Digital Studio India, September 2018

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TECHNOLOGY

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

BROADCASTING AUDIO OVER IP

2018

TOUCHDOWN

A RUNDOWN OF THE SPECTACULAR HAPPENINGS ANTICIPATED AT THIS YEAR’S IBC2018 EXTRAVAGANZA Published by ITP Media (India)

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SEPTEMBER 2018 VOLUME 10 ISSUE 09 EVENTS CALENDAR 2018 CABSAT Show

14th to 16th Jan Dubai World Trade Centre, UAE

BES Expo

26th to 28th Feb Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India

BVE show

27th Feb to 1st March, ExCeL London, UK Convergence India 2018

7th to 9th March Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India NAB Show

7th to 12th April Las Vegas Convention Centre, US Broadband TV Connect Asia 2018

24-25 April 2018 AVANI Riverside Hotel, Bangkok Broadcast Asia

26th to 28th June Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, Singapore

18

IBC2018 TOUCHDOWN

A rundown of the spectacular happenings anticipated at this year’s IBC2018 extravaganza

08 DOMESTIC NEWS 14 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 42 SEEKING THE UNNATURAL

Most technological trends see the light of the day and then recede, but the epoch of Artificial Intelligence in the M&E industry, is here to stay.

50 A DASH OF COLOUR

The AoIP technology has come of age, and is soon to be a holy-grail practice for audio broadcast.

4 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

BIRTV 2018 Show

22nd to 25th August Beijing, China IBC Expo

14th to 18th September Amsterdam RAI, Netherlands Broadcast India Show

25th to 27th October Bombay Exhibition Centre, Goregaon, Mumbai Digital Studio India Channel Partner Awards

26th October Hotel Sahara Star, Mumbai Inter BEE

14th to 16th November Tokyo, Japan

www.digitalstudioindia.com

VIEWPOINT Vol. 10 | Issue 9 | September 2018

ITP MEDIA (INDIA) PVT LTD

I see, IBC

898 Turner Road, Notan Plaza, 3rd Floor Bandra (West), Mumbai - 400050, India T +91 22 6154 6000

ANISHA GAKHAR

Come September and thousands of media professionals flock to Amsterdam, to catch sight of the coveted IBC extravaganza held annually; along with vying for savoury waffles and pancakes of course! IBC2018, the gala broadcasting convention, is all set to attract the crème de la crème of the M&E industry to the Dutch capital, promising them an amalgamation of a host of global product showcases, exhibitors, conferences and exhibitions pertaining to the broadcast segment. What started as a humble beginning in 1967, with 32 exhibitors and 500 conference delegates, has now evolved into a leading broadcast convention on the global radar, catering to everyone involved in content creation, management and delivery.

On its 50th anniversary, IBC2017 recorded an over-whelming attendance of over 57,000 attendees from 170 countries around the world, and exhibited more than 1,700 of the world’s key technology suppliers. The convention is all set to follow suit this year, and we are biting our nails in anticipation! Our Digital Studio edition this month, covers a preview of this mega event, with a peek into the intriguing happenings, at IBC2018.

Turning the page, we also focus on Artificial Intelligence and Audio over IP technologies; and how they project on the future horizon of our niche media industry. Change is the only constant, they say. And belonging to an industry largely manoeuvred by technological advances, focussing on these breakthrough augmentations is the need of the day.

Moving further, I’m extremely honoured to be writing the editor’s letter this month, and take it as an opportunity to directly engage with our esteemed readers, in a more personalised way. Our camaraderie just got stronger, and I couldn’t be happier! Also, we will be present at IBC2018; if you too are in the Amstelredamme Mokum, come say Hi!

Managing director S Saikumar Group publishing director Bibhor Srivastava EDITORIAL Assistant Editor Anisha Gakhar

ADVERTISING India Commercial director Manoj Sawalani M +91 98201 76965 manoj.sawalani@itp.com South India Director Sanjay Bhan M +91 98457 22377 sanjay.bhan@itp.com

STUDIO Head of design Milind Patil Senior designer Vinod Shinde Contributor Sanjay Bandre

PRODUCTION Deputy production manager Ramesh Kumar

CIRCULATION Distribution manager James D’Souza T +91 22 6154 6006 james.dsouza@itp.com

....................................................................................................................................

The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek specialist advice before acting on information contained in this publication which is provided for general use and may not be appropriate for the reader’s particular circumstances. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publishers in writing. An exemption is hereby granted for extracts used for the purpose of fair review.

Printed and Published by Sai Kumar Shanmugam, Flat no 903, Building 47, NRI Colony, Phase – 2, Part -1, Sector 54, 56, 58, Nerul,

Anisha Gakhar Assistant Editor anisha.gakhar@itp.com

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Published by and © 2018 ITP Media (India) Pvt Ltd RNI No. MAHENG/2009/33418 MIB no. 10/50/2008

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NEWS

THIS MONTH IN THE BROADCAST AND PRODUCTION INDUSTRY

SONY PICTURES NETWORKS INDIA LAUNCHES ITS MARATHI GEC - SONY MARATHI

N.P. Singh, MD and CEO, SPN India with Ajay Bhalwankar, business head, SPN India.

8 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India, has forayed into the Marathi general entertainment space with the launch of its new channel - Sony Marathi. It claims to be a one-stop destination for the Marathi speaking audience, owing to its content curated for a family viewing experience. Sony Marathi will commence with the telecast of the 55th Maharashtra State Film Awards.

The channel will be available across key direct-to-home (DTH) and digital cable platforms.

N.P. Singh, MD and CEO, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), said, “Aligned to the belief - Vinuya Atut Naa , our channel aims to weave relationships with its viewers, through content that is contemporary in nature, yet rooted in tradition. Sony Marathi is determined to enrich the cultural fabric of the Marathi entertainment space.”

The channel will offer an array of original fiction and non-fiction programmes, which aim at breaking stereotypes. The GEC will go live unveiling 11 new shows.

Being the collective efforts of industry stalwarts, shows such as Julta Julta Jultay Ki, H.M. Bane T.M. Bane, Saare Tuzhyach Sathi, Ti Phulrani, Duniyadari Filmy Istyle, Year Down, Bheti Laagi Jeeva, Hrudhayat Vaje Something , Garja Maharashtra, etc. challenge the status quo and perceptions that exist around relationships in society. The non-fiction line-up includes Maharashtracha Favorite Dancer and Maharashtrachi Hasya Jatra. Along with daily entertainment, the channel promises a library of Marathi movies as well.

Ajay Bhalwankar, business head, Sony Marathi, commented, “Our priority is to deliver premium content that caters to the entertainment needs of the Maharashtrian audience. The Marathi-speaking broadcast market is a lucrative one, and we look forward to expanding our footprint in this space.”

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DOMESTIC NEWS

NEWS18.COM ANNOUNCES IREEL AWARDS 2018 FOR WEB SERIES IN INDIA

After the REEL Movie Awards held in March this year, News18.com is set to forge a path in the web-series awards sphere, with iReel Awards 2018 dedicated to Indian web series. The awards are aimed at celebrating the collective revolution started by the creators of web series, as well as recognise outstanding contributions made by individuals in this space.

The conceptualised awards will be determined by a mix of jury panel, as

well as online voting. The jury panel will be moderated by renowned film critic Rajeev Masand. Online voting, which will have a weightage of 20% in the final results, will be hosted online. Commenting on the announcement, Rajeev Masand, film critic and jury moderator said, “It is an honour to be a part of News18.com’s iReel Awards 2018, which will recognise web series content, ranging from comedy and biographical series, to thrillers and much more. I look forward to being a part of the event, and discuss the possibilities that web series content can explore.”

The award nominations include work

put forth by players like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, ALTBalaji, Zee5, Voot, YouTube and more. These include Sacred Games, TVF Inmates, Bose Dead or Alive, Lakhon Mein Ek , and other names across the country and beyond.

Sharing his thoughts on the announcement, Manish Maheshwari, CEO, Network18 Digital said, “We live in interesting times – in a short duration, web series have become one of the preferred sources of mainstream entertainment. It is only fitting to initiate an awards show that would solely focus on web series. Not only does it give appreciation where due, but it also connects well with our millennial audience, who happen to be consumers of these web series. With iReel Awards, we are looking forward to celebrating the web-series revolution.”

AIRTEL AND NETFLIX ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP Airtel and Netflix have announced an expansion of their partnership in India, through which subscribers of select Airtel postpaid and V-Fiber home broadband plans will receive a three month gift of a Netflix subscription.

After three months, they will be able to pay for their Netflix subscription seamlessly, using their Airtel postpaid or home broadband bill.

Customers on eligible Airtel plans will be able to sign up to Netflix to enjoy their three months of Netflix through the Airtel TV and My Airtel Netflix entertainment accessible on various devices. apps. Netflix and Airtel have also partcreated an opportunity for the uptake of nered to promote Netflix content, to provide content – both local and global. We look Airtel TV users a taste of Netflix content, forward to working with Netflix to leverage through a dedicated row on the Airtel TV app. this potential, and continue delighting cusGopal Vittal, MD and CEO (India & South tomers with our offerings.”

Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “Affordable data Airtel has built an ecosystem of digital services and growing smart devices have

10 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

content partners to serve the evergrowing demand. The partnership with Netflix reaffirms its commitment to continue to bring meaningful and differentiated partnerships on video content for its existing customers.

Bill Holmes, global head, Business Development for Netflix said, “We are delighted to expand our partnership with Airtel and combine the latest technologies and entertainment. Be it Sacred Games, Ghoul or Stranger Things, more fans are watching these series on their smartphones. We are bringing together Netflix’s TV shows and movies with Airtel’s mobile and broadband networks. Airtel customers will enjoy the simplicity of one monthly bill for their Netflix subscription and Airtel postpaid/home broadband bill.”

www.digitalstudioindia.com

DOMESTIC NEWS

BIG CINE EXPO 2018 TO WITNESS KNOWLEDGESHARING BY INDUSTRY LEADERS Big Cine Expo is set to roll out the 3rd edition of its international trade show and convention for single-screen cinemas, multiplex cinemas and malls. Subhash Ghai, a noted film director, producer and screenwriter, will inaugurate the Expo, along with Saurabh Varma, chief marketing officer, INOX Leisure; P V Sunil, CEO and director, Carnival Cinemas; Kamal Gianchandani, chief of strategy, PVR Ltd; and Raghav, director, Big Cine Expo.

