Content+Technology ANZ November-December 2016

PP: 255003/06831

VOLUME 13 ISSUE 6 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2016

MEDIA + PRODUCTION + MANAGEMENT + DELIVERY

www.content-technology.com

ACQUiSITION Body Hack Reaches the Summit with Sony

SPORTSCASTING

CONTENT DELIVERY

NEWS OPERATIONS

VOLUME 13 ISSUE 6 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2016

Also see C+T in PDF at www.content-technology.com

DOP Tim Hawkins on Top of the World, page 18

REGULARS 02 EDITOR’S WELCOME 04 NEWS SIS LIVE Expands Into APAC with

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62 INDUSTRY FOCUS 64 DATES FOR 2017

Telstra, NZ's Top Shelf Productions Puts Store in Imagine Products, Columbia Partners with Animal Logic for Peter Rabbit, Vic Parliament Boosts Streaming with Quinto.

FEATURES 12 TAKING STOCK Innovation Forum Global Learnings, Nine to Launch Programmatic TV Advertising, Tessera Technologies to Acquire DTS, Vitec Acquires Wooden Camera.

14 STANDARDS ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer

40 POST-PRODUCTION Deluxe’s Iloura VFX for Deepwater Horizon, Emmy for Aussie Software, Silver Trak Offers High-End Cinema Packages.

44

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD EditShare Helps Build Empire, Has Broadcast Storage Technology Reached an Inflection Point?

Cloud Without Compromise.

48

AUDIO NEP Australia Adopts Lawo Audio

Standard Approved, IEEE Standard Boosts Bandwidth for Cat5e and Cat6.

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16 ACQUISITION DoP Mick Jones Rides Waves for Dean Lewis, Tim Hawkins Scales Himalayas with Sony, Christian Hipolito Wins NZCS Emerging Cinematographer Award.

24 SPORTSCASTING Commonwealth Games 2018 – the Gold Coast Diaries, Sony Builds New Truck for TDC, Cricket Australia Goes Global, 4K in View with Gearhouse and Fujinon.

34 NEWS OPERATIONS Nine News to

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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

Launch 15 Regional Bulletins, SBS News Opens Window with Panasonic, Kiwi News Crews Tool Up with Panasonic, ABC News Launches on Facebook Messenger.

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and Control for OB Vans, Gearhouse Does the Big Gigs with Clear-Com, Immersed in Audio – the 141st AES Show.

54 RADIO Regional Push for AM to FM Conversion, 2CH Must Be Sold, Commercial Radio Welcomes Licence Fee Cut, ABC Hops Aboard Connected Cars, HK Broadcasters Exit Digital Radio.

56 CONTENT DELIVERY Freeview FV – Metadata-Powered Playout, DVB-T/T2: Monitoring the Situation.

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EDITOR’S WELCOME

On the Move with 5G Technology?

By Phil Sandberg

China Mobile, meanwhile, has started trials which will take in more than 100 cities and is aiming for a full commercial launch in 2020.

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Also using the Olympics as a springboard, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has launched field trials which will culminate in a full commercial launch in time for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games.

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North Asian countries will be early adopters of 5G technology, and will use various international sporting fixtures to provide an impetus for rollout. Korea’s SK Telecom has launched a 5G pilot this year and will launch a large-scale trial for the 2018 Winter Olympics (staged in Korea) before a full commercial launch in 2020. Korea Telecom, meanwhile, will undertake a 5G pilot in 2017 with a soft launch in 2018 at the time of the Winter Olympics. It, too, is looking at a full commercial launch in 2020.

The year 2020 is also significant as it is when the ITU expects to complete its 5G standardisation work and release its final specification (IMT-2020) for the new network topology.

At IBC, Discovery Communications’ CTO John Honeycutt said the broadcaster will be studying VR and AR as it heads towards Eurosport’s coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

ersburg Moscow

“We had access to an early Microsoft Hololens, and when you put it on you can start to imagine walking up the street with a map in front of you, with restaurant menus and personal reminders all while you’re having a Facebook chat,” Honeycutt said. “From a content consumption and a utility perspective 5G is a big deal.”

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With a lack of uniformity and future-proofing in Australia's fixed-line broadband rollout, 5G may be the magic bullet Government is looking for to ensure the country's connectivity competitiveness. Whether it does or not, time will tell.

Thanks for reading Phil Sandberg – Editor/Publisher papers@broadcastpapers.com +61(0)414671811

2017 C+T DEADLINES FEBRUARY 2017

Tokyo

Mumbai

According to ACMA Chairman Richard Bean, “There are international standards that support 4G technologies in both the 1.5 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands.

Importantly, the 3.6 GHz band is also being looked at internationally as an early band for 5G and the ACMA has decided to bring forward discussion of its future use. Re-farming these bands would enable additional capacity for new or existing operators’ mobile networks.”

AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND EDITION

Seoul

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The scope for “re-farming” additional spectrum for mobile broadband is the subject of a new discussion paper, Future use of the 1.5 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands, released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. This “refarming” will have implications for satellite and fixed-broadband services in the 3.6 GHz band, and defence use and fixed services, particularly in regional and remote areas, in the 1.5 GHz band.

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It seems inevitable that many countries will face a “4G crunch point” for many years to come. While some parts of the world may leapfrog 4G and go straight to 5G, some will remain in the 3G environment. Those who have recently rolled-out 4G may not have the appetite for an upgrade while they are still recouping their 4G investments. Then there is the issue of spectrum sales with telco operators baulking at the pre-2008 price expectations still held by various Governments.

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European telcos, including Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, Telefonica and Vodafone, say they will begin conducting large-scale tests by 2018, with a launch in at least one city in each EU country by 2020. Before then, 5G will be demonstrated to the public at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and 2018 Glasgow-Berlin European Athletics Championships.

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Proposed base specifications include regular mobile data speeds clocking 1Gbps, peaks of 10Gbps, a latency below 1 millisecond and very low power consumption that could see devices last a decade - spurring internet growth in emerging markets.

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With video over mobile forecast to multiply exponentially in the next five years and represent 80% of all internet traffic by 2021, it is thought that existing 4G mobile network technology will quickly become unsustainable.

Of course, while the 5G picture painted by IT and telco companies has a rosy inevitability about it, a global conquest by the technology is likely to take longer than many anticipate. In the case of 4G, for example, adoption over the last five years has seen its highest figures in Europe with regional coverage coming in at 95.6%. In Asia, the figure is 79.6% coverage, with the Americas coming in at 67.6%.

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WHILE TALK OF IP-BASED PRODUCTION and delivery dominated at this year’s IBC, there was also much discussion around what is considered to be an equally transformative technology - 5G mobile services.

Editorial Submissions: Ad Bookings: Ad Artwork:

‘ASIAPAC’

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ASIA EDITION MAR-APRIL 2017

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ABU Digital Broadcast Symposium Preview Editorial Submissions: 02-02-17 Ad Bookings: 13-02-17 Ad Artwork: 20-02-17 Sydney

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EDITOR’S WELCOME

ASIA

Jakarta

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

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

Columbia Partners with Animal Logic for Peter Rabbit COLUMBIA PICTURES HAS TEAMED UP with Frederick Warne and Co., part of Penguin Random House UK, for Peter Rabbit, a new live-action/CG motion picture based on the internationally revered series of books written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter.

The film will be directed by Will Gluck and made at Animal Logic. Will Gluck (Olive Bridge Entertainment) and Zareh Nalbandian (Animal Logic) are both attached to produce the feature, with Doug Belgrad serving as Executive Producer. The screenplay is by Rob Lieber, with revisions by Gluck.

James Corden has been set to voice the lead role of Peter, and Rose Byrne will star in the live-action female lead role of Bea. Daisy Ridley and Elizabeth Debicki have also joined the voice cast.

With this film, Columbia and Frederick Warne will bring Beatrix Potter’s beloved Peter Rabbit to a new family audience. Frederick Warne has been Beatrix Potter’s publisher since its publication of ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ in 1902.

Tom Weldon, CEO, Penguin Random House UK said, “We at Penguin Random House UK are delighted to be working with Columbia Pictures. As custodians of Beatrix Potter’s brand and legacy, we are excited about the opportunity this production will bring, engaging a whole new audience with the world of Beatrix Potter and one of her best-loved characters.”

Will Gluck added, “I am delighted to be teaming up with Frederick Warne.

Their expertise and stewardship is absolutely critical to making a film that honours the legacy of Beatrix Potter.”

The film will be made at Animal Logic in Sydney with the support of the Australian Government through Screen Australia and Screen NSW, and in collaboration with Sony Pictures Animation. Lauren Abrahams will oversee the project for the studio.

Production on Peter Rabbit is due to commence in January 2017, and is due for worldwide release in April 2018. During the course of the production it is expected that over 600 specialised craft, live action visual FX crew and support staff will be employed to work on the film.

Animal Logic has also replaced its existing DI suites with a Baselight TWO grading system as well as a Baselight ONE, each with Blackboard control panels. There’s also a Baselight ASSIST station for file preparation and rendering of final deliverables, and all systems are linked to a 160TB FLUX Store, FilmLight’s high-speed media server with multi-GPU rendering options.

“Baselight has always been in Animal Logic’s peripheral vision. There is an increasing sense that it has become the new industry standard with a very reliable toolset that most colourists can just jump on and use,” said Alex Timbs, Head of IT at Animal Logic.

“Having one trusted company handling software releases, hardware and complex storage means we can shift the focus away from problem-solving different hardware configurations, and back to our creative work.”

Bram Tulloch, Global Editorial and DI Engineer at Animal Logic, agrees with the importance of Baselight as the finishing tool.

“Our requirements are different from the traditional VFX pipeline. We’re not dealing with live action content so we require more from our solutions,” Tulloch added. “We work towards a photo-real look in almost everything we create, and that requires complex and accurate tools. Baselight gets things through the pipeline faster.”

Timbs concluded, “One of the real differentiators for us is the people supporting FilmLight. The level of professionalism, and understanding of the science of making movies, is at a level few could match.”

Visit www.animallogic.com and www.filmlight.ltd.uk

Quinto Supplies JVC Blu-Ray Recorders to VIC DOJ QUINTO COMMUNICATIONS HAS ANNOUNCED that the Victorian

According to Quinto’s Nick Critelli, “These JVC recorders will operate in

Department of Justice has selected JVC Blu-Ray/DVD equipment for

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out will continue over the course of a year, with selected courts being

for producing Blu-Rays and DVDs automatically in real time.”

allocated the JVC units as main recording devices.

Visit www.quinto.com.au

NEWS + PEOPLE

Optus Satellite Achieves Full Certification with Four Teleports from WTA

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THE WORLD TELEPORT ASSOCIATION (WTA) has announced that Optus Satellite has achieved full certification for its four primary teleports under WTA’s recently launched Teleport Certification Program.

Optus teleports at Belrose in Sydney, and Lockridge in Perth, achieved the programs highest level Tier 4 Certification, while its Hume teleport in Canberra, and its Oxford Falls teleport in Sydney achieved Tier 3 certification.

from one through to four, of which four represents the highest degree of excellence.

To achieve full certification under WTA’s program, a teleport operator completes a 170-item questionnaire and submits it to WTA. The association analyses the data based on standards established by its Certification Committee, and issues a provisional certification based on the self-reported information. An auditor is then dispatched to visit the teleport, provide independent validation of the data submitted, and identify additional factors that may affect the score. Full certification is issued at a Tier number

WTA’s Teleport Certification Program aims to serve both teleport operators and their customers by creating an objective, transparent, and internationally accepted method for teleport operators to document the quality of their operations for customers and strategic partners. It also aims to provide a means for customers to select teleport vendors delivering the price-performance level that is appropriate for their applications.

Paul Sheridan, Vice President, Optus Wholesale, said, “As Australia and New Zealand’s leading provider of satellite services, Optus has always been committed to ensuring exemplary standards of excellence across all facets of our business, and I am particularly pleased on behalf of all our team with this benchmark endorsement from the WTA.”

Visit www.worldteleport.org

Blackmagic URSA Mini with the URSA Studio Viewfinder is the ultimate live production studio camera!

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The URSA Studio Viewfinder has a bright 7” screen with handles and a large tally light with camera numbers. You also get high quality dedicated buttons and dials, along with customizable function buttons that are perfectly positioned so you can quickly adjust brightness, zebra displays, focus peaking, change settings and more! There’s even an articulated arm so you can move the camera and never take your eyes off the action!

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NEWS + PEOPLE

SIS LIVE Expands Into APAC with Telstra SIS LIVE HAS ANNOUNCED a partnership with telecommunications and technology company, Telstra, to expand its connectivity network throughout the Asia Pacific region. The agreement gives SIS LIVE the ability to distribute critical media content across Asia via Telstra’s submarine fibre cable network and teleports in both Hong Kong and Sydney.

Ross Provides NEP with Robotic Camera for Rio

The partnership with Telstra will ensure SIS LIVE customers have additional high quality access to the vast Asia Pacific region.

“This is a significant milestone in our core aim to be recognised worldwide as a critical connectivity provider, and is a substantial expansion of our increasingly global connectivity coverage,” said David Meynell, Managing Director, SIS LIVE. SIS LIVE’s combined fibre and satellite infrastructure is unrivalled in the UK market, and includes a managed fibre network called Anylive that connects more than 100 sport and entertainment venues, which can now be linked to Telstra.

“This is great news for our customers as it gives them a solid, dedicated path into Asia that complements the suite of services we already provide,” said John Bozza, SIS LIVE Commercial Director.

“We have a lot of existing content distribution contracts, but we’re seeing a substantial increase in demand for distribution into Asia, particularly for sports content. The ability to provide this expanded service for such content tracks with our overriding strategy to be the connectivity provider of choice worldwide.”

SIS LIVE’s Anylive fibre network will be connected to Telstra’s London hub, which will carry content to the Sydney and Hong Kong teleports for uplinking to the AsiaSat 5 platform, which has a vast footprint enveloping more than 53 countries.

“We are delighted to partner with SIS LIVE to help them deliver high quality content throughout the Asia Pacific region. We have a long relationship with SIS LIVE, and together we aim to deliver the highest standard of reliable connectivity and broadcast services for which we are both acknowledged leaders,” said Trevor Boal, Head of Telstra Broadcast Services.

Visit www.telstra.com and www.sislive.tv

NEP AUSTRALIA, part of the NEP Worldwide Group, built a hosting studio using Ross Video’s Furio Robotics, openGear Terminal Equipment, and NK Router for Channel Seven’s coverage of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. The Rio Central studio featured three camera platforms with full virtual reality/augmented reality capability. Ross Video’s technology helped deliver the coverage of the largest sporting event in the world on the number one network in the country.

“Ross Video’s commitment to NEP Australia’s delivery of the Channel Seven Rio Central Studio project has been outstanding. Since selecting Ross to provide a VR robotic camera solution, the response and support has been excellent, and the performance of the robots and VR has been rock solid. From shipping and system integration, to training and commissioning, Ross has been there every step of the way to ensure smooth operation of the Rio Central studio coverage – 22 hours a day for the entire games,” explained Angus Millar, Head of Production, NEP Australia.

Visit www.rossvideo.com

Victorian Parliament Boosts Streaming with Quinto THE DEPARTMENT OF PARLIAMENTARY SERVICES (DPS) in

Melbourne provides a wide range of support services and infrastructure resources to ensure the smooth running of the Parliament of Victoria.

Among its responsibilities is the provision of broadcast services to the Legislative Assembly, the Legislative Council, parliamentary committees and parliamentary events.

Communications and the DPS have upgraded the Parliament’s Elemental Live internet streaming infrastructure to include a multi-channel capability that integrates seamlessly into an end-to-end real-time video delivery workflow with multiple HLS and RTMP streams.

Internet streaming has become an important element of Parliamentary broadcasts and recent times have seen an increase in demand for the DPS’ streaming services.

By using the latest Elemental Technologies L083AE live streaming encoders, the Parliament of Victoria can now provide the public with multiple real-time video and audio live streams designed to maximise video quality on new media platforms.

In order to address these requirements, engineers from Quinto

Visit www.quinto.com.au

Independent Australian Podcast Network Partners with QANTAS

NEWS + PEOPLE

AUSTRALIAN AIRLINE, QANTAS, has announced that the Slow Home

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podcast, an independent Australian health and wellness podcast, will be featured in its on-demand inflight entertainment from October 2016.

Omny Studio’s Head of Content, Matt Saraceni, said the announcement is recognition of the fast growing podcast movement – that has seen over 40% growth in the last three years.

QANTAS will include four independent shows hosted by Omny Studio as part of the continued evolution of its on-demand inflight entertainment. Other shows to be included in the roster include ‘We Fact Up’, ‘Women’s Health – Live Better Radio’ and ‘The Disruptive Entrepreneur’.

QANTAS distribution of Slow Home, hosted and produced by health and wellness blogger, Brooke McAlary, follows a listener milestone reached earlier this year with the podcast recording one million downloads within a year of its launch.

The new in-flight entertainment offerings provide more choice to customers looking for variety, while also exposing some of Australia’s local podcast talent to an international audience.

The Slow Home podcast is part of the Jackrabbit.FM network of seven shows, which enjoys a combined monthly listenership of over 150,000 downloads.

Visit https://omnystudio.com and www.jackrabbit.fm

ABC TV Appoints Kelrick Martin as Head of Indigenous ABC TV HAS ANNOUNCED the

AJA VIDEO SYSTEMS has hired Robert Stacy as the company’s Asia

appointment of Indigenous film-maker and development executive Kelrick Martin to the role of Head of Indigenous commencing on the 26th of September, 2016.

Pacific General Manager. Based in Tokyo, Japan, Stacy joins the team with more than two decades of experience in the digital video technology business.

“I have had many years of experience in this industry and firmly believe that AJAs technology solutions are second to none, and look forward to expanding their reach across the Asia Pacific region,” said Stacy, “In the coming months, I look forward to building a dedicated team that is exclusively focused on promoting AJA's video capture cards, streaming solutions, digital recorders, routers, cameras, and more, into the region.”

Kelrick joins the ABC from Screenwest, where he was Indigenous Manager, responsible for the development and support of WA’s indigenous filmmaking community. He formed Spear Point Productions in 2010 whose credits include documentaries Yagan, Outside Chance, Prison Songs, and short drama, Karroyul – a 2015 AACTA Award nominee.

An industry veteran, Stacy joins AJA from Newtek, where he was the Vice President of Asia. From 2004 through 2014, Stacy was the head of Asia Media Products, LLC, where he worked as a sales and marketing partner for prominent digital video technology companies including Facilis, Telestream, Ensemble Designs, Promax Systems, Timecode Systems, and previously from 2005-2009, with AJA.

Sally Riley, ABC TV Head of Scripted Production said, “We are delighted to welcome Kelrick to the team. He is an immense talent who brings with him an extensive working knowledge of creating compelling content with and about Indigenous Australia. He will be leading a passionate team at an important time, as the ABC strives to build on the vital and growing legacy of the Indigenous department.”

Kelrick brings to the ABC a wealth of unique experience in developing indigenous talent and projects for Australian audiences.

Kelrick began his career as a cadet radio broadcaster for Goolarri Media.

Moving to Sydney in 1998, he presented ABC Radio National’s Awaye! and was the inaugural presenter of ABC TV’s Message Stick. In 2002 he completed his Masters in Documentary Writing and Directing at AFTRS.

“Robert has been a close friend of AJA for many years, and we’re happy to have him back in the family to drive sales and marketing across the APAC region,” said Nick Rashby, President, AJA Video Systems.

Kelrick Martin said, “The ABC has an incredible track record of producing cutting-edge Indigenous screen content in Australia, most recently seen with Cleverman and the iview series, Black As. This opportunity is both an honour and a true milestone in my career.”

Visit www.aja.com

Visit www.abc.net.au

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NEWS + PEOPLE

AJA Hires Robert Stacy as APAC General Manager

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NEWS + PEOPLE Abby Foote Appointed to TVNZ Board

Broadcast Australia Appoints Farrugia as CTO BROADCAST AUSTRALIA HAS APPOINTED

NEW ZEALAND’S BROADCASTING MINISTER,

Stephen Farrugia as Chief Technology Officer, following a five-year tenure as General Manager – Engineering.

Amy Adams, has announced the appointment of Abby Foote to the Board of Television New Zealand.

As CTO, Stephen’s focus will be on new technology and the implications for the industry and organisation. He will also be providing a greater range of advice to the executive team and BAI Communications Board on technology matters.

Ms Foote is a Christchurch-based professional director with a background in law and accountancy. Her executive career was with major corporates, both in New Zealand and the UK. Ms Foote has

A key member of Broadcast Australia since its inception, Stephen was instrumental in the business’ transition from government agency through to private ownership, and has spearheaded key programs including the terrestrial digital roll-out, options for use of the digital dividend and spectrum re-stack program.

particular skills in audit and risk governance that will supplement the commercial strength of the TVNZ Board.

Ms Foote was CEO of online mortgage broking firm, Fundit, from 20062008 and has held senior positions within PHARMAC and Telecom.

Ms Foote’s term commenced on the 1st of November and will continue

“It’s been 17 years since I first started at Broadcast Australia, and I can’t wait to get the next chapter of my career underway,” he said. “The rate at which consumer technologies are becoming available is increasing, and it’s vital for the industry to be across the changes and understand when and what to implement.”

until the 31st of October, 2019.

Visit www.broadcastaustralia.com.au

Her current directorships include Z Energy, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Te Papa, Local Government Funding Agency, BNZ Life Insurance, and is Chair of the Board of Cathedral Grammar School.

Brett Savill Takes Over as CEO of FreeTV Australia

Andrew Jordan to Succeed William Wade as AsiaSat CEO

MR BRETT SAVILL HAS ASSUMED the role of Chief Executive Officer of FreeTV Australia. Mr Savill comes to the role with extensive commercial, regulatory and industry experience, having most recently held roles as Head of Government Relations, Director of Strategy and Corporate Development, and Chief Financial Officer for BAI Communications.

ASIA SATELLITE TELECOMMUNICATIONs has

Harold Mitchell AC, Chairman of Free TV said, “We are delighted Brett will be joining FreeTV. He brings a depth of experience in the media and technology industries. This appointment will strengthen our efforts to advocate for regulatory relief from the world’s most onerous television licence fees, and for fair and certain access to spectrum.”

announced that William Wade has retired as Executive Director, President and Chief Executive Officer as of the 1st of November, 2016, but remains as Senior Advisor until the 31st of March, 2017.

Andrew Jordan was appointed by the Board to succeed Mr. Wade. Mr. Jordan has over 25 years experience in the satellite industry, has held executive positions with several satellite operators, and has led complex negotiations in China, Hong Kong SAR, Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Mr Savill said, “This is an exciting time to join the free-to-air television industry. I am inspired by the special place that free-to-air television continues to have in Australian’s daily lives, and the transformation that is underway with increasing investment in Australian content. I look forward to working with the industry and I’m energised by what the future holds.”

AsiaSat’s Chairman, JU Wei Min, said, “On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Wade for his many years of exceptional service. AsiaSat’s solid reputation in the industry and its strong commitment to quality and reliability are a credit to his leadership. We look forward to his contributions as Senior Advisor to assist in the leadership transition.”

Visit www.freetv.com.au

Visit www.asiasat.com

Mark Moore Director Sales APAC for Dejero

for Evertz and Media Global Links in the Asia Pacific region.

Systems, where he was Head of Operations for Japan specialising in new

“The calibre of people and distributors we’ve invested in globally demonstrates how Dejero is strengthening its presence in markets with a strong demand for fast and effective acquisition and distribution of live content over IP networks,” commented Brian Cram, CEO of Dejero.

business development. He previously held executive sales and marketing roles

Visit www.dejero.com

DEJERO HAS STRENGTHENED its presence in Asia with the appointment of Mark Moore as Director of Sales for APAC. Moore joins Dejero from Ideal

NEWS + PEOPLE

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Auckland +64 9520 1582 Hong Kong +852 2563 4453 Jakarta +62 8181 43923 Singapore +65 6282 3613 Sydney +61 2 9417 1111 sales@magnasys.tv www.magnasys.tv

NEWS + PEOPLE

5_^dNQd i_eb [_QN[ @NV^N _ųQS T_b ]_bS X^T_b]NdX_^

9

NEWS + PEOPLE

Imagine Products Qualify for Top Shelf in New Zealand ESTABLISHED IN 1988, Top Shelf Productions is a leader in New Zealand television and film production. It has a long and successful history in television – particularly with documentaries and factual-based series which comprise more than 1500 hours of documentaries and multiple awardwinning productions. It currently has a number of local and international shows in development, including ‘Heritage Rescue’, a series that travels the country in search of museums needing restoration and revitalisation, and ‘The Lion Queen 2’, the second instalment of a mini documentary series about a South African woman trying to save the lion species. Recent awards include two from the 2016 Doc Edge Film Festival: Best New Zealand TV Documentary for ‘Target Zero’ and Best New Zealand Feature for ‘Loving in Limbo’.

With work dating back 28 years, the company’s archive holds over 10,000 hours of content and counting. Top Shelf archives an average of 75 terabytes every three months, and the company recently archived 24 terabytes in just four days.

“When I first came to Top Shelf,” says Jack Mugford, Film and Television Editor, Top Shelf Productions, “the archive was scattered across drives and DigiBeta XDCAM tapes, and accessing the content was a time-consuming, tedious, and stressful endeavour. My goal was to ensure that at the end of each production, we archived everything to LTO tape so that it would not only be safely backed up, but much easier to access.

“To make it happen, we turned to PreRoll Post, the LTFS archiving application from Imagine Products. Having used applications from Imagine Products before, I knew the company’s knack for amazing software that follows a logical thought process. In fact, we use Imagine Products software throughout our workflow, starting with the ShotPut Pro offloading application and ending with PreRoll Post. Simply put, choosing PreRoll Post was a no-brainer.”

On the basis of Imagine Products’ partnership with storage-gear provider Magnext, Imagine Product’s known expertise in tape storage, and positive feedback from others in the industry, Top Shelf decided to pair PreRoll Post with Magnext’s MagStor LTO7 tape drive.

master audio, After Effects projects, and stills – all of it goes on one tape, sometimes two (PreRoll Post helps us span to two tapes). A second backup is made so we have a true archive of the complete working project with all related material. Adding PreRoll Post and MagStor into our workflow at the end of each production ensures we will have ready access to the entire series years down the line and can recut or grab anything at any stage if we wish.”

One feature that has been especially helpful for Top Shelf is PreRoll Post’s Discovery Channel mode, which automatically archives LTO tapes based on Discovery Channel specifications. Mugford says relying on PreRoll Post to do the formatting is a simple, hassle-free way to ensure Top Shelf delivers content to Discovery Channel that is compliant with the network’s requirements.

“In addition to regular backups at the end of each project, we use PreRoll Post and MagStor to back up our server periodically, a function we can set to occur even when no one is working,” says Mugford. “We also archive the master output files on our server for all productions to date. These files originate from high-quality masters and ensure we can deliver downsized versions without losing quality. We run this backup on a yearly basis to

“We’ve found that Magnext certainly lives up to its reputation,” says Mugford.

capture all master outputs from every production that year. We expect to

“The MagStor drive is small and aesthetically pleasing and has been well

back up around 150 terabytes of data for 2016.

worth the money. In fact, we are looking at purchasing a second MagStor

“Thanks to PreRoll Post and MagStor, we’ve gone from using space-hogging

drive to give our storage operation a boost, as our current unit is working

DigiBeta XDCAM tapes to compact LTO7 tapes, which allowed us to recapture

almost all the time.

physical space and downsize our storage facilities. We’ve also saved time and

“With PreRoll Post and MagStor, we can easily archive to and access content

money. Because accessing content from LTO7 tapes is so much easier than

from a tape that acts almost identically to a drive. Each LTO7 tape gives us

ingesting it from DigiBeta, our team spends less time retrieving content from

six terabytes of uncompressed data storage, which is usually just the right

the archive and more time being creative.

capacity for storing entire documentaries, TV series, and films.

“I can’t say enough about how much easier our archive-and-retrieval process

“So far we’ve used the PreRoll Post/MagStor combination on three

has been since implementing PreRoll Post and MagStor into our workflow.

productions. At the end of each production, we archive the entire series,

They brought Top Shelf Productions into the 21st century of archiving.”

documentary, or film to LTO7. All file-based media such as master outputs of

Visit www.imagineproducts.com http://magnext.com and www.topshelfproductions.co.nz

the show, all footage shot throughout the series, all assets such as graphics,

NEWS + PEOPLE

TV New Zealand Teams Up with Accedo on Xbox One

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Television New Zealand has partnered with Accedo, the video experience

and local content. The service is supported by ad-based VOD, therefore

developer, for the launch of a Windows 10 application on Xbox One.

free to viewers with a value-add for advertisers in the region.

