TV Technology Europe April 2015 digital edition

April 2015 I Issue 2 I Volume 33

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MORE PIXELS OR BETTER PIXELS? Why UHD needs the

‘wow’ factor

4K hand-held cameras

NAB Show 2015 Storage and preview recorders

CONTENTS EDITORIAL COMMENT Welcome to the NAB edition of TV Technology Europe. First on the agenda, an exciting development to bring to your attention.

I’m delighted to announce that Will Strauss will become TV Technology Europe editor as of the next issue, which is printed in May. Will is a renowned and highly respected freelance writer and editor who has been covering the media and entertainment industry for more than 15 years. The knowledge, experience and passion he will bring to the role is second to none, and will prove invaluable in helping to drive the long-term development of the TV Technology Europe brand. Will joins us this issue as contributing editor, and will be taking the helm of this publication going forward. Welcome aboard, Will.

This issue trains its focus on UHD as we seek the perspectives of a range of authorities as to the challenges in ultra high definition production and distribution. Will’s opening contribution leads our feature, as he provides a ‘bluffer’s guide’ to UHD to see what all the fuss is about.

We follow up with a buyer’s guide on the latest in the 4K hand-held camera market, as Adrian Pennington surveys the affordable options.

And as it’s our NAB edition, we take a look at a selection of product launches and key announcements at this year’s show, courtesy of our colleagues at the NAB Daily. And, of course, there’s plenty more besides.

If you haven’t already, do make sure you visit our newly launched website at www.tvtechnologyeurope.com where you’ll find more insight, news and reviews.

Enjoy this issue, and for those of you in attendance, I wish you all an enjoyable NAB Show 2015.

James McKeown Executive Editor

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SHARPSHOOTER

MAKING SENSE OF UHD A selection of authorities from across the industry offer up perspectives on the challenges facing the development of ultra high definition production and distribution

We’ve gone for an international flavour this issue, as Barrie Smith spends some time with Australia’s Madison Stewart on underwater filmmaking, documenting marine injustices, and shooting video in shark-infested waters

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BUYERS’ GUIDE: 4K HAND-HELD CAMERAS They may not be everyone’s shooter of choice but affordable 4K cameras are growing in popularity and they certainly have their place

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SEEING STARS

NAB PREVIEW For this year’s NAB coverage, we’ve teamed up with our colleagues at the NAB Daily to bring you some of the key highlights to watch out for

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When it comes to virtual and augmented reality, the last thing anyone wants is graphics drift.

Fortunately, London’s Mo-Sys Technologies has the answer, as Philip Stevens discovers

April 2015 TVTechnology

COMMENTARY

Why multiplatform is just the beginning In spite of its surge in popularity, is multiplatform delivery an end or a means to an end?, asks Bridge Technologies chairman Simen Frostad

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hen TV viewers can watch a 9pm news bulletin at 9.15pm, skip through shows that don’t interest them or park the programme they are watching and come back to it at a later date, the conventional linear broadcast service that many of us grew up with begins to seem highly unsatisfactory.

The more that people watch on an interactive non-linear platform, the more they come to expect interactivity as the baseline for their viewing experience. And while viewers experience the mix of linear and interactive services, linear TV suffers from an invidious comparison. It brings into question the future of linear TV. FEEL THE BANDWIDTH Non-linearity is one factor, but picture quality is another area in which the linear TV service can suffer.

When you can watch HD content via a device like AppleTV and receive a better quality image that way than through your cable TV service, the incentive to consume more content via OTT is considerable.

If a cable provider needs to deliver 100 linear HD channels, that eats up an enormous amount of the bandwidth the provider has at its disposal.

With subscribers often taking internet services from the same provider – and being charged much more for this component of the package than for the TV service – the lion’s share of the bandwidth tends to be allocated to the internet service. Providers compete with each other for market share primarily on the speed of the internet service delivered to the customer, and those 100 TV channels are consequently shuffled into second place in the bandwidth pecking order.

So when subscribers can view their content in a non-linear fashion on demand, and at better quality than through the TV service, it creates a possibly inescapable logic for the provider, and the impetus to dispense with the conventional linear TV service altogether may be compelling.

And then we have 4K. The amount of bandwidth required to deliver the multi-channel linear model at 4K is beyond what most providers can lay their hands on. And on a terrestrial

TVTechnology April 2015

“While viewers experience the mix of linear and interactive services, linear TV suffers from an invidious comparison.” platform, more than a handful of 4K channels is inconceivable. Six channels of 4K on a satellite is very close to the capacity of one transponder, meaning that the 4K channels would soak up its entire capacity. That’s not a commercially viable model. If the customer is paying for the bandwidth and the services are all non-linear and OTT-based, there’s no further debate over the quality and the convenience of the service.

The likelihood is that linear TV will be repackaged in some form that better suits these economic imperatives, although live sports and entertainment, together with the topicality of news, guarantees that not everyone will be viewing on demand.

PLACE YOUR BETS Meanwhile, service providers have to hedge their bets and cover all the available bases. If a broadcaster is encoding content for SD and HD TV, adding an OTT service means preparing the

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content also for a combination of HLS (Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming), Smooth Streaming from Microsoft, MPEG-DASH and/or Adobe’s HDS. These adaptive streaming technologies share some common features but they are not identical and, as usual when there are competing formats, there is uncertainty about which horse to back.

Having to cater for multiple formats increases the costs and complexity of establishing and operating services in what is still an immature market sector. The adoption of a universal standard would help raise confidence and speed the development of the OTT market, and MPEGDASH is a possible common format. In theory, a common format supported by all devices would lower the cost of establishing new services and make entry into the OTT market easier. But MPEGDASH is another new format; it is still evolving, and it is too early to say whether it will become the standard. In fact, a cross-platform standard is not necessarily such an appealing prospect to a well-established operator with enormous resources and a strong market position to defend. But MPEG-DASH is codec agnostic, and while the vast majority of video is currently encoded as H.264 this does mean that DASH is one of the wrapper formats ready for UltraHD and hyper-bitrate codecs when they are needed.

MAXIMUM VERSATILITY The ideal approach, one that achieves maximum versatility, is to choose technology that is readily adaptable to all current standards and has the architecture to allow easy updating when standards evolve. Given the inexorable move toward IP in digital media services, whatever technology is chosen should be thoroughly grounded in the IP domain so that future evolutions of the industry away from – and beyond – the linear TV model are easily accommodated without significant new infrastructure spend.

As such, multiplatform delivery as it currently exists may in fact be not much more than a transitional phase toward a much more IP-based, non-linear consumption model as the default viewing mode.

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COMMENTARY “Bringing connectivity to the car is the first step to enabling TV services to extend to any environment.”

The road to TV Everywhere By deploying appropriate Conditional Access and DRM technology, the Internet of Things can be turned into a secure and personal multiscreen connected entertainment proposition, argues ACCESS chief operating officer Dr Neale Foster

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n just a short space of time, web technologies have evolved rapidly, creating new immersive online experiences such as tailored web browsing, multiscreen TV and the mobile web.

Now, with the emergence of further internetenabled devices like smart TVs, wearables and the connected car, media companies and telecoms operators looking to deploy multiscreen content services have the opportunity to create user experiences that span the entire connected device spectrum that makes up the Internet of Things (IoT). But they must consider security if they are to be successful.

MASSIVE GROWTH A few decades ago, the TV was a dumb screen offering linear programming on a few channels.

Then the consumer adoption of internetenabled hand-held devices such as smartphones provided a breeding ground for operators to bring interactivity into the connected home and radically transform the TV experience. This is no flash in the pan. A recent Gartner report predicts that the number of connected devices will increase by 30

TVTechnology April 2015

per cent in 2015 to 4.9 billion before growing fivefold to 25 billion by 2020.

The emergence of IoT has facilitated an increase in the number of devices used for ‘at-home’ entertainment.

The average Dr Neale Foster British household has six devices or more to watch content. This potentially allows operators to create a fully immersive multiscreen experience that is available both in and out of the home.

However, there are inherent risks to consider.

The increase in internet-enabled devices has prompted security concerns around content transiting over the open internet. With more devices connecting to a service, the risk of unauthorised

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access is increased and operators need to integrate robust support for Conditional Access (CA) and Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions within their multiscreen services to offer ‘studio confident’ streaming that earns the content owners’ trust.

By deploying solutions that can ‘trans-crypt’ different types of CA and DRM systems on the fly, operators can secure the delivery of any type of content to any screen within the home via the home gateway, reducing the need to invest in cloud infrastructure. Additionally, using the in-home network increases quality of service, while limiting the risk of that content being accessed or streamed illegally over the internet. Content can also be downloaded in the appropriate format to companion devices such as smartphones and tablets, opening the door to video consumption away from the home, and it’s likely that wearables and the connected car will enable TV Everywhere to truly emerge.

According to recent Gartner research, an important part of the growth in IoT will be down to the connected car. Its report states that one in five vehicles will have some form of wireless network connection by 2020, accounting for more than a quarter of a billion cars across the globe.

Bringing connectivity to the car is the first step for OEMs and integrators to offer video content in the confines of a vehicle, enabling TV services to extend to any environment.

PROCESSING DATA This multiplicity of connected devices inside and outside of the home leads to a host of challenges for operators, not least offering a seamless experience on all devices. As consumers now expect a single consistent service spanning the entire connected home, it is imperative for operators to create a familiar UX (user experience) across all supported browsers, operating systems, screen sizes, device types and interaction methods. Integrating solutions that support HTML5 and the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and Media Source Extensions (MSE) can help operators to do this while also including a security framework on all screens automatically.

Personalisation of content is another key factor.

Operators are increasingly looking for solutions that automatically aggregate and analyse data to help them better understand subscriber behaviour, the types of devices used to watch content, and more.

There is a growing need to be able to offer more targeted services and content, including tailored advertising on multiple platforms and better search and discovery options. It is clear that data and analytics will play an integral role in determining the future of multiscreen and it is those operators who can be entrusted with their subscribers’ personal data and utilise it to tailor services that will benefit from multiscreen connectivity.

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Photo: Ernst Stewart 2014

SHARPSHOOTER

Shark shooter Bringing some international flavour to TVTE, Barrie Smith spends time with Australia’s Madison Stewart to discuss underwater filmmaking, documenting marine injustices, and shooting video in shark-infested waters How did you get into underwater filmmaking?

When you spend a lot of time in the water you start looking for new ways to amuse yourself and eventually most people move into photography and video work underwater. I wanted to take a video camera down and start filming all the things I saw and loved as a child. However, by the time I was old enough to do so and had left school it was too late and the things I wanted to film were gone.

So, reaching out to new parts of the world and finding new places to dive and documenting new injustices and shocking occurrences in our waters

TVTechnology April 2015

then became my main mission. I became an expert at filming sharks because I had to. I had to expose what was happening to them.

How long have you been swimming with sharks?

I have been swimming with sharks my whole life, starting with snorkelling with smaller species and then learning to dive at the age of 12. I was scuba diving with sharks on my 12th birthday.

I left school at 14 to begin home schooling and it was then that I picked up an underwater camera for the first time. In an agreement with my father

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I traded my school fees for an underwater video system, a simple tape camera in a housing. I have grown up in the oceans, living on a yacht from the age of two and then on the water on Australia’s Gold Coast.

At 12 years old I was a certified open water diver at Sundive in Byron Bay, where I now live.

My next view of the underwater world was the Great Barrier Reef.

From that point on, the sharks, the Great Barrier Reef and the oceans worldwide became my normality, my classroom and my home.

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Profile Name: Madison Stewart Star sign: Libra Hometown: Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia Occupation: I wish I was that organised Specialism: Underwater filmmaking Formal qualifications: I am a dive master and re-breather technical diver Favourite music: Johnny Cash is my favourite artist. I also get hooked on heavy metal and movie soundtracks from time to time Favourite food: Anything vegan

What gear do you use?

I use GoPro. I have an old one that has been involved in many inside-tiger-shark-mouth scenarios. I use a large platform-type stabilising wing with handles in the water to keep my footage still and at TV quality. I edit on iMovie.

Describe an average dive and shoot It will usually involve some kind of method for attracting sharks and then many hours in the water with them waiting and filming.

They can take a while to get comfortable with us around, so it requires a lot of patience.

Getting shots underwater is always a lengthy

process so the chances are that at some point you’re going to have to pee in your wetsuit!

I’ve filmed for television and my shark footage has been used in news stories internationally.