The sessions have been ideated to cover topics including disruptive digital cinema technologies, tapping small towns for growth of multiplexes, cinema and entertainment marketing among other subjects.

This year will see a line-up of speakers like Saurabh Varma, CMO, Inox Leisure; Mohan Umrotkar, CEO, Carnival Cinemas; Vishnu Patel, CEO, Special Projects; UFO Moviez

www.digitalstudioindia.com

Sri Subhash Ghai at the inauguration ceremony of Big Cine Expo 2018.

(Nova Cinemaz); Dharmesh Datta, VP and head of marketing, PVR Group; John Schreiner, SVP, IMAX Corporation; and Devang Sampat, director, Strategic Initiatives, Cinepolis, among others.

Raghav, director, Big Cine Expo said, “The Big Cine Expo 2018 will bring about a host of innovative business solutions and ideas through productive conversations in the cinema and entertainment segments.”

Along with panels and presentations, the event will also host the IMAX Big Cine Awards 2018. It will honour talent in the categories like including India’s top multiplex chain of the year, best multiplex theatre of the year, best single-screen theatre of the year, best technology adopter of the year, innovative technology of the year, most trusted brand of the year and special achievement award.

DIGITAL STUDIO | SEPTEMBER 2018 11

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

ESPN INDIA COMMENDS LIVEU’S LU600 HEVC DEPLOYED AT THE FIFA WORLD CUP IN RUSSIA LiveU released its live broadcasting figures for the FIFA World Cup in Russia, with 485 units onsite, used by customers from over 40 countries, with over 15,000 hours of live broadcasting; and over 30,000 live sessions and 36TB of live transmission – with LiveU’s LU600 4K HEVC solution. Live feeds captured on ground had to be sent back to India, to be broadcasted live on Sony Pictures Networks India.

ESPN India was present in Moscow to catch the live action of FIFA World Cup 2018 with the LU600 HEVC. “At crowded locations where there were issues of network congestion, sending live feeds back to India, was seamless with almost no

LiveU’s portable backpack.

technological glitches. The equipment has been replaced by an easy-to-carry solution that fits in a backpack. The compact chassis is what makes it a portable solution,” said Suketu Mehta, multimedia producer, ESPN - India.

The other features of the LU600 HEVC that were highlighted were its form-factor and cost effectiveness. LiveU provided customers with bandwidth guarantees for connectivity in the 11 host cities. The offering provided an add-on priority SIMs package for streaming quality live video, enabling customers to reach 20Mbps uplink and deliver HD live feeds from crowded locations.

GATESAIR APPOINTS JACKY YEE AS HEAD OF SALES, ASIA-PACIFIC

BITTREE UNVEILS PATCH PANEL ENCLOSURE FOR IT CONVERGENCE

GatesAir, a global provider of over-the-air content delivery solutions for radio and TV broadcasters, announced the appointment of Jacky Yee as head of sales, AsiaPacific. Based in Singapore, Jacky will lead a team of four regional sales managers, and report directly to Rich Redmond, president and managing director, International.

Jacky comes to GatesAir with over 20 years of Jacky Yee, head of sales - Asia-Pacifexperience in the broadcast ic, GatesAir. and audio-visual industries, including regional and director-level sales roles with Tektronix, Extron Electronics, Grass Valley Group and Snell Advanced Media. His experience includes a stint as sales manager, Southeast Asia for Harris Broadcast Communications Division – the company from which GatesAir was born.

“I see opportunities to grow GatesAir’s television business across the Asia-Pacific sub-regions and emerging countries, while continuing to refresh FM infrastructure and advance digital radio,” said Yee.

Addressing the convergence of IT with the video and audio operations associated with its core markets, Bittree has announced the launch of the DSFB124NL Series of patch panel Bittree’s patch panel enclosure. enclosures. The feed-through, slide-out enclosure solution caters to customers managing connections within IT closets and data centers, as well as in TV and radio facilities, recording studios, sports and live event venues, and commercial AV architectures.

The DSFB124NL-ST accommodates high-density, simplex ST-to-ST connections. A second version, the DSFB124NL-LC will follow later in 2018, to accommodate duplex LC-to-LC connections. The DSFB124NL series includes steel gliding rails for easier access to connections, offering steady-locking positions that simplify access between ports as technicians move, add or make changes to the fiber-optic network. The enclosure comes with grommets, cable strain reliefs, and bends radius guides.

The product is built using a cold-rolled steel construction with a durable black powder-coat finish, ensuring a highly durable and reliable product design. “The DSFB124NL enclosure is built with connection to a core switch and/or routing system in mind, has removable inserts, and facilitates management of the entire ecosystem,” said Bryan Carpenter, senior sales consultant, Bittree.

14 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

AIMS PRODUCTIONS CHOOSES RIEDEL MEDIORNET FOR RESORTS WORLD SENTOSA PROJECT AIMS Productions, a Singapore-based visual production company, has chosen Riedel Communications’ MediorNet, a real-time signal transport and network technology, for a ballroom project at the Resorts World Sentosa complex. MediorNet MicroN high-density media distribution network devices will provide signal connectivity for a 360-degree projection system in the ballroom.

“We believe in the adage ‘the chain is only as strong as its weakest link,’ and hence, we chose Riedel for its high-bandwidth data transport and signal-distribution technologies.

The MediorNet MicroN devices give our customer unlimited flexibility in moving, processing, and distributing signals. Each MicroN offers a signal interface, with built-in signal processing features, which eliminate the need for additional external devices,” said Choong Yip Weng, GM, Aims Productions (SG) Pte Ltd. “Riedel’s system consulting team played a pro-active role in the design of the system, with AIMS, to construct an efficient solution. This co-operation, coupled with the feature set that MicroN comprises, resulted in a winning solution for Resorts World Sentosa,” said Rajveer Singh, GM - Southeast Asia, Riedel Communications.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

RF SPECIALIST HENRY FRIES JOINS DIELECTRIC AS MANAGER OF RF SYSTEMS AND PRODUCTS Dielectric, the manufacturer of purpose-engineered antennas and RF systems for TV and radio broadcasters, announced the appointment of RF specialist Henry Fries as manager of RF Systems and Products, and Chuck Thompson as production supervisor for the company’s newly-created second shift.

These two appointments are among the strategic steps that Dielectric is taking to expand its workforce.With more than 30 years of experience, Fries will help Dielectric design and develop new RF components; such as combiners for shared antennas, and passive RF systems.

He will also focus on improving design workflows, as well as the

Henry Fries, manager, RF Systems

Chuck Thompson, production

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documentation and manufacturing of Dielectric’s standard and custom RF product lines.

“One of my challenges in this

new role will be to explore opportunities that could strengthen demand for Dielectric’s high-power RF systems beyond

its traditional broadcast base, including such vertical markets as scientific and industrial applications,” Fries said.

Thompson comes to Dielectric with a broad experience in logistics, operations and manufacturing management, having held senior positions at Noranda Aluminum and Donaldson Company. Leveraging his logistics management experience, Thompson assumed manufacturing roles during the evening shift. “My goal for the second shift is to produce more product and work as a team with the day shift, by providing organisational support to increase their operational efficiency,” Thompson said.

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IBC2018 TOUCHDOWN IBC2018 has dawned upon us, and we bring you a prequel to the gala event, which has been influencing the milieu of broadcasting, since 1967

PREVIEW

IBC2018

BY ANISHA GAKHAR

y the industry, for the industry,’ is precisely the sentiment that International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) exudes every year at Amsterdam, and rightfully so. IBC is one of the globe’s most impactful media, entertainment and technology shows, which most industry professionals vouch for. It allures thousands of attendees to the Dutch capital, promising them a magnanimous display of products, services, vendor solutions and exhibits, pertaining to the broadcast industry.

By virtue of its successful execution year after year, IBC2018 is back and how! This year promises a better, larger version of its predecessing ones, with an array of new technologies expected to be demonstrated for thousands of visitors from around the globe.

‘B

18 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

Originally, the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) has evolved extensively from its technical broadcast origins, encompassing the length and breadth of media creation management and delivery. It puts forth everything from online content to digital cinema, and automated workflows to high resolution capture and display. It has established itself as one of the most respected and sought-after conventions, and it continues to go from strength to strength.

CONFERRING CONFERENCES IBC2018 has laid down a series of technology conferences, to help induce new ideas and foster connections amongst industry pioneers. Key elements of the IBC2018 Conference are an experienced panel, and keynotes from renowned speakers and experts.

Featuring some pioneering thought-leaders, and innovators in

COVER STORY

GLOBAL GAMECHANGERS’ TRACK

EXHIBITING THE BEST The Conference will be matched with a broad-gauged exhibition, which is expected to bring together over 1700 exhibitors, each showcasing state-of-the-art augmentations spanning across the M&E domain. The Exhibition will host curated feature areas and events, providing a platform for building relationships with suppliers and customers, along with discovering the latest fads that can help drive business strategies.

IP AS THE WAY FORWARD For those in quest of enlightening themselves with the widely embraced IP technology, there’s a lot in store for them at IBC2018’s IP Showcase.

SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO 19

IBC2018

their fields, the IBC Conference will help explore new strategies, understand business disruptors, chart future technological progress and uncover the future roadmap of the industry.

From keynotes to creative directors and technical futurists, the Conference will bring together over 400 inspirational speakers, across 90 sessions.

It is aimed at shaping the future of the broadcast industry, by posing as a common ground, and catalysing the emergence of breakthrough concepts. It is expected to be an unparalleled global destination for discovering and debating the loopholes and opportunities being hurled at the electronic media and entertainment industry. With over 1,700 delegates and 400 speakers across five days of intense brain-storming discussions, we can only expect the most innovative ideas to come forth.

IBC’s tracks are designed to offer navigation through strategies, tactics, innovations, transformative ideas and emerging technologies. Six new tracks addressing pressing challenges and promising opportunities in the industry will be added this year, for attendees.

IBC2018 will introduce the ‘Global Gamechangers’ track to kick-start the Conference, with the stage all set to welcome the biggest names in the business, creative, technology and news verticals. Attendees will get to witness speakers like Lindsay Pattison, CTO, GroupM and WPP Global; Deborah Turness, head - Euronews, NBC Universal; Mohamed Abuagla, CIO and CTO, Al Jazeera; Jette Nygaard-Andersen, EVP and CEO of MTG International Entertainment and MTGx Digital Video Content at Modern Times Group (MTG); and Lisa Tobin, executive producer, Audio at The New York Times, amongst many others. With a comprehensive list like this, this year’s IBC2018 Conference programme and speaker line up is expected to provide a thought provoking experience.

