TVBE April 2018 by Future PLC

Intelligence for the media & entertainment industry

APRIL 2018

STU- STUSTUDIOS! THE RETURN OF A TV ICON

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CONTENT

IN THE STUDIO

Editor: Jenny Priestley jpriestley@nbmedia.com Senior Staff Writer: Colby Ramsey cramsey@nbmedia.com Designer: Sam Richwood srichwood@nbmedia.com Content Director: James McKeown jmckeown@nbmedia.com Contributor: George Jarrett, Philip Stevens, Heather McLean Digital Director: Diane Oliver doliver@nbmedia.com

ince the start of the year I seem to have spent quite a lot of time in TV studios. There’s nothing quite like walking into a TV studio for the ﬁrst time, whether you’re an audience member, contributor or just visiting. You always get the same tingling sensation up the spine. From news to entertainment to magazine shows, from live TV to a recording, the fundamental properties of TV studios remain the same. They all need cameras, lights, sound equipment and most probably autocue. This month, TVBEurope shines a spotlight on two recently opened studios; Bloomberg’s all-IP studio is a state-of-theart facility based in a brand new building in the middle of London. We also visit the recently reopened BBC Studioworks studios based in the iconic Television Centre. The studios have undergone a refurbishment since TVC closed in 2013, re-opening to productions last year. I’m sure studio production will be on the agenda at NAB Show later this month. For those of you heading to Las Vegas, and those who are not, we hear from a number of vendors regarding what they think will be the hot topics of debate at this year’s show, what they’ll be showcasing in Nevada and what they consider to be the technological challenges in their area of the market. Also this month, Heather McLean reports on the hot topics from Mobile World Congress and their likely impact on

the media and entertainment industry; George Jarrett talks to Theresa Wise, CEO of the Royal Television Society, about the organisation’s 90th anniversary this year; and Philip Stevens investigates the ﬁrst 4K truck from OB provider Reckord. Plus, the world’s biggest esports company ESL tell us why they’re ready to bring it to an even bigger audience; and Sony Professional Europe talks exclusively to TVBEurope about their new, pay-as-you-go, cloudbased production service which will launch to the market this summer. TVBEurope sees a change of personnel this month as we wave farewell to James Groves who has been appointed editor of NewBay’s BikeBiz. Good luck James! I’m delighted to welcome Colby Ramsey to the team, he joins us from our sister title Audio Media International. Finally, the countdown is now on to MediaTech 360 which returns June 20-21st at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London. This year’s agenda will cover everything from emerging technology to the impact of FAANG on live sports broadcasting as well as asking what’s next for connected devices and how we can capitalise on AI. We’ll deﬁnitely look at the event in more depth in the run-up to June, but I would say don’t miss out on what looks to be a fantastic two days with some great speakers!

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JENNY PRIESTLEY, EDITOR

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 3

IN THIS ISSUE APRIL 2018 08 Content delivery TV Connect’s Niall Hunt assesses what content delivery strategies will look like in 2018 and beyond

12 Bloomberg goes all-IP Jenny Priestley visits the broadcaster’s new state-of-the-art London studio

15 Royal Television Society George Jarrett talks to CEO Theresa Wise as the organisation celebrates its 90th anniversary

18 BBC Studioworks TVBEurope visits the recently reopened studios at the iconic Television Centre

24 NAB 2018

We look ahead to this year’s show with comment and analysis from a number of leading innovators within the industry

40 MWC 2018 Heather McLean rounds up developments from Mobile World Congress

44 Esports Jenny Priestley talks to the team from ESL UK

48 Reckord investment Philip Stevens checks out the OB provider’s latest 4K truck

50 Immersive audio Colby Ramsey speaks to re-recording mixer Tim Hoogenakker about his recent sound projects

54 Virtual Production Sony Professional Europe exclusively reveals details of its new, pay-as-you-go, cloud-based production service

OPINION AND ANALYSIS

The future of video compression for OTT By Thierry Fautier, VP video strategy, Harmonic

oday, there are several video codecs in contention for being the next-generation standard in the OTT environment. HEVC and AV1 are top contenders, and the debate about which video standard is best for our industry is far from being over. A little background information might explain why there isn’t a clear winner. HEVC, an MPEG video compression standard published in 2013, has not seen much traction outside of Ultra HD deployments, mainly due to high licensing cost. Another factor that limited HEVC for many years is device support. That changed in June 2017 when Apple announced that it will support the video compression standard across all of its platforms, including Mac, Safari, Apple TV and iOS11. With iOS trafﬁc counting for about half of all video streaming over the internet, this was a major announcement for HEVC and a win for service providers. Where does AV1 stand? Many in the industry thought that Apple’s backing of HEVC was a good sign for the future of that codec. However, in January 2018, Apple joined the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), the group responsible for working on the AV1 video compression standard. This means that Apple – a major player in the OTT world – is backing both standards. AOM sources have touted that AV1 is 25 to 35 per cent better than VP9 from a performance standpoint, but that has yet to be veriﬁed by independent sources. Last year at IBC, B<>COM demonstrated a side-byside comparison between AV1 and HEVC on critical sequences of sports content and highly detailed static scenes. The performance of AV1 was clearly behind at the same bitrate, or at the same Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF) at a higher bitrate, which is an issue for AV1. The complexity of AV1 is huge compared with HEVC;

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100 to 1000 times slower. For VoD applications in the cloud, where additional encoding resources are available, AV1 encoding might work, but not for live on-premise applications. Another challenge for AV1 is that the decoder is much more complex than HEVC and will require new devices. These chips must be built and integrated into devices that need to be manufactured, a process that will take several years. If the AV1 decoder BoM (decoding system cost plus royalties) is higher than the HEVC BoM, then AV1 will have a hard time succeeding. Another possible scenario is that the AV1 decoder system cost (i.e., chip plus memory) is too high and therefore it only makes sense for use on highend devices. HEVC is deployed on two billion devices, at a prohibitive licensing cost. On the other hand, AV1 is very costly in terms of encoding and decoding, with no installed base for at least two years, but with a free licensing model. Which one do you think will win? It might take some time for the market to mature. Meanwhile, we have AVC enhancements and Content-Aware Encoding (CAE) techniques, which seem to be the perfect solutions for now, especially up to HD resolution. CAE techniques have already been deployed for VoD by Netﬂix and YouTube and are starting to be deployed for live applications by companies like Harmonic, with its CAE technology. Until there is a strong frontrunner in the next-generation video codec race, there is room for enhancement of AVC. With CAE solutions, video content and service providers can reduce the bandwidth for OTT delivery up to 50 per cent, decrease CDN costs, and provide a superior quality of experience (QoE) without requiring any changes to underlying existing delivery infrastructure and video players.

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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

What will the content delivery industry look like in 2018 and beyond? By Niall Hunt, digital content lead, TV Connect

s an industry, content delivery has faced unprecedented change in areas such as audience demand, technical architecture, and distribution models. These changes have prompted organisations to adopt a more responsive content delivery strategy in order in stay ahead. With greater agility, media organisations can focus more on the innovations that are changing the way content is produced, delivered and received, and implement the right solution with confidence. Actively responding to industry trends builds brand relevancy in an increasingly competitive, fast-moving market, in turn future-proofing content distribution processes. Without an appetite for change, organisations are in danger of being left behind by the industry’s biggest players who continue to disrupt outdated content distribution models. Delving deeper into these trends is the Media + Networks State of the Industry survey. Commissioned ahead of our flagship video distribution event, TV Connect 2018, the survey identifies key motivators of change in content delivery to determine the challenges, opportunities, and innovators that are shaping the industry’s future. The survey explores major themes in content distribution – canvassing the opinions of more than 280 respondents representing 78 companies from a broad range of sectors. So, what will the content delivery industry look like in 2018 and beyond? Year on year, the performance and development of content creation rockets. Embracing traditional and emerging content platforms, content creation continues to drive opportunities for cord-cutting and as a sector, is a major player in the latest distribution trends and models we know today.

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From the survey, a large percentage of content creators are benefiting from the rise in original content. We’ve seen Netflix pioneer the movement to great success – a view widely accepted by survey participants who named the SVoD platform the top innovator in content creation. Looking to the future, content creators have to consider the roadmap Netflix has laid out for streaming services. It has determined viewers’ expectations for the last decade which have, in turn, shaped viewers’ taste for high quality writing, talent, and production. Survey participants highlight ongoing challenges including the rapid inflation of content costs, processes such as DRM, and grappling with next-generation storytelling such as VR and AR. Encouragingly content creators’ top priorities for the future align with overcoming these challenges as they share their intentions to sell content and scale businesses for the new landscape. In the survey, broadcasters highlight that a rise in SVoD services, OTT, 4K and UHD content, and next-generation storytelling has meant existing, traditional content distribution processes have been pressured into reinvention – offering not only a linear, cable-dependent service but a hybrid linear, on-demand model. This 360-degree approach is part of broadcasters’ efforts to improve viewership, grow audiences, and ensure their programming inventory is monetised. The future of content delivery in 2018 is promising with every industry sector reporting improved business performance. As media organisations join forces to overcome shared challenges, new innovations in content creation and delivery propose opportunities to expand business capabilities and potential.

OPINION AND ANALYSIS

Being agile with live video news By Paul Shanley, director of business developments and partnerships, AP

oday’s news audiences expect to experience news in video as it happens, and to be immersed in the story. Newsrooms need to innovate both technically and editorially to meet these demands. This means having a range of tools at their disposal, front and centre being live video. It’s an area where new technologies are constantly pushing the boundaries of how a story is told, who tells it, and how it is accessed by an ever-growing audience. Live considerably extends average viewing times on news websites, drives audience engagement, increases reach and encourages greater interaction with viewers. This is particularly true of digital platforms with recent ﬁgures showing that live content consumption enjoyed 129 per cent year-on-year growth. Analysis shows that Facebook viewers spend three times as much time watching live video compared to normal video news and that it attracts 10 times more comments. At AP, we’ve been delivering live news content since 2003 and today we capture around 650 live news events every month. In the last ﬁve years developments and growth in technology have dramatically changed the delivery of live news reporting. At AP we now use a range of technologies including SNG (satellite newsgathering), Bambuser and LiveU. This technology, combined with the upskilling of our journalists to capture and transmit live video news using nothing more than their smartphone, is essential in today’s news environment. It means that when a story breaks, viewers can be given a front row seat to watch the event unfold. But there are many challenges that come with it, including a lack of context, safety and privacy concerns, as well as the risk of streaming graphic images. When we look at online live video news there are four types of live story that seem to attract and sustain audience interest: Breaking news – in today’s 24/7 world, audiences

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have an expectation of quickly seeing video of breaking news stories. With audiences displaying increased agnosticism in terms of where and how they consume their news, live is a critical tool in the newsroom’s armoury. Audiences don’t stay loyal to platforms or channels if they aren’t getting what they want and today’s media market offers a plethora of options. Anticipation – live coverage allows viewers to take a front row seat at an event. But it also allows them to experience the anticipation that something might happen. Viewers can be with the crowd in St Peter’s Square waiting for the white smoke to appear announcing a new pope, or in the press conference room waiting for news of a deal in peace talks. Immersion – live television has always been about taking people to the scene; now viewers can experience the bull run in Pamplona while the bulls are actually running through the streets. Interactive – live on social means the audience can interact directly as the story unfolds. The rise of services such as Facebook Live and live video AMAs on Reddit speaks to the mass appeal of engaging with content in the moment. As the technology supporting live news continues to improve and social media use of the medium expands, news providers ﬁnd themselves with a multitude of technology solutions to tell the story live in video. In addition, sourcing live video production teams around the world has never been easier using platforms such as our own AP Live Community. Put this all together and it’s clear that newsrooms that embrace the principle of editorial agility with live video news at its centre will have a competitive edge in the future. By building this technology into their news infrastructures and workﬂows, forward-thinking newsrooms will see these investments pay dividends on many levels.

