Content+Technology May-June 2024

ISSN 1448-9554 PP:255003/06831

Pty Ltd (ABN

11 CAMERAS & LIGHTING

Ben Cotgrove - 2024 Australian Cinematographer of the Year; FujiFilm Expands Duvo Series, Retires HD Lenses; ATOMOS Turns iPhones Into Ninjas; Sony 4K 60p PTZ Camera with AI-Based Auto Framing; ARRI Brings Cinema Quality to Live Production; Laowa Ranger S35 Compact Cine Zooms.

14 SPORTSCASTING

Creative Imagery captures the Spirit of Tasmania; Vizrt Brings Smart Video Cropping to Sports Social Media; Chyron Updates LIVE Cloud Production Platform.

18 NEWS OPERATIONS

ABC Rejoins Asiavision; Outsourced TV3 News Has Got the ‘Stuff’; Sky News Oz Boosts NZ Coverage; Vinten Keeps Track with VEGA Presenter; Pixotope Brings Unreal Power to News Broadcast Graphics.

20 POST PRODUCTION

Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 19; DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel; Wacom Movink OLED Pen Display; SGO Updates Mistika Boutique and Ultima; Final Cut Pro Brings AI to Mac and Live Multicam to iPad; AWS Accelerates Rendering Pipelines with Deadline Cloud; Animal Logic to Retire AL_USDMaya.

24

AUDIO, RADIO, PODCASTING

Sydney’s Radio 999SWR Picks AEQ Forum IP Console; Pacific Expansion for ABC Radio Australia; ABC and SBS Launch DAB+ Services on the Gold Coast; Techtel’s inflo Integrates OpenAI’s Whisper; Sound Devices 8-Series Update; NUGEN Audio’s Halo Suite Gets Immersive; Pliant Enhances SmartBoom LITE Headset; Shure Nexadyne Dynamic Vocal Mics.

28 CONTENT DELIVERY

Mildura Region to Lose Network 10 Broadcasts; Cloud Playout: A Win-Win for Costs and Carbon Footprint; Blackmagic Design Takes on SMPTE 2110.

Air, Time?

By Phil Sandberg

VIBRANT GLOBES OF oranges hang in contrast to leaves of dark green, clusters of grapes ripen in its dry air and sunshine, but could the Sunraysia region of western Victoria/NSW not only be the place where Australian digital terrestrial television had its start, but where it also began to wither on the vine?

June 30 this year will see residents of Mildura/Sunraysia lose freeto-air access to Channel 10 and its associated Bold and Peach channels as the Seven West Media/ WIN Corporation joint venture, Mildura Digital Television Pty Ltd, is shuttered due to an untenable financial position [see story page 28]. To date, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has released no statement on the closure.

Ironically, the service will cease on the 14th anniversary of Mildura/ Sunraysia becoming the first region in Australia to switch to digital-only television. Considering analogue had been the dominant form of television transmission for 54 years prior to 2010’s first digital switch-over, 14 years is not a long time. It does, however, reflect the pace of change since then. Competition from online sources, subsequent market fragmentation and the rise of mobile video delivery have rapidly impacted the once-dominant position of the transmission tower.

Released in April 2024, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts’ 2023 Television and Media Survey provides information on the screen and media content engagement practices, habits, and expectations of Australians. It shows clearly the status of terrestrial TV consumption.

According to the survey, the use of online subscription services dominated with 65% of respondents having watched such services in the week prior to the survey, while the use of free video streaming services increased 61% over the previous year. This was tempered by the fact that 42% of respondents had either cancelled or downgraded their

online streaming subscription services in the six months prior to being surveyed. Reflecting, perhaps, cost of living pressures, 38% of those who cancelled or downgraded cited expense as the reason for their decisions.

This, however, is not a respite for free-to-air commercial TV, as only 51% of respondents watched FTA TV in the week prior to the survey. These results are hardly confined to the Australian market.

Responding to a request from the UK Department for Culture, Media and SportUK, that country’s regulator, Ofcom, recently released a report on what it sees as the future of TV distribution.

In recent years, it says, there has been a radical shift in UK viewing habits. TV is increasingly being viewed online, driven by the mass take-up of broadband, a range of different devices, new platforms, and ways to consume content.

The average person spent 25% fewer minutes per day watching broadcast TV in 2023 than in 2018.

Ofcom says the trend is expected to continue, with watching on scheduled TV channels through Digital Terrestrial Television and satellite forecast to drop from 67% of total long-form TV viewing in 2022, to 35% by 2034 and 27% by 2040. Much of that remaining viewing will be done by households that rely solely on DTT, which are more likely to include people who are older, less affluent or have a disability.

The report says UK broadcasters have identified a potential tipping point for DTT where it may no longer be economically viable to support DTT in its current form. This could lead to removing HD from the country’s Freeview or reducing the number of channels the platform can broadcast – but without support for those viewers who rely on DTT to access those services over the Internet.

The UK regulator says approaches to delivering universal TV in the future may include:

• Investment in a more efficient DTT service – potentially

supporting audiences with new equipment for more efficient broadcast signals.

• Reducing DTT to a core service –retaining a minimum number of core channels while maintaining infrastructure that could deliver radio or TV, including if there are internet outages.

• Move towards DTT switch-off in the longer term – ensuring people are confident and connected with internet services, so DTT could be switched off.

It should be noted that the latter option has been one mooted in the UK since the golden age of spectrum auctions when governments around the world could see no end to the amount of money telecommunications companies were prepared to pay for more efficient bandwidth.

There is no suggestion that Australian media companies have been idle during these recent years of market and technology shifts. Most have robust streaming options in place which attract revenue. These are part of a necessary process of evolution. As for digital terrestrial delivery, it was at a post-NAB SMPTE event, prior to COVID, where a major network technology executive was asked when the industry would migrate from DVB-T to that of DVB-T2. The answer was that such a migration was unlikely. The reason? Return on investment.

Visit:

https://www.infrastructure.gov. au/media-communications-arts/ television/television-and-mediasurveys

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/ consultations-and-statements/ category-1/future-of-tvdistribution

Thanks for reading, Phil Sandberg – Editor/Publisher papers@broadcastpapers.com +61(0)414671811

JUME/AUGUST 2024

Editorial Submissions: 26-06-24

Ad Bookings: 28-06-24

Ad Artwork: 03-07-24

For more information www.content-technology.com +61-(0)414 671 811

Email: papers@broadcastpapers.com

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NEWS + PEOPLE

ABC Parramatta Officially Opened

THE ABC HAS OFFICIALLY opened its new Sydney broadcast facility in the suburb of Parramatta with key ABC Sydney presenters now live on-air from the site with ABC News, Audio and Digital teams joining them over the next few months.

An event to mark the opening of ABC Parramatta was led by ABC Chair Kim Williams AM, ABC Managing Director David Anderson, and Member for Parramatta Dr Andrew Charlton MP. Other dignitaries included City of Parramatta Lord Mayor Councillor Pierre Esber, State Member for Parramatta Donna Davis MP, Executive Director of Business Western Sydney David Borger, members of the ABC Leadership Team and key members of the ABC’s content and support teams.

ABC Chair Kim Williams said the new ABC Parramatta “… will serve as a model for the ABC in the future; a sophisticated technology facility that promotes new production practices with agile content sharing and distribution.

“From here the ABC will deliver on its continuing obligation to the Australian community as a foundation stone of our democracy, providing news, sharing knowledge and myriad rich stories which reflect our nation. As always, the work done here as with all ABC

output provides a core element in contributing to our sense of national identity.”

Mr Williams said the ABC had throughout its ninedecade history demonstrated its ability to adapt and innovate to meet the changing needs of the Australian public.

“The move of local news and local radio to Parramatta is another chapter in that adaptive history, meeting audience expectations and honouring legislative obligations.

ABC Parramatta will increase our presence in the nation’s fastest growing residential region, boosting the ABC’s effectiveness in Greater Western Sydney.”

ABC Managing Director David Anderson described the new facility as “… the culmination of several years planning and it is exciting to be here at the stage where new and loyal audiences can experience the ABC broadcasting from this technology-driven facility.

Global Advance Wound Up

ADMINISTRATORS for collapsed Australian outside broadcast provider Global Advance Production Services Pty Ltd and its associated company, Streamlined Production Services Pty Ltd, Said Jahani and Philip Campbell-Wilson of Grant Thornton Australia Limited have given notice to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) that the two companies are to be voluntarily wound up.

The two companies were placed into voluntary administration in late March. A first meeting of the Companies’ creditors was held on 10 April 2024, in which a resolution failed that would have seen creditors form a Committee of Inspection (COI) – a small group of creditors elected to represent the interests of creditors in the external administration

The Administrators also reported that there had been no proposal from relevant parties for a Deed of Company Arrangement (DOCA), a binding arrangement agreed to after a company enters voluntary administration, between the company and its creditors, governing how the company’s affairs will be dealt with.

With no DOCA or COI in place, creditors passed a resolution, in line with the Administrators’ recommendations at a second meeting held on 10 May 2024, that the Companies be placed into liquidation.

Global Advance had pioneered a new remote IP-based production model for the Australian market comprising a mobile production unit and a traditional control room based on a SMPTE 2110 architecture. Match coverage

“Over coming months more of our journalists, producers and digital content teams will be based here, connecting and engaging with one of Australia’s most diverse and fastest growing communities.

“The relocation to western Sydney is a key part of the commitment outlined in the ABC’s Five-Year Plan to see 75% of content makers working outside its Ultimo head office by 2025.

“I want to thank everyone involved in the development of this facility, in particular the team members who will be based here and who have supported the move with such

professionalism.”

Mornings on ABC Radio Sydney was the first show to broadcast from the new state-of-the-art facility, located at 6-8 Parramatta Square.

The opening is the first in a series of upcoming milestones. Further programs including Sydney Drive and Weekends will commence broadcasting from ABC Parramatta in the coming weeks, and Afternoons later today.

In the coming months, two ground floor studios will open for use by ABC News and ABC Sydney teams. Visit https://about.abc.net.au

would go directly via IP from the camera head, through a network switch, into a sprinter-type van with a single network-connected rack in it. All signals, every camera, every microphone, would be backhauled by 2110 primarily using Telstra’s Digital Production Network (DPN) to Global Advance’s data centre to then be processed. The collapse of the company saw hurried negotiations between administrators Grant Thornton Partners, the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), TenParamount, and NEP Australia to keep A-League soccer matches onair over the Easter long weekend. This resulted in an agreement between APL and NEP Australia which would see the latter produce all Isuzu UTE A-League Men and Liberty A-League Women matches for the remainder of the regular season and the 2024 Finals Series.

The collapse also left some 24 employees out of work. With the companies being placed into liquidation these employees can now lodge a claim through the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) government safety net scheme. The FEG Scheme covers outstanding employee entitlements for eligible employees (excluding superannuation and up to capped amounts).

According to the Administrators, Global Advance Director Chris McMillan “… advised he formed the view that he had to appoint Administrators when GA was compelled to forgive a debt of c.$2m owed to it by the APL in order to secure a contract extension and was unable to concurrently source additional equity funding it required for working capital.”

The all new Ultimatte 12 is more than the world’s best keyer, it’s an advanced real time compositing processor designed for the next generation of broadcast graphics. Ultimatte 12 features entirely new algorithms and color science that deliver true photorealistic composites. Imagine presenting the weather, sports, news and entertainment in a cinematic quality environment, all composited in real time.

Create Realistic Fixed Camera Virtual Sets

Now you can create a massive broadcast set, even in small apartments or a basement! That’s because Ultimatte 12 has frame stores so you can load pre rendered still frames from a 3D modeled broadcast set. This is a revolution in live production because you can now use a virtual set even if you don’t have the space for a physical broadcast set! Plus without any external equipment!

Add an Ultimatte 12 to Each Camera

When you’re working live with multiple cameras shooting from different angles, it’s common for the green screens to suffer from variations. Ultimatte 12 eliminates this problem because you get incredible technology at an affordable price, allowing each camera to have a separate Ultimatte. With a dedicated Ultimatte on each camera, your compositions can go well beyond what’s possible with set design, so you can create whole new worlds!

Automatic Scene Analysis for One Touch Keying

When it comes to live production, you need to work fast. Ultimatte 12 features one touch keying technology that analyzes a scene and automatically sets over a 100 parameters so you get great keys without having to do a lot of extra work! One touch keying is dramatically faster and helps you accurately pull a key with minimum effort.

Faithfully Reproduce and Retain Difficult Colors

With Ultimatte 12, you get new advanced flare, edge and transition processing so you can remove the background, without affecting the colors you want to keep! What this means is you’ll be able to retain and faithfully reproduce colors that are impossible on other keyers, such as a bright yellow dress in front of a green screen! Ultimatte 12 delivers crisp clear images with vibrant colors that pop!

Ultimatte 12 HD Mini $809

$1,485

$4,099

$11,435

29-31 May 2024, Singapore

AI, Cloud and Data-Driven Media at BroadcastAsia

This year’s conference programme kicks off on Wednesday May 29 looking at real-world solutions to ensure media organisations thrive in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

UNDER THE THEME of “Unleashing Innovation at the Intersection of Technology and Broadcast Media”, the panel will examine new business and growth opportunities, emerging trends reshaping business, and alliances to unlock new possibilities for the industry. Panellists include Bernard Toh of Robot Playground Media, Anson Tan of Viu Singapore, and Unmish Parthasarathi, Picture Board Partners (Singapore).

The session is followed by a keynote, “Digital Transformation with Tech and Data” presented by Kaythaya Maw, SPH Media, which will examine the opportunities for media organisations presented by digital transformation, digital tools and technologies, and the power of data and analytics to drive decision-making processes.

Next up is “Revolutionising OTT Services in Asia: Localised Approach to Global Success”. The panel session will examine the contrasting dynamics between advertising-based and subscription-based models, the shift towards hyper-local content and insights into how a localised approach can drive exceptional growth and audience engagement. Panellists include Tomohisa Nomura and Mayuko Yamazaki of Abema TV. The Revolution is quickly followed by a Sports Fireside Chat featuring Mohit Lalvani of 1 Play Sports and Unmish Parthasarathi of Picture Board Partners (Singapore).