PREVIEW

IBC Conference to instigate ideas and knowledge-sharing.

IBC2018

COVER STORY

The Leaders’ Summit, at IBC2017.

PREVIEW

on the creative and workflow potential offered by standardsbased IP solutions.

Over 50 vendors will co-ordinate together to demonstrate IP interoperability and other benefits, using SMPTE ST 2110, SMPTE ST 2022-7 standards, and AMWA NMOS specifications (IS-04, IS-05 and IS-06) in live production, contribution, and play-out workflows.

What’s more, a dedicated IP Showcase theatre will portray real-world IP deployments and case studies, of broadcasters and media providers who have adopted IP workflows real-time, and successfully executed implementation. The panel discussions will feature esteemed broadcasters and technologists from across the industry, and around the world.

IBC formats including breakfast meetings and lounge talks.

The demonstration is dedicated to educating attendees about the business and creative potential of IP media solutions. A host of presentations and practical demos will be organised, addressing the concept of building a flexible, efficient system, focussed

CONTENT EVERYWHERE IBC2018 Content Everywhere combines a dedicated exhibition with features designed to help visitors efficiently expand their knowledge and understanding of the latest trends, strategies and developments in online TV and video. It will demonstrate the fast-pacing nature of the world of connected electronic

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IBC2018 AWARDS – CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE

IBC Awards ceremony to celebrate achievements across various categories.

The IBC2018 Awards, which will be held at RAI, Amsterdam, will recognise pioneers and organisations which have made exceptional contributions to our industry. Celebrating everything from stand designs on the IBC Exhibition show-floor, to innovative thinking and research in their technical papers; from creative collaborations between technical partners and end users to special honours awarded at the Judges’ discretion, the IBC2018 Awards will showcase some exciting and stimulating content from the year gone by.

The enchanting ceremony will commemorate winners from

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22 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

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COVER STORY

PREVIEW

IBC2017 Content Everywhere Hub.

all sectors of the broadcast and technology industry, across categories including IBC Innovation Awards, International Honour for Excellence, Exhibition Stand Design, Best Technical Paper, Judge’s prize, and Special Award for when a person or company went the extra mile and achieved something outof-the-box.

EXECUTIVE FORUMS

Virtual Reality simulations at IBC FutureZone.

tal divide, and future networks. Eminent speaker list includes experts like Aravind Venugopal, VP, Media Partners Asia; Mark Newman, chief analyst, TM forum; Ahmed Almuhaideb, VP, Broadcast and IPTV Services; and Sasha Twining, journalist, presenter and conference host, BBC, amongst a host of others.

NOT TO BE MISSED IBC, is like an institution, which encompasses more than just exhibitions and conferences. It will host events and free features this year, to heighten the IBC-experience for visitors and exhibitors alike. From startups all the way to top C-Level executives driving the industry, theatres hosting demonstrations, presentations and briefings, pavilions and launch pads, a dedicated Future Zone simulating experiences similar to those anticipated in the future, and even blockbusters on show

SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO 23

IBC2018

IBC2018 will be hosting invitation-only Executive Forums bringing together visionaries from top rung of the industry ladder; to discuss key trends and opportunities to help mould future strategy.

The IBC2018 Leaders’ Forum will examine growth across the broadcast media ecosystem, collaborations and consolidation, dealing with disruption, global corporate venturing, consumer trust and brand safety. Esteemed speakers include Greg Beitchman, VP – Content and Partnerships, CNN International; Matthew Garrahan, global media editor, Financial Times; Erik Huggers, former CEO, VEVO; and Patrick Stobbs, founder and CEO, JukeDeck, amongst many other eminent personalities.

The IBC2018 Cyber Security Forum will bring under one roof technocrat speakers like Guy Finley, executive director, Trusted Partner Network; Yves Bergquist, CEO, Corto, Rob Silvers, partner – Litigations, Paul hastings LLP, amongst many others. It will address the futuristic topics of cyber risk vs. ROI, cyber security and collaborations, data ownership and accountability, and weaponising IoT and AI. The IBC2018 Telco and Media Innovation Forum will address concepts like bridging gaps between telcos and content providers, digital transformation of telcos, OTT Services and VoD, privacy, regulatory challenges and the impact of 5G on the digi-

PREVIEW

IBC2018

COVER STORY

IBC2017 Partners’ Pavilion.

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24 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

at IBC’s custom built IBC Big Screen, IBC2018 is set to grab eyeballs of attendees across genres!

IBC2018 will also cater to the new generation of content and media technology professionals, who are aiming at finding their ground in their industry. This year, IBC will introduce to its audiences, the Rising Stars programme, aimed at helping the young and new professionals, who will weave a revolutionised tomorrow. Another striking feature at IBC this year, is the exclusive invitation-only Leaders’ Summit, an event for around 150 leaders of the electronic media and entertainment industry.

The introduction of a Content Steering Group with a guest chair at the helm, and introduction of new conference formats including breakfast briefings and lounge talks, will only add to the existing appeal of the show. We are on the edge of our seats, and can’t wait to pack our bags for IBC2018! See you there, folks!

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Presenting a curated and comprehensive list of selected products and solutions, which will be up for display, at IBC2018

PRODUCTS SHOWCASE

IBC2018

ACCEDO TO RE-INVENT VIDEO EXPERIENCE FOR USERS Accedo has announced the launch of new solutions for media companies and pay TV operators, at IBC2018. The Accedo Service Management Solution, comprises a set of defined packages addressing specific business needs, such as platform refresh, service migration and service launch, supported with a global SLA. The Accedo Data-Driven Video Solution on display, will enable video service providers to present viewers with a personalised video experience, through the analysis of their user preferences and viewing habits. The solution is powered by the Accedo One video experience platform, and the advanced business analytics solution from technology partner, Jump. The solution focusses on problems impacting today’s video service providers: such as customer churn and content performance.

Luke Gaydon, VP - Solution Management, Accedo, commented, “Service management will remain a mission-critical

capability for video service providers. Data-driven video has the potential to enable video providers to deliver a personalised experience to viewers.” Accedo’s innovations team is demonstrating a proof of concept to improve the VOD on-the-go user experience. The new video UI has been designed for one-handed use, for viewing content on-the-go.

The Accedo One Data-Driven UX.

BRAINSTORM TO EXHIBIT CONTENT CREATION SOLUTIONS Brainstorm, manufacturer of real-time 3D graphics and virtual studio solutions, will exhibit its enhancements for hyper-realistic content creation at IBC2018. The company will showcase a theatre presentation based on photorealistic virtual sets, augmented reality and broadcast applications, where the synthetic images will be indistinguishable from the real ones. It will comprise of a combination of the Brainstorm eStudio renderer and the Epic Games Unreal Engine, within the Combined Render Engine application. The merging of Aston graphics material with InfinitySet adds visually engaging content within the virtual studio environment.

InfinitySet 3 provides Augmented Reality features to create shows using virtual sets and graphics. Brainstorm will showcase a dedicated augmented reality pod to display the possibilities of such applications using InfinitySet. Aston showcases graphics creation tools and object properties, including advanced primitives, textures, materials, shaders, and features a user-friendly, contextual interface that facilitates the designer’s operation.

Brainstorm will showcase Neuron, a pathway to broadcast graphics, traffic and branding management solution. Neuron is an integrated, MOS-compatible template-based system that allows graphics integration in the newsroom and also common

26 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

Brainstorm to showcase enhancements for content creation at IBC2018.

broadcast workflows.

Brainstorm will unveil products and developments for weather and sports applications, providing additional possibilities to the existing toolsets of Aston and InfinitySet. David Alexander, commercial director, Brainstorm, said, “At IBC, Brainstorm will demonstrate, how our range of products satisfy broadcasters’ requirements for graphics, augmented reality and virtual studio applications.”

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PRODUCTS SHOWCASE

IBC2018

CAMERA CORPS TO DISPLAY CAMERA SYSTEM ADVANCES Camera Corps will promote additions to its range of speciality camera systems and services at IBC2018. Among these innovations will be the Qx robotic PTZF camera head, the Qx Mini Zoom compact remote camera, the DMR (Dual Mini Remote) camera mount and the SMPTE 4K MAX 5 x 3G fibre signal transportation system.

The Qx is a compact head with integral pan/tilt/zoom/focus drives, incorporating a 1/3-inch CMOS full-HD sensor delivering 1080p60, 1080p50, 1080i and 720p. The camera comes with an integral 18x zoom lens, automatic exposure, auto white balance, colour correction, edge enhancement, noise reduction, gamma control, 3D noise reduction and shading correction. A shutter with a speed range of 1/4 to 1/8,000 second is incorporated. Imaging sensitivity is F5.6 at 2000 lux. The Qx Mini Zoom is a fixed-head variant of the Qx. The DMR (Dual Mini Remote) head is a remote controlled camera mount devised to carry a high motion camera for behind-the-goal football replays. It is compatible with Camera Corps’ remote control panels and long-range connecting equipment such as the SMPTE 4K MAX. It is weatherproof and compatible with HD/4K mini-cams, including high frame rate models.

Camera Corps Qx Mini Zoom.

Camera Corps DMR (Dual Mini Remote) head.

The Camera Corps SMPTE 4K MAX is designed for use in 4K-UHD or multi-camera HD broadcast coverage of live events. It Camera Corps Qx is a compact fibre signal transportation robotic camera head. system with five 3G feeds. Each system comprises two units: base and remote. Both are compact and robust, allowing swift installation, configuration and teardown. They connect via a single SMPTE 311M hybrid cable capable of carrying multichannel video and audio from one or more cameras back to a production control room.

CHYRONHEGO TO SHOWCASE GRAPHIC ENHANCEMENTS ChyronHego will preview CAMIO 4.5 graphic asset management solution, with features like render engine, latest version of LUCI5, and HTML5 plugin for fulfilment interface. Also on show will be Metacast 2.6 weather graphics solution, with features including animations for all layers, including weather model layers, and simplified application setup.

