and

analogue consoles, but began manufacturing digital mixing consoles when it was acquired by Harman International Industries in 1994. Evertz has already integrated Studer Audio with its Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solutions, part of the industry’s

transition to IP. With products such as Studer Vista digital consoles and Infinity Core audio mixing and processing now part of Evertz SDVN, customers can access complete solutions for audio and video orchestration, monitoring and analysis. Visit www.evertz.com

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST

ARN Partners with AudioMob for In-Game Audio Ads

ARN HAS ANNOUNCED an exclusive, Australian-first partnership with UK company AudioMob to launch the first-ever in-game audio adverts for mobile games. The innovative product plays audio ads in place of visual ads that take over the screen during play - a major cause of annoyance for mobile gamers. In-Game Audio adverts are served with an inobtrusive click-through banner, and only when a phone’s volume is turned on. If the gamer is streaming

music or listening to a podcast simultaneously, In-Game Audio fades the stream before inserting the advert, then fades the stream back in after the advert has played. According to ARN, it’s a winwin for brands and mobile gamers, who both benefit from an interaction that doesn’t interrupt gameplay. For brands, the benefit is three-fold; they can directly target consumers across a multitude of options, they have complete ‘share of ear’

with only one audio ad served per gaming session, and the ads are unskippable. Adam Williams, ARN’s Head of Audio Product and Innovation, said, “Primarily, it solves a problem and major irritation for mobile gamers, and secondly, it serves ads in a high attention environment. It gives brands scale, addressability, measurability, and an environment where they can really get creative and show off their brand personality.”

Christian Facey, the Co-founder and CEO of AudioMob said “The beauty of in-game audio ads is that messages can be delivered without interrupting the player. This gives brands a better way to communicate with their audience in a highly engaging environment. We felt ARN was a great partner in helping us expand into the Australian market.” Visit www.arn.com.au

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Nine Comms Connects with IP and Riedel Nine Entertainment’s still shiny North Sydney HQ, with its IP network and Australia-first adoption of the SMPTE 2110 standard, has enabled improvements in workflows across the board, including comms. ACCORDING TO AARON CORTILLA, Broadcast Tech Support Engineer with Nine, the process of selecting a comms system for the new facility began in 2018 with the broadcaster taking a list of “wants and it would be nice to haves” to market. After evaluating a number of different vendors, the Nine team settled on Riedel’s Artist Intercom platform complemented by Riedel’s Bolero Wireless Intercom. “Straight off the bat, the fact that the Riedel solution is a 2110, or AES67 solution, put it steps ahead for us,” says Cortilla. “Not only that, but there is also the SMPTE 2022-7 solution, with the hitless networks, which was something we were definitely looking for.”

things like in hair and makeup, we also have a comms panel down in there as well. As far as areas that we have the Bolero, the Wireless Solution in, again, it’s just mainly the broadcast production areas, obviously studios. Also, in the news floor as well, up into the Nine OC, and then also out on to our balcony, we have a bistro on level 2. If, for example, Today Show ever want to do an outdoor segment out there, we’ve allowed for wireless comms out there as well.” Does it extend to the Stan side of things, as well, with Stan Sport? “Also, with Stan Sport doing production out of Nine facilities here at North Sydney, so as far as control rooms, yes, it does.”

we would integrate into things like OBs, basically external productions, and things like that. The fact that the Riedel Matrix can handle a varied variety of formats – VOIP, etc - was definitely an advantage for us.

Nine Broadcast Tech Support Engineer, Aaron Cortilla.

“With COVID and all the NRL happening up in Queensland last year, while we still then had commentators back here at North Sydney, there was a need there for the communications to the people on the field at the OB, presenters there, directors there, things like that, back here at North

“Yes, definitely. Currently we do have remote panels at our Canberra Bureau is one of them, and also over in our LA Bureau. We also have a panel VOD connected back to the system back here. Currently, VOD Connect, I believe there will be a look at making that an IP connection in the near future.” For live production situations, like the Today Show, what’s the typical set up? “Today Show is probably quite an intensive comms situation where we have, basically, everyone within the control room would be talking on their own comms panels, which can be up to four producers, director, vision switcher, DA. Then, of course, you have MCR who are obviously setting up live crosses, and things like that, would be heavily using the comms system as well. To talk in house and talk externally. Then, of course, all the technical staff, so your TDs talking to cameramen, cameramen talking to director. Currently, actually, the cameramen really like the Bolero system. It allows them to freely walk away from the camera and still have communications and still know what’s going on.” How is that wireless traffic handled?

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST

Where has the comms system been deployed?

“It is primarily the broadcast areas at North Sydney, although we do have some panels up with publishing (newspapers), and we have a small studio and control room on their floor. Yes, so we have talkback panels in, as you said, studios in the news area, Chief of Staff, editing suites, news exchange; and then also throughout what we call the Nine OC, or the Nine Operation Centre, which covers off our MCR, our control rooms, and our audio control rooms; also, down to

What efficiencies have you gained compared with Nine’s former SDIbased site at Willoughby? “Just the fact that the Riedel and the whole facility is now an IP backbone facility, basically all the advantages that come with IP have opened up to us here, including the intercom system, and the devices and whatnot that do hang off the intercom system themselves, whether it be an AMU, Codex, things like that.” What about remote production? “That was one of the things we looked at when we were looking for a solution, basically, is how

Sydney, and being able to give that communications to the staff here, whether that be production staff or commentators and talent.” The North Sydney HQ is part of a nationwide roll out. Are there plans for integrating Riedel Solutions into other State headquarters? “It is definitely something Nine will be considering. Just the fact that it is all an IP backbone, that ease of then integrating all your network sites into the one intercom system is definitely something Nine would be considering, yes.” What about news bureaus, like in London or Los Angeles?

“The wireless belt packs themselves talk to antennas that we have situated around the building. From those antennas, it’s basically AES67 then back into our IP network.” Are there any coverage issues in that environment? “There was a fair bit of consultation between ourselves and Riedel when we were looking at numbers of antennas we would need, areas that we were going to have antennas in and belt packs operating in. We were actually lucky that the coverage from the antennas actually gets us into areas that we weren’t expecting,

