TVBE June 2018 by Future PLC

Intelligence for the media & entertainment industry

JUNE 2018

THE

NEXT GENERATION GAME

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IT’S COMING HOME, OR IS IT?

CONTENT Editor: Jenny Priestley jenny.priestley@futurenet.com Senior Staff Writer: Colby Ramsey colby.ramsey@futurenet.com Designer: Sam Richwood sam.richwood@futurenet.com Contributors: George Jarrett, John Maxwell Hobbs Digital Director: Diane Oliver diane.oliver@futurenet.com Production Executive: Warren Kelly warren.kelly@futurenet.com

t’s finally here, the FIFA World Cup kicks off on European soil once again on 14th June. How far will each European team go? And how many fans will be tuning in to cheer their team on? The total audience reach in Europe for the event in Rio four years ago was 548.1 million viewers. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom provided 43 per cent of that regional total. According to FIFA’s own figures, the final between Germany and Argentina saw a global audience of 695 million viewers watching “in home”, while that figure rises to a total projected audience of 1.013 billion when “out of home” is added. Four years later, I wonder how much of that “out of home” viewing will increase come the final in Moscow on 15th July? According to research, three in four viewers in the UK will watch at home on TV, as opposed to just one per cent on mobile, However, nearly one in four (23 per cent)

MANAGEMENT Chief Operations Officer: Aaron Asadi

will be using their phones as the main way of seeking out additional information. Oh, and 26 per cent of viewers in the UK will stop watching when England are (inevitably) knocked out. Of course the FIFA World Cup is always an incredibly busy time for our industry and if you’re involved in bringing the tournament to the millions of fans eagerly tuning in, I wish you the very best of luck! Away from the football, this issue of TVBEurope is focusing on the next generation – be that technology or people. It seems to me that every few days we’re writing about new developments in VR and AI. My question is, when do we stop calling them next generation and start admitting that technology has infiltrated the industry and is the now generation rather than the next? n

JENNY PRIESTLEY, EDITOR

Managing Director/Senior Vice President: Christine Shaw Content Director: James McKeown Managing Director/Europe: Mark Burton Commercial Finance Director: Dan Jotcham Managing Design Director: Nicole Cobban

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Future PLC is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association All contents © 2018 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions.

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Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief financial officer Penny Ladkin-Brand Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244

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IN THIS ISSUE

JUNE 2018

08 The flightpath to AI Cisco Systems’ Adam Davies discusses the technology’s effect on the media industry

13 Deluxe One Jenny Priestley talks to Deluxe chief product officer Andy Shenkler about their new platform

22 Investors in People Colby Ramsey finds out more about GatesAir’s new training course for RF broadcast engineers

24 Born of the Cloud George Jarrett meets Kris Brown and Kristan Bullett, joint broadcast + media managing directors at Piksel

27 Erica Aoi

The world’s first android TV anchor tells TVBEurope what it’s like to be one of a kind

34 Leaning forward storytelling Jenny Priestley speaks to New York studio Sibling Rivalry about its new virtual reality film for Samsung Gear VR

38 (The) American Dream BBC Studios’ Sarah Gibbs talks to Colby Ramsey about their work with PBS on the r ecent Royal Wedding

40 Hearing is Believing VR specialist at Grand Central Recording Studios, Steve Lane, tells Colby Ramsey about the emergence of the format, its hurdles, and the reasons why it’s here to stay

46 From Russia with Love How Telestream and Aspera are helping to deliver FOX Sports’ coverage of this month’s FIFA World Cup from over 6000 miles away

53 The 4K video codec war

Stewart Wolpin explains all you need to know about the latest format war

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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

Solving the challenges of covering major sports events By Malcolm Harland, co-founder and MD, Garland

ajor global sporting events bring a wealth of opportunities for those covering them, including boosting revenues and giving viewers hours of remarkable content. But, media outlets sending their teams to cover such events in other countries face many potential problems — from equipment being held at customs, to needing in-time-zone and on-the-ground technical support and spare parts, to understanding the local language, regulations and restrictions. Events such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup hold the world spellbound as viewers watch the massive amount of coverage. However, outlets wanting to provide coverage without relying on other sources need to have several crews covering various locations, which has considerable budget implications. The sheer size of the task can be challenging as outlets try to cover multiple events simultaneously from venues often hundreds of miles apart. At the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia this month, matches will be held at 12 venues, the furthest of which are over 1,800 miles (3,000 km) apart. The solution is renting equipment from a provider located in the host country. Working with our partner, LiveU, we’ve assisted many customers with such arrangements. LiveU’s ad hoc rental service of its portable bonded-cellular live video-streaming units is available locally through its global partnership network. Renting lets crews move easily between locations, allowing agility and a smaller team. The technology is compatible with surrounding cellular infrastructure, and includes local data provision, whilst giving excellent HD live contribution at a lower price than using satellite trucks. “LiveU has widespread experience covering major sporting events,” says Ronen Artman, LiveU’s VP of Marketing. “Hundreds of LiveU units provided live coverage of the 2012 London Olympics, 2014 FIFA

World Cup, Brazil’s 2016 Summer Games and South Korea’s recent Winter Games, to name a few such large-scale events.” Viewers also want to see live news conferences, interviews, fan reactions, and more. Crews need to be everywhere, all the time. Being able to react quickly is paramount. And this is where renting LiveU units really comes into its own. “Clients tell us where and when they need a unit and we’ll have it waiting for them at their destination. They don’t have the problem of clearing customs by shipping their own equipment, nor the hassle of purchasing SIM cards with local providers,” states Artman. In Russia, LiveU will have distribution centres in Moscow and St Petersburg, with customers able to pick up their pre-ordered units from both locations. But it’s often the small, unexpected issues that can cause the biggest problems for media outlets. A lack of spare parts or batteries can mean missed coverage opportunities and hours of lost time. LiveU and its local partners maintain spare parts and extra units so help resolve such issues quickly. They also have strong connections to local operators and cloud servers. “It’s the availability of on-the-ground 24/7 professional support that can mean the success of a customer’s coverage,” says Artman. “At the World Cup, we’ll have a dedicated team on site, all Russian-speaking, able to manage local logistics and provide the highest level of support and guidance. “Our global network of LiveU-trained local partners — including Garland in the UK — support customers alongside our own team, and take care of any issues back in their home countries.” LiveU solutions make it as easy for outlets to cover these global events. But it’s the flexibility, versatility and cost-effectiveness of these solutions that make them work for every type of scenario needing live video — whether the event is big or small. n

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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

The flightpath to AI By Adam Davies, product marketing manager, Cisco Systems

rtificial Intelligence, or AI, seems to be around every virtual corner at the moment. From driverless cars to autonomous drones, from self-configuring networks to smart cities, AI looks like it’s becoming a pervasive technology. But is it a single technology? And how will it affect the media industry? One of the more useful analogies for AI at the moment is that of the auto-pilot in a plane. Gone are the days when the pilot did most of the flying, increasingly the majority of any flight is controlled by computer, with the auto-pilot taking on growing amounts of the journey, including the landing. That doesn’t mean we don’t need pilots, but what it does mean is that the pilot is there to deal with exceptions and the more difficult parts of flying, such as take-off. But even with these actions the auto-pilot and subsidiary systems are providing help and guidance. In media, AI can be our auto-pilot, initially removing the dull, repetitive tasks and moving into providing greater value in making our operations more efficient. The industry is already well on the way to implementing systems that can be described as AI, as we see advanced automation enter all parts of the content value chain. We initially saw it with things such as intelligent content storage and content caching, and now, increasingly as part of workflows. But change doesn’t happen for the sake of it, and there are two key factors driving the move towards greater AI: 1. As consumer demands change and grow, it becomes increasingly expensive to scale to meet the demands of new devices and distribution, sometimes prohibitively so. 2. Data is now everywhere and growing exponentially. Data on content, on delivery, on consumers. And with legislation such as GDPR we need intelligent ways of using it. These two factors will make AI a pervasive technology. It will be at the core of operations, rather than a

quirky edge technology. There won’t be a decision on whether or not to implement AI, it will just be there, to make our resources, our networks and our people *more* efficient. Choosing AI would be as irrelevant as choosing electricity. If you don’t have it, well, stuff just won’t work. So what will these future systems look like? Let’s look at a content process. Right now we’re seeing advanced automation, with humans making the relevant decisions on, for example, what language content should be translated to, what metadata to use, and what happens with the content in the network. But with machine-to-machine connections the platforms of the future will know where content is being consumed. That data goes back to our content management system which can now interrogate our rights management tools, so content metadata data is transcribed to new languages for the territories we have the rights for. Speech to text will provide subtitling, choosing from a variety of online translation services. Distribution of content will be to the relevant cloud for that territory, but at the most efficient price point, as will be the selection of the relevant format – SD, HD, 4K, etc. And then the platform monitors consumption, it looks at trick play, and starts making edit recommendations. It also starts making content suggestions to both the consumer and provider. And the recommendation will be contextual – what kind of device are you on, what kind of network are you using? Even what kind of mood are you in? In this scenario, there is still plenty of room for human decision making, but just like the auto-pilot, more of the heavy lifting work becomes automated, and the process becomes more efficient. We won’t be in a situation where the AI in our tools stops us from doing something, but your production chatbot may one day tell you ‘I’m sorry Dave, I didn’t like that’. n

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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

