Content + Technology ANZ November-December 2017

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VOLUME 14 ISSUE 6 NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2017

MEDIA + PRODUCTION + MANAGEMENT + DELIVERY

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REGULARS 02 EDITOR’S WELCOME

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INDUSTRY FOCUS

03 NEWS Foxtel Launches ‘Now’ device, Amazon Prime Video Down Under, Deluxe’s Iloura Returns to Game of Thrones, People Moves.

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FEATURES 12 TAKING STOCK Amber Technology Marks 30 Years.

14 ACQUISITION New Zealand

Cinematography Awards, Video-Over-IP with Bird Dog, Michael Latham Shoots Casting Jonbenet with ARRI.

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18 SPORTSCASTING New Zealand Racing Board Embraces Remote Production, The Gold Coast Diaries – Chapter 7, Automating Sports Audio Mixing.

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36 AUDIO Mediacorp Joins RƎLAY Team for Virtual Mixing, Radio Free Asia Closes Phnom Penh Bureau, Radio Tech at IBC.

40 RADIO Engineering Award - Perfect

Timing for Southern Cross Austereo, MediaWorks NZ to Roll-Out LAWO with PAT.

43 CONTENT DELIVERY 20 Years for

Mediaware, ABC Committed to Broadcast, New Delivery Tech.

NEWS OPERATIONS Sky News CEO Angelos Frangopoulos talks about the new Sky News Business studio and News Corporation’s Business Hub.

26 POST-PRODUCTION NZ’s Department

of Post Goes HDR, the State of Animation, the latest from Avid.

32 MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Aspera Wrangles

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EDITOR’S WELCOME

The Shift in Viewing

By Phil Sandberg

Smartphone viewing also continues to gain ground; approximately 70% of consumers now watch videos on a smartphone – double the amount from 2012 – making up a fifth of total TV and video viewing.

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With the user experience becoming ever more fragmented, the report says 6 in 10 consumers now rank content discovery as “very important” when subscribing to a new service, while 70% want "universal search for all TV and video".

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However, close to 60% of viewers now prefer on-demand viewing over scheduled linear TV viewing, an increase of around 50% since 2010. The average number of used on-demand services has increased from 1.6 in 2012 to 3.8 services in 2017 per person; 2 in 5 consumers already pay for on-demand TV and video services today and nearly a third (32%) say they will increase their on-demand spending in the next 6-12 months.

As those who have spent too much time scrawling through endless carousels of options will tell you, consumers might have more access to TV and video services than ever before, but the average time spent on searching for content is increasing - to almost one hour per day - an increase of 13% since last year. In fact, 1 in 8 consumers believe that they will get lost in the vast amount of available content in the future.

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There has also been growth in the time spent watching TV and video content – an all-time high of 30 hours a week (that’s a full-time job in some countries – mostly the semi-socialist, European countries). That 30 hours includes active viewing of scheduled linear TV, live and on-demand internet services, downloaded and recorded content, as well as DVD and Blu-ray.

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According to Ericsson’s eighth annual ConsumerLab TV and Media report, the growth of on-demand viewing will continue to soar through to 2020, making up almost half of total viewing. In addition, 50% of all TV and video viewing will take place on a mobile screen (tablets, smartphones and laptops), an increase of 85% since 2010, with the smartphone alone accounting for almost one quarter (an increase of nearly 160% since 2010). Meanwhile, VR will be on the road to becoming mainstream, with 1 in 3 consumers becoming VR users by 2020.

Of course, it should be no surprise the report found that it is 16-19-yearolds who watch the most content each week (33 hours), an increase of almost 10 hours a week since 2010. However, more than half of this demographic spend their time watching content on-demand, with more than 60% of their TV and video viewing hours spent on a mobile device screen.

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CHANGES IN MEDIA CONSUMPTION HABITS continue apace with appointment television going the way of the Betamax, and the DVD and PVR on shaky ground.

That last item might be a challenge, not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of vested financial interests. For example, It’s doubtful Netflix would work with iFlix to build a universal “VOD EPG", but stranger things have happened.

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

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

Ideal Systems Buys IPK Broadcast Systems IDEAL SYSTEMS HAS ANNOUNCED it has acquired Singapore based IPK Broadcast Systems, a systems integrator, distributor and supplier of broadcast, audio-visual and communications equipment. The acquisition will see the staff and daily operations of IPK move to Ideal Systems’ new larger Singapore offices by the 1st of November.

Established in 1982, IPK Broadcast Systems has built up a successful business and reputation providing technology solutions for the radio, television and multimedia industries in the ASEAN region. After the move in November, Peter Tang and Tan Kim Poh, who have run IPK since 1999, will remain for a period of time as advisors to Ideal Systems, ensuring a smooth transition of IPK’s business and to ensure there is no disconnect or disruption to the sales, marketing and support services for IPK’s existing customers, while key IPK staff will join the Ideal team in Singapore.

“This is a highly strategic deal for Ideal Systems in South East Asia as it consolidates our position as the leading Broadcast Systems integrator in Singapore while creating value by catalysing the growth of our new commercial A/V division across the region. We gain some fantastic new experienced staff

right when we need them, and also gain access to a number of new technologies which will allow us to serve existing customers better and provides us with some new products, customers, and services,” said Fintan McKiernan, CEO of Ideal Systems South East Asia.

[L-R] Peter Tang, IPK; Fintan Mc Kiernan, Ideal Systems; Kim Poh Tan, IPK. “We have enjoyed running IPK and keeping it profitable and debt-free over the years. We’re delighted that Ideal Systems are incorporating it into their business. With fourteen offices across Asia, Ideal’s larger regional reach will provide stronger support for our existing customers, and their better economies of scale will provide more opportunities to grow the business further,” added Peter Tang, MD of IPK Broadcast Systems.

Visit http://idealsys.com and www.ipk-broadcast.com.sg

EXPERIENCE MORE Ga me

SES Video Expands APAC Team

TWO NEW SENIOR APPOINTMENTS will bolster SES Video’s growth strategy and enhance support for the evolving needs of video and media customers in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific video market.

In an announcement by SES, SES Video has welcomed to the fold experienced industry professionals Yew Weng Soo as Vice President, Sales & Market Development and John Huddle as Director, Market Development, for Asia-Pacific.

Yew Weng Soo brings more than 25 years of industry experience to his new role at SES Video, driving business strategy, commercial activities, and the creation of new, value-added solutions for customers in Asia-Pacific. Yew

previously helmed media service provider Globecast’s Asia business, where he assumed responsibility for setting its strategic direction and managing business development. He has held a range of senior sales, marketing and business roles with satellite operators Intelsat and Loral CyberStar, and communications solutions provider Verestar.

John Huddle is tasked with developing new business opportunities across the region and driving strategic relationships and ventures with key stakeholders, including customers, governments, regulatory bodies, vendors and service providers. In a career spanning 15 years, Huddle has led regional market development and driven customer engagement strategy for satellite operator Intelsat and mobile satellite communications company Thuraya.

Visit www.ses.com

New Solutions from AJA for HDR, Multi-Channel Recording, and Thunderbolt™ 3 Stay on the leading edge with this year’s IBC line up from the company that defines quality, reliability and support.

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HDR Playback: Ki Pro® Ultra Plus for HDR 10 and HLG. Mini-Converters: Hi5-4K-Plus and HA5-4K for HDR 10 display and analysis to and from HDMI.

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Powerful Tools for HDR

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NEWS + PEOPLE Foxtel Launches ‘Foxtel Now’ Set-Top Box FOXTEL HAS UNVEILED ITS MUCH-ANTICIPATED puck device, the Foxtel Now box, a simple plug-and-play device that provides access to Foxtel Now in HD, along with free-to-air channels via a built-in free-to-air tuner, and access to SVOD apps such as Stan, as well as free-to-air streaming apps, including ABC iview, PLUS7 and tenplay.

The box features built-in Chromecast functionality allowing viewers to ‘cast’ movies, music and photos from Android or iOS mobile devices, PCs or Macs straight to their TV. The Foxtel Now box offers customers access to a world of content, games, music and apps from the Google Play store as well as the ability to stream at 4K quality with compatible apps.

Inputs and outputs include an RF in, ethernet, S/PDIF for audio, USB port and HDMI out. The unit’s remote-control unit comes with in-built microphone for future voice-activation features.

The Android-based Now Box is capable of running apps from the Google Play store, but those available through the device will be “curated” by Foxtel to prevent the use of apps which might allow access to pirated content. Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh says the company is committed to keeping the Box as an open platform and, while Australian streaming service STAN is part of the initial offering, Tonagh says the company is still negotiating with Netflix as to its participation.

Tonagh said, “For the first time, Australians can watch Foxtel on their TV with a Foxtel-designed set top box that is completely powered by the internet, offering a no lock-in contract, affordable and flexible way to see Foxtel’s exclusive content both locally produced and from the world’s best entertainment brands.

Self-installation is easy, removing the need for a technician. Simply bring the box home and sign up to Foxtel Now to start watching.”

Foxtel Now is Foxtel’s SVOD service allowing viewers to stream Foxtel in HD, live and on demand. There are five entry-level packs to match viewers’ interests including Drama and Pop packs priced at AUD$15 per month each or $25 for both. Lifestyle, Docos and Kids packs are available at $10 per month each. Foxtel Now’s Movies pack is available for $20 per month in addition to an entry level pack and the Sports pack is available for an extra $29 per month.

Foxtel Now box specifications include: • Video – 4KP60 UHD 10-bit HEVC (SD or HD, up to 1920 x 1080, 4K P50/60 UHD up to 3840 x 2160).

• Output – Video – HDMI Tx 2.0 with HDCP2.2, Audio – S/PDIF. • Storage – 8GB System flash (NAND).

• Memory – 2GB RAM DDR4 RAM. • Interfaces – DVB-T, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.1, 802.11 ac WiFi 2.4Ghz / 5Ghz. • Weight – 0.270kg.

• Dimensions – 104 (bottom) x 83 (top) x 72 (height) mm.

Remote control specs include: • Communications Channels - Infrared, Bluetooth.

• Dimensions - 145 x 44 x 14mm.

• Interfaces - 13 Keys – Power, Mute, D-pad (up/down/left/right/OK), Back, Home, play/pause, Search, Volume up, Volume down.

• Accessories - 2 x AAA batteries System requirements: • An internet connection is required to access Foxtel Now, the Google Play Store and to set up and use the Foxtel Now box.

• A Foxtel Now account is required to set up and access the box and a Foxtel Now subscription is required to watch Foxtel content.

• A Google account is required to download apps from the Google Play Store.

• Free-to-air channel viewing requires a TV aerial to be connected to the Foxtel Now box.

Consumers can purchase the Foxtel Now box for AUD$99 from Foxtel at www. foxtelnow.com.au or via Foxtel’s eBay store. It will also be available via www. kogan.com, as well as other outlets in the lead up to Christmas.

Visit www.foxtelnow.com.au

Amazon Prime Down Under on Xbox One, PlayStation AMAZON HAS ANNOUNCED that its Prime Video app is available for download through the Xbox Store in Australia, with subscribers able to enjoy streaming TV shows and movies on Microsoft’s Xbox and the Xbox One family of devices, including the Xbox One X.

phones and tablets, select LG and Samsung smart TVs and Android TV by Sony. Amazon Prime Video members can also download movies and TV shows for offline viewing on mobile devices at no additional cost.

The announcement follows September’s Amazon Prime Video launch on the PlayStation Store in Australia, allowing access via Sony Entertainment’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

Customers in Australia are being offered an introductory sign-up price of US$2.99 per month for the first six months and US$5.99 thereafter, starting with a free seven-day trial.

The service is also available on connected devices such as Android and iOS

Visit www.primevideo.com

NEWS + PEOPLE

Streamline your broadcast workflow

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Blackmagic Video Assist 4K adds professional monitoring, scopes, and HD and Ultra HD recording to any camera!

Now it’s easy to add professional monitoring and scopes, along with HD and Ultra HD recording to any SDI or HDMI camera! Blackmagic Video Assist 4K has a large super bright 7 inch monitor so you can see your shot clearly, making it easier to frame and get perfect focus! Featuring two high speed SD card recorders that save HD and Ultra HD video as 10-bit 4:2:2 ProRes or DNxHD files, you get superior quality than what most cameras can record.

