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Cover Story... page 24. Pic Brett Costello. REGULARS 02 EDITOR’S WELCOME 03 NEWS+PEOPLE Seven Scores 2022
Comm Games; New Newsmakers at 10; New Team for Warner Bros Oz Productions; Restructure for ARRI Australia; Tanner Takes
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10 ACQUISITION ARRI Launches Global
12 VLOGGI Tapping into Community-Generated Video. The Australian-based Startup Unlocking Mobile Video Globally.
Large in ANZ; ARRI Rental Sees Big Picture with ALFA and Moviecam Lenses; Panasonic’s LUMIX BS1H 6K Box-Style Camera; Nanlux Dyno Series Lighting.
20 SPORTSCASTING Nine Gears Up for
Summer of Tennis; Gravity Media Pushes Boundaries for Supercars’ Eseries; Tracab’s Coach Paint 9.1; Vizrt XR Set Unites Unreal Engine with Viz Engine; Flying Car Racers Connect with D2N and Telstra; Vizrt Enhances Sport with Vizrt XR Venue; Buoyant America’s Cup Coverage.
24 NEWS OPERATIONS Flash in the Plan for
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
Foxtel Streaming; Support for Microsoft Teams from AJA and NDI 5; Newsbridge and x.news Partner on Brand Tracking and AI-Analysis; Avid Expands Third-Party NRCS Integration; Live Citizen Journalism Using Blockchain.
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
28 POST-PRODUCTION Weta Digital CTO
Joe Marks Talks Pipelines in the Cloud; Autodesk Flame Fuels 4K/UltraHD and HDR Content; Apple Updates Final Cut Pro; Boris FX Marks20 Years of Tracking with Mocha Pro; ShotGrid Empowers VFX & Animation; Avid Accelerates Editing and Production; NDI Plug-In Boost for Adobe CC; Codemill CloudBased Video Editor.
32 MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Techtel Unveils
16 ACQUISITION Sony VENICE Cameras Go
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46 INDUSTRY FOCUS
FEATURES Solutions Group; Wooden Camera Kits Out Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera; ALEXA Mini LF Update; MRMC Bolt Mini Model Mover; ZEISS Adds to Supreme Prime Radiance Family; Mo-Sys VP Pro with Sony Venice Integration.
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Tech Strategy Role at FreeTV; Scott Jolly Named MediaHub COO; NEP Live Events Buys NZ’s Spot-light Systems; AWS to Open NZ Datacentres.
inflov2.2 withIP Content and AI Support; Silver Trak Digital Goes the Extras Mile for iTunes; FUJIFILM Launches 45TB LTO Ultrium9 Data Cartridge; SGO Upgrades Mistika Workflows; SDVI’s Rally Platform Empowers Data; Vidispine on Google Cloud.
36 AUDIO, RADIO, PODCASTING Nine Powers Up the Podcasts; TASCAM’s Mixcast 4 Podcast Station; Pay-As-You-Go with Solid State Logic; KRK Enhances KNS Headphone Range; Grass Valley and Telos Partner on Cloud-based Intercom; and more.
42 CONTENT DELIVERY SCA Chooses
MediaHub to Deliver Sky News Regional; ATEME Completes Open Caching Testbed; Magna and MediaHub’s Monitoring TAG Team; Grass Valley AMPPs Up Cloud Delivery.
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EDITOR’S WELCOME
Tossing the Bouquet! By Phil Sandberg
THE LAUNCH OF the Foxtel Group’s ‘Flash’ news-focused streaming service represents another step in the unbundling of traditional pay TV offerings following, as it does, in the footsteps of the Group’s Kayo OTT sports service and Binge episodic and longform ondemand offering.
Giry highlights the change in the profile of Foxtel subscribers since the launch of Foxtel Now and Kayo Sports, which only accounted for 10% each of Foxtel’s pay TV mix in 2019.
When Foxtel launched its 20-channel cable offering in 1995, followed by satellite in 1999, an oft-asked question was “Why can’t I just pay for the channels I want and not the others?”
Dataxis will host a digital conference dedicated to pay TV and OTT markets in Australia and New Zealand on November 18th 2021. Visit https://australianewzealand.nextvseries.com
That said, Foxtel says it is still committed to developing its own receiver platforms with the recent launch of the iQ5 streaming device, IPenabling updates for the iQ4 and an agreement with Sky UK for syndication of its Sky Glass connected TV set.
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“Can we expect this trend to last and accelerate in the coming years?” asks Dataxis’ Thibault Giry. “The answer is complex. In terms of figures, OTT subscriptions are indeed expected to overtake DTH by 2026. But, in terms of content providers, only a few OTT pay TV services offer skinny bundles or extensive pay TV bouquets in the two countries.
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According to News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, in June 2021, Kayo Sports, BINGE, and Foxtel Now accounted for more than 50% of the Foxtel Group’s total subscribers. The launch of Flash is expected to bring more change to the subscriber mix.
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In the end, Giry says DTH markets are expected to remain strong in Australia and New Zealand, respectively accounting for more than 40% and 66% of the total pay TV subscriptions in the two countries. However, time will tell.
“Eighteen months later, Kayo Sports alone accounts for almost 30% of subscribers, while in the meantime DTH subscriptions, which accounted for two-thirds of the total, collapsed to 43% of the mix,” says Giry.
The answer, of course, was the economics of the business model and the delivery technology, but that has all changed with the advent of the Internet, social media, the mobile phone and gaming consoles. And, with viewing habits. Appointment TV has steadily declined as a driver for media consumption and so it makes sense to focus on those genres where eyeballs and revenues gather. The delivery model is, of course, also a factor. For pay TV operators, an OTT service which can be easily activated by the end user on that user’s device is far more attractive than maintaining an army of cable and satellite installers. 16:00
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of its additional subscription packs. The OTT service finally diversified its app catalogue in order to become the broadest OTT library in the country. This aggregation strategy could prove successful for Fetch in the coming years, as Dataxis forecasts Fetch TV to account for 20% of the Australian OTT market by 2026.”
things might significantly change in the next five years. Like in other regions of the world, COVID-19 could have set the cat amongst the pigeons when it comes to cord-cutting and OTT adoption.”
“In this sense, Fetch TV, one of the early OTT players in Australia which started to provide an extensive TV offer, widely distributed among NBN providers and retailers, should have grown significantly over the last three years. But, in reality, the OTT operator has struggled to win market shares, partially due to the high prices
According to Thibault Giry, Analyst with consulting firm Dataxis, “If, historically, the Australian and New Zealand pay TV markets have mainly been counting DTH homes,
Keep safe, thanks for reading, and look after each other, Phil Sandberg – Editor/Publisher papers@broadcastpapers.com +61(0)414671811
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Seven Scores Birmingham Commonwealth Games THE SEVEN NETWORK has announced it is the official Australian media partner for the XXII Commonwealth Games, which will take place in Birmingham, United Kingdom, from 28 July to 8 August, 2022. Seven’s exclusive deal with the Commonwealth Games Federation covers broadcast, digital, connected TV, radio, social media and subscription TV rights, ensuring comprehensive live and free coverage of the Games across its free-to-air channels and 7plus, Australia’s leading commercial streaming and video ondemand platform. Seven West Media Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, James Warburton, said: “Three years after our highly successful coverage of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, we are excited and honoured to have secured the media rights to the XXII Commonwealth Games. “Seven has a long and proud history of supporting Australian athletes on the world stage and bringing their triumphs home to our viewers. It is very fitting that 20 years after we broadcast the Manchester Commonwealth Games to all Australians, we will be doing it again from the UK, with unparalleled coverage across Seven and 7plus.”
The XXII Commonwealth Games will bring together more than 4500 athletes from across 72 nations and territories in a global spectacle. Underpinned by the core values of humanity, equality and destiny, the Commonwealth Games are often referred to as the “Friendly Games” and are renowned for inspiring athletes to compete in the spirit of friendship and fair play. Managing Director Seven Melbourne and Head of Network Sport, Lewis Martin, said: “After the remarkable success this year of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, the XXII Commonwealth Games are the perfect addition to our 2022 sport line-up – an unrivalled line-up that already includes the Olympic Winter Games Beijing in February and much more,” he said. “With 19 different sports and 286 sessions of sport over 11 days, the XXII Commonwealth Games will be one of the biggest events of 2022 –
and a celebration of the green and gold. Many of the athletes we cheered on in Tokyo will once again be the stars of the show, promising a great competition. “We are looking forward to working with the Commonwealth Games Federation, the Birmingham Organising Committee for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and our many wonderful athletes to present a fantastic competition,” he said. Visit www.sevenwestmedia.com.au
Restructure, Relocation as Smith Departs ARRI Australia AFTER FIVE whirlwind years with ARRI, General Manager Brett Smith has decided to retire from his position and venture down roads unpaved. Taking on the Smith mantle will be Josh Harvey who has joined ARRI Australia as Country Manager. According to Brett Smith, “I’ll really miss the camaraderie and genius of the local and youthful ARRI Australia team and I thank them for the passion they and our customers share. Extending that to the ARRI global family, just look at the design and presentation of ARRI cameras and lights to know that I will also miss the expertise and friendship of a highly talented global ARRI family. Josh will have a ball!” During the last few challenging months, Brett has overseen ARRI Australia’s relocation to new, larger premises with expanded engineering, sales and studio facilities. Newly appointed staff in New Zealand and Australia further underline the long-term commitment that Josh will now continue for ARRI’s Aussie, Kiwi and Pacific Island customers. Josh Harvey brings to ARRI Australia 17 years of experience in the sales, support, and management of moving image technologies. As operations manager at Kayell Australia, Josh became known and appreciated for his knowledge in the fields of colour and image processing, along with a determined and solid customer support ethos.
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Meanwhile, Sean Dooley is stepping back from sales duties at ARRI Australia to take on the role of Product Marketing Manager for ARRI Camera Systems, reporting to Munich, but based in Sydney. Dooley will work on the communication of new and existing products, increasing the amount of ARRI’s technical information sharing and working on a series of Tech Talk videos out of the new ARRI Australia studio.
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“I’ll also be working closely with ARRI’s Product Management and R&D teams and hope to provide as much feedback from our small, but influential, local industries as possible,” says Dooley. ARRI Australia has also announced the appointment of Mike Bull to the
position of Business Development Manager, New Zealand. Bull previously held on-set roles as camera assistant, DIT, high-speed camera tech and more recently heavy lift drone operator and technician. He also worked his way up the technical ranks at Imagezone, to become head technician. During this time, he undertook ARRI Academy advanced service training on ALEXA Mini and AMIRA service. Mike has since furthered his ARRI SkyPanel LED service knowledge, training with ARRI Australia’s lighting engineer, Rey Adia. For ARRI cameras and accessories, Mike will be part of the existing ARRI Australia team, providing direct local support to all ARRI customers. For ARRI lighting service Mike will support customers via existing sales and service distributors EMP Digital Technologies and Professional Lighting Services. Mike will be based in Auckland. He can be contacted at mbull@arri.com.au ARRI Australia’s new offices are located at Suite 2, 12B Julius Ave, North Ryde, NSW 2113. Tel: +61 2 9855 4305.
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If recording to other types of media is required, the USB-C expansion port lets you plug in an external flash disk for recording. USB-C flash disks have unlimited capacity because they can be physically larger than an SD card or SSD. Just move the disk over to a computer and instantly start editing! There are also menus for managing external disks on the built in LCD.
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10 Appoints White Head of Broadcast News, Habib Head of Digital
PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
10 VIACOMCBS Australia and New Zealand has appointed Martin White Head of Broadcast News and Rashell Habib Head of Digital News and Strategy. Martin and Rashell, in the newly created roles, will be responsible for leading the 10 News First team into the future, while managing the broadcast and digital content strategies for news. Martin and Rashell will report directly to Chief Content Officer and Executive Vice President of ViacomCBS Australia and New Zealand, Beverley McGarvey. Martin was previously Executive Producer of 10 News First Sydney, a role he has held since 2019. Prior to returning to 10 ViacomCBS, Martin was a senior figure at both Seven News and Nine News and held various senior roles in the 10 News First Melbourne newsroom. With over 15 years’ experience Rashell has held several senior positions at 10 ViacomCBS, most recently Social and Digital Editor, a role she has held since June 2020. She joined 10 ViacomCBS in May 2018 and has also held senior positions at News Corp for over 10 years, including the first social media editor for NewsLocal and leading social media for news.com.au. Rashell will bring her extensive proficiency
International Television. She was previously
DEB HATTINGH has taken on the role of Colourist and Online Editor with Warner Bros engaged by Endemol Shine Australia where she worked on Australian MasterChef Season 13. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------STEVE LANGDON has been appointed Strategic Program Leader - Media & Entertainment at AWS. He previously held the positions of Regional Director with Parrot Analytics, VP Business Development with SBDS, and Director of International Market Development & Business Insight with Comcast Technology Solutions. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------ROSS DAGAN has been appointed Executive Vice President, News Operations and
in social media and a proven track record in developing and implementing high level content campaigns and strategies, as well as creating unique partnership opportunities, to this newly created role.
Transformation, with CBS News and Stations in New York. He comes to the role after three years with 10 ViacomCBS Australia & New Zealand where he was Network Director of News Content. He previously held senior news roles with Aljazeera English, Australia’s Seven
Visit https://www.10viacomcbs.com.au
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Warner Bros. TV Production Restructures
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sales.aus@d2n.com.au 02 9837 6748
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WARNER BROS. International Television Production Australia (WBITVP) has unveiled its newlook organisation and expanded leadership team. Caroline Swift (Spence) has been promoted to Head of Entertainment and will lead our non-scripted entertainment formats and franchise business across all networks and platforms. Prior to joining WBITVP, Caroline served as Director of Unscripted at Fremantle Media Australia. Johnny Lowry joins WBITVP as Head of Original Content. Formally Head of Unscripted at Screentime, Johnny has an incredible track record creating and developing original concepts. He will spearhead the company’s domestic and international non-scripted streaming content strategy while also overseeing titles on the current production slate. Hamish Lewis has been appointed Head of Scripted and will lead WBITVP’s drama strategy. In addition to overseeing current titles Love Me – currently in production for Binge – and The Twelve for Foxtel, Hamish will drive a new slate of exciting drama content for domestic and
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international streaming services and local broadcasters. Edward Kindred joined WBITVP earlier this year as Head of Development. He was previously Head of Programming at TVNZ 2. Ed will continue to lead the nonscripted development process across all networks and platforms. The above will join the executive team, which includes: Rani Seckold who has been promoted to Director of Production, Commercial and Operations; Joshua Chan, Director of Legal and Business Affairs ANZ; and Dragan Savic, Head of Finance. All roles will report to Michael Brooks, Managing Director, Warner Bros. International Television Production & WarnerMedia International Television Distribution. WBITVP Australia recently announced the commencement of shooting for a new series called Love Me, starring Hugo Weaving. WBITVP also produces The Bachelor, The Masked Singer, Celebrity Apprentice, Selling Houses Australia, The Repair Shop, Dancing with the Stars, First Dates, Who Do You Think You Are and drama series The Twelve.
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Hamish Turner Promoted to Director of 9Now and Programming HAMISH TURNER, currently Nine’s Program Director, is expanding his responsibilities to be Director of 9Now and Programming. Turner will be working with Michael Healy, Director of Television, and Alex Parsons, Chief Digital Officer, on the next stage of 9Now’s growth cycle. 9Now was the first to introduce mandatory sign-on giving Nine a loggedin audience of over 11 million Australians. According to the company, the 9Now platform has seen 53% growth this year alone in its live streaming, driven particularly by the structural change in the growth of connected TVs, and a 23% increase on-demand viewing. According to Michael Healy and Alex Parsons, “Events like [the] NRL Grand Final show how important 9Now is – this year 363,000 watched on 9Now and we expect that number to materially grow in the future as we continue to shape the way Australian’s consume content. “The change in Hamish’s role signals our focus on the next steps in 9Now’s growth and his brief is to lead 9Now as we embark on the next stage of growth as part of Australia’s leading TV platform.” Visit www.nine.com.au
Magna Appoints David Herridge BDM DAVID HERRIDGE has joined the Magna Systems & Engineering group as business development manager for Australia and New Zealand. Herridge, known as a skilled, experienced sales leader with a proven track record in the media market across top tier broadcasters, telcos and content owners, brings a wealth of experience to his new role. Most recently Herridge enjoyed considerable success with MediaKind Systems Australia where he was Head of Sales for Oceania. Prior to MediaKind he was Technical Subject Matter Expert for Ericsson Television and Technical Analyst at The BOC Group. Magna Group CEO Matthew Clemesha said, “Dave is a very valuable addition to the Magna team, particularly with his wealth of knowledge and experience in the areas of Contribution and Distribution. He has excellent customer facing and communication skills and is an expert in matching a customer’s technical requirements to an ever-evolving industry of products, solutions and standards. Dave is a perfect fit for Magna as a group and I look forward to him further adding to our continued growth and success.” In his new role for Magna, Herridge is responsible for working with the group’s existing suppliers and customer base to develop and grow business opportunities in Australia and New Zealand. He will also create future growth for the group by developing additional opportunities through Magna’s new customers in ANZ and be a valuable resource for Magna’s other Asia Pacific offices when required.
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“Magna Systems is currently one of the few, innovative, forward-thinking and progressive companies in the broadcast and telco space,” said Herridge. “They truly believe in innovation and investment and are constantly looking to create and grow opportunities within the rapidly evolving the media technology landscape. With their drive for success and enviable product and solution portfolio, it’s an exciting time for me to be a part of the Magna team.”
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Free TV Names Giles Tanner Director of Technology Strategy FREE TV AUSTRALIA has announced the appointment of former ACMA senior executive Giles Tanner to the newly created position of Director of Technology Strategy. He will report to Free TV CEO, Bridget Fair. The appointment comes as part of a restructure for Free TV designed to strengthen its strategic technology capabilities as the broadcast sector continues its evolution to meet the demands of the modern TV audience. Mr Tanner brings extensive experience in spectrum planning and broadcast regulation across three decades with the Australian Communications and Media Authority and its predecessors. He was the General Manager of the Australian Broadcasting Authority 1997-2005, during the introduction of digital television, and most recently headed the ACMA division responsible for spectrum management. During his time with the ACMA, he oversaw the planning and auction of the 700MHz ‘Digital Dividend’ from the closure of analogue TV and was a key advisor to industry and government on broadcasting and telecommunications radiofrequency planning matters. Mr Tanner was awarded the Public Service Medal in 2015 for “outstanding public service in enabling generational change in radiofrequency spectrum management and use, known as the Digital Dividend, and longstanding contribution to broadcasting and spectrum regulation.” Since leaving the ACMA in 2018, he has been consulting to a range of organisations in the communications field. “I am delighted to have someone of Giles’ calibre joining our senior team at a critical and exciting time for the broadcast industry, said Bridget Fair, CEO of Free TV Australia. He is well-known to industry, Government and regulators for his ability to combine technical understanding and strategic thinking. This will be a highly relevant combination of skills as we work together with Government and industry stakeholders on the Media Reform Green Paper proposals and the implications of evolving delivery technologies. Free TV is focussed on supporting the continued growth and evolution of the commercial television broadcast sector and I can’t think of anyone better than Giles to lead these important discussions.”
David Herridge can be contacted at Magna Systems on +61 427 913 949 or at DHerridge@magnasys.tv
Mr Tanner said: “I am thrilled to be joining Free TV and really look forward to working with members as they navigate the ongoing developments in broadcast technology. Free and ubiquitous commercial television services are incredibly important to all Australians and it is critical we work with Government to ensure a strong and sustainable Australian TV industry for the future.”