Shark Girl is a documentary based on my work that aired on ABC in Australia and on the Smithsonian Channel in the US. I began working on it when I was only 18 years old. I also often act as a third-party ethical advisor to companies that stock shark products. I won my first underwater film festival, Beneath the Waves, with a film I made when I was 17 years old.

That film, Time Will Tell, is still being screened around the world today.

What was your first shooting job?

It was for Bing, the search engine. They did a film shoot about me, but there have been a few times where I’ve been hired to shoot stories or I’ve sold my footage. But usually, I just give the footage away to conservation groups who need it.

Where have you been shooting?

I shoot in the Bahamas mainly but also Mexico, Micronesia, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Western Australia, where the state government is running a shark cull.

What is on your equipment wish list?

A remote operated drone for shooting over places, a re-breather set-up, a video shooting SLR plus an underwater housing for it, and night vision goggles.

“The sharks, the Great Barrier Reef and the oceans became my normality, my classroom and my home” What piece of gear or gadget do you wish someone would invent?

I’ve heard of technology that easily removes hooks from sharks’ mouths. I’d be very keen to get my hands on some of that kind of stuff plus a welded system that could mean easy hook removal, free of injuring the shark or the diver.

What do you do when you’re ready to shoot and the clouds roll in or the sea whips up?

I still get in the water and try to get what is possible. Often, when attempting to shoot aesthetically pleasing footage, we call it quits if the conditions are bad. Then there are those times where I have to capture a shot no matter what because something – such as a dead shark on a hook – needs documenting there and then.

So much of my favourite footage comes from those bad condition days.

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April 2015 TVTechnology

SHARPSHOOTER

“I want to expose the vast amounts of unjust things happening in our waters. I think it’s both essential and so very hidden”

Best thing about your work?

The reactions people have when they see the footage.

And the worst thing?

Travelling for work is lonely and tiring.

What are the potential hazards?

In the short time that I have been filming sharks I have had numerous scratches on my glass lens and surrounding housing, my filming equipment has been in the mouth of a tiger shark several times and I often get chased by turtles. There’s also equipment malfunction, decompression sickness and just plain crazy animal interactions. Filming has

TVTechnology April 2015

given me a whole new purpose underwater and with it what seems to be a mutual affinity with the sharks, who often line up to be filmed. Chasing certain spectacles and mixing with some of the ocean’s most revered creatures has proved to be an adventure, but it is also emotionally and physically draining at the same time.

Tell us about your hairiest/scariest shoot?

To be honest the scariest shoots for me are always the ones that involve people, like talking to people on the street and trying to sign petitions, projecting my films onto buildings in public places. The sea is my natural environment. It is the land-based things that are the scariest.

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It can’t be exciting all the time, surely?

It isn’t. I was once inside a science lab in America shooting B-roll of experiments conducted on the toxins in shark fins. The results were fascinating. Filming the boring science stuff was not.

What is your favourite country to shoot in?

Australia. I want to expose the vast amounts of unjust things happening in our waters. I think it’s both essential and so very hidden.

Contact Email: pelagic_pip@hotmail.com Web site: www.madisonstewart.com.au

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PRODUCT REVIEW

Storage and recorders This issue’s product review gathers insight from a variety of industry professionals as they offer case study reports from the storage and recorders market AJA KI PRO POWERS CAMP DIGITAL PRODUCTION

By Tom Gregory, co-founder and vice president of business development, Camp Digital Camp Digital is a mobile video production company based in Nashville. With our skilled team of experienced professionals and an impressive OB equipment arsenal, we handle both large and small-scale live-event entertainment productions and broadcasts across the United States. In October 2014 our team took to the road to capture more than 500 hours of content for ‘Life is Beautiful’, an annual three-day music and lifestyle festival held in Las Vegas that featured musical acts ranging from the Foo Fighters to Lionel Ritchie and Kanye West.

To transmit more than 60 live performances over the internet we assembled and mobilised a 97-person team that included technical directors, camera operators, audio specialists, directors, motion graphics artists, editors, broadcast engineers and others, along with numerous production trucks.

Early on in the planning for this event coverage we decided that AJA’s Ki Pro would be the ideal recording medium and ended up using more than 40 Ki Pros throughout the three-day production.

The Ki Pros were a natural choice for us as Camp Digital was an early adopter of the Ki Pro when we were transitioning to a tapeless environment. And more recently, we had installed 16 Ki Pro Racks into our main mobile truck. Also, as the Ki Pro records to a native NLE codec, we don’t have to spend hours capturing to tape. As a result, we can achieve a better quality picture while saving time and money. To top it off, with their small profile, these recorders are also great space savers, especially in a mobile production environment.

Within the five trucks used for this project, we also tapped hundreds of AJA Mini-Converters including everything from Hi5 HD-SDI to HDMI video and audio converters to HD5DA distribution

TVTechnology April 2015

AJA Camp Digital Ki Pro

Alon Raif, Channel 9

Mickael Drouet, Arkena

amplifiers. By using FiDO SDI/optical fibre MiniConverters, we were able to interconnect all of the trucks via more than 14,000 feet of single-mode fibre to move signals around the festival and get it back to master control.

Much of the work we’ve been doing recently is for live streaming, and these clients expect high quality production. AJA products such as the Ki Pro give us the superior look that our clients demand, but are also bulletproof in the field. They’re engineered to be used time and time again. Not only can our Ki Pros withstand the rigours of the road, everything from the AJA Ki Stor drives to their FS1’s and MiniConverters are also made to be plugged and unplugged hundreds of times without failing.

On the rare occasion that a piece of gear does break down, AJA support is there in an instant, and that’s really crucial when you’re in the heat of production. In live production and broadcasting, equipment failure isn’t an option so working with a vendor who has your back is a necessity. If you ever run into a problem, you can bet AJA will be there.

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AVID ACCELERATES NEWS PRODUCTION AT TEL AVIV’S CHANNEL 9

By Alon Raif, chief operations and engineering officer, Channel 9 Channel 9 is one of Israel’s leading free-to-air Russian-language broadcasters. We’re also known

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as Israel Plus, and provide our Russian-speaking viewers in Israel and North America with news programming from our new state-of-the-art studio here in Tel Aviv.

In recognition of the fact that television viewers no longer stick to scheduled news broadcasts – but instead demand news content anytime, anywhere and on any device – we embraced the Avid Everywhere toolset and selected Avid’s MediaCentral Platform to power our workflow.

With its adoption, we now reap all the benefits of being on the same platform. Its implementation has allowed us to streamline and accelerate our news production operations. In turn, this has broadened our global audience reach and boosted our revenue.

With a workflow comprising of a host of proven and trusted solutions from the Avid Artist Suite, Media Suite and Storage Suite – all running on the MediaCentral Platform – our new workflow enables us to easily share content with our Israeli partner stations, Channel 2 and Channel 10. As both of these channels are already powered by Avid workflows, this means that we can repurpose assets from the archives of these other television operations, and vice versa, which provides all three operations with the ability to collaborate, create, access and distribute content from everywhere, something that just wasn’t possible before we adopted the Avid platform.

Key to all of this new workflow we’ve implemented – and one that handles the hundreds of hours of content we receive each day – is the Avid AirSpeed 5000 video server from the Avid Storage Suite.

In order to capture, manage, playout and repurpose our news content quickly, we needed an ingest system that would integrate with our storage and production asset management systems and give us the ability to have content ready for editing just a few seconds after it is ingested. After consulting with Avid Professional Services and Avid’s reseller Draco (who took care of the design, integration, installation and project management of our end-to-end workflow), we found Avid’s AirSpeed 5000 to be the perfect ingest solution for our demanding news production environment.

The interoperability between AirSpeed 5000, ISIS and the Interplay production asset management system means that the process of bringing news to air is now significantly faster. This enhanced speed has enabled us to increase our content production and widen the distribution of our news programming. As a result, we are gaining more viewers.

Having our new Tel Aviv facility based around the Avid MediaCentral Platform – with an AirSpeed 5000 video server as the backbone of our ingest

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Dakota Media Tightrope

“Our new [Avid] workflow allows us to easily share content with our Israeli partner stations, Channel 2 and Channel 10” Alon Raif, Channel 9 – has enabled us to expand our footprint among Russian-speaking audiences well beyond our former territories, and this is continuing to bring in a wealth of new revenue opportunities.

BROADSTREAM PROVIDES COMPLETE PLAYOUT SOLUTION FOR ARKENA

By Mickael Drouet, vice president of broadcast engineering, Arkena Arkena (formerly known as TDF Media Services) helps media and telecoms companies, content owners and corporations to manage their video content by adapting it for all types of viewing devices and delivering it where it’s needed. We have locations in ten European countries and the United States, and have more than 500 employees.

We provide turnkey technical services that are customised for our customers’ specific needs – disaster recovery site, occasional operating needs, event-driven, short-lived channels, etc – and our playout services division operates more than 60 TV channels on a 24/7 basis.

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A couple of years ago we were looking for a costeffective and scalable server system to provide customers with a new range of playout services.

We needed an integrated system that was easy to deploy and included graphics, subtitle insertion, audio shuffling, and redundancy. We undertook a benchmark study and evaluated a range of channel-in-a-box solutions. When we came across the BroadStream Oasys integrated playout server we knew we’d found a very good solution. We initially used it for a number of small channels. This worked so well that we migrated some of our larger customers over too.

We now handle playout services for ten channels on Oasys servers. Each channel has its own server, plus another for backup. Once we configured the initial system, we were able to simply replicate the design for all the other servers.

This saved us a huge amount of time whenever we needed to rollout a new channel. We’re now in a position to prebuild our next server system so that we can add a new channel for any of our present or future clients at a moment’s notice; it’s really that easy. Oasys is also efficient and simple to operate; deploying a new backup server requires no assistance from BroadStream, although their support team is very responsive.

Our company prides itself on its excellent service level agreement. To help us achieve that

April 2015 TVTechnology

PRODUCT REVIEW we rely on the Oasys redundancy manager to monitor the playout machines’ health. Should anything go wrong, the redundancy manager is set to automatically change the downstream routing to put the backup channel on air while at the same time manage the synchronization of playlist changes made on the main server with any backups that are running.

We plan to expand our services in Eastern Europe with Oasys and we’re currently testing a proof of concept that we hope will be ready soon to run an Oasys infrastructure in Poland but manage the playout from here in Paris. This will allow us to use the expertise and efficiency of our Paris-based operational team while growing our playout business in the region.

This approach will also help us provide a disaster recovery solution that’s completely integrated in the service and will enable us to easily add new channels in a very short period of time.

DAKOTA MEDIA ACCESS GOES HD WITH TIGHTROPE

By Mary Van Sickle, executive director, Dakota Media Access As the local PEG (public-education-government) provider serving the North Dakota cities of Bismarck and Mandan, Media Access has reached an important milestone. As of January 2015, we’ve been transmitting our community access and government access programming in HD. This is more than just a visually appealing makeover; the move to the HD cable tier is also critical to attracting and engaging viewers in today’s competitive media environment.

To accomplish this, we installed a full line of integrated video servers along with playout automation software from Tightrope Media Systems in our headend. These include Cablecast SXLEHD servers for broadcast play-out, Cablecast VoD for video-on-demand, Cablecast Live for web streaming and Cablecast CG 330 for delivery of promos, messaging, weather and announcements. Tightrope solutions now provide the reliable media workflow and infrastructure responsible for all of our programming, including some 250 annual government and public affairs meetings on our government access channel.

In selecting Tightrope, we chose a company that understands the unusual needs of our market.

We originally installed Cablecast SD servers in 2006 and the service they provided made our decision to move to Tightrope’s server-based HD products all that much easier. The integrated Cablecast and Carousel workflow gives us dependable, automated, user-friendly multichannel scheduling and playout at an affordable price.

TVTechnology April 2015

Evertz Dreamcatcher

The Cablecast Live and VoD products extend our visibility to online and mobile audiences, reliably streaming content to the web. Viewers can now watch our programming in either HD or SD on cable system channels, or access a media player on our website to watch live streams. We also archive the government meetings, allowing our viewers to search for and view these on demand.