HERE IS THE NEWS Jenny Priestley visits Bloomberg’s new London studio

PICTURED ABOVE: Bloomberg’s new studio in Central London

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loomberg Television launched its new stateof-the-art studios in London last November. The studios are part of Bloomberg’s new European headquarters and produce eight hours of live television every day. The new studios were years in the planning, with the Bloomberg team starting work towards the end of 2013. They were delivered by system integrator db Broadcast, and built by Scott Fleary, while Jack Morton Worldwide designed the new set. What makes Bloomberg’s new studio particularly forward-thinking is that its core switching is all IP. According to Peter Storey, head of broadcast engineering, Bloomberg EMEA, the broadcaster is

one of the first in the world to go all IP. “We’re using a double Arista switch and to be honest it’s been solid,” he says. “We were really worried about that with us being the first to market, but it’s been the one thing we’ve not had to worry about, it’s been really reliable.” In terms of the studio itself, Bloomberg uses eight cameras on the studio floor, most of them fixed. “We have a cameraman on the floor and a studio manager who can help out,” explains Storey. “We use Sony cameras to shoot in 4K but we down convert to HD and we distribute as HD as well, 1.5GB, and SD depending on the market.” “We control the rest of the cameras from the control room using Shotoku robotics and the camera

FEATURE racking is also done from there.” Bloomberg also employs robotics for the studio lighting, which Storey says gives them added flexibility: “All the lighting is LED. The studio is an office height so we don’t have any double height or height and a half, but we’re used to that sort of lighting because that’s what we had at the old studios. That’s what we’re doing across the globe.” “All the panels on the set are moveable. Each individual screen has a motor and we can move them 360 degrees around the set and they can be split up, or you can move them completely out the way and show the office in the background. We use the screens as part of the programming, so you can put the programme branding up there, the latest figures, video etc. We are also able to control the panels from our New York studios so it’s a dual operation.” LEDs can also be found in the studio floor as well as the studio desk, “Again, we are also first to market with bendable LEDs on the desk,” says Storey. “We were very nervous about that because we thought they were going to be really sensitive, but they have been solid as well.” The studio is supported by both a Master Control Room (MCR) and two Production Control Rooms (PCR). “MCR is where we set up all the feeds coming in and then pass them over to the production control room which is next door, or to New York depending on who’s in charge of the show,” explains Storey. “The team in MCR can monitor all the channels as well - we have a UK channel, a UK web channel, a Euro channel, Middle East channel, AP channel, AP web and an Australian channel as well. It’s all the same content but just different advertising, and that is all played out from here - anything outside the US is played out from here and then in America they’ve got their own channel, and HD channel, and LatAm as well.” “In terms of feeds coming in, we have many hundreds of feeds coming into this building. We’ve got cameras in every newsroom throughout Europe and Asia and we do LiveU and AviWest hits as well, we hardly ever use trucks anymore,” continues Storey. “We tend to hire our LiveU units from Garland Partners. We know Malcolm and the team really well. We have bought about five or six of our own as well.”

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE INTEROPERABILITY As well as having cameras in all the major newsrooms across Europe, Bloomberg also works with journalists in some of the smaller cities, such as Stockholm. “We have a small Panasonic robotic camera and we can sit the journalist or guest down, do a quick light set up and have full control from here,” explains Storey. “We use BNCS for the management system which is new to us. We’ve got so many different systems with all the equipment and BNCS is overarching and can interface with all those different manufacturers and vendors. We can control the router from here, we can control all the cameras throughout Europe and Asia, we can set up feeds, and we can control Pebble Beach Systems for the playout, it’s all about that interoperability. The team love it and it just makes their lives easier because they’re not having to go into individual apps.” Having two PCRs means that the London team always have a back-up in case of any issues. They also ﬂip-ﬂop between the two in order to keep the technology exercised. Each PCR has room for three producers, the scroller, cameras and racking. Storey says there are plans to make even more of the kit robotic, leveraging the automation further. “We’re lucky because Bloomberg runs all its terminals and gets data out to all of its customers via a global private MPLS network, TV run off that, so we have all those links between here and New York. It’s a closed Bloomberg network for getting the data out to customers and we have an encoder and decoder either end and it’s less than half a second latency.” Using IP and MPLS is all well and good, but what happens if the system goes down? “We have a backup!” says Storey. “We have eight camera feeds going to New York, four on one side and four on the other, and we have data centres in London Docklands and Slough, the feeds go to the local connections there and then over to New York or New Jersey. So you could have a hit and four cameras would go down, but the team in New York could see that instantly, and they would then use the other four cameras that are still up.” Other plans for 2018 include an upgrade for Bloomberg’s Beijing studio from one camera to three. “We’re also working on next generation IP distribution for carriers and redistributors” says Storey.

“We’re using a double Arista switch and to be honest it’s been solid” PETER STOREY

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 13

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90 YEARS

YOUNG

George Jarrett talks to Royal Television Society CEO Theresa Wise as the organisation celebrates its 90th anniversary

heresa Wise, CEO of the Royal Television Society for the past five years, first spent 25 years traversing the globe in commercial sector employment. In a career that started with BT, she moved to British Satellite Broadcast in a marketing role. Next she went to Deloitte Consulting, before spending six of nearly 12 years at Accenture as a partner. Her last major role was senior VP for corporate strategy with The Walt Disney Company, across the EMEA regions. Given this immense experience working across so many media sectors, where many corporations are seeking executives of her standing, what persuaded Wise to work for a charity? “I was an independent consultant (after Disney), and the then chairman of the RTS board of trustees John Hardie, asked if I would write a five-year strategy for the RTS,” she explains. “At that stage my predecessor Simon Albery was stepping down and a search was under way; John asked if I would put my hat in the ring.” Wise saw it as a “huge privilege” to win the job of CEO, and it allowed her to implement many of the things she had proposed in her strategy document. “I used an immense amount of my skills. A charity sector requires great professional approaches to things, and from my time at Accenture there was nothing I faced that was impossible to do,” says Wise. “I had to build a great team, and we were missing some skills like getting commercial partnerships. So I got a corporate development person. We did not have a digital team either, so we created those posts.” The RTS celebrates its 90th birthday this year, and from its outset in 1927 the core objective – to promote the art and science of television – has stood the test of time. The era when the RTS did a lot of engineer training has long gone. “Given our size and the way technology was developing that wasn’t

something that would naturally be the remit of the RTS any more. We stayed out of core training, but the science of TV is very important to us philosophically, and because it is part of what we do,” says Wise. “Being an owner of IBC plays to our original objective. IBC does a bit of the art and more of the science, but it has become very successful financially and that has been a fantastic gift to the shareholders.” Wise sits on the IBC board: “Like any shareholder one needs to provide those checks and balances, so I guess as a board it has been very important on a philosophical level,” she says. “Financially it has enabled us to fulfil a lot of what we do.” THE QUEST FOR CONTENT DRIVES CONSOLIDATION The ‘art and science’ branding is still hugely relevant, but TV is now regarded very differently. “We define TV as any video storytelling on any platform. The industry is changing very dramatically and we are seeing a lot of positive growth: the power of the medium means that it is now of interest to a lot more players,” continues Wise. “The trend that feels very important to me is the rise of the big new entrants, all seeking to commission very high end content. That has created a global phenomenon and you are seeing an extraordinary number of commissions, especially for high-end drama. It is spreading to factual entertainment too. “As a result of that it is harder for some of the existing media companies, especially in America, to attract the right talent, so they are losing key people. Many have moved to Netflix,” she adds. “America has the added complication that many shows have been filmed as 22 episodes, but some of the talent does not want to work that way. They would rather do eight-episode box sets. You also see a huge amount of

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FEATURE

PICTURED ABOVE: Theresa Wise

money flowing from film into TV now, so huge numbers of talent are attracted to some of what TV is producing – the budgets, the quality, and the opportunity.” This is what triggers the huge consolidation wave, typified by Disney and Fox. “To me that is one of the most important things, and consolidation has all been brought about by the quest for content. From a UK perspective it should be a very good thing because we are one of the world centres of creative production. One does not want to be smug, but our talent is sought after,” says Wise. “Most production companies want a mixed portfolio of clients, so a mixed economy.” TRIPLED THE MEMBERSHIP From this window view of the content gobblers, Wise has created an RTS that is ready to take the lead into the 21st century. “A large part of what I have been doing over the past five years was to transform the organisation, to make it relevant. We made sure that we have a good, committed and engaged membership, with proper benefits, and we went from 1400 members to the 4500 we have now,” she says. “We more than tripled the membership and want to continue to do that and make sure that as people enter the industry they see the value of actual benefits, and feel part of something that is engaging,” she adds. “When I took over there was very little engagement between head office and the 14 RTS regions, but we have changed that. The membership is important because they provide the people from whom we select our regional chairs, and we must continue to capitalise on that presence outside of London.” RTS regions are busy hubs and hold some terrific events involving both the technical and creative side of television. They also attract a lot of younger people looking for careers. “We have transformed our digital presence because any organisation needs a strong online presence. We create a lot of content by filming our events, and we now have several hundred hours of online video,” says Wise. “We have our own YouTube channel which has had over 250,000 hits, and we’ve had over a million hits on our website, so we are a serious publishing presence now online.” Because of the charitable and education remits, all this RTS content is free. “It is great if somebody wants to become a member, but if they are just a fan of a show and want to hear more about it then that for us is great engagement because we have a public purpose as well as a role in the industry,” says Wise. “Online will continue to explore other ways of reaching people, through

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platforms such as Instagram and podcasts, and the digital team has been going and filming people for the coverage of important topics.” This also gives patrons the chance to do guest posts. The RTS has additionally produced a useful TV jobs guide, which decodes the jargon to help people find job opportunities. And when it comes to all the events the RTS could do, it has to contemplate the spending of charitable funds. “Sometimes we don’t get a huge take up on a subject, but we can certainly cover it online or in the magazine (Television). One of the things we want to do online in the next decade is to provide more communities, and give grassroots people the chance to build subjects of interest and discussion forums,” says Wise. “We are going to build out the packaging of our RTS TV online so people can see it more easily and go to videos that interest them. We’ve just got to make things easier to navigate.” SOCIAL MOBILITY AND DIVERSITY The RTS runs an annual joint public lecture (last year with Tim Peake), designed to showcase extraordinary people, where technology and creativity have come together to create some wonderful innovation. For Wise, two of the biggest issues she’s identified are skills and the twinned key initiative of helping low income people. “For people on £25,000 or less who are interested in the industry and studying at a Creative Skillset accredited course, we provide help,” she says. “They are from all over the country, but they get chances to come to our events, we mentor them, and put them in touch with companies. Our first graduated cohorts all did well academically, and they are all in jobs within the industry. “This is a very important role because traditionally as an industry, and sadly, we have had unpaid internships, which has meant that people in London who are connected in the industry, and have more money, have been the major beneficiaries,” she adds. “This scheme aims to help create a pool of people who are talented, and future employers will know they have not had any advantages. This is bringing a greater degree of social mobility and diversity into the industry, and we have already brought in extra partners to help fund additional bursaries.” Wise has a simple view of the skills gap issue. “It is a national skills gap and a national issue, not specific to TV. We are short of engineers and good computer scientists. There is a need for a lot more people graduating in the STEM subjects, and we care about it immensely for our own industry because we believe there are some fantastic jobs for people with those skills.

FEATURE That is why the RTS is passionate about giving help and guidance to people from lower income backgrounds.” ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR ADVANCEMENT The technology internships have been with companies like Sky, ITV and Virgin Media. The RTS staff of just 11 is the backdrop to some major events – the Craft and Design Awards, at which the young technologist of the year award is gifted; the star-studded Cambridge Convention, and the prestigious annual Journalism Awards. Under Wise’s management the blue chip patrons provide a list of supporters that is well worth reading because of new entrants like Amazon and a mix that includes Akamai, YouTube and Pinewood Studios. “We are looking at what the next few years hold, and have been through a radical amount of transformation,” says Wise. “What are the growth areas and how sustainable are they in an organisation that is stretched? The fact that the RTS is a charity is important in terms of motivation. The fact that we believe in what we do is wonderful. “We are outward looking but small, so we cannot do a lot of the things we do without partnerships. Our Cambridge Convention has a hugely involved principle

sponsor that gives us both money and a tremendous amount of time to craft that agenda,” she adds. “Our early evening events have an immense number of volunteers. We have huge involvement with our patrons and work incredibly close with them to craft the agendas and issues. We work with our partners when we look at areas like diversity and inclusivity.” Wise makes the point that every organisation has to plan, deliver, and budget. So which one of her career stops taught her the most? “By far the most that I learned came at Accenture. It is an extraordinary organisation that re-invents itself very fast, and has to. I worked in the strategy division, and it gave me a conﬁdence that I could master a lot of areas and be a really decent operator. It gave me a broad ability,” she says. “It is one of those things with women in senior positions, that often the issue is that they don’t get exposed to ﬁnance and to tough project management. And those are essential skills for advancement. “Accenture was a very tough culture. If you didn’t deliver you were left in no doubt. You get measured very tightly, in an immensely tough environment. It gave me resilience and exposure to the areas that you need for a CEO role.”