Visit www.magnasys.tv
Visit www.freetv.com.au
NEP Live Events Buys NZ’s Spot-light Systems BIG PICTURE NEW ZEALAND has announced the acquisition of Spotlight Systems by parent company NEP Group, the leading technology partner for content creators around the globe. Headquartered in Auckland, Spot-light Systems is a lighting production and design company servicing live events, corporate communications, and broadcast sectors with an outstanding reputation for smart delivery. The deal strengthens NEP’s Live Events business in New Zealand by adding lighting assets and capabilities to Big Picture’s strong offering in the region. Big Picture continues its success as the leading video solutions provider in the region, with its array of cutting-edge technology in camera systems, media servers, projection and LED displays, serving the live events, broadcast, corporate and virtual production sectors. “By combining Spot-light Systems with Big Picture we are able to provide a comprehensive video and lighting solution for our clients,” commented Joe Bonanno, CEO of Big Picture “This is the natural next step for Big Picture New Zealand.” “We have had a long-standing relationship with Spot-light Systems, dating back ten years and often working on the same projects,” Paul
AWS to Open NZ Datacentres AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS) has announced plans to open an infrastructure region in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2024. The new AWS Asia Pacific (Auckland) Region will consist of three Availability Zones (AZs) and join the existing 81 Availability Zones across 25 geographic AWS Regions at launch. The Region will be owned and operated by a local AWS entity in New Zealand.
Carppe, General Manager of Big Picture New Zealand, added. “Big Picture shares a similar culture and commitment to that of Spot-light Systems,” said Benjimen Cooper, Founder of Spot-light Systems. “This partnership will ensure both companies will evolve into the future with a broader client reach. Our aim is to continue to provide exceptional service to our customers and be at the forefront of live event and broadcast technology innovation.”
Globally, AWS has announced plans for 24 more Availability Zones and eight more AWS Regions in Australia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the new AWS Region in New Zealand. The new AWS Asia Pacific (Auckland) Region will enable even more developers, start-ups, and enterprises as well as government, education, and non-profit organisations to run their applications and serve end users from datacentres located in New Zealand, ensuring that customers who want to keep their data in New Zealand are able to do so.
Simon Garrett broadens his role at Big Picture as Head of broadcast and special events lighting, supported by Matt Tong. Spot-light Systems will continue to operate as usual. Ben Cooper and Alex Oldham along with their core contractors will remain at Woodson Place.
AWS also released an economic impact study (EIS) that estimates it will create 1000 new jobs through investment of NZ$7.5 billion (US$5.3 billion) in the new AWS Asia Pacific (Auckland) Region with an estimated economic impact on New Zealand’s GDP of NZ$10.8 billion (US$7.7 billion) over the next 15 years.
Visit https://www.bigpicture.com
Visit https://aws.amazon.com
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Dubbo Council – Stepping Into the Regional Media Vacuum The retreat of media outlets from Australia’s regional areas during the COVID-19 pandemic has seen many non-traditional players step into the breach. By Phil Sandberg ONE SUCH ORGANISATION is Dubbo Regional Council in New South Wales which deployed its in-house AV resources during the recent Delta outbreak to not only keep the local community informed, but to also supply feeds to national TV networks. Manager for Corporate Image and Communications with the Dubbo Regional Council, Andrew Parsons, says that while the mainstays of his department’s work have been campaigns around everyday council issues such as recycling and rubbish collection, part of its remit has always been crisis management around events such as bushfires and floods and, now, COVID-19. “I came to Council in 2019, after a lengthy time in Federal and State Governments at a senior level in communications. When I arrived here in Dubbo, it became very clear to me that the regional media landscape was shrinking. It was shrinking all across Australia, and Dubbo was no exception. And, the local television news was nearly non-existent in town with two providers at the time. “It’s now down to one with one other coming into town when it can. But, what that meant was there were opportunities that were being missed because the resources on the ground for local media and local broadcasting were very scant. Things that we would do that were important to the community such as Council initiatives and projects and openings and launches and all that sort of thing, sometimes weren’t being covered. It struck me straight away that we needed to have a capability that not only provided that content to media, but it gave us the capability to produce some internal communications, it allowed us to work on campaigns like TV ads or social media products which, obviously, is a big thing for Councils in engaging with the community.”
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Other members of Parsons’ team have television and graphic design/ post-production experience able to produce professional results from a range of prosumer equipment.
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“We use Prosumer cameras,” says Parsons. “They are easily and readily purchasable from a good Sony and Canon reseller and we’ve been able to adapt that to what we do and the
skills that we’ve got to turn that into professional broadcast products. “We’ve got field equipment, we’ve got a little bit of lighting, and we’ve got audio. And, of course, we’ve got post-production, which is effectively some pretty sweet Microsoft computers with Adobe Creative Cloud on it for Photoshop and Premiere for editing, and After Effects. And, with a terrific graphic designer that we’ve got on team as well, we’ve been able to produce a lot of our own broadcast graphics and special effects. It gives you that little edge, too.” This year has seen those resources being brought to bear on the Dubbo Regional Council’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, working in concert with NSW State Health authorities. “This is COVID II for us,” says Andrew Parsons. “The first wave of COVID in the regions, we were very lucky that we avoided any infections and it was mainly contained to the metropolitan areas. For COVID II, it has obviously provided some real challenges for NSW and regional NSW with very large numbers of infections in the community. “COVID I was very much around once we were locked down, keeping the community informed and updated on what was going Manager for Corporate Image and Communications with the Dubbo Regional Council, on with Council because so many Andrew Parsons, “It became very clear to me that the regional media landscape was infrastructure areas were shut shrinking. It was shrinking all across Australia.” down such as parks and gardens and barbecue areas. Our central services kept going - water, rubbish “When we had Pandemic II, we readily available so the technology was still going and collected - and that we’ve got for LiveU capability worked very closely with all of the people were still able to interact and the ability to send our signal lead agencies out here, Police with Council online. But, physically back to Sydney Teleports based and NSW Health, but also, our for us, so many things changed and in Sydney, we were able to put an local member, Dugald Saunders the media and information that was Auslan interpreter from the NSW from NSW Government. And coming out of the metropolitan Deaf Society in the studio in Sydney. Dugald was able to lead the way areas was very focused around in public information through his “We did our live Press conferences metropolitan Sydney. It really wasn’t livestreaming. He was only able from here in Dubbo. The signal went what spoke to our regional areas to go live to the Facebook page. It back to Sydney Teleport Services. which are actually quite large. proved very, very popular to people. The Auslan interpreter could hear “We filled that gap in COVID I by We were able to then provide that live what we were doing and they providing those updates provided live for backup, to provide media signed live. Then, they were put in by Council, sharing the health updates back to metropolitan a picture-in-picture in the lower information, bringing other broadcasters and it featured corner of the screen with our Government agencies in to share quite heavily on metropolitan and press conference. Then, Sydney critical information particularly national news as the outbreak Teleports was able to provide that around health and what Police and started to really grip here in to broadcasters, both metropolitan Emergency Services wanted to do Western NSW.” and regional but they were also able during lockdown. But, it also gave to share that on all of our social Parson’s team were also able to us a unique opportunity to bring platforms, our Facebook page, our shoot video news releases and in our own Auslan [sign language] YouTube page, our Twitter page and overlay content for distribution to interpreter. We don’t have Auslan our website, all simultaneously.” broadcasters. interpreters out West that are Continues p14 >>
MediaHub Restructures, Scott Jolly Named COO AFTER OVER A DECADE of successful operation, MediaHub Australia is undergoing its most significant restructuring since its launch as it positions itself to professionally manage the changing world of broadcast technology and consumer viewing habits. The most significant new appointment and one of many, comes with Scott Jolly being promoted to the role of Chief Operating Officer. As MediaHub CEO Alan Sweeney explains, “As an organisation MediaHub has never sat still and has always led from the front. While the future is clear to us requiring a move to cloud-based operations with a different focus around IP technology, we have equally applied caution in selecting an appropriate platform which is fully IP rather than a hybrid of IP and traditional SDI. Now, with MediaHub’s selection of Ateme as our IP value chain partner, we can and will accelerate our move away from our legacy broadcast technology. With these Technology Platform changes come an essential restructuring which adds further significant value to the organisation. Scott’s promotion to COO is just one of those significant value-adds.” To that end as COO Jolly now has full responsibility for the day-to-day operations of MediaHub. He will continue to report to Alan Sweeney, but takes on added board responsibilities. He will also provide Sweeney with assistance in new business development.
Sweeney added, “This is a very exciting time for Scott and the whole team. My role will refocus to the guiding and continual development of MediaHub’s medium to long term strategy and continued marketing efforts.”
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MediaHub has made other substantial changes to their management and operational structure with, amongst others, current Executive Head of Technology, Simon Scott, now also reporting to Scott Jolly. Additional promotions include Scott Whittaker becoming Technology Solutions Manager, Michael Kennedy as Technology Support and Communications Manager, David Macgee into Operations Manager, Jacob Gorrie as Senior Solutions Architect, Sanjay Kumar becomes Senior IT Systems Engineer, Adam Zattera as IT Systems Engineer and Hayden Anderson becoming IT Systems Engineer. Adam Durant will also take on Channel Manager responsibilities for the ABC in the new year. Alan Sweeney concluded, “This is the beginning of a very exciting phase for MediaHub, our clients and the entire media and broadcasting
landscape in Australia and beyond. We will soon commence recruiting specialists in areas such as IT to further underpin our move into the emerging cloud-based Technologies and in turn, further leverage our growing partnership with our video delivery infrastructure solutions provider, Ateme.” Visit www.mediahubaustralia.com.au
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Vloggi – Tapping into Community-Generated Video Boasting customers like MYOB, JAX Tyres and Auto, JUCY rental vans, the NSW Government, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and Hamilton the Musical Australia, Vloggi is a crowdsource video platform that allows the creation of professional looking community video at scale. DESPITE COVID, 2021 has been a busy year for the Australian headquartered start-up with a successful fund-raising round, support for full high-definition uploads and downloads, and a global launch seeing both customer and visitor growth, especially throughout North America. According to Founder Justin Wastnage, the idea for Vloggi came out of the pre-COVID travel industry. “The solution that we identified about three years ago for the travel and tourism industry,” he says, “was if we could build a network, build a platform where visitors to fancy locations who were the most likely to have shot amazing video, provide a platform for them to share that with the marketing agencies, tourism boards, and other agencies, to use that footage. “The travel and tourism industry, on average, every player in that, needs about 110 hours of video per year and currently they’re only producing about 20, and that’s the good ones. So, there’s a massive deficit there, and that can only really be bridged by using user-generated video, but at the moment it’s very, very hard to get that video from consumers. You either have to set up an Instagram campaign and then you have to somehow drag the videos off, upload them, download them, add comments, seek permissions, or you could set up your own Dropbox folder, but that’s very time consuming. “User-generated video has about seven times the conversion power of paid creative, so it’s a very powerful tool, and is also a lot cheaper. However, the problem was always that this video is actually locked, essentially, in 3.6 billion smart phones, so most of the best footage is never released.” Vloggi operates as a software as a service (SaaS) model. There are four tiers. The free tier gives users access Vloggi-created templates and 50 clips per project, while the cost to paying customers depends on number of users, and the kind of templating they want. For paid tiers, the number of clips per project ranges from 150 to 300, up to unlimited videos and API integration. “We have a four-stage process which we call P.U.M.P.,” says Wastnage. “The first stage
is ‘Plan’ where a customer comes in and essentially says who they’re going to source the video from. Is it going to be primarily their customers, their community or their colleagues, and from there they can set things like is it a permanent campaign, do they want to turn on the tap and just grow a video library or do they want to put a timeline on it? For commercial ones they might want to add an incentive. They can also set all the filming brief, add terms and conditions, confirm who the copyright belongs to because the copyright belongs to the client. They also set the look and feel. We grab their logo, turn it into a whiteout PNG which is then transformed into a watermark. The lower thirds are changed into their colours and font, so instantly the video looks like theirs.
“User-generated
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highlights reel from just the best clips, and they can start adding tags. Some of the tags are added automatically, some of them are added manually, this is up to our customers, and then basically the ‘P’ is ‘Publish’. They can just publish as many different combinations, different compilations as they want.
video has about seven times
the conversion
“This is a community video tool,” concludes Wastnage, “so [our customers] are mainly recruiting the audience from Facebook and mainly distributing via Facebook, that’s about 70 per cent of our use, because typically brands or whoever will have an active community on Facebook.
power of paid
creative, so it’s
a very powerful
tool, and is also a lot cheaper.
The next stage is ‘Upload’. Vloggi customers will then send potential contributors an invite to a web page where thy will confirm details such as their name and location. The contributor then selects a video from their phone which is uploaded and encoded with branding elements applied. The Vloggi platform uses an FFmpeg-based encoder. The encoding process will ‘pillarbox’ the sides of vertical videos, or ‘pillarbox’ and blur out the sides of a square video.
“We are actively targeting video from people’s phones because the market we’re trying to unlock is that demographic of people who don’t ordinarily upload and share video. So, not influencers. Influencers would already know how to edit their GoPro videos together and whatever. That isn’t the target demographic.” Visit www.vloggi.com
“Then it’s ‘M’ for merge,” says Wastnage. “Rather than edit video together, you just select the clips you want and merge them. Essentially, we got rid of editing. The merge also has tags and ratings. If a team is working together, say a marketing team, they all may go in and they may like various clips that they’re getting because they can see the submissions coming in. They start to like them and then they can make a
OWN THIS SPACE! 12
Vloggi CEO Justin Wastnage
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“Being able to provide that live capability support to NSW Health and Police, and so on, really got some very strong Regional NSW/ Western NSW-focused messages out there as a part of the wholeof-government response. That’s not just Council. That’s NSW Government, Dubbo Regional Council and then, the Federal Government. We were able to get that out very quickly and that was able to reach people in regional areas, particularly regional NSW which was starting to see a rapid spread of COVID, unfortunately. “That meant that Sydney newsrooms, the national newsrooms, were getting this live. It was up-to-date and the vision that they were using were current. And if they needed anything, because they didn’t have resources out here, we were able to provide that as well, as long as it was COVID-related. It was a really unique position for a Regional Council, a unique position for a large city that doesn’t have a lot of broadcast resources and capability. We were able to fill that gap purely around being able to provide the single source of information, a good strong whole-of-government voice and provide it effectively and quickly. Another content gap filled by Parson’s team was that experienced by other, often smaller, Councils which lacked the resources of the Dubbo Regional Council. “We took the approach that everything that we made was a whole-of-government response, but it was unbranded so other Councils and other nongovernment organisations and community groups could actually use that material confidently. It wasn’t about promoting us or what we do. It was about promoting the COVID-safe message or the COVID emergency response.
“We became, by proxy if you like, a readily-available resource for Councils right through far Western NSW and Southern NSW and even back over the Blue Mountains. In that respect, definitely the way we designed that, the way we responded with the wholeof-government response they were able to use Ready for action. The Dubbo Regional Council “OB Van”. that material across various Local Government had to spend huge amounts of Areas.” money to bring in all the broadcast A key part of the Council’s content distribution workflow was its 4G-based, bonded-cellular LiveU platform. Equipped with six modems across two telco carriers, Parson’s team was able to use its LiveU pack to distribute content to Sydney Teleport Services in the Sydney suburb of Balmain from where it was distributes to broadcasters and online platforms.
“What’s fantastic about that is the LiveU technology is not new to broadcasters,” says Parsons. “Many broadcasters have it where it’s connected from Point A to Point B. We’re able to not only have ours connected from Point A to Point B, but we can go to all other points in the alphabet as well, at the same time. It’s a really powerful tool for us but it also means that not only can we send signal out to the outside world. “It’s a really dynamic piece of equipment and it’s something which we’ve been able to use because we’ve used a thirdparty provider with all of the broadcasting structure at the backend. Council itself hasn’t
infrastructure that’s needed to run something like this, the encoders and decoders and everything else that is supplied. We’re able to use it in the field and then, send that back to our broadcast provider and they have all of the infrastructure at the backend. It’s a really off-the-shelf solution for us.” “Our investment is several thousand dollars to buy the Prosumer cameras and, then, we have an arrangement for two years with our livestream unit under contract. You put that into perspective. Say, we’re talking about less than $100,000 across two years with equipment and leases and all that sort of thing. Thirty seconds on a national broadcaster could be anywhere between $40-50-80-100,000-plus spot to get your thirty-second ad in there. If we’ve got someone talking on news from Dubbo for one or two minutes, well, there’s your return on investment in one hit. “And as I said, all we really did is Prosumer equipment that is readily available and we were just able to add that value and the industry experience and technology and
capability on the backend to really make it work for us. “I think as we’ve proven as a local Council out in Western NSW, you don’t have to spend millions of dollars, even though I think some people think we have spent millions of dollars. I can guarantee you we have not. But you’ve got the skills, the creative, the capability and the staff and the support behind you, there are so many things that you can do to use technology, your own creative and your own corporate messaging and your own facilities and your own resources to actually make content and make very, very effective content. “If people are reading this and thinking, gee, I’d like to do something like that, my advice is to do it. Dip your toe in the water and give it a go, because what’s going to happen is it’s going to be so much more reliant on businesses and Councils and what-have-you to create a lot of their own content, certainly in the near future, simply because what we’re used to, thirdparties and media and all that, all being able to do that, they’re just no longer there.”
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ACQUISITION & LIGHTING ACOUISITION Sony VENICE Cameras Go Large in ANZ SONY SAYS THERE IS “huge demand” for its Sony VENICE full-frame digital cinema cameras across Australia and New Zealand with rental companies Lemac, in Australia, and ImageZone, in New Zealand, reporting the cameras have been flying off the shelves. Lemac MD Sue Greenshields explained the camera’s success saying, “The market is often after the most affordable, most capable camera and at this current time the VENICE ticks a lot of boxes. The VENICE’s versatility is key. It is capable of shooting in a wide range of formats and delivers phenomenal latitude, incredible colour rendition and this is all in a relatively compact unit that fits easily into the workflow of large-scale productions. “Lemac was fortunate enough to be involved in testing and feedback on the first Venice prototype in Australia. That collaboration shows in unique features such as the Rialto extension system that gives unparalleled flexibility for mounting the system in almost any situation and the internal ND filter system offering a world-first eight steps of filtration.”
DoP Toby Oliver ACS using the Sony VENICE, supplied by Lemac, on the Dollhouse feature Seriously Red.
ACQUISITION
Greenshields added, “They are very popular on longform at the moment. Cameras have also been sold to clients for productions encompassing TVC and wildlife cinematography through to corporate production. Our rentals department has recently had up to eight camera production units at one time on the Disney Amazon series The Wilds S2. This series has recently completed production in Queensland. Bad Mothers was the first drama to shoot on VENICE cameras in Australia and the camera’s popularity has grown rapidly since then. It was the camera of choice recently on the impressive ABC production of Wakefield and The Dollhouse feature Seriously Red. Many other productions are also currently filming with our support on VENICE in Australia. These include CJZ series Darby and Joan, Hoodlum/Stan feature film Christmas on the Farm and the ABC series Troppo.”