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST so we actually have more coverage that we needed.” What functionality are you looking at it down the track? “Down the track, we are looking at a lot more integration with our Broadcast Control Systems, so VSM. At the moment, we are using a lot of the features in Riedel where you can recall, for example, a key panel key layout. We are, at the moment, triggering things like that, using Riedel itself, a key press on a Riedel panel itself to trigger, things like that. But we are definitely looking at more ways we can introduce that to be something that is controlled by the Broadcast Control System. For

example, just the ease of changing the controller from, for example, the Today Show to a downstream sports OB with the press of a button.” Are you collecting performance data as a diagnostic tool? “No, not really. We were having dropouts on some of the belt packs in the early days. In the end, it turned out to be a networking issue rather than an actual Riedel Bolero problem. Of course, the stats that we were able to pull out of the Riedel software were able to help pinpoint where the problems were. So, we could see that the belt packs weren’t dropping off, the antennas themselves weren’t

dropping off, but we were losing packets within the network itself. “We did have some early on PTP issues. The Riedel support was able to actually pull the logs from the Riedel system itself and have a look at those PTP issues for us, and actually feed back information to us on what may have been some of the problems that we were facing with PTP. “It’s been quite seamless, to be perfectly honest with you. The fact that Riedel offers a talk/ listen function, as well, was an added bonus for us that we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel for a lot of the operators. The Smart Panels themselves are fantastic,

just the display on them, the fact that you can have more than four characters is always a bonus; and when you can have up to eight and can actually write a description under a key, for a bit more of an indication on who you’re talking to, is fabulous. As far as the quality of the audio from the key panels, the operators love it. It’s really top notch.” Visit www.riedel.net

Nine’s Riedel Arsenal ARTIST INTERCOM MATRIX:

BOLERO WIRELESS INTERCOM:

• 1x Artist-1024 with 584 ports (including ST2110-30/ST2022-7 integration into other audio systems) • 1x Artist-64 with 56 ports

• 30x Bolero belt packs (some used at NBN) • 14x Bolero antennas (some used at NBN)

MEDIORNET IP ST2110-20 VIDEO GATEWAYS:

• • • • •

72x RSP-1232HL 4x RSP-1216HL 19x RSP-2318 6x ESP-2324 11x DSP-2312

• 112x FusioN-6B units with a total of 15 different configurations, depending on where these are used (to drive monitor walls, for camera pedestals etc.) • 6x ESP-2324 • 11x DSP-2312

• 112x FusioN-6B units with a total of 15 different configurations, depending on where these are used (to drive monitor walls, for camera pedestals etc.)

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST

ARTIST INTERCOM PANELS:

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST

SEN Goes Remote with AVC in NZ WHEN AUSTRALIA’S Sports Entertainment Network (SEN) launched into New Zealand earlier this year it faced the challenge of not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but of widely dispersed on-air talent. The AM/FM radio and online streaming operator turned to AVC Group to connect the voices of the new service to its studios in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. According to Warrick Marais, Broadcast Engineer with AVC Group NZ, SEN’s requirements for remote production included the capability for talent to co-host and co-produce, as well as see each other via video for more natural interaction. It also needed to be seamless with low-latency across the country. Simulating one giant WAN, SDLAN connectivity, consisting of

for the talent to do when the kit is booted up,” says Marais. “On the screen is an HTML5-based virtual mixing console. The most complicated part is an Audio Compass codec which transports the audio up and down the links. That’s an application that runs on the remote machine and all they have to do is hit the connect button on the application and that connects with the head-end in Auckland. Once that’s connected, the box is literally up and running.” While the kits can be self-hosted, a producer in Auckland is on hand to monitor aspects of the transmission such as audio levels so that hosts can concentrate on delivering commentary. In the event of broadband network failure, each kit can be connected via a 4G modem. According to SEN IT, Engineering

locally. The hosts can, with two clicks, set up an interview and record it locally, save the file and send it back to us.

While the kits can

As well as a production hub, the Auckland studio serves as Master Control with RCS’ Zetta providing play-out. Advertising playout consists of two streams – Auckland and the rest of the country. Future plans include ad localisation for North and South islands, as well as individual major cities such as Wellington and Christchurch. There is also capability for Australian and New Zealand operations to exchange programming.

a producer in

“We’ve got two-way links between all of our studios, so we can all connect and hear each other,” says Pearson. “Any of our studios in Australia can hear our studio in Auckland, and they can dial in and select what they want to listen to.”

can concentrate

be self-hosted, Auckland is on hand to monitor aspects of the transmission such as audio levels so that hosts on delivering commentary. In the event of broadband network failure, each kit can be connected via a 4G modem. connected really reasonably. We’ve got 4G backup on top of that as well just in case the network goes down.

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST

One of Sports Entertainment Network’s New Zealand-based remote production kits supplied by AVC Group.

six independent end-points, is provided by broadband operator Spark. On-air talent have each been supplied with a Telos Alliancepowered “one-button, studio-ina-box” consisting of an 8RU rack case on wheels equipped with a PC, mixing console, headphone amps, headsets, a switch to connect to the network, a camera for hosts to interact with each other and another to capture footage for social media. There are also two monitors and a remote keyboard and mouse. On site installation takes less than 40 minutes. “There’s only one or two steps

and Operations Director, Josh Pearson, “The remote studio kits have been a whole new experience. They’ve been fantastic. They’re quite reliable. AVC have built them to be pretty agile, they can have multiple different connections to them. Without overselling them, they’ve been good. “All the stuff that we do out of Auckland is pretty much live, so all of these kits, 90 per cent of the time they’re live. But what we do when we’re not on air with the kits is we use them locally with Audacity on them and [Broadcast Bionics’] Phone Box and we record

Streaming to the SEN app is handled via a Streaming Guys’ server in Auckland, and one in Australia for redundancy. Josh Pearson says that despite trans-Tasman connections and remote production units across New Zealand, latency doesn’t pose a problem. “We’ve got a half-gig link between Australia and New Zealand which works really well for us, and all of our remote kits we’ve actually gone and put Spark corporate connections into New Zealand around everywhere. It keeps us

“For us, it’s part of having a computer there that runs everything. We’re running webcams and all the talent can see each other, we’ve got [Broadcast Bionics’] Phone Box clients. We still would have the screens and everything else there, so incorporating the Axia node and mixer via the web into all of this has made it a really streamlined, straightforward simple version for the guys to use. It’s one box they sit in front of and it does everything. “One of the reasons why we launched the network talent at home – we’ve got our breakfast team work from their homes, our mornings person works from his house, most of our weekends we work from our remote offices in other parts of the country. “It’s probably the only thing that’s actually made us go really well through COVID. Like we’re in lockdown now with our breakfast host who lives in Christchurch and he couldn’t fly in to Auckland Monday to Friday to broadcast for us. So, it’s worked out really well.” Visit https://www.sen.com.au and https://www.avc-group.net

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST

Grass Valley, Telos Integrate Intercom with Cloud Production IN PARTNERSHIP WITH the Telos Alliance, Grass Valley has released Telos Infinity VIP (Virtual Intercom Platform) on GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform), a professional intercom solution for cloud-based media production workflows. Infinity VIP on AMPP supports essential intercom functionality that is already well known to production professionals, including partylines, IFBs, groups and peer-to-peer communication. This new cloud-based production

functionality is being beta-tested by All Mobile Video (AMV) and will be live with an AMV customer later in the year. Telos Infinity VIP on AMPP is a native SaaS solution tightly integrated from both an operational and commercial standpoint for a frictionless experience. The Infinity VIP on AMPP cloud server and virtual panel apps are available from the AMPP app store and deploy in the same way as any AMPP application.