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FEATURE

RECREATING HISTORY TVBEurope visits the recently reopened studios at Television Centre to see how the iconic site has retained its studio offering for the new age of television. By Jenny Priestley

n September 2017, BBC Studioworks reopened the iconic Television Centre (TVC), known to many as the home of British television. Studioworks now has three studios at the site as well as post production facilities. Studio TC1, the biggest, is 10,800 square foot, Studio TC2 is 3,430 square foot, and Studio TC3 occupies 8,000 square foot. The site has undergone major changes since it was sold to developers Stanhope in 2012. The donut shape of TVC, which previously housed the offices for BBC TV, has now been turned into flats, whilst an outer ring of flats has been created where studios TC4 to TC8 used to be. But, the outside wall with the famous atomic dots, which is a listed feature, has been preserved and still serves as the outer wall to Studio TC1. BBC Studioworks occupies four floors on site: the lower ground floor is for ‘talent handling’ (or green rooms and dressing rooms), the studios are on the ground floor, the first floor is where the galleries and production offices are located, and the second floor is currently being sublet out. Last autumn, TVC played host to over 160 episodes of television in the first three months of opening, including ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show, Sky’s The Russell Howard Hour and BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two and Sounds Like Friday Night. “It Takes Two had a 12-week recording block, comprising of 60 shows, so it stayed in Studio TC2 for the duration,” explains BBC Studioworks managing director David Conway. “Because it was our first autumn, it was helpful to have a show in one of the studios on a setstanding basis and which didn’t require a turnaround. It made things simpler for our first few weeks of operating here.” In April, BBC Studioworks will temporarily welcome four ITV Daytime programmes to Television Centre, namely, - Good Morning Britain, Lorraine,

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This Morning and Loose Women. The shows will be using Studios TC2 and TC3. “What’s great about this arrangement is that these shows are all live and finish broadcasting by lunchtime. This allows us to work with ITV to look at options to potentially host other shows in the evenings and at weekends,” says Conway. Each of the studios has undergone major work during the site’s redevelopment not just in terms of the building work but also the kit they now house. BBC Studioworks has invested in a new fleet of Sony cameras, each with a slightly different spec for the three studios. Studio TC1 has eight Sony HDC4300 4K/ HD cameras; Studio TC2 has six HDC1700 cameras that can broadcast in HD and Studio TC3 has eight Sony HDC2500 cameras, which can also broadcast in HD. All three studios are using Studer Vista sound desks; all are using Riedel Artist comms system; and all three are equipped with an ELC DMXLan control system with distributed nodes, wifi control, and switches in each lighting desk. The studios aren’t currently fully IP. There are “strands of the workflow” that are IP says Conway, “but not all of the kit can talk to each another yet, it’s still something of an emerging technology. There is a capability there to flip over to a fuller adoption of IP, it’s just not quite there yet. “We will go all IP if and when the time comes. It will bring simplicity to a lot of things, it is just a bit too early at the moment. We’ve been keeping an eye on what the team are doing in Cardiff with the new BBC Wales headquarters. They’re a bit of a test bed really.” “The studios have a saturated lighting grid with hoists for lighting and scenic hoists purposes,” continues Conway. “We also have lighting bars so you can have multiple lights on one individual hoist. The hoists in all three studios are of slightly different vintages but they are all fit-for-purpose and are the

same hoists that we’ve had for some time. All that’s changed is that the cabling serving the hoists has been rewired. When we closed in 2013 there was a lot of manual switching, now we use a touchscreen panel to operate the hoists, everything can be operated from the floor rather than the monopole type arrangements where you’ve got to go up to the grid and wind hoists up and down. Doing it from the studio floor really facilitates fast turnarounds. You can even program the panels with a particular show and tell the system to go back to that configuration and it will lower and adjust the hoists accordingly.” PRODUCING TV IN A PUBLIC SPACE “The building fabric to the studios is pretty much

the same as it always has been, we’ve just given it a lick of paint,” says Conway. “The walls are where they always were. We have reskimmed the studio ﬂoors to give them a nice smooth surface, which is obviously important in terms of camera tracking.” One of the big changes for any production housed at Television Centre is that the whole site is now a public space. As well as the ﬂats, it’s now home to restaurants, bars, a spa, hotel and even a cinema. What does that mean in terms of work going on inside the studios? “We have an internal scenery runway which runs round the rear of the studios,” explains Conway. “It means we’ve got an indoor logistics space where we can run scenery between the three studios. “We still continue to have an external ring road as

PICTURED ABOVE: TC1 is now home to ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 19

PICTURED ABOVE: Music show Sounds Like Friday Night was broadcast from TC1 at the end of 2017

well for bringing trucks in. It’s great because we can close the doors and work overnight without disturbing the neighbours! Stanhope always saw us as being here first so they’ve adapted around us. The flats are adequately sound proofed. It just means we’ve got to be a bit more conscious of what we’re doing, but we can all live together in harmony.” BBC Studioworks still has its post production village based at its other site at Elstree, but Television Centre has found a new purpose for some of the old dressing rooms. “We’ve turned them into en-suite editing rooms,” explains Conway. “We’re also a tapeless facility now. We decided to switch away from using tapes which we initially thought was going to be a bit of a struggle for some clients. But it works and clients love it. It means it’s much simpler to shoot content around to wherever it’s being edited.” “The galleries are where they always have been, we haven’t really touched them apart from the technical fit out,” he explains. “Each of the studios is served by a set of galleries. It’s a big investment but it does mean

you can have multiple studios running simultaneously. They’re all much deeper spaces than they used to be, the walls are where they always were but we just got rid of a lot of clutter in all the galleries. That’s just created a lot more space.” Working in a building that is so integral to British television is obviously a great privilege. Conway admits it certainly helps when talking to potential new clients: “It hasn’t been difficult to get people to come back to Television Centre. We’ve got a very busy 2018 to look forward to,” he smiles. “There’s so much heritage across both our sites and some of the biggest shows on TV are being made at Elstree and TVC, so people get a buzz from coming to both sites. It’s lovely to see Television Centre back up and running after a five year pause, it’s back and looking better than ever!” “It was quite a mythical place for me as a kid because they used to show it on TV a lot. The ﬁrst day I came to work here and, I walked off the tube and I saw the building from the road, it was incredible.”

“It’s lovely to see Television Centre back up and running after a five year pause, it’s back and looking better than ever!” DAVID CONWAY

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FEATURE

SOUNDING OUT A CAREER IN TV BBC Studioworks’ sound assistant Phoebe Ashton talks to Colby Ramsey about getting her start in the industry

BC Studioworks has worked with organisations like the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in Beaconsfield for a number of years, and has taken on a number of its trainees. It has also worked with Elstree University Technical College for four to five years on a local level, offering students placements for work shadowing in the summer months. However, Phoebe Ashton, one of Studioworks’ more recent trainees, completed her training at Ravensbourne University after deciding to pursue a career in TV from a young age. “I remember watching a daytime kids TV show – I think on the BBC – where a young boy had won the chance to be a camera operator for the day in the studio, and I remember thinking ‘wow, I’d love to do that,’” says Ashton. “I also received a camera one Christmas and I was always making short films with my friends, as most of them enjoyed acting.” Ashton completed a three-year course at Ravensbourne, the first two of which were focused on broadcast operations, including the technical and theory side of camera, sound and lighting in the studio and on location. “It was really good to gain a well-rounded knowledge of all the processes involved,” explains Ashton. “They really encouraged us to get work experience alongside our studies as well, which was very useful and prepared us for the industry when we left. I was working at Chelsea TV every Friday on their live show for a year. “Also, the Olympic Broadcasting Services took students from five different

universities – Ravensbourne being one of them – to work on the London Olympics, so that was incredible to be able to do that,” she continues. “I think they’re just good at preparing you for the industry and for what people expect of you.” Ashton is now working as an audio assistant, operating a Fisher boom on the set of BBC EastEnders. “It’s really fun and is what I really enjoy doing,” she says. “It’s quite rare in this industry now to use a Fisher boom – almost a dying art – so to be able to do that every day is amazing. “With EastEnders, they get through so much content in such a small amount of time, so this way of working is like nothing I’ve ever done before,” Ashton adds. “In the ﬁrst year here I was a trainee sound assistant and they eased me in, but now I’m doing it all myself. It’s a great environment to learn in because they work so fast and you have to think on your feet really quickly. I feel very lucky to have had such great hands-on training from experienced professionals in the industry.” BBC Studioworks says it is committed to nurturing future talent and engaging with the local community as a way of doing so.

“It’s quite rare in this industry now to use a Fisher boom – almost a dying art – so to be able to do that every day is amazing” PHOEBE ASHTON

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 21

CREATION. CONSUMPTION. DELIVERY

20TH & 21ST JUNE 2018 GRAND CONNAUGHT ROOMS, CENTRAL LONDON TRANSFORMING THE WAY WE CREATE AND DELIVER CONTENT TO BETTER ENGAGE OUR AUDIENCE MediaTech 360 is a two day summit bringing together content owners and providers alike to discuss the application of emergent technologies, their impact on business strategies, and where the opportunities and challenges lie as the marketplace evolves.

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WWW.MEDIA-TECH360.COM #mediatech360

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AGENDA HIGHLIGHTS DAY 1- 20TH JUNE 2017

DAY 2- 21ST JUNE 2017

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

PERSONALISATION

Panel discussion Cloud vs. cloud – cost, collaboration and creativity • Defining your media cloud migration strategy • Public/private, multi/hybrid - what’s the difference? • Best practice in using and selling cloud based tools and services How do you ensure secure connectivity to multiple cloud providers?

Market insight Let’s talk about data • What’s next for connected devices? • Future predictions and ramifications of data sharing • Leveraging analytics to transform content distribution • Value exchange – are consumers unwittingly giving up control?

THE FUTURE OF ADVERTISING

AI, ROBOTICS AND MACHINE LEARNING

Market insight Where are the new ad opportunities and how can they drive revenue? • What technologies are being implemented to drive innovation? • How can we measure the impact of such technologies? • Collaborating with the new (big) kids on the block • The application of mixed reality and its impact on personalisation • Understanding our customers – how can we better target and visually communicate to them? • How can we personalise in a brand safe environment?

MONETISING SPORTS AND LIVE EVENTS Panel discussion OTT broadcasters and sports rights – what does the future hold? • What additional network infrastructure needs to be considered? • Where does VR stand? • Investing in esports – how can broadcasters strike a balance with publishers, league/event organisers to create a profitable legal and commercial structure? • What are the business models that need to be considered?

Market insight Machine learning and the reinvention of traditional broadcasting • Content creation and product innovation • Personalisation for customers • What’s the broadcast proposition?

A LOOK AHEAD Closing keynote panel A look into 2020 – better insights, greater transparency • Robots vs. humans – the impact of technology on HR • Getting smarter with big data • What are the emerging technologies to invest in now?

View the full agenda online at: www.media-tech360.com

HERE ARE JUST A FEW OF OUR CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:

ALEX CONNOCK

EMILY HOPSON-HILL

JEFF NATHENSON

CHRISTY KING

MARINA KALKANIS

SARAH MILTON

TONY JONES

ZOE BOTBOL

managing director, Missile

senior director, Ooyala

managing director, the Whistle Sports Network

media business consultant, Christy King LLC

chief executive, M2A Media

all4 head of product, Channel 4

principal technology - media solutions, Ericsson

founder, Zulu Bravo

FOR SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES: HANNAH TOVEY +44 (0) 20 389 4920 HTOVEY@NBMEDIA.COM

FOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: PETE MCCARTHY +44 (0) 20 7354 6025 PMCCARTHY@NBMEDIA.COM

WHAT HAPPENS IN

VEGAS It’s that time of year when the media and entertainment industry converges on Las Vegas for NAB Show. TVBEurope looks forward to this year’s show with comment and analysis from a number of leading innovators within the industry.

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NAB PREVIEW

SCALABLE HTTP VIDEO DELIVERY By Nivedita Nouvel, vice president of marketing at Broadpeak

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? Distribution of live TV content to multiscreen in a scalable manner, especially for 4K content, is a big challenge for today’s operators. Operators need to be able to deliver live TV to millions of subscribers in a cost-effective way. Quality of experience is also an issue, especially in terms of providing low latency on every screen. Moreover, operators need tools for dynamic allocation of resources for streaming video and secure distribution methods for delivering value-added content to prevent piracy. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? Virtualisation of all components of the workﬂow is gaining momentum, increasing operational simplicity and cost savings. Another big trend is using multicast ABR technology to reduce the amount of bandwidth needed for HTTP video delivery. With Broadpeak’s nanoCDN multicast ABR solution, operators can cost-effectively deliver content to millions of TV viewers using the same amount of bandwidth on the network. We’re also seeing an increased interest in multi-CDN approaches, which allow content providers to choose the best content delivery networks for delivering video content.

What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? Multicast ABR, cloud PVR, and server-based watermarking will be hot topics at this year’s show as operators look to lower the cost of video delivery, maintain a superior QoE, and drive new revenue.

‘Virtualisation of all components of the workflow is gaining momentum, increasing operational simplicity and cost savings.’

What are you showcasing at NAB? At the NAB Show, booth SU10801CM, we will demonstrate nanoCDN multicast ABR, which makes live HTTP video delivery to any device truly scalable by turning millions of broadband gateways, cable modems, Wi-Fi routers, and STBs into active components of an operator’s content delivery infrastructure. Another key highlight will be our cloud PVR solution that allows subscribers to launch multiple recordings on various channels simultaneously without any constraint on the available bandwidth or the number of tuners on the reception device. Attendees can also see our analytics with customer satisfaction indicator, the beneﬁts of using local video caching technology with BroadCache Box, and our multi-CDN approach with Diversity technology. What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? Our key focus for 2018 will be supporting ad insertion and implementation of a push VOD solution.

