Content+Technology Asia - March-April 2018

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Sportscasting page 20 REGULARS 02 EDITOR’S WELCOME 48 DATES & DEADLINES

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FEATURES 03 NEWS SKY Cable Philippines Selects Calix

AXOS Platform, Limelight and Tencent to Provide Content Delivery, Nexmedia Indonesia Expands with PlayBox, iflix Streams 10 Billion Minutes, Singtel Reaches Gigabit Speeds with Ericsson, AsiaSat Grows Broadcast Portfolio, VTVcab Vietnam Goes Live with Vizrt, Etere Delivers MAM to VTV24.

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12 ABU DIGITAL BROADCASTING SYMPOSIUM PREVIEW 16 ACQUISITION Tokai University Builds 4K

Studio, Polar Explorers Capture Icy Wastes, Panavision Millennium DXL2 Camera, Blackmagic Introduces URSA Broadcast, ARRI Launches Large-Format Camera System.

20 SPORTSCASTING Winter Olympics, Gold

Coast Diaries, Shanghai Media Tech Upgrades with Grass Valley, HK Jockey Club Saddles Up with Riedel, Twitter Streams Live Martial Arts from Indonesia.

26 NEWS OPERATIONS TVK Cambodia

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CONTENT+TECHNOLOGY: ISSN 1448-9554 PP:255003/06831 Broadcastpapers Pty Ltd (ABN 34 095 653 277) PO Box 259, Darlinghurst, NSW 1300 Australia www.broadcastpapers.com PUBLISHER: Phil Sandberg Tel +61 (0)2 4368 4569 Mob +61 (0)414 671 811 papers@broadcastpapers.com

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28 MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Aspera World

Broadcasting Unions Release Cyber Security Recommendations, TMD & Mediaproxy Partner on Compliance, plus storage, storage, storage!

32 POST-PRODUCTION Mediacorp Audio

Post to Produce Sound FX for China’s First Animation Movie, Technicolor Leads Post Production Investment Down Under.

36 AUDIO CCTV Takes Lawo Route to IP-Based EFP, Second Calrec Artemis for FOX SPORTS Australia, Jünger Provides Digital Processing Backbone for China’s ZRTV, News from NAMM.

40 RADIO Stage Tec for Digital Studios at RTM

Malaysia, Soundfox to Distribute Digigram in South Korea, DVB-S/S2 IRD for Radio Networks, Frontier Digital Radio Sales Exceed 45 Million, Call for Receiver Legislation, Latest products.

44 CONTENT DELIVERY Mediaware: 20

Years of Living the Stream, Yospace and NexPlayer Help Monetise Live Streams, Ooyala Live Brings Reliability Closer to OTT, Latest in Playout & Signal Processing.

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EDITOR’S WELCOME

Too Much Choice?

By Phil Sandberg

FOR YEARS NOW, WE’VE BEEN TOLD that viewers want individually-tailored experiences, that they want to watch whatever they want whenever they want, that they want it on multiple devices. But, do they?

Ooyala recently released its ‘State of the Broadcast Industry 2018’ report, which maps out the challenges for content creators and distributors as they strive to maintain and grow audiences in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. The report, which draws on Ooyala’s own data and analysis as well as research conducted by other organisations, delves into consumers’ frustrations as they navigate a world in which there may be simply too many choices.

• Bundling – Skinny bundles are gaining traction. Look for more bundling experiments in 2018.

At the same time, mobile viewing will continue to explode: surveys predict that mobile video viewing will account for 75 percent of mobile data traffic by 2022, per Ericsson.

The Ooyala report identifies several areas of focus by content distributors as they seek to attract and maintain share of view. These include: • Format experimentation – Content delivery services are experimenting with formats, such as vertical video or mobile-specific content series, to optimise the TV anywhere viewing experience.

• Original Content – Though some viewers are saying “too much content,” creators are attracting viewers with a combination of originals and exclusives, the budgets for which will continue to soar. Consequently, distributors will have less patience for the time it has traditionally taken to build audiences and may be quick to cancel shows.

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In the longer term, however, it is consolidation that will come into play where even Netflix should worry about the likes of Amazon. The retailing/streaming/ web hosting giant has the ultimate virtuous circle of audience metrics. Time will tell. But, if you can sell the book, commission the series and gather data from viewing habits, you are already ahead of the pack.

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And yet amid all this abundance, Millennials also indicate they are not completely satisfied with their current OTT services. Consumer frustration, Ooyala predicts, will drive improvements in the OTT experience: streamlined authentication, better content curation, personalisation and easier search and discovery.

• IP technology – Traditional television companies – broadcasters and cable programmers alike – are going all-in on IP technology, focusing on the related metadata which providers believe will drive critical advances in every area of video delivery.

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Research underscores that viewers are embracing content anywhere, on any device. However, it also indicates that Millennials, arguably the key demographic for streaming services, are already overwhelmed with the plethora of options – estimated by Park Associates to include more than 200 OTT services in North America alone are in operation; 49 percent of viewers saying there are now too many TV programs from which to choose, according to Hub Entertainment.

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• Social media – Major social-media platforms, including Facebook (with an estimated $1 billion content spend next year), Twitter and Snapchat – all grasping the growing role of video online – are jumping into the streaming pool with big investments in long- and short-form video.

Of course, consolidation continues among content technology providers with the news that Snell Advanced Media (SAM) is to be merged with Grass Valley flowing its purchase by GV parent company Belden. While details are still emerging, it is another example of rationalisation that will, no doubt, continue into the future.

Thanks for reading Phil Sandberg – Editor/Publisher papers@broadcastpapers.com +61(0)414 671 811

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NEWS + PEOPLE For the latest news visit www.content-technology.com

SKY Cable Philippines Selects Calix AXOS Platform CALIX, INC. HAS ANNOUNCED that SKY Cable Corporation, the largest cable operator in the Philippines, will leverage end-to-end solutions from Calix to drive an expansive network transformation to fiber. With plans to serve the greater metropolitan areas of Manila and Rizal, as well as the regions of Cavite and Laguna, SKY Cable has selected the AXOS E3-2 Intelligent PON Node to transition from its traditional cable plant to an agile, always on, software defined network. Through the assistance of Calix Channel Partner Twoway Communications (ACI Communications), SKY Cable will also deploy AXOS DPx, the industry’s first virtualised DOCSIS connector, and Calix Wi-Fi enabled GigaHubs at subscribers’ homes and businesses.

said, “As we partner with Calix to move to an FTTH infrastructure and lay the foundation for the virtualised networks of the future, that tradition continues.

With Calix AXOS solutions at the heart of our network, we will be able to roll out new services faster than ever before and deliver our subscribers a quality of experience like no other.”

Solito G. Mapolon, Vice President of Network Engineering for SKY Cable,

Visit www.calix.com

Purpose-built for the unique needs of cable operators, Calix AXOS software defined PON leaps beyond a simple fiber deep architecture to a full, agile FTTH solution. AXOS E3-2 Intelligent PON Nodes provide SKY Cable with extraordinary deployment flexibility, including the ability to be mounted virtually anywhere to deliver services to subscribers in accelerated timeframes.

Limelight and Tencent to Provide Content Delivery LIMELIGHT NETWORKS, INC., a specialist in digital content delivery, and Tencent Cloud have announced an agreement that expands access to each company’s services. Under terms of the agreement, Limelight will offer its customers Content Delivery Network (CDN) services in China through Tencent Cloud. Tencent Cloud will offer CDN services from Limelight to Tencent Cloud customers in North America and other global markets.

quality, bandwidth, reach and security of our global private network delivers

Tencent Cloud provides global access and an array of services to organisations which need advanced infrastructure and a resilient environment, such as gaming, video, live broadcast, and finance companies.

Limelight has a global footprint and a combination of private infrastructure, advanced software, and expert services.

market and for Chinese businesses to have access to global consumers.

Ersin Galioglu, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Limelight Networks.

“China is experiencing digital adoption at an accelerating pace, and there’s a unique opportunity for global businesses to access the Chinese Together, Limelight and Tencent will work to address this opportunity.

This collaboration brings unique expertise and capabilities to businesses worldwide that want and need to deliver digital content from anywhere, to anyone, in milliseconds.”

Visit www.limelight.com

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www. i dea l s y s . c om

NEWS + PEOPLE

“Limelight is one of the largest global content delivery networks in the world, and this agreement will further extend our reach into China. The

high-quality digital experiences that audiences demand worldwide,” said

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NEWS + PEOPLE Nexmedia Indonesia Expands with PlayBox PLAYBOX TECHNOLOGY RECENTLY ANNOUNCED the completion of a playout system upgrade at the Nexmedia broadcast production centre in Jakarta.

The project includes the renewal of existing PlayBox Technology main and backup channel-in-a-box servers, now replaced with a new system based on AirBox Neo, plus additional Neo systems to accommodate new on-air channels.

“AirBox Neo fits very well into our workflow which is fully tapeless from content acquisition and production to post and playout,” commented Nexmedia’s NOC Coordinator, Rusdi Suhendy. “The earlier AirBox installation has worked extremely well for many years and we were keen to install latest-generation servers before the older hardware reached the end of its safe life. The new system includes 3+1 redundancy and provides automated control of our router.

It is being used for title preparation, scheduling and playout of our main channel plus the newly introduced Nex Entertain, Nex Drama and the Horee! children’s channel.”

“We have supplied Dell servers running AirBox Neo playout and TitleBox Neo graphics preparation together with SafeBox pre-playout programme storage management,” says PlayBox Technology APAC Project Manager Dandy Kurniawan. “These are integrated into the apparatus room at Nexmedia’s studios in the SCTV tower at Jakarta’s Senayan City. We have also performed operational and technical training for the Nexmedia team and are available to assist with onsite or online technical maintenance if or when that is requested.”

“Nexmedia is one of the APAC region’s great success stories,” added PlayBox Technology CEO, Pavlin Rahnev. “Their new highly focused channels set an excellent example of how the AirBox Neo product series allows broadcasters to cater for specific audience groups efficiently and affordably. This installation demonstrates very clearly the ease with which AirBox Neo systems can be scaled to broadcast workflows of any size and any required level of creative freedom. Reliable roundthe-clock automated operation with the option of adding live inserts at any time has proved a winning combination for many of our customers.”

Introduced in 2016, AirBox Neo adds UHD capabilities to the core PlayBox Technology content playout system which now supports UHD, HD and SD in single server. New features include a streaming input supporting HTTP, HTTP Secure, UDP, RTMP, MMS, MMSH and YouTube. RTMP Streaming Output improvements have also been added, allowing easy web streaming. AirBox Neo comes with a virtual output which now supports multiple instances. Third-party product support has been extended to Ross NK series routers and the Horita TR-100 timecode reader. Timecode can now be applied to MOV files. Multiple DeckLink cards can now be used for multi-channel ad insertion. Enhancements have also been made to the clip trimmer and audio level control. AirBox Neo is designed for 24/7 unattended operation. It can also be operated manually, including the ability to handle live-to-air throughput.

Visit www.nexmedia.co.id and https://playboxtechnology.com

Singtel, Ericsson Reach Gigabit Speeds in LAA Trial SINGTEL AND ERICSSON recently achieved an Asia-Pacific first in wireless technology by delivering a peak speed of 1.1 Gbps in a joint trial of a new configuration of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology.

experience, especially in high traffic indoor environments such as shopping malls. Following this successful trial, Singtel will explore the feasibility to deploy the technology on its network.

Conducted in a Singtel laboratory, the trial delivered speeds that breached the 1 Gbps barrier by combining several key LTE technologies including 256 QAM, 4×4 MIMO, and aggregating two licensed and three unlicensed spectrum bands on a TM500 Test System device.

Martin Wiktorin, Head for Ericsson Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines, said, “Licensed Assisted Access took wireless technology to a whole new level, delivering the increased capacity and faster speeds that operators demand as they evolve their networks. This trial is a significant milestone in the use of LAA, pushing the limits of Gigabit LTE in a unique configuration of advanced technologies.”

Mark Chong, Singtel’s Group Chief Technology Officer said, “We are very encouraged by this breakthrough in peak speeds. In Singapore, a large percentage of mobile traffic is generated indoors with more mobile customers browsing the web, streaming video and accessing cloud applications on the go. We are now in a position to deploy LAA technology to boost our LTE mobile capacity to meet increasing traffic demand. This will allow us to deliver a faster and more reliable mobile connectivity experience even during peak periods.”

The 12-layered LAA configuration used in the trial will provide two to three times faster than prevailing peak LTE speeds, resulting in enhanced user

This latest breakthrough extends the partnership of Singtel and Ericsson in 4.5G LTE and trialling 5G in Singapore. In 2017, high download speeds of up to 800Mbps were achieved on Singtel’s high-performance LTE network by deploying 256 QAM downlink, 4×4 MIMO and triple carrier aggregation techniques. In October 2017, the partners jointly established a 5G Centre of Excellence to facilitate 5G development in Singapore.

Visit www.singtel.com and www.ericsson.com

iflix Streams 10 Billion Minutes in 2017

NEWS + PEOPLE

STREAMING SERVICE IFLIX says 10 billion minutes streamed across its platform in 2017. The achievement, equivalent to more than 19,000 years of content streamed, marks an incredible uptake in user engagement, with cumulative viewing minutes up well over 400 percent from three billion total minutes streamed at the end of 2016. iflix also maintains one of the highest active mobile viewing durations of any service globally, with an average of 2.52.75 hours per session.

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The company has been actively pursuing a localised content strategy focusing on first-run local movies direct from cinema and a slate of original programming. To date, iflix has commissioned more than 10 Original exclusive projects, including a no-holds-barred stand-up comedy series in Malaysia (Oi! Jaga Mulut), the Phillippines (Hoy! Bibig Mo) and Indonesia (Oi! Jaga Lambe), Indonesian feature film Filosofi Kopi 2: Ben and Jody, its first original Indonesian

drama series Magic Hour: The Series, its first Malaysian drama series, KL Gangster: Underworld, as well as feature film marking the Philippines’ own Queen of All Media, Kris Aquino return to the screen, slated for 2018. The Company’s first Middle East and North Africa (MENA) foray in Originals, Waklinha Walaa, a 60-episode Egyptian TV series, was recently named OTT Production of the Year at the prestigious Broadcast PRO ME Awards 2017.

The iflix app also recently surpassed 12 million downloads from Google Play and Apple iOS stores. The company further announced upgrades to its app performance and functionality, with breakthrough personalisation features and new branded and genre-based Channels, in addition to allowing users to follow celebrity curated Playlists.

Visit www.iflix.com

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NEWS + PEOPLE

ASIAPACIFIC NEWS CHINA ARTS ALLIANCE MEDIA (AAM), together with Chinese reseller Beijing Cserv, recently announced that Jackie Chan Cinemas is centralising its operations using AAM’s enterprise Theatre Management System (TMS), known as Producer.

Jackie Chan Cinemas has expanded in China, from just over 200 screens in 2015 to over 600.

Producer empowers JCC’s head-office in Beijing to automate playlist and schedule building, playback, and KDM delivery, for all of its screens across China.

Visit www.artsalliancemedia.com

AFGHANISTAN INTERNET, VOICE, AND VIDEO SERVICES provider Talia has purchased an additional Newtec Dialog platform to provide Ka-band High Throughput Satellite (HTS) services to Afghanistan and Iraq. The additions will provide access to multiple transponders on Arabsat’s 5C Ka-band satellite, located at 20° East. Talia operates VSAT and terrestrial services to the African and Middle Eastern regions with sales and support through local offices in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Visit www.talia.net and www.newtec.eu

INDIA TATA SKY will implement Irdeto’s Cloaked CA and Middleware to deliver an improved customer experience while ensuring that its content remains secure. Tata Sky also recently selected Irdeto to enhance its end-to-end solution for OTT services.

Visit www.irdeto.com

SINGAPORE SINGAPORE’S INFOCOMM Media Development Authority has launched a public consultation to seek views on its proposed framework for the Telecommunication and Subscription TV Mediation-Adjudication Scheme.

The Scheme aims to provide an alternative avenue for consumers and small businesses to resolve disputes with telecommunication and media service providers (excluding OTT platform services such as Mediacorp’s Toggle), while incentivising faster resolution by the service providers.

NEWS + PEOPLE

Visit www.imda.gov.sg

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JAPAN VIACOM INTERNATIONAL MEDIA NETWORKS (VIMN) the International division of Viacom, the network that oversees key Viacom brands including MTV, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount, VIVA and Nickelodeon, recently chose Etere MAM for its facilities at Viacom Tokyo International. The installation incorporates a customisable GUI that supports the Japanese language to cater to local users.

Visit www.etere.com

HONG KONG FOLLOWING HONG KONG CUSTOMS’ successful raid on suppliers of an illegal TV box service, one box reseller was convicted of copyright and conspiracy to defraud offences and given a jail sentence of 21 months. Two persons, found to be re-transmitting illegal broadcasts of TV channels, were also given jail sentences of 21 and 27 months respectively.

The ISDs, branded as the Maige TV Box, provided illegal access to hundreds of live TV channels and movies, including channels belonging to PCCW, TVB, BBC, HBO, NBA and many other international channels.

Visit www.casbaa.com

AUSTRALIA AN INVESTIGATION BY Australia’s Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and CASBAA’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) has seen the closure of a large supplier of IPTV settop boxes pre-loaded to play pirated movies, television, sports programming, and other content.

The Melbourne-based company had been selling the piracy devices in Asia which contained pre-loaded apps enabling access to content belonging to ACE and CASBAA/CAP member companies. Steps were also taken to prevent customers who had already purchased the devices from accessing ACE and CASBAA/ CAP member company programming in the future.

Visit www.casbaa.com

INDONESIA

Visit playboxtechnology.com and www.emtek.co.id

NEW ZEALAND TE SUBCOM’S HAWAIKI transpacific cable system is on track for launch in June 2018 with marine activities having begun for the New Zealand leg of the system. The operation will include a landing of the Hawaiki cable in Mangawhai Heads on NZ’s North island.

Adding more than 43TB of new capacity to the market, Hawaiki will link Australia and New Zealand to the mainland United States, as well as Hawaii and American Samoa, with options to expand to additional South Pacific islands. Cable landings in Pacific City, Oregon; Oahu, Hawaii; and Sydney, Australia have been successfully completed. Cable landing in American Samoa is scheduled in March 2018.

Visit www.hawaikicable.co.nz

NEWS + PEOPLE

INDONESIAN MEDIA GROUP Elang Mahkota Teknologi (Emtek) has chosen PlayBox Technology Neo and CaptureBox Neo servers as the core of a major upgrade to the broadcast playout system for its Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV), Indosiar Visual Mandiri (Indosiar) and ‘O’ channels in Jakarta, along with regional studios across the country. The installation provides the ability to handle multiple timezone broadcasting. System design, integration and onsite training were provided by PlayBox partner, Citra Info Mediatech.

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NEWS + PEOPLE VTVcab Vietnam Goes Live with Vizrt Media Workflow THE VIETNAM CABLE TELEVISION CORPORATION (VTVcab) has begun operation of advanced production systems featuring Vizrt’s complete media solutions.

Vizrt is the developer of advanced real-time 3D graphics, automation, sports analysis, and asset management for the digital media industry.

The solutions provided

by Vizrt to VTVcab are software-based and manage all production workflows for pre-production, postproduction, editing, approval and final distribution. The worfkflows shorten production processes, saving time and human resources.

The solutions from Vizrt include: Media asset management (MAM), newsroom systems, design and control of 3D graphics, and studio automation. The technology being implemented represents the most advanced systems used by major broadcasters and media companies around the world.

A key feature of the system is a virtual set with augmented reality (AR) capabilities, and a physical studio with AR. Both studios will be controlled using the Viz Opus compact control room, which features automation, graphics, and video controls all in a single system. This new approach to studio production future-proofs VTVcab’s news broadcasting capabilities, allowing it to be able to

bring information to its audience faster and with stunning visuals to make any story easy to understand.

VTVcab will gradually apply this technology to sports news and analysis shows on TV Channel, Football TV, and Sports News HD. Entertainment, cultural programs, and other programmes will also benefit from the production solutions.

The solutions VTVcab are putting in place also take into consideration the strength of social media in the Vietnam market, the growth online video services, the rapid increase of the number of mobile devices, and the trend of using online video services over internet-connected devices. The automated technology application program allows VTVcab to supply the fastest VOD service in the country, and actively produce quality programs that are distributed to multiple platforms, reaching their audience no matter how they prefer to consume content.

Part of the initiative between VTVcab and Vizrt is the creation of a media training center. The training center will utilize Vizrt’s tools to train the next generation of journalists and media professionals in modern storytelling techniques that can reach every part of Vietnam.

Visit www.vizrt.com

Etere Delivers MAM to VTV24 VIETNAM’S VTV24 International News Channel has selected Etere Media Asset Management (MAM) for the complete management of its news archives. The Hanoi-based TV station broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Etere MAM streamlines the process of ingest, indexing and retrieval of news archives at VTV24. It is an IT-based solution that is designed to optimise the value of digital assets with total workflow orchestration across all departments, including newsroom, ingest, content retrieval and metadata association. With Etere MAM, operators are able to automate, monitor and plan tasks across the complete workflow from a centralised database, leading to greater collaborations, lower costs, higher efficiency, faster content retrievals and deliveries.

Etereweb and Etere Transcoder facilitate the transmission of information across all departments of VTV24, promoting a collaborative workflow and real-time sharing of information throughout the company.

With its 24/7 playlist, VTV24 leverages the flexibility of Etere solutions to manage its high volume of news archives in multiple formats and across multiple platforms. This includes Etereweb, an intuitive web-based software

that helps users to access real-time information and manage operations with a web browser. With Etereweb, users are able to perform tasks and manage information beyond the office environment and from any location with an internet connection. It supports all the main features of the desktop edition with a mobile-friendly and cloud-ready interface. Etereweb offers information exchange between both internal and external departments including staff, systems, customers, suppliers and production managers.

Etereweb also ensures that journalists will be able to access their files instantly while on the move.

VTV24 is also equipped with Etere Transcoder software based on the FFMPEG conversion tool that is able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux and filter almost any media. used in the broadcast industry. Etere is cloud-compatible and its users are able to select the cloud-device paths that they require.

VTV24 is also equipped with Etere MAM-NLE integration for Avid, with connectivity to the Avid editing system for collaborative workflows and a seamless production.

Visit www.etere.com

NEWS + PEOPLE

Celestial Tiger Launches KIX in Vietnam

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CELESTIAL TIGER ENTERTAINMENT (CTE), operator of pan-Asian channels dedicated to Asian entertainment, recently announced the launch of its action entertainment channel, KIX on Vietnam’s IPTV service, FPT Television, owned

by FPT Telecom. This carriage deal further expands CTE’s reach in Southeast Asia, following its recent new deals in Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia. The new carriage deal is handled by CTE’s Vietnam sales representative, Thaole Entertainment.

“We are so excited that the momentum of CTE’s expansion across Southeast Asia keeps building,” said Todd Miller, Chief Executive Officer, Celestial Tiger Entertainment. “KIX is a top performing channel in Southeast Asia and we

delighted to share our unique blend of action entertainment with viewers in Vietnam.”

Localised with Vietnamese subtitles, KIX offers a slate of high-octane blend of combat sports, action series and action movies. In February, action fans in Vietnam can watch first and exclusive combat sport events such as Road FC, Kunlun Fight MMA, action reality shows such as Escape and Steve Austin Broken Skull Challenge Season 5, as well as action movies such as Jackie Chan’s Movie Marathon.

KIX (Ch. 54) will be included in FPT Television’s digital basic pack.

Visit http://celestialtiger.com

AsiaSat Grows Broadcast Product Portfolio ASIA SATELLITE TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY has broadened its satellite and media solutions with the addition of IP-based delivery solutions and OTT service. AsiaSat recognises the demand for next generation distribution of broadcast content, and evaluated new distribution technologies throughout 2017.

The proliferation of online content and the traditional paradigm of using a large TV set is now being augmented with portable devices. Viewers are now able to watch content when they want and where they want quickly and easily – ‘Content Anytime, Anywhere’.

AsiaSat says it is ready to deliver video content through its new IP platform, defined as a hybrid solution combining satellite and IP-based solutions.

Satellite delivery is in the heart of AsiaSat’s media solutions. The hybrid nature of the product opens business opportunities to rural areas for village Wi-Fi, communities (bars, schools, airports, etc.) or mobility services (maritime, inflight connectivity) allowing AsiaSat’s customers to benefit from ready-to-use solutions.

These solutions are managed and supported by AsiaSat’s Tai Po teleport infrastructure in Hong Kong, with 24/7 monitoring from AsiaSat’s Customer Network Centre.

and connected devices has rapidly changed consumers’ content viewing habits.

It is important for us to evolve our service offerings swiftly in this very dynamic and fast paced market, to help our customers reach their audience instantly and cost efficiently,” said Barrie Woolston, Chief Commercial Officer of AsiaSat. The move follows the successful launch of AsiaSat 9 which is now fully operational at 122 degrees East following successful migration of all services from AsiaSat 4, delivering enhanced power, greater bandwidth and improved efficiency to customers for advanced DTH, TV distribution, VSAT broadband and mobility services across the Asia-Pacific.

The new AsiaSat 9 features significant upgrades, including Asia’s highest powered 110 watt C-band amplifiers, special filter design, star tracker and hall-effect thrusters that generate higher efficiency, enhanced stability and reliability in network operations. In addition, AsiaSat 9’s three new Ku-band Myanmar, Indonesia and Mongolia beams, and two enhanced Ku-band beams serving Australasia and East Asia provide high downlink power up to 55dBW that allows use of small antennas for more cost effective roll out of customers’ networks.