With our limited resources, only needing to schedule programming once in our main Cablecast Pro server’s web-based interface is really a big benefit. Once scheduled, the Cablecast server automatically accommodates multichannel playout, transcoding, branding and crawls. The Cablecast SXHD server automatically transfers programme content to the Cablecast Live and Cablecast VoD servers. Based on user selections, the Live and VoD servers automatically transcode content for the consumer’s particular device and publish the selected video to the Internet. This automated server-based playout system is expertly tailored to the needs of our operation, balancing ease of use with a rich feature set.

While commercial television has been broadcasting in HD for years now, many PEG operations have yet to make this transition, largely due to the costs. We’re fortunate that the Tightrope product line is so affordable and featurerich. We’re also fortunate that our cable provider, Midcontinent Communications, recognizsd that carrying our community and government access channels in high definition is a valuable community service. The new Tightrope HD server infrastructure has played a substantial role in modernising our facilities and capabilities.

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EAGLES MANAGE REPLAYS WITH EVERTZ DREAMCATCHER

By Eric Long, event production manager, Philadelphia Eagles Lincoln Financial Field, the home to the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, has recently undergone a $125 million renovation. This included a complete overhaul of the video control room and the implementation of the Evertz DreamCatcher live video replay system.

We made the decision to go with DreamCatcher after following the product’s development and evolution in the two years prior to our revamp.

What sealed the deal for us were the system’s advanced features, including the ability to network multiple DreamCatchers over a 10 Gig infrastructure, and the built-in Evertz router control, keyframing and playlist capabilities.

We use DreamCatcher as our exclusive replay system for our in-house broadcast of Philadelphia Eagles games, as well as all other events being held at Lincoln Financial Field. Out of four systems installed in our facility, three operate in HD and one is used in a 4K-in/1080-out configuration. While the primary function of DreamCatcher is playback, we also use it to log and archive home game footage to our digital asset management system so that it’s available for all of our weekly broadcast and web production needs.

DreamCatcher was a central component in the redesign of our ten year-old standarddefinition control room and has played a key role in the massive improvements we’ve made to our workflow. We introduced an asset management system in conjunction with the renovation, and

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rely heavily on DreamCatcher’s ability to push content quickly to our storage area network with multiple format options during the game.

The system’s ability to tag clips with metadata is extremely useful, and the process is easy and fast.

Each DreamCatcher has an integrated transcoding engine and a network connection to the media asset management system. This enables in-game transcoding and file exports directly to the system for post-game editing.

One of the biggest benefits of DreamCatcher is its I/O and the ability to network all four systems together. All of our DreamCatcher operators can share clips, access playlists and work off each other’s systems very easily. Any operator on the DreamCatcher network can access and clip any camera angle, allowing editors to quickly add alternative angles of any play to their packages.

We’ve also taken advantage of DreamCatcher’s ability to keyframe zooms, pans and scans within a clip. We find that our replays are much more effective in showing close calls quickly, which is critical for our in-game production. The 4K DreamCatcher system allows us to zoom in on the action and use the play tracker feature to follow

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specific players or plays being shown on the large stadium displays. We’ve been using our systems for several months now and choosing DreamCatcher was clearly a great decision.

I’m excited to see what features the development team adds as the product continues to evolve.

VENICE ‘WORKHORSE’ IS KEY TO CRAWFORD OPERATION

By Ron Heidt, senior editor/technical director, Crawford Media Services Established in 1981, Crawford Media Services provides end-to-end creative and post-production services, along with solutions for mass digital archiving of legacy content. In 2010, we were building a new facility and looking to shift to a more server-based workflow.

We knew that video server implementation would allow us to ingest from tape directly to our shared storage environment, supporting multiple nonlinear edit stations and eliminating the need to tie up edit systems with content acquisition.

In addition to a clear vision of how we hoped to evolve our workflow with servers, we had a well-

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defined set of criteria that any potential system would have to meet.

First was support for key codecs and file formats, specifically MXF files in the Avid DNxHD format, Apple Quick-Time Pro-Res and uncompressed DPX. A multichannel configuration was also a must and, as uptime is critical, we needed a robust selfcontained system.

With these requirements established, we began our research and soon realised there were few systems available that met all our requirements.

In fact, the top contender (and the system we ultimately selected), Rohde & Schwarz DVS’s Venice Media Production Hub, initially lacked ProRes support. However, this was added at about the same time that we chose it, demonstrating the company’s commitment to adding new codecs and formats as the industry evolves.

We opened our new facility in early 2011 and soon noticed a significant drop in tapebased content shortly thereafter. This was in part attributable to the earthquake and tsunami which effectively shut down Japanese videotape production for a number of formats.

April 2015 TVTechnology

PRODUCT REVIEW

Ron Heidt, Crawford Media Services

Suddenly, the majority of our source footage, and all of our deliverables, were now file-based - a substantial departure from our originally planned workflow and the primary driver for selecting Venice.

The tape shortage impacted another workflow: dailies support for an episodic television programme, The Walking Dead, which was shot entirely on film. This production consumed as much as 10,000 feet of 16mm stock, or roughly five hours worth of film per day. As a result, we needed a real-time alternative to tape capture from our datacine. Venice provided the answer as it allowed real-time acquisition of DPX 4:4:4 files with delivery to our SAN prior to the creation of all deliverables using our dailies system.

Venice has now been an integral part of the dailies process for this programme for three seasons. It also supports film-related workflows for our archiving services. While the shift from tape reduced ingest requirements – primarily to film-related projects – Venice continues to play an important role in our file-based workflows. Its ability to transcode quickly (about twice as fast as other systems) provides significant efficiency gains in programme creation and deliverables production.

Despite the market-driven shift away from our original plans, we’re extremely pleased with the Venice server system. It’s proved to be robust and reliable whether we’re using it for ingest or transcoding, and its faster-than-real-time and remote access capabilities translate to increased productivity. Venice is a real workhorse and – based on Rohde & Schwarz DVS’s diligent and quick addition of new codecs as they become available – it will remain so for the foreseeable future.

TVTechnology April 2015

Aaron Hawthorne, Broadcast Media International

RENEWED VISION SERVER POWERS HEALTHCARE EVENT STREAMING

By Aaron Hawthorne, production manager, Broadcast Media International The Lead Through Change conference focused on changes in the US healthcare system. It was held in November 2014 in Asheville, North Carolina and attracted a large gathering of professionals from a wide range of healthcare fields.

Attendees came to hear a number of highprofile speakers – including former US Senators Tom Daschle and William Frist, Dr. Jeremy Lazarus,

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president of the American Medical Association and New York Times best-selling author Dr John Maxwell – encourage and inspire them to take a greater leadership role in today’s rapidly changing healthcare environment.

We planned well in advance to stream the conference to the web but what began as a simple live event stream soon turned into a fairly complex television production. Broadcast Media International, a content delivery network, was brought in to produce the webcast and I was asked to handle live production. While planning for the eight-hour conference programme coverage, a major healthcare organisation asked if we could delay the webcast by one hour for their central time zone viewers. At that point I decided to add an additional item to our equipment complement – a video file server that would be dedicated to handling this secondary, time-shifted web stream.

I did have some previous experience with Renewed Vision’s server and elected to go with the company’s four-channel ProVideoServer system for this application for several reasons: it was by far the most cost-effective of the four broadcast video servers I was considering; I was familiar with the PVS system in a playout-only application; and I had used its live-synchronisation feature that allows users to advance or delay the playout of two or more video streams to ensure synchronous frame-accurate playback.

I had never tried a one-hour time shift before though so I decided to do some advance testing of the system. Based on the tests, I felt confident it would work reliably for the approaching missioncritical application.

On the day of the event, we set up the PVS to create a partition that reserved sufficient storage space to accommodate the anticipated eight full hours of video. While one PVS input channel ingested the live 1080i HD programme feed for eight hours, a second PVS was used to output the programme with a one-hour delay.

Another slightly unconventional element in our PVS configuration was the use of a MacBook Pro laptop, rather than the desktop machine typically chosen for this purpose. We interfaced the MacBook Pro with a Blackmagic Design Ultra Studio 3D with two I/Os to bring the video signal into the laptop. By using PVS software I was able to set up all user-defined criteria and had full and easy control of the PVS system.

The conference production included primary and secondary web streams. That the PVS worked reliably throughout this long event is a testament to the server’s capability. We had a 90% engagement factor and the project was deemed very successful.

www.tvtechnologyeurope.com

FEATURE

Seeing stars When it comes to virtual and augmented reality, the last thing anyone wants is graphics drift. Fortunately, London’s Mo-Sys Engineering has the answer

BY PHILIP STEVENS

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irtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are now commonplace on a wide variety of both live and recorded programmes from political election results coverage to televised sporting events. Long gone are the days when simple graphics on a caption board would suffice. Even devices like the famous ‘swingometer’, used by broadcasters to show how voting patterns are changing, have faded into the history of broadcasting as electronic wizardry moves forward at significant pace.

But mechanical methods of tracking cameras on pedestals for VR and AR applications frequently fall down because of their tendency to ‘drift’. Too often, graphic images that ‘appeared’ on studio floors and walls would move – albeit, slightly – as the tracking mechanisms lost accurate contact with the associated graphics systems. The result was unnerving movements by the graphics that didn’t keep step with the presenter or whatever else was going on in the studio.

To overcome that difficulty, London-based Mo-Sys Engineering created StarTracker, a system that uses optical, rather than mechanical, techniques to ensure that graphics appear and, more importantly remain, in the correct position in relation to what is going around them.

“It may sound futuristic,” says chief executive Michael Geissler, “but then this innovative system goes beyond what has been available in the past.”

“Explorers navigate by the stars,” continues Geissler.

“So we are employing the same principle to navigate cameras in advanced studio settings.”

Coincidentally, Mo-Sys Engineering also provided the robotic camera head and lens control system for the feature film Gravity, so there’s another connection with stars for the company.

Of course, the potential problem for any solution that centres on ceilings is interference from strong lighting rigs. However, the stickers employed by the StarTracker system are unaffected by such powerful lights. What’s more, because a high number of stars are deployed, there is widespread coverage so even if one or two are obscured by lighting rigs, there are others in sufficient number to still create an accurate map.

A VOTE WINNER StarTracker was used by the BBC for its coverage of the European and local election results programmes in 2014. A further development Presenter Jeremy Vine prepares for an Election programme in Elstree’s VR studio

REFLECTING THE REQUIREMENTS The stars in the StarTracker system are, in fact, retro-reflective stickers that are attached to the ceiling of the studio being used for VR or AR production.

“Depending on the size of the studio, these stickers can measure from one inch to three inches across,” says Geissler. “But the real beauty of our system is that these stars can be randomly attached to the ceiling in any locations that can be seen from the studio floor. Even when placed randomly they form a map that is key to locating the position of cameras being used in the studio.

TVTechnology April 2015

TVTE Apr P18-20 Star Tracker.indd 18

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21/04/2015 10:14

The StarTracker camera is attached to the pedestal of the studio camera and displays the ‘map’ of ceiling stickers

will see the system deployed for the General Election results programme in May of this year.

“In 2014, around 23 hours of live election programming came from BBC Studios and Post Production’s Elstree Studio D,” states Geissler.

“StarTracker was attached to four of the studio’s 12 Sony HDC-1500 cameras to create a virtual studio for presenter Jeremy Vine. Because of the way the system tracks the stickers and sends positional information to the Vizrt graphics engine to render the correct viewpoint, Vine was able to move around the green screen environment

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TVTE Apr P18-20 Star Tracker.indd 19

“Explorers navigate by the stars so we are employing the same principle to navigate cameras in advanced studio settings.”

Michael Geissler, Mo-Sys Engineering without affecting the position of the virtual graphs and charts.” For the 2015 elections, Vine’s virtual environment will be better integrated into the set, he says.

“We are pushing the envelope with this technology – but there are still more exciting developments to come later this year.”

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One of those developments is known as SpaceTracker. While the miniature navigation cameras used for StarTracker are attached to the pedestal or crane and tilt information needs to be fed separately into the graphics engine, SpaceTracker’s units will be fixed to the broadcast camera itself.

This means that hand-held cameras come within the range of the VR or AR environment.

“The same star arrangement can be employed,” he adds. “But it opens up a whole new dimension when it comes to the use of graphics in the virtual world. We are currently testing at the BBC for a first version to be used at the General Election.”

April 2015 TVTechnology

21/04/2015 10:14

FEATURE The StarTracker system is based on retro-reflective stickers that are attached to the studio ceiling

UP IN THE AIR It’s not just studio-based shows that can benefit from this technology. Mo-Sys is also involved with the Red Bull Air Race World Championship.