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It’s a similar story for ImageZone in New Zealand as rental manager Stephen Baker explained, “We started looking at full-frame cameras and decided to host an evening highlighting all the models and full frame glass that was available at the time. Sony came onboard, sent us a VENICE to look at and told us what was coming in future firmware upgrades. At that point we realised this camera could be a game-changer and we wanted in. Dean Thomas, ImageZone’s owner, felt the VENICE was the perfect camera for
the companies leading the streaming market including Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Apple who request original footage to be 4K. The VENICE ticked this box and had the trump card of being a full frame camera. It wasn’t long before we had our first overseas production, Amazon’s The Wilds, who did indeed want to shoot on the VENICE and so we required two to three cameras in order to supply this production. “The VENICE has the ability to shoot in 6K full frame, or super sample down to 4K yet still use the full frame sensor for that full frame look without the 6K files. Also, for a full frame camera it has the best off-speed capabilities, which is a big plus. The dual recording function of being able to shoot on both AXSM cards and SxS cards is another clever and practical application and both DoPs and ACs tell us having the broad range of internal NDs is a real advantage in the real world of making movies.” ImageZone have supplied VENICE cameras to multiple longform productions including The Wilds, X, Wellington Paranormal, Whina, Raised by Refugees and Interstate. Baker said, “There have also been a number of commercial shoots that have used the VENICE, one in particular an anti-smoking campaign from a pet dog’s POV, in which the Rialto head was incredibly useful. Cinematographers have really embraced the large format, full frame look, and the VENICE is perfect for that. With its Rialto head the VENICE enables cinematographers to
get the camera into some really tight spaces.” He concluded, “One of the big questions DoPs had when the VENICE first came along was if its colour science was comparable to the industry standard cameras they were familiar with. The general consensus has been yes, yes, it is! Whilst it obviously has a different colour science, the feedback is that the camera has a fantastic dynamic range, rich colours and great contrast. The dual ISO ability is also something that has impressed many DOPs especially when shooting in low light environments. ACs like the easy-touse menu system and having the ability to access functions on the AC side of the camera.” Sony’s VENICE is equipped with a 36 x 24mm full-frame image sensor, designed specifically for high end cinematography, and can capture images up to a maximum resolution of 6048 x 4032. By switching imager modes, VENICE can natively support Super35 24.3 x 18.0mm at 4096 x 3024 resolution (equivalent to 4-perforation motion picture film), and Super35 24.3 x 12.8mm at 4096 x 2160 resolution (equivalent to 3-perforation motion picture film). In other words, VENICE’s new full-frame sensor can capture in almost any format, including full 18mm-height Super35 Anamorphic and spherical and full-frame 24mm-height Anamorphic and spherical. Almost any aspect ratio can be conjured up: 1.85:1, 2.39:1, 17:9, and more, in fullframe or Super35. Visit www.sony.com.au or www.sony.co.nz
ACQUISITION & LIGHTING
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ARRI Rental Goes Large with ALFA and Moviecam Lenses Company Collaborates with The Mandalorian’s Greig Fraser ACS-ASC ARRI RENTAL has introduced two new largeformat lens series - ALFA anamorphic lenses and Moviecam spherical lenses. Both series were conceived and constructed by ARRI Rental’s global lens development team, which was also responsible for the company’s DNA lenses for full-frame and 65 mm cinematography. The ARRI Rental ALFA lens set comprises eight lenses ranging in focal length from 40mm to 190mm. Like the DNA lenses, they evolved out of artistic collaborations with filmmakers looking for new ways to tell stories and convey emotions. Available from ARRI Rental facilities worldwide, they are fast at T2.5 for most focal lengths, solidly built, and deliver a uniquely characterful anamorphic look for large format. The original idea behind ALFA lenses emerged from ARRI Rental’s longstanding relationship with cinematographer Greig Fraser ACS, ASC, who was also a key collaborator on the DNA lens program. In response to Fraser’s request for fresh large-format anamorphic options, ARRI Rental and ARRI worked together to modify sets of Master Anamorphic lenses. As well as adapting them to cover the larger format, ARRI Rental technicians customized the lenses internally in pursuit of specifically requested image attributes. Greig Fraser ACS, ASC comments, “The modifications we built into the ALFAs brought out an entirely new dimension in the Master Anamorphics, with a nice vignette of softness around the edges but a super-sharp center that we could degrade if required. What was nice about working with ARRI Rental was the focus and attention they gave us to achieve our goals. These lenses are incredibly different from, for example, the DNAs we worked on for ‘Mary Magdalene.’ ARRI Rental has been able to pivot and alternate their focus in the same way that I alternate my focus when I’m doing different projects.” Further prototyping of the ALFA lenses took place with the input of German cinematographer Nikolaus Summerer. Out of these collaborations, and extensive R&D within ARRI Rental, the specifications for a production series of ALFA lenses were defined. The robust, purposedesigned lens housings still contain Master Anamorphic glass, but accompanied by other bespoke optical elements and modifications that combine to create a look that is entirely new.
MOVIECAM LENSES
ACQUISITION
Meanwhile, the ARRI Rental Moviecam lenses combine vintage glass and a cinematic backstory with modern, high-performance lens housings. Compact and lightweight, given their full-frame coverage, they come in 11 focal lengths from 16 mm to 135 mm and boast a T2 stop across most of that range.
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Moviecam lenses were first produced in the 1980s, using extremely high-quality donor glass dating from the 1970s. In the 1990s, ARRI acquired the Moviecam company and incorporated some of its camera technologies into the ARRICAM ST and LT 35mm motion picture film cameras. While cameras were the focus of ARRI’s
ARRI Rental ALFA anamorphic lenses for large format offer a carefully detuned look, developed in collaboration with filmmakers including Greig Fraser ACS, ASC.
Working with the same vintage 1970s donor glass as the original Moviecam lenses, ARRI Rental lens engineers designed and built modern and reliable new lens housings.
Moviecam takeover back in the 1990s, a quite different benefit has been pursued in the 2020s by ARRI Rental: the Moviecam lenses. Recognising their growing appeal to digital filmmakers seeking a vintage look, ARRI Rental has created a large number of consistent Moviecam sets, to be offered across all of its global territories. Following the original Moviecam design, ARRI Rental’s lens engineers have built the same 1970s optics into new lens housings. Overall, the Moviecams are characterised by their combination of a vintage look with highly practical ease of use. Aside from the 100mm and 135mm at T2.8, all of the lenses are T2, though the 60mm goes a stop further to T1.5, offering an additional option for low-light situations and bokeh-enriched portraits. Optical performance is consistent throughout the range, making it a great choice for cinematographers who want a vintage aesthetic but also complete freedom to explore all focal lengths without creating work for themselves in post. German cinematographer Christian Rein has used prototype Moviecam lenses on a series for
Netflix and an upcoming movie, commenting: “I like the quality of the vintage Moviecam glass, which looks very organic and soft, but without losing detail or drawing attention to itself. The Moviecams are very forgiving on the skin. The roundness of the lenses is outstanding, the bokeh looks very naturalistic, and if they flare, it doesn’t look as technical as with other lenses.” Both the ALFA and Moviecam series are LPLmounted and incorporate LDA chips for efficient lens data workflows, making them suitable even for VFX-heavy productions. The lens housings are manufactured in-house at ARRI Rental, incorporating all of the lens development team’s experience creating and customizing diverse optics for clients. Highly uniform in size and lens ring placement, the Moviecams and ALFAs are as fast and easy to work with as any other modern cine lens series. ALFA and Moviecam lenses are available exclusively through ARRI Rental facilities worldwide. Visit www.arrirental.com
ACQUISITION & LIGHTING
Panasonic Box-Style, Full-Frame LUMIX BS1H Camera PANASONIC HAS UNVEILED the LUMIX BS1H full-frame box-style camera, designed for video professionals, and combining the cinematic video performance of the LUMIX S1H with advanced live stream functionality in an easilydeployable box-style body. Incorporating a 24-megapixel full-frame sensor, the LUMIX BS1H features 6K full-area high resolution video with unlimited recording, flexibility over depth of field and low-light performance, a wide dynamic range of 14+ stops, V-Log and more. Industry standard connections and interfaces include SDI, HDMI, Genlock IN and Timecode I/O, as well as LAN with PoE+ for power and control. With V-Log and V-Gamut, the BS1H also offers the colour reproduction and imagery of the VariCam line of Panasonic production cameras – similar to the S1H full-frame mirrorless camera or the EVA1 compact cinema camera. The LUMIX BS1H uses the same 24.2-megapixel 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor (35.6 mm x 23.8mm) as the LUMIX S1H. The Venus Engine processor delivers minimised noise and high image quality with a maximum ISO of 51200. In addition, an optical low-pass filter effectively suppresses moiré patterns. By maximising the use of the pixels in the full-frame image sensor, the LUMIX BS1H is capable of 6K/24p, 5.4K/30p (3:2 aspect ratio) or 5.9K/30p (16:9 aspect ratio) high-resolution, smooth video recording. It also provides 10-bit 60p 4K/C4K (4096×2160) HEVC video recording when using the image area equivalent to Super 35mm. The 4:2:2 10-bit 4K30p is recordable in H.264 at its full area. Its high-resolution data can also be used for creating 4K videos with higher image quality or for cropping images in 4K. The LUMIX BS1H also features V-Log/V-Gamut with a wide dynamic range of 14+ stops, in line with the dynamic range of the Panasonic VariCam, to precisely capture everything from dark to bright areas. Subtle gradations such as skin tones are faithfully reproduced, and consistent colour management is achieved in post-production. In addition to HDR (High Dynamic Range) video recording, the camera records video with a
designated gamma curve compatible with ITU-R BT.2100 and offers Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) in Photo Style. The camera also incorporates an advanced Deep Learning autofocus algorithm that offers greater accuracy in detecting specific subjects – including humans, people’s faces, and fastmoving animals. In addition to the eye, face and body, the head is also separately recognised by real-time detection technology to provide even more precise focusing. The camera keeps tracking subjects when they move quickly, turn away, tilt their head or move far away from the camera. The LUMIX BS1H is capable of 4:2:2 10-bit 4K 60p/50p HDMI output. With a highly efficient heat dispersion structure, it can deliver unlimited video recording in a variety of recording formats, including 4:3 Anamorphic mode, to meet professional requirements for long form shooting. In addition, with two alternatives for Apple ProRes RAW workflow, the LUMIX BS1H provides further support for wide-ranging creative needs. [5.9K] / [4K] / [Anamorphic (4:3) 3.5K] 12-bit RAW video data can be output over HDMI to save Apple ProRes RAW video on the Atomos Ninja V or Blackmagic RAW on the Blackmagic Video Assist 12G HDR external recorder. VFR (variable frame rate) functionality supports video overcranking and undercranking. Users have access to 2.5x slow (24p/60 fps) in C4K/4K and 7.5x super-slow (24p/180 fps) in FHD. The minimum frame rate for quick motion video is 2 fps. In addition, HFR (High Frame Rate) recording includes audio and autofocus, allowing creation of slow-motion video in post-production. To support live streaming, the LUMIX BS1H provides an IP streaming function over ethernet that enables high-quality image transmission to a PC on a wired network that can then be live streamed to the preferred social platform using PC software. Notably, the LUMIX BS1H can transmit 4K 60p (50p) video in H.265. H.265 is highly efficient, requiring half the bitrate when transmitting video with the same image quality as H.264, thus providing 2x higher image quality when transmitting at the same bitrate as H.264.
Transmitting video in ultra-high definition 4K at low bitrates is possible even in low bandwidth situations. Other features include: • Simultaneous HDMI RAW and SDI FHD output • Simultaneous output and internal recording to SD Cards • Tally lamps (front 1 and rear 1), a network connection lamp • Operation Lock switch and 5-function buttons • F3.5 Audio (in/out) jack and compatibility with XLR microphone DMW-XLR1 (sold separately) • Generic remote-control unit f2.5mm • 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity and Bluetooth 4.2 (BLE) • Remote camera control using application softwarev (LUMIX Tether for Multicam and LUMIX Sync) • Tethered photo shooting with LUMIX Tether for Multicam software • An SDK (Software Development Kit) for camera control via USB/LAN will be provided for free. Visit www.panasonic.com.au
DEVELOPED SPECIFICALLY for movie, television and media production applications, Nanlux’s Dyno Series 1200C delivers exceptional levels of smooth, consistent illumination. Compact and convenient, the Nanlux Dyno 650Ca 650W 2x1 soft panel and the 1200C - a 1200W 30-inch square, provides cinematographers and production crews with the perfect soft light solution for both studio or location work. With its smooth, class leading performance, the Dyno Series allows precise control over every aspect of its output. Flicker free, fully tuneable between 2700K and 20,000K and dimmable from 0-100% in ultra-precise intervals of just 0.1% between 1 and 100% of output. Whether you choose tungsten, daylight or from over 16 million available colours, the creative possibilities are virtually limitless.
Featuring a collection of pre-set, fully customisable effects plus an extensive gel library, the Dyno 1200C allows users to instantly switch between a huge variety of looks, and can match almost any lighting filter configuration. The low profile, intelligent design makes the Dyno Series quick to set up and easy to operate. The system’s intuitive interface and clear, 4.3-inch display provides effortless control over colour temperature, saturation, intensity and frequency. Compatibility with wireless protocols plus DMX connectivity brings further flexibility when used as individual units or as part of a linked installation. Built using state of the art LED technology, the Dyno Series has been expertly
engineered to combine stunning levels of ultraefficient, low energy illumination with complete control, allowing users the artistic freedom to innovate and explore. Visit www.videocraft.com.au
ACQUISITION
Nanlux Dyno Series Lighting
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SPORTSCASTING Nine Gears Up for Summer of Tennis Australia’s Nine Network is looking to ace viewer ratings this summer with another season of tennis coverage. Nine’s Summer of Tennis begins on December the 30th with the ATP Cup, followed by Brisbane, Hobart and Adelaide Internationals and, of course, the Australian Open. ACCORDING TO BRENT WILLIAMS, Nine’s Director of Sport, “Across the whole year, 2022, will be the year of tennis as the story continues with Roland-Garros and Wimbledon, and let’s not forget we also have the Billie Jean King Cup, the Davis Cup and now the Laver Cup. Nine is really going to be the only place where Australians can experience premium tennis in 2022.” Nine has also recently secured the exclusive rights to the US Open in 2022, in a landmark three-year deal. Nine and streaming service STAN are now the home for all four Grand Slams tournaments. The commentary team for Nine’s tennis coverage will include Todd Woodbridge, Jelena Dokic, Sam Groth, Dylan Alcott, Alicia Molik, Casey Dellacqua, Leighton Hewitt, Jim Courier, and “a shrinking violet who you may have heard of called John McEnroe.” According to Brent Williams, “The pandemic has definitely driven us to bring the future closer and the way sport is delivered to fans has fundamentally had to change. We’ve adapted different philosophies and different techniques, be it the way we shoot sport from different angles, the introduction of augmented audio effects or dedicated fan-centric segments to bring people even closer. All of it goes to creating a connection with viewers and a sense of community amongst all Australians, as only sport can. We’ve obviously also kept an eye on
the rest of the world and looked at how other global sports have adapted to make sure we have the best technology at our disposal and to make sure that we’re constantly exploring new frontiers. “Wide World of Sports has a long and proud history of world-first technology and innovation within our sports broadcasts, and that’s going to continue. As we have from day one, our AO coverage, we will continue to push the boundaries and what’s possible, with the aim of allowing tennis fans to experience this great sport and these amazing athletes in more ways than they ever have before.
“We have the most cutting-edge technology at our disposal with our Hawkeye guy enabled Court 9 tennis court that is the envy of other broadcasters all around the world.
“We have the most cutting-edge technology at our disposal with our Hawkeye guy enabled Court 9 tennis court that is the envy of other
broadcasters all around the world. Augmented reality graphics on the three main courts, 360 cameras, fly-cams capturing all the action right across the Melbourne Park precinct, drones, helicopters showcasing all Melbourne has to offer, plus a couple of surprises we’re working on. “We can’t wait for the Australian Open to kickstart our year, before continuing that momentum into the other Grand Slams of Roland-Garros and, of course, Wimbledon, all of which deliver highly engaged audiences for us. In fact, we saw Wimbledon smash records on Nine [in 2021], with an audience of well over two million people tuning in to watch Ash Barty fulfil her childhood dream of winning the title. The tournament alone reached a total of 6.4 million national viewers on Nine and Nine Gem, with an additional 1.7 million streams on Nine Now, proving that audiences will follow the action and stories they’re passionate about. It was a truly amazing result and we’re looking to deliver even bigger numbers in the coming year with Nine being the home of the biggest tennis tournaments in the world.”
Gravity Media Pushes Boundaries for Supercars’ Eseries
SPORTSCASTING
GRAVITY MEDIA was recently chosen to deliver the technical infrastructure and facilities for the Cash Converters Supercars Eseries. Concluding late September, the Eseries took place on the iRacing platform and offered fans a mix of Supercars main game drivers and elite sim racers, with teams competing for the top prize of more than AUD$20,000.
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Gravity Media’s Production Centres in Melbourne (PCM) and Sydney (PCS) serviced the needs for the Eseries broadcast with PCS acting as the main hub, with a dedicated studio setup housing a 10m x 2.5m LED wall to display various feeds managed from the control room. At PCM, a single
camera, commentary kit and 103” Live Screen background housed the two main commentators – with audio embedded onto separate tracks via the camera feed and sent via a direct fibre service to the Sydney facility. A dedicated IP audio circuit between PCM and PCS facilitated the live commentary, as well as accommodating production and technical communications between the two facilities. Due to government lockdowns in New South Wales, Gravity Media also supplied communications to the remote support team for the gaming equipment. This consisted of an IP system enabling the remote team to speak directly to the director, producer and
onsite operators from within the control room at PCS. For the remote drivers, Gravity Media integrated cameras via Zoom to allow the producer to select individual drivers during the races and interview them afterwards through communications integrated into PCS via Discord. The Eseries program was sent through to FoxSports to be integrated on the Kayo streaming sports platform and Network 7 for its IP service 7Plus. Gravity Media also encoded a live stream of the control room for feeds on Facebook, Twitch and YouTube. Visit www.gravitymedia.com
SPORTSCASTING
Tracab’s Coach Paint 9.1 TRACAB HAS ANNOUNCED the release of Coach Paint 9.1, which leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and XML data-driven capabilities to offer coaches and leagues the improved efficiency, richer visuals, and deeper analysis to drive in-depth tactical comprehension of any game or strategy, whether by athletes on the pitch or fans watching at home. The newly redesigned user interface (UI) and updated user experience (UX), introduced with Coach Paint 9 and improved with this release, provides convenient access to powerful automated player tracking and automated content creation tools. “By leveraging AI, we continue to evolve Coach Paint toward a complete sports analysis and storytelling ecosystem,” said Simone Lacava, Coach Paint product manager at Tracab. “Version 9.1 offers an array of improvements and is foundational to our vision of providing Tracab’s industry-leading video and tracking technologies on a single platform.” The new UI, introduced with Coach Paint 9, and individual tools revamped for efficiency allow coaches and production teams to produce broadcastgrade graphics and visualisation in near real time, saving time without sacrificing quality. Allowing users to edit properties on the timeline, this new release not only increases the number of video analysis tools, but also affords users complete flexibility in editing their properties at any time. Visit www.tracab.com
Vizrt XR Set Unites Unreal Engine with Viz Engine
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VIZRT, THE PROVIDER OF software-defined visual storytelling solutions for media content creators, has announced a new release of its Virtual Studio Solution — Vizrt XR Set. With this latest release of XR Set, Vizrt unites two of the most powerful graphics engines on the market - Viz Engine and a natively integrated, full-fledged Unreal Engine running side-by-side, giving end-users transparent access to some of the best virtual graphics in the business – all with smooth control from a single location. The new Vizrt XR Set integrates Vizrt workflows built on the upgraded Viz Engine 4.3. With the upgrade, creative professionals can choose the render blade they want to deliver graphics: • Fusion: The specialist broadcast render blade gives access to PBR (physical-based rendering) for outstanding results and performance. • Unreal Engine: Vizrt and Unreal elements feature seamless and native integration to improve interoperability performance for seamless depth of field sync between Viz Engine and Unreal Engine and scene property pre-set sharing.