The company will highlight updates to its Virtual Placement solution, a tool for incorporating virtual graphics into any live

ChyronHego Metacast 2.6.

28 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

broadcast. It includes support for 4K recording and playout, enhanced real-time data integration with the company’s sports tracking solutions TRACAB and ZXY, and integration with third-party real-time-data sources. ChyronHego’s Paint 7.4 includes 4K support, support for HTTP H.264 live IP stream recording, automatic player-tracking capabilities, and tools for publishing content directly to social media. ChyronHego will highlight its family of augmented reality (AR) graphics and virtual set solutions, including the Neon and Plutonium virtual studio and robotic camera tracking solutions.

The Live Assist Panels user interface will enable creation of custom-designed user interfaces for control of any ChyronHego product. Also on display will be its Click Effects PRIME, an integrated, turnkey graphics-authoring solution for live arena- and stadium-based A/V presentations, LyricX 3.4, a new release of LyricX graphics creation and playout solution, and PRIME Graphics 3.1, that adresses five mission-critical use cases within a single, 4K- and IP-ready graphics design and playout platform.

“Our innovations for live production, sports, and analysis including in-venue production, news and workflow; will givebroadcasters the tools they need to tell compelling stories and grab audience share,” said, Marco Lopez, CEO, ChyronHego.

PRODUCTS SHOWCASE

IBC2018

CANTEMO UPGRADES ITS CANTEMO PORTAL

Cantemo Portal 4.0 for media management.

Cantemo, a provider of media management solutions, will offer a preview of Cantemo Portal, its media management platform, at IBC this year.

Cantemo Portal 4.0 features core upgrades and improves the

simplicity of file transfers and downloads. A key feature is that it offers control over user access. It features upgrades to Elasticsearch, Python and Django. This includes API support for Elasticsearch aggregations, which make searching and indexing of large content libraries simple. Also, the time taken to execute these tasks is reduced.

Improvements to Cantemo Agent are central to the latest version of Portal, focusing on Single Sign-On (SSO) support in the Agent, accelerated file transfer using Aspera, and feature parity between Cantemo Agent, for Windows and Mac. The Agent limits bandwidth consumption, and number of concurrent transfers. Users will be able to retry uploads and downloads in the case of errors, pause, resume or cancel transfers that are inprogress. Cantemo will also demonstrate iconik, its cloud-based hub for managing video at IBC2018.

“The updates make it easy and cost-effective to transfer files.

This is made possible due to Agent’s ability to limit consumption of bandwidth, during transfer of files,” commented Martin Fellbrink, product manager, Cantemo.

IKEGAMI SETS HDR AT CENTRE STAGE FOR IBC2018 Ikegami, the provider of cameras and production equipment, will introduce its HDR-compatible range of camera systems, and a range of monitors at IBC2018. The HDK-99 employs three 2.6 megapixel CMOS image sensors, delivering picture quality in HDR at full-HD, 1920 x 1080 resolution, and with progressive-scan. HLG mode maintains the contrast required for HDR, and conforms to the ITU-R BT.2100 standard.

The Ikegami HDK-73 is a dockable, 1080i HD camera, de-

Ikegami HDK-73.

30 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

signed for SDR and HDR broadcast production. It incorporates the CCU, connecting fiber, viewfinder and remote control.

Image capture is to 2/3-inch, enabled by 2.6 megapixel CMOS sensors, each capable of capturing full-HD 1920 x 1080 resolution images with a dynamic range of 600% in normal mode, and 1200% in HLG mode.

The HQLM-3125X HDR broadcast master monitor employs a 4096×2160 pixel, 10-bit resolution, LED-backlit, double-LCD panel with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and a panel brightness of 1000 candela per square metre. It incorporates single-channel 12G-SDI x 2, 3G-SDI × 5, 3G/HD-SDI and HDMI inputs as standard features. The HQLM-3120W is a 31 inch 4K/HD production monitor equipped with two 12G-SDI input channels as standard, for configuration with 4K equipment, such as cameras and switchers. Model HQLM-1720WR is a compact UHD-HDR monitor equipped with two 12G-SDI input channels as standard, for configuration with 4K equipment such as cameras and switchers.

The HLM-2460W is a 24-inch full-HD monitor with a 1920×1200 pixel, 400 candela per square metre, 10-bit resolution LCD panel. The Ikegami HLM-960WR is a compact multi-format LCD monitor, with a 9-inch full-HD 1920×1080 pixel, 400 candela per square metre, 8-bit resolution LCD panel.

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PRODUCTS SHOWCASE

IBC2018

MASSTECH INNOVATIONS ENHANCES CONTENT STORAGE

Masstech Innovations’ media storage applications.

Masstech Innovations has announced its focus on showcasing initiatives designed to help video-centric organisations to create optimised storage solutions, utilising cloud and hybrid technologies at IBC2018.

Demonstrations include FlashNet, Masstech’s media object storage application that adapts to growing business requirements. A scalable and secure cross-platform content management system, FlashNet integrates with MAM, PAM, NRCS, automation, video server, and library systems to improve efficiency of storage. It uses programmable, rule-based movement

workflows that ensure the content is stored in a cost-effective and operationally efficient location. It is an agnostic solution that can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration.

“At IBC, we aim to find out how users can reduce their storage hardware requirements and reclaim some of their IT footprint by embracing hybrid technologies,” said Joe French, CEO, Masstech.

Also on display will be MassStore, Masstech’s media services framework, which features a collection of services that provides media management functions and workflow automation. Integrated transcoding capabilities and support for major wrappers and codecs, allow for generation and management of proxies, metadata, and thumbnails. The solution is scalable to meet varying functional and budgetary requirements. By integrating with common NRCS and PAM systems, MassStore automates the archive process, and attaches rich metadata to news assets.

Masstech will also demonstrate how Oracle DIVA archives can be migrated to a Masstech solution, without disruption of services or constraints, on content access.

OCONNOR LAUNCHES PROTECTIVE CAMERA ASSISTANT BAG OConnor has introduced its Camera Assistant bag, which will spreads the weight of the bag over the carrier’s back, rather than debut at IBC2018. Featuring a water-and-dust resistant liner concentrating it on the shoulders. The Camera Assistant bag fits with stuff pocket, the bag is designed without any interinto a standard Pelicase 1620 travel case. nal seams, and features a hinged lid that On the inside, the Camera Assistant bag includes can be left open on set without putting seven dividers with double-sided fastening strips, sensitive equipment at risk. designed to secure OConnor heads and accessories.

“Working in close consultation with Additional fixing points hold accessories such as our customers, we designed the unit pan bars, camera plates, and durable clear-mesh bag, setting new standards for quality, pockets offer storage for additional gear. durability and protection, with every Crew members of Ember Films, who aspect of on-location workflows thought served on the principal photography through and designed in,” said Steve team for the Planet Earth II televiTurner, product manager, OConnor. sion series, and who also work on The Camera Assistant bag is confeature films, commercials, and structed of water-resistant materials and drama series all over the world, offeatures a tough wipeable outer fabric and fered input into the essential feaa double-skin lining. For heavier loads, tures necessary for a bag that D-ring fixing points on the front and back could serve in the most extreme enable users to carry the bag Sherpa-style on-location environments.

OConnor’s Camera Assistant bag. using the leather strap provided, which

32 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

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IBC2018

PEBBLE BEACH SYSTEMS INTEGRATES SINGULAR.LIVE WITH ORCA

Integration of Singular.Live with Pebble’s Orca playout solution.

Pebble Beach Systems, a leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will demonstrate the integration of Singular.Live cloud-based graphics, with Orca: its virtualised playout solution. Orca supports multiple graphics packages from third parties, thus, giving broadcasters a range of choices to fit their workflow requirements.

Singular.Live is an HTML5 graphics authoring platform, which

allows designers to create, control and play out broadcast quality graphics from a standard web browser. It is cloud based and requires no software or dedicated hardware. It includes an expanding library of over 70 graphics packages and widgets.

Stuart Wood, technical product specialist, Pebble Beach Systems, commented, “This integration enables overlaying real time HTML5 graphics with content derived from Pebble’s Marina automation playlist, or from moderated social media feeds and other online data sources. With Marina controlling the timing of the graphics, these can be scheduled from traffic, or the manual control interface can be used by a studio during a live event.”

The integration allows for multiple HTML5 render instances to be used in the same pipeline or channel configuration, to suit multiple applications. For example, the branding can be different on a broadcaster’s OTT platform and linear channels but can use the same triggers and data from the automation system. Marina can also trigger client-side graphic branding or advertising for online streaming, to display interactive personalised graphics to drive viewer engagement.

QLIGENT AMPLIFIES QOE MONITORING WITH VISION-VOD

Qligent Vision-VOD user interface.

Qligent, a cloud-based, content monitoring and analysis provider, will introduce Vision-VOD at IBC2018. Vision-VOD is an automated, file-based solution for front-end QC and back-end quality of experience (QoE) verification of video-on-demand (VOD) content.

The scalable software solution enables verification of media files, wrappers, QoE, and content metadata, which includes

34 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

automated audio level normalisation at the origination point. Following these verification tasks, Vision-VOD offers identification of audio, video and metadata defects, through delivery for networks of any scale, and without any end user operation.

“Vision-VOD is virtualised for deployment in largescale networks, to ramp up end-to-end verification of linear and/or non-linear OTT and other VoD-based networks. It eliminates dependency on human resources and infrastructure, strengthens insight into performance and consistency over specific time periods, arms the customer with the intelligence to improve content quality; thus, protecting their revenue streams,” said Ted Korte, COO, Qligent.

Notifications can be established with Vision-VOD to alert users if the content doesn’t pass the test, providing broadcasters and other VOD service providers with an automated point of reference if loudness levels, presence of black, or other performance issues continue for configurable lengths of time.

Qligent’s Vision-OTT monitoring and analysis platform will also be on display, to help deliver a comprehensive service for OTT networks across linear and non-linear content.

STREAMGUYS TO PREVIEW LIVE STREAM REWIND, RESUME AND RESTART TECHNOLOGY

SaaS-based streaming solutions provider, StreamGuys, will treat IBC2018 attendees to a technology preview of network DVR-like (nDVR) functionality for live streams. SGrewind will be a feature of cloud-based SGrecast live stream repurposing and workflow management system, which offers broadcasters a platform for recording live streams, and transforming them into revenue-expanding side channels and podcasts. The feature gives listeners and viewers control of their live streaming experiences by letting them pause and resume streams without

PRODUCTS SHOWCASE

StreamGuys SGrewind Demo Player.

missing any content, rewinding for a fixed time period, or starting the stream at a specific segment; similar to a television electronic program guide (EPG).