TVNZ On Demand now offers viewers across New Zealand access to a

The application is already available on PlayStation 3 and 4, iOS, Android,

range of video on demand (VOD) and catch-up content, including comedy,

web, Samsung Connected TVs, and HbbTV set-top-boxes via Freeview Plus.

drama, sports, films, and children’s programming, as well as international

Visit www.tvnz.co.nz and www.accedo.tv

IT IS WITH TREMENDOUS SADNESS that Amber Technology has advised that one of its long serving employees, Julius Chan, recently passed away.Julius joined Amber Technology in May 2004 as a sales engineer specialist for the audio products, broadcast and professional segment.

He was responsible for sales and customer support for major broadcasters, high-end-post production facilities and music studios.Amber’s Managing Director, Peter Amos, commented, “We are all shocked and saddened by this news. Julius was a much-loved member of the Amber Technology team, and he will be sadly missed by all of us as well as the many people he has worked with in the film, television and broadcast industry. From the Board, management, and staff of Amber Technology, we extend our deepest sympathies to Julius’ family and friends.”

Vale William “Will” Hector Robertson IT IS WITH DEEP SADNESS that Quinto Communications announces the sudden passing of William “Will” Hector Robertson on Wednesday, October 19, 2016.

Will served in the role of Customer Support Engineer with Quinto for eight years. He was previously Installer & Commissioning Engineer with Grass Valley and, prior to that, held Electronics Engineering

Over the course of his career, Julius was involved with sound editing and supervision duties, installation of studios and edit suites, product development, beta testing, and providing local and overseas tertiary students with lectures on sound editing and craft.

positions with The

Prior to joining Amber Technology, Julius worked as a sound engineer on an illustrious list of international and Australian films, including Happy Feet, Strictly Ballroom, and Babe. In 2001, Julius was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for services to Australian society and Australian film production. Julius was also recognised with award nominations and wins from The Australian Film Institute, Australian Screen Sound Guild, IF Awards, and Motion Picture Sound Editors (USA) Golden Reels.

his career in 1988

Most recently, Julius was collaborating with Nigel Westlake on the ‘Babe: Pig in the Symphony’ series, touring Australia in 2015 and 2016. In his home studio, Julius reworked the original sound mix enabling it to be performed as a film screening with a live symphony orchestra.

Visit www.ambertech.com.au

Lab Sydney and Sky Channel. He started as an Electronics Technician with ProImage/ECV. Will held an Advanced Certificate, Electronics & Communications from North Sydney TAFE, and was a member of SMPTE and the IEEE. Will is survived by his wife, Arunwan Matchima, and two daughters, Amanda and Amelia, and he will be deeply missed by his family, work friends and industry colleagues.

Visit www.quinto.com.au

NEWS + PEOPLE

Vale Julius Chan

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TAKING STOCK Moves in the business of content + technology

www.content-technology.com/mediabusiness

Harmonic Announces Comcast Warrant Agreement HARMONIC (NASDAQ: HLIT) recently announced it has entered into a

growth, and create value for our stockholders.”

warrant agreement with Comcast Corporation. The agreement provides Comcast with the opportunity to acquire shares of common stock of Harmonic based on specific CableOS and other Harmonic product sales and deployment milestones during the term of the warrant.

A warrant is a derivative that confers the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a security – normally an equity – at a certain price before expiration. The price at which the underlying security can be bought or sold is referred to as the exercise price or strike price. An American warrant can be exercised at any time on or before the expiration date, while European warrants can only be exercised on the expiration date.

“This agreement is a significant validation of our new product investment strategy,” said Patrick Harshman, Harmonic’s President and CEO. “We are well positioned to further strengthen our partnership with Comcast, drive new

Tessera Technologies to Acquire DTS TESSERA TECHNOLOGIES, INC., a developer of imaging and semiconductor packaging and bonding technologies, and DTS, Inc., have announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Tessera will acquire DTS for USD$42.50 per share, representing a 28% premium to DTS’ 30-day volume weighted average price as of the 19th of September, 2016. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately USD$850 million.

According to the companies, the transaction will combine market leading audio and imaging innovators with complementary products, technologies, customer channels and intellectual property assets to enable the creation of an expanded, integrated platform to invent the future of smart sight and sound.

Upon completion of the acquisition, the combined company will be one of the world’s leading product and technology licensing companies, with over 450 engineers focused on developing next-generation imaging, audio and

Visit www.harmonicinc.com

semiconductor packaging technologies. In addition, the acquisition adds significant scale and diversifies revenue across end markets and customers.

The combined company is forecasted to achieve pro forma 2016 revenue of approximately USD$450 million, nearly half of which will come from product licensing.

The transaction will be immediately accretive to Tessera’s earnings per share and free cash flow. The combined company is expected to realise $15 million in annualised cost synergies within the first 12-18 months, and anticipates revenue synergies from the expansion of addressable markets and leveraging of complementary customer channels and technologies.

Tessera intends to fund the acquisition with a combination of available cash and approximately $600 million of committed debt financing from RBC Capital Markets. The combined company will maintain a strong balance sheet with pro forma cash and investments of approximately $100 million.

Visit www.tessera.com and www.dts.com

Vitec Acquires Wooden Camera for Consideration Up to $35 million THE VITEC GROUP has acquired Wooden Camera, a provider of camera accessories. Wooden Camera is based in Dallas, Texas, and is privately owned by its management team, Ryan and Elizabeth Schorman. Both will remain with the business post-acquisition. Wooden Camera will become part of Vitec’s broadcast division.

The acquisition cites the opportunity to grow Wooden Camera through expanded distribution as part of Vitec’s global sales network. Also noted is the opportunity for Wooden Camera to benefit from Vitec’s manufacturing and product sourcing capabilities.

As part of the acquisition, Vitec disclosed portions of Wooden Camera’s recent financial results along with the high-level deal terms. Wooden Camera generated an unaudited adjusted EBITDA of £1.9 million ($2.5 million) for the 2015 calendar year.

The upfront cash consideration is £15.3 million ($20.0 million), which is subject to post-closing adjustments. The deal also includes a potential earn out representing an additional £11.5 million ($15.0 million) of consideration.

The earn out payments are based on Wooden Camera achieving “demanding” EBITDA targets for the financial periods thru the close of the 2018 calendar year. The 2018 EBITDA target is $7.3 million (this represents an almost tripling of 2015 EBITDA).

Using the 2015 EBITDA disclosure, the upfront consideration values Wooden Camera at 8.0x 2015 EBITDA (not including the earn-out). The total consideration has the potential to value Wooden Camera at 17.5x 2015 EBITDA. Since more than 40% of the total potential deal value is in the form of an aggressive earn-out, it is more appropriate to focus on the implied valuation of the upfront consideration.

Visit www.vitecgroup.com and www.woodencamera.com

Pay-TV Innovation Forum Releases Global Learnings from Industry NAGRA, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH MTM, has published the global

TAKING STOCK

learnings from the Pay-TV Innovation Forum.

12

The study confirms that industry participants believe that pay-TV, while still growing worldwide, has entered a period of significant change, creating both challenges and opportunities for pay-TV operators. 83% of executives state that competition is set to increase dramatically, as pay-TV companies, telcos and OTT service providers compete for subscribers. As a result, innovation is becoming more important for the pay-TV industry, with 82% of executives considering it to be one of the top three strategic priorities for the industry going forward, and 78% agreeing that in order to grow, service providers will have to innovate strongly over the next five years.

Looking forward, executives cited strengthening their core pay-TV platform

by going beyond traditional services as their main area of opportunity by focusing on multiscreen/TV everywhere services (76%), new types of content (74%), and new content pricing and packaging strategies (73%).

Just over half of executives also see opportunities in advance advertising and data (54%), as well as standalone OTT services (53%).

Identifying opportunities for innovation globally, the research notes that many service providers have already started investing in new growth areas. North American providers, for example, see a significant commercial opportunity in new forms of content that appeal to millennials and generation-Z, such as digital-first short-form content, on-boarding of thirdparty OTT services, virtual reality and gaming.

Visit https://dtv.nagra.com and www.mtmlondon.com

TAKING STOCK

Nine to Launch Programmatic TV Advertising AUSTRALIA’S NINE NETWORK is aiming to make the buying of television

Nine has announced a new strategic agreement with one of Australia’s

easier, and provide both marketers and their agencies with greater certainty

leading data exchange companies, Data Republic, to gain access to key

around the delivery of audiences through its new programmatic platform,

grocery-buying segments across its online digital network.

Michael Stephenson, Chief Sales Officer of Nine, used the company’s ‘Upfront & Personal’ event at The Star Casino in Sydney to announce that the broadcaster is partnering with both the Australian-based Landsberry

The move improves digital audience targeting across Nine’s digital assets by allowing access to in-store transactional data from Australia’s largest independent grocers’ loyalty program. The grocery and loyalty data source

& James, and global technology platform, Landmark, which will supply

features five years of itemised basket data from an independent grocer

individual components of its programmatic advertising platform, 9Galaxy,

network of over 1600 stores across Australia.

slated to go live in February 2017.

Subsets from this transactional dataset have been used to develop aggregate

“9Galaxy will change the way our clients and our agency partners buy

grocery segments which will allow advertisers to improve customer targeting

television,” said Mr Stephenson. “It will completely automate the transaction

across the Nine Digital network of more than 15.3 million authenticated user

of airtime between buyer and seller, delivering greater efficiencies and more effective advertising as a result of a new range of new investment models.

IDs.

We already trade 80% of our digital inventory programmatically. I expect

“This deal is important for Nine as it gives us a deeper level of consumer

over 50% of our television inventory will be traded programmatically by

insight while protecting the identities of the consumers,” said Alex Parsons,

June.”

Nine’s Chief Digital and Marketing Officer. “By being able to marry up users’

Nine also confirmed that as part of the 9Galaxy offering it has invested in the

offline habits with our existing database we will be able to allow advertisers

creation of new audience forecasting technology to more accurately forecast

to better target their campaigns and achieve better results.”

future ratings delivery, giving greater assurances to advertisers.

“We have data scientists building new tools within the platform, so we can introduce new investment models that will allow us to guarantee the delivery of dynamic ratings bought using 9Galaxy,” Mr Stephenson said. “This means there is no risk and no real time inflation when you invest with Nine.”

Mr Stephenson also announced that following the launch of 9Galaxy, Nine

Data Republic is a technology platform and marketplace where organisations can list, exchange and collaborate on data projects in a secure environment.

The private-by-design ecosystem ensures no personally identifiable information is exchanged, and allows participating companies to securely govern data exchanges with external parties.

will focus on building out the programmatic offering across all platforms

Co-founder and CEO of Data Republic, Paul McCarney, welcomed the

before the end of 2017.

deal, which is the marketplace’s first partnership agreement with a major

“We will be able to deliver audiences programmatically across linear

broadcaster and digital publisher.

television, online catch up, AVOD and live streaming across every device later in 2017. This will allow us to serve advertising directly to your customers based on their online behaviours, using our first-party data.”

Nine also confirmed it had gone live with a new Adobe Audience Manager data management platform that would allow it to provide consumers with personalised content on platforms like 9Now, and also enable advertisers to better target audiences.

“We’re pleased to welcome Nine, our first major broadcaster, to Data Republic’s fast-growing data exchange ecosystem,” Mr McCarney said. “With our secure platform, Nine’s data team can access high-fidelity datasets from a range of brands and service providers to unlock insights on purchasing behaviour to strengthen campaign targeting and personalisation.”

Visit www.nineentertainmentco.com.au

TAKING STOCK

9Galaxy.

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TECHNICAL STANDARDS www.content-technology.com/standards

ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer Standard Approved THE U.S. ADVANCED TELEVISION SYSTEMS COMMITTEE (ATSC) recently announced that the Physical Layer transmission system for ATSC 3.0 nextgeneration television broadcasting has been approved as a Final Standard, signalling that the standardisation process for the entire ATSC 3.0 process is nearing completion. ATSC members approved the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer Candidate Standard through balloting completed recently.

The ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer (ATSC A/322) offers far more flexibility, robustness and spectral efficiency than the current digital United States TV broadcast standard, which was approved by the Federal Communications Commission two decades ago. The new ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer allows television broadcasters to choose from a variety of transmission parameters so each station can tailor its signal to best serve its local market according to market and terrain.

Key capabilities of the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer include use of single frequency networks, multiple physical layer pipes, and channel bonding. Selected

IEEE Standard Boosts Bandwidth for Cat5e and Cat6 THE ETHERNET ALLIANCE has hailed ratification of IEEE 802.3bz, Standard for Ethernet Amendment: Media Access Control Parameters, Physical Layers and Management Parameters for 2.5Gb/s and 5Gb/s operation. Enabling access layer bandwidth to evolve incrementally beyond 1Gb/s, it will help address emerging needs in a variety of settings and applications.

Building upon the success of and laying out an upgrade path for 1000BASE-T, IEEE 802.3bz defines 2.5Gigabit and 5Gigabit BASE-T ethernet.

It specifies ethernet media access control (MAC) parameters, physical layer specifications (PHYs), and management objects for balanced twisted pair transmission media found in structured cabling. Facilitating up to five times the speed without requiring expensive infrastructure changes, IEEE 802.3bz enables network bandwidth scaling.

Visit www.ethernetalliance.org

AIMS Roadmap for IP Adoption Gets Official Nod from IABM THE ALLIANCE FOR IP MEDIA SOLUTIONS (AIMS) recently announced that its roadmap for the adoption of IP protocols for media applications has received the official endorsement of the IABM. This endorsement is indicative of the growing momentum for open, standards-based protocols that will enable the media and entertainment industry’s migration to a common off-the-shelf (COTS)-based network infrastructure for production and playout workflows.

“With over 450 suppliers to the media and entertainment industry in its membership, the IABM’s endorsement of the AIMS roadmap is significant,” said Mike Cronk, Chair of the AIMS board. “What we are seeing is a general alignment across the industry around one set of protocols for IP interoperability.”

Peter White, CEO of IABM, added, “For a number of years now, the industry has needed a way forward to collaborate on IP interoperability. We are pleased to be standing alongside AIMS and wholeheartedly endorse the AIMS roadmap as the path that provides that way forward.”

Open standards work for the IP transition is already underway by the 77-member Video Services Forum (VSF), with the support of organisations such as SMPTE and the EBU. AIMS endorses the work of the VSF and will continue to lend support in the development of a standard approach to IP.

TECHNICAL STANDARDS

Visit http://aimsalliance.org

14

technologies allow for data transmission with a wide range of guard intervals, forward error correction code lengths and code rates.

Representing a major milestone for ATSC 3.0, final approval of the A/322 Physical Layer standard reflects the momentum behind next-gen TV. Work continues on the other elements of the suite of ATSC 3.0 standards. Earlier this year, the A/321 System Discovery and Signalling (colloquially called ‘the bootstrap’) part of the Physical Layer was standardised, and a number of other ATSC 3.0 standards are nearing the conclusion of the standardisation process.

These Proposed and candidate standards will include video and audio compression, high dynamic range (HDR), wide colour gamut and immersive sound, closed captioning, advanced emergency alerting, security, companion devices, personalisation, applications and interactivity, watermarking and fingerprinting, and internet protocol delivery.

Visit http://atsc.org

SMPTE Explores Next Generation Timecode THE SOCIETY OF Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) is hosting a series of Time Code Summits to gather user community feedback that will contribute to the creation of a new ‘Time Label’ standard. As the next-generation standard to SMPTE Time Code, widely viewed as one of the most important standards in the audio/video industry, the Time Label standard will address the emerging requirements of handling media across cinema, broadcast, theatrical, music recording, concert, live entertainment, and theme park markets.

According to the Society, innovative media techniques such as higherframe-rate (HFR) video and media over internet protocol (IP) are testing the limits of the original SMPTE Time Code standard. It says the time has come to revise the standard to keep pace with new technologies and workflows. With a better understanding of how today’s professionals are using time code on a daily basis, SMPTE says it will be positioned to enable an efficient move into Time Labels.

“If your job depends on time code, then you have something to gain by attending one of our Time Code Summits,” said Howard Lukk, Director of Engineering and Standards, SMPTE. “These meetings mark a significant step toward building a new version of what is arguably one of the most widely used SMPTE standards. They will play an essential role in ensuring that we receive the feedback from a broad range of users to create an improved standard that will stand the test of time. We encourage the user community to take advantage of this unique opportunity to contribute to the standards-creation process.”

The first Time Code Summit was be held on the 10th of October at the Linwood Dunn Theatre in Hollywood, California. The second Summit will take place on the 1st of November at BT Tower in London. A third Summit is planned for New York in November, with more locations under consideration. The Summits are hosted by Howard Lukk with support from the local SMPTE Sections.

Visit www.smpte.org/timecode

IBC 2016

IBC 2016

15

ACQUISITION www.content-technology.com/acquisition

Mick Jones Rides Waves for Dean Lewis with Sony PMW-F55 FOR DEAN LEWIS’S NEW SINGLE ‘WAVES’, Sydneybased director and DoP, Mick Jones, decided to use his Sony PMW-F55 as the main camera on the shoot.

Jones explained, “As an owner of an F55 it’s been my go to camera for almost four years now. It’s basically my workhorse and I used it once again on this music video project because of its versatility. It’s light and compact and I used it entirely handheld during this shoot. I also used lightweight stills lenses to keep the overall size and weight down.”

On Waves, Jones and the crew had to be particularly quick, nimble and flexible, so his choice of camera and lenses was key.

He continued, “I shot at multiple frame rates – 25, 33 and 50fps, and wanted to have a 4K master so the camera ticked all those boxes. I shot with Zeiss F-mount lenses using an FZ-Nikon adapter. The FZ mount highlights how versatile this camera is. I can use PL, EF, or Nikon mount glass without a problem, and it’s a

had inside a movie theatre with a 1.8 HMI blasting and flaring straight at

matter of seconds to change the mount. The fact that the camera has very

us. Using the cinema screen as a bounce it lined up a nice exposure for

low noise means I can use it in a variety of lighting conditions. Some shots on this shoot were lit, while others were done only with available light. So that meant I was dialling up the ISO to 2000 and above on some shots and the image handled it without any problems.”

Having worked continuously with the F55 for so long, Jones is used to the results it can produce but he says others who are not so familiar with the camera are surprised by its quality.

handheld and the dynamic range of the F55 really came into play on many of these setups. Some high contrast interiors were shot with no lighting inside and an HMI out the window as a key light, but also providing the ambient levels and falling off to shadow inside. The narrative pieces were blocked through and we generally covered it from a number of angles, and with wide and long lenses.”

far the feedback on this music video has been extremely positive, with

For Jones the search for the best image and look is continuous. At this

achieved. We very much set out to make the music video have the tone, feel, shooting style and performances of an indie movie, referencing films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Good Will Hunting. The video has been chosen to premiere at the Clipped Music Video Festival alongside some amazing international talent.”

For this shoot Jones used the camera in a lightweight handheld configuration with a Zacuto baseplate and side handle. He mounted a SmallHD 502 to the top handle and used Zeiss ZF primes for glass.

ACQUISITION

forest, tracking through the woods with the two cast members. It was all

On the Waves shoot he had some particularly interesting comments, “So the overwhelming feeling that everyone likes the ‘cinematic’ look we

16

the cinema mood. I also shot a lot of exteriors with available light in a pine

moment it’s the F55 that helps him achieve both, as he explained, “I think the F55 compares favourably to anything else out there. Its dynamic range, low noise, 4K internal with a solid codec, multiple frame rate options and general low weight and small size make it top of my list for a versatile camera.”

It’s not unusual to hear Jones promote the size and flexibility of the F55 and that was particularly evident during the shooting of Waves as he concluded, “I feel that the edge the F55 gives me is in speed. I can work so fast with this camera. I have used it for so long that a lot of it becomes

He added, “The overall weight of this rig let me work very fast and go

muscle memory. That said I’m not fiddling around in the menus from setup

handheld for long periods. I shot internally with the XAVC codec in 4K

to setup. I have my go-to settings that I leave it in and just go for it. In this

resolution using S-Log2 gamma. I love the combo of S-Log2 and the Zeiss

case it was XAVC 4K, S-Log2 base of 25fps. The side panel and new menu

ZF primes. The lenses gave a very nice organic softness that takes the edge

interface makes it super quick to change frame rates which I was doing

off 4K sharpness and helps give that film texture and analogue quality to a

a lot of on this shoot. I had a base of 25fps, with performance sync shot

high resolution image.”

at 33fps to give a slightly dreamy slow motion effect, and then 50fps for

There were lots of locations and lighting conditions to encounter on

some of the drama scenes. I have to say the camera performed amazingly

the Waves shoot with many of the more typical shots covering human

well on the Waves shoot, and the images were exactly what I set out

interaction, intimacy, love and conflict.

to get. I wanted a slightly analogue and organic feel to the image and I

Jones said, “We put the camera inside a clothes dryer at a laundromat as

achieved that with a combo of S-Log2 gamma and Zeiss ZF primes. These

one of the opening shots of the video. It’s small enough to get in there

lenses have a lot of character that really comes through in the tone of the

comfortably. I also shot in a video game arcade with mixed colour temps

images. The global shutter also gives it a nice motion cadence.”

and exposure, but the colour held up amazingly in the grade. One shot we

Visit www.sony.com.au and www.deanlewismusic.com

IBC 2016

It’s all in your hands

MASTER GRIPS

FINGERTIP CONTROL OF LENS AND CAMERA www.arri.com/ecs/mastergrips

IBC 2016

Based in Sydney - Serving Australia and New Zealand Tel +61 2 9855 4300 | Email Sean: sdooley@arri.com.au ARRI Australia Pty Ltd, Level 1, Unit 1, 706 Mowbray Road, Lane Cove NSW 2066

17

ACQUISITION

Tim Hawkins Scales Himalayas with Sony Cameras for Todd Samson’s Body Hack FOR MOST DOPS, shooting in

said I really did try to use

the cold brings its challenges,

the F5 as much as possible.

but when the cold comes

A lot of our shooting style

hand in hand with climbing a

was run and gun and the

mountain in the Himalayas,

FS5 was used, but most of

that’s a whole different

the content below 5000

ballgame according to Sydney-

metres was shot on the F5.

based cinematographer Tim

Shooting in Cine EI mode

Hawkins.

on Cine S-Log 3 using the

Hawkins explained, “I’ve been

LC-709TypeA LUT we shot

a Sony F5 owner for two years,

a lot of off speed, and I

and a Sony user my whole

used the interval record

career. Of all the Sony cameras

mode to shoot all the time

I’ve owned the F5 is definitely

lapses. I decided before

the one that has revolutionised

leaving that I would try not

my shooting style. Put simply, I

to move the ISO EI rating off 2000 ISOEI as I didn’t

love the F5 and the pictures it produces. I’ve always had a love hate relationship with my cameras and the

want to create any confusion with the new clients in post production. In other

F5 does sometimes push my buttons. That said, when I was asked to shoot

words, I wanted them to also apply the same LUT and have correctly exposed

the Himalayan Sherpa episode of Todd Samson’s Body Hack, I knew it was

pictures from the get go.”

the perfect camera for the job.”

They were moving fast and Hawkins was working hard. The crew’s doctor

Lobuche East sits just below Mount Everest’s peak at 6200 metres. The trek

had warned if they didn’t slow down it was likely they’d get altitude sickness,

would take 17 days and feature a push to the summit with an ascent of 1100

but for Hawkins slowing down was unthinkable. “I was hired to get the job

metres in a day.

done and was relying on my fitness to get me through. An added challenge

Hawkins added, “After accepting the role I started thinking about the camera.

I really wanted to shoot the episode with my F5 and cine lenses, but had concerns with how it might function at altitude. I was also concerned about how the F5 would handle the dust and dirt below the snow line, and what it would do in minus 20°.”

Hawkins continued, “I was determined to give the episode a cinematic feel, so large sensors were the only option. Our director, Jeff Siberry, agreed. We discussed cameras and lenses at length. He was a Sony FS5 fan and reckoned it would be a good choice for run and gun. He also owned a Sony A7S. I knew the A7S well and reckon it’s the best second camera or gimbal camera going, but the FS5 was new to me. Jeff was happy enough to make the FS5 the main camera but I wasn’t convinced and wanted the F5 on the shoot. On paper the FS5 looked good – large sensor, S-Log, built in variable ND, high frame-rates and small size, but I still had concerns as I knew what the F5 was capable of.”

After some debate and test shoots, it was decided to use all three Sony cameras. The decision was made to travel with the F5 as the main camera and use it as much as possible while using the FS5 as a run and gun camera – and potentially the camera they would summit with.

ACQUISITION

Feeling fit and with everything packed into backpacks Hawkins, Siberry and

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was the data wrangling as it kept me up late when I needed to sleep. Things were going well as we ascended, and our camera decisions were proving successful. At Everest base camp we encountered our first major drama – my health. I had altitude sickness so we needed to descend.”

Fortunately for Hawkins, on his second day of rest his symptoms lessened and although still unwell he pushed up past Everest base camp and onto Lobuche lower camp. Lower camp is 5600 metres and minus 16°.

“It was the last stop for the F5. The FS5 would now be the main camera, but I had worries about it in rough conditions. I’d been using Canon L series lenses with it and was concerned I’d not be able to use zoom or focus at that height.”

Siberry offered a solution, pulling out several Sony Zoom lenses he’d brought and told Hawkins to try them.

Hawkins said, “They not only looked good enough but integrated with the camera better. I suddenly had a servo lens zoom and auto focus plus facial recognition. I’d not used a servo on a lens in years and never used auto focus, but in this situation they were a godsend. Without those features I would have been doomed!”

Summit day proved more difficult than Hawkins imagined, “For me, it was a challenging climb, and after Crampon Point I was a broken man at extreme

the crew set off for their 28-day journey to Nepal and Louche East.

altitude. I couldn’t operate well. It was a point and shoot situation. The

Hawkins commented, “Our first scene was flying into Lukla airport. Known as

camera performed well in full auto mode and my fear about battery life was

the world’s most dangerous airport. I’d picked up the FS5 to shoot a PTC with

unfounded. As it happened, the pictures from the FS5 looked great. I used

Todd in the cabin and to shoot the landing, and began to wonder whether

the zoom and everything was in focus. As an experienced DOP, it’s hard for

Jeff’s predictions about the FS5 would come true. It was the start of a pattern

me to admit this, but a servo zoom and facial recognition auto focus really

that continued the whole month. The FS5 was always in my hand or close by

saved my bacon.”

in my backpack, whereas the F5 was carried by a Sherpa in a backpack. That

Visit www.sony.com.au and www.sony.co.nz

IBC 2016

WE’VE CRAFTED A CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE YOU’LL CAPTURE JAW DROPPING FRAMES

Contact your authorised Canon Cinema EOS reseller: Videocraft (NSW / VIC), Lemac (NSW / VIC / QLD), SUNSTUDIOS (NSW / VIC), Videopro (QLD), Pro AV Solutions (SA), Vizcom Technologies (WA).

IBC 2016

• Up to 15 stops dynamic range (C700 GS up to 14 stops) • Modular design • Super 35mm sensor • 4K 60P/50P • 240 fps • RAW/XF - AVC/ProRes • Anamorphic lens • EF/PL/B4 mount • GS model

19

ACQUISITION

Canon Launches EF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 IS II USM

shot track-side, you’ll capture all of the action with the EF 70-300mm F/4-5.6

CANON RECENTLY INTRODUCED the EF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 IS II USM – a

focal range, it allows you to capture portraits and fast-paced action, both in

IS II USM’s built-in Nano USM – a technology introduced with the EF-S 18 -135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM – offering fast focus acquisition and tracking speed combined with smooth, quiet operation. When combined with a versatile

telephoto lens replacing the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. The EF 70300mm F/4-5.6 IS II USM provides a 70-300mm focal range. Offering AF and optical technology suited for photography and movies, this lens is a welcome addition to any kit for users of the EOS System.

stills and movies. Nano USM makes the lens suitable for movie-makers, giving

Boasting a completely new optical design, the new system utilises one ultra-low dispersion (UD) lens element to reduce chromatic aberration, for sharp images with outstanding colour and contrast. When using the zoom, the lens’s four-stop Optical Image Stabilizer reduces camera shake and blur, minimising the need for a tripod and allowing you to shoot with longer shutter speeds and still achieve sharp shots. When pursuing the ultimate

distance, depth of field scale at various apertures, camera shake and focal

a natural look and feel to movies.