With Infinity VIP on AMPP, operators supporting live productions from anywhere can access the application from any connected browser. The microphone and speakers from the connected phone, tablet, or computer allow operators to communicate with team members, while using the same device for performing their job functions using other AMPP-enabled solutions such as switching, audio mixing, replay, routing, and

monitoring. Usage monitoring is consolidated with other AMPP applications to provide a single billing experience. While providing the latest in flexible user interfaces, this new intercom solution also provides cloud connection for existing intercom hardware, providing all the benefits of a new cloud-enabled system while retaining existing intercom infrastructure and workflows. Visit www.grassvalley.com

Multi-Channel IP Audio Codec with AES 67, NDI

Additional CallMe-T instances can be added at any time up to the maximum of 16x two-channel CallMe-T codecs in the same 1-U enclosure. Front panel control and the in-built web interface allow routing of any of the Codec channels to both the front panel headphone monitoring and the analogue audio inputs/outputs. USB ports allow connection of an external soundcard, USB Headset, Keyboard or Keypad to provide quick-dial and directentry SIP connection capability – all features that are available with the well-liked desktop CallMe-T codec. In-built AES67 and NDI support for networked audio provides seamless integration with a huge range of third-party hardware and software products whilst Zoom compatibility lets an individual CallMe-TXR Codec join a Zoom call, taking the highestpossible quality audio direct from the Zoom Server. DTMF support lets individual CallMe codecs operate as a “SIP/VoIP hybrid” providing compatibility with numerous audio-conferencing services including Amazon Chime. CallMe-T has Opus, G.711 and G.722 algorithms and cabled connectivity only but at half the size, it is half the price of its nearest competitors. More recently, CallMe-T’s capabilities have been enhanced to allow connection of a USB Headset, Mixer or Soundcard for home

studio use as well as a USB Keypad to provide quick-dial and direct-entry SIP connection capability. SmartStream lets users select which audio channel (left, right or both) streams to which destination - up to 8 at the same time including providing the capability for a single CallMe-T hardware unit to behave as two separate mono IP Codecs to two different destinations at the same time. The latest updates include video stream support so that CallMe-T can join a Zoom call to provide the highest-quality audio possible straight from the Zoom server and DTMF support that lets it operate as a “SIP VoIP Hybrid”.

audio channel (left, right or both) streams to which destination or destinations. Whilst the two-box- solution plainly works, following a number of requests from major broadcast users, Vortex has now integrated CallMe-T functionality within the Glensound ISDN Mixer to provide it with IP audio connectivity without losing ISDN and other existing capabilities. As a low-cost retro -fit, CallMe-G

includes a replacement back panel plus the codec board for inside the unit and adds an RJ45 ethernet connector plus a USB socket that allows the use of a Wi-Fi or 4G modem for mobile connectivity. Dialling is still using the Glensound keypad which can access the ISDN terminal adaptor plus CallMe-T’s Quick-Dial memories and direct IP and SIP addresses. Visit www.proaudiotv.com.au

Meanwhile, Vortex has also announced CallMe-G which provides IP Audio connectivity for Glensound ISDN Mixers With Opus, G.722 and G.711 algorithms, balanced analogue dual mono and USB audio connectivity, desktop CallMe-Ts have been used especially for Sports Reporting alongside Glensound ISDN Mixers, providing them with IP Audio connectivity and at a sensible price. The request to provide CallMe-T with the capability to operate as two separate mono IP Codecs to two different destinations at the same time, especially useful for Sports Roundups where it avoids the need to take along a second codec, brought SmartStream that lets users select which

sa l es.a us@ d 2 n.com.a u 02 98 37 674 8

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST

CALLME-TXR uses Vortex’s CallMe “codec engine” to provide, in a single 1-U rackmount enclosure, up to 16x Stereo/Dual Mono CallMe IP Audio Codecs. The entry level CallMe-TXR has dual CallMe-T capability with 4x balanced line-level audio inputs, 4x balanced line-level audio outputs, USB Audio connectivity plus a front panel headphone socket for local monitoring. It also provides native AES67 and NDI support as standard for integration into larger systems.

CONTENT DELIVERY Terrestrial, Mobile, Broadband

MediaHub Deploys Full-IP Ateme Solution for VAST News Services AUSTRALIA’S Viewer Access Satellite Television service (VAST), is a satellite television platform providing digital television and radio services, giving access to a suite of metropolitanequivalent broadcasting services to remote and rural areas, as well as viewers in terrestrial black spots. Late last year MediaHub was awarded the contract to provide ingest, compilation, playout and distribution of the twenty-one concurrent main and backup news channels, with material ingested from forty recorded sources across all regional Australian broadcasters. MediaHub, in turn, has now provided a “Full-IP” Ateme solution for all of Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) VAST news services throughout Australia The Federal Government-funded VAST service uses the Optus C1 and Optus D3 satellites and is managed through a joint venture between SCA and Imparja Television. The Full-IP solution provides MediaHub the ability to playout MXF OP1a file-based-only media in a high bitrate SMPTE 2022-6 videoover-IP output format, whilst maintaining firstclass video quality alongside audio and caption integrity. As part of their rapid transition to becoming a

full-IP facility, MediaHub worked closely with Ateme to ensure the initial realisation of this goal using their TITAN and PILOT software range. MediaHub CEO, Alan Sweeney, said, “Our faith in Ateme and its focused IP centric roadmap has been rewarded with the commissioning of a platform with all the flexibility required as we move into a new era of digital broadcasting with many different delivery points. VAST is the initial deployment in a major project for the balance of our playout platform of over 400 channels.” Under control of PILOT Media, Ateme’s workflow and orchestration system, news content is captured via TITAN Recorder from existing outputs of WIN, Prime, SCA, and Imparja headends. Once captured, the content moves through an automated file-based workflow into the TITAN Playout environment where it is scheduled and played out over SMPTE 2022-6 outputs into the TITAN Live and TITAN Mux headend. The PILOT and TITAN platforms are fully virtualised running Docker containers in a Kubernetes environment, enabling MediaHub both future flexibility when considering multisite redundancy or cloud disaster recovery scenarios, as well as leveraging their expansive

common infrastructure platform. Beyond an existing strong local support presence, Ateme’s distributed 24-by-7 Asia Pacific support team is intimately familiar with the comprehensive TITAN product portfolio. In line with Ateme’s ongoing commitment to upholding a customer-centric approach, an extensive training program is underway to gear up the wider support organisation, and to further cement Ateme’s technical support presence within MediaHub’s operating environment. An agile yet formalised approach was implemented to ensure alignment between Ateme’s evolving TITAN Playout product roadmap and MediaHub’s vision for the future direction of the company. Will Munkara-Kerr, Country Manager Australia and New Zealand for ATEME added, “MediaHub and the local Ateme team have done an incredible job designing and implementing a cutting-edge solution that maintains the exacting uptime standards required by the critical nature of the service and our industry in general.” Visit www.mediahub.com.au and www.ateme.com

VSF Enhances RIST Protocol THE VIDEO SERVICES FORUM (VSF) has announced the release of a new specification: TR-06-3:2021 entitled “Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) Protocol Specification – Advanced Profile.”

consuming only a single UDP port to simplify firewall configuration. Enhancements have also been made to RIST security features, to add support for some of the latest encryption and authentication technologies.