“SGrewind is a step in SGrecast’s mission of helping broadcasters repurpose the content they are producing, so they can engage their audiences in exciting ways,” said Jason Osburn, executive vice president, StreamGuys.

The technology supports a range of audience-empowering use cases. A listener could pause a live stream in the radio station’s mobile app when getting onto a subway or elevator, then resume the stream from that point when subsequently re-opening the app. A viewer could access a broadcaster’s live stream and jump back to the beginning of the most recent news, traffic or weather segment, thus, gaining access to what interests him or her most. Someone listening to a news segment, though partially paying attention to it, could rewind 15-20 seconds to focus on something they missed.

SGrewind will be supported in StreamGuys’ embeddable SGplayer, and its API and URL-based control strings will allow customers to integrate SGrewind support into their own players and custom mobile apps.

TVU NETWORKS EXPANDS ITS LIVE MEDIA ACQUISITION LEADERSHIP

SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO 35

IBC2018

TVU Networks expands its live media acquisition portfolio.

TVU Networks has announced the expansion of its live media acquisition, elaborating on how its media acquisition portfolio enables live video to be contributed from any location over any network.

At IBC this year, TVU Networks will demonstrate how broadcasters, which are covering major events, will be facilitated by these solutions, including multiple camera crews to journalists with mobiles and everyone in between. The innovations are expected to make live coverage stand out, now and in the future.

IHSE USA TO AUGMENT DRACO KVM MATRIX SWITCHES

IBC2018

At IBC2018, IHSE USA will showcase additions to the company’s Draco line of KVM matrix switches. Show attendees will witness how Draco solutions facilitate the integration of virtual servers into physical KVM systems, supporting operations by enabling CPU operation over fiber, from a remote workstation.

PRODUCTS SHOWCASE

IHSE USA’s Draco ultra HDMI2.

The Draco vario Remote IP-CPU extender module creates a streamlined multitasking virtual environment, where multiple operating systems and applications can be accessed directly from the physical consoles of the Draco KVM system. The IPCPU extender module is suited to control rooms with virtualised process automation, network operations centers that require real-time access to real and virtual target devices, and TV and film industry environments that rely on virtualised desktops. The functionality of the system offers options such as real-time switching, sharing, private mode, and unrestricted access to connected computers and virtual machines.

The 495 Series Draco ultra for HDMI 2.0, enables users to operate CPUs from a remotely located workstation, including DisplayPort monitor, keyboard, and pointing device, over a fiber connection. It supports the transfer of digital video in 4K resolutions up to 4096 x 2160 and 3840 x 2160, at a 60 hertz refresh rate and colour depth of 30 bit, 4:4:4. The Draco vario add-on modules, help integrate digital audio input and output, as well as data signals such as USB 2.0 and RS-232.

SIMPLYLIVE TO DISPLAY LIVE PRODUCTION PORTFOLIO

SimplyLive’s live production solution.

Simplylive will present their live production product portfolio, at IBC2018. The company will showcase the latest developments in their range of innovative products, including their ViBox production system.

It is a modular system, and consists of three hardware models.

The hardware is combined with one common back-end software.

36 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

The eco-system offers four different applications, including an all-in-one live production system, a slow-motion and playback solution, and a video referee system/master recording and streaming solution.

Simplylive will also showcase additions to the product family, the Mini versions, at IBC2018.

MULTIDYNE EXPANDS FIBER-OPTIC THROWDOWN SERIES

MultiDyne Fiber Optic Solutions will evolve its range of portable Field Fiber solutions, with its hand-portable DogBone model, which enables users working in mobile production and fixed studios, to connect to an outlet with a conventional line cord, creating a manageable production environment. It accommodates 12G and 3G SDI transport as a single, dual or bi-directional transceiver, along with data, sync and Ethernet.

“Each MultiDyne product generation grows more selfcontained as we retire the old design playbook, and give our customers what they need to thrive in today’s high-pressure

Custom Consoles studio control room desks were fielded on the US East Coast this summer for one of the premier tournaments in the annual tennis calendar. A contingent of desks in the Module-R range, was delivered for the two-week event, which was broadcasted live to television audiences around the globe.

“We delivered our Module-R flyaway control room furniture for the US tennis tournament alone.The majority are two-bay and three-bay desks in standard sections, with worktops and side panels, designed for easy transportation and quick setup.

They allow swift installation of control-room equipment such as camera shading, vision switchers, audio mixers, intercoms and video monitors,” said Custom Gary Fuller, sales manager.

Custom Consoles.

Module-R enables aesthetic desks to be configured in a variety of shapes and dimensions from a selection of high-quality pods, base sections, 19-inch rack housings, worktops, end-panel modules and legs. Co-ordinated desk pods are available as single-bay sections with up 10 rack unit chassis capacity. Module-R has been tested by FIRA to ensure compliance with current ISO

Custom Consoles Module-R desks, used for the US Tennis tournament.

standards. It is supplied with cable management and internal 19-inch racking, accessible via removable front and rear cover panels. The rear surfaces and pods are interchangeable, and a full length cable brush allows easy reconfiguration.

SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO 37

IBC2018

CUSTOM CONSOLES MODULE-R DESKS USED FOR TENNIS

PRODUCTS SHOWCASE

MultiDyne’s DogBone fiber-optic solution.

environment production world,” said Frank Jachetta, president, MultiDyne .

Receiving its debut is the BullDog II, MultiDyne’s next-generation field fiber unit for long-distance signal distribution between trucks, studios and hard-to-reach locations in broadcast, live production and commercial AV applications. It facilitates changing video signal counts from one event to the next, by adding or removing cards. Its ability to interoperate with MultiDyne openGear cards, the MultiDyne VF-9000 rackmount fiber transport frame, and other BullDog systems, ensures flexibility for its users. The system integrates a monitor and touchscreen to enhance signal control and status monitoring between two points.

The BullDog II accommodates multiple video formats (12G, 4K, 3Gb/s, HD/SDI, composite) as well as mic/line audio, intercom, tally, Ethernet, genlock and data.“ With BullDog II, our customers will have one rugged enclosure to accommodate news, sports and live event productions for any field application, where remote powered equipment is required,” said Jachetta.

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INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO MEET THE CHANGING MEDIA MARKETPLACE

O

ur industry is in an exciting transition period. The ability to make fast and smart decisions to capitalise on the promise of its future, will undoubtedly set the winners apart. The companies that have been successfully navigating today’s changing media landscape, will lead the way.

Yet, broadcasters are facing more challenges than they ever have. Consumers are moving away from the schedule-driven content consumption of the past, to

40 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

curating their own content selection from a range of sources such as online platforms and social media. They are taking charge of how, when and where they engage with their favorite content.

The downturn in linear TV viewing is also well reported. An Ampere Analysis study cites, ‘the higher the uptake of nonlinear viewing devices in a given country, the lower the viewing time spent on scheduled TV.’ This places broadcasters and media organisations under enormous

pressure to respond swiftly to this shift in viewing habits. They must now ensure that their stories are being told across a diverse range of platforms, so consumer awareness and engagement with their brands remain strong.

The changing face of broadcast While traditional linear broadcast – particularly live content – remains appealing to viewers, the explosion of online video has forced broadcasters and media companies

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to make significant strides to move away from a purely linear approach to content creation and delivery. As a result, many broadcasters have launched their own next-generation services that address consumer demand for media anytime, anywhere and on multiple screens.

Production companies also need to cater to this shift in the way their customers want to reach audiences. And this brings its own set of challenges. Not only will these players have to deliver better pictures to more devices, in different formats and over limited bandwidth, but they will have to do so with reduced budgets in the wake of rising costs and new competition.

Infrastructures and workflows must be agile and flexible to meet both current and future needs.

Our broadcast, content creation and production customers are seeking ways to improve efficiency, leveraging emerging technologies like virtualisation, IP, machine learning and automation.

From consolidating their operations to consolidating their businesses with mergers and acquisitions, the drive towards more profitable and sustainable business models is happening at record pace.

The recent SAM acquisition by Grass Valley, and the integration of the two product portfolios, has equipped us to help our customers harness these evolving market opportunities. This includes harnessing the power of the cloud and IP, which support higher resolution content and enable flexible workflows that deliver content to multiple platforms.

New approaches can pay off in sports When viewers tune into a live sports match, they expect exactly that – a seamless delivery of real-time action.

Added to this is their desire for immersive experiences with this content across a variety of platforms. This comes at a cost to broadcasters. Not only does such a feat require large production teams, and sometimes multiple outside broadcasting vehicles, but the addition of logistical and pre-event set-up requirements can drive up these costs

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Somu Patil, VP, Sales, Asia, Grass Valley.

quite rapidly. All the while, consumers are also hungry for more access to premium sports coverage, forcing broadcasters and production companies to look at new and innovative ways to meet this demand.

Live remote production is one approach to addressing this, and the reasons why are obvious. It reduces the amount of equipment on the road, reduces staff travel time and keeps more staff in-house. Because the production workflow is back at base, broadcasters are able to improve equipment utilisation, deploying the same production team and equipment to support multiple events within a given timeframe. This means more live content can be produced with fewer resources.

Most of the remote production solutions used up until now require a great deal of dedicated and expensive hardware for converting, multiplexing and modulating multiple baseband signals onto IP interfaces.

The setup, management and control of these solutions, however, is very complex, time consuming and can lead to unpredictable errors. Yet with the availability of larger bandwidth IP networks, it is becoming easier to efficiently produce live programming with multiple cameras.

Grass Valley’s production cameras can be connected directly to commercial-off-theshelf switches on an IP network, transporting the full protocol of each camera through an IP network to the camera base stations on the same network. By facilitating the complete

transmission protocol between the camera heads and camera base stations, remote productions can easily be realised without any trade off in image quality, signal latency or transmission stability.

For some time now, Grass Valley has had installations based on this technology in use around the world every day.

Looking to the future, the market will be seeking more options for remote and virtual production that further decrease cost and increase efficiency. Many of the on-premise tasks of today are well-suited for the cloud, which can help our customers reduce their upfront cash outlay and increase their financial flexibility. Efficiency is the key to remaining competitive as the pressure to deliver content to a variety of devices grows.