“The increase in online content and the easy access to video content via mobile

Visit www.asiasat.com

Big Data Award for Mediacorp Content Analytics Solution MEDIACORP’S CONTENT ANALYTICS solution, RIPPLE, recently came away a big winner at the inaugural BIGGIES Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Awards held in Hong Kong, winning two First Prizes and the overall Best of Show accolade.

Organised by World Newsmedia Network, the first BIGGIES awards recognise media companies’ best practices in Big Data and AI products and strategies in Asia-Pacific and attracted entries from over 11 companies across seven countries. The awards ceremony was one of the sixth annual Big Data & AI for Media Week events in Hong Kong and Beijing.

RIPPLE clinched the top positions for Excellence in Data Analytics and Excellence in Data-Driven Business Process Efficiency within the Group A category: English-language media that circulate/broadcast in three or more countries in Asia-Pacific. It also won the Best of Show accolade, presented to the best data-driven project, product or process of the BIGGIES Awards.

RIPPLE started out as a bespoke analytics solution for Mediacorp’s newsroom, but has now evolved into a comprehensive content insights hub for all Mediacorp’s digital content.

Designed to bridge insight gaps in off-the-shelf enterprise analytics tools, RIPPLE (Real-time Interest, Participation and Popularity Learning Engine)

was developed with the goal of marrying the best of descriptive web analytics and data science predictive capabilities to provide actionable content insights faster. For example, RIPPLE enables a more holistic view of audience behaviours and consumption patterns by integrating content characteristics from audience profiles, engagement levels to trending themes and performance predictions.

The company says that the one-stop content insights platform has significantly lifted business efficiency at Mediacorp. Aggregated content insights, previously resource-intensive to prepare from disparate data sources, are now readily available 24/7 across all mobile devices and through periodic business alerts.

Mediacorp established its Consumer Insights and Analytics unit in 2014 to accelerate capabilities in harnessing rich consumer data across its media platforms for the company and its clients to make more data-driven decisions. The centralised unit brings together different analytical disciplines such as consumer research, marketing science, digital analytics, loyalty and data science, to help drive greater data synergy. Mediacorp also owns MRC, an ISO-certified full-service consumer research consultancy with nearly 30 years of proven local expertise with blue-chip brands.

Visit www.mediacorp.com.sg

Streamline your broadcast workflow IHSE GmbH Asia Pacific Pte Ltd 158 Kallang Way  #07-13A Singapore 349245

IHSE USA LLC 1 Corporate Drive Cranbury, NJ 08512  USA

ihse.com  info@ihse.com

NEWS + PEOPLE

IHSE GmbH - Headquarters Maybachstrasse 11 88094 Oberteuringen  Germany

Draco tera KVM switches connect operators to vital production equipment with no transmission delay or picture degradation.

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NEWS + PEOPLE Kim Named MD for Globecast Asia GLOBECAST, THE GLOBAL SOLUTIONS provider for media, has appointed Jimmy Kim as Managing Director of Globecast in Asia.

Kim brings a wealth of industry knowledge and leadership skills to his new role, with more than 20 years’ experience in the technology and media business. He joins Globecast from MNC Media, where he held the title of Senior Vice President and was responsible for content acquisition and distribution, channel operation and licensing and merchandising. Prior to that he held several high-level positions at prominent organizations such as Ustream Korea, Viacom International Media

Networks, and Bloomberg TV Asia Pacific.

Kim commented, “Globecast has a strong track record of offering high-caliber media services across Asia and as the industry evolves – virtualisation and cloud playout being two key areas – we will keep tailoring these new offerings for Asian markets. I’m delighted to become part of such a forward-thinking team and to be forging on with the business across Asia through the next stage of its development.”

Kim is based in Singapore and reports directly to CEO Philippe Bernard. He also sits on the Globecast Executive Committee.

Visit www.globecast.com

Niam Chiang Meng New Chair of Mediacorp SINGAPORE BROADCASTER MEDIACORP has announced the appointment of Mr Niam Chiang Meng as Chairman with effect from 21 April 2018. Mr Niam, 59, was appointed as a director of the Mediacorp Board in November 2016. He chairs the company’s Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) Board Committee and is a member of its Executive Committee and its Nomination and Remuneration Committee.

Besides serving on the Mediacorp Board, Mr Niam is Chairman of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and Board Member of Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore.

Before this, he was Chairman of the then-Media Development Authority from

2011 to 2016. He held key positions over a long career in the civil service including Permanent Secretary (Information, Communications and the Arts) and Permanent Secretary (National Population and Talent Division), Prime Minister’s Office, before retiring in 2016.

Mr Niam Chiang Meng succeeds Ernest Wong, 72, who will complete his two-year term as Chair with the Mediacorp Board on 20 April 2018. During his term as Chairman, he was tasked to prepare the company for a digital future. A veteran banker, Mr Wong was United Overseas Bank Group President from 1990 to 2000 when he left to join Mediacorp as its Group CEO, a role he held for five years.

Visit www.mediacorp.com.sg

TVT Appoints Ho VP of Sales TVT HAS ANNOUNCED that it has appointed Jason Ho as its Vice President of Sales in Asia. In the newly created role, Ho will take responsibility for TVT’s pan-Asian sales portfolio, and continue to drive the company’s business development across the region.

Ho joins the TVT team from Globecast, where for the past six years he held a variety of roles, including Vice President Sales – Head of Media and Broadcast Services, a role in which he was instrumental in driving business development with key traditional broadcast, teclo, IPTV and new media

clients. Alongside his experience at Globecast, Ho has held several sales management positions with leading broadcast and telecommunications companies, such as Comtech, Newtec and Singtel.

Alongside headquarters in London and operations in Amsterdam and Krakow, TVT has an extensive presence across the Asia-Pacific region, with offices in Tokyo, Sydney and Singapore – where Ho will be based.

Visit www.tvt.biz

R&S Appoints Yew-jin Cheong ROHDE AND SCHWARZ has announced the appointment of Yew-jin Cheong as the Director of Broadcast and Media to focus on its file-based media, encoding and multiplexing as well as monitoring and multiviewer solutions in the Asia Pacific region.

With over 18 years of technical and commercial experience in broadcast and media throughout its value chain, from content production, aggregation, delivery to monetisation, Yew-jin will be responsible for driving this business in the region.

with Avid Technology, covering a broad spectrum of roles including business development, pre-sales, sales, professional services, solutions development and product marketing. He also held various leadership positions within Avid, including the role of Country Manager for Southeast Asia in 2013 and Director of Pre-sales for Asia Pacific.

Prior to joining Rohde and Schwarz, Yew-jin spent 16 years

Visit www.rohde-schwarz.com

On the Move NIDHI BHADRISH has started a new position as Global Services Marketing Lead at Prime Focus Technologies. She was previously Business Manager (Asia Pacific) at Prime Focus Technologies.

NEWS + PEOPLE

RICHARD CURRIE has started a new position as Production Coordinator at Cambodian Productions.

He was previously Production Manager and Location Scout at IKON Media.

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JASON SIBAL has started a new position as System Sales Specialist at Broadcast Solutions GmbH. He was previously Engineering Manager at Elevate Broadcast Pte Ltd. ANDIKA FIRMANSYAH has started a new position

Yew-jin graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Science degree with honours in communications, majoring in motion picture and video studies.

as Cameraman at Sports Channel Indonesia. He was previously Video Content at Qureta.

TAMIM TALUKDER has started a new position as Engineer of Broadcast Operation and Engineering at Maasranga Television. He was previously a Junior Engineer with the company STEVEN SANTILLAN has started a new position as Regional Sales Manager - Southeast Asia at Dejero.

He was previously Product Marketing Officer at Solid Video Corporation.

ERVIN CHAN has started a new position as Vice President Asia Pacific & Japan at Conviva. He was previously Vice President South East Asia & India at Ooyala.

CHANON VILAIYUK has started a new position as

Pipeline Supervisor at Riff Animation Studio. He was previously Pipeline Supervisor at Picture This Studio.

NAVIN HARBOLA has started a new position as Sr. Vice President - Sales and Business Development at RidgeLinks Pvt Ltd. He was previously Vice President - Technology at Castle Media Private Limited.

JAVED MUSA has started a new position as Postproducer/Editor at Primeworks Studios Sdn. Bhd. He was previously Post-Production Producer/Editor at Mediacorp Pte Ltd. JULIUS SANTUA has started a new position as Deputy Customer Support Manager, APAC at Dalet Digital Media Systems. He was previously a System Support Engineer with Dalet.

ENHANCING MULTIPLATFORM CONTENT 5-8 MARCH 2018 KUALA LUMPUR

JOIN THE DBS

MASTERCLASSES

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DBS2018 will feature strategic and technical presentations by industry experts on advanced technologies and creative techniques used in developing truly compelling and engaging content for the multiplatform audiences.

• Lighting techniques, makeup and set-design for HD and UHD Productions • Podcasting and creating content for online delivery • First steps to VR and AR content creation • Production strategies for cross-platform content

REGISTER NOW!

www.abu.org.my/dbsymposium

NEWS + PEOPLE

• Technologies for enhancing the cross-platform experiences • Effective business strategies to monetise your content • Learn how to maximise production value while minimising cost • Securing your systems and your valuable content • Creating content to utilise technologies like VR and AR

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PREVIEW Enhancing Multiplatform Content at ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium Scheduled for 5-8 March at the Royale Chulan Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, this year’s Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Digital Broadcasting Symposium features the theme of “Enhancing Multiplatform Content”.

The ABU-DBS comprises a Pre-Conference Workshop Day on Monday 5 March, a three-day conference and exhibition from 6-8 March, as well as workshops and masterclasses held in parallel with the conference.

opportunity to learn and understand more about the application and implementation of specific technologies and how best to use them in a given environment.

The Pre-Conference Workshop features sessions held by the International Association of Broadcast Manufacturers (IABM), DVB and WorldDAB.

• Dr Javad Mottaghi, Secretary-General, ABU

The three-day DBS Conference sessions will focus on how the industry is developing and what new technologies and solutions are currently available and can be anticipated in the near future. It also shares experiences and expert views on how available technologies and solutions are effectively deployed by other organisations.

The accompanying exhibition will showcase the latest technologies and solutions from industry-leading manufacturers and solution providers. It provides the opportunity to work and experience with new equipment, explore its features and the chance to discuss with the relevant experts.

ABU 2018 PREVIEW

Focused workshops presented by manufacturers, experts and solution providers will allow a great

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Speakers will include: • Joan Warner, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Radio Australia • Bernie O’Neill, Project Director, WorldDAB • Les Sabel, Founder, S-Comm Technologies • Johan Vanmarck, Managing Director, MEDIAGENIX Asia • Michel Beke, SVP Product Strategy, MEDIAGENIX • Charles Sevior, CTO (APJ) Dell EMC | Data Lake Scale Out Storage • Cheong Yew-jin, Director, Broadcast & Media, Asia Pacific, Rohde & Schwarz

• Jon Flay, Managing Director, Megahertz • Ruxandra Obreja, Chairman, DRM • Markus Fritz, Executive Vice President of Commercial Development & Strategic Partnerships, Eutelsat • Colin Prior, Asia Pacific Sales Manager, Enensys Technologies • Dr Peter Siebert, Executive Director, DVB Project Office • Oliver Linow, Deutsche Welle Distribution Department, Bonn • Power Pan, Director of Marketing, APT Satellite Company Ltd • Aale Raza, Director, Whiteways Systems Pte Ltd • Salar Shahna, Creative Director and CEO, World VR Forum

• Jason Power, Senior Director, Commercial Partnerships and Standards, Dolby

• Delphine Seitiee, Executive Director and COO, World VR Forum

• Jayant Shah, Director, Apps and Solutions Engineering, Dolby Laboratories

• Ellen Kuo, Head of Marketing and Partnerships, World VR Forum

Register at http://dbs.abu.org.my

ABU 2018 PREVIEW

WORLDDAB HAS ANNOUNCED the line-up of speakers and sessions for its popular Digital Radio Workshop, taking place in Kuala Lumpur on Monday 5 March at ABU’s 2018 Digital Broadcasting Symposium. With more and more broadcasters implementing DAB+ in the Asia Pacific, the workshop, titled “DAB+ in a multiplatform world,” will discuss how DAB+ can secure a strong future for radio.

Representatives from across Asia Pacific and Europe will share best practice and case studies on how broadcasters around the world are growing new audiences and planning for hybrid radio. Speakers in this year’s line-up include Dave Cameron, General Manager at Southern Cross Austereo in Melbourne, who will discuss how a large and successful commercial FM broadcaster has developed DAB+ and is using DAB+ to enhance and expand radio brands.

Additional speakers include Joan Warner, Vice-President and Asia Pacific Chair of WorldDAB and CEO of Commercial Radio Australia, Lindsay Cornell, Chair of the WorldDAB Technical Committee and Principal Systems Architect, BBC, Les Sabel from WorldDAB and Commercial Radio Australia, Bernie O’Neill, Project Director at WorldDAB, Ben Poor, Project Manager at the European Broadcasting Union, Nick Piggott, Project Director at RadioDNS and Jørn Jensen, Senior Advisor at NRK, who will present the latest statistics on how the switch from FM to DAB+ has affected radio listening habits in Norway.

“Last year’s workshop saw record attendance and we’re delighted to be running another session this year,” said Joan Warner of WorldDAB and Commercial Radio Australia. “We’ve seen a significant amount of progress in the last year and it’s an exciting time for the Asia Pacific region. There are now over 60 million DAB/DAB+ receivers sold around the world and more and more countries launching services and starting trials. Everyone interested in the future of radio should attend this workshop to find out how DAB+ can secure radio’s future in today’s multiplatform world.”

The second half of the workshop will feature three breakout sessions, during which participants can discuss key aspects of digital radio. Topics covered will include ASEAN Regulation and Policy, Planning for Rollout, Hybrid Infrastructure and Implementing Hybrid Workflows. The key discussion points and findings from each group will be published and shared with all participants.

The IP KVM People

WorldDAB is the principal sponsor of ABU DBS 2018 and DAB+ will feature highly throughout the main conference programme, with speakers discussing DAB+ technology enhancements, hybrid radio, spectrum efficiencies, opportunities for new content on DAB+, DAB+ digital infrastructure and cost savings.

WorldDAB will host a DAB+ pavilion featuring supply chain companies President and Asia Pacific Chair of WorldDAB and with a footprint in CEO of Commercial Radio Australia. the Asia Pacific, including Factum Radioscape, GatesAir, Paneda and RadioDNS. Delegates are encouraged to visit the pavilion and meet the experts who can provide information and advice on implementing DAB+ digital radio. The WorldDAB stand will also be showing a wide range of the home and automotive receivers on the market today.

The WorldDAB Workshop is free to attend and takes place on Monday 5 March 14:00 – 17:00.

Visit http://dbs.abu.org.my/

Zero U • Flexible • Scalable

Find out more at www.adder.com

ABU 2018 PREVIEW

DAB+ Centre Stage at ABU DBS 2018

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ABU 2018 PREVIEW

ABU 2018 Conference Schedule DAY 1 TUESDAY, 6 MARCH 09:00-09:30 Opening Session • Welcome Address: Dr Javad Mottaghi, Secretary-General, AsiaPacific Broadcasting Union • Industry Keynote – WorldDAB: Ms Joan Warner, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Radio Australia 09:30-10:30 Session 1: Technologies & Standards - What’s New? What’s Next?

Moderator: Mr. Masakazu IWAKI, Head of Human Interface Research Division, Science & Technology Research Laboratories, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, NHK • Dr Peter Siebert, Executive Director DVB • Advances in Digital Radio - Mr Lindsay Cornell, Principal Systems Architect, BBC • ISDB-T: Updates and New Developments - Mr Kenichi Murayama, Senior Research Engineer, Advanced Transmission Systems Research Division, Science & Technology Research Laboratories, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, NHK • Mr Jason Power, Senior Director, Commercial Partnerships and Standards, Dolby • ADINNO-SEEi.TV 4K Based US Hollywood Contents/Production/ OTT(IPTV) for Customized OEM/ODM Application: Enable Traditional Media with Latest Nuclear Weapon - Gordon Gu, CEO, Adinno Inc

16:15-17:30 Session 4: Media Management: Workflow Enhancements, Cloud and Contribution Systems Why Broadcasters Need to Think Content-Centric - Johan Vanmarke, Managing Director, MEDIAGENIX

DHD 52 Series Radio On Air Consoles, Zenon Media’s “All In One Radio Solution”, radio studio accessories by YellowTec, FOR.A’s “Video Broadcast Solution”, and professional studio monitoring by Adam Audio.

Seamless and Efficient Pan regional Multiformat and Multiscreen delivery - Markus Fritz, Executive Vice President, Commercial Development & Strategic Partnerships, Eutelsat

During the symposium, Stagetec’s technical and sales experts welcome

Cost-effective Ad Insertion and Satellite Distribution for DTT Networks - Colin Prior, APAC Sales Manager, ENENSYS Networks

ABU 2018 PREVIEW

As a One-Stop broadcasting solution provider cum training centre, Stagetec Asia is now opening registration for Dante Certification Training which is scheduled to be held from 13 to 14 March 2018 in Cyberjaya.

Come to booth No. 23 for further details and information.

Visit www.stagetecasia.com

11:15-13:00 Session 6: Next Generation Audio & Video – Enhancing the Audience Experience 14:00-15:30 Session 7: Enhancing Multiplatform Content 16:15-17:30 Session 8: Cyber and Content Security – Taking Action and Best Practices

Session 9: Media and the new Reality: VR, AR, MR, 360Video and other Trends

REGISTER AT abeshow.tv

AUGUST 7-9, Darling Island, Sydney.

The 2018 Exhibition, Conference and Workshops are the second to be held at Doltone House, Darling Island, Pyrmont, Sydney from August 7–9.

Hear from industry experts on hot topics such as IP production and delivery, 4K, HDR, HEVC, OTT, VR, cloud broadcasting and more.

See the latest solutions to empower production and delivery of your content.

Register now for updates & notifications on speakers and attendees.

11:30-13:00 Session 10: Industry Debate Panel

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any of your queries regarding the company’s product range and services.

A Comprehensive Content Delivery Solution - Power Pan, Director of Marketing, APT Satellite Company Ltd.

14:00-15:30

Efficiency and Value Optimization in Distribution and Monitoring of Digital Content - Cheong Yew-jin, Director, Broadcast & Media APAC, Rohde & Schwarz

All participants will be able to see and interact the live demonstration of

Session 5: Challenges in Media Delivery

09:00-10:30

Broadcast Business Evolution Dave Cameron, General Manager, Melbourne, Southern Cross Austereo

Broadcast equipment set up for live simulations of use in TV and Radio

TV/Radio Consoles by Stage Tec - including the CRESCENDO PLATINUM,

Ministerial Address and official opening of exhibition

Session 3: Broadcasting Business needs to Evolve: How & Where?

by Stagetec Asia. The company will have an array of TV/RADIO/MEDIA

09:00-10.30

DAY 3, THURSDAY, 8 MARCH

Session 2: The Changing Broadcast Environment: Integrating and Migrating to IP

ON THE OCCASION OF ABU Symposium 2018, Stagetec Asia invites all participants of ABU to an immersive "Ideal Solutions" Workshop created

Stations.

DAY 2, WEDNESDAY 7 MARCH

11:00-11:30

11:30-13:00

Hardware, Software and Training from Stagetec Asia

14:00-15:30 Session 11: Multiplatform Broadcasters – OTT & IBB Technologies and Implementation

2018 ABESHOW Exhibitors include

4Aspera

4Onair Solutions

4Blonde Robot

4Panasonic

4Ericsson

4Quantum

4Imagine Communications

4Rohde & Schwarz

16:00-17:15 Session 12: Digital Broadcast Roll-out: Case Studies, Updates and Experiences

4Magna Systems & Engineering

4Amber Technology

4Ross Video 4Sony 4Techtel 4Tekinsite 4VizRT



Video Technologies PMS 356

PMS Cool Gray 8

MEDIA PARTNER

ABU 2018 PREVIEW

IP, 4K, 360VR and More from Ideal Systems

Migration to IP has been a hot topic for the last few years, now this topic is becoming a deployment reality, with islands of IP and full IP systems being set up by broadcasters in Asia. Ideal have been working closely with Canadian company Embrionix to provide a smooth adoption path to IP technologies and will be showcasing all of their latest IP products on the booth.

The push to IP is enabling the easier deployment of 4K solutions too, but as yet, 4K is still no walk in the park with quad 3G SDI and 12G being deployed the dust hasn’t settled on how 4K will be managed in a broadcast facility.

This is where Phabrix comes in with its latest generation 4K UHD test and measurement products like the Qx 12G, for IP, 4K/UHD + HDR generation, analysis and monitoring.The Qx 12G is designed for next generation, hybrid IP/SDI environments using 4K/UHD (12G/6G/3G-SDI) and HD-SDI plus SMPTE 2110 and 2022-6. The high performance Qx 12G offers 4K/UHD-SDI generation, analysis and video/audio monitoring as standard. It’s available with ultra-responsive, 12G/6G/3G/HD RTE (Real-time Eye) physical layer testing, and can be upgraded to offer HDR instruments plus advanced, IP traffic analysis and stress testing.

Last year at ABU, Ideal Systems unveiled the first OZO 360 VR Camera ever in Malaysia. This system is based on a 4K workflow. Since then, Ideal has been busy doing 360 VR events up and down the country and all across Asia.

This year at ABU, apart for the demo system on the booth, Ideal Systems will be presenting some of its 360 VR case studies at the ABU Seminar and also hosting a 360 VR workshop at the event where they will dive deep into the live and the production work flows.

Sticking with live sports, Ideal will again showcase Dejero. After a very successful year which as seen leading sports channels like Fox Sports and Eleven Sports using Dejero for their coverage of a wide variety of sports from soccer to golf to F1. We will be showing the new range of Dejero products including HEVC enabled Pathway For the file-based world, Ideal will demonstrate Emotion Systems ‘Engine’, a flexible and scalable audio server, either used for achieving medium to high levels of processing in an automated environment, or for providing cost effective flexibility in large Post Production facilities. Engine process file-based audio tracks using any combination of the following functions: • Loudness Compliance.

• Channel Mapping and Muting.

• Dolby E Encoding.

• Dolby E Decoding.

• Dolby E Guardband Correction.

• Stereo to 5.1 Upmix.

• 5.1 to stereo downmix, and stereo to mono downmix.

• Audio extraction to WAV. • Audio insertion from AIFF/WAV. Many broadcasters need internal TV distribution, Ideal has deployed many such systems with Exterity. On the booth the company will be showing a 4K IP video solution with launch of new 4K AvediaPlayer m9405 Media Player.

Visit http://idealsys.com

Content-Centric Thinking with MediaGeniX

Multi-platform delivery, sales and inventory from MSA Focus

HOW SHOULD BROADCASTERS offer their content to the viewers? The answer is: in as many ways as possible. Decisions will have to be made from the content’s point of view, no longer by only analysing which loyal viewers are watching their channels at what time of day. The audience has grown too diverse, too mobile, with so many video sources at their disposal.

IN A WORLD OF MULTIPLE REVENUE sources more adaptable, intelligent and extensible systems are required to accommodate the varied revenue generation possibilities now available to a broadcast, VOD or streaming operation. Similarly, the oft used moniker of Broadcast Management System frequently fails to include or recognise the importance of the many delivery methods, platforms and models that are now the mainstream.

Broadcasters will need to have a closer look at the content they can offer that fits their mission, vision and business model. What rights do they have on the content? What distribution platforms are available and through which technique can they serve their business goals best with each title? Maybe it is on a premium pay service, or on Facebook or YouTube, maybe on a linear channel or by selling the content to another company. Big live sports events, blockbuster movies, vintage series and movies, gameshows and soaps, old content or new, public service or commercial … all will require a different approach.

This change will require broadcasters to reinvent their business, and WHATS’ON, the VOD/Linear BMS by MEDIAGENIX, will help them do just that. With WHATS’ON broadcasters have a single tool for both VOD and Linear scheduling and content management. Its powerful rights and media management functionality is devised to tackle today’s complexity with ease. The result is that broadcasters can efficiently run their mix of VOD and Linear business, with the flexibility to incorporate new services and channels. Yes, broadcasters can meet the needs of the future consumer head on.

Tuesday March 6 from 16:15—17:30 will see Johan Vanmarke, Managing Director, MEDIAGENIX Asia deliver his presentation, Media Management: Workflow Enhancements, Cloud and Contribution Systems.

Why Broadcasters Need to Think Content-Centric.

Visit www.mediagenix.tv

These developments in television delivery and the business practices and technologies both behind and alongside them, have driven the design and development of ForeTV Pulse.

Along with this forward-thinking design, capable of coping with new and emerging platforms in the broadcasting sector, the features and capabilities for dealing with traditional linear broadcast techniques have been improved, streamlined and evolved to provide a complete, scalable and efficient management package.

ForeTV Pulse is an “all-in-one” system, providing a comprehensive technological solution for multi-platform content delivery, sales and inventory management The different tasks and information types in the scheduling and transmission timeline are organized into modules within ForeTV Pulse.

These modules contain either a number of information libraries or taskoriented tools for specific stages in the transmission process. These modules and toolsets can be user restricted to ensure that the security and integrity of your business and its data is maintained.

Visit MSA Focus @ Booth 10 or contact the KL office branch: +60-(0)3-7806 1358 email: marketing@msafocus.com http://www.msafocus.com/.

Join over 9,000 industry professionals who receive our weekly e-newsletter. Sign up at www.content-technology.com

Stay informed. Sign up today.