This new specification greatly expands the functionality and interoperability of RIST devices, providing new capabilities that enable a wide variety of reliable, secure media signal transport applications. The document is freely available at https://vsf.tv/technical_ recommendations.shtml

RIST technology has been incorporated into products currently offered by a number of manufacturers including Cobalt, Evertz, Net Insight, Nevion, QVidium, SipRadius, VideoFlow and Zixi. The libRIST open-source implementation has also been widely deployed for a variety of broadcast, enterprise and prosumer applications around the globe. The RIST Forum (www.rist.tv), which currently has over 150 members, provides a variety of resources for organizations that have deployed and are interested in learning more about RIST technology.

RIST Advanced Profile includes a protected tunneling mode that can carry any legacy protocol, including RTP-based media signals such as SMPTE ST 2110, ST 2022 and MPEG TS over UDP. In addition, bidirectional protocols based on TCP can be transported securely and reliably in the same packet tunnel while

“RIST Advanced Profile is a novel way to provide

a VPN service with reliable delivery for corporate applications, extending the benefits of RIST to any type of traffic, not just media,” said Ciro Noronha, EVP Engineering, Cobalt Digital and principal author of the RIST Advanced Profile specification. “These enhancements add functions that can be utilised to transport many signal types, including SMPTE ST 2022, ST 2110 and other protocols such as NDI, Dante and AES67.” Future work within the VSF RIST Activity Group includes support for WireGuard VPN, enhanced firewall traversal and adaptive bit-rate encoding. New functions that make RIST systems easier to control and administer across large enterprise networks are also being added, including automated configuration and standardised control/management functions to support even greater interoperability and scalability.

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DVB Specs for 8K UHD Video Service Delivery

THE STEERING BOARD of standards body the DVB has approved specification updates that introduce capabilities to deliver 8K UHD video services. These updates, extending existing support for the HEVC codec, are the first step in a series of key additions planned for the DVB video coding specifications. HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), also known as H.265, is a standard that offers from 25% to

50% better data compression at the same level of video quality compared to its predecessor MPEG-4/AVC. Until now, DVB specifications included HEVC conformance points only for up to 4K resolution. The recent DVB specification updates encompass delivery of 8K UHD via both broadcast (transport stream) and broadband (DVB-DASH). Approved for publication as DVB

BlueBooks, the updated documents are DVB’s specification for video and audio coding, the DVB-DASH profile for video streaming, and the DVB-SI specification for delivery of service information. The DVB says scaling 8K video delivery to end users will benefit from even more efficient video codecs. Further additions to the DVB specifications are expected in 2022.

Visit https://dvb.org

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Foxtel to Distribute Sky UK Streaming TV AUSTRALIA’S FOXTEL GROUP has confirmed it will be the first global syndication partner for the Sky Glass streaming TV, described as “a world-class streaming aggregation product that provides a next-generation user experience that seamlessly aggregates streaming content all in one place, together with ultra-premium devices, including a 4K UHD TV with cinemaquality sound.” Sky Glass, launched by Sky in London, will form another element in the Foxtel Group’s streaming-led roadmap and is expected to be available in Australia in late 2023. The announcement follows Foxtel’s launch of the internet-connected streaming iQ5 set-top box. Foxtel also confirmed plans to update software in the iQ4 in the coming months to also enable the set-top to be IP-led without the need for cable or satellite. Sky Glass is a pure streaming product and comes without satellite, cable or free-to-air reception. Foxtel Group Chief Executive Patrick Delany said: “Sky Glass will add another dimension to our future as we continue to invest in innovation and reposition Foxtel to be Australia’s premium aggregator of streamed entertainment. “We are incredibly pleased to be the first syndication partner for Sky Glass. It allows us to join a global product and technology roadmap created by Sky and Comcast, offering customers a world-class entertainment experience and devices, powered by Comcast’s global technology platform.” Already available in the UK, Sky Glass enables viewers to access Sky TV over Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Recommended broadband speed for HD is 10Mbps, while recommended UHD broadband speed is 25Mbps. It will launch in Sky’s other European markets from 2022.

Sky Glass is touted to deliver over a billion colours with a 4K Ultra HD Quantum Dot screen. A 10-bit HDR capable screen supports HLG, HDR10 and Dolby Vision. On the audio side, Sky Glass features six integrated speakers in optimal positions (3x outwards-firing, 1x central subwoofer, 2x upwards-firing) to deliver edgeto-edge Dolby Atmos sound. With far field voice and Glance Motion Technology, users can just say “Hello Sky” or walk past to bring the streaming TV to life. A new home page makes it easier to find, watch and play content from across Sky, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Disney+, ITV Hub, All4, Spotify, Peloton, PlayWorks and more. At the press of a single button, viewers can create a personal Playlist of favourite shows, movies and more across apps and channels, live and on-demand. A “plus button” on the remote adds titles to the Playlist. Meanwhile, a live Restart function enables viewers to watch content from the start if they have missed the beginning of a live programme. Adopting a mobile phone payment model in the UK, Sky Glass units can be purchased in a single payment, or via interest-free monthly payments. The streaming TVs are available in 43”, 55” and 65” screen sizes. Users can also elect to upgrade in size with an increase in monthly payments. Sky Glass has been built as a platform which can be deployed by other Telco and subscription television operators so they can also bring the Sky Glass experience to their customers. In 2022, Sky Glass will see the optional addition of a high spec 4K smart camera designed to complement new services such as chat, gaming, exercise and sharing. Visit www.sky.com/glass and www.foxtel.com.au

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Magna is proud to partner with the industry’s best to cover the entire value chain of professional media delivery. These innovative solutions for contribution and distribution enables content providers, broadcasters and service providers to securely and reliably acquire, backhaul and distribute the highest quality content efficiently on appliances or in an open cloud environment.