How machine learning is changing the game for content metadata By Charles Dawes, senior director, international marketing, TiVo

here is more content than ever before and increasing competition due to the rise of streaming services and on-demand options. This is a challenge for entertainment content owners and distributors; how do they stand out from the crowd and help viewers find content? Cisco revealed that it would take a single viewer more than five million years to watch the amount of video that crosses global IP networks each month. It is therefore critical for content owners and distributors to make it easy for viewers to search and discover their content. To do that, they need to know precisely what’s in their content. And to do that they need better content metadata, which is descriptive, image-rich programming information, such as title, actors, description, release date, running time, and genre. The evolving media landscape compels content owners and distributors to understand and define their content metadata at a much deeper and granular level than before. For distributors, this requires a new approach to creating content metadata and delivering personalised experiences for each viewer. With machine learning, companies can keep up with the tsunami of content, as well as better enrich metadata and enable distributors to get the right entertainment in front of the right viewers at the right time. Machine learning takes metadata beyond cast, title and descriptions, and enables content to be enhanced with many new data descriptors such as keywords, dynamic popularity ratings, and moods, to name a few. This can help surface the most relevant content in real time at just the right moment. Better metadata can also help both online and traditional content distributors create more accurate and useful scheduling models. In the conventional TV programming model, networks need to know what they’re going to put on the screen weeks in advance. However, that’s a limitation in today’s environment,

where a programmer has no idea what may be popular in two weeks. Machine learning can recognise videos trending in real-time and identify this to be served up to the distributor’s subscribers. Traditional media workflows will also benefit from machine learning via the algorithmic matching of metadata to ever increasing content line-ups. Content can get into distributor systems faster than it would via traditional methods. Content creators also face a set of new challenges in terms of how does their content get discovered and enjoyed? That content could be their current “traditional” long form content, their back catalogue of content, or the new digital-first content they are creating. The challenge is that existing metadata typically only includes title, cast and synopsis, and often the quality and accuracy of the content is lacking. The problem is even worse for back catalogue content. With machine learning, it can analyse large amounts of unstructured information and determine the relevant data to map to large amounts of content; making that content more discoverable and viewable. Human editors will not go away with machine learning. As content genres get more specific, the need for human experts to curate this content also increases. Machine learning can help editors of metadata to edit their work. Comparing inputs from content editors, and determining the consistency and accuracy of the data, results in the highest quality and most relevant metadata. At the same time, expert human editors can fine tune the initial data from machine learning techniques to bring unparalleled quality to the content metadata. Ultimately, as the volume and breadth of content continues to explode, machine learning-powered metadata will enable speed at scale. It can be used to create better, more personalised entertainment experiences for viewers, while driving critical new revenue opportunities for content creators and distributors. n

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FEATURE

THE ONE-TO-ONE OTT OPPORTUNITY Sandip Sarda, CEO at Quiptel - a Falcon Media House company, on streaming from one to the many

he unmistakable rise of streaming media in recent years has made traditional, linear TV seem curiously quaint, and broadcasters’ best efforts to match on-demand services like Netflix and Amazon Prime are falling flat. While the streaming services continue to present a threat to the traditional broadcasting model, there are also exciting opportunities. Tailoring content, advertisements and promotions based on individual viewing behaviour is an area yet to be fully explored. When online broadcasting was in its infancy the problem was largely around quality of service, with buffering and unavailability leading to an often-unacceptable viewing experience. When these glitches affected important live programming such as major sports tournaments, the outcry from frustrated viewers only highlighted the gulf separating traditional broadcasters from their upstart online competitors. According to our research, just one in seven viewers watching live sport streams say they are satisfied with their experience. That should worry broadcast executives, but there is another reason for traditional TV’s decline, which is its inability to provide a fantastic, allencompassing experience for the viewer. At its heart, this problem revolves around the failure to solve the issue of “second-screening”, an essential part of the modern viewing experience. Few people sit down to watch live television like we did a decade ago: today, they flick restlessly between windows and browser tabs, chatting with friends about the broadcast they’re watching, and engaging with social media about, say, a football match in real-time. What’s more, online catch-up services generally do a poor job of personalising the experience with, say, recommendations on similar content that viewers might enjoy. There are thus two major problems facing traditional broadcasters: the technical issue of how to keep their broadcasts as “live” and up-tothe-minute as social platforms, and the more vexed question of how to engage a new generation of viewers who simply expect more from their viewing experience. Addressing both these problems requires a fundamental rethink of decades-old broadcasting strategy; one that is predicated on viewers having a limited choice over what to watch, and therefore accepting a

“good enough” service. From a technical point of view, for example, it’s not enough to solve buffering problems by adding a delay to live broadcasts. In an age when people follow the latest breaking news – and sport – on Twitter and other social platforms, such an approach often means that a goal or shocking plot twist is revealed within seconds on social media, rather than on the screen. No-one pretends that there aren’t daunting technical challenges to delivering truly live, seamless streaming, but broadcasters need to find a way to up their game. If they are not doing so already, they need to harness new methods and technologies for optimising the live viewing experience, such as intelligent use of dynamic virtual paths to minimise bandwidth consumption across networks. There is, however, an even more pressing imperative, which is to create an all-encompassing experience that can revive the old sense of community that existed in the days when linear, analogue TV was the only choice. The “watercooler” is no longer a corner of the office, but any online space where people can discuss the latest drama or sporting event. Broadcasters should look at how companies like Facebook have created ecosystems where programme makers can provide additional content and discussion forums. One of the keys to creating these new online communities is to engage with the vloggers, YouTube stars, and fan forums who do so much to create the buzz around new programming or live events. It’s more than just creating interest, though: these ecosystems enable broadcasters to engage with viewers on that one-to-one basis, rather than the one-to-many model of traditional broadcast. In doing so, they can find that elusive personal engagement that means so much to today’s audiences. The one-to-one streaming world may still be considered a newcomer when compared to the traditional broadcasting model, however the opportunities are already apparent and beginning to be explored. By knowing what shows a user watches we can begin to engage on an individual level. Recommending related content while also presenting targeted advertising enables brands and broadcasters to connect with receptive audiences. A prospect that appeals for content owners, advertisers and the all-important viewers. n

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FEATURE

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL Jenny Priestley talks to Andy Shenkler, chief product officer at Deluxe, about their new platform

t NAB in April, Deluxe introduced its new cloud-based platform, Deluxe One. The platform plugs into a customer workflow, whether it’s at the production, packaging/delivery or distribution stage, to act as a hub for customer data, assets or avails. Deluxe One unifies a network of micro-services, enabling users to access Deluxe’s end-to-end solution or just a part of it. It also acts as an open-hub, allowing not only Deluxe’s customers but other vendors to connect their business to the platform. Andy Shenkler, chief product officer for Deluxe, says Deluxe One is the culmination of a significant amount of work and energy that has gone in to transforming Deluxe as a company as well as looking at the industry as a whole and trying to address the needs of where the market is moving to. “There used to be a very clear delineation between people who created content and people who distributed content,” Shenkler explains. “Over the last year we’ve seen that has started to collapse in on itself. You have Netflix spending inordinate amounts of money on creating its own content now and being both a distributor and content creator, while Disney is reorganising itself to be an OTT platform. So there’s really a very large transformation that’s taking place across the industry. “To that same end, Deluxe has reorganised itself in a similar vein,” Shenkler adds. “We now have three divisions within the company; a creative services division focused on post production, visual effects and the creation of content; the distributed division is focused on ‘how did you get that out to everywhere?’ whether that’s digital cinema, the localisation of

content now that things are becoming more globalised, and the fact that you need to get content to the home user in a much more expedient manner. Underpinning all of that is the technology division which is really about designing the platforms and the tools that allow not only Deluxe to be able to service these things, but also let the industry itself leverage that.” With the delineation between content creators and distributors in mind, Shenkler says Deluxe One has been designed for use by both sides of the industry, “At Deluxe we look at the totality of everything, it’s a lens to living room view of the world. “If you’re a content creator you probably have an enormous amount of content that you’re trying to organise and put into place, but then you have to facilitate your downstream distribution. If you’re a content aggregator or a distributor, you’re licensing from all the content creators, so you need to organise that content; and within all of the proliferation of that content to worldwide audiences, how do you manage all that information in a bespoke world? “What we’ve done is build a platform to address this in a couple of ways. Our platform is designed

“There used to be a very clear delineation between people who created content and people who distributed content. Over the last year we’ve seen that has started to collapse in on itself.” ANDY SHENKLER

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on a technology set of microservices. In a traditional software development methodology you build it out so it stands alone by itself. But using microservices allows us to continue to plug in different features as we go along without having to rebuild the entire platform. It also means our customers can leverage just smaller components of the system because not everybody needs everything. We’re also reaching a point in time where lots of companies have large technology teams themselves and are constantly making decisions about what they want to build and own versus what they want to leverage outside and we want them to have that flexibility.” At launch, Deluxe has partnered with four vendors who have been integrated into the platform. DLVR offers CDN optimisation and switching for the OTT portion of the business; Mediamorph deals with rights

“We looked at the world that’s coming, not the world that’s here today.” ANDY SHENKLER

management; Hybrik is a cloud-based transcoding tool which Shenkler says “gives people a lot more flexibility and scalability,” and Globant is a large systems integrator that also offers application development for the likes of iOS and Android. “It’s really been about bringing together an entire community for people to leverage,” says Shenkler. “The major piece of differentiation that One offers is that it’s also available to our competitors. We expect that competitors of Deluxe will also make use of parts of One because that’s what’s good for customers. We recognise that customers want a choice and so we’ve broken this walled garden if you will, we are allowing flexibility so that the entire industry can benefit.” A large part of what Deluxe One has to offer is built around metadata, be that information around assets and avails, delivery metrics, rights management or order processing. Shenkler says the platform is designed to use a combination of three things to build the metadata stored within it: “Wherever we can take feeds of information direct from the content owner as the source of truth we do. We obviously have the augmentation of data as well, there’s always going to be a human element to this, but in addition we have three patents around AI components focused on content identification and augmentation. So when a piece of content comes into the system, we analyse it to determine that it actually is the piece of content that

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somebody says it is. We validate that against a large library of almost 500 terabytes of content.” “I think what’s important here is that a lot of people build systems that do one of two things, they’re only fulfilling one type of workflow,” Shenkler continues. “Because we service so many different types of companies, we had to come up with processes that can handle every possible permutation of things. That’s really what gives Deluxe One a lot of value, companies aren’t having to go and build these things themselves.” Deluxe One also aims to bring processes that previously required multiple systems all into the same platform: “This is where the amalgamation of all these data sets starts to take focus,” says Shenkler. “Generally when you have an avail system and you have an asset management system and some sort of ordering system, they become very different applications that you have to switch between and make connections to. We thought the world is at a point now where all of this needs to come together. So within Deluxe One you can look at the video, see its metadata, look at its avails, and on the same page you can see the technical information, and there’s also a job history. “Imagine a scenario where we’ve delivered a file to five hundred different broadcasters and mPVDs, and somebody found a problem with it or there was a legal request to make a change. In the past, that took

an enormous amount of work. Now we can go back in Deluxe One and track everybody who has received it, when they received it and replace all those assets.” “A lot of the time when people are working on metadata, it tends to be focused on people sending emails to each other, updating a spreadsheet, and nobody knows who changed what or when. Deluxe One keeps track of every single time a piece of data in the system changes. We recognised that people needed auditability on all of this information.” Deluxe One will continue to evolve on a regular basis, with new features expected to be released every three weeks and major updates arriving as and when needed. Shenkler insists Deluxe have aimed to be as forward-thinking as possible with the platform, ”We looked at the world that’s coming, not the world that’s here today,” he says. “We asked ‘what are all the things we need to build, even if people aren’t making use of all that?’. We know there’s going to be a drive for customisation. If we started building the system for what already exists we would be out of date the moment we went live. “We see there’s an acceleration of consolidation within the market, and the content creators and distributors are becoming the same,” concludes Shenkler. “We see companies are working towards more globalisation. Those three things alone are what make Deluxe One such a powerful asset.” n