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NAB PREVIEW

METADATA IS KING By Keith Bedford, managing director, EBS

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? As we enter into a new era of content distribution on multi-platform devices, it’s going to become hugely important that content owners recognise the need for outstanding source metadata. All the big platforms are forming partnerships with some of the most important content owners out there. The number of internal data systems people are using is growing all the time, and this makes the need for a source of truth absolutely key. This information needs to appear in pristine condition wherever it is being sought out, so tracking monetisation within that metadata will offer the most useful operational feedback possible. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? Multi-platform distribution is a seismic shift in the metadata industry. Customers have to be certain that their shows are going to be backed up by clean, highquality information no matter which of the many platforms available it ends up being watched on. This requires not only highly-customisable workﬂows for every content owner, but also the adaptability to meet any new requirements quickly and without difﬁculty. That’s why software like EBS’ Pawa2 is proving so popular. People need a database library that can organise and distribute information to all potential requirements, and do it without a fuss.

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What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? I imagine that it won’t surprise you if I say multiplatform distribution! For all the reasons I’ve talked about here, I really believe that it’s the most important thing going on right now. We’ve long known that choice is important to consumers, and businesses who offer it while maintaining a high standard of quality control across their product range and distribution are the ones who thrive. Multiplatform distribution offers everyone in the industry an exciting opportunity to reach customers in new ways – ways they are keen to make use of. It’s incumbent on all of us to make sure that we are ready to offer them the best service possible through all of these new avenues of access.

‘Multiplatform distribution offers everyone in the industry an exciting opportunity to reach customers in new ways.’

What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? At EBS we’re prioritising making the metadata workflow even easier for both our existing customers and potential new clients to navigate. We’ve made big leaps forward with both Pawa2, including developing a powerful new bespoke API to ensure that it’s as flexible, capable, and secure as it can be. Now, we’re really keen to see as many people as possible benefit from our capacity to streamline workflows while raising the standard of the metadata that’s distributed. One of the things that everyone who works here shares is a genuine love for the media. We want to help the broadcast industry as a whole improve, because we want the best possible TV experience ourselves!

DIGITAL 6000

No intermodulation. More channels. More power for your business.

Others dodge problems. We prefer to solve them. Of course, you can work your way around intermodulation and do some software magic — but that is no real solution in the already congested and limited frequency spectrum. By design, Digital 6000 has no intermodulation artifacts. Our superior RF technology results in more channels and more flexibility for any production and any stage — with no trade-off in transmission power or quality. Smarter, leaner, more efficient — this is the built-in principle from user interface up to spectrum efficiency. Redundant Dante™ sockets and the command function are just two components of the recent update. More about the next step towards the future of audio: www.sennheiser.com/digital-6000

NAB PREVIEW

A SAFE AND SECURE SPACE By Lee Griffin, marketing manager, EditShare

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? The ability to securely and reliably collaborate from multiple destinations on the same project and all in high resolution media whether it’s 4K or HDR material. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? Security has deﬁnitely come to the fore for 2018. The ability to bring extreme accountability to post production agencies producing highly valuable content. EditShare is deﬁnitely addressing this area so our clients can rest assured knowing they are working within the MPAA guidelines that are laid out. We also see QC becoming mandatory for nearly all broadcasters, OTT and VoD suppliers. Clients spend a lot of money on producing content, they now want to make sure it adheres to those stringent delivery standards. Again, we are addressing this market by implementing our Automated QC solution powered by our QUALES QC engine. How much of your business is nonbroadcast? Are you seeing a growing demand for your expertise from different industries? Whilst most of our work is in the broadcast and post production sector, we are seeing installations in new areas, particularly larger corporations who are bringing their creative facilities in-house. Advertising agencies are another industry that is

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implementing full creative in-house facilities. Our clients are really diverse, ranging from car manufacturers, banks, educational institutions, right through to airline manufacturers. What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? I do believe that security will be one of the main topics at NAB. Whilst our scale out storage platforms won some major awards in the previous 12 months, we see security and traceability within the media sector as a major talking point. Our main goal is to implement security procedures on our EFS scale out storage platforms.

What are you showcasing at NAB? At NAB 2018, EditShare will be showing its highly anticipated XStream EFS Auditing solution, which works to mitigate the threat of cybercrime when dealing with valuable content. This revolutionary product gives system administrators a complete digital footprint of all file interactions by providing comprehensive auditing and reporting of all file system activity, including file creation, deletion, modification, opens and reads as well as general media space access. We’ll also be showing our Automated Quality Check (AQC) and file verification solution, QUALES, now AMWA compliant for AS-11 UK DPP. The unique QUALES user interface is designed for the creative, giving an instant visual presentation of the quality-checked file. Flow users, which include producers, post supervisors, editors and other non-engineer staff, will have an intuitive visual aid to spot-check content. Attendees should keep their eyes and ears open for a big QC product lineup announcement from us at the show. Rounding out our show lineup is the latest iteration of Flow media asset management platform. Flow will be available as a storageagnostic software solution and will work with industry-standard storage solutions, providing a layer of content creation, media management and workflow automation that optimises the entire production workflow. Users can search, find and retrieve valuable assets quickly and efficiently, whilst getting content directly into their favourite NLE, whether it’s Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer, FCP or Lightworks.

NAB PREVIEW

DELIVERING A FULL SERVICE By Mark Russell, CTO & head of strategy, Ericsson Media Solutions

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? The transformation of the TV and media industry is taking shape. The TV viewer of today is at the very heart of this new era – and they have never been more demanding. With multiple devices in use there are many challenges to address. From the need for more immersive experiences, the expansion of software-centric media, and increased need for more relevant content discovery options, through to datadriven, personalised and targeted smart media, the roles of IP technology and the cloud are helping to change the direction of our industry. The ultimate objective for service providers is quite clear - to understand how to converge services with the internet, and reimagine how content interconnects, how it is captured and how it is distributed to the consumer. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? We are seeing the enormous effect of the rapid shift to mobile and OTT, marked changes in service distribution, the inﬂuence of new technologies and standards and rising industry players. Yet, despite reconﬁgured consumer expectations, greater choice and competing options, there are huge opportunities. We have transformed Ericsson Media Solutions’ portfolio with a cloud-native, standardsbased integrated end-to-end roadmap. We have designed both dedicated hardware and

software solutions that directly respond to this period of transformation.

‘By taking a unified approach, it’s now possible to make IoT the gateway to TV and the smart home market.’

How much of your business is nonbroadcast? Are you seeing a growing demand for your expertise from different industries? The IoT and smart home market is opening up real opportunities for TV service providers to build on their customer trust and experience of in-home service management. By taking a uniﬁed approach, it’s now possible to make IoT the gateway to TV and the smart home market. What are you showcasing at NAB? We will demonstrate our complete endto-end portfolio, that includes multi award-winning dedicated hardware and software video compression solutions, next generation advertising and content personalisation solutions, high efﬁciency storage and cloud DVR, and innovative, tailored TV and video delivery platforms. What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? Earlier this year we joined forces with One Equity Partners to create Ericsson Media Solutions, a new standalone company solely dedicated to serving the world’s best media customers with world-class technologies. We share a common belief in the unstoppable growth of video and a collective goal to build a product and service market leader that will be best in class in the creation, distribution, processing and overall management of video.

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 29

NAB PREVIEW

IT’S ALL ABOUT IP By Peter Poers, business development manager, Jünger Audio

What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? It’s all about IP, integrated product solutions and requests for everything to be virtualised – all these things are driving changes. But we are also seeing more consolidation in the business with technology vendors being taken over by larger product manufacturers. These new client-driven demands and trends mean that the traditional linear broadcast model is losing out, so companies like ours need to react. We have plenty of knowledge to offer so we need to ﬁnd new ways of contributing to these new audiovisual distribution technologies. How much of your business is nonbroadcast? Are you seeing a growing demand for your expertise from different industries? We are looking to develop more business from outside the broadcast scene because we believe that, for various reasons, the broadcast market is decreasing. I strongly believe that other industries can take advantage of the experience we have acquired over the years through developing products for broadcast applications. Nowadays, consumer electronics devices are capable of running broadcast proof processing algorithms, but for the most part they don’t. Maybe it is time that they did because this would improve the performance of these devices. We are working on this by reaching out to the automotive and CE industries and offering them our knowledge and experience.

30 | TVBE APRIL 2018

What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? Once again, I think it will be IP, integrated workflows and virtualised workflows. The need for high quality audio hasn’t changed, even if the way we consume programmes has. We may have extensive knowledge in this field but when faced with IP and virtualised workflows, it is increasingly difficult for companies like ours to create independent product solutions that work across all these different platforms. What are you showcasing at NAB? We are launching a new audio processing platform that gives broadcasters the freedom to choose the right audio processing products for their facilities and projects. This consists of the AIXpressor

hardware unit, which is unique because it is not just a single product. Instead it acts as a base for software-defined products that are created using Jünger Audio’s new Flexible Audio Infrastructure flexAI. This means that, simply by buying additional software licenses, broadcasters and post production facilities can customise our new processing system to suit their demand for processing capabilities and channel count. The necessary hardware, however, scales by the actual demand in processing power and will no longer be the defining factor. AIXpressor, which will be on show at NAB, is a 19” 1RU device and is based on x86 processors and equipped with a comprehensive range of built-in interfaces, including redundant Audio-over-IP with full compatibility to AES67 and SMPTE ST2110, USB host and client interfaces as well as MADI, AES/EBU and analogue I/Os. The unit also has four slots for optional interfaces, all of which are compatible with our existing D*AP series of audio processors. These include 3G/HD/SD SDI, MADI, Audinate Dante and many more. Additional interfaces will be available soon. We are also showing our ATSC 3.0 compliant Next Generation Audio Toolbox. What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? We need to get our new product solutions to market and work on transferring our audio processing experience to new markets such as AV, installation, automotive and consumer electronics. That’s going to keep us busy!

NAB PREVIEW

THE CHALLENGE OF GOING OVER THE TOP By Mike Milligan, senior director or product and solution marketing, Limelight Networks

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? Today the content distribution process is moving “over the top,” which brings new challenges from a technology and business perspective. It’s easier than ever for viewers to ﬁnd content that appeals to them and stream it on demand. The ﬁnal barrier to full adoption of online streaming for major live events is the ability to stream in ‘real-time’, so online viewers experience the event at the same time (or even faster) as those watching on traditional broadcast. At Limelight, we’re focused on constantly innovating and expanding our capacity to eliminate these concerns so content owners and broadcasters can consistently deliver great online viewing experiences on any connected device around the globe. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? As online viewing continues to grow, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the use of smartphones and mobile devices for viewing. This trend is particularly notable with younger viewers and in emerging regions where broadband infrastructure may not be as mature. To ensure these mobile viewers get the best possible experiences over congested or changing network conditions, Limelight has made major upgrades to its global infrastructure and rolled out a new and enhanced version of its EdgePrism OS software that’s designed to optimise user experience for the fewest

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see and hear conversations tied to this theme around cyber security, virtual and augmented reality, and 4K and HDR TV.

video rebuffers, lowest latency, and highest throughput. As a result, content can be downloaded faster, and viewers can stream videos at higher quality while experiencing fewer rebuffers. Limelight is continuing to invest so our customers can achieve their most important business objectives by improving the quality of experience they deliver to their viewers. What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? The topline? The convergence of media, entertainment and technology has impacted more than just efﬁciencies in workﬂow, revenue streams and business models – it’s fueling the innovation that’s changing how we work, live and play. We expect to

What are you showcasing at NAB? At NAB 2018, Limelight will be previewing our new WebRTC-based sub-second latency live streaming solution. Video can be streamed from anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, with less than one second of latency – all with the high quality and scalability our customers have come to expect. In addition, we will be highlighting our new Multi-DRM on the fly solution that simplifies the encryption and delivery of content in all popular DRM formats while significantly reducing the costs of managing and storing the encrypted content. Limelight is committed to helping our customers deliver the largest live and video on-demand events at broadcast quality to virtually any device, anywhere. What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? The market for high quality live and on-demand video delivery is growing rapidly, and we’re focused on continuous innovation, expansion, and helping to deliver the best possible customer experiences around the world. We also plan to expand our geographic footprint in 2018 in locations that are strategic to our customers. At Limelight, everyone is focused on one thing above all else – delivering a great experience for our customers and their customers. That will continue to be our top priority this year.