The right supplier is key to success As the number one player in content and media technology, Grass Valley offers the widest selection of live production, playout, news and networking solutions that drive workflow efficiency. We are continually committed to reducing the cost of integration and the time needed to get projects on-air. By working with a single supplier like us, broadcasters and content creators can dedicate more time to creating and monetizing their content, without worrying about the complexity of a multivendor solution and multiple touchpoints for service and support.

Backed by the Belden Brand, with its strong balance sheet and leading business system, we are well funded and have a solid business plan. It’s no secret, though, that our industry as a whole is in a period of transition. The survivors and ultimate market winners will be the ones who make smart decisions and remain prepared to capitalize on the promise of the future. We invest in innovation, deepening customer connections and growing our number one market leadership position. It enables us to be the business transformation partner that our customers can trust to lead them through the exciting times ahead.

The right supplier relationship will be key to finding success in the evolving broadcast market. We’re ready to be that supplier for you.

DIGITAL STUDIO | SEPTEMBER 2018 41

TECHNOLOGY

SEEKING THE UNNATURAL

Most technological trends see the light of the day and then recede, but the epoch of Artificial Intelligence in the M&E industry, is here to stay

BY ANISHA GAKHAR heodore: Well, you seem like a person, but you are just a voice in a computer.

Samantha: I can understand how the limited perspective of an inartificial mind might perceive it that way.

You’ll get used to it.

[Theodore laughs] Samantha: Was that funny?

Theodore: Yeah.

Samantha: Oh good, I’m funny!

This excerpt is from an Oscar-winning American sci-fi romantic movie, Her, directed

by Spike Jonze. The film chronicles the story of a man who develops camaraderie with an artificially intelligent computer bot, which is personified with a female voice.

Artificial intelligence (AI), also called machine intelligence or machine learning (ML), is scientifically devised intelligence demonstrated by machines, bots or computers, in paradox to the natural intelligence possessed by humans and other fauna. Advances in this sector, have enabled manufacturers and broadcasters to invent and implement smart tools and applications, to foster the quality of their content.

A good number of depictions follow suit,

T

42 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

with movies like Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Ghost in the Shell, Transformers: The Last Knight, Bladerunner et al, being bolted on the concept of AI. While there have been several instances of AI being used in international movies, it is yet to see the light of the day in India. An exception, is Rajnikanth’s 2010 flick, Enthiran, which garnered a lot of viewership and accolades in India. The story revolves around a robot named Chitti, with the ability to comprehend and exhibit human emotions, who falls in love with its creator’s girlfriend.

GAINING MOMENTUM AI and its close relation machine learning systems, expand what can be made a recurrent computer task, thus freeing people to create more content and build audiences by finding new delivery routes, and ensuring optimum monetisation.

Glodina Lostanlen, SVP and GM Americas P&N Sales & Services and Global Marketing, Imagine Communications, said, “What AI brings is the application of smart computing techniques to learn about a process, a workflow, or an operation, and automate it with increasing sophistication.

The sorts of applications where AI is going

to have a big impact are around advertising placement; for example, ensuring spots are seen by the right audience while optimising the use of the inventory.”

There was a time when AI was a niche area, accessible only to a handful of data scientists across the world. Adrish Bera, senior VP, OVP and Analytics, Prime Focus Technologies, said, “Today, open source based ML model builders like Tensorflow or Caffe can be used to build different types of Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) that mimic the brain’s ability to recognise complex objects and actions in layers. These model builders are computation intensive and can be hosted on any cloud-based virtual machine that has a powerful CPU and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). “ According to Fabio Murra, SVP Product & Marketing, V-Nova, the company is currently experiencing an evident growth in the demand for high resolution and better quality streaming from consumers. Meeting that challenge is another area where AI can bring along a host of advantages. This enables efficient extrapolation of higher levels of detail from a lower base resolution, which helps to improve compression efficiency from contribution encoding, all the way through to

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TECHNOLOGY

Adrish Bera, senior VP, OVP and Analytics, Prime Focus Technologies.

distribution to consumers. This in turn may spell lower costs for operators and a better experience for viewers. Win-Win! INTEGRATING AI WITH YOUR SOLUTION Artificial Intelligence sits naturally in any software-defined workflow, optimising and ensuring efficient use of resources while maintaining quality output. AI components can be crafted as microservices as part of the architecture, and inherently virtualised, thus, allowing the AI system to be hosted in a data centre or in the cloud.

Accorind to Bera, an AI-enabled Media Asset Management (MAM) solution can help reduce the amount of effort and cost involved in cataloguing, managing, processing and re-purposing content. With such solutions, users can leverage AI techniques to generate meaningful metadata for maximising content discovery. This in turn helps them swiftly create compelling stories from vast content repositories, for documentaries, news stories, film promos and even live events.

“AI integrations can also help automate localisation processes like subtitling and closed captioning, Additionally, AI can be leveraged to identify NSFW (Not Safe For

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“We recently used AI technology for live tagging during cricket matches, using object identification, action detection, sound detection, score feed analysis and business logic, to auto-tag the match footage and make it searchable within 20-30 seconds of the footage becoming available.”

Work) segments for compliance editing, helping editors locate shots depicting nudity, violence, smoking, drug abuse, and objectionable language,” he added. Other use cases include AI-assisted promo creation, and creation of sports highlights packages

through automation in near real time.

According to Lostanlen, the Imagine Communications approach to the software-defined architecture is through microservices: small packages of code dedicated to one precisely targeted function, which can be permuted and combined in different ways to achieve varied tasks. Any workflow is built by pulling together the microservices one needs to get the job done, and then releasing them as soon as they are no longer needed. “We have an established platform called Zenium, which orchestrates not only our microservices, but also those from third party developers, allowing users to create precisely tailored functionality for their workflows,” added Lostanlen.

Murra said, “We have integrated AI into the core of our video codec PERSEUS. The implementation utilises in-loop Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to train the encoder, in learning about common shapes and forms in video.”

Imagine Communications is working with Sky Italia, using its product Zenium, to enrich its compression and distribution operations using artificial intelligence. Because Zenium is an open platform, Sky Italia is creating its own AI algorithms to optimise and automate the allocation of resources. By introducing AI and machine learning into the content data flow, unique functionalies can be added. This enables reduction of operational costs, along with the re-assignment of personnel to creative tasks.

The Oscar-winning Her, chronicles the story of a human who develops camaraderie with a bot.

DIGITAL STUDIO | SEPTEMBER 2018 43

TECHNOLOGY

Sky Italia sees the introduction of AI as a means of raising quality and saving costs.

MAN-MADE INTELLIGENCE? This science finds its application largely in the M&E industry, in the categories of marketing and advertising, comprehension, search and classification, and experience innovation. According to medium.com, IBM used their AI system, Watson to help 20th Century Fox create a trailer for the horror movie Morgan. The AI system was taught to analyse and comprehend inputs from visual, audio, and other composition elements in 100 horror movies, so it could replicate moments during the making of the film. The six-minute movie trailer was completed in 24 hours, in contrast to a couple of weeks that it would have taken, had it been curated by humans.

Google, the leading search engine, avidly applies AI technology in its day-to-day executions. For example, the Google image search, enables users to upload sample pictures, and then uses image/face recognition to identify the image, or populate similar images. This spares the user the trouble of typing in keywords that relate to the image.

“We recently used AI technology for live tagging during cricket matches, using object identification, action detection, sound detection, score feed analysis and business logic to auto-tag the match footage and make it searchable within 20-30 seconds of the footage becoming available,” said Bera.

heightened when the company launched Meson, an intelligent workflow management application that recommends video based on users’ search trends.

Glodina Lostanlen, SVP & GM Americas P&N Sales & Services and Global Marketing, Imagine Communications.

“The underlying principles of AI and ML have been known for 30 years. What makes it such a powerful opportunity today is its ability to provide massive amounts of processing power to it.”- Glodina Lostanlen, SVP & GM Americas P&N Sales & Services and Global Marketing, Imagine Communications.

As user personalisation is the need of the day, companies are using AI to create personalised content for customers, based on recommendations that suits users’ personal tastes, whilst they are browsing or searching online. According to the Medium, Netflix’s content recommendation

AI IN NEWSROOMS Imagine a world of bots wading through heaps of data, in order to generate news, in place of a journalist doing the same. The trend has dawned, and computers are sifting through lengths and breadths of databases, to facilitate automated reporting in newsrooms.

According to the Business Standard, Google has provided Press Association, the British news agency, $8,05,000 to build Radar (Reporters And Data And Robots), that gathers, automates and writes nearly 30,000 local stories a month. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is playing an instrumental role in automating several high-volume, highly transactional process functions, freeing up human labour to focus on more strategic work.

Media is an industry, where hoards of data are processed every single day in order to create content. The challenge though, lies in filtering out the fake and rumoured content, to ensure credibility and authenticity of the stories produced by the news channel. This not does not mean that bots will replace journalists any time soon, but as the media fraternity embraces the augmentation, the news business is expected to become highly automated, with AI-based tools serving as assistants at least, in the newsroom.

CAN AI WRITE A MOVIE? How close are we to having computers pen down movies and content, like this article, for instance? Sunspring, the first short film to have been curated by AI technology in 2016, used text-recognition algorithms for the screenplays, as opposed to a traditional method of the writer laying down the script.

The novel, The Day a Computer Writes a Novel, which was almost wholly written by AI , involved human intervention only as far as directing the plot was concerned. The sentences were generated entirely by AI. According to newatlas.com, the final outcome suggested that a degree of human oversight could make this kind of AI-written fiction,

44 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

Imagine Communications’ Zenium Microservices.

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TECHNOLOGY

Fabio Murra, SVP, Product Marketing and Solutions, V-Nova.

Media houses use face recognition techniques to enhance user’s experience of video consumption.

actually work wonders. It might be long before AI replaces human intuition and reasoning though, as we reasonably suspect.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, REAL BENEFITS AI aided content creation facilitates umpteen possibilities like colour correction, automated editing, conformance/compliance and performance optimisation, scene extraction and highlights creation. Caption generation for photos and videos, language translations and automatic narration generation are also achievable through the use of AI technology.