“The event is a global series of air races in which competitors are required to navigate a demanding obstacle course,” explains Geissler. “The pilots fly against the clock to complete tight manoeuvres through a slalom course consisting of pylons, known as Air Gates.”

“We are pushing the envelope with this technology but there are still more exciting developments to come later this year.”

Michael Geissler, Mo-Sys Engineering The next race is in Japan in May. The competition then moves across various European countries, Russia and the United States.

“The additional graphics have become a vital part of the background and so knowing the position and direction of the camera is essential,” adds Geissler. “Because the distances involved in each race, 100:1 lenses are required on cameras that are often perched on 50-metre-high cherry pickers. When those lenses are zoomed in, the viewing angle is just 0.5 of a degree. That means the tracking data must be resolved to nearly one

TVTechnology April 2015

TVTE Apr P18-20 Star Tracker.indd 20

How does StarTracker work?

Retro-reflective stickers are placed on a ceiling or lighting grid. Reflected LED light is then detected by the StarTracker’s navigation camera which is mounted on a pedestal or crane with its lens pointing upwards. The complete set-up time for the system is less than three hours. Once in place it doesn’t require any refinement or further calibration.

“We made operating the system as simple as possible,” says Geissler. “In a broadcast studio – especially a live environment – we wanted to make it so that the camera operators can simply switch on or switch off the tracking mechanism as needed.

“From the data gathered by our own units,” he continues, “the StarTracker system knows exactly the location, orientation and height of the broadcast camera. We then just add in its tilt

10,000th of a degree. Not so difficult on a stable camera, but far more demanding when it is swaying about high above the earth.”

Mo-Sys used its experience with gyro stabilisation to solve this problem, says Geissler: “Our high specification gyro sensors, and some other tricks,

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information from the camera head. This tracking position is then fed into the graphics engine which creates the virtual environment.”

StarTracker has been devised in such a way that no manual calibration is needed once the components have been installed with all the necessary measurements carried out automatically as the pedestal or crane is moved. In fact, its absolute precision means that even 360-degree pans present no problem to directors who wish to utilise the full potential of the system.

The StarTracker unit comprises a control box, monitor, and the navigation camera with LEDring. The control box also contains a module for lens encoding and bus power. It can be added to existing mechanical pedestal tracking systems, such as Vinten or Shotoku, to enable them to be drift-less and ready for augmented graphics.

are mounted on the box lens and provide precise motion data of even the smallest movement. This data is fed, again, into the Viz engine.”

“VR has come a long way,” he concludes. “And maybe there is still a long way to go in the future.

Our aim will be to meet those demands.”

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21/04/2015 10:14

CASE STUDY

Living colour Integrating Baselight grading into its broadcast workflow, including 20 Baselight for Avid seats, has added further efficiency to Salford-based post production facility 3sixtymedia, as TV Technology Europe discovered

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sixtymedia is a television resources company based in Salford’s MediaCityUK in Greater Manchester.

Owned by the commercial broadcaster ITV, it provides creative, content management and crewing services as well as post production.

The work ranges from prestige drama and documentaries to studio productions and entertainment programming.

As part of its finishing services, the company has bought and installed a Baselight TWO with a Blackboard 1 control panel. It has also installed 20 Baselight for Avid plugins to aid the turnaround on time-constricted broadcast projects.

Baselight for Avid is one of FilmLight’s Baselight Editions series. It runs as a plugin to Avid Media Composer and provides two functions. First, it reads the BLG colour grading file which is transported as metadata inside the AAF wrapper, and imposes the grade in real time. Second, it gives the editor access to the Baselight toolkit so tweaks can be made to the grade in the edit suite.

This is considered a real boost to productivity, not least because it makes the whole finishing workflow non-destructive and render-free. No time is lost in rendering sequences, nor in transferring multiple versions of files. All grading decisions can be reversed, so the team works together to achieve the best possible results in the shortest time.

“Grading used to be a bit of an island, but we cannot work like that any more,” says 3sixtymedia senior colourist Neil Parker. “We need to be totally integrated with the rest of the post process and be part of editorial. The ability of Baselight to work with Avid was one of the main factors in our decision to invest.”

A DAILY CHALLENGE The nature of 3sixtymedia’s business means that someone can be working on a studio shoot one day, a documentary the next, and a high-end drama the day after that. With that in mind it was important that the new grading equipment had the ability to handle any camera format, resolution and codec.

Part of its creative services brief is to help directors and DoPs make the best decisions on acquisition and post. To be able to propose the

TVTechnology April 2015

“Grading used to be a bit of an island. We cannot work like that any more” Neil Parker right camera for the job, confident that it can be handled in post, is a benefit. The company works with a huge range of different footage right up to 4K and 5K material shot on ARRI and RED cameras.

“We wanted a system that we could throw any camera format at,” says Parker. “New cameras are coming out all the time, so there is an everincreasing number of combinations of resolution and codec – it is a daily challenge within the entire post industry. FilmLight stays on top of all that, so we don’t have to worry.”

WORKFLOW DRIVER “The key decision driver was around workflows,” says Taig McNab, technical manager at 3sixtymedia. “The schedule for getting a show from shoot to delivery is always tight. Anything we could do to reduce the amount of time and increase the flexibility was absolutely invaluable.

“What the Baselight system offers us is flexibility around when we do the grade,” he explains. “In the real world, there are all sorts of pressures and things happen that you cannot foresee. So we do end up re-editing content after the grading session has been

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completed, and then the question is how quickly you can re-grade the additional shots and get them into the sequence.”

The architecture at 3sixtymedia allows grading and editorial to take place in parallel. Grades do not need to be rendered: they are captured as metadata, which is readily portable around the network. Editors can start work on raw material, and as the colourist completes shots and sequences their metadata will move to the Avid stations, where the graded images will appear without disrupting the editor’s work.

Simple re-edits, such as trimming or extending a scene, may not need to go back to the grading suite, as the metadata for each shot can simply be adjusted. Similarly, the ability of Baselight to work on multiple layers means there is no need to dismantle a shot for grading should anything change.

“With our previous system, if there were picture effects completed in edit, you had to decompose them before sending the content to grade and reassemble them afterwards,” recalls McNab. “That was a lengthy, cumbersome process. That all disappears with Baselight.”

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MAKING LIFE EASIER The ability to present the latest grade at any point in the workflow also makes life easier for producers and directors who may visit the facility to check on the grade, the edit and the audio on the same day.

The dubbing theatres at 3sixtymedia also use Avid Media Composers to display the pictures, linked to Protools, and with Baselight for Avid they too can show graded pictures.

“Producers and directors have always wanted creative decisions to be instantly available in all parts of the workflow,” says Parker. “That would usually involve processing and moving massive amounts of data around the facility. With the Baselight solution we can easily achieve this for them.”

The new set-up has already proved beneficial.

A recent documentary on the singer Olly Murs, for instance, drew material from a broad range of sources on a wide range of cameras, so the grade was primarily about achieving a consistently punchy look.

Conversely, a second series of the Robson Green-fronted travelogue Tales from Northumberland called for enhancing the depth and quality of the pictures. Largely shot on the Canon C300 camera – with additional helicopter

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“The schedule for getting a show from shoot to delivery is always tight.

Anything we could do to reduce the amount of time and increase the flexibility was absolutely invaluable.”

Taig McNab

footage – the appeal to the audience is in the rugged beauty of the landscapes.

Stuart Ramsay, the producer/director on the show, was extremely pleased with the outcome.

“The beautiful landscapes and sweeping vistas of Northumberland are a vital part of the success of Tales from Northumberland,” he says. “I was delighted with

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the Baselight colour grade achieved by Neil Parker, which took our footage to a whole new level.”

Both of these projects – and many more – are now delivered through a tightly integrated, render-free workflow that ensures quality is not compromised, even while working on television budgets and timescales.

April 2015 TVTechnology

FEATURE

A bluffer’s guide to UHD The standards have not been formerly agreed, there is no obvious business case, and there are decent arguments for waiting for 8K. Yet, we can’t stop talking about 4K and ultra high definition. Why? a UHD streaming service in the US and there are others that, again, only work on certain devices.

In the US, DirecTV recently launched a satellite for transmitting it.

2014 saw an increase in the number of broadcast trials. Sky Deutschland was very active and both Sky and the BBC in the UK have done, and continue to do, tests on sport coverage.

Sky and BT are rumoured to be readying UHD set-top boxes and services. But it is all hearsay and conjecture at the moment. The UK does now have its own dedicated UHD satellite test channel via SES, though.

“Many within TV want to wait for (or jump to) phase 2, which will offer not just more pixels but better pixels and create a ‘wow’ factor. But will the CE manufacturers allow them to?”

BY WILL STRAUSS

What is UHD? At the risk of teaching Grandma to suck eggs, ultra high definition (UHD) is a digital video format that has four times more pixels than full HD, potentially giving four times the amount of detail. While lots of related technology is ‘4K ready’, specifications for broadcasting it and the displays that will show it are yet to be formerly agreed upon.

Hang on. You said UHD and 4K. What is the difference?

4K is 4096 x 2160 pixels while the new UHD consumer format has a slightly lower resolution of 3840 x 2160. The two are used interchangeably, often incorrectly. UHD also comes in many forms (see below).

Come on, why do we care?

CE manufacturers are already making and selling UHD TVs. Whether the broadcast industry likes it or not, the next TV set that most people buy will be a UHD television. At the same time, equipment manufacturers throughout the broadcast chain are looking to sell the next improvements in picture

TVTechnology April 2015

and sound quality. So they’re keen on it too. As such, there is a good chance that we will all be railroaded into a UHD future. The big question should be ‘why’ but, let’s be honest, it is more likely to be: ‘how, when and what flavour of UHD?’ Flavour?

Yes, UHD is currently looking like being a two, or even three-stage deployment. The first, with more pixels and 60 frames per second (fps), is nearly a standard. The second will add higher frame rates (up to 120fps), high dynamic range and better colour space. It is still being debated. And a third that could be 8K in resolution. Sky chief engineer Chris Johns compares it to an airline: “HD is economy class. Everyone has it and they can fly anywhere in the world. But it’s nicer in premium economy where you can get UHD-1/Phase 1. Then in first class, it’s UHD-1/Phase 2. Of course, 8K means you are in your own executive jet.”

What is the current state of play?

TVs are being sold but there is very little UHD content to watch on them. Some TV sets can now support Netflix’s OTT UHD service. Amazon has

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So, why isn’t it happening yet?

As the DTG (Digital Television Group) says: “The big question is does the move to 4K resolution and progressive 50/60 Hz provide a big enough step-change in picture quality over HD? More importantly, can a business model be found to ensure additional revenue can be made to fund the cost of this new service?”

Which brings us back to those ‘flavours’. Many within TV want to wait for (or jump to) phase 2, which will offer not just more pixels but better pixels and create a ‘wow’ factor. But will the CE manufacturers allow them to?

What production and distribution problems are left to solve?

From the lack of zoom lenses and the need to overhaul the ubiquitous HD-SDI infrastructure to decisions on transmission formats and bandwidth availability, there are many rivers still to cross. And, as we’ve asked already, is there yet a business case for it?

“We’re still solving some of the problems,” says Brian Clark, commercial and technical projects director at NEP Visions, the outside broadcast facilities provider. “We are also ironing out some of the issues between 3G technology and how to look at 4K pictures, which have high dynamic range, and how you rack them so that you can get useable UHD and HD pictures simultaneously.

Another factor to consider is how we replay and record and then move that huge amount of data around a truck or edit facility. We’ve moved it on substantially over the last 12 months but there are many things still to achieve and learn.”

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FEATURE

Making sense of

UHD A selection of authorities from across the broadcast industry offer up perspectives on the challenges facing the development of ultra high definition production and distribution Graham Cradock, chief executive and co-founder, Xylostream Technology In my view, the industry has already built up a strong and recognisable brand in ultra high definition (UHD) but unfortunately is yet to reach consensus on a standard ‘set of ingredients’ for it.

This is causing delay and confusion.

We are now at a crossroads where the options

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are to either add value to the UHD brand with

factor’ in UHD at 50/60fps and 10-bit colour on

HDR (high dynamic range) and HFR (high frame rates) beyond 60fps, or use each feature independently, potentially fragmenting the market and creating further confusion. I see the strong consumer response to UHD TV sets in the market as confirming a significant interest in UHD and that consumers are perceiving a significant ‘wow

the high bandwidth content used in shop demos.