Telstra Broadcast Services Joins SRT Alliance

SRT is a free open-source video transport protocol and technology stack originally developed and pioneered by Haivision, which enables the delivery of high-quality and secure, low-latency video across the public internet.

acquisition of MediaCloud in June 2021 and expansion into global broadcast capabilities and operations. Through that deal, TBS took control of a suite of significant softwaredefined and cloud-based capabilities, including the Internet Delivery Network. Being involved in the SRT Alliance complements TBS’ continuing expansion into cloud-based services; and enables TBS to provide much greater flexibility to broadcasters.

Head of Telstra Broadcast Services, Andreas Eriksson, said: “At TBS our goal is to provide broadcasters of any size the most flexible, cost effective and robust ways to manage their content.”

The Telstra Internet Delivery Network (IDN) platform is dedicated to the real-time delivery of high-quality media content and live broadcast streams to any registered endpoint, across contended networks such as the public internet.

“Our collaboration with the SRT Alliance and Haivision supports us in delivering the right solutions for broadcasters through driving new technologies, like the open-source video transport protocol. This tackles some of main issues our broadcast clients face when it comes to high-performance, low-latency, streaming in a secure and unfailing way across the public internet”.

A range of new protocols is now supported by the IDN, including SRT, Rist, Zixi, TS, HLS, RTMP, DASH, SDI, UHD SDI, NDI and Mediaconnect, among others. Alongside this extensive range of protocols, the IDN will also support hitless protection 2022-7 for merging two feeds to make the switching hitless and automatic for the receiver, protecting feeds from failure for the end customer.

The announcement follows TBS’s recent

Visit https://bit.ly/3oAZif9

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TELSTRA BROADCAST SERVICES (TBS) has announced it has joined the SRT Alliance, the industry body founded by Haivision to overcome the challenges of low-latency live streaming by supporting the collaborative development of SRT (Secure Reliable Transport).

empowering innovation sales@magnasys.tv www.magnasys.tv

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Haivision and Grass Valley Fuel Real-Time Video Contribution HAIVISION, the provider of real-time video streaming and networking solutions, and Grass Valley have announced a qualified solution that enables high-quality, low latency, multicamera live contribution into Grass Valley’s GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform) cloud production workflows. The collaboration sees Haivision’s awardwinning video encoder – the Makito X4 – become a qualified solution with the GV Media Universe for synchronous multi-stream live contribution to GV AMPP at a time where more media and entertainment companies than ever are turning their attention to the benefits of cloud-based technologies. Integrating the Makito X4 encoder with the cloud-based GV AMPP ecosystem provides content producers with the ability to not only reduce the cost of production, but also benefit from a faster and more efficient workflow. Makito X4 encoded contribution streams can now easily be used as live production sources or

recorded for later use by any application on the AMPP platform. Furthermore, GV AMPP users can leverage scalable and flexible capabilities, frame-accurate workflows, full compatibility with Grass Valley connected control surfaces and applications, all without upfront buildout or sacrificing system responsiveness regardless of distance from the processing resources. The Makito X4 can encode and stream multiple synchronised camera feeds over an IP network, including the internet, to GV AMPP. It offers unparalleled quality and rock-solid reliability at extremely low latency allowing broadcasters to contribute their valuable live content into GV AMPP in real-time with complete confidence. With native support for the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) open-source protocol, originally developed and pioneered by Haivision, the Makito X4 streams pristine video quality to GV AMPP, even when faced with packet loss, jitter, latency, and fluctuating network bandwidth. Designed as an ultra-low latency H.264 and

HEVC video encoder for contributing live content in 4K, HD, and HDR over IP networks, the Makito X4 encoder is available as a compact lightweight appliance for table-top usage or as a blade for modular installation in a 1RU or 4RU chassis, supporting up to 84 HD or 21 UHD encodes. GV AMPP is central to the GV Media Universe, Grass Valley’s vision for transitioning to the SaaS and cloud-based future of the digital media industry with a comprehensive ecosystem of cloud-based tools, services, and pre-qualified solutions that revolutionizes the way live media is produced. GV AMPP delivers cloud-native and cloud-agnostic support for the processing of video/audio in a variety of cloud-centric ways — public cloud, private, on-premise data centre, or in hybrid topologies — giving customers a simple way to unlock flexible, distributed production workflows, easily and rapidly scaling cost and features up or down as needed. Visit https://www.haivision.com/ and www.grassvalley.com

Lawo Boosts V_matrix IRDETO HAS ANNOUNCED Lawo’s V_matrix IP-broadcast core infrastructure ecosystem allows users to transform their installations into a flexible, futureproof production and/or delivery facility. Its C100 processing blades accommodate a wide range of software-defined video and audio workflows and also facilitate the transition to a fully IP-based environment with gateway functionality. To fully leverage the processing capacity of its VVmatrix C100 blades and to allow users to derive more power from a smaller footprint, Lawo has announced the release of three new rear plates for the connection of SDI baseband equipment to an open-

standards-based IP network. io_bnc_16+16 - This new fixedformat rear plate features 32 micro-BNC connectors (16 inputs and 16 outputs), with the ability to interface 12G single-link SDI signals and destinations on 11 inputs and as many outputs. The five remaining I/Os remain available for 3G SDI signals. The 16+16 expands the connection density of previously released

io_bnc plates by up to 60%, allowing users to keep their IP infrastructure even more compact.

provides 16 micro-BNC connectors that can be individually configured as baseband SDI inputs or outputs via software configuration. Bidirectional baseband I/Os are very popular among V__matrix users. With the io_bnc_16_BiDi, bidirectional I/Os are now also available with 12G single-link SDI connectivity.

io_bnc_11+11 - The io_bnc_11+11 is Lawo’s first rear plate whose 11 inputs and 11 outputs are all 12G single-link capable, yielding up to 10% more overall connection density per C100 processing blade than previously available models.

Like existing members of Lawo’s io_bnc family of rear plates, the micro-BNC connectors are primarily intended to receive and transmit SDI signals. They can, however, be software-configured for MADI data transfer.

io_bnc_16_BiDi - This rear plate

Visit www.lawo.com

MediaKind and Arqiva Partner on Managed Video Service

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MEDIAKIND AND ARQIVA have announced a partnership to introduce a media service proposition that will address the core challenges that broadcasters and operators face in migrating broadcast and streaming services to the cloud. The new partnership will deliver a new and cloud-native, fully managed service for the aggregation, processing, and delivery of television services for any platform (broadcast and OTT) in any region, at any scale.