With XR Set provides easy and fast camera setup, tracking and keying configuration for the best possible experience for users setting up a virtual set. Intelligent and automated setup of the Fusion Keyer allows users to deliver crisp keys every time within minutes. The Vizrt Extended Reality Suite represents Vizrt’s core capabilities for software-defined visual storytelling, offering a fully-fledged AR (Augmented Reality), VS (Virtual Set), Video Wall, mixed reality and telestration toolset. Visit www.vizrt.com
Go live from anywhere.
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www.pacificlivemedia.com sales@pacificlivemedia.com +61 2 8458 0701
SPORTSCASTING
Designed with an intelligent control interface, XR Set allows users to make their renderings fully transparent - allowing for better control, modification and graphics placement, regardless of where they come from. The intelligent control interface includes powerful automation possibilities and enhances control of both Viz Engine and Unreal Engine, accessible within XR Set.
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SPORTSCASTING
Flying Car Racers Connect with D2N What Formula 1 brings to track-based racing cars Airspeeder brings to the ultimate performance flying car. It’s hard not to read that sentence twice, but Airspeeder is the newest, most exciting sport to hit the skies and yes, it involves flying cars. Its comms requirements are taken care of by sports industry comms specialists, D2N. AS D2N MD, JASON OWEN, explains, “Airspeeder and the engineering team at sister-company Alauda Aeronatics reached out to us as they knew of our reputation in the sports industry and were looking for a comms solution for their new race program. They were developing a flying racing car series and were in the test and development stage. This in turn called for a communication system between the pilot, who flies the aircraft remotely, the engineers and the flight test director.” Alauda’s engineers initially wanted a comms system to cover two applications for the forthcoming EXA remotely piloted racing series and the Airspeeder crewed electric flying cars races. These were, firstly the R&D of the vehicles with a pilot and secondly a number of engineers who all communicate as a group. The second application was also required to take care of a race management team that would ultimately manage the actual running of the races. Owen continued, “Race Management need the ability to communicate with each team as a group to dynamically respond to racing condition changes. To meet all of their requirements we suggested they invest in a high-end radio system as this would take care of the teams’ needs and form the foundation of the race management solution moving forward.”
solution but needs to be implemented in the near future for testing. The maximum distance for this part of the solution at this stage would be 1-2km and this would grow to over 5km in time.” Considering Airspeeder is a relatively new sport with incredibly unique and specific requirements, the technology partnership with D2N has been seamless thus far. Owen continued, “We tried to deliver over and above as we not only solved their initial comms challenge but also put them on a path where systems can be repeated and scaled to suit their operation as more teams come on board and the governance of race management requirements grow.” As Airspeeder grows in stature and popularity the awareness around the sport has also been growing at an astonishing pace, as has its technical and comms requirements.
Looking to the future Airspeeder and Alauda will also require future communications post testing for racing, much like an F1 team has comms with their driver, as their prototype aircraft in turn develop into manned aircraft.
Jason Owen concluded, “For most of this year, it has all been about R&D and test flights of the actual vehicles. D2N is already an integral part of this amazing sport as we have supplied them with super reliable communications and a solution built to suit and futureproof their operations. Airspeeder and Alauda have the advantage of our many years’ experience providing comms to motorsport and they appreciate that this is a big plus for them. Also, many comms suppliers get wedded to one comms manufacturer brand, whereas the D2N approach is to think about the application before any brand is discussed. As a result, we have always delivered on every requirement and every promise for this amazing new flying motorsport.”
Owen said, “This second, comms post testing, stage is a longer-term
Visit https://airspeeder.com and www.d2n.com.au
The comms solution proposed and supplied by D2N consists of Hytera PD662 radios and Raytalk noise-cancelling headsets. Owen added, “We also built some custom wiring setups for the pilots so they could key up the radio whilst flying the vehicle. The headset we provided for the pilots allows for the connection of multiple radios and a race control channel. The evolution of these clever pieces of kit come from our long history of developing and supplying specialist headsets for motorsport.”
5G Acceleration for Airspeeder with Telstra Purple
SPORTSCASTING
TELSTRA AND AIRSPEEDER have entered into multi-million dollar technical partnership which aims to boost flying car racing through 5G network implementation, accelerate the development of consumer applications for flying cars, and serve as a test-bed for technology infrastructure that will enable autonomous passenger vehicles powered by Telstra.
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Connecting terabytes of data for vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications, Telstra Purple will deliver the near real-time virtual race-control system required for the high-speed, close format, multi-vehicle circuit racing in the Airspeeder EXA Series.
The state-of-the-art system feeds essential technical information to ground crews during test flights and races, reflecting the same approach leading aviation companies use to augment and monitor the systems essential for aircraft safety. Whether pilots are on-board or flying remotely, they’ll be able to safely race in close proximity with near real-time data and connectivity powering proximity sensors that deliver haptic vibration alerts. Telstra is also placed to deliver a fully immersive 5G powered spectator experience through augmented and virtual reality devices. Visit https://purple.telstra.com
SPORTSCASTING
Buoyant America’s Cup Coverage via Telstra EARLIER THIS YEAR, Telstra Broadcast Services (TBS) helped deliver the 36th America’s Cup presented by PRADA (AC36) to a worldwide audience reaching nearly one billion viewers in 236 countries and territories, making it the most-watched America’s Cup in its 170-year history. Working with America’s Cup and the host production provider for AC36, Austria’s circle-o, TBS designed a bespoke network encompassing a wide range of different services. AC36’s key requirement was for scalable and reliable contribution and distribution services that could meet the demands of 55 major networks, as well as global online distribution through YouTube, Facebook, and the America’s Cup website. Additionally, large amounts of broadcast-quality content needed to be regularly uploaded to a media cloud as part of the production workflow, and a 24/7 connection was required to circle-o’s remote centre in Wuppertal, Germany.
its highbandwidth media network, known as the Special Events Network, to meet these challenges. This solution managed end-to-end IP broadcast network provided services, including on-site and remote broadcast operations; remote production; the distribution of world feeds and streaming feeds to global rights holders; the contribution of signals (including 24/7 upload and Point-to-Point IP connectivity); and bespoke internet services onsite, including ethernet private lines.
TBS curated an international contribution and distribution solution from
Visit www.telstra.com/broadcastservices
Vizrt Enhances Sport with Vizrt XR Venue VIZRT HAS ANNOUNCED the release of its premiere real-time virtual enhancement solution for sports – Vizrt XR Venue. Featuring Viz Arena 5, the XR Venue solution empowers sports broadcasters to enhance valuable content with captivating, state-of-the-art live AR graphics. With this release, XR Venue enters the IO platform, Vizrt’s backbone for future sports developments. Together with XR Playbook, launched earlier this year, sports solutions now take full advantage of Vizrt’s latest developments for stunning live virtual graphics. “Using the world’s most advanced real-time virtual graphics, broadcasters are able to deliver an extra layer of excitement and more detail with data-driven graphics that are visually second to none,” said Daniel Url, Head of Product Management, Vizrt Group. “And with the unified IO sports platform, using XR Venue or XR Playbook easily adjusts to changing production requirements.” The unified IO offers more flexibility and scalability to produce either upstream at the venue or in a downstream workflow at the studio and a
flexible choice of playout - fill & key or a composited video signal for specific production workflows. The output can be added directly on top of the program feed to the mixer as a separate source, which benefits workflows and output quality of high-class productions. In addition, hardware for XR Venue is now consistent with regular Viz Engine hardware, such as the newly certified Dell R7920 for compact setups. As many major sports events are produced in high-end formats like UHD or HDR, XR Venue embraces these technological advancements in their native formats and supported workflows. This empowers producers to create visually engaging representations of data-driven graphics and additional content for any sports coverage in the same high-end quality. The IP based video formats open the door to virtualized and remote production workflows for XR Venue, allowing absolute flexibility and mitigating physical limitations like hardware dependencies or budget restrictions. Visit www.vizrt.com
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NEWS OPERTAIONS OPERATIONS Flash in the Plan for Foxtel Streaming FOLLOWING ITS UNBUNDLING of sport (Kayo), and longform and episodic programming (Binge), the Foxtel Group continues to pursue its streaming transformation with the announcement of a news aggregation service, Flash. According to Streamotion CEO, Julian Ogrin, the new live and on-demand service “… is all about diverse sources, whether you want Australian or international news, whether your politics are progressive, in the centre or conservative, whether your interest is in politics or business, US or UK news, Flash brings it all together.” Ogrin adds that the insights the company has collected about the way viewers consume sport also apply to news. “Personalisation, split screen, minis, or, as we call them in Flash, flash points. Flash is the first of its kind,” he says “It will feature a breadth of global and local partners offering subscribers a genuine diversity of opinion and perspective and allowing them to dive deep into the news. Importantly, Flash is built on the same streaming platform as Kayo and Binge, allowing us to go to market quickly and efficiently.” According to Les Wigan, Streamotion Chief Technology and Operations Officer, the Flash service comes out of a technology strategy that is based on global best practice. “It’s built to be scalable and can support a subscriber growth at a low cost,” he says. “It’s the foundation of everything we do. It underpins our growth and our ability to innovate and will drive the next stage of our transformation. “In 2018, we started by thinking about where we wanted to end. We built a greenfield streamingfocused technology stack to support all of our new OTT products. We built Kayo on this stack in 2018, followed by Binge in 2020, Kayo Freebies early this year and Flash. And soon, our Foxtel OTT products, Foxtel Now and Go, will be also migrated to this technology stack.
NEWS OPERATIONS
“This stack has three important features; it’s scalable, it’s reliable and it puts the customer at the centre. First, scalability. Our strategy was always to have one streaming platform that supports model products in a growing subscriber race. What this means, in a practical sense, is that as we continue to innovate that platform, the innovation is applied to all products on that platform. We expect this will deliver significant efficiencies. We have also architected the technology stack to be highly scalable in a costeffective way across monitoring capability, AI and cloud-based operations, which is important with a fast-growing subscriber base.
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“This has taken us from our first Kayo customers back in 2018 to peaks this year where we’ve had around 55,000 customers sign up in a single day. Then there’s reliability. A technology stack can support a high volume of subscribers and content with a proven record of performance. To bring this to life, here are a couple of interesting stats. For Kayo, we’ve had as many as 37 live, concurrent sports being streamed at a single
time. We typically support over 300 live events over the course of a week, and we’ve had a peak of 420 live events in a given week. All of this with sub-10 seconds latency. “We’ve also optimised the platform for redundancy, including a multi-CDN approach. Our aim is best in class reliability so that our customers are able to stream their entertainment without any disruptions. “And, lastly, customer-centricity. A technology stack is built with a customer at the centre of everything we do, which is critical for two reasons. First, for our customers, the experience is simple and digitally focused. This makes for easy sign-up and quick self-service. Ninety-four percent of our Kayo and Binge customers are able to self-manage sign-up and help without needing to contact us. Second, the business side. We have a single view of the customer across all products that’s verified when a customer signs up. This drives our advertising reach and our capabilities across the Foxtel group.”
Les Wigan, Streamotion Chief Technology and Operations Officer.
“It will feature a breadth of global and local partners offering subscribers a genuine diversity of opinion and perspective and allowing them to dive deep into the news.
While Wigan says the Foxtel Group has a strong track record of leveraging a world-class streaming technology stack, there is more to do.
seeing this deliver high ROI for our advertising partners, all done in a brand safe, premium video environment.
“Over the next two years, we are investing in four strategic technology projects to unlock the next wave of transformation and efficiency for the Foxtel group,” he says. “This isn’t a plan. Each of these projects are already underway.
“Third, we are digitising Foxtel’s customer management and marketing systems. This investment is focused on replacing our legacy customer and marketing systems that underpin the Foxtel products. Again, we are leveraging the capability we have already built for our OTT products. We expect to see significant benefits from this project in our customer servicing, engagement marketing and retention areas, both from a customer’s perspective with more self-service and from a business perspective with lower cost to serve.
“First, we are converging our streaming and technology stack and operations. This project will enhance the Foxtel Now and Go products by using our technology stack. The benefits are significant. A single technology stack reduces duplication and overhead. More importantly, our Foxtel streaming customers will get the worldclass streaming platform we have spent the last few years developing for Kayo, Binge and Flash. This project also extends to our IP-enabled settop boxes, our new iQ5s, and later this year our iQ4s, which will receive a software upgrade to be fully IP enabled. “Second, we are growing our audience in our targeted advertising capability. Growth in subscribers to add digital products also equates to growth in our advertising audience reach. When you overlay the fact that we have validated subscriber information and profiles, and we know what our customers are watching on our platforms, this allows us to be more targeted in how we digitally deliver ads. We are already
“And, finally, we are in the process of merging and modernising our broadcast infrastructure. As both an aggregator and creator of content, there is quite a bit of technology that sits behind the scenes to organise and distribute content to phones, connect to TVs and set-top boxes. This project is merging our existing OTT infrastructure and broadcast infrastructure, leveraging cloud-based solutions. Clearly, this delivers operational efficiency, but it also improves the resilience of our operations which is critical, particularly with a large, growing subscriber base.
NEWS OPERATIONS
NDI 5 Compatibility for Microsoft Teams
AJA Supports ‘Hardware Out’ in Microsoft Teams
NDI, A VIZRT GROUP BRAND, is now fully compatible with Microsoft Teams — allowing Teams users to harness the full capabilities of NDI 5 enabled technologies for broadcasts, webinars, and other video applications. NDI 5 is a high-performance connectivity and control standard allowing NDI devices to operate on a single IP network to provide real-time, ultra-low latency video production.
AJA VIDEO SYSTEMS has announced that it has collaborated with Microsoft to ensure that a range of its audio and video I/O solutions support the new Hardware Out feature in Microsoft Teams. Using the new feature with an AJA KONA 5, Io 4K Plus, or T-TAP Pro, live production and AV professionals can easily output SDI and HDMI high quality audio and video streams of on-the-ground reporters, interviewees, or events in remote locations and seamlessly weave the footage into live productions at broadcast-quality.
Microsoft Teams and NDI 5 work seamlessly together to ensure better privacy and security for users. The enhanced NDI Tools available with NDI 5 unlocks new live video production and remote capabilities for Microsoft Teams. These new capabilities are easily enabled and configured within Teams through the C&TVB440r1.pdf 1 14/09/2021 NDI permissions options within the meetings settings.
with our close partners at Microsoft to bring NDI support to Microsoft Teams. This announcement, thanks to NDI 5, delivers full integration between Microsoft Teams and the best broadcast equipment available,” says Dr. Andrew Cross, President of Global Research and Development at Vizrt. “Whether virtualizing a town hall meeting or sales event, producing a professional grade broadcast or sharing a high school production with a broad online community, NDI 5 and Microsoft Teams empowers users to make most of every moment — and share it professionally with larger audiences.”
Microsoft Teams Hardware Out support for compatible AJA hardware is accessible within the Teams interface once enabled by an administrator. Users simply click on the permissions tab, turn on broadcast capabilities, then select “Hardware Out” for the connected AJA device to receive the video signal. A host of timing, resolutions, and frame rates are available to choose from, and once the settings are established, the user can then feed the signal out through the AJA
Visit https://www.ndi.tv
14:01
“For years we’ve worked
device via SDI and HDMI to ensure a broadcast-quality signal that can be fed to routers, recorders, or other production equipment. “As production ramps back up, it’s clear that distributed workflows are here to stay, and AJA is committed to making them as simple and accessible as possible for production professionals. Collaborating with Microsoft to ensure that our most popular I/O tools support this new Teams Hardware Out feature is an exciting extension of this,” shared AJA President Nick Rashby. “The latest integration allows production professionals to transform nearly any webcam feed into a professional-grade audio and video signal to be brought into broadcastgrade productions.” Visit www.aja.com
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NEWS OPERATIONS
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NEWS OPERATIONS
Newsbridge and x.news Partner on Brand Tracking and AI-Analysis
NEWSBRIDGE AND X.NEWS have teamed up to provide brands, governments and news organisations with a flexible, powerful News and Brand tracking solution leveraged by AI. The integrated solution combines two cloudnative services powered by AI: Newsbridge’s smart asset management platform and x.news’s monitoring, research and harvester platform. Optimised for speed, flexibility and accuracy, the tag-team technology empowers users with a simple means of monitoring and further analysing brand and or news topics aggregated from multiple informational sources. From logos, personalities, audio mentions, TV keywords, and more- a variety of asset types (video, image, text, audio) are all supported, ready to be enriched with additional metadata and immediately searchable via Multimodal Indexing AI, with builtin notifications. Newsbridge is a cloud-based platform for smart media asset management offering
Multimodal Indexing via Artificial Intelligence (AI) which takes into account facial, object and scene recognition with audio transcription and semantic context. Its end-uses include media logging, archiving, monetising, and investigative research. x.news is an AI-based live story research tool that monitoring different sources (news agencies, social media sites, web and internal sources) on one screen. x.news 3.0 enables the search within PDFs, internal IPTC/EXIF image libraries, emails and WhatsApp chats. With x.news, users are able to detect trends within collections, find, follow, collect and share all the latest information on relevant topics. From multilingual speech-to-text and face recognition to object, context and logo detection, the algorithm leverages megaenriched metadata to auto-index content for advanced search and retrieval. All this while providing a systematic media logging and
product placement analysis experience for users. After automatically monitoring and analysing desired content via x.news, this media material along with the script is then harvested into Newsbridge’s Media Hub where it is indexed via Multimodal AI technology, ready for semantic search and cross-analysis of the aforementioned elements. Once ingested to the Newsbridge platform, content is aggregated into AI-powered Collections, or ever-growing folders of content triggered by various modes of detection: face, logo, speech-to-text, objects etc., allow users to obtain immediate results where thier story, personality and brand appears with whom and in what context, working with content quicker and smarter. Visit https://www.x-news.eu and https://newsbridge.io
Avid Expands Third-Party NRCS Integration, Adds Disaster Recovery AVID HAS ANNOUNCED the integration of its MediaCentral content platform with CGI’s OpenMedia, a complete solution for journalistic workflows. The move enables integration with the industry’s leading newsroom computer systems (NRCS) – including AP ENPS and Octopus. Support for additional third-party NRCS ensures production teams can access the full power of MediaCentral including the ability to collaborate remotely, accelerate workflows and produce content faster for all outlets without having to change their newsroom system.
NEWS OPERATIONS
MediaCentral’s ultra-fast search functionality lets teams find the content for stories they need when they need it and use the Media Composer video editing tool to produce content without leaving the NRCS interface. Multiplatform distribution capabilities enable them to get stories to followers and viewers faster while providing access to an end-to-end newsroom solution that enhances operations and can scale as content demand continues to grow.
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“Avid’s innovation strategy for newsrooms centers on driving more openness to help customers get more performance out of their infrastructure. By opening up MediaCentral to a wider range of newsrooms, we’re bringing
the platform’s extensive capabilities right to journalists’ fingertips,” said Raul Alba, Director of Product Management, Avid. “They can get started straight away - without extensive training, loss of productivity, or any complications associated with deploying a new NRCS - and gain the ability to create better content faster directly within the systems they already rely on.” “Integrating OpenMedia into the MediaCentral platform enables editorial teams to unify their news planning and production workflow with Avid’s state-of-the-art production platform for a seamless end-to-end user experience,” said Michael Pfitzner, Vice President of Newsroom Solutions at CGI. Avid has also extended its media production portfolio with the availability of MediaCentral | Sync, a secure backup solution available by subscription that protects television news organisations and other production environments against unexpected storage and database loss. MediaCentral | Sync enables disaster recovery and business continuity workflows by automatically replicating media and any associated metadata to a second production management system, minimising the risk of production delays by ensuring simple, efficient and reliable data backups.