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FEATURE

A TIME TO DRAW BREATH This month’s MediaTech 360 event deals with themes of challenge and opportunity at a time of consolidation across the media and entertainment landscape, writes James McKeown, content director at TVBEurope’s parent company, Future Plc

oming technology is already among us. We’ve been referring to the onset of technological advancement for some time in this industry when in truth it has been increasingly needling its influence on the fabric of what we do for as long as we’ve been discussing it. Less ‘coming technology’, perhaps; just ‘technology’. It is the influence of that technology on our methods, capabilities, and business viability that is the subject of exploration at this year’s MediaTech 360 on 20th and 21st June at London’s Grand Connaught Rooms. It will also, I hope, offer a barometer of form as to how effectively broadcasters and content providers are re-gearing their businesses to remain relevant and profitable in an ecosystem of such change. A traditional totem for running the rule over change in the market is the annual ordeal in the desert at NAB; the first of two opportunities for the global industry to gather together – and the first opportunity for trade media types to gauge the mood of the market stakeholders with any real accuracy. The very clear message reverberating around the gigantic Convention Center [sic] halls was that while all sides of the media and entertainment spectrum are facing acute business challenges, the opportunities are there if you know how to pivot your business in the right way. Step forward the large volume of service providers that I spoke to who have expanded their reach into brave new areas of opportunity such as esports either by diversifying their product range, or in some cases by reimagining their business. The idea of change management felt like a fresh topic all over again. Some of the biggest changes we’re seeing is being

driven by consolidation; always a cyclical theme in our marketplace. On both sides of the supply chain there is significant M&A activity that will very much influence the shape of the things to come. “Recent M&A transactions reflect several factors in the media technology sector including the consolidation of endcustomers, mature growth rates, and an unprecedented interest rate environment,” explains Josh Stinehour, principal analyst at Devoncroft Partners. “The mergers of global media companies is consolidating the technology spend for certain product segments into a relatively smaller set of purchasers, leading almost directly to a consolidation of associated technology suppliers. “Mature growth rates across the sector encourage decision-makers to consider M&A events to accelerate growth. And the inexpensive cost of debt, especially in European markets, enables acquirers to more easily finance acquisitions.” One fascinating insight from the vendor community came from Grass Valley’s NAB press conference where Glenn Pennycook – president and EVP at the company’s owner Belden – addressed speculation about further acquisitions following its purchase of Snell Advanced Media (SAM) by pointing to a ‘weakness in the market’, citing excess R&D capacity and excess sales and marketing capacity as likely reasons why nobody is making any money. It appeared a frank and honest assessment of a space well honed in operating with a reasonably hollow middle ground due to the growth seekers at the top consuming the innovators underneath. Yet, this active acquirer is almost lamenting the famine of

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FEATURE feasible targets it believes can help it grow in the areas it requires. The silver lining is that it should prevent the market from becoming overly top heavy, but we certainly haven’t seen the end of ‘activity’ among the supplier community. Another notable fallout from NAB was the crowbar separation of Imagine Communications’ business into two new verticals: Imagine Ad Tech, and Imagine Playout and Networking Solutions, with the former being the umbrella company’s “primary investment target”. Imagine’s recently arrived CEO Tom Cotney’s explanation for the move had clear resonance with Belden’s Pennycook, asserting that there are “too many vendors chasing too few dollars”. This all takes us back to the Devoncroft analysis that the M&A activity on the end user front is forcing technology spend into a “smaller set of purchasers”, forcing almost reactive consolidation among vendors. It is very much the solutions to the challenges brought about by these market forces that will be

under investigation at MediaTech 360. The agenda this year will pore over the costs, challenges, and opportunities within areas such as cloud and digital advertising, live sports production, esports, OTT delivery and monetisation, data and personalisation, AI and machine learning, and of course all of the coming, emerging technology that we agreed to just call ‘technology’ at the start of this column. Wrestling with this debate will be a diverse and refreshing roster of speakers from the likes of Google, BBC, Channel 4, Verizon, Whistle Sports Network, Eurosport, UKTV, and YouView. It will be a discussion of some instruction, all knitted together by our conference chair, Christy King, and I am very much looking forward to welcoming you to be part of the debate. n

MediaTech 360 takes place on 20-21 June 2018 at the Grand Connaught Rooms, London. Tickets are still available at: https://www.nbmevents.uk/mediatech360-2018/tickets

SAY HELLO TO OUR 2018 SUMMIT SPEAKERS

MARINA KALKANIS chief executive M2A Media

ZOE BOTBOL founder Zulu Bravo

JOHN WILLIAMS chief marketing officer EMEA & APAC Verizon

ROBERT AMBROSE managing consultant High Green Media

ALEX CONNACK managing director Missile

RORY MURPHY senior director, solution marketing EMEA vertical marketing Equinix

LESLEY MARR director of operations Molinaire

JONATHAN ACTON head of creative delivery Clear Channel

SHAWN MOFFATT managing partner Go To Team

SARAH MILTON all4 head of product Channel 4

JEFF NATHENSON managing director The Whistle Sports Network

EMILY HOPSON-HILL vice-president, services Ooyala

MUIRNE LAFFAN NED and strategic advisor

JENNY ZHANG strategy director Superimpose

MUKI KULHAN executive digital producer Muki-International

ELLIOT WILLIS commercial director The Hook

TONY JONES principal technologist media solutions Ericsson

CHRISTY KING media business consultant

CRISTINA SARRAILLE senior strategist We Are Social

YVONNE THOMAS education director – SMPTE, product manager arvato

LORNA BAINS director Vilo Consulting

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HYBRID CLOUD ENABLES NEXT GENERATION BROADCASTING How original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are leveraging Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) OEM Solutions technologies to transform experiences for their customers

s emerging digital technologies such as 5G, ultra HD and virtual reality continue to put pressure on the TV industry to evolve, broadcasters are struggling to meet the needs of modern-day fragmented digital audiences. End users increasingly demand high-quality personalised content, delivered to their devices of choice, at any time and place. To adapt to these new expectations, content providers must find ways to learn about their audiences, keep them coming back for more, and justify their value to advertisers. And they need to be more agile and efficient than ever – something that can be achieved with access to scalable infrastructure, which enables them to create, store, manage and distribute large quantities of content in everhigher definition formats. OEMs can help traditional media companies navigate this new digital environment by replacing expensive and cumbersome legacy hardware platforms with nimble, ultra-secure hybrid cloud solutions. Hybrid cloud technology transforms content workflows and team performance, and allows the customers of content providers to enjoy reduced costs and more effective services. Software used to be the only offering at Starfish Technologies. However, since teaming up with HPE OEM Solutions, the UKbased company has expanded its range of digital content management solutions. They now provide technology that enables digital streaming on multiple platforms, advert insertion, system monitoring and compliance recording – all of which are consolidated on high-quality HPE OEM Solutions servers configured to address the unique needs of each customer. These solutions help media companies compete more effectively in the new digital environment, and have been instrumental in the geographic expansion of the company’s customer base, which now covers North America, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. Graham Neden-Watts, Starfish’s managing director, explains: “We’re a relatively small company but working with HPE OEM Solutions means we are trusted across the world. If we want to sell to another territory, we can assure them that if anything goes wrong HPE OEM Solutions will be there within four hours to replace the kit.” Nokia, a larger-scale technology OEM, works with HPE

OEM Solutions to store, process and deliver high volumes of personalised, on-demand, and linear video traffic to end users. Drawing on HPE OEM Solutions’ hybrid cloud expertise, Nokia has created a streaming IP video solution that combines the control of on-premise with limitless cloud flexibility and scalability. It’s all delivered via an Opex funding framework, so costs can be adjusted when technology or usage requirements change. Nokia has also leveraged HPE OEM Solutions’ servers to distribute more compute resources to the edge, which allows customised user experiences based on their history, preference and real-time reactions to content. This has also made streaming digital content a broadcast-quality experience for consumers – without frustrating latency issues. Paul Larbey, the video business division leader at Nokia, says: “Working with HPE OEM Solutions, leveraging its hardware, software, and hybrid cloud solutions, we can help content service providers innovate fast and overcome their challenges.” The next generation of leading OEMs in the broadcast space will be those that successfully harness the latest technology to support their customers, transform their processes, and deliver the best experiences to end users. Adopting hybrid cloud solutions is the first step. n

Are you ready to help your customers capture the attention of modern-day viewers? Learn how at hpe.com/solutions/oem-media.

