APRIL 2018
Vol 245
(09) 527 6126
Telling Good Stories We’re at the offices of Synergy Films in Auckland with Steve Murray who tells me he’s been in the business for quite some time. He’s got the grey hair to prove it, but he’s got the smile that says “I’m still doing okay.” His card announces that he is a “Chief storyteller and AV content curator” so I’m here for his story today. Steve: stion?
What’s
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Ed: Oh dear, I thought you were going to run this interview. Alright, my question is … you’ve been doing this for a lot of years. Currently I understand you’re running two quite different cameras – tell me about them? Steve: To address your first comment – I have been in the industry for, dare I say it, 35 plus years. I started back in the days when there wasn’t video; there were slide projectors and big screens and 16mm film, if you were lucky, in the corporate space, which is primarily where I’ve been working. But cameras have come a long way in that time. I’m still using a Sony EX3 for a lot of my event based stuff, but in the last few years, I decided to dive into the smaller form-factor with a Panasonic GH4, which I’m thoroughly enjoying using. It’s a great little camera for a whole lot of uses in the corporate space. Ed: Was that a difficult move for you, because the form factor of the EX3 is really quite different from the GH4?
Steve at his edit desk.
Steve: No it wasn’t, because I was going up to Shanghai to shoot an incentive event and, having not shot in China before, I thought that I really needed to have something that I could be very low profile with, and just blend in like a tourist if I needed to. The GH4 had just come out and, after a bit of research, I thought that it could be the perfect tool. It was shooting in 4K so it was reasonably well futureproofed for what I was doing, and it offered the advantage that I could disappear into a crowd and not draw too much attention to the fact that I was there shooting professionally. It’s
been a great camera for that sort of work. The EX3 is still my “go to” camera for events and for shooting conferences and recording presentations, and I also use it as the No.2 camera now with the GH4. If I’ve got the luxury of doing a 2 camera shoot on an interview, I’ll use the EX3 as my wider camera and then use the GH4 as the close-up with the narrow depth of field to give me that different look. I’ve managed to be able to get the cameras to match quite well. Ed: So you would have had that EX3 for about 8 years? Steve: I can’t remember when I got it … I do know that I got it soon after it came out. The irony is that, when it first came out, I hated it – I thought it was a horrible looking camera, but the guys at DVT managed to twist my arm and I ended up getting it. It’s been a great workhorse, there’s no question about that. Ed: And you’ve never had a problem with it? Steve: Never had a problem with it, and it’s still going strong. Ed: And the pictures and the audio – everything matches what your client’s expectations are? Steve: Well sadly to say, client expectations are perhaps not quite as robust as they once were because of the advent of YouTube and everything else. That’s not to say I ever want to compromise on quality ( and I don’t ) but the EX3 still delivers a perfectly good image for a majority of uses in today’s media landscape, given that most stuff is going to be seen on the web or on Facebook and, for those mediums, it does a great job. Ed: But of course the GH4 is a totally different form factor and does not have balanced audio? Steve: No it doesn’t, but when I’m shooting an interview I’ll often shoot with an onboard recorder – I’m using the Shogun Atomos – and I have also bought the little TASCAM DR-701d recorder, so I’ll record audio on to that as a safety and then feed it into the GH4. It also has the advantage that it can be timecode locked to GH4 via the HDMI connector. I have found myself in situations where I had to record directly into the GH4 with a good mic, and it’s been fine for what I needed it to do. There’d probably be some audio purists who would beg to differ though! Ed: So in this situation, you can match the audio of the EX3 and the GH4 using the TASCAM recorder? Steve: Yes. And if I’ve got a situation where I’m recording both, then I would probably use the audio off the EX3 and just match everything up so I’m not having to do so much of the sync work. Having it on the TASCAM, I know I’ve got a backup if there’s something not right elsewhere. Ed: In terms of radio mics, you’ve been in the industry for a long time and have come up through the changes in radio mics and I guess one of the biggest ones for us was the spectrum change. Have you kept your old ones or have you gone to the new approved spectrum? Steve: I’ve kept my old ones, I haven’t used them, but I’ve got a new one. I got a new Sony UWP series I
Count the legacy items in this rack.
think it is, and that’s generally performed really well, but even with the new spectrum, there are some areas in town where I’ve had – without question – interference issues. I don’t know whether it’s local RF in a building that’s illegal, which is quite possible, but by and large they’re absolutely fine. I occasionally deviously think maybe I should just try the old ones and see if I have any issues – but haven’t had the need so far. Ed: Just look out for one of those radio detector vans with the big aerial rotating on the top? Steve: Yes exactly. I think, again, for most of my stuff which is one person interviews, that does me fine and if I’m needing anything bigger than that, then I call on one of my faithful soundies who comes in with their own kit. So it’s not something that I kind of really need to worry about too much. Ed: Are you using the Shogun for its long recording ability or because of some other reason? Steve: Well it’s got a great monitor, so it serves as an excellent location reference monitor, but it’s just another backup in terms of record.
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Ed: So you record to the camera as well as the Shogun; okay, then you come in to edit, which one do you use? Steve: Generally, I’ll use the native footage from the camera because there’s obviously a lower storage overhead space involved. It’s nice to know that, if I need it, I’ve got it there. There are some jobs where I’ve got a really quick turnaround and I’ve recorded on the Shogun and, in those cases, I’ll just whack that stuff straight into the edit suite, edit off that and output a job. I can do that very quickly and I can actually play it off the SSD in the Atomos and get a good output. So it’s horses for courses in that regard. Ed:
Are you using SxS cards with EX3? A modern use for Betacam tapes.