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The super bright 7 inch screen is bigger than the tiny displays found on most cameras! You get video monitoring and a highly accurate vector scope, RGB parade, waveform monitor, and histogram. With support for up to six 3D LUTs, focus assist, exposure tools with false color overlays and more, you’ll always get perfect looking shots!

Blackmagic Video Assist 4K includes HDMI and 6G-SDI inputs so you can record from virtually any camera or DSLR. The HDMI and SDI video outputs let you view shots on larger screens or even projectors! You also get a built in speaker, headphone jack, LANC, 12V power and two LP-E6 battery slots for non stop power!

Non-Stop HD and Ultra HD Recording Now you can bypass the lossy compression used on most DSLR and video cameras! With 2 high speed UHS-II recorders that use commonly available SD cards, you’ll never miss a shot because when one card is full, recording automatically continues onto the next! You get 10-bit 4:2:2 ProRes or DNxHD files that work with all editing soft ware.

Learn more at www.blackmagicdesign.com/au

Get better quality sound recording than your camera! Blackmagic Video Assist 4K features two mini XLR inputs with 48V of phantom power and an extremely low noise floor of -128dBV so you can attach professional microphones. Audio is embedded in the same file with the video, so you don’t have to worry about syncing separate files!

Blackmagic Video Assist 4K $1,239

NEWS + PEOPLE Seven’s Bridget Fair Appointed CEO of Free TV

On the Move

SEVEN WEST MEDIA HAS ANNOUNCED

CHRIS LAW has undertaken his role as Managing Director at Input Media. He was previously Managing Director – Production at Gearhouse Broadcast.

Bridget Fair, Group Chief – Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, will resign from the group to become Chief Executive Officer of Free TV, effective as of February, 2018.

Chairman of Seven West Media, Kerry Stokes said, “While we are sad to see Bridget leave us, we are delighted we will be able to continue to work with her in the important role she is taking on at Free TV. I have enjoyed watching Bridget’s career evolve over the last 17 years with Seven to become the best regulatory executive in the country, with the recent media reforms a testament to her work.”

Chief Executive Officer of Seven West Media, Tim Worner, said “Bridget has been an outstanding member of our executive team and a passionate advocate for our company, not just in Canberra, but all over the country.

“I thank her for her dedication to our cause and look forward to continuing working with her in her new role, in which she will undoubtedly excel. I’m certain many politicians in Canberra will have breathed a little easier once they learnt of Bridget’s resignation, only to take that breath sharply back realising her legendary lobbying and negotiating skills weren’t lost to freeto-air television”, he added.

Bridget said, “I have had an amazing career with Seven over the past 17 years and have had the chance to work with some of the best in the business. I am very grateful for the rewarding roles and opportunities I have been given during my time here and I am particularly pleased to be able to maintain a connection with Seven in my role at FreeTV.”

Visit www.freetv.com.au and www.sevenwestmedia.com.au

PETER WHARRAM has taken up a position as Managing Director at White Sands Media. Prior to this role he was Tech Manager at NBC Olympics.

ROD SOMMERICH has started a new position as Vice President, Asia Pacific, at Stampede Presentation Products. He was previously Far East and Pacific Rim Regional Sales Director at Gefen LLC. JOSEPH NARAI has taken up the position as Partner at Transmedia Entertainment. Previously he was with the company as Senior Vice President.

ALEKSEI VANAMOIS has started a new role as Digital Imaging Technician at Ladies In Black. He was previously Digital Imaging Technician at RIOT. VIKI LASCARIS has commenced as Venue Photo Manager at Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation. Viki was previously Picture Editor and Social Media Manager at Bay Media Australia.

AMANDA LEIGHTON has started a position as Director of Sales – Oceania at Ross Video. Amanda was previously Ross Video’s Regional Sales Manager, Australia and New Zealand.

TONY SCANLAN has started a new position as National Manager Design and Engineering at Kordia Solutions. Tony was previously General Manager – Network Services at Broadcast Australia.

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Deluxe’s Iloura Returns to Battle for Game of Thrones AHEAD OF THE SEASON SEVEN CONCLUSION, the action in HBO’s Game of Thrones increasingly intensified with rapidly advancing storylines featuring escalating threats, new alliances and much-awaited reunions. In episode four of season seven, ‘The Spoils of War’, Daenerys and her Dothraki horde engaged the Lannister army in a fiery fray brought to life with help from visual effects by Deluxe’s Iloura.

Re-teaming with VFX Supervisor Joe Bauer and VFX Producer Steve Kullback, Iloura VFX Supervisors Glenn Melenhorst and Josh Simmonds led Iloura artists in crafting the visuals. Melenhorst was recognised with an Emmy Award for VFX work on season six’s ‘Battle of the Bastards’ episode. ”We created digital doubles for the Dothraki at high resolution, knowing that we might need to drop them anywhere in a frame.

This was not a case of throwing CG extras in the back of the horde, rather they are often front and centre – something you’d never imagine trying to achieve in a typical TV show. ‘Game of Thrones’ is such a special phenomenon, we’re thankful to Joe and Steve for allowing us to be a part of it, and proud of the incredibly talented team at Iloura for rising to meet every challenge,” Melenhorst said.

Having honed its crowd pipeline and in-house tools for handling the enormous datasets required for large scale scenes featuring mounted riders and infantry for ‘Battle of the Bastards’, Iloura artists were able to draw upon that expertise in augmenting filmed elements or, in some cases, creating full CG shots, including some with thousands of soldiers in

hand-to-hand combat. Iloura also created extensive set extensions as well as CG smoke and fire, and composited sequences with assets from multiple vendors to seamless effect.

“Not only did the CG smoke and fire require many terabytes of simulation data, but we also had to integrate with primary live action plates and separately shot elements, which meant massive practical and CG explosions in the same shot. Our aim was to ensure an exciting and unified sequence that stayed true to the renowned ‘Game of Thrones’ aesthetic,” said Simmonds.

To achieve the required detail and scope of the crowd work, Iloura built tools to enable custom animation for close ups and tightly choreographed action with full cloth and hair simulations. The enhancements also helped artists refine assets without having to continually rebuild, and achieve several epic aerial shots, passing through clouds of FX smoke and revealing vignettes of the battle from the vantage point of Daenaerys mounted on her dragon, Drogon, an asset animated by Image Engine. In many cases, the aerial shots, which served to provide a clear view of the unfolding struggle below, were created from scratch using set scans and matte paintings as a base.

Visit www.bydeluxe.com and http://iloura.com.au

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NEWS + PEOPLE Magna, NEP Announce Largest Oz IP RTS Talkback Install MAGNA SYSTEMS AND NEP have announced the largest ever installation of RTS IP talkback equipment in Australia.

The talkback system forms part of NEP’s new Andrews Hubs, located in Sydney and Melbourne, and connects the hubs with sporting venues and OB trucks across the country via a new high-bandwidth IP network.

NEP Australia’s Director of Technology, Marc Segar said, “Once NEP committed to an all-IP ecosystem at the Andrews Hubs and in our four new all-IP outside broadcast trucks, we began the search for the very best IP-based technology. The RTS talkback system we selected fits perfectly into the ethos of the hubs, as the new keypanels with control over IP enable us to configure local keypanel settings and allows us access to every panel in the system remotely.”

According to NEP Head of Audio and Communications, Salvador Santos, “We had experienced the new RTS ADAM-M matrix and new keypanels when they were installed in The Bunker at NEP’s Everleigh HQ last year, so we knew they

were good. Once we tested them to their limits alongside competitive offerings it was clear that the RTS solution more closely met all of our requirements.”

The decision to choose an RTS IP-based talkback system meant that both NEP hubs, the four new hybrid OB trucks and the refurbished current RTS-based OB trucks would have 100% RTS comms.

In total, the system included multiple ADAM-M matrix frames – the highest density IP frames on the market – all with redundant power supplies and MCIIe control accounts, new OMNEO IP and Dante audio-enabled OMI32 32-channel and OMI48 48-channel cards to connect all of the keypanels, multiple TM10K Trunk Masters all with redundancy between the trucks and hubs, RVON16 IP cards for the long haul trunk lines, over 300 of the latest fully software optioned KP-5032, KP-4016, EKP-4016 and DKP-4016 keypanels, over 300 PH-88R5 headsets, multiple Roameo AP-1800 DECT wireless access points and TR-1800 wireless fourbutton beltpacks.

Visit www.magnasys.tv

Gearhouse Expands Event Comms with Stranger Designs GEARHOUSE BROADCAST HAS AGAIN EXPANDED its Event Communications Division in Australia with the acquisition of leading industry RF, radio mic and IFB specialists, Stranger Designs. The acquisition means Gearhouse Broadcast can now offer an entire end-to-end comms chain, in particular for live events, sports and reality television.

As Manager – Event Communications, Jason Owen explains, “Stranger Designs is a perfect fit for Gearhouse Broadcast Event Comms as they seamlessly complement our comms offering by adding new RF, radio mic and IFB solutions for clients in live events, sports and reality TV. This is what the industry has been asking for and we have now delivered it.”

Stranger Designs is headed up by RF comms engineer, Rod Stranger.

“It’s fair to say Rod is one of only a very small handful of RF comms engineers at this level in Australia,” says Jason Owen. “Along with Rod’s extensive experience, our acquisition of Stranger Designs also brings with it some cutting edge comms kit which will help us expand further into both motorsport and into radio mic and IFB dry hire platforms with the very latest Kenwood, Lectrosonic, Sennheiser and Shure Axient Digital platforms. In short Rod’s

expertise and Stranger Designs’ inventory significantly expands our comms offering whilst adding even more depth to our high-performance team.

“With our size and scope, we can now offer the complete comms package to broadcast networks and producers, event production companies, movie houses and new media companies. In motorsport alone, we have comms solutions for Rod Stranger, a now-familiar racetracks, race teams, federations, sight at Gearhouse Broadcast. category managers, and companies that support motorsport such as catering, security and track operations.”

As well as motorsport, Rod Stranger and Stranger Designs have worked on some of the most innovative comms solutions for productions including I’m a Celebrity Get me Outta Here and the Byron Bay Blues Festival.

Visit www.gearhousebroadcast.com

Telstra’s NetCam Serves at Women’s Tennis Finals IN A WORLD FIRST FOR WOMEN’S COMPETITIVE TENNIS, Telstra’s innovative NetCam technology was deployed at the 2017 BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.

NEWS + PEOPLE

Telstra’s NetCam is the next evolution of Telstra’s Globecam point-of-view miniature camera technology. Commissioned in partnership with Perform Group for the WTA Finals, Telstra’s NetCam was deployed on each side of the tennis net to deliver audiences with a panorama of the court during competition. In addition, to improving the fan viewer experience, the miniature camera technology also provided players and officials with a live net’s eye view of the on-court action.

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Pioneering NetCam at the WTA Finals builds upon Telstra’s six year multimillion dollar broadcast partnership with Perform Group for the delivery of live and file-based video content of WTA tournaments across Telstra’s Global Media Network.

John Learing, WTA Media Managing Director said: “Women’s tennis is an incredibly athletic and fast-paced game. Telstra’s NetCam allows us to provide WTA viewers with a unique perspective while helping us to tell that athletic storyline. Tennis fans are not just court-side they are now immersed in the game on court and at the net.”

The NetCam device is the result of several years of research in Telstra’s Globecam facility in Melbourne, working closely with tennis authorities including Tennis Australia to ensure viability. Globecam has its own proprietary camera and software allowing creation of a unique device in a customdesigned housing. The technology captures live play during the broadcast production with high quality HD, stabilisation and degree of control once only dreamed of.

The device includes: • Full HD 1080i/50i.

• Full remote camera control for colour, exposure, etc.

• Digital pan/tilt for image framing adjustment.

• Light-weight unit discretely fitted to the net.

Tennis is the latest sport to feature Globecam after participating in a number of sporting events around the world including cricket, all codes of football, and even sky diving and motor racing.

Visit www.telstra.com.au

Māori TV Goes HD, Launches New HQ NEW ZEALAND’S MĀORI TELEVISION has formally opened new premises at 433 East Tāmaki road, South Auckland. The new HQ was launched in a ceremony attended by NZ’s Minister for Māori Development, Hon Te Ururoa Flavell, and other Members of Parliament, iwi, local community representatives, schools and industry partners. The day began with dawn karakia (greetings/prayers) – Te Tā i te Kawa – led by local kaumātua (Māori elders).

