ESPORTS BLOCKCHAIN FOR ADVERTISERS HOT MEDIA TECH START-UPS INSIDE THE YOUTUBE SPACE BUILDING A NETWORK FOR YOUTH SPORTS
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ISSUE #01 MARCH 2018 £4.99/$13.99 WWW.FEEDMAGAZINE.TV
YOUR 5G FUTURE
16/02/2018 17:12
CONTENTS 07 NEWSFEED
The latest news from around the media tech ecosystem
10 YOUR TAKE
Niche markets for OTT success
12 STREAMPUNK
Inside YouTube Space London
18 STREAMPUNK: TOOL OF THE MONTH Shooting wireless with NewTek’s Connect Spark
20 CONTENT FOCUS
COVER STORY: XTREME
Delivering the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics to the world, plus a look back at 90 years of Olympics broadcasting history
We go live-streaming with Groovy Gecko
34 TECHFEED
This month’s tech focus is 5G. Will superfast networks change everything?
40 GENIUS INTERVIEW ESL UK’s James Dean talks about the future of eSports
48 THE LIVE LIFE
Streaming company LiveArena brings youth sports to the world
53 START-UP ALLEY
Three new media tech companies you need to know about
60 FUTURESHOCK
MadHive is using blockchain to revolutionise advertising
62 HAPPENING
Connected Media Europe: a new streaming confab for BVE
66 OVER THE TOP
Tempted by tech? Always be willing to walk away
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STREAMPUNK
YouTube Spaces
GROWING SPACES Words by Neal Romanek
Technology manager for the YouTube Spaces in EMEA, Chris Lock gives us a tour of Google’s versatile new incubator for online talent he YouTube Spaces are waiting for you! YouTube Spaces provide free studios and equipment for popular YouTubers (‘popular’ is 10,000 followers or more). London was chosen as the site of the first YouTube space, opening at Google’s Covent Garden headquarters in July 2012. Since then, a dozen more Spaces have sprung up in major cities, including Berlin, Paris, Mumbai, Tokyo, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. In August 2016, YouTube Space London was reopened – bigger, better and faster – in new digs at Google’s King’s Cross site. Chris Lock is the technology manager for all YouTube Spaces in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Lock joined the YouTube Spaces team just over four years
ago, originally looking after the technical infrastructure of the first YouTube Space London. “As the aspirations of the community grew, we identified an opportunity to build a next-level facility at our new home in King’s Cross,” remembers Lock. “From being given clean access to the building, we managed to build, partially commission and put on an incredible launch party in around eight weeks, this was only possible due to the flexible design and determination of all involved.” The YouTube Spaces are designed to be labs of sorts, helping the YouTube creative community to flourish by providing top resources to creators and artists. The latest incarnation of YouTube Space London is a 20,000 square foot full-service production facility. YouTube creators with
THE CORE AIMS WERE TO BUILD AN INCREDIBLY FLEXIBLE SPACE THAT ALLOWED FOR A DIVERSE RANGE OF PRODUCTIONS
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YouTube Spaces
PRODUCTION CONTROL London’s YouTube Space offers facilities to cope with cope with all kinds of production demands, from live gigs to VR
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more than 10,000 followers can learn about production techniques and new technology, experiment with new formats and concepts, and network with a diverse community of creators. As with YouTube itself, the needs of the creators are widely divergent. “The requirements of the community vary from single camera digital cinema workflows, to full live productions including remote participation from our worldwide facilities that are streamed live to the platform,” says Lock. “Artists may need to multitrack a performance or host live gigs for their fans. They may need to launch their latest album live on YouTube. They may even use VR or live motion capture.” And the facilities available in the YouTube Space are indeed impressive.