Steve: Primarily the original SxS cards but I’ve also recorded via the Sony SD adapter as well. Ed:
And then you’re putting all this into Premiere Pro?
Steve: Ed:
Correct, via a new Mac Pro, the trash can.
Right … and issues with Premiere Pro?
Steve: No more than I’d ever have with the old Final Cut Pro. I think every system is going to have its little peculiarities and quirks, so it hasn’t been entirely without issue, but there have never been issues that have caused me to miss a deadline or tear my hair out too much.
Ed: Do you do automatic updates or choose to install when you’re ready? Steve: I’m installing when I’m ready, but I generally keep on top of the latest update. I’ll probably wait 2-3 months after it’s released before I’ll install it. Ed: Are you getting good service from your vendor in this case? Steve:
Which vendor?
Ed: Aaah – have you bought the editing equipment from a number of people?
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Steve: Over the years I do that. I haven’t really had any issues that require servicing or support with the Mac Pro, apart from what Apple can do, and they’ve generally sorted me out. I’ve had the odd issue with Premiere Pro that the Adobe support team has sorted me out with, or at least sort of come to the party. But with the new subscription model, the vendors haven’t really got involved with that, because you’re dealing directly with Adobe.
Steve: Well the irony of that ( and he’ll laugh ) was that it was one of their big equipment sales and I happened to get a nice Felloni panel at a good price. I like to think I’ve had a pretty good relationship with most of the vendors and there are times when … you know you do have your favourites … but if they don’t
Ed: And that works for you, you wouldn’t prefer to have a local person you could call and threaten to throttle? Steve: Well it would be fair to say that … how do I couch this carefully … Ed:
No, just go for it.
Steve: The technology is now developing so quickly that I don’t think the vendors have the luxury of keeping on top of every piece of software update and hardware that’s out there. I’m going to find the solutions quicker myself by either doing my online research or just calling Adobe. I have to say that, when I have called Adobe, they’ve been really responsive and I haven’t had an issue. I kind of feel as though I don’t really need to call the vendors about that sort of platform specific stuff anymore. Once upon a time, yes. Ed: Well in those days, the software was a lot more expensive and you expected some sort of local backup, but for some of the hardware that you purchased, I guess it’s important to have a local supplier and I understand Ken from Protel sold you a nice little light? Steve: Ed:
(laughing) It’s a plug for Ken now is it? EX3 on location in Australia.
Well he’s a class act!
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have stock and somebody else does have stock, then they get the sale. Ed: So was the Felloni a bit of a game changer for you, going from incandescence to LED? Steve: I wouldn’t say that because lighting has been a necessary evil for me. I have a philosophy of trying to use ambient light where I can … Ed: Because … alright, tell me why you have that philosophy? I mean I know why I have it too. Steve: There’s a pragmatic reason, because time is often of the essence …
primarily
Ed: Is that your time? Steve: It’s my time – and it’s my customer’s time – but in these wonderful days of one person crews, the less I have to set up the better. So if I can get a really good result without having to resort to setting up lights I will; but if I have to set up a light, I’ll set up a light and certainly the LED has made that job a whole lot more pleasant, both in terms of the environment and the weight and power and everything.
Ed: Now this brings us back to the GH4 and the difference between that and the EX3. Depending on the lens that you’ve chosen with the GH4, you can have that short depth of field if you want to. Is that something you like doing? Steve: I’ve never been overly pedantic about needing to have more shallow depth of field. I like the look but, again, I come back to the practicalities of today’s media landscape and it’s nice if you can achieve it, but I would argue that, certainly in terms of the corporate space or that non-broadcast space, most people watching your videos don’t care a toss whether an image is shallow field or not. They might perceive it if they see it, but it’s not going to affect your storytelling in terms of what I’m doing with a lot of interview-based material. There’s no question when shooting a drama, that to have that look is highly desirable. Ed: But you don’t want your corporate client out of focus and a nice potted plant in the background looking glorious?
Ed: So you don’t run to a director of lighting and a couple of gaffers to rig the lights for you? Steve: Well who has those budgets anymore … in the corporate space I’m speaking. Generally, that’s a luxury that if I can employ it, I’ll certainly employ it. But it’s pretty rare nowadays. Ed: Do you think that’s actually good because it makes you think more carefully about how you’re shooting it and how you’re positioning your clients so that they look the best in the ambient light available? Steve: Good in what sense – just clarify that question again? Ed: A nice picture. So rather than having to rely on somebody else to set up some lights and take all of that time, you’re more focused on getting the client into a position and setting yourself up so that you make the best of what’s available?
No running after this talent.
Steve: Yes, that’s primarily it. It’s about efficiencies both in terms of time and cost. It’s also great in terms of refining your own craft; sometimes it’s nice to have the challenge of learning new skills and employing new skills because it keeps you fresh and it keeps you on your toes. But it means that you’re also reasonably well-educated when you do get to use a gaffer and a lighting truck and a director of photography; you can make some sensible calls in that regard too, and you’re not so reliant.
Steve: Well it’s amazing how often I see that on the News! No no no, that’s not desirable and I think one of the challenges of shooting in 4K with that lower depth of field, is you’ve really got to be paying attention all the time to where your focus is. Ed:
Do you use a zoom lens or primes?
Steve: I’m just using the Panasonic zoom lenses, the 12-35 F2.8, 35-70 F2.8 and the 7-14 F4 wide angle zoom, which is just wonderful! They give you a great bang for buck.