Chairman of the Māori Television Board, Georgina te Heuheu, says the opening has been an important opportunity to celebrate the new facilities with the south Auckland community - as well as key stakeholders, including the newly formed Te Mātawai organisation which represents iwi (Māori nation/tribe) and Māori interests in the revitalisation of te reo Māori (the Māori language).

“Our role of normalising the Māori language and culture, taking it into the homes of all New Zealanders via multi-platform devices – supports the language revitalisation efforts undertaken by Māori language communities, nationwide,” said Ms te Heuheu.

“Our new building has a modern layout, providing collaborative working spaces for staff. It provides the space and flexibility to encompass new platforms and technologies to support Māori Television’s purpose of revitalising te reo Māori in a fast changing digital environment. The building provides value for money, has access to arterial routes and to the airport and proximity to Māori communities and facilities.”

Māori Television has also launched High Definition transmission as part of its multi-platform strategy. The project is funded by a dedicated Budget 2016 allocation of NZD$10.6m.

Mrs te Heuheu says the upgrade will give viewers a crisper and sharper picture on par with other major New Zealand broadcasters.

Avid Social Media

“This has been an important stepping stone in the progression of our multi-platform strategy. We will continue to invest in a range of digital offerings and platforms alongside our traditional linear platform. This ensures that Māori Television is delivering to the needs of all New Zealanders, whenever they want, wherever they are, and by whatever connected device they choose to use,” said Ms te Heuheu.

Grass Valley played an instrumental part in relocating the broadcaster to its new premises.

Māori Television’s Head of Technology and Operations, Mark Bullen, said, “High Definition is part of the evolution for Māori Television. So, if we look at our other free to air broadcasters in TVNZ and Media Works they’ve all been high definition for quite a long time now, so this is an opportunity for Māori to come up to the same level, same playing field.”

POWERFUL SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BROADCASTERS MāoriINTEGRATION Television was first launched on 28th March 2004 in Newmarket, Auckland. Its Māori language channel, Te Reo, was launched in 2008.

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broadcast@ambertech.com.au 1800 251 367

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© 2017 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Avid and the Avid logo are registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.

9

TECHNICAL STANDARDS

NEWS + PEOPLE

www.content-technology.com/standards Deluxe MediaCloud Appoints Trevor Clarke Head of Operations DELUXE ENTERTAINMENT HAS ANNOUNCED the appointment of Trevor Clarke as Head of Operations, Deluxe MediaCloud Australia. In this role he will work closely with industry veteran, David Radoczy, General Manager of Deluxe’s MediaCloud platform, to grow the company’s IP-based, softwaredefined broadcast playout and delivery business in the region.

certain Trevor’s experience, combined with David’s, will further grow and cement Deluxe’s footprint in the region, as more broadcasters’ transition to IP delivery.”

Joining from Prime Television where he held the position of Head of Television MEMBERS the for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) recently Operations, andOF prior toAlliance that Network Program Manager, Clarke brings over to an interop session, which was sponsored Video he 20 contributed years of hands-on broadcast experience to Deluxe.

Mostby recently Services Forum and concluded at VidTrans17 in Losoperations, Angeles, which spearheaded Prime(VSF) Television’s outsourcing of its broadcast showcased the viability of the draft SMPTE 2110 standard and AMWA gaining an intimate understanding of what it takes to run an efficient and IS-04 as a carefully architected IP initiative. client-focused business.

Prior to this, he was Network Program Manager at WIN Television, world’s largest privately owned regional network.

Leading up tothe VidTrans17, 19 AIMS members took part intelevision VSF-sponsored

Deluxe, Clarke.PRODUCTION “The past two PARTNERSHIP (DPP) recently THE” said DIGITAL years have proved Deluxe published the first everMediaCloud guide to help producers find the right kind of is aconnectivity functioning and reliable IP-based, for their business.

‘The DPP Survey Report: Connectivity software-defined broadcast playout Supply to Production’ helps producers to identify the kind of and delivery platform – one that is truly connectivity provision appropriate to their needs, with an indication of disrupting the broadcast industry – and costs and type of service.

I’m excited to begin working with more “Our previous research production broadcasters in the region with and help them companies has revealed that many still rely on inadequate broadband connections, and don’t always to realise the benefits of this innovative technology. ”

AIMS Interop at VidTrans17 Shows Viability of SMPTE 2110

Alaric McAusland, Managing Deluxe Australia, brings a interoperability testing at Director the Fox technical center insaid, The“Trevor Woodlands, wealth of The regional knowledge and experience towas Deluxe likeato welcome Texas. testing was unprecedented, as it theand firstI’d time himsignificant to the team.

Having Prime channels from a proofnumber of successfully participants transitioned focused specifically on interoperability of-concept to finalST-2110 outsource delivering improved21 agility and efficiencies, of the SMPTE drafts.

Approximately vendors, 19 of whomwe’re

were AIMS members, were able to successfully transmit and receive from each other without major adjustments to their equipment or the network.

Glenn Connley Joins PRIME7 News

Following the testing event in Texas, 12 AIMS members exhibited their draft SMPTE ST-2110 systems in the interoperability session Glenn Connley as News Editor of on its Albury at VidTrans17.

The results were display,and and the progress thus far Wagga Wagga local news bulletins. generated strongly positive consensus between vendors and attendees alike.

PRIME7’s Head of News, Paul Patrick said, PRIME7 HAS ANNOUNCED the appointment of

“Glenn’s extensivebyexperience in news “We’re energized the success of thisgathering latest round of tests, so we’re and production willtobework invaluable in maintaining ready to get back with renewed vigor,” said Michael Cronk,

AIMS board chair. are veryasactive the PRIME7 Local “AIMS News members market position, the in supporting and

implementing the draft SMPTE 2110 leading local news provider across thestandard.

Border We are thrilled that

testing to date is both showing excellent progress toward interoperability and Riverina regions.” and providing great data for further improvements. There will be future “Iinteroperability couldn’t be more excited be joining events andto tests, whichPRIME7. makes this an exciting time for all This a greatatime to beindustry working standard, in regionalmuch as it was when SDI first whoissupport common appeared.news Interoperability will remain the the key, and those who get involved television and it’s a privilege to join will reap the benefits of new workflows andregional solutions. ” team at Australia’s undisputed number one television network,” added Connley. to “I grew up inmembership a small country town watching regional news.

New additions the AIMS roster include Bridge

Technologies, Clear-Com, Solid State Logic, Juniper Networks, Atos, Leader, Encompass Digital Media, and sonoVTS.

DPP Guide to Connectivity Services for Production “I’m absolutely delighted to be joining

feel they understand the alternatives,” says DPP Managing Director, Mark Visit www.bydeluxe.com Harrison. “So, we have conducted some research, and sought the advice of DPP Member companies, to pull together a user-friendly view of what the market offers.”

The survey report considers thefeels needs different production This likeofthe perfectsizes fit forofme after more company, and whether the connectivity they need is for general office than twenty-five years working in commercial use, for working with video, or out on location. news, public affairs and sport in Sydney,

The needs of media production companies are unusual when compared Melbourne, London and Singapore.” to other sectors. The workload can expand and contract dramatically, and this makes for huge variations in the began bandwidth required.

Video Glenn Connley his media career with files are also much bigger than the files being transferred by most other the Herald Sun in 1990. He then went onto industries. positions at radio station 3AW in Melbourne,

“There is no doubt connectivity production ESPN,suppliers StarHub,find andthe hasmedia held senior reporter community difficult to serve,” says Harrison. “But, provision is getting roles at both the Nine Network and Network better all the time and now might be the right time for producers to TEN. Most recently Glenn was employed as explore the benefits they could get from professional supply. ” a senior producer for the Seven Network’s

‘DPP Survey Report: Connectivity Supply to Production’ is the fifth in Sunday NightSurvey program. the DPP’s Report series, and follows on from the ‘2016 Survey Report Connectivity and Production’, which shared eye-opening DPP Visit www.primemedia.com.au research into how production companies view their connectivity services.

Digistor Expands Services Team with Peter Copas and Jason Yee Visit www.digitalproductionpartnership.co.uk Visit http://aimsalliance.org DIGISTOR HAS EXPANDED its technical support and services team with the appointment of Peter Copas as Technical Services Manager and Jason Yee as Technical Services Support Engineer.

“I have worked closely with Digistor in the past and they have an awesome reputation,” said Jason. “I look forward to working with new customer workflows and environments where I can exercise my existing knowledge and experience while also expanding my exposure to the wide gamut of Digistor initially build the test centre at its office in Bristol, UK. This test centre will solutions. Exciting times ahead!”

Eurofins, Samsung to Develop HbbTV App Test Centre

Peter has over thirty years of broadcast television experience, the last twenty EUROFINS DIGITAL TESTING has announced it will develop an HbbTV of those years in leadership and service management roles within Foxtel, application test centre in co-operation with Samsung Electronics for testing including operational and managerial roles.

HbbTV Applications on HbbTV enabled TVs.

“I’m delighted to be leading a full team of highly skilled and trained engineers ‘HbbTV include applications that additional who are Applications’ the ‘best of the best’ interactive in our industry, ” said Peter.

“I deliver look forward to functionality such as video-on-demand and are designed to run on taking Digistor to the next level in support services for our customers.TVs ”

compliant with the HbbTV specification. As the lead supporter, Samsung will

With a thorough understanding of the industry and managing technical teams, provide the initial TV platforms for conducting the compatibility tests. These Peter is focussing on supporting the Technical Support Services team and platforms include an enhanced debug mode which allows the gathering building on new and existing client relations.

of additional data to diagnose issues. Samsung will also provide technical

NEWS + PEOPLE TECHNICAL STANDARDS

Digistor alsotowelcomes Jason ex-Autodesk System Support Leader, assistance the program to Yee, assist app developers to run their Team applications to the support team. Jason is an expert in all things Autodesk, especially the on Samsung TVs. Flame family of Creative Finishing solutions. Jason studied computer science at the University ofhas Sydney andinisBelgium, also an expert in RedPoland Hat Linux CentOS. Eurofins, which offices Hong Kong, andand Sweden, will

12 10

take responsibility for testing and validating HbbTV Applications provided by

Jason’s knowledge of how Autodesk Creative Finishing products exchange data app developers (who might be broadcasters or other parties) and will work and how they interface with third party software and hardware is outstanding. with these app developers to define the scope of the testing required. This His ensures a high level of excellent for Digistor’s Flame willappointment ensure that the HbbTV applications conformsupport to the HbbTV specification customers. and function correctly on real, deployed devices from the market leading Digistor’s brand. Technical Services team provides a full gamut of professional services for the broadcast, post-production, visual effects and digital media The agreement between Samsung and Eurofins allows for the growth of industries, including Digistor customer assurance plans, pre-paid services and the Test Centre to include more devices in due course – including those from support, training services, project management, and greenfield facility and other manufacturers – to further extend the testing capabilities. project building.

Visit Visitwww.digistor.com.au www.eurofins-digitaltesting.com and www.hbbtv.org

Migration is a matter of survival

For nearly 50 years Magna has been providing a competitive advantage for its customers in the broadcast industry through the timely adoption of innovations with minimal risk of disruption.

Summed up as secure innovation, Magna de-risk a first-mover advantage and safely takes its customers to where their competitors haven’t gone yet. With Magna, you can rest assured that we’ll get you there securely – we owe it to our reputation.

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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

Contact your local Magna office for more information

11

TAKING STOCK Moves in the business of content + technology

www.content-technology.com/mediabusiness

Amber – Alert to Innovation Peter Amos, Managing Director of Amber Technology, reflects on 30 years of change.

By Phil Sandberg

AUSTRALIA IN THE 1980s. It was the time of Hawke-Keating, of Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee, and a veritable Cambrian explosion of technology companies formed in the wake of Rank Australia’s departure from the Antipodean market.

Divesting on a high, Rank left behind it a trail of acquisitions and management buy-outs resulting in such industry names as Bytecraft, Quinto Communications, Film Lab Group and, celebrating its 30th Anniversary in 2017, Amber Technology.

Taking the professional audio and motion picture product lines, Amber Technology hit the ground running with a staff of around 20 and a revenue stream derived from maintenance and warranty support contracts.

According to Managing Director, Peter Amos, the next step in the company’s evolution was a move into consumer electronics.

“There was a company called Hiphon. They were the Onkyo agents. They got themselves into trouble. We bought it from the bank and the receivers, and took over the stock and the business, and that was our foray into consumer electronics,” says Amos.