The collaboration brings together MediaKind’s cloud native encoding, multiplexing and packaging and life cycle management with Arqiva’s experience in managed service delivery spanning integration, monitoring and connectivity services. The managed service for broadcast and OTT headend systems is underpinned by a global media network, best-

in-breed content processing software and tier-1 support and operations. It is designed to improve flexibility, remove the complexity and significant upfront costs associated with delivering video processing functions, while accelerating broadcasters’ and operators’ adoption of cloud technology, ensuring a rapid time to market and supporting the transition from broadcast to OTT delivery. Built on highly flexible, scalable, and reliable cloud infrastructure, the service will enable a more sustainable media content delivery. The cloud-native software ensures that power and resources are only used when needed, avoiding an ‘always-on’ infrastructure. In addition, the new offering will be structured on a cloudbased, subscription-like commercial model, providing cost-efficient means for operators and

broadcasters to pay for services as they need them. The service will align with all industrystandard linear broadcast formats, encryption technologies, and downstream mechanisms. It will also support the latest OTT processing requirements for distributing television content on internet streaming services, with preintegrated ad-insertion technology to monetize OTT and broadcast streams with addressable advertising. All new service components will be deployed, maintained, and upgraded individually, using the latest automation techniques, ensuring that the platform can adapt to meet current device and security requirements. Visit www.mediakind.com and www.arqiva.com

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Net Insight, intoPIX Partner on JPEG XS Solutions NET INSIGHT has announced a partnership with compression technology provider intoPIX to develop JPEG XS compliant solutions. intoPIX TICO-XS is fully compliant with the JPEG XS standard and delivers high image quality and low latency within a highly portable software application framework. Net Insight offers JPEG XS standard compliant applications within its Cloud and IP solution portfolio, including Nimbra JPEG XS applications. The JPEG XS content production codec is a so-called lightweight image coding system that

processes video at the microsecond level with line-based latency. Based on real-world testing and compression grades in the range of 4:1 to 12:1, Net Insight’s JPEG XS applications can deliver lossless quality video while reducing typical network resource consumption by 90%. As JPEG XS is designed to scale, it fully supports the ability to natively process UHD-4K and UHD-8K content. JPEG XS may be used wherever uncompressed video is currently used, including live and distributed production, AV over IP, Virtual and Augmented Realities (VR, AR) and eSports. Visit https://www.intopix.com and

Matrox Simplifies REMI Workflows MATROX VIDEO has announced the release of the Monarch EDGE Command Center web user interface (UI) to simplify and enhance the management of Monarch EDGE 4K/multiHD encoders and decoders within remote production (REMI) environments. Accessible via a standard web-browsing application, the intuitive configuration management tool allows broadcasters and live event producers to directly access, control, and operate all Monarch EDGE appliances from any location and device. Secure, quick connection to Monarch EDGE appliances facilitates efficient setup and maintenance operations to swiftly meet the growing demand for live, multi-camera sports, concerts, and news productions. Matrox Monarch EDGE encoder and decoder appliances are designed to help organisations produce more broadcast-quality content

with fewer resources by transporting multiple synchronised camera feeds over dedicated WAN, LAN, or internet, and back to the studio - with glass-to-glass latency as low as 100 ms - for SDI-based productions. Monarch EDGE Command Center further streamlines the REMI deployment process by allowing broadcast operators to configure and customize streaming, recording, and decoding settings and operating modes from any device on the network that supports a web browser. In conjunction with the Monarch EDGE Control Hub high-level overview dashboard application, authorized users have complete end-to-end management and control of Monarch EDGE appliances within the REMI ecosystem. The Matrox Monarch EDGE Command Center is available for download via the Matrox Monarch EDGE Control Hub 2.01 driver. Visit https://www.matrox.com/en/video

Irdeto HbbTV Operator App IRDETO HAS ANNOUNCED the launch of Irdeto Operator Application (Irdeto OpApp), an HbbTV Operator Application hosted on Irdeto’s CI Plus conditional access modules, enabling pay-TV operators to deliver a consistent branded experience across different TV brands. The OpApp allows Irdeto to remove the operator challenges of certification across multiple TV brands by working directly with TV manufacturers to certify the Irdeto OpApp. Historically, operators have had to secure certification themselves; this new solution ensures that TV manufacturers will have to work only with Irdeto.

Your media

infrastructure specialists

The transition from traditional baseband video infrastructure to an all IP media infrastructure brings many challenges to media companies. It’s important to partner with a company that prides itself on representing the best-of-breed media entertainment technology manufacturers and thoroughly understands the workflow requirements for the efficient creation and distribution of rich content.

The Irdeto OpApp also improves the consumer experience. Unlike the process of finding and then requiring logins, usernames, and passwords to install and use a native app on a Smart TV, the Irdeto OpApp is hosted on the CAM, it is accessible directly during the CAM installation process, and three presses of a remote control is all that is required to install it and begin using it. And connectivity to the internet is not required to install or use it, making it accessible also for non-connected households or where connectivity is suboptimal. Visit https://irdeto.com

www.candt.me

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Ad Delivery, Personalisation Come Alive for Tokyo Games FOR SOME MEDIA COMPANIES, at least, the recent Tokyo Olympic Games marked an inflection point for cross-platform convergence of both audiences and advertisers. Singapore-based Mediacorp’s coverage of the Tokyo Games included 14 live streaming channels (up from four for the Rio games) and one FTA channel. On-demand content was also made available via connected TVs, mobile and desktop apps, and YouTube. The result, reportedly, was that 50% of the Singaporean population consumed Olympic content on the Mediacorp Olympic Network. Australia’s Seven West Media, meanwhile, reached over 20 million viewers across its broadcasting and digital platforms with 44 percent of that audience consuming across both broadcast and digital. Some 2.6 million watched the 7plus streaming platform exclusively. 7Plus carried some 43 channels on the platform with 41 of those were exclusive to 7plus and two simulcast with Seven’s FTA broadcast channels. Overall, Seven delivered 4.7 billion minutes of coverage during the course of the 17 days of the Games.

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Of course, Olympic Games provide an opportunity for any rights holder to increase advertising revenue and audience reach, but what the Tokyo Games provided for these APAC media companies, in particular, was the opportunity to not only grow individual relationships with their respective audiences, but also deliver a single point of purchase for media buyers across multiple platforms.

Speaking during the recent AVIA Asia Video Summit, Head of Programmatic Sales for Seven West Media, Luke Smith, said, “From a 7 perspective, when we went in, we weren’t selling broadcast or we weren’t selling digital. We were selling 7 and that coverage of the Olympics. I

really feel as though we hit the inflection point in the market for audiences and how they consume their media, but also for advertisers and how they’re going to be able to reach those audiences. “As opposed to previous Commonwealth Games and Winter Olympics that we’ve covered in the past where it was there’d be a digital add on, that’s no longer the case. Where we’re getting digital briefs, where we’re talking about, well actually, there’s broadcast opportunities, when traditionally it was always here’s a broadcast brief and we’ve got digital opportunities. I think there’s that opportunity that we can provide brands to be able to reach audiences in different ways. Certainly, from a measurement perspective, the Tokyo Games presented the Australian market a really unique opportunity with the launch of [audience measurement system] VOZ, which is Virtual Australia, and having that view of audiences across both broadcast and digital.”