However, the only beneficiaries of an on-going fragmentation of UHD features will be the faster movers in OTT, such as Netflix, who can more easily deliver content in multiple formats to suit the end device. To retain a role in the development of UHD, the TV industry needs to

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April 2015 TVTechnology

FEATURE rapidly establish a standardisation pathway so that transmissions can begin but include a roadmap for incorporating the new features.

Properly encoded video at today’s UHD spec provides both an initial ‘wow factor’ for consumers as well as a strong platform for the next few years while the industry standardises the even more immersive facets such as HDR and HFR which will be applicable to some content but probably unnecessary for much of the viewing experience.

Ultimately, the success of live UHD services lies in the selection of appropriate encoders because this is the last point in the chain that affects viewers’ picture quality. Preserving the

“Ultimately, the success of live UHD services lies in the selection of appropriate encoders because this is the last point in the chain that affects viewers’ picture quality. Preserving the ‘wow factor’ of current or indeed future UHD is simply not possible if the encoder itself is compromising picture quality.”

Graham Cradock, Xylostream Technology

From the standpoint of a TV operator putting together UHD production and delivery infrastructure, one critical decision is the encoder selection, as this directly affects how content impacts the viewer. In the near term, while HEVC is developing fast, it is going to be important to select encoders based on live encoding picture quality, so that viewers see UHD as it’s meant to be. And today the best video quality is undoubtedly being delivered by encoders taking a hardware approach.

John Ive, director of business development and technology, IABM There is every indication that UHD/4K television is here to stay and will not be consigned to cinema-only applications, as with 3D. Television manufacturers are poised to take advantage with Gartner forecasting that by 2018 at least a third of television sets produced will be UHD. However, while broadcasters are focusing on UHD/4K (leaving 8K for the longer term future), there are significant obstacles in both the acquisition and distribution of this higher resolution content.

One of the main challenges in acquisition is that, at the moment, there is a shortage of video-centric UHD

Graham Cradock

‘wow factor’ of current or indeed future UHD is simply not possible if the encoder itself is compromising picture quality.

SOFTWARE VS HARDWARE Traditionally, hardware-based encoders have offered the best performance, delivering the highest picture quality. However, software-based encoders have brought increased flexibility and have opened up new opportunities for broadcasters by making use of IT and cloud infrastructure, at the relatively low cost of a small reduction in HD picture quality. But as the industry shifts to UHD this performance gap widens.

Software encoders need to parallelise operations across tiles, slices or time, which significantly limits the achievable picture quality. This compromise destroys the key reason why a consumer would want to watch UHD – the ‘wow factor’ provided by stunning picture quality displayed on the TV set in the home.

This is the driver for a best of both worlds approach. It turns out that off-the-shelf high performance computers that are based on FPGAs (Field-programmable Gate Arrays) are already available and in use in data centres around the world. This development has been driven by the increase in big data processing requirements across a wide range of industries, such as finance, seismology and genomics and is now making its way into the ultimate big data industry: video delivery.

TVTechnology April 2015

“While broadcasters are focusing on UHD/4K, leaving 8K for the longer term future, there are significant obstacles in both the acquisition and distribution of this higher resolution content.”

John Ive, IABM

John Ive

The FPGAs at the core of these computers provide exactly the processing power required to utilise the full range of HEVC tools and importantly to process the UHD frame as a single image, thus preserving picture quality and the elusive wow factor.

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cameras on the market that can be used in television production. The UHD/4K cameras that are available are designed more for use in filmmaking. When it comes to television production, however, there are different challenges and, as a result, different facilities are needed. One of the key differences is the not-sohumble zoom lens. Live television production relies on large zoom lenses but these become difficult to manufacture, and tend to increase in both size and expense as the resolution increases.

Another challenge lies in the fact that the majority of terrestrial, satellite and cable broadcasters have HD-SDI infrastructures that cannot be used for UHD/4K video. As a result, new standards would be required, which would then necessitate further infrastructure changes.

This leads in to the obstacles associated with distributing the content. Terrestrial broadcasters face challenges in both the current transmission format, as well as the bandwidth with which they broadcast (spectrum). As it stands, many are grappling with space constraints in broadcasting HD so adding 4K/UHD content is not currently viable.

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Matthew Goldman, senior vice president technology, TV compression at Ericsson UHD can be described as an incremental set of user experience improvements. The first is one of simply more pixels. 4K delivers twice the number of horizontal pixels and twice the number of vertical pixels, but what about improving the quality of each pixel itself?

In order for UHD to truly take off, the TV industry must deliver enhanced services to consumers and offer genuinely enhanced images.

The reason that UHD offers the potential for a more immersive viewing experience is due not only to the higher image resolution (four times more than HD) but also a range of other factors which include higher frame rates (double that of today’s 1080i HDTV), wider colour gamut and higher sample bit depth (10-bit versus today’s 8-bit).

One key challenge the industry faces in bringing about true UHD is ensuring that quality of content is preserved throughout the various stages of delivery. To ensure the requisite high level of picture quality, acquisition/master 4K UHDTV video compressed signals require 4:2:2 chroma sampling and 10-bit depth for all content. This ensures consistency of colour fidelity through the many encode, decode and re-encode stages, and through multiple editing stages.

Higher frame rates than those used for SD and 1080i HD are required to represent fast motion, such as is common with sports, without excessive motion blur or motion judder. Large 4K UHD screens necessitate 50-60 frame rates at present because there is more spatial movement for the viewer. Higher frame rates help to compensate for the greater angular change caused by fast motion displayed on these larger screens, ensuring that visual artefacts are minimised.

The future may dictate higher frame rates of up to 120fps in later phases of the technology, as this will further enhance resolution on fast motion.

However, the challenge facing the industry is to bring this about while managing significant additional costs for production and post production.

Another possible development could come in the form of HDR where a viewer can distinguish a wider range of detail between the darkest and brightest images. Unlike humans and modern cameras, today’s TVs do not have a huge perceptual dynamic range. For example, this can affect the way in which objects within dark shadowy areas appear on screen during a sunny outside broadcast.

THE GREATEST IMPACT Further exploration into the development of this area is important because HDR may turn out to have the greatest impact on the TV viewing

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experience. Unlike 4K spatial resolution, HDR’s perceptual benefit is not limited to 4K spatial resolution or large screen size; it has the necessary versatility to enhance the picture quality on a tablet or mobile phone, as well as the main living room TV. If the TV industry does opt to go down the path of HDR (and this appears to be the trend), 10-bit sample depth (as opposed to today’s use of 8-bit sampling for TV signals) is the minimum necessary to represent HDR. Just as the human visual system recognises a wider dynamic range than current TV, it can also see a wider colour gamut than the colour space currently used in HDTV, Recommendation ITU-R BT.709. UHD colour space is defined in Recommendation ITU-R BT.2020; it reproduces a greater range of colours than current HD colour

“The industry needs to address a number of factors and bring them together in an end-to-end ecosystem to enable consumption expectations to be met, and to allow a large array of new business models to be brought into this next generation of television.”

Matthew Goldman, Ericsson space (Rec.709) and this will give more realistic colour perception.

There are still a number of other technical barriers to overcome, including cost and bandwidth efficiency. It is therefore the case that implementations of HEVC encoders need to happen in order to enable UHD to the home and consumer devices. Its arrival has helped to solve

Matthew Goldman

a number of compression issues by offering the potential to halve the bitrate of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, making the delivery of ‘true’ 4K UHD TV a realistic prospect. Ericsson lab research shows that a high performance encoder that can achieve a halving of existing bandwidth takes about ten times the processing power than that of MPEG-4 AVC. For UHD there is also four times as much spatial resolution and twice the temporal resolution compared to HD, making a total of 80 times the processing power compared to HD MPEG-4 AVC. It’s clear that the industry needs to address a number of factors and bring them together in an end-to-end ecosystem to enable consumption expectations to be met with dramatically enhanced user experiences, and to allow a large array of new business models to be brought into this next generation of television.

Alex Terpstra, chief executive, Civolution A recent report from Bloomberg stated that usage of illegal movie streaming website Popcorn Time in the US has tripled between July 2014 and

“By ensuring that operators can trace each piece of UHD content to its original subscriber recipient, forensic watermarking provides the missing piece of the content protection puzzle.”

Alex Terpstra, Civolution

Alex Terpstra

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April 2015 TVTechnology

FEATURE January 2015, and now accounts for one-ninth of all torrent traffic in the country. Popcorn Time also got a mention in Netflix’s January letter to shareholders, which stated that ‘Piracy continues to be one of our biggest competitors’. Through ubiquitous broadband internet, video streaming technologies and inexpensive OTT boxes or free smart TV apps, these illegal alternatives now enable a high-quality experience on consumers’ brand new UHD TV set sitting in the living room.

These references show that piracy continues to pose a serious threat to Hollywood and other high value content producers. The advent of expensive premium UHD content makes improved content protection all the more important for the studios, prompting them to mandate a higher level of content security in last year’s MovieLabs specifications.

The MovieLabs specifications confirm that traditional solutions such as Conditional Access and Digital Rights Management have become insufficient in this connected world. Operators will need to implement additional content protection solutions, especially for the highest value programmes such as new studio releases and premium sports programming.

By ensuring that operators can trace each piece of UHD content to its original subscriber recipient, forensic watermarking provides the missing piece of the content protection puzzle.

It enables operators and service providers to preinform subscribers that the content copy was made unique and can be traced back to them at any time, discouraging subscribers from illegally re-distributing their content. In case of premium sports programming, this tracing operation can even be done in near real time, disrupting the pirated stream while the game is still on.

Hollywood studios have already been using forensic watermarking heavily in pre-release scenarios for about ten years; subsequently, they also mandated the technology for digital cinemas. With the UHD revolution upon us, the studios are repeating this playbook for payTV and streaming to ensure the safety of their valuable content. Operators are advised to take this requirement seriously, to ensure that they will have access to the best content on offer in the era of UHD.

Chris Wagner, executive VP marketplace strategy at NeuLion The price gap between HD and UHD TV sets is falling every week and sales of UHD screens are increasing. But once you’ve got your beautiful new UHD screen home, what can you watch?

TVTechnology April 2015

With broadband speeds steadily increasing for most consumers, OTT in 4K is going to become more and more important to consumers who want something great to watch on their new UHD devices. This creates a perfect opportunity for sports rights holders to make a mark before the rest of the content world gets its act together.

Chris Wagner

“There are still some hurdles to overcome before sports can move wholesale to 4K. For example, rights contracts may have been negotiated without mention of 4K coverage and some re-tooling may be required to enable 4K in the distribution chain, particularly in acquisition” Chris Wagner, NeuLion The same old TV shows delivered via OTT, which you’ve probably already seen in HD, just won’t cut it.

Having worked with some of the most prominent names in global sports and entertainment to offer 4K content on any internet-connected device, we see premium sports content being a key driver for OTT and VoD service providers, and allowing consumers to watch live and on-demand games and footage from the NBA, NFL, NHL and more in 4K will be an important and highly sought after differentiator in this competitive market.

However, there are still some hurdles to overcome before sports can move wholesale to 4K. For example, rights contracts may have been negotiated without mention of 4K coverage and some re-tooling may be required to enable 4K in the distribution chain, particularly in acquisition.

Yet, there are many promising signs. The technology exists today to stream live video from the event in 4K and deliver it to consumer devices (we recently live streamed an NBA game in 4K at 50fps over the public internet at 15Mbps using DivX HEVC with MPEG-DASH), and it’s up to the content industry to use these tools to offer consumers the UHD video services they crave.

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Esther Mesas, chief sales and marketing officer, and Julian Fernández-Campón, head of presales, Tedial UHD is impressive and the clarity of image is captivating, but it’s going to take a while for it to become mainstream in the home. A fairly expensive large screen TV is a must to get the best picture quality and since the majority of the world isn’t yet watching television in HD, UHD still has a way to go.

However, it’s an exciting technological innovation and solutions providers and broadcasters have to adapt to ensure that they are UHD ready. It was no surprise when on-demand platform providers set the pace for UHD delivery last year. Netflix was the first to launch its UHD service with season two of its popular House of Cards series, Amazon followed suit at the end of 2014 and DirecTV is also now commissioning UHD content. Sports broadcasters in particular are looking at the possibilities of adopting UHD to enable HD zooming capabilities.