ABU 2018 PREVIEW

AT THIS YEAR’S ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium, Ideal Systems will be showcasing IP solutions, 4K systems, 360VR for live and post production and a host of solutions for live broadcasting of news and sport, from virtual sets to signal back haul.

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ACQUISITION www.content-technology.com/acquisition

ACQUISITION

Tokai University Builds 4K Studio with Blackmagic BLACKMAGIC DESIGN RECENTLY ANNOUNCED that Japan’s Tokai University has built a new 4K 60p studio using Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini 4K, ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K and 2 M/E Broadcast Panel. The products have been installed as part of the University’s Department of Information Media Technology, and will give students access to being able to create 4K programming.

The installation also includes a workflow built around other Blackmagic Design products, including ATEM Talkback Converter 4K, DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G, HyperDeck Studio 12G, SmartView 4K, Mini Converters, DaVinci Resolve Studio and DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel.

Tokai University was founded 75 years ago and is one of the biggest universities in Japan with eight campuses and 29,000 students. Professor Mitsuho Yamada at the Department of Information Media Technology, studies programme productions in 3D, 4K and 8K, and will be leading the work in the new facility. Themes of his classes range from image processing technology to computer graphics, virtual reality and teaching students practical workflows to create video programs. When determining the curriculum, Prof. Yamada focuses on the knowledge and technology of 4K video given that the broadcast industry in Japan is heading towards higher resolutions.

The new 4K 60p studio includes three URSA Mini 4Ks connected to ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K through ATEM Talkback Converter 4K via 12G-SDI, enabling tally, camera control and talkback communications between cameramen and a switcher operator. Two HyperDeck Studio 12Gs, one for recording and the other for playing out, are connected to the ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K. “We built a 4K studio hoping that students can learn the details of 4K production workflow,” said Prof.

Yamada. “Under most circumstances it would cost a lot to build such a system, but the products from Blackmagic Design makes building new systems much more affordable. We had already had a previous model of ATEM switchers and were aware of its versatile tools and its great efficiency, but the system became even more powerful with ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K and 2 M/E Broadcast Panel because the system is now capable of using two layers of chroma keys, one upon another. It also has two layers of M/E, resulting in a wider range of options.

Many students want to try the switcher and they always scramble for a seat.”

The new studio also includes a live colour grading system with DaVinci Resolve Studio and DeckLink 4K Extreme for capture and playback, along with a DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel. Signals coming from a camera are fed into DaVinci Resolve and graded material is sent to ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K. Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

Japanese Explorer Conquers South Pole with Panasonic PANASONIC CORPORATION RECENTLY SUPPORTED Polar explorer Yasunaga Ogita, the first Japanese explorer to successfully reach the South Pole in a solo expedition on foot and without resupplies, by providing a LUMIX GH5 Camera to record the journey in still and video images.

Mr. Ogita began the expedition on November 17, 2017, local time, and hiked for 1126km to reach the South Pole 50 days later, on January 5, 2018.

He was the first Japanese person ever to reach the South Pole on foot and without receiving any backup supplies.

In addition to high-quality still image features such as a high-resolution 6K PHOTO function, the LUMIX GH5 also offers professional-level 4K videos. It is the flagship model of LUMIX’s Digital Single Lens Mirrorless Cameras.

In order to record the expedition itself as well as the South Pole environment and eco-system, a digital camera for high-quality still images and videos was essential. In conventional expeditions, it was necessary to bundle a still camera, a video camera, batteries for each, and peripheral equipment onto a sled. Mr. Ogita’s solo expedition without resupplies required him to pull a sled that weighed about 100 kilograms, which meant that any additional weight became a serious issue. The LUMIX GH5 was selected to solve the dual problem of high-quality recording and light weight. It provided still images and videos in a single compact, lightweight camera.

The GH5 was also able to withstand field shooting in temperatures down to minus 10ºC with its dust-proof, splashproof and low-temperature design.

Visit https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/lumix/gh5/100th/ yasunaga_ogita.html

Panavision Millennium DXL2 Camera

ACQUISITION

PANAVISION’S MILLENNIUM DXL2 8K, large-format camera is designed as the heart of a complete imaging ecosystem incorporating Panavision’s optics and camera architecture, the RED MONSTRO 8K VV sensor, and Light Iron color2 science (LiColor2).

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“The Millennium DXL2 8K camera system was conceived with the goal of maximum creative control from the moment of capture through delivery and display,” says Michael Cioni, senior VP of Innovation at Panavision and Light Iron.

“Panavision’s vast inventory of advanced large-format and anamorphic optics combined with RED’s MONSTRO imager expands what’s possible, allowing filmmakers to create radically inventive and powerfully cinematic images, customized for the needs of the project and the vision of creative teams.”

The RED MONSTRO 8K VV sensor in the DXL2 offers 16-plus stops of dynamic range with improvements in image quality and shadow detail, a native ISO setting

of 1600, and ProRes 4K up to 60 fps. Images are presented on the camera in log format using Light Iron colour science. An integrated PX-Pro colour spectrum filter custom-made for the DXL offers a significant increase in colour separation and dramatically higher colour precision to the image. Built-in Preston MDR, 24v power and expanded direct-to-edit features are also standard equipment on the DXL2. An anamorphic flare attachment (AFA) offers a convenient, controllable method of introducing flare with spherical lenses.

New to the DXL2, LiColor2 streamlines the 8K pipeline, smoothly handling the workflow and offering convenient and quick access to high-quality RAW images, accommodating direct to edit without delays.

DXL2 cameras are available now to rent exclusively from Panavision on a worldwide basis.

Visit www.panavision.com/dxl

ACQUISITION

Blackmagic Introduces URSA Broadcast BLACKMAGIC DESIGN HAS ANNOUNCED Blackmagic URSA Broadcast, a new high end, professional broadcast camera designed for both studio programming and live production. URSA Broadcast works with existing B4 broadcast HD lenses, can be used for both HD and Ultra HD production, features a 4K sensor, extended video dynamic range, traditional external controls and buttons, built in optical ND filters, dual CFast and dual SD card recorders, and much more.

The B4 lens mount and matching sensor on URSA Broadcast enables wide depth field, so broadcast customers can shoot without constantly chasing focus. The lens mount features high performance optics with spherical aberration correction specifically designed to match the camera’s sensor. The ű” mount lets customers use existing HD lenses or Ultra HD lenses. Because B4 lenses are par-focal and have an extremely wide depth of field, images stay in focus when zoomed in and out. That lets camera operators work faster because they don’t need to change lenses or refocus between close up, medium and wide shots. URSA Broadcast also supports full electronic B4 lens control so customers can adjust focus, iris and zoom using the camera’s controls, or remotely from an ATEM switcher or ATEM Camera Control Panel.

In addition, the standard B4 lens mount can be swapped with optional EF, F and PL mounts so customers can use everything from inexpensive high quality photographic lenses all the way up to large cinema lenses.

URSA Broadcast features a high quality, 4K image sensor and a new extended video mode with better dynamic range and colour fidelity. The sensor is designed for both HD and Ultra HD, producing images with fine texture and detail, accurate skin tones, vibrant colour and high dynamic range. The images from URSA Broadcast have been designed to be used without additional colour correction. This makes editing faster. The high-resolution sensor is a huge advantage, even when working in HD, because it enables sub pixel image processing and superior anti-aliasing, resulting in super sharp images.

URSA Broadcast includes a compact, handheld magnesium alloy body that’s durable and light enough to use anywhere. There’s an external high visibility LCD status display for viewing critical shooting information, a foldout touch screen for reviewing shots without needing an extra on-set monitor, professional connections such as 12G-SDI, XLR audio, built in high quality stereo microphones and more. In addition, every control on the camera has a redundant backup, including the power, so if anything should go wrong in the field, the camera can still be used.

URSA Broadcast also features built in neutral density (ND) filters with IR compensation for quickly reducing the amount of light that enters the camera.

The 1/4, 1/16 and 1/64 stop filters are specifically designed to match the colourimetry of the camera and provide additional latitude, even under harsh lighting conditions. That means camera operators can use different combinations of aperture and shutter angle to achieve shallower depth of field, or specific levels of motion blur, in a wider range of situations. The IR filters evenly compensate for both far red and infrared wave lengths to eliminate IR contamination. The ND filters are true optical filters with a precision

mechanism that quickly moves them into place when the ND filter dial is turned.

Blackmagic URSA Broadcast puts control buttons, switches, knobs and dials on the outside of the camera, giving customers direct access to the most important camera features. The controls are laid out in a logical order that makes them easy to remember so operators can use the camera without having to look at the buttons, hunt through menus, or take their eye off of the action. URSA Broadcast also features a high visibility LCD status display which shows important information such as timecode, shutter and lens settings, battery, recording status, and audio levels.

URSA Broadcast features both dual C-Fast 2.0 recorders and dual SD/ UHS-II card recorders. Both types of media are standard, non-proprietary, inexpensive and readily available at most computer and camera stores.

Customers can record 10-bit broadcast quality DNxHD 220X, DNxHD 145 or ProRes files with metadata, making it is easy to integrate URSA Broadcast into existing broadcast systems and workflows. URSA Broadcast can even record lossless 12-bit CinemaDNG RAW files for high quality programming and post production. With dual slots for each media type, URSA Broadcast gives customers redundant recorders and non-stop recording. When the first card is full, recording automatically continues onto the next card so the full card can be swapped while recording continues on the other.

The camera features multi rate12G-SDI connections for video output and return program feed input. Both connections automatically switch speed so they work with all HD and Ultra HD formats up to 2160p60 over a single cable.

In addition, URSA Broadcast features HD-SDI monitoring out, 2 LANC inputs, balanced XLR audio with phantom power, and timecode/reference input. A 12-pin Hirose connector provides analogue and digital broadcast lens control for powering and controlling SD, HD and Ultra HD lenses. There’s also a 4 pin XLR 12V DC power output and HD-SDI monitor output that can be used with Blackmagic viewfinders or any third-party viewfinders and monitors.

Customers can also add a Blackmagic URSA Viewfinder or a large 7-inch Blackmagic URSA Studio Viewfinder. There are microphone mounts, standard V-Lock and Gold battery plates, optional lens mounts and more. The Blackmagic Camera Fiber Converter, Blackmagic Studio Fiber Converter and ATEM Camera Control Panel will let customers create a complete broadcast camera chain. The fiber converters let customers extend their cameras and power them from up to 2km away using industry standard SMPTE fiber cables.

It includes 1 Ultra HD camera feed, plus three HD return feeds, common live camera controls with multiple channels of talkback, and standard television industry talkback headset connections, all in a compact IP video-based design that allow it to be connected and controlled from a live production switcher.

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

ACQUISITION

URSA Broadcast is two cameras in one, a field camera for ENG and programming work, as well as a professional studio camera. URSA Broadcast is also designed to work with existing broadcast equipment and systems. For example, users can employ their existing B4 HD and Ultra HD lenses with URSA Broadcast. URSA Broadcast records onto inexpensive standard SD cards, UHS-II cards and CFast cards, and records 1080i or 2160p video into standard .mov files, with .mxf to be added in future updates. URSA Broadcast records using DNx145, DNx220X or ProRes, so video doesn’t need to be copied or transcoded.

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ACQUISITION

“Pieter de Freeze” Takes on Antarctica with Sony RECENTLY PIETER DE VRIES, one of Australia’s best known and well-respected cinematographers, had an important choice to make.

The shoot was a challenging one – the Antarctic. The choice was which cameras to use. In the end de Vries chose the Sony PXW-FS7.

He explained, “The camera needed to be compact, suited to handheld cinematography and able to accept any lens.

It also had to be affordable so that I could take two camera bodies. These days we just take it for granted that it can record in 4K. A lot of filming was done on Zodiac inflatable watercraft and this meant that the camera had to be well balanced on the shoulder just to keep it safe if nothing else. The FS7, in my opinion, was the perfect choice.

“The extension handle on the FS7 is perfect and I was able to keep the camera balanced on my shoulder – this being so important from a safety aspect and also for the ability to pan around and look in all directions very quickly.

The camera is compact, in fact it’s the ideal size to fulfil its role in Antarctic conditions.”

Indeed, it was the ‘Antarctic conditions’ that not only posed the biggest production problems, but also the most amazing images.

in gimbals, including the Sony A7S Mk2 a Sony A7R Mk2, Sony RX100 Mk4 and a Sony PXW-X70.

With the FS7s as his main cameras there was filming on board the ship in common spaces: in cabins, in the engine room, on the bridge, on the ship decks in icy minus 10° conditions, and an incredible number of scenes shot on the ice and on a large snowfield where de Vries and his crew had to climb uphill carrying their equipment.

He added, “That uphill climb alone made the compact and lightweight FS7 the right camera for this job. I shot in Cine EI mode which gave me the maximum dynamic range required especially in the bright conditions of Antarctica. We transferred our footage at the end of each day using dedicated software to back up the various cards and to then make backups of those backups. One of the drives was then secured in a Pelican case and they were not touched for the remainder of the voyage.

There were approximately 65 hard drives containing all the 4K footage. We reviewed our rushes whenever we could on one of the other drives dedicated only to viewing footage.”

For a cinematographer of de Vries’ experience the choice of camera is

De Vries added, “I’ve never had an issue working with a Sony camera anywhere I’ve ever filmed: hot or cold, wet or dry – this shoot was very cold. The best feedback and I can give about the choice of this particular camera on this job was simply that I was able to get everything that I wanted and that there was no shooting situation out of reach. Shooting on the ship or in cold weather, on the ice or rocking about in Zodiacs with salt water splashing around, I was able to effortlessly get the video sequences without any issues whatsoever.”

absolutely key, and on this particular shoot he simply couldn’t have been

In addition to Sony FS7 cameras de Vries used a variety of other cameras - Go Pros, Zenmuse X5R’s with Inspire drones and various stills cameras mounted

on board the ship and the extremely cold outside temperatures.”

happier than with his choice of Sony FS7 as he concluded, “The Sony PXW-FS7 is a perfect documentary camera in many respects because of its compact size and weight, the quality of the images and the various technical specifications of the camera. The quality of our images on this shoot was excellent, and being able to use lenses from different lens makers, as you can with the FS7, is a big plus. Both FS7 cameras performed without fault in the warm humid conditions Visit www.sony.com.au and www.pieterdevries.com.au

Weapon to Vanquish Underwater FIVE YEARS AGO, Australian inventor and underwater cameraman Pawel Achtel ACS, introduced the DeepX underwater camera system.

Now, he is back with the long-awaited sequel, Vanquish, designed to take advantage of the RED Weapon camera and the recently announced Monstro 8K VV sensor.

ACQUISITION

Achtel’s Vanquish underwater housing, combined with the RED Weapon camera, can capture underwater images at 8K resolution – way beyond the resolution of alternative underwater systems. And, because the system relies on Nikon’s super-sharp Nikonos lenses, designed especially for underwater use, the images maintain that sharpness from one corner to the other – producing cinema-quality images of unparalleled richness and depth.

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“I knew we could do even better than the original DeepX,” said Achtel. “So we’ve made the new housing entirely out of tough, precision- machined titanium that resists scratching and will never corrode, with the most reliable sealing design in the world and a range of the sharpest underwater lenses available today.”

'Smaller, Smarter, Sharper' is the slogan for the new Vanquish Weapon with its on-board OLED monitor that can, for the first time, continuously display pressure, pressure drop, temperature, dew point, humidity, battery status and moisture level. Even though it’s made of rugged titanium, it still only weighs 4.5kg and, complete with camera lens and battery, can be held in one hand. And it’s the only cinema-grade underwater camera system that can be taken onto a plane as carry-on. The small size of the optics also means that it can take low-angle and close-up shots.

The Vanquish features four large 'cheese plates' allowing for almost unlimited rigging, trim and balance, attachment of lighting and other accessories, handles, tripods, cranes, and countless other mounting options, as well as a modular design compatible with surf mounts, PoleCam, crane operation and ROV shooting. It’s even got a ceramic-like nano-coating that sheds water, promotes smooth operation, and resists scratching.

Visit www.achtel.com

ACQUISITION

Video-Over-IP in Cross-Hairs for Bird Dog

By Phil Sandberg SINCE ITS LAUNCH IN SEPTEMBER 2015 by U.S. manufacturer, NewTek, the Network Device Interface (NDI) protocol has spawned a diverse ecosystem of vendors looking to tap the potential of video-over-IP using existing 1Gbit networks.

One such vendor is Australian company, Bird Dog, whose eponymous Bird Dog interface is, according to CEO Dan Miall, designed to “take the IP world as close to the glass as possible”.

So, what is Bird Dog? “Bird Dog is a piece of hardware that has some fairly recognisable connectors on the back. It will take an SDI or HDMI signal and convert it to an ethernet signal and that’s over the NDI protocol. And, really, that’s the smart part of what Bird Dog does.

“We’re taking a video signal and converting it into a network interface. The advantages of using NDI are that it’s really fast – it’s around one frame of latency end-to-end over a network. It’s roughly equivalent to something like an Apple Pro Res image quality. And, it has some really smart stuff built-in around the metadata that goes with that.

“With SDI, it’s a single directional cable. With NDI, we get all that information back as well. So, if we’re on a production switcher and we go to programme, the tally information will be received back onto the Bird Dog. So, whilst we’re sending the video out, very high quality and very fast, we can then also have tally lights on the front that is a zero-configuration tally. You choose a video source and immediately the tally will work.

“We can also get NDI video back again – there’s a firmware update coming shortly which will allow you to receive NDIs simultaneously, and that allows us to have a return feed. If we have this attached to the back of a camera, it then starts to look very much like a camera back in the fact that we’re taking video and sending it over a connection, we’re receiving video back in and we’ve got tally information.”

How does it fit into existing workflows?

“It’s designed, as some people call it, to be a throwdown box. You plug it in and it just works. Every single NDI device presents itself on the network without any configuration at all. We have Bird Dog as a source, and we can just bring that up and immediately that’s a video source. So, a production switcher doesn’t need to have any SDI connection into it at all.

“The idea of Bird Dog is to take the IP world as close to the glass as possible, so it’s close to your camera and it’s as close to your monitor as possible.

Then you get, really, the benefits of IP. You can plug this into a computer network connection anywhere in the building. If you wanted to put a camera in a reception area or somewhere that isn’t normally used in a production, you just take your camera there, plug a blue cable in the back, and away it goes. You’ve got that video available immediately, where previously you’d have to run a fibre cable or an SDI or be messing around with wireless.

This is ultra-high quality, it’s easy to use and it’s available anywhere in the building – in fact, anywhere over a network.”

Bird Dog ships globally in November.

Visit www.bird-dog.tv

ARRI Launches Large-Format Camera System ARRI HAS UNVEILED A COMPLETE large-format system. Based on a largeformat 4K version of the ALEXA sensor, the system comprises the ALEXA LF camera, ARRI Signature Prime lenses, LPL lens mount, and PL-to-LPL adapter.

It is also compatible with existing lenses, accessories, and workflows.

Featuring a sensor slightly bigger than full frame, ALEXA LF records native 4K with ARRI’s best overall image quality. Filmmakers can explore a large-format aesthetic while retaining the sensor’s natural colourimetry, pleasing skin tones and proven suitability for HDR and WCG workflows. Versatile recording formats, including efficient ProRes and uncompressed, unencrypted ARRIRAW up to 150 fps, provide total flexibility.

Accompanying the ALEXA LF camera are 16 large-format ARRI Signature Prime lenses, ranging from 12 mm to 280 mm and fitted with the ARRI LPL mount.

While the Signature Primes exemplify state-of-the-art optical precision, they render organic, emotionally engaging images, gently softening and texturising the large format. A fast T-stop of T1.8 facilitates shallow depth of field and the smooth focus fall-off gives subjects heightened presence in the frame.

The ARRI Signature Prime lenses are lightweight and robust, due to the magnesium lens barrels, and feature LDS-2, ARRI’s next-generation Lens Data System.

Optimised for large-format sensors, the new LPL lens mount has a wider diameter and shorter flange focal depth, allowing the ARRI Signature Primes and all future large-format lenses to be small and lightweight, with a fast T-stop and pleasing bokeh - a combination of features that would not be possible with the PL lens mount. The LPL mount will also be available for other ARRI cameras and is being licensed to third-party lens and camera manufacturers.

Although the camera, lens mount, and lenses are new, full compatibility with

existing PL mount lenses and ALEXA accessories is a cornerstone of the system’s design. A PL-to-LPL adapter offers backwards compatibility with all PL mount lenses, whether Super 35 or full frame. The adapter attaches securely to the LPL lens mount without tools, allowing crews to rapidly switch between PL and LPL lenses on set, and offering cinematographers an unlimited lens choice.

Stephan Schenk, Managing Director of ARRI Cine Technik and responsible for the business unit Camera Systems, said, “Providing compatibility with existing lenses, camera accessories, workflows, ARRI Look Files, lens metadata, and software tools makes it easier for crews to work with ALEXA LF on set and for rental houses to incorporate it into their inventories.”

The first ALEXA LF cameras will be shipped at the end of March 2018. The initial set of four Signature Prime lenses (35 mm, 47 mm, 75 mm, and 125 mm) will be shipped in early June 2018. The remaining lenses will be available over the course of the year.

Visit www.arri.com/largeformat

ACQUISITION

“The larger ALEXA LF sensor has the same optimal pixel size as other ALEXAs, resulting in a 4448 x 3096 image,” says Marc Shipman-Mueller, ARRI Product Manager for Camera Systems. “This doesn’t just add definition, it creates a whole new look - one that is truly immersive, with a three-dimensional feel.

The various recording formats and sensor modes make this look available to all productions and satisfy any possible deliverable requirement.”

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SPORTSCASTING Sport coverage worldwide

www.content-technology.com/sportscasting

HK Jockey Club Saddles Up with Riedel’s Bolero

SPORTSCASTING

THE HONG KONG JOCKEY CLUB (HKJC) has chosen Riedel Communications’ Bolero wireless intercom system to streamline communications for its video productions. Bolero is integrated with Riedel’s Artist digital matrix intercom system to provide comprehensive communications across two separate HKJC race courses and in the HKJC studio located in Sha Tin.

“Reliable wireless communications are essential for our live TV productions of horse races. Our production crews located all around the race courses have to be able to count on clear, stable, and uninterrupted comms from the TV studio,” said Yeung Shui Kin, Senior Broadcasting Services Manager at the Hong Kong Jockey Club. “After just two weeks of operation, the performance of Bolero has more than met our expectations by delivering outstanding sound quality from any point on our race courses. Also, Bolero’s integration with our Artist frame is a huge plus.”

Founded in 1884, HKJC provides horse racing, sporting, and betting on horse racing and overseas football events. HKJC has initially purchased 12 Bolero backpacks, with plans to add more in 2018, for communications links between its TV studio in the Sha Tin district and its Happy Valley and

Sha Tin race courses. The Bolero systems first went into service for international races in early December.

Introduced last year, Bolero is an expandable, DECT-based wireless intercom system in the license-free 1.9GHz frequency range. Riedel’s exclusive Advanced DECT Receiver (ADR) technology improves RF robustness by reducing sensitivity to multipath RF reflections, enabling HKJC crew members to roam seamlessly at either race course without losing audio quality.

Visit www.riedel.net

Shanghai Media Tech Upgrades Mobile Production Units with GV 4K/IP SHANGHAI MEDIA TECH RUNS the full gamut of production activities: preproduction, broadcast, post-production, network operation and maintenance, application development of new media and more. To match its breadth and depth of services, the China-based media company chose Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, to provide a fully comprehensive, total 4K/IP solution for its OB van and EFP systems. Shanghai Media Tech’s mobile production units are equipped for any live program or sports event as Asia’s largest all IP, 4K UHD OB vans.

“Transitioning our full system for the future of broadcast, 4K and IP, was a challenging task given the number of solutions we needed to upgrade in our OB vans,” said Yuanyue, Team Manager, Shanghai Media Tech. “Grass Valley’s total 4K/IP solution made the transition easy, as all of the solutions from camera to multiviewer were seamlessly integrated from the start. The entire system is designed to adapt to our changing needs and evolving industry trends, so we felt comfortable investing in this solution for years to come.”

Each OB van and EFP system is outfitted with multiple LDX 86N High Frame Rate/HD/3G/4K Software Upgradable Camera Platforms, Kayenne Video Production Center, GV Korona K-Frame V-series, GV Node Real Time IP Processing and Routing Platform, IPG-3901 Densité IP Gateway and GV Convergent IP/SDI Router Control and Configuration System.

Shanghai Media Tech purchased a total of 44 LDX 86N cameras, which feature native 4K UHD CMOS imagers that provide outstanding dynamic range performance, and the unique DPMULTRA technology that provides alternative switching to native HD pixels for global shutter operation. This investment gives Shanghai Media Tech the ability to capture razor-sharp live images with vivid colours and very low noise. For all types of programming, including live events

and sports, the LDX 86N offers the highest sensitivity in both single speed and high-speed operation.

Kayenne K-Frame and GV Korona K-Frame V-series are also capable of handling varied content types. Both solutions offer multiformat support including 1080p and 4K UHD, providing Shanghai Media Tech with increased production flexibility. The Kayenne K-Frame also offers premium performance with the largest I/O footprint in the market, multiple multiviewer capability and up to 9 M/Es, accessible across two suites. At only 3RU, the K-Frame V-series is ideal for compact mobile production spaces, providing enormous power but requiring no compromise on enterprise features. The switcher is modular in design and is available in one, two or three M/E options.