Ed: But apart from the Felloni, you’ve got some little kicker lights you use as well?
Ed: Is it giving you true 4K though, or do you really need true 4K?
Steve: Yeah, but they’re little kind of “no name” things I have in my bag that I pull out.
Steve: Ed:
Ed: But that really comes to the fore when you’ve got the time and you just want to bring that little spark to the picture?
Steve: It’s certainly giving me … what’s the ratio 3840x2160?
Steve: Yes, exactly. I’m not a director of photography, I consider myself a very competent videographer, and for most of the stuff that I’m doing, it’s not required to have that level of lighting. I’m not shooting high-end documentaries; I’ve directed highend documentaries and, in those cases, it was entirely appropriate that you employ the services of a director of photography and have some good lights on hand.
It depends on what you mean by true 4K?
Well what do you understand by 4K?
Ed: Well that’s one version of 4K. So you’ve got 4K footage, what are you doing with it? Steve: If I don’t have the luxury of doing a 2 camera shoot, I carefully frame the shot so I’ve still got some depth of field and some background that’s out of focus, but having the 4K means I can crop the image and effectively give a pseudo 2 camera shoot. It gets you out of a lot of editing challenges and can be really, really effective if you’re limited with budget and you
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just want to cut something that looks nice. I’ve found that that works incredibly well, but the other reason I’ll acquire in 4K now is certainly to get footage that has got some longevity, has got some legs. If it’s some nice B-Roll, then it just makes sense to shoot 4K so you’ve got the option to use it if necessary. When I’m shooting stock footage ( and I do a bit of that ), I’m shooting it in 4K because 4K will command a premium price in terms of footage fees. Ed: Have you any plans for getting a better lens? Steve: At this stage, I’d rather get a new body I think, to have 2 bodies. It would be nice; I’d like to have a longer lens and I’d like to have the little 25mm Panasonic prime, which is the equivalent of a 50mm prime, but I think having a second body would be my preference. Ed: But you look at the business model and say “is this going to earn me the money that it’s cost to buy it, or am I going to lose more money by not having it?” Steve: I’m certainly not going to lose more money. In some respects, some of my purchases are more about what I’d like to have as opposed to what I can actually charge for … Ed: You just don’t tell the accountant that? Steve: Exactly. It depends … I’m dipping my toe in the water in terms of stock footage and if that goes well then there’ll be justification for getting better lenses. But given that, even in the stock footage realm, they’re quite happy to accept footage off an iPhone … Ed: Well if it’s something exciting, yes. Steve: For me it’s about asking the question what advantage is the lens going to give me. Ed: So what have you bought that was totally frivolous and hasn’t earned you a penny since you bought it, but you really enjoyed buying it? Steve: Ummm … I’ve bought a small drone that hasn’t really earned me any money yet, but it keeps things interesting. However today, it’s almost becoming mandatory that you have a drone in your kit for when the client says – on the shoot, “can we get an aerial shot?” Ed: You didn’t buy anything 3D by any chance? Steve: No, I kept well away from 3D because I still think it’s a production gimmick. For my market, the corporate market, most are not going to use it.
house, they all of a sudden find that there’s not the money in it anymore to be able to service those sorts of things. Ed: And there are more kids just coming out of school with cheaper cameras and better laptops? Steve: And that’s the reality, but I question how many of these budding filmmakers know how to tell a business story. My business is telling business stories and I wouldn’t want to put up a freshly minted film school student with the CEO of any of New Zealand’s major companies to create a little video. I think hopefully there will be some redress and rebalance in terms of appreciating skilled operators who have had years of experience in what they can bring to an equation, and that in New Zealand we would hopefully get away from this tendency to want to use my uncle’s cousin’s nephew who is just out of film school, to make us a corporate video; a video that’s going to successfully meet the company’s communication objectives. So whether that will happen or not, I don’t know. Ed: And the future in the tech area – apart from getting a GH5S? Steve: I think the future is just refinement. I scratch my head when I try and think if there’ll be any quantum shift. I actually think it’s going to be a long time in New Zealand before 4K is broadcast and used as a de facto standard. In the event space or in the event industry where I’m often working, we still have big projectors that are 720p and 1080; it’s going to be a long time before event production companies are going to be investing in 4K projectors, unless it’s for a very, very niche special purpose. I think having 4K footage is great for futureproofing, but I can’t see a major shift from outputting 1080 or hi-def in the corporate space for a long time. I don’t know … if I was going to put a figure on it I’d say HD will be well and truly with us for at least the next 5 years. Ed: Perhaps people should work on improving content? Steve: It all comes back to story; it all comes back to your craft, your story and how you are executing that. If we get too tied up in developing tech and we lose sight of story then we risk failing our audience, because we really haven’t got anything that’s going to NZVN engage.