UHD demand is consumer driven. To keep up with the pace of consumer behaviour, broadcasters need to have a number of

Esther Mesas

“UHD demand is consumer driven. To keep up with the pace of consumer behaviour, broadcasters need to have a number of processes in place including multi-format, multi-site, multi-platform delivery, and increasingly, media business reporting.”

Esther Mesas and Julian FernándezCampón, Tedial www.tvtechnologyeurope.com

processes in place including multi-format, multi-site, multi-platform delivery, and increasingly, media business reporting.

MAM providers have powerful tools that provide the management, flexibility and scalability for any size of media organisation, regardless of the workflow, number of users, departments or sites. Perfect media management requires an exceptionally wellintegrated IT architecture that is always one or two years ahead technologically so that additions such as new formats are easily configured within the system.

It’s essential for MAM technology providers to apply precision in IT technology to broadcast and media to maximise the capabilities of the modern broadcast world, one that continues to evolve to meet the growing demands of the consumer.

Large file capacity and media management is the MAM provider’s specialist subject and, although storage and bandwidth is certainly an issue for UHD, a modern designed MAM system can easily be reconfigured with the addition of a new codec in just a few days. Broadcasters don’t need to upgrade their software to enable UHD, the MAM provider

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“Perfect media management requires an exceptionally well-integrated IT architecture that is always one or two years ahead technologically so that additions such as new formats are easily configured within the system. It’s essential for MAM technology providers to apply precision in IT technology to broadcast and media to maximise the capabilities of the modern broadcast world, one that continues to evolve to meet the growing demands of the consumer.”

Esther Mesas and Julian FernándezCampón, Tedial simply adds the new codec ensuring the consistent and smooth running of the operation throughout the process.

Day-to-day, broadcasters can continuously expand and easily re-configure their core media IT to improve their overall media business performance, continuously tuning media workflows.

Julian Fernández-Campón

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April 2015 TVTechnology

MARKETPLACE GoPro Hero4 Black

Guide to affordable UHD and 4K cameras They may not be everyone’s shooter of choice but affordable UHD/4K cameras are growing in popularity and they certainly have their place

BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON

T

he range of affordable cameras that are said to be able to record 4K video is pretty wide and is getting ever wider with several new cameras launching into the field already this year.

Of course, you first have to unpick the recording specifications. Most will claim UHD at 3840x2160 pixel resolution but others have the higher cinema defined 4K standard of 4096 x 2160.

As always though, beautiful pictures are not judged by pixel count alone.

“The less defined aesthetic of quality of images plus the form-factor, ease-of-use, operational format and ease of post production workflows become much more important characteristics than pixel count and low cost in all but the cheapest

TVTechnology April 2015

of productions,” asserts Barry Bassett, managing director at equipment hire firm VMI. “For ‘micro budget’ and indie productions which are shot on a shoestring, all technologies become fair game but when people actually have a choice and a realistic budget, the incumbent camera standards made by Sony, ARRI and Canon become the norm and productions are straightforward, rather than being fraught with difficulties to make them work,” he says.

Things to consider for several of the cameras specified below include: Viewfinders: the lack of a suitable viewfinder can result in viewfinder delay that

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4

www.tvtechnologyeurope.com

“For ‘micro budget’ and indie productions that are shot on a shoestring, all technologies become fair game.”

Barry Bassett makes shoulder operation difficult and unpleasant for the operator.

Monitoring: the absence of professional HDMI outputs can make video monitoring difficult.

Codecs: non-standard codecs can make postproduction more time consuming.

Global Shutter: the lack of a global shutter can exaggerate the ‘jello’ effect, making shooting moving images appear with wobbly vertical lines.

“Some of the pictures produced by these new 4K cameras can be really good but the low cost of the camera in a full production package with lights, grip, camera accessories and monitoring often only makes a minimal impact on the overall budget,” says Bassett. For these reasons VMI has no current plans to stock any on the following list, “though if peoples’ expectations and views change markedly from ours, this will change.”

At CES this year Sony touted its “4K for $1K” releases. Here are those plus select others that fit very roughly into that price bracket.

Blackmagic Design Production Camera 4K

GOPRO HERO4 BLACK £359 The action-cam market leader by some distance.

Its flagship model shoots 4K at 30 fps or 1080p at 120 fps (Hero3 captures 4K at 15fps) from a 170-degree wide angle lens with output of the 4K via HDMI. Kitchen matchbox-sized they may be but unless you connect it to an external monitor or use Wi-Fi you won’t be able to see what you’re shooting. The Hero now comes JVC GY-HM200

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-GH4 £1,100 Shooting UHD and 4K, the GH4 features a 16.05 MP Digital Live MOS sensor and MFT mount for PL and EF lens adapters to support optics from Canon, Panasonic, Olympus, Tokina, Voigtlander and Sigma.

Panasonic HC-WX970

JVC GY-LS300

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with Vislink wireless transmission units for integration of footage into live broadcasts, only at HD res though.

Sony FDR-X1000V

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April 2015 TVTechnology

MARKETPLACE Sony A7S

“There are more than 20 smartphones containing 20 megapixel and higher sensors capable of 4K video, most running on Android. They include: LG G3, Motorola Google Nexus and Moto X, Panasonic CM1, and Sony Xperia Z3” It will output 4K via HDMI but for the highest quality the DMW-YAGH recorder is recommended. This optional adapter – which sits under the camera – costs more than the body but fits the GH4 into a traditional production workflow. It also includes XLR inputs, 3G-SDI and Quad Link SDI outputs, audio level meters and a 2,359K-dot OLED Live View Finder.

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN (BMD) PRODUCTION CAMERA 4K £1,800 Models are fitted with either PL, EF or MFT mounts but all house a Super 35mm-sized sensor and global shutter to record UHD (3840 x 2160) and 1080p video at up to 12 stops of dynamic range. A 6G-SDI output allows for monitoring (or BMD vision mixers for live production) in either 1080p or 4K and it will record 4K in ProRes onboard. Comes bundled with £500 worth of Da Vinci Resolve finishing software.

Samsung NX1

Super35, MFT, and Super16. As a result, states JVC, lens options for the camera are almost limitless. Records to non-proprietary SDHC and SDXC media cards. Available as of April.

PANASONIC HC-WX970 £900 Shoots UHD video at 30 fps, or 120 fps at HD, and is equipped with a 20x Leica Dicomar zoom and HDR functionality. What sets the HC-WX970 apart from the cheaper HC-VX870 is a secondary camera on the flip-out LCD. This allows it to record two simultaneous video streams and permits picturein-picture monitoring on the LCD. An additional narration mode will record commentary while shooting. A smartphone can also be used as a ‘B’ camera, streaming video to the HC-WX970 (or the HC-VX870) via Wi-Fi where it will be recorded.

SONY FDR-AX433 £800 Sony’s newest Handycam started shipping in February. It includes Balanced Optical SteadyShot image stabilisation, a Zeiss Tessar 170-degree ultrawide-angle lens, stereo mics and the ability to control the frame with a companion mobile app.

JVC GY-HM200 £2,225 A fixed lens camcorder that shoots UHD (and Full HD 50Mbps) from a 1/2.3-inch BSI CMOS chip. The built-in 12x zoom lens comes with an optical image stabiliser and 24x zoom in HD mode. Includes a built-in HD streaming engine with Wi-Fi and 4G LTE connectivity. Shipped in March.

SONY FDR-X1000V £350 Widely seen as a direct response to GoPro, Sony’s latest action-cam arrived in March with similar benefits to the Handycam including SteadyShot.

Records 4K at 30fps onto Micro SDXC cards compressed in XAVC S. Alternatively, 4K can be output to an external recorder via HDMI. Its Exmor R CMOS sensor and Bionz X image processor are also found in Sony A7 full frame cameras.

JVC GY-LS300 £3,500 An interchangeable lens camcorder featuring a Super 35mm CMOS sensor combined with MFT lens mount. Contains a unique Variable Scan Mapping technology that maintains the native angle of view for a variety of lenses, including

SAMSUNG NX1 £1,200 Mirrorless cameras could overtake sales of DSLRs in the next few years. Instead of reflecting light through the lens onto a prism and into the viewfinder, in mirrorless models light passes right onto the image sensor, which captures a preview

TVTechnology April 2015

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of the image on a rear screen. The benefits are a smaller and lighter form factor which until recently has been outweighed by delays on autofocus and on preview display and high demands on battery power. Perhaps the frontrunner in this category, and more so since the release of firmware 1.2, the NX1 can record 4K at 24fps in H.265/HEVC to a conventional memory card and also 4:2:0 8-bit footage including timecode to compatible external recorders via HDMI. There’s a 28MP sensor, OLED electronic viewfinder (EVF), C Gamma mode for higher overall contrast and D Gamma for wider dynamic range, plus a Master Black Level control and three luminance range options for precise tonal control. The lag in display is down to milliseconds.

Sony has also released the A7II (£1,300), the first mirrorless model in its A7 range but that is only an HD shooter at present.

SONY A7S £1,900 Pairing a 12.2MP 35mm Exmor CMOS sensor with the Bionz X image processor, the A7S records 4K using XAVC S and to AVCHD and MP4 codecs.

However you must do this via an external HDMI recorder. The A7S also handles Full HD at 60p, 60i, 30p, and 24fps, saving them to a memory card.

Other pro features include support for XLR mics and customisable Picture Profiles with SLog2 gamma.

SMARTPHONE CAMERAS There are over 20 smartphones containing 20 megapixel and higher sensors capable of 4K video, most running Android. They include: LG G3, Motorola Google Nexus and Moto X, Panasonic CM1, Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, Acer Liquid S2 and Sony Xperia Z3. The iPhone 6 is not 4K capable. Some can record RAW (uncompressed) and HDR is also being introduced. Chinese brand OnePlus One uniquely records 24fps DCI 4K.

*Prices are approximate.

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MARKETPLACE

NAB product preview An NAB issue of TV Technology Europe would be incomplete without a sneak peak of the news and launches that we can expect from the show floor in Vegas. For this year’s coverage, we’ve teamed up with our colleagues at the NAB Daily to bring you All content courtesy of NAB Daily, under copyright: © 2015 NAB some of the key highlights to watch out for.

TSL unveils IDS product range

Riedel launches MediorNet

NAB 2015 will be the venue for the North American launch of the Integrated Display Systems (IDS) product range for TSL Products. The range is based on a strategic partnership with IPE Products and aims to advance developments in control and display technology that better coordinate and organise workflow display tools.

The IDS system brings together dynamic display functions such as clocks, tally lamps, scrolling text, display of RSS and video feeds with critical broadcast functions including production timers, timecode interfaces, automation system interfaces, and DMX lighting control.

IDS display systems can integrate into any existing or new control systems, including TSL Products’ flagship TallyMan control system.

TSL Products will also show the most significant addition to its TallyMan control system range since its inception, the new TM1 MK2 model, new features for its flagship PAM series and the newest features of the PAM PiCo range of audio and loudness meters including a 3G video preview, improved GUI and SMPTE linear timecode recognition. The latest version of TSL’s Touchmix audio monitoring unit and the latest models in the Soundfield DSF Digital Broadcast surround sound microphone range will also be shown. © 2015 NAB

Stand: N5112

TVTechnology April 2015

Riedel will launch a new MediorNet device at NAB that will add increased flexibility and convenience to the established MediorNet real-time network.

Also at the show Riedel will show a new RSP-2318 Smartpanel that is designed to serve as a powerful multifunctional user interface.

The device boasts a unique feature set that includes three high-resolution, sunlight-readable, multitouch colour displays, premium-quality stereo audio, a multilingual character set and 18 keys in just 1RU. These features make Riedel’s new Smartpanel a powerful user interface that can be further expanded through the use of apps. Riedel’s first app for the RSP-2318 turns the Smartpanel into a

smart intercom panel. RAVENNA/AES67 and AVB connectivity are standard, with AES3 over CAT/ coax optional.

Also available on the booth will be the Tango TNG-200, Riedel’s first network-based platform supporting RAVENNA/AES67 and AVB standards. The STX-200 professional broadcast-grade interface is also on display.

This brings any Skype user worldwide into the professional broadcast environment. Licensed

by Microsoft, the new Riedel product meets broadcasters’ increasing need for a reliable single-box solution that enables them to bring live contributions from both reporters and © 2015 NAB viewers into live programming.