NAB PREVIEW

BEING FLEXIBLE By Pavlin Rahnev, CEO, PlayBox Technology

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? Our customers are looking for the greatest possible ﬂexibility in the way they handle their channel branding and playout. Some like to keep the entire titling, subtitling, scheduling and playout process in-house on their own hardware. Others prefer a subscription-based model in partnership with an offsite playout service-provider. Creating robust solutions to match these different necessities is therefore the greatest technical challenge. For in-house operation we have developed our PlayBox product family over many years, progressing most recently into the PlayBox Neo generation. For customers seeking fast-start-up subscription-based solutions with minimal capital outlay, we offer CloudAir. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? The implementation of IP and cloud-based playout and workﬂows in customers’ organisations. Direct streaming over IPTV and the web has generated a huge and ongoing opportunity for broadcasters and content owners to expand their audience reach, especially in urban locations with fast modern internet connectivity. How much of your business is nonbroadcast? Are you seeing a growing demand for your expertise from different industries? The broadcast business has widened as

34 | TVBE APRIL 2018

delay of IP transport streams such as DVB/ ATSC MPEG broadcast-quality compressed video and audio. Designed for broadcasters operating across multiple time zones, it integrates fully with the PlayBox Neo product family and offers a wide range of timing options which can be assigned to a single administrator or speciﬁed operators. Like all elements of the PlayBox Technology Neo product series, Neo TS Time Delay can be conﬁgured for single-unit operation or twinned for use in main and backup modes.

startup and operating costs have come down. This and internet-based delivery offer great opportunities for very tightly themed channels and non-broadcast organisations like corporate, educational institutions and content providers to create their own channels. Non-broadcast still represents a small part of our business but one which is constantly growing. What are you showcasing at NAB? We will be demonstrating the latest advances to our hardware-based Neo and subscription-based CloudAir broadcast channel branding and playout solutions. The latest addition to our Neo product family is Neo TS Time Delay, a 1U IP-based delay server providing fully transparent

What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? Our main focus will be on demonstrating the strengths of CloudAir. It is available on a standard software licensing model or via partner companies offering a subscriptionbased service. Set-up is fast, pressure on apparatus-room space is zero and control can be from practically anywhere via a web browser and secured access. CloudAir is scalable from single-channel up to multi-channel of any required size and it offers mobility in terms of access, reliability, IP-based workflows and linear or non-linear distribution. CloudAir can be used standalone or integrated with PlayBox Neo to provide a powerful combination of on-site hardware and remote resources. Combining PlayBox Neo and CloudAir into a unified system creates a hybrid with unsurpassed scalability, flexibility and operational simplicity.

NAB PREVIEW

CHANGING TIMES By Tim Felstead, director of strategic and operational marketing, Rohde & Schwarz

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? To borrow a phrase, we live in interesting times. The rate of technological change in our core markets is unprecedented – whether it is the change from SDI to IP, or the trends towards COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) hardware. Managing this transition in an economically viable way is the biggest challenge facing our industry. Our challenge is to develop product and system solutions that enable our customers to go through the transition at their own pace. One example of this is our Venice platform which we have re-developed over recent years into a server platform that can be deployed by broadcasters throughout production, news and playout environments. It has been developed as software over COTS hardware with an internal architecture that uses techniques which support virtualised data centre environments. This empowers users to transition their servers from an SDI environment to UHD and SMPTE 2110 IP easily, using all the inherent beneﬁts of COTS hardware and virtualisation. What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? The latest ﬂurry of actual and anticipated mergers and acquisitions will be a major discussion point in Las Vegas. Industry consolidation has important implications on product strategies within these merged companies and the knock-on impact that has on customers that have built business

‘The latest flurry of actual and anticipated mergers and acquisitions will be a major discussion point in Las Vegas’

models around those products. Rohde & Schwarz has a long heritage in this market based on ﬁnancial and operational stability. A key product for Rohde & Schwarz that clearly illustrates this long-term development strategy and will be showcased at NAB is Clipster. We have three software upgrades scheduled for this year and it remains a cornerstone of our forward-thinking strategy. What are you showcasing at NAB? Today, media companies distribute content over a range of platforms and channels from linear TV to OTT and other adaptive bitrate networks. The monitoring of all the systems and deliverables within a broadcast centre has become very complicated. It is not economically efﬁcient to use an SDIbased system to monitor some equipment at the same time as employing IP-based monitoring for your OTT systems. In PRISMON, we have pulled together all of these monitoring facilities within one tool. The media market is highly competitive and very dynamic in its approach to change. In this environment the customer always wants to do more for less. A focus for Rohde & Schwarz is in the area of contribution – the movement of high quality content between locations as quickly and seamlessly in possible. In developing RelayCaster, we are changing the economic model of those expensive CDN contribution links, instead exploiting the potential of unmanaged networks and the public internet, which previously could not support professional contribution links.

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NAB PREVIEW

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS By Stuart Almond, head of marketing and communications, Sony Professional Europe

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? With an ever-changing audience and the decline of linear broadcasting, multiplatform delivery remains one of the biggest technological challenges in our market. Reaching and engaging audiences in an era of changing viewing habits, multiscreen and multi-platform viewing, means media organisations need to embrace new technologies and services that increase content value. Empowering customers to drive greater cost efficiencies and achieve multi-platform delivery is at the forefront of our content management and workflow solutions. From Media Backbone Hive - our cloud native production platform, which provides end-to-end, camera-to-archive content and workflow management, through to advanced cloud-based ENG workflow and streaming capabilities powered by XDCAM air, our solutions are designed to improve collaboration and streamline workflows throughout the media supply chain. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? The demand for innovations within live production, such as IP-ready solutions, remains strong and is having a dramatic, yet positive, impact on both our business and the market. We continue to innovate and support broadcasters with their critical mission to future-proof production workflows, as well as collaborating

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4K as well as a hybrid system of both, for large sporting and entertainment events. Solutions such as these are examples of how we are developing tools to help facilitate an IP-centric future.

with the industry on open standards, interoperability and robust technology platforms. We have seen increased demand for IP and cloud migration services across Europe in particular, where we expect both to move from the niche into the mainstream over the coming months and years. We see a growing appetite of IP Live Production which comes with the need to be able to produce content simultaneously in 4K and HD and HDR. We’ve just launched our new live production switcher, the XVS9000, designed to address the demands of advanced 4K and HD productions in the rise of HDR content. The XVS-9000 offers up to 80 inputs and 40 outputs in 4K and up to 160 inputs and 80 outputs in HD adopting the latest interfaces for both IP (SMPTE ST 2110) and 12G-SDI in

What are you showcasing at NAB? We are showcasing a whole portfolio of products, services and technologies for our broadcast and media customers. From news, sport and live production to display, presentation and more, we’re demonstrating our ability to deliver transformative solutions for all budgets and every application. This includes, Crystal LED, VENICE, XDCam Air and a range of products for IP Live, as well as consolidated production, processing and delivery cloud services, content management and workflow solutions and digitising, archiving and preservation services. What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? We are heading to NAB under the banner of ‘media solutions for the real world’, showing consolidated cloud services together for the first time, alongside our IP Solutions and complete HDR/UHD workflows. We will use NAB to showcase an increased media services offer that our customers will benefit from through greater flexibility and choice across all our solutions. Sony is focussed on empowering our customers to build more agile, flexible and cost-effective business that is ready today and open for tomorrow. Our focus is to continue our mission to take our customers ‘Beyond Definition’.

NAB PREVIEW

THE VALUE OF AI By Esther Mesas, CMO/CSO, Tedial

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? There are two trends in software that are accelerating Tedial’s development efforts and challenging us to be more innovative and creative. First, the move to cloudbased infrastructure requires dockerised software and the development of micro-services to leverage the complete flexibility and scalability that the public cloud provides. However, not all customers want to use the same cloud services, so manufacturers are challenged to provide solutions that work across various cloud providers. Second, the deeper product-toproduct integrations required by modern workflows to automate operations that were not considered as virtual processes for cloud deployments. An example of these challenges is supporting a low-resolution edit process with high-resolution rendering in the cloud. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our software in a smart and effective way will have a dramatic impact on our business. This will increase sales and will implement greater efficiency in our client organisations, reducing labour and increasing opportunities for revenue. One of our major R&D focuses in 2017-2018 has been to adapt AI to our tools in a creative and efficient manner.

What do you believe will be the main talking points emanating from NAB? One of the current key industry trends is AI and this is likely to continue at this year’s NAB. AI has wide reaching implications for the media and entertainment industry: It’s a disruptive technology that will provide enhanced viewing and increased opportunities for monetisation. What vendors need to consider is how they add value for their customers and ensure that AI’s not just another similar solution. What are you showcasing at NAB? At NAB, Tedial is launching SMARTLIVE, our automated live sport solution, which provides a breakthrough in sports

production by marrying AI to sports production in real world applications. SMARTLIVE is a full end-to-end workflow tailored for sports and live events and is the world’s most comprehensive live event solution for remote logging, PAM support, and automated story-telling. It leverages exciting AI tools and enables 100 per cent compatibility with existing PAM systems like EVS and SAM (now Grass Valley). SMARTLIVE’s unique metadata engine automates media logging, clip creation and distribution, including social media platforms. SMARTLIVE is the only solution to automate the event metadata ingest process; it automatically creates a production environment for production teams, manages multi-camera and multi-venue feeds, provides multiple, instantaneous live searches to bring historical archives to live events, and automatically generates highlights and delivers them to digital platforms and social networks. As a learning machine, SMARTLIVE can manage the end-to-end media lifecycle, increasing fan engagement, thereby driving content to higher profitability. We will also be highlighting our continuing IMF leadership with our endto-end IMF MAM solution and a new tool set. This includes an IMF mark-up tool that addresses and automates up to 40 per cent of the common versioning “stitching” requirements, and user configuration tools that extend the functionality of our awardwinning Version Factory.

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NAB PREVIEW

SHARING STORIES ON-AIR, ONLINE AND OTT By Alex Micallef, general manager, UK and Ireland, Vizrt

What do you consider are the greatest technological challenges in your area of the market? For Vizrt, as well as for our customers, the need to publish content to a steadily growing list of new platforms is a real challenge for allocating personnel and technology to accommodate these platforms. There is a real need in the market for fast, efficient, and automated tools to make multi-platform publishing a reality. What changes/trends/developments in the industry are having the most dramatic impact on your business? The conversion from traditional SDI workflows to IP-based workflows is on the radar of broadcasters everywhere. It’s not a question of if they will make the conversion, it’s when. When the change happens it affects their entire infrastructure, from video ingest, to live production and distribution. It forces broadcasters to make a choice on what will be their new ‘standard’. Do they choose SMPTE 2110, NDI, or a new format that might pop up next week? Vizrt has built its systems to be agile in this respect, so that we can work with any standard that arises. This ensures that the broadcaster’s investment in our software is well protected. How much of your business is nonbroadcast? Are you seeing a growing demand for your expertise from different industries? Non-broadcast customers make up close to 10 per cent of our business. We’ve seen

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that grow in a relatively short time, with the number of media companies that are now producing video content for online and digital. Media companies such as newspapers and digital publishers face, in many ways, the same video production needs as a traditional broadcaster, but without having the legacy of traditional production tools. This means we are able to adapt for them the very latest IP tools for live video production and publishing without being held back by legacy workﬂows. What’s been really interesting is to see new workﬂows and ways of working that we’re learning from outside of broadcast and being able to implement these ideas and ways of working into the changing broadcast landscape. What are you showcasing at NAB? We will be demonstrating the latest tools for media companies to create and share their stories on-air, online, and OTT with local and cloud-based production systems. We are also going to highlight the latest

capabilities of augmented reality tools in the studio as well as how media companies can use videowalls for powerful storytelling. 2018 is also a major sports year with the Olympics and the World Cup, so we are highlighting how to captivate and engage audiences with high-quality sports analysis while generating new revenue streams from sports rights. What is your business focus for the remainder of the year? As the market leader for broadcast graphics and enhancements, we will continue on our path to bring more powerful, automated tools that deliver visually compelling stories to TV audiences. We will also provide broadcasters with automated tools for branding their content on digital video platforms. Since it is a big sports year, we are also debuting a new tool for advanced sports analysis in the studio, showing efﬁcient tools to drive content in stadium screens, and giving sports rights holders new ways to monetise their live games.

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MOBILE TV IS DEAD.