MediaCentral | Sync is a seamless addition for MediaCentral production infrastructures, making it an easy and secure solution that ensures broadcasters can be confident that their content is always safe and accessible. It provides flexible media and metadata backup options, allowing users to choose when and where to back up specific assets through a web-based user interface, giving assurance that technical operations can be maintained in any situation. In addition to being fully integrated with Avid NEXIS storage, users can connect MediaCentral | Sync to multiple MediaCentral | Production Management systems while maintaining existing workflows. “Downtime is simply not an option in today’s fast-paced, always-on production environments where having access to media in a timely manner is essential for success,” said Raul Alba, Director of Product Marketing - Media and Cloud, Avid. “Media organisations need confidence that, in the event of a disaster, their valuable content is safe and can be quickly restored without impacting production operations.” Visit www.avid.com and www.cgi.com/mediasolutions
NEWS OPERATIONS
Live Citizen Journalism Using Blockchain MOG TECHNOLOGIES has partnered with SWISS TXT, the subsidiary of SRG SSR (Swiss public television) responsible for DMO and accessibility services, to explore the technical and commercial potential of a citizen journalism and social media exchange platform which is based on blockchain technology, and test the platform’s potential for new business models and applications. The partnership is the result of a successful collaboration in the HELIOS research project, sponsored and funded by the EU. Within the project’s scope, MOG has developed a collaborative production platform, where anyone with a mobile phone, and without needing additional installations, can use a browser to stream live event videos in a wide variety of scenarios such as sports, news, music shows, and cultural events. The platform allows citizens watching a live event to actively join the transmission ecosystem by capturing the events with their own phones, and easily stream the recordings through the platform. The platform managers can then choose what feeds they want to use in the final transmission or piece, and purchase them directly from the author. The exchange platform accepts multiple simultaneous streams and can be limited to a specific location or area radius (the event venue, for example), in order to better filter relevant streams.
Within the platform the manager not only can preview and switch between all the live streams with almost no latency, but also trim and merge new highlights in realtime, catalogue them, and directly send them to social media. The platform aims to empower journalists into gaining more control of their pieces with a wider library of live resources, while encouraging the audience to monetize their streams through a digital marketplace. SWISS TXT supports such live-streaming with a mobile app named Citizen Journalist App. Due to blockchain technology, this app allows journalists to store videos and images decentrally in IPFS, to work in anonymity if necessary and to be rewarded for their content in ether. The app thus supports journalists in their mobile work and in distributing content on social media. Through a decentralized web platform (DApp), the contributions can be used for the dissemination of private publishers. MOG and SWISS TXT have been actively exploring the full potential of mediatic exchange platforms like this over the past year, and recently tested it further at the next Jungfrau
Marathon in Switzerland. There, the SWISS TXT platform was tested live with MOG’s new live stream function. Visit www.mog-technologies.com
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NEWS OPERATIONS
Broadcast
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POST PRODUCTION WetaM – Pipeline in the Cloud New Zealand’s Weta Digital Digital recently announced a partnership with software provider, Autodesk, Inc., to launch WetaM – a cloud-based product offering that provides tools designed and developed by Weta Digital, fully embedded in Autodesk Maya. ACCORDING TO JOE MARKS, Chief Technology Officer at Weta Digital, “We have our own pipeline that we use internally, like pretty much every other major film studio, games studio, VFX studio. There’s tremendous duplication in those pipelines. Basically, studios keep their pipelines proprietary and internal. We’ve made a decision to take our pipeline and put a version of it in the cloud that we will make available via subscription to anyone, and that’s a relatively new thing in this industry. “We started out with some goals that we wanted this pipeline to have. The very first one is we wanted it to be capable, we wanted it to be something where people can do Wetacalibre work, potentially, with the pipeline but basically all types of commercial work in this, so it has to be fully capable. We also wanted it to be familiar, so rather than build all the software ourselves, taking our software and adding to it to make a complete pipeline, we wanted to do what everybody else does, including ourselves with pipelines, is to take existing familiar software, beginning first and foremost with Maya, and put that in the cloud, form partnerships so that this cloud offering will be familiar to people coming right out of film school or right from one job to the next, they’ll know how to be minimally competent in it to start and then they can add capabilities as they need them.” In addition to familiar Maya tools, the Softwareas-a-Service (SaaS) platform will productise Weta’s unique set of proprietary VFX tools for artists, including Lumberjack, Weta Digital’s individual vegetation tool; the Torterra forest simulator tool; WETA Digital’s City Builder tool; the Barber Shop hair and fur tool; and the Loki and Odin atmospheric and physical simulation systems. WetaM will also include PhysLight, the toolset that enables WETA’s renderer, Manuka, to use physically-accurate parameters such as light
temperature, and details of the actual physical cameras used on set. Manuka then takes these details and reproduces them for virtual lights and cameras. The platform will also enable compositing and editing, as well as HiDef shot review. “We want people all over the world to be able to use this without special hardware and without the funds to get that hardware to create a server farm, and that’s where the cloud comes in,” says joe Marks. “We wanted to be affordable, so paying a subscription model that is commercially sensible for people, and we wanted to be community oriented. If you see echoed in these terms the kind of characteristics you’d see in Adobe’s creative platform, that’s exactly right, and in fact, what Adobe is, the Adobe creative platform is to graphic designers, we want to create this cloud pipeline to be the same thing to VFX and animation folks.
“We’re going to
have software from multiple
companies in there,
beginning with Maya and our
own software,
and others as
well, we’re open to that. We’re
“We’re going to have software from multiple companies in there, beginning with Maya and our own software, and others as well, we’re open to that. We’re going to go all-in on the cloud. Everything is in the cloud and that’s a little different than what some other studios are doing. We’re not going to do a hybrid model for engineering purposes, so we’re going to have everything in the cloud and accessed over a remote terminal, which means you don’t need specialised hardware, you just need a good internet connection and a smart terminal,
going to go all-in
on the cloud.
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OWN THIS SPACE! 28
Joe Marks, Chief Technology Officer, Weta Digital.
and insofar as one can make the complicated business of VFX and animation simple, we’re going to go with ruthless simplicity to make it easy to engineer and easy to make. “By the time you see this, there may be additional partners that will offer their software in this but this is a complete pipeline built on Autodesk software with Weta plugins in there. This is kind of our roadmap, it will take us some time to do all of this, and it’s a basic USD pipeline, completely in the cloud. “Artists will be able to run a ping client using PC-over-IP, or something similar to that. Initially, they’re AWS Local Zones but potentially to other service partners. The Local Zones is a very important part of this vision that they’re not available all over the world but they will be soon and that will reduce the latency and makes them all-in the cloud offering supportable. “And, we’re going to use it ourselves to begin with. One of the goals that I have is to increase the global nature of our workforce beyond New Zealand and we need a pipeline that our global colleagues are going to be able to use for some projects, we’re going to use this, and then we’re hoping to be able to make this available to everybody after we’ve kicked the tyres via subscription model by 2022.” Visit http://www.wetafx.co.nz and http://www.autodesk.com
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POST PRODUCTION
Autodesk Flame Fuels 4K/UltraHD and HDR Content AUTODESK HAS INTRODUCED new updates to Flame, Flare, and Flame Assist, including a host of features that empower artists to meet the challenges of increasing content demands and client expectations, while further streamlining workflows to manage high-end 4K/ UltraHD and HDR content. Tool enhancements include new HDR-enabled colour curves in MasterGrade, improvements for faster conforms, and upgraded video preview options of up to 4K/UltraHD content via single cable 12G-SDI connectivity. New Flame Family features include: • HDR Advanced Hue Curves: Advanced hue curves allow artists to quickly manipulate specific colours in a shot – without requiring any keying – while preserving the fidelity of imagery. Flame’s MasterGrade tools also now include an expanded set of eight new hue modifiers and additional curve manipulation modes, providing smoother transitions in regions where hues are compressed and
further streamlining colour correction tasks for artists. • Improvements for Faster Conforms: A new Auto Link Matches function saves artists time when conforming edits, in addition to new speed optimizations when scanning media – specifically when indexing MXF files. • Video Preview Enhancements: Improved live video preview options introduce new 12G-SDI video output support (up to 4K/UltraHD content via a single cable) for video I/O cards from Blackmagic Design and AJA Video Systems. Compatible video cards include Blackmagic Design’s Ultra
Studio and Deck Link, as well as AJA’s T-TAP Pro for Thunderbolt™ 3-enabled 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 monitoring and output to Flame workflows. Visit: https://www.autodesk.com/flame/
Apple Updates Final Cut Pro APPLE HAS UPDATED Final Cut Pro with powerful new features for creative professionals, and optimisations that the company says take full advantage of the power and performance of the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in the all-new MacBook Pro. Final Cut Pro comes with innovative new features that allow editors to create beautifully tracked motion graphics and edit Cinematic mode videos recorded on iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro. The app also takes full advantage of the major performance gains enabled by M1 Pro and M1 Max in the all-new MacBook Pro. Video editors can now play seven streams of 8K ProRes at full resolution — over 230 million pixels — and export ProRes video over 5x faster than before. Today’s update also introduces a new Object Tracker that lets video editors quickly and easily create eye-catching animated graphics that follow the movement of faces or objects in a video. Object tracking analysis is up to 5x faster on the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, and takes advantage of the machine learning capabilities of the Neural Engine in Apple silicon to accelerate the detection of faces and objects in video. Videos recorded in Cinematic mode on the new iPhone 13 line-up can be edited easily with Final Cut Pro and Motion, giving editors the ability to adjust the depth effect of any shot and use keyframes to change it over time. By simply
clicking on a face or object in the viewer, editors can add or delete focus points, all without having to reshoot. Final Cut Pro companion apps Motion and Compressor have also received updates. With Motion on the new MacBook Pro, a complex project renders up to 2x as fast and can play two streams of 8K video at 5x the frame rate. Graphic artists can now combine object tracking with masks, shapes, 3D objects, behaviours and filters for stunning visual effects. And a new Neon filter adds an eye-catching glow to images, shapes, text and more. On the new MacBook Pro, Compressor can transcode HEVC video up to 2x as fast and transcode ProRes video up to 10x faster.
Compressor can also transcode Canon Cinema RAW Light video files to other professional formats like ProRes and H.264 for the first time, and Watch Folders make it simple to automatically encode content placed in a selected folder in the file system. Final Cut Pro, Motion 5.6 and Compressor 4.6 are available on the Mac App Store. Visit www.apple.com
AJA VIDEO SYSTEMS has announced T-TAP Pro support for Autodesk’s Flame Family of VFX and creative finishing tools – now available in new v2022.2 releases from Autodesk. New T-TAP Pro compatibility extends high-quality video monitoring and output to Autodesk Flame, Flame Assist and Flare workflows on compatible macOS workstations. Whether delivering VFX, 3D compositing, colour grading or editorial
finishing in Flame, T-TAP Pro offers streamlined Thunderbolt 3-connected monitoring and output of high-quality HDR and HFR video up to 4K/ UltraHD over 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 on supported Apple Mac desktop or MacBook Pro laptop computers. “Our partners at AJA have done it again, producing a great device for simplified
monitoring needs. In the age of remote working, being able to use such a small device for high-quality 12G-SDI or HDMI 2.0 monitoring is paramount. T-TAP Pro is the perfect portable companion for Flame Family products,” shared Stephane Labrie, Senior Product Owner, Autodesk Flame. Visit www.aja.com/products/t-tap-pro
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AJA T-TAP Pro with Autodesk Flame Compatibility
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POST PRODUCTION
Boris FX Marks 20 Years of Tracking with Mocha Pro 2022 BORIS FX MOCHA PRO’S celebrates 20 years of planar tracking technology with the release of Mocha Pro 2022, designed to tackle high-end visual effects tasks. The new Mocha Pro 2022 release includes speed improvements, thanks to the addition of native Apple M1 support and Adobe After Effects multi-frame rendering (currently in beta). The 2022 release allows users to experience up to 40 percent render speed increases, saving hours of valuable time under tight turnaround schedules. Mocha Pro 2022 is available as a plugin for Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and OFX host applications, including Foundry Nuke, Autodesk Flame, Blackmagic Design Fusion, HitFilm, SGO Mistika, and VEGAS Pro (or as a standalone application) with monthly and annual subscription options. According to Ross Shain, Chief Product Officer, Boris FX. “This new release has something for all types of Mocha users. Nuke, Flame, and Fusion VFX artists will appreciate new tracking features and better workflow integrations. After Effects artists and Mac owners will love the speed benefits we see from M1 and Adobe MFR support. “And the updated Insert Module brings an improved workflow to editing applications that do
not have advanced compositing capabilities. Now video editors using Media Composer, Premiere or VEGAS Pro can access mesh tracking and composite with motion blur in one timeline effect for a super streamlined process.” Mocha Pro 2022 highlights include: Architecture & speed performance: Mocha Pro 2022 supports native Apple M1, Adobe After Effects MFR (multi-frame rendering, currently in beta), and VFX Platform 2021 with improved OCIO 2.0 colour management. The Mocha Pro plugin is optimized for increased performance in playback and processing. Beta testers have seen
dramatic render speed increases depending on project type and hardware configuration. Insert Module with mesh warping: The Insert Module’s streamlined workflow now features warped surface compositing driven by PowerMesh tracking. Includes 12 composite modes, improved render quality options, motion blur, and a new grid warp interface. Planar tracking improvements: Multiple new features help deliver the highest quality tracking and roto results. Includes enhanced Quick Stabilize workflow, RGB channel view and tracking selection, improved dope sheet
for keyframing, multi-layer group linking, and more. Export options enable more workflows: Mocha Pro 2022 adds additional and updated tracking and roto exports for Nuke, Silhouette, Alembic, and SGO Mistika. Mocha Pro is available as a plugin (and standalone application) with monthly/annual subscription options, upgrade & support plans, and a permanent license with support on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. Visit www.borisfx.com
ShotGrid Empowers VFX & Animation Houses with Resource Planning TO HELP VFX, ANIMATION animation and games studios keep pace with increasing demand for high-end content, ShotGrid is bolstering its tool offerings with the launch of new Resource Planning views to aid producers and management teams to improve scheduling workflows. Resource Planning views allow facilities to optimise artist resources across the studio, projects, and departments at a high level, allowing teams to quickly scale for growing workloads. “We collaborated with a range of ShotGrid customers when developing Resource Planning views as it’s been one of the most requested additions. We’re excited to give producers and managers the ability to view their projects in a whole new way so they can react more quickly to the dynamic nature of production and be more effective in running their teams,” said Warren Trezevant, senior product manager, ShotGrid.
POST PRODUCTION
Using the live data available in ShotGrid, the new Resource Planning views let producers identify areas where artists are overloaded or underutilised, and easily rebalance work to optimize team performance. This more efficient allocation of work helps teams confidently deliver projects on time and on budget.
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Several world-leading visual effects facilities - including Vancouver-based Image Engine - worked closely with the ShotGrid development team to provide input on the specifications and prototype of the new Resource Planning tools.
New features in ShotGrid: Easily Compare the Capacity and Workload of Artists - The new high-level view provides an overview of your studio’s Artist capacity and workload across all projects and departments. Easily see when and where Artists can take on more work or when they have been assigned too much and drill down into the details with only a few clicks. View by Departments or Projects - Dynamic Department and Project views provide a breakdown of Artist resources and the work assigned. Visualise the data by departments across all projects with the Department View, or by each individual project and their departments with the Project view. Quickly Rebalance Overbooked and Under-utilised Artists - Dive into detailed views of an individual department or project and quickly identify Artists who are over or under-utilised. Easily pull up an overview of a given Artist’s assigned tasks and adjust task assignments and schedules with live data in just a few clicks. Customisable Workflows - With robust customising capabilities, tailor views and data for each unique studio need. Select custom start and end time ranges and analyse data in a variety of chart types, configure how Workload is calculated and what it represents, and adjust the capacity on each person, including contracted time - providing studios with more flexibility. Visit: https://www.autodesk.com/products/shotgrid/
POST PRODUCTION
NDI Plug-In Boosts Support for Adobe Creative Cloud NDI, A VIZRT GROUP brand, has announced upgraded support of Adobe Creative Cloud, following the launch of NDI 5 earlier this year. NDI (Network Device Interface) has expanded its capabilities for Adobe Creative Cloud with integrated extension panels for Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. The new NDI output streamlines production by removing the need for producers and creatives to export designs for teams and clients to review them. NDI is a standard that allows anyone to use real time, ultra-low latency video on existing IP video networks, with NDI 5 as the latest iteration. The NDI Plug-In for Adobe Creative Cloud opens up new remote editing and collaboration capabilities. The key benefits for users of NDI 5 for Adobe Creative Cloud include: Enables remote working - multiple editors can create different output from the same live sources, at the same time, anywhere in the world.
between disparate tool sets, makes the workflow cohesive and unlocks value.
Enables creative collaboration - connections spark innovation and creativity; NDI widens access to that creativity pool.
Enhances talent acquisition & retention - NDI adds flexibility, allowing talent to focus on creativity rather than the process. Brands can then compete for in-demand resources across a connected, global stage and to be able to offer best in-class toolsets.
Enables integration - NDI, acting as the common standard helps bridge
Visit https://www.ndi.tv
Avid Accelerates Content Editing and Production AVID MEDIA Composer | Distributed Processing speeds up content production by using adjacent computing resources to help creative teams keep up with the increasing demand for new content. Media Composer | Distributed Processing enables editors to focus more on their craft by offloading processor-intensive media creation workflow tasks to any available local computers, freeing up their Media Composer edit workstations while removing wasteful downtime from the production process for faster project turnaround. Media Composer | Distributed Processing is included with Media Composer | Enterprise software subscriptions. Media Composer | Distributed Processing enables users to: • Offload media encoding tasks with support for a variety of camera, video, and audio file formats and codecs. • Handle a media workflow’s most processor-intensive tasks - including transcode, consolidate, render, mixdown, and export - in a fraction of the
time by coordinating dispersed processing resources. Multiple complex jobs can be set up to run in the background at any time - even overnight. • Monitor systems more easily - users can track, modify, monitor, prioritise, and filter jobs remotely through the web-based dashboard and new coordinator tools that give teams insight and access to distributed computer networks. • Turn around content faster - with parallel processing, jobs can be completed faster to meet tight deadlines and the increasing need for multiple versions for streaming platforms. • Get the most out of existing resources - Comprehensive administrative tools to create logical worker groups, monitor queues, and prioritize jobs. Optimises available resources by turning Media Composer Mac or PC workstations into distributed processing “workers” when they’re not in use for editing. Visit www.avid.com
Codemill Launches Cloud-Based Video Editor
Accurate.Video Edit is a fast way to make edits needed for content compliance, content localisation for different channels or markets, versioning for different platforms, and segmentation for promo and marketing teams. This includes a unique ability to efficiently remove
unwanted elements, such as colour bars, slates, black frames and other inappropriate content. Users can also create subclips, instantly add definable black frames between clips if required and render these to their location of choice at broadcast quality, ready to use for promotional material. Features of Accurate.Video Edit include: • UI & controls – offers frameaccurate video and audio playback, using proxies when needed. Accurate.Video Edit enables thumbnails while
scrubbing to quickly find the scenes required, with extensive keyboard shortcuts for simple playback and edit functions. • Time coded metadata – users can visualize time coded metadata in the source timeline, select markers and create segments from the selection (e.g. highlights, scenes, annotations), or excluding the selection (e.g. black frames, explicit content, intro, end credits). • Timeline – includes interactive segments, and support for drag and drop. Users can insert and
overwrite timeline operational modes, snap to the closest segment, split segments, as well as undo and redo. • Export - Export and render with configurable presets, to broadcast quality formats, including ProRes, MXF and high quality MP4, using scalable cloud transcoding. Users can export video and audio, and segments as individual files (subclips) to the location of their choice. Visit https://codemill.se
POST PRODUCTION
CODEMILL HAS LAUNCHED a cloud-based video editing tool, Accurate.Video Edit. A professional video editor specifically designed for Content Supply Chain workflows, Accurate. Video Edit enables users to work efficiently in the browser to perform essential edits.