“The second milestone would have been that we had a very stressful couple of days where the Linter Corporation, Abe Goldberg, had a little problem as a business and that meant that we lost our guarantor for our facilities and the bank looked at us and went, ‘hmm’. Fortunately, we were going okay so they said, ‘okay, you can stand on your own two feet’, but suddenly when you lose your guarantor, that’s a bit of a nerve racking time.”

“It’s a continual reinvent yourself game,” says Amos. “If you stand still, you die.

We looked at other opportunities to spread the load within the corporation and the next opportunity which came along was Fairlight. A lot of people within the Amber Group - David Hannay who was the Managing Director at the time we all came from manufacturing backgrounds. So, we had the opportunity to manufacture something, a world class product.

were expecting because we needed certain things. The poor old auctioneers got themselves in a very interesting pickle because he didn’t know what had happened because suddenly he was starting to get reasonable prices and then it just hit the floor. He stopped the auction and he had a chat to a few people, and he had no choice but to carry on because it was a liquidation sale of the assets. It was a fascinating day. Quite emotional from the point of view that I had X-amount of money in my pocket and that’s what I could spend, and I had to get enough to build the first run of machines.

“[In 1989] Fairlight had just gone through their second administration and their life was very interesting. We went to the State Bank, purchased financial property and all the rights and everything that went with it, trademarks, the whole she-bang, and then we went to the auction with [Fairlight CoFounder] Kim Ryrie in tow and we purchased what we needed to start up the manufacturing operation again and it became very evident what we were up to at the auction. I think Tony Vaccher from Audioloc, because he was a big Fairlight user, and a few others realised, they twigged about an hour into the auction, that we were starting it up again and came around and asked us and we said, ‘Yeah, we’re starting up. We’ve got Kim and the gang and off we go’.

“We were building Series 3 synthesisers because the MFX digital audio work station didn’t exist at that stage, it was just a pipe dream in someone’s head.

We purchased enough material from the auction to be able to start it up. We put it in an old derelict building out at Ultimo and away they went. And Fairlight is, I suppose, in my career of 30 years and Amber’s career of 30 years, the most exciting thing to do because it was core manufacturing. We then built a new platform, the digital workstation and MFX range, built up to Series 3. And, the guys that were involved in that and the talent in that place was just staggering.

They were so talented, the ideas and what they did. It was a world-class product, and still is.

“All of the users stopped bidding because they were only going to buy bits to keep their machines going. So, we were then against others in the room who were either suppliers to the old Fairlight trying to redeem their stock and a lot of those stopped as well because we were paying more than they

“The Fairlight thing was a great experience of all of us, but It ended in the situation where development cycle times were too long. That put the company into stress financially, it placed stress onto Amber. In my timeframe, it was MFX3 and then MFX3 Plus – they were too long in development and that hurt.

TAKING STOCK

The company continued on and, as technology changed, it looked to adapt.

12

“It’s a continual reinvent yourself game” - Peter Amos, Managing Director, Amber Technology.

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TAKING STOCK

An opportunity to step back into the broadcast area occurred shortly after Fairlight in the form of Quantum, a company which had the original Quantel agency for Australia and New Zealand. Quantum Managing Director Ross Thyer entered into a joint venture, Quantum Pacific, with Amber Technology, and Peter Amos went across to run Sales and Marketing, and Engineering. The company held the agency for Thompson LGT Group transmitter products and it was the dawn of Aggregation, the Hawke-era policy designed to give regional TV viewers the same channel choice as their city cousins.

“That was the birth of people like Prime TV and Southern Cross Television,” says Peter Amos. “Northern Rivers was also one of our big clients, but we sold a lot of transmitters in shortwave and in television at that point in time. We were doing Radio Australia’s work as well in the Northern Territory.”

“At the same time, I’ll never forget it, Ross and I were wandering around NAB and we saw this little 3 x 3 stand, and Ross had a very good eye for technology, and he said, ‘Look at this.’ And we’re looking at these blocks running around on the screen, video blocks, on this Apollo computer. We saw the first Avid as software only - not on a hardware accelerated-machine, and the blocks were so big you couldn’t even tell people’s faces properly.”

Just over a year later, the company concluded negotiations to represent Avid in the Australian market, the non-linear editing system had been ported to the Apple platform, and the first installation Down Under was undertaken at Frameworks post-production in Sydney.

“There was an online suite down the front, and here’s this corridor and this little alcove and that’s where the Avid went,” says Amos. “I think we finished installing it at 2 O’clock in the morning because we had problems with one of the monitors and there was a double-sync problem. It was an error in their cable. We modified the cable and off we went. I had two 600Mb drives on it. They were $10,000 each. That was a $100,000 system.

“Then Avid just went from strength to strength. It doubled at 100% growth per annum for five years straight. We just couldn’t keep up there was so much going on. It was a really good experience.”

As the Avid organisation evolved over the years, so did Amber’s relationship with the company. After numerous tours of duty with Quantum/Amber, punctuated by the establishment of Avid Australia, Avid now handles wider dealership relationships leaving Amber to cater to larger-scale enterprise clientele. The experience has informed Amber’s approach to other manufacturer relationships such as EVS and ATEME where those companies have staff and resources embedded with Amber to better service the ANZ market.

“And, now we have Ateme, which is a T1 encoder structure which is, again, a really interesting company. We have an embedded relationship with them. The reason being is that in that environment ATEME is one where, at that level of encoded product, you’re dealing with the Telstras and the Optuses and the Foxtels of the world who need to have that real close relationship with the principal. There are things they’re doing which are very private and important so we facilitate and arrange and nurture that arrangement so that the client feels really comfortable about it and that works out very well. It’s commercially viable, so it’s a model which we will continue to do. It works because the world is becoming smaller and smaller and smaller.”

Despite the pace of globalisation, Peter Amos maintains the Australian market has much to contribute to product development, particularly in the way endusers put technology to the test.

“We have a number of people in our client base who are extremely talented who are our users and they’re not backward in coming forward in relation to suggestions,” he says. “I think the old adage of Australia is that we represent 2% of the world’s potential sales and about 30% of the problems because every Australian facility will take the product and run it to 120% and multi-task it and flog it to death. And then all the problems that machine may potentially have come out. You can talk to Sony, Grass, Harris, all of them, they’ve all had similar stories over the years where things just suddenly fall over. Never anywhere else in the world, but here.”

Visit www.ambertech.com.au

TAKING STOCK

They should have been faster but they were hardware-based. It became increasingly difficult so we took the opportunity to exit Fairlight in 2000.

13

ACQUISITION

ACQUISITION Kiwi Cinematographers Honoured at NZCS Awards

www.content-technology.com/acquisition

THE SECOND NZCS AWARDS for cinematography presentation dinner was held on Saturday the 14th of October, 2017, at a packed-out Heritage Grand Tearoom in Auckland.

The guest of honour was three-time Oscar, and three-time BAFTA winner, Alex Funke ASC, who received a standing ovation marking the 50th year of his career.

Guests flew in from Australia, Japan, Germany, the U.K. and U.S. for the event, which was a showcase of New Zealand cinematography.

A pre-Awards luncheon saw Funke relate the lessons he has learned in 50 years of accumulated experience, right up to the present with Blade Runner 2049.

According to Peter Parnham, NZCS Executive Officer and NZCS Awards Project Manager, “The NZCS Awards were a runaway success with 160 entries across 14 categories from New Zealand and international productions shot by NZCS members.”

Technology and post-production companies from Australia, New Zealand and Germany got behind the Awards with sponsorship, including Fujinon-Fujifilm sponsor of the News and Current affairs category.

TELESERIES:

NZCS AWARDS 2017 WINNERS Cinematographer of the Year NZCS Trophy: Stuart Dryburgh NZCS ASC, The Great Wall Al Guilford Emerging Cinematographer Award: Nina Wells, Auckward Love, Season 2, Episode 4 Turtz Award for Contribution to Cinematography: Brenden Holster, 1st AC NZCS ACCREDITATION: • Crighton Bone NZCS • Kieran Fowler NZCS • Callan Green NZCS STUDENT FILMS: • Silver - David Melin, By the Sea • Silver - Jared James, Taonga • Bronze - Michael Miller, Parasites • Bronze - Danielle Sciascia, Maximillian The Great • Bronze - Justin Rypma, The Loveliest Flower EXPERIMENTAL AND INSTALLATION: • Gold - Kieran Fowler NZCS for Rob Mills Architecture

Episode 10: 61 Degrees • Gold - Aaron Morton NZCS, Orphan Black: From Dancing Mice to NZ Cinematographer of the Year, Stuart Dryburgh, ACS, NZCS.

NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

SHORT FILMS:

• Silver - Phil Johnson, Malcom Rewa: To Catch A Killer

• Gold - Dale Bremner, Baby Boy

• Silver - Arthur Rasmussen, Ruka's War

• Gold - Andrew McGeorge, Do No Harm

• Bronze - David Paul NZCS, Hillary

• Silver - Martyn Williams, The World In Your Window

• Bronze - Nina Wells, Auckward

• Silver - Grant Findlay, Newshub Live at 6pm: Lost Gypsy • Bronze - Phil Johnson, Private Business, Public Failure Episode 6: Another Way • Bronze - Martin Anderson, Kaikohe • Bronze - Braden Fastier, Nelson Mail Printing Press SPECIALISED CINEMATOGRAPHY: • Silver - Renaud Maire, Shortland Street Interactive Promo • Gold - Kina Scollay, Our Big Blue Backyard 2: White Island MAGAZINE, LIFESTYLE & REALITY:

• Bronze - Dale Bremner, Lush Puppies

• Silver - Greg Parker, Neighbourhood: Whangarei

MUSIC VIDEOS:

• Bronze - Bevan Crothers, Te Radar's Chequered Past: The Burgess Gang

• Silver - Kieran Fowler NZCS, Broadhurst: Bones • Bronze - Kirk Pflaum, ASKE ft Ed Waaka: Found • Bronze - Kieran Fowler NZCS, Bliss n Eso: Believe • Bronze - Dale Bremner, Motions

Psychopaths

Guest keynote speaker, Bladerunner 2049 DOP, Alex Funke ASC.

• Gold - Bevan Crothers, The Hard Stuff: Screenagers

• Silver - Dale Bremner, Golden

ACQUISITION

FRSA, Hell on Wheels Season 5

• Gold - Dale Bremner, Cave Hill

• Silver - Hamish Pattison, Fraser Ross: In the Rain

14

• Gold - Thomas Burstyn NZCS CSC

• Bronze - Tim Flower, Aupito: The High Chief CORPORATE AND EDUCATIONAL: • Silver - Dale Bremner, Telstra Classified Episode 1 • Bronze - Rob Marsh, Tiger Beer: Wok of Art • Bronze - Clayton Carpinter, Lion Breweries

• Gold - Dale Bremner, Love Road

• Silver - Mark Lapwood ACS, The Coffin Club

• Gold - Aaron Morton NZCS, American Gods: A Murder of Gods • Silver - Aaron Morton NZCS, Black Mirror: Playtest Episode 3 Love Season 2 Episode 4 TELEFEATURES:

• Bronze - Renaud Maire, Lani's Space

• Gold - Ginny Loane, Jean

DOCUMENTARIES:

• Silver - David Paul NZCS, Why

• Gold - Mike Kelland, Pecking Order • Silver - Kirk Pflaum, Farang • Bronze - Bevan Crothers, AWA: Born This Way DRAMATISED DOCUMENTARIES: • Gold - Dave Cameron NZCS ACS, Pike River • Gold - John Cavill, Making of the Mob: Chicago

Does Love: Dance Exponents • Silver - Dave Cameron NZCS ACS, Resolve • Bronze - D J Stipsen, Bombshell FEATURES: • Gold - Crighton Bone NZCS, Pork Pie

• Bronze - David Paul NZCS, Doubt: The Scott Watson Case

• Gold - Stuart Dryburgh NZCS ASC,

COMMERCIALS:

• Gold - Leon Narbey NZCS, One

• Gold - Lachlan Milne ACS, NZTA: Legend • Silver - Lachlan Milne ACS, TAC: Consequences • Silver - Martyn Williams, Ladbrokes • Bronze - Lachlan Milne ACS, Beats

By Dre: The Game Starts Here • Bronze - John Toon NZCS ACS, Vinomofo: Decide • Bronze - Crighton Bone NZCS, CBA