Stand: C4937

Forbidden focuses on Forscene At the 2015 NAB Show Forbidden Technologies is focussing on the new Forscene. First unveiled at IBC2014, before going live in December, the newly designed Forscene interface provides an efficient and enjoyable user experience. Forbidden has also given Forscene a new infusion of functionality by adding a media asset management (MAM) system. Through the Forscene MAM, users have the full potential of the platform – from acquisition to publishing – at their fingertips.

With the new functionality provided by the Forscene MAM, customers can move media between Forscene servers in different locations, rename, share, and publish media from various accounts in the Forscene MAM, manage and configure ingest servers from the cloud, including assigning access to media storage

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and setting up watch folders for ingest and configure publishing settings and formats from the Forscene MAM. Other new Forscene features include the ability to publish with burnt-in timecode or other metadata, expanded multicam logging to support up to 18 cameras simultaneously and increased support for different formats that enables functions such as editing MXF files © 2015 NAB during ingest.

Stand: SL5305

www.tvtechnologyeurope.com

MARKETPLACE Fujinon’s lens range in focus

Matrox offers Monarch HD Matrox Video will offer its established Monarch HD video streaming and recording appliance and the new VS4Recorder Pro multi-camera recording app.

The Matrox Monarch HD is a small, easy-touse H.264 encoder designed for professional video producers who need to simultaneously stream a live event and record a masteringquality version for post-event editing. From any HDMI input source such as a camera or switcher, Matrox Monarch HD generates an H.264-encoded stream that is compliant with both the RTSP and RTMP protocol.

The VS4Recorder Pro is designed for use with Matrox VS4 quad HD capture cards. Each VS4Recorder Pro system frame-accurately captures up to four video and audio inputs to create files for use with popular editing applications from Adobe, Apple and Avid and for archiving. H.264 is provided in either MOV or MP4 wrappers. AVI files can be created using the high-quality Matrox MPEG 2 I-Frame codec.

MOV QuickTime files can be created using DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO HD. VS4Recorder Pro also functions as a multiviewer, offering pristine video quality even when monitoring interlaced sources on progressive computer monitors. © 2015 NAB Stand: SL5817

At NAB the Optical Devices Division of Fujifilm will showcase its entire range of Fujinon Premier PL 4K+ cine lenses and the Cabrio cine/ENGStyle lens series.

The Premier PL 4K+ Series features the fastest T speeds available in a family of zooms, with colour matched 4K and beyond optical performance. The entire range of Premier PL 4K+ cine lenses will be on the booth. The 14.545mm T2.0, 18-85mm T2.0, 24-180mm T2.6, and 75-400mm T2.8-T3.8 are on display. All four PL Mount zooms are similar in size and weight, with uniform gear placement and front barrel diameters (136mm).

The latest addition to its series of cine zooms, the FUJINON Premier PL 25-300mm Cabrio,

Tightrope goes slow motion

Tightrope Media Systems will showcase the latest release of the ZEPLAY slow motion instant replay server as well as its Carousel digital signage platform at NAB. The ZEPLAY Instant Replay server features a unique synchronous 4-in/4-out architecture that gives the operator instant access to all angles in a quarter of a second, with no back-side. ZEPLAY 3.1 also adds additional codec support to ZEPLAY’s native

Telestream’s high Vantage point Telestream will use NAB to introduce new products built on its flagship Vantage media processing platform.

Vantage will continue to add support for more media formats across the Vantage Transcode product family. Full 4K support and HEVC encoding will be available in Vantage Transcode Multiscreen and Vantage Transcode IPTV VOD, while XAVC decoding and ProRes 4444 encoding will be available in Vantage Transcode Pro. At NAB 2015 additional camera formats supported by Vantage will include Panasonic P2

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will also be on display, along with the rest of the Cabrio series. ENG lenses on the booth will range from the low-cost XT17sx4.5BMD 1/3-inch lens for ENG and teleconferencing applications up to the HA42x13.5BERD Premier Series Stabilized Super Telephoto lens for large venues and sporting events. © 2015 NAB Stand: C7025

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MPEG-2 HD I-Frame encoding, ProRes (LT) and DVCPROHD import and export. Individual plays or highlight sequences can be immediately exported in any of these supported formats while the operator is running replays.

Tightrope will also show its 2x2 ZEPLAY for smaller-scale sports production requiring fewer camera angles and replay options. Carousel now integrates with the latest-generation BrightSign XD2 networked media players to provide an extremely capable and affordable digital signage solution for stadiums and arenas.

Carousel 6.5, with its accelerated content rendering engine, will seamlessly scale to thousands of screens without adversely affecting performance. © 2015 NAB

Stand: C2613

AVC-Ultra and Sony XDCAM EX for professional video encoding. Telestream’s Post Producer file-based content assembly software system now includes third-party titling from NewBlue, while Vantage Cloud Subscriptions complements on-premise Vantage systems by allowing users to quickly and easily provision transcode farms in the cloud with pay-as-you-go pricing at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The company will also launch the new Vantage Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) content preparation system, which will produce and distribute ad-ready content for on-demand video. © 2015 NAB Stand: SL3305

April 2015 TVTechnology

MARKETPLACE

Dalet showcases futureproofing media solutions Dalet Digital Media Systems will showcase its latest future-proofing broadcast and media solutions at this year’s NAB Show. New at the show will be the upcoming Dalet AmberFin 10.6, which introduces support for high-quality down-conversion from UHD to HD/SD in Dalet AmberFin Dark, as well as Dalet Brio 3.1 which will bring video over IP support, for the facility of the future.

The Dalet Galaxy platform, also due to be on show, continues to foster collaboration

in MAM-driven news, sports and production workflows, while the latest additions to the Dalet On-the-Go mobile app enhance remote and mobile collaboration.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary year, Dalet will also be highlighting its brand new, free education platform for media industry professionals, the Dalet Academy. Bringing exciting and impartial presentations live to the NAB stage, show attendees can

engage face-to-face with Dalet’s industry insiders on the issues that matter to media professionals.

Dalet AmberFin version 10.6, being shown for the first time at NAB, features support for high-quality down-conversion from UHD to HD/SD in the scalable and faulttolerant transcoding tool Dalet AmberFin Dark. Spearheading the facility of the future, Dalet Brio is a flexible, high-density, highperformance broadcast server based on IT-hardware. Version 3.1 brings video over IP support to the platform. © 2015 NAB Stand: SL4525

Dejero’s next generation tools

Hybrid TV brings Chrome to NAB Virtual Reality (VR) and Robotics company Hybrid TV will show new solutions to improve content creation and provide clear justification for the costs involved in converting a studio for VR or for building a new VR studio.

Hybrid TV’s complete JIB system is called Chrome. It combines a rigid arm with a Silver (pan/tilt/zoom) head, offering six degrees of freedom (4 axes of revolution) for rich, sophisticated and smooth moves. Chrome can be used with the Krypton real-time virtual studio environment.

At its booth Hybrid will also be showing how the addition of a virtual studio and JIB helps in every aspect of storytelling. Benefits include cost savings, more sophisticated presentation and clear, beautiful sets designed

by Hybrid partner FX Design Group.

The Zero Delay feature of Hybrid’s robotic product line eliminates video and audio delays from a production. All robots are driven by Hybrid’s Cobalt controller, but may also be driven by the Mercury software graphic and user-friendly control interface, video switcher, Hybrid’s own software vision mixer, any of the popular automation systems, or simply triggered via GPI. © 2015 NAB

Stand: C4346

TVTechnology April 2015

Dejero will showcase LIVE+ Control, a next-generation cloudbased management, monitoring and reporting tool that simplifies IP video workflows used in remote broadcasting productions. LIVE+ Control manages all Dejero LIVE+ video transmission solutions including the GoBox, VSET, NewsBook, and Mobile App. By accessing the intuitive LIVE+ Control interface from any Web browser, broadcasters and video professionals can geolocate and remotely control their entire fleet of field transmitters. They can monitor connection and transmission performance, including real-time analytics as well as preview

and route live and recorded feeds to a LIVE+ Broadcast Server for traditional playout or to a LIVE+ Cloud Server for distribution to Web and mobile devices.

Making its NAB Show debut, the LIVE+ GoBox is a professional-grade mobile transmitter for newsgathering professionals and video content contributors on the move. Dejero’s newest portable transmitter is the company’s most versatile and rugged to date, enabling mobile journalists to broadcast live from virtually anywhere with bonded cellular, Wi-Fi, and portable satellite connections, or record up to 40 hours of HD video for later broadcast. © 2015 NAB Stand: N1009

Seamless integration from SGL SGL’s FlashNet content management solution is designed to integrate seamlessly with MAM or automation control systems to provide significant improvements to workflow efficiency without intruding on the users’ familiar desktop. At NAB 2015 SGL will unveil a full archive using GV STRATUS, hosted by a Grass Valley presenter. A highly intuitive solution, GV STRATUS includes full search, archive and restore, integrated directly with FlashNet. The presentation will include FlashNet’s control of job queues directly from GV STRATUS. SGL will also show a new Asset Migration Service, for the migration of tape assets from one platform to another, or from one generation to another. The FlashNet Migration Service

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enables a whole migration to be set up as a single background task that optimises the use of available archiving equipment and speeds up processes, reducing migration times by half. SGL’s support for Avid Web Services is also displayed on the booth. © 2015 NAB Stand: SL5306

www.tvtechnologyeurope.com

MARKETPLACE Robotic imaging

Primestream’s FORK in the roadmap

The new Telemetrics RoboEye PTZF camera is a professional-grade robotic imaging system designed for broadcasters. The weather-tight housing contains a broadcast-level HD-SDI camera with 30x optical zoom, web video and control and virtual and augmented reality data stream output. It features a minimal setup and is ready to work right from the box.

Telemetrics APTS is also showing a new scalable, configurable and reliable Presenter Tracking System based on Magnetic Field Telemetry and Computerised Tracking. This advanced technology allows simultaneous multiple-camera tracking of one or several presenters. It is plugand-play and does not require line of sight between © 2015 NAB the presenter and the receiver.

Stand: C9921

At NAB Primestream is planning to show FORK v5.0, the latest version of its software platform for managing the automation of complex broadcast workflows. This major release includes updates to both FORK Production Suite and Playout, with advancements for mXF and 4K workflows. FORK v5.0 also includes new two-way integrations with nonlinear editors like Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer and Apple Final Cut Pro X. The integrations support edit-while-capture workflows with XDCAM, ProRes, and AVC-Intra, empowering sports, news, entertainment, and corporate video operations to use industryleading NLEs, while gaining the benefits of the FORK media asset management and automation platform for I/O, logging, tagging, proxy editing, workflow management and archiving.

New features and capabilities include new FORK Production to Playout scheduling and workflows, improved graphics device control and new and improved archive system support, with partial file restore.

Primestream will also demonstrate its Xchange Suite v4.0, a major upgrade to the application that gives broadcasters and video professionals instant Web access to content on their FORK Production servers from any PC or © 2015 NAB tablet device.

Stand: SL10216

For further information, contact:

MEDIA INFORMATION

EUROPE Ben Ewles Sales Manager Tel: +44 (0) 207 354 6000 Email: bewles@nbmedia.com

EDITORIAL PLANNER 2015 Edition

Trade Show Distribution

Event Coverage

Features

Product Reviews

Buyers’ Guides

Publication Dates

ISSUE 1

• BVE 2015 • CABSAT

• BVE 2015 Product Preview

• Channel-in-a-Box • Feature interviews • Expert commentaries • Sharpshooter series • Audio for broadcast • User reports

Nicola Pett Sales Executive Tel: +44 (0) 207 354 6000 Email: npett@nbmedia.com

• Audio

• Trasnscoding/Encoding

• Ad close: Feb 3 • Distribution: Feb 13

James McKeown Executive Editor Tel: +44 (0) 20 7354 6002 Email: jmckeown@nbmedia.com

• NAB 2015 Product Preview

• Multiplatform delivery • Feature interviews • Expert commentaries • Sharpshooter series • Audio for broadcast • User reports

• NAB Best of Show 2015 Winners

• MAM and archiving • Feature interviews • Expert commentaries • Sharpshooter series • Audio for broadcast • User reports

• Acquisition

• IBC2015 Product Preview

• Broadcast over IP • Feature interviews • Expert commentaries • Sharpshooter series • Audio for broadcast • User reports

• Fibre, cable and connectors

ISSUE 2

ISSUE 3

ISSUE 4

• NAB 2015

• Broadcast Asia • ANGACOM

• IBC2015

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• Storage and recording

• Affordable 4K hand-held cameras

• Ad close: March 18 • Distribution: March 30

• Transmitters, antennas and RF

• Ad close: May 12 • Distribution: May 22

US Central US, Canada & New England Vytas Urbonas Associate Publisher Tel:+1-212-378-0400 ext 533 Fax: +1-630-786-3385 Email: vytas@nbmedia.com

US West Pete Sembler Tel: +1-650-238-0324 Fax: +1-650-238-0263 Email: psembler@nbmedia.com US Mid-Atlantic & Southeast.