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CONTENT FOCUS
Live Streaming
FEELING Words by Adrian Pennington
It takes more than a camera and an Internet connection to create a successful live-streaming production feedzine feedzinefeed feedmagazine.tv
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Live Streaming hether it be for marketing purposes, as a supplement to traditional broadcasting, to increase access to live events or for fun among a private group, live video streaming is adding another component to the way information is communicated. But live streaming is not as easy as you might first imagine. Even the simplest content has an aspect of risk. Errors in the stream are difficult to hide given the live nature of the content, and viewers won’t wait around if there’s an interruption in the stream. Live video streaming is composed of a chain of interlocking parts, including production, connectivity, encoding, CDN and delivery services. These and other elements are being increasingly offered as a package by streaming media companies, some of which also provide bespoke online video players and stream analytics. PRODUCTION These days there’s nothing acceptable about a sub-broadcast quality stream. Video production and live-streaming company Streaming Tank, whose clients include i24News and Eurosport, use Sony EX3 and PMW300 and Canon EOS C300 cameras for capture – and have access to larger ENG cameras and capabilities for 4K for more complex events. For its bigger productions or locations with poor network signals, Streaming Tank even runs its own OB truck which offers access to a Dawson Tooway satellite as well as integrated connectivity, vision and sound equipment, including BlackMagic Design’s ATEM Television Studio live production switcher and HyperDeck Studio recorder. Streaming Tank uses a mix of in-house kit and expertise plus external partners and freelancers to put together a video production service to fit the event – from lean singlecamera solutions to complex, dynamic shoots required in stadiums, festivals and outdoor events.
CASE STUDY: BAFTA 360 At the end of last year, Groovy Gecko live-streamed the Virgin TV BAFTA Television Awards 2017. Interviews from the star-studded red carpet were delivered directly to Virgin Media’s Facebook page, in interactive 360 video. This allowed viewers to look around the red carpet as though they were on it and alter their viewpoint by physically moving their mobile device or using a mouse on a computer/laptop. “The beauty of a 360 stream is the amount of freedom it gives to the audience,” says Jake Ward. “This makes for a highly interactive and immersive experience, far
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DEMANDING AUDIENCE Viewers will not accept any interruption in the stream – even of just a few seconds
beyond that of a static, nonlive stream. By combining the effect of live video and the 360° feature, viewers had extended access to an exclusive event and got to follow the celebrities as they walked the red carpet.” After only an hour, Virgin Media’s stream had attracted around one and a half times more viewers than the live stream on the official BAFTA Facebook page, which did not feature 360° interactivity. “This suggests our 360 video was more attractive to viewers than a simple live stream, which would not have afforded the same type of immersion for viewers,” says Ward.
THEY ASSUME THAT A STRONG INTERNET CONNECTION FOR THINGS LIKE WEB BROWSING WILL BE THE SAME FOR LIVE STREAMING CONNECTIVITY Once a video and sound team are in place some companies may want to utilise stand-alone connectivity solutions as a way to get the on-site video stream from venue out to the internet. “In the simplest set-up this means having our own engineers on-site with our encoders connected to a stable broadband connection, but that is not always possible so we work with a number of alternatives,” says Jake Ward, business development director at live-stream specialist Groovy Gecko. These connectivity alternatives include: Satellite bandwidth: Streaming media producers with expertise in IP-over-satellite can set up an on-site broadband connection good enough to stream your webcast with full redundancy. Satellite/fibre acquisition: When the video signal is already being uplinked to a satellite or transmitted over fibre to BT Tower, producers can bring the signal down into a partner satellite acquisition centre and encode your webcast from there. Mobile multiplexing: For webcasting on the move or in difficult environments, backpacks are the best option. LiveU’s units, for example, merge together multiple 3G, 4G and wireless signals and output a high-quality video stream that can be acquired at the streaming provider’s hub and encoded for your webcast. Smaller, lightweight
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20/02/2018 09:35
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DIGITAL ICE XTREME
Olympics
DIGITAL ICE Words by Neal Romanek
Coverage of the Olympic Games is evolving to meet bigger audiences in better ways port broadcast has always been an early adopter of new tech. Fans want to be ever more connected to the action, and broadcasters are in an arms race to stay ahead of the competition. The Olympic Games is always in a balancing act when it comes to new technology. The diversity of Olympic events, the wealth of stories and the global nature of its audience, stretching out over a two-week period, offers unparalleled opportunities to reach viewers in new and better ways. However, the defining features of the Olympics brand are excellence and quality. Olympics coverage can’t afford a single technical hiccup and while a trial for a new online service may run beautifully in Seoul, you’re in for trouble if you expect the same results in Cuba. Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) was created by the International Olympic Committee in 2001 to be the Host Broadcasting organisation for all Olympics Games – Summer, Winter and the Youth Games. The organisation, headquartered in Madrid, is dedicated to a consistent
broadcast approach across all the Games at the highest standards of production. OBS produces all Olympics coverage, including providing the International Television and Radio (ITVR) signals of the Games, and designing, building, installing, operating – and dismantling – the International Broadcast Centre (IBC). Part of the OBS mandate is to adapt to meet the requirements of new technology. This year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea offered new opportunities for new platforms. “In the past decade, the growth of digital platforms, new technologies and cloudbased services have revolutionised the way the sports broadcast industry produces and delivers content,” says Sotiris Salamouris, OBS chief technical officer.