The Great Wall Thousand Ropes • Silver - Aaron Morton NZCS, 6 Days • Bronze - Lachlan Milne ACS, Hunt for the Wilderpeople • Bronze - Kieran Fowler NZCS, Skinford Visit www.nzcine.com

ACQUISITION

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

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

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

So, what is Bird Dog? “Bird Dog is a piece of hardware that has some fairly recognisable connectors on the back. It will take an SDI or HDMI signal and convert it to an ethernet signal and that’s over the NDI protocol. And, really, that’s the smart part of what Bird Dog does. “We’re taking a video signal and converting it into a network interface. The advantages of using NDI are that it’s really fast – it’s around one frame of latency end-to-end over a network. It’s roughly equivalent to something like an Apple Pro Res image quality. And, it has some really smart stuff built-in around the metadata that goes with that. “With SDI, it’s a single directional cable. With NDI, we get all that information back as well. So, if we’re on a production switcher and we go to programme, the tally information will be received back onto the Bird Dog. So, whilst we’re sending the video out, very high quality and very fast, we can then also have tally lights on the front that is a zero-configuration tally. You choose a video source and immediately the tally will work. “We can also get NDI video back again – there’s a firmware update coming shortly which will allow you to receive NDIs simultaneously, and that allows us to have a return feed. If we have this attached to the back of a camera, it then starts to look very much like a camera back in the fact that we’re taking video and sending it over a connection, we’re receiving video back in and AVGROUP_DF_BRIDGEX_TS.pdf we’ve got tally information.� 1 27/08/2017 3:43 pm

How does it fit into existing workflows? “It’s designed, as some people call it, to be a throwdown box. You plug it in and it just works. Every single NDI device presents itself on the network without any configuration at all. We have Bird Dog as a source, and we can just bring that up and immediately that’s a video source. So, a production switcher doesn’t need to have any SDI connection into it at all. “The idea of Bird Dog is to take the IP world as close to the glass as possible, so it’s close to your camera and it’s as close to your monitor as possible.

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

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

Bird Dog ships globally in November.

Visit www.bird-dog.tv

Bridge“ X TS Trouble Shooter · Up/Down/Cross/Scan converter · Multiple standard video/audio signal · Touch screen LCD built in for input signal monitoring · User selectable output format · Test Pattern Generator · Menu OSD function · Audio level check

Available now from selected dealers, call 02 9764 5911 or visit www.avgroup.com.au

ACQUISITION

Bridge X TS is a device that supports a variety of inputs and outputs.

This device can be used in the installation, construction and maintenance service of video and audio signals. View signal status and measures both SDI Jitter and cable length.

15

ACQUISITION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ACQUISITION

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

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

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

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

Visit www.achtel.com

ACQUISITION

Michael Latham Shoots Casting Jonbenet with ARRI Alexa Mini WHEN AUSTRALIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER Michael Latham got the opportunity to work with Sundance award-winning director Kitty Green, he jumped at the chance. When he realised the size and scope of the documentary he also knew his ALEXA Mini would be perfect for the shoot.

Latham explained: “The first major shoot I used the ALEXA Mini on was the documentary ‘Casting JonBenet’, about the death of JonBenét Ramsey, directed by Kitty Green. The feature film is based on a similar style to Kitty’s short documentary ‘The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul’, which won Sundance in 2015. That film was very low budget, and shot in two days with help from friends.

Casting JonBenet was very different, with a larger budget, hundreds of interviews, large cinematic scenes and full crews. During this time we were lucky to have the guidance of our producers Scott Macaulay and James Schamus who are amazing at what they do, and between them have created some wonderful films.”

The size and scope of the shoot, combined with some challenging logistics created some early hurdles for Latham, which he and the crew had to work quickly to overcome.

He continued: “When the project started I didn’t have my ALEXA Mini so a lot of the interviews were shot on multiple Blackmagic 4K cameras, which are OK under controlled studio environments, but quite difficult to use in the real world. We shot in two blocks and the second block was much more like a full narrative shoot with a full cast and crew. For these scenes we wanted it to feel as cinematic as possible so it would feel like a film and not a documentary, so the Mini was perfect. We had always planned to shoot the narrative scenes on an ALEXA as I feel it produces the most filmic images.”

The shoot consisted of everything from studio scenes with set builds, to real life locations, day and night interiors and exteriors, car rigging, VFX scenes, drone aerials and vista landscapes, and some extreme weather.

Latham added, “We were shooting in the middle of winter so some days were minus-ten degrees with heavy snow. I used Zeiss Superspeeds for more of a vintage look along with Hollywood Blackmagic filters. My camera kit is as small and lightweight and as wireless as possible, as I think being nimble is important. The ALEXA Mini is great if you need to scale up. I like that it’s capable as an A-Camera on everything from documentary content to largescale features and commercials. You can also break it down to fit it into tight spaces with no trouble and yet you can build it up to fit every accessory you can think of.”

Latham, the director, and the producers were all happy with the images and results achieved shooting Casting JonBenet with the ALEXA Mini, so for Latham the decision to purchase was validated in the best possible way.

Visit www.arri.com.au

‘Game On’ for Tokyo’s Assemblage and URSA Mini Pro WITH BUDGETS AND REVENUES eclipsing many feature films, video games have long drawn on cinematic techniques to enhance the player’s experience.

Tokyo-based production company, Assemblage, recently picked Blackmagic’s URSA Mini Pro 4.6K and DaVinci Resolve with DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel for gaming giant Riot Games’ latest video project.

Riot Games is a California-based video game developer, publisher and eSports tournament organiser, famous for its signature title game, League of Legends.

The Tokyo-based multicultural production company, Assemblage, recently shot and handled post-production on Riot Game’s new corporate and recruit video.

use and the colour is accurate. I like the physical controls on the camera where I can change white balance, LUTs and ND filters while looking at my picture via the Viewfinder. Also, the de-squeeze button on the camera is very useful when shooting in anamorphic.”

While shooting, the URSA Mini Pro was always on stand-by so that he could get B-roll anytime.

“One of the great aspects of the URSA Mini Pro is its compactness. Everything is built in and easy to carry around. It was hard to use other cameras for B-roll as it needed a lot of rigging to attach before you could really start shooting, and it was then too heavy and no longer good for hand held B-roll shooting.”

“I have used the original URSA Mini, too, and I liked it, but the biggest benefit of the new model for me is the built in ND filters and swappable mount.

Even though I wanted to use a PL mount for this project, I may need to use EF lenses for some documentary shoots, so it is great to swap lens mounts depending on my work. Also, I am more comfortable using built in ND filters than having external ND filters as I can’t be entirely sure I am blocking an The URSA Mini Pro was used to capture close ups and B-roll. The entire shoot equal amount of IR, which can be aby big deal in post-production as black can themode possibilities your production wasn’t limited hardware, was shot in URSA Mini Imagine Pro’s anamorphic and in 23.98fps,if except for the become a little bit tinted.

So, having a camera with internal ND filters, I can be B-roll which was shot in 40fps. and if all of your sources and destinations could communicate. sure black is black.”

“I mostly handheld the URSA Mini Pro as we did not have time to put it onto Imagination is reality with the NewTek IP Series, the most andStudio configurable For colour grading, Alex complete used DaVinci Resolve and the new DaVinci a tripod. Shooting B roll in slow motion makes a somewhat cleaner handheld Resolve Mini Panel. shot and makes looks more interesting,” said Alex.

SDI / IP live production solution in the industry.

Alexandre Bartholo, CEO of Assemblage and DoP for the project, said, “Firstly, I was planning to use just one camera for this entire project, but time was short. I wanted to capture shots from various angles. Plus, I recently began using the ARRI Master Anamorphic lens set. I thought how can I get the most from these? So, I decided to add another camera – the URSA Mini Pro.

“While I was shooting, I mostly used the URSA Viewfinder, which was easy to

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

Learn more at newtek.com

© 2017 NewTek, Inc. All rights reserved. NDI, TriCaster, 3Play, TalkShow, LightWave 3D, and Broadcast Minds are registered trademarks of NewTek, Inc. MediaDS, Connect Spark, LightWave, and ProTek are trademarks and/or service marks of NewTek, Inc.

ACQUISITION

The NewTek IP Series

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SPORTSCASTING Sport coverage worldwide

www.content-technology.com/sportscasting

NZ Racing Board – Top Dogs in Remote Production

By Phil Sandberg

SPORTSCASTING

REMOTE PRODUCTION, SURELY THE PRESERVE of multi-national outside broadcast service providers with deep pockets and an army of technologists?

Not so, says the New Zealand Racing Board whose Vision Capture project has resulted in a remote sports production solution using existing standards and technology.

Broadcasting around 1100 New Zealand race meetings a year from over 60 venues for distribution via DTH operator Sky NZ and the Internet, the NZRB is the country’s biggest live broadcaster. Faced with the issue of an ageing OB fleet, the first phase of NZRB’s Vision Capture project has delivered a remote production scenario for its seven greyhound race tracks scattered across New Zealand’s north and south islands.

According to Jamie Annan, Studio Operations and Services Manager, Media and Content, with the New Zealand Racing Board, the organisation’s existing OB fleet had served it well for 11 years covering North Island venues in Manukau (Auckland), Cambridge, Palmerston North, and Whanganui, as well as Christchurch, Invercargill and Dunedin in the South Island. The fleet was, however, “… looking pretty tired.”

The aim of the Vision Capture project was to, “… deliver something different, not cost more than what we were doing and have it actually cost much less, and give ourselves a lot more autonomy.”

The old and the new. NZRB’s traditional OB truck alongside recently commissioned remote production van.

After eight months of researching technology and examining evolving international examples of remote production workflows, the NZRB team settled on a workflow centralised out of its Christchurch facility which would then distribute the greyhound coverage to the NZRB main production facility in Stanley Street, Auckland, for playout.

Central to that workflow is Lawo’s V__remote4 platform for IP-based remote productions and VSM’s vsmStudio broadcast control and monitoring system, both supplied by Professional Audio & Television (PAT).

According to Annan, “We looked at a whole lot of different linking options to move signals around the country and we landed on the V__remote4 as the option there, with PAT being the reseller in Australia.”

Lawo’s V__remote4 has been designed as a one-box solution for video and audio signal transport and processing in WAN-based remote productions. The device combines a bi-directional, four-channel Video-over-IP interface, four local SDI inputs and outputs, along with multiple Video-over-IP encoding and decoding, including 4x/4x Raw / VC-2; 4x/4x JPEG2000 (multicast / unicast); for monitoring applications 4x MJPEG (multicast/encoding only); and 1x H.264 (multicast/encoding only).

V__remote4 capabilities also include integrated switch fabric, switching capacity 40 Gbps, 2x 10 Gbit Ethernet and 4x 1 Gbit Ethernet (2x incl. PoE); Frame synchronization for each channel; Frame Phasing, Line Phasing; Variable audio and video delays for each channel; Embedding and deembedding incl. SRC for each channel; RGB Color Correction & Proc Amp for each channel; Two Surround-to-stereo Downmixers per Embedder; Dolby E Auto Aligner; Quadsplit Multiviewer; Waveform and Vectorscope display; Timecode Insertion, Test Pattern Generator and Video ID Generator for each channel; Timecode Generator; Sync Generator, PTP Grandmaster with Ref GM function; AV Sync Measurement (Vistek VALID8 compatible); and Network Sounding.

SPORTSCASTING

VSM’s vsmStudio, meanwhile, features vsmTALLY; a GPI logic toolset to create custom workflows; Gadgets to control external device parameters; Meta Gadgets: allowing users to “link” any parameter to a source or destination for direct access; Virtual Signals; Virtual Layers; Storage Groups; Pseudo Devices; an Event Scheduler; Apology where alarms can trigger an automatic recovery to backup conditions; SNMP, GPIO or native protocol alarm processing; and configurable timers.

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vsmStudio also has options for single-button disaster recovery and studio switchover; automatic management and insertion of pooled processing paths into a signal chain; SDP Stream Patching; Ember+ Gateway functionality to provide vsmStudio internal parameters to 3rd party controllers; and avSNMP Add-On Master Licence to monitor SNMP messages within VSM. In the case of NZRB’s workflow, rather than embrace the bleeding edge of

NZRB's Matt Blackmore - Regional Engineer (Hamilton) inside the remote van.

evolving standards such as SMPTE 2110 and 2022, the decision was made to bring IP network management in-house, double bandwidth requirements and utilise JPEG2000 video compression via the Lawo V__remote4 and VSM platforms.