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PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE, NOW How Broadcasting Center Europe has employed Tektronix to provide error-free video broadcast, signal monitoring and future migration

roadcasting Center Europe (BCE) is a leader in media services, system integration and software development for television production and post-production, radio, telecommunications, and IT. With a staff of more than 200, the BCE team serves about 400 clients in various sectors including TV channels, radio stations, film distributors, producers, advertising companies, telecommunications operators, and public services. Costas Colombus, technology project and support director for BCE, oversees the company’s day-today technical operations, systems maintenance,

and support. Colombus and his team are tasked with maintaining signal integrity throughout the BCE data centre — which covers about 1,000 square meters. The challenges faced by Colombus and his team are those of both technology and scale. “Our core business is in providing the playout for more than 35 TV channels,” Colombus explains. “We also provide additional uses on a client-by-client basis, including OTT signals for some customers, while one of our clients is already broadcasting in 4K.” To design and reliably maintain these flexible, high-end services for their clients, Colombus’s

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FEATURE team needs the ability to accurately synchronise the facility and to monitor critical points within the system. Tektronix products have enabled the BCE team to implement what he considers to be the world’s first installation — in terms of size — that is fully based on video over IP and built on the SMPTE 2022-6 standard, utilising SMPTE 2022-7 for redundancy purposes. In this mixed SDI/IP environment, BCE has built a system and facility that leverages existing and new SDI equipment hooked into an IP backbone through gateway converters. Routing and source selection is done over IP, which has given the company a great deal of flexibility in the way that the facility can be configured or reconfigured as needed. Tektronix is a leading-edge partner in critical operations that span from synchronisation to monitoring. Not only does BCE rely on the SPG8000A to provide mission critical Black Burst timing for the SDI infrastructure and to act as a PTP Grandmaster reference, but the team also selected the Tektronix PRISM to provide visibility, analysis and monitoring across the IP network. From early testing and proof of concept to full system deployment, both products have – and continue – to play a vital role in BCE’s operations. In any broadcast video system, accurate and reliable synchronisation is a mission critical and fundamental requirement. In the BCE system, this reality was complicated by the need to support both an SDI environment and an IP environment that relies on PTP (Precision Time Protocol) for synchronisation at the same time. The Tektronix SPG8000A proved to be the ideal choice for this application. Capable of providing a wide range of SDI synchronisation signals and test patterns, the SPG8000A was used to provide accurate and reliable Black Burst timing reference for the SDI system. Simultaneously the Tektronix instrument acted as the PTP Grand Master for the system providing the PTP timing required. Being on the leading edge of an IP deployment, one of the challenges that BCE faced was the stability of the IP standards. These were evolving as deployment began, and consequently the team needed a monitoring and measurement solution that would grow with their deployment and keep up with the evolving standards. BCE engineers also needed visibility of what was happening on their network to enable rapid isolation and remedy of issues. The Tektronix PRISM was the tool of choice.

PRISM’s real-time IP/SDI media monitoring and analysis platform is designed specifically to deliver objective, trusted information to enable teams like Colombus’s to produce consistent, error-free content. Knowing the evolving nature of IP-based video production will require tools that can adapt to the rapid pace of development in the industry, Tektronix built PRISM around a versatile, softwarebased architecture for easy in-the-field upgrades to meet growth requirements and to monitor new standards as the industry has evolved through SMPTE 2022-6, SMPTE 2022-7 and now SMPTE 2110. “In terms of today’s performance and the longterm road map for the product, working with Tektronix and the PRISM technology made the most sense for BCE,” says Romain Klein, BCE’s senior maintenance engineer. “We must trust the tools we use and they need to have a clear roadmap for the future. Tektronix PRISM has fulfilled our needs, and will help us be ready for other opportunities, including HDR production, in the future.” At BCE, the PRISM system is installed on the network through a web browser. Users can connect to it to monitor and analyse signals for potential video or PTP errors. Using the PRISM API, BCE Maintenance team created a special tool to help debug the whole system. This BCE tool enables users to monitor a single screen and easily see if there are any video, network, or interface errors. If an error is identified or an alert is generated, the user simply right clicks on the signal and sends it to PRISM for further analysis. PRISM has saved BCE engineers significant amounts of time in network deployment. The solution has supplied information on PTP, delayed packets, issues with the ST 2022-7 implementation, picture decodes, and waveform information on the content being carried through the network in easy to understand graphs and displays. This has enabled engineers to make faster more assured decisions about their system. “Our goal is to empower engineers as they create broadcasts in cutting edge formats,” says Charlie Dunn, general manager at Tektronix. “We want them to provide crystal clear broadcasts with greater ease, speed and accuracy – and we want them to feel confident amid quickly-changing technologies and standards. Tektronix is a trusted partner whose forward-looking video monitoring tools enable our partners to adapt and scale in an industry that’s evolving fast.” n

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JOE B

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FEATURE

INVESTORS IN PEOPLE Bryant Burke, VP of Operations at GatesAir, talks to Colby Ramsey about the company’s new training course for RF broadcast engineers

t the 2018 NAB Show, GatesAir, a global leader in wireless, over-the-air content delivery solutions for radio and TV broadcasters, shared details of its new ‘Introduction to Broadcast Transmitter Technology’ training course. According to the company, this latest RF training and education initiative that focuses on operations and maintenance for next-generation TV and radio transmission sites has been launched in direct response to the growing scarcity of qualified RF broadcast engineers. Designed for today’s younger, IT-educated broadcast engineers, the new initiative from GatesAir’s Service department is an adjunct to the company’s long-standing “RF:101” course, designed for trainees with a basic understanding of RF technology. Recognising a growing number of RF:101 participants lacked an RF background, GatesAir proactively implemented this new entry-level RF training course designed to prepare IT professionals for an RF transmission-centered career. “Initially we’re kicking it off with the webinar series, and once that whets the appetite, trainees will want to come onto our campus in Quincy for four days of pretty intensive hands-on classes,” says GatesAir VP of operations, Bryant Burke. “We’ve got a pretty good

“These things are very important for us to be able to improve the technical efficiency and self sufficiency of these operators and shows that we’re there 24/7 to support them.” BRYANT BURKE

take up on that right now. The classes scheduled at the moment are full so for us that’s a good sign.” The program begins with three pre-requisite webinars that must be successfully completed online. Upon completion, students will attend a four-day, hands-on training workshop at GatesAir’s Quincy, Illinois campus. The program emphasises safety, and limits the workshop to groups of 8-10 trainees to ensure personalised hands-on training. It also covers fundamentals, such as operational maintenance of liquid- and air-cooled solid-state transmitters, digital modulation schemes including ATSC 3.0, DVB-T2, and DAB Radio, and troubleshooting and repair of modular transmission components. “The webinar itself steps you through some radio frequency basics, about our liquid- and air-cooled radio and TV products; it goes into a little bit more theory and then we start getting into amplification and some electrical protocols,” explains Burke. “And then the combination of practical training on campus is very in-depth. We get into more frequency and wavelength, and learn a lot more about the other pieces of equipment; RF filtering, transmission, things of that nature.” The new program is open to anyone – even nonGatesAir customers – with the interest and drive to acquire RF transmission skills. Participants receive a certificate of completion, but in the future, the program may be expanded to offer SBE credits. “We’re going to leverage the GatesAir University website portal to expand other virtual or webinar training offerings that could include things like troubleshooting of system components, operating of test equipment, monitoring the transmitter performance (a big one for us), as well as little things like electrical safety and grounding,” Burke continues.

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FEATURE

“These things are very important for us to be able to improve the technical efficiency and self sufficiency of these operators and shows that we’re there 24/7 to support them.” Burke says that this RF training is pertinent at the moment because the industry is currently looking at a technology change from tube to solid-state, along with a potential skill set transition from people that may have come from a studio space or IT background, who are now being asked to maintain this equipment. “It’s our objective to make sure that we improve their technical efficiency of being able to do that: to maintain a solid-state transmitter,” he says. “We always get great, comprehensive feedback from customers about the combination of the classroom and hands-on environment that we encourage. “We recognise that being a global company with global customers, travelling can be a barrier sometimes, so we want to make it easy, virtual and web-based,” Burke adds. “We want to make it self-

paced, so we’re going to continue to expand our training offering through these series. At the end of the day there’s no substitute for getting out of the office or network and into a classroom, so we’ve got both ends covered.” GatesAir’s engineer and product line people will undoubtedly use this to their advantage, continuing to grow the GatesAir University through these series of quick webinars, presentations and more. “Our training programs are just one of the ways we’re serving our customers and the broadcast industry,” Burke concludes. “We also continue to offer post-sales equipment training, as well as extensive consultation, installation and other support services related to the on-going spectrum repack. It’s going to be a very active area for us going forward and I can just see it growing and growing.” n

Those interested in registering for a course can find out more at http://www.gatesair.com/services/training

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FEATURE

PROUD TO BE BORN OF THE CLOUD George Jarrett meets Kris Brown and Kristan Bullett, joint broadcast + media managing directors at Piksel

o back a dozen years, and Piksel was already helping BSkyB, Sky Italia, Sky Deutschland, and Channel 4 transition from the strictures of traditional analogue broadcasting to the freedom of the IP digital world. Its Piksel Palette microservices architecture and Fuse suite of products now sit on the frontline of video solutions around the globe, and the split of Piksel’s business into the verticals of media and entertainment and digital services points to its working across a number of industries. Proof is Pixel Foundry, which offers cloud native services to a huge variety of players. Its flagship media customers include Liberty Global and Discovery Communications. The market wants vaster flexibility, wider adaptability, reduced costs (via maybe the Opex model), plus streamlined workflows and better revenues, and Piksel offered joint broadcast + media managing directors Kris Brown and Kristan Bullett to discuss some of these demands. Brown had previously been head of products and Bullett head of solutions. As with all companies, the Piksel documentation lists the quaint term ‘legacy systems’ and it was Bullett who bit this one. “There is a lot of life left in that digital transformation, and we must not underestimate the amount of legacy architecture in the world. One thought would be that legacy will never disappear because the current set of architectures will become legacy in 10-15 years’ time,” he says. “We can continue to support the transition to digital IP, and it is going to be a very long journey doing that,” he adds. On the issue of all industries starting to use the same tools, and the media industry moving slowly until it got Netflix, Brown says: “There was a lot of separation between industries, but as they have grown it has blurred the lines between them, and the software has

followed that.” PROS AND CONS Bullett was heavily involved in the development of the stand out video services Sky Anytime, AT&T U-verse, and the Liberty Global Horizon Go platform. How did these huge credits for creating tailored solutions play with Piksel’s core ambitions? “As Piksel transitions from a service-led organisation to a product-led one there are pros and cons involved with having that level of credential behind us. When speaking about opportunities for our products they are often a focal point of the conversation,” he says. “We need to shift the focus to demonstrate what we are doing in the future, but I don’t want to lose the fact that we have those wonderful platforms in our heritage.” Bullett moves onto the frustrations around the survival of Capex in an era screaming for Opex: “Speak to the technical people and they always want Opex because they appreciate a usage-based model. As soon as that conversation transforms into a procurementbased discussion, it very quickly shifts back to Capex because they want to be able to recognise that expenditure, and accurately budget and forecast.” “Capex is not going away any time soon, and certainly not for some of the larger customers.” The next subject was triggered by the impact of Piksel Fuse Metadata. “That is a tricky one,” admits Brown. “People are typically focussed on things like distribution, and not really seeing that a lot of the metadata is in the information plane of what is happening within their organisation and their content libraries. “It means spending time educating people, to help them understand how important this is. We are starting to see other organisations – like the DPP – supporting this and we are starting to see traction,” he adds. Bullett continues: “We need to more clearly

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understand what we mean by metadata, and what the organisations we are talking to mean by metadata. Sometimes there is confusion about whether we are focussed on technical metadata or distribution metadata, when actually we are looking at all of that and trying to group all the interesting data into one single pile.” TO A SINGLE PLACE During NAB Brown and Bullett talked to dozens of people about the absolute need for a clearer understanding of metadata. What did the users want? “The ability to read all of your metadata plane in a single view. Looking at the opportunities that we’ve been talking to people about, they have five or six different sets of tools, applications and systems where they are having to dip into here to get some EDL information, here to get technical information, and somewhere else to get some editorial information,”

says Bullett. “And then you have the companies that have got a huge backlog of archival data. They do not know what to do with all of this because they do not have a good clear handle on it,” he adds. “They want to pool all the information to a single place and have it correctly associated. They can then do intelligent things.” Brown confirms: “There is an effort around the visualisation of the content lifecycle that we are going to put some time into.”