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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Techtel Unveils inflo v2.2 with IP Content and AI Support TECHTEL HAS ANNOUNCED a major new release (v2.2) of its inflo software for digital content capture, storage and processing which now includes including support for IP content and Ai. The software is 100% Australian-made and developed in-house at Techtel, giving users unique access to the service, support and the development pipeline. According to Techtel, the latest release of inflo “has more than a few tricks up its sleeve”, including compatibility with a host of SDI capture cards from manufacturers such as Bluefish444, Blackmagic and AJA, to name a few, and it can be scaled from just a few inputs to dozens or beyond. Connecting to these cards using a RESTful API interface, inflo can live anywhere, including in the cloud. NDI, SRT and URL recordings are scheduled for the next release allowing for a hybrid environment where some recordings are stream-based and others come from physical cards on premise. For operators, there is no client software to install because inflo provides all the tools they need via a simple-to-use web interface which is ideal for ease of access and means multiple users can control the system at once from their web browser of choice. It’s also simple to save files in multiple resolutions, browse and append various metadata to these files in inflo. The easy-touse UI features the ability to scrub through thumbnails while browsing your library, and to open the clip of your choice at the precise time-
code selected. At the click of a button, users can then export their media in either a single format of choice or complete a batch export containing multiple formats. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are also featured in this release of inflo. Following requests for automatic transcription services, Techtel will soon be releasing a version that has transcription available on tap when you need it. Using the speech-to-text engine of your choice, inflo can already automatically associate the caption and video content, displaying the captions using internally generated WebVTT files with timing intact. This is a game-changer for the navigability of your content, as the entire transcript will be saved as searchable metadata. It’s also simple to jump to a specific point in a video just by choosing a word in the transcript and double-clicking on it. Finally, you can export the asset with captions to downstream VOD
systems for a complete end-to-end solution. “This latest release of inflo really punches above its weight in the market,” said Mal Chandler, CEO, Techtel. “We think that a lot of customers are going to be excited to see that we can do many of the same kinds of functions that were previously out of reach for content producers in the mid-market space.” “We are really excited to see the pace of inflo’s growth,” said Matt Hall, Product Manager for inflo. “We have a really strong roadmap and our customers are providing new feature ideas regularly, so watch this space for more announcements in the near future.” Visit www.techtel.com.au
Silver Trak Digital Goes the Extras Mile for iTunes SILVER TRAK DIGITAL has qualified as an iTunes Extras Approved Partner. This means the innovative technology company can now help take the content viewer’s experience to an entirely different level.
with behind-the-scenes footage, cast interviews and full-frame photo and video galleries. It also lets them instantly access any point in a movie when they create custom navigation menus with iTunes Scenes.
As Silver Trak’s Digital Cinema Manager, Kylie Longworth, explained, “We completed thorough testing via Apple’s development team to gain this qualification and be a reliable delivery source over the last year.”
Longworth continued, “When new content becomes available, it’s updated to a viewer’s iOS device, computer or Apple TV automatically. All they need to do is press play. For the last five years, Silver Trak has delivered over 5000 features to iTunes and it is great to finally be able to fulfil the needs of viewable bonus content
iTunes Extras enables content providers to bring the audience into the movie-making process
alongside feature content for our clients.” Silver Trak iTunes Extras workflow complements other Silver Trak services such as their Media Room 3.0 media asset management solution, content digitisation and aggregation, QC and distribution. Kylie Longworth concluded, “iTunes Extras is another string to Silver Trak’s bow and enables our clients to market and sell their content and products in a very unique and valuable way.” Visit www.silvertrak.com.au
MEDIA IN THE CLOUD
Cloud-Based Live Frame Rate Converter
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M2A MEDIA, the developer of softwaredefined broadcast solutions, has announced a collaboration with image processing and broadcast standards conversion specialists InSync Technology Ltd and video streaming and transcoding experts Hiscale to launch what it says is the first motion-compensated, live, cloud-based frame rate conversion service, M2A Connect | Cloud Frame Rate Converter. Integrated with M2A Media’s cloud acquisition, aggregation, and distribution system, M2A
Connect, M2A Connect | Cloud Frame Rate Converter is a live, cloud-based, motioncompensated frame rate conversion service. Delivered entirely as an on-demand, pay-peruse solution, it offers broadcasters and OTT platforms flexibility and scalability without the capex costs usually associated with traditional, hardware-based frame rate conversion. M2A Connect | Cloud Frame Rate Converter makes it easy for global broadcasters to easily accept content in any frame rate and to convert
it to a high-performance feed for local output, regardless of where the content owner may be, without the need to invest in, host, and support dedicated hardware. M2A Connect | Cloud Frame Rate Converter is orchestrated through M2A Connect scheduling, which means live events can be scheduled for frame rate conversion as required without manual intervention on the day. Visit https://m2amedia.tv/m2a-connect
MEDIA IN THE CLOUD
SGO Upgrades Mistika Workflows A SUBSTANTIAL PRE-RELEASE of Mistika Workflows is now available to all users, introducing many new and improved functionalities, additional task and input nodes and several other enhancements throughout the software. “Mistika Workflows unlocks faster, smarter and easier standard content creation workflows for any media (post)production facility. However, its true power lies in the personalized use and custom development we have been doing for a significant number of customers all over the world over the past months. With a 100% tailored solution, Mistika Workflows is truly able to eliminate repetitive tasks and optimize resources,” said Geoff Mills, Managing Director at SGO. Among the new nodes, Mistika Workflows users are now able to find several different new tasks facilitating Panasonic media encoding, decoding and metadata management. This
latest version also unlocks the automatic creation of an XML file with the industryrequired ADI format, following the Cablelabs V 1.1 and V 3.0 standards, XAVC and XDCAM codecs. Example Python nodes have also been added to further simplify advanced customization of Mistika Workflows, enabling personalized use of watermark with CSV files and creation of custom node paths for different workflows. The list of input nodes has been further expanded, adding Auto Trigger feature, BRAW files, Panasonic P2, Panasonic 8KP2 and Sony XDROOT media pack support. FTP upload and download are now even more efficient due to the additional parameters that enable advanced media management and selection criteria. Aspera Client node has also been upgraded, adding SSL certificate login support, enhanced automatic naming options and allowing the users to decide how much
bandwidth they want to dedicate to Aspera file transfers. Based on Mistika Workflows users feedback, the functionality of transcoding nodes has been further expanded, adding the most common output resolution templates, a frame rate retimer and clip’s timecode overwrite feature among others. The Watcher node has also been updated with the “Add Root” property and “Delete After Processing” option. Debayering RAW media is now even easier due to the new input option for ARRI, R3D, Canon and Sony nodes. Another highlight of this new version is the metadata embed in the render, containing all the relevant information such as Tape Name, Color Space and others. Visit https://www.sgo.es
FUJIFILM Launches 45TB LTO Ultrium9 Data Cartridge
According to FUJIFILM, magnetic tapes are attracting an increasing attention as storage media that provides long-term storage of largecapacity data safely at low cost. In addition, it has a significantly lower environmental impact as there is no need to have it constantly powered on during data storage, thereby mitigating the amount of CO2 emissions generated during data storage by 95% compared to hard disk drives (HDDs). The high capacity, achieved in the new LTO-9, caters to the surging data storage demand amidst the rapid development of IoT technology and acceleration of Digital Transformation, and contributes to mitigating CO2 emissions. The amount of data generated worldwide has exponentially increased in recent years with the introduction of 5G networks and high-definition 4K/8K video, development of IoT, information and communication technology, and the use of Artificial Intelligence for Big Data analysis. This includes “cold-data,” or data that was generated a long time ago and rarely accessed, which is
estimated to account for more than 80% of all data. The utilisation of accumulated data, including cold data, is rapidly increasing for developing next-generation technologies, and so is the need for reliable and cost-effective longterm storage of such data for future use. Yet, consuming a large amount of electricity for using and storing high-volume data amounts will lead to increased CO2 emissions. Major data centres and private enterprises are actively adopting renewable energy to satisfy their electricity demand, or building a data infrastructure with minimal power use, in their efforts to address climate change, which is one of the major social issues. The new LTO-9 features barium ferrite magnetic particles (BaFe magnetic particles), formulated into fine particles with Fujifilm’s proprietary “NANOCUBIC technology”, evenly distributed to coat tape surfaces, forming a smooth and thin magnetic layer with minimum unevenness. This has resulted in the maximum storage capacity of 45TB (18TB for noncompressed data), some 1.5 times the capacity of LTO-8. The new tape also delivers high-speed data transfer reaching 1000MB/sec. (400MB/ sec. for non-compressed data) for advanced convenience. Furthermore, there is no need to have it constantly powered on during data storage, thereby reducing the amount
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of electricity consumption in the process compared to HDDs. Magnetic tapes can also be stored offline, creating “air gap” as a form of protection to minimise the risk of data damage/loss in cyberattacks. The fact that the storage media provides long-term storage of high-capacity data safely, has made magnetic tape a preferred choice of major data centres and research institutes for many years. Visit www.fujifilm.com.au
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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD
FUJIFILM HAS LAUNCHED its new, ultra-fast 45TB FUJIFILM LTO Ultrium9 Data Cartridge (LTO-9). The new LTO-9 data cartridge complies with the ninth generation LTO Ultrium standards for magnetic tape storage media, suitable for backing up and archiving large-capacity data. LTO-9 uses FUJIFILM’s proprietary technology to offer up to 45TB in storage capacity (18TB for non-compressed data) which is 1.5 times larger than LTO-8.
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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD
SDVI’s Rally Platform Empowers Data, Accelerates Media Exchange SDVI, THE PLATFORM PROVIDER for cloudnative media supply chains, has expanded its Rally media supply chain platform with the introduction of two new products: Rally Insight and Rally Connect. The Rally Insight data analytics service is designed to transform the immense volume of supply chain data gathered by the Rally platform into actionable intelligence, and the Rally Connect content and metadata exchange service simplifies and accelerates delivery and receipt of content across the media supply chain ecosystem. The SDVI Rally media supply chain platform deploys all the applications and infrastructure to create a dynamic, responsive media supply chain. Both of the new platform services unveiled today enhance media organizations’ efficiency and contribute to even greater speed and agility in embracing new business opportunities.
Rally Insight The Rally platform collects massive amounts of data from every step in the media supply chain. Generic business data visualization tools fail to address the unique characteristics of media content, and this lack of sophistication can make it difficult for media supply chain operators to obtain relevant results based on custom metadata. By filtering and presenting the data collected
Vidispine Tools Now on Google Cloud ARVATO SYSTEMS’ Vidispine customers can now leverage the power of the Google Cloud as a wide selection of the Vidispine products have been ported to run on the powerful Google Cloud Platform. Many products from the Vidispine protfolio, including VidiCore media management backend, and VidiEditor browser-based video production solution, are now running natively on the Google Cloud Platform. This allows Google Cloud customers to use them directly via the Platform’s web-based console and build an entire digital media supply chain natively in the cloud.
MEDIA IN THE CLOUD
In addition, it provides existing users of Vidispine products with seamless access to a wider range of Google Cloud services as an increasing number of broadcast organizations look to build out their cloud workflows. It allows, for example, Vidispine users to build out their media archive with Google Storage.
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“Arvato Systems is already a long-standing Google Cloud Partner with deep experience in cloud projects, and we are delighted to be supporting the industry-wide move towards native cloud-based workflows with our Media Supply Chain products and expertise,” comments Stefan Eckardt, Head of Platform Success within the Vidispine team at Arvato Systems. Visit www.vidispine.com
by the Rally platform, Rally Insight gives organizations a new level of intelligence about their operations, which helps them make faster, better decisions. Right out of the box, dashboards and custom charts facilitate fast and easy data visualization, enabling operators to filter and group data by show, season, project, or any other custom metadata. The result is easy access to the information that matters most to users. The accurate, granular cost and usage data supplied by Rally Insight enables media companies to better understand the true cost of their content preparation, improve accountability with more relevant reporting, and make faster, better-informed decisions about taking on new projects.
Rally Connect With a library of predefined templates, the Rally Connect content and metadata exchange service simplifies and accelerates the delivery and receipt of content and metadata between business partners in the broader media supply chain.
Rally Connect makes it easy for partners to set up ingest or delivery profiles that streamline the movement of content and metadata. Eliminating duplicate processing and reducing friction across the supply chain, Rally Connect dramatically improves media organizations’ efficiency and agility in bringing content to new platforms. Visit https://www.sdvi.com
FUJIFILM and Tiger Bridge Future-Proof the Archive FUJIFILM has announced a joint marketing alliance with Tiger Technology to provide customers with a long-term, secure, and scalable storage management solution for the seamless movement of data from a primary storage tier to tape storage. Integrating FUJIFILM’s Object Archive software with Tiger Technology’s Tiger Bridge software offers active archiving to tape while preserving the entire chain of custody. The resulting environment provides a complete archiving solution to simplify the management and archive of unstructured data, and its movement into low-cost, long-term storage. The Tiger Bridge solution monitors and manages selected areas of the local file system, then identifies data based on metadata attributes to move it to the FUJIFILM Object Archive platform. Ageing content can be actively archived - meaning that aged
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files no longer reside on local disk space, yet remain fully visible and accessible to users and applications. Once this content is archived, FUJIFILM Object Archive software provides a secure, long-term archival copy on tape, with a physical air-gap, while permitting continued access to the data. This provides immutable data copies that can help prevent a ransomware or cryptolock attack on a network. Working together, Tiger Bridge and FUJIFILM Object Archive software products provide a comprehensive archive solution that scales seamlessly as archive needs increase. The combined environment offers secure data protection for sensitive digital assets while minimising the total cost of managing longterm data. Visit https://www.FUJIFILM.com.au and https://www.tiger-technology.com
MEDIA IN THE CLOUD
Dalet Boosts Media Logistics, Production, Ingest and Playout DALET HAS INTRODUCED what it says are significant updates across its media logistics, AI-driven production and IP ingest and playout product lines. Cloud-native platforms Dalet Flex, Dalet Media Cortex and Dalet Brio provide support for the industry’s continued transition to flexible hybrid and cloud workflows offering media organisations the digital dexterity they require to power work-from-home scenarios. Robust APIs and Integration Panels simplify collaboration with creative tools like Adobe Premiere Pro and enterprise applications like Salesforce and Slack, enabling transformative media and business workflows. Dalet Flex centralises production, distribution and archiving workflows into a configurable content management application that makes it easier and less expensive to manage, package and distribute content. Advanced metadata and analytics capabilities, underpinned by a media asset management (MAM) layer and orchestration engine, provide a single source of truth for media assets across the entire media supply chain. The polycloud Dalet Flex solution can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud or as a hybrid solution providing customers choice. The new FlexXTEND Panel provides enhanced NLE integration with creative tools such as Adobe Premiere Pro. The panel features full search and content discovery with free text searching for general queries; advanced filters and sorting for targeted queries against any metadata, and saved searches for common queries. Users can work with proxy files or source content and have both thumbnail and list view for browsing and searching for content. They also have the ability to preview video, image and audio content before importing to a project. Users can cross-collaborate with FlexMAM and asset collections. The Dalet product team continues to add capabilities to Dalet Flex including previewing individually selected audio tracks, increased metadata thesaurus support and bulk metadata
The new FlexXTEND Panel provides enhanced NLE integration with creative tools such as Adobe Premiere Pro.
changes. Meanwhile, the Dalet Brio ingest and playout platform provides media companies a smooth transition path to full IP production workflows. Offering maximum flexibility for creating and delivering content across hybrid infrastructures, Dalet Brio supports greater density with more ingest and playout streams, making it even easier and faster for companies to migrate operations to IP without disrupting existing workflows that still rely on SDI. Smarter workload distribution and core optimizations around HD and UHD increase density and propel an overall smoother ingest and playout workflow for high resolution productions. The Dalet Media Cortex AI service platform leverages cognitive services and machine learning to offer Dalet customers powerful speech to text, object recognition, facial recognition and automated subtitling services. Recent additions include APIs to translate captions while preserving timing information,
eliminating the need to manually re-time translated captions. Additionally, the integrated caption editor now flags infringements around timing, line and character overlaps in real-time allowing users to address visual issues early on in the production process. A complement to both Dalet’s Media Workflows and News solutions, Dalet Media Cortex will also ship as part of the AI-powered newsroom starter pack for the soon-to-be-released Dalet Pyramid - Dalet’s next generation Unified News Operations. Dalet Media Cortex aggregates technologies from best-in-class AI engines such as Amazon Web Services and Speechmatics to deliver outstanding results. The Dalet SaaS business model lets customers consolidate systems, abdicating resource intensive maintenance while gaining the flexibility and mobility the cloud offers. Visit www.dalet.com
Converting IP Video for the Editing Suite
StreamFile Core Enterprise allows for an unlimited number of record channels based on hardware performance, with licensing based on the number of channels. StreamFile Core helps facilitate the move towards remote production as it can be used on-prem as well as through Amazon Web Services (AWS) or other cloud providers. StreamFile Core Enterprise was built upon
the same technology that powers Pronology’s mRes encoder. It enables facilities and studios transitioning to an IP-based platform to utilise their existing non-linear editing, graphics and digital system infrastructures. StreamFile Core Enterprise bridges the gap between IP-based video technology and legacy baseband recording workflows. The web-based platform supports several codecs including the ability to record ProRes and DNx with both .mxf and .mov wrappers. This allows users working from home, on location or anywhere, to take their NDI or SRT streams and turn them into edit-ready files for Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro and others. In addition to the flexible and robust record configurations, StreamFile Core Enterprise offers a web browser-agnostic, cross-platform IP stream multi-viewer. This feature allows for
extensive multi-view template flexibility, as well as user-defined display customizations, which can be easily shared with large production teams. All StreamFile Core Enterprise features are secured and managed through granular administrator-defined user credentials. It provides user permission levels including operator, production supervisor and producer, allowing various features based on user roles. StreamFile Core Enterprise is also agnostic to frame rate and resolution. Its architecture provides a future-proof way to utilize evolving IP video standards without any hardware upgrades to existing infrastructure. StreamFile Core Enterprise is an easy-to-use tool that builds upon Pronology’s reputation for creating simple and understandable solutions. Visit www.pronology.com
MEDIA IN THE CLOUD
PRONOLOGY, A DEVELOPER OF broadcast workflow solutions, has unveiled StreamFile Core Enterprise, a cross-platform web-based software application specifically designed for large teams. StreamFile Core Enterprise is a tool for receiving IP video protocols and encoding them into editor-friendly formats such as ProRes, DNx, XDCam, H.264 and others. It integrates both NewTek NDI and Haivison SRT support, providing increased IP and streaming capabilities.
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AUDIO, RADIO RADIO, PODCAST AUDIO Digital soundwaves
Nine Powers Up the Podcasts Nine is powering up podcasts across its platforms and has announced a “Total Audio Offering” for advertisers based on its Galaxy automated buying platform. AS ANNOUNCED BY NINE, As announced by Nine, “Two of Australia’s most experienced and technologically advanced newsrooms have collaborated to make national news bulletins even more accessible, with the launch of daily weekday 9News Lunch Podcast.”