As well as cross-platform audience measurement, the Games provided both broadcasters with the opportunity to cut out the middle man and engage directly with those audiences.

According to Jennifer Chase, VP Sales, Solutions and Operations with Mediacorp, “Having a very audience-centric approach is important,

and just distributing that content out across all the multiple platforms where we know the consumers or the audience is going to be. For us, we’re very lucky, we have integrated program ratings which we work with SG TAM on. There is a combined panel across the both mobile panel as well as a TV panel. It helps us understand what is that one plus reach that we’ve achieved across FTA as well as the digital channels that we have, whether that be livestreaming or on-demand. It also gives us a very good understanding of how the audiences are behaving. Yes, the marketers and agencies are very excited by that because it’s a very robust solution, and it answers that question of measurement across platforms.” As well as cross-platform audience measurement, the Games provided both broadcasters with the opportunity to cut out the middle man and engage directly with those audiences. “From a 7 perspective, Tokyo presented a really unique opportunity for us to be able to scale up first-party data,” said Luke Smith. “An event such as the Olympics really offered us an opportunity to create a value exchange. Forty three channels to be able to stream in terms of which sports you wanted to watch - there’s a value exchange there, and what we took that as was an opportunity to be able to scale the number of log ins that we have. We increased our user registrations over the course of the Games by 44 percent, and now all our users on 7plus provide us email, they provide age, gender, and also postcode. That means we’ve now got over 10 million email addresses. “As a business, I suppose there’s two advantages of that is that we’ve now got a one to one relationship with 10 million Australians, so we’re able to tailor the content according to those audiences and let them know about new content

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“We’re really big on driving single sign on, and we also used it as a great opportunity to drive single sign on during the Olympics,” added Mediacorp’s Jennifer Chase. “For us, we increased our single sign on by about 300,000 which we were pretty happy with. Outside of that, I think the other KPI we looked at is our underlying role as a national media network. For us, it was about rallying communities around Team Singapore. It was rallying the communities around sport and just playing that role of being able to deliver quality sports content to the audiences. At the end of the day, we delivered that content to 800 homes in Singapore, so we definitely achieved on that. I think the other thing for us is the engagement. So, of those single sign on users that we had, not only the new ones that we got, but all of the single sign on users that we had for the Olympics, on average they consumed about 17 hours of the Olympics, so they were definitely engaged.” When it comes to bringing audiences and advertisers together, both media organisations seem closer to the holy grail of the “omnichannel” but there are still barriers to overcome. “We had multiple approaches,” said Jennifer Chase. “From a direct point of view, it was very Omnichannel in how we went to market because, for us, it’s about reaching audiences on every single platform and maximising the reach for the advertisers. We had multiple sponsorship opportunities from a multi platform point of view - whether it’s the opening or closing ceremonies, the medal tallies, things like that. But we also had Omnichannel spot-buy available as well. We also had some digital only packages available, and the reason that we had that is that we knew that when you’re streaming 14 live channels, we also knew that we would have a lot of scale on the digital side. It was a very multi pronged approach. Direct, obviously, was the first drive. Programmatic was also really important when you’ve got such a huge amount of inventory. We also looked at what is the sold element, but we also opened it up to PMPs (private marketplaces) as well on the programmatic side to increase the fill rate.” “Typically, 75 percent of what we do, in terms of how brands engage on 7plus, is run programmatically,” added Seven’s Luke Smith. “It was interesting the Games are actually a bit of a flip on that. The vast majority of our activity was run converged, so it was broadcasting and digital campaigns being booked by brands at the one time. I think there was an element from brands that they needed to make sure that they got in there, and that they didn’t miss the opportunities in terms of Gold Medal moments. But we had PG, Programmatic Guaranteed, available regardless of the level that you wanted to be able to buy at. Then towards, I think, in the two to three weeks in the lead up to the Games when there was a lot of investment from brands in the Games, but we wanted to be able to open that up to brands that might not have had some of those big budgets. We went down the IOA, Invite Only option path, and it was a biddable environment. What we actually found was that, in that biddable environment, we actually found that brands that had missed out or had waited were

actually paying CPMs that were higher than that of some of the direct campaigns. What you’ve also found is that some traders were actually starting during the Games, starting to be quite smart about how they were accessing the activity, and they were holding back on budget and looking to increase those bids later in the evening when all the audiences came in. It was an interesting two weeks as to how traders were certainly trying to navigate their way around against the intricacies of live sport.” The intricacies of live sport also made their presence felt on the delivery of advertising during the Games, particularly when it came to elastic event running schedules, and keeping up with the production of highlight packages.

“We increased our user registrations over the course of the Games by 44 percent, and now all our users on 7plus provide us email, they provide age, gender, and also postcode. That means we’ve now got over 10 million email addresses.

According to Jennifer Chase, “When you’re converting livestreaming to VOD, there were two different elements. There was, obviously, the Catch up and then there was the highlights and the clips. From the Catch up point of view, it could be a stream that would go for maybe an hour, maybe two hours, depending on what the Catch up is. But then you have to wait for that ingestion period as well, so you have to allow for that time. But when it came to the highlights, it was very manual in terms of what we were doing; and, I think, from our point of view, the pain point was that we would’ve liked to have got more clippings out because there was an audience demand for people wanting to catch up on those specific events, and that takes a lot of resource and we allocated more resource to that, but we couldn’t be quick enough. “One of the learnings for us and, particularly, as we go into Beijing, as we go into the other events we’ve got for next year, like the SEA Games here in the region, is that we want to automate that more, so we’re looking at different AI technologies, for example, in terms of how we can automate that. Some of the challenges behind that is that, from a machine learning point of view, some sports are easier than others, like football, I think, and basketball, much easier, but swimming is a lot more complicated.

For us here in Singapore, the top three sports are badminton, table tennis and swimming. We’re still looking at those solutions in terms of how do we automate more, get more clippings up, because obviously that certainly satisfies an audience need. We can then get it up on the meWATCH site as well as YouTube. “It goes without saying that VOD is certainly easier for brands to be able to connect in that environment,” added Luke Smith. “There’s more time to be able to do that versus live where there’s a lot happening in a very short space in time to be able to make sure that we can line all those impressions up within a pod (multiple ads sequenced together, played back-to-back within a single ad break). I think we’ve come a long way. We’ve spent the last four years honing and trialling new things to make sure that we can get to perfection, but there’s always room for improvement. I think livestreaming and SSAI (server-side ad insertion) and how we can line that demand up, there’s certainly avenues that we can do that. I think the ad experience for audiences, a big thing for 7 is our EAVE philosophy which is Enhanced Advertiser and Viewing Experience, so we’re big on that. “At the moment, we’re testing out a product with Magnite around unified decisioning which the aim is to be able to solve that where we’ll ensure that we don’t have back to backs because we know that that’s not great for brands or audiences; that we’ll be able to have better pod optimisation, so in terms of durations that will run in there, as well as making sure it’s more of a broadcast like experience, preventing ad clash. “I just want to build on the SSAI side of things because that was a pain point for us for the midstream insertion, purely because the schedule kept changing so much, because when you do SSAI in live sports, it’s very different to doing it for one of our live entertainment events because the ad markers don’t normally change; so one of the challenges that we had was because the EPG kept changing so dramatically or so much, we just found that affected probably about 50 percent of our SSAI. I think, in the end, we ended up just switching that off just to make sure that we kept the audiences happy because it was about user experience. But you’ve also got to be quite careful that the ads don’t actually go over the content because you’ve also got a rights issue that you need to deal with as well. I think, moving forward, we’re just looking from our own perspective because it was our first deployment that we’ll be looking more at automating that process to make that a lot easier for the next time around.”