3URGXFW 6KRZFDVH &ODVVLÀ HG $GV

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• Audio consoles and equipment/accessories

• Ad close: Aug 18 • Distribution: Aug 28

Michele Inderrieden Tel: +1-212-378-0400 x523 Fax: +1-301-234-6303 Email: minderrieden@nbmedia.com

April 2015 TVTechnology

MARKETPLACE

Newsgathering goes ultra small FOR-A’s switcher makes US debut FOR-A’s HVS-2000 video production switcher is making its US debut at NAB. Suited to a variety of applications, it can be used for SD, HD, 3G and 4K productions. It allows up to 48 inputs/18 outputs or 40 inputs/ 22 outputs (optional).

One of the special features offered by the video switcher is MELite. This allows a traditional AUX bus to be transformed into a functional ME with cuts, mix, wipes, keys, and DVE including full preview. The MELite feature also provides the HVS-2K engine with the production capabilities of a fully functional 6 M/E switcher. MELite is the building block for more powerful, yet easy-to-use features, such as upstream and downstream transition effects.

Operators can deploy an MELite as a third M/E, transforming the switcher into a 3 M/E switcher with a 3 M/E panel. Users can also add an additional 1 M/E control panel and allow a second operator to have the added power of a second fully functional switcher in another location.

Another feature of FOR-A’s HVS-2000 is ONStage, which is designed specifically for staging events, suchhouse of worship or corporate presentations, where multiple image magnification displays are used, each with © 2015 NAB independent transitions.

Stand: C5117

For the first time in the US, LiveU will be demonstrating its recently launched LU200 ultra-small newsgathering device. The LU200 offers a highly attractive price, performance and form-factor for live video transmission, expanding LiveU’s product portfolio. Weighing just over 1lb (500g), the LU200 is available in a pouch or camera-mount configuration, providing two built-in modems with powerful integrated antennas in a bonded solution suitable for any video professional. The LU200 can also serve as a standalone video encoder with satellite integration functionality, or be used as a LiveU DataBridge mobile hotspot for all IP applications in the field. The LU200 supports two 4G LTE/3G modems together with Wi-Fi and LAN connections and includes LiveU’s proprietary antenna modules for extra resiliency.

At NAB2015, LiveU will also be presenting the latest stage of its strategic collaboration with

Panasonic to connect camera and cloud.

The company is also showing the LU500 for cellular uplink, and LiveU Central+, its enhanced cloud-based management and video distribution system. This tool enables fleets of units to be centrally controlled using geo-location capabilities, and a host of other © 2015 NAB management options.

Stand: SU4405

IHSE demos KVM range IHSE USA is a provider of advanced keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) products for extending, switching and converting professional quality video and data signals. At NAB the company will perform live demonstrations of its latest professional series of KVM products for the broadcast and post production markets. The featured products on display will include signal extenders for DisplayPort in 4K, Dual-Link DVI in

2K, and HDMI in 2K/4K – all offered for fibre or Cat-X cable interconnects.

The company will also present its latest autorepairing redundant port technology for multi-path distribution signals used in critical operational environments. The Draco 576 enterprise level matrix switch is another product making its NAB debut. It supports KVM, SDI and USB 3.0 formats along with the standard USB, audio and RS-232 options. A line of new wide bandwidth Draco compact fibre matrix switchers in sizes from 8 ports to 80 ports will also be on display. © 2015 NAB

Stand: SL12716

27 reasons to visit Cobalt Digital at NAB Cobalt Digital will highlight 27 advancements in processing and convergence products across three of its primary product platforms: the openGear-compatible 2-RU high-capacity Modular Terminal Gear System; the Blue Box Group BBG-1000 line of 1-RU rack-mountable stand-alone systems; and the original Blue Box Group series of miniature throwdown converters.

The new 9922-2FS dual-channel 3G/HD/ SD-SDI framesync with audio and video processing features and a high-density footprint allows for 20 paths of signal synchronisation in 2 RU. Also new is the 9960-TG2-REF1 dual-channel 3G/ HD/SD-SDI test signal generator with “bouncing box”

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motion patterns, bi/tri-level sync output, and ancillary timecode generator. The new 9980-CSC 3G/HD/ SD-SDI colour space converter supports real-time RGB colour correction for 1080p60 signals.

A new clean and quiet bypass router provides error-free audio and video switching with a relay-protected output and GPI/O for monitoring and control. Cobalt Digital is also bringing easyto-use ancillary data tools to market with the 9950-EMDE-ANC data embedder/de-embedder and 9978-ANC-MON ancillary data monitor.

Each of the new products being launched for the openGear-compliant platform will also be available in the popular BBG-1000 series, a

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line of desktop stand-alone enclosures that have front-panel controls and can be rack-mounted to provide up to three systems in 1 RU. © 2015 NAB Stand: N2722

April 2015 TVTechnology

MARKETPLACE The Plura 4K Series offers flexibility

Digigram enhances IP audio and video Digigram will showcase several significant product enhancements and new product releases for the company’s IP audio and IP video solutions. In extending RAVENNA/AES67 support across its range of IP audio codecs and sound cards, Digigram offers high-performing audio transport solutions that enable a seamless shift toward use of IP-based studio infrastructure. Digigram is also demonstrating its cloud-based application engineered to simplify the management and operation of a fleet of IP audio codecs and a new compact HEVC contribution encoder.

The LX-IP RAVENNA PCIe Sound Card is the first RAVENNA-enabled product developed by Digigram. It features ultra-low latency — down to one audio sample per IP packet — and up to 256 RAVENNA I/O channels from multiple RAVENNA streams. Ideal for high-density audio production or automation applications in radio and TV broadcast studios, this solution makes it easy for users to record and play as many as 128 audioover-IP RAVENNA channels simultaneously in and out of a desktop computer.

Digigram will also present the full release of the company’s new IQOYA CLOUD. The Web-based application enables structured management and seamless operation of all deployed audio-over-IP (AoIP) remote live contribution codecs. © 2015 NAB Stand: C1858

Plura Broadcast will introduce a complete portfolio of 4K monitors, available in widths scaling to 84 inches. The Plura 4K Series, which supports up to 3840 x 2160 resolutions, focuses on delivering the highly detailed, accurate colour representation and stunning picture consistency that high-end production applications require. The series also adopts an exceptionally slim form factor.

The series will provide flexible options for customers who still need to switch between Ultra HD, HD-SDI and SD resolutions. This flexibility also allows customers who are planning for a 4K future to invest today.

The Plura 4K Series also features the traditional software-redefined feature set built into most Plura monitors, including intelligent connections for calibration alignment, adjustable colourimetry, gamma correction and audio monitoring – all accessible from an intuitive menu offering smooth navigation. Using Plura’s unique ICAC tool,

production staff can quickly and automatically calibrate multiple colour-related elements across the entire monitor network over IP, including the 4K Series. This ensures that the 4K Series is quickly recalibrated to its reference standard, returning optimal brightness and colour consistency for © 2015 NAB demanding 4K workflows.

Stand: N2718

Mini broadcast cameras from Marshall Marshall Electronics is presenting two new HD mini broadcast cameras. The CV350-5XB 2 Megapixel HD-SDI/HDMI camera has a 5X optical zoom aided by a Canon Auto Focus System to maintain a clear, crisp picture while zooming from 4~20mm focal range. Also due to be on show, the CV200-MB is a compact lipstick camera with multiple Full-HD formats and an IP67 weatherproof body. Both cameras offer unique feature sets and complement the Marshall POV Pro-Series broadcast camera line.

The CV350-5X features an extremely reliable Canon Auto Focus System with full HD quality 2 Megapixel 5X Optical Zoom (4-20mm) lens

and chip-set with fast, precise Auto-Focus features. The camera comes with an IR Remote Control for zoom and menu functions as well as RS-485 interface using Pelco-D and SonyVISCA protocols.

In camera-top field monitors, Marshall is introducing its latest, fully featured addition to its 7-inch monitor family: the V-LCD70-AFHD. The new high resolution 1024X600 monitor brings together many of Marshall’s trademark features on one versatile monitor: multiple inputs, Picturein-Picture, Image Flip, Screen Markers, Peaking Filter, False Colour and Zebra filters. © 2015 NAB

Stand: C8218

CONTACTS EDITORIAL +44 (0) 20 7354 6002

SALES +44 (0)207 354 6000

EDITORIAL

ADVERTISING

PRODUCTION

EXECUTIVE EDITOR James McKeown jmckeown@nbmedia.com

SALES MANAGER Ben Ewles bewles@nbmedia.com

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Davis White

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Will Strauss

SALES EXECUTIVE Nicola Pett npett@nbmedia.com

HEAD OF DESIGN Jat Garcha jgarcha@nbmedia.com

U.S. MIDWEST, NEW ENGLAND & CANADA Vytas Urbonas vurbonas@nbmedia.com

EDITORIAL PRODUCTION MANAGER Dawn Boultwood dboultwood@nbmedia.com

U.S. WEST Pete Sembler psembler@nbmedia.com

PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE Jason Dowie jdowie@nbmedia.com

CONTRIBUTORS David Fox, Adrian Pennington, Barrie Smith, Davide Moro, Heather McLean, Philip Stevens, Michael Burns

NEWBAY MEDIA LLC CORPORATE PRESIDENT AND CEO Steve Palm CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Paul Mastronardi CONTROLLER Jack Liedke GROUP CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Denise Robbins VICE PRESIDENT OF WEB DEVELOPMENT Joe Ferrick PUBLISHER Steve Connolly sconnolly@nbmedia.com

TVTechnology April 2015

U.S. SOUTHEAST AND MID-ATLANTIC, US CLASSIFIEDS & PRODUCT SHOWCASE Michele Inderrieden minderrieden@nbmedia.com

TV Technology Europe ISSN 2053-6674 (Print) ISSN 2053-6682 (Online) is published four times annually

by NewBay Media. ©2015 by NewBay Media.

All rights reserved.

Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London, N18LN, England Free subscriptions are available to professional broadcasting and audio visual equipment users.

Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome for review – send to James McKeown at the feedback address.

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D E H C N U RELA 2015 R O F TV Technology Europe is the leading product and technical resource for the broadcast media professional.

Providing independent coverage of the latest equipment and technology releases, and offering exclusive insight, opinion and analysis from the industry’s leading experts and commentators, TV Technology Europe offers unrivalled coverage of all aspects of product technology and engineering in the broadcast media sector.

February 2015 I Issue 1 I Volume 33

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Sales Manager Tel: +44 (0) 207 354 6000 Email: bewles@nbmedia.com

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Nicola Pett Sales Executive Tel: +44 (0) 207 354 6000 Email: npett@nbmedia.com

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Product reviews Camera lenses, audio repair

BVE preview edition

NEWS SET A

SOUNDSTAGE 1

TRUCK 1

REMOTE 1

REMOTE 5

STUDIO 3

SET 1

REMOTE 12

REMOTE 6

SPORTS FEED 1

TRAFFIC 1

DOWNTOWN REMOTE

TRUCK 2

NEWS SET B

WEATHER

TRUCK 3

YOU’VE GOT JUST A FEW SECONDS TO SWITCH ALL AUDIO, IFB, MIX-MINUSES – EVERYTHING ON YOUR MIXING DESK – FROM ONE STUDIO TO THE NEXT. GO. Gather all your audio sources via intelligent endpoints located throughout your facility. Create your audio network using standard off the shelf gigabit switches. Handle any signal format. Route, mix, and process on a best-in-breed control surface. Apply IFB to any output. Recall instant show setups.

Live production for NBC at 5, ABC at 6 – never break a sweat.

ONLY with Wheatstone’s Networked IP Audio/Complete System Control

See Wheatstone at NAB 2015 • Booth C755

BROADCAST AUDIO PERFECTIONISTS®