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XTREME
Olympics
OLYMPICS BROADCASTING HISTORY
PARIS
First radio broadcast of Olympic Games
BERLIN
First TV broadcast, sent to public television offices in Berlin and Potsdam
LONDON
Games are broadcast within a 50-mile radius of London
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co ath nn er ec M tiv cLe ity a re n t vo al lu ks tio w n ith ju th st e ar ex ou p nd ert th s ab e o co u rn t th er e
5G
Words by Heather McLean
igger, better, faster, badder – 5G is coming, and as dedicated followers of fashion, we should all be terribly excited about getting the next ‘G’ on our smartphones. Or should we? Turns out that while 5G is going to be a great thing for us day-to-day consumers of mobile technology, this big ‘G’ is actually going to be a lot more important, and wider ranging, than any of its predecessors. What makes 5G different from previous standards is the way it is being designed, taking the outline for what it needs to be from multiple industry sectors as opposed
to being a consumer-driven standard. From autonomous vehicles and media everywhere, to a guaranteed data rate that means users will no longer talk about speed (or a lack of it), this standard will have 99.999% reliability, will connect the Internet of Things (IoT), and will have ultralow latency and a guaranteed quality of service. NEXT MAJOR EVOLUTION “5G is the next major evolution of mobile networks,” says Steve Plunkett, chief technology officer at Red Bee Media, formerly the broadcast and media services division of Ericsson. “It introduces significant improvements in
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5G
high-quality video, in industrial and medical situations. It will facilitate large-scale autonomous vehicles such as selfdriving cars and drones. In short, it will collapse distances between people and the world around us, enabling innovations that will change society in much the same way that voice- and text-based communication has up to now,” Plunkett says.
performance and capacity over 4G LTE networks, through a combination of more efficient radio transmission, access to greatly more radio spectrum and changes to the core networks that connect radio base stations. This translates into much more bandwidth for mobile devices, less transmission delay (latency) to better serve real-time video and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), along with more certainty and performance guarantees for different categories of user and applications. In short, it’s faster and better than the best on offer today and it will change how we work and play.” Yet 5G is more than a new generation of technologies; it promises a new era in which connectivity will become increasingly fluid and flexible. According to Michele Zarri, technical director at GSMA: “5G will be a catalyst for innovation and enable richer, smarter and more convenient living and working”. GSMA Intelligence expects 5G to cover 74% of the EU population by 2025 with over 170 million connections. The combination of high bandwidth and low latency will allow real-time, interactive communication at a new level, believes Plunkett. He says 5G will allow people to fully experience locations and events without physically being there (using AR, VR, mixed reality and 360 video). “It will allow the remote operation of equipment, using
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NEW WORLDS OF POSSIBILITIES “5G will open up a new world of possibilities,” enthuses Kjetil Horneland, CEO at Norwegian video solutions provider Sixty. “Imagine being close to a match in a sports event, no matter where you are, with almost no delay from the live experience, to it being available on your mobile device in a stadium or at home. Imagine richer content at your fingertips, where you actually influence the TV broadcast, more than just watching a static TV broadcast. At any time you could jump into a VR experience of it all. Imagine gaming, TV, social and data services all merging in one delivery, but in a form where you find it simple to use and that the experience is personalised to your preferences. Imagine being connected no matter where you go. This means getting more and richer digital services wherever you are, in the street, at an event or at home; the world will be seamlessly connected.” Horneland continues: “In the past decade we’ve seen an enormous shift in the industry when it comes to mobile networks, Internet access and the availability of streaming media services. Still, this is only the beginning. By 2021 the industry prediction is that around 85% of the world’s Internet traffic will be video. With more and more connected devices available, the network side needs to keep up to distribute these services effectively. The Internet was not really built to distribute these loads of data, and we are gradually seeing a shift of better network technology to serve our distribution and future of IoT.