Face recognition through automated metadata tagging and extraction, person-in-scene detection and person-in-picture tracking are features that can be leveraged, whilst using this augmentation. It also facilitates logo detection, text extraction and speech-to-text conversion. The person-in-scene tracking is especially useful during sports highlights, for instance, tracking the person who hit the goal during a football match.

“Applying recommendations to a content service would be revolutionary in content discovery and therefore in maximising revenue from a library. Like the move to IP and virtualisation, AI will prove to be effective when those that are engaged with the broadcast operations every day, learn about

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the technology, offer insight into how it can improve their roles, and become custodians of the technology. In short, AI is most effective when managed by human knowledge, intuition and insight,” affirmed Lostanlen.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS AI has alighted the M&E industry and how.

The waves of this technology have started creating ripples, in arenas of films, video production, sports and broadcast. Lostanlen said, “The underlying principles of AI and ML have been known for 30 years. What makes it a powerful opportunity today is its ability to aggregate large numbers of processors while analysing a situation, and releasing them as soon as automated decisions are made, when implemented in virtualisation and the cloud.”

But before we step foot in this unparalleled era, there are a few pointers that need clarity.

For instance, if AI were to create a piece of work, which entity would be authorised to legally own it? The costs associated with the set up of the technology, along with the manner in which it will impact the price of services in the industry, are some concerns that might come in the way of media houses wanting to embrace the trend. It might also render human involvement, a premium service, coming at its own heightened cost.

Data privacy and security are concerns that

“Our AI implementation utilises in-loop Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to train the encoder, in learning about common shapes and forms in video.” - Fabio Murra, SVP, Product Marketing and Solutions, V-Nova.

imperatively need to be addressed before a company decides to execute an AI project.

But the pros perhaps outweigh the cons.

Imagine a service provider that manages multiple television channels, each with its own balance of content types, audiences and value propositions. The company could use artificial intelligence to manage the scheduling, compression and delivery aspects through the different distribution outlets, and using a fixed delivery infrastructure. The result would be to achieve the optimum balance of quality, efficiency and value, while meeting audience expectations and contractual agreements. It will facilitate operational support, allowing human resources to focus on creating content and audience value.

How many miles the technology is set to cover, is unknown. Will it pause at content creation, or will it dive into review and strategy? Only time will tell. And maybe someday in near future, one of us might bump into an artificially intelligent robot with a network of artificial neurons, which may sound more humane than any human!

DIGITAL STUDIO | SEPTEMBER 2018 45

THINK AUTOMATION. THINK CLEAR. Solving challenges of the ‘TV Everywhere’ universe with automated Work Order Management

PFT’s Work Order Dashboard.

T

he Media & Entertainment (M&E) industry is currently witnessing huge momentum in context to original content.

Digital OTT businesses have given rise to new complexities in content operations, that content creators need to manage across sprawling supply chains. In this multiplatform environment, content creators can no longer rest on existing independently functioning systems that result in ‘Islands of Automation’.

In a bid to help M&E companies embrace automation, Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology arm of Prime Focus, will showcase the latest transformational additions to its flagship product CLEARTM Media ERP at IBC 2018 — the world’s leading media, entertainment and technology show. PFT is all set to demonstrate its power-packed solutions built on the back of CLEAR’s powerful Work Order Management, embedded with

46 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

Media Asset Management (MAM). Here’s a glimpse: Content Acquisition Portal: Automated Work Order to manage planning, acquiring, evaluating, cataloguing and scheduling content Media ERP’s Content CLEARTM Acquisition Portal serves as an entry point for all media files from any geographical location across the global supply chain, without the need for a VPN. Once ingested on to the portal, users can either trigger further downstream actions manually, or automate these actions based on business rules. Powered by Work Order Management, the solution enables users to perform work order-based ingest, assign tasks to relevant resources/vendors and track the status of all tasks conveniently through a unified dashboard. It is equipped with tools for content acquisition operations like file transfers (via Aspera/

Signiant), auto QC (pre-integrated with Baton/Cerify), full QC (pre-integrated with Adobe Premiere Pro), content enrichment (cataloguing/subtitling) and archival.

CLEARTM OTT Distribution: ONE Software with end-to-end automation for OTT Distribution – from Scheduling to Delivery CLEARTM OTT Distribution addresses the need for improved content distribution and publishing to VoD platforms. Leveraging automation, it uses an extensive data model to create packages, transcode in multiple formats and deliver to different OTT platforms. It includes 450+ API bots for delivery to popular platforms, advanced tools for review and approval, a unified dashboard for tracking task status, and seamless integration with Scheduling and Rights Management Systems. With OTT Distribution, users can manage all tasks and operations involved in OTT Distribution

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CONSUMER CONNECT — PRIME FOCUS TECHNOLOGIES

from start to end, securely, on ONE system.

CLEARTM Digital Lab: Your Media Universe® for Production Supply Chain CLEARTM Digital Lab brings together the various stakeholders and suppliers engaged in the production and postproduction processes with supply chain vendors for various tasks, such as editorial, VFX, post-production, sound, localisation, mastering, and downstream distribution.

Built around CLEAR’s Primetime Emmy® Award winning DAX® Production Cloud and Cloud MAM software modules, the solution is well equipped to handle scripted, unscripted, short form, and digital content genres; files of different resolutions and tracks, and manages media logistics including distribution of varied content types across the production supply chain.

Cloud MAM: Automation across content supply chain powered by Work Order CLEARTM Cloud MAM is a single MAM solution, that integrates production, distribution, broadcasting and OTT related business activities. Cloud MAM extends beyond the Technical Operations teams and is usable by creative, marketing, legal, operations, sales and senior executive leadership teams. It helps content enterprises digitise processes like Mastering, Compliance etc., handle clipbased workflows, distribute screeners, manage & version On Air Promos, and collaborate seamlessly with multiple stakeholders.

Centralization: Prep once, distribute globally Operations like Content Download, QC, House Master creation, Compliance Editing, Mastering and Archival are performed separately for each territory.

Each territory creates its own On Air Promos of the shows as well. Add to that, program scheduling operations and entering the metadata of the same show or movie in each of the locations. The outcome is rampant duplication of effort, heavy investment on in-house capex

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PFT’s CLEAR Digital Lab.

infrastructure and increase in outsource spends in the local territories. Adopting centralization with CLEARTM Media ERP helps broadcasters reduce the global effort involved in content operations.

Here are a few use cases: CLEARTM Ingest & Distribution: CLEARTM Ingest & Distribution provides ONE Software to integrate and automate ingest, prep, QC and distribution workflows, while providing real-time dashboards and notification alerts to operations teams. The solution enables users to review proxies of the content moving through the system, as well as manually transfer content to local affiliates via Signiant, Aspera or similar file transfer utilities. Leveraging CLEAR’s in-built Business Process Management (BPM) engine, it automates file processing and generates real-time dashboards to drive underlying distributed workflows.

CLEARTM Ingest comes pre-integrated with systems like PitchBlue, CatchBlue, IDC-XD, CompuSat and Nexio.

Centralization of international broadcast operations For broadcasters with a wide international reach, 70-80% of the playlist is typically common to all regions. CLEARTM enables broadcasters to centralize Content Preparation tasks such as content acquisition, QC, house format creation, mastering (for linear & VoD) and archival. They can also centralize Compliance Mastering operations leveraging CLEAR’s Compliance Data

Model, which reduces tagging to a onetime effort, and offers innovative features for automated caption re-timing, profanity check etc. With CLEARTM, broadcasters get ONE MAM across all global sites, which unifies various departments, vendors and distributors across the content supply chain, along with native Work Order Management functionality.

Centralization of Promo Operations By adopting centralization, broadcasters can leverage CLEARTM to make ONE set of promos centrally and distribute these globally. CLEARTM enables broadcasters to manage all promo creatives along with subtitle and dub files (and all other versioning elements) needed for global playout from ONE location. CLEAR’s Work Order Management functionality facilitates seamless collaboration with vendors across the globe, making it possible to review and approve content, and track task status easily. This is made possible by CLEAR’s revolutionary Promo Operations Module, which provides broadcasters end-to-end business process orchestration for promo creation including versioning automation.

With immense potential to enhance efficiencies, reduce costs and increase monetisation, CLEARTM is fast becoming the product of choice for broadcasters, studios, brands and service providers across the globe. For a hands-on demo, visit PFT at IBC 2018, which will be held from 14-18 September in Rai, Amsterdam. The team will be at booth #7.C05.

DIGITAL STUDIO | SEPTEMBER 2018 47

CONSUMER CONNECT – AVECO

AVECO RELEASES GAME-CHANGING REDWOOD BLACK PCR AND MCR SYSTEM AT IBC2018, AMSTERDAM Aveco is proud to announce a new innovation that re-defines PCR and MCR integrated operations: Redwood BLACK. It is a high-end video server along with the industry’s most advanced PCR-and-MCR automation, integrated into one space-efficient, cost-efficient system.

Redwood BLACK video server capabilities, powered by Harmonic, include 4K UHD, SDI-and-SMPTE 2110 plus 2022-6, Dolby E encoding/decoding, a flexible storage architecture, 4 channels in/out SD/HD, 2 channels i/o of 4K UHD-per-box, 2-channel DVE and advanced graphics for sophisticated production presentation and MCR branding. This guarantees end-to-end, ingest-to-playout UHD HDR video delivery as a hybrid SDI-IP design, or as a complete IP workflow.

Aveco’s Redwood BLACK PCR automation component includes interface to six major Newsroom Computer Systems (ENPS, iNews, Octopus, Annova etc.), the ability to edit-and-

Aveco’s Redwood BLACK system.

playout during ingest (growing file operations), and an integrated MAM. Redwood BLACK’s MCR automation includes the industry’s first BXF 5.0 traffic integration, the award-winning Ad Juggler for sports networks, and the award-winning Aveco facility management, among a long list of market-leading exclusive features. Aveco’s integration of PCR and MCR operations includes automated cue exchange, so there’s never an up-cut or a blip of black in switching on-air

control between PCRs and MCRs. Aveco, the TV industry’s largest independent automation provider, continues to innovate in all parts of master control and production automation, video servers, workflow automation, MAM and facility management. Aveco’s Redwood BLACK is a game-changer for any broadcaster or studio production facility. It is cost-efficient for budget-constrained applications, and easily scales to serve the largest and most complex TV networks of the world.

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24.08.18 11:03

BROADCASTING

ALL EARS!