The EF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 IS II USM is the first Canon lens to feature an electronic Lens Information Display. The display modes include focus length. The display is useful for checking steadiness when you’re shooting at low-angles, while also allowing you to work out the 35mm equivalents when using APS-C and APS-H format EOS cameras. www.canon.com.au

Triptent Announces High-Speed Robic Camera System TRIPTENT RECENTLY INTRODUCED ROBIC, a robotic arm system designed for high-speed cinematography. Robic is a programmable camera arm that allows for precise, exact movement up to 168km/h to capture and follow motion in focus at 2,500 fps. The Robic system is now available for productions exclusively through Triptent, and is compatible with professional cameras including the Phantom HD, Flex 4K, Red Epic and the ARRI Alexa Mini.

“Together with our longtime collaborator, director-technologist-inventor, Fernando Kocking, we decided to develop a custom solution allowing

Two of the robotic arms, together with the custom Robic software, are

our clients a way to create shots that we’ve never been able to capture

designed to control cameras, and two are designed to control objects.

before in-camera,” said Joe Masi, Founder at Triptent. ”With Robic the

The camera control arms can be used alone, or be programmed to follow

speed and clarity of the footage is incredible. We can follow the action in

the movements of an object mounted on another Robic arm for synced

real-time as it happens – a ballerina on pointe as she leaps into the air, a

capture. The system has also been designed so that camera arms can be

glass propelled by gravity as it crashes to the ground, the trajectory of a

controlled and programmed simply via a videogame controller.

baseball through the air.”

The Robic system is transportable and can be set up on a stage or on

The current Robic set-up includes four motion control arms, synchronised

location, and is already in use on commercial projects.

to capture a shot with precision even though it may just be a millisecond.

Visit www.triptent.com

Leader 4K HDR Option for LV7390 3G/HD/SD SDI Rasteriser LEADER ELECTRONICS EUROPE recently announced a new option for the Leader LV7390 4K-upgradable 3G/HD/SD SDI rasteriser. The LV7390-OP20 4K upgrade allows the LV7390 to support 4K/UHD programme production and post as well as 4x3G HD-SDI.

ACQUISITION

Kevin Salvidge, Leader’s European Regional Development Manager said, ”HDR does not come in one universal standard so is a potential nightmare for producers who want to deploy this technology to improve the look and feel of their production.

20

uses false colour to display areas of the image extending into HDR so can be used on non-HDR monitors. Potential issues can be identified without specialist technical experience. CINEZONE HDR reduces the need for retakes or additional hours in post-production. It allows producers to acquire content in HDR while ensuring content will not require additional re-working for standard dynamic range distribution. The CINEZONE HDR option also supports HD formats.

Customers can purchase the 4K/HDR upgrade when their businesses require it without having to return the LV7390 to Leader or to an authorised service centre.

“ITU.BT2100 Hybrid Log Gamma was jointly developed by the BBC in the UK and NHK in Japan. It is a royalty-free open approach specifying the system parameters essential for extended image dynamic range television. These include system colorimetry, signal format and digital representation.

The Leader LV7390 is a compact 1U 3G/HD/SD-SDI rasteriser which

The upgrade includes high dynamic range measurement capabilities for the ITU.BT.2100 Hybrid Log Gamma, Dolby PQ and Sony SLOG-3 protocols. This capability plus a compact 1RU form-factor makes the LV7390 suitable for production environments that cannot accommodate a full size waveform monitor.

easy connection into 3G-SDI, HD-SDI and SD-SDI systems, the LV7390

Also included with the 4K HDR upgrade is Leader’s CINEZONE HDR. This

Visit http://leadereurope.com

can be used to measure up to four source channels simultaneously. It can be deployed for desktop or rack-mounted operation. Designed for incorporates full-resolution 3G/HD-SDI and DVI-I rasterised outputs which allow detailed video and audio parameters be checked on a separate monitor in full 1920 x 1080 HD resolution.

IBC 2016

Raw Has Never Been So Refined

AXS-R7 – Dockable 4K RAW Recorder The durable, dust and splash-proof AXS-R7 portable recorder attaches seamlessly to the high end F55 and F5 CineAlta cameras, speeding up the 4K production workflow without compromising quality.

The AXS-R7 doubles 4K RAW recording from 60 fps up to 120 fps for the F55 camera. For shooting at higher frame rates, the recorder captures 2K RAW at up to 240 fps with the F55 and F5 for super slow motion playback.

Working with high-speed AXSM™ A Series memory cards, the recorder features dual card slots for extra security and extended recording times. The recorder also offers 4K RAW cache recordings up to 30 seconds while in standby mode.

The tough, all-metal casing makes the AXS-R7 the ideal

For more information, please visit pro.sony.com.au

Beyond Definition

IBC 2016

companion to the F55 and F5.

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ACQUISITION

‘Luhan Reloaded:2016’ Concert Live Streamed with Blackmagic BLACKMAGIC DESIGN HAS ANNOUNCED that four URSA Mini 4K PL cameras and an ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K with the ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast panel were used by Guangzhou based Guangdong i-Mass Vision to provide a live feed of Chinese singer Luhan’s solo concert tour. The tour, named ‘Luhan Reloaded:2016’, was streamed exclusively by ME, a mobile live streaming app of China’s leading social entertainment platform, YY Inc. With the concert, fans were able to interact with the singer in real time on smartphones via the ME app during pre-show rehearsals and warm up, as well as during the show. The concert was also shot entirely on digital film cameras from Blackmagic Design. “Concert lighting tend to be complex, which brings you both extreme brightness and darkness at the same time. So we decided to use Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini 4K digital film cameras for its wide dynamic range,” said Jiang Weizhong, Director of Guangdong i-Mass Vision.

Four URSA Mini 4K PL cameras were used, with each equipped with a Blackmagic URSA Mini B4 mount. All cameras were set in film mode for the widest possible latitude. “Besides a much wider dynamic range, using the film camera for live production gives you another advantage because it includes an internal high quality recorder. This means even in live production

With the URSA Mini 4.6K shipping and more powerful features being added, which allow the ATEM switchers to remote control the camera, Jiang looks forward to exploring more possibilities with his Blackmagic Design solution. “We will also use the more powerful URSA Mini 4.6K camera in live productions and we believe its 15 stops of dynamic range can make sure more realistic lighting at the concert is presented to audience watching the show on TV or the internet.”

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

Ventuz Announces Support of Stype Camera and Lens Tracking

ARRI IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE that development of the ALEXA SXT

STYPE KIT BY THE CROATIAN DEVELOPER, STYPE, is a tracking system

ARRI will now make good on its promise to provide upgrades to all ALEXA XT EV, ALEXA XT Plus and ALEXA XT Studio cameras shipped in 2015 and 2016. In addition to the originally promised upgrade program of a free-of-charge upgrade to SXT in Munich, ARRI has equipped its service stations in London, Los Angeles, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong and Mumbai to perform the upgrade. For those who received their XT camera before 2015, a paid-for upgrade option to a full SXT is also available.

While keeping the sensor and user interface of the original ALEXA design, the capabilities of ALEXA SXT cameras (ALEXA SXT EV, ALEXA SXT Plus and ALEXA SXT Studio) have been extended. Equipped with the electronics and image processing of the ALEXA 65, SXT cameras can manage more recording formats and handle more processorintensive tasks such as calculating looks with 3D LUTs, or colour space conversions to Rec 2020, all in real time.

The new ARRI look management offers a wide range of unique looks while making it easy to maintain and share the cinematographer’s intended look on set, in dailies and in editing. An optional mild noise reduction helps when shooting in low light.

While all images recorded with ALEXA have been high dynamic range

that supports camera cranes and jibs, among them Stanton Jimmy, CamMate, MovieBird and Super Techno cranes.

By integrating this system into their real-time graphics workflow, Ventuz widens its scope on virtual studio and augmented reality installations for news, sports, entertainment, and other broadcast scenarios. The Stype system allows production companies to repurpose existing camera supports for virtual and augmented uses with minimal effort.

“We have been working intensely on giving Ventuz a firm standing in the virtual studio and augmented reality world”, said David Paniego, Product Marketing Manager of Ventuz Technology. “With Ventuz 5 we have added many functionalities to enhance workflows in this regard, especially when it comes to more realistic looks in 3D objects and HDR materials and effects. The integration of advanced camera tracking systems like Stype Kit shows our interest in these workflows, and presents Ventuz as one of the go-to graphic solutions for virtual and augmented projects.”

Among these new developments for more realistic 3D real-time graphics are a live link between Ventuz and Cinema 4D, which allows the easy and dynamic integration of complex 3D models and animations into the real-time space. Additionally, Ventuz 5 features a revamped material and render engine, which allows users to get more sophisticated and realistic looks.

either a Rec 709 or Rec 2020 monitor.

“Finally, we can deliver Stype kit to some Ventuz users who were crying out for it. The integration was done remotely, and afterwards verified in our improvised studio in Zagreb. We are looking forward to giving Ventuz users the luxury of using a top notch tracking equipment for Virtual and Augmented reality projects,” said Stjepan Cajic, CEO of Stype.

Visit www.arri.com.au

Visit www.ventuz.com

since the camera’s introduction in 2010, it is now possible to also monitor in HDR. Four independent monitoring outputs provide the right

ACQUISITION

Each of the URSA Mini 4K cameras output a 1080i50 feed via SDI. To colour match these cameras, each camera feed went through a Blackmagic Design’s HDLink Pro before entering the ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K switcher, controlled by the ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast Panel. “There are no white balance settings in digital film cameras as found in EFP cameras. However, using the HDLink Pro converters, we were able to apply a pre built LUT to each of the camera feeds for colour matching, which is a simpler solution.” Jiang explained.

ARRI Announces Completion of ALEXA SXT Development cameras (Super Xtended Technology) is completed.

22

you get film quality footage from each camera, great for postproduction, without hanging an external recorder for each camera,” said Jiang.

image for each crew member, and each of the MON OUTs can output to

ACQUISITION

Christian Hipolito Wins NZCS Emerging Cinematographer Award AT THIS YEAR’S NZCS AWARDS, Christian Hipolito won not only the Student Film Award, but also the Al Guilford Emerging Cinematographer Award for his movie ‘Pound’, which he shot entirely with the ARRI ALEXA camera.

Hipolito explained, “I was studying at New Zealand Film and Television School, and for our end-of-year graduation film project we were given a budget to make two short films using an ARRI ALEXA. We were advised to research how to use the settings and play around with the ARRI Camera Simulator, something that wasn’t necessary as it was so easy to operate.

You only need 30 minutes alone with this camera and you’re a pro. When it comes to handling, I think it’s every cinematographer’s choice.”

For Hipolito the ALEXA’s ease of use played a huge part in the results he got when shooting Pound.

With only $8000 available to make the entire movie and in order to make every cent count, Hipolito and Pound’s director meticulously planned every aspect of the movie for weeks.

He explained, “The director and I planned everything down to the finest detail. I also had to do a storyboard to know what lights and gear we’d need.

As the budget was so tight we allocated just $2000 for the gear, so I was only able to hire a day of the shoulder rig, a few basic prime lenses, a high hat, a carbon fibre tripod and a fluid head. When you bear that in mind, the camera really did have to perform to its utmost capabilities.”

Pound’s director wanted the end product not just in black and white but also

to be very intense, dark, and have lots of contrast. Again Hipolito credits the ALEXA in helping make this happen, adding, “Shooting with the ALEXA gave me the confidence to shoot in low light situations. It produced high detail in dark areas and it gave us the cinematic look we wanted. The camera gave me the possibility to do whatever I wanted, and get amazing results. When it comes to image quality, the ALEXA tops all others – from its dynamic range and colour reproduction, to its reliability and intuitive operation.”

This fast rising cinematographer was grateful for many things at the NZCS Awards as he concluded, “I felt incredibly proud to have won the Student Film and Al Guilford Emerging Cinematographer Awardss. I’m truly grateful to the NZCS and to my teachers at the New Zealand Film and Television School.

I also have to give credit to the ARRI ALEXA.” Visit www.arri.com.au

ACQUISITION

He continued, “The engineers who designed the ALEXA thought it through very well. I can adjust the settings from the viewfinder without the help of a 1st AC. The weight of the camera including the PL, viewfinder, battery and cable was also only around 8kg so it was very easy to carry or use on my shoulder.”

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SPORTSCASTING Sport coverage worldwide

www.content-technology.com/sportscasting

Cricket Australia to Launch Online ‘Global Channel’ USING ITS OWN AND THIRD-PARTY match and non-match video highlights, as well as social media and press agency feeds, Cricket Australia is set to launch Cricket Network, an online property for cricket fans inside and outside of Australia.

Speaking at the recent C+T-sponsored Sportscasting 2016 Conference, Head of Digital for Cricket Australia, Finn Bradshaw, said the idea for the online channel came out of the recent T20 World Cup held in India.

back to their hotel and were singing Wayne Bravo’s ‘Champions’ song. That went to about 30 million people on Facebook and was one of the triggers for us thinking there’s actually a lot to share here in cricket. Compared to soccer, I would never launch a new global property because it’s so saturated, but when I look at cricket, there’s a couple of dominant players there, but in terms of content there’s a real opportunity.”

Cricket Australia will continue to operate www.cricket.com.au for highlight-based and subscription-only live content covering matches played in Australia. Cricket Network, meanwhile, will be available online, on mobile through the App Store and Google Play, and via Apple TV.

“For four months of the year, we’re a rights holder. So, for any cricket played in Australia, we have pretty much total video rights. Then, as soon as the Australian Cricket Team leaves our shores, we have no rights,” said Bradshaw.

In addition to the new online channel, Cricket Australia will also use the 2016-17 season to explore 360° video.

“So, we have to rely on the fact that we send a cameraman and usually two journos to cover the Australian Men’s team and the Australian Women’s team to try and capture unique video on the ground.

“Our biggest video ever on Facebook was after the West Indies won the T20 World Cup this year. They didn’t have a camera crew there and the Australian team only made it to the semi-finals, so we spoke to the West Indies Cricket Board and said, ‘Can you treat our guys like they were your guys and we’ll share the video with you?’

“So, we got the video of after the West Indies upset the Indians and went

“In conjunction with Nine this summer, we’re going to do about five 360 videos per day for each test match,” said Bradshaw. “It will be all around players walking out with the bat, National Anthem, coin toss, that sort of stuff.

“Some of the things we’ve done look quite nice. We did one around a cap presentation in Sri Lanka, but as an ongoing engagement tool, I don’t know. It all comes down to great content.”

Visit www.cricketnetwork.com

Videocraft Goes Mobile for Red Bull Charity Run WINGS FOR LIFE WORLD RUN is the unique charity event that raises money by running for those who can’t. The twist? Everyone runs worldwide, on the same day, at the same time creating a race of epic proportions with runners chased by Catcher Cars to literally catch the runners not running towards a finish line but away from the finish line and culminating in just one lone runner left at the end.

Then, once the race started they had four mobile cameras on motorbikes following the runners and doing interviews along the way. The key here was that all the links were provided by 4G bonded streaming solutions.”

For what was a very broad event geographically it was only the first 500 metres that were covered by fixed, wired cameras. The other 79.5km was all covered by Videocraft’s mobile 4G camera solution and OB truck.

In total, there were 34 outside broadcasts worldwide all with no fixed end point and all of which covered a significant amount of terrain. This complicated set of variables meant advanced planning was key. The OB for the Australian run, held in Victoria, was provided by Videocraft.

On the ground and on the motorbikes, Videocraft deployed four Teradek Bond 2 Encoders that were securely linked to Teradek Sputnik servers in the cloud. The Sputnik servers were in turn downlinked to the Videocraft OB truck and decoded using Teradek Cube decoders.

Wings for Life World Run’s Australian production company was the awardwinning Screencraft. The company’s Founder and Director, Michael Fardell, explained some of the challenges involved in this year’s event, “The run kicked off at 1pm in Austria – home of Red Bull – which was 9pm in Melbourne. As the runners set off and try to get as far away as possible the Catcher Cars follow thirty minutes later. Bearing in mind the logistics, with this event runners can get up to 80km from the start point so we needed the most flexible and nimble OB solution possible.”

Although the OB solution was completely reliant on mobile communication lines, Videocraft was still able to factor in redundancy and mobile dead zones by using multiple carriers and extracting the highest possible data rates.

After discussions with Videocraft’s MD, James Taylor, the company provided not only its fully-loaded, state of the art OB truck for the event but also an ingenious and cost effective mobile broadcasting solution.

To see the Red Bull 2016 Wings for Life World Run go to: https://vimeo.com/168701854 Visit www.videocraft.com.au

SPORTSCASTING

Fardell continued, “Videocraft had four wired OB cameras at the start line.

Fardell commented, “The data rates Videocraft were able to get were so high that we did the entire broadcast in HD. Once we’d ingested the footage we then sent it to the Austrian world feed and received back the World Programme so people in Australia would watch the entire worldwide event.”

PAP-CTechAd-NOV-190x30mm-BA.indd 1

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1/11/2016 1:34:51 PM

SPORTSCASTING

CONTROL COMMUNICATE

INTERCOMANDMEDIORNETCONTROL SMARTPANEL RSP-2318

RIEDEL widens its SMARTPANEL app portfolio with the new MEDIORNET CONTROL app. Switch video, audio or combine in macros… all while using your intercom.

www.riedel.net

SPORTSCASTING

TOGETHER IN ONE DEVICE

25

SPORTSCASTING

TDC Invests in New OB Truck and Studio FORMED OVER 30 YEARS AGO by owner and CEO, Michael Hassett, TDC has grown into one of Australia’s true specialists in video solutions. By providing a range of video technology, and running a combination of the most impressive fleet of LED screens, large scale projection equipment, outside broadcast trucks and broadcast camera systems, TDC has been involved in some of the most prestigious live events in Australia. Recently the company needed to expand its OB fleet, and for that it turned to Sony Australia.

Hassett explained, “We had the opportunity to look at a number of trucks being built locally, and the level of craftsmanship put into the Sony builds was clearly second to none.”

For Hassett and the TDC team, and Sony’s ability to provide almost all of the truck build package aside, the fact that both companies were able to work on a design together provided TDC some significant advantages.

Hassett continued, “Working together with Sony made us feel that we would give the most value to our clients with the focus on flexibility, functionality and redundancy.”

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Due to TDC’s high standards the brief for the OB truck was comprehensive.

With this brief, Sony designed and built the truck with three levels of vision and audio redundancy, dual levels of redundancy should the primary multiviewers fail, and ensured every piece of equipment plugged in was backed up for a minimum of 15 minutes across three uninterrupted power supplies, making the truck a serious tool in the Australian marketplace.

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Hassett commented, “Size and power were essential, as it was important to be able to provide a truck that could fit into all the venues where doubles simply can’t.”

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The new TDC OB truck has been built around an Imagine Communicationsbased central 256 x 256 routing core with in-built multi-viewers and Imagine glue infrastructure. There are also Sony main and standby vision switchers, and Sony HDC-1700 and HDC-4300 cameras that partner with Fujinon XA99x8.4BESM box, and HA42x9.7BERD-U48 and HA18x5.5BERD ENG lenses.

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Alongside these are Sony monitors, Miller and Vinten camera supports, Riedel 128×128 comms with new smart panels, and the truck has been wired for three XT machines to accommodate both eight-channel and 12-channel EVS XT3s. For sound a Yamaha CL5 has been installed as the main audio switcher with a QL1 as the emergency back up.

For the team at TDC, the choice of cameras, and in particular, the lenses that would accompany them was a critical decision. Sony cameras have had a big part to play across many aspects of the TDC business. The truck has two types of Sony cameras that can be used in either an ENG, semi build-up, or full box lens build-up configuration, and pair extremely well with the lenses supplied by Fujinon.

Michael Hassett concluded, “In doing our research leading up to the purchase we obviously looked at all available lenses, not just Fujinon’s. Apart from the stunning images Fujinon lenses give when paired with the Sony Cameras, it was the introduction of the Fujinon HA18x5.5BERD lens that really made the difference. This lens allows us to provide both a standard and a wide-angle lens in one, which fits perfectly into applications such as Steadicam, jibs, handheld and ENG cameras. For the first time we can offer productions the wide-angle requirement, but with the bulk of the power of a standard lens.

At TDC we pride ourselves on working closely with production, coming up with alternate methods of achieving the targeted results, and over delivering where possible to ensure the client gets the best tools for the job, and will allow the highest levels of production.”

SPORTSCASTING

New Studio

26

TDC is now embarking on development of a new studio space along with further investment in d3 Technologies Pro range of media servers. Designed to be a hotbed of creativity, the studio will enable project stakeholders to create and implement ideas using emerging creative technology solutions.

“Our history has always been about bringing the latest technologies to the

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market in this region. We are heavily invested in ensuring we offer emerging solutions when it comes to 3D modelling and pre-visualisation for shows,” said Hassett. “Within the studio environment, TDC clients will be able to see how any project looks during early design phases, enabling them to adapt and experiment with new ideas with the view to ensuring maximum audience impact.”

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To coincide with the new studio, TDC has joined d3 Technologies’ Worldwide Strategic Partner Programme, providing the full spectrum of d3 expertise across server functionality, training, and expert advice.

“Having utilised d3 servers for several years now, we realised the commitment of the d3 team behind this solution. Our relationship as a strategic partner allows us to work side-by-side with the developers at d3. This is invaluable in future technology development for both of our organisations,” explained Hassett.

“We’re excited TDC has joined our stable of d3 strategic partners worldwide,” said Desmond Yim, d3 Regional Sales Manager, APAC. “Establishing this partnership between d3 and TDC is going to be a turning point for d3 in the Southern Hemisphere. We can now more easily and confidently provide the full spectrum of d3 training, expert knowledge and solutions.”

To ensure TDC is able to provide the highest levels of support for the d3 machines, TDC’s Media Server Specialist, Steve Cain, has become a d3 Certified Trainer.

“I’m excited about our continued investment in d3 media servers. It reflects our commitment to leading the way as video experts. I’m a big advocate for d3’s powerful performance features, and I can’t wait to work with our clients in the studio environment,” said Cain.

TDC staff are expertly trained and certified at d3’s Technologies headquarters in London and are on hand to provide training to local companies.

Visit www.tdc.com.au and http://pro.sony.com.au and www.d3technologies.com

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SPORTSCASTING

The Gold Coast Diaries – Chapter 1

by Jeff Coleman SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 4 2016.

QANTAS LOUNGE, MELBOURNE AIRPORT. Waiting to board QF880 to the Gold Coast, I review a section of the broadcast venue plan for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. It’s the second version our team will submit, and incorporates some fine tuning that occurred over the past six weeks while I was in Rio, working as technical manager on NEP’s turnkey Olympic Games broadcast for the Seven Network. My time since January has been split between the two events, and with other NEP colleagues now focused on the Paralympics it’s a good point for me to move onto the Gold Coast project full-time.

I’ve had my eyes on Gold Coast 2018 almost since the beginning, being part of the team that put together the successful tender for the Host Broadcast contract. In fact, my first duty when I joined NEP last July was obtaining pricing for the specialty cameras and radio frequency equipment The GC2018 Host Broadcaster will deliver high definition, multi-camera television coverage of 11 days of sporting competition in April 2018, along with the Opening and Closing Ceremonies – with the Opening Ceremony also to be produced in ultra high definition 4K – a Commonwealth Games first.

The Host Broadcaster will also design, build and operate the International Broadcast Centre (IBC), the nexus of all GC2018 broadcasting activity, to be located at the Gold Coast Exhibition and Convention Centre.

Because our team is so experienced, with extensive multi-venue events to their credit, we’re tracking to plan, and in certain areas we’re ahead of schedule. Throughout the year we’ve been participating in GOLDOC (Gold Coast Games Organising Committee) venue operational planning sessions, as well as site surveys where possible. Close cooperation with the OC is key, and a big part of the reason things are humming eight months into our 27-month schedule.

We know from previous Games that preparation gets the event off to the right start, and a core team of five commenced work immediately upon NEP

The afternoon will be spent catching up with the rest of the team and also evaluating expressions of interest in providing production vehicles and flyaway kits, including prime inventory such as large cameras, lenses, EVS record and replay channels, and audio requirements.

Another priority is progressing camera system plans for the Aquatic Centre.

The venue has no roof, which entails lighting and camera angle challenges.

As the dive and swimming pools are adjacent to one another we’re modelling whether we can span both pools with a single, four-point camera system. As far as we’re aware this has never been done in an event like the Commonwealth Games.

I wasn’t the only NEP team member working on both Rio and GC2018, and know everyone will be glad to focus on this project full-time. A number of critical decisions will be made in the coming months as we look to break the mould, develop new angles and make full use of technologies, while also keeping to a strict budget.

Looking down on Coolangatta Beach as the plane descends, I look forward to checking into my hotel and then a swim in the Broadwater – whether

Australia winning the bid. By February we were sharing space at GOLDOC’s

I make it to Southport Aquatic Centre for my usual early morning coffee

offices in the Ashmore TAFE.

tomorrow is jet-lag dependent. On average, before Rio I was on the Gold

We moved into our office in Bundall in March. Our team currently numbers 21 between full-time local staff and those flying in and out from Sydney or Melbourne. Unusually for a Host Broadcast office, we’ll stay here as we grow, rather than re-locate closer to Games time, as Bundall is convenient to key places and can accommodate around 25 people. At operational

Coast every other week, depending on requirements. It’s likely I’ll spend three in every four weeks here this side of Christmas. My wife and son are used to me being away, however they are coming up in the school holidays to look at schools and places to live for 2017/18 – and we are all excited about that.

stage we’ll move into the IBC.

For all the pressure and time away from home that go with this job, more

Having just returned from Rio and doing my best with jet-lag, I’ve

than anything I feel privileged. It’s a dream to work on one of the world’s

scheduled my first meeting for 11am tomorrow with John Galea and Mark

premier broadcast events alongside colleagues I know and trust, and

Corser, our coordinating venue technical managers, and commentary

who are best-of-the-best at what they do, and to have my family here for

systems manager, Andrew Angeli. We’ll be discussing telecoms circuits

support.

for many of the 23 venues on the Gold Coast, including the IBC and Commonwealth Games Village. In May I’d drafted the initial telecom services document. While I’ve been away Andrew has overhauled the schematics, and we’re about to test various commentary systems with a

Jeff Coleman is Head of Engineering and Technical Operations for NEP Australia, Host Broadcaster of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. This is the first in a series of reports for Content+Technology in which Jeff will outline the

view to signing off on one as soon as possible. This is one element that

26-month project’s objectives and milestones. The GC2018 Host Broadcaster

will help us finalise our proposed rate card to GOLDOC, so broadcast

– led by NEP Host Broadcast with support of production partners Seven

rights holders will know the pricing structure for space in the IBC, options

Network and Sunset+Vine – will deliver the television and digital broadcast to

for customising their respective spaces, and the broadcast, satellite and

rights-holding broadcasters around the world – all up some 1,100 hours of live

internet services needed to facilitate their coverage of the Games.

television.

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that will be required.

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Gearhouse Takes Fujinon 4K Lenses to the A-League IN AN AUSTRALIAN FIRST, Gearhouse Broadcast has used some of its new Fujinon 4K lenses, which formed part of its largest ever Fujinon 4K lens purchase, to shoot the recent Sydney FC versus Perth Glory A-League soccer match at Allianz Stadium.

Being first in bringing the best 4K lens technology to the market is part of Gearhouse’s ethos, which includes meeting the extremely high standards and requirements of our customers by always investing in cutting edge equipment.”

Gearhouse Business Development Director, Gavin Romanis explained, “There were several firsts at the A-League match. The supertruck we used was HD8 which was Australia’s first native 4K truck. As this has now been fully equipped with Fujinon 4K lenses it becomes Australia’s first true end-to-end 4K truck, and that includes cameras, lenses and all infrastructure including 4K EVS. Finally, some of the Fujinon lenses we used have the largest zoom range available of any 4K UHD lens in today’s market.”

Gearhouse has been installing a significant number of Fujinon UA107x8.4BESM, UA80x9BESM, UA22x8BERD and UA13x4.5BERD 4K lenses, and HA23x7.6BERD and HA14x4.5BERD HD lenses. This means all its OB supertrucks, and a substantial amount of its entire Australian OB fleet will be Fujinon 4K lensenabled.