LONG LIVE MOBILE TV. Heather McLean reports from Mobile World Congress 2018

obile TV does not exist anymore. That is the conclusion from the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona. Mobile TV is an antiquated term that no one in the mobile industry ever uses. It is not even about video on demand (VoD); instead, it is about content experiences. Those content experiences have to be available wherever and whenever the consumer wants them. That may be on a big screen at the pub, on a laptop in the bedroom at home, or on a smartphone while commuting to work. It might be accessed over satellite or cable, or perhaps over the top (OTT) on a mobile network streamed live, on Wi-Fi, or side-loaded and

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watched on a connectivity-free London tube train. As to what that content is, it can be anything: films, TV shows, content made especially for mobile, podcasts, music, live sports. It can be made by anyone: broadcasters, independent filmmakers, fans direct to YouTube, your mum. You name it, there is a consumer out there that wants it, however they want it. WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON? Explaining the evolution from the concept of mobile TV with specific networks to carry them, to products that delivered linear TV to the mobile device, to VoD, and now to absolutely everything, Massive Interactive’s

FEATURE director of product marketing and communications, Jason Bradwell, said that broadcasting has done a full turnaround, and now it is all about OTT: “There has been a shift for many broadcasters and operators; the focus has been for on-demand, but now we’re hearing those companies saying there’s still a place for live broadcast, and they want to put it OTT, and sports is very much a driver for that.” He noted that the industry is now in the fourth age of OTT, from getting content out there onto as many platforms as possible, to improving on that service, then to monetising the content, and now, he said, “while we’re continuing to improve on the experience for end users it is also about building the bottom line, differentiation and reﬁning the content but doing it in an affordable way.” He added that OTT provides the means to solve that issue. OTT APPS TO DRIVE FAN EXPERIENCE At the show, Formula 1 announced a mobile TV app for OTT viewers with Tata Communications. Tata, the ofﬁcial connectivity provider to Formula 1, claimed the app will transform how people are able to watch

and engage with the sport. Starting with the 2018 season, Formula 1 will use the app to deliver the action live from every race to fans directly, and expand its reach to new audiences. Formula 1 will use Tata Communications’ Ultra Live Video Delivery Network (VDN) to power the app. These VDN capabilities are underpinned by Tata Communications’ global superfast network, which minimises latency for video content and ensures an immersive, high quality entertainment experience for fans. F1 TV will enable fans to experience the live race action in a more immersive and engaging way through 20 driver cameras. The wealth of video content means viewers will have the freedom to choose which part of the action they follow at any given moment on or off-track. Practice sessions and qualiﬁers will also be offered live, along with press conferences and pre- and post-race interviews. “With the launch of F1 TV, we are beginning on the journey to build a cornerstone of our digital transformation,” said Frank Arthofer, director of digital and new business at Formula 1. “F1 TV subscription products are clearly and centrally aimed at our hard

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core fans, and we are ﬁrm believers that while we are bringing a new audience to the sport, we must always remain focused on delivering products and experiences that serve the most avid F1 fans. Our objective with F1 TV is simple: provide these fans with the best available service to watch live Grand Prix and provide them with the best sports OTT customer experience in the world. Our team and our partners are singularly focused on delivering on that vision: not just for launch but over the long term.” SIMPLIFYING BECOMING AN OTT PROVIDER Also at the show, Vubiquity, a provider of premium digital content services and technology solutions,

spoke about how it is now part of Amdocs, a provider of software and services to communications and media companies. Amdocs has announced a new media division within the company following the acquisition, as it is broadening its reach into the media and entertainment business. Vubiquity’s skill set, including licensing, processing and delivery, helps position Amdocs at the centre of the increasing convergence across the content community and video distributors, including major OTT providers. Darcy Antonellis, general manager of the new Amdocs media division and Vubiquity CEO, said: “Our goal is to allow content owners to concentrate on the creative aspects of what they do, and for service providers to innovate on packaging services.” Paul Crann, CMO for North America and head of marketing at Amdocs, added, “This is now a holistic video solution. Everyone wants a more personalised experience; they want to source content worldwide, which creates very large asset libraries, available any time and anywhere they want it. We have the scale with Amdocs and Vubiquity to get into the game. For any operator that wants to get into this area of OTT, mobile or otherwise, they can now get in very quickly, taking the time to market with all the ﬁnancial risk that implies away.” MOBILE OPERATORS STILL IN TRICKY POSITION However, from the mobile operator’s perspective, content to the mobile is still problematic as it creates a high volume of bandwidth-hungry trafﬁc, but there are ways of improving the TV experience for

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consumers while making it easier on the network, as well as the end user’s pocket. Matt Stagg, head of mobile video and content at BT-owned mobile operator EE, believes live TV content is particularly exciting for consumers. Sport in particular, is a huge draw for live OTT streaming of content, he noted. Having a mobile phone that can enable you to watch that content from anywhere (even sneakily streaming OTT to the ofﬁce to catch a match) is a great thing, said Stagg, yet from the network perspective, it can be hard work. He explained: “Sport is the most demanding of content to have on your network. It’s live and it’s peak trafﬁc. I always say, if you can get sport looking perfect, you can get everything else looking perfect.” Stagg said that when EE launched its 4G network, it didn’t realise that within a year it would have essentially launched a video distribution network. He noted that while people were trying to use 3G to watch content, the experience was generally rather poor, however with the advent of 4G, all of that changed. He observed that live entertainment took off quickly on 4G, which forced mobile network operators such as EE to look at new technologies to enhance the service,

such as LTE-Broadcast. This is because even though the network is far superior to 3G, a live football match will create a network ‘hot spot’ that creates a huge bottle neck as many people in a concentrated area attempt to watch live streamed content. The next move is 5G, which will go some way to solving these issues. Yet when it launched 4G, EE realised that all the players in the content delivery industry had to work together or there would be interoperability issues. As such, it opened up its roadmap under NDA to other companies such as the BBC, Telstra and YouTube. Stagg said: “When we decided to open up the doors, people were saying ‘OTT operators are on our network,’ and grumbling about it. We said ‘our customers pay and they want to watch that content, and if that’s what they want, we’ll provide them with the best experience’.” And that is the decision not only mobile network operators, but all within the broadcast ecosystem need to come to make. It’s no longer a case of, “If we build this MediaFLO/DVB-H network, they will come,” because they, the consumer, did not. Now it is a case of the consumer wants a complete content experience. Give it to them.

“Sport is the most demanding of content to have on your network. It’s live and it’s peak traffic. I always say, if you can get sport looking perfect, you can get everything else looking perfect.” MATT STAGG, HEAD OF MOBILE AND VIDEO CONTENT, EE TVBE APRIL 2018 | 43

SHAKING UP SPORTS BROADCASTING Jenny Priestley talks to the team from ESL UK who are ready to bring the esports world to an even bigger audience.

he global audience for esports is predicted to reach 380 million viewers in 2018. But so far, traditional broadcasters have rarely got involved in the industry. ESL, the world’s largest esports company, is already broadcasting live esports to this huge worldwide audience on multiple platforms, including Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and TV. Let’s be honest, there aren’t that many people working within the broadcast industry who really understand what esports is about. To many, it’s seen as an extension of traditional sport: FIFA 18 instead of the English Premier League. But James Dean, managing director of ESL UK, insists that in terms of real esports,

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that idea couldn’t be further from the truth. “The games involved in esports are predominantly PC orientated and they tend not to be based on existing sports products or IP,” he explains. “If we look at the most famous games within esports, so the top tier, they’re usually based on a fantasy world. League of Legends is not a space that you can replicate in real life. “I think that’s one very clear distinction we make within esports, the fact that the tournaments are based around multiple games but those games are continually evolving and changing, adding new IP which is monetised because the game developers are selling that IP. In terms of games based on a real sport,

FEATURE it generally doesn’t attract as many people. That could be quite simply because you can still watch real football.” The idea of esports isn’t actually all that new, even if it is new to the broadcast industry. Gamers have been getting together to play competitive video games since the 1980s. ESL was formed in Germany in 2000 as a technology platform built around the idea of people meeting up online to play one another, often in tournaments. ESL’s platform eventually evolved into creating content around these tournaments, but back then not many companies were interested in producing or broadcasting content from esports tournaments which meant ESL was forced into doing it for themselves. “It started on a very grassroots level,” explains Dean. “We cobbled together different software solutions in order to effectively start streaming online and we took advantage of an IT delivery system.” “One of the big changes in esports was when Amazon bought Twitch which had originally come from Justin. tv,” continues Dean. “The guys at Justin.tv had seen there was a particular interest in people wanting to watch others play video games. So that was the dawn of broadcast in esports as we know it now. Twitch kind of became the CDN in a way and we became a producer but also a tournament operator and platform provider, really we are the conduit between the games and the end esports product.” Having started out using Handycams to ﬁlm tournaments and then distributing the content via CD-ROMs, ESL saw a new opportunity to reach an even bigger audience once VoD platforms began to appear, but even then truly delivering great content to viewers wasn’t easy, as Dean explains: “Back then in terms of the accessibility on the broadband side, you’d be lucky to have half a megabit broadband at home. So it was all very restrictive and certainly wouldn’t work for live

broadcast, that was completely out of the question.” “As the internet became more available, and it became relatively low cost to broadcast on the internet, that’s when things started to open up in terms of a massive viewership. When you’re consuming a live tournament, you expect to see live action, not the prerecorded thing after the event has happened. As we got closer to 2010, that’s when everyone began really upping their game in terms of live esports production.” ESL UK has been at the forefront of broadcasting live esports and employs its own production team to bring the events to viewers. The company has chosen not to work with TV production companies as they feel they won’t understand ESL’s working practices or be able to adapt to esports’ workflows. According to Sam Deans, ESL UK’s executive producer, that decision is now allowing the company to take on traditional TV production companies at their own game: “We are now at a level where we can actually go to production companies and offer our own services,” he says. “We can offer them advanced camera systems etc and adapt them into our workflow. In fact, just a few weeks ago was the first time that ESL UK worked with a TV production company on a project that had nothing to do with esports when we provided on-air graphics for the International Table Tennis World Championships. That was a bit of a milestone for us. We were able to get that contract because we were so quick to execute on it, other graphics houses couldn’t get their packages together in time. We were able to hand our graphics package over in three days and be on site on the fourth and ready to rock. So, we were able to be a part of a world host feed which went out to about eight different languages with millions of viewers.” Dean says it’s also important to stress that all of the ESL UK production team are gamers themselves and therefore they have a distinct understanding

PICTURED TOP: James Dean, managing director, ESL UK PICTURED BELOW: Sam Deans, executive producer, ESL UK

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 45

FEATURE of what the esports audience expect to see when they’re watching content. “We’ve been working with Done+Dusted and a few production companies who were involved in Clash Royale World Finals in December last year. We could almost compare the differences between the nuances that are required to ensure an esports broadcast works with the way in which, from a producer level, a traditional broadcaster or production company would put things together. I think that’s what’s really interesting because it’s almost like we’re peering into each other’s world and bringing things to the table and then creating a new evolving way in which we actually execute. We are constantly bending the rules, but also thinking of new ways in which we can achieve the same or better output that we’re looking for.” Dean continues: “It’s quite an interesting time at the moment and I think the broadcast industry can see the opportunity but they don’t know how or what to do with it. I think the opportunity is for us to have a conversation, have an understanding and then figure out what level of resources both camps can collaborate on in order to achieve what we’re looking for. Those production values are going up and up. So we have to rely on the broadcast industry to come in and help us do that.” In terms of the technology the ESL UK team are using to get their content on air, they tend to hire OB trucks and have their own fly-away. “The reason we chose to go fly-away is that it means we can very quickly execute in a range of environments,” explains Deans. “We don’t have a football pitch as such, but we have venues all around the country, they could be game publishers’ offices, our own studios in Leicester, or even Cathedrals! There is no shortage of these small venues that you have to be versatile enough to broadcast content from.” “Esports formats are a little bit different to TV formats,” he continues. “We’re not exploring 4K or UHD yet and the reason for that is that sometimes the internet is still a bottleneck, many home internet connections still don’t really have the speed to stably stream that 4K content. So for us it’s not something we’re looking at as yet. We work in 1080p 60fps which is slightly different to TV. When you play a video game it has very fast, jumpy movement. Imagine you’re looking at a screen for a game like League of Legends which has lots of characters jumping very quickly around the map or casting spells with very complex animation, and there are loads of numbers and stats on screen, it means we have to put particular emphasis on our encoders to make sure we can get this quality out

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to the audience. Typically it’s a lot more data intensive content than you would get with a TV channel broadcasting sport.” “You have to imagine you’re playing the game at home yourself, no gamer would dream of playing the game at less than 60 hertz because the frame rate just isn’t high enough and it’s a very bad experience,” adds Dean. “That’s the same if you’re watching. If it’s not 60 frames per second, that is a poor experience for a gamer. So that is usually one of the hurdles we have to get across because the majority of the time broadcast standard is interlaced 50 or interlaced 60 and that is not sufﬁcient for what is expected in gaming.” One big new area of development for ESL UK is mixed reality. Deans says he feels esports is in a unique position to explore both AR and VR because so much of the content is digitally created, meaning the game area and virtual 3D environment already exists. “That has opened it up for us dramatically,” he says. “We’ve been focusing on alternate streams, we’ve taken our live events and we’ve given them an alternate stream experience like you would experience in VR. “Imagine six or seven different CCTV cameras placed throughout a game world in key locations. We can have a director choose at any one time which CCTV camera the viewers are looking through but it’s up to the viewers as to what angle they’re looking out of that camera with. They can look around 360-degrees at the action if they so wish, but we also want to direct it somewhat in order to keep up with the game. It’s about the balance of that freedom of movement in VR to look where you need to, but also be able to direct people’s views around the game world as to where they need to be looking.” “If we had the bandwidth available, we would probably push 1080p 120 before we bothered with 4K,” adds Dean. As stated at the start, the global audience for esports is growing rapidly. Where does ESL UK expect the industry to be at the end of 2018, and also in ﬁve years time? “In this world right now of esports there is quite a land grab scenario,” says Dean. “There’s a lot of activity going on and people coming in to the esports industry need to be very wary about who they partner with and what the promises are. I think that’s super, super important. “The way we see broadcast in terms of the platform is that it’s all synonymous,” he continues. “The millennial audience and Generation Z don’t really care about the way in which they consume the content but what they do require is that it is at a certain standard and there’s interactivity. A chat function within that broadcast is

FEATURE absolutely critical because of the way in which they interact with the community online. “I think the key thing is how the linear broadcast industry continues to develop and I certainly believe that they have to consider what their business models are and how esports ﬁts into that business model. Ultimately they will need to be effectively paying for broadcast rights from tournament organisers such as ESL. But the key thing is how do they monetise the content from that point? If you compare esports to any other live sporting event it is extremely low cost and that really does need to evolve. Once that business model matures that’s when things will start to accelerate. This is why we know that we’re still on a very, very long journey and we’re really only scratching

the surface.” “I think in the next ﬁve years we’ll see broadcasters start to understand esports more, they will continue looking to this space, monetisation models will be formed, and business models will be created off the back of that and then the content will continue to grow,” concludes Dean. “I think that’s what’s super exciting. The total available market for esports is the number of people playing the games and that far exceeds the current reach we have in these sports. Over a billion people play games. Let’s say at the moment we’re reaching 500 million. There is a long, long way to go. As an industry, we can’t do that on our own. We need to work with the broadcast industry to make that happen.”