Ed: Right, the future … where do you see the industry going in terms of all these young people coming out of school and grabbing cameras and making movies for YouTube. Do you get pressure from clients to say “that’s a bit expensive”? Steve: That’s not the future, that’s now! Young people are coming out of film school with cameras and laptops and making videos. Whilst my comments are totally anecdotal, I think it has without question kneecapped a large chunk of the industry. I think it’s all very well for students to come out of school and, while they’re still living at home, to want to get experience and charge next to nothing to make a video – what they don’t realise is they’re actually destroying their potential career, because once they have a partner, have kids, want to buy a
Steve setting up for a very recent Presidential gig. Page 8
MTP Conference is Coming We have enjoyed two Media Technology Pacific conferences in the last some years and to find out more about the one coming up this year I spoke with David Barnard at the Gencom offices. Ed: David, for this particular interview, you’re putting on a slightly different hat. Gencom has been involved in our industry from, well, before my time – coming up on 50 years, my goodness – but you have also helped put together New Zealand’s only Television Media Conference. No.3 is coming up, and is going to be held on …? David: 1st and 2nd August at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. We had been eyeing doing this again at around that time of year and we’ve just pulled the pin on the 3rd. It is a small show and so generating enough interest and enough resources to put it together is always a challenge. It has always been an independent thing – the first couple of years Gencom was very involved, but there was somebody working behind the scenes who was completely independent to pull it all together. A lot has changed over the last couple of years though, and we weren’t sure how to get it up and running for a third year – until Kordia approached me and said that they would be very keen to get involved. We had a conversation about it and we talked to some different people, but ultimately, we determined that Gencom and Kordia would work together to get this thing bootstrapped and we would each be major sponsors. We’d each contribute some resources to getting it off the ground, getting the administrative work done and marketing for it. We’ve now agreed that, yes, we’re going to do this, we’ve booked the hotel and we’re starting to get the word out there. Ed: So the point of contact for anybody who might be interested in being part of this show is you? David: Yes, come to me in the first instance. My job is to connect all the dots, so whether you want to attend, or you’re interested in sponsoring, or you’re interested in being an exhibitor – I can put you in touch with the right people and make sure that you have all the information you need. And I’m serious about this being an independent event – Gencom have had competitors involved in the past and we’d be happy to involve them again. Ed: Okay, the big question is, who is to benefit from this conference? David: Really I think it benefits the whole industry. Kordia and Gencom both agreed that it was beneficial from a marketing standpoint for us to be involved with it, which is how we justify putting the dollars in to get it off the ground. But we think that it really is something that the industry needs, and we want to see it succeed because we think the whole industry benefits from it, and that ultimately benefits us. We’ve had good successes the last couple of times we’ve done it, we think we can build on that. We’d actually like to grow it a bit this year, we’d like to get a broader range of voices heard, maybe get some more exhibitors if we can and just see this continue to gain traction. Ed: Can you give us an example … last time you held it Gencom was there, you had some speakers, you
David is the one to call.
obviously had people from the industry in New Zealand, so was it a good example of because you were involved in this, you actually got some business for Gencom out of the production? David: The past conferences that we’ve done have definitely ended up generating new business for us and we wouldn’t be coming back to it if we didn’t see the marketing value in it. We have had projects that we’ve been able to undertake specifically because of relationships that we built there and our ability to show ourselves as being industry leaders. I think there is a lot of value to being associated with the conference, to present at the show, or to be a part of the building of the agenda and, as a sponsor or exhibitor, you have some ability to help influence that. Ed: Do people perhaps see you in a different light; they see the people around you; they see the sort of companies that you’re involved with and if they take an interest in one of the presenters, and it happens to be associated with you, then you’re obviously the point of contact in New Zealand for further development? David: Well I sure hope so! I would say that we have always tried to make sure that there’s a mix of customers talking about how they’ve done things, industry experts who are talking about issues and challenges in the industry, and some of the suppliers to the industry talking about how their technology addresses specific problems. But what we’ve really been careful to avoid is any case where a supplier is just coming to sell their products. It doesn’t help the conference, the attendees aren’t going to be interested, that’s not what we’re all there for. Where we’ve had our suppliers presenting, we’ve been very clear to make sure they’re talking about a broader industry issue, a case study – something like that. We’ve had a couple of really good ones … at the last conference, ( NZVN March 2016 ) Khush Kundi from Ericsson
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Khush Kundi.
gave a great talk about “reinventing the TV experience” that I think really was of interest to a lot of people, and we’d like to have more of those types of things. Peter Ennis from Avid had a good talk about Newsroom workflow … Ed: And I remember specifically John Drinnan, the NZ Herald correspondent, lifting the lid on many things that go on behind the scenes in the industry? David: Well that’s exactly right and I think that’s one of the fun parts of this conference – because it is a small conference, because it is a fairly intimate environment, people are willing to talk about things that they might not normally talk about. You might remember in the first conference, ( NZVN September 2014 ) one of the first talks was Mike McMahon, who was the main architect of the Lightbox infrastructure. At that time, Lightbox had just gotten off the ground and Mike McMahon. everybody was wondering how they managed to stand this service up so quickly and it was a bit of a “secret sauce.” Well, he put the entire workflow on a slide behind him and everybody stood up and started taking pictures and he talked through “here’s how we’re getting the stuff from when we sign the deal with our content rights holders, to until it actually gets delivered out to screens. Here’s how the whole thing works” and it was pretty amazing to see it.
That was a really interesting talk. So one of the draws of this is you’re never quite sure what you might hear while you’re there. Ed: But if somebody comes to you with a handful of cash, you’re not going to turn them away are you? David: I think it’s important that we preserve the integrity of the conference. A great example of that is Kordia, right. That’s exactly what Kordia did, and we sat down and spent a couple of months talking about how we do it right, what we each want to get out of it, and does this make sense, is it a good fit, is it worth
doing this again on these terms. We were very much thinking in the same way and we saw a good opportunity for ourselves to be associated with something that’s looking forward in the market and really focused on the new and exciting things that are happening in the industry; but at the same time, it was good for the industry and good to have the people on the ground, who are making technology decisions, get a range of perspectives and be able to get informed information from people who are actually out there doing a lot of this stuff internationally. Right, let’s hear from Kordia at this point as to why they’re interested in being involved.