The “largest zoom range” is the Fujinon UA107x8.4, which covers the wide focal length from 8.4mm, the widest in its class, to 900mm in super-telephoto, and has been designed to meet the needs for 4K shooting in all scenes, such as relay broadcasting of sports and live broadcasting of concerts. The UA107x8.4, which is equipped with the floating focus system that controls a plurality of lens groups in accordance with the shooting distance, enables shooting of high-resolution images across the entire zoom range. It also supports the production of videos with high image quality, is equipped with the company’s proprietary optical image stabiliser, and corrects vibrations of images in the screen resulting from unstable platforms.

According to Romanis, “We used a variety of Fujinon 4K lenses on 4K cameras in HD mode to provide enhanced resolution. This means viewers get an even better picture than you would get from using an HD lens, and due to the length of the UA107x8.4, are even closer to all the action.

Gearhouse Broadcast CEO, John Newton said, “Our core philosophy has always been to deliver the latest and highest quality technology, workflows and services to our customers.

Recently we did a comprehensive evaluation of 4K lenses across the globe and it was very clear that Fujinon are leading the world in 4K lens quality and technology, so this multi-million dollar investment in Fujinon 4K lenses is another great example of our core philosophy in action.

“Put simply these lenses with our current camera fleet will give the very best picture quality for our clients, as 4K lenses on HD cameras outperform and produce better images than HD lenses. That’s an immediate and tangible benefit for our customers. Then there’s the fact that our entire fleet is now future-proofed for 4K production of any kind. Finally, and particularly in the case of the UA107x8.4BESM, we now have not only the highest quality 4K box lenses available but also the one with the largest zoom range available of any 4K UHD lens in today’s market.”

Visit www.gearhousebroadcast.com/au and www.fujifilm.com

SKY NZ Upskills Staff, Gives Lenses a Full Service SKY NZ IS RENOWNED in New Zealand as being a leading supplier of outside broadcast services, but constantly covering everything from live sport to entertainment programmes to special events does take its toll on equipment. Recently, the time came for SKY to have its entire fleet of Fujinon lenses serviced and repaired for which they turned to Fujifilm Australia.

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SKY’s Engineering Manager Nick Haines explained, “We had several lenses which were suffering from too many years on the road in New Zealand’s typically harsh environment for the high-quality electronics and mechanics of our Fujinon lenses. We discussed several options for circulating five lenses through the Sydney repair facility when Fujifilm Australia instead suggested assessing and repairing the lenses on site in our Auckland workshop. Not only would this save us considerable time and inconvenience but it would also give us the opportunity to up-skill our technical staff as to what they could do to solve some of our minor issues and help in future decisions as to when we need to return a lens for service.”

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With the decision made, Fujifilm Australia arranged for their Senior Specialist Lens Technician Terry Kasai to spend a week at SKY with Terry’s first job to service multiple 101x lenses.

Haines continued, “We made the lenses available to be cycled through to Terry and set up a room with Terry’s equipment and a camera for final

testing. We also had a wide angle and a 22x ENG lens that also required attention so Terry was able to use his many years of excellent knowledge and technical test equipment to identify and fix the issues. Many of the lenses’ issues came down to disassembly – quite a process to witness to this level – re-lubricating and cleaning out the guides for the lens carriers to run on. There were also a couple of electronic faults where Terry managed to identify the faulty components and arrange spares for us. It really was a very efficient and effective process.

“The main advantage we gained is that time and risk were both significantly reduced. I didn’t have to ship the lenses to Australia, which is a minimum of two days each way and can easily slip to four days depending on our carrier.

Time was also a big factor as effectively each lens was only out of service for one day, a more than reasonable amount of downtime that we could cope with.

“The tips and care suggestions from Terry will be a huge help in the future now he has now worked with our staff and understands our capability, skills and requirements. Time wise we achieved so much in a week which typically would have taken at least four or five weeks so all in all it was a great job extremely well done. To that end we’re already planning Terry’s next trip.”

Visit www.fujifilm.com.au

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See The World Come Alive With the Sony family of system cameras

4K and HD System Cameras

With options for HD, 4K, High Frame Rate (HFR), High Dynamic Range (HDR) and ultra-slow motion they are ideal for demanding sporting applications to the simplest studio installation. These cameras combine cutting edge technology with a familiar and consistent operation across the range.

No matter what your requirements there is a Sony system camera to match your needs and budget.

For more information, please visit pro.sony.com.au

HDC-4800

HSC-300R

HDC-4300

HDC-1700

HXC-FB75

Beyond Definition

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Discover our line-up of live broadcast and studio cameras. Ideal for shooting live events or in the studio, the wide range of cameras are built on Sony’s record of innovation and reliability.

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Sony’s High-Frame-Rate Tech for 4K Sport SONY HAS INTRODUCED two new technologies that allow professionals to incorporate high dynamic range (HDR) and high-frame-rate (HFR) content into a 4K live sports production workflow.

Sony’s HDC-P43 point of view (POV) camera, which uses the same imager and camera circuitry as the HDC-4300, supports 4K HDR and HFR. Lightweight (2.0kg; camera body only) and compact (119 W x 140 H x 212 D mm), the POV camera can be mounted in positions where HD POV cameras are now used – crane, rail, goalpost – to capture action shots from unique angles with up to 8x HD or 2x 4K. In addition, Sony’s HDRC-4000 HDR production converter unit, designed for simultaneous live 4K HDR and HD SDR content production workflows, eliminates the need for independent workflows on the same event and effectively reduces production time and costs.

Live sports productions need to handle a variety of sources easily and efficiently, from HD and 4K to HDR and HFR formats. These new technologies resolve many of the challenges traditionally associated with live production, adding new story-telling tools alongside maximum production value.”

Based on Sony’s recommended S-Log3 and BT.2020 production workflow for 4K HDR live production, the unit is able to do real-time conversions to the appropriate delivery formats for various applications (broadcast, OTT, public viewing), as well as formats for input (OETF/EOTF, colour space, HDR/SDR and resolution), including conventional HD content production and video signals, without compromising picture quality.

Using a specialised algorithm, the HDRC-4000 can ensure accurate format conversion of content produced in S-Log3 and BT.2020, to match the required distribution format and delivers creators’ intention to audience as it is. Its compact 1.5U body can support two-channel conversion as well.

The solution enables broadcasters and productions to enjoy HDR image production as well as conventional 4K SDR and HD production. A typical SR Live for HDR sports production workflow is configured with a 4K/HD live camera system (e.g. HDC-4800, HDC-4300 or HDC-P43 with S-Log3) alongside Sony’s award winning BVM-X300 for HDR monitoring. Now, the addition of the HDRC-4000 ensures a perfect EOTF conversion that retains the original image quality intended by production.

Sony’s HDC-P43 is equipped with a three-chip, 2/3 inch 4K image sensor and can deliver 2x slow-motion at 4K, and 8x super-slow motion in HD in conjunction with a 4K live server. The new camera complements Sony’s

Sony’s HDC-P43 POV camera.

current line of sports production technologies – the HDC-4300 or HDC4800 4K/HD live camera systems and the PWS-4500 4K live server. Further, Sony’s Share Play feature that is incorporated into its latest sports production technologies, allows a single operator to control editing and output of slowmotion highlights with file-sharing capabilities over a single network (10G or faster), linking a Sony 4K live camera system with a video server.

The latest POV camera also features a built-in fibre adaptor, offering all the interface functions necessary for live production and studio shooting – tally signal, return image, and teleprompter output – by connecting with Sony’s BPU-4000, BPU-4500 baseband processor unit or HDCU-4300 camera control unit.

Using single-mode fibre cable, the connection distance between the camera head and baseband processor can be extended up to five kilometres.

This increases efficiency when there is a significant distance between the stadium and OB truck, or when shooting overhead views of a playing field.

Sony’s HDC-P43 is HDR and HFR ready, supporting ITU-R BT.2020 colour space and S-Log3 for high brightness and high contrast imagery. The latest POV camera is also highly configurable using optional software licenses, available for 4K and HFR capture. This allows for a customisable solution for HD, 4K, HDR, and HFR live productions.

For 4K/HD live production needs, Sony’s growing line-up of products – camera systems, servers, switchers, monitors, pro audio, archive systems, and more – enables broadcasters and producers to configure powerful HD and 4K HDR and HFR capable systems, to meet a wide variety of applications and budgets.

Visit http://pro.sony.com.au

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Lawo-equipped CCTV OB Van ready for production

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COMBINING TWO AMBITIONS in one project, China Central Television (CCTV) has put a new audio OB van into service, simultaneously raising its sound production values and field testing the latest Lawo broadcast technologies.

mc²66, which will be used to broadcast the conference of G20 in Hangzhou Zhejiang Province, China on 4th – 5th September 2016. These have paved the way for the selection of a 32-fader Lawo mc²56 mixing console for the new audio-only OB vehicle.

With 45 TV and radio channels and an audience of more than one billion, the Chinese state broadcaster is in a commanding position with its news, documentary, comedy, entertainment, drama and sports programming. The OB van build is being co-ordinated by main contractor NDT, to serve both sports events and live music concerts.

This first use of an mc²56 console, using a core with 8192x8192 capacity and 288 DSP channels and RAVENNA/AES67 compatible interfaces, is accompanied by a local Lawo DALLIS stagebox and a further DALLIS stagebox that can be used remotely from the vehicle. Together, these elements will give CCTV a hybrid audio OB van using both MADI and IP connectivity, with full operational redundancy and high-quality sound. It will also integrate Waves SoundGrid, to allow the use of a wide selection of plug-ins.

CCTV has been using Lawo mixing consoles since 2008, and is very satisfied with their stability and reliability in mission critical on-air broadcast and sports production environments, and also their ease of operation. There are presently four 400-sq-m production studios and three news studios using Lawo mc²66 audio mixing consoles at CCTV’s iconic headquarters in Beijing as well as one EFP system with another

The OB van project began in January 2016, the order was placed with Lawo in June, and was completed in July.

Visit www.lawo.com

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A BROADCAST MASTERPIECE. THE ALL-NEW SENNHEISER EK 6042.

The best of Sennheiser’s world-class analogue and digital receiver systems in one compact package: The EK 6042 two-channel camera receiver handles analogue and digital transmitters simultaneously.

Best flexibility.

Saving you time and hassle, the smart EK 6042 is ready for the job in seconds: It configures automatically to every professional Sennheiser UHF transmitter, whether analogue or digital or a mix thereof, identifying transmitter types, companders and frequencies via an IR link – across a bandwidth of a full 184 MHz. Best ease of use.

The EK 6042 two-channel receiver is a pleasure to work with, whether on camera or in the sound bag. Slot-in technology for 15-pin and 25-pin unislot cameras, backpanel adaptor for other camera types – using hot-swappable battery packs with exact read-out of battery time, USB port for convenient programming via a built-in web server, including imports and exports of entire configurations – the EK 6042 has it all. Hi-res OLED display, digital and analogue outputs, auxiliary audio output for splitting the audio signal to other devices…

Best RF and audio.

Made in Germany by the experts in professional wireless, the true-diversity EK 6042 delivers solid RF, great

Discover more about our broadcast masterpiece at sennheiser.com/ek6042

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sound and robust build quality – continuing to deliver, even after years of rough use.

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IP Delivered.

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NEWS OPERATIONS

Making the Complex Simple SAM is at the forefront of developments in IP with products that work today in the SDI domain and allow expansion into the IP world without excessive risk or substantial upgrades. Our switchers, routers, infrastructure and playout systems are all available with IP interfaces supporting both uncompressed (SMPTE 2022-6 and VSF TR-03) and a range of compression formats, including VC-2. Familiar control interfaces provide hybrid SDI/IP operation.

NEWS OPERATIONS

Discover more all-round innovation, visit: www.s-a-m.com

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NEWS OPERATIONS www.content-technology.com/newsoperations

SBS News Opens Window on the World with Panasonic USING PANASONIC TECHNOLOGY, Australia’s SBS TV has enhanced the delivery of its flagship SBS World News broadcast, with the Sydney news production studio now featuring a large format LED screen to display high-resolution graphics during broadcasts. Digital content ranges from maps and weather, to finance and property reports, through to displaying breaking news.

SBS’s mission is to provide multilingual, multicultural and indigenous radio, television and digital media services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians while reflecting Australia’s cultural diversity.

The new LED display complements the studio’s full High Definition (HD) upgrade, with a 1920 x 1080 resolution as well as a 1.4mm pixel pitch to support extra fine detail. The screen spans an impressive 2.8 x 1.6 metres, and is able to provide up to 800nits of brightness, which can be adjusted to suit the broadcaster’s requirements.

The installed solution is the first Panasonic full HD LED display of its kind to be installed in Australia. Noel Leslie, Chief Technology Officer at SBS said, “The previous 3 x 3 interactive news screen wall became outdated and no longer serviced the needs of our news production. The new LED display provides SBS with significantly enhanced technology to further integrate interactive motion graphics and high resolution images in the news and current affairs offering for our audiences.”

SBS required a solution to produce map graphics and showcase real or moving images on screen to support its news reporting, which the screen is able to deliver seamlessly in full HD. The new screen is already in operation and is used in a variety of news and current affairs programming. This includes the 6.30pm weekday edition of SBS World News hosted by Anton Enus and Janice Petersen, and the SBS World News Late Edition. Ricardo Goncalves delivers most of his finance report standing in front of the screen. The screen is seen on Monday night’s football wrap-up, ‘The World Game’, and is also being used for social media interaction for National Indigenous Television’s (NITV), ‘The Point’.

Panasonic worked closely with SBS to manage the entire process, from initial consultation, to reviewing and testing potential solutions within the studio,

through to the final installation. The system is backed up by a support and maintenance agreement and component warranty, with annual reviews designed to keep the panel looking exceptional and well-maintained.

The display has a slim footprint and has been installed as a free-standing structure suitable for the studio installation where space is limited. All components can be serviced from the front, and because it is comprised of smaller LED modules, individual sections can be replaced within seconds, all while the screen is still operating.

These modules are attached to the front of a magnetic frame, meaning there is no need to install expensive customised brackets.

Grant Stewart, National Manager, Professional Services at Panasonic, said, “We’re very proud to support SBS and the SBS World News broadcast with the latest in LED technology. SBS provides a respected service to millions of Australian viewers, and our screen is designed to complement this with reliable and flexible operation for many years to come.”

Visit www.panasonic.com/sg/business.html

Nine News to Launch 15 Regional Bulletins SOUTHERN CROSS AUSTEREO (SCA) and Nine have announced that in 2017 SCA will broadcast 15 dedicated local Nine News bulletins to viewers in its regional markets in Queensland, Southern NSW and regional Victoria.

The one-hour Monday to Friday news bulletins will contain local stories, dedicated local sport and weather reports, together with all the Statebased, national and international news. The bulletins will be rolled out progressively starting in February, first in Canberra and then in Wollongong with other markets following.

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In one of the largest roll-outs of news operations in Australia, in total more than 110 staff will be employed by Nine in the regional news division. Staff will be based in Sydney, regional NSW, Brisbane, regional Queensland, Melbourne and regional Victoria to produce and put the news services to air in each of the regions.

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The production and broadcast of the local regional news bulletins was agreed between Nine and SCA as part of their new programming affiliation agreement, with Nine meeting the necessary employee and capex costs.

Grant Blackley, Chief Executive Officer of SCA, said: “We are committed to our local communities and this local news project is an investment in these local economies and local jobs. Nearly 80 dedicated news staff including journalists, camera operators and editors will be employed

and located in 18 regional centres to bring the news to our regional viewers, with another 30 working on the bulletins in Nine’s metropolitan newsrooms.”

Mike Dalton, Head of Nine News Regional, said, “This is a big win for regional Australia. The Nine News brand is synonymous with bringing viewers an unrivalled news service, with a proud history going back 60 years.

“For the first time, our brand will be extended into country areas, offering regional viewers the very best in news gathering and reporting. We can’t wait to start telling the stories that matter the most to people in the new regions into which we’ll be broadcasting.”

The launch date for each market will be announced in the weeks leading up to the first broadcast in each market.

Local news will be broadcast to 15 television sub-markets: Southern NSW - Canberra, Wollongong, Central West (Orange, Bathurst, Dubbo), Wagga Wagga.

Regional Victoria – Ballarat, Bendigo, Albury/Shepparton, Gippsland.

Regional Queensland – Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Wide Bay, Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast.

Visit www.southerncrossaustereo.com.au

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NEWS OPERATIONS

MOBILE

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NEWS OPERATIONS

Kiwi News Crews Tool Up With Panasonic TELEVISION NEW ZEALAND NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS crews in regions outside Auckland are in for a treat as 18 new Panasonic ENG cameras arrive. The Panasonic AJ-PX5000G 2/3-inch sensor shoulder-mount camcorders are set to transform the way the broadcaster gathers news. For special camera angles in confined spaces, the crews will also receive two compact Panasonic 1/3inch sensor AJ-PX270 camcorders.

Andrew Fernie, General Manager of Operations for TVNZ News and Current Affairs, notes the high-end Panasonic AJ-PX5000G camcorders promise fantastic images, new AVC-ULTRA codecs, and microP2 media cards, but that is only half the story.

“It was Panasonic’s P2 Cast workflow that clinched the deal,” he said, referring to the cloud-based networking service provided by Panasonic with the cameras.

Billed by Panasonic as automatic FTP transmission and on-air streaming, this networked approach dovetails with Fernie’s vision of a go-live-fromanywhere future for news gathering at TVNZ.

Euronews Opens Subsidiary in Singapore TO REFLECT THE CHANNEL’S INCREASED distribution to more than 23 million homes across the region, and to drive further growth in AsiaPacific, Euronews has taken a strategic decision to open a subsidiary in Singapore, its first sales office outside of Europe.

Euronews Sales Singapore is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the integrated advertising network, Euronews Sales SARL, based in Paris.

The mission of the Singapore office will be to develop advertising and increase the distribution of Euronews.

To meet this goal, Guillaume Canard-Duchêne has been appointed AsiaPacific Sales Director, with Maxime Vandenbroucque being appointed as Asia-Pacific Distribution Manager.

Guillaume Canard-Duchêne will be managing the Asia-Pacific Sales Department and heading up the subsidiary. He is responsible for

“Panasonic is leading the way with this kind of system,” says Rick Haywood, Managing Director of Pro Video Systems, the New Zealand distributor for Panasonic broadcast and professional video equipment.

“The Panasonic solution seamlessly integrates into TVNZ’s existing network systems, and it will help them get high quality content online and to air much faster. It is an exciting prospect and we are excited to be working so closely with them on it,” he said.

Visit www.panasonic.com/nz and http://provideosystems.co.nz

ABC News Launches on Facebook Messenger ABC NEWS HAS ANNOUNCED a new way for Australians to stay abreast of news with the launch of a dedicated news service on Facebook Messenger.

ABC News on Facebook Messenger sends users a message each morning with the latest news summary and upcoming news events. Users can message the service whenever they want to find news, and opt-in to receive breaking news alerts.

Time-pressed users have the choice of skimming the headlines, or reading the entire story.

Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asian countries and Australia. He is also in charge of leading and managing a network of seven sales

ABC News on Facebook Messenger features:

representatives based in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the

• A morning summary of what’s making news.

Philippines, South Korea and Thailand.

• A digest of the latest news available at any time.

Previously at Eurosport Group, Guillaume, then based in Paris, headed

• Breaking news alerts.

up operations in Asia between 1996 and 2000, and from 2006 when

• News alerts for particular categories, such as politics, business and sport.

establishing Euronews on the advertising market in the region, and increasing revenue. The priority targets are China and Hong Kong,

he opened the Hong Kong office, and then the Tokyo office which he managed until late 2010. Between 2011 and 2014, Guillaume was based in London as Sales Director for the UK. Until he joined Euronews, he was in charge of Eurosport’s sales teams for western and southern Europe.

Maxime Vandenbroucque is joining Euronews to take charge of developing linear and non-linear distribution with cable operators, IPTV, satellite TV providers, and terrestrial broadcasters across the Asia-Pacific region. He will also lead a network of five local representatives based India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

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At the instigation of the newsroom, only the necessary hi-res files are uploaded to the ingest server ready for transmission. The process is fast and cost-efficient, and means the crew don’t have to stop shooting for uploads or wait for links.

ABC Director of News, Gaven Morris said, “Messaging apps have seen massive global growth over the past few years, especially among younger users, and offer a promising opportunity for ABC News to reach new audiences. Our goal is to make ABC News an essential part of people’s daily lives by engaging with whatever medium they are on.”

creating and consolidating sales strategies, with the aim of permanently

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The Panasonic P2 Cast system allows proxy files to upload to the TVNZ newsroom in the background while the cameras are shooting. The developing story can then be edited at the newsroom and the metadata pushed back to the camera.

Maxime Vandenbroucque, 27 years old, worked at TV5MONDE between 2014 and 2016 as Marketing Manager for the Asia-Pacific region. He also participated in regional development with cable operators and digital distribution businesses.

Visit www.euronews.com

• Updates for special events.

• A sneak peek at the day’s upcoming news events with the ABC News calendar.

• Good news stories from Australia and the world.

• A selection of long reads.

• ABC News analysis and opinion.

• During special events users can get key questions answered, such as ‘Which horse won the Melbourne Cup?’ or ‘What’s the score at the WACA?’.

ABC News has been trialling the service since August, following the successful launch of an ABC News 2016 Federal Election service on Facebook Messenger and Twitter.

News content in Messenger is delivered by ABC News Digital’s editorial team and the service is powered by third-party provider, Chatfuel. Over 11 million people in Australia use the Facebook Messenger app each month.

Visit http://m.me/abcnews.au

NEWS OPERATIONS

NEWSMAKER SYSTEMS has announced support for software-driven IP workflows using NewTek’s Network Device Interface (NDI). Joining the industry’s IP ecosystem of products and the expanding number of companies enabling IP-based customer workflows, NewsMaker Systems will integrate NDI into its products and take advantage of sources made available within the pool of sources and media connected by other NDIenabled applications, and devices connected to a standard ethernet LAN. At the recent IBC Show, NewTek and NewsMaker demonstrated IP interoperability between NDI-enabled applications and devices located at NewTek’s and NewsMaker’s stands using the venue’s standard ethernet infrastructure. NewTek’s royalty free NDI technology allows video and audio sources to be shared bi-directionally across an IP network.

NewsMaker is a real-time bridge between MOS-enabled newsroom computer systems and NewTek TriCaster multi-camera video production systems. It now adds the recently announced NewTek IP series of software-driven, modular and scalable components with virtually limitless access to video sources and video mixing options. NewsMaker monitors media assets created for playout in the TriCaster and the NewTek IP Series, and sends them based on the news rundown order. NewsMaker can also control the TriCaster and NewTek IP Series, with complete command over all live operations, including switcher transitions and effects, graphics, audio with IFB, video clips, routing, camera control and virtual sets.

“The number of sources required to make a competitive newscast are always increasing,” says Dean L. Kolkey, President, NewsMaker Systems. “Now with NDI, an unrestricted number of inputs and outputs allow our news customers to add more graphics, studio cameras, remotes, and other show elements for their broadcasts. NDI-based workflows create entirely new production possibilities for newsrooms, no longer constrained by the physical limits of traditional production equipment. The fast paced newscasts of the future will be changed forever with NDI.”

Visit http://newtek.com/ndi

Etere Nunzio Newsroom Supports Social and E-paper Publication ETERE NUNZIO NEWSROOM is integrated with built-in connectivity to websites and social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube. The controls of Nunzio allow producers to create, edit, and publish content to websites and social media platforms directly from Nunzio. Additionally, an all-new E-paper feature provides broadcasters with the option of a digital publication that is optimised for reading on mobile and tablet devices. This is a free upgrade for all Etere Nunzio users. Etere future-proofs your investments with myriad publishing options, ensuring full flexibility and the best returns.

Etere Nunzio is a solution that performs all jobs within a newsroom with increased efficiency and control. Nunzio offers full NRCS capabilities to manage the entire tapeless workflow of a newsroom, from planning of news stories to the control of on-air playback. Nunzio enables development of a story from the initial idea to broadcast. It leverages Etere workflow capabilities and offers integration in the existing IT and production environment. Nunzio relies on an Etere MAM database and uses the Etere Media Management engine for transfers and federate integration of multisite systems.

Visit www.etere.com

NEWS OPERATIONS

NDI-based Workflows Create New Possibilities for Newsrooms

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NEWS OPERATIONS

Panasonic Toughbook Unveils 20-inch 4K Tablet PANASONIC TOUGHBOOK has unveiled its new 20-inch 4K tablet, designed for photography, pro video productions and other professional applications. The FZ-Y1 Toughpad has the ability to create, edit and transport drawings, images and videos on a tablet PC in Ultra HD 4K resolution.

Stuart Buxton, Senior Product Manager, Toughbook, Panasonic, said, “We’re seeing businesses across various industries demanding higher standards in picture quality at work and at home. From the living room to the boardroom, 4K is a defining standard for digital content and the new FZ-Y1 Toughpad device delivers high-impact 4K presentations wherever you need them – from the showroom floor to the broadcast suite.”

To protect the slim 12.5mm-thin unit, the silver bezel and 4K display panel are mounted on a magnesium alloy frame, and enclosed in a reinforced glass-fibre case. For collaborative work, the tablet incorporates a 10-point multi-touch screen and a detailed 230 pixel-per-inch IPS Alpha LCD display with a 15:10 aspect ratio.

The Panasonic FZ-Y1 tablet provides the performance of a desktop with an Intel Core i5-5300U vPro processor, HDMI 2.0 input, Windows 10 Pro and a 256GB SSD. For viewing animations, film rushes, 3D models, plans or images in high resolution detail, the Toughpad’s HDMI 2.0 input enables the device to be turned into a field monitor for applications such as broadcast and movie shooting.

With business ports and wireless connectivity – USB 3.0, Intel Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 (class 1), ethernet and Mini DisplayPort output – users are always connected and able to collaborate.

The lightweight, business-rugged 4K tablet is built to handle a 76cm drop to its back while operating, and 30cm drops to 26° angles when nonoperational.

Combined with accessories such as the optional Panasonic desktop cradle and carrying case solution, the device can be used as both a desktop PC and tablet. The cradle converts into a tilted stand to allow the tablet to be used in drafting table mode, and offers additional connectivity port options. A VESAcompatible mounting adaptor plate is also available.

Visit www.panasonic.com/au

One-Touch Integration to Facebook Live with LiveU Solo LIVEU RECENTLY ANNOUNCED that its LiveU Solo wireless solution

than 10 Facebook Live broadcasts per week.”

now offers one-touch integration to Facebook Live. LiveU Solo brings

“Online broadcasters want the same quality as traditional broadcast television,

HD live streams to Facebook Live streamers such as AOL/Huffington

but don’t want to go through a cumbersome process each time they go live,”

Post, BuzzFeed, Funny or Die and MTV. These customers can now take

said Samuel Wasserman, CEO, LiveU. “Solo combines broadcast-quality

advantage of the same portable encoding technology used by broadcast

encoding technology with plug-and-play ease of use directly to Facebook Live.

television customers in a simple one-touch solution. With LiveU Solo,

It is a grab and go solution that anyone can use without a big investment or

Facebook Live streams can be professionally produced from one interface

steep learning curve.”

– without a large crew or lots of equipment.

“Organisations are attracted by Facebook’s extensive community and

“We were looking to produce more Facebook Live streams in a shorter

unprecedented social interactivity. It was important to provide content

timeframe, but we couldn’t afford to go through several steps every time,”

creators with an easy solution that enabled better quality content, and reliable,

said Daniel Mei-Tal, Social Content Producer, Funny or Die. “We chose Solo

consistent live video streams,” added Wasserman. “With one-touch integration

because the one-touch integration allowed us to stream-back to-back videos to

to Facebook Live, organisations can produce HD video live streams quickly and

Facebook Live effortlessly. The fact that the quality was better and our streams

confidently.”

were much more reliable was another big benefit. We are now producing more

Visit www.liveu.tv

ITN and Getty Images Announce Exclusive Distribution Partnership ITN, ONE OF THE UK’S LEADING suppliers of independent broadcast news, has signed a multi-year partnership with Getty Images to license and distribute its news archive around the world from mid-2017. The distribution agreement will see over one million clips spanning more than 60 years of iconic news footage reach an even larger audience through Getty Images’ global platform and international sales team servicing millions of buyers in nearly 200 countries.

NEWS OPERATIONS

Getty Images will create specific ITN collections to house the prestigious archive,

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which consists of 400,000 digitised and ready-to-license video clips and over 600,000 clips which will be text searchable from gettyimages.com and supplied

its very first broadcast in 1955, and is recognised globally for its journalistic excellence. ITN’s cameras have captured some of history’s unforgettable moments, ranging from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the release of Nelson Mandela, to the aftermath of the Asian tsunami.