The AoIP technology has come of age, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a standard practice for audio broadcast, in the M&E space

BY ANISHA GAKHAR

ust when the M&E industry was getting accustomed to the use of IP technology across most broadcast domains, AoIP made a red-carpet entry. AoIP stands for Audio-over-IP, which means distribution of digital audio across an IP network. It is being embraced extensively, to enable an improved quality of audio feeds over long distances. The technology is also sometimes known as audio contribution over IP (ACIP).

This enhancement typically comes in handy, when production has to be executed

J

50 SEPTEMBER 2018 | DIGITAL STUDIO

away from the home studios, in remote locations. The set-up calls for a reliable communication network, which can connect varied locations and hold them in tandem throughout the entire broadcast. Should the on-air talent move out of the TV frame, or need a new segment of audio or add-in be incorporated, AoIP makes it feasible to multi-task. For example, the crew might want to hear the on-air program and the producer’s comments, together, to ensure that the show runs seamlessly. The technology facilitates a smooth audio experience, irrespective of inter-mixing of noise signals, call-ins or external distractions.

THE CURRENT DRIFT Most of the industries using AoIP are gravitating towards the AES67 technical standard, which is a layer 3 protocol suite, and allows interoperability between various IP-based audio networking systems.

According to Brian Ford, product line manager, Imagine Communications, the company uses the agreed standard, the AES67, which is the audio component of the SMPTE ST 2110-30 standard, for their AoIP needs. This solution is suited for both, industry vendors and users. When asked about Imagine’s shift to AoIP, Ford said,” At Imagine Communications, we are 100%

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BROADCASTING

Brian Ford, product line manager, Imagine Communications.

“IP connectivity is at the heart, of the move to future software-defined architectures. In turn, that enables people working in television, to get on with their work, as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.”

aligned behind standards-based solutions for moving towards an IP infrastructure. Early adopters of uncompressed-over-IP relied on SMPTE ST 2022. The addition of ST 2110 gives us the same capabilities, or perhaps more, than that in SDI, which is routable audio in a production environment.”

As the smartphone gains importance as a general purpose input/output device, technology that connects the worlds with it, gain centre stage too. People with a VoIP SIP based phone system tend to look for solutions that have a one button dial environment. Reto Brader, VP- Sales and Marketing, Barix, said, “Barix’s AudioPoint

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3.0 enables streaming on the smartphone, and can be used to support hearingimpaired, stream live translation to listeners, or to give a voice to the screen, for example, in the hotel lobby.

The Internet is also being used as a primary link for radio broadcast contribution and STL link technology.

Thanks to redundancy solutions, this now is a viable solution that meets quality requirements. Bandwidth has become less of a limiting factor, and more PCM signals are sent over the Internet, instead of compressed streams. “Adding redundancy becomes easy with our Barix Redudnix

solution, making the Internet a path for primary studio-to-transmitter linking,” added Brader.

Service providers offer clients to shift their encoding/transcoding functions to the cloud. This helps the broadcaster to save effort maintaining operating systems and software versions of its encoding platform.

StreamGuys uses PCM digitisers to bring audio into the cloud, and process it according to the customer’s whims.

GatesAir, a provider of wireless, over-theair content delivery solutions for radio and TV broadcasters, also seconds the benefits of using AES67 for their implementations.

“AES67and the related control standards have been gaining significant attention over the last few years. Open standard protocols are enabling broadcasters to build their ecosystems using ‘best of breed’ equipment from different vendors,” said Keyur Parikh, VP and GM, GatesAir. SMELLING THE WHIFF How do broadcasters smell what’s new?

From where does a first-timer collect information to ensure a flawless execution?

DIGITAL STUDIO | SEPTEMBER 2018 51

BROADCASTING

being something as facilitated as a software key with AoIP, running just when it is needed. AoIP has enabled the integration of broadcast with IT networks. This has simplified cabling, increased connectivity, and reduced operational costs by using commodity networking equipment.

Reto Brader, VP- Sales and Marketing, Barix.

Industry experts rely on publications from standard bodies such as the European broadcasting Union (EBU) and Audio Engineering Society (AES). These standards bodies have working groups comprised of seasoned broadcasters and vendors, who look at new standards that are based on latest technologies to advance the state of broadcast networks.

It is also crucial for a broadcasting organisation to get closely involved in their peer community. Imagine Communications was one of the instigators of the AIMS project, with their representations in standards bodies like SMPTE and VSF. Participating in the various IP showcases at international conventions and events like the annual NAB show at Las Vegas and IBC at Amsterdam; gives great insights into what’s trending.

INTEGRATING AOIP End-to-end IP transport has become a key goal for broadcasters worldwide, aimed at reducing their operational costs, along with increasing connectivity. Within the studio environment, AES67 has a noteworthy foothold. AoIP over WAN, however has challenges with regard to both, security and reliability. This in turn needs to be handled by the codec devices.

Again, by adhering to standards, broadcasters can ensure a foolproof network base. By focusing on standards-based architectures, broadcasters can aim at

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Keyur Parikh, VP and GM, GatesAir.

getting an infrastructure fully devised by IP technology, along with enjoying features of SDI and more, over low costs.

It is pivotal to start out with ‘off-the-shelf’ switches and products with standards-based interfaces, which offer interoperability.

Choosing the right vendor, whose solutions resonate with the company’s exact requirements, in the initial stages of planning a transition to AoIP, is imperative to build a robust and brawny infrastructure.

And a strong foundation spells confidence, to get to where you need to go.

The move to Audio-over-IP is merely one part of a bigger change in broadcast infrastructures. It is not a plain sailing task, to identify the audio portion of a much larger system. The transition to IP and virtualisation changes the way one perceives broadcast technologies. What essentially used to be one whole device, transcends to

AN EXPLICIT EXPERIENCE Moving to an IP infrastructure with a standardised system, in turn makes design and commissioning of the set-up, an undemanding experience. Consumers get to savour better content, by virtue of media companies being able to spin up channels in a matter of days, thanks to IP workflows.

It also means broadcasters can add pop-up channels as and when the need arises.

AoIP provides alternative routes to create content, for instance, sports stadiums curating their own services. On the production side, AoIP, over 4G/LTE and WiFi are gaining importance. Service providers help tailor their offerings to professional users. “I personally believe that soon we will see radio streaming in cars over a standard IP smartphone connection,” said Brader.

Parikh commented, “Integration of AoIP into our GatesAir facility has allowed providers to leverage their IT infrastructure and knowledge base, significantly. This has enabled a widespread connectivity for terrestrial and web distribution, thus, making international content accessible to consumers across the globe.”

INNOVATING THE WAY AHEAD Integration of reliability and security capabilities within IP Link codecs, has

Imagine Communications’ Selenio MCP3.

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BROADCASTING

GatesAir’s Intraplex IPconnect for AoIP.

enabled broadcasters to leverage low-cost ISPs for audio contribution and distribution.

For GatesAir, techniques such as Dynamic Stream Splicing used in their Intraplex products, leverage multiple low-cost connections simultaneously, to achieve credibility and security for broadcast content.

“The real innovation is that the broadcast industry got together to produce the standard the right way. Now, everything we need is set up in the ST 2110 standard, which is widely recognised. There is no fight for it: we follow it to the letter and it works for us,” said Ford from Imagine Communications.

REAL IMPLEMENTATIONS Imagine Communications has delivered a number of IP-connected architectures globally, which rely on AES67 for audio.

To quote an example, New York’s VICE Media has built a system using Imagine Communications AoIP technology, to provide a quick turnaround for an inspiring number of news stories. “The processing component of the solution involved moving media in and out of the IP domain, encapsulating legacy SDI signals into the IP network based on the SMPTE ST 2022-6 and AES67 standards, co-ordinated via VSF TR-04,” said Ford.

Another instance was in Brazil, where Imagine provided a platform on which TV Globo is building its transition from SDI to IP. Internally, audio is handled in AES67 form, and the architecture includes SDI-toAES67 conversion, running on Imagine’s Selenio MCP3 processors.

England’s Isle of Wight Vectis Radio, faced

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infrastructural challenges whilst linking their studio to their uniquely-situated 25W transmitter. The Barix audio encoder and decoder in its STL workflow, along with the Barix Redundix IP audio resiliency, bolstered a feasible solution.

Over the past couple of years, GatesAir’s Intraplex IP Link AoIP codecs have been replacing expensive satellite links, at National Public Radio between remote studios. Similar executions can be witnessed at the Washington DC headquarters.

The transport reliability methods within Intraplex audio codecs allowed GatesAir’s customers to reduce bandwidth costs while improving quality.

ON THE WISH-LIST According to Ford, he would wish for the entire broadcast industry to shift to IP as fast as makes financial sense. “The AES67 will gain a larger footprint through ST 2110. My wish is for people to get out there and use it,” he added.

While reliability within the studio environment can be managed via in-house network engineering, wide-area AoIP transport can be susceptible to packet losses and security. Parikh commented on how this can be rectified, “While different codec vendors have their own methods to combat issues like security, having a specification with widespread support will go a long way in advancing the proliferation of AoIP technology globally.”

THE TOMORROW OF AOIP As the broadcast community tends towards

migrating to IP, the AES67 technical standard is expected to dominate audio transport technology. It endows users with the flexibility that they had in the traditional analogue/digital world, over a single IP interface. Whether in the case of trucks, production studios or sports events, AoIP comes across as a promising enabler of lowcost infrastructure.

“Lower costs will allow us broadcasters to be more dynamic in the services we offer. Advanced audio workflows using AES67 is one part of the migration to IP and virtualisation,” said Ford. “IP connectivity is at the heart, of the move to future softwaredefined architectures. In turn, that enables people working in television, to get on with their work, as quickly and cost-effectively as possible,” he added.

IP technology is becoming ubiquitous in wide-area and in-studio networks. Support for AES67 among different types of audio broadcast gears such as consoles, mixers, processors, exciters etc. is increasing. “This is something we at GatesAir, are addressing with the availability of our new IP Link 200A codec, which natively supports AES7 transport,” asid Parikh.

Implementation of an all-IP infrastructure, for contribution or distribution is gaining momentum, and is only expected to accelerate further, as the technologies behind IP networks continue to improve around the globe. The use of public IP infrastructure for broadcast applications is expected to rise, thus, bringing in a technological revolution in the audio industry. Till then, listen away!

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