“We decided ‘to keep the bandwidths low,” says Annan, “and try to keep the costs down by using compression on our video to try and achieve what we want to do with multiple cameras, and so we went down a JPEG2000 route.

Continues P20 >>

ACQUISITION

BR Remote’s Camball3 Cameras with 24-bit Positioning BR REMOTE LTD exhibited a new set of mini cameras in the Camball3 family at IBC. The new models feature greater precision remote control, completely smooth movement, and links to a computer. The new cameras have 20x optical zoom and use a Sony Exmor 2.4 megapixel sensor. They all provide full HD images at 50 and 60Hz frame-rates.

BR Remote has added an LCD display to the side of the cameras, which gives the operator pages of status information to aid setup and fault diagnosis. Many of these are automatically dealt with by the unit on a ‘best fit’ basis.

same control and automation as large broadcasters.

The Camball3-XM also provides a continuous ‘Free D’ metadata output for VR and AR.

There are now three new cameras in the family: Camball3-S, Camball3-X and Camball3-XM, which all have different positioning and control features.

Camball3-S is the standard camera with the latest sensor.

Both the

Camball3-X is for stage shows and concert tours. It is a 16-bit DMX controlled camera with infra-red mode for low light, and eight DMX channels for pan, tilt, zoom and focus, and iris. Paint can be done as usual via the Bradley standard system. The camera can be integrated with a master show computer.

can be used for auto-tracking to follow a particular artist, and an inbuilt

Camball3-XM is built for automation in TV production. This camera offers accurate motion control using Bradley M or ‘Free D’ 24-bit control for pan, tilt, zoom and focus, iris and paint. This system can be controlled by computer and enables more exact matching to a computer generated background or CGI. This camera will interest smaller studios that want the

Camball3-X and the Camball3-XM Predictive Move Smoothing (PMS) feature ensures natural movement. With both models, the operator can also take over and control the camera by a joystick to correct a position, and then allow the camera to revert to DMX control.

BR Remote also presented ‘Proteân’ – a large L-shaped pan and tilt camera head with similar software and motion control.

Visit www.br-remote.com

MSE’s MyWay Grip MATTHEWS STUDIO EQUIPMENT featured its new rigging system, dubbed the MyWay Grip, at IBC2017.

“Today stage and location setups are becoming more complicated and creative, often stressing out grips that are hampered by support equipment,” said Tyler Phillips, VP of Marketing and Product Development at Matthews Studio Equipment. “Sometimes there isn’t enough space in the truck for what’s needed, or the budget is too restrictive. Even more challenging, creatives often change their minds on a whim and then expect a new setup in minutes, unaware of the limits of available equipment.”

MyWay Grip rigging system was designed to eliminate these challenges.

Geared to everyone from big-budget motion picture or television grips and gaffers, to the fledgling or independent content creator, MyWay Grip is a

customisable set up with unlimited possibilities.

Based on a two-part interchangeable rigging system, MyWay Grip uses industry standard pins, receiver and clamps, with custom connectors which attach to secure collars mounted on plates and clamps.

This allows a reduction in the dedicated rigging required, saving space, weight and setup time. Because it’s modular, the only restriction is the user’s creativity. The system permits unique rigging arrangements to meet various on-set challenges, all with minimal hardware. You can also make quick on-set modifications of installed rigging to accommodate common on-the-fly changes in lighting and camera configurations.

Visit www.msegrip.com

Capture Full-HD with Marshall’s CV225 IP67 MARSHALL ELECTRONICS CV225 IP67 lipstick camera made its IBC debut this year. The CV225 utilises the latest light sensor technology in a compact weatherproof design, while maintaining broadcast video standards. The CV225 is suitable for professional broadcast television applications including sporting events, reality television, broadcast trucks, and weather vehicles. Marshall worked closely with professional video and systems integrators to improve

the first generation CV200 lipstick camera. The second generation CV225 IP67 lipstick camera incorporates those improvements, offering greater image clarity, enriched colours, enhanced low light performance and the added ability to remotely adjust without reliance on-screen display menus.

Visit www.marshall-usa.com

Miller’s Skyline 90 Makes its Debut

The Skyline 90 is the result of combined innovations from Miller and Ronford Baker Engineering. With a continuous counterbalance control that ranges from zero to 75kg at 30cm above the centre tilt axis and 15+0 selectable fluid pan-tilt drag positions, the Skyline 90 ensures optimum drag for any focal length. It has a sliding platform featuring 300mm of range that glides smoothly with a full

payload and easily balances heavy camera loads.

The Skyline 90 also comes with an auto safety lock to ensure a secure horizontal position when loading or dismantling heavy box lenses. Two bubble levels located at either side of the head allow for levelling. The floating calliper pan and tilt locks with large metal levers and can be operated simultaneously with one hand without causing picture disturbance. Optional features include a quick release wedge Alchemist XS

Live Stream-Based plate for sturdy camera mounting and heavy duty telescopic pan Conversion

handles.

Visit www.millertripods.com

www.s-a-m.com/sports

ACQUISITION

MILLER FLUID HEADS featured the Skyline 90 Fluid Head at IBC2017. Designed to meet the challenging conditions of outside broadcast, the Skyline 90 supports payloads of up to 75kg and features robust, all-alloy, heavy duty construction.

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SPORTSCASTING from p18

Obviously, an older compression method, but a very low latency one and really what we were requiring bandwidth-wise.

“It is all very expensive at the moment. It’s a hard one to justify being fully IP and there are some advantages but based on the size of maybe our project, it wasn’t something we were really looking to invest in at this time. It felt just a bit too early to be a really early adopter of this. We had to be reasonably conservative in what we built. It had to work. This wasn’t an experiment.”

In the case of greyhound coverage, a van manned by two camera operators and a technician is dispatched to the race venue. Cameras feed through triax connections at the venue to a base station inside the van. Video, audio and data is then fed back to the NZRB facility in Christchurch via a single Gigabit IP line with a connection provided by Vocus Communications.

“Camera control is pretty much from Christchurch,” says Jamie Annan. “The master setup in Christchurch negotiates between the RCTs and the base station, but comms is a wee bit different. We do keep it very modular in the respect that comms being generated from Christchurch are on their own system, and then get transmitted as IP audio over the network to then be reprocessed in the van.

“What that means is that, say, the network connection dies, they still have a certain amount of comms connectivity between them that they can still either contact us or continue with the operation at a minimum level. That’s all part of our disaster recovery plan around how we ensure that we can get back online as soon as possible. It’s certainly not a situation where, if you lost the network, everything’s gone. It’s setup so that doesn’t happen.

SPORTSCASTING

“By going down the IP network and remote-control scenario, we’ve been able to take two trucks off the road. We’ve built some much smaller vehicles for the essentially the price of one OB truck and the control room, and we’ve also been able to give ourselves an IP network, which means we can push signals backwards and forwards. So, it’s not just one SDI out of a truck, it’s multiple IP signals in both directions. We’re able to deliver a near instantaneous return feed for presenters and commentators, we’re running a whole IP network of audio across the back, a whole lot of Ravenna’s floating around in there as well, so it’s not just video, and on top of that, we’ve got VSM controlling everything.”

Next steps in the Vision Capture project include two new OB trucks and identifying further remote production opportunities, an area where the NZRB is now in control of its own destiny.

“The switching hub itself is in Christchurch. The van is sitting [at the venue] pretty much with the base stations plugged into their remotes. Some additional audio and video routing will be there for on-call services, and also for the guys in the truck to monitor for any technical faults. But, for the most part, in terms of the feed that end up in Christchurch, they’re direct from the base stations to ensure that we do get the quickest feed possible. That feed from Christchurch then comes up to Stanley Street [Auckland] where we incorporate it into the main programme, and put graphics and so forth, before it goes out for distribution.

“I think that’s the big one for us,” says Annan, “because it’s not just about remote production, it was being able to pick out all of the stuff that we would always hand off to a third party, the Telco. We are now running that ourselves as well. It means we can just go grow. If a production suddenly comes to us and says, ‘Look, we’ve got all these new venues we’d like to put on fibre’, we can do that really quickly. So, in terms of going into the future, it’s just the ability for us to scale up and spin those things up really quickly with very little difficulty.”

“[Stanley Street is] our main production facility. We have two control rooms

Visit www.proaudiotv.com.au www.proaudiotv.co.nz and https://nzrb.co.nz

Eleven Sports Singapore Selects Ideal

Arqiva Extends AsiaSat Lease

ELEVEN SPORTS SELECTED IDEAL SYSTEMS for live sports production of the 2017 Merlion Cup international basketball tournament, held in Singapore’s OCBC Arena from September 20th to the 24th.

MEDIA SERVICES COMPANY, ARQIVA, has extended its lease for C and Ku-band capacity with AsiaSat for sports content delivery across the Asia-Pacific.

Ideal Systems conducted extensive field trials for its new Hybrid-IP live sports production system in Singapore. The field trials included producing live match coverage of the recent soccer friendly between Singapore and Hong Kong and as well as Singapore’s Asian Cup qualifier against Turkmenistan for Eleven Sports Singapore. Both matches were streamed live to Eleven Sports Singapore’s Facebook page and have amassed over 170,000 views.

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here and an NCR, so essentially a pretty professional TV station setup, and we bring in all our lines and everything is managed here. In Christchurch, it’s been an interesting mix because it’s almost like a satellite NCR wrapped up into a control room, so they’ve actually picked up some of the duties that our NCR has here in terms of network management and so forth. We’ve got an uncompressed line and a backup line coming in from Christchurch, and it’s all being switched out for us for those greyhounds, whereas before we would have the individual greyhound venues being delivered to us by a fibre through our previous Telco.

The Merlion Cup saw basketball teams from China, Korea, the Philippines, Chinese Taipei and Indonesia battling it out over five days. Live coverage will be streamed direct to the SportsSG YouTube Channel and broadcast on Live TV both nationally in Singapore and internationally. Ideal will be deploying its latest JVC HD IP cameras and new Hybrid IP production system which incorporates graphics, timers, slow motion replay, and commentary all in IT based solution. The production system from Ideal also includes the Dejero encoder that can stream via the Dejero Cloud direct to YouTube and to the Dejero Broadcast Server at the Eleven Sports Singapore studio for distribution to national and international TV networks.

Visit http://idealsys.com and http://elevensportsnetwork.com

The agreement will see Arqiva’s continued use of AsiaSat 5 to deliver a broad range of sporting events to Asian viewers, from football and cricket, to volleyball and tennis. The new agreement also provides Arqiva the option of using Ku-band capacity on AsiaSat 7, allowing additional flexibility in the deployment of smaller antennas for occasional use and live events.

David Crawford, Managing Director, Satellite and Media at Arqiva, said, “In addition to our continued commitment to provide services in the Asia-Pacific region, this lease extension with AsiaSat gives Arqiva and our customers true flexibility for future live events. Our on-going strategic partnership with AsiaSat reinforces our commitment to providing premium occasional use services in the market.”

Barrie Woolston, Chief Commercial Officer of AsiaSat said, “We are delighted to support Arqiva with an expanding range of high quality capacity, enabling Arqiva to enjoy great flexibility and efficiency for delivering the best possible content distribution solutions to their clients.”

Visit www.asiasat.com

SPORTSCASTING

Lawo, ChyronHego Power Automated Audio Mixing for German Soccer VIEWERS OF GERMANY’S BUNDESLIGA TV are now able to enjoy a new sound experience in their living rooms.

Production company Sportcast, which produces all Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 matches, has launched an audio production system which uses live tracking data of players to set correct input levels for microphones used to record what is happening on the field.

Sportcast coordinated the activities of the two service manufacturers, Lawo and ChyronHego, and helped to ready the technology for market in a two-year development and testing phase.

Lawo developed the KICK software, which operates as the interface between the tracking data received and the digital mixing consoles used. ChyronHego, which is responsible for generating the official Bundesliga match data, provides the necessary tracking data for the automated system.

The quality of the official match data required for the technology is monitored by Sportcast subsidiary Sportec Solutions to ensure problem-free operations.