The ITN archive will be available on www.gettyimages.com from mid-2017. In the interim, customers can continue to license ITN archive material directly from the ITN Source website. Third party representation deals through ITN Source will also come to an end by mid-2017 and, once all content is transitioned, the ITN Source platform will close.

customer base from 24 hours after it was first aired.

ITN will continue to syndicate on-the-day news footage to international broadcasters, and to create daily video news feeds for digital publishers. ITNedu, which creates bespoke digital content for education publishers, will remain as part of ITN Productions’ Digital Content Services business.

ITN boasts one of the world’s first fully digitised news archive dating back to

Visit www.itn.co.uk and www.gettyimages.com.au

on demand via an offline workflow. The collection will be updated daily, with agenda-setting news footage made available to Getty Images’ international

NEWS OPERATIONS

DFT’s Scanity HDR Upgraded DIGITAL FILM TECHNOLOGY counts major archives worldwide among its customers, including the British Film Institute, The Korean Film Archive, The Film Archive of Thailand, National Library of Norway, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, Library and Archives Canada, The Slovak Film Institute, Film Institute Netherlands, National Audio-visual Archive of Finland and The Royal Thai Archive.

At this year’s NAB, the company is announcing new technology developments for its latest Scanity HDR film scanner. A full wet-gate system will be demonstrated at the DFT’s stand. Specifically designed for Scanity HDR, it provides a real-time solution for ingest and management of difficult-to-solve historical film transfer issues – such as dust and scratch removal – at the same time surpassing prior transfer standards. The wet-gate is ideal for archive owners that require a scanner that’s able to handle a range of problematic and historically-aged film issues.

New 16/8mm small gauge film gate: DFT will also demonstrate its new small gauge film gate strategy, showing the optional ‘16plus’ LGA for its Scanity and new Scanity HDR models.

New software release: DFT’s Scanity HDR, developed in response to the demands of both the post production and the film archive and restoration industries, will be demonstrated with the latest Scanity software release. Scanity HDR offers a host of user friendly features that serve a variety of film scanning applications, including – but not limited to: film archive scanning for mass digitisation, EDL/conform scanning, low resolution browsing for archive and restoration, short-form commercials, and 4K UHD ready and digital intermediate scanning.

Scanity HDR has a number of advantages over other scanner solutions, namely its touch-less patented capstan drive Lens Gate Assembly (LGA) system. This provides both automatic shrinkage compensation and gentle film handling, whilst delivering image stability.

Key features include a black and white HDR function, a new triple exposure (executed once) in realtime 2K or 4K data ingest. This means the scanner speed remains constant, creating time and cost benefits and allowing access to previously unseen details from the high- and low-lights of the film.

Visit www.dft-film.com

New Avid Media Composer AVID HAS ANNOUNCED a new version of Avid Media Composer which enables video editing professionals to work faster and more easily, is now available.

The new version of Media Composer enables video professionals to take on HDR projects. Along with Avid Resolution Independence and high-resolution workflows, Media Composer’s support for HDR workflows enables editors to overcome today, and tomorrow’s technology challenges. This version of Media Composer also enables editors to work up to 64 audio tracks – 250% more than previously available.

Visit www.avid.com

Edit Bridge to Interface with Multi-Vendor Systems Marquis Broadcast has recently announced Edit Bridge, its integration application for Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Avid Interplay, has been developed to interface with multi-vendor systems such as Apple Final Cut Pro X or Grass Valley’s Edius. The application will be shown at NAB for the first time, on booth SL8730.

“Edit Bridge was awarded the IABM’s Design and Innovation Award in the Post Production category at the prestigious IABM awards ceremony held at IBC last year,” confirmed Chris Steele, Managing

PreRoll Post from Imagine Products is aimed at making LTO tape archiving easier and more efficient. The system automates indexing of camera originals, complete with thumbs, proxies, and metadata, while backing up full-resolution media to local disk, long-term LTO tapes, or optical disc.

Apple or Windows users can now use PreRoll Post to create nonproprietary backups of any file or folder using the open-source Linear Tape File System (LTFS). The archiving application streamlines the process of placing any file type onto an LTO-7, LTO-6, or LTO-5 tape, or onto Sony’s Optical Disc Archive.

Edit Bridge offers a solution to enable competing manufacturers’ products to work together, allowing users to search Avid Interplay from within the Premiere Pro or After Effects interface, view thumbnails, find media and select it for editing. Content is either streamed directly, or copied and re-wrapped to Premiere Pro or After Effects for immediate editing. Delivery of the completed story and associated metadata back to Avid ISIS is achieved with Avid interplay check-in.

“The new Edit Bridge Client now provides the same connection into Avid Interplay for non-Adobe specific workflows.” confirmed

PreRoll Post takes advantage of LTFS, which is supported by many tape drive manufacturers. LTFS mounts a tape as a volume within the operating system. This makes it possible to read and write from the tape as if it were a hard disk – without proprietary software formatting.

It also makes PreRoll Post hardware-independent, enabling use with any LTFS-compliant tape drive or Sony ODA.

Steele. “Users can now source content from Interplay by browsing

Visit www.imagineproducts.com

Visit http://www.marquisbroadcast.com

and searching within the panel before triggering a drag and drop import into the chosen application. The Edit Bridge Client has been designed to support both Windows and Mac platforms.

NEWS OPERATIONS

Imagine Products’ PreRoll Post Upgraded

Director, Marquis Broadcast.

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POST PRODUCTION www.content-technology.com/postproduction

Deluxe’s Iloura Heightens Intensity in Deepwater Horizon ON APRIL 20TH, 2010, one of the world’s largest man-made disasters occurred on the Deepwater Horizon – the ultra-deepwater offshore oil-rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater Horizon from Summit Entertainment and Participant Media, honours the brave men and women whose heroism would save many on board, and change everyone’s lives forever. Deluxe’s IIloura was tapped to heighten realism in many of the film’s high action sequences, adding digital mud, fire and smoke. To ensure continuity across shots and deliver visual effects, the Iloura team, led by VFX Supervisor Jason Billington, collaborated closely with lead vendor ILM (Disney’s Industrial Light and Magic) and VFX Supervisor, Craig Hammack.

Iloura’s most significant contribution to the film was the creation of the massive engine explosion that ignites the rig fire. When workers hit a methane pocket while drilling for oil, the gas travels up the pipes and fills the engine room, seeping into the engine that ultimately explodes. To achieve optimal dramatic impact, Iloura designed and created a full CG engine interior. Artists digitally built, then animated the engine as well as a CG version of the engine room that is engulfed by fire. Artists also added CG flames, embers, mud, explosions and fireballs to various plates, expertly blending shots containing practical and digital elements. ”Creating realistic CG that matches in-camera mud was an exciting challenge.

We had to be able to make adjustments as shots evolved, and realistically create other environmental effects. The sheer volume of work kept us on our toes, but we’re well equipped to handle any challenge. ILM was an excellent partner, happy to share reference footage and assets that we integrated with our pipeline,” said Billington.

Beyond the challenges of matching CG and in-camera elements, Iloura completed a significant volume of shots requiring atmospheric effects. To manage and execute these shots, lloura built a new fire ember pipeline for faster iteration. Additional Iloura work includes the generator room ceiling collapse, CG set extensions and CG ocean enhancements. Iloura also made significant pipeline adjustments to integrate ILM’s data-heavy oil-rig asset, resulting in final renders and composites that blended seamlessly with shots

by ILM. Approximately 125 Iloura artists worked on Deepwater Horizon across its Sydney and Melbourne studios. The film was coloured by Stefan Sonnenfeld at Deluxe’s Company 3.

Visit www.bydeluxe.com

Emmy for Aussie Software Revolutionising Film and TV Production GROUP IT FOR ME! developers have been recognised for their world-first software that shaves hours off film and television production.

Australia-based duo, Shruti Patel and Jason ‘JJ’ Jamieson, are the recipients of an Engineering Emmy Award bestowed by America’s National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The Award is for engineering developments that have a revolutionary impact on the transmission, recording or reception of television.

Ms Patel said the software delivers massive time and cost savings to major production companies around the globe, saying, “Group It For Me! automates the grouping and multigrouping processes in the post production workflow. These processes are an integral part of postproduction and previously took assistant editors hours of monotonous keystroking to complete.

“Because of the volume of work involved in grouping there was the

Unique Media Creates UHD and HDR Content For Korea With Mistika

POST PRODUCTION

SPANISH DEVELOPER SGO recently announced that Unique Media has purchased its flagship product, Mistika Ultima, to expand its current business range from television programs to cinema and commercial productions.

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Based in Seoul, South Korea, Unique Media specialises in creating documentaries, current-affairs and cultural programs, as well as entertainment, commercials, corporate broadcasting and event productions. For over seven years, the post production house has worked closely in partnership with Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) the national public broadcaster of South Korea to produce programs that promote successful small and medium sized enterprises based in the country.

For the past 13 years, colour grading for TV production has become an essential part of Unique Media’s offering. Through its HDR functionalities, Unique Media will be able to offer colour grading for movies and the development of short-form virtual reality (VR) content. It will also be able to

potential for human error. Group It For Me! eliminates the possibility for mistakes, and speeds up the editing process exponentially. A task that could take days is now completed in seconds. It’s a game changer for those producing film and television projects using multi-camera setups, and we are delighted to receive recognition through an Engineering Emmy,” Ms Patel added.

JJ said he knows first-hand how tedious the grouping and multi-grouping is, having worked as an assistant editor in Hollywood, South America, Europe and Australia.

“This software is all about making life easier and freeing up precious time in deadline-driven environments,” he said. “I’ve worked on everything from documentaries to feature-length films, television dramas and reality TV. There is not one instance in which you couldn’t use Group It For Me! to speed up post-production.”

Visit www.groupitforme.com up-scale existing HD material to UHD using the Mistika software, and create new HDR content for UHD. Mistika has been developed to offer broadcasters advanced editing, VFX, colour grading, text, paint, audio, S3D, complete finishing in a scalable, truly interactive, real-time, and totally resolution-independent post production system.

“Thanks to Mistika, Unique Media is more competitive in Korea’s fast-growing new media market. Among lots of post productions, we’ve been satisfying the complicated and sensitive demands of broadcasters ahead of the competition, and they now have greater expectations of us. I also have some great expectations of Mistika,” comments Minyoung Kim, Mistika Operator at Unique Media.

“Major broadcasters in Korea will seriously start distributing content in UHD from February 2017,” comments Jihyung Kang from the SGO team in Korea.

“Mistika plays an important role in making sure Unique Media continues to produce superior images for high quality projects and finishing UHD/HDR productions ahead of its peers. By utilising SGO creative technology they are able to broaden their offerings and stay one step ahead of the pack.”

Visit www.sgo.es

POST PRODUCTION

Silver Trak Offers High-End Digital Cinema Packages WITH THE RECENTLY-ACQUIRED Motionlink business fully integrated

created. These requirements are set out in the Digital Cinema Initiatives

into its broader ecosystem, Silver Trak Digital is now offering high-end Digital Cinema Packages (DCP) to the Australian movie market’s top tier companies, such as Pinnacle Films, for blockbuster movies including Dallas Buyers Club, Return To Nims Island, Jobs, and Drive.

(DCI). Our advice to anyone requiring a DCP is to be mindful of cheap

The company’s full range of services in this area now include DCP creation in 4K, 2D and 3D, DCDM production, DCP to file conversions, KDM generation for secure DCP deliveries, and DCP duplication and distribution services.

The industry standard DVS Clipster encodes a feature film up to four

Silver Trak MD, Christian Christiansen said, “This is another example of Silver Trak saying to our clients, give us your file and we can deliver to all platforms, output to tape, transcode and framerate convert, store and deliver. We’ve been mastering digital cinema in our fully DCI-compliant DVS Clipster suite for some time, but now with the acquisition of Motionlink we handle all kinds of projects including 3D feature films, multilingual subtitled releases, and quick turnaround commercial work.”

key offerings such as Silver Trak’s ability to provide a Digital Cinema

Silver Trak has also recently purchased Transkoder, the powerful dedicated 2K/4K transcoding application which automates fast, high-quality digital file conversion at the highest performance, and is again aimed at studios and VFX facilities involved in motion picture and high-end TV production.

imitations. DCP encoding and the DCI standard are both very complex and there is a lot that can go wrong. Cheap commercial software is only doing a rough conversion and you will not be viewing the DCP correctly. times real-time, and lets us make all the essential checks necessary before performing a full cinema QC.” Completing its plethora of services in this domain are a number of Distribution Master (DCDM) which provides the uncompressed master elements that enable the creation of the DCP. Alongside the DCDM sits the Key Delivery Message (KDM), the special electronic key that contains a code which unlocks an encrypted film and the provision of the encryption itself – the security measure used to prevent films from being stolen and duplicated.

Christiansen concluded, “DCPs are encrypted in a manner that allows them to be played only on a specific Digital Cinema Server at a predetermined time. A KDM is sent to the projection site to unlock the

Fast-becoming an industry-standard tool for DCP and IMF mastering, Transkoder offers JPEG2000 encoding and decoding, 32-bit floating point processing on multiple GPUs, MXF wrapping, accelerated checksums, AES encryption and decryption, IMF/IMP and DCI/DCP package authoring, editing, and transwrapping.

DCP for the screening engagement. It is not a necessity to have a DCP

Christiansen continued, “DCPs have strict requirements in how they are

Visit www.silvertrak.com.au

encrypted but encryption and KDM management are common requests, locking a DCP to nominated sites and release windows. Then, as if that wasn’t enough safety and security, we archive all DCPs on LTO and store them securely in Silver Trak’s vault.”

R&S®CLIPSTER Mastering Excellence.

Meet the challenges of today’s mastering. The renowned R&S®CLIPSTER mastering station is now fine-tuned for different stages of production.

Handling IMF, AS-02, AS-11 or the format of your choice up to 4K or UHD-1 as well as creating DCPs or IMPs – R&S®CLIPSTER can do it all.

Now there is a version of R&S®CLIPSTER tailored to fit your needs.

Get more information here: www.rohde-schwarz.com/ad/media-solutions

POST PRODUCTION

sales.australia@rohde-schwarz.com

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POST PRODUCTION

Sony Expands TRIMASTER EL OLED Monitor Line-Up SONY RECENTLY INTRODUCED its 17-inch BVM-E171 and 25-inch BVM-E251 TRIMASTER EL OLED HD master monitors – successors to its BVM-E series professional OLED monitors.

Replacing the current BVM-E170A and BVM-E250A monitors, the new HD master monitors are targeted at the content creation sphere including broadcast, post-production and rental houses, as well as for research and development purpose for government, enterprise and laboratory.

Maintaining most of the existing superb features and supporting formats that Sony’s BVM-E series possess, the latest HD monitors are enhanced with the following new features:

Flicker-Free Mode The OLED panel of the new HD monitors possesses quick response and scan-driving performance, delivering picture quality with virtually no motion blur. To eliminate possible flicker especially in case the low frequency signal is displayed (24p, 24PsF 50i and so on), the BVM-E171 and BVM-E251 are equipped with flicker-free mode.

ITU-R BT.2020 Colour Space As the content creation market embraces 4K production, the new HD monitors will support ITU-R BT.2020 colour space, the broadcasting standard for Ultra HD, for accurate colour reproduction. Sony’s BVM-E171

The monitors are enhanced to include S-Gamut/S-Gamut3 and S-Gamut3. cine. Further, they are also equipped with S-Log 3 and S-Log2 in SDR. The new S-Log 3 (SDR) feature can display up to approximately 1500% by contrast adjustment in the range of 250cd/m2.

Compact and Lightweight Notably, the BVM-E171 monitor is resized for better handling on-site. The new 17-inch monitor is shorter in dimension and lighter in weight, ideal to be fitted in 6RU racks in OB trucks.

Enhanced Inputs and Accessories The BVM-E251 monitor is enhanced to include DC 24V inputs apart from AC power input. In addition, optional accessories for both monitors include a new controller, BKM-17R, and a new extension cable, SMF-17R20.

Sony’s BVM-E171 and BVM-E251 will be available from January 2017.

Visit http://pro.sony.com.au

HD/3G SDI. Each HD BNC connector is bidirectional enabling numerous

BLUEFISH444 HAS introduced the KRONOS range of video and audio I/O cards. The new line extends the feature set of Bluefish444’s Epoch video cards, which support up to 4K 60fps workflows. KRONOS is developed for additional workflows requiring Ultra HD up to 8K, high frame rates up to 120fps, high dynamic range and video over IP.

cages in addition to two HD BNC connectors for SD/HD/3G SDI I/O. The

KRONOS adds video processing technologies including resolution scaling, video interlace and de-interlace, hardware CODEC support, SDI to IP and IP to SDI conversion, and continues to offer the 12-bit colour space conversion and low-latency capabilities of Epoch.

All KRONOS cards will have an eight-lane Gen-3 PCIe interface to achieve

AJA Ki Pro v2.0 Firmware Supports Avid DNxHD AJA VIDEO SYSTEMS has announced Ki Pro Ultra v2.0 firmware adding support for Avid DNxHD to the portable file-based 4K/ UltraHD/2K/HD record and playback device. Users can now record and playback Avid DNxHD files, expanding video and audio production workflows.

Ki Pro Ultra v2.0 software now supports: • Avid DNxHD codecs.

• DNxHD 220x.

• DNxHD 145.

• DNxHD 36 (only supported for 1080p formats).

The addition of Avid DNxHD .mov support ensures compatibility

POST PRODUCTION

Enhanced Options of Colour Space and EOTFs

Bluefish444 Announces New Kronos Range

KRONOS will offer the choice of SDI I/O connectivity with the KRONOS ēlektron featuring eight high density BNC connectors capable of SD/

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and BVM-E251 are ideal for critical colour evaluation in 4K cinema and live productions. Further, the HD monitor is a viable solution for broadcasters who utilise 4K/HD simultaneous broadcasting systems, realising superb picture quality while resolving cost and space constraints.

between files recorded by AJA’s Ki Pro Rack, Ki Pro Mini and now Ki Pro Ultra products for Avid workflows. MXF OP-1A wrapper versions of these codecs will be added in an upcoming firmware update.

Ki Pro Ultra v2.0 firmware will be a free software download.

Visit www.aja.com

configuration options.

The KRONOS optikós offers future proofing connectivity with three SFP+ SFP+ cages on KRONOS optikós provide limitless connectivity options exposing greater than 3G SDI, IP connectivity across 10Gb ethernet, and flexibility to choose from numerous physical interfaces.

full duplex DMA. KRONOS will provide access to high bandwidth UHD, high frame rate and high dynamic range video I/O and processing, across traditional SDI, and also emerging IP standards such as SMPTE 2022.

Visit www.bluefish444.com

Colorfront Updates Transkoder COLORFRONT RECENTLY SHOWCASED how its Transkoder 2016 continues its technological advances by streamlining delivery of the diverse formats in ultra high definition (UHD) and high dynamic range (HDR) production.

The latest updates combine to make Transkoder 2016 HDR mastering and HDR QC systems capable of covering a range of delivery formats including Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG 1.2 – conforming to the latest SMPTE 2094-xx delivery standards, along with metadata management on HDR and WCG colour transforms, plus support for the newest camera and latest production mezzanine formats.

Running on Supermicro and HP workstations, Transkoder leverages AJA’s Corvid 88 I/O card to support multiple independent HD-SDI outputs, including 8K dual-green and 16x SDI 8K output, dual independent UHD video outputs, or simultaneous real-time views of UHD HDR and HD HDR/ SDR masters in a variety of formats and colour spaces.

Transkoder includes the capability to read, de-Bayer, process and review 8K RAW media, from 8K cameras such as RED Helium and Panavision Millennium Digital XL, and to encode mezzanine and broadcast deliverables, including support for Panasonic’s 8K Super Hi-Vision P2 recorder. Transkoder provides support for all digital cinematography camera formats from ARRI, Sony, Panasonic, Canon, RED, Panavision and Phantom.

Visit www.colorfront.com

POST PRODUCTION

Bluefish444 Support for Avid Media Composer • 4K/2K/HD/SD HDMI preview with Epoch|4K Neutron.

• High frame rate 50/59/60fps support at 4K/2K/HD. • 48fps support at 4K/2K.

• 4K/2K/HD/SD video modes.

Bluefish444 4K SDI/HDMI support for Windows and Mac OS X Avid Media Composer 8.6 is available now and will be enhanced with future feature and performance updates.

• 3G/1.5G/SD SDI input and output.

Visit www.bluefish444.com

Bluefish444 Open I/O support for Avid Media Composer 8.6 includes:

Leader 4K HDR Option for LV7390 3G/HD/SD SDI Rasteriser LEADER ELECTRONICS EUROPE recently announced a new option

for the Leader LV7390 4K-upgradable 3G/HD/SD SDI rasteriser. The new LV7390-OP20 4K upgrade allows the LV7390 to support 4K/UHD programme production and post as well as 4x3G HD-SDI. Also included with the 4K HDR upgrade is Leader’s CINEZONE HDR. This uses false colour to display areas of the image extending into HDR so can be used on non-HDR monitors. Potential issues can be identified quickly without specialist technical experience. CINEZONE HDR reduces the need for re-takes or additional hours in post-production. It allows producers to acquire content in HDR while ensuring content will not require re-working for standard dynamic range distribution. The CINEZONE HDR option also supports HD formats.

Customers can purchase the 4K/HDR upgrade when their businesses

Elements Provides Xcellis Users a GATEWAY to Avid

ELEMENTS HAS ANNOUNCED its Elements GATEWAY as a virtually

embedded application in Quantum Xcellis. The development connects between Avid workstations and Quantum’s StorNext file system, including its archive storage tiers, providing Quantum’s post-production and broadcast customers the ability to share files across the entire facility and across all platforms – including Avid Media Composer and with native Avid Project Sharing and Avid Bin-locking support.

Elements leverages the Xcellis system’s ability to support embedded applications to make the technology available to customers working with Avid workstations mixed into their heterogeneous environments.

Elements GATEWAY also provides users with the option to enable Elements’ range of workflow enhancement tools, including the Media Library. Equipped with a full text search engine, a file manager and task management tool for customised workflow automation, the web-based Media Library caters to all steps of a digital post-production workflow and offers features that simplify and streamline everyday tasks and approval processes.

Visit www.elements.tv

Blackmagic Announces DaVinci Resolve 12.5.2 DaVinci Resolve 12.5.2 update adds support for additional metadata embedded into RAW files from URSA Mini cameras running the new URSA Mini camera operating software. This provides URSA Mini customers a completely new ‘slate’ that uses tap and swipe gestures along with predictive data entry, and a dictionary of commonly used shooting terminology to make entering metadata faster.

DaVinci Resolve 12.5.2 also adds support for Fusion Connect for Linux. Fusion Connect lets editors and colourists send a clip or a stack of clips from their timeline to Fusion. This creates a linked connection between Fusion and DaVinci Resolve so that when visual effects are added and rendered in Fusion, the results automatically show up in the DaVinci Resolve timeline. Fusion Connect also supports versioning, so artists can create different versions of a shot and view them in context of the entire program in the DaVinci Resolve timeline.

require it without having to return the LV7390 to Leader or authorised service centres.

The Leader LV7390 is a compact 1U 3G/HD/SD-SDI rasteriser which can be used to measure up to four source channels simultaneously. It can be deployed for desktop or rack-mounted operation. The LV7390 incorporates full-resolution 3G/HD-SDI and DVI-I rasterised outputs which allow detailed video and audio parameters be checked on a separate monitor in HD resolution.

The LV7390 can be configured by the operator to display waveform, vector, picture, audio and SDI status. Display layout is customisable from a range of available settings including individual full screen or user-defined combinations. These settings can be configured from the front panel or via a USB pointing device and saved for recall. 60 user-definable presets are accessible, and a reference marker can be placed at any position on the rasterised image.

Visit www.leadereurope.com

Audio Network Brings Music to Adobe Premiere Pro CC AUDIO NETWORK, the independent music company delivering authentic and creative music solutions to global content creators in every industry, recently announced that Adobe Premiere Pro CC users will benefit from a new integrated panel providing direct access to its catalog of over 100,000 tracks. The solution enables editors to find and purchase music without leaving the Adobe Premiere Pro CC editing environment.

Users will have access to Audio Network’s catalogue of high quality original music, made in collaboration with the world’s best composers, artists, musicians and studios. Users can audition tracks in their edit with unlimited trial MP3 tracks downloaded to their bin. Once they find the content they want, the full-quality licensed WAV track replaces the MP3. The new integration panel demonstrates Audio Network’s commitment to ease of use for Adobe Premiere Pro CC users, making it easy to select and edit tracks with no interruptions to their workflow.

Visit http://au.audionetwork.com

Other new features include: • Ability to filter timeline on colour page based on clips that have OFX applied.

• Support for up to 24 audio channels on the Edit and Deliver page.

• Support for manually enabling and disabling GPUs in preferences.

• Support for display name on ALE export.

• Support for apply grade and append node graph in the main menu.

• Ability to clear tracking data for the current Power Window.

• Support for OpenCL on Nvidia cards on Microsoft Windows.

• Ability to copy local grades to remote.

• Additional utility functions in DCTLs. • Support for date created and data modified for time-lines when using smart bins.

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

POST PRODUCTION

BLUEFISH444 CONTINUE to develop and enhance support for AVID Media Composer editing software enabling advanced SDI/HDMI video input/output with Epoch|4K Neutron Turbo, the Epoch|4K Neutron range, and Epoch|4K Supernova/ S+ range of video cards.

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT Building an Empire: EditShare Provides the Building Blocks for Empire Post EMPIRE POST IS THE BRAINCHILD of Digby Hogan.

Between the seven creative minds working for Empire and the high-level projects it takes on, the Australian-based post production house is known for putting its all into every step. Between projects for PayPal,

form, high-resolution projects.

initial thought when founding the company; “I want to build an empire.”

Also playing into their future is the EditShare Flow media asset management.

Digby began his career as a freelance offline editor with skills in 2D motion

For long-form projects, Flow provides an efficient way to manage editorial

graphics and animation. He worked on everything from commercials to

review, asset tracking, and if needs be, complex transcoding. Flow will

feature films, and from his work, an idea was born. He wanted to bring his

also provide proxy video files – smaller file sizes of 4k content – to allow

passion to life in the form of a post production company that specialised

an efficient and storage-friendly workflow for the large-scale data/format

in commercials, music videos and online content, so he took on projects

intensive projects. By future-proofing Empire with EditShare XStream and

specifically of this nature.

Flow, the team can continue to expand the company without stopping to

into the night. They took on spots for clients throughout Australia and the world, and when the demand for work picked up speed, Digby had to choose

upgrade the infrastructure.

Advice and a Helping Hand from Experts

between expanding Empire, or limit the work intake. The answer was obvious.

Empire approached Digistor, a well-known network and storage infrastructure

The two-man team moved to a small office in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane for

reseller and systems integrator, for guidance and affirmation that they were

Empire’s first 18 months, then moved to a larger office in the same area,

heading in the right direction. After discussions with tech support regarding their

adding more team members.

requirements, it was determined that EditShare was the ‘most effective fit’.

An Empire Needs Infrastructure

Andrew Hogan from Digistor noted, “We already hoped EditShare would work as a solution for Empire before our tech guys gave it their blessing. This

It wasn’t long before Digby and the Empire team needed to implement a

was based on prior experience with the product for Digby, and me knowing

hardware platform that would support the growing client project demands.

EditShare provides one of the best support services from the vendors we deal

Many of Empire’s projects came with ultra-high resolution, high-bandwidth

with. We could be confident knowing it was a solution that would work today

demands. A traditional storage platform couldn’t handle the throughput

and be scalable for future requirements.”

requirements. Stability was top of the list for platform needs. Familiar with

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

of their files, and when the time comes, support multiple, simultaneous long-

Vodafone, Subway, Google and more, its repertoire is reminiscent of Digby’s

Empire started with two team members working from a dining room table

44

workflow and stable platform provides more than enough space to store all

EditShare, Digby investigated EditShare’s new line of XStream Shared Storage

Working with the All-Stars

platforms and landed on a 64TB XStream as the cornerstone of the Empire

With a history of outstanding work long before Empire, influential agencies

facility.

and brands from around the world reached out to Empire for creative work.