Dean Brain: Kordia is proud to be a platinum sponsor of the 2018 Media Technology Pacific Conference alongside Gencom. The feedback from the previous Media Technology Pacific conferences from our customers and staff was extremely positive. Therefore the decision for Kordia to become a Platinum sponsor was a very easy decision to make. Our customers and staff valued the opportunity to network with other industry experts in the NZ Media industry and gain insights from NZ and international presenters on what made their media projects a success. Also, for a variety of reasons, not everyone in the NZ media industry has the opportunity to travel to larger Media conferences overseas, so the opportunity to attend an NZ based event covering key industry trends and the top content from the international conferences is invaluable. Now back to David. Ed: Now MTP is a conference, but in the past, you’ve always had an area off to the side where you’ve had some trade exhibits but, apart from Gencom and a couple of others, there’s not been a lot of interest there. Is this something that you’re going to work on and try and get more of the industry suppliers involved in – even if they’re not doing a presentation? David: We’d like to. I think that when we did the first conference, originally the idea was that we’d have
NZVN September 2014 https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews/issues/2014/09-september-2014 NZVN March 2016
https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews/issues/2016/03march16 Page 10
10 exhibitors so we had drawn out a floorplan for 10 booth spaces. They weren’t able to sell that many – I think Gencom ended up taking a double wide space because we had a number of our suppliers all there on the stand together … Switch Media had a stand and it all worked out, but it became clear that the focus and the value of this is the conference. The focus is getting these people together, hearing these new perspectives, talking amongst themselves, networking. So the second time around, both Gencom and Switch Media did it again, because we thought it was good value, and Chris Dredge from Pacific Live Media who does LiveU in New Zealand, he came in. He actually was very enthusiastic afterwards. He said he thought it was great, and he had mentioned at the time that he would like to do it again.
there’s value in that; for Switch Media I think it was a great opportunity for them. All they did was set up a consumer display, but they were able to do an HbbTV FreeviewPlus demo before FreeviewPlus was out and available in the market. I would hope that we can get some other vendors to sign up to exhibit, because I think there is value in that, and we will set them up, as we’ve done in the past, in the same area where lunch and cocktails and morning tea is all served, so that people mingle, they come in, they talk to you while you’re on the stand. There is good value in it, but we do recognise that the chief draw of this is a conference, and we will continue to make it first and foremost a conference. Ed:
So if there’s anybody out there in the industry who would like to present to the conference, they’re obviously going to talk to you; you can also look at back issues of NZ Video News ( links on page 10 ) from the previous two conferences. Will the content this year be related to the technology that we’re going to see at NAB in a couple of weeks’ time? David: That’s part of it, and that was the original concept – let’s make a show/conference that brings a little bit of NAB down to New Zealand. There are a lot of things happening in the technology space; there’s IP video infrastructure – uncompressed IP is becoming more and more talked about, and people are actually starting to go out and build it into their workflows. It enables lots of new things – remote production and the ability to manage multiple remote events or remote studios from one control room. It creates a lot of complexity; there are a lot of cool new things you can do, but there’s also a lot of things that you have to think about that you don’t have to think about with SDI. So that’s an area that we’ll be talking about.
We continue to focus on distribution and I think when the first conference came round we called it “New Media” … you can’t really call it that anymore, because everything is being delivered multi-platform. I think we’ll continue to invesChris Dredge, Managing Director of Pacific Live Media tigate how that’s evolving and where we go from with LiveU’s LU200 and new LU600 with HEVC. here; what is the future of traditional broadcasting and what’s the future of what we used to call “digital Chris Dredge: Exhibiting at MTP 2016 was definitely media” and how they’re converging. the right decision. It introduced us to parts of the NZ Broadcast Market we had not yet met and strengthened Also, there are new market segments with new use our relationships with the customers we already knew. cases; we’d like to be able to get somebody from one of Thanks in part to the exposure from MTP 2016, nearly the e-Sports organisations that are starting to grow every broadcaster in NZ has purchased LiveU. It’s here in New Zealand to come and talk, because we definitely worth exhibiting. think that’s a really interesting application. David: I understand that it’s hard because we are So if anybody here is in the e–Sports arena, so to a small market and it’s expensive to do a booth. We’ve speak, please drop me a line and we’d love to talk to tried to be as cost effective as we can be but there are you. But again, other interesting stories about how various expenses associated with running booths and people are doing what we would consider traditional having the space and the set-up of the booths and all of broadcasting in new ways – either producing it, that, that we just can’t avoid, so there’s going to have managing it or delivering it. to be a cost associated with it. Ed: Have you got any wild cards this time – like John But we think that there is value in having a presence, in Drinnan? having a place where you can either show your products or just kind of talk about them, the ability to do a demo or a video or whatever in one space. For some people,
David: Maybe … it’s a bit too soon to say. tuned, or “watch this space” as they say.
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Platform Flatpack Desks and NAB 2018
products. However there are always some new products being released at NAB; this year for instance here are some of the new product releases that can be purchased through Protel.
We’re here at Protel with Ken Brooke, standing in for René Bullinger, the Protel audio specialist who recently went to the NAM ( National Association of Musicians ) audio show in Los Angeles. Ed: I understand René found something that’s not only good for musicians but also very useful for video makers Ken? Ken: Yes René found some low-cost, flatpack desks called “Platform” made by a company called “Output”and we’re getting some shipped over from the States – https://output.com/platform-creatives
360Systems TSS line-up of Multi-Channel IP/SDI Broadcast Video Servers!