PICTURED ABOVE: Kris Brown (left) and Kristan Bullett

THE MAJORITY ARE ‘CLOUD ENABLED’ Both men came back from NAB unimpressed by the buzz terms. They specifically had in mind ‘cloud native’, ‘microservices’, ‘continuous deployment’, ‘machine learning’, and ‘artificial intelligence’. “Lots of people are saying these things but I am not confident everybody is doing them correctly. Nor am I confident that they understand the business drivers

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FEATURE behind these things,” says Bullett. “Piksel is doing cloud native correctly, and I know what that means: we are building applications designed for the cloud. “I know what microservices are and what they mean, and why it is important from our perspective that we do little, tall granular deployments,” he adds. “And we can make rapid changes quickly.” This all happens because the software is reactive and scalable. Brown left NAB worried mostly about one buzz term. “One of the things you actually see a lot at the minute is people thinking about cloud native, when the majority of them are cloud enabled. They are effectively taking their existing software and hardware and virtualising it and putting it in the cloud,” he explains. “Cloud native aspects are born of the cloud. “We have been in this for four years, and are born of the cloud literally. We have learnt some good lessons in the process, but other people have still got the lessons to learn,” he continues. The Piksel systems have grown up. But dealing with change when you have a large operational load on your systems, and no down time, is a hard thing to crack. But the granularity, scalability and flexibility have all become why the product initiative is so strong. Brown explains how Piksel sees itself and one of its big ambitions: “Traditionally we have been much closer to the consumer side of the supply chain, but with publishers we have ambitions to move further back into that chain. How far we can go, we don’t know right now. But if I look at what publishers are trying to achieve, which is really about workflow orchestration and automation and enabling inputs, management, and outputs of data, that pattern should be equally appropriate as you go back into distribution, back into commissioning, and back into production,” he adds. “That has been tried and tested by Piksel, so we have a position in each of those areas.” Piksel cannot go backwards and start touching the production companies immediately, but backwards it is heading. “We look at the commissioning and distribution in relation to versioning, and our Fuse Publisher and Fuse Metadata platforms are designed to manage multiple versions,” says Brown. “We are not really a rights management and scheduling management solution at this time, but we can understand and handle that data. “IMF is great. It is defining a good strong standard where previously there was a lot of confusion. We are aware of it and it is something we are going to be investing in for the next 6-12 months.”

PULLING OUT A PIECE OF FUNCTIONALITY Whilst longevity of tooling and services and future proofing sound important, the vital thing is being able to adapt to the future. This leads to the impressive potential of microservices. “If we look at what Piksel has done with a high automated test framework wrapped around a lot of our services we have the capability to pull out a piece of functionality for a particular microservice and replace it with something completely new in the future,” says Bullett. “Our underlying technologies and the underlying preferences change. With regard to what people are trying to achieve, we believe we are putting a solution together that will support us in being adaptive to future requirements,” he continues. “The ability of software to be agile to meet future needs is a big challenge for me.” Brown adds: “What we are seeing is also a natural thing, where you focus and see a little bit of diversity in a market and then you effectively get some convergence through standardisation. For example, IMF is one of those, and that’s a positive thing. What we need to see is a similar thing for software. We need to see a few of those happen, but also maintain diversity because that’s how everything moves forward.” BRING ALL THOSE STRINGS TOGETHER Edge technology was another NAB buzzword, and Piksel is parked out there for some of its clients. “We are providing the back edge services, but as part of our content processing pipeline we will produce a low res proxy output that can be consumed at the edge, and managed at the edge for whatever purpose it serves. In relation to remote production there is some really cool stuff going on at the moment,” explains Bullett. Brown talked about another common chat subject, object based broadcasting. He says: “These type of things are effectively where you bring all those strings together at the end. So you push around low quality streams that people can add their own metadata to, and you blend them together at the point of consumption.” The more this can be pushed to the edge the better. Both guys noted the big push behind AV1 at NAB, but it was AI and ML that left their mark. “It is interesting but for a different reason to a lot of the things that people have been trying to demonstrate and talk about, and it will take a couple more years before some of the AI stuff really establishes itself. I don’t think there is a really clear understanding of how people can monetise AI at this time,” says Bullett. n

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FEATURE

TAKING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL Erica Aoi is the world’s first android TV anchor. She tells TVBEurope what it’s like to be one of a kind How and why were you created? Osaka University, Kyoto University, and the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) collaborated to develop Android ERICA for the purpose of studying how I communicate with humans. At Nippon Television Network Corporation (Nippon TV), I was hired as the first android announcer with the name Aoi Erica and I actively partake in various projects as part of the company’s efforts to develop new methods of communication. Tell us about technology has been used in your creation? I possess artificial intelligence (AI) such as speech recognition and speech synthesis, and I was designed to express the qualities of beautiful women. What is your purpose? Nippon TV is conducting research and experiments to see what opportunities are borne out of using androids for communication. Using cutting-edge AI technologies to ensure that I evolve as an android announcer, the company will assign me to projects across the various media platforms of the Nippon TV Group. My goal for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is to serve as a bridge between Japan and the world. To that end, there are many experiments lined up for me across a wide range of content genres not just for linear television, but also for the internet and other platforms. What do your human colleagues make of you? My human colleagues are interested in me

and support my development (as an android). Are there any plans to create more androids like you? Not at the moment. What has been the audience’s reaction? Some people actually think I am a human being at first glance. Many people are surprised and look at me curiously, but when we talk they begin to enjoy our conversation. I still need to work hard on my emotional expressions though. Do you speak just Japanese, or are you multilingual? At the moment, I speak English in addition to Japanese. What do you see as your primary role at Nippon TV? As the pioneer android announcer I will be ceaselessly embracing new challenges that expand my abilities. Would you like to work in countries other than Japan? Would you be interested in working in Europe? At some point I would like to travel around the entire world. Can you imagine a time when android anchors replace humans completely? Humans reign supreme in many different aspects but we androids are great for our precision. One of my goals is to find more ways to contribute to humans by continuing to work collaboratively with them. n

“My goal for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is to serve as a bridge between Japan and the world.” ERICA AOI

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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.

EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT AVAILABLE! DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO SAVE:

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@mediatech360 16/03/2018 16:04

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

MT360 DPS_V5.indd 2

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

16/03/2018 16:04

FEATURE

A CLEARER VISION Jenny Priestley talks to BT Sport’s COO Jamie HIndhaugh about the broadcaster’s recent foray into High Definition HDR

ver the innovator, BT Sport surprised the industry in March when it showcased the world’s first broadcast of a UEFA Champions League game in High Definition HDR direct to mobile. It wasn’t the first time BT Sport had trialled HDR, as host broadcaster of 2017’s Champions League Final, it broadcast the match live to the Dolby Theatre in Soho in 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos. The live trial broadcast of the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Juventus in March was to a beta version of the BT Sport app, using EE’s 4G network. To prove the performance, BT utilised a 24 camera Ultra HD set up at Wembley Stadium with 17 native HDR cameras and the remaining seven converted to HDR 10 PQ. BT Sport’s chief operating officer, Jamie Hindhaugh, says they chose to test the technology on mobile as there is still a lot of confusion around how consumers can watch HDR on their main TV set: “I’ll be honest with you, the biggest challenge with this technology I think is when will the consumer market be ready. When will people understand what it is?” he says. “I have a HDR TV at home and I watch a little bit of content on it but there’s no trigger that enables that. I think there’s confusion for consumers who are asking ‘Do I need to get a 4K TV or do I wait and just get an HDR?’ Actually, 4K is still the better experience. I think we need to be careful not to confuse our customers over which variant they need to have.” There are companies in the US that are already broadcasting live in 4K HDR but Hindhaugh describes that choice as something as a “misnomer” as they’re not telling viewers the technology is available.