Rounding out the 4K/IP system are Grass Valley networking solutions – GV Node, GV Convergent and IPG-3901. GV Node includes integrated processing, routing, aggregation and multiviewing in an all-in-one platform. GV Convergent provides next-generation network control, including multilevel routing for the proposed SMPTE ST 2110 essence-based flows and in-depth visualisation and control of the IP fabric. The complete control system is both infrastructure and signal format independent to adapt to unique facility needs and allow the Shanghai Media Tech team to make real-time modifications through an intuitive interface and custom system configurations. In combination with these solutions, the IPG-3901 gateway provides a robust feature set for normalising variances in IP signals sent to GV Node and allows for distribution beyond Local Area Networks. Together, GV Node and IPG now offer the transfer of information with a distance of up to 40km between ports.

Visit www.grassvalley.com

Twitter Streams Live Martial Arts from Indonesia

SPORTSCASTING

SINGAPORE-BASED MARTIAL ARTS organisation, ONE Championship, has entered into a collaboration with Twitter to live stream ONE Championship bouts on the platform. Coverage of the live bouts launched on January 20, starting with five matches from ONE: KINGS OF COURAGE at the Jakarta Convention Center in Indonesia.

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ONE Championship hosts some of the largest sports entertainment events across Asia, featuring some of the world’s best martial artists and world champions. In addition to its digital platforms, ONE Championship broadcasts to over 1.7-billion potential viewers across 128+ countries around the world with some of the largest global broadcasters, including Fox Sports, ABS-CBN, Astro, ClaroSports, Bandsports, Startimes, Premier Sports, Thairath TV, Skynet, Mediacorp, OSN, and more.

For ONE: KINGS OF COURAGE, Twitter was exclusive live stream platform for two matches from the main card (Victorio Senduk vs Yohan Mulia Legowo, and Yusup Saadulaev vs Masakazu Imanari), and also broadcast all three preliminary matches live. The bouts were available for free to logged-in and logged-out users on Twitter and on connected devices globally through @ ONEChampionship.

ONE Championship has already announced its 2018 calendar featuring 24 live events taking place in various cities across Asia, with multiple stops in Manila, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Yangon, and Shanghai. The partnership with Twitter encompasses all 24 ONE Championship live events in 2018.

Visit https://twitter.com/ONEChampionship

SPORTSCASTING

It’s Gold in the Cold for Panasonic at Winter Games AS A TOP SPONSOR for the Olympic Games and Official Worldwide Paralympic Partner, Panasonic will provide a wide range of solutions to support the staging of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games (Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018) and XII Paralympic Winter Games (PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games), which will mainly be held in PyeongChang County, Korea.

Through cooperation with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the PyeongChang Organising Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG), and Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), Panasonic is supplying AV equipment to the opening and closing ceremonies, competition venues, and broadcasting locations.

Panasonic has been a TOP sponsor since the Olympic Winter Games Calgary 1988, and the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of its sponsorship. The company provided solutions using its latest AV equipment and projection mapping technologies as its core technology for the opening ceremony to assist with the staging of both the opening and closing ceremonies. Panasonic also supplied around 80 PTRZ31K/RQ32K high-brightness compact 30,000-lumens class projectors, AV-HS6000 Series Broadcast Grade 2ME Live Switchers, plus a full line-up of AV systems to the Olympic Stadium to support the staging of the opening and closing ceremonies.

Panasonic also instaledl 42 LED video screens and video systems in the competition venues, giving a total screen area of 1640m². Panasonic’s RAMSA brand line-array speakers provided on-site audio at four venues: the ski jumping and snowboard venues, Yongpyong alpine skiing venue, and Gangneung Olympic Park. In addition, trials of a multi-video distribution

system and 360°cameras were conducted as part of initiatives toward the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

Panasonic’s P2HD broadcast camera system was chosen as the recording platform for PyeongChang 2018. Other broadcasting equipment used included the AJ-PX5000G camera recorder featuring AVC-ULTRA codecs to the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC). Since the Olympic Games Barcelona 1992, the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 is the 13th Olympic Games in which Panasonic’s digital technology is used as the official recording format.

In all, Panasonic AV equipment supplied to competition venues, athlete villages, press centre, and official live sites included: • LED large screen display systems – 17 venues, 42 screens, approx.

1640m2; • Professional audio systems – 10 venues.

• Projectors for ceremonies – 80.

• Projectors – 154.

• Security cameras – 1079.

• Camra recorders – 20.

• Multiformat live switchers – 16.

Panasonic broadcast equipment supplied for the International Broadcast Centre and broadcasters included: • HD recorders – 50.

• Camera recorders – 50.

• Monitors – 1000.

Olympic Broadcast Services: the ‘Van Guard’ of Games Coverage OLYMPIC BROADCASTING SERVICES (OBS) became one of the biggest importers in Korea in the lead up to the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. In total, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) contracted 10 suppliers to provide 38 broadcast vans and auxiliary trucks – 36 from Europe and two from China. The broadcast vans made their way to Pyeongtaek Port south of Seoul by container ship from Antwerp, Belgium, and Shanghai, China, respectively.

Freezing temperatures resulted in a number of the vans arriving with dead batteries on 24 January, but thanks to the excellent work of the port authorities and mechanics, the vehicles and their cargo were eventually offloaded to undergo customs clearance.

The next day, the drivers, who flew in from Europe and China to deliver the vans to the Olympic venues, were given a police induction session on the peculiarities of Korean driving. On the morning of 26 January, the broadcast vans made their way in four separate police-escorted convoys to the venues, the first starting at 06:30. A coordinated effort by the drivers, the port staff (who selflessly extended their hours to aid the operation), Motorpool drivers (who helped guide the broadcast van drivers), and the police helped the trucks reach the venues without issue.

In addition to the broadcast vans, OBS secured three local trucks to provide 4K UHD support, and seven light-production units – five from the United States

to cover Curling and the press conferences at the Main Press Centre (MPC) and two from France to cover the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as the Medal Plaza Victory Ceremonies.

“Moving such a large number of broadcast vans around the globe is always a pretty big undertaking, one that requires the seamless coordination of a number of stakeholders, in particular the suppliers and local authorities, each one with its own culture and particular intricacies,” said Stefanos Kourelas, OBS Chief Financial Officer. “We are extremely pleased that once again this pretty unique and extremely sensitive operation from a risk management point of view went very smoothly.”

For the PyeongChang Games, OBS produced approximately 5000 hours of coverage (including both High Definition Television - HDTV and Ultra High Definition UHD material), which consisted of around 850 hours of live Olympic sport competition (including selected official training and Ski Jumping trial jumps), supplemented by coverage from the Multi Clips Feeds (MCFs), the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, the Medals Plaza Victory Ceremonies,12 beauty cameras, the Olympic Channel News (OCN), digital content (including Virtual Reality) and other additional production material.

Visit https://www.obs.tv

Korean Students Learn from OBS Broadcast Experts

A total of 650 Korean graduate students were successful in securing Games-time paid positions on offer for PyeongChang 2018.

In order to facilitate the recruitment of students, local partnership agreements were made with 12 universities from Seoul and surrounding cities: Sejong University, Myongji University, Ewha Womans University, George Mason University – Incheon Global Campus, SUNY Korea – Incheon Global Campus, Ghent University – Incheon Global Campus, The University of Utah – Incheon Global Campus, Seoul Women's University,

Baekseok University, Namseoul University, Hanseo University, and Hanyang University.

“For more than three decades, the BTP has played a fundamental role in inspiring new generations of sports broadcast professionals around the world,” said Juan Canadell, OBS Head of Human Resources and Crewing. “With this programme, OBS is truly creating a lasting legacy in every Olympic host country long after the Games. For many, this work opportunity at the Olympics alongside the Host Broadcast team will pave the way towards a successful career in the broadcast industry – something we are particularly proud of at OBS.” Visit https://www.obs.tv

SPORTSCASTING

THE OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES PyeongChang 2018 saw, once again, Olympics’ host-country students given the opportunity to participate in the Olympic Broadcasting Services’ (OBS) Broadcast Training Programme (BTP).

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SPORTSCASTING

The Gold Coast Diaries – Chapter 8

By Jeff Coleman 5.50 PM, MONDAY 8 JANUARY 2018 – HOST BROADCASTER HQ, BUNDALL, QLD I glance at my computer screen clock, thinking it might be time for a midafternoon coffee, to find the day nearly over. My first day back in the office after Christmas has not only been fast but productive: as colleagues are just beginning to trickle back to work the relative quiet has allowed me to plough through progress reports and updates from the NEP Host Broadcaster’s Sydney-based engineering team.

Aside from 10 days over the Christmas and New Year holidays they’ve been working continuously for months at the company’s brand new warehouse facility in Homebush, Sydney, progressing our Gold Coast 2018 ‘Commonwealth Games in a Box Approach’, which the compressed timeline for access to the venues and International Broadcasting Centre (IBC) at Games-time requires.

As NEP did for Glasgow 2014 and Delhi 2010, the broadcast infrastructure for the GC2018 IBC and venues has been designed and pre-built remotely, and will be delivered to site factory-commissioned and ready for service. Systems integration was completed at the ‘Games Integration Lab’ a couple weeks ago, as were the ‘boxes’ – being the broadcast technical operation centre (BTOC) racks for the competition venues and also the IBC broadcast equipment room (BER).

Most of the 17 competition venues require at least one (and some up to three) of these BTOC racks, so we are building 16 racks in all across 13 venues The team are now fine-tuning wiring, testing and tweaking before breaking down and packaging the kit for shipping to the Gold Coast – a process that will take a couple weeks. When reassembled and deployed in early March it will form our broadcast network backbone.

The final build coincided with our IBC Manager, Ben Taylor, taking up his role in mid-October. With the tight six-month program he’s hit the ground running.

Ben has previously worked as a broadcast engineer, followed by a lengthy stint as operations manager with an Aussie-based uplink provider. His background and availability at just the right time have been a real plus for our team and this project. And demonstrating the wide talent net we’ve cast, Ben brings to four the number of full-time ‘virtual local’ staff, who live in Brisbane and commute to the Gold Coast each day, working with me.

Meanwhile our meetings on the Opening and Closing ceremonies are increasingly frequent as the producers are close to finalising their plans for the spectacles.

Each discussion gives us better understanding of their vision and how they want to achieve it, allowing us to adapt our cabling and engineering plans to suit.

In conjunction with these meetings I’ve been back up on the roof of the Meriton apartments – where our visiting staff (‘FiFos – Fly In, Fly Out’) stay – to do a final survey for one of our four beauty cams. It offers a bird’s eye view of the Main Stadium as well as a sweeping 270-degree panorama of Broadwater, Surfers Paradise, the western hinterland and northern coast.

Our site surveys were ongoing right up until Christmas and will continue for the next few weeks. In November we re-surveyed the Gold Coast Aquatics Centre and looked at the throws cage at Runaway Bay, the site of an existing training facility and likely to also serve that purpose for the athletics competition. On a return survey of the Gold Coast Hockey Centre we visited a mock up of the hockey goals to determine the best way to mount the goal cameras and plan the cabling from mount positions.

We’ve had greater clarity for our site surveys following the visit of NEP Australia’s radio frequency guru, Buddhi Fonseka, in late October. Armed with Buddhi’s spectrum analyser and his immense experience we toured the various venues, taking special interest in Currumbin, Southport-Broadwater, Nerang and – of course – the Main Stadium to determine the existing RF challenges that might affect our coverage.

SPORTSCASTING

Before I log off for the day I send an email to Ross Smith, one of NEP’s Brisbanebased technical managers to confirm our catch up tomorrow with Christian Letford, the Coordinating Technical Manager for the mountain bike trails event.

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NEP Australia radio frequency gurus, Buddhi Fonseka and John “JG” Galea.

Walking out to my car I text my wife and arrange to meet her and our son at Broadwater beach 40 minutes from now. We had fabulous road trip up from rural Victoria late last week and they’ve spent the past few days getting oriented on the Gold Coast and preparing for first term at a new school while I got back into work mode. Anticipating our swim in the perfect 23°C water following my run, I think how lucky visitors and locals alike are to have all this to enjoy. As we are living virtually opposite the beach, I expect my son and I will be enjoying the surf together every day and wonder how I’ll ever prise him back to the big city again.

Jeff Coleman is Head of Engineering and Technical Operations for NEP Australia, Host Broadcaster of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

This is the eighth in a series of reports for Content +Technology in which Jeff outlines the 26-month project’s objectives, critical path and milestones. The GC2018 Host Broadcaster – led by NEP Host Broadcast with the support of production partners the Seven Network and Sunset+Vine – will deliver the event television and digital broadcast to rights-holding broadcasters around the world from April 4-15, 2018: all up some 1,100 hours of live television..

REGISTER AT abeshow.tv

AUGUST 7-9, Darling Island, Pyrmont.

SPORTSCASTING

LiveU Provides 4K HEVC Live Coverage for Winter Games LIVEU PROVIDED 4K HEVC live video coverage for the first time at a major event at the Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. LiveU supported global broadcasters from over 40 countries with a record number of bonded cellular units and a dedicated team on the ground throughout the duration of the games.

We’ll be ensuring the best possible TV and online coverage for viewers worldwide.”

LiveU’s LU600 portable transmission solution with the 4K HEVC Pro card offers high video performance in live streaming for global news and sports coverage. The solution allows professional broadcasters and content creators to benefit from high video performance with extreme bandwidth efficiency – using one of the smallest portable cellular bonding units.

Ronen Artman, LiveU’s VP Marketing, said, “Over the last 10 years LiveU has supported broadcasters at every Winter and Summer Games, and this time is no exception. Demand for units has been higher than expected with bookings from broadcasters across five continents. We’re thrilled that we can offer our customers the latest 4K HEVC transmission technology so they can follow the athletes’ progress and offer behind-the-scenes coverage around the stadiums, arenas and slopes with unmatched quality and reliability.

LiveU first covered the Summer Games in Beijing in 2008 and has been providing live video coverage at every major international sports event since. This summer, LiveU will also be supporting the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, forecast to be the largest live event ever covered in 4K. Visit www.liveu.tv

Panasonic Showcases Sports Spectator Solution for the Disabled THE PANASONIC GROUP RECENTLY conducted a demonstration experiment of its sports spectator solutions at "BEYOND STADIUM", organised on January 28, 2018, by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government at the Aoyama Gakuin University Memorial Hall. The solutions feature a "multi-video streaming system" that combines audio and video streaming to enhance and enliven spectator experience for people with disabilities.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has launched an initiative that supports para sports, 'TEAM BEYOND,"'and on the day of this event, announced more than 1 million registered project members. 'BEYOND STADIUM' was an event organized as part of the 'TEAM BEYOND' initiative that offered people an opportunity to watch two para sports, Boccia and "five-aside football (blind football)."

At the event venue, Panasonic provided its ‘multi-video streaming system’, which enabled spectators to enjoy the game while listening to the audio and/or watching the video on their smartphones and tablets. Three channels – video + audio, audio only, and video only – were available, and on the audio only channel, Panasonic offered more detailed commentary, providing a service for visually impaired spectators.

Of the around 700 spectators at the event, approximately 200 used the service. In addition to video streaming, with 'Boccia,' the system offered audio commentary with more detailed information than stadium announcements.

For 'blind football,' two types of commentary were provided, one was by a guest sports journalist, Tetsuo Nakanishi, and the other that described what was happening on the pitch in great detail for visually impaired spectators to enhance their spectator experience.

Based on the data gathered through this demonstration experiment, Panasonic will make further improvements in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Olympic Test for Leader 4K HDR Instruments

The instruments chosen comprised 32 LV5490 waveform monitors and 38 LV5770A 3G/HD/SD multi-monitors.

Leader’s LV5490 offers 4K, UHD, 3G, HD and SD test and measurement features in a half-rack-width by 4U portable unit with a full high-definition 9-inch front-panel monitor. It provides all the capabilities needed to implement the full potential of high-dynamic-range in both HD and UHD. Signal displays such as video waveform, chroma levels, colour vectors, bargraphs, noise, video patterns, quad-3G phase, data tables, camera picture output, colour chart, multichannel audio levels and surround-sound vectors can be freely integrated into a combined display. If a specific element requires detailed attention, this can be selected quickly for viewing at higher resolution or full-screen.

The Leader CINELITE HDR toolset also comes as a standard feature of the LV5490, allowing easy assessment of relative exposure and overall luminance during production. A focus-assist option allows highly accurate on-set adjustment of camera focus to match the ability of 4K and UHD formats to handle very precise image detail.

Supplementing its front-panel display, the LV5490 provides 1920 x 1080 HD DVI and HD-SDI feeds for connection to external monitors. Simultaneous viewing of up to four 3 gigabit/s SDI inputs is possible, including overlays. The size and location of individual channels can be adjusted on the display using a USB pointer so the user is not limited to fixed-size quadrants. Operators can select the size and position of the measuring area as well as the Y/G/B/R component channel. An alarm can be set to alert operators if the noise level exceeds a predefined threshold. An integral low-pass filter allows elements of the high frequency band to be removed at the time of noise measurement.

Leader’s LV5770A multi-SDI monitor, meanwhile, can monitor two 3G/HD/ SD-SDI sources simultaneously and display picture, waveform, vector, 5-bar, CINELITE II, and status individually or in two or four split screen displays.

Eye pattern and jitter measurement capabilities (option SER09A) are available for evaluating the condition of SDI feeds. Optional digital and analog audio I/O provide for built-in de-embedding and digital-to-analog audio conversion.

Audio facilities such as dual channel loudness logging, true-peak metering, lip-sync timing measurement and surround monitoring are also included. An integral USB port allows the use of a flash drive for storing captured screens, presets and software/firmware updates.

Visit www.leader.co.jp

SPORTSCASTING

LEADER ELECTRONICS CORPORATION announced that 70 of its test instruments were chosen to perform signal monitoring at the 2018 Winter Olympics via Leader’s UK-based rental channel partner Presteigne Broadcast Hire.

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SPORTSCASTING

NBC Avalanche Hits Winter Games to support NBC’s production of the PyeongChang Games. The team included 15 broadcast engineers and technical support staff, plus 17 team members to provide long-term planning, operations management and technical consultation at NBC Olympics’ production facility inside the International Broadcast Center.

For content creation and media management workflows, NBC Olympics selected Avid MediaCentral to accelerate and streamline production for the PyeongChang Games.

“Over the years, MediaCentral has become an integral component to our workflow. MediaCentral allows our team members in multiple locations, across several continents, to collaborate in real time. Having that ability, provides us with the capacity to create high-quality content quickly and efficiently, and ensure we can meet the productions demands of the Winter Olympics,” said Darryl Jefferson, VP of Post Operations and Digital Workflow at NBC Sports and Olympics.

COME SUN, RAIN, HAIL OR SNOW, U.S. broadcaster NBC’s Olympic unit can be relied on to have the largest presence at any Olympic Games, and PyeongChang is no exception.

The 2018 Winter Olympics marks the first time NBC’s primetime show was broadcast live across the U.S. Its coverage included the availability of 4K High Dynamic Range (HDR) content to cable, satellite, telco providers, and other partners.

Some key metrics about NBC Olympics’ coverage of the PyeongChang Winter Games include: • 72,000+ square feet of space inside the NBC Olympics compound at the International Broadcast Center in PyeongChang.

• 2000 employees working in PyeongChang.

• 2400+ hours of coverage from PyeongChang, most ever for a Winter Olympics.

• 2200 Terabytes of video disk storage (8.5 years’ worth of time) in PyeongChang.

• 1800+ hours of live streaming coverage, most-ever for a Winter Olympics.

• 1600 colour broadcast monitors in NBC Olympics’ facilities in PyeongChang.

• 750 employees working in NBC Sports Group’s International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Conn.

• 550 total cameras used for the OBS host feed.

• 156 additional cameras used by NBC Olympics.

• 204km of cable to be used by NBC Olympics in PyeongChang.

• 126+ NBCUniversal’s coverage hours per day.

• 108 HD feeds going from PyeongChang to the United States.

• 99 sea containers shipped to PyeongChang by NBC Olympics.

• 89 NBC Olympics commentators.

• 29 edit suites located in the NBC Olympics compound in the International Broadcast Center and venues in PyeongChang.

• 17 studios and control rooms used for NBC Olympics coverage (three studios and two control rooms in PyeongChang; five studios and seven control rooms in Stamford).

• 10 days of 24-hour Olympic event programming.

• 2 helicopters providing aerial footage.

• 900+ Million Dollars generated in national ad sales for PyeongChang 2018, a Winter Games record.

SPORTSCASTING

Continuing a 30-year relationship, NBC Olympics selected NEP Group to provide mobile broadcasting, engineering consultation and technical support for its production of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games

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NEP provided outside broadcast units NCP8 A and B, Iridium, and Zinc, as well as associated gear and technical support, for live coverage of the Opening ceremony at PyeongChang Olympic Stadium, figure skating and short track speed skating events at Gangneung Ice Arena, and Ice Hockey games at Gangneung Hockey Centre.

NEP and its Bexel division provided a combined team of more than 30 specialists

NBC Olympics relied on Avid’s comprehensive tools and workflow solutions throughout all PyeongChang Games venues, including alpine, figure skating, and speed skating. MediaCentral | Production Management allowed NBC Olympics to manage content creation, automate workflows, and facilitate collaboration between the venues and the IBC, while MediaCentral | Asset Management enabled teams to quickly and easily locate media assets, streamline production operations, and maximise content creation capabilities.

NBC Olympics also deployed Avid NEXIS software-defined storage platform as the linchpin of its production pipeline, connected to dozens of editing suites with Media Composer non-linear video editing systems.

Harmonic’s MediaGrid shared storage systems and Spectrum MediaDeck integrated media servers were used by NBC Olympics for production applications, including broadcast, on-demand, digital, news operations and longterm archive. Harmonic Spectrum MediaDeck media servers enabled on-the-fly capture and proxy generation for all incoming materials. Harmonic MediaGrid shared storage systems located inside NBC’s studios at the International Broadcast Center in PyeongChang, as well as at NBC Olympics’ headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, provided centralised shared storage.

For production workflow at NBC Olympics, Harmonic MediaDeck media servers simultaneously recorded as many as 60 incoming venue feeds, giving NBC personnel at the Stamford facility independent control over 60 additional channels of ingest for locally produced Olympic content. Each recording’s proxy was replicated in real time on a Harmonic MediaGrid storage system connected via two 10Gigabit circuits to a second MediaGrid installed at the Stamford facility.

In less than a minute, high-res content created on the PyeongChang MediaGrid system could be replicated on the Stamford MediaGrid system for immediate use in streaming, VOD and traditional broadcast editing.

NBC Olympics chose FileCatalyst to transfer event footage as well as facilitate remote production workflows for its production of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games.

FileCatalyst Central is a web-based monitoring and administration tool that allows complete control over a global FileCatalyst deployment, including all FileCatalyst Direct server and client applications, will also be leveraged.

FileCatalyst Direct allows operators to edit transfers that are ongoing, even if there are hundreds of concurrent transfers taking place. Users have the ability to select files that are queued, and prioritise their position in the transfer queue without interrupting other mission critical transfers.

NBC Olympics used FileCatalyst technology to move data over a 5Gbps link between NBC Olympics’ headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, and the NBC Olympics compound at the International Broadcast Center in PyeongChang.

FileCatalyst also helped accelerate transfers between a number of interconnected Winter Games sites and event venues.

The number of concurrent file transfers was in the hundreds during peak periods, amounting a total data volume of approximately 10TB per day. The files consisted of both high- and low-resolution videos, many of which were transferred while the events are still in progress and the videos still being encoded. The ability to handle the dynamic nature of these files and the massive levels of concurrency was a key factor in selecting FileCatalyst. Timely delivery of the content was critical to the production workflow, as it enabled remote logging and editing in near real time. Archived footage was also moved from Stamford to Pyeongchang, as required for editorial purposes.

Grass Valley supplied NBC Olympics with its SME-1901 Streaming Encoder which provided multiformat video/audio over IP using 3G/HD/SD SDI inputs. This enabled the NBC Olympics production team to view video feeds from any camera directly, as well as edit low- and high-resolution content from their desktop or laptop computers.

SPORTSCASTING

Visualisation of NBC Olympics’ PyeongChang Games IBC Rooftop Winter Lodge Set. Credit: NBC Sports Group.

NBC Olympics also used Grass Valley’s iControl customised facility monitoring and control system which enabled the team to build an integrated monitoring and control surface for QC operators, consolidating multiple key functions into a single interface, such as control of XVP-3901, monitoring of WFM feed and control of the QC router. iControl also improved the flow by allowing operators to select feeds that they wish to pay more attention to.

Other solutions provided Grass Valley to NBC Olympics included: • Densité Remote Control Panel for Densité cards.

• Three NVISION 8500 HYBRID routers.

• NVISION Compact CQX router providing clean and quiet outputs for 3G/HD/SD signals and six auxiliary outputs for preview or monitoring.

• LUMO Series High Density Fiber Converter to streamline cabling for the production with a 1RU frame and 36 SFP-based fibre converters.

• 34 Kaleido-IP Multiviewers for monitoring both IP and SDI sources on one monitor.

• Three NVISION 8500 HYBRID routers and Kaleido multiviewers, solutions for deployment with flypacks.

Calrec Audio supplied a Summa console for the prime-time audio control room in NBC’s production compound at the International Broadcast Centre in PyeongChang. NBC used the 56-fader Artemis Ray as its primary console at the sliding venues in the mountain resort of Alpensia for coverage of bobsled and luge events. A 72-fader Artemis Ray, meanwhile, served as the primary console at the speed-skating venue and indoor venues at the coastal city of Gangneung.

In addition, a Calrec RP1 remote production system and a compact Brio console supported operations at the coastal studio, giving NBC Olympics the ability to control the production remotely from multiple control rooms in its headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

According to Karl Malone, Director, Sound Design, NBC Olympics. “We continue to take full advantage of the new Calrec technologies, having used Calrec AoIP modular cards in Brazil, and now Calrec ‘Waves’ modular cards in South Korea.