The agenda then turns to the serious topic of “Keeping Content Secure in APAC and Beyond” which will address the Asia Pacific’s security readiness in the face of growing cybercrime, security trends and challenges in the region, and utilising business intelligence to identify domains for improvement in content security compliance. Hosted by Kari Grubin of Motion Picture Association Trusted Partner Network.

Following lunch, the conference tackles the issue of making structural technology choices in

a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Under the theme of “Everything, Everywhere, All at once?”, panellists will reveal their practical experience with large-scale IPcentric transformational projects, providing practical insights and recommendations on how to plan, deploy and operate such solutions. Panellists include Martin Paskin, APPEAR; Alain Polgar, mediaSTRAT/Chyron; Fabio Gattari, Etere; and Dennis Breckenridge, Elevate Broadcast.

Three 15-minute presentations follow on the ubiquitous topics of AI & Cloud – a World of Possibilities.

Presentation 1 looks at “5G, Ultra HD, Cloud and AI’s impact on Sports Broadcasting”, presented by Jianping Zhu of QD Broadcast Technology.

Presentation 2 examines “The Impact of AI on a ‘Total Media’ Broadcasting Solution”, presented by Jin Huang, TotalMedia.

Presentation 3 is titled “Cloud and Internet are the Future Fabric for Broadcast and Media Transmission”, presented by Daniel Healey, Caton Technology.

Next up is “The Future of Private CDN: Running AI/ML Workloads on the Edge”, looking at the evolution of edge CDNs and their significance in the digital landscape. Panellists include Frank Miller, Varnish Software; Pak Reski Rukmantio, Lintasarta Cloudeka; and Thijs Feryn, Varnish Software.

Attention then turns to “Where is Southeast Asia in terms of IP2110 and NDI adoption?”. Dennis Breckenridge of Elevate Broadcast will examine regional trends and challenges of IP and NDI adoption in Southeast Asia with in-depth case studies, lessons learned and success stories from the region, as well as opportunities for innovation and growth, and future prospects of of 2110 and NDI adoption in the region.

Wrapping up the first day will

be “Light-Weight/Low Cost IP Production and Transmission”, presented by Judy Zao of KiloView who will assess the impact on the broadcast industry and the future trajectory of light-weight IP solutions.

The following morning sees a return to artificial intelligence with the Opening Keynote “AI in Broadcasting: Revolution or Evolution” in which Dave Ulmer of the Cambodian Broadcasting Service will examine AI’s role in reshaping storytelling and media distribution, as well as AI-driven approaches to connect and engage with viewers, and streamlining production processes to enhance efficiency.

Mr Ulmer will then join a panel session, “Question Everything: AI’s Impact on Broadcasting”.

Other panellists include Tony Berthaud, HARMONIC INC; Valy Phommachak, Econox Laos; Albert Faust, Arista Networks; and Tim Xu, Mediacorp.

The conference then turns to “Building First Party Data for the Media Industry in a Cookieless World” and looks at strategies for building consent-based relationships as well as AI and Machine Learning for audience profiling, and revenue models beyond targeted ads. Presented by Ankita Mathur, Future Today.

Ms Mathur then joins a panel discussion, “Data Analytics and AI for Audience Insights and In-Content Engagement”, along with Uday Reddy, YuppTV; Kedar Mohite, SGAnalytics; Noble Binoy, SPOTV; and Nikhil Naik, Creative Galileo.

The data continues with “DataDriven Advertising of the Future” a panel examining the leveraging of data-rich, targeted campaigns through social media over traditional models, and integrating AI advancements and data analysis. Panellists include Wen Zhe Lim, foodpanda; Steven Yates, Alumni Services; and Andrew Hill, The Coca-Cola Company.

After lunch attention turns

to “Content Production and Acquisition” featuring Justin Deimen, Aurora Media Holdings; Byung Jun Lee, BeLive Technology; Sabrina Daryanani; FT Strategies (The Financial Times); and Kevin Balhetchet, Bifrost Media.

Content delivery follows with “Using IPMX and RIST for Streaming”, presented by Sergio Ammirata, SipRadius LLC, who will outline the building of an architecture to deliver high quality content to large number of users, and scalable and secure streaming via the SRP protocol to protect content end-to-end.

Also in the area of content delivery, the following presentation “When DVB-I meets 5G: How Interworking Networks will Underpin Migration to Sustainable Media delivery” will look at optimising mobile networks for media delivery. Presented by Emily Dubs, DVB. Next up is the “Future of Programmatic Advertising” looking at the adoption of Addressable TV on broadcast media, and the growth of FAST channels powered by programmatic advertising technology. Panellists include Nicholas Sagau, Rev Media; Ranganathan Somanathan, Publicis Media; Amir Rasyidi Johari, Media Prima Berhad; and Tushar Tyagi, Samsung Advertising.

Examining the growth, trends, opportunities and challenges of Free Ad-supported Streaming Television (FAST) platforms in Asia, the next panel, “are we going FAST enough?” features James Ross, Lightning International; Jolene Sng, Samsung Advertising; and Jay Ganesan, Amagi Corporation.

Thursday wraps up with a Fireside Chat, “Media Innovation: AIPowered Movement Tracking” which explores how cutting-edge movement AI complements video content strategies for content creation for the fitness, healthcare, and sports sectors. Panellists include Ani Bhalekar,

When thinking about Virtual Production, regardless you’re using LEDs or chroma sets, Brainstorm is the way to go. With decades of experience in real-time 3D graphics, virtual sets and AR solutions, Brainstorm products are perfect for creating virtual content of any kind. And the new Suite 6 introduces even more features!

From inexpensive, template-based immersive content using Edison PRO, to advanced projects involving XR, AR, and Virtual Sets using Unreal Engine 5 created with InfinitySet, Brainstorm provides any content creator with the perfect tools for the job. And if you need to add motion graphics, Aston is the designers’ choice to create the most advanced data-driven content, even linking to external data sources.

Since 1993, Brainstorm designs and develops 3D real-time graphics, virtual production and XR / AR solutions.

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Image: Saviour music video, Broadley Studios (www.broadley.tv)

TAG Video Systems at BroadcastAsia

AT BROADCASTASIA, TAG

Video Systems, the provider of software-based IP endto-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and realtime visualisation, will be demonstrating its Realtime Media Performance platform enriched with new technologies that maximise data utilisation, enhance end-to-end HDR workflow capabilities, and now support straightforward, perception-based QoE measures like Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM).

TAG will also show the new Operator Console, an intuitive user-friendly touch panel interface, at a major APAC industry event for the first time. This control interface is HTML and API-based and can be used with a touch screen or a handheld tablet device, and it roams with the operator when necessary. Users can switch sources or mosaic layouts with the touch of a finger, achieving the rapid response necessary for system control in a live media control room or network operation centre.

Operators save time by accessing pre-defined, customisable configuration and operational functionality with just a tap on the mosaic, dramatically removing complexity and simplifying dayto-day tasks.

Also new is the multi-awardwinning TAG Language Detection, a revolutionary innovation that not only identifies the subtitles’ language but also calculates and analyses quality based on language-specific dictionaries. This process introduces cuttingedge automation and eliminates

manual labour traditionally associated with language identification, minimising the risk of human error, and freeing up operators to focus on more strategic tasks.

Visitors will experience first-hand how dashboards are easily built and customised with well-known open toolsets so users can maximise the full extent of their data and gain invaluable insight.

Look for the TAG team at BroadcastAsia in Magna’s Booth (Hall 6, 6E1-1).

Visit https://tagvs.com/

Global Launch of Totalmedia Ai+Cloud Encoder with Bitmovin and Ideal Systems

LEADING ASIAN broadcast systems integrator Ideal Systems has announced it will be hosting the global launch of a totally new software-based encoder for broadcasters at the upcoming Broadcast Asia exhibition in Singapore.

The new encoder solution from TotalMedia is part of a growing suite of video processing tools offered by TotalMedia that have been pre-integrated with Ideal Systems “Alice” integration platform to Bitmovin for cloud encoding to allow seamless and highly cost-effective burstencoding in the cloud. The new TotalMedia – Alice – Bitmovin

integrated solution is designed to provide highly cost effective, highly scalable encoding solutions to Asian broadcasters and will be easy to integrate into existing media workflows and systems, and easy to orchestrate new and diverse workflows.

The encoder is designed to provide high-quality, efficient video encoding for various use cases, including live streaming, on-demand video, and broadcast workflows. The new TotalMedia encoders run on common off the shelf (COTS) Dell servers that are then optimised for high-quality video encoding and support all key broadcast codecs and standards.

AI-Media Cutting-Edge Captioning Solutions

AI-MEDIA, the developer of AI-powered captioning solutionswill be at BroadcastAsia 2024on Booth #5L3-3 where it will unveil its latest advancements in broadcast captioning technology.

At AI-Media’s booth, visitors will have the opportunity to explore a range of cutting-edge products, including AI-Media’s automated captioning solution, LEXI, and the newly launched LEXI Recorded. The booth will feature live demo stations for both LEXI and LEXI Recorded, allowing attendees to see these solutions in action. These innovations highlight AI-Media’s commitment to delivering groundbreaking, cutting-edge solutions in broadcasting technology.

AI-Media’s LEXI and LEXI Viewer solution will be showcased throughout the event on the Broadcast Asia stage in Hall 6 of the venue. AIMedia will be captioning all sessions happening live on stage, demonstrating our cuttingedge captioning solutions in real-time and highlighting their advanced capabilities.

“Broadcast Asia Expo 2024 provides an important platform for us to showcase our latest innovations in captioning technology,”

By using the Alice integration with Bitmovin, the solution offers massive scalability to handle large volumes of video content, whether it’s live streams with millions of concurrent viewers or on-demand video libraries with extensive catalogues, while being easy to integrate and orchestrate.

The TotalMedia encoder also provides versatile AI based video quality enhancements and processing that are integrated seamlessly into the transcoding pipeline, such as Content Adaptive Encoding, Super Resolution, Frame Rate Up-conversion, SDR to HDR Up-conversion, Portrait mode video creation, Smart

said James Ward, Chief Sales Officer at AIMedia. “We look forward to demonstrating how AI-Media’s solutions, including our advanced AI captioning and translation solution, LEXI, can revolutionise the broadcast industry, setting new standards in efficiency and accessibility.”

Present at the booth will be key members of the AI-Media APAC team including Declan Gallagher, General Manager; Gordon Chua, Business Development Manager; and Rob Waller, Technical Sales. With extensive experience in the broadcast industries, they will all be available for personalised meetings to discuss how AI-Media’s solutions can benefit various broadcasting needs.

Captioning solutions by AI-Media include:

LEXI - The Leading AI-Powered Captioning Solution

LEXI stands at the forefront of AI-powered captioning, delivering unmatched accuracy and innovative features for live TV, streaming, meetings, and events. For the first time in February 2024, AI-Media was able to unveil groundbreaking data showcasing the superiority of its AI captioning product, LEXI, over traditional human workflows.

Color Enhancement, De-fog and Smart Sharpness for visual fidelity, De-noise and Scratch Removing for old titles, with more AI functionality coming in subsequent releases. The new ultra-low latency encoding solution comes with maximum flexibility in terms of configuration options, allowing users to customize encoding settings and workflows based on their specific requirements, such as resolution, bitrate, and codec selection while offering easy integration to existing media workflows via Ideal’s Alice platform.

Visit https://www.idealsys.com/

With advanced capabilities such as speaker identification and intelligent caption placement, attendees can witness LEXI’s performance through live demonstrations at Booth #5L3-3.

LEXI Recorded - Revolutionising Captioning for VOD Content

The newly launched LEXI Recorded offers rapid turnaround times for time-sensitive recorded content. Utilising AI-powered automation, this solution streamlines the captioning process, enabling media professionals, content creators, and broadcasters to deliver accessible content with remarkable speed and accuracy.

SDI and IP Encoders

AI-Media provides a comprehensive range of SDI and IP caption encoders, such as the HD492 (Encoder Pro) and ALTA MPEG – TS and 2110 versions, powered by advanced EEG technology. These encoders cater to diverse captioning requirements and seamlessly integrate with AI-Media’s flagship AI-powered solution, LEXI, ensuring unparalleled accuracy and efficiency.

Visit https://www.ai-media.tv/

EliteFit.AI, and Agus Wismoyo, Siloam Hospitals Group.

Friday starts on a practical note with Workshop 1: TPN workshop (Opal 101, Meeting Rooms). Hosted by Kari Grubin, Motion Picture Association Trusted Partner Network (TPN).

Then, under the title of “Intersections Communications”, Cameron Bennett of Heineken and Tim Till, Ogilvy One APAC, look at how Web3 technologies turned unknown consumers into known customers for brewing giant Heineken.

A Panel Discussion follows on “Virtual Production and Monetisation”. Panellists include Shad Hashmi, Amazon Web Services; Quanah McBride, Layercake; Jourdansky Yong, Mediacorp; Eunice Park, ZIXI; Apple Esplana-Manansala, The New Channel; and Janne Pajuniemi, FTI Delta.

The next session looks at “Transforming Content Experiences”, presented by Anuj Singhal, Techplus Media.

The closing panel of the conference, “Maximising Revenue Streams in a Competitive Industry Landscape” examines diversifying revenue streams, data-driven monetisation strategies, optimising customer experiences for sustained profitability, and unlocking hidden potential through strategic partnerships. Panellists include Jason Ang, CONTEN.T; Romain Gagliardi, Wavestone; Daniel Ho, Mothership; and Kenneth Tan, BeLive.

Shotoku Camera Support on the Move

SHOTOKU BROADCAST SYSTEMS, manufacturer of high-quality, easy-to-use, robust, and reliable camera support systems is bringing robotic systems and manual products to BroadcastAsia 2024. Highlights include the latest version of its TR-XT control system that incorporates the Company’s AutoFrame face tracking technology to address the pain points of high-pressure 24/7 live studio production. The TR-XT will drive the Company’s TI-11X elevator pedestal and T1-12 height drive paired with the TI-18i pan/tilt head in Booth 6E1-9 (Magna).