The innovative approach taken by the new audio production systems lies in the networked utilisation of data as a basis for Automated audio via using tracking data, Lawo-developed KICK software automatic audio mixing. The Lawo KICK software uses tracking operating on Bundesliga matchday 9 (FC Augsburg vs Hannover 96). data of the type that is now standard practice in professional microphones in the overall mix and thus has more leeway for enhancing the football and has previously been mainly used for match statistics and graphic aesthetics of the broadcast sound during the match. analyses. Camera-based technology generates real-time data in the stadium Tim Achberger, Head of Innovation and Technology Management at Sportcast allowing the exact position of the 22 players, referees and the ball to be GmbH, said, “The new audio production system supplies consistent results tracked. of a uniformly high quality, giving viewers an entirely new sound experience.

Using existing microphones, their positions on the edge of the field and their Bundesliga is committed to ensuring an emotionally charged mix throughout directional characteristics, the system determines which microphone can best the entire 90 minutes. Working with Lawo and ChyronHego, we have been capture what is happening on the field at any given time and automatically able to develop a new and innovative system to achieve this.” sends the necessary commands to the mixing console. The sound engineer sitting in the broadcast van can use the automated mixing of the field

Visit www.lawo.com http://chyronhego.com and www.sportcast.de

Content Your Way

There should only be one way to create, control and connect content.

Grass Valley empowers our customers to create, way.

MultiDyne Unleashes High-Density FibreYour Transport control and connect content wherever, however and whenever it is consumed.

immediately the two corresponding BNCcontent copper connections Grass Valleyconverts has integrated solutions that creators, on the back panel to video inputs. In dual-receiver mode, the corresponding BNCs aggregators and distributors need to sustain their businesses.

automatically convert to video outputs. Transceiver SFPs are also supported for

And no two are completely maximum operational flexibility.the same. Each solution needs to be

specially tuned meet your unique requirements.

From there, usersto can mix any combination of optical and copper connections to achieve the desired balance of inputs and outputs. The VF-9000 automatically recognises the SFP module connections, and transitions to the proper configuration upon coming online. A robust multiplexer feature Learn more by visiting grassvalley.com effortlessly combines 18 signals over one single-mode fibre for efficient, highordensity contact Sydney office on +61 2 8467 1600 signalthe transport.

It’s Content Your Way — and only Grass Valley is equipped to deliver.

The higher signal density is for customers working in ENG, sports production and other applications with high channel counts. Users can support up to 36 video signal conversions across HD, 3Gb/s and 12G from one unit, with automatic configuration of all inputs and outputs based on several parameters.

For example, in dual-transmit mode, each front-panel optical module (SFP)

The VF-9000 also differentiates itself from competitive systems by offering two hot-swappable AC power supplies to establish redundancy, eliminating the need to fiddle with external power supplies in fast-paced live production Belden, Belden Sending All The Right Signals, and the Belden logo are trademarks or registered environments. trademarks of Belden Inc. or its affiliated companies in the United States and other jurisdictions. Grass Valley products listed above are trademarks or registered trademarks of Belden Inc., GVBB Holdings Visit www.multidyne.com S.A.R.L. or Grass Valley Canada. Belden Inc., GVBB Holdings S.A.R.L., Grass Valley Canada and other parties may also have trademark rights in other terms used herein. Copyright 2017 Grass Valley Canada. All rights reserved. Specifications subject to change without notice.

SPORTSCASTING

MULTIDYNE FIBER OPTIC SOLUTIONS used this year’s IBC Show to introduce the VF-9000 fibre transport frame. Housed in a compact 1RU, and available in 18- and 36-channel versions, the VF-9000 is designed to address a growing need for higher signal density, format flexibility and operational versatility in a fibre transport platform.

Users aren’t strictly limited to video – VF-9000 systems can mix in audio, ethernet, reference and other data signals based on specifications at the time of order, with plans to enable hot-swappable functionality for any card and SFP in future releases. Likewise, the VF-9000 strengthens operational versatility by enabling signal regeneration and wavelength shifting within the same frame.

A web-based GUI ensures visibility of signal health and conversion status across all inputs and outputs, as well as internal parts such as fans and power supplies.

Join the conversation

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SPORTSCASTING

The Gold Coast Diaries – Chapter 7

By Jeff Coleman 05.50AM, TUESDAY 5 SEPTEMBER 2017 – SOUTHPORT, QLD Even after 30-plus years working in sports television and major events, a broadcast innovation can still set my spine tingling. It’s more than the technology – however cool it may be – but the thrill of transporting the viewer to the thick of the action, and imagining we might be giving fans an entirely new perspective on what the competitors are actually experiencing in that very moment.

SPORTSCASTING

That sensation springs acutely to life as I dive into cold Broadwater for my morning swim, discussion from the previous day’s Host Broadcast production team meeting running through my mind. Much of that session focused on the four-point camera system we plan to use for the swimming and diving competitions at Gold Coast 2018; its deployment will be another Commonwealth Games broadcast-first.

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While the newish drone cameras have rightly been embraced, logistical and safety reasons make them impractical to use indoors or in a spectator-packed The Optus Aquatic Centre, GoldCoast. stadium. In those cases, we’ll be suspending a camera from four cables so it can be manoeuvred anywhere cameras and associated equipment vests. in the arena for events including the swimming, diving, athletics and Opening With a tick of approval from the FIH, our Ref and Closing ceremonies. The system lets a director move seamlessly from Cam will be following the balls, sticks and widescreen, whole-of-venue vistas, to eye level shots, and it’s the best way to players flying across the hockey pitch next get close to fast-moving objects along with athlete’s safely. year.

The diving pool is a particular challenge: the lack of a venue roof changes the One of the most exciting innovations we’re overhead perspective completely. For standard head-on shots of the divers we’ll deploying in conjunction with GOLDOC use a 50-foot technocrane camera with a stabilised head to address the tight Technology for Gold Coast 2018 is behindspace between the dive and warm-up pool, and also allow us to move between the-scenes: a Games-wide Audio over Internet different height boards. The overhead four-point shots will capture some angles Refcam, wearable tech.

Protocol (AoIP) integrated network that will never seen before, as well as shots of adjacent Broadwater. I have a site survey the week after next with the aquatics specialty provider to look at the divecam provide essential broadcast functionality and how to adapt it to the tower given there is no roof! including commentary and coordination circuits. It will create unprecedented flexibility and control diversity. We’ll have more to say on this AoIP solution and Another innovation is a motorised derny bike point-of-view (POV) camera for the what it will mean to the broadcasters closer to Games time – stay tuned! track cycling, building on the brilliant system used for the Rio Olympic Games. For wrestling and weightlifting, Jita-Cam – in which a jib is attached to the overhead I finish my laps, take a shower and pick up breakfast to go from Café Catalina, grid, with the camera mounted to the arm – will deliver a different perspective attached to the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre: they have great coffee and an even than the usual overhead shots and should make for riveting coverage. better view. Sitting down at my desk I send an email to Tim Allsop, Technical In our quest to take viewers onto the field of play, why not let them see what Projects Manager from NEP UK. He and Technical Project Manager Kevin Orwin the umpire does? To that aim, over the past few months we’ve been testing and are heading here the week after next for a series of technical and production proving the concept of wearable camera technology, specifically, the refereeseminars. Our UK colleagues are supplying the engineering solution for the mounted camera, or ‘Ref Cam’.

Main Stadium and Gold Coast Sports and Leisure Centre, where the wrestling, For boxing, we demonstrated the concept in late June for officials from AIBA, badminton and weightlifting are to be held. The seminars will also include 4K the sport’s governing body, when they were on the Gold Coast to attend the planning for the Opening Ceremony.

Oceania Championships. Led by Coordinating Producers Jane Caswell and Shane These meetings will mark the start of the handover to NEP UK of these key Street, our team first trialled a stabilised, chest-mounted camera attached to a venues. They will take our current plans for compound design and layout and vest under the referee’s shirt (the lens popped out between the buttons). That wasn’t ideal: the camera missed crucial parts of the action as the referee moved then begin the process of integrating them with their system, most recently used around the ring. Our alternative – the forehead-mounted Ref Cam – delivered for the IAAF World Athletics Championships in London. terrific results, however. As the referee’s eyes need to follow the competitors My in-box much tidier than when I logged on at 5am, I round up Christian Letford throughout a bout, every split second of action was duly captured. and John ‘JG’ Galea, two of our Coordinating Venue Technical Managers, and we Jane and Shane also spearheaded the production team’s recent Ref Cam trial at head out for the latest in our helicopter site surveys. Lifting off from the heliport a hockey match staged for FIH world hockey governing officials. To create a real at Main Beach it’s a calm and sunny spring day. We tack northwest towards game scenario, two of Brisbane’s Division 1 teams faced off at QLD State Hockey Biggera Waters, the turn point for the triathlon and, coincidentally, JG’s house Centre in Morningside. With two umpires wearing cameras we could compare – which we make a point of flying directly over. Our view spans the entire Gold two different lens types – one wide angle, the other with a tighter view.

Coast and hinterland, and we all feel exhilarated knowing we’ll be delivering this These Ref Cams were also forehead-mounted. This time, however, we enhanced vista to viewers all over the world just seven short months from now. the cameras’ stabilising capabilities, combining a gyro – to keep the camera *Jeff Coleman is Head of Engineering and Technical Operations for NEP Australia, point-of-view level with the horizon when the referee looked down – with Host Broadcaster of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. The GC2018 Host separate ability to direct an up, down or sideways tilt function. This gives the director the option to either follow the movement of the umpire’s head or not, Broadcaster – led by NEP Host Broadcast with the support of production partners depending on what the action dictates. the Seven Network and Sunset+Vine – will deliver the event television and digital broadcast to rights-holding broadcasters around the world from April 4-15, 2018: all Not only were the technical and production teams thrilled with the live images, but the umpires said they weren’t distracted or inconvenienced by wearing the up some 1100 hours of live television.

NEWS OPERATIONS www.content-technology.com/newsoperations

Sky News Means Business in News Corp Cross-Platform Hub

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

The launch of new digs for Australia’s Channel Chief Executive Officer. only 24-hour business channel follows the 2016 acquisition of Australian News Channel Pty Ltd by News Corp Australia. While operations for the main news channel have remained at the Macquarie Park campus of Foxtel, Sky News Business teams have been busy on integration with counterparts at News Corp to form the cross-platform National Business Hub. According to Angelos Frangopoulos, “This is a collaborative work environment where we’re bringing together the business journalism resources of News Corp Australia in a collaborative sense, and one of the key things about achieving that was actually having the Sky News Business based here at Holt Street.

There’s a couple of reasons for it. Not just the fact that we’re in a building full of journalists, the finest journalists in Australia working here for News Corp Australia, but also the fact that we’ve brought the business channel closer to the CBD which has been a challenge for it geographically, based out at Macquarie Park.

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

What form will that collaboration take?

“We have already seen some great developments in what we’re calling, ‘crossplatform journalism’. Ticky Fullerton, for example, who’s the host of Ticky, our flagship business program, is filing stories for The Australian in print and is also filing during the day as well for her evening television program. A case in point, on our first day broadcasting out of the Business Hub, we had the Treasurer of Australia, Scott Morrison, as our guest, and that was a story that transcended multiple platforms. It made news and allowed the Hub to not only deliver news in terms of immediacy - that’s actually important to the news cycle - but also allowed further analysis to happen off the back of it on other platforms.

In terms of workflow for that type of coverage, can content be instigated by print journalists as well as those on the TV channel?

“Absolutely. Our business traditionally at Sky News is about immediacy. It’s part of our DNA. If something breaks, we’re on it. And, that’s been our philosophy around covering the Australian Stock Exchange. We see what we do during the day as being very much a partner product to covering the ASX as a traditional business, markets-driven channel. But, in the evening, we’re taking a different approach in 2018, where we’re going to broaden the channel out and work a

The new Sky News Business set at News Corp’s Sydney HQ. [Pic - The Australian]

lot more closely with some of the News Corporation brands around consumer and real estate and superannuation, etc. That really will allow us to provide a more rounded service of information and money news, consumer finance news, to a broader group of Australians than the ones that currently consume our coverage of the markets.”

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

“This is a further extension of the way that we approach television production.

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

“So, what we’ve created here is a remote studio. It allows us to further build on the economies of scale that we have in that centralised production model, while at the same time delivering an environment that is really quite dynamic.

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

And, do you interact with the other arms of News Corp, internationally?

“We’ve got really great relationships right across the News Corp assets. We collaborate closely with the radio business that they own in the UK, we have a strong collaboration already with Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, great relationships there. And it’s something that we’ll build up over time.

“We’ve only been part of News Corp since the 1st of December [2016] and already since then we’ve made some great progress in building relationships and identifying opportunities, some of which are still down the line and yet to be announced.”