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GENIUS INTERVIEW
James Dean
JAMES DEAN: “IT’S ALL TV TO THEM” Words by Neil Romanek
In our first Genius Interview with top talents in media tech, we talk with James Dean, managing director of the UK branch of ESL, the world’s biggest eSports league. Dean helped turn UK eSports into a national concern - now he’s taking it global FEED eSports hasn’t been around very long. What were you doing before it showed up? JAMES DEAN My background is in the geeky end of computing – which has always had a game element to it. When I was at the University of Birmingham, studying for a computer science degree, I got a part-time job writing at a computer magazine. It gave me an entry into the computing industry and opened up contacts with people I could speak
to and collaborate with on any aspect of computing – and that included gaming, of course. After I graduated, I got a job with a company that sold computers. I was building PCs and selling them – it was mainly through magazines, back then. I also launched a gaming brand within the company – the thing that was driving consumer sales of higher spec computers was gaming. So gaming started to look more like a career possibility, rather than just a personal interest.
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GENIUS INTERVIEW
James Dean
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OPINION
Over the top
CHOOSE NEW PLATFORMS, Words by Neal Romanek
DON’T CHASE THEM Each new connected device means a new set of deliverables for your company. When do you say NO?
he Consumer Electronics Show is one of the world’s biggest trade expos, showcasing everything from TVs to mobile devices to personal robots to UV sensors you stick on your thumbnail. The UK’s Digital Production Partnership (DPP) has been monitoring CES for some years now and sees the show as a significant bellwether of where the content industry is trending. Its latest analysis of CES underlines that the show is much more than just a venue for new TVs and mobile phones. CES is becoming the place where the consumer gets crazy new ideas about where and how they want to experience their content next. The new DPP report highlighted voice integration as the biggest game changer at this year’s show. And if it takes off, voice interaction will be a radically new element added to the content experience. Voice integration is going to mean more than telling Alexa to find the 1984 version of Red Dawn in HD. Eventually, it will mean the production of content which will require an ongoing voice component. User voice data will be incorporated as a separate element in everything from audience analytics to writing. New voice services might include content providers gathering audience attitude based on verbal comments and feedback (‘Our home voice data says the most verbally abused player in tonight’s match was…’), or playing along with a quiz show in real time, or being able to comment on social networks without having to look down at a device. The age old pastime of shouting at the TV will finally yield tangible results. The adoption of each new integrated and networked consumer technology presents a challenge to content producers. New technologies change the way the audiences interact with content, which
THE TAIL HAS BEGUN TO WAG THE DOG then influences the style of the content itself, and in turn further disrupts how content is monetised and inspires new advertising models. And the new consumer technologies are coming faster and faster. Content providers no longer have the leverage they once had in dictating the platforms audiences use. The tail has begun to wag the dog. It’s a peer-to-peer media world with consumers distributing and forwarding content from their devices, and demanding, as a right, the opportunity to comment and feed back to content owners. Even the biggest media company ends up being one more peer among many with content providers now in direct competition with their audience for those valuable minutes of attention. The industry finds itself in the same position as a car manufacturer who has discovered that his consumers actually want motorcycles this year. Then camels. Then jetpacks. The car maker realises he’s no longer in the car business. He’s maybe in the transport business, but he has no
idea what conveyances his customers will be demanding next. This puts big content producers – TV networks, news organisations, movie studios – in the position of trying to deliver everything everywhere, knowing that each year another technology is going to show up that will further extend the list of deliverables. There is a handful of companies with the resources to pull off this ubiquitous content delivery, but most of us eventually have to make a choice. As SimpleStream’s Dan Finch points out in this month’s Your Take (p.10), in the crowded OTT video marketplace it’s niche providers who are finding success. Delivering specific content to a specific audience can be a winning strategy. Applying this selectivity to the tech platforms we use is not a bad strategy. Blindly chasing the next technology is a sure way to burn yourself out – and potentially bankrupt your business. Gather knowledge about your core audience, and incorporate their habits into your strategy. But it’s a partnership you want with them. Adopt new technologies they are using, but only if they are a clear boost for your own specialty. So many companies have wasted time chasing new tech, when they might have better spent that energy developing and innovating in the technologies where they really shine. New technologies should, be a means to expand your company’s vision, not just another set of audiences to chase. Could voice interaction create a whole new layer to your business plans? Could it make your existing services more exciting and useful? Great, then look into it. New technologies get our imaginations going, they suggest new paths our businesses might take. But before you approve that purchase, remember the most important rule in Las Vegas: Know when to get up and walk away.
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