Shotoku’s TR-XT studio robotics control system has been significantly upgraded and moved to a Windows 11 operating system to implement even more of the distributed frontend/back-end architecture and fully support a virtualised remote database. The TR-XT incorporates an enhanced feature set with more options and the ability to perform more efficiently, unencumbered by obstacles. The TR-XT has a fresh style of command buttons and colour scheme making navigation easier than ever.

The TR-XT will be demonstrated with AutoFrame, a separate technology integrated for seamless real-time face tracking and shot recall. AutoFrame allows any Shotoku robotic camera to be controlled smoothly and intelligently through automatic face tracking algorithms, developed specifically for the application, with subtle, appropriate adjustments for response

delays, accelerations, and decelerations in motion. AutoFrame operates autonomously but allows instantaneous and seamless human intervention for the best of all worlds.

The TR-XT will control Shotoku’s TI-11X elevator pedestal and TI-12 elevator unit paired with the TG-18i pan/tilt head. The TI-11X is aimed at studios where full manual override is not a priority, while the TI-12 is ideal for studios where height control is required, and manual operation is essential.

On the manual side, representatives will be in Booth 6E1-1 to discuss features that distinguish Shotoku’s wide range of pedestals, tripods, and pan/tilt heads as best for studio, OB, and ENG.

Visit https://www.shotoku.co.uk/

Shotoku’s TR-XT with AutoFrame

CAMERAS & LIGHTING CAMERAS & LIGHTING

Ben Cotgrove, 2024 Australian Cinematographer of the Year

AT THIS YEAR’S Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) 54th National Awards held at the iconic and newly restored Ithaca Auditorium in Brisbane City Hall, Ben Cotgrove won the prestigious Australian Cinematographer of the Year Milli Award. Cotgrove also won a Gold Tripod in the Documentary category for his work on A Man’s Man.

On winning the award Cotgrove said, “It is a tremendous honour and great privilege to have won the Milli as the standard of entrants and indeed cinematography in Australia is at the very highest level. I am truly humbled to win this award and give my heartfelt thanks to the ACS and all of their sponsors for the awards and everything they do for cinematographers in Australia.”

ACS national president, Erika Addis presented Hall of Fame Awards to Nicola Daley ACS BSC, Andy Taylor ACS and Peter Menzies Snr ACS, the Life Membership Award to Yuri Sokol ACS and Miguel Gallagher and the John Leake OAM ACS Emerging Cinematographer Award to Jaclyn Paterson.

The Student Cinematography Award of Distinction went to Pete Moses for Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge and other Gold

Tripod winners included Geoffrey Thomas who won the John Bowring ACS Station Breaks & Promos for The Invisibles promo shoot for National Geographic’s The Invisibles series about a drug cartel, Dave May ACS took home the Music Videos award for WALKER – LIFE & DEATH and Benjamin Foley who won the Neil Davis International News award for New York Times –Under Attack in Ukraine’s South East.

The Current Affairs award went to Tom Hancock for Foreign Correspondent: Fighting Back, Season 22 / Episode 29 and Josh Flavell ACS won in Entertainment & TV Magazine for Home Australia: Longhouse, Season 2 / Episode 7.

The Ron Taylor AM ACS & Valerie Taylor AM Wildlife & Nature award went to Romilly Spiers for Planet Insect – Hive Minds, Season 1 / Episode 3 and Alexander Schultz took out the gong for Short Films with Hitched.

The Gold Tripod for Drama Series went to Stefan Duscio ACS for Shantaram, Season 1 / Episode 1, Feature Films – Budget $3m and under went to Craig Barden ACS for The Rooster and then the Gold Tripod for Feature Films – Budget $3m and over was awarded to Marc Spicer ACS for We Have A Ghost.

FujiFilm Expands Duvo Series, Retires HD Lenses

FUJIFILM HAS EXPANDED its Duvo series of lenses with the debut of the HZK24-300mm “Duvo Portable” at this year’s NABshow in Las Vegas.

The Duvo 24-300 is a portable-type broadcast dual format lens, supporting two types of large image sensors. Delivering 12.5x zoom covering 24-300mm, a focal range that is frequently used on set, it achieves compact size and lightweight at 270.5mm in length and 2.95kg in weight and producing high mobility.

According to Simon Murphy, National Business Development Manager , IPD & Optical Devices, with FUJIFILM Australia, “The Duvo series now includes a 24-300mm barrel style lens. It’s a T2.9 as well, going to T4.2. It weighs just under 3 kilos, 2.95 kilos. And when you look at it, it’s an expansion of the Cabrio series, but now it’ll deal with large format as well as the Cabrio Super 35. With the 24-300mm at 2.95 kilos, it can be used on the shoulder. So, it’s been going gangbusters in America and Europe and we’ll have our first shipments coming to Australia from May. The Duvo 24-300 follows the release of the FUJINON HZK25-1000mm “Duvo Box” released in

March 2023.

“The Duvo series of lenses started with the 25-1000mm, which has been a real success story around the world,”says Simon Murphy. “It’s been picked up by a lot of rental houses for live events, whether that be sports, music, etc. It’s the 25-1000mm with a T2.9 going out to T5 at the full 1000mm.

“We’ve now sold three in Australia. One’s gone to Videocraft, which they are renting out and is very popular. And Sydney Opera House has just bought two of the Duvo 25-1000mm, which is the first fixed location for the Duvo 25-1000mm.

Fujifilm is very excited about this as it is such an iconic place to have the Duvo range of lenses. “They’ll be doing live streaming and then they also have those available for replay. So you can go to the Sydney Opera House website and you can watch whatever events have been put on there.”

Finally, Simon Murphy says the Duvo range will be completed by a wide lens - 14mm - 100mm, weighing in at 2.5 kilos, and again T2.9 going to T3.9. Two prototypes were shown on the FujiFilm stand at NAB and production models are

Other Gold Tripod Winners included:

• Corporate – Corporate Branding & Advertising – Joshua Lamont ACS for Powered by Tasmania

• Corporate – Branded Content, Education & Events – Matthew Allard ACS for Ritz-Carlton

• Commercials – Local / Regional – Brad Day for A Killer Moment

• Commercials – National / International –Jeremy Rouse ACS for Navy Visit https://www.cinematographer.org.au

expected to be available from IBC in September. 4K Rules as FujiFilm Retires HD Lenses

Meanwhile, the widespread broadcast adoption of 4K, cinema-style lenses has led FujiFilm to phase out its range of HD lenses.

According to Simon Murphy, “The range of our broadcast lenses going from our UA 13 by 4.5 all the way up to our big box lenses UA 125 is now the full range of 4K lenses and that has replaced the HD range.

“The HD range is now being discontinued, that’s the HA range of lenses, because the volume of 4K lenses has got to the level where we just don’t have the time to make any HD lenses any longer. We still will have a lower range of HD lenses, that will be the ZA series of lenses.

“The tipping point was it actually became cheaper to make 4K lenses than it did for HD and the turnaround times were just getting too slow for HD and the demand just disappeared. So the TV stations now don’t have a choice, they have to go with 4K, which they’re happy about because it’s still at the same price.”

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

SPACE!

ATOMOS Turns iPhones Into Ninjas

ATOMOS’ NINJA PHONE is a 10-bit video co-processor for smartphones and tablets that lets users record from professional HDMI cameras.

The first release of Ninja Phone is designed for iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, both of which are equipped with an OLED display. ninja Phone leverages Atomos’ knowledge of Apple ProRes encoding and Apple’s cutting-edge silicon and screen technology to create a portable and connected professional monitor-recorder.

The Ninja Phone lets users connect any professional camera with an HDMI output to Apple’s OLED screen in HDR. It encodes the camera’s HDMI signal to ProRes or H.265, both formats at 10-bit quality for perfect HDR. The encoded video is sent via Ninja Phone’s USB-C output to the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max’s USB-C port. The iPhone’s A17 system-ona-chip decodes the pristine camera sensor image to display on the high-resolution iPhone screen. The display boasts a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and supports Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG. It can display 11 stops of dynamic range with a peak brightness of 1600 nits, suitable for HDR and outdoor viewing.

The Ninja Phone iPhone app, downloadable from the App Store, controls and coordinates the operation of both the Ninja Phone and the iPhone, making them feel like a single, responsive device. For social media creators who need to shoot in 9:16 portrait mode, the Ninja Phone app adjusts to horizontal or vertical video modes. The Ninja Phone app will run on iOS and iPadOS, and will be downloadable at the time of shipping.

The camera’s output appears on the iPhone screen with zero latency thanks to Atomos’ super-efficient ProRes pipeline – encoding on the Ninja Phone and decoding via Apple’s state-of-the-art iPhone. The ProRes-encoded video can be stored on the phone as a .mov file and/or simultaneously transcoded by the iPhone to 10-bit H.265 for workflows like camera to cloud, or live streaming via the iPhone’s built-in 5G and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity.

The Ninja Phone accommodates external iPhone accessories by integrating a separate USB-C hub to allow necessary professional add-ons like wireless USB-C microphones, for perfectly synchronising video and audio. Third-party accessories are

supported via the Ninja Phone with more added over time.

Powered by standard NP series batteries, a battery eliminator, or a USB-C 5V/3A input, the Ninja Phone charges the iPhone while in use with any of these power sources, ensuring long phone operation.

Atomos has developed a rugged locking ecosystem to maintain a secure grip on connected HDMI and USB-C cables. With Atomos locking cables, it is the most robust capture cable system available today, although it is fully compatible with standard, non-locking cables.

The iPhone 15 Pro’s enhanced connectivity opens a door for Ninja Phone users to make full use of Atomos’ Cloud Services (ACS). These include super-efficient Camera to Cloud workflows, remote live production, and cloud editing. With ACS, content creators can publish video to social media within minutes, and filmmakers

4K 60p PTZ Camera with AI-Based Auto Framing

DISPLAYED AT THE recent NABshow in Las Vegas, Sony has announced that its BRC-AM7 4K 60p pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera, with integrated lens, is planned to be available early 2025.

Incorporating PTZ Auto Framing technology, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology for advanced recognition, the camera facilitates accurate and natural automatic tracking of moving subjects.

Touted as the world’s smallest and lightest integrated lens PTZ camera, the BRC-AM7 measures 168.7mm in width, 225.2mm in height and 192.3mm in depth, with a weight of about 3.7kg.

By combining the 1.0-type 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) compatible stacked Exmor RS CMOS image sensor and the latest image-processing engine BIONZ XR, the BRC-AM7 achieves 4K 60p high-resolution imagery with less noise. 5K oversampling allows users to capture highresolution 4K video, and it also supports 4K HDR imagery. The all-in-one lens is equipped with a 20x optical zoom and Clear

Image Zoom, an all-pixel superresolution zoom that allows high magnification zooming while maintaining resolution, providing telephoto capture up to 30x in 4K or 40x in Full HD.

A built-in electronic variable ND filter allows for seamless adjustment of the filter transmittance from 1/4 to 1/128. In addition to being able to adjust the exposure without changing the depth of field, users can also take advantage of auto settings to automatically adjust the light intensity to the level set on the camera to accommodate environments with challenging lighting conditions.

Sony’s PTZ Auto Framing technology, which also incorporates auto focus, employs built-in AI analytics for advanced recognition, automatically tracking a subject based on detailed information such as the person’s skeleton, head, face, and clothing.

A pan-tilt rotation mechanism enables quick, smooth, and quiet operation at a speed of 0.004 degrees per second up to 180

degrees per second. The BRC-AM7 is also equipped with a pre-set function that allows the camera composition to be registered and recalled.

The BRC-AM7 integrates into Sony’s camera line-up, employing “ITU709,” “709tone,” “S-Cinetone,” and “S-Log3” compatibility for simplified colour matching. The camera supports GENLOCK terminals and is compatible with Sony’s Master Setup Units and Remote-Control Panels, enabling multi-camera operation, as well as integration with Sony’s switchers.

The camera’s design allows for capture in difficult-to-install locations including ceilings, cranes, or batons on stage, as well as tripods using the 3/8-16 UNC and 1/4-20 UNC screw holes on the bottom surface.

For power, the BRC-AM7 is compatible with XLR 4-pin connectors and supports PoE++ (Power over Ethernet Plus Plus).

The camera features 12G-SDI and HDMI outputs, and 3G-SDI for monitor output. For audio, the BRC-AM7 has two channels of XLR

can send their footage to their post production team via the cloud for the fastest possible production workflow.

Users will also need to choose Atomos’ separately available case for iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max, not just to protect the phone in normal use, but to ensure that the locking cable system can be deployed.

Visit https://www.atomos.com

3-pin connectors and a 3.5mm stereo input.

The BRC-AM7 supports SRT, RTMP, RTSP, NDI, and optical fibre, enabling remote production over IP networks. It is compatible with VISCA over IP, S700PTP protocol, and CGI, allowing for remote camera control via external commands. It also supports IP Tally, providing comprehensive support for remote production.

The BRC-AM7 is also compatible with the Free-D protocol used in virtual productions such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

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

ARRI Brings Cinema Quality to Live Production

ARRI HAS ANNOUNCED the ALEXA 35 Live – Multicam System, making the cinematic image quality of its flagship ALEXA 35 camera available to the world of live productions, including concerts, sports, esports, fashion, corporate, talk shows, game shows, house of worship, and more. The system seamlessly integrates into existing live production environments, providing the full functionality of a system camera while retaining the flexibility of a dockable camera setup. It sits alongside ARRI lenses, lights, stabilisers, and custom solutions that collectively demonstrate the company’s commitment to the live entertainment sector.

The ALEXA 35 Live – Multicam System combines the new ALEXA 35 Live camera, the new Live Production System LPS-1 (comprising a Fibre Camera Adapter and Fibre Base Station), the Skaarhoj RCP, and a slew of bespoke accessories. These include the new ARRI Touchdown base and receiver plates, an adjustable monitor yoke, an extralong camera handle, a tally light with camera ID display, a rain cover, and a new, quick-fit ARRI Large Lens Adapter for unprecedentedly rapid setup with box lenses.