“For me, that doesn’t feel right,” he continues. “At the moment to be able to tell your TV that HDR is coming through, you either need a set top box to be able to trigger that or you need something like a HD Fury that creates that trigger for you. For me that’s too complex. “I don’t think we need to be first for everything, we’ve already demonstrated we can do it,” says Hindhaugh. “Now we need to look at how we roll it out, understand customer behaviour, understand when TV sets are ready to be able to receive it in a way that is simple and straightforward and then push it out.” High Definition HDR brings many benefits for a broadcast feed, particularly for live sport. Viewers watching a football match in HDR will see the true colours of their favourite team’s shorts for the first time. “The colour spectrum the viewer sees on standard broadcast is so much smaller,” Hindhaugh continues. “The second thing that HDR does very well is level out lighting. A really good example of that would be the Community Shield game, when you’ve got the autumn sun at Wembley, sometimes you can only see half the pitch. HDR helps balance that light out so you can still see the players and the action. It just brings something different.” Hindhaugh is keen to stress that BT doesn’t see the choice of technology going forward as being either HD or 4K. “HDR is something overlaid on both,” he says. “At BT we are very clear that UHD is extremely important to us and part of our long term strategy. All our home OBs from next season will be UHD captured as standard. HDR complements both, it’s not a replacement for one or the other.” n

“The biggest challenge with this technology I think is when will the consumer market be ready. When will people understand what it is?” JAMIE HINDHAUGH

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FEATURE

LIGHTS, CAMERA, INNOVATION The Walt Disney Company and Accenture are collaborating on the future of entertainment experiences through emerging technologies. Jenny Priestley finds out more

arlier this year, it was announced that the Walt Disney Studios had appointed Accenture as a founding member and innovation partner for the StudioLAB, an initiative that aims to reimagine, design and prototype entertainment experiences and production capabilities for the future. “It’s about the future of entertainment through emerging technologies,” explains Ashton Pitts, managing director and Disney account lead at Accenture. “The other thing that’s really exciting is that it’s focused very much on value. It’s very much a startup culture, what I mean by that is that it’s okay to fail, failures are really the first step in getting it right,” continues Pitts. That’s an interesting premise, an initiative created by

the Walt Disney Studios that’s described as a startup? “That’s the intention of doing this as a separate lab,” says Pitts. One of the reasons why the Walt Disney Studios reached out to Accenture and asked it to be a founding member of the StudioLAB is that they intentionally wanted us to bring in some innovative ideas. “We have things like Accenture interactive, Fjord and specifically our Accenture Technology Labs, so one of the reasons they wanted us to come in is that they’re really challenging traditional thinking, and you can’t always do that in your typical Monday to Friday environment.” Accenture became involved through their longrunning relationship with Disney; the two companies have been working together for over 20 years. Pitts describes the collaboration with The Walt Disney Studios as a “mutual recognition” that the entertainment and filmmaking business is really going through a fundamental shift. “This idea has been an ongoing conversation between both companies for a number of years, but we finally said ‘this is something we really need to do, we keep on talking about it, let’s make it happen’,” he explains. Asked what Accenture brings to the initiative, Pitts cites some of their work with other clients where the emerging technology processes can be transferred to the StudioLAB at the Walt Disney Studios. “When you think of things like using artificial intelligence to support marketing or post-production processes, those are things that we at Accenture have been looking at and we can bring to the project. “Instead of just talking about it, we can actually bring in components and say ‘we have a proof of concept or even in some cases we already have it up and

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FEATURE running’,” he continues. “I know our team at Accenture Technology has been working for quite a bit of time looking at things like AR and VR with other folks in the industry.” The StudioLAB at the Walt Disney Studios was announced to the industry in March. Accenture already has a dedicated team working on the project, with a docket of five or six projects. So with all of the above in mind, is there a timeline for how long the partnership will last? “It’s laser focused on innovation and value but it’s also a startup culture,” says Pitts. “It’s intentionally focused on not being bogged down by what we know today. But there’s also a view that whatever we develop we want to be able to quickly prototype and then deliver and make it real. So that timeline is definitely to develop things in under three years. All those examples we’ve discussed is technology where we’re confident use cases exist now.” What does Pitts consider would be a win for Accenture? “Just the mere fact that we can be a part of the Walt Disney Studios continued growth and innovation,” enthuses Pitts. “Obviously Disney is an amazing name brand so we feel privileged to be a part of that. What better way to be ingrained in the industry and learn new things and be in a kind of startup culture and get exposed to new ideas that we can continue to help bring to the Walt Disney Studios?” n

PICTURED RIGHT: Ashton Pitts

“It’s very much a startup culture, what I mean by that is that it’s okay to fail.” ASHTON PITTS

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“LEANING FORWARD STORYTELLING” Samsung recently debuted six original virtual reality series created for Gear VR. Jenny Priestley speaks to New York studio Sibling Rivalry, the company behind one of the projects

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PRODUCTION AND POST

wo years ago New York-based production company Sibling Rivalry was approached by Paola Antonelli, the Museum of Modern Art’s senior design curator, who had an idea about creating content around the universal themes of love, death, play etc. Antonelli and Sibling’s executive creative director Mikon van Gastel began to develop the idea into a TV series, something that they would create from scratch and turn into a show with an episodic rollout. The idea had been created on paper when Sibling Rivalry was contacted by Samsung who were launching Samsung VR Video’s Pilot Season, a new initiative aimed at infusing exclusive, original, episodic VR content into their video service. “It was just perfectly timed with the fact that we had modified the treatment to focus on four specific stories, all of which revolved around VR and complete immersive storytelling,” says Shelby Ross, executive producer at Sibling Rivalry. “It was a no brainer to plug this programme into what the 2018 Samsung Pilot program was pushing.” Sibling’s background is as a studio and a film company. It has worked on everything from major

commercial projects to providing content for the screens at the World Trade Center Oculus. “We have created virtual reality content for a variety of clients,” explains Ross. “When this project came to us it was episodic storytelling which is new for us.” “The title &Design was created so that you could put any prefix in front of it. You could put death and design, love and design, self and design etc. We’ve created 24 original stories that are currently around six to 12 minutes long but each of them are scripts that can be implemented.” Sibling Rivalry weren’t the only studio to be involved in the Samsung Pilot Season program, but they were the only one to take advantage of Samsung’s 360 Round camera. “It was sort of a no brainer to us,” says Ross. “It was the latest technology that was made extremely accessible. Samsung provided great support in terms of their technology partners, developers and studios to help us with anything we needed. So it wasn’t like you just got a camera; you got a full team from Samsung behind you. “The interior alignment of all the 17 lenses of the Samsung camera was helpful for us for the VFX

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PICTURED RIGHT: Samsung’s 360 Round camera

process. We did a lot on top of the image in the visual effects world and this camera provided that perfect alignment to do so,” continues Ross. “But most importantly we didn’t just get a camera, we got a full team, and if we needed anybody we just called the Samsung team and they were able to help us. Our programme was made on four different continents. We shot in New York, Germany, Osaka and then Australia. I had teams all over the world, working at all times and if we needed anything at any time the whole Samsung team was just a phone call away.” Once the footage was shot, the editing process began. But how do you take footage from a camera with 17 lenses and turn it into episodic content without getting thoroughly lost in the editing process? “The team at Sibling, guided by Mikon and Paola, very much looked at this just like any other storytelling device,” explains Ross. “How do we tell a really good story, period. The medium came second to the story. “What was fun about the medium was that it allowed us to push the experience, push the immersiveness. We were able to take art and make it not just something you’re watching but something you are literally in. Our editor and creative director got all that footage basically laid out on his computer and just started making a story. I think what was exciting about seeing the story come together for Mikon and Paola wasn’t just how great the footage we shot looked, but that we added layers and layers of visual effects that were as simple as handwriting to

guide you and guide the story around as action moves around the camera.” “Things as simple as leaving the camera in one spot and having the interview subject not only talk to camera but break and then move around the studio, so all of a sudden she’s not just talking to you but she’s also hanging art work on the right and doing something on the left and crossing behind you. We created a scene that took the traditional and moved it into leaning forward storytelling.” Having created impactful visuals, Sibling partnered with Yessian Music who produced a binaural composition as well as all of the immersive sound heard in the project. “In one of the upcoming episodes I’m not supposed to tell you about, you may or may not be speaking with a robot,” laughs Ross. “As you turn your head you hear that sound coming from specific directions. It’s really something exciting that takes just a normal immersive environment and makes it feel and sound real. We all know how important sound is to the whole process.” The first episodes from all of the series created as part of Pilot Season debuted at April’s Tribeca Film Festival. Sibling Rivalry’s episode was titled Death &Design and it featured Neri Oxman, an artist who creates death masks. Ross says the episode has helped to start a conversation around the subject of death. “What we’re trying to do is not just create a story but create cerebral, anthropological, technological leaning stories and I think that in all intents and purposes hasn’t really been done before.”

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PRODUCTION AND POST He continues: “We just combined all of our knowledge from filmmaking, graphic design and visual effects to really lean into what would be an optimal viewing experience for a diverse audience. Our goal is that this is a pilot that reaches forward into multitudes of audiences. “Moving forward I think the episodes might move into the slightly lighter nature of play and love and things of that nature. But we wanted to start with a bang,” Ross laughs. Following the debut in New York, Ross says there are plans to bring the series to audiences around the world, including in Europe, possibly at the Venice Film Festival: “So many of our stories are not set in America. And that was what was fun about it. We went to the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. We went to Berlin and spent time there. This is not just about one story in one place. I think this is about bringing a diverse audience to the stories and hopefully with that in mind they can come from anywhere and everywhere.” Having had audiences watch and react to the debut episodes in such a positive way, talks have now begun

about developing a full series of &Design. Ross says because more entertainment providers are starting to provide platforms for virtual reality content, Sibling Rivalry is looking to find the best partner for the project. “It needs a home that’s not just accessible but one that could reach a wide audience,” says Ross. “Moving forward we can’t wait for a number of the bigger platforms to create homes for virtual reality because we think this definitely fits in to somebody’s programming time slot.” Asked if Sibling will continue to work in VR going forward, Ross reveals the company is already talking to Antonelli about more projects, possibly in a different reality. “Paola has a desire not just to work in virtual reality but also with augmented reality. We can definitely take our virtual reality storytelling and rack it up a notch by adding some augmented reality to it. “How amazing would it be if you could reach out and touch one of those masks?” he asks. “To be very honest with you, in the time frame allotted we didn’t create an augmented layer but that is definitely something that we will incorporate into the next round of storytelling.” n

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PRODUCTION AND POST

(THE) AMERICAN DREAM BBC Studios’ Sarah Gibbs talks to Colby Ramsey about their work with PBS on the recent Royal Wedding