We are very fortunate to also have Calrec’s latest Brio and RP1 systems to facilitate NBC’s production.”

In the area of graphics, NBC Olympics selected ChyronHego’s Lyric graphics creation and playout solution, Live Compositor, and PRIME Clips.

NBC Olympics used 30 Lyric systems to cover the Winter Games, with about half deployed at its headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, and the remaining used at NBC Olympics’ production facility at the International Broadcast Center in PyeongChang. In addition, multiple ChyronHego Live Compositor systems were used for producing additional programming and digital content.

NBC Olympics selected Lawo to provide VSM (Virtual Studio Manager) broadcast control and monitoring solutions, as well as IP commentary systems, for its production of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games, which take place in PyeongChang.

The announcement was made by Timothy Canary, Vice President of Engineering, NBC Sports Group, and Jeffrey Stroessner, Head of Sales, Lawo.

The VSM system used at NBC Olympics’ production facility at the International Broadcast Center provided the overall control system for NBC Olympics’ core routing and tally management, connecting to multiple third-party devices on an IP backbone. NBC significantly increased the number of GUI-based VSM Panels which are accessed from various monitors and tablets provided throughout NBC Olympics’ various production facilities. VSM also provided remote Tally information between the IBC in South Korea and NBC Sports Group’s headquarters in Stamford, CT. NBC Olympics also deployed an enhanced Lawo audio-over-IP Commentary System along with several Lawo V__pro8 video processors to manage their coverage from Stamford. Lawo worked with NBC to develop an enhanced version of the LCU (Lawo Commentary Unit) to meet NBC’s production goals. The V__ pro8s received video feeds from South Korea, de-embedded the audio and then inserted into RAVENNA and MADI Streams that fed the Lawo LCU commentary system.

New for this year’s production, NBC used the Commentary System at the IBC and remotely at the Ski Jump and Curling venues, forming a fully cohesive commentary workflow. Additionally, several Games venues in South Korea were connected to the NBC Olympics compound within the International Broadcast Center, through Lawo’s V__remote4 units, which provided connectivity and processing for network audio and video signals delivered via IP-connections from the remote sites.

NBC Olympics selected Ericsson to provide video contribution solutions for its production of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. Ericsson provided a range of encoding and satellite receiver technologies to support NBC Olympics video distribution to millions of viewers. Ericsson’s specialist engineers assisted with the equipment and system set up, and multi-site support throughout the event.

The Ericsson media processing platform delivered HD content over a combination of both fibre and satellite. The Ericsson solution included its AVP 2000 contribution encoders and its RX8200 Advanced Modular Receivers.

SPORTSCASTING

The SME-1901 accepts any video format and provides two H.264 streams, one high resolution and one low resolution, and is housed in the Densité 3+ FR4 frame alongside the XVP-3901, which handles all essential video, audio and metadata signal processing functions on a single module. The XVP-3901 offers up/down/cross conversion, colour space conversion, frame synchronisation, audio embedding and de-embedding and supports fibre optical I/O.

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NEWS OPERATIONS www.content-technology.com/ newsoperations

TVK Cambodia Selects LiveU to Enhance Daily News TVK, THE NATIONAL TELEVISION OF KAMPUCHEA in Cambodia, has selected LiveU for its daily newsgathering after using the company’s LU600 HEVC solution to cover last month’s threeday Water Festival (Bon Om Touk). The deal is being managed by LiveU’s Thai partner DSC which provided on-site support at the event.

Using LiveU units, TVK’s camera crew creatively captured the carnival atmosphere of the festival, one of the biggest events in Cambodia which attracts millions of people every year. Firework displays were held at the river and more than 400 boats took part in the annual boat race.

“We were really impressed by the LU600 HEVC’s video performance as well as the bandwidth efficiency. We were getting bandwidth at around 10Mbps, and even when we capped the bandwidth at 5Mbps, the video quality stayed the same” said Mr Khim Vuthy, Director General of National Television of Cambodia (TVK). “At previous water festivals, we used satellite

TVK Cambodia using LiveU's LU600 HEVC solution to cover the annual Water Festival.

OB vans which restricted our mobility. With LiveU’s cellular bonding technology, we had no such limitations and were free to go live wherever we wanted, including on boats to cover the races and from the top of a building when the King arrived.

We’re now planning to use multiple LiveU units for our daily newsgathering and event coverage.”

Mr Yaal Eshel, VP Sales at LiveU, said, “We were excited to support TVK’s coverage of the water festival which provided an excellent use case for our HEVC solution. The new LU600 H.265 has been proven by our customers to enable live video transmission in extreme conditions from ultra HD quality to very low bandwidth.”

Visit www.liveu.tv and www.tvk.gov.kh

Brainstorm Releases InfinitySet 3 and Aston 3 BRAINSTORM HAS ANNOUNCED the release of the production version of InfinitySet 3 and Aston 3, along with eStudio 15, the company’s core render engine and basis for the whole product range. This release represents a major update of the company’s best-selling products, headed by eStudio which now provides even more advanced features which assures its position as the benchmark render engine for realtime 3D broadcast graphics and virtual studios.

With Version 3, InfinitySet and Aston gain a number of major features which greatly improve the products’ capabilities to easily create high-quality content, no matter if it is for real-time graphics, virtual sets or augmented reality for broadcast and beyond, preparing the ground for the upcoming 4K and even 8K broadcast worlds.

InfinitySet has always featured a virtual set toolkit, including industry-first technologies such as 3D Presenter, TeleTransporter, HandsTracking and FreeWalking, all of them taking advantage of Brainstorm’s TrackFree technology.

InfinitySet 3 now benefits from a number of new features that improve the product’s Augmented Reality features, such as VideoGate and VideoCAVE. The VideoGate feature allows for the seamless integration of the presenter not only in the virtual set but also inside additional content within it, so the talent in the

virtual world can be tele-transported to any video with full broadcast continuity.

Another optional feature for InfinitySet is the Combined Render Engine which, as the name suggests, combines the Brainstorm eStudio render engine with the Unreal Engine from Epic Games.

This allows InfinitySet 3 to control Unreal Engine’s parameters in real time to include excellently rendered and realistic background scenes. And as it is integrated with eStudio, it also allows for the inclusion of realtime graphics elements such as 3D motion graphics, stats, pie charts, etc., allowing for the creation of amazing, hyper-realistic Augmented Reality content.

Version 3 also provides enhanced integration between InfinitySet and Aston which allows InfinitySet 3 to take full advantage of the Aston graphics creation and editing toolset, so it can manage and create 2D/3D Aston motion graphics when required and all within the same application, improving the speed, accuracy and realism of the result. Therefore, the creation, management and use of Aston graphics content is greatly enhanced which in turn improves workflow and throughput. Furthermore, a single control system can simultaneously playout the graphics from Aston and InfinitySet alike.

Visit www.brainstorm3d.com

IBM Introduces Watson Captioning

NEWS OPERATIONS

IBM HAS INTRODUCED Watson Captioning which leverages AI to automate the captioning process, while ensuring increased accuracy over time through its machine learning capabilities. In turn, this saves businesses both time and money, and delivers a scalable solution. Watson Captioning is a customisable offering that provides flexibility and productivity, can be easily managed across compliance standards, and has the potential to transform industries beyond media and entertainment.

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Watson Captioning provides a seamless user experience with tools like Machine Generated Captions, Embedded Smart Layout, Watson Caption Editor, and Live Captioning. The product is customisable, giving each company the option to input a unique glossary of words and phrases for proper context and accuracy. Looking ahead, Watson-generated captions will deliver sound/ audio descriptions that can be edited and formatted in real-time. From there, adapting captions to meet compliance standards is far easier. Live Captioning provides broadcasters with the ability to cover content ranging from nightly news, to live sporting events – bringing reliable captioning to viewers in near real-time.

With a host of user-friendly features, Watson Captioning gives companies

the ability to customise and control all aspects of the captioning process.

A custom glossary enables companies to create a glossary of words or proprietary terminology, specific to their offerings or industry, increasing recognition and accuracy rates and reducing the need for manual intervention.

With the Caption Editor tool, users can edit captions in real-time within the interface, and thanks to embedded Smart Layout, lines within captions are automatically separated based on natural pauses in speech or by punctuation.

Watson-generated captions are backed by AI and machine learning, and increase in accuracy and efficiency over time.

The regulatory environment surrounding compliant video content is often variable, with the rules differing based on industry, geographic location, and delivery medium. With Watson Captioning, companies can take automaticallygenerated captions and easily alter them to their specific compliance needs.

This solution not only addresses regulations surrounding captioning, but can aid in compliance for video content at large. By adding a layer of searchable, textual data to video libraries, flagging content that includes profanity, violence, or flagged content is made simpler.

Visit https://www.ibm.com/watson

NEWS OPERATIONS

Sky News Means Business in News Corp Cross-Platform Hub

By Phil Sandberg “WE THINK THAT THIS WILL REALLY BECOME a focal point for live coverage of Australian business and consumer news.” That’s the word from Australian News Channel CEO, Angelos Frangopoulos, on the launch of the new Sky News Business studio, situated in the Sydney HQ of News Corp.

The dedicated business studio broadcasts live, breaking business news across the country and is a pivotal part of News Corp Australia’s recently formed National Business Hub. The launch of new digs for Australia’s only 24hour business channel follows the 2016 acquisition of Australian News Channel Pty Ltd

by News Corp Australia.

While operations for the main news channel have remained at the Macquarie Park campus of Foxtel, Sky News Business teams have been busy on integration with counterparts at News Corp to form the cross-platform National Business Hub.

“The new studio, the Business Hub, actually forms part of the area as you enter into News Corporation, and I think that adds a certain vibrancy to the Ground Floor here at News Corp. I think, importantly, it reaffirms the fact that News Corp is a truly multi-media company and bringing television into what has been traditionally the home of newspapers.”

How do you work with News Corp, internationally?

“We’ve got really great relationships right across the News Corp assets.

We collaborate closely with the radio business that they own in the UK, we have a strong collaboration already with Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, great relationships there. And it’s something that we’ll build up over time.”

Can this Hub also act as a distribution point for content?

“That’s not the way that we operate. We are huge believers in the power of bonded cellular [technology] and we use bonded According to Angelos cellular to send all Frangopoulos, “This is the content back to a collaborative work Macquarie Park. So, this environment where is purely a production we’re bringing together The new Sky News Business set at News Corp’s Sydney HQ. [Pic - The Australian] environment and a the business journalism journalistic production environment for the 24-hour Business Channel resources of News Corp Australia in a collaborative sense, and one of the and business more broadly. It doesn’t necessarily just have to be used for key things about achieving that was actually having the Sky News Business business, but we’ve got a number of assets right around the country and it’s based here at Holt Street. There’s a couple of reasons for it. Not just the fact about utilising them in the best possible way.” that we’re in a building full of journalists, the finest journalists in Australia

“The Australian [newspaper] is a couple of floors above us and there’s also a team here from Dow Jones Wall Street Journal and being physically here together in the same building means that we’ll be able to collaborate a lot more closely as well.”

What form will that collaboration take?

“We see what we do during the day as being very much a partner product to covering the ASX [Australian Stock Exchange] as a traditional business, markets-driven channel. But, in the evening, we’re taking a different approach in 2018, where we’re going to broaden the channel out and work a lot more closely with some of the News Corporation brands around consumer and real estate and superannuation, etc. That really will allow us to provide a more rounded service of information and money news, consumer finance news, to a broader group of Australians than the ones that currently consume our coverage of the markets.”

The new studio is central to the Business Hub. What does it involve?

“This is a down, end-of-the-line studio, and all our production infrastructure is actually based out at Macquarie Park [in Sydney]. So, all our Mosart suites, switching, our pilots and co-pilots, we’ve also got a production resource there where we produce side by side Sky News Live, our main channel, Fox Sports News, the Sky Business Channel, we’ve got an additional Mosart suite which allows us to provide content such as Qantas and other thirdparty product, and we also have an environment for our 24-hour Weather Channel, Sky News Weather.

So, what is the connectivity between here and Macquarie Park?

“We’ve got IP connectivity. We also believe that IP connectivity is really the future about, not only just reducing cost, but being flexible in the way that we communicate from site to site, so we’ve got quite a significant IP project that we’re working on at the moment.

“The end goal of that project is to be as flexible as possible. We’ve seen what bonded cellular has done to our business, it really has, because in effect they’re mobile phones, so it really has changed the way we operate. We’ve traditionally been a business that has been constrained by point to point circuitry, so bringing in multi-points into it at relatively low cost means that we can build studios and facilities that give us full flexibility.”

What about the construction of the Hub? “We did most of the engineering in-house ourselves. We’ve got a team that has done these kinds of projects before, where they’ve just finished the Fox Sports News Project. We outsourced the building of the set and designing of the set to Ark Television Concepts and they then had [Mal Nichols & Associates] out of Melbourne build the set. The frames were built in China, brought out here.

“We wanted this to be a really impactful set and while it ultimately is some shiny furniture on a shiny floor with nice screens behind it, I want it to be very much a work environment on the set. So, we’ve got the ability to get up and actually walk around, have full-frame graphics on screens. We’re still finding our way around the set, but it will evolve over time. The team’s done a really fantastic job and we’re really proud that the bulk of the engineering’s been delivered by our own in-house team.”

Visit www.sky.com.au

NEWS OPERATIONS

working here for News Corp Australia, but also the fact that we’ve brought the business channel closer to the CBD which has been a challenge for it geographically, based out at Macquarie Park.

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MAM World Broadcasting Unions Release Cyber Security Recommendations FOR SEVERAL MONTHS DURING 2017, the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) worked together to develop the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU) Cyber Security Recommendations for Media Vendors, Systems Software and Services, a set of cyber security recommendations intended to create a dialogue with media vendors and broadcast organisations to achieve more consistent and effective compliance with cyber security requirements.

Based on the original work by the EBU and NABA Member cyber security groups, these recommendations reflect the performance aspirations of both organisations with respect to cyber security.

The WBU recommends that its union members, and media companies in general, apply these cyber security recommendations when designing, procuring and implementing their systems, software and services.

Categorised as either critical, important or best practice, the recommendations cover areas such as: • Communications where a media vendor should immediately release information and offer support in the event of a security weakness in its product.

• Authentication – where a media vendor's systems, software and services must integrate with centralised authentication services, and support password policies.

• Controls – where the media vendor shall support the security updates for all third-party components, as well as address issues around malware, OS and runtime environments, internet connectivity, USB/CD/DVD drive/port functionality, as well as provide best practice recommendations for thirdparty services used, including cloud services.

• Provision of comprehensive documentation.

• Encryption support.

Commenting on the document, the WBU Technical Committee Chairman Simon Fell stated that “it is important that broadcasters reinforce the need for cyber security with their vendors. By working together through the WBU we can achieve a global reach and present common recommendations to industry partners.”

The WBU Cyber Security Recommendations document is supported by NABA, the EBU and sister unions including the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU), the African Union of Broadcasting (AUB), the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU), and the International Association of Broadcasting (IAB/AIR).

The document will be circulated to the unions’ members, as well as posted online on their corresponding websites.

For more information and to view the document, Visit: http://bit.ly/2GDf0OU

TMD, Mediaproxy Partner for Fast Access to Compliance Archives TMD, THE PROVIDER OF asset and workflow management systems for digital and physical assets, has partnered with Mediaproxy, the developer of software-based IP broadcast solutions for compliance, monitoring, and analysis, to create a practical and efficient integrated content management workflow solution.

Mediaproxy develops compliance recording systems for broadcasters worldwide, and was recently chosen by U.S.-based Cowles Company for logging and monitoring of its KHQ, KNDU, KNDO, KULR and KFBB television stations across Washington and Montana. Mediaproxy LogServer has been deployed by Cowles to capture, log, and monitor 14 of its television channels over IP. Once logged and stored in a proxy format content can be retrieved for review using the intuitive Mediaproxy LogPlayer.

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The same technology is now being used to provide a lightweight but highly functional recording of extended content, such as major sporting events and legislative proceedings. The partnership with TMD allows content, typically off-air programme recordings and metadata captured by Mediaproxy LogServer, to be automatically added to the TMD Mediaflex-UMS database.

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The result is Mediaflex-UMS driven software-defined workflows which will utilise Mediaproxy recorded content and metadata.

Mediaflex users are also able to locate Mediaproxy assets by searching Mediaflex: our customers are now able to search through continuous broadcast compliance logs and off-air recordings to find specific content, references, and metadata to be used with all the power of Mediaflex workflows.

“As software-defined workflows grow in importance, we are focusing on creating technology partnerships with other market leaders to enable us to deliver highly functional, seamless solutions,” said Carlton Smith, CEO of TMD. “Mediaproxy is not just a market leader, but an innovative thinker in how technology can support advanced solutions and this is a great opportunity for us to collaborate.”

Erik Otto, CEO of Mediaproxy, added “Integrating LogServer with MediaflexUMS offers many possibilities enabling customers to benefit from the power and flexibility of a unified solution. Partnering with TMD and their market leading asset management solution allows us to take on new and exciting challenges.”

Visit https://mediaproxy.com and www.tmd.tv

Signiant Given Thumbs Up by Digital Production Partnership SIGNIANT INC, DEVELOPER OF intelligent file movement software, has announced it has received the ‘Committed to Security’ mark from the Digital Production Partnership (DPP), demonstrating its ongoing commitment to best cybersecurity practices for both production and broadcast environments.

apply appropriate security functions, such as authentication, authorization, data integrity, data confidentiality, and non-repudiation,” said Ian Hamilton, CTO, Signiant. “We are delighted to receive the DPP’s Committed to Security mark which clearly demonstrates how seriously we take cybersecurity issues.”

Launched in October 2017, the DPP’s Committed to Security Programme is designed to help suppliers demonstrate their commitment to security best practice and offers a common framework that shows their customers how they are addressing cybersecurity.

“We're delighted that Signiant has been awarded the DPP’s Committed to Security mark for both Broadcast and Production,” says DPP Managing Director, Mark Harrison. “They are part of a rapidly growing community of companies who hold the DPP Security mark. It demonstrates Signiant’s clear commitment to cybersecurity best practice, and to playing their part in building a more secure media supply chain.”

“Signiant customers trust our technology to move their most valuable assets, so we take every precaution to secure each layer involved in file movement.

A strong understanding of the ever-evolving threats enables us to effectively

Visit http://www.signiant.com

Explore the possibilities at mediaproxy.com

Software-based IP solutions for compliance, monitoring and analysis

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

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TMD and EditShare Collaborate on Production Content TMD RECENTLY INTEGRATED its technology with media and entertainment storage specialist, EditShare. TMD is now certified to connect to the EditShare File System (EFS), allowing Mediaflex-UMS to search, index and retrieve all digital assets located on the EFS cluster.

“Many of the world’s post production operations rely on EditShare storage solutions,” said Justin Elkerton, Head of the Partner Programme at TMD. “This integration will give them the benefit of Mediaflex’s software-defined workflows combined with EditShare’s live networked storage platform for a more flexible and operationally efficient solution.”

In order to provide high performance as well as enterprise-class resiliency, EditShare uses its own file system, EFS. Visible to Mac, Windows and Linux clients, EFS allows the storage environment to scale infinitely while maintaining a single namespace. Tailored specifically to the needs of media users, EFS delivers up to 20% bandwidth gains within a facility versus standard networking protocols like AFP or Samba. It also provides a shared storage environment where multiple editors can work on the same project simultaneously, using Avid, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Lightworks and more.

With this new partnership, TMD’s Mediaflex asset and workflow management can mount directly onto the EFS storage platform, allowing Mediaflex’s software-defined workflows to move content on and off the platform and between EditShare media spaces. Automated workflows can ensure content is restored from archive or moved from other storage tiers and presented at the right workstations. Projects can be tracked, and finalised material can be transferred for transmission or transcoding.

“Providing an open platform for integration has been at the core of EditShare’s shared storage philosophy since it was first introduced in 2003,″ commented Bill Thompson, EditShare Storage Product Manager. “Users will be delighted with the workflow efficiencies offered through the seamless integration of Mediaflex-UMS and EditShare. Equally as important, facility owners will appreciate the ability to improve existing systems performance and maximise the return on their investment.”

Visit www.tmd.tv

DataFrameworks and Object Matrix Team Up DATAFRAMEWORKS AND OBJECT MATRIX have launched a new file and object storage solution. The solution enables management of petabytes worth of digital content throughout its lifetime. The partnership combines DataFrameworks’ ClarityNow file management software with Object Matrix’s MatrixStore, object storage software that provides protection and governance for the lifetime of any digital content. This combination gives users an easy overview of their archive and provides the ability to manage petabytes of otherwise unstructured digital content data across both Object Matrix MXFS (MatrixStore File System) file and S3 object interfaces.

Jonathan Morgan, CEO of Object Matrix, said, “Organisations today are drowning in unstructured data. The resulting complications are especially pronounced in industries with a high dependence on technical based workflows, such as media and entertainment. This solution is aimed at addressing these challenges and the impact of escalating storage costs, workflow inefficiencies and increased operational expenses.”

The solution from ClarityNow and MatrixStore enables users to determine what, when, and where to archive. It therefore reduces both the operating and capital costs connected with managing large amounts of high-resolution workflow and rich content across complex storage environments. In addition to allowing customers to appropriately tier data across the infrastructure, the combined solution allows businesses to provide higher levels of service to internal users while automating many of the routine tasks associated with data management.

“Our combined solution provides a ‘single pane of glass’ view of data, regardless of the file or object storage location,” said Will Hall, DataFrameworks CEO. “Together we deliver advanced file manag ment efficiencies by optimising petabyte scale data management across the storage infrastructure.”

Visit https://dataframeworks.com

Nexsan Upgrades Unity Storage with ATTO NEXSAN AND ATTO TECHNOLOGY RECENTLY announced that ATTO 16Gb Celerity host bus adapters (HBAs) are now certified with Nexsan Unity storage platform. This latest system enhancement will address the growing need for high-performing scalable and secure storage to support exponential data growth from a variety of workloads, including high resolution 4K/8K video editing, high-performance computing and data warehousing.

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MAM

Nexsan’s Unity is the first unified storage platform that combines enterprise NAS and high performance block storage, PLUS a fully integrated private cloud with Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS), Mobile Access, Multi-site Sync, and a Secure Active Archive client in a simple to manage and secure system. This solution combines this functionality into a single product, at a single price, allowing organisations to have less to manage and lower overall costs.

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“We’re seeing an increasing number of customers interested in high performance throughput for their demanding applications,” said Gary Watson, CTO, Nexsan. “ATTO is the leader in providing world-class HBAs so we’re pleased to be able to offer these options to our customers.”

ATTO 16Gb Gen 6 Celerity host bus adapters deliver high-performance connectivity solutions for the most demanding storage environments, enabling users to achieve the ultimate in I/O performance for real-time and

transactional applications. Available in low-profile single-, dual-, and quadport versions, and providing throughputs of up to 6,400Mb/s per channel, ATTO Celerity HBAs provide users with rapid access to storage and retrieval of critical information when using high bandwidth cloud applications and storage intensive applications such as backup, database transactions and rich media.

ATTO CEO, Tim Klein, also weighed in, saying, “We are elated to be working with industry leading partners like Nexsan. By pairing our Fibre Channel HBAs with Nexsan’s high performing hyper-unified storage platform users are provided a complete solution to meet or even exceed the connectivity standards necessary for data intensive environments.”

Celerity 16Gb Fibre Channel HBAs feature ATTO MultiPath Director and Advanced Data Streaming (ADS) latency management technologies for the fastest, most reliable connection of servers and workstations to storage in physical and virtual environments. Celerity HBAs are compatible with all leading operating systems, and are complemented by a full suite of easyto-use, GUI-based diagnostic, monitoring and management tools to ensure optimal performance.

The 16Gb HBAs support Linux, Mac, Windows, FreeBSD, and illumos environments.

Visit www.nexsan.com and www.atto.com

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Quantum Unveils Scale-out NAS for Demanding IP-Based Workflows QUANTUM RECENTLY ANNOUNCED a new Xcellis Scale-out NAS solution that delivers the highest levels of storage performance and scalability in a costeffective, ethernet-based appliance. Powered by Quantum’s StorNext shared storage and data management platform, the multiprotocol, multiclient Xcellis Scale-out NAS system unites robust media and metadata management with performance – three times better than that of competing NAS systems – with scalability to support content creators’ collaborative workflows and ease their transition to an IP-based infrastructure.

Addressing Workflow Pressures and the IP Migration High-resolution, high-volume media workflows such as collaborative 4K editing and visual effects creation demand extreme performance and scalability from the underlying storage infrastructure. To meet this challenge, content creators have traditionally utilised high-throughput SAN solutions. Quantum’s Xcellis Scale-out NAS stands alone in its ability to deliver the performance and scalability previously available only in a SAN to all-IP workflows. In addition, Quantum enables users to configure an Xcellis solution with both scale-out SAN and NAS. Specific benefits of Xcellis Scale-out NAS include: • Increased Productivity in all-IP Environments: Featuring a converged architecture that saves space and power, continuous scalability for simplified scaling of performance and capacity, and unified access to content, Xcellis systems boost productivity in collaborative media environments by integrating the most important components of workflow storage into a single hardware solution.

• Cost-Effective Scaling of Performance and Capacity: A single Xcellis Scaleout NAS appliance performs at least three times better than that of the market’s next-best NAS offering. An Xcellis cluster can scale performance and capacity together or independently to reach hundreds of petabytes in capacity and more than a terabyte per second in performance. When deployed as part of a multitier StorNext infrastructure – which can include object, tape and cloud storage – Xcellis Scale-out NAS can cost as little as 1/10 that of an enterprise-only NAS solution with the same capacity.