The ALEXA 35 Live camera offers the unique ARRI look. Supporting a current trend in live productions, the Super 35-sized 4K sensor enables shallow depth of field. Capturing 17 stops of dynamic range— more than any other camera on the market—it handles extreme lighting situations for the best results in SDR and HDR. Colours are rendered accurately through ARRI’s proprietary REVEAL Colour Science, from bright, saturated colours to the subtlest shades. As a result, even contrasty concert lighting is captured faithfully and skin tones are beautiful, so performers always look their best. Low light scenes display minimal noise, and highlights roll off in a natural, film-like way.

Full-quality ProRes can be recorded in-camera during live productions, providing flexibility in post. The in-camera recording also permits standalone operation of the camera, without the Fiber Camera Adapter.

Laowa Ranger S35 Compact Cine Zooms

LAOWA HAS RELEASED the Ranger S35 Compact Cine Zoom Series featuring a focal range of 11-18mm

T2.9, 17-50mm T2.9, and 50-130mm T2.9.

The modular lens mount can be switched between LPL, PL, EF, and B4, facilitating a wide choice of lenses for different applications.

ALEXA 35 Live owners can

even upgrade to full ALEXA 35 functionality via an optional Cine License.

Visit https://arri.com/alexa35live

Features include: Wide Zoom Range, Offering 11x Total Zoom Range; Compact and Portable, Weighing Only ~660g/775g/665g;

Each lens weighs between 750850g per standard lens and 650g for the lite version.

Constant T2.9 Aperture; Excellent Parfocal Design; Close Focusing Distance of 36cm/25cm/75cm; and Almost Invisible Focus Breathing Outstanding Optical Performance. The series’ cine housing includes:

Capture nal pixel and green screen simultaneously from a single V-RAPTOR [X]. Streamline the on-set work ow by distinctly monitoring each Phantom Track independently.

Dual Scale Design; 0.8 MOD Gear; and Ø77mm Filter Thread.

Default mounts are ARRI PL. EF/E/ RF/Z/L/X mounts are available upon request.

Visit https://www.venuslens.net/

ARRI’s Live Production System, LPS-1.

The ALEXA 35 Live camera.

SPORTSCASTING SPORTSCASTING

Creative Imagery - Keeping Tasmania on the Map

Tasmania may be Australia’s smallest state but it plays host to its fair share of prominent sporting and cultural events, including cricket, tennis and concerts. With the larger outside broadcast service providers concentrated on the mainland, independent operators such as Hobart’s Creative Imagery have stepped up to meet the demand in the market.

FOR OVER THREE DECADES, owner Andrew Harcourt and partner/production assistant Fiona Harcourt have been helping to bring Tasmanian events to the wider world. Initially conceived as a side-gig to Andrew’s work as a Senior Production Camera Operator with Southern Cross Television, Creative Imagery took off some seven years ago when the company took on invenue production for Hobart’s Blundstone Arena (Bellerive Oval) handling the main PA/audio and big screens.

Creative Imagery’s next leap forward, in a technological sense, came with the advent of the COVID lockdowns. Looking to help keep the community connected, the company set up shop in a churchowned, furniture warehouse and, at no cost, began producing video material and remote church services for the Salvation Army.

“There was no financial opportunity, but there was a need to bring people together,” says Andrew Harcourt. “Elderly people, people that were shut in, there was a need to bring them together. We were busy, absolutely flat-out four or five days a week through COVID just producing content for people.

“Tha started the upward trajectory with other people such as the people at Gravity [Media] saying,

‘oh, you’ve got some gear down there. You know, we need some help. Can you, can you help us out with doing this?’ And then it sort of became a very upward step from there.”

That upward step has included working with Gravity Media on the last two seasons of the Women’s Big Bash cricket, and working with Cricket Australia on Sheffield Shield coverage. Local football leagues have also approached the company for broadcasting and live streaming services.

“We’ve also been doing Anzac Day for the ABC for the last six years,” says Harcourt, “doing the full production for them down here. Also, the last two state elections for Seven TAS. We still have a live tally room in Tasmania, so they come and make their speeches in the tally room. Then there’s working with the State Electoral Commission, integrating live data through our Ross Xpression system, bringing live data pages up to analyse election results. So, there’s been quite a lot of many and varied things in there.”

The increasing number of many and varied things has led Creative Imagery to embrace a more versatile configuration for its Ford Transit, long wheelbase, high-top van.

“On the tech side of it,” says Harcourt, “it’s all in flyaway racks. So, I can stack in what I need and take out what I need. If I want to do a smaller job that’s inside a venue, I can just take a couple of racks out of it and then they just plug back in in a matter of an hour and a half, two hours. I can have the whole thing completely rebuilt.

“Whether I’m doing a small one camera live stream or I’m doing

Video’s Ultrix routing system.

“I was using a Carbonite switcher beforehand, with a Blackmagic router,” says Harcourt, “but with Gravity coming on board again for this last WBBL season, it made sense then to upgrade. The ABC were keen to see me upgrade a little bit as well for what they’re doing down here. So, I made the commitment to get the Ultrix.

nine cameras for gravity on a WBBL, it will do anything there or in-between. We’ve got four metres lengthwise and a metre and a half width. So, it’s quite comfortable for three to four people.”

The van is based around Ross

“Last year, we had Hobart International Tennis as well, the world feed for that. Part of what they wanted was a larger facility that could just basically be an MCR for the centre court and take the outer courts, which were being

Creative Imagery’s Fiona and Andrew Harcourt.

done by somebody else, and act as a full MCR for the whole event and push it out.

“So we bit the bullet and put the Ultrix in. It’s 72 x 72. With the Carbonite Blade as well, which gives you the internal ins and outs as well, it gives me plenty of I/O here.”

For comms, Creative Imagery relies on Riedel.

“We have made a significant investment in Riedel, not just for the OB kit, but also we are supplying comms to larger events,” says Harcourt. “We currently have seven RSP2318 panels, one 1216 panel, four Bolero wireless packs and twelve Hytera UHF radios. We are soon to extend the panel count to 10 and Bolero wireless packs to six - possibly more if the need arises. Large event comms seems to be gaining more momentum here in Tasmania and we are deploying our Riedel system on more events as well.”

For cameras, Creative Imagery relies mainly on six Sony HXCFB80 studio cameras with full chains, including CCUs. These are complemented by four Panasonic Hothead PTZs and a couple of Marshall 505 compact broadcast cameras.

“The interface here is via baseband into a DVN port or, or into LiveU,” adds Harcourt. “So I’m using baseband at the moment, but trying to keep everything else digitalised, like the MADI option in the Ultrix, and then MADI to Dante conversion, so the whole audio system runs Dante.”

With Tasmania being an early test bed for Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), most buildings are fibre-to-thepremise. When not connecting to Telstra’s Digital Video Network

(DVN),

Creative Imagery uses LiveU’s LU300 HEVC encoder over the NBN for main delivery where required or as a backup to the DVN.

“Through my provider, I can spin a port up on any Network Termination Device (NTD) in any building in a matter of 20 minutes,” says Harcourt.

“So it’s just a case of going on a web interface, booking the port and up she comes and we run on 400 x 400 asynchronous ports and I can run two, three LiveUs, no frames dropped all day without a problem.”

of the state’s first AFL team and construction of its home ground in the form of the proposed Macquarie Point Stadium.

When partnering with Gravity Media, contrary to the industry’s trend towards remote production, Creative Imagery will handle all directing and switching duties. Graphics are handled by streaming provider 5stream.

“We’ll do commentators, the whole thing live, less graphics, shoot off to 5stream who will drop the graphics on it and then off she goes to Gravity.”

THE FUTURE

While the National Rugby League (NRL) pursues expansion in Las Vegas, the Australian Football League (AFL) is eyeing growth in Tasmania with the establishment

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While Andrew Harcourt sees little flow-on from home matches of the new AFL team as they will be more of an opportunity for the use of remote production technology from the larger players, he does see benefits in the development as a whole.

“If I put my personal opinion in there,” he says, “you look at what Adelaide Oval’s done for Adelaide, what Optus Stadium’s done for WA or for Perth, I think should they build it and they get it sympathetically right, and there’s a couple of different designs, so that’s a different issue, but should they build it, whatever version it is, it could create a precinct with conference function venues, accommodation, etc.

“At present, the cost of putting a truck or two trucks and shipping them on the Spirit of Tasmania to get over here is probably equal to my daily rate for equipment hire, so it’s more cost effective for them - and Gravity have realised that straight away - by the time you take travel time, you’ve got a truck off the road for five days just to do one day in Tassie, whereas we can service it down here for equal to or slightly less than the Spirit fare, so that’s driving what we’re doing.

“We’re just looking for the opportunities, not looking to get too big because we want to be able to keep it to a level where we can manage it and manage it well. What I’ve prided myself on over the years is that we give a high level of service.”

Visit

https://creativeimagery.tv/

Vizrt Brings Smart Video Cropping to Sports Social Media

VIZRT, THE PROVIDER of real-time graphics and live production solutions for content creators, has announced new functionality for its flagship sports highlight enhancement tool, Viz Libero.

The new 8.3 software release enables the ability to crop video to various aspect ratios from one interface. Users can create one project and publish multiple versions to multiple platforms during live games or post-match. Through this cross-platform solution, Viz Libero customers can reach new audiences through shorter snappier clips via social platforms.

The new feature places Viz Libero as a 24/7 content creation tool, enabling broadcasters and sports leagues to extend their sports rights and engage audiences anytime via linear, digital, and social platforms.

With Viz Libero now fully operational and deployable in the cloud, and coupled with a flexible licensing structure, customers can maximise the value of Viz Libero across broadcast teams in a traditional manner, before handing over the reins to their digital and social teams to continue the story beyond the final whistle.

Alongside helping reach new audiences faster, the updated features in the latest Viz Libero are focused on enhancing the user experience. Operators only need to select the preferred aspect ratio, add analysis, and export clips as vertical or other common aspect ratios for publishing platforms.

The social media crop tool in Viz

Libero is also pre-configured to track players to speed up the most basic use of analysis for social media. Operators can select the aspect ratio, then click on the player and the video crop tool will automatically track and crop.

Viz Libero 8.3 also includes several other improvements including non-line sports calibration for

Chyron Updates LIVE Cloud Production Platform

CHYRON HAS RELEASED a series of updates to its Chyron LIVE cloud-native live production platform that boost online production accessibility and remote production monitoring, and enable smooth remote commentary, intuitive illustrated replay, and simpler graphics playout. According to the company, LIVE’s latest features continue to enhance the quality of live streaming content that sports and news broadcasters can deliver to their online audiences.

The capstone feature of the latest Chyron LIVE release is the new Multiviewer module, which provides

four independently configurable multiviewers for monitoring remote productions with Chyron LIVE. With live video and audio monitoring of any source within Chyron LIVE, and the ability to easily share multiviewer pages with registered users, the Multiviewer module is a great tool for remote directors and production staff to get an allencompassing eye on the show.

Chyron LIVE’s replay and telestration toolset also receives a revamped interface to improve operator responsiveness during fast-paced sports productions. With dynamic playback speed control, more replay clip banks

for telestration editing, simple in-scene tools for managing illustrations, and rapid export clip functions, LIVE operators can keep up with all the highlight moments during a game.

On the audio side, LIVE’s Commentary module receives new features to simplify connectivity for a remote sportscaster or news anchor. The integration of the WebRTC protocol enables simple connection of local device audio through a single button click within the web browser, while a new audio mix-minus feature ensures commentators get clear production audio without feedback

sports like cricket and ice hockey, where there are few lines on the playing area to guide graphics placements, alongside native Datacenter integration to Sportec.

Visit https://vizrt.com/viz-libero

of their own voice.

Chyron LIVE’s updates include a range of additional improvements that collectively enhance the overall user experience and facilitate creation of more visually complex and engaging programming. Updates include support for adding clips and replays to the current scene, warning notifications and messages that help to reduce error, options for working with both “dirty” and “clean” outputs, a more responsive design for smaller screens, and back-end enhancements to balance web playout with network strength.

Visit https://www.chyron.com

ABC Rejoins Asiavision

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

(ABC) Managing Director David Anderson has announced the ABC’s return to the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union’s (ABU) international video news exchange, Asiavision.

Developed by the ABU’s News division, Asiavision (AVN) is a member-funded, cloud-based platform where members share breaking news and stories on business, the environment, health, sport, technology and culture. AVN’s 31 members can access over 16,000 video stories each year for distribution on their television and digital platforms.

ABC International Head Claire M. Gorman said: “The ABC is excited to be rejoining Asiavision. Sharing the ABC’s high-quality news and current affairs vision will mean that more audiences across the Indo-Pacific will have access to news

events in Australia. It will enable us to share further our coverage of world affairs which is fed by our Pacific Journalism Network and the ABC’s foreign correspondents based in PNG, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, India, Japan and further across the globe. This will build on the ABC’s ability to fulfil our Charter remit to transmit to countries outside Australia.”

ABU Secretary General Ahmed Nadeem said: “The return of the ABC to AVN is an important development for the ABU and all AVN members. It makes Asiavision stronger and broadens the range of content available to AVN members.”

ABU Director of News Deborah Steele said: “We are delighted our members will have access to the ABC’s coverage and that we can share this with 30 other broadcasters across the Asia

Outsourced TV3 News Has Got the

SAMANTHA HAYES and several other journalists from New Zealand’s Newshub have joined Stuff as part of a deal between the online and print news publisher and Warner Bros. Discovery to produce 6pm news bulletins for WBD-owned terrestrial channel TV3.

In April, Warner Bros. Discover (WBD) announced a July 5 closure date for its newsroom, the Newshub website and the end of the 6pm and AM TV news bulletins on TV3. From July, Stuff will provide TV3 with one-hour weekday bulletins

‘Stuff’

and half-hour weekend bulletins.