“If you compare esports to any other live sporting event it is extremely low cost” JAMES DEAN

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PRODUCTION AND POST

RECKORD INVESTMENT Philip Stevens checks out the latest 4K truck from OB provider Reckord

F PICTURED ABOVE: Reckord CEO Robert Kallista

ounded in 1996, Reckord is a private Czech company based in Chomutov, approximately 90 kilometres away from capital city Prague. Its home base covers more than 6,000 square metres and includes facilities for servicing its fleet of OB vehicles, as well as a carpentry shop, a lens refurbishment centre and a sizeable warehouse for the vast array of technical equipment. “Although we’re based in the Czech Republic, we operate all around Europe, in fact much of our work comes from outside our home country,” explains Robert Kallista, the owner, CEO and technical director of Reckord. “Of course, we provide facilities for all kinds of productions, but in the past we have covered FIFA World Cup qualifiers, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, NHL Premiere Prague, the International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup, Champions Hockey League (CHL), ITF Davis Cup, and many more. So, we are well used to a diversity of production genres.” To meet the requirements of its clients, Reckord has recently added its first 4K truck, known as REC7, to the OB fleet. This complements its existing nine HD vehicles and two DSNG vans. GROWTH IS EXPECTED “Our new 4K OB van was used for the first time on 25th January in Bratislava, where we recorded Karel Gott’s concert,” reports Kallista. “At the moment, the demand for 4K is around five per cent, but we expect significant growth over the coming months.” He says that although the Czech Republic is not yet ready for full 4K production, with a client base from outside of the country 4K facilities are much needed. “This country is still planning to broadcast in HD – but some events will be recorded in 4K so that they are available for future generations in what we have come to call the ‘golden vault.’” Although most devices on the new truck are ready

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for IP, Reckord has chosen a classic cable concept for this vehicle. IN HOUSE DESIGN “This transmission van has been created on the basis of our experience in television broadcasting and adapted to the various types of production with which we are involved, also with regard to ergonomic considerations,” states Kallista. He goes on, “Like for all of our vehicles, the complete system integration of the new 4K transmission van was designed by us. Design of the truck, choice of technology and ergonomics – those were my jobs. The video side of the vehicle was created under the guidance of Vaclav Formanek, while the audiopart was developed under the supervision of Dominik Zahradnícek. The van has been designed to accommodate a production and engineering crew comprising 20 members.” After looking closely at the various vision mixers on the market, Reckord opted for SAM Kahuna 9600 4M/E. “We made that selection because of the combination of formats that are offered, plus the number of keys per M/E. Our new OB can handle two independent productions, typically international and national feeds.” A number of options were also considered when it came to the choice of cameras. In the end, Reckord selected the HDC-4300 from Sony. “It was the best in the hard tests,” says Kallista. “In addition, in HD, this camera is a SSL from ‘nature’. A certain role has also been played by the fact that all the cameras we have are Sony and we have been very happy with them and they ensure compatibility. We can accommodate 16 cameras in REC7.” Sony was also the choice for the vehicle’s monitors. “The Trimaster range was used for the HD view, while Sony BVM X300 and PVM X550 are used to monitor the 4K output. Alongside those monitors is a range

of Apantac’s Mi-16 Multiviewers and openGear video quad-splits.” For audio mixing the choice was Studer Vista 5. “We made that decision because of our previous experience with the model, its compactness and the excellent support we receive from the Slovak dealer,” says Kallista. “The REC7 transmission van offers the 5.1 standard, as do most of our vehicles.” Another established relationship, this time with Riedel, meant that Artist was chosen for the new truck’s comms system: “Again, with one exception, all our vehicles are fitted with this system, so our operators are very familiar with the equipment.” When it came to selecting servers for the tapeless truck, a number of options were tested. “At the beginning of the project we planned to use different servers from those which we finally decided upon. In the end, our choice was the PWS-4500 from Sony,” reveals Kallista. “A major deciding factor was Sony’s unparalleled flexibility which was apparent since the early design and testing stages. Special thanks go to Ludmila Javorková and Krzysztof Chodkiewicz for addressing every single request we came up with.”

Although there are no permanent onboard editing facilities, Kallista says that arrangements can be made on a job by job basis. Similarly, if there is a graphics requirement, this can be organised through an external supplier.

PICTURED ABOVE: Inside REC7

CHOOSING THE BEST Kallista adds, “It is always necessary that everything in an OB vehicle, which is built for various transmissions and clients, is excellent. Beginning with the bodywork and ending with the air conditioning. Other equipment in the truck includes Axon’s glue, the router from SAM, and last, but not least, the Fujinon lenses. Their German representation, namely Roger Bisshops, is absolutely brilliant, and he is the right person for his job.” He concludes, “Our main goal is to provide a top service for our clients. This is the reason why we have already started to build another 4K truck, which is second in rank to REC7. It’s a compact van for up to eight cameras. I hope we can get the truck to this year’s IBC. Like REC7, it is ours, and we have built it according to our own ideas.”

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 49

PRODUCTION AND POST

MASTER OF IMMERSION Tim Hoogenakker, re-recording mixer at Formosa Group, has completed a number of interesting gigs recently, not to mention a plethora of sound projects already under his belt. Colby Ramsey speaks to a man dedicated to bringing immersive audio experiences to our screens.

hile he often works on many newer projects, including Game of Thrones, Tim Hoogenakker also finds himself commissioned for catalogue projects, tasked with remixing an older film in Dolby Atmos. Most recently, he worked on the 1982 high fantasy adventure film The Dark Crystal and Across the Universe, a 2007 British-American jukebox musical romantic drama film centred around songs by The Beatles. “We’ve remixed those films in Atmos from various source elements,” says Hoogenakker. “Sony’s producers approached me; they’ll already know what the elements are and will say ‘here’s what we have to work with, let’s make this happen.’ “With Across the Universe for example, I had all the separated music multi-tracks, so I could really go very immersive with it, aided by the supervision of Sony’s Brian Vessa and the film’s original music supervisor,” he adds. “The Dark Crystal on the other hand, which I’m pretty excited about as it has been released recently, is a remix but also a restoration of the film. We were a little challenged in terms of the process and the older elements we were confined with, but it worked out and it sounds great.” Of course, integrity is key, and working on a catalogue project can bring its own challenges, “especially with something like Dark Crystal,” says Hoogenakker. “You obviously have to preserve the integrity of the original mix as well as you can. The supervisors from Henson were on hand to make sure it was up to their standard, and it worked out beautifully.” Respecting the director’s vision is paramount, and Hoogenakker thinks of it is as, if the original creators had access to Atmos at the time, how would they have interpreted it? He believes that communicating this

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perspective to filmmakers and clients often makes them see a project a little differently. “I have always been involved with film and TV,” Hoogenakker continues. “We’ve done every episode of Game of Thrones, which was a big learning process for me and has definitely kept me busy. I’m taking the original 5.1 elements and working with the sound team to mix it with Atmos. “It’s a challenge because I’m always trying to respect what they did with those great mixes, while also making sure it folds back down into a 5.1 to match what they originally broadcast. “The producers and I will sit there together and A-B between the original 5.1 mix that was broadcast and the downmix to 5.1, and make sure they’re spot on. This has been a big learning curve for me, finding out what to do right and what to do wrong! “One of my favourite movies to work on however was John Wick 2; I was really given the freedom to make that awesome original mix really immersive.” Lately, Hoogenakker has also been involved in some musical projects. He mixed REM’s Losing My Religion at Formosa Group’s Santa Monica facility and played the result back to the original producers and engineers, who then took the band’s 1992 album Automatic for the People and remixed it at Capitol Studios. “I’m definitely seeing an increase in immersive remixing on the music side,” he says. “It started with cinema and TV, and now I see a floodgate opening with regards to streaming; I’m also pushing this pretty hard because formats like Blu-Ray are inevitably on their way out.” In fact Hoogenakker, who has been on the post side of the industry for 20 years, began his career in music, working at Paisley Park – Prince’s renowned studio – in Minnesota where he grew up.

Immersive audio projects make up around 50 per cent of what Hoogenakker has worked on over the last few years, with the other 50 per cent spent doing new original surround mixes for feature films, documentaries, and more. “I’m definitely a Swiss army knife in this sense,” he remarks. While he does have a lot of projects brewing which he is unable to discuss, including catalogue and new titles, Hoogenakker is convinced that the industry is going to see a lot more immersive audio in the future. “For the latest version of Pro Tools, Avid have worked very closely with Dolby to tie it in very closely with Atmos, allowing sound designers to edit in a small room efficiently and be confident that it’s going to translate to the stage as best as it can before the

mix,” Hoogenakker explains. “Before, it was technically more challenging to create a proper immersive mix in Pro Tools.” Meanwhile, streaming services such as Netﬂix and Amazon Prime are coming up with deliverables that will ﬂow downstream from Atmos down to 7.1, and to 5.1 stereo. Because it is so much easier to make music and effects in Atmos, foreign versioning and localisation dubs are much easier to achieve. “Even though I’m sometimes remixing a previous mix, I’m always trying to work with the original creators and honour the original sound crew’s incredible work and director’s vision,” concludes Hoogenakker. “I always appreciate their supervision to make sure everyone’s happy with it.”

PICTURED ABOVE: Tim Hoogenakker in his studio

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 51

PRODUCTION AND POST

CAPTURING THE FIGHT FOR MOSUL RTS Camera Operator of the Year nominee Olivier Sarbil discusses his work with the Iraqi special forces

uring the battle to recapture the city of Mosul, PBS Frontline filmmaker Olivier Sarbil spent six months embedded with an Iraqi special forces unit as it led the military offensive against ISIS. Equipped with just his Canon EOS C300 Mark II camera, five batteries and five Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lenses, Sarbil charted the brutal conflict in the resulting film, Mosul, which is a Frontline production with Mongoose Pictures in association with Channel 4. Sarbil’s fly on the wall documentary was also recently repackaged into a 47 minute film, The Fight for Mosul. Before shooting both projects, Sarbil made a short film for Channel 4 News called Inside the Battle for Mosul which received multiple awards including the Rory Peck Award for News Features. He then carried on filming for another six months to make the critically-acclaimed Mosul, his first longform documentary for PBS Frontline. Obtaining award-winning footage while filming as a lone cameraman in Mosul was no easy feat. The logistics of shooting as a one-man crew in such an unpredictable environment became one of the biggest challenges Sarbil faced. PACKING LIGHT Mosul isn’t the first war zone Sarbil has ventured into. With experience covering conflicts in locations such as Libya, Syria and eastern Ukraine, he knows how to capture compelling footage in challenging environments. Sarbil says he chose to use Canon’s EOS C300 Mark II and EF-S 17-55mm lens as it was the best kit for the job. “Having the right kit for any production is always very important, but packing the right equipment for shooting in a warzone is critical,” explains Sarbil. “I

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needed to keep my kit lightweight as I was carrying everything with me at all times and I needed a camera that was robust and reliable to cope with the extreme conditions of this shoot.” Sarbil says another reason he chose to shoot with the EOS C300 Mark II is its image quality. “The camera is capable of delivering beautiful quality pictures, especially amazing looking skin tones.” During the shoot, Sarbil carried five EF-S 17-55mm lenses with him at all times. In fact, 90 per cent of the film was shot with Canon’s EF-S 17-55mm lens. “As this was a run and gun project, I needed to get continual coverage without changing types of lenses,” explains Sarbil. “The EF-S 17-55mm lens is a go to for a crop sensor camera like the C300 and perfect for this kind of project because it is lightweight, has image stabilisation, a good focal length and delivers good picture quality”. There was a lot of dirt and dust in Mosul, and as it was a warzone there was also a lot of smoke. Sarbil was aware this would affect any glass that he travelled with, so he took five of the exact same lenses to make sure his filming kept the same style throughout. “I was prepared to change optics regularly, and after getting the lenses properly serviced by Canon on my return, they were as good as new,” he says. TOUGHEST BATTLE When filming in Libya in 2011, Sarbil was seriously wounded by a rocket propelled grenade. He lost part of his right hand and spent eight months in hospital. But he says Mosul is by far the toughest battle he’s ever covered: “I was living on the battlefield, shadowing the Special Forces as they went into combat every day and faced ISIS snipers, drone attacks and suicide

bombers,” he explains. It was also an extremely challenging environment for the camera to contend with: “Filming on the battlefield, there is constant dirt and dust. At times I could actually see dust pouring out of the ventilation holes but the camera still worked flawlessly.” Sarbil says he chose Canon’s EOS C300 Mark II because of its durability and ergonomics. “It was easy to shoot with and a good fit for handheld work. I didn’t want to make the camera bulky by using any third party rigs, so I customised it by removing the factory hand grip, resulting in a more compact camera body.” Being on the frontline with an elite assault squad meant Sarbil was never sure when he’d have access to electricity, so preserving battery life was extremely important. He travelled with five BP-A30 batteries and aimed to use no more than two per day.