“EditShare supported the 10-gigabit workflow, which is ideal for our eight

The team recently worked with the Jack Morton creative agency to do a high-

workstations,” Digby says. “We have a full sound suite, online and offline

impact project for Google which was hosting a company conference in Las

editorial, grading, motion graphics and visual effects workstations. From this

Vegas. The project featured many 3D elements and took about eight weeks to

one platform, we can store and manage the media for all of our systems.”

The EditShare XStream’s open platform is especially helpful for the Empire team as they work in a handful of different editing programs, including Avid, Final Cut and Adobe Premiere Pro, and need an NLE-agnostic platform

complete. The content needed to be projected on one of the largest screens the team had ever encountered, measuring 27 by 6 metres with a resolution of over 7,000 by 2,000 live pixels. For data safety, Empire used EditShare as its main back-up system.

to manage files and collaboration across projects. This is possible using

Creating a Lasting Empire

EditShare’s project sharing capabilities. One team member could be working

Empire has big plans for the future, including both long- and short-form

on a project in Final Cut on one computer, while another works on the same

projects. Thanks to the infrastructure that is now in place the team will be able

project in Avid on another computer. EditShare governs the access to project

to continue on the path to success.

files, ensuring no editor ever overwrites another’s work without permission,

“I always say that you’re only as good as your last gig,” Digby says. “We put our

while giving the team the freedom to see work in progress and collaborate on

all into each project at Empire Post because we really care and love what we

content development.

do. The tools we use, like EditShare, allow us to focus on our creativity without

Most importantly, implementing the EditShare XStream means the Empire

worrying about the mechanics of it all, and we’re thankful for that.”

team is also setting itself up for future success. The connected, secure

Visit www.theempirepost.com and www.editshare.com

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & DAM

Gavin Rawlings Uses Sony Portable 4K RAID DOP, VIDEO EDITOR AND CO-FOUNDER OF VENTURE FILMS, Gavin Rawlings, recently chose Sony’s rugged and portable dual 3.5-inch HDD RAID for his latest shoot in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Rawlings explained, “We capture a lot of 4K footage in the field and each night it would take a couple of hours to offload all the data. I wanted to drastically improve this and I saw Sony had released these new portable rugged RAIDs. So I ordered two of the 6TB models with the idea that one is the main field drive and the other being the backup drive.”

The new Sony RAID has the transfer speeds and performance needed for 4K production and delivers effective high-capacity content workflow options from the field to the studio.

Rawlings continued, “I needed quite a lot of storage, but the drives had to be able to withstand traveling through the rough terrain you find in places like The Kimberley. They needed to be easy to transport as well. The first thing that hooked me was the read/write speeds. The fact they were built to withstand bumps and drops was perfect for my work.”

Unlike current HDD RAID products, Sony’s offerings are optimised for the transport, back-up and quick transfer of content on location, and are equipped to handle the file requirements of 4K. The new PSZ-RA6T 6TB RAID is a solution which is designed to support increasing file sizes in a resilient housing.

Rawlings added, “I’ve used other rugged drives in the field for years, and while they’ve never let me down, they are very slow. When the Sony RAIDs arrived I did a speed test using Blackmagic’s Disk Speed on my Thunderbolt 2 equipped MacBook Pro. I was getting read/write speeds between 390420MB/sec which is insanely fast compared to the 85-95MB/sec I was getting on my existing drives. I can now offload a full 128GB SxS card in 23 minutes with verification, when before I was offloading 128GB in about an hour and a half.”

The new Sony RAID systems support multiple workflows and feature USB3.0 and two Thunderbolt 2 ports, and compatibility with several RAID modes Mediaproxy_Ad_Content_Plus_Technology_ANZ_November2.pdf 1 3 Nov 16 3:51:26 pm including RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD. Users can also daisy chain up to six units

via Thunderbolt. Using Sony’s Memory Media Utility software, the RAIDs display device information like capacity and mode, available free space and disk status check to determine optimum replacement time.

Gavin Rawlings concluded, “A lot of the time I’m offloading in the middle of nowhere. We have a 2000 watt inverter and battery system installed in the 4WD so the Sony RAIDs get plugged into that and a MacBook Pro. I use ShotPutPro for offloading all my media mirrored to each 6TB RAID. They’re also great in the fact that we can go away and edit somewhere else. These drives have literally saved me hours at night when offloading.”

Visit www.sony.com.au or www.sony.co.nz

ULTIMATE VERSATILITY TS Analysis IP Multiviewer SMPTE 2022-6

mediaproxy.com

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & DAM

OTT Monitoring Caption Compliance 4K & HEVC

45

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & DAM

Cloud Without Compromise

by Dave Frederick, Senior Director of Media & Entertainment, Quantum.

THE EVOLUTION OF MEDIA CONSUMPTION across multiple mediums

outlets. It also offers

has fuelled an increase in the volume and variety of files media companies must handle. Seeking a scalable and economical solution for storing this content, most media companies have embraced cloud storage.

benefits for remote

While many small and mid-sized production companies have already

members to perform

implemented the cloud for content storage, they are now starting to migrate

editing tasks for

production tasks – often key elements of their end-to-end workflows – to the

live events without

cloud. Such companies are using public cloud services, private cloud located

being onsite. This

on premises or at a data centre, or a combination of the two.

also reduces costs

The Move into the Cloud Today the cloud provides both storage and compute resources optimised for media, and a growing array of cloud-based applications that support onpremise production workflow. For those media companies with staff working

production workflows, as it allows team

associated with travel and equipment transport and setup.

Further areas of

across multiple facilities – with content moving via WAN-accelerated transfer

production are moving to the cloud as popular production applications

or a similar mechanism – and also connected to a private cloud, it’s become

evolve to span cloud and ground, providing cost savings or reducing time to

commonplace to ingest content and push it to the cloud where it is accessible

delivery, or both. The automation of ingest and delivery processes supports a

by the entire creative team.

seamless workflow and allows media companies to maintain the feel of a local

Through integration of the private cloud with a company’s storage system,

production model. Advanced transcoding and streaming engines deliver the

media companies can manage content across both online storage and more

speed necessary for real-time production workflows. A workflow automation

affordable near-line and cloud storage, employing a policy-based software

system manages and synchronises all assets and content, whether on premise

layer to align their cloud-based resources to specific parts of overall workflows.

or in the private cloud.

A cloud-enabled media asset management system adds further sophistication to this approach, making media available where and when it is needed.

Encryption in transit and at rest ensures ongoing security. By preserving and leveraging content metadata and file information, advanced MAM systems can facilitate metadata-powered searches, analysis, and tracking in the cloud.

Long-Term Data Vault Once early concerns over security and the cloud were overcome, media companies started to use the public cloud as a flexible and scalable way to

Security and the Cloud Security in the cloud has not proved to be a significant issue. One concern raised with public cloud storage has been multi-tenant use and the possibility of others hacking into content. At this point, large public cloud service providers have established formidable security measures. Although media companies have more control over private cloud hosted on site, this type of storage is vulnerable to the same kinds of breaches as other locally hosted

extend data protection and disaster recovery to an off-site target. Using this

systems and requires the same attention to security.

approach, companies can replicate and store media files in multiple geographic

The security of content moving to and from the cloud is another concern that

locations, often in a pay-as-you-go model that yields appealing operating

has largely been alleviated through ongoing advances in cloud technology.

expense savings over capital expenses. As a result, the public cloud now serves

Client-side encryption with user key management and SSL encryption of data

as a cost-effective backup medium.

While the cloud as a long-term data vault doesn’t necessarily provide fast access to content, it makes it feasible to store the massive volumes of content that companies need to maintain, such as footage from every hole during every

in flight, combined with encryption support of applications used on the ground and in the cloud have provided what most companies consider an appropriate level of content security.

round of a golf tournament, even though they rarely need access to it. For

Another key benefit of storing media content on cloud services is that the task

content that may become a valuable part of production down the road, long-

of migrating that content to the appropriate format for long-term preservation

term off-site storage in the cloud is ideal.

becomes the responsibility of the provider. Rather than undergo the painful

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & DAM

migration of a large data archive on a RAID array or tape library to a new format

46

Transcoding

and/or storage medium, content owners can let the cloud service provider

Processing in the cloud also is becoming common, largely because of how it

ensure ongoing data protection and availability. Given this responsibility, the

supports and streamlines content-monetisation workflows. By maintaining

larger cloud service providers implement their own backup systems to be sure

content in the cloud and transcoding according to the disparate requirements

they can meet their obligations to customers.

of various targets, media companies can deliver content quickly and easily. The burden of supplying infrastructure, power and adequate compute resources falls on the cloud service provider. A similar cloud-based media-processing workflow is being used in the broadcast realm for distribution of content to affiliates for broadcast to air.

Creative Gains and Cost Savings, Without Compromise Modern media facilities are moving forward in establishing secure, costeffective and flexible production workflows spanning ground and cloud. In doing so, they are realising the agility and efficiency needed to work effectively

Proxy Editing of Lower-Resolution Multiplatform Content

with more content, and a greater variety of it, and to deliver finished content

Companies with geographically dispersed production teams use cloud storage

faster. The cloud affords media companies an economical and scalable means

to make content accessible to all team members. This model is proving useful

of enabling flexible access to content and key production applications, while

for creation of lower-resolution content targeted to digital and social media

reducing on-the-ground infrastructure, operation and maintenance costs.

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

Has Broadcast Storage Technology Reached an Inflection Point?

by Paul Bruton, Solutions Director – Content and Big Data, Hitachi Data Systems when it comes to storing broadcast media. Things are fast aligning to make object storage a serious challenger worthy of consideration for storing media assets.

With digitisation now a foregone fact, costs of storing media indefinitely are now escalating beyond the alternative tape drive option with its current LTO 6 and 7 based platforms. With most Australian media companies using early LTO or preLTO tape technology, now is the time to consider moving to object storage. Doing so will avoid the massive migration costs that come with each five-to-sevenyear cycle in tape drive upgrades, which continues to be a significant barrier to innovation and preservation of media assets.

Object storage has now matured as a technology, with density of hard drives now capable of delivering the commercial footprints we are used to with tape-based solutions. The cost of the technology has now dropped to where we see an inflection point in media organisations’ approach to media storage upgrades.

Furthermore, the benefits of selecting object storage based platforms deliver all the benefits that the technology brings to the equation. This includes sophisticated data protection and content preservation technologies such as configurable data and metadata protection levels, object versioning and change tracking, geographic dispersion of data with seamless application failover, and many others. Object storage solutions also include a variety of features designed to protect the integrity, provide privacy, and ensure the availability and security of stored data.

One of the most significant capabilities that object storage based technology brings to the total cost of ownership debate is the ability to transparently move to new media, effectively future-proofing your investment beyond traditional hard drives.

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) is driving adoption of technology within the greater marketplace through research and development in next generation media types. As part of the Hitachi group of companies, we have considerable access to research and development across the organisation’s consumer media and electronics divisions. This places HDS and our customers in an optimum position to add their voice and drive the direction Hitachi will take in digital solutions for the media and broadcast industry.

Moving data to, from, and between cloud solutions is fast becoming a competitive necessity. To avoid being locked into one cloud service provider, you need peace of mind that you can extract and migrate information easily and cost effectively to alternative options. With cloud now becoming a real option for many components within media workflows and applications, being built to take advantage of cloud technology needs to also be built with this new option in mind.

We have developed our solutions with the ability to transparently move data to, from, and between cloud solutions, which removes the need to invest in infrastructure at all. HDS continues with its philosophy of openness support – a REST-based http interface that works with a variety of http dialects, de-facto standards such as Amazon’s S3 API, and more recent options like Openstack’s Swift RESTful API. Metadata Matters We all know how much data there is. Not only content, but metadata, social information and other forms of unstructured information are becoming more necessary for differentiation than ever before. In fact many organisations now see metadata becoming more valuable than the data itself over its lifetime – which for most media, this lifetime is now considered forever.

Metadata brings structure to unstructured content. It enables the capability to build massive media repositories by providing a means for faster and more accurate access of content. Custom metadata gives storage managers the meaningful information they need to efficiently, and intelligently, process data and apply the right object policies to meet their business, governance and protection requirements.

HDS structured custom metadata and multiple custom metadata annotations take this capability to the next level by helping yield better analytic results and facilitating content sharing among applications.

Big Data, Big Storage Storage space and data centre footprints continue to be a source of cost for most organisations. By the end of this year, HDS predicts the ability to have 1PB of raw storage capacity within four rack units. Combining this dense storage footprint with existing de-duplication and compression capabilities will fundamentally change the cost dynamics of object storage versus traditional tape based solutions – have we reached the inflection point?

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

HISTORICALLY THERE HAS BEEN a trade-off between cost and performance

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AUDIO Digital soundwaves

www.content-technology.com/audio

NEP Australia Adopts Lawo Audio and Control for OB Vans AS PART OF AN EXTENSIVE UPGRADE of its OB fleet, NEP Australia has placed its trust in Lawo audio and video solutions. With the commissioning of four identical live production units (HD11, HD12, HD13 and HD 14), NEP Australia is consolidating its position as the leading broadcasting provider in Australian, offering 4K OB vans with a capacity unmatched by any other outside production company. System integration of the new OBs was managed by NEP, Australia’s own system integration team, with supply of equipment from Lawo’s exclusive partner, Professional Audio and Television.

All four OB vans share the same size and technical specifications, and rely on Lawo’s VSM broadcast control and monitoring system for their overall control. Each truck is equipped with a 64-fader Lawo mc²56 audio mixing console plus a Lawo audio core.

NEP Australia has adopted Sony solutions across its OB fleet, implementing Sony HDC-4300 cameras and Sony MVS/XVS-8000X vision mixers. Each unit can operate with up to 28 cameras and provides space to accommodate 34 staff.

With the VSM system, NEP benefits greatly from an overall control and monitoring approach – this takes care of routing in the Imagine IP3 hybrid video/audio router and Imagine SX Pro Multiviewer, as well as 10 EVS XT3 units. VSM also serves as the main tally system and delivers the dynamic UMDs. A sophisticated KVM

system is key to successful operation in such a large OB van. Again, VSM integrates with the IHSE KVM Draco Tera system. With the VSM in use, operators can pre-configure workflows and settings in advance of a production, and save and restore them for recurring productions, sharing them between all four OB vans.

Each OB van’s audio section is centred on a Lawo mc256 audio console and an audio core with eight DSP cards and five stage-boxes connected via fibre using MADI. The Lawo mc²56 console and VSM work closely together, enabling VSM to have direct parameter control over the audio system.

Regarding the use of Lawo equipment, Milan Milenkovic, NEP Australia Project Director said, “Since introducing the first Lawo audio console into Australia back in 2006, we have been pioneers of new technologies. In this time, Lawo audio consoles have become the broadcast standard in Australia, and currently the best solution in the market for such an application. There was no hesitation on NEP Australia’s part in opting for the Lawo approach.”

The large OB vans will handle production for major live sports and concert events.

HD11 and HD12 are already on air, with HD13 and HD14 coming into service early next year in time for the 2017 AFL and NRL seasons.

Visit www.lawo.com and www.nepinc.com and www.proaudiotv.com.au

Synchronised Technology Appointed Beyerdynamic Distributor AS OF OCTOBER, 2016, Synchronised Technology (Syntec) will be officially appointed as the authorised import and distribution partner for the entire portfolio of Beyerdynamic products, including headphones, headsets, and microphones for both wired and wireless systems.

“Being appointed the authorised import and distribution partner for the full range of Beyerdynamic products in both Australia and New Zealand gives us the opportunity to utilise our long-term knowledge and understanding of the markets to secure continued growth across numerous business segments” said Michael Sloss, Managing Director at Syntec.

Michael explained further: “It is with great pleasure that we take this opportunity to announce Syntec has formed a strategic partnership with Ingram Micro Australia and New Zealand to be the official distribution

partner for several of Beyerdynamic’s installation and conferencing microphone product lines.”

Ingram’s knowledge of the of the Australian AV and IT industry, its infrastructure, supply chain capabilities, and dedicated AV sales and product management team, makes Ingram a perfect channel partner for the installation and integration arena.

“We are extremely excited to be involved with this strategic alliance with Syntec and Beyerdynamic. We look forward to introducing these high quality products to our customer base and further strengthen the development of the Beyerdynamic range in the region,” said Andrew Upshon, General Manager, Professional AV ANZ, Ingram Micro.

Visit www.syntec.com.au and http://au.ingrammicro.com

Amber Technology to Distribute JTS Professional from 2017 AMBER TECHNOLOGY LIMITED and JTS Professional Co. Ltd. are pleased to announce a new partnership, as Amber Technology becomes the exclusive distributor of JTS Professional products across Australia and New Zealand from January 2017.

AUDIO

Established in Taiwan in 1982, JTS has grown to become a world-class manufacturer of wired microphones, wireless microphone systems, conference and interpretation systems and accessories. JTS boasts more than 300 staff spanning research and development, sales and marketing, and manufacturing.

The products, many of which include unique and patented technologies, are manufactured in Taiwan and China, and are distributed to 98 countries around the world.

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Technology fold, saying, “JTS is a great fit for Amber. We are excited to represent such a fast-growing and innovative brand in Australia and New Zealand. The JTS products will find application in the various specialised markets Amber Technology services. With two highly complementary brands, we are confident we can increase the JTS market share on both sides of the Tasman.”

Dowson Yu, Vice General Manager, JTS Professional, shared his enthusiasm for the new venture, commenting, “While our products have been present in Australia and New Zealand for some time, we believe our new partnership with Amber Technology will deliver broader distribution and sales for JTS Professional.

We are committed to supporting the team at Amber Technology as they represent our brand across the many market segments in which they operate.”

Amber Technology’s sales teams will be representing JTS products in pro audio, broadcast, musical instruments, retail and commercial AV installation markets.

From January 2017, dealers will be able to obtain stock, pre-sales and post-sales support from Amber in Australia and New Zealand.

Peter Amos, Managing Director, Amber Technology, welcomed JTS to the Amber

Visit www.ambertech.com.au and www.jts.com.tw

AUDIO

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AUDIO

Gearhouse Does the Big Gigs with Clear-Com GEARHOUSE BROADCASTS’ powerhouse Event Communications division has covered comms requirements for some of Australia’s biggest live events in 2016, and they’re relying on Clear-Com products. ClearCom’s FreeSpeak II wireless, HelixNet partyline and Eclipse digital matrix systems have formed the backbone of events like Hillsong Conference and the Queensland and Victorian Schools Spectaculars.

Taking over Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena and most of its neighbouring venues in Olympic Park, Hillsong Conference was a four-day gathering of more than 30,000 attendees, with all of the production requirements of a massive arena show. Gearhouse supplied and operated the comms system, which used 50 FreeSpeak II 1.9GHz beltpacks, one HMS-4X HelixNet main station running 12 HBP-2X HelixNet beltpacks, and an Eclipse Digital Matrix integrated with a second comms system via MADI. “We had rented Freespeak II to Hillsong in Sydney and Melbourne prior,” says Jason Owen, Manager of Gearhouse’s Event Communications. “It was a good fit for them. The conference is such a large scale job, and their premiere event of the year. It was a big test for a big system. With FreeSpeak II, you’re clear of most other wireless. The audio quality and coverage is better than the competitors’, and the setup is easier – we get it set-up in half the time. Another advantage is the flexibility. If we’re on-site and we need to add another antenna to extend coverage, we don’t need to reset the system, the system deals with it automatically. With other products you have to take the system down.”

After Hillsong Conference, Gearhouse sent the same crew to Brisbane for the Creative Generations Schools Spectacular at the Brisbane Convention

and Exhibition Centre, a show that saw 1,500 students take the stage. The comms system was almost identical in scale and design to Conference, including its digital integration to a second system. Two months later, Gearhouse sent a comprehensive system down to Victoria’s Schools Spectacular at Hisense Arena, where it was deployed by Peter Cochrane of Articulate. 14 belt-packs of FreeSpeak II and a HelixNet master running 14 wired packs ran the show, while 3,500 students performed for both a live and broadcast audiences.

“I had all the stage managers on FreeSpeak II, and the hardwired comms for the follow-spots and mechanised movement crew,” Peter relates. “The most extreme cable run was almost a kilometre, and I didn’t have a single problem. I had to build the entire system by myself, and the very quick setup made it much easier. The FreeSpeak II system was key – I turned it on and it just worked. It sounded great and there were no dropouts.

FreeSpeak’s true advantage is total cost of ownership. There’s no prep. You pick it off the shelf, take it to the venue, plug it in, and it works.”

Gearhouse’s Clear-Com stock will continue its run of Schools Spectaculars when it rolls out on the biggest of them all, the New South Wales ‘Dream Big’ event at Qudos Bank Arena on the 25th and 26th of November, where both FreeSpeak and HelixNet will be used to coordinate almost 6,000 students, performers, and staff.

Visit www.jands.com.au and www.clearcom.com

Avid Acquires Rights to Nexidia’s Technology for Media AVID RECENTLY ANNOUNCED it has completed another significant development for the MediaCentral Platform by exclusively licensing the rights to develop and commercialise media and entertainment technologies and solutions from Nexidia, a developer of dialogue and audio analysis products. The addition of Nexidia solutions will complement the MediaCentral Platform, and allow Avid to further deliver on its commitment to give media and entertainment professionals more content creation and distribution workflows with greater choice, flexibility, and operational efficiency, a key tenet of Avid Everywhere.

Avid will integrate Nexidia’s media and entertainment products, like Dialogue Search and Illuminate with Comply, QC, and Align modules into the MediaCentral Platform, infusing MediaCentral with new content discovery capabilities, and expanded quality assurance, reporting and content repair capabilities.

Avid can now license Nexidia’s phonetic indexing technology, Search Grid, to other developers of professional media applications, and will continue to support the integration of Nexidia products and technologies with third-party solutions.

The combination of Avid and Nexidia solutions is expected to deliver a number of significant benefits for customers, including: • Higher quality content – Content creators can more easily find relevant source material.

• Lower production costs – Computer algorithms help automate the tagging of content libraries for future discovery, eliminating the need to organise raw materials and align takes to scripts.

• Increased monetisation of content libraries – Unique content processingtools automatically check whether finished programs contain the right language audio tracks, audio descriptions, and captions.

The following Nexidia products are now available as Avid products and can be purchased from Avid: • Avid Dialogue Search.

• Avid Illuminate.

• Avid Comply.

• Avid QC. • Avid Align.

• Avid Search Grid.

An update regarding Avid’s ScriptSync and PhraseFind options for Media Composer will be announced in early December 2016.

Visit www.avid.com

AUDIO

RTW’s MM3 Musicmeter Shipping

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RTW HAS ANNOUNCED that the newest addition to its loudness metering

output delivers a buffered stereo signal or

family, the MM3 MusicMeter, is now shipping. The MM3 provides customers

downmix from a 5.1 stream.

with flexible loudness metering for music-based applications.

The MM3 MusicMeter is compatible with

The MM3 MusicMeter features vector-scope, PPM/TruePeak or VU, real-time

RTW’s USB Connect software package, which is

analysers, loudness vs time charts, as well as numerical and graphical

available at no cost from the company’s website.

loudness display and zoom modes. All of these features can be accessed

This software equips its user with a direct audio

with a swipe on the touchscreen. The display is able to be adjusted into

signal transfer and additional control from

vertical or horizontal modes to accommodate the workflow of its users.

within a DAW environment.

Supported audio inputs include analogue, SPDIF and USB, and an SPDIF

Visit www.rtw.com

AUDIO

AUDIO

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AUDIO

Immersed in Audio – The 141st AES Show THE AUDIO ENGINEERING SOCIETY’S 141st AES show in Los Angeles offered a plethora of newly released technology, more than ample conferences and seminars, and a largish glimpse of where audio is heading. We’ll report much of the equipment shortly, but first we’ll recap on some of the events held at the show.

The AES67 standard received more than a workout with the live sound gang with the ‘AES67: Audio Networking Today & Tomorrow’ expert panel discussing audio networking and offerings from TC Electronic, QSC, Bosch, and Yamaha.

All things Dante, AES67, and even the open source, layer-2 only AVB (AudioVideo Bridging) were discussed, reflecting the entire broadcast industry’s move toward IP-based transport of any and all files via existing ethernet networks.

The ‘Life in the Hotseat – Audio Production for Live Global Telecast Events’ included a star panel of engineers, producers and RF specialists discussing their experiences working on major awards telecasts and sporting events, while offering their experiences working on some of the world’s most technically advanced audio productions. Alongside there were numerous panels and lectures on mixing and mastering for formats ranging from vinyl, to the gaming industry, through to Dolby Atmos and world-wide broadcasting.

Even Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits fame made a welcome appearance.

The father of the MIDI protocol openly discussed the evolution and impact of synthesis, along with his legacy of MIDI – All more than one could possibly fit into a calendar over the four-day AES extravaganza.

Interesting for many was the Society’s inaugural two-day conference on ‘Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality’ which very much encompassed the conference’s theme of ‘Immersed in Audio’. According to all reports the VR/ AR conference was literally standing room only. This rapidly growing field has captured plenty of attention as the industry looks to further facets of contemporary and future entertainment. The ‘Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality’ conference included a two-day program of technical papers, workshops, tutorials and a manufacturer’s expo. Sponsoring manufacturers included Audiokinetic, Dolby, DTS, Dysonics, Gaudio, Nokia, Occulus, Sennheiser, Source Sound and VisiSonics. Andres Mayo, conference Co-Chair stated that George Lucas had once asserted that audio represents 50% of the motion-picture experience. It would be somewhat refreshing to see virtual and augmented reality audio production gleaning 50% of budgets in the not-sodistant future.

The Hard Stuff All the usual suspects were displaying further inroads in the world of analogue to digital conversion. Apogee used the AES show to introduce its new Element Series, along with a Dante network option card for its flagship Symphony I/O MkII interface. The range comprises three Thunderbolt I/O boxes for Mac: Element 24 (10-in/12-out), Element 46 (12-in/14-out) and Element 88 (16-in/16-out). The Elements interfaces use Apogee’s Thunderbolt driver for a 1.41ms round-trip latency when using DAWs such as Logic Pro X.

AUDIO

Focusrite was outing its full range of audio network solutions, but also announcing products never before seen at AES. These included RedNet A16R: 16 channels of Dante-networked A>D and D>A conversion, RedNet PCIeR Card: RedNet PCI Express card with network redundancy, enabling ultra-low latency audio and full track count for Dante audio-over-IP networks, Red 4Pre: 58-in/64-out Thunderbolt 2 and Pro Tools HD compatible audio interface, with Dante network audio connectivity. Focusrite also launched the Clarett OctoPre, which includes eight of the Clarett range’s ‘Air’ mic preamps.

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Crane Song announced that its entire line of digital hardware products have been updated to take advantage of the company’s proprietary 5th generation D>A technology (Quantum DAC). With its AES debut, the Egret eight-channel D>A converter/summing mixer joins the Avocet monitor controller, the HEDD 192 AD/DA converter, and Solaris stand-alone D>A converter to complete the line up of Crane Song products equipped with the Quantum DAC technology.

The Quantum DAC uses a 32-bit converter and asynchronous sample rate conversion for jitter reduction with up sampling to 211kHz. With jitter less than 1pS, the company claims the Quantum DAC has the lowest published jitter values in the industry.

Avid introduced Pro Tools|MTRX, an audio interface for Pro Tools|HDX and HD Native. Developed by Digital Audio Denmark, Pro Tools|MTRX supplies Pro Tools users the sonic quality of DAD’s A>D and D>A converters, along with flexible monitoring, I/O, and routing capabilities. The interface also integrates with Pro Tools|S6 and Pro Tools|S3 control surfaces.

Synthax (RME) was featuring the ADI-2 Pro high-end AD/DA converter, which is aimed at both mastering and measurement applications. The ADI-2 Pro includes servo-balanced analogue inputs on combo XLR/TRS jacks, two separate balanced and unbalanced outputs on XLR and TRS connectors, two ‘Extreme Power’ headphone outputs, optical SPDIF I/O that also recognises ADAT format, plus coaxial SPDIF (RCA) and AES I/O (XLR) via an included breakout cable. Remarkably, the unit supports sampling frequencies of up to 768kHz. ‘Out of the box’ mixing certainly didn’t go unnoticed at AES 20126, with Cadac launching an addition to its CDC series of digital consoles. The CDC seven follows on from the flagship CDC eight and medium-format CDC six, providing all the power and 'operational simplicity' of the CDC six with the enhanced production capabilities of an expanded dual 23.5-inch 16:9 hi-definition touch screen and 36-fader control surface. The CDC seven doubles up on both the large-format LCD touchscreen, with its associated encoders, and the physical fader count – expanding the number of inputs to 96. The console also retains the CDC six’s 56 busses – 48 of them configurable. API strengthened its lineup of large-format recording and mixing consoles with the Legacy AXS. The console maintains API's commitment to an all-analogue signal path with an 'expanded and powerful feature set’. Console frames range from 32 to 80 channels, with each channel offering dual input capability and access to two API 200 Series module slots. One key aspect of the design is a return to the traditional 1.5-inch module standard, allowing for the use of API 500 Series equalisers on a per-channel basis. The console also features a centre section that includes six automated stereo returns with motorised faders, 5.1 surround monitoring and a built-in 2500C stereo bus compressor.