Former Newshub colleagues joining Samantha Hayes include Jenna Lynch, Laura Tupou, Ollie Ritchie, Juliet Speedy, Zane Small and Heather Keats. Claire Watson will become 6pm’s executive producer, while Steve Gore-Smith, Newshub’s senior manager of operations, will become Stuff’s director of video operations and technology.

According to Stuff publisher Sinead Boucher, the arrangement with WBD is considered an

Sky News Oz Boosts NZ Coverage

WITH NEWS DEPARTMENTS being decimated across TVNZ and Newshub, Australia’s Sky News is dipping a couple of toes into the breach with the launch of a new short-form news program –NZ Edition – hosted by Sky News New Zealand Correspondent, Jack Nyhof.

NZ Edition will broadcast from the Sky News Australia studio in New Zealand’s Parliament House, Wellington, each Saturday at 5:45pm NZST, and will unpack the top New Zealand headlines and provide audiences with a preview of the key issues on the political agenda for the

week ahead.

Featured in the premiere episode airing Saturday 4 May, Prime Minister of New Zealand Christopher Luxon, sat down with Nyhof to discuss the most pressing issues impacting the nation, including New Zealand’s foreign policy and place in the world, its relationships with Australia and China, plus the Government’s plan for cost-of-living relief.

Jack Nyhof, New Zealand Correspondent for Sky News Australia said: “New Zealand is an incredible country with stories that impact and

Vinten Keeps Track with VEGA Presenter

VINTEN, the provider of robotic camera support systems and a Videndum brand, has announced the release of version 1.1 of its VEGA Control System Software, which incorporates AIdriven Presenter Tracking in partnership with Seervision.

The VEGA Control System made its debut at NAB 2023, with version 1.0 launching in the summer. This version elevated the control capabilities of the legacy Vinten HD-VRC Control System by introducing a dynamic interface and a modular software architecture. The hardwareagnostic architecture allows for seamless virtual

deployment.

With the unveiling of VEGA Software v1.1, broadcasters can now integrate VEGA Presenter Tracking into their workflow. This feature is fully embedded in the VEGA Client Interface and familiar shot selection grid. VEGA Presenter Tracking integrates Vinten’s on-air motion quality and broadcast features with Seervision’s AIdriven talent tracking and reframing technology, creating an optimised system for studio environments.

The software employs robust talent identification to automatically frame each person on-screen

Pacific region, from Fiji to Türkiye.”

In February 2024, the ABU celebrated 40 years since AVN’s establishment and in 2023, launched an updated version of the platform called AsiaPacific View (APV), improving its online content sharing and news exchange capabilities. Visit https://about.abc.net.au/ and https://www.abu.org.my/

extension of Stuff’s existing digital workflows and business and not a move into TV. Aiming to differentiate itself from the current Newshub news, the Stuff-produced bulletins will draw upon the company’s 19 digital-first multi-media newsrooms.

Bulletins will initially be produced at TV3’s Flower Street facility in Eden Terrace, Auckland, with the longer term aim of production being housed at Stuff’s main premises in the future.

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

interest both Kiwi and Australian audiences alike.

“NZ Edition will be a weekly deep dive on the political, economic and social issues that are shaping life in New Zealand – including cost-ofliving, crime and Māori policies. Sky News has a long history of reporting on and from New Zealand, and I’m excited to continue that legacy here from our Wellington Bureau and across the country.”

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

and utilises built-in artificial intelligence to predict future movements based on skeletal kinematics. Through this advanced technology, VEGA Presenter Tracking anticipates the probable next movements of on-air talent, executing smooth adjustments comparable to those made by a camera operator.

VEGA Presenter Tracking is compatible with existing Vinten hardware. Broadcasters can update their robotic solution in a phased manner and introduce the latest control technology without upgrading all their studio equipment.

Visit https://www.vinten.com/VEGA

Pixotope Brings Unreal Power to News Broadcast Graphics

PIXOTOPE, the software platform for end-to-end real-time virtual production solutions, is bringing cinematic-quality graphics and immersive content experiences powered by Unreal Engine to news, sports programs, and other fast-paced planned, yet dynamic workflows. Pixotope leverages Erizos Studio to provide customers with a familiar template-based, rundowndriven solution that integrates seamlessly with Newsroom systems and automation-driven workflows. Customers can create and mix character generator (CG), extended reality (XR), augmented reality (AR), and virtual studio (VS) graphics elements, up-levelling visual storytelling and branding.

“No matter if it’s a feature film or the nightly news, viewers crave larger-than-life, immersive, and cinematic visuals. Leveraging Erizos’ exceptional graphics control technology, we’re facilitating the integration of Unreal Engine’s top-tier graphics and Pixotope’s best-in-industry virtual production capabilities into the broadcast graphics pipeline. It’s a seamless experience that is potent enough to revolutionise the way broadcasters can promote their brand, deliver their stories

with more visual emotion, and expand their viewers across all platforms,” says Marcus Brodersen, CEO of Pixotope.

New Branding and Visual Storytelling Opportunities

Pixotope covers the entire virtual production workflow from camera and talent tracking to augmented reality (AR) and virtual studio graphics and extended reality (XR). The platform is compatible with the latest version of Unreal Engine, including 5.4; users will be able to make use of Unreal Motion Design as part of their graphic packages immediately upon its release.

“Unreal Motion Design reimagines what is possible in broadcast and news graphics workflows, it opens the doors for completely new viewer experiences,” adds Marcus.

Familiar Broadcast Graphics

Workflow with Greater Operational Efficiency

Pixotope leverages the MOScompliant Erizos Studio multichannel graphic controller to consolidate the management and operation of multiple graphics pipelines. A single operator can control virtual studio, AR, and XR graphics side by side with CG overlay graphics. This

eliminates the time-consuming synchronisation of separate provider platforms and allows for shorter training time for operators. The seamless integration also provides a template-based, rundown-driven work environment that is based on traditional broadcast workflows, making it easy for customers to step in and immediately begin assembling stunning visuals.

“Erizos and Pixotope have been battle-tested to meet the rigorous demands of live production environments,” says Erizos CEO Ronny van den Bergh. “This proven reliability, paired with our

deep understanding, passion, and commitment to simplifying, streamlining, and improving the overall quality of graphics, makes our partnership incredibly beneficial for broadcasters worldwide. Our respective areas of expertise will help increase all customers’ quality and workflow efficiency.”

The new Pixotope broadcast graphics solution is offered as a turnkey solution from Pixotope.

Visit https://www.pixotope.com/ solutions/broadcast-graphics

Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 19

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN’S DaVinci

Resolve 19 adds new AI tools, over 100 feature upgrades such as IntelliTrack AI, Ultra NR noise reduction, ColorSlice six vector grading, film look creator FX, multi source editing, new multi-poly rotoscoping tools, new Fairlight AI audio panning to video, ducker track FX and ambisonic surround sound plus new features in Blackmagic Cloud for large users. DaVinci Resolve 19 introduces powerful new DaVinci Neural Engine AI tools and over 100 feature upgrades. Editors can work directly with transcribed audio to find speakers and edit timeline clips. Colorists can produce rich film-like tones with the ColorSlice six vector palette and produce cinematic images using the new film look creator effect which emulates photometric film processes. In Fairlight, the IntelliTrack AI can be used to track motion and automatically pan audio. VFX artists in Fusion have an expanded set of USD tools plus a new multi-poly rotoscoping tool. The cut page has new broadcast replay tools for live multi camera broadcast editing, playout and replay with speed control.

The new Organizations app in Blackmagic Cloud enables larger companies to define a single organisation or company. Now users can create groups or teams and quickly share projects to an entire group rather than one by one. Users can also manage storage access, share Presentations, and create a single sign on. It also lets users buy or rent DaVinci Resolve Studio licences. This makes it easier for companies to assign and manage the allocation of licences within large groups. Licences can be costed against specific projects and then removed when it’s complete.

For editors, improvements to the transcription workflow make it possible to edit clips based on the transcribed text directly on the timeline. The analyser is now able to detect multiple voices, allowing users to assign names to different speakers and refine text based search and text replacement operations.

The cut page now supports real time selection of live camera recordings for instant replay to air with slow motion and stingers. The new multi source viewer lets users see all their live cameras, or even just clips with a common timecode, in a single multiview screen. Users can scrub, play and select shots to add to the timeline or simply play to air. They can even switch live from any of the available angles. When watching live cameras or clips in the multiview, when a significant event occurs, users can instantly capture the moment with a point of interest or POI marker. The POI is placed on all the clips at that same time so it’s easy to quickly find the event on every camera angle, play them to air and even automatically build a highlights timeline.

New replay palette controls in the cut page are clear and quick to navigate. Users can set a POI with a single key, select a camera and cue the event. Then select run to play to air automatically via ATEM. They can switch cameras or once it’s done, simply dump the playout to prepare the next replay. There are also new stinger transitions.

UltraNR is a new DaVinci Neural Engine driven denoise mode in the Color page’s spatial noise reduction palette. Colorists can use it to dramatically reduce digital noise from a frame while maintaining image clarity. Combine with temporal noise reduction for even more effective denoising in images with motion. While the new Film Look Creator lets users add cinematic looks that replicate film properties like halation, bloom, grain, flicker, gate weave and vignetting. Colourists can adjust exposure in stops and use subtractive saturation, richness and split tone controls to achieve looks usually found on the big screen.

The new ColorSlice six vector grading palette uses subtractive colour processes to adjust image colour density, saturation and hue, allowing users to produce rich filmic colours and looks. Parameters in each customizable vector slice let colorists enhance and deepen colour without spill, in a way that looks naturally pleasing.

On the Fusion page, uVolume let’s VFX artists directly import volumetric VDB files into Fusion eliminating time consuming conversions. It also adds creative control of imported effects such as smoke, fire, clouds and explosions. users get complete control over density, temperature and colour parameters of the VDB file in DaVinci. The new MultiPoly tool displays all of the VFX artists masks in a single list eliminating switching between nodes for faster, more accurate rotoscoping. Suitable for complex projects, users can view, select, add to and modify specific shapes, toggle their visibility and adjust parameters all from one location.

The new IntelliTrack AI is powered by the DaVinci Neural Engine, and can also be used in Fairlight to automatically generate precision audio panning by tracking people or objects as they move across 2D and 3D spaces. With AI audio panning to video, users can quickly pan multiple actors in a scene, controlling their voice positions in the mix environment. The AI based dialogue separator FX lets users rebalance dialogue against background sound and the reverberant sound of the room. users get controls for voice, background and ambience so users can reduce, remix or remove competing sounds.

The ducker track FX lets one track auto adjust the level of another track without the need for setting up complex side chain compression or automation curves. Users can automatically set music or background noise to lower when dialog is present, then fine tune the audio mix with advanced controls.The music remixer track FX lets users adjust music to fit with the style of their show. Controls include mute and level adjustments for voice, drums, base, guitar and more. Users can turn a vocal piece into an instrumental, automate changes and refocus the music mix to the instruments users want to hear.

Ambisonic surround sound is a new spherical format which lets audio engineers record, mix, monitor and deliver full sphere soundtracks. Fairlight now has fully integrated native operation with 1st to 5th order busses and tracks, native effects processing, 2D and 3D spherical panning, binaural and channel based monitoring, dynamic in-viewer metering and head tracking support.

DaVinci Resolve 19 public beta is available now for download from the Blackmagic Design web site.

Visit https:// www.blackmagicdesign.com

DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel

DESIGNED IN COLLABORATION with the world’s leading colourists, the DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel features high quality trackballs and precision machined control knobs for fine tuning primary grading parameters, as well as navigation and transport keys for shortcut commands. The new more portable model features a mounting slot for an Apple iPad Pro, an internal battery and connects via Bluetooth or USB-C.

The DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel allows fluid, hands on control over multiple parameters at the same time for more creative options, enabling users to work faster than with a mouse. All knobs, dials and buttons are high quality and have been custom designed to produce the perfect amount of resistance, so customers can accurately fine tune any parameter.

The DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel features three high resolution weighted trackballs and 12 precision machined control knobs which give direct access to the most powerful primary correction features, making it easy to experiment and try new combinations. The primary knobs can be used to control Y Lift,

Y Gamma, Y Gain, Contrast, Pivot, Mid-tone Detail, Color Boost, Shadow, Highlight, Saturation, Hue Rotation and Luminance Mix.

Around the size of a computer keyboard, the DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel is battery and USB-C powered. It connects to DaVinci Resolve via Bluetooth or USB-C. When not being used with an iPad Pro, it can be placed next to a laptop or computer keyboard so editors or colourists can easily move between the keyboard and control panel as they edit, allowing simultaneous grading and colour correction.

In addition, the DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel has a range of transport and grading control buttons on the left, top and right side of the panel that put the most important and commonly used commands at the customer’s fingertips, so they can work faster. Many of these controls, such as wipe still, cursor and select have only been available on the much larger Mini or Advanced grading panels.

Wacom Movink OLED Pen Display

WACOM HAS ANNOUNCED the launch of Wacom Movink, which it says is the first OLED pen display designed and developed to meet the needs of creative professionals, digital artists and design students.

Wacom Movink combines a professional pen experience with a 13.3” full HD OLED display in a super slim, ultra-light device without compromising performance, precision, and software preferences.

Weighing only 420g and measuring 4mm at its thinnest point, Wacom Movink sets a new standard. It is 66% thinner and 55% lighter than the similar-sized Wacom One 13 touch. The Corning Gorilla Glass and magnesium alloy body make it sturdy and portable.

The 13.3” Samsung OLED display delivers Full HD resolution with 10-bit colour and a contrast ratio of 100,000:1. It offers rich blacks and exceptional colour accuracy, optimised to offer 100% DCI-P3 and 95% Adobe RGB coverage, with a Delta E

difference of 2 or less. Wacom Movink is validated by Pantone and Pantone SkinTone, factory calibrated to industry standards and stores up to 2 custom colour profiles. For colour critical workflows it can also be hardware calibrated with Wacom colour Manager.

Wacom Movink includes a dedicated version of the Wacom Pro Pen 3, designed for use with Wacom Movink. This pen features a nib remover and three replacement nibs conveniently housed within the pen for quick resolution of any nib emergencies.