AJA Delivers FS-HDR v2.0 Software Enables Greater Control Over Colour Processing and HDR Conversion, Transforms and Expands Camera Format Support
Blackmagic Introducing URSA Broadcast. Now you can afford an advanced Ultra HD broadcast camera for less than the cost of a DSLR!
They will be available in April and we’ll have one assembled in each of our showrooms in Auckland and Wellington so you can take a look. If you’re a home audio enthusiast or a video editor, one of these desks would obviously be very useful. So useful in fact we have already pre-sold some. Check out the pricing on our website – https:// www.protel.co.nz/results.html?q=platform Ed: And the good thing is it’s a flatpack so you can assemble it yourself and the internal freight in New Zealand is not going to be a lot? Ken: Correct. There are 2 colours –brown and natural wood timber. Ed: And these come with plenty of space for monitors, little areas for slotting in your tech equipment and a place for your keyboard and all designed specifically for the sort of work that we do? Ken: Yes. The guys who designed them are musicians and they came up with a really good design after a great deal of research and development. A useful thing to have in your home studio or edit suite. Ed: And if anybody is missing any of the equipment that goes on it, you know a good supplier? Ken: Absolutely – René would love to fill up the slots for you with audio gear. There’s little rack areas where you can put all your audio and video gear and if you want a video postproduction facility, give me a call. Ed: Now isn’t that one of the benefits of coming to Protel – in this industry, you’re doing video or you’re doing audio, or a lot of us are actually doing both, so you’ve got a range of solutions for people who are doing both? Ken: Certainly we’ve got the experience and can offer both.
Ed: There’s a lot of computers and software now at NAB; there’s not so much new hardware anymore, correct?
Ken: In the last few years particularly there has been a shift at NAB to software, storage and file management and “storage in the Cloud” which isn’t quite as relevant to us – we offer products for use in the postproduction part of the industry. There are fewer products released at NAB, and some products are new software updates for existing
Calibre New HQUltra4000 Series 4K Seamless Scaler-Switcher Convergent Design New lower prices for the Odyssey 7Q
Datavideo will show the new SE-3200 switcher, NH-100 camera, TLM-700K monitor, NVS-40 streaming server and new updated version of KNU-100.
Glidecam XR-PRO gear of the year award
Leader
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LV5333 Monitor now with HD HDR
might not be so aware of how things are going and how they can utilise that product in the best way possible.
Litepanels Introducing the new Gemini 2x1 soft panels
Maxon CINEMA 4D RELEASE 19
NewTek There is a whole bunch of new products Tricaster TC, NDI PTZ Camera, LivePanel, Vizrt Graphics Server, 3Play 3P1, Studio 1/o Module, Connect Spark.
Panasonic There are a couple of new products being released AK-UC400 4k Studio camera being one of them and of course the new firmware for the EVA1 will be available to download and install at the end of March.
Sachtler Flowtech
Teradek new Bolt 10K
Prior to NAB, as a supplier we’ve seen some new product releases online. When you consider there are 1700 stands at NAB and only 4 days to see them all, if you spend more than 60 seconds on each stand, you won’t see it all. Ed: Okay, so the number of hard box products is coming down and down, but you still have to have a camera don’t you? Ken: Yes, and that’s where one of our focuses is combined with accessories. Ed: It used to be, of course, that you then had to have the infrastructure behind that camera to accept it into an editing system, and then some way of storing that product or even a secondary capture system, but nowadays so much of that is handled by software that it’s a lot more straightforward? Ken: You still need the infrastructure in the edit suites to manage the larger file formats and high speed drives to cope with 4K.
That’s where having a reseller really comes to the fore … you can advise them in a more sensible way as to, well, this product might look great, but how is this going to fit into your workflow that you have established? Ken: True, however when a customer comes in to talk about cameras, they usually know what they want; it’s just a matter of defining how they are going to use the equipment and often their existing lens and tripods and how that will fit into their usage and budget. They can then make a more informed decision especially when they have had a look at the camera and see how it functions. Ed:
They’ve researched the Protel website?
Ken: Yes and they sometimes need guidance or confirmation because, like you say, you have to consider the workflow, existing infrastructure and can it handle the files. Everyone wants the 4K capability in the camera to future proof themselves. There is now 8K product starting to show up. Ed: Because evidently Netflix is saying “well, if it’s not shot in true 4K” – and there’s a difference between an iPhone 4K and real 4K – then Netflix aren’t going to accept it? Ken: Yes, though as far as I know not many of our New Zealand customers are shooting for Netflix. Ed: But isn’t that going to come, surely we’re going to see something like that in New Zealand – that production is going to be more directed towards providing 4K to some sort of central server such as a New Zealand Netflix. The broadcasters have got to go that way, otherwise they’re really not going to survive, correct?
Now that some of the cameras record 4K internally the need for external recorders has diminished. With a card reader you can often just transfer files across to your editing storage and software.
Ken: Local production companies including Broadcasters will survive. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out; however I have no doubt the New Zealand Broadcasters will survive with careful choice of content and by adding to their existing streaming capabilities. Like any business model they all have a point of difference to suit various parts of the markets.