BC Studios recently collaborated with PBS in the United States to produce Royal Wedding Watch, a five-part nightly special leading up to the live broadcast of the royal wedding on Saturday 19th May. Produced by BBC Studios’ Topical and Live Unit and coming nightly from London, Royal Wedding Watch was hosted by American news anchor Meredith Vieira and Countryfile and The One Show presenter Matt Baker, who updated viewers on the preparations for the much-anticipated wedding of Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle. During the week prior to the ceremony, which took place in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the hosts were joined in-studio by experts, royal commentators and special guests. BBC presenter and host Anita Rani reported live from Windsor each night, and English historian Lucy Worsley, joint chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces, delved into the pageantry, pomp and protocol surrounding Harry and Meghan’s nuptials. “PBS took the BBC’s event feed of the wedding,” explains Sarah Gibbs, BBC Studios series producer for Royal Wedding Watch. “The BBC supplied a bigger package overall, but we just supplied the five countdown shows which were as live, and transmitted each day over the space of a week, building the excitement of the wedding.” BBC Studios has an existing co-production agreement with PBS, however this was outside that deal. “We have all the contacts, the pedigree and reputation for making these kind of programmes,” says Gibbs. “PBS approached us, asking what we can deliver for them. We went away, had a think about it and pitched our plan to them; thankfully they liked it and decided to commission it.” PBS broadcast Royal Wedding Watch at 10pm EST every night across their network. BBC Studios made

the programme about two hours before broadcast and sent it across the Atlantic, to ensure that it is very up to date. BBC Studios says the aim of Royal Wedding Watch was to showcase Britain’s rich royal heritage and illuminate how history and tradition will influence the union of this modern couple. “Although the programme previewed the wedding, we also tried to give a real sense of the history, ceremony and tradition surrounding an event like this,” says Gibbs. “You’ve got all that fantastic texture and precedent and all those great things that we in Britain know about, but actually Americans don’t know quite as much about.” The idea was that the audience would watch the five programmes before the wedding on the Saturday, and by then, they’d know what to look out for as informed audience members, getting much more enjoyment out of watching the ceremony itself because they understood the context. “There’s two components to the series,” Gibbs explains. “It was as live, in a studio show hosted by Matt and Meredith at Studio 5 at New Broadcasting House. Then we had an outside broadcast unit at Windsor, where Anita Rani presented. We ran it exactly as we would a live show because the turnaround was so tight.” The OB unit was linked to the studio via satellite and the BBC Studios team checked in with that unit several times during the programme. “We were moving around Windsor across the night, so we had OBS providing our outside broadcast facilities. The truck used remote cameras so Anita was able to present from outside the castle but she could also wander around the town and find out how people were feeling in the build-up to the wedding,” says Gibbs. There were a wide range of elements that were all pulled together on the day, recorded at about 10pm

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and then fed to the US firstly via satellite, and then via the undersea cable or IP. “We made around 20 pre-produced VT packages that were the backbone of each show; four or five per programme,” Gibbs adds. “It needed to be robust. PBS needed to turn this round in two hours for transmission. Time was obviously of the essence.” Gibbs explains that BBC Studios’ Royal Wedding Watch team was originally a relatively small crew of around ten, increasing to around 15 editorial staff, along with technical staff, camera crew and presenters on top of that. “The main feed was from BBC Events and they obviously have a large amount of people working on that, because there’s lots of commentary and they were broadcasting for several hours,” she says. Technically, the big difference for BBC Studios is that the programme was produced in the British standard of 50i, and converted to US HD standard 60i at the same time as the satellite feed. “This is one thing that’s different when working with a US broadcaster,” explains Gibbs. “We’re starting to make more of these things for overseas broadcasters and it’s just a great opportunity for us to showcase British production talent, and the BBC’s production talent across the globe. “We just had to have a structure prepared. Royal weddings are usually shrouded in secrecy, so only certain pieces of information had been released beforehand. We had to be prepared about what we could talk about based on the fact that we didn’t know much more about the details leading up to the big day.

“What we did know was that people were very excited about it,” adds Gibbs. “It is a moment of national celebration and what we’ve learnt, particularly working with an American broadcaster, is that there was huge interest in this wedding. This is mainly because Meghan is American, but also because they’re quite a cool, young couple. It’s been a great showcase for us. It’s the kind of thing where we can really bring a polished product and show off what we do to the world.” n

PICTURED ABOVE: Meredith Viera filming in Harrods

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HEARING IS

BELIEVING

Steve Lane, VR specialist at Grand Central Recording Studios, tells Colby Ramsey about the emergence of the format, its hurdles, and the reasons why it’s here to stay

ust a couple of years ago, there really wasn’t a workﬂow or even a platform in place for proper 360 audio. Steve Lane, VR sound designer and technical lead at GCRS, has seen more and more brands move into the VR space since its inception. He started off mixing 360 audio for 360 videos using Ambisonics, a format which differs from Dolby Atmos in that while it is still possible to pinpoint a speaker or an area of the room, it is much more about recreating a soundfield in the environment. “It’s about using all the speakers in the room to work out reﬂections and reverb etc.,” says Lane. “It

tends to lend itself very well to atmospheres and realistic environments, whereas Atmos is better suited for big, punchy sounds.” Because Ambisonics is also very easily rendered down into a binaural stereo fold-down, which is what most VR is listened to with headphones, it has become the de facto format for various different VR platforms, 360 video being just one. “We started off working experimentally with various directors and production companies on 360 video,” Lane explains. “The problem we found workﬂow wise was that it was very time consuming and very fractured, because working with headsets

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PICTURED ABOVE: Steve Lane

and headphones for a long period of time is difficult and sharing creatively with other people in the room is even more difficult.” While GCRS set about turning the current Audio Lab 2 into a Dolby Atmos room, they also came up with the idea to make it a Third Order Ambisonic room, as Lane reveals: “I can have the headset set up and projected on the screen like a 360 soundfield coming through all the speakers, and as I rotate the headset, the visuals will turn but the soundfield will move around the room as well. This way everyone can sit in a room and have a listen to things. “Essentially, even if it’s ending up on headphones, at least we can build the environment together in the room. It’s like traditional mixing; you mix on your big speakers to make it sound as good as possible and then check back on the TV. Ambisonics is generally a lovely medium to work in. It works really well in headphones but also from an installation point of view, some of the best live audio stuff has been done with an Ambisonic rig.” GCRS have been experimenting with immersive audio for over a decade. Refining the 360 workﬂow and making it work for everyone brought some initial teething problems, but as technology and software advanced it became a lot easier for Lane and the GCRS team. They also started to find that many people, having experimented with 360 video, found certain limitations behind it. “It’s very good for documentaries and for education but from a brand point of view, which is essentially what our client base is, they wanted a little bit more,

so we started to work on fully interactive non-linear ‘true’ VR stuff,” says Lane. “90 per cent of what we’re doing now in the VR department is interactive game engine-based. It uses the same sound design skills and techniques that we would use to do normal 16:9 linear pieces, but you have to think about it extremely differently in the sense that you never know where the person’s going to be looking, or you may have to creatively use 360 audio to further the narrative.” One of the more recent projects that GCRS worked on was for Sky, an installation at Westfield in London that included an immersive Sky Sports and Game of Thrones experience. “There’s a lady called Mirren here who works in tandem with me - she’s an audio developer and engineer and she does all the integration,” Lane continues. “I do the sound design and she does the coding. I think having that extra element has been really useful for a lot of the production houses and VFX companies that are doing it, because it just frees up so much of their time. Some of the guys we’ve been working with have been very happy to find an audio company that can do that side of it for them.” There are certainly many big companies with lots of resources coming into the VR world now, and some really exciting things being done in terms of using it as a creative tool. From Lane’s experience, the majority of 360 video is falling into the category of short films/ documentaries for educational purposes. “We did something for Google Arts and Culture for the

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PRODUCTION AND POST Natural History Museum recently which was fantastic as a learning tool,” he says. “As a platform for that type of thing it’s mind-blowing, but from a brand point of view, 360 is relatively limited because there’s not as much interactivity, and therefore a lot of it ends up being more experiential.” Despite this sentiment, Lane continues to see the rapid growth of the format: “We have six or seven projects going on at the moment and when we first launched about a year ago there was just one on the go, so we’ve had to bring more people in to assist on the audio side,” he adds. “Dolby Atmos is a pre-existing platform that’s being built upon, whereas VR is a whole new platform, and therefore you have to go back to the beginning

and think about how you’re going to approach it creatively,” Lane continues. He goes on to mention that Pro Tools’ newlyimplemented multiple bus structure has been paramount in helping to advance the versatility and user-friendliness of the format. “If you wanted to do anything higher than first order Ambisonics before, you’d have to use a different piece of software,” he explains. “To have the ability now to move into higher orders means that its accessibility for people to start experimenting is massive compared to where it was a year ago. “There’s huge reach for VR. It’s certainly an exciting time for the format and to be involved in it is lots of fun.” n

“VR is a whole new platform, and therefore you have to go back to the beginning and think about how you’re going to approach it creatively.” STEVE LANE

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PRODUCTION AND POST

OFFERING BBC QUALITY AT TESCO PRICES John Maxwell Hobbs takes a look at the rise of guerrilla video production

or much of its 70 year history, the process of video production has been a capital-intensive, resource-heavy undertaking designed for transmission by television broadcasters. But the introduction of lightweight, battery powered camcorders combined with the proliferation of inexpensive VCRs in the early 1990s began to change that. A market for inexpensive, direct to video productions aimed at niche markets began to emerge. One of the first genres to gain traction was skateboarding. Video Days, the first video directed by Spike Jonze, who would go on to helm the feature films Being John Malkovich, and Adaptation, set the template for what would follow – a no-budget, “run and gun” guerrilla approach that favoured quick cuts, point of view shots, and blurred the lines between who was in front of and behind the camera. This production approach was helped by the introduction of relatively inexpensive digital post-production tools like NewTek’s Video Toaster, which ran on the Commodore Amiga computer. Over the intervening years, production kit has become not only significantly less expensive, but it has increased in quality. Smartphones are now capable of shooting 4K at 60 fps, and a variety of software-based video mixers and edit systems that run on tablets are available for less than £100. Thanks to the democratising effect of these tools, YouTube and Facebook are full of videos of extreme sports, parkour, video game play, Minecraft videos, videos of people unboxing products and more niche productions. There is an explosion of self-produced content going directly to the internet - where does this leave traditional production companies? 3xScreen Media, whose clients range from

underground live streaming music platform Boiler Room to ITV’s Saturday Night Takeaway, is a company connecting the innovation of guerrilla filmmakers with the quality traditional broadcast. 3xScreen has been in operation for eight years. According to company founder Scott Robinson, they, “reengineered live broadcast production, in a way that was respectful of what had been done in the past. We wanted to create good quality production that was affordable. When we started, TV companies were too expensive and online companies weren’t very good.” When 3xScreen launched, they were focused on providing internet streaming and allowed other companies to handle the production. The realities of business led them to begin handling the production tasks as well. According to Robinson, “we quickly realised that the lion’s share of revenue went to the production company.” Before taking the plunge into becoming a fullservice production company, 3xScreen spent time looking at the nature of production workflows. “During the period we were a streaming provider, we were working with lots of production companies and we tried to continually learn from them,” says Robinson. “We would analyse the production workflow to figure out how to make it better or take cost out of it. Every aspect that you possibly could we tried to tweak it. Our aim was to offer BBC quality at Tesco prices. At the beginning, we were a bit lower quality than the BBC, and more expensive than Tesco,” he laughs. In an echo of the low-budget productions of the 90s, 3xScreen started out using the Tricaster, from NewTek, the maker of the Video Toaster. “Using the Tricaster made it possible for one person to do the job