Users who have used the DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel will find the shift keys on the DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panels familiar. Many of the controls are in the same position and the trackballs are designed with a similar professional feel so existing DaVinci Resolve colorists can feel comfortable on the new panel. The shift up and shift down keys triple the functionality of the panel. DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel even lets customers adjust a power window shape, size and position, even its softness, or resize the input image, all with the same trackballs and rings customers use for grading.

Visit https:// www.blackmagicdesign.com

Wacom Movink incorporates Wacom’s Dual Pen Technology, supporting a wide range of digital pens, including older generations of Wacom Pro Pens and pens from digital stationery partners like Staedtler and Lamy.

Wacom Movink is compatible with Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, and Android operating systems, connecting via a single USB-C cable.

SGO Updates Mistika Boutique and Ultima

SGO HAS ROLLED OUT the latest release of Mistika Boutique and Ultima which the company says is designed to enhance conform, simplify the export process, improve cross-department collaboration and more

New features include:

Seamless FPS manipulation: Introducing an automatic system that effortlessly aligns your media with your project’s framerate while preserving its original duration. This significantly enhances the conforming process and also enables quick and easy technical and creative speed adjustments.

Dynamic Tokens in Rendering: Dynamically name your renders based on media or project metadata, simplifying the export process to new

levels of efficiency and organisation.

Notes and Markers import: Import notes and markers seamlessly from EDL, XML, or AAF files, improving project organisation and collaboration.

New scaling modes in rendering: Export your project to the stack size or the original clip size. Rendering to the stack size aids in delivering content across multiple platforms while exporting to the original clip size streamlines roundtrip workflows between Mistika and editing programs.

Enhanced EXR Multilayer Workflow: Mistika now writes all media and project metadata when rendering to EXR. Additional improvements in the workflow with EXR Multilayer media enable

Advanced touch technology allows for smooth, intuitive input, while two customisable touch keys in the slimmest bezel of any Wacom pen display can be assigned shortcuts and functions to streamline workflows and enhance efficiency.

Wacom Movink is fully supported by Wacom Bridge which enhances working on supported remote desktop connections.

Visit https://www.wacom.com

quicker layer previews and enhance the colour Grade selection.

Auto-calibrate VR 180º/360º: Previously exclusive to Mistika VR, the acclaimed “magic” one-click automatic calibration feature is now also available in Mistika Boutique and Ultima. This feature empowers users to effortlessly calibrate their media with just a single click.

Start TC Modification: You can now easily change the start timecode in media links to improve conforming in complex cases.

In addition, this latest release introduces several additional improvements and new SDK Support, including the latest FUJI and Sony SDKs.

Visit https://www.sgo.es/

Final Cut Pro Brings AI to Mac and Live Multicam to iPad

NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

features have come to Final Cut Pro for Mac 10.8, giving editors the ability to rapidly customise the look of videos or photos in a single click and retime visuals more easily than ever.4 Important workflowaccelerating tools bring new ways to manage colour correction and video effects, as well as search and navigate the timeline with ease. Leveraging the Neural Engine in Apple silicon, Final Cut Pro 10.8 is available as a free update to existing users and introduces Enhance Light and Colour, offering the ability to improve colour, colour balance, contrast, and brightness in one simple step, and is optimised for SDR, HDR, RAW, and Logencoded media. With Smooth SloMo, frames of video are intelligently generated and blended together, providing the highest-quality movement and more drama to a project.

For efficiency in post-production workflows, colour corrections and video effects can now be given custom names in the inspector to easily identify changes applied to a clip, and effects can be dragged from the inspector to other clips in the timeline or viewer. The timeline index also offers the ability to search for and navigate to clips with missing media or effects. And text-based timeline search now includes important information

like reel, scene, camera angle, and more.

Apple has also introduced Final Cut Pro for iPad 2, which transforms iPad into a multicam production studio with Live Multicam, giving users the power to speed up their shoot by allowing them to connect and preview up to four cameras all at once, all in one place.

To support Live Multicam, Final Cut Camera — an all-new video capture app — comes to iPhone and iPad, letting creators wirelessly connect and remotely direct each video angle with powerful pro controls.2 Final Cut Camera also works as a standalone professional video capture app on iPhone and iPad. Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 delivers Live Multicam to allow users to capture up to four different angles of a single scene, whether working with their own devices or collaborating with others. Live Multicam connects wirelessly via Final Cut Camera, a new video capture app, enabling users to view up to four iPhone or iPad devices and providing a director’s view of each camera in real time. Each

live camera feed can have settings adjusted right from Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 to easily dial in exposure, focus, zoom, and more for the perfect shot. Editable preview clips are immediately passed through to Final Cut Pro for iPad and replaced with full-resolution files in the background, so users can seamlessly move from production to editing.

To support Live Multicam in Final Cut Pro for iPad 2, Final Cut Camera comes to iPhone and iPad to enable live monitoring and individual control of each video feed. Leveraging the incredible

AWS Accelerates Rendering Pipelines with Deadline Cloud

AMAZON WEB SERVICES, INC. (AWS) has launched AWS Deadline Cloud, a fully managed service the company says allows users to set up, deploy, and scale rendering projects in minutes.

With Deadline Cloud, users creating computer graphics, visual effects (VFX), or innovating their pipelines to incorporate

artificial intelligence-generated (AI-generated) visuals can build a cloud-based render farm –aggregated compute – that scales from zero to thousands of compute instances for peak demand, without needing to manage their own infrastructure. Customers can use built-in customisation tools and integrations with digital content creation (DCC) software,

Animal Logic to Retire AL_USDMaya

ANIMAL LOGIC has announced the closure of its AL_USDMaya project. Developed by Animal Logic in 2017, AL_USDMaya is an open-source plug-in that enables authoring and editing of 3D graphics data using Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (USD) in Autodesk Maya.

According to Animal Logic, “... there is now a plug-in supported by Autodesk called USD for Maya that

delivers the same benefit and is quickly becoming the standard way to work with USD content in Maya.

Animal Logic has been heavily collaborating with Autodesk since 2018 to bring this plug-in to fruition.

“With this in mind, Animal Logic is shifting its workflows to the Autodesk plug-in and is looking forward to contributing to what has become the most adapted Maya

such as Autodesk Arnold, Autodesk Maya, Foundry Nuke, and SideFX Houdini, to tailor their render pipelines for specific projects and directly render from preferred tools for use in design, modelling, animation, visual effects, and more.

With Deadline Cloud, creative teams can accelerate production timelines by running more projects

camera systems on iPhone and iPad, Final Cut Camera allows users to adjust settings like white balance and manual focus, while monitoring their recordings with zebras and audio meters. Users can now also adjust ISO and shutter speed, and enable focus peaking, bringing even more power to the camera system on iPad Air and iPad Pro. Final Cut Camera can also be downloaded for free as a standalone video capture app to record professional videos on iPhone and iPad with precise manual controls.

Visit https://www.apple.com

in parallel, without worrying about capacity limits. Deadline Cloud offers built-in budget-management capabilities that help customers understand costs with high granularity on a project-by-project basis, and with no upfront costs. Users only pay when they are rendering.

Visit https://aws.amazon.com/

USD solution by the wider industry. This transition means that as of 31 August 2024, the AL_USDMaya open-source software project will no longer be supported. After this date, the official support channels, including forums and mailing lists, will be closed, and no further updates, bug fixes or contributions will be accepted on the AL_USDMaya plug-in.

“As AL_USDMaya is an integral part of workflows across the industry, it is recommended that users migrate to Autodesk’s USD for Maya, as it provides the same set of features originally provided by AL_USDMaya. A migration guide has been designed to assist with this transition.”

Visit https://bit.ly/4awwgSF

EW-DP

Upgrade your filmmaking audio to the pro level.

Using the preferred UHF connection, the EW-DP digital wireless microphone system lets you capture professional quality audio without the complexity. It’s the perfect choice for those looking to upgrade to a portable wireless system that offers superior range and more reliable connectivity than 2.4 GHz systems.

Choose from multiple EW-DP sets based on your filmmaking needs. Each EW-DP set include an industry-leading wireless receiver unit paired with various mic and transmitter options, including the ME 2 omnidirectional lavalier, ME 4 cardioid lavalier, SKM-S handheld transmitter, and SKP plug-on transmitter with onboard recording to microSD card.

www.sennheiser.com

Sydney’s Radio 999SWR Picks AEQ Forum IP Console

RADIO 999SWR, a community radio station founded in 1981 and based in Blacktown in Sydney, broadcasts specifically to the Greater Western Sydney area, but can also be received in most of the Sydney metropolitan area.

The mission of SWR 99.9 FM is to provide the community with a voice and an opportunity for anyone to access the airwaves regardless of age, gender, nationality, or experience. SWR 99.9 FM is a primarily volunteer-run organisation and is funded through listener support, grants, and sponsorship. The general format of 999SWR Radio is adult contemporary, under the name “The 70’s to Now”, but also covers a wide range of musical styles through local access programmes. SWR 99.9 FM also broadcasts programmes presented by special interest groups or in languages other than English.

The technical management of the company recently decided to select AEQ FORUM SPLIT as the digital console for its main broadcast studio, for its ease of use, robustness of operation, and high audio quality. AEQ FORUM IP SPLIT is a mixing console designed for ONAIR broadcast control. It incorporates automatic monitor cut, cough cut, fader start, signalling control, control signals for the automation of external equipment, external communications management, intercommunication, etc.

The project was coordinated by AEQ’s partner Broadcast Components which was responsible for equipment refurbishment, commissioning,

configuration and operator training. With its modular design and small size, AEQ FORUM is suited to different scenarios: self-control, control-locutory, television production controls, sound production, mixed configurations, integration in large installations, etc. The FORUM IP SPLIT version comes with the FR CORE modular engine in 3 rack units. It can be composed of up to 6 quad fader modules and a control and monitoring unit. They can be equipped with AoIP multi-channel

Pacific Expansion for ABC Radio Australia

ABC RADIO AUSTRALIA has expanded FM transmission services to the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), where residents can now access the station’s full suite of programs via the frequency 89.1FM.

The launch of the FM service is part of an historic expansion of ABC Radio Australia’s FM footprint in the Pacific and follows the recent launch of the service in Palau (on on 91.5FM), a first for the northern Pacific region.

In coming weeks and months, more countries and locations will also receive the service including Kokopo in Papua New Guinea, Nauru,

Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Cook Islands, and the Marshall Islands.

ABC International Services Head Claire M. Gorman said, “The launch of ABC Radio Australia in Pohnpei marks another important step in the expansion of our transmission footprint in the northern Pacific and we welcome our new audiences in the Federated States of Micronesia to explore the extensive range of Pacificfocused programs.”

Australian Ambassador to FSM Jenny GrantCurnow co-hosted a launch event to mark the occasion which was attended by Pohnpei State

ABC and SBS Launch DAB+ Services on the Gold Coast

ABC AND SBS have announced that audiences on Queensland’s Gold Coast will now have access to a range of new radio stations with the launch of digital radio (DAB+) services.

ABC and SBS join commercial broadcasters ARN and SCA which launched DAB+ stations in 2022, including simulcast FM stations Sea FM, Triple M and Hot Tomato, as well as community stations 4CRB, Juice, and Radio Metro.

Listeners will be able to enjoy the full range of ABC Radio services including Double J, ABC Jazz, ABC Country, ABC Sport, triple j Unearthed,

and ABC KIDS listen.

They will also be able to tune in to SBS Audio services including language programs on SBS Radio 1, SBS Radio 2, SBS Radio 3, SBS Arabic24, and SBS South Asian, as well as music stations SBS Chill and SBS PopAsia.

ABC Head of Audio Ben Latimer said, “The addition of DAB+ will improve access to the ABC’s wealth of audio services for audiences on the Gold Coast. These audiences will experience high-quality audio across our range of popular digital audio brands like Double J, ABC Sport and

input and output cards compatible with the new AES67 protocol via DANTE technology. Through this connectivity, signals can be picked up and delivered to other consoles, routers, and other input and output terminal equipment from over 300 different manufacturers. It is also possible to choose MADI connectivity, and can be equipped with up to two internal digital telephone hybrids. Visit https://www.swr999.com.au/ and https://www.aeq.eu/

Governor the Hon. Stevenson A. Joseph and ABC Radio Australia Content Director Faleagafulu Inga Stünzner.

According to Faleagafulu, “Our increasing engagement with Pohnpei and Micronesia via the launch of the ABC Radio Australia service will lead to expanded coverage of this beautiful region in our programming, as well as bringing stories from right across the Pacific to the people of Pohnpei.”

Visit https://www.abc.net.au/pacific/live

the ABC Kids listen.”

SBS Acting Director of Audio and Language Content Pamela Cook said, “With the latest Census data showing nearly a third of Gold Coast residents were born overseas, the launch of DAB+ radio means more Australians can now enjoy SBS Audio’s full suite of over 60 language services. This provides news, community stories, entertainment, plus a new SBS South Asian destination channel.”

Shotgun Microphones

Axient® Digital ADX5D Dual-Channel Wireless Receiver

Axient® Digital Wireless Systems

Twinplex Lavalier Mics

Broadcast Microphones and Plug-on Transmitters

Q5X Wireless Transmitters

Techtel’s inflo Integrates OpenAI’s Whisper

TECHTEL HAS ANNOUNCED that openai’s Whisper speech to text transcription engine is now available to users of inflo, Techtel’s software platform for digital content capture, storage and processing.

According to Techtel, Whisper has shown that it excels in accuracy and flexibility with results that are exceptional across multiple dialects. The Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system has used machine learning to train and refine its accuracy from a growing sample of over 680,000 hours of web content. The process of refining the ASR has made the solution more accurate and robust so that it understands accents, background noise and also technical language.

inflo intelligently indexes content that has been transcribed and aligns time code references enabling keyword searching to navigate the user straight to the relevant clip and exact position in the video where their keyword was spoken. Additionally, inflo empowers users to browse content with muted audio whilst displaying a script of all dialogue allowing the user to silently read along with their video stream.