The 10-minute national news bulletin is presented by Nine Radio journalists Amie Meehan and Natalie Peters – working with the newsrooms of 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR – and uses the resources of 9News’ team of journalists. Accessible every weekday from 12.30pm via all major podcast platforms, the bite-sized bulletin will allow listeners to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in local, national and international news. “The 9News Lunch Podcast does exactly what it says on the tin – a comprehensive snapshot of what’s unfolded in news across the morning,” said Hayley Bourne, Nine’s Head of Digital Audio. “This is a great example of the power of Australia’s biggest media company, collaborating internally to create on-demand, credible content for our listeners, at pace.” 9News Lunch Podcast is available now through Google, Apple, Spotify, 9News.com.au and Nine’s Radio websites. Meanwhile, Nine newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have launched twice-daily audio news bulletins accessible through smart speakers and podcast platforms. The morning and afternoon bulletins, presented by journalists from the Herald and The Age, will deliver the most up-to-date news headlines covering local, national and world politics, business, sport and entertainment in a three-minute news hit. Titled ‘News with The Sydney Morning Herald’ and ‘News with The Age’, the bulletins will be available simply by asking a smart speaker (Google Home or Amazon Alexa), or by subscribing to the bulletins via any podcast app.
AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
The 6am and 4pm bulletins will initially be presented by journalists Nathanael Cooper, Amelia Maguire, Sherryn Groch, Mex Cooper, Hanna MillsTurbet and Nicole Precel, with plans to expand the frequency of the news updates over time.
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“Launching these twice-daily news briefings is a natural step for the Herald and The Age, and allows us to showcase our agenda-setting reporting to a whole new audience,” said Tory Maguire, Executive Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. “We’re always looking for ways to make the most of our journalism and this brings together the success we’ve had with our daily newsletters and the podcast team so far.” The move further strengthens the mastheads’ commitment to audio and is produced by the same team that delivered the award-winning podcast investigation Pong Su, John Silvester’s real crime
series Naked City and popular podcast Please Explain. News with The Sydney Morning Herald and News with The Age are available on all major podcast apps and through Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Lastly, Nine Radio is driving an expanded data offering taking in live streaming and podcasting with Nine Galaxy being developed to enable total audio buying. Nine Radio unveiled the next stage of its digital transformation at the recent Nine 2022 Upfront presentation, highlighting the importance of firstparty data. Tom Malone, Nine’s Managing Director – Radio, confirmed that Nine Radio had implemented single sign-on (SSO) across its digital radio platforms, to complement its existing logged-in users and Nine’s wider data pool of 14 million people. “The future of radio is total audio. A combination of live linear radio, live streaming and on-demand audio or podcasting. We have spent the last year understanding how our listeners are consuming our live and local content and what this means for advertisers across our digital platforms,” said Malone. Over the past two years, Nine Radio has implemented a “live and local” strategy across its radio network creating “talk for a new generation”, resulting in year-on-year audience growth of 11 per cent and 14 per cent against P25-54. “Nine Radio is successfully executing generational transformation to broaden our audience, extending the dominance of 2GB in Sydney and 3AW in Melbourne, while re-establishing 6PR in Perth and 4BC in Brisbane,” Malone said. According to Nine, 15 per cent of its audience is streaming radio or consuming podcasts through mobile phone, desktop or smart speaker. In August 2021, 12 million streams and 600 million streaming minutes were consumed across Nine’s digital platform, creating what it calls “an enormous opportunity for advertisers.” “The era of radio being defined by a dial with AM or FM is long gone,” said Malone. “The way we listen to radio is changing and Nine Radio is at the forefront with a unique product which is at the heart of each city our stations serve. Our broadcasters are now available anywhere, anytime, anyhow - through apps and smart speakers. The ubiquity and mobility of radio has never been stronger. “With 600 million streaming minutes each month, podcast consumption growing and an engaged audio audience with a high disposable income, there has never been a bigger opportunity for brands to connect with the Super Consumer.” Nine has already developed its leading technology
platform Nine Galaxy for radio. It will soon roll out Galaxy for live streaming and podcast. “The way listeners tune in is changing and so too is the way marketers and agencies buy our digital audiences,” Malone said. “Soon you’ll be able to use Nine Galaxy to buy total audio in the same way as you will buy total TV, automated and addressable. “Live linear, live streaming and podcast, all delivered using Nine Galaxy and powered using Nine’s unique first-party data, giving brands an addressable audio platform at scale.”advertisers.” “The era of radio being defined by a dial with AM or FM is long gone,” said Malone. “The way we listen to radio is changing and Nine Radio is at the forefront with a unique product which is at the heart of each city our stations serve. Our broadcasters are now available anywhere, anytime, anyhow - through apps and smart speakers. The ubiquity and mobility of radio has never been stronger. “With 600 million streaming minutes each month, podcast consumption growing and an engaged audio audience with a high disposable income, there has never been a bigger opportunity for brands to connect with the Super Consumer.” Nine has already developed its leading technology platform Nine Galaxy for radio. It will soon roll out Galaxy for live streaming and podcast. “The way listeners tune in is changing and so too is the way marketers and agencies buy our digital audiences,” Malone said. “Soon you’ll be able to use Nine Galaxy to buy total audio in the same way as you will buy total TV, automated and addressable. “Live linear, live streaming and podcast, all delivered using Nine Galaxy and powered using Nine’s unique first-party data, giving brands an addressable audio platform at scale.” Visit https://www.nineforbrands.com.au
AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
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AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
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AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
TASCAM Mixcast 4 Podcast Station TASCAM HAS INTRODUCED the Mixcast 4 Podcast Station. Suitable for podcast creation, live streaming, event production, or voice over, the Mixcast 4 can mix and record mic inputs, internal sounds and music via the system’s trigger pads, as well as external audio input from a phone or PC. Mixcast 4 has an internal 14-track recorder that records directly to an SD card. With a rich feature set and the TASCAM Podcast Editor software, the new Mixcast 4 offers a complete audio production environment from pre-production to project completion.
with Mixcast 4 and offers intuitive graphics and easy operation that help users with their production. No special driver is needed when used directly with Mixcast 4 and the software supports Windows, Mac OS, and iOS. Android OS will be supported in a future update.
The Mixcast 4 incorporates four TRS/XLR combo jack mic inputs and four individual headphone outputs. It includes an automixing function that automatically adjusts optimal levels and a 5-inch colour touch screen for intuitive access to desired menu control settings.
The Mixcast 4 comes with eight fully customisable sound pads that are eight banks deep. In addition to pre-set sound effects, users can assign new sounds or even pre-recorded mic sounds that have been recorded on the unit. The Mixcast 4 sound pads also allow for easy and real-time voice effects such as voice transformation, reverb, and more.
Mixcast 4 also includes original TASCAM Podcast Editor software, which offers straightforward and practical editing of audio content, track import from Mixcast 4, as well as configuration and assignment of sound effects and background music to the unit’s sound pads. The software fully integrates
The Mixcast 4 also offers a 14-input/2-output USB audio interface for direct multi-track recording to a computer or other device, and support for a Bluetooth connection that allows recording phone calls or playing background music from paired smartphones or tablets.
Stereo line inputs are selectable between 1/4” TRS and 3.5mm TRRS to easily mix and record phone conversations or input other sound sources like musical instruments. There is also PC connectivity that enables the unit to import sounds from a computer. Other outputs include a front top panel 3.5mm TRRS headphone out that can mirror the output of headphone 1, stereo 1/4” TRS Main Monitor Outputs and a 3.5mm Stereo Line Out. Visit www.tascam.com
Pay-As-You-Go with Solid State Logic SOLID STATE LOGIC’S RECENT System T V3.1 software release introduces pay-as-you-go licensing that enables operators using the new TE1 and TE2 Tempest Engines to flexibly scale processing capabilities according to broadcast production requirements. Software licenses for five different processing packs, defined by the total number of mono All-Paths equivalent channels supported, from 85 to 800, are now available as perpetual or short-term, time-based rental upgrades.
The new TE1 Tempest Engine supports Processing Pack 1 (140 paths) or 2 (256 paths) while the TE2 engine supports all five packs, from 140 to 800 paths at 48 kHz or 85 to 500 paths at 96 kHz. The TE1 is equivalent to the original T25 engine for System T, which offered a maximum of 256 paths, while the TE2 matches the previous 800-path T80 engine. The two new engines and five processing packs expand beyond those configurations to offer a wider variety of channel path capacities that align with a broader range of applications and budgets.
The bus and stem mono path count, processing resources such as path EQ and dynamics, and effects rack are dependent on a system’s hardware configuration. System T’s Compatibility Mode allows a user to allocate processing resources on lower capacity engines or software processing packs, or lower capacity when working at a higher sample rate. This means that a showfile built on a larger engine or processing pack can be loaded onto any system, even one with a lower capacity. The user simply chooses which channels, buses and effects modules not to use on the lower capacity engine. System T V3.1 software additionally provides alerts and warnings as any processing pack license nears its expiration. SSL has also built a licensing platform through which the company can deliver and manage licenses and clients can retrieve them and add them to their console systems. Visit https://www.solidstatelogic.com/broadcast
Immersive In-Ear Monitoring DPA MICROPHONES and KLANG:technologies have teamed up to create a system they claim will enable live event teams to “immerse” singers and musicians in their on-stage performances.
AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
The solution integrates DPA’s 5100 Mobile Surround Microphone and KLANG’s Immersive Mixing Processor. In addition to KLANG’s panning capabilities, the use of DPA surround mics replaces the need for large quantities of microphones to capture the entire environment.
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Dedicated pre-sets can be integrated through the KLANG:app, a control application for all KLANG immersive in-ear mixing processors, including the just released KLANG:vokal and KLANG:kontroller. DiGiCo users can also take advantage of the full workflow implementation on the surface of their SD or Quantum range desks.
KLANG will add unique presets to its in-ear technology that work directly with the DPA 5100 Surround microphone. KLANG’s offerings help musicians become fully immersed in their performance and, with the addition of the DPA 5100, monitor engineers can now add the crucial factor of a natural ambience into the system with even more ease. The solution makes it possible to have a fully immersive live experience with a conventional set of stereo headphones or in-ears that makes the artists feel as though they are listening to the performance without the isolating effect of IEMs. This is because KLANG’s specialised functionality allows its in-ear users to hear each area of the venue from the exact position at which they are standing. Designed with five built-in pressure microphones, the DPA 5100 does not suffer
from the proximity effect common among other microphones. As such, it is capable of capturing low-end frequencies from across long distances, while still delivering a natural sound. The arrangement of the microphones within the 5100 follows ITU standards for surround and eliminates gaps between the front and rear positions. This creates a smooth and uncoloured pickup, without any phase issues. Building off DPA 5100’s benefits for broadcast applications in combination with the KLANG technology, live event teams will now also be able to create exceptionally immersive experiences for the at-home viewer. This will be particularly beneficial to live streaming applications as it allows a person to bring the arena home to remote audiences. Visit www.KLANG.com and www.dpamicrophones.com
AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
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AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
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AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
KRK Enhances KNS Headphone Range KRK HAS STRENGTHENED its studio-quality headphone offering with the new KNS 6402 and KNS 8402. Building on its KNS 6400 and 8400 headphone models, KRK enhances the durability and comfort of its headphone offerings with these updated models. Delivering an accurate listening experience in a high-performance package, KNS 6402 and 8402 headphones are suitable for studio tracking, editing, mixing, or for any general listening applications.
With a closed-back circum-aural (around the ear) design, both the KNS 8402 and KNS 6402 headphones offer a comfortable listening experience to support music producers through long studio sessions, without any fatigue. Also, the headband features a self-aligning yoke system to ensure the best possible fit. The KNS 6402 model features acoustic cellular foam pads and provides up to 26 dBA of isolation with a 122 dB maximum SPL rating and a frequency response of 10 Hz-22 kHz. The KNS 8402 headphones feature memory foam pads with premium leatherette covers, offering superior comfort during long hours of listening and recording sessions. The KNS 8402 headphones provide up to 30 dBA of isolation to block out even more external noise and feature a slightly higher SPL with a 124 dB maximum SPL rating and a frequency response of 5 Hz-23 kHz. They also feature a cable with in-line volume control, further enhancing the user experience and providing a complete spectrum of volume level options. Visit www.krkmusic.com
Grass Valley and Telos Partner on Cloud-based Intercom IN PARTNERSHIP WITH the Telos Alliance, Grass Valley is releasing Telos Infinity VIP (Virtual Intercom Platform) on its GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform). A professional intercom solution for cloudbased media production workflows, Infinity VIP on AMPP supports essential intercom functionality, including partylines, IFBs, groups and peer-to-peer communication. This new cloud-based production functionality is being beta-tested by USbased OB company All Mobile Video (AMV) and will be live with an AMV customer later in the year.
those flight cases hundreds or thousands of miles; and if requirements change on a production, we have instant access to whatever is needed. All of this is made possible with the cloud by ‘spinning up’ what we need when we need it,” said Eric Duke, CEO, AMV.
“With GV AMPP, every solution is current, this means that we no longer have to amortise equipment; we don’t need a warehouse full of kit in flight-cases; we don’t have to move
With Infinity VIP on AMPP, operators supporting live productions from anywhere can access the application from any connected browser. The microphone and
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.
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
IP Audio Decoder for Radio Broadcasters
AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
BARIX HAS ADDED TO ITS RANGE OF Exstreamer audio over IP codecs with the launch of the Exstreamer M400 IP audio decoder.
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The Exstreamer M400 features stereo, linelevel, analogue audio output with RCA-type connections and can decode streams in MP3, AAC-HE, FLAC, PCM, Opus, and Ogg Vorbis formats. Newly added AES67 support enables the Exstreamer M400 to instead be configured as a dedicated AES67 receiver and decoder, enabling seamless integration into AES67-based audio-over-IP networks plus interoperability with Dante-compatible devices. The Exstreamer M400 incorporates the full AES67 interoperability guidelines including RTP audio delivery, multicast addressing, and PTP-based synchronization with a separate master clock device.
Supported discovery methods include SAP (Session Announcement Protocol), mDNS (multicast DNS), and RTSP, enabling the decoder to automatically identify and list available streams from Dante, Ravenna, and other audio over IP solutions that use these protocols. SDP (Session Description Protocol) information can also be manually inserted for interoperability with third-party solutions that do not support these standards. Powered by Barix’s Linux-based IPAM 400 audio module, the Exstreamer M400 features higher processing power than earlier Exstreamer models and a more programmable, software-driven architecture that enables easier expansion, rapid prototyping, and greater customisation. A larger buffer size and advanced buffer management technology can be configured
to further bolster the Exstreamer M400’s resilience to network performance disruptions in applications where minimising latency is not critical. Expanded support for IT security standards includes HTTPS: support for audio streams and the web-based management interface, plus secure, encrypted SIP communication links using TLS and SRTP. Other new features relative to earlier Exstreamer models include IPV6 support and internal audio file storage with externally triggered playback. The Exstreamer M400’s Linux-based architecture enables extensive upgradability. A modern API is planned for future release for developers, replacing previous Exstreamer models’ older CGI control specification. Visit www.barix.com/exstreamer-m400
AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
StreamGuys Offers Google Actions EXPANDING THE RANGE of smart home devices through which radio broadcasters can engage their audiences, pioneering streaming and podcast solutions provider StreamGuys is now offering custom development of Google Actions. Paralleling the Alexa Skills that StreamGuys has been providing for many years, Google Actions enable listeners to access stations’ live and on-demand content on Google smart speakers and other Googleenabled devices through intuitive voice commands.
StreamGuys’ Google Actions creation service allows broadcasters who don’t have their own in-house development capabilities to take advantage of the growing ecosystem of Google smart devices for engaging their audience. Once enabled on a smart device, the custom Actions allow listeners to verbally access not
only live streams and podcast episodes, but also additional on-demand content offered by a station. Broadcasters can choose the unique words that users speak to launch their programming, as well as tailoring the interactive experience surrounding their content with customizations such as using their own DJs’ voices for device messages and prompts. One of the first stations to take advantage of Google Actions developed by StreamGuys is The House FM, an Oklahoma-based Christian radio broadcaster. Listeners can access the station’s voice-prompted menu by saying “OK Google, ask The House FM to play the live stream” or “OK Google, talk to The House FM”, or go directly to desired content with commands such as “OK Google, play The House of Praise”. For broadcasters using StreamGuys’
CDN and SaaS-based solutions, tight integration between the Google Actions and StreamGuys’ SGmetadata metadata delivery system also allows live stream listeners to ask questions such as “what’s playing?” or “what song is this?”, with the device then speaking out the current song details. StreamGuys-created Google Actions can be used on all Google Assistant-compatible devices. This includes native Google devices (Google Nest Audio, Google Nest Hub Max, Google Nest Mini) and third-part smart devices from JBL and Sonos. In addition to dedicated smart home devices, Google Actions are also supported natively on Android smartphones. Visit www.streamguys.com
AETA Adds 5G to ScoopTeam Commentary Unit
According to Yann Vonarburg, general manager of AETA Audio Systems, “The fact that ScoopTeam can now embed a 5G
network connection will result in safer audio links, even via wireless networks that should not be saturated anymore, greatly reducing obstacles inherent to AoIP connections.” The ScoopTeam commentary unit also offers Ethernet, 4G, Wi-Fi, VoLTE ISDN and AES67 connections together with “AETA remote access” technology so technicians in the master control room can take control of one or more units wherever they are.
ScoopTeam’s 5G upgrade comes after AETA’s announcement that the unit can now embed two wireless modules. With these upgrades, ScoopTeam will be able to connect to both 4G and 5G networks simultaneously, as well as offering bonding and double streaming options, if still necessary. Visit www.aeta-audio.com
AUDIO, RADIO, PODCAST
AETA AUDIO SYSTEMS has added 5G capability to its list of ScoopTeam features. With improved speeds up to 100 Gbps - theoretically 100 times faster than 4G 5G is set to not only ease the task of the broadcaster, but also enhance the user experience.
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CONTENT DELIVERY Terrestrial, Mobile, Broadband
SCA Chooses MediaHub to Deliver Sky News Regional RECENTLY LAUNCHED Sky News Regional offers free-to-air access for viewers in parts of NSW, VIC, QLD and SA to a mix of live breaking news, weather, national affairs and sport from the Sky News Australia and FOX Sports News teams. It is carried on WIN Channel 53 and Southern Cross Austereo’s Channel 56. When SCA was working with Sky News Australia on the broadcast deal for the regional channels, Sky News Australia recommended SCA use MediaHub to deliver its services across Australia. As MediaHub Australia Executive Head of Operations, Scott Jolly, explained, “SCA and Sky News were keen to partner with MediaHub due to our quality of service and the collaborative relationship we already had with Sky News Australia. After a series of meetings and discussions with SCA we were awarded the contract.” Jolly continued, “SCA required three HD channels for regional Queensland, regional Southern NSW and regional Victoria. The channels are a mix of Sky News Australia and FOX SPORTS News programming. On a technical level they required connectivity via MediaHub’s FibreHub network to and from four live studios including live talkback. They also needed channel branding and graphics capabilities, promo and commercial content aggregation and commercial insertion for each of the three markets. Finally, SCA wanted us to provide programme record, preparation and turnaround for replay and breaking news quickswitching capabilities.”
breakfast show for Sky News Regional viewers.”
“MediaHub provided three free to air, dedicated, live 24hour news channels within three weeks.
The requirements were comprehensive with a tight timeframe. However, according to Jolly, this wasn’t an issue for MediaHub Australia.
Now complete and operational, the new MediaHub Australia solution comprises of fully redundant A and B broadcast chains allowing for high availability delivered from MediaHub’s datacentre in Ingleburn, NSW, including ingest, processing, channel creation, presentation playout and distribution operations.