• Lifecycle, Location and Cost Management: The Xcellis Scale-out NAS platform leverages more than 15 years of data management experience built into StorNext software, which provides automatic tiering between flash, disk, tape, object storage and public cloud. Copies can be created for content distribution, collaboration, data protection and disaster recovery.

• Integrated Artificial Intelligence: Xcellis is the industry’s only storage appliance that can integrate artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to enable users to extract more value for their assets through the automated creation of metadata. The system can actively interrogate data across multiple axes to uncover events, objects, faces, words and sentiments, automatically generating new, custom metadata that unlocks additional possibilities for the use of stored assets.

For example, videographers who want to capture footage in the field can now streamline on-set workflow thanks to the second product offering from Seagate’s partnership with DJI, the world’s leading manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles, which looks to advance data solutions for the UAV ecosystem.

The new LaCie DJI Copilot is a complete backup on-set solution, enabling drone users to quickly ingest and review content in full resolution without a PC. This allows creatives and consumers to playback, copy, and manage drone footage from their mobile device without the hassle of leaving the field or booting up a computer. Users can connect and reference the built-in screen to initiate direct file transfer from an SD card to LaCie DJI Copilot – without the need of a laptop or a mobile network. The Copilot BOSS (Back-up On-Set Solution) app allows users to playback video in full resolution as well as manage and organise files with a mobile phone or tablet, and a built-in power bank recharges mobile devices. With 2TB of storage, the LaCie DJI Copilot enables users to store up to 65 hours of 4K 30fps video footage and 20K+ RAW photos.

Another challenge facing mobile users is extending the storage and battery life of smartphones. For consumers in China and Indonesia, owners of Android devices can extend battery life and capacity of a smartphone or tablet with the Seagate Joy Drive. Whether consumers are on their morning commute or out with friends, the Seagate Joy Drive enables them to access videos and other content anywhere, without the need for a Wi-Fi connection or cellular service. Available in China this March, the Seagate Joy Drive is available in a 1TB capacity.

Meanwhile consumers can keep their files in motion with the Seagate Fast SSD – a flash drive that teams a 540MB/s transfer rate, with shockresistance and USB-C connectivity. Users can backup or sync their content using Seagate’s Toolkit software. The Seagate Fast SSD will be available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities.

Data security is a growing concern with mobile devices. Consequently Seagate is introducing an addition to its line of LaCie Rugged drives – the LaCie Rugged Secure. Built to withstand extreme conditions, the Rugged Secure is the first drive to include hardware encryption using Seagate Secure technology. Disconnection of Rugged Secure from a computer will automatically lock the drive, and will remain password-protected via Toolkit software.

And for creative professionals and enthusiasts looking to try out the latest graphic design and video editing software from Adobe Systems, an expanded partnership between Adobe and Seagate now provides limited-time, no-cost access to Adobe’s latest applications bundled with Seagate and LaCie drives. Two offerings available immediately include two complimentary months of the ‘Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan’, which features the new cloud-based photo service, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC – across the full range of Seagate Backup Plus and LaCie Porsche Design devices, as well as packaging a complimentary month of the ‘Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan’.

Get your products on the desks of key industry decision makers in print and online.

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SPACE!

SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY ANNOUNCED A RANGE of new products at the recent CES 2018 conference, designed to equip the world’s mobile population with solutions that solve challenges faced when creating, processing and accessing data on-the-go.

Visit www.seagate.com

Visit www.quantum.com

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Seagate Offers New Mobile Data Storage Solutions

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POST PRODUCTION www.content-technology.com/postproduction

Mediacorp Audio Post to Produce Sound FX for China’s First Animation Movie MEDIACORP AUDIO POST has clinched a deal with Zhe Jiang ZHHY Studios Co., Ltd to produce the sound effect design and Auro3D mixing for Lanling The God of War, a 3D animation movie due for release in early 2019.

Lanling, The God of War is a RMB200 million (USD$30.22 million) production helmed by renowned Chinese director Chen Kai. The movie draws its story from the soul-stirring legend of Lanling, King of the Northern Qi Dynasty and his poignant love story with Princess Yoo Tong of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. The movie promises magnificent landscape as well as real-life war scenes. A first in China, the movie will be using virtual shooting and pure CG effects technology to create life-like characters in the movie.

Since 1979, Mediacorp Audio Post has been producing music and sound effects for local television, moving on to sound-mixing services for the local and regional film industries in the 1980s. This is the first time that it is undertaking the sound effect design and Auro3D mixing for a full animation movie.

Mo Ju Li, Music & Sound Effect Director of Audio Post, Mediacorp, said “Lanling The God of War’s director Chen Kai was looking for a partner in sound effect post production and 3D immersive sound for his movie. He chose Mediacorp Audio Post for our experience, expertise and advanced in-house facilities. Mediacorp houses six mixing studios and in May this year

launched the first Auro3D and Auromax Movie-mixing studio in Southeast Asia.

“This makes us a one-stop shop for audio post production services for our business partners. We can now provide the highest possible audio standard, sound design, music composing services all under one roof.”

Lanling, The God of War Director Chen Kai said, “Mediacorp Audio Post is well known in the region for its sound effect and mixing production services.

I was impressed by their audio post production for the Chinese movie “The Room”, which was nominated at the Shanghai International Film & Festival’s award show. Sound effect design is a key element in movies, and with their new Auro3D mixing studio, I look forward to the final outcome of the 3D immersive sound they will create for Lanling The God of War.” Doreen Neo, Chief Content Officer of Mediacorp, added “Our partnership with Lanling, The God of War movie project is testimony that Mediacorp’s capability extends beyond producing quality content, but also in providing world class audio post production services. I strongly believe that this collaboration will put our Audio Post services on the world map and in the same league as world-class sound designers.”

Visit www.mediacorp.sg

Technicolor Leads Post Production Investment Down Under TECHNICOLOR HAS ANNOUNCED plans to establish a 500-person visual effects (VFX) centre in the South Australian capital, Adelaide.

Technicolor will establish ‘Mill Film’ in Adelaide – a AUD$26 million 3000-plus square metre visual effects (VFX) studio. The initial focus for Mill Film will be delivering VFX for major film studios and streaming services, with a later expansion into emerging opportunities in virtual and augmented reality.

Mill Film will comprise an Adelaide Centre of Excellence and VFX Academy, together accommodating 500 people – ranging from technologists to artists – when running at full strength within five years.

The South Australian Government will provide up to $6 million from its Economic Investment Fund to support the project, which is expected to have an economic benefit of around $252.6 million over ten years.

In December last year, the State Government announced a newly expanded Post Production, Digital and Visual Effects (PDV) rebate to foster new business development for large-budget PDV film productions that use VFX in blockbuster films.

Technicolor’s Chief Executive Officer, Frederic Rose said, “We picked Australia as an opportunity for expansion because it provides an ability to engage with a pool of proven creative talent; work with leading universities; and build on a modern and mature infrastructure that is critical for working on high-end VFX projects.”

POST PRODUCTION

Meanwhile, Film Finances Inc (FFI), the world’s leading provider of completion contracts to the entertainment industry, has made a major investment in Australian media management and facilities company Silver Trak Digital and its parent company Buff Dubs.

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FFI offers assurance to the financiers of film, TV, mini-series and online media content. Since its founding in the 1950s, FFI has issued contracts on approximately 1700 productions – last year over 50 in Australia alone – with gross budgets in excess of US$17 billion. These include many of the film industry’s best known-titles, ranging from the first Bond movie (Dr. No, 1962) to The Hunger Games (2012) and Oscar winning films such as 12 Years a Slave (2013) and La-La Land (2016).

With offices in Sydney and Melbourne, Silver Trak and Buff Dubs have grown quickly through their ability to process media content of any description and transform, reproduce and aggregate it in the various formats demanded by its clients. This has helped them to secure preferred provider and vendor status with some of the world’s leading media platforms, including Netflix, Apple and Google, as well as gaming platforms including PlayStation and Xbox.

Lastly, after integrating operationally over the last year, Deluxe sister VFX companies Iloura and Method have taken the final step in joining forces, unifying under a single brand; Method Studios. Method’s operations now encompass Melbourne, Sydney, Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York, Pune, Chicago and Atlanta.

Key talent led by award-winning VFX Supervisor Glenn Melenhorst and VFX Producer and EP Ineke Majoor in Melbourne, and by GM Jeanette Manifold in Sydney, will bring their teams’ artistry to an expanding set of clients through Method. Simon Rosenthal, now Method Head of VFX, Australia, continues his 20+ year leadership of the newly-branded teams. Iloura recently completed work on Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Bright, and earlier, Game of Thrones Season 7 ‘The Spoils of War’ and Thor: Ragnarok.

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REGISTER AT abeshow.tv

AUGUST 7-9, Darling Island, Pyrmont.

Hear from industry experts on hot topics such as IP production and delivery, 4K, HDR, HEVC, OTT, VR, cloud broadcasting and more.

See the latest solutions to empower production and delivery of your content. Register now for updates & notifications on speakers and attendees.

2018 ABESHOW Exhibitors include 4Amber Technology 4Panasonic 4Aspera

4Quantum

4Blonde Robot

4Rohde & Schwarz

4Ericsson

4Ross Video

4Imagine Communications

4Sony

4Magna Systems & Engineering 4Onair Solutions

4Techtel 4Tekinsite 4VizRT

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Video Technologies PMS 356

PMS Cool Gray 8

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The 2018 Exhibition, Conference and Workshops are the second to be held at Doltone House, Darling Island, Pyrmont, from August 7–9.

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POST PRODUCTION

AJA, Avid Team On Avid Artist | DNxIP Interface AJA VIDEO SYSTEMS HAS ANNOUNCED that it has collaborated with Avid to develop Avid Artist | DNxIP, a new hardware interface option for Avid Media Composer users that supports high frame rate, deep colour and high dynamic range IP workflows. Avid Artist | DNxIP is a Thunderbolt 3 equipped I/O device that enables the transfer of SMPTE standard HD video over 10 GigE IP networks, with high-quality local monitoring over 3G-SDI and HDMI 2.0.

Based on the new Io IP, Avid Artist | DNxIP is custom engineered to Avid’s specifications, and includes an XLR audio input on the front of the device for microphone or line level sources.

Avid Artist | DNxIP leverages the power of Thunderbolt 3 to facilitate simple, fast HD/SD video and audio ingest/output from/to IP networks. It features dual Thunderbolt 3 ports for daisy chaining, and two SFP+ cages for video and audio routing over 10GigE IP networks. The portable, aluminium encased device also supports SMPTE 2022-6 uncompressed video, audio and VANC data over IP, as well as SMPTE 2022-7 for redundancy protection.

Avid Artist | DNxIP feature highlights include: • Laptop or desktop HD/SD capture and playback over IP across Thunderbolt 3.

• Audio input for analogue microphone to record single-channel 16-bit D/A analogue audio, 48kHz sample rate, balanced, using industry standard XLR. • Backwards compatibility with existing Thunderbolt hosts.

• SMPTE 2022-6 and 2022-7 I/O. • Dual 10 GigE connectivity via two SFP+ cages compatible with 10 GigE SFP transceiver modules from leading third-party providers.

• Two Thunderbolt 3 ports for daisy chaining of up to six Thunderbolt devices • 3G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 video monitoring.

• Audio I/O: 16-channel embedded SDI, eight-channel embedded HDMI, four-channel analogue audio in and four-channel audio out via XLR breakout.

• Small, rugged design suited for an array of production environments.

• Downstream keyer.

• Standard 12v four-pin XLR for AC or battery power.

Visit www.avid.com and www.aja.com

Blackmagic DeckLink 8K Pro with Quad Link 12G‑SDI BLACKMAGIC DESIGN HAS ANNOUNCED DeckLink 8K Pro, a new high performance capture and playback card featuring four quad link multi rate, bidirectional 12G‑SDI connections to allow real-time high resolution 8K workflows.

This new DeckLink 8K Pro breaks new ground in high quality as it supports all film and video formats from SD all the way up to 8K DCI, 12‑bit RGB 4:4:4, plus it also handles advanced colour spaces such as Rec. 2020 for deeper colour and higher dynamic range. DeckLink 8K also handles a massive 64 channels of audio, stereoscopic 3D, high frame rates and more.

3D for all modes up to 4K DCI at 60 frames per second in 12‑bit RGB.

The combination of higher resolution, a larger colour space and higher dynamic range means that DeckLink 8K Pro is suitable for editing, colour and high end visual effects work.

production workflow that lets you master full resolution high dynamic range

DeckLink 8K Pro supports capture and playback of 8- or 10-bit YUV 4:2:2 video and 10 or 12‑bit RGB 4:4:4. Video can be captured as uncompressed or to industry standard broadcast quality ProRes and DNx files. DeckLink 8K Pro lets customers work at up to 60 frames per second in 8K and supports stereoscopic

DeckLink 8K Pro is built into an easy to install eight-lane generation 3 PCI Express for Mac, Windows, and Linux workstations. Customers get support for all legacy SD and HD formats, along with Ultra HD, DCI 4K, 8K and DCI 8K, as well as Rec. 601, 709 and 2020 colour.

DeckLink 8K Pro is designed to work seamlessly with the upcoming DaVinci Resolve 14.2 Studio for an incredibly seamless editing, colour and audio post projects in full 8K resolution. In addition, DeckLink 8K Pro also works with other professional applications such as Final Cut Pro X, Media Composer, Premiere Pro, After Effects, ProTools, Nuke and more. There’s even a free software development kit so customers and OEMs can build their own custom solutions.

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

External GPU Devices for Graphics Acceleration

POST PRODUCTION

SONNET TECHNOLOGIES HAS INTRODUCED a new connected external GPU (eGPU) device, the eGFX Breakaway Puck, a portable, high-performance eGPU for Thunderbolt 3 computers that delivers accelerated graphics, and provides multidisplay connectivity leveraging AMD’s Eyefinity technology.

With a Puck connected, a user’s computer can deliver accelerated frame rates in popular graphics-intensive games, and boosted GPU acceleration for pro video applications.

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Sonnet will offer two Puck models, the eGFX Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 560 and eGFX Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 570, enabling users to select the device best suited to their needs. Each Puck model measures 15.2cm wide by 13cm deep by 5cm tall, features one Thunderbolt 3 port, three DisplayPort ports and one HDMI port, and supports up to four 4K displays in multimonitor mode.

When GPU acceleration is needed on the road, users can conveniently pack an eGFX Breakaway Puck along with a notebook in a backpack or computer bag. The Puck connects to a computer with a single Thunderbolt

3 cable and, for added convenience, also provides 45W of power delivery to power and charge the computer, enabling many users to leave their computer’s power brick behind. On the desktop, the Puck has a minimal footprint.

With an optional VESA mounting bracket kit, the Puck can be attached to the back of a display or the arm of a multimonitor stand, leaving a zero footprint on the desktop. The kit also includes a 0.5 meter DisplayPort cable to help reduce cable clutter.

Visit www.sonnettech.com

POST PRODUCTION

RE:Vision Effects Announces RE:Lens for FCP X and Motion.360 RE:VISION EFFECTS HAS ANNOUNCED RE:Lens, a plug-in set for 360 (equirectangular) and fisheye workflow, is now available for Apple Final Cut Pro X and Motion.

With RE:Lens you can create new looks with your 4K, 6K and 8K cameras that

Shoot with a superfish lens on a single camera and convert the video to Latitude-Longitude format suitable for use with all major 360° viewers. With the proper lens and camera setup, RE:Lens eliminates stitching panorama projects.

pleasing sports, landscape or architectural video that you could not normally

RE:Lens includes spherical stabilisation to address the problem of shaky or poor quality camera motion. This includes hand-held video or video captured while in movement, whether walking or attaching the camera to a motorcycle on a bumpy road. When working with 360 VR or fisheye footage, traditional in-camera or post-production stabilisers do not work well, or at all on this type of footage. RE:Lens presents a solution that works directly in spherical space, with no need to break up the sequence in six cube faces or do 2D tracking of reference points. It even works directly on stitched 360° VR sequences.

The UI is simple – you press ‘Track’ and the sequence is analysed and a more stable sequence is produced. For more control, RE:Lens provides the ability to select frames that are ‘keys’, and stabilisation is performed smoothly between selected key times. RE:Lens can also use moving-average (non key-frame) motion smoothing to stabilise fisheye sources as usually done with a regular stabiliser.

Mocha VR with Stereo 360° Support for Adobe Immersive Video MOCHA VR, DEVELOPED BY BORIS FX, now offers stereoscopic 3D enabled post-production tools for 360/VR video creators. The Mocha VR point release (5.6) adds a powerful new workflow to the plug-in bringing stereo-optimised planar tracking, masking, horizon stabilisation, and object removal tools to Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Adobe After Effects CC, and key tools within Adobe Creative Cloud.

Mocha VR 5.6 is a free update. The new stereo 3D workflow supports most 360° formats, including top/bottom, side-by-side, and dual stream, and also includes improvements to the Reorient Module for advanced image stabilisation to reduce VR motion sickness.

were previously not possible. For example, work with a professional DSLR fisheye lens to capture large-resolution super-wide shots, and then produce generate from a single camera. When you straighten your video shot with a superfish lens (220-280°) you can animate camera rotations and zooms in post, providing greater flexibility when directing the viewer’s attention. Even create two separate virtual views using a single camera.

RE:Lens Features for FCP X and Motion • Convert super fisheye clips to a 360° panoramic video in a single step without the need for stitching software.

• Stabilise 360° VR and fisheye footage directly, with easy-to-use workflow.

• High quality filtering options.

• Option to automatically soften or sharpen in the appropriate places.

• GPU acceleration.

Visit http://revisionfx.com

AJA Delivers FS-HDR v2.0 Software

AJA RECENTLY RELEASED v2.0 software for its FS-HDR converter/frame synchroniser, for real-time HDR transforms and 4K/HD up, down, crossconversion. FS-HDR v2.0 software introduces intuitive new parametric controls that allow users to fine tune the look of final transforms in FSHDR, and adds support for camera formats Sony S-Log3 S-Gamut3 Cine and S-Log3 BT.2020.

FS-HDR v2.0 brings 17 new controls to FS-HDR, including 12 for colour correction (red, green, blue and master controls for lift, gamma and gain), one for colour saturation, two for input formats (Log look and SDR softness), and two to adjust the volume of HDR in the output signal and ambient light compensation. Each control is accessible via FS-HDR’s front panel, a browser, or REST interface, and settings can be stored to a preset for recall later or copied to other FS-HDR units.

“Editors and artists using Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects can enrich and extend their 360/VR toolset with Mocha VR,” said Chris Bobotis, Director of Immersive at Adobe. “Mocha VR is a welcome addition to our Immersive toolset.”

Mocha VR is available as a plug-in for Adobe’s immersive workflows.

Purchasing options include: full license, annual subscription, and upgrade from Mocha Pro 5.

Visit www.borisfx.com

“With HDR and WCG a continuing focus for many broadcast, production, post and ProAV professionals this year, we’ve been collaborating with FSHDR customers to develop new features that make it easier to achieve the desired look for each transform, while also offering support for the tools they prefer to work with,” said AJA President, Nick Rashby.

FS-HDR is a 1RU universal converter/frame synchroniser for real time HDR transforms as well as 4K/HD up/down/cross conversions. Fusing AJA’s production-proven FS frame synchronisation and conversion technology with video and colour space processing algorithms from the Colorfront Engine, FS-HDR matches the real time, low-latency processing and colour fidelity demands that broadcast, OTT, post production and ProAV environments require. FS-HDR offers two modes for signal conversion, and allows users to also convert a range of camera Log formats to HDR broadcast standards as well as to/from BT.2020/BT.709.

Visit www.aja.com

POST PRODUCTION

“Many VR creatives now want to work in stereo 3D to deliver more immersive video experiences. However, working in these new formats is inherently difficult and time consuming for post-production,” stated Ross Shain, Chief Product Officer, Boris FX. “The new Mocha VR 5.6 stereo workflow uses planar tracking analysis on ‘both eye views’ to solve camera disparity and simplify advanced post tasks such as camera rig removal or stabilising shaky footage. Adobe users can apply Mocha VR as an effect to track, mask or clean up directly on stitched mono or stereo 360° footage with reduced manual key-framing for efficiency and time savings.”

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AUDIO Digital soundwaves

www.content-technology.com/audio

CCTV Takes Lawo Route to IP-Based EFP MAKING ITS FIRST MOVE into mobile IP-based audio for electronic field production (EFP), Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has commissioned a setup based around mc² mixing consoles from Lawo and RAVENNA real-time audio transport.

In addition to being a first for CCTV, this is also the first such system operating anywhere in China and represents a major milestone for German technology pioneer Lawo and the project’s main contractor, the NDT Group.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, NDT has an operation center in Beijing through which it acts as a distributor and system solution provider to the broadcast, telecommunication and other professional industries in China. This project is the latest in a longstanding relationship between CCTV and NDT. In June 2017, CCTV actively began researching IP-based mobile EFP for its production of sports and music programs – Lawo received the order the following month, and the system was fully operational for CCTV’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

CCTV has been using Lawo mixing consoles since 2008, and presently counts four 400-square-meter studios and three news studios using Lawo mc²66 mixing consoles, as well as a small audio OB van equipped a Lawo mc²56 console. The new installation of Lawo mc² consoles will bring full IP

configuration to CCTV for the first time.

NDT designed the system using a typical spine-leaf IP switch network, with two Cisco 3850 switches acting as main and backup respectively. A further six Cisco 2960 switches provide main and backup support for three remote stage-boxes on one system. NDT also provided global surveillance software to monitor the status of the PTP master clock and log files of the switches.

The operators’ setup comprises two 32-fader Lawo mc²56 consoles, each providing 288 DSP channels and a routing capacity of 8192×8192 mono channels, and two 16-fader mc²36 consoles with 192 internal DSP channels and 512×512 crosspoints. Using SoundGrid, integration, the systems have both MADI and IP RAVENNA/AES67 compatible interfaces, with dual router cards.

This gives CCTV an IP audio mobile system that will operate together with another IP video mobile system designed for 4K broadcasting. This includes two Lawo DALLIS I/Os taking care of the AES signals passing to and from EVS, and three remote stageboxes configured with six A_mic8 plus one A_mic8 and three A_digital8 interfaces, as well as one A_madi4 at the local end.

Visit www.lawo.com

Second Calrec Artemis for FOX SPORTS Australia FOX SPORTS AUSTRALIA HAS ADDED a second Calrec Artemis digital audio console at its Sydney headquarters, replacing a Calrec Zeta console that has delivered audio output since 2008.

The Artemis went live on late last year with a pre-recorded UFC preview show followed by 'Just for Kicks,' a live-audience football entertainment show on FOX SPORTS 501.

Artemis guaranteed a smooth transition for our crew,” said FOX SPORTS Australia Network Head of Audio, Antony Koveos. “We effectively mirrored and networked the facilities by adding Dante cards in both studios and the intercom system.

This has given us a high-capacity intercom interface that extends to the outside world and is now available on our outside broadcast network.

The decommissioning of the Zeta and then installation and commissioning of the Artemis took less than 48 hours by a team assembled

by FOX SPORTS Australia Broadcast Projects Engineer Mick Gergos. The show files were prepped and checked beforehand, so when show time arrived, the operators pushed up the faders and were off without a hitch into very familiar territory.

The new 48-fader Artemis console is installed in Studio B. Key drivers for FOX SPORTS to add the second Artemis were the ability to link it via Calrec’s Hydra2 network to the existing Artemis in Studio A for a seamless exchange of audio signals, and the ability to add Calrec’s RP1 remote production unit to remotely control signals in the field from an Artemis surface in a studio control room.

“Since we already work with the same desk in our other studio, adding a new

Visit http://calrec.com

Jünger Provides Digital Processing Backbone for China’s ZRTV ZHEJIANG RADIO AND TV GROUP (ZRTG), a leading player among China’s TV broadcasters, has extended its existing relationship with digital audio specialist Jünger Audio by equipping its new Zhejiang International TV Centre with a range of Jünger loudness control and audio processing solutions.

Since 2011, ZRTV has been using Jünger Audio products to ensure the quality of its broadcasts. For this reason, Jünger was the choice for ZRTV’s new 42-storey TV Centre in Hangzhou, which houses several TV studios along with additional studios for music and film production.

AUDIO

Among the units supplied by Jünger Audio are five D*AP8 MAP EDITION surround monitoring audio processors; a D*AP8 TAP EDITION television audio processor and a D*AP4 VAP EDITION two channel voice audio processor – all of which incorporate a collection of adaptive processing algorithms and employ the industry standard Ember+ remote protocol that allows seamless integration with an increasingly wide range of compatible equipment. These have been installed in the centre’s post production studio 1, 5.1 surround sound, final mixing room, dialogue recording studio, audition studio and in two large television studios.

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Mr. Wu Xiao Dong, Director of the Audio Department at ZJTV, said, “Jünger Audio is one of the few manufacturers that supports all Dolby codec hardware

ZRTV’s Wu Xiao Dong checking live audio with Junger Audio.

solutions, along with specific voice processing and auto up/down mix features. The real benefit these units bring to our productions is the ability to tackle Dolby E encoding, Dolby metadata emulation, loudness and vocal voice processing.”

Mr. Wu adds that all the Jünger Audio D*AP units play an important role in ZRTV’s daily production.

“We are gradually moving forward with Dolby Atmos surround sound productions, so we have also invested in Jünger Audio’s J*AF LM by Flux – a software plug-in version of the company’s Level Magic loudness management algorithm that is specifically aimed at Digital Audio Workstation users,” he says. “This codec is ideal for ZRTV’s post production departments because it offers real-time and offline measurement and correction and supports all audio formats including Dolby Atmos.”