CONTENT DELIVERY

that’s coming up at 7plus. Also, brands are able to capitalise on that really rich addressable targeting opportunities across all our content, moving forward. That was certainly a big opportunity that we’ve been able to capitalise on, certainly since the Games.

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See more photos at www.facebook.com/phil.sandberg

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POSITIONSCLASSIFIED VACANT

System Consultant Riedel Communications Australia Pty Ltd Rosebery, NSW We are looking for someone to join our technical team working on system design and commissioning across a number of exciting broadcast, event and venue installation projects. If you know your way around broadcast/event technology and have a knack for IP networks, please get in touch. Responsibilities: • Full responsibility for System design and delivery • Design systems or assist customers, system integrators and Riedel sales staff with system designs, combining technical and commercial aspects • Manage customer projects • Representing the company at trade shows and events • Active participation in special projects, including major MT projects • Configuration of systems and demo equipment incl. commissioning, programming, updates of soft- and firmware & managing demo stock • Coordination and performance of on-site service, demo and trainings • Troubleshooting The successful candidate will have: • 2+ years of proven technology deployment experience in a relevant market field, ideally broadcast and/or entertainment. • Knowledge of communication, audio and video technology • Good working knowledge of IP Networking technology • Team player whose personality and basic attitude fit into an international, strongly mediumsized company • Ability to think across divisions and willingness to work closely with other divisions To apply, visit https://bit.ly/3BYEy5n

+ EVENTS

On-Air Presentation Coordinator NPC Media is the leading industry Content Management and Playout Centre. About the role As an On-Air Presentation Coordinator (Television Transmission Controller), you will work with the latest television transmission automation technology and contribute towards seamless broadcast to audiences all around Australia. You will liaise with broadcast clients to ensure schedules and playlists are accurate, content is appropriate and transmission of content to air runs smoothly. Duties • Operate playout automation systems, such as Imagine Communications’ D-Series, and incorporate VIZ graphic elements. • Prepare, check and run multiple transmission playlists. • Accurately execute daily presentation schedules. • Liaise with live studios (news, sport, and entertainment). • Work as part of a 24/7 rotating shift roster. Skills & experience • Experience with playout automation systems, such as Imagine D-Series Device Automation and VIZ graphics. • Understanding of the Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters and Closed Captioning legislation. • Experience working within an agile team environment. • Ability to prioritise work to meet tight deadlines. • Attention to detail. • Strong communication skills. To apply, Submit a copy of your resume to careers@npcmedia.com.au

Master Control Opertor About the role You will provide operational support to NPC Media by monitoring and maintaining the integrity of the contribution and emission signaling. This includes national studio and sporting event contributions, and multi market/channel emissions to a national transmission/streaming network. Duties • Control the connectivity and coordination of television and related signals throughout NPC Media. • Operate the broadcast equipment that process and correct television signals. • Fault find and restore the continuity of terrestrial and satellite services during failure of transmission. • Set up and control vision, audio and communication signals to provide external connectivity including outside broadcasts. • Book any broadcast requirements including adds, movement and changes. • Report broadcast irregularities including post incident analysis. Skills & experience • Ability to operate ASI, SDI & IP video signal switching equipment, waveform monitors, DTT & OTT encoders and associated control systems, DVB & DAB+ transmission equipment and NMS, and VoIP Intercom systems. • Ability to fault find within transmission networks and initiate procedures to bypass faulty equipment or paths. • Ability to work under pressure and prioritise workload. • Strong communication and computer skills. • Experience in a TV broadcast environment and understanding of the Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters are desirable. To apply, Submit a copy of your resume to careers@npcmedia.com.au

For over three decades, the Digistor team has been a leader in providing elegant, technical solutions to the top-tier media and entertainment organisations throughout Australia and the Pacific. If you have the skills and hunger to learn, working with Digistor’s skilled team in a flexible and dynamic environment will rapidly advance your career.

Sales Account Manager Location: Sydney, NSW As a Digistor Sales Account Manager, you will be working in conjunction with skilled and experienced presales engineers and salespeople to propose and sell solutions to established and new customers. You’ll create and develop successful ongoing business relationships, helping to cement Digistor’s position as the premier technology solutions provider. Apply now by email to staffing@digistor.com.au.

Junior Support Engineer Location: Sydney, NSW As a Junior Digistor Support Engineer, you will be providing the exemplary level of technical support and technical services that our nationwide array of top-tier media and entertainment customers have come to expect. You’ll be supported by a highly skilled and talented team of technical, sales and administrative support personnel. You will also be provided with onthe-job and formal training to gain career-enhancing accreditations. Apply now by email to staffing@digistor.com.au.

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ADVERTISER INDEX ADVERTISER INDEX

B Media l ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------a c k m a g i AI 23c Design Amber ---------------------------------------------------------------Technology IFC5

-----------------------------------------------------------6 D2N Technology Solutions--------------------------------------------------5 Blackmagic Design --------------------------------------------------------------

27 Digistor D2N Technology Solutions------------------------------------------------39 ----------------------------------------------------------------OBC Grass Valley Grass Valley --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------OBC

Jands-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Hollyland 17 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------35

Professional & Television Professional Audio &Audio Television-----------------------------FC,6,8,8 -Stagetec - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - F C , 3 37

MagnaSystems Systems& Engineering & Engineering 7,9,11 Magna --------------------------7,9,41,43 --------------------------------------

19 Ross Video-------------------------------------------------------------------------15 Techtel

PacificLive LiveMedia Media----------------------------------------------------------19,25 Pacific ----------------------------------------------------------21,25

Sony--------------------------------------------------------------------------------13

Jands--------------------------------------------------------------------39 LAWO --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 35 METexpo-------------------------------------------------------------------------3 METexpo ---------------------------------------------------------------------23

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------31 SilverTrak Digital------------------------------------------------------------------13 VITEC------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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