Solid State Logic revealed Nucleus², an update of its DAW controller, audio interface and studio monitoring hub. Nucleus² responds to customer demand with the introduction of talkback, main/mini monitor switching, a change to Dante connectivity, and a superlative white finish. The USB soundcard in Nucleus has been replaced with an SSL Dante ‘Network I/O’ audio interface.

Nucleus² has an inbuilt network switch with two ethernet ports – one for the computer and the other for adding Dante devices.

JoeCo’s BlueBox Workstation Interface Recorder range made its debut with two models: the BBWR24MP and the BBWR08MP, the former providing 24 channels of switchable mic/line inputs and the latter providing eight channels of mic/line input and 16 channels of dedicated balanced line inputs. In a studio environment, the BlueBox can be used as a low latency audio interface providing a 24-channels at 24-bit/96kHz both to and from a workstation while simultaneously utilising the on-board recording function as a backup device.

For live work the unit’s in-built mic preamps can be used as a stand-alone, multi-channel audio acquisition recorder while relegating interface features to a computer for backup recordings.

The Soft Stuff Software was as plentiful as the hard variety, with CEDAR Audio announcing CEDAR Cambridge v11, which includes new forensic audio enhancement, dialogue noise suppression and restoration modules to complement nearly 30 already developed processes.

Astro Spatial Audio’s SARA audio rendering engine was on display, offering an

AUDIO immersive 3D audio tool to deliver a 3D audio and room acoustic experience.

It’s aimed toward performing arts facilities such as theatres, opera houses, concert venues, theme parks and worship spaces. iZotope introduced Neutron, a mixing assist plug-in that apparently simplifies the mixing process. Neutron combines analysis and metering with audio processing to ‘help deliver focus and clarity in mixes’. The analysis intelligence within Neutron allows a ‘Track Assistant’ to automatically detect instruments, recommend the placement of EQ nodes, and set optimal settings for other modules within the plugin. Then, Neutron’s ‘Masking Mete’r allows you to visually identify and fix perceptual frequency collisions between instruments.

Audionamix announced planning for the ADX Speech Volume Control (SVC) plug-in. The plug-in is planned to provide independent volume level control over both speech and background elements within a mono or stereo mix. Users will be able to lower the level of background noise within production audio, or boost dialogue levels without requiring access to stems or a multi-track session.

Immersed in IP As with the broadcasting industry overall, audio is making further advances within the IP realm. Yamaha announced its intention to update its Dante enabled products to support AES67. This will allow Yamaha products equipped with Dante networking capability to communicate with Ravenna and other audio networks via AES67. Yamaha plans to successively update Dante equipped products with device and Dante firmware updates, beginning with the CL/QL series digital mixing consoles and R series I/O racks.

Thunderbolt, SoundGrid, and Pro Tools HD formed the three options available to Apogee’s Symphony I/O Mk II users. Apogee announced a Dante option card which will enable the converter’s channels to be placed on an audio-over-IP network of up to 64 I/O at 48kHz. The card uses Audinate’s Dante Brooklyn II module.

Millennia’s DA-296 Gōzowta Dante to analogue convertor made its debut at AES, making it the fourth Millennia/Dante product in the lineup which includes

the Dante-D and Dante-R bundles for the HV-3D/8, HV-3D/4 and HV-3R eight channel mic preamps.

Lynx Studio Technology introduced the LT-DANTE LSlot interface for its Aurora and Hilo converters. The LT-DANTE is a Dante-enabled expansion card for audio networking that connects Hilo and Aurora with other Dante-enabled products over ethernet. At the same time that the LT-DANTE is released, Lynx is introducing several converter models using the same interface. These include the Hilo-DT, Aurora 8-DT and Aurora 16-DT models. In addition, any existing Hilo or Aurora owner can implement an LT-DANTE to their converter by upgrading firmware.

Monitoring Ocean Way Audio unveiled its new HiRes3.5 Studio Reference Monitor, also known as HR3.5. The HR3.5 is based on the HR4 monitor first shown at the AES 2015. The HR3.5 is a larger free-standing or soffit-mounting version, delivering a frequency response of 20Hz to 22kHz with an SPL rating of 120db. The HR3.5 units incorporates an integrated two-way dual-horn system with one-inch HF and eight-inch MF drivers, and are mechanically time-aligned with twin 12-inch sub-bass drivers per channel. Three built-in amplifiers power this speaker, which features analogue and digital inputs, 96kHz/24-bit sampling, and a tri-amped 3,400 watts per channel (gosh!). The system delivers accurately matched and detailed imaging with OWA’s signature wide 100x40° horizontal and vertical dispersion for a massive sweet-spot across the listening environment.

Danish pro audio companies, Digital Audio Denmark (DAD) and Dynaudio, announced a joint force in taking professional monitoring to the ‘next level’.

Dynaudio’s PRO division is renown for high-end monitoring. Similarly, DAD is a standard in audio routing and distribution, which taps naturally into complex monitoring setups, spanning surround formats and 3D audio. Information is thin on the ground, apart from the announcement. All that’s known is the two companies plan to develop a high-end monitoring systems for music, mastering, film, post and broadcast production, the results appearing ‘during 2017’.

Sennheiser Enhances HD 280 PRO Headphones SENNHEISER HAS ENHANCED its classic HD 280 PRO monitoring headphones with a new design and improved comfort for the wearer.

“The closed, circumaural HD 280 PRO headphones enjoy an excellent reputation for any monitoring application,” said Jannik Schentek, Portfolio Manager, Live Performance and Music at Sennheiser. “We have now given them a careful design update while fully preserving their much-praised audio properties.”

The most visible change is the headband, which features differently designed padding that keeps the sensitive fontanelle area of the head free from pressure. This, along with a weight of just 285g, ensures stress-free use for long hours. The headband length can be adjusted in more than a dozen increments, while the swivel joint and the rotatable ear cups ensure a fit around the ear. Soft ear pads round off the comfort features.

The dynamic HD 280 PROs boast a THD of 0.1 percent and a very detailed, linear reproduction, spanning a frequency response of 8Hz to 25,000kHz. Their impedance of 64Ω ensures universal connectivity. The headphones feature a single-sided, coiled cable with 3.5mm/6.3mm plug.

Their robust design and noise isolation of up to 32dB make the HD 280 PRO headphones an option for rough use in outside broadcasting or at the DJ desk. After the job, they fold away for easy transport.

Visit http://en-au.sennheiser.com

ALC NetworX Releases RAVENNA-2-SAP Converter tool the need for tools to facilitate interoperability increases. ALC NetworX, developers of the RAVENNA audio networking technology, has announced the release of RAV2SAP, an useful RAVENNA-to-SAP freeware conversion tool designed to help connect RAVENNA devices to other AES67 devices.

ALC NetworX’s Andreas Hildebrand explains why RAV2SAP is important.

“Most people would agree that, in an ideal world, when setting up a network, it would be wonderful not to be limited in one’s choice of devices on the network, or indeed one’s choice of network protocol because of incompatibility issues. The AES67 standard for high performance AoIP interoperability was published in 2013 in order to provide some common ground and basic guidelines for manufacturers wishing to incorporate interoperability capabilities into their products.”

The AES67 standard doesn’t mandate for any specific connection management methods as different solutions exist depending on the application. In RAVENNA, the SDP data is conveyed via the RTSP protocol which is a common method in layer 3 (IP) streaming applications.

“While some RAVENNA devices have implemented SAP in addition to RAVENNA’s standard SDP data exchange method, we felt that interconnectivity would be greatly facilitated if a generic RAVENNA-toSAP converter providing a translation service between RAVENNA and SAP announcements were available,” observed Hildebrand. “Furthermore, since the RAV2SAP converter supports manual entry and read-out of SDP data as well as automatic translation, it also enables devices not adhering to the RAVENNA or Dante technology realm to connect to any available AES67 stream via manual SDP data exchange, as well as acting as a great diagnostic tool for monitoring exchanged SDP data.

Hildebrand concludes: “Since RAVENNA and AES67 are both based on an open technology approach utilising the same principles and protocols, and RAVENNA has always advocated open interconnectivity, we decided to make the converter available as a freeware tool, downloadable from the RAVENNA website.”

Visit www.ravenna-network.com

AUDIO

AS THE AES67 INTEROPERABILITY STANDARD continues to gain traction,

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RADIO The original broadcast media

www.content-technology.com/radio

Connected Cars the New Frontier for ABC Radio ABC RADIO’S LIVE AND ON-DEMAND content will reach new audiences with the ABC Radio app now ready for the connected car and available via Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Connected car penetration is due to grow by a million cars from 2.0% to 8.4% in 2020, (Statista 2016) and ABC Radio says it wants to be at the forefront of the Australian connected car experience.

Connected car users can access their favourite podcasts and streamed or segmented content from stations like ideas network RN, youth network triple j, local metro or regional stations, ABC Classic FM and music network Double J by using their Apple or Android smartphones to connect to their car’s infotainment system.

"Today’s audiences expect connectivity in every sphere of their lives, including the car space," said ABC Director of Radio, Michael Mason.

"Around one third of Australian radio listening happens in the car, so by entering the connected car space we’re meeting audiences where they want to be found."

App users will never miss a news update, as the new release also includes hourly news bulletins featured as segmented audio and available at any time.

Using the ABC Radio app allows drivers and their passengers to enjoy the full spectrum of ABC Radio content, both live and on demand, whenever and wherever they want.

2CH Must Be Sold THE AUSTRALIAN COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA AUTHORITY (ACMA) has ordered that Sydney Commercial radio station 2CH must be sold to remedy a temporary breach of the ‘two to a market’ control limit for commercial radio licences in the Sydney licence area, under the terms of an enforceable undertaken given by Macquarie Media Limited (MML).

The temporary breaches arose following the merger of MML (at that time Macquarie Radio Network Limited) and Fairfax Media Limited’s radio interests in March 2015. As a result, MML is in a position to control three commercial radio broadcasting licences in Sydney – 2GB, 2CH and 2UE. The Australian Communications and Media Authority granted MML approval to resolve the temporary breach of the ‘two to a market’ limit by the 30th of September 2016. The ACMA originally approved temporary breaches for

ABC Radio will further develop its app in 2017 to bring users an even more tailored and personalised audio experience.

The ABC Radio app v3.6 is available now for download from the Apple app or Google Play stores.

Visit www.abc.net.au a period of one year to the 30th of March 2016. This approval period was subsequently extended by a further six months to the 30th of September 2016. No further extensions can be granted.

The ACMA may object to a proposed purchaser under the terms of the undertaking if it forms the view that the purchaser is not appropriate.

In an announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange, Macquarie Media Chairman, Russell Tate stated that the ACMA had objected to the terms of two separate proposed purchaser notices submitted by Macquarie Media prior to the required date of divestiture. He also announced Vaughan Strawbridge of Deloitte as a Divestiture Agent to effect the sale.

“We remain confident of selling 2CH, consistent with our prior disclosed expectations and our obligations under the enforceable undertaking.”

Visit www.acma.gov.au and www.mrn.com.au

Commercial Radio Industry Welcomes Licence Fee Cut AUSTRALIA’S COMMERCIAL RADIO BROADCASTERS have welcomed the passing in Federal Parliament of a 25% reduction in licence fees for commercial radio licence holders.

Joan Warner, Chief Executive Officer of industry body, Commercial Radio Australia, said, “The licence fee reduction is a welcome relief and the industry looks forward to continuing to work with the Communications Minister on further cuts in 2016/2017 as foreshadowed in his budget statement.”

At the National Radio Conference in October, Minister Fifiield said the fee reduction decision recognises the fact that the media landscape for radio has changed dramatically since the licence fees were first introduced in the mid-1950s, and the digital environment is placing increasing financial pressure on commercial broadcasters whose main competitors pay no licence fees.

The licence fee reduction is applicable for the 2015-16 licence period and was announced by the Communications Minister, Senator the Hon Mitch Fifield in May, 2016.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority’s Annual Report shows commercial radio stations paid a total of AUD$24.83 million in broadcasting licence fees in December 2014 for the 2013-14 period.

Ms Warner said the fee reduction recognised the increased competition

Visit www.commercialradio.com.au

Regional Push for AM to FM Conversion RADIO IN AUSTRALIA’S smaller regional communities could soon undergo a major change with a proposal to convert AM to FM for commercial radio broadcasting services in an initial six, single-licensee regional licence areas.

RADIO

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is seeking public comment on a proposal to revise its approach to considering requests for AM–FM conversion.

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from global players who are largely unregulated and do not have the costs, obligations and restrictions carried by Australian radio broadcasters.

“Previously the ACMA and its predecessors have only considered AM–FM conversion of commercial radio broadcasting services in very exceptional circumstances,” said ACMA acting Chairman, Richard Bean. “The ACMA’s revised approach has been developed in response to a request by the Minister for Communications to prioritise planning for AM-FM conversions in certain smaller regional radio markets where reasons to hold back do not apply.

“While there is still an important place for AM transmitters in Australia - for example, for the provision of wide coverage services - FM has the potential to deliver a range of benefits including improved audio quality, reduced signal interference and lower costs.”

The proposed revised approach is contained in the the ‘A new approach to AM- FM conversions and in-fill transmitters for commercial radio broadcasting services’ consultation paper.

At the same time the ACMA is consulting on AM-FM conversion proposals in Exmouth, Paraburdoo, Karratha, Tom Price and Port Hedland in Western Australia and in Broken Hill, NSW. The closing date for comments on the proposals is 5pm Friday the 2nd of December.

Visit www.acma.gov.au

RADIO

National Community Radio Award Winners Announced HUNDREDS OF COMMUNITY BROADCASTERS from across Australia recently gathered in Melbourne for the 2016 CBAA Community Radio Awards. Winners were announced across 20 categories celebrating community broadcasting excellence and recognising the accomplishments of community radio services and the people behind them.

• Outstanding Volunteer Contribution: Rob Stewart, 8EAR Gove FM (NT)

This year, the prestigious Tony Staley Award for Excellence in Community Broadcasting went to Golden Days Radio. An entirely volunteer-run station serving the senior citizens around Waverley (VIC), Golden Days Radio is dedicated to supporting its community and is a shining example of the community radio sector’s commitment to nurturing an open society. From their luncheons for listeners, to their regular studio tours and open-door meetings, the station is constantly in dialogue with its audience. The station’s 90+ volunteers recognise that isolation and loneliness can be challenges for their community and often speak at length with their listeners over the phone, sometimes visiting some ill listeners in their homes, as well as keeping the station on air 24/7.

• Best New Radio Program – Talks: Dhäwu Dhäwu Show, Yolngu Radio (NT)

The Michael Law Award for a Sustained and Outstanding Contribution by an Individual to Community Broadcasting was awarded to Max Benyon, celebrating his achievements over the last 43 years in the sector. Currently the technical linchpin of Fine Music 102.5, Benyon has been integral to relocating, installing and upgrading transmitters for the station, as well as training new volunteers and building new studios. Benyon was also responsible for charting the course of radio history in Australia when, in 1971, he and a close team petitioned the government of the day to introduce more sophisticated technology to better the introduction of FM. A committee was established, and together with their tireless research, testing and petitioning, FM as we know it was successfully launched in Australia.

• Excellence in Spoken Word, News and Current Affairs Programming: Anangu Lands Paper Tracker Radio Show, Radio Adelaide (SA)

The 2016 CBAA Community Radio Award Winners included: • Michael Law Award: Max Benyon (NSW)

• Outstanding Youth Contribution: Zeina Tebbo, Muslim Community Radio (NSW) • Excellence in Digital Media: fbiradio.com, FBi Radio (NSW) • Excellence in Training: Radio Adelaide RTO, Radio Adelaide (SA) • Best New Radio Program – Music: Female Australian Composers Project for International Women’s Day, 3MBS (VIC) • Best Station Production: Up For It, FBi Radio (NSW) • Contribution to Australian Music: Contemporary Music Program, Fresh 92.7 (SA) • Excellence in Indigenous Engagement: CAAMA Radio (NT) • Excellence in Ethnic and Multicultural Engagement: Radio 4EB (QLD) • Excellence in Music Programming: Global Village, PBS 106.7 FM (VIC)

• Best Station Promotion or Fundraising Campaign: LightPartner Day – Your News, 89.9 Light FM (VIC) • Most Innovative Outside Broadcast or Special Event Broadcast: 3CR Exhibition Broadcasts, 3CR (VIC) • Troy Garner Excellence in Sports Programming: Big Gee Up, 2XX (ACT) • Excellence in Technical Services: Jim Parish OAM, Hobart FM 96.1 (TAS) • National Documentary and Features Competition: Michael Schubert, Bay FM 99.9 (NSW)

• Outstanding Small Station Award: MAIN FM 94.9 (VIC)

The 2016 CBAA Awards were presented with the support of Deutsche Welle, APRA AMCOS, PPCA, AFTRS, the Community Broadcasting Foundation and Pro Bono Australia.

• Excellence in Community Participation: Waringarri Radio (WA)

Visit www.cbaa.org.au

• Tony Staley Award: Golden Days Radio (VIC)

Grant Broadcasters Choose Wheatstone for Townsville digital audio platform for its studios in the Queensland city of Townsville.

The platform consists of 3 x L-12 consoles with OLED panels for advance control, 1 x L-8 console, Screenbuilder for system status overview, and 11 PC drivers for playout and ingestion. Grant Broadcasters is also sending linear WheatNet audio to its transmission site over a licenced IP link. This ensures quality audio to the transmitter while a blade at the transmitter site provides status information back to the studio.

Agile also provided custom scripting for Grant Broadcasters’ unique requirements which included playout system routing and studio delegation.

Richard Goodridge, Project Engineer at Grant, said, "We are proud to launch our new Wheatstone studio facilities for Power100 and Star106.3 in Townsville.

This has been a major relocation and upgrade and the on-air team have fully embraced the new technology. Engineering have certainly learnt a lot more about the intricacies of the system since our first deployment in Cairns.

So much so, for Townsville, Agile Broadcast provided all support and commissioning remotely! At one stage, we had to rely on Wheatstone in the US for a bug fix and even this wasn't a drama, with new code turned around straight away. Very happy!"

Visit www.agilebroadcast.com.au

RADIO

GRANT BROADCASTERS HAS RECENTLY INSTALLED a new Wheatstone

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RADIO

Hong Kong Broadcasters Exit Digital Radio RADIO TELEVISION HONG KONG (RTHK) is the Special Administrative Region’s

sole remaining member of the original DAB+ consortium. The first stage of

‘last man standing’ in digital audio broadcasting following moves by both Digital Broadcasting Corporation Hong Kong Limited (DBC) and Metro Broadcast Corporation Limited to surrender their DAB licences after their respective services struggled to attract sufficient return on investment.

broadcasting channels in DAB+ in Hong Kong started in August 2011 with

On the 8th of August, 2016, DBC submitted an application to Hong Kong’s Chief Executive in Council for the surrender of its DAB licence. On the 11th of August, 2016, DBC also applied to the HK Communnications Authority for approval to allow it to deviate from various programming requirements under its DAB licence with effect from the 8th of September, 2016 until the date on which the termination of its DAB licence was approved by the CE in Council takes effect. DBC proposed to broadcast from the 8th of September, 2016 onwards repeated programmes and music on its three non-music channels and would not broadcast APIs and the CA’s publicity materials on all of the seven channels.

the consortium broadcasting 18 channels via a network of seven hilltop sites around the Territory. The services were broadcast via DAB+ on Mux 11C(220.352 MHz) in VHF Band III. In considering the applications of DBC and Metro, the Communications Authority noted that the two licensees had already applied to the CE in Council for the termination of their respective DAB licences and were in the process of winding down their DAB operation. Pending the CE in Council’s decisions, the CA considered that both licensees might not have the required manpower and resources to maintain full-fledged DAB services and said the current arrangements represented the best endeavours by the two licensees to enable the listening public to continue to have access to DAB services during the interim period. Given the circumstances surrounding DBC and

On 12th of September, 2016, Metro followed suit by submitting an application to the CE in Council for the surrender of its DAB licence. That same day, Metro applied for the CA’s approval for it to deviate from various programming requirements under its DAB licence with effect from the 13th of October, 2016 until the date on which the termination of its DAB licence takes effect. Metro proposed to simulcast from the 13th of October, 2016 onwards its FM channels on its two DAB channels (viz. Metro Finance Digital and Metro Life Digital), with the remaining DAB channel (viz. Metro Music Digital) broadcasting music 24 hours a day.

Metro, the CA considered that there was a case for them to deviate from

The withdrawal of DAB services by DBC and Metro follows that of Phoneix URadio which halted operations in September 2015, leaving RTHK as the

assistance we can in the process.”

the relevant requirements during the interim period and approved their applications.

Commenting on the withdrawal of DAB+ services by the two commercial broadcasters, WorldDAB Asia-Pacific Chair, Joan Warner, said, “Broadcasters in Hong Kong are continuing to operate on DAB+. The Government is currently undergoing a review of its promotion policy. WorldDAB continues to see positive uptake of DAB+ throughout Asia and will provide any Visit www.coms-auth.hk

DAB/DAB+ and IP Audio Confidence Monitoring THE DB3012 – DAB/DAB+ Radio & IP Audio Confidence Monitoring Receiver provides near CD-audio quality monitoring, and meets the ETSI EN 300 401 DAB standard.

Equipped with a high-performance, three-way speaker system, the unit supports AAC, AAC+, MP3, RTP and PCM IP audio codecs and is fully compatible with the most popular media platforms, Icecast and Shoutcast included. It can simultaneously monitor both DAB and online streams.

The highly-selective DSP-based tuner of the device allows the DAB/ DAB+ and online stream of the station to be selected, monitored and listened to through the top-quality speakers or headphones. The signal is monitored and logged, while the DB3012 also measures and stores for future analysis the DAB signal quality and the Left & Right Audio level values. A standard FTP client ensures easy download of the collected data.

The DB3012 also provides local alarm options and online notifications via rear-panel alarm GPOs, E-mail and SNMP ver. 2C, in case of audio loss or change in the DAB signal and the left and right Audio Levels.

The DB3012 unit can be programmed through the front-panel menu, while remote access via PC, tablet or smart phone via a standard web browser. iOS and Android devices is also supported. A high-resolution OLED graphical display and three ultra-bright LED bar-graph indicators allow for easy reading of the main signal parameters. The front panel menu and the set of four soft buttons provide easy navigation through the menus and quick access to the device’s functions.

Visit www.agilebroadcast.com.au

DAB Radio in Cars on the Rise Across Europe DAB ADOPTION IN THE CAR is growing in key markets across Europe – with over 1.7 million new cars sold with DAB in the first half of 2016 (compared to 2.7 million for the whole of 2015). Across eight countries surveyed, 31% of new cars now come with DAB as standard – with all eight markets showing an increase in adoption rates compared to 2015.

Leading the way are the UK, Norway and Switzerland – where the vast majority of new cars now come with DAB as standard.

• In September, 86% of new cars in the UK came with DAB as standard (up from 35% at the beginning of 2013).

• In Norway, which will start to switch off FM transmissions in January 2017, at least 78% of new cars had DAB as standard in the first half of 2016 – this figure rises to over 90% when installation by dealers is included.

RADIO

• In Switzerland, where digital switchover is planned for 2020-2024, 65% of new cars now come with DAB+ as standard.

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The adoption of in-car DAB is picking up pace in other markets – with research company JATO Dynamics reporting the fastest growth in the Netherlands and Denmark:

• In the Netherlands, 23% of new cars had DAB as standard in the first half of 2016 – up from 16% for 2015.

• In Denmark, following a relaxation in tax rules which treated digital radio as a 'luxury good', the proportion of cars fitted with DAB has more than doubled to 11% - up from 5% in 2015.

In Germany, Italy and France, DAB is widely available as either a standard or an option fit.

• In Germany, DAB radio is available in 80% of new cars – primarily as an option.

• In Italy the figure is 54%.

• In France it is 33%.

Across these eight markets, the top five automotive brands for DAB ranked by volumes sold were Ford, Volkswagen, Renault, Opel / Vauxhall, and BMW. Visit www.worlddab.org

RADIO

Digigram Introduces blu

Australian Radio Unites to Launch Streaming App

DIGIGRAM HAS UNVEILED ‘blu by Digigram’, a suite of cloud-based

AUSTRALIA’S COMMERCIAL RADIO INDUSTRY has joined forces with the

services including management of content contribution from journalists, expert voice talents, and remote presenters, as well as live user-generated content from the qualified broadcast or web radio audience. A centralised web service designed for the professional broadcast environment, blu

by Digigram makes it easy for virtually any authorised user to establish a high-quality bidirectional communication with any remote contributor with

ABC and SBS to launch the country’s first mobile app. The app will allow listeners to live stream more than 250 Australian radio stations.

Industry body, Commercial Radio Australia, announced the new RadioApp at October’s National Radio Conference in Melbourne, as part of a strategy to enable listening on tablets, smartphones and computers.

internet access.

RadioApp will launch in late November and will include the following features:

The new protocol-agnostic contribution platform features the blu

• Listen live to Australian commercial, ABC and SBS radio stations.

by Digigram software as a service (SaaS) and the blu Connect studio

• Search to find radio stations by genre, name and location.

interface. Together these elements facilitate instant and secure IP

• Geo-location technology will recommend local stations by default.

audio contribution over the cloud or via traditional real-time modes of communication (phone or IP codecs), along with optional cloud-based

• Wake up to and doze off to nominated station with a built-in alarm and sleep-timer.

audio processing and media recording.

• View ‘just played’ music playlists and purchase songs from the playlist.

Staff within the studio simply connect to the blu by Digigram web

The app is being developed by All in Media (AIM), which has created a range of mobile apps for customers across Europe and Australia, including Southern Cross Austereo, the ABC, Bauer Media and Nova Entertainment.

platform and use its contacts interface to launch a full duplex contribution link between a remote correspondent and the blu Connect interface in the studio. Contributors accept the communication by clicking on the link sent by email or SMS to their PC or Android smartphones. In addition to providing users on both sides of the link with audio controls, the web platform offers tools with which the editorial team can manage the contributor community and enrich

Visit www.commercialradio.com.au and http://thisisaim.com

Podcasting With TASCAM MiNiSTUDIO Interfaces

recorded media with additional contextual metadata.

THE TASCAM MINISTUDIO Personal US-32 is an affordable solution for

The blu Connect broadcast-grade audio/data interface features AES/

internet broadcasting. The MiNiSTUDIO Creator US-42 has all the podcasting features of the MiNiSTUDIO Personal and adds features aimed toward advanced audio and video production.

EBU, AES67, and high-quality analogue I/O. The system automatically connects to the blu by Digigram service over an encrypted connection, and contributions links are generated without the need for network/IT knowledge.

Visit www.digigram.com

Both TASCAM MiNiSTUDIOs provide recording up to 24-bit, 96kHz with Windows and Mac computers. The interfaces connect via USB 2.0 and can be USB bus-powered. They also connect to iOS devices using an Apple Camera Kit. Both are compatible with all major DAWs and work with all major streaming software and services.

Lawo and AVT

TASCAM MiNiSTUDIOs also enable the addition of sound effects on-

Put Callers On-Air via Ember+ and AES67

from the Mac or PC. Three sounds are included, but can be replaced

the-fly, thanks to three self-lighting PON pads that trigger audio files with .WAV or .mp3 files. A Voice Effects feature lets you alter the sound of singing or speech, and an illuminated On-Air button confirms you’re live on the air and busses audio to and from the computer by way of the

BROADCASTERS CAN NOW CONNECT the line of AVT broadcast hybrids and

MiNiSTUDIO’s Broadcast mode. This ensures you are hearing everything

talkshow systems to their Lawo radio consoles using an all-AoIP audio and control

your audience hears.

path, thanks to AVT’s addition of AES67 and Ember+ to its VoIP, ISDN and POTS

The TASCAM MiNiSTUDIO Personal US-32 features a built-in microphone and a combo XLR mic/balanced 1/4-inch TRS line input with mic preamp and 48V phantom power. A 1/8-inch input can

Ember+ is an open-source control developed by Lawo and made available

connect to a smartphone, tablet, or other consumer audio device so you

to manufacturers free of charge. Combining Ember+ with AES67 networking

can fly in prerecorded music and dialog.

creates a complete AoIP audio and control solution for professional broadcast

The MiNiSTUDIO Creator US-42 extends the features of the MiNiSTUDIO

hardware and software devices.