In addition to the D*AP and J*AF products installed at its new TV Centre, ZRTV has also ordered several D*AP8 MAP, D*AP TAP and D*AP VAP processors for its new Outside Broadcast vehicle, which is currently under construction in Europe.

Visit www.junger-audio.com

BRIO: DESIGNED AND MANUFACTURED IN THE UK. 100% BROADCAST, 100% CALREC. AUDIO

Calrec’s reputation for build quality, reliability and audio performance has made it an industry standard around the world.

AUDIO

calrec.com

Brio is the most compact and affordable digital console in its class, packed with pure broadcast features as standard; broad IP functionality, MADI connectivity, comprehensive monitoring, automixers, loudness metering, full 5.1 capability, extensive IFB resources and built-in I/O.

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AUDIO

NAMM 2018 - Hitting the High Notes!

THIS YEAR’S NAMM SHOW was literally bigger than ever before as the Anaheim Convention Center recently went through an expansion process adding an additional 18500 square meters of floor space. That’s 4.6 acres in the old money, and ample breadth for the centre to continue hosting conventions for years to come. With around 93,000 square metres of show space there were over 7,000 brands to be investigated. While the majority of the show is aimed squarely at the musical instrument and performance sector, there was a bunch of gear on show for those of the broadcast persuasion. For a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll shizzle, NAMM rolled out the rooftop carpet for the greatest cover band in the world, Hollywood U2 – the U2 tribute band blessed by the Edge and Bono. Apparently the facsimile act knows the songs better than U2 themselves, and many a NAMM attendee was duped into thinking the Irish juggernaut had popped in to pick up a few truckloads of new gear.

Auralex Acoustics offered its new MAX portable treatment kits. MAX kits (shorthand for Mobile, Absorptive and ‘eXpandable’) allow users to reconfigure and tune a space for a wide variety of applications, providing ultimate flexibility in configuring their room. Three packages are available: VoxMAX, EditMAX and ProducerMAX kits.

PROCESSING

JoeCo introduced its Cello interface with 384k recording. Cello is JoCo’s first desktop audio interface, and offers 22 inputs and four outputs via USB 2.0 for both Mac and PC. Cello features include talkback and on-board monitor controls. Two microphone inputs include discrete analogue mic preamps with 80dB gain, hi-pass filter, pad, and phase reverse.

BAE Audio showcase a new 500 series EQ – the 73L. The hardware borrows its design from the EQ section of the Neve 1073 console preamp and EQ and fits it into a single lunchbox rack-space. The 73L complements the recently launched R53 3RU horizontal rack. BAE Audio also showcased its new PDI and PDIS direct injection boxes. The single and dual channel DIs feature Carnhill transformers.

DAD showcased its new speaker correction software. SPQ speaker processing is a combined hardware and software addition to the Pro | Mon | 3 license for the company's AX32 audio-router and converter. The SPQ card incorporates DSP processing and offers up to 1,024 EQ filter bands that can be accessed and edited through the DADman software with the Pro | Mon | 3 license, as well as bass management system with support for sub-woofer control and matching of different speaker configurations in an immersive audio environment.

After a seven year development phase, Retro Instruments released the Retro Revolver – a stereo compressor based on EMI's legendary Altec 436 compressor used during the recording of Beatles albums. The Retro Revolver promises the Altec 436 signature compression, with stereo linking, and continuously variable input, output, attack, release, and threshold.

MONITORING Avantone pulled out an interesting solution with its AV10 speakers designed to replicate Yamaha’s now discontinued NS10 drivers. The AV10 MHF and MLF drivers are a direct bolt-in replacement for damaged NS10 high and lowfrequency drivers.They’re also sonically matched, unlike the originals, and can be used in conjuntion with Avantone’s NS10 tissue paper. Worthy of a salute.

AUDIO

UK-based PMC trotted out its result6 compact nearfield reference monitor.

Launched in October 2017 at the AES Convention in New York, the new loudspeaker promises ‘high resolution and detail, accurate and extended bass, consistent tonal balance on all levels and wide dispersion and sweet spot’.

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JBL had its next-generation 3 Series MkII compact powered studio monitors on show with the revolutionary JBL Image Control Waveguide and refined transducers, the 3 Series MkII line offers stunning detail, precise imaging, a wide sweet spot and impressive dynamic range that enhances the critical listening capabilities of any modern workspace.

Scaeva Technologies unveiled its radical redesign of dynamic audio drivers at the show. Scaeva’s ActiveMag loudspeaker replaces core components of existing loudspeakers with an active field coil and a flat panel pistonic audio transducer. By eliminating the need for rare earth magnetic materials and copper, the company has addressed numerous environmental threats.

ActiveMag speakers deliver higher performance than existing technologies, and consume 50% less power at higher volumes.

CAPTURE

Audinate showcased its Dante AVIO adapters – cost-effective endpoint adapters to enable audio connection to analogue and digital audio equipment using Dante networks. The Dante AVIO series features six new adapters including line-in and line-out analogue adapters, a bi-directional AES3/EBU adapter and a bi-directional stereo USB adapter.

News gatherers would be well suited with Zoom’s H1n Recorder, Black – a compact, portable high-resolution audio recorder with 24-bit/96kHz capture.

The Zoom H1n incorporates X/Y microphones for realistic stereo.

MIXING Allen & Heath exhibited its new SQ series digital mixers with 96kHz XCVI FPGA engine, which brings the audio performance of the company’s dLive Digital Mixing System and crams it into a compact, cost-effective, and customisable multi-application platform. The rack-mountable SQ-5 has 16 preamps, 17 faders and eight softkeys, while the SQ-6 provides 24 preamps, 25 faders, four assignable rotary controls and 16 softkeys. Both models support up to 56 input channels via remote expanders and networking slot for optional Dante cards.

The Radial MIX 2:1 two channel audio combiner and mixer is a passive summing mixer, designed to sum two audio channels down to a single mono output. The MIX 2:1 features a bookend design, and is crafted from 14-gauge steel. The Radial SAT-2 stereo audio attenuator and monitor controller is a passive stereo unit, and is suited to monitor control, line attenuation and parallel effects processing.

Finally, Gig Gear LLC, maker of Gig Gloves, announced its Two Hand Touch Harness, a wearable iPad case that’s secured to the chest via a flexible harness, leaving both hands available to interface with remote mixing apps during production.

So there we have it. Amongst the drumsticks, guitar strings and celebrity acts, there’s plenty of broadcast innovation traipsing in, and out, of NAMM. See you at next year’s show.

AUDIO

Wohler Supplies CSS Group with iAM-AUDIO for Hybrid Monitoring a mix of analog, digital and IP signals easily and transparently, was implemented into the truck to monitor CCTV’s various audio signals in the field.

CCTV provides top news and content to China and around the world. The channel’s programming includes a broad range of variety shows, sports and travel programs. When CSS was tasked with designing and equipping the station’s upgrade to fully 4K capable vehicles, the group trusted in its longstanding relationship with Wohler and knew that it could rely on the company’s well-respected product range and set of advanced technologies to enable accurate, high fidelity monitoring of multiple audio signal formats.

WHEN CCTV, CHINA’S MAJOR public broadcaster, launched an initiative to update its OB trucks to 4K, it turned to CSS Group to supply the most suitable equipment for the station’s upgrade. For audio monitoring, CSS Group relied on its 15-year-relationship with Wohler Technologies, a leading manufacturer of video, audio and data monitoring solutions, to provide its high-quality audio signal monitoring and metering solutions. Wohler’s iAM-AUDIO, which monitors

“We have a great relationship with Wohler and have been using its products for many years,” said Song Xuan, General Manager of CSS Group’s Audio Division.

“We had previously recommended Wohler’s AMP2-16V and AMP1-S8MDA solutions extensively. Wohler’s exceptional quality and attention to detail is something that we have grown accustomed to. When upgrading CCTV’s truck to 4K, we knew we needed a reliable but versatile solution that could support Dante, AES67, SMPTE 2022-6, SMPTE 2110, MADI, AES, analog and SDI formats, and we didn’t have to look any further than Wohler Technologies and its iAM-AUDIO solution. The equipment’s interface allows CCTV to accurately monitor a variety of signals within a single unit and ensures its 4K OB truck can produce the best programming possible.”

Visit www.wohler.com

RØDE Launches Measurement Microphone Division PRO AUDIO MANUFACTURER, RØDE, has announced the launch of a new audio test and measurement division, RØDETest.

RØDETest microphones, interfaces, software and kits are in development

RØDETest will become home to a range of professional acoustic measurement microphones, software and accessories in the near future.

The first step of this foray is, RØDE parent company, The Freedman Group’s acquisition of FuzzMeasure acoustic measurement software.

Meanwhile, Røde has released its first Audio Interface – the AI-1. The AI-1

For more than a decade, FuzzMeasure has determined the audio performance of studios, live venues, performance spaces, reverbs, microphones and more, converting detailed acoustic data to easily understood and publishable graphics. It is the premier application for technicians and creators who require accurate auditory measurements as part of their process – installers, musicians, audio engineers, artists and more.

now and will be released later in 2018.

USB Audio Interface adds studio-quality input and output capabilities to your computer, making home recording easier than it has ever been. With its high quality Neutrik combo jack input and discrete Class-A preamp, you’ll be able to connect either a microphone, guitar or a line level instrument, such as a synthesiser.

Available as part of The Complete Studio Kit, the AI-1 comes with Røde’s NT1 large diaphragm condenser microphone, SMR shock mount with pop-shield, 20-foot XLR and USB C/A cables.

The acquisition of FuzzMeasure is the foundation move for RØDETest.

Damien Wilson, CEO of Røde Microphones, said “The AI-1 offers pro-studio

“The scientific instruments we are developing for RØDETest are the perfect accompaniment to our monumentally successful ranges of studio, live and broadcast microphones,” says RØDE Founder and Chairman, Peter Freedman AM. “We plan to shake the industry up – as is the RØDE way.”

quality at a home studio price point. It’s simply the best in its class – and it’s

FuzzMeasure Chief Developer, Chris Liscio, will continue to work with RØDETest, developing software updates and innovations.

“I was very excited when RØDE first shared with me the plan to enter the acoustic measurement field and make FuzzMeasure the software for the RØDETest range. I look forward to seeing how it evolves under RØDE’s stewardship.”

also incredibly easy to use, thanks to thoughtful design and Australian Made quality. The perfect companion to any Røde microphone.”

The AI-1 allows zero-latency playback by enabling the direct monitoring feature and playback via headphones/speakers with the high quality discrete headphone amplifier. To ensure the AI-1 is truly versatile it features 48V phantom power and is class compliant – so there is no need to install any drivers.

Visit www.rode.com

Avid VENUE | S6L Update with Free iOS App

Available at no charge to Avid’s live sound customer community, the new Avid VENUE | On-Stage app gives monitor engineers using S6L the ability to remotely control any mix from any location. This enables monitor engineers to step away from their Avid VENUE | S6L system and fine tune individual monitor mixes while walking around on stage, hearing exactly what the performers hear. The app even allows up to 16 performers to take control of their individual monitor mixes using a user interface on an iPad, iPhone or iPod. In addition to its On-Stage app support, VENUE Software offers numerous new features and enhancements to S6L to make mixing monitors easier, including

access to sends as well as access to members of a mix quickly with the new Sends on Faders button. Engineers can now also maintain the Aux, Group, Matrix, or VCA master fader position when spilling its members for better efficiency, and enjoy better visibility into VCA members in Meters view.

Avid VENUE | S6L is a modular, flexible live sound mixing system that delivers functionality for a range of live sound mixing applications, including front-ofhouse, monitor, broadcast, theatre, and more.

Avid VENUE Software works with Avid VENUE | S6L systems exclusively and is available to download now at no charge for all Avid VENUE | S6L customers with a valid Avid Advantage Elite Live support contract. The Avid VENUE | OnStage app is iOS 10- and 11-compatible and is available to download for free from the Apple App Store.

Visit www.avid.com

AUDIO

AVID RECENTLY ANNOUNCED the availability of a new version of Avid VENUE Software and new Avid VENUE | On-Stage iOS app for its Avid VENUE | S6L live sound system. Powered by MediaCentral, the software update and On-Stage app introduce a range of new control surface and software workflows for monitor engineers.

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RADIO The original broadcast media

www.content-technology.com/radio

Stage Tec for Digital Studios at RTM Malaysia STAGETEC ASIA, partnering with Berlin-based manufacturer Stage Tec, recently completed a major contract for Malaysia’s public radio and TV broadcaster, RTM. Four AURATUS platinum desks and four NEXUS audio networks were installed at four regional radio stations in the state of Sarawak. Each of the four AURATUS consoles has 24 faders and each of the NEXUS audio network includes four Base Devices. RTM is digitising its regional studios across the country. Stage Tec digital mixing desks and digital audio networks are vital building blocks of the strategy. The RTM studios Miri, Limbang, Sri Aman and Sibu went digital as part of the transition to the DAB standard.

routing systems. Various live music events are mixed here, which require flexibility and high-quality audio.

The consoles are integrated via fibre-optic cables into a NEXUS network, which can handle a variety of inputs and outputs.

“Although Miri, Limbang, Sri Aman and Sibu are RTM regional stations they are now equipped with state-ofthe-art systems comparable to those at the RTM studio headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. For Malaysia’s public broadcaster this digital upgrade is a big step on the way to producing programmes to the latest standards”, said Advon Tan, Managing Director of Stagetec Asia, underscoring the significance of this installation.

Multi-purpose studios in the radio stations have been fitted with the AURATUS consoles and NEXUS audio

Visit www.stagetec.com

DVB-S/S2 IRD for Radio Networks THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL SATELLITE contribution networks and the need to connect a large number of sites require a professional IRD able to generate the composite MPX signal for FM transmitters and to be ready for the future migration to DAB/DAB+. The SIGNUM demodulates one or two DVB-S/S2 signals up to 32APSK (single/multi-stream), achieving 256 KS/s as minimum symbol rate. The TS demodulated signals can be aligned and configured in 1+1 seamless switching for redundancy, which can also be achieved with external ASI and TSoIP inputs.

Signum main features include: • Self-contained compact solution.

• DVB-S/S2 receiver single and multistream.

• Dual tuner for redundancy; • 256 KS/s minimum symbol rate.

• ASI and TSoIP input and output interfaces.

Signum supports MPEG-1 LI/II audio codecs, providing both analog and digital outputs; moreover, it’s possible to set a data PID to be decoded and passed to the internal RDS encoder, generating the dual MPX FM output.

For future needs, EDI interface makes SIGNUM the ideal product to feed transmitters in DAB/DAB+ environments. BISS 0/1/E descrambling is also supported.

• MPEG-1 LI/II audio codec support.

The front panel is fitted with a two-inch TFT touchscreen, the ethernet management port, a USB connector for customer authentication and firmware upgrades. The back panel hosts all I/O connectors either for baseband and RF signals.

• Composite MPX out for FM transmitters.

• (Optional) AAC audio codec.

• Data PID decryption for RDS (ASCII or raw serial data recovery).

• Analogue and digital audio outputs.

• MPX stereo encoder with embedded overshoot limiter.

• EDI out for DAB/DAB+ transmitters.

Visit http://www.elber.it

Soundfox to Distribute Digigram in South Korea DIGIGRAM RECENTLY ANNOUNCED that Soundfox International will serve as one of the company’s distributors of IQOYA audio-over-IP (AoIP) products to radio broadcasters in South Korea. Based in Seoul, Soundfox International is a leading supplier and integrator of broadcast technologies to the South Korean market.

“Like radio broadcasters around the world, South Korea’s broadcasters are making the shift to IP-based operations,” said Peter Moh, CEO at Soundfox International. “Robust and reliable IQOYA products from Digigram give us valuable tools in supporting our customers with full IP solutions – right up to the transmitter link. Working closely with Digigram, we’ll serve as an agile, responsive local resource for IQOYA product support and integration.”

RADIO

In addition to easing the IP migration, Digigram’s AoIP solutions help broadcasters to improve their productivity, flexibility, and program quality. The company’s IQOYA *LINK and IQOYA *LINK/LE STL audio-over-IP codecs are full-duplex encoding and decoding solutions that provide uncompromising performance for IP-based studio-to-studio and studio-to-transmitter links, as well as web streaming.

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The codecs also enable transport of composite MPX signals over IP, building a smart solution for broadcasters. This cost-effective approach eliminates the need to maintain several pieces of equipment at each transmitter site by creating the MPX signal from the baseband audio only once on the studio side. An intuitive web-based user interface simplifies configuration, control,

and monitoring, and gives users access to real-time metrics on the network.

Digigram’s IQOYA *SERV/LINK codec incorporates multiple distribution codec instances and the company’s advanced FluidIP technology on a single, hardware-based processing platform to simplify the transport of multiple audio programs (mono, stereo, multichannel) over IP networks in a high-density format.

Designed for radio broadcasting and for intercom and radio commentary, the IQOYA *SERV/LINK codec allows users to configure multiple-stereo or multichannel solutions for links between studios and between the studio and transmitters or content delivery networks.

“Offering a rich portfolio of proven AoIP solutions, Digigram is positioned to be a key enabler of the IP transition in South Korea,” said Jérémie Weber, CEO at Digigram. “Soundfox International will help us boost our presence in the country’s broadcast market and reach more customers interested in IP. For area broadcasters, improved access to innovative AoIP solutions will help them in making a flexible, cost-effective IP transition.”

Visit www.digigram.com and http://soundfox.co.kr

RADIO

Comrex Polishes Up Opal IP Gateway

Frontier Digital Radio Sales Exceed 45 Million

COMREX HAS RELEASED a new firmware version for Opal, its IP audio gateway. Opal firmware 1.1 includes native Safari support for macOS and iOS11.

FRONTIER SMART TECHNOLOGIES, the supplier of digital audio solutions, has announced that lifetime sales of the Group’s digital radio chips and modules now exceed 45 million units. Following a record year in 2017, cumulative sales achieved this new peak in the opening weeks of 2018.

Once installed, Opal serves a web page to anyone who accesses it through an Internet browser on any device with a microphone and speaker. This web page allows a user to click a button and broadcast from their computer or phone in high fidelity. High quality return audio is also provided to the guest.

Prior to the release of Opal 1.1, Opal was only compatible with Chrome, Opera, Edge, and Firefox browsers. Now, Opal users can connect using Safari, making it even easier to operate for Apple users.

“Up until this point,” said Tom Hartnett, Comrex Technical Director, “we could support iPhone users with an app. But as simple as we made it, there was still a concern that even this step was too much for some guests. Now users can connect in studio quality from their iPhone without installing anything at all.”

Opal is ideal for users who need to coordinate “studio quality” call-ins with non-technical remote guests – guests can simply click a link, and connect instantly. Opal establishes the link using the Opus encoder, for excellent fidelity and low delay.

Sales in 2017 benefited from strong growth across Europe – not only with the switch-off of FM in Norway, but also with significant advances in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Denmark and Belgium.

The 45 million milestone has been achieved at a time when support in Europe for regulation requiring radio receivers to have both analogue and digital capability is growing: In October, the European Parliament published an amendment in favour of radio receiver regulation.

In December, Italy passed a law requiring all new radio receivers from the 1st of January 2020 to have digital capability.

In January, the French regulator confirmed DAB+ coverage is expected to exceed 20% of the population – triggering a legal requirement for new receivers in France to have digital capability.

In Germany, the Bundesrat (the Länder) has called on the EU to revise the European Electronic Communications Code – effectively requiring radio receivers to offer digital capability.

Switzerland is the next country to switch off its FM broadcasts, a process which starts in 2020. In the UK, 2018 is likely to see digital platforms account for 50% of radio listening, a figure which the Government has confirmed will prompt a review of the UK’s long term digital radio plans.

Opal users can download firmware v.1.1 for free from the Comrex website .

Anthony Sethill, Chief Executive Officer, Frontier Smart Technologies, said: "The achievement of this milestone reflects both sustained growth in the digital radio market and Frontier’s strong leadership position in this sector. We expect to exceed 50 million units during 2018 – and, with Switzerland starting its FM switch-off in 2020 and growing interest in receiver regulation, prospects for further growth in volumes over the next three years are promising.”

Visit www.comrex.com/support/opal/#firmware

Visit www.frontiersmart.com

WorldDAB, EBU and EDRA call for Receiver Legislation WORLDDAB HAS JOINED WITH the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the European Digital Radio Alliance (EDRA) to call upon EU decision makers to introduce measures to encourage the interoperability of radio receivers across the EU. Such an initiative would require new radio receivers (consumer and automotive) to be capable of receiving both analogue and digital transmissions.

by technology giants, radio needs a digital pathway which allows the

Patrick Hannon, President, WorldDAB, said: “In a world increasingly dominated

Visit www.worlddab.org

medium to remain free-to air, compelling to listeners and reliable in times of emergencies. A requirement for radio devices to be capable of receiving both analogue and digital transmissions is critical to achieving this goal.”

Broadcast equipment you can rely on

info@comrex.com | 1-978-784-1776 | www.comrex.com

RADIO

April 9 – 12 | Booth #C2330

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RADIO

StreamGuys Upgrades SGrecast Live Stream Recording Platform SAAS-BASED STREAMING solutions provider, StreamGuys, has announced SGrecast 2.0, an upgrade to the company’s cloud-based live stream repurposing, rebroadcasting, and podcast management system. Building on its proven foundation for recording radio broadcasters’ live streams and transforming them into revenue-expanding side channels and podcasts, version 2.0 adds new tools to further streamline content creation and management. The new release will be showcased at the 2018 NAB Show (April 9-12, Las Vegas), where StreamGuys will co-exhibit with technology partner ENCO at booth N3824.

Foremost among new features are AudioLoggers, which enable repurposing of content onthe-fly while it is being recorded. Complementing SGrecast’s existing ability to archive content based on pre-determined schedules, AudioLoggers record streams 24/7 and automatically segment the recordings based on specific metadata in the stream, changes in stream metadata, or user-configured time intervals. For example, the AudioLogger feature can leverage metadata changes to distinguish between different programs and songs, or to detect ads within a show and create segments around them. Producers can then use SGrecast’s visual publishing interface to join related segments together, graphically place markers for dynamic ad insertion, and publish the combined result for rebroadcasting or podcasting.

SGrecast 2.0’s side-channel workflow enhancements include the separation of

recording and rebroadcasting functionality, enabling changes to one aspect’s schedule or configuration even while the other is active. A side-channel’s recording settings can be edited while its rebroadcast is live, or conversely, its rebroadcast parameters can be modified without waiting for recording to complete.

Augmenting SGrecast’s media players for podcasts and podcast episodes, SGrecast 2.0 allows users to create embeddable archive and single-file players for any on-demand media in the system, directly from the content management interface. Podcast management workflow improvements make it easier for users to create new podcasts without needing to immediately add content, and simplify the addition of episodes to existing podcasts. Meanwhile, an updated dashboard provides unified access to both recorded and uploaded content in a single place.

Giving customers greater control of how their staff members interact with the system, SGrecast 2.0 enables administrators to define user roles and permissions. Granular authorisation for key SGrecast features enables user accounts to be restricted to specific tasks, while operators’ user experience can be customised based on their role.

Visit www.streamguys.com

Axia Fusion Console Mix Engine Software v3.2

Guidelines for Broadcaster Logos in Cars

THE TELOS ALLIANCE has announced that software update v3.2 for Fusion Console Mix Engines, including the Axia PowerStation and Axia StudioEngine, is now available.

WORLDDAB AND RADIODNS have produced a set of guidelines for automotive manufacturers and broadcasters. The guidelines outline best practice for broadcasters with services on FM and DAB to supply and update brand logos, and guidance to automotive manufacturers for downloading and display of these logos. Based on open standards, the guidelines aim to provide clarity and certainty to help deliver the best radio experience to drivers.

As modern automotive devices evolve, drivers are accustomed to interacting with larger format screens able to show richer visual information. With automotive manufacturers looking to improve the user experience, the use of brand logos to enhance radio service navigation becomes more commonplace, and it’s essential that logos are up to date and the correct format for the screen.

The PowerStation and StudioEngine are powerful mix engines that can be used effectively with Axia Fusion mixing consoles as a standalone studio solution or as part of a larger IP-audio network.

V3.2 has several new features, most notably an automix function that is suitable for situations where you have multiple microphone faders open.

For instance, during a talk show with multiple guests. Also, the addition of AES67-compliant SIP connection management for unicast allows for the exchange of audio over a high-speed managed WAN using AES67, without purchasing any additional gear.

RADIO

“One of the most requested features for Fusion is automatic mic mixing.

Multiple mics are the rule in lots of studios these days and the automix feature helps presenters focus on their show and not operating the console,” said Marty Sacks, VP of Sales, Support, and Marketing at the Telos Alliance. “Our team worked hard on developing a very capable algorithm and we’re excited to bring it to customers. This release also provides full AES67 compliance.”

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Visit www.telosalliance.com

For broadcasters, the document sets out how to provide logos over both IP and DAB/DAB+, including the correct format and defined sizes. For automotive manufacturers and suppliers, it shows how to acquire these logos and how they can be refreshed and updated.

“Radio is still hugely popular in cars and must continue to offer the best possible experience to drivers as cars go digital and become connected – part of which is displaying consistent branding and content,” said Laurence Harrison, Chair of the WorldDAB Automotive Working Group. “WorldDAB has worked together with RadioDNS, EBU, and several other key industry groups to produce these guidelines and provide clarity and reassurance to both car manufacturers and broadcasters on how to work together.”