“Even when there was electricity I was competing with all the soldiers who wanted to charge their phones so I was always conscious about not wasting batteries,” Sarbil says. “I chose to use the smaller BP-A30 batteries even though they offer less power, as it meant I could close the battery door cover to try and limit the amount of dust getting in.”

PICTURED ABOVE: Olivier Sarbil

NO BACK UP Working alone in Mosul meant Sarbil didn’t have the option of carrying a back-up camera. He says that after his own security, protecting his camera was his top priority. “There was no Plan B – if my camera failed I was stuck on a frontline with no way to ﬁlm. But the C300 Mark II did the job. I don’t think there are many cameras in the same category that could have survived what I put it through in Mosul.”

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 53

TECHNOLOGY

THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL PRODUCTION Sony Professional Europe will launch its new, pay-as-you-go, cloud-based production service in summer 2018. The team behind Virtual Production speak exclusively to Jenny Priestley about the new service

sk anyone who works within the TV industry, and they’ll tell you live broadcasting is the most exciting, and most expensive area of production. From a team of talented creatives and technicians to costly infrastructure, producing live content is not cheap. But viewers now expect to be able to watch live content whenever, and wherever they want. Slowly, live production is moving away from costly OB trucks and cable infrastructure towards more cloud-based technology. Sony Professional is aiming to drive that change even further with the launch of its new on-demand cloud-based service Virtual Production, which will launch to the market by summer 2018. Sony has been testing Virtual Production since August 2017, as Stuart Almond, head of marketing and communications, Sony Professional Europe, explains: “We carried out a beta test of Virtual Production at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. They wanted to have the production values of actually streaming their event live, capturing red carpet interviews with stars, running clips, and then running a studio programme during the day. Obviously the cost of an outside broadcast was quite steep for what is effectively a half charity, half university run organisation.” “We’ve been working with them in the last couple of years developing the kind of wireless workﬂow that we use with our Sony cameras,” continues Almond. “As you know, without the restrictions of cables plugging things in, content can just be transmitted back to base or anywhere it needs to go. We suggested that we try a proof of concept with the Film Festival where our cameras would stream directly to the cloud, and within that cloud we had a switcher that could capture up to six streams, and

we could store some pre-recorded material in the cloud as well. Then, with one laptop they could effectively broadcast, stream it to Facebook Live, put it on their website, YouTube etc. The team at Locarno were happy to trial this as a pre-launch proof of concept and that was the birth of this cloud-based production service. “We realised this pop-up production tool could be quite a disruptor in the market, particularly for those event based organisations who just want access to professional-looking content for their live streaming and live events,” adds Almond. The key driver that makes Virtual Production different to any other production toolset already out in the market is that users don’t need to download software or have a piece of kit on the ground: “All you need is a laptop, you don’t even need to download some software, you just go to the website, log in, take your wireless devices and literally conﬁgure it on the website,” Almond explains. “That’s what’s so great about this, you don’t need a piece of kit, there’s not a streaming box, there’s no physical switcher on site; it’s purely all done through the cloud. And it’s that cloud technology that really is the differentiator here.” Sony has a well-known heritage in terms of working with major international broadcasters from the BBC to Turner Broadcasting, but Almond believes Virtual Production will bring the company to a new area of the broadcast market. “We see Virtual Production as an opener to enabling easier live production,” he says. “If you’re a small-player, an individual, or a small production company, this adds another string to your bow for production. And as the service starts to grow and develop, we can start to show cloud-based editing as well.” Virtual Production can take in up to six feeds, and output two

“We realised this pop-up production tool could be quite a disruptor in the market” STUART ALMOND

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TECHNOLOGY

to three feeds simultaneously. It will allow users to put their feeds straight onto platforms such as Facebook. There are already plans in place to enable those feeds to include different sets of graphics and logos for each of the different playouts – but that won’t be included at launch. It will also allow multiple users from a team to work on the platform at any one time, as Alan Turner, R&D project manager, explains: “As a customer you might have multiple events that you want to cover. Each of those events would have their own dedicated virtual production platform that you could use. “The customer can then assign a number of people in their production team to work on each event. So, for each event you would assemble your team, and invite different people from within the production team to look after the video switching part of the production, audio mixing, graphics, play out, all of the different elements that could go to make up your live production.” “It doesn’t matter if you’ve got people working on the platform in Zurich, London or Tokyo whilst they’re streaming content from Germany or the Netherlands,” adds Almond. “There is no physical on-site kit here, it is completely cloud based. Users are not having to go through a box to post it online. We have already demonstrated a lot of cloud-based production tools and it makes sense for us to start to think about how we join all of this together.” “As we showed at Locarno, we have the ability to join some of

our services together already such as Virtual Production and our cloud native news production platform Media Backbone Hive,” continues Almond. “That has a pure web based editor that can edit and package things straight out into social media, and it has a content management system behind it, so content that was being clipped and recorded at the Locarno Festival was also being stored in the cloud and it could be edited down into a highlights package and then stored wherever the team wanted. “It is extremely versatile and that’s why we’ve not just called it a virtual switcher. It’s called Virtual Production because there are more tool sets available. This is a service with quite an aggressive road map. We have the ambition to keep adding more and more services or modules so users can start to beneﬁt more from cloud based production.” “The biggest problem people have in the market is the cost of having the professional quality of broadcast,” concludes Almond. “The quality of the content is what has driven this service for Sony so hopefully the differentiator, apart from it being completely cloud based, is the quality of service that customers receive. And none of it has an infrastructure cost. We’re taking that away. We really are going Opex here in terms of a pay-asyou-go service for broadcasting or streaming quality material in a very hassle-free way.”

TVBE APRIL 2018 | 55

TECHNOLOGY

A PROMPT RESPONSE Simon Clark, EMEA and APAC sales development manager for the Vitec Group’s Autoscript brand, explains how the company is rewriting the rules for teleprompting systems as broadcast customers continue to migrate to all-IP infrastructures

WHAT LED AUTOSCRIPT TO DEVELOP A FULLY IP-ENABLED PROMPTING SYSTEM? Our customers are increasingly employing IP to transform their approach to virtually every aspect of production. They’re sold on the potential benefits of migrating to IP, but it’s only going to succeed if all production elements can work together in a tightly integrated and seamless way. And that goes right down to the prompting systems. Until now, prompting systems have relied on USB, video, and serial cables to connect the controller to the prompting engine and deliver prompting output to the monitor. With Intelligent Prompting, we were looking to re-think that approach and redesign each component around an IP-enabled workflow that takes advantage of the new world of packet-based signal distribution. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE FUNDAMENTAL REQUIREMENTS OF AN IP-BASED SYSTEM? With Intelligent Prompting, we realised that IP-based prompting requires a systematic approach, with the ability to fit seamlessly into the fully networked and geographically disperse IP production facilities that are now being developed in many parts of the world. To meet this requirement, we built a significant amount of intelligence into the new EVO-IP and EPIC-IP prompting monitors. This allows them to be identified on the IP network and controlled both locally and remotely by the operator. Making full use of the two-way communication that IP facilitates, we also ensured that the operator can access multiple prompters and determine, at a glance, whether each is functioning properly.

With intelligent scroll technology built into every monitor, each one can generate video output from small unicast data packets sent from the WinPlus-IP prompting software. In this manner, we avoided sending video over IP and all the potential drawbacks that go with it. With much less data sent over the IP network, every monitor can remain in constant communication with the master application to ensure reliable synchronisation and easier operation. WHAT OPPORTUNITIES DOES IP OPEN UP FOR BROADCASTERS LOOKING AT MAJOR INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADES AND NEW MOBILE FACILITIES? IP offers new benefits and opportunities including lower installation costs, simple and flexible integration, and responsive workflows. IP also allows broadcasters to be format-agnostic and reduces the cost of trying and deploying new technologies. An IP-enabled prompting workflow creates endless opportunities for broadcast operations to collaborate across geographies and allocate resources cost-effectively. One operator can control the script, speed, and other prompting attributes in multiple locations and instantly switch control to another operator anywhere in the world when necessary. For instance, an operator in Rome can control a prompter in London (something we’ve demonstrated over just a mobile connection) and then, from the same workstation, begin operating a prompter in Paris. Likewise, IP connectivity provides powerful redundancy, since a second master WinPlus-IP software application can be installed and then take over control seamlessly as required.

“An operator in Rome can control a prompter in London and then, from the same workstation, begin operating a prompter in Paris” SIMON CLARK 56 | TVBE APRIL 2018

DO YOU THINK THAT IP IS THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF BROADCAST INFRASTRUCTURE? Yes. There is general acceptance across the industry that IP is the future, and momentum is gathering. Any major investment, whether a new facility or a replacement router, needs to be futureproofed, and broadcasters all over the world are choosing IP to ensure their investment will last. In these instances we’ve seen Intelligent Prompting generate huge excitement. With no extra boxes or proprietary equipment required, our prompters connect via an Ethernet cable into the network. To reduce cabling even further most of our customers are running the prompting feed through their IP camera CCU. Of course, not everyone will make the change to IP quickly. The largest broadcasters are taking time to determine how best to move forward, and when to do so. In these instances, we expect to see small pockets of IP appear and eventually be joined into one wider IP infrastructure. We made the Autoscript prompters compatible with both video and IP workﬂows because many of our customers are still deciding when they will move to IP. It’s likely that other ‘accessory’ broadcast products will be similarly equipped to facilitate a smooth shift to IP. WHILE FUTUREPROOFING THE NETWORK, HOW CAN BROADCASTERS BUILD IN FLEXIBILITY WHEREVER POSSIBLE? To build in flexibility, broadcasters must build new infrastructure

with IP in mind. They must think about the possibilities for remote work and virtualisation. They mustn’t be afraid to create pockets of IP — perhaps in areas where remote teams need to collaborate. Consider prompting as an example: could the operators from one region provide backup to the operators in another region? WHAT ABOUT CUSTOMERS THAT AREN’T YET READY TO MOVE TO IP OPERATIONS? Many customers are taking a more gradual approach to the IP migration, adding components as their budgets allow. For those customers, we want to emphasise that all of our equipment is backwards compatible. WinPlus-IP software can fully integrate with an existing desktop, wireless and foot controller network, allowing customers to upgrade to the benefits of IP but not replace scroll controllers until they are ready, and we’re still actively developing leading-edge features to benefit traditional video prompting workflows. For instance, the EVO-IP and EPICIP monitors are slimmer, and brighter with a new carbon fibre hood, and have HD-SDI and Composite inputs alongside their IP connectivity. These types of hybrid solutions will be a critical stepping stone for many broadcasters who lack the budget, or who are too invested in their current facilities to make an overnight transition to IP operations.

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DATA CENTRE

CAMERAS GO 360 360-degree cameras are beginning to take hold of the traditional camera market. Futuresource Consulting picks out some key stats for TVBEurope.

ACTION CAMERAS vs 360 LATEST WOR/DWIDE FIGURES Traditional Action Cameras vs 360 Consumer Cameras

futures urce CONSULTING

2017 Action Camera User Type Consumers vs Professionals Consumers

90%

In 2017, of all cameras were Traditional Action Cameras.

75%

In 2020, this drops to

Professionals

80%, as 360 cameras

25%

begin to take hold

360 Camera Volume (%) by Form Factor in 2017

56% Handheld

13%

31%

Rugged/Waterproof

Smartphone Attachment

Geographic Reach

$2.6 Billion

The combined retail value of the Traditional and 360 Action Camera Market in 2017

$1 Billion

The value of North American market, the biggest region in 2017.

The above data is taken from the continuous market research Futuresource conducts on a bi-annual basis focusing on worldwide market sizing, forecasting and usage of action cameras and consumer 360 cameras.

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