Ed: But then surely, from a reseller point of view, that means that the service aspect of what you do must increase, because you’ve got people out there who
After all, I believe it’s the content people watch and 4K quality and HDR are just a bonus which will eventually become the norm. NZVN
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Avid update with Atomise We are at the offices of Atomise in Auckland, talking to Andy Wild about things Avid – what’s new, what’s been happening. Ed: Andy, this is actually pre-NAB but Avid have made some quite big announcements already this year? Andy: Yes. Avid are now moving away from their numbering versions of Media Composer. The very last one we saw was 8.10 and we’ve now moved into a naming convention that is much closer to the likes of other editing brands with the year opening the Andy beginning and a dot release after that. For example, we’re now seeing Media Composer 2018.2; we’ll see 2018.3 and fixes on top. So it’s a naming convention change only, there’s no structural change behind it; the way we licence things is exactly the same, so permanent or subscription models, it works exactly the same way. Realistically, it’s business as usual. Ed: You say you’ve got 2 models – subscription and permanent, so you can still buy a version of Media Composer? Andy: Yes you can … and again, anybody who’s bought Media Composer 8.8 and they’re keeping up to date with actual payments on what we call a “perpetual licence”, which is bought on a yearly basis, can just go to the latest releases, so 2018.3, or whatever the current release is. The licensing stays exactly the same as does the model. Ed: And the really good thing is that, unlike some other large editing software providers, you’re actually on the ground here so if somebody has purchased Media Composer, bought their licence through you, then you’re here to support it. You give them your phone number? Andy: That’s right, yes. The way it works is even if people haven’t purchased it through us and just bought it through the Avid website … Ed:
Oh don’t tell them that!
Andy: Yes, they can actually do it, because what most people don’t realise is – putting it akin to another large software manufacturer – you can purchase this software off a website, but fundamentally, we have key people here on the ground. Most countries will have a representative of Avid and, if you have any problems with it, you can get in contact with those particular representatives who are quite happy to talk about licensing problems. Unfortunately, licensing is not always as straightforward as you would like it, but it means that you can talk to somebody in your local time zone, and if it’s a problem, we can investigate that further with Avid or if it’s just a misunderstanding of how you do the licensing, we can normally help people over the phone. But if people come to us in particular, then that’s a service they receive.
points to the NEXIS - ISIS below.
Ed:
Now on the server side of the business?
Andy: On the server side of things, there’s been a number of changes. There’s been quite a large improvement on the NEXIS range of centralised storage platforms – the entry level system which is called the NEXIS | PRO gives us a shared storage repository. It means that we can ingest one file into one location, and have up to 24 edit suites play the same shot back in theory, depending on the resolution. Ed: So this PRO system is really for the smaller to medium production companies? Andy: That’s right, yes, so either a postproduction house or a production company who’s looking after their own content. It’s their working storage, it’s where you can store your Avid content, your Media Composer systems can talk to it and we can stream that content back. It’s been around a long time and this is the latest version. NEXIS is the next generation of intelligent storage – that’s what it stands for – but the major things that have happened recently within the NEXIS range are an increase in capacity, so supporting bigger discs going from a 2 terabyte drive to a 4 terabyte drive meaning that an entry level NEXIS | PRO system is 40 terabytes in size. Ed:
And this is the online editing storage?
Andy: Yes. This is complete production storage; you can be attached to that particular NEXIS system by either a 1gig, a 2gig, a 10gig or a 20gig connection if you want to. You can stack up to 4 engines together, so we can give you more capacity and more bandwidth of the systems, so it’s very flexible, it’s very cost effective and it’s very affordable for a lot of the smaller post houses. Ed: And you can attach to that as much archival storage as you like? Andy: Yes. So archive storage is probably something you’d park alongside it, so we’d have our NEXIS which we call WIP storage ( or Work In Progress storage ) and then, alongside that, we can have as much archive storage, so like a parking repository where, when you’ve finished a project, you think you might want to come back to that at a later date, you can move that over on to some cheaper spinning discs
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and then continue to work and free up the space. A lot of post houses do that as common working practice. Ed: Now I understand there’s a new name … well it was an old name, but it’s been revived? Andy: Yes, I suppose so. We’ve just spoken about NEXIS, which is the central storage repository, getting bigger. With enterprise solutions, that’s even getting bigger with support for 10 terabyte drives, so a single engine can be 100 terabytes in size and support SSD drives as well. So very high performance, very fast bandwidth systems. But over the top of the central storage, Avid have been known for a number of years, particularly on the Newsroom side of things, for their Production Asset Management Systems – their PAMS – previously known as Interplay. We’ve now amalgamated that; another renaming and rebranding exercise means that Interplay is dead, as it were, long live MediaCentral – but that’s purely a naming convention change. The big news is that there’s a new product that we’re involved in Beta testing with Avid at the moment called MediaCentral Editorial. It’s very much aimed at people who already have a NEXIS | PRO in a small post or production house, and this is, in effect, Avid’s first small scaled PAM system. Rather than being a Newsroom specific very high end, very high cost, very engineering intensive product requiring a team of qualified engineers to come and look at the bigger Interplay environments like we have at TVNZ and MediaWorks – this is a scaled down version, very usable, very affordable, and requires very little upkeep and runs on a single server.
Ed: So this is something that you can operate on any number of laptops with a small piece of software on, and people can be sent a project in clip form, look at it, make notes on it, and send it back to the editor for them to make any changes? Andy: What this does is that it gives you a web portal into, in effect, the Avid project and also the Avid content. So where previously if you stored something on your NEXIS | PRO for example, you needed a Media Composer to access and view it. This sits over the top of and gives you web browser access from a laptop or a desktop machine, and it means you can actually reach into the Avid project and maybe help organise bins if you’re an assistant. But more importantly, it also gives you a web view of all the physical assets for the actual pictures and sound that people have ingested, and you can stream those through into your web browser. So if you’re a producer you could do a review and approval process, without having to take up an edit suite. If you’re logging something, maybe you’re working on a particular production as an assistant, you just log some content remotely. And again, it doesn’t mean you have to buy another Media Composer system; it means you can just use a web browser. So people who are scaling up and scaling down, who maybe have a core of say 610 edit suites, maybe even less, it means that you don’t have to slot in another Media Composer, you can use Editorial Management System to kind of expand the capability of the systems as well. Ed:
Could you put it on your Windows phone?