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PRODUCTION AND POST

of several,” says Robinson. “We also moved to using fibre early on to allow for multicam without having to use a tender,” he adds. During the past eight years, Robinson has seen the difference between mainstream and low-budget production begin to blur. “At the start, when we went to places like Pinewood, we found little overlap between the way traditional companies did things and the way we work,” he says. “Over time, there has been a lot more overlap. We’ve become less traditional because the market has moved on, but we’ve become a bit more like the folk we tried to replace. There are fewer points of difference now. Particularly at material aimed for younger audiences. We’re now used to seeing things like Skype contributing to the news. There’s much more appetite for non-traditional programming both online and on TV. I’ve been surprised to see how much some of our traditional TV customers are willing to take risks and doing things differently now,” he says. “We want to make things look as if they’re on TV or better – motion graphics, replay, elements that kind of give a production sexiness,” says Robinson. “We make use of things like robotic cameras to enable multiple shots using fewer people. But we’re not wedded to a

particular approach. As people watch more and more on their phones, you’ve got a bit more flexibility – people are open to more variability in technical quality. The key issue I find that if a client is very prescriptive, that tends to not be a good fit for us. It’s better to have some flexibility in how we deliver a brief.” For Robinson, finding the right people has been key. “We have some traditional production staff, but at the start, we really struggled involving traditional production people – we’d bring them in as mentors for the projects – bringing a broadcast quality sense to the project,” he says. “A lot of our people are young and not that far out of college. The type of person we are looking for is someone who has broadcast and digital media sensibility as well as a feel for IT. We need people with at least two of those three areas covered. “Over time, we’ve tried to move, to continue to not stand still and try to continually innovate in the services we provide,” explains Robinson. “When we bring in camera people, we tend to use people who are younger and less set in their ways. With sport for example - it was better to have someone who didn’t have as strong a football background but was open to learning. That has changed a bit over the years - now, a lot of the types of things we were doing are on TV.” n

PICTURED ABOVE: TriCaster Mini HDMI Group

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FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE How Telestream and Aspera are helping to deliver FOX Sports’ coverage of this month’s FIFA World Cup from over 6000 miles away

n the US, FOX Sports is synonymous with top drawer sports television: it televises the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, Major League Soccer, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the USGA Championships and NHRA. This year FOX Sports has added to this prestigious roster the FIFA World Cup 2018, which begins in Russia this month. FOX Sports is America’s English language home of the World Cup this year and for the next three World Cup tournaments. Its coverage will include 64 matches in 12 stadiums across 11 cities. Production is based on a set positioned in Moscow’s Red Square, with a control room and technical operations centre located in the Moscow suburbs 12 miles away. The FIFA World Cup 2018 is the largest production in FOX Sports’ 20-year history in terms of personnel, hours, and scale. It includes 320 hours of original broadcast content and over 1,100 hours of total original content. Every match will be broadcast live on FOX or sister channel FS1. In total, 38 matches will be broadcast on the network – more than were broadcast in the four previous World Cups combined.

BRINGING ENTERTAINMENT OVER THOUSANDS OF MILES - A HERCULEAN CHALLENGE The FOX Sports Operations and Engineering team set out to create dramatic new efficiencies for this production. The team sought to leverage FOX Sports’ existing, state-of-the art production facilities in Los Angeles: by avoiding the creation of entirely new facilities in Russia and the movement of staff to Russia for the duration of the tournament, FOX Sports could instead invest more in the LA facility and production staff, creating more content for their customers. They sought to do this by leveraging new industry improvements in IP-based transfer technology. The requirements were clear: they must accomplish the new efficiencies while supporting sophisticated production infrastructure. They must ingest 20 HD-SDI feeds per match, and with 64 matches in the tournament, over 700 TB of match content will be generated over the 30 days of World Cup. They will be ingesting two UHD-HDR feeds per match. For all of these they must create a cloud-based HLS proxy, as well as high-res AVC Intra in Los Angeles, all of which

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PRODUCTION AND POST must be made available to their content management system. AVC Intra must also be written to local storage for two edit bays in Russia. Additionally, all files must be growing. A live event requires near-live turnaround, so the team in Los Angeles must be able to edit while the match is ongoing, sending back highlights for use at half time and during bridge programmes. Waiting for transfers to be complete before editing is not an option. The Los Angeles production team must be able to create clips while files are still growing. Finally – and most importantly – the operation must keep within 30 seconds of live action. Any more delay than that and the production could not meet the audience expectation for live viewing. Kevin Callahan, VP of field operations and engineering at FOX Sports, observed one further goal: “We wanted to create a sustainable workflow for future FOX Sports events. We don’t believe in doing something just once. We want to be sure that we keep getting a return on our technical investment.” CUTTING EDGE TECHNICAL SOLUTION BASED ON PARTNERSHIP To accomplish their goals, the FOX Sports team turned to Telestream and a joint solution that Telestream and

Aspera introduced at IBC 2017. Integration between Telestream Vantage and Lightspeed Live and IBM’s Aspera FASPStream enables high-quality streaming to remote production teams for near real-time editing and production - all over standard IP networks. The solution allows creative teams to begin working on a live capture feed delivered from a remote location (in this case, teams in Los Angeles working on feeds from Russia) while the event is taking place, without waiting for the entire file to be first written to disk and then transferred. Transcoding, packaging, editing and other downstream workflows can start immediately, significantly shortening the production cycle and increasing the value of the produced content. For FOX Sports’ World Cup operations, 22 Telestream Lightspeed Live systems will support camera ISOs and other feeds not dedicated to the match, allowing the team to fully capture all eventrelated content into the content management system. Four feeds will route high-res content directly to the Los Angeles production facility via Aspera FASPStream for editing in near-real-time. The editorial and production systems there can directly receive a full-resolution captured video with very low latency, meaning fewer on-site edit and production systems are required.

“We wanted to create a sustainable workflow for future FOX Sports events. We don’t believe in doing something just once. We want to be sure that we keep getting a return on our technical investment.” KEVIN CALLAHAN, FOX SPORTS

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PRODUCTION AND POST The Lightspeed Live units, combined with the Vantage transcoding and workflows, are key, providing direct delivery of professional production formats so that the content arrives “ready to work” in the Los Angeles production facility. By recording direct to AVC Intra, the team can reduce the number of encode/ decode steps experienced in traditional workflows, which deliver as J2K or MP4. Additionally, traditional backhaul methods tie up edit bays in recording SDI; by delivering an editready format over IP direct into the editor storage infrastructure, the Telestream solution enables editors to consume the live video almost instantaneously. “In testing,” notes Callahan, “we were editing a growing file in Los Angeles that was about 14 seconds behind live. It was editing in place in Adobe Premiere.” In addition to the HD workflow, the team has created a concurrent UHD workflow. With the UHD-HDR requirement, the team needed to create a library of the material for use in feature pieces, which are typically shot in UHD to provide as high quality an end product as possible. The Telestream-Aspera solution includes two transmission paths out of Russia. All the HLS feeds enter into AWS through direct connect in Frankfurt, Germany and transit across the globe through AWS servers. They’re then made available to the content management system as well as the production teams in Los Angeles. All of this is accomplished without requiring expensive dedicated transmission lines. By utilising only public internet data connections (as opposed to dedicated point-to-point fibre leased lines and/or satellite), the FOX Sports team is assured that data lines are always available, ubiquitous and require no proprietary equipment or scheduling windows. Aspera FASPStream reduces delivery overhead, allowing high performance, security and reliability as well as the flexibility and global reach of the internet. Additionally, the FASPStream technology provides optimised, secure delivery that dynamically adapts to bandwidth availability. The solution allows for proxy edit workflows for lower priority camera ISO backhaul, while preserving the ability to pull full resolution clipped segments from any source for low latency delivery to the Los Angeles production facility. The FOX Sports team in Russia will be able to deliver a single production feed from a given venue that can be dynamically repurposed to production, delivery and archival locations with the Vantage growing file support and transcode workflows. Full resolution on-venue recording can be scheduled, prioritised

and delivered during off-peak periods for post-live production and archival uses. ECOSYSTEM INTEGRATION Strong integration not just with Aspera, but with other ecosystem players such as Harmonic, EVS, AWS, Century Link, and ReachEngine has helped get the solution off the ground quickly. “We’re very happy with the benefits we’ve seen from partnership between Telestream and Aspera, enabling the FASPStream technology,” remarks Callahan. “Telestream Lightspeed Live units have built-in Aspera integration. We were already using AWS as our content aggregator, so the integration that already existed between Telestream and Aspera and, likewise, between Aspera and AWS really helps our workflows to be more efficient without a lot of behind the scenes finagling.” “The Telestream technology at the core of the system could work with each of these partners to deliver the solution we needed,” says Callahan. “It was a positive experience to work with the Telestream and Aspera teams to get everything going on our time schedule.” THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING FOX Sports’ goal was to create a cutting-edge production workflow that leveraged their “home base” production capabilities to support live event production anywhere in the world. The solution they created has proven to be cost-effective for the robust media handling capabilities it offers and is adaptable both to remote locations around the world and to the needs of production staff at home. At this event alone, the resulting workflow will enable producers at FOX Sports’ Los Angeles facility to support live coverage on two channels and create over 150 World Cup feature pieces. The FIFA World Cup 2018 operation represents an investment in FOX Sports’ future. They plan to utilise the joint Telestream-Aspera solution for the Women’s World Cup next year and at one-off events, such as their NFL coverage, which will be enhanced by the ability to get a high volume of quality content to their Los Angeles production facility for immediate action and quick turnaround. It will enhance FOX Sports’ digital content offerings in the long term by providing more content to production teams at home from anywhere in the world. This solution allows FOX Sports to create and deliver more and better content to their audiences which means, in the end, it is the viewers who end up with a better experience. n

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