For inflo customers who require transcription exports, inflo can generate a Web Video Text Tracks (WebVTT) file separately to export to any 3rd party API connected system. This tool means that inflo is the answer to update other less agile content management platforms with the transcription files their users are crying out for.

“Transcription is a huge step forward on inflo’s artificial intelligence journey” said Peter Stevens, Software Product Manager for inflo. “We have lots of customers expressing interest in a solution that can provide them with unmetered transcription and we think our approach will be very popular.

OpenAI has open sourced the Whisper engine but, says Stevens, the process of integrating it

into inflo was a little more complex than reading the documentation on GitHub.

“It’s definitely a learning curve to sort of peel back the layers of how the underlying engine works. There’s a sort of high level command line interface that you can use, and you just point it at a piece of media and say, this is the level of transcription that I want. Whereas, when you’re integrating it into a product like Inflow, you’ve got to get into the meat and potatoes of it, and really understand what it’s doing and how it works so that you can implement it in a way that is actually going to serve what you need it to do.

“If you do the research around this particular model, it’s quite powerful, and it’s quite accurate. So, it has a good reputation, and I think from our perspective it just made sense to go in that direction.

“The integration itself was kind of the easy part. It was learning the requirements of running a service like that from a compute standpoint. There’s different levels that you

Sound Devices 8-Series Update

SOUND DEVICES’ has expanded its 8-Series of mixer/recorders. The company says it takes in feature requests from its customers, and 8-Series v10.01 firmware includes requests that have come in from users over time.

One of those is 32-bit float recording. The firmware introduces the ability to record ISO tracks in 32-bit floating point, eliminating clipping in the file, no matter the gain setting.

A new Daylight Mode includes a brighter LCD colour scheme, making it easier to see

important information and navigate menus, even in direct sunlight. With the v10.01 upgrade, Record folders can quickly be renamed without the need for a computer, directly from the 8-Series Record Folder Options menu. Users can choose whether playback audio goes to all outputs or just headphones, while leaving live audio to pass through to other outputs. This is beneficial for production crews, who can continue hearing live audio without interruption while the sound mixer can check playback of takes.

can use in terms of how detailed or how much processing you want to put into determining the transcription. So, it’ll make it more accurate or less accurate. If you use the lowest level, you’re still using CPU cycles to do that. If you’ve got a large library of content that you’re trying to transcribe, you’ve got to figure out how to efficiently do that transcription and how much horsepower it’s going to actually need.

“So, I think that was more so the challenges, at least in the early development stages. As a framework, it’s pretty straightforward. It’s more the performance and the implications of the hardware that you’re trying to run it on is where things get a bit more complicated.

“You wouldn’t want to use hardware that’s too old, but what your trade off is if you have less cores, less speed, you’re going to be processing slower.”

Visit https://www.inflo.tv/

With the 8-Series v10.01 upgrade, the SDRemote – a companion app to 8-Series mixerrecorders – now has a new Routing Matrix tab with an overview of all input, channel, bus, and output routing on a single screen, making it much easier to view and control where audio signals are coming from and where they’re going to.

These features and many more are available at no cost with the firmware upgrade.

Visit www.sounddevices.com/8-series

NUGEN Audio’s Halo Suite Gets Immersive

NUGEN AUDIO’S new Halo Suite is designed for immersive mixing projects. The bundle includes several of the brand’s previous solutions: Halo Vision audio analysis tool, Halo Upmix and Halo Downmix, along with the corresponding 3D extensions.

Designed for 3D, surround and immersive audio workflows, Halo Vision is a customisable, realtime visual analysis tool for the AAX, VST3 and AU formats. It features a variety of modules that provide audio professionals with a clearer understanding of every aspect of their sound, allowing for precise decision-making and troubleshooting. Halo Vision can be customised, re-arranged and resized to suit any specific workflow, making it perfect for a broad spectrum of immersive sound projects, from film to music. Halo Upmix is a stereo to 5.1, 7.1 and 3D upmixer

that offers full control and intuitive ease. From naturally extracted and expanded soundscapes to full cinematic bigstage enhancement, Halo Upmix delivers all the control needed to finetune a surround mix. The Halo Upmix algorithms produce a natural, coherent spatial upmix that preserves the character of the original audio without adding any artificial reverb, chorus or delay. The 3D extension adds 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos bed-tracks and 7.1.4 Aura 3D compatibility, along with Ambisonic outputs.

Halo Downmix enables precise surround balancing, mix monitoring and stereo folddown. The perfect complement to any surround production toolset, Downmix is the glue that

Pliant Enhances SmartBoom LITE Headset

PLIANT TECHNOLOGIES, a leading provider of professional wireless intercom solutions, has unveiled upgrades to its SmartBoom LITE Headset. The latest updates include enhancements to the headset’s existing list of features for improved flexibility, stability and a more comfortable fit. Among the new features is a new field-replaceable cable and a newly designed swivel earcup.

The new SmartBoom LITE headset also features exceptional audio quality. The innovative headset features an on/off microphone muting feature, which allows the adjustable microphone boom to act as an on/off switch for quick muting. It also

incorporates a closed back, supra-aural on-ear design and a single-ear lightweight form factor that provides enhanced acoustic isolation. The ambidextrous, swivelling mic boom is flexible and has a dynamic noise-cancelling cardioid microphone optimised for voice communications and outstanding audio quality.

Available in a non-reflective rubberised matte black finish, the SmartBoom LITE headset comes with a comfort fit adjustable headband and replaceable ear pad. The LITE headset is available in 4-pin XLR female, 5-pin XLR male, 6-pin mini XLR female (TA6F), and unterminated versions in both Electret (PHS-SB11L2E) and

Shure Nexadyne Dynamic Vocal Mics

SHURE HAS INTRODUCED the Nexadyne dynamic microphone platform with Shure Revonic Dual Transducer Technology.

Available in cardioid and supercardioid polar patterns, Nexadyne vocal microphones achieve polar pattern consistency, unparalleled noise reduction, and professional touring performance, so sound engineers and performers can confidently provide front-row vocal clarity to every corner of the venue, every time.

“Nexadyne is the next chapter of Shure’s storied history as the leader and innovator in dynamic microphone technology,” shared Nick Wood, Senior Director, Professional Audio Products, at Shure. “With built-in acoustic signal processing, the Nexadyne platform ushers in a new era of modern live performance that engineers and vocalists can trust on stage night after night.” Revonic Technology

The Nexadyne platform is built on Shure’s patented, groundbreaking Revonic Dual Transducer Technology. The technology minimises the amount of time and effort required by sound engineers to make performers’ live vocals sound exceptional and cut through the mix.

Most dynamic microphones are designed with only one transducer, the part of the microphone that converts sound into an electrical signal. Breaking from the mould, Shure’s innovative

brings a workflow together. The implementation of the latest updates makes it possible for production mixers to deliver projects in a wide array of formats, with ease and without compromise. The software allows for flexibility and collaboration across a broad spectrum of project types, channel counts and output formats. Halo Downmix is capable of downmixing from 7.1 and 5.1 to configurations from 7.0 to stereo. With the 3D extension, downmixing from 7.1.2 is also supported.

Visit https://www.nugenaudio.com/

Dynamic (PHS-SB11L2) microphone models, making the line adaptable to any professional intercom system. This new model replaces all existing SmartBoom LITE models and will be available through worldwide distribution to any country with a Pliant dealer/distribution network. The SmartBoom LITE headsets are suitable for professional intercom users working in a range of applications including AV, film and studio use, theatres, houses of worship, broadcast, live sound, education, and more.

Visit https://www.plianttechnologies.com/

Revonic Technology implements two precisely matched transducers. These transducers work together to provide a greater range of acoustic optimisation, maximising specific frequencies and minimising unwanted noise, especially handling noise and mechanical vibration. This built-in signal processing delivers a stronger output than traditional single transducer designs, while subsequently removing the need for a traditional pneumatic shock mount and time-consuming, corrective audio editing.

Implementing the benefits of perfectly matched transducers requires thorough attention to detail throughout the manufacturing process. By maintaining and surpassing the highest, stage-tested standards for every Nexadyne microphone, Shure has guaranteed optimum manufacturability for consistent performance.

As the leader in handheld microphones and a pioneer in dynamic microphone technology, Shure continues to set the standard for vocal reproduction and industry-leading build quality with the introduction of Nexadyne and Revonic Technology.

With Nexadyne premium vocal microphones, performers and sound engineers can be confident the entire audience will hear an acoustically honest representation of their performance with vivid clarity.

Vocalists using Nexadyne vocal microphones will immediately experience greater clarity and range of detail, which enables more control of vocal nuance and less time either holding back or pushing the voice too hard, no matter the size of the venue.

For engineers, Nexadyne vocal microphones achieve improved signal quality, delivering a clearer source signal to work with during the mixing process. The higher output of the microphone ensures engineers can accurately reproduce and balance the performer’s vocals in the overall mix with significantly less corrective audio processing.

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

Mildura Region to Lose Network 10 Broadcasts

RESIDENTS OF THE Mildura/Sunraysia region of western Victoria/NSW are to lose free-to-air access to Channel 10 and its associated Bold and Peach channels from June 30 with the closure of the Seven West Media/WIN Corporation joint venture, Mildura Digital Television Pty Ltd due to an untenable financial position.

The closure of the service is not without some irony. June 30, 2010, saw Mildura/Sunraysia become the first region in Australia to switch to digital-only television. Then Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy even made the comment, “The switch to digital-only television in Mildura/Sunraysia is an historic day for Australia. People in Mildura/Sunraysia have today moved from having some of the worst television reception, and the most limited choice of channels, to leading Australia in the move to 16 or more channels of clear pictures and crisp sound.”

Launched in 2006, Mildura Digital Television

IN BRIEF

FOLLOWING ON FROM last year’s success of being the first telco in the Australian market to hit speeds of 800Gbps, Optus and Nokia have conducted a successful field trial on Optus’ existing operational long-haul fibre network of one Terabit per second (Tbps) over 1,050Km (Sydney to Melbourne) and the first in the world to hit 1.1 Tbps over 405Km (Sydney to Canberra).

The speeds Optus have hit would support the transfer of roughly 1.2 petabytes (PB) of data in a single day or the equivalent to backing up the entire contents of a large data centre in just one day. This corresponds to a total capacity of more than 35Tbps over a single fibre pair using standard C-band transmission which is also a record on a production network.

Using Nokia’s sixth generation super-coherent Photonic Service Engine (PSE-6s) alongside the Nokia 1830 Photonic Service Switch platform and current Optus channels powered by prior

has, during its history of operations, seen a number of shifts in its network affiliation. In 2016, as a result of WIN Television becoming the Network Ten affiliate in the region, Mildura Digital Television switched its affiliation to the Nine Network and rebranded as Nine Mildura. Then in 2021, due to WIN Television becoming the region’s Nine Network affiliate, it switched its affiliation back to Network 10.

Speaking to C+T, Bridget Fair, Chief Executive Officer of industry body Free TV, said: “The difficult decision to shut down the Mildura Digital Television joint venture is a reflection of the very real pressures that exist for regional commercial television broadcasters.

“The Albanese Government has said it is committed to regulatory reform to support the sustainability of commercial television broadcasters and regional news services, but unfortunately we are not seeing any action to line up with the rhetoric. In an environment of declining revenue and Government inaction

generation of PSE-Vs optics which support 400Gbps and 600Gbps capacity over some routes, Optus can hit transport service speeds of 1 Tbps or more. This allows Optus to add network capacity and provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity with optimal footprint, efficiently and with reduced power consumption. Visit https:// www.optus.com.au/

NINE AND MAGNITE, the independent sell-side advertising company, have announced Nine’s adoption of Magnite’s SpringServe solution to manage delivery and mediation of its programmatic demand on Nine’s BVOD platform, 9Now.

The Magnite Streaming SSP will provide the tools to manage and optimise 9Now inventory across multiple demand sources. Magnite’s SpringServe will power 9Now’s mediation layer, enabling more efficient management of video advertising. SpringServe is able to enhance the 9Now experience for viewers and

advertisers by shifting the way programmatic demand sources access inventory; in SpringServe this supply is offered simultaneously and in parallel, as opposed to in a linear and sequential order, allowing advertisers more complete access to audiences.

Advertisers will also have the ability to test ClearLine, Magnite’s self-service buying solution which provides direct access to premium video inventory on Magnite’s platforms. Visit https://www.magnite. com

AUSTRALIAN OTT

PROVIDER, Fetch TV, will be making Free-to-Air (FTA) channels available as IP feeds via the Fetch Electronic Program Guide (EPG). Fetch households with no or poor FTA reception will enjoy easy access to FTA program information and single click channel access from the EPG.

The FTA IP channel feeds are currently available for viewing on the Fetch platform via the individual FTA BVOD Apps. Fetch will

on any real regulatory change to support the sustainability of commercial television, this decision was inevitable.

“Outdated regulatory burdens like the $42 million spectrum tax levied on commercial television remain in place with no plan to review them, and new legislation around prominence and anti-siphoning do not seem likely to deliver any meaningful benefit. In addition the Government has flagged onerous new privacy laws, accessibility requirements and cuts to gambling advertising, all of which place additional pressure on regional commercial television businesses. If the government is truly committed to a future made in Australia for regional media services, it needs to take action now. The time for reviews and consultations is over.”

Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, is yet to issue a formal statement on the closure of Mildura Digital Television.

now provide the added convenience of integration into the EPG.