“An all-IP connection means even tighter integration between AVT phone systems and Lawo radio consoles,” said Lawo’s Stephen Türkay, Senior Product Manager, Radio OnAir. “Even though Lawo uses RAVENNA AoIP, and

Personal by adding a set of tools for producing, as well as broadcasting podcasts. Instead of the built-in mic, the MiNiSTUDIO Creator adds a second XLR/TRS mic input for external microphones. In addition to headphone outputs, the MiNiSTUDIO Creator offers stereo RCA line outputs with level controls for connection to powered monitors.

In addition to supporting the Broadcast mode of the MiNiSTUDIO

AVT is equipped with Dante networking, AES67 is the common language

Personal US-32, the US-42 can be switched into ‘Creator’ mode. In this

both can speak. System setup is easier, thanks to the direct AoIP connection

mode, the MiNiSTUDIO Creator behaves like most USB audio interfaces

between AVT and Lawo equipment.”

Visit www.lawo.com and www.avt-nbg.de

– recommended for production with a DAW or video editing software.

Visit www.tascam.com

RADIO

phone products.

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CONTENT DELIVERY Terrestrial, Mobile, Broadband

www.content-technology.com/delivery

Prime Media Selects MediaHub for Nationwide Television Playout PRIME MEDIA GROUP (PRIME) has selected MediaHub for its Australia-

of November, 2016, with a go-live date set for the 1st of December, 2016.

wide television playout. MediaHub will playout over 60 television channels as well as provide critical connectivity between Prime’s Canberra facility and MediaHub’s Sydney HQ.

MediaHub CEO, Alan Sweeney said, “MediaHub has been working with PRIME

PRIME Media Group General Manager Operations, Shane Wood said, “MediaHub is the clear leader in the provision of television playout managed services and we are certain of MediaHub’s ability to provide outstanding continuity of service.”

Under the new arrangement parallel playout operations will begin by the 1st

for a number of years, seeking to leverage new broadcast technologies which would enhance PRIME’s broadcast operations. We welcome PRIME to MediaHub and look forward to delivering them benefits from our multi-client broadcast facility including playout, streaming, connectivity, MCR and archive services utilising the latest and most innovative technologies.”

Visit www.mediahubaustralia.com.au and www.primemedia.com.au

Nine Network Selects Intelsat to Distribute Domestic TV Programming INTELSAT HAS ANNOUNCED a contract with Nine Network Australia

next decade.

to distribute programming to the company’s six domestic television

“Our globalised network allows us to meet NNA’s needs today and to

stations as well as provide global satellite and fibre connectivity using the

increase our level of support if the network expands over time to meet

IntelsatOne terrestrial network to bring news content and special events

the demands of multi-platform coverage,” said Terry Bleakley, Regional

from around the world to Australia for its network affiliates.

Vice President, Asia Pacific Sales, Intelsat. “NNA will also benefit from

Intelsat is initially providing services via the Australia/New Zealand Ku-

Intelsat’s global coverage for international contribution and distribution

Band beam on Intelsat 19 for the network’s broadcasting requirement.

Under the agreement, Intelsat’s network support will extend well into the

requirements.”

Foxtel Launches NBN services FOXTEL HAS ANNOUNCED it has begun offering services on the NBN network to fibre to the premise (FTTP) serviceable customers. The move marks Foxtel’s initial push to offer NBN services to new and current subscribers, which will accelerate in the coming months.

NBN services will strengthen Foxtel’s commitment to deliver high quality, reliable streaming of its internet delivered services across iQ3, Foxtel Go, Foxtel’s on demand programming and other popular video steaming, social media and gaming applications.

CONTENT DELIVERY

Oz National Broadband Network Picks FTTdp Over Legacy HFC AUSTRALIA’S NBNCO HAS CONFIRMED it will deploy Fibre-to-theDistribution-Point (FTTdp), also known as Fibre-to-the-curb, across a potential footprint of up to 700,000 premises across the country.

The company stated FTTdp would be considered for deployment to select premises that had previously been ear-marked for either Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) or Hybrid-Fibre Coaxial (HFC) in areas served solely by the Optus HFC network.

Andrew Lorken, Executive Director of Broadband said, “With today’s launch on the NBN network, we’re taking our broadband service to the next level.

When our customers couple Foxtel’s premium movies, TV shows and sport with our unlimited broadband bundles they will receive their content on broadband that is purpose built for entertainment. We think this truly differentiates Foxtel from other broadband providers in an increasingly competitive market and we aim to be the broadband supplier of choice for those customers seeking a combination of the highest quality internet access and the best content.”

NBN Chief Network Engineering Officer, Peter Ryan, said, “We have tested FTTdp and we’re confident we can deploy the technology in areas where it makes better sense from a customer experience, deployment efficiency and cost perspective. This includes premises in the FTTN footprint that have too high a cost per premises, and premises served solely by the legacy Optus HFC footprint that are yet to be made ready.

Foxtel is now offering its best ever value range of broadband, TV and home phone bundles, with access to the NBN network for FTTP serviceable customers, and via ADSL connections.

“HFC remains a highly valued part of our MTM deployment, however in balancing the requirements to convert Optus’s current network architecture to be NBN-ready, and the opportunity to introduce FTTdp, makes the new technology compelling in these selected areas.”

New customers can currently sign up to an unlimited broadband, home phone and TV bundle, with the Entertainment pack, from as little as $111 per month on a 24 month plan. Existing Foxtel TV subscribers can add an unlimited broadband bundle to a non-Platinum HD pack from only $85 extra per month on a 24 month plan, or only $75 extra per month on a 24 month plan when added to a Platinum HD pack.

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Visit www.intelsat.com

“The move to FTTdp was outlined in the 2017 Corporate Plan where we stated NBN’s overall HFC footprint would be between 2.5 and 3.2 million by 2020, with more premises being served by FTTN, Fibre-to-the-Building and FTTdp.

Internet Australia has applauded the announcement.

“It has long been known that much of Australia’s HCF (Pay-TV) cabling has not been well maintained and would not be fit-for-purpose,” commented IA CEO, Laurie Patton.

Foxtel also confirmed that its ADSL broadband bundles are ‘NBN from Foxtel Ready’, meaning current and new customers on Foxtel ADSL broadband plans today will be able to easily switch their service to an NBN from Foxtel service, without needing to re-contract, once the NBN from Foxtel service becomes available at their home.

“In recent weeks it has been revealed that only about a third of the premises where the FTTN (copper) network has been built have actually been connected. It is to be hoped this is the beginning of the industry’s long desired return to building a 21st century broadband network. The next stage needs to be abandoning the ageing Telstra copper in favour of an all-fibre rollout, except in the remote areas where fixed wireless or satellite is the only answer.”

Visit www.foxtel.com.au

Visit www.nbnco.com.au

CONTENT DELIVERY

Freeview FV – Metadata Moves Mobile FREEVIEW AUSTRALIA’S NEW MOBILE APP, FREEVIEW FV, allows Australian viewers to watch live streaming of 16 TV channels and catch-up content from the free to air networks.

Live-streaming channels available at launch include: ABC, SBS, Seven, Channel 9, TEN, ONE, ABC2/ABC KIDS, ABC ME, ABC News 24, 7TWO, 7Mate, 7Flix, Racing.com, 9Gem, 9Go! and 9Life. More live channels will be added as they become available.

plays out the VOD and live streaming content from Freeview members’ own hosting platforms.

According to Freeview’s Ben Rowe, “I guess you could say that it's driven by metadata that we receive from all the broadcasters, and it's an aggregator

Consumers also have access to catch-up content from all the free-to-air networks including SBS On Demand, ABC iview, PLUS7, 9Now, and tenplay.

Developed by Freeview, the new Freeview FV app is available on iOS iPhone, iPad, and Android phones. In addition to live streaming and catchup, the Freeview FV app offers other features including: • Browse and search all free-to-air programs.

• Free-to-air TV guide.

• Favourites and reminders functions.

• Recommendations.

• For live sport, Freeview FV mirrors the networks’ sporting rights agreements.

“The broadcasters all had live streams, but all in their own individual apps.

So, if you wanted to watch or change between different broadcasters, you had to actually change to a different app and then look for what's on that broadcaster's streams and then if there was nothing there you'd have to go to a different app and just jump between apps. So, we're essentially putting together one app which just brings all that together in one place. Just one click and you can get access to all the channels.

“Plus, on top of that, we also wanted to bring in features like search and browse so that the user could find content across all the broadcasters in one place and they could also see what's been recommended by all the broadcasters to watch on TV and what's recommended in catch up, plus the other features like setting reminders for your free to air TV on your mobile, and also you can favourite your shows so that you can see exactly when all your favourite shows are available live and in catch up.”

To bring the application market Freeview turned to Australian developer Switch Media whose experience includes building platforms for ABC iView, SBS TV and the TEN Network.

According to Switch Media Broadcast Director, Bruce Hume, “We started a conversation with Freeview, around a year ago or so now, and went through a proof-of-concept phase with them where we gave them a lightweight version of the concept and they were able to work with the various broadcasters - the members of Freeview - to come to agreement on what Freeview FV might look like.

“We went through that process and used much of own existing technology which is part of our Switch Medial master app product set. We then built that out into iPhone and iPad apps. It’s all Australian built here locally in Pyrmont.

We wrote all the code here locally and it’s our data centre that hosts it here in Sydney as well.

“We were able to just take care of the whole thing ourselves and integrated very little, one or two bits and pieces of SDK throughout the app, but they make up only a very, very small part of it. So, all the heavy lifting that’s done in video playback, and in the TV guide, is stuff that we’ve built and reused over the years. We just custom skin ‘Freeview FV’ over the top.”

METADATA-DRIVEN PLAYOUT Rather than reinvent the wheel or try and duplicate streaming workflows already employed by Freeview-member broadcasters, the Freeview FV mobile app uses metadata created by the individual broadcasters and

so it's like it's a gateway to providing access to all that free to air – that free content that's out there, all in one place so you can search, browse, find content across all the different broadcasters in one app.”

“There’s no media in this at all for us,” says Switch Media’s Bruce Hume.

“Obviously, we’re not hosting any of the content. We’re creating some of the content, but we’re not hosting it. We’re pointing back to the various networks livestreams, that comes out of 7, 9, 10, ABC and SBS. “There’s a workflow that happens. Content is created on the network side.

That’s then updated in Gracenote. We would then go and clean up that metadata and put it into standard format that everyone complies to in Australia. We all then pull that content from Gracenote and we ingest that into the media manager which then drives this app. So, interestingly enough, it’s the same as our other apps that we’ve worked with – Channel 10, Foxtel and the like. We ingest that metadata into our platform, that then goes and drives the apps. The upstream system here is Gracenote and each of the networks interface with that.”

“The metadata is all fairly standard so there are no major problems there,” says Ben Rowe. “I guess the main challenge is bringing all that data together from five different parties and making it all align and work seamlessly as a whole. Live streaming is nothing too new. Most of them have been doing it now for at least 8-12 months. I guess you could say the challenge is you've got five different broadcasters, all who do things the same but a little bit different and it's just sort of aligning that so that it's all in one aggregated format.”

In addition to tracking live streams and new VOD content, the application also delivers a localised version of network based on either GPS data from the user’s mobile device or from the submission of a postcode. For those viewers wanting to access Nine Network content, there is also the requirement to create a 9Now user account and log into that before viewing that network’s content.

“Needless to say there will definitely be changes over time,” says Freeview’s Ben Rowe, “but it's brand new at the moment so we need to get people used to it, get used to the experience and enjoy using it, and then we'll look at enhancing it sometime in the future. When we first started this, Apple hadn't released the iPhone 7 or IOS 10 and we've got it on that platform. It's working and well supported. If there's new versions of Android and IOS, then absolutely it will be on them.”

The mobile app can be downloaded through the App Store or Google Play.

Freeview FV will also be able to mirror to Apple TV using AirPlay.

Visit www.switch.tv and www.freeview.com.au

CONTENT DELIVERY

According to Freeview Australia’s Head of Technical Development, Ben Rowe, “The initial brief was to build an aggregated live streaming mobile application which brings together all the free-to-air broadcasters’ live streams in one place and create an experience essentially like a television.

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CONTENT DELIVERY

DVB-T/T2: Monitoring the Situation Simen Frostad, Chairman, Bridge Technologies WITH DVB-T2 HAVING BEEN TRIALLED, adopted or deployed in over 150 countries around the world, there seems little doubt that it’s likely to become pervasive. That’s no surprise, as its benefits and advantages are demonstrably compelling. Getting to where we are, however, hasn’t been easy in the face of political resistance and financial pressures – and there are still countries who have yet to make the commitment.

DVB-T/T2 presents broadcasters with both opportunities and challenges.

The complexity of services that can be offered, for example, can give rise to sophisticated, imaginative consumer offerings, and thus create the opportunity for competitive differentiation and advantage.

Managing that complexity can, inevitably, bring with it challenges – not least in managing and optimising Quality of Service, something that is not made easier by what can sometimes look like a progressive de-skilling of the industry.

It goes without saying that good planning and implementation of the infrastructure and workflows for tackling this complexity have direct benefits for service quality, results in less subscriber churn, and delivers a more successful business. This is particularly true for the network monitoring that is a fundamental element of QoS (Quality of Service).

An efficient and comprehensive monitoring operation is the only way a service provider can be sure of delivering high standards of service and resolving problems quickly and cost-effectively. This means choosing the right monitoring technology, but it also means using it in the right way, so that engineering and maintenance staff understand how to make the best use of the tools at their disposal.

VB252 dual input DVB-T/T2 input interface module, it can enable monitoring of up to 50 IP multicasts, thus monitoring IP network distribution together with DVB-T/T2 transmissions. It is even possible to equip the monitoring chassis with a VB272 satellite interface module,

Dispersed Networks A highly dispersed network will always present challenges – and not all of these can be addressed by ‘fixed install’ monitoring solutions. There is also a real need for a monitoring solution that a network engineer can take with him on the road – and it was that thinking that led us to introduce Nomad at IBC this year. Truly portable, it recognises the increasingly mobile nature of the network engineer. And yet, it delivers all the functionality of the VB252 probe.

I talked earlier about what sometimes seems like the de-skilling of the broadcast industry – at least so far as network management is concerned.

Broadcast operators today are struggling, like so many other technical organisations, to acquire and hold on to skilled engineering personnel.

Not Difficult Network monitoring isn’t so very hard to do from the air-conditioned security of an operations centre. If only that were the only place where monitoring was necessary. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Take Scandinavia for example. It’s a collection of countries that are characterised by a terrain – not to mention the climate – that provide significant challenges, and where many consumers are geographically remote from the main centres of population. Sound familiar?

In many locations, Scandinavia features high mountains and deep valleys, and for most of the year, the weather means they are wholly inaccessible. Even in the summer months, access via helicopter is the only feasible way of reaching them.

Yet, if those remote populations are to be reachable by broadcasters, appropriate infrastructure provision needs to be made. The Tryvann transmission tower located on the outskirts of Oslo is one of the more convenient – but still far from easy to reach. There are towers that can take two days to reach via land.

The implication of this, of course – and it is at least as applicable to remote regions that are more characterised by excesses of sunshine than excesses of snow – is that equipment installed in such facilities needs to be rugged and reliable if regular maintenance visits are to be avoided. Mostly, it needs to be capable of operating in extremes of temperature.

CONTENT DELIVERY

A key design consideration, especially in environments that are subject to very high temperatures, and where the equipment is installed in what is often a tightly confined space, is low power consumption, which results in lower operating temperatures. This, of course, maximises the reliability of electronic components.

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Probes are a case in point. In the optimum DVB-T/T2 infrastructure, probes are deployed throughout the network in order to monitor network performance and, especially, reliability.

Take the Bridge Technologies VB120 Broadcast Probe. Custom-designed and built to telco-grade standards for maximum reliability and minimum maintenance, it consumes less than 12W of power. The VB120 offers costeffective and powerful monitoring in any broadcast operation involving most commonly available signal formats, including IP unicasts and multicasts, OTT/ ABR streams as well as a whole range of RF formats. Combining it with the

A generic DVB-T/T2 system diagram with monitoring points identified.

Skilled engineers are in demand, and this drives costs up as well as increasing the risk of losing them to the competition. It is not uncommon to have to re-train the whole networks operations centre on an annual basis because of key resources having been promoted upwards internally or having left the organisation altogether. That challenge is only exacerbated when new technologies such as DVB-T/T2 come into play.

That scenario lies behind our design approach to Nomad. Yes, it is powerful and highly capable – but, in line with Bridge Technologies’ product design philosophy, it makes the complex, simple. The user does not need in-depth understanding of how IP networks operate in order to derive substantial benefit from it. The Nomad user interface is via our MediaWindow visualisation technology, which allows complex structures and data to be readily understood by non-expert users. MediaWindow is implemented across Bridge’s complete range of probes, meaning for example, that an engineer who is familiar with the VB252 will feel very much at ease with Nomad.

Deploying complex DVB-T/T2 networks, and ensuring minimum operational problems, is certainly challenging, and never more so than in difficult, demanding geographies – but it doesn’t have to be hard. The necessary technologies and tools are out there.

Visit www.bridgetech.tv

CONTENT DELIVERY

Planet of the Apps 2016 HAS PROVED TO BE THE YEAR FOR traditional media companies to cement their presence on non-traditional delivery platforms.

The new tenplay App for Apple TV gives Australian viewers have new way to access their favourite shows from TEN, ELEVEN and ONE on-demand. Created to utilise the fourth-generation Apple TV, it was developed after months of extensive research among consumers. Users are engaged further through unique show trivia facts appearing while videos load.

Other new features include next episode auto play and a ‘continue watching’ function.

they want when watching premium content. It also provides Nine and their advertisers the rich data they expect from digital. Brightcove have been partnered with Nine for over five years and we’re thrilled that they continue to choose Brightcove as their online video platform.”

9Now enables all Australians to live stream and catch up on all their favourite programs via the web, iOS, Android, Telstra TV, HBBTV, Apple TV and now Chromecast.

Television New Zealand, meanwhile, recently partnered with Accedo, the video experience developer, for the launch of a Windows 10 application on Xbox One.

Over the past year, TEN says the numbers of unique visitors to tenplay grew 14% to more than 24 million and the number of video segment views jumped 26% to more than 223 million. In October, tenplay achieved a record 33 million video segment views in just one month.

TVNZ On Demand now offers viewers across New Zealand access to a range of video on demand (VOD) and catch-up content, including comedy, drama, sports, films, and children’s programming, as well as international and local content. The service is supported by ad-based VOD, therefore free to viewers with a value-add for advertisers in the region.

SBS recently upgraded its SBS On Demand app for iPhone and iPad, offering users access to over 900 movies, 50 dramas, and 200 documentaries, all completely free.

The application is already available on PlayStation 3 and 4, iOS, Android, Web, Samsung Connected TVs, and HbbTV settop-boxes via Freeview Plus.

SBS On Demand features over 6000 hours of programs from across the globe. Audiences can also catch up on their favourite SBS programs like ‘Insight’ and ‘Dateline’, and immerse themselves in movies – many of which are available in Australia only on SBS On Demand.

The TVNZ launch follows a partnership between Accedo and Telstra to support the development of the Telstra TV+ mobile app on iOS and Android.

Telstra TV+ allows customers to search over 25,000 movies and TV shows through Stan, Presto and BigPond Movies, redeem offers and acts as a remote control for Telstra’s Roku powered streaming device, Telstra TV. Having worked with Telstra for a number of years, including helping to launch its Telstra TV device last year, Accedo continues to work closely with Telstra on new customer experience projects.

David Gwynne, Channel Manager, SBS On Demand, said, “The team at SBS is continuously looking for new ways to innovate and enhance SBS On Demand’s functionality and we are thrilled to bring an even better viewing experience to iPhone and iPad users.”

Viewers can now download the upgraded SBS On Demand app for iPhone and iPad on the Apple App Store.

The new entry level pricing is set to launch in December and centres on a ‘bring your own device’ and ‘bring your own bandwidth’ model with IP-delivered entertainment brought to connected devices, such as a smart TV or laptop.

Freeview FV screenshots.

Niamh Collins, General Manager of Product and Digital Operations at Nine, said the move would help expand 9Now’s digital reach, beyond its existing subscriber base of 1.9 million Australians, by tapping into the user base of Google’s Chromecast products.

“9Now already has 1.9 miIlion subscribers but we are excited that the Chromecast launch will extend the footprint of service,” Ms Collins said. “We have been working hard to develop a best-in-class Chromecast experience.

As the first Australian commercial free-to-air broadcaster to implement Chromecast, Nine is providing consumers with greater choice to access excellent home-grown Australian content on 9Now.” As part of the launch Nine selected Brightcove as its technology partner, with the Brightcove Once product able to integrate content and ads seamlessly into the video stream to deliver a superior playback experience while minimising buffering or disruptions.

Brightcove Vice President of Australia and New Zealand, Mark Stanton, said the company was excited to build on its partnership with 9Now. “Brightcove’s cloud ad insertion technology lets Nine deliver a superior user experience across more devices,” Mr Stanton said.

“This technology gives Nine’s audience the broadcast quality experience

As part of the new IP offering, Foxtel will create five different entry level tiers to match viewers’ interests including two options for drama plus one option for Lifestyle, one for Documentary and one for Kids. Beyond this, customers will also be able to take the Sports tier and the Movies tier.

Subscribers will have access to all linear channels in the tier along with all of the on-demand, catch up and library content available to that tier plus mobile access via Foxtel Go. As part of its new delivery options, Foxtel also confirmed that it is developing a new low cost ‘puck’ to access its IP delivered content. When it launches in 2017 it will have a “tremendous user interface with sophisticated search and recommendation functionality”.

“It is obvious that IP streaming services with their lower cost and contemporary interface are attractive to many customers but will not be attractive to all,” said Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh. “As our EPL customers will attest, Australia’s broadband infrastructure is not suited to delivering traditional premium quality of the Foxtel iQ offering.”

Alongside the low-cost devices, Tonagh says Foxtel will continue to develop and enhance the iQ set-top boxes.

CONTENT DELIVERY

Nine recently became the first Australian commercial free-to-air TV network to make its live streaming and on-demand service, 9Now, available on Google’s media streaming device, Chromecast.

At the recent 2016 ASTRA conference, Foxtel announced a new approach to pricing and packaging for its IP-delivered subscription TV service, Foxtel Play

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CLASSIFIEDS + EVENTS

ASIA

+ANZ

C+T AUSTRALIA-NEW ZEALAND FEATURES + DEADLINES 2017 ISSUE

EDITORIAL + AD DEADLINES

February

Mar-April

May-June

July-Aug

Sept-Oct

Nov-Dec

Editorial Submissions: 23-01-17 Ad Bookings:

30-01-17

Ad Artwork:

06-02-17

Editorial Submissions: 15-03-17 Ad Bookings:

22-03-17

Ad Artwork:

31-03-17

Editorial Submissions: 09-05-17 Ad Bookings:

16-05-17

Ad Artwork:

31-05-17

Editorial Submissions: 16-06-17 Ad Bookings:

23-06-17

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23-10-17

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01-11-17

PUBLICATION DATE

PRODUCT ROUND-UP

SHOW COVERAGE

2nd Week February

+ Broadband & HbbTV + Multi-screen Delivery + Social Media + Studio/Facilities Directory

+ Review: CES 2017

1st Week April

+ Digital Asset Management Solutions + Content Delivery – RF, Fibre, Wireless and more.

+ Preview: NABshow17 (April 22-27, Las Vegas)

1st Week June

+S ports Production Solutions +D rones & UAVs +O TT/IPTV/VOD Solutions

+R eview: NABshow17

1st Week July

+4 K Acquisition & Delivery Solutions + I P-based Production +C ontent Security

+P review: SMPTE Australia 2017 (July18-21. Sydney)

1st Week September

+ ENG/Newsroom Systems + Compression, Encoding, Transcoding Solutions + Radio Technology

+P review: IBC Amsterdam (Sept 15-19) +P review: National Radio Conference (13-14 October, Melbourne)

2nd Week November

+C hannel-in-a-Box Solutions +C able & Satellite Delivery +E ducation & Training

C+T ASIA FEATURES + DEADLINES 2017 ISSUE

EDITORIAL + AD DEADLINES

Mar-April

Editorial Submissions: 06-02-17

May-June

Aug-Sept

Oct-Nov

Ad Bookings:

13-02-17

Ad Artwork:

20-02-17

Editorial Submissions: 10-04-17 Ad Bookings:

10-04-17

Ad Artwork:

17-04-17

Editorial Submissions: 25-07-17 Ad Bookings:

01-08-17

Ad Artwork:

08-08-17

Editorial Submissions: 29-09-17 Ad Bookings:

02-10-17

Ad Artwork:

09-10-17

PUBLICATION DATE

PRODUCT ROUND-UP

4th Week February

+ HDTV & Beyond + Broadband & HbbTV + Cloud Technologies + Digital Asset Management Solutions + Content Delivery – RF, Fibre, Wireless and more.

+ Preview: ABU Digital Broadcast Symposium (March 6-9, Kuala Lumpur) + Preview: NABshow17 (April 22-27, Las Vegas)

2nd Week May

+ Channel-in-a-Box Solutions + OTT/IPTV/VOD Solutions + Sports Production Solutions + Social Media

+P review: BroadcastAsia/ CommunicAsia 2017 (May 23-25, Singapore)

3rd Week August

+ Loudness Solutions + Cloud Solutions + Content Security + Compression, Encoding, Transcoding Solutions

+P review: BIRTV (Beijing, China) +P review: IBC Amsterdam (Sept 15-19)

3rd Week October

+ Cable & Satellite Delivery + Digital Asset Management Solutions + OTT/IPTV/HbbTV Solutions + Multi-screen Delivery

+P review: CASBAA (Cable& Satellite Broadcasting Assoc of Asia) + Preview:

Broadcast Indonesia (Oct 25-27)

Advertiser Index PUBLISHING ADVERTISING CONTACTS PUBLISHING ++ ADVERTISING CONTACTS Brainstorm……………………………….31 Advanced Broadcast Solutions….5

PUBLISHER: PHIL SANDBERG ABU Digital papers@broadcastpapers.com +61 (0)414 671 811 or +61-2-9211 8205.

CLASSIFIEDS + EVENTS

Symposium............... IBC

64

Advertiser Index AJA…………………………………………..…….…….. 3 Amber Technology………………….…… 41 ARRI……………………………………....……….. 23 Blackmagic Design……………………….. 5 Calrec…………………………………….……..…. 51 CASBAA………………………………………..…. I B C

SHOW COVERAGE

Calrec………………………………..39

EMC………………………………………..OBC

CASBAA…………………………………..19

Ideal Systems………………………………3

For artwork specifications ADVERTISING ADAM BUICK CO-FOUNDER:MANAGER: LUCY SALMON Dejero……………………………………13 HSE GmbH Asia Pacific……………4 For artwork specifications visit visit adam@broadcastpapers.com production@broadcastpapers.com DVB Asia…………………………………..33 LiveU……………………………………….9 www.content-technology.com www.content-technology.com or +61 (0)413 007 144 +61-2-9211 8205.

Dejero……………………………………….…….. 27 EMC………………………………………..…..….. 47 Fujinon Fijifilm ………………..…..….. 60-63 IHSE GmbH Asia Pacific…..…..…..…..….. 8 IRT Communications…..…..…..…..…..…..12 Jands …………………………………….…..…..… 49 Lawo..………………………………………..…..… 29 Lumina Broadcast Systems ………… 13

Magna Systems & Engineering……… 9 Media Proxy…………………………….….…. 45 Miller Camera Support…………….…… 25 Netia………………………………………..……… 19 On Air Solutions………………………. 10,59 Pacific Live Media……………….…… 37,55 Professional Audio & Television…OBC Quantum………………………………………… IFC

Redwood’s Technology Solutions….39 Riedel………………………………………………. 33 Rohde & Schwarz………………………… 57 Ross Video……………………………………… 15 Studiotech Australia……………….. 17, 21 Snell Advanced Media..…………..….. 35 Sportscasting Expo…………………..….. 31 Techtel……………………………….….………… 7