He continued, “MediaHub provided three free to air, dedicated, live 24-hour news channels within three weeks. This included building workflows for schedule delivery and conversion, graphics requirements, commercial aggregation from suppliers and workflows for promos. Our solution also includes facilitating an exclusive dedicated
Sky News Head of Operations and Innovation, Mark McKeown, said, Sky News Head of Operations and Innovation, Mark McKeown, said, “MediaHub is one of our most trusted technology partners. The team is
innovative and efficient, and its products and services are flexible, scalable and reliable which is critical for live events and 24/7 channels.” SCA Head of Engineering, Dan Jackson, added, “SCA was able to take full advantage of the preexisting relationships between MediaHub and Sky. This relationship clearly allowed MediaHub to provide a quick and efficient solution that meets our needs and was evident with a seamless transition on the night.” “It was a pleasure to collaborate on this project with both the Sky News and SCA teams and its testament to their skills and determination that we achieved this all so quickly,” concluded Scott Jolly. “MediaHub has an excellent and close working relationship with Sky News Australia providing playout for their channels on Foxtel and their OTT platforms and we are delighted to expand on the services we provide for SCA on free to air.” Visit www.mediahubaustralia.com.au
ATEME Completes Ground-Breaking Open Caching Testbed
CONTENT DELIVERY
ATEME, THE PROVIDER OF video delivery solutions for broadcast, cable TV, DTH, IPTV and OTT, has announced its ongoing participation in the Streaming Video Alliance’s ground-breaking Open Caching API Testbed Initiative.
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As part of the initiative, designed to demonstrate API functionality in an interoperable system between content owners, CDNs, and network operators, ATEME helps to continuously enrich the testbed. This involves testing a different subset of features at every iteration and conducting specification validation and interoperability tests. The testbed is a vital step in the development of an Open Caching network, which will ensure that the same cache can be used by any compliant
system. This will offer benefits to entities across the comprehensive delivery chain and enhance the experience for the end user.
full circle, from initial concept to a real-world implementation, with potential to have a lasting impact on the streaming industry.”
ATEME is further contributing to the testbed by developing an updated version of its NEA CDN solution to ensure it meets the specifications required to feature within Open Caching networks. It then validates its interoperability against the cases and features specified by the testbed.
Christophe Burdinat, Director, Technology and Standards, ATEME, commented: “Open Caching has the potential to revolutionize the OTT industry and we are thrilled to have completed the Streaming Video Alliance’s interoperability testbed to help bring this to fruition. We are committed to contributing to the testbed over the coming months, both by offering our expertise and also our technology which will help to provide a solid foundation for much-needed interoperability throughout the entire delivery chain.”
Jason Thibeault, Executive Director at the Streaming Video Alliance, said: “The Open Caching interoperability testbed represents some of the groundbreaking work our members are committed to at the Alliance. I applaud ATEME for its dedication to helping to bring this
Visit www.ateme.com
CONTENT DELIVERY
Magna and MediaHub’s Monitoring TAG Team as uncompressed multicast streams or CDN delivered feeds to the TAG system, and the TAG software is able to decode the steams at low latency and with high quality. The output from TAG (Mosaics) is sent as SMPTE-2110 uncompressed streams back to the IP video network. On the Network are AJA 2110 to HDMI decoders and these convert the TAG Mosaics back to HDMI to feeding into the monitoring screens in the MCR area. TAG also outputs a compressed stream so MediaHub is able to see the Mosaics on standard PCs on-site or remotely when working from home. This has come in handy during the current COVID situation
As MediaHub Australia Executive Head of Technology, Simon Scott, explained, “We needed continuous video service monitoring of uncompressed and compressed audio and video feeds, including captions, triggers, audio at low latency and high quality with API based alarming. We also had specific goals including that the system had to run in a COTS and IP environment.”
Scott continued, “TAG has various alarms and penalty box monitoring configurations that meet the requirements of our MCR. It also has API support, so alarm data is able to be aggregated by our manager of managers for historical trending and AI-based alarm processing and prediction.”
Working closely with Magna Systems Senior Solutions Specialist, Tim Banner, Scott was reassured that the TAG monitoring solution would meet all of MediaHub’s needs. “TAG VS seem to have hit the industry at the right time and right place with the tools to fulfil all the needs of a traditional master control monitoring environment whilst also bringing it all up to the COTS and IP technology layer,” added Simon Scott. “One of their standout features is their ability to mix and match compressed, uncompressed and CDN-delivered source feeds into a single screen, to be able to monitor he full end-to-end delivery flow. This is a must for broadcasters as we are inevitably delivering to more and more endpoints.” At MediaHub Australia, video feeds are available
“TAG met the desire of the business to retain all the benefits of a traditional hardware multiviewer but in a software, IP and COTS world. Low latency monitoring was a key requirement, as we didn’t want to go back in performance when moving to IP. As it is all software, TAG are able to build on additional features quickly to meet future new requirements.” He added “As compute increases we are able to do more on a single server. For example, in 2018 we were able to test just 12 channels running on a single server output. Today we have a single COTS server, at lower purchase cost than a 2018 server that is running 40x uncompressed feeds and 96x compressed feeds with one UHD Mosaic output, one compressed HD Mosaic output, and one uncompressed HD Mosaic output. Today with the new Dell R650 Gen 15 server, which
uses the high speed PCI4 bus, one TAG server can monitor over 100 uncompressed sources on multiple UHD mosaic outputs.” In addition to the TAG solution, Magna Systems provided installation and design assistance, as well as support for the product locally and a key point of contact with TAG VS. Magna Systems group sales and marketing manager, Paul Maroni, said, “MediaHub is an incredibly forward-thinking company when it comes to technology. They only settle for the very best and it’s clear that they enjoy great synergies with the TAG monitoring solution. The TAG monitoring solution is one of the leading IP Monitoring solutions of choice for customers across Australia and the globe. When you’re a company that focuses on one thing, you do it right. Magna Systems and Engineering are proud to partner with such a customer focused manufacturer as TAG.” The TAG MCM-9000 supplied by Magna gives MediaHub a scalable solution for monitoring many different broadcast scenarios. TAG also supports API control and alarming, allowing MediaHub to rely more on telemetry data to improve their quality-of-service for their clients as well as the efficiencies of monitoring by exception (penalty box monitoring). Simon Scott concluded, “The simplicity of the TAG solution Magna provided was a winner. There was no large installation, testing or onsite customisation. It was as simple as plugging in a USB stick, which houses the software and OS and the server booted as a multiviewer. After a few minutes auto-detecting multicast feeds and assigning a layout you’re done, up and running. It is the fastest deployment we have seen of a product. It was literally plug and play.” Visit www.magnasys.tv
CONTENT DELIVERY
MEDIAHUB AUSTRALIA had been “monitoring” the progress of the TAG VS monitoring system solution since seeing the product at NAB some time ago. The company performed a PoC with in-depth internal system testing with TAG in preparation for the move to a COTS and IP-based platform for future systems. It then went through an exhaustive RFP process for their master control room refresh project and the outcome of the process was that TAG was selected as the monitoring solution for MediaHub’s IP platform. The winner of the RFP, MediaHub’s TAG solution provider and technology partner was Magna Systems & Engineering.
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CONTENT DELIVERY
Qvest and Grass Valley Sign Global Agreement GRASS VALLEY has signed a USD$25 million, multi-year contract with consultant, systems architect and media technology provider Qvest, which will see Qvest standardising on Grass Valley production solutions.
Grass Valley Positions for the Future of Live Media and Entertainment GRASS VALLEY has strengthened its commitment to be the transformation partner of choice for creators and providers of live content with the launch of a strategic focus on live video. Underpinning the move is a new corporate identity and marketing campaign under the banner of “We Love Live”, and the GV Media Universe (GVMU), a digital ecosystem that allows media companies to use both on-premise and cloud technologies to build live production environments while adapting to future demands. According to Greg de Bressac, VP Sales & Customer Success, APAC, with Grass Valley, “There’s a few underlying trends that we’re seeing that have become really important to people as the pandemic’s gone on. And I think it’s here to stay. “The first one is remote production, and it has to be. True remote production, where you can say, ‘right, I’m going to put the people that control my production in one location and the people and the product that acquires my content in another location’ has come along absolutely in leaps and bounds across the pandemic. And, we were already doing it with Direct IP and Direct IP+, Direct IP being the uncompressed, and Direct IP+ being the compressed solution around our cameras.
CONTENT DELIVERY
“But, where we were seeing those types of technologies at first being taken up on the margins and being tested and proven by big content acquirers like the NEPs of this world or the Gravitys of this world, we’ve seen a real take-up, a real pushing of the boundaries as we’ve gone into the pandemic - both in live production in traditional remote productions (hub and spoke), and with distributed live production.”
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Greg de Bressac says the difference between remote production and distributed live production is dictated by economics with remote production being about connectivity between one location to another location with all the processing on one side (the Hub) and as little as possible on the other side (spoke). Meanwhile, distributed live production is more about decentralising where the processing power lives. “I think that has come along in leaps and bounds across the pandemic,” he says, “because companies didn’t have the chance nor the budget to build a whole hub-
style production infrastructure during the pandemic. They had to just try and spin something up. “And so, whether it be in India, China, Oceania, North Asia, Japan, Greg de Bressac, Grass Valley’s VP we’re seeing it Sales & Customer Success, APAC. going absolute gangbusters in this idea of saying, ‘our first question is can we do this? Can I take my small, medium, even large live production and can I do it in a distributed environment, potentially a cloud, be it private cloud or public cloud? Can I have a switcher that can be located in the cloud, in some form of cloud? And then can I do that with my replay? Can I get my signals up there with enough timing, integrity, with low-enough latency so I can actually create a quality production? And I think we, as an industry, not just Grass Valley, but we as an industry have proven yes. And so now it’s about saying okay, well, how do we scale that? How do we productise that as an industry? And what we’ve done is we’ve productised it in GV AMPP. And so that’s our go-tomarket. “Our GV Media Universe is essentially the go-to-market of our platform, being GV AMPP, the Agile Media Processing Platform. And so, I think that’s a big thing for our industry.” Visit www.grassvalley.com
The agreement marks the formation of a global and long-term strategic partnership building on the parties’ proven experience, customer relationships and market references. According to Christian Massmann, CSO of, Qvest, “Our customers are the cornerstone of the M&E space, ranging from news networks to sports broadcasters, video streaming services, and major film studios. These technology-reliant operators demand state-of-the-art solutions that enable them to differentiate their services and maintain a competitive edge. To offer this to our customers, in addition to our technology and transformation expertise we have built up a worldwide partner network of first-class product manufacturers over many years. By also working closer with the Grass Valley team in future, we are able to share market insights, align our technology roadmaps and leverage greater purchasing.” Tim Shoulders, CEO and president, Grass Valley added, “We are delighted to be embarking on this next phase of the strategic partnership with Qvest and look forward to jointly realising the benefits of the win-win enterprise agreement.” Visit www.grassvalley.com and www.qvest.com
CONTENT DELIVERY
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Business Development Manager
• Melbourne location – ideally • Vic, WA, SA, Tas responsibility • AV Integrated Solutions – Professional and Commercial • Australian Leader in Audio/Visual Products & Solutions
have demonstrated sales and business development skills in the commerical AV market. Although you will be mainly focussed on Victoria you will also travel to SA and WA a few times per year. Please call Phil Holey on (02) 9904 4414 and 0412 311 107 and email your CV in MICROSOFT WORD. Please also forward a covering letter indicating your matching skills with the requirements for the role. Email both as Word docs to jobs@interlogic.com.au Quote 67CT ----------------------------------------------------------------
• Cutting Edge AV Collaboration and Unified Communications • reat company culture with unmatched retention Your New Employer is a standout leader in the distribution of audiovisual solutions for installation projects in Australia and New Zealand and services market segments including media & communications, live sound & production, music instruments & sound recording, residential & commercial installations, and home entertainment. With an impressive portfolio of top shelf brands, they have set the benchmark in sourcing, supplying and supporting the best customer focused solutions. An exceptional career opportunity awaits to join the team that proudly consists of industry experts with outstanding experience. In your new role as Southern Region Business Development Manager, you will report directly to the Divisional General Manager and cover Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. You will be tasked with establishing and maintaining relationships with acoustic/AV/audio consultants, Systems Integrators, government and educational institutions to promote understanding and specifications of the company’s products and brands. Your activities will also be integral in the identification and development of new business opportunities for the company’s products and brands, supporting the Account Managers with transitioning new business initiatives into general business. You will have an in-depth knowledge of the AV market gained from the industry, and the audio and visual products that are utilsed in various applications. You will
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Sales Account Manager Location: Sydney, NSW
Why work for Digistor? 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. Sound like a workplace for you? Then, check this position available now. The successful candidate will: • be both energetic and motivated, with a strong desire to contribute their best to a team that prides itself on supporting each other and working collaboratively to achieve the best outcomes • be naturally inquisitive, with a desire to continually develop new knowledge and skills both autonomously and as part of a structured training program • understand the value of personal interaction in forging strong and mutually rewarding long term business relationships – Professional and Commercial • have proven experience with at least two years prior engagement in a technical sales role, ideally within the digital media industry If you desire to accelerate your sales career with an employer working with the latest and best technology in an exciting and expanding market, this could be the role for you. Apply now by email to staffing@ digistor.com.au.
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The successful candidate will have the following skills: • IT knowledge across server and networking fundamentals; • Track record of high quality, accurate documentation;
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Senior Broadcast Systems Engineer Professional Audio & Television Pty Ltd. Hornsby, Northern Suburb of Sydney. PAT has a vacancy for a Senior Broadcast Systems Engineer based in the north of Sydney. We are an authorised reseller and solutions provider for brands such as ARISTA, LAWO, Densitron IDS, TSL Products, Meinberg, Mobile Viewpoint, ENCO, Boland, RTW, CyanView, Boland Communications, Genelec, Qbit, StudioHub, DSA Volgman, AngryAudio, DreamChip, NVIDIA and other leading brands. The role: The Senior Broadcast Systems Engineer role is a critical position performing end-to-end planning and documentation of deployment, configuration, testing and commissioning procedures for high-profile broadcast system projects. An intimate knowledge of IP broadcast networks is a MUST.
• Excellent interpersonal, administrative and communication skills; • Flexibility to travel nationally & internationally as COVID restrictions are lifted; • Clean driving record and Class C drivers license We are offering the successful candidate the chance to join a very successful team of high achievers, an attractive salary package and the chance to work on some of the most cutting-edge broadcast projects in Australia and New Zealand.
Apply to: management@proaudiotv.com.au with a one-page cover letter explaining why you are the right person for the job and your CV. Only applicants with Australian or New Zealand citizenship or permanent Australian residency and work rights are eligible to apply.
Typical responsibilities will include: • Assisting Senior Management with pre sales; • Project Management, planning and documentation; • Formulation of testing and deployment plans; • Broadcast systems configuration, testing and commissioning; • Liaison with manufacturers project teams and customer stakeholders; • Co-operate with our Service & Support Department To be the successful candidate for this position, you will have a combination of project engineering experience in digital IP broadcast system environments, together with outstanding customer-facing communication skills. System integration experience is a MUST. As the performance of this role impacts state of the art broadcast IT systems and infrastructure deployments, a minimum of w5 years’ experience in similar broadcast technology environments is essential.
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POSITIONS VACANT --------------------------------------------------------------
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Market Development Senior Manager Our Telstra Broadcast Services team deliver exceptional content around the world. We provide our customers a dedicated team of media industry professionals, high performance media networks, online video and cloud platforms, world class satellite services, and 24/7 bookings, operations and engineering support.
Role purpose The purpose of the role is to generate growth in the global Broadcast Media industry in both brand awareness and sales. Execute a dynamic and comprehensive marketing plan that elevates Telstra Broadcast Services’ offering, people, and brand across the world to be recognized as undisputed experts of media services.
Key Responsibilities Brand awareness: Bring to life what we do through powerful customer storytelling and joint initiatives; Showcase and elevate our people and brand through events, speaking opps, and media interviews; Highlight business milestones and company Content news through press releases Management and media relations; and Build relationships with key industry associations and publications through marketing initiatives.
yout
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------------------------------------------------------------online through social media and search engine marketing; Develop and promote case studies with customers to validate our value proposition; and develop and execute plan for content syndication and digital advertising.
System Consultant
Product Marketing: Work with product to develop core product offerings and solutions; Promote global product campaigns and services as they become available based on product roadmap and inregion availability; and collaborate with product marketing team to develop new collateral and content that highlights our products through the lens of strategic industries.
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.
Sales Enablement: Develop narratives based on deeper customer segmentation and develop targeted messaging and content; Train sales team on technical and selling of new and existing offerings. Lead Generation and Analytics: Execute lead lifecycle process with a clear and defined lead nurturing program; Segment and prioritize lead and contact lists for easy execution of lead nurturing; Track, measure, and report performance. For more selection criteria and details on how to apply, please visit https://bit.ly/3n4wUjA Please note: this role requires the successful candidate to be vaccinated against Covid-19, to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our people and customers. However, please speak to us if you have any questions about this based on your individual circumstances.
Content and Digital Marketing: Execute a comprehensive content and digital marketing plan; Bring value and leadership to the market through webinars, email blasts, blogs, and other content based on Packaging monthly themes to keep content fresh; Increase brand awareness
Riedel Communications Australia Pty Ltd Rosebery, NSW
Typical responsibilities will include: Full responsibility for System design and delivery within the ANZ business unit; Design systems or assist customers, system integrators and Riedel sales staff with system designs, combining technical and commercial aspects; Manage customer projects; Represent 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 softand firmware, managing the demo stock; Coordination and performance of on-site service, demo and training; Receive calls and emails and answer technical requests; and report major technical issues to headquarters. 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; Experience in interactions and presentations at B-Level and knowledge of the essential tools for self-management, negotiation and problem solving; Capability to manage direct relationships with customers as well as to establish and maintain partnerships to
distribution partners and SI’s Independent, process- and solution-oriented way of working; Entrepreneurial personality who is understood and accepted by management, colleagues and staff as a thought leader in his/ her field of expertise; Outgoing, strong powers of persuasion and assertiveness; Goal setting and directing with the ability to lead and develop qualified employees; Team player whose personality and basic attitude fit into an international, strongly medium-sized company; and ability to think across divisions and willingness to work closely with other divisions. To achieve our goals, we are always looking for highly motivated and qualified colleagues to join our Family and grow with us. Riedel provides an innovative, collaborative, and diverse work environment, with great challenges. We believe and promote employee career advancement and offer flexible schedule as well as sustainable learning. For more selection criteria and details on how to apply, please visit https://bit.ly/3BYEy5n
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ADVERTISER INDEX ADVERTISER INDEX B l aDesign c -------------------------------------------------------------k m a g i Blackmagic 5c Design ---------------------------------------------------------------D2N Technology Solutions ----------------------------------------------- 65
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35 Jands-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Pacific Live Media --------------------------------------------------------- 21,23 Professional Audio & Television ------------------------------FC,9,11 39 LAWO---------------------------------------------------------------------
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DISCOVER LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES WITH THE GV MEDIA UNIVERSE The shift to cloud-based operations brings incredible benefits - the ability to produce anywhere, distribute everywhere, and dynamically flex operations to suit. Making this shift could be daunting, but with Grass Valley by your side it’s a breeze. The GV Media Universe brings together our solutions, pre-qualified partner software, connected hardware and related services into a unified user experience with familiar media workflows. At the core is AMPP, GV’s scalable cloud platform, designed for exacting live production environments, with unique capabilities to manage latency and bandwidth. AMPP leverages elastic compute and microservices technology so you can create and deliver more content with ease and efficiency, paying only for what you use. Break free from fixed infrastructures and expand your world into the GV Media Universe. Find out more at grassvalley.com/gvmu Copyright © 2021 Grass Valley Canada. All rights reserved. Specifications subject to change without notice.