The FTA IP feeds do not currently represent a “like for like” replacement of the terrestrial feeds, as they are subject to some sport and programming black outs as well as other programming differences, particularly with respect to Regional vs Metro news. Visit https://www.fetchtv. com.au/

ACCEDO HAS PARTNERED with Whakaata Māori (Māori Television) to refresh and transform its popular Māori+ video service. Accedo, along with Whakaata Māori, has designed and developed the re-imagined video service, MĀORI+. The service delivers free-to-air and on-demand content across multiple platforms, promoting, revitalising and normalising Te Reo language to audiences across Aotearoa (New Zealand). The refresh includes the introduction of user profiles, enabling Whakaata Māori to deliver a more personalised

experience to its audience. The addition of kids profiles means that parents can ensure their children are only served age-appropriate content. The new MĀORI+ also has improved search and content filtering capability, as well as custom UI elements that can be managed in detail leveraging Accedo’s CMS solution for real-time app configuration and content management. This makes it simple for the team to create collections with tagged content, such as featuring a specific actor or content that is coming soon. Visit https://www. accedo.tv

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Pebble PRIMA: Rock-Solid Playout, Workflow, Control

A new cloud platform, new functionality, rock-solid security and a ringing endorsement from NVIDIA. These are just the first steps in a new era of evolution for longtime playout and automation provider Pebble.

Founded in 2000, Pebble has commissioned systems in more than 70 countries, with proven installations ranging from single channels to over 150 channels in operation, and more than 1500 channels currently on air under the control of its automation technology. In the Asia-Pacific, installations include MediaHub Australia and the NPC Media play-out centre in Sydney.

Now all these installations and a host of new applications can benefit from the company’s new software platform - Pebble PRIMA (Platform for Real-Time Integrated Media Applications).

According to Neil Maycock, Chief Commercial Officer with Pebble, “PRIMA brings a lot of what I call table stakes, or minimum entry requirement for a modern piece of software, and the big advantage for us is, we’ve written it once, and then we can have a whole range of applications on top of that, and they all inherit that core capability, secure, scalable, deploy anywhere functionality,

“PRIMA is for all our applications. It’s Linux on Kubernetes, high security, centralised services like user authentication and logging and APIs, etc. And then we build different applications on top of this shared platform. It’s cost-effective. Whether it’s in the cloud or on-prem doesn’t really matter given the technology stack.”

Holoscan allows users to leverage the latest IT and provisioning technologies and a modern containerbased approach to development, orchestration, and delivery. An IP-based solution, it is built on industry standards and APIs including ST 2110, AMWA NMOS, RIST, SRT, and NDI. It also enables the incorporation of new production capabilities - such as generative AIwithout additional infrastructure investments.

PRIMA, as part of NVIDIA’s early-access program for Holoscan for Media, will initially support a core set of applications: playout, workflow, and IP management and control.

“The nice thing about the NVIDIA collaboration,” says

while overcoming the limitations of non-cloud technologies.

“When we talk about PRIMA expanding our addressable market,” says Neil Maycock, “it means we can now economically address tier-three applications, because you can scale down to the more boutique operations. The other end of it is, if you want to scale up to a couple of hundred channels at a play-out service provider, you can do that as well with the technologies we’ve used, like Internet scale databases instead of Microsoft SQL Server.

And while PRIMA represents a new direction for Pebble, it also adds a new dimension to the company’s existing product line and customer base.

“We have Playout on PRIMA,” says Neil Maycock, “but one of the things we’ve been very clear about is that our established products, our automation, our channel playout, they are still current. They’ve got active roadmaps going forward. They’re not going anywhere for quite a long time and the introduction of PRIMA is expanding our addressable market.

“It’s definitely a side-by-side strategy. They work together, so you could use PRIMA as a cloud-based DR for the other products, for instance, and so they synchronise and play nice together.”

NVIDIA

Chip manufacturer NVIDIA may make headlines for its $2.62 trillion valuation and providing the processing grunt for the movers and shakers of artificial intelligence, but there is more to the company than being the seller of picks and shovels for the next gold rush.

NVIDIA has entered into a collaboration with Pebble which sees PRIMA support the chip-giant’s NVIDIA Holoscan media platform, a software-defined platform for developing and deploying media applications onprem, in the cloud, and at the edge.

Pebble’s Neil Maycock, “is that it is an endorsement of the architectural backbone of PRIMA, that it’s written well and it’s structured how a modern piece of software should be structured. That’s a real testimony for the platform.”

SECURITY

The foundation of that architectural backbone is security, something that is baked into PRIMA, not tacked on downstream as an additional module or third-party plug-in.

According to Pebble, PRIMA is built from the ground up to ensure compliance with security recommendations such as EBU R143, ensuring top-tier security through granular permissions management, support for time limited sessions and latest security standards.

“Security goes all the way back into the development chain,” says Pebble’s Chief Commercial Officer. “There’s checks and balances in our development processes that stop a developer committing insecure code into PRIMA.

“We talk about security, but a lot of broadcast is you just put an insecure piece of software in a walled garden where it doesn’t have connectivity to the outside. Obviously, once you start going into the public cloud, that’s not sufficient.”

SCALE

With the cloud comes flexibility and scale, characteristics that give PRIMA the ability to address the needs of a greater variety of content providers

“With Microsoft SQL Server, in the back end of many products, you hit scaling issues, because it’s not designed to scale, whereas if you use an Internet scale database, they leverage the additional compute as they need to scale, and you can go as big as you want. In traditional systems, you’d have a core level of capability, and you could put so many channels on that, and when you got to a certain point, you had to put another core in and scale up. With PRIMA, you just throw more and more compute resources at it, and your costs are very lenient. Inherently, there’s no channel limit on a system. I’m sure there will be, and probably at some point the economics or return on investment will tail off, but we’re not sure what that is yet, frankly, but it’s way beyond what we can do with the current generation of products.”

PRIMA will be available from Q3 2024 with a Pebble PRIMA Pilot planned for the remainder of the year going into 2025 when the company says it will be rolling out the platform in earnest.

“It’s a subscription-based licence, and that includes support,” concludes Maycock, “so that also gives users a bit of flexibility. A single fee, simple to understand pricing, and at the right level for people.”

Visit https://www.pebble.tv/

Neil Maycock, Chief Commercial Officer, Pebble.

Cloud Playout: A Win-Win for Costs and Carbon Footprint

How

By Andy Warman, CTO Video, Imagine Communications

THE PUBLIC CLOUD OFFERS

media companies new business opportunities and a chance to radically rethink some of the foundational choices in television distribution. At the same time, many media organizations — driven by remote workforces and workflow simplifications — are looking to consolidate broadcast centers or transition to smaller facilities, also enabled by systems modernization. These two forces are conspiring in a way that has the potential to improve broadcasters’ bottom line, while also improving the carbon footprint of the television industry.

Reduction in facilities and infrastructure

One lasting effect of the global pandemic is the sea change in workplace presence. Television production and operations teams learned to work remotely, in many cases from home, and the productivity was good. Many media enterprises were already in the process of reducing physical realestate footprints even before the work-from-home trend, but WFH makes the economics even better — reducing the requirements for inperson office space significantly. A similar transition has been underway in machine room spaces. As Moore’s Law scaling has steadily reduced the size and thermal load of computing and networking equipment, the equipment stack (and related power and cooling) required to produce a finished television channel gets smaller each year. These savings are only realized when operators transition to new equipment, which means the steps of reduction are quite large when they happen. This allows companies, as a byproduct of tech stack modernization, to reclaim and repurpose space once consumed by technology infrastructure — or simply take it off-lease entirely.

Peak Demand and Steady Demand

Television production and distribution is a combination of peak demand workloads and steady-state workloads. Linear channel playout is historically

a 24/7 operation, requiring a seamless, uninterrupted solution. Resource consumption for these types of channels is predictable with little variation over time. But during high-viewership hours, it can be worthwhile to create multiple versions of channels with different advertising delivered to different viewers in regional or demographic splits — ramping up the resource footprint temporarily. Regional sports and news breakouts also drive up the number of concurrent playlists temporarily, as does systemic redundancy.

Traditionally, technical infrastructures have been built to handle the worst-case demand — even though that demand only materializes a few days a year. This seeming inefficiency (or underutilization) is often cited in making a case for cloud-based operations as a supplement to on-prem. It is easy to see the potential savings in finding the right mix of on-prem and remote/ cloud operations if the technology platform allows a flexible mix of the two technologies.

The goal of most operations teams is to optimize the high-revenue channels with complex advertising and last-moment schedule changes — especially where there is an operational workflow component such as studio and live integration — while using heavily automated, exception-driven (and increasingly cloud-hosted) deployment models for FAST and thematic (non-live) channels.

The cloud is a shared resource — of nearly infinite capacity

The public cloud is built and maintained to serve the largest cross section of potential customers from a vast array of industries, which all have different needs and goals. It is built to be shared, securely, including sharing enormous amounts of network bandwidth. The public cloud is also inherently “remote” from the users, the content, and the distribution point of view.

The public cloud gets its operating

efficiency from scale. Users leverage the cloud provider’s dedicated teams who deal with maintenance, system refreshes, security and all the other services that would normally require support from local staff. These cloud provider resources are shared by all users of the cloud platform.

Famously, the public cloud is pay-as-you-use; you do not have to engineer for peak usage — indeed, each day can define a new peak. Being able to use the cloud for peak-demand operations and business continuity means your local plant does not need to dedicate space, power, air conditioning or racks of equipment to the peak demand, but only to the steady-state demand. This provides real, measurable savings in capital, power, and of course real estate.

How much can you save?

How much you can save and how much you can reduce your environmental impact by using the cloud will depend on the mix of channels you plan to run there and what you will continue to run on-prem. Some systems are best left running on-prem, while others are well-suited to the cloud. A growing number of users place their high-value linear channels and critical redundancy systems on-prem, but use the cloud for DR, FAST channels, occasional use, and special and live events.

In practice, you should plan for hybrid environments that let you mix on-prem systems and the cloud in a way that works best for your business.

For many users, the greatest benefit of the public cloud is the ability to turn resources on and off as needed. Couple this with the fact that you are effectively outsourcing compute, storage and networking to the provider, and the benefits multiply: the ability to quickly take channels on and off line; a reduction in on-prem equipment to manage and run operations, along with the space,

Regardless of your current or future plans for cloud, it is a valuable and effective tool to take up the slack when playout channels need to be ramped up and down.

HVAC and maintenance savings that go with it; and the capacity to adapt over time to most effectively use your on-prem and cloud resources.

Regardless of your current or future plans for cloud, it is a valuable and effective tool to take up the slack when playout channels need to be ramped up and down. You can use its shared resources and metered pricing to control your own costs. And it opens the door to consolidating multiple facilities to a smaller number of locations — taking a critical step toward reducing your carbon footprint.

Visit https:// imaginecommunications.com/

Blackmagic Design Takes on SMPTE 2110

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN is taking on SMPTE 2110 with a new range of 2110 IP Converters in mini and rack mount models that support Ultra HD using 10G Ethernet. Designed to integrate SDI equipment into 2110 IP broadcast systems for customers in broadcast, live production and AV, the new Blackmagic 2110 IP Converters conform to SMPTE ST-2110 standard for IP video, including PTP clocks and even NMOS support so users can make connections using a video router panel.

The new range includes:

• The 2110 IP Converter Mini IP to HDMI

• The 2110 IP Converter Mini IP to HDMI SFP (small form-factor pluggable)

• The 2110 IP Converter Mini BiDirect 12G

• The 2110 IP Converter Mini BiDirect 12G SFP

• The 2110 IP Presentation Converter

• The 2110 IP Converter 4x12G PWR

• The 2110 IP Converter 8x12G SFP

Blackmagic Design has a wide range of SMPTE-2110 IP video products, including converters, video monitors, audio monitors and even cameras. Plus they support Ultra HD using low cost 10G Ethernet. Most converter models are bidirectional, so they’re suitable to use on cameras when users need an extra program return.

The Blackmagic 2110 IP Converters have been designed to integrate SDI equipment into 2110

IP broadcast systems. The rack mount models can be installed in equipment racks right next to the equipment users are converting.

Blackmagic

2110 IP Converters are available in models with RJ-45 connectors for simple Cat6 copper cables or SFP sockets for optical fibre modules and cables. Using simple Cat6 copper cables means customers can build SMPTE-2110 systems at a lower cost.

According to Dan May, President at Blackmagic Design, “Last year we came out with a few 2110 solutions to kind of dip our toes. This year, we really wanted to come out with a robust whole workflow. We’ve got things to deal with, say, distribution, where we got an entire new network switch using 2110. We have converters for doing 2110 to HDMI, or doing SDI to our 2110 Ethernet or SFP bidirectionally. We’ve also gone ahead and dealt with updating some of our older products for acquisition, like our studio cameras and our HyperDecks, which have that Ethernet port. We’ve just done a free update to be able to do 2110 as well. We’ve also gone ahead and created two new versions of some of our monitoring products, our SmartView 4K, which is our larger

monitor solution, as well as our audio monitor, which is our OneRU unit. And these have now had these Ethernet updates to be able to do 2110 as well. So, really trying to build a complete workflow around a very open standard of 2110, using our own codec, but making it a free codec, so that hopefully other manufacturers will adapt this standard as well.

“We’re looking to be able to put it out as an open standard that perhaps SMPTE can even ratify and certify as well. The key for us is we want this to be open and very plug-and-play. We want this to be something that someone can pull out of the box and start sticking together without having to have a fleet of IT technicians available to put together. So this is what the promise of 2110 really is.”

Visit https://www.blackmagicdesign.com

Part of Blackmagic Design’s new range of 2110 IP converters, the 2110 IP Presentation Converter

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The 2024 ABE Exhibition, Conference & Workshops are being held at Sydney’s raciest venue, the Royal Randwick Racecourse from October 22-24.

Hear from industry experts on hot topics such as IP production and delivery, 4K, HDR, HEVC, OTT, VR, cloud broadcasting, AI in Media, and more.

the latest solutions to empower production and delivery of your content. Register now for updates & notifications on exhibitors & speakers.

HIGH-END QUALITY FOR EXCEPTIONAL VALUE

To

A flexible studio camera for today’s live productions, the HXC-FZ90 combines high image quality with seamless integration and smoother live workflows, making it ideal for producing coverage at sporting events, house of worship services and OTT content like Esports. Safeguard for future productions with a simple upgrade to 4K with a software option.

4K and HDR production with wide colour BT.2020 support

Compatibility with Sony standard viewfinders and accessories

Wide range of operational functions inherited from the industry leading HDC series

Network trunk expands configuration options for prompters or PTZ camera control

Native true 60.00P support for online streaming