Andy: I don’t know … it’s browser based, so anything that supports Safari or Chrome should be able to work. In theory you could but we haven’t tested that yet. Ed: Right, we do have to stress that it is a Beta and you’re working on it. It’s a lot of kudos to Atomise that you’ve been allowed to do this and I understand you’re one of 20 something sites in the world actually testing this product for Avid. That’s great praise?
Screen shots from the beta test Editorial Management System.
Andy: Yes, we’ve been lucky enough to get on to the Beta test. Because our offices here in Auckland, including our training room, are based alongside a postproduction house, the idea is that we’ll roll the Beta out here within our office and do the engineering tests and get it all tweaked in, and then we can roll that out to our neighbours. They will do a real world appraisal of how they can use it on a day to day basis and then we can feed all that back to Avid. We can give the technical feedback of the installation and the running of it, as well as knowledge of operation issues from a real post house environment. It’s a great relationship that gives us a real world appraisal as well as an engineering appraisal of the system. Right next door to the Auckland Atomise office is where the VTR postproduction house has been situated and to tell us about their close relationship we’re talking with Daniel Habedank, Operations Manager and Editor.
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Ed: Now Daniel, Andy mentioned that the nerve centre of your post facility here is an Avid NEXIS. I understand that VTR has been around for over 20 years so you must have been through lots of different editing equipment, including linear I’m sure. Has this latest NEXIS really changed your workflow? Daniel: Absolutely, it’s totally changed since we got the ISIS, now NEXIS, just over 1½ years now. Before then, we were constantly dealing with transferring footage from one suite to another in order to work on simultaneous projects. I worked with an ISIS system at TVNZ and I have firsthand knowledge of just how interconnected everything is, and the value of that. Bringing that level of technology into a smaller facility like VTR, where we had 6 edit suites, 6 rooms that needed to be interconnected, made a hugely positive difference. Ed: So in that state, each suite had its own storage and so you would have to transfer between local hard drives? Daniel: Yes. Luckily, when I first arrived here and became operations manager, I saw that need to change to shared storage straightaway. Without that, someone had to work overnight to transfer all the footage for the editors to work on the next day. Recently, when Andy alerted me that there’s a smaller version of shared storage, that we didn’t have to get the ISIS 500, we jumped at it and have never looked back. Now we couldn’t live without it. We deal with a lot of different footage and it all comes in at different times of the day, and a lot of the times the editor has to work while we’re still ingesting. I mean, even just ingesting, having multiple rooms of ingesting available to put it all on one system to then work on, is just magical, and this way we can provide very fast turnaround. We can have people shooting in the evening, then come in in the morning and start editing at 10am because we can have up to 5-6 edit suites churning away at transcoding or consolidating the footage into Avid. Ed: So it’s been really beneficial having Andy and the Atomise boys “in-house” as it were? Daniel: To be honest that’s like a dream come true, because we don’t have an on-staff broadcast engineer. Ed:
Don’t tell Richard this, because he might bill you!
Daniel: Yes, I have to be careful here. No that’s alright, we keep our businesses very separate and professional, and the good thing is, it’s kind of nice that sometimes Andy can come and just have a look at how things are behaving. We let him have free reign to look at things, try out new versions/upgrades etc, before he promotes them. Ed: So it really is a symbiotic relationship – you’re both working together and they help you and you help
Daniel is “pumped” and ready.
them. I guess it’s really important for Andy to see the product that he looks after actually in action? Daniel: Yes, that it performs the way he expects – what are the updates doing, are they working – and we have PC suites, we have Mac as well and different specifications, because every computer system here is different. So it’s a really good snapshot of how one version of Avid, say, works across a whole range of different machines. He gets the benefit of that and we get the benefit of just having someone around. To be honest, the NEXIS system is so infallible that I think in all that time we might have had one instance where we said “hey Andy, can you have a look at this because we’re not sure what’s going on here” but it was minor. We’ve never ever lost anything from the NEXIS so that peace of mind is so amazing, especially over Christmas and Easter when things shut down for a while and then you have the weather changes and all of a sudden there’s spikes and power outages. We used to get into the office after New Year and there’d be one of the standalone machines that had had a power surge and that had fried or was beeping and needed attention and things like that, but we haven’t had that issue with the NEXIS anymore. Ed: So you’re looking forward to this relationship continuing for many, many years to come? Daniel: Oh continuing and growing. I love technology and I love what it can do. We’re an Avid based facility, but I want to see it elsewhere you know. How feasible is it to log into our Nexis from home and get things going. Not using Team Viewer but actually using an Avid portal … I mean, I can already see the NEXIS infrastructure from my laptop, that’s fine I can give you more space, put partitions in, etc. Even out in the field, now that we’re going to branch out into being closer related to the production arm of things through … Ed: Whoa Daniel. At this point, we are pausing because we’re going to revisit Daniel and this facility here which has a new name. We’ll tell you that and more about what’s going to be happening at the old VRT building in Newmarket in a coming issue. Wait, it will be worth it. NZVN
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