“Too often in cars we see out of date or incorrect logos, or broadcasters not making the most of the screen space available – this set of recommendations will help both broadcasters and automotive manufacturers deliver the best experience to drivers and listeners,” said Nick Piggott, Project Director, RadioDNS. “The document will continue to evolve over time and we’d encourage any interested parties to get in touch if they’d like to contribute or find out more.”

Visit www.worlddab.org

CONTENT DELIVERY www.content-technology.com/delivery

CONTENT DELIVERY

Terrestrial, Mobile, Broadband

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CONTENT DELIVERY Terrestrial, Mobile, Broadband

www.content-technology.com/delivery

Mediaware: 20 Years of Living the Stream

By Phil Sandberg FORMED IN 1997, BY THREE VIDEO SCIENTISTS from Australian research agency, the CSIRO, Mediaware was established to tackle the management and editing of MPEG-related video.

The trio had developed a method for editing MPEG video without having to transcode the entire video asset to do so. This allowed the company to create systems that enabled the editing of video in a fraction of the time taken with traditional methods, without degrading the quality.

One of Mediaware’s earliest offerings was a scene extraction tool for postproduction which would automatically create clips from MPEG footage.

Since then, the company’s technologies have found their way across broadcast, security and other industries, and has been adopted by the likes of HBO Europe which employs Mediaware content insertion for over 50 linear channels to replace promos for different European regions. Recently, Mediaware implemented I-frame based codecs into its functionality for high quality contribution switching in transport stream.

Managing Director, Garrick Simeon, says, “Our original offerings have evolved into a whole range of different technologies, live and file-based.

In the broadcast space, it’s all about the live process where we offer ad insertion / video switching that allows for a very high channel count in a single server, or in the cloud for ad insertion regionalisation, rights management and the like.”

According to Simeon, a high channel count in Mediaware’s case is 20 HD or 40 SD channels per standard HP or Dell IT server.

“For Mediaware, innovation has always been at the forefront of our operation,” he says. “In 2014 at NAB, we were the first, to show a live HEVC regionalisation of video streams - placing the ad insertion in HEVC before anyone had even thought about that. And, we now have HEVC across many of our products, so for those people who are looking at the High Efficiency Video Codec, which is already available to many of our customers and those who are interested in the technology.

“The Mediaware difference is that we don’t transcode the entire process or the entire video providing any frame accuracy that broadcasters demand. If you’re, say, in a live environment, you can transcode the entire HEVC stream, but that would require a significant number of video end processing cores to make that happen. We only touch the components that are necessary in the edit points, in most circumstances we’re able to pass through the video, or pass through most of the program without actually having to worry about tying up the processors in order to do continuous transcoding. That’s where the efficiencies and quality of a Mediaware solution come into play.

CONTENT DELIVERY

“We also have editing and playout systems. For instance, we have a customer in Japan who is using a combination of our editing platform and our playout system that effectively reduces the amount of time by which assets can be broadcast in HEVC. They can clip them up in our system and have them to air pretty much instantaneously, whereas using regular craft editors, you’d have to un-compress, do the editing, then recompress the video. And, that would be adding artefact-ing and possible factors of 20-30 times the timeframe in order to complete the work. We’re 1/30th of the time, in effect, compared to other production and post-production systems, with a real on-time / live story.”

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HEVC is not the only cutting-edge delivery profile where Mediaware fits in.

Simeon says the company also has a play to make in the industry’s move toward IP-based contribution control and distribution.

“The production IP environment or the SMPTE 2022 standards and the profiles that are being developed are very much at the acquisition and creation end,” says the Mediaware MD. “Where we fit is dependent on the particular customer requirements needed. That is, we have loop hard disk recording systems, play-out and editing platform allows for very fast

Mediaware Managing Director, Garrick Simeon, “Innovation for Mediaware has always been at the forefront of our operation.”

turnaround requirements. Plus a whole range of multi-camera ingest systems, all working within Transport Stream MPEG Video. So, we have the technology that fits into many creative workflows, but where that is going is still pretty much anyone’s guess at the moment!

“One outstanding key issue is how the analytics are managed within the workflow all the way through to the individual and back again - Mediaware work very well within those environments. The main competitive advantage we have is how we manage metadata within Transport Stream environments. So, those analytics, whatever they happen to be, can move through a Mediaware environment seamlessly. The issue we have is that standards haven’t actually caught up with this vision. It’s all very experimental, so while we do have a play we’re not sure where it is heading, talking with our customers is the key to determining what is needed In the meantime, Mediaware has a number of solutions in the pipeline to meet the more immediate needs of IP workflows, including a transport stream contribution switching for live OTT services particularly for sports and blackout, and loudness control within the Ad Insertion system using the Linear Acoustic loudness sound engine.

While the crystal ball may be foggy as to the state of technology in 20 years’ time, Simeon says the immediate future is clear AND cloudy.

“The next one, three and five years, where we’re seeing Mediaware’s broadcast products heading, is to interface into those already aligned media delivery platforms,” he says. “So, allowing for linear programming to have that functionality in data centre or cloud environments.”

“When more standardised API environments start to flesh themselves out, that’s when we have a play because a lot of the technology we had developed in the past was specifically designed to work in a standardised environment. For instance, one of our original editing products was command line and API driven. We can easily align our technology inside container based functionality controlled by orchestrated environments. That said, we have an enormous amount of functionality to offer in cloud services - either Microsoft or AWS or whatever the use-case - wherever those cloud environments or centres may appear to be.

“That’s where we’re heading from a technology perspective. Where and how that technology is deployed really depends on the customer requirements and where we see the best value we can add for them.”

Visit www.mediaware.com.au.

CONTENT DELIVERY

Yospace and NexPlayer Help Monetise Live Streams

The companies have pre-integrated Yospace’s HTML5 SDK into the NexPlayer HTML5 player, allowing Yospace’s multi-award-winning Server-Side Dynamic Ad Insertion to be accompanied by real-time, client-side tracking. The integration also enables an interactive element to advertisements by allowing viewers to click on ads for more information on the product.

The pre-integration is designed to make it easier for broadcasters and video service providers to monetise their OTT video offerings across all HTML5enabled browsers and devices and increases their speed to market.

Yospace’s server-side dynamic ad insertion technology can be applied to both live and VOD streams in a way that offers excellent playback quality, interactive functionality and real-time measurement. The system enables one-to-one addressability of ads and has been proven at scale against some

Ooyala Live Brings Reliability Closer to OTT OOYALA HAS RELEASED a new set of enhancements to Ooyala Live, its solution for creation, management, delivery and monetisation of live streamed events and linear TV channels on any device. Among other developments, Ooyala Live, through a combination of real-time monitoring, enhanced support and high availability channels, can now offer content providers a 99.95% uptime for their video streams.

“The cord cutting trend has been called a ‘revolution', but it might not be a fair fight until streaming services can provide increasingly reliable, consistent video quality unfettered by latency issues, stuttering, dropouts and other impediments,” said Jonathan Huberman, CEO, Ooyala. “We’re seeing growing demand from some of our largest television and media customers for premium live features like those we’re introducing today because they want to provide an optimal viewing experience to consumers wherever they are, and on whatever device. This combination of enhancements to Ooyala Live will empower publishers with a fresh, out-of-the-box solution to go live in minutes, with the highest quality and reliability possible, whether it’s live-streamed content such as a sports event, or a linear TV channel.”

With these new features, among others, Ooyala is delivering a simpler and more reliable live stream solution to publishers around the globe: • Ooyala Live NOC: The Network Operations Center (NOC) provides proactive 24/7 monitoring of live events and linear channels by live operations engineers to identify and fix potential issues before they impact viewers.

• High Availability (HA): Designed for customers that require continuous channel availability and uninterrupted viewing, HA provides multi-region auto-failover to a secondary channel if any interruptions in the primary channel occur.

• Managed Services: Ooyala runs the entire operation, offering a 99.95 percent uptime in addition to training, channel set-up and management, real-time monitoring, quality reporting of service and experience, and direct support from the Ooyala Live Ops team.

Accedo Collaborates with Google Cloud ACCEDO HAS ANNOUNCED a collaboration with Google Cloud, to provide media and entertainment companies ready access to a single, unified cloud platform to build, transform and grow their video experiences.

Powered by Accedo Studio, media and entertainment companies of any size can move beyond templated apps and build customizable video experiences. They can create or update designs and navigations unique to their brand experience across multiple screens in the way that best suits their infrastructure and organization. The cloud-based UX management capabilities

Amazon Introduces Alexa Voice Support ESPIAL ANNOUNCED RECENTLY that its Elevate cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) video platform now features a next-generation user interface with voice control, allowing consumers to search, discover, and control live TV, ondemand content, and recordings using their voice. Compatible with all Amazon Alexa-enabled devices, Espial Elevate supports voice controls for a range of features to provide an exceptional video experience for consumers. These include quick channel changes, search, user interface navigation, trick play management, and playback of time-shift TV, VOD, and DVR recordings.

of the world’s biggest sporting events.

NexPlayer HTML5 is an HTML5 player that allows video services and publishers to provide HLS and DASH streaming with an advanced feature set that includes CEA 608 Closed Captioning, TimeShifting, Multiple Audio Tracks and Multi DRM among many others. NexPlayer SDK technology is market proven, used by over 200 premium video service providers worldwide across their multiscreen OTT apps.

Visit www.yospace.com

Cinegy Air Cloud Pack on Microsoft Azure CINEGY RECENTLY ANNOUNCED it is making its Cinegy Air Cloud Pack available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.

The Cinegy Air Cloud Pack includes Cinegy Air PRO Bundle with Cinegy Multiviewer. Cinegy Air PRO consists of a control panel and playout engine. The control panel is a state-of-the-art interface for control of one or more playout channels connected via TCP/IP. The Cinegy Air PRO playout engine executes the playlist provided to it and renders video and audio to air.

Cinegy Multiviewer enables broadcasters and production houses to receive RTP/UDP streams via ethernet and locally or remotely monitor those streams. It also features a robust analysis and alert system that detects signal problems as they occur.

The-starting price of Cinegy Air Cloud Pack combines selected software plan charges plus Azure infrastructure costs for the virtual machines on which the software is run. Azure infrastructure prices may vary in light of previously arranged enterprise agreements or other discounts.

Visit www.cinegy.com • Low Latency: Ooyala Live now supports the ability to stream in low latency mode and the capability to block streams also based on ZIP Code location.

Visit www.ooyala.com of Accedo Studio make it easy for video channel managers and producers to tune the user experience that’s just right for every audience by configuring and testing apps in real time.

Through the Accedo and Google Cloud collaboration, Accedo is able to make those experiences dynamic, enabling media and entertainment companies to adapt the video experience according to a number of different factors, based on data gathered in real-time and to ultimately better monetize and manage their content.

Visit www.accedo.tv “We are excited that Espial has integrated Alexa into the Elevate video platform,” said Daniel Rausch, Vice President at Amazon. “Offering the ability to easily find content, control playback, and change channels, hands-free, will help Elevate customers interact with their favourite content in a way that is simple and intuitive – just ask Alexa.”

Voice control is now available to new and existing Elevate customers via the cloud.

Visit https://espial.com

CONTENT DELIVERY

YOSPACE AND NEXSTREAMING have announced an integration that the two companies say simplifies the route to market for broadcasters wishing to monetise their live OTT streams.

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CONTENT DELIVERY

Ross Adds 12G to Acuity Switcher ROSS VIDEO HAS ANNOUNCED that its flagship Acuity production switcher has been enhanced with the addition of 12G single-link connectivity and additional video processing resources.

Acuity engines are built with a modular input and output matrix, to easily swap-in I/O cards that build upon the Acuity feature set.

The new Acuity 12G MultiProcessing Input Module is a 20-input card that adds single-link 12G connectivity (on every fourth input) and provides independent input signal management functions. This new module offers many benefits during an HD-to-UHD migration beyond the obvious reduction in cabling: • Complete Video Processing on Every Input – every connector on the input module has dedicated processing amplifiers and colour correctors.

• Handle Untimed Sources and Varied Formats – independent resources on each card ensure non-broadcast devices, external feeds, and lowerend equipment will match the system timing and video format of your production.

• Leverage SDR Sources in HDR Productions – every input supports HDR conversion, SDR sources can be mapped to the same profile as HDR sources for a simple processing path in HDR productions.

• Legacy 1080P Level B Devices Supported – older 1080P devices use a different 3G SDI rate than modern-day equipment. The Acuity 12G MultiProcessing Input Module ensures all 1080P 3G signals are compatible with your production.

• Easily Convert Differing UHD Interconnect Methods – in Quad Link UHD mode, Acuity operates via the 2SI UHD Interconnect method. For legacy equipment that only operates in QSD (Quad Square Division), the Acuity 12G MultiProcessing input module can convert QSD inputs to 2SI format for use in your production.

• Incorporate SD & HD Equipment into UHD Productions – in mixed signal environments, the 12G MultiProcessing Input Module can convert SD/720p/1080i signals to 1080p, which the Acuity switcher can then internally convert to UHD.

Visit www.rossvideo.com

• No Additional Monitoring Required – every input module is built with a 20 input MultiViewer that can be sent to any output in the system, or be included in other video processor-based MultiViewers.

Blackmagic ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K Switcher BLACKMAGIC DESIGN HAS ANNOUNCED THE NEW ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K, an advanced high frame rate Ultra HD 2160p60 switcher with 20 inputs, 4 M/Es and 16 ATEM Advanced Chroma Keyers.

In addition, the ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K features 2 Ultra HD multi viewers, full 2D DVE, built in SuperSource compositing engines with four picture-in-picture DVEs, full re-synchronisation on each input, and more.

In addition, Blackmagic Design has also announced a free software upgrade that adds all of the same new features to the previous ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K model.

The new ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K lets users create live, switched, high frame rate HD and Ultra HD programs at up to 60 frames per second.

Featuring advanced 12G-SDI technology, users can connect the latest 2160p60 cameras using a single, standard SDI cable. The multi rate 12G-SDI connections automatically switch to 6G-SDI, 3G-SDI and HD-SDI so the switcher is compatible with existing HD equipment. The ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K can be used to master programs in 2160p60 while simultaneously outputting them in HD with realtime down conversion.

For keying and effects, the ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K gives customers a total of 16 new advanced keyers. Users get four new ATEM Advanced Chroma Keyers on each of the four mix effects rows. The new keyers feature adjustable on-screen controls for selecting and sampling a

region of colour, adjustment controls for foreground, background and edges, and chroma correction tools for spill and flare suppression.

The ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K works in both HD and Ultra HD and comes with four built-in media players and a larger media pool with more memory for graphics and video clips. The ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K features 16 built in all new ATEM Advanced Chroma Keyers, dynamic transitions, a powerful DVE, SuperSource multi layering, power macros, audio mixing, camera control with colour correction, and more.

Every input has automatic frame re-synchronisation so users can take any source, even if it’s not referenced, and make clean switches. There are also two balanced XLR audio inputs and outputs for connecting mixers and other pro audio gear. The ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K has both an Ultra HD program output as well as a down converted HD program output, along with six auxiliary outputs for sending clean feeds out to giant screens, projectors, recorders or monitors. Dual Ultra HD multi view outputs let customers monitor program, preview and cameras on large screen Ultra HD displays.

The ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K can be controlled using ATEM’s professional hardware control panels, including the new, compact ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel, or using the ATEM Software Control on a Mac or Windows computer connected via ethernet.

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

Software-as-a-Service Remote RF Spectrum Monitor

CONTENT DELIVERY

RF VENUE, THE DEVELOPER of antenna, spectrum analysis and RF signal management tools for the professional audio-visual industry, has announced the availability of its WaveTower software-as-a-service (SaaS) product, designed to provide system integrators and end users with a new weapon in the battle against RF spectrum interference.

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Opening up new revenue streams for RF managed services, offering greater centralised oversight of multi-venue systems, and providing remote troubleshooting and planning capabilities, WaveTower features small remote sensors which report back to a cloud-based web application, making it easy to manage radio spectrum usage across multiple sites and dramatically reduce incidents of interference.

WaveTower also makes it possible to identify and circumvent longer-term problems by capturing and saving up to two months of spectrum data. This

can then be assessed remotely in order to more fully understand and plan for periods in which RF spectrum is especially congested. The web application’s 24-Hour Max Hold and Average functions make it possible to gauge overall RF spectrum activity from the previous 24 hours in a single click.

Covering VHF, UHF, ISM bands and more at 25KHz resolution bandwidth, WaveTower comprises a connected-hardware platform that features small remote RF sensors called ‘Towers’ that continuously send RF scan data to the WaveTower web interface. Each of the Towers sport a BNC input, allowing it to be connected directly to any brand wireless microphone system or antenna to scan the venue. The devices also feature GPS modules to determine their location worldwide, along with a scanning range of nearly 3GHz. Visit www.rfvenue.com

TECHNICAL STANDARDS www.content-technology.com/standards

MPEG Moves on Video Analysis, Immersive Apps, Distributed Media and Orchestration AT ITS 121ST MEETING, held in Gwangju, Korea, during January, standards body MPEG promoted CDVA (ISO/IEC 15938-15) to Committee Draft (CD) level – the first formal step of the ISO/IEC approval process for a new standard.

This will become a new part of MPEG-7 to support video search and retrieval applications.

full 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) will be achieved with changes of viewing position over a much larger range. To develop technology in these domains, MPEG has issued two Calls for Test Material in the areas of 3DoF+ and 6DoF, asking owners of image and video material to provide such content for use in developing and testing candidate technologies for standardisation.

Managing and organising the quickly increasing volume of video content is a challenge for many industry sectors, such as media and entertainment or surveillance. One example task is scalable instance search, i.e. finding content containing a specific object instance or location in a very large video database.

This requires video descriptors which can be efficiently extracted, stored and matched. Standardisation enables extracting interoperable descriptors on different devices and using software from different providers, so that only the compact descriptors instead of the much larger source videos can be exchanged for matching or querying. The CDVA standard will specify descriptors that fulfil these needs.

At its 121st meeting, MPEG also issued a Committee Draft (CD) for the Internet of Media Things. With this IoMT CD, MPEG objective is to facilitate the largescale deployment of distributed media systems with interoperable audio/visual data and metadata exchange. This standard specifies APIs providing Media Things (cameras/displays and microphones/loudspeakers, possibly capable of significant processing power) with the capability of being discovered, settingup ad-hoc communication protocols, exposing usage conditions, and providing media and metadata as well as services processing them.

The specification includes the components of the CDVA descriptor, its bitstream representation and the extraction process. The standard will be complemented by conformance guidelines and reference software (ISO/IEC 15938-16). The final standard is expected to be finished in early 2019.

CDVA contains components that are compatible with CDVS (Compact Descriptors for Visual Search, ISO/IEC 15938-13), a standard for images with comparable functionalities, but also uses predictive coding over video segments (e.g., shots). Additionally, CDVA introduces a new descriptor based on features which are output from a Deep Neural Network (DNN). CDVA is robust against viewpoint changes and moderate transformations of the video (e.g., re-encoding, overlays), it supports partial matching and temporal localization of the matching content. The CDVA descriptor has a typical size of 2–4 KBytes per second of video. For typical test cases, it has been demonstrated to reach a correct matching rate of 88% (at 1% false matching rate).

The meeting in Korea also saw MPEG issue Calls for Visual Test Material for Immersive Applications. After achieving the final stage of development for its Omnidirectional Media Format (OMAF) at its 120th meeting, MPEG is working on extending OMAF functionalities to allow the modification of viewing positions, e.g. in case of head movements when using a head-mounted display, or for use with other forms of interactive navigation. Unlike OMAF which only provides 3 degrees of freedom (3DoF) for the user to view the content from a perspective looking outwards from the original camera position, the anticipated extension will also support motion parallax within some limited range which is referred to as 3DoF+. In the future with further enhanced technologies, a

IoMT APIs encompass a large variety of devices, not just connected cameras and displays but also sophisticated devices such as smart glasses, image/ speech analysers and gesture recognisers. IoMT enables the expression of the economic value of resources (media and metadata) and of associated processing in terms of digital tokwens leveraged by the use of blockchain technologies.

MEDIA ORCHESTRATION (MORE) STANDARD At its 121st meeting, MPEG promoted its 'Media Orchestration' (MORE) standard to Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), the final stage of development. The specification supports the automated combination of multiple media sources (i.e., cameras, microphones) into a coherent multimedia experience. It also supports rendering multimedia experiences on multiple devices simultaneously, again giving a consistent and coherent experience. The MORE specification contains tools for orchestration in time (synchronisation) and space.

MPEG expects that the Media Orchestration standard to be especially useful in immersive media settings. This applies notably in social virtual reality (VR) applications, where people share a VR experience and are able to communicate about it. Media Orchestration is expected to allow synchronising the media experience for all users, and to give them a spatially consistent experience as it is important for a social VR user to be able to understand when other users are looking at them. MPEG is now working on the reference software and conformance bitstream for MORE which would be available in 2019.

Visit https://mpeg.chiariglione.org

THE HBBTV ASSOCIATION HAS FINALISED and published its Operator Applications Specification.

provides a standard foundation that many operators can use, and that can be implemented by many TV manufacturers.

Building on HbbTV 2, the specification allows TV operators, in partnership with TV manufacturers, to provide an operator-branded experience as an application on TVs. This application acts as a 'Virtual Set Top Box', providing effectively all the functionality of a Set Top Box (STB) without the need to install one. An Operator Application (OpApp) can run immediately after the TV is turned on. To the user, the OpApp functions just like any other source on their TV, just like a cable input or an HDMI source. OpApp can be used for any network type supported by a connected TV including Satellite, Cable, Terrestrial and IPTV.

The OpApp specification describes how the HbbTV browser can run both HbbTV broadcaster applications and operator applications at the same time. It specifies how operator applications are discovered, installed and how they can replace the TV’s native UI, including access to the TV’s remote control keys. The OpApp specification assumes that deployment of a certain operator’s application is subject to a bilateral agreement between the operator and the TV manufacturers. Preparations for the OpApp trials are now underway in various countries; the first of these trials are expected to launch early 2018.

Various operators have tried solutions for deploying their user experience straight to connected TVs, but so far, such deployments have been specific to the operator and/or TV manufacturer. The HbbTV OpApp Specification

Visit https://www.hbbtv.org/resource-library/ specifications/#spec-operator-applications-opapps

TECHNICAL STANDARDS

HbbTV Spec for Operator Apps

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Ad Artwork:

14-08-18

+ Channel-in-a-Box Solutions + OTT/IPTV/VOD Solutions + Sports Production Solutions + Production, Post & Locations round-up

+P review: BroadcastAsia/ CommunicAsia 2018 (June 26-28, Singapore)

3rd Week August

+ Loudness Solutions + Cloud Solutions + Content Security + Compression, Encoding, Transcoding Solutions

+P review: BIRTV (Beijing, China) +P review: IBC Amsterdam (Sept 13-19)

3rd Week October

+C able & Satellite Delivery +D igital Asset Management Solutions +O TT/IPTV/HbbTV Solutions

+ Preview: CASBAA (Cable& Satellite Broadcasting Assoc of Asia) + Preview: Broadcast Indonesia

Editorial Submissions: 01-10-18 Ad Bookings:

08-10-18

Ad Artwork:

15-10-18

PHIL SANDBERG

ADAM BUICK

LUCY SALMON

PUBLISHER/EDITOR

ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER

CO-FOUNDER

He has also produced the ABE2016, Sportscasting (2014-2016), and 3D-Day (2011) industry conferences.

Adam’s previous role as Manager of the SMPTE Australia Exhibition, along with strong family ties in Australia and SE Asia, has given him a unique perspective on the broadcast and content creation sector throughout the region.

Co-founder and Production co-ordinator Lucy Salmon has worked with Broadcastpapers.com since its inception.

She also holds a PhD in the field of sports medicine.

Contact Phil via +61(0)414 671 811 or papers@broadcastpapers.com

You can contact Adam on +61(0)413 007 144 or adam@broadcastpapers.com

You can reach her via +61(0)412 479 662 or production@broadcastpapers.com

Phil Sandberg has spent 28 years reporting on technology issues across the Asia-Pacific.

CLASSIFIEDS + EVENTS

His credits include launching Content+Technology, Broadcastpapers.com, the SMPTE Australia Exhibition, Directory, and Cinema Technology Asia-Pacific.

48

SHOW COVERAGE

2nd Week June

Editorial Submissions: 24-07-18 Ad Bookings:

PRODUCT ROUND-UP

Advertiser Index ABE2018……………………………………..………..……….……33

Comrex……………………………………………………………… 41

Quantum……………………………………………………OBC

ABU-DBS 2018……………………………………..………..… 11

EMC……………………………………………………………………… 5

VizRT………………………………………………………… OFC

Adder……………………………………..………..……….………… 13

Ideal Systems………………………………………………………3

BroadcastAsia2018…………………………………………IBC

IHSE………………………………………………………………………9

Calrec Audio……………………………………………………… 37

Magna Systems & Engineering………………………IFC

CASBAA OTT Summit……………………………………… 43

Mediaproxy…………………………………………………………29

www.Broadcast-Asia.com

26 – 28 June 2018 Level 3 – 6, Suntec Singapore

CAPTURE THE FUTURE Imagine a future where game-changing possibilities for broadcasting are limitless. A world where innovative technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality are impacting the way you view content.

Embark on a journey of discovery at BroadcastAsia2018! Discover the latest innovations that are reshaping how content is created, managed, delivered and consumed, engage in networking opportunities and exchange valuable insights from industry experts.

Featured Techzones:

Highlighting latest solutions from:

UHD / HDR

IP Broadcasting

Live Production

Content Media Security

OTT and Alternative Content Platform

Skip the queue! Register your visit online now at www.Broadcast-Asia.com/visitor-registration

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