Is there likely to be more consolidation at this site or will this remain more of a remote facility?

“This is really about investing in business journalism. We still have a long lease on the property out at Macquarie Park and there’s a lot of sunk costs there. As

NEWS OPERATIONS

Angelos Frangopoulos, Australian News

The dedicated business studio broadcasts live, breaking business news across the country and is a pivotal part of News Corp Australia’s recently formed National Business Hub.

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NEWS OPERATIONS

The Sky News Business set as seen from News Corp’s cafeteria.

you can appreciate, relocating is a significant endeavour, and I don’t want to get too many suppliers too excited just yet about a Sky News relocation.”

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

“That’s not the way that we operate. We are huge believers in the power of bonded cellular [technology] and we use bonded cellular to send all the content back to Macquarie Park. So, this is purely a production environment and a journalistic production environment for the 24-hour Business Channel and business more broadly. We’ll use this studio for the Queensland Election night, so it doesn’t necessarily just have to be used for business, but we’ve got a number of assets right around the country and it’s about utilising them in the best possible way.”

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

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

What’s the end goal of that project?

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

“Two really good examples. One is Geelong. We’ve put a studio into Geelong for tactical reasons because there’s some great political stories out of Geelong but it is just a little bit too far to get to Melbourne. And, we’ve done the same on the Gold Coast. We’ve got a bureau on the Gold Coast for similar reasons, and we’ve only been able to achieve that because of our business model which is, down the line, remote gathering or remote production, but centralised aggregation of the content through Mosart and everything comes into Sydney and then we switch remotely out of there.”

I know that news.com.au had its own video crews. How much collaboration is going on with them?

NEWS OPERATIONS

“I think one of the key things why News Corp acquired the Australian News Channel Business was to be a driver of video and I think that that’s something that we’re obviously working on - integrating video content more into the News Corp universe through their distribution platforms and there’s a project underway for that now.

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“As I say, it’s not even a year that we’ve been owned by News Corp and already we’ve made significant headway on that. There’ll always be reasons for bespoke content to be gathered that’s not part of our USP if you like, the way we operate, but we work very, very closely with Nicole Sheffield [Nicole Sheffield, Chief Digital Officer, News Corp Australia] and Julian Delany [Managing Director, News DNA, News Corp] and the entire team to ensure that we complement and build the video category as effectively as we can.”

As a Hub, you’re addressing all manner of platforms, not just TV? How does that all play out?

“So, already our journalists are filing for print and digital. We’ve done that at a number of sites, not just here in Sydney in this Hub. It’s a philosophy that we

have rolled out on the Gold Coast, in Adelaide, in Darwin, and to some extent in Melbourne where Andrew Bolt operates out of our facility in Melbourne but is writing a blog all day for the Herald Sun, and in fact has a radio program at night.

He also presents from his office in our facility in Southbank. But, more broadly, it really is about getting journalists thinking about the fact that there are multiple ways to tell a story and by having this collaboration on the same site in Surry Hills, where people are working closely together, it means that we can fast forward our way to achieving that.

“I’ve always believed the best place for journalists to be based is with other journalists and I think it’s a great step forward for everyone here to be part of you know, really such a vibrant journalist environment as this.”

Is one of the aims of having journalists from different backgrounds to enable crossfertilising of ideas?

“I think Ticky Fullerton and Leo Shanahan are two really great examples. And, they each won a [News Corp] News Award recently and that’s really driven by the fact that they have been an additional resource, additional thinking, and they do benefit from talking to other journalists and exploring issues and gathering content in a fresh and different way.

“Television, by its definition, is very different to acquiring for print, or digital for that matter, and I think that the better blend you can get of all three, the better it is I think for the quality of journalism. There’s a lot that we don’t have as natural strength in terms of analysis and depth, which is a really great strength of newspapers. I pick up The Australian and the amount of depth and experience of talent that you’ve got in that newspaper is something that’s up until now has been very hard for us to replicate in a television sense.”

What the construction of the Hub here and the team behind that?

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

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

“It’s very easy to get caught up with brand new shiny things, but ultimately I think that facilities like this have to be about, in our case, the journalism, and everything was built here. I think it really positions us well to build on the quality and breadth of our journalism, backed by really great technology, and I think that systems like bonded cellular, Mosart automation, Quantel, which is now SAM, really they are the bedrock of our business, and we are now very excited about taking some of the learnings from this facility and Fox Sports News and turning our attention to some of the other services that we produce.”

Visit www.sky.com.au

NEWS OPERATIONS

CONTENT DELIVERY

www.content-technology.com/newsoperations

Mediacorp Powers Up EVS Workflow

Tame

THE NEWS WORKFLOW AT MEDIACORP’S new media campus in Singapore includes a deployment of EVS technology on a huge scale.

The EVS technical infrastructure at the campus includes technology for ingest, management, editing and output of content. There are six XS production servers ingesting content which are managed by several IPDirector live production asset management systems while ten Ingest Funnel applications allow for electronic newsgathering (ENG) crews to ingest additional content from camera cards.

the VOD Monster

“The scale of the technical facilities that have been implemented at our new Mediacorp campus is beyond anything we’ve done before,” said Norraine Yusof, SVP of Campus Technology Development at Mediacorp. “The technology we’ve installed for the newsroom, from ingest to playout – and the support and training we receive from EVS – was key to ensure our workflow operates seamlessly for our journalists and technicians.”

The core of the infrastructure relies on 42 XTAccess transcoding and transfer engines and eight additional servers supporting the IPDirector and Xedio applications across the network. At the heart of the system is EVS’ XStore SAN storage – a 492TB system which has the capacity to store 12,000 hours of high-resolution or 20,000 hours of low-resolution content.

The solution deployed for the newsroom incorporates 280 Xedio Cutter applications which give users the ability to create a story framework for editors to pick up and edit using the IPLink for Adobe plugins which facilitates easy access to content within the network. Journalists can also edit content

themselves using one of the 170 workstations installed in the newsroom with EVS’ Xedio CleanEdit.

Once content is completed, another five XS servers take care of the playout of the programmes from the news production control room. All of the workflow’s 12 XS servers – whether for ingest or playout – are interconnected with a high-bandwidth media sharing network using two XHub3 systems from EVS. “Mediacorp didn’t want an infrastructure of disparate elements. The EVS-centric workflow that’s been delivered is a complete production chain – from start to finish,” said Olivier Heurteaux, SVP APAC at EVS. “By planning and rolling out a workflow in this way, the company’s production crews, journalists and editors have an easy to operate production workflow that outputs the highest-quality content possible.”

Reach your audience without the pain.

Visit https://evs.com

iTX On-Demand makes VOD easy, dramatically reducing preparation time and complexity both pre-recorded AND live productions.

Want to win more viewers?

Dejero CellSat BlendsforCellular and Satellite Connectivity On-Demand the event Then forget about hours, you can publish live content within minutes marketplace and we are thrilled to beofworking with Intelsat to make this DEJERO HAS ANNOUNCED a partnership with Intelsat. The collaboration possible. ” provides broadcasters with a new blended cellular and Ku-band IP finishing. Plus, you can scale to meet the demands of a growing market without solution for live television coverage from remote locations.

The Dejero CellSat solution communicates with the satellite terminal autoincreasing your overhead.

acquire system to simplify the satellite connection process. There is no Dejero CellSat leverages Dejero’s network blending technology to combine need to schedule satellite time, saving crews valuable time and removing cellular connectivity fromIfmultiple mobile network carriers with Ku-band your VOD operation has become a monster, we can help you tame it. the constraint of broadcasting within a certain time window. In addition to IP connectivity provided by Intelsat. This gives CellSat users the required managing the fluctuating bandwidth of individual cellular connections, CellSat bandwidth and greater confidence to go live from virtually anywhere. If the software dynamically allocates satellite bandwidth for optimal performance. bandwidth available fromLearn cellular more connections dips due to network congestion by visiting grassvalley.com/itxondemand or call Grass Valley The Dejero CellSat solution includes pre-certified encoding and receiving or other factors, CellSat automatically blends in Ku-band IP satellite Sydney office at +61 2 8467 1600 equipment, network blending software, connectivity services to the CellSat connectivity to boost bandwidth to the requested level for the live shot. network, cloud management, and 24/7 technical support. Most satellite “We are addressing the dilemma that broadcasters face about which vehicles with existing Ka-band or Ku-band satellite equipment can be video transport assets to deploy to a news story or live event,” explained upgraded for compatibility with Dejero CellSat. Bogdan Frusina, founder of Dejero. “By taking advantage of cellular and Dejero CellSat is available in the United States and Canada, with rollout to satellite connectivity, CellSat offers high reliability to our customers, with other regions planned for 2018. the convenience of procurement, network management, billing, and support from a single vendor. This is a package that is currently unmatched in the

Visit www.dejero.com and www.intelsat.com

Telestream Announces Auto-Transcription Platform

To be shown for the first time at IBC2017 on stand 7.B26, Timed Text Speech dramatically saves transcription time by allowing operators to review the instantaneous transcription results while the speech engine is processing the rest of the video program.

corporations, government organisations and educational institutions wishing to bring captioning in-house.

“With Timed Text Speech, users can easily upload media files directly to the services portal. Because they only pay by the transcription minute, there is no wasted expense for idle transcription resources. When combined with the Telestream MacCaption/CaptionMaker closed captioning software, Timed Text Speech becomes part of an all-in-one transcription and subtitling/captioning tool that allows users to easily transcribe, transcode, convert, troubleshoot, modify, and deploy caption data alongside video – regardless of the delivery platform,” explained Giovanni Galvez, Product Manager for Captioning and Subtitling at Telestream.

Timed Text Speech is suitable for content creators who need to produce Available in early October from Telestream and its global network of resellers, captions and subtitles for time-sensitive content that must be aired on TV or Timed Text Speech currently works with English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, the Internet with short turnaround times, as well as short-form content such and Spanish language video content; Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin are as promos that require captioning. It also offers a time-efficient solution for Belden, Belden Sending All The Right Signals, and the Belden logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Belden Inc. orfor its aaffiliated companies in the United planned later release. captioning service companies looking for new tools to speed up their service, States and other jurisdictions. Grass Valley products listed above are trademarks or registered trademarks of Belden Inc., GVBB Holdings S.A.R.L. or Grass Valley Canada.

Inc., GVBB Holdings S.A.R.L., Grass Valley Canada and other parties may also have other terms used herein. and Belden a cost-effective and easy-to-use automated transcription option for trademark rights Visitinwww.telestream.net

Join the conversation

Copyright 2017 Grass Valley Canada. All rights reserved. Specifications subject to change without notice.

NEWS OPERATIONS

TELESTREAM HAS ANNOUNCED Timed Text Speech, a new file-based auto-transcription service for subtitling and captioning workflows. Using speech-to-text technology, artificial intelligence, and the speed of cloudbased processing, Timed Text Speech instantly creates a text transcript of a video and populates it directly into a captioning project with the correct timing so that each phrase is displayed at the right time.

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POST PRODUCTION www.content-technology.com/postproduction

NZ’s Department of Post Goes HDR with DaVinci Resolve Studio NEW ZEALAND’S DEPARTMENT OF POST is using DaVinci Resolve Studio, DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panels, and DaVinci Resolve Mini Panels from Blackmagic Design as part of the ANZ-leading HDR post production house’s workflow.

Department of Post provides end-to-end post production services, including DIT, editorial, online, finishing, colour and audio for film and television productions, both local and international. Recently, it has focused on opening up New Zealand’s first fully HDR compliant post workflow to a wider range of productions, using DaVinci Resolve Studio as one of the core components.

The facility has a DCI compliant DI theatre which includes DaVinci Resolve Studio and a DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel, a television grading suite with DaVinci Resolve Studio seats, a DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel for 4K HDR post, and five seats of DaVinci Resolve Studio for the company’s near-set DIT department.

Katie Hinsen, Department of Post’s Head of Operations, said, “Depending on the distributor, our HDR workflow can change. Generally speaking, our dailies and DIT department will process footage for editorial, and we will screen dailies in full HDR to help guide the cinematographers. This is very helpful for our clients, especially since HDR is still new enough that many directors of photography have limited experience with the nuances of extended dynamic range and colours.”

Once production wraps and editorial is done, media is conformed in DaVinci Resolve Studio and graded to the HDR standard required.

“Resolve has the added intelligence of scaled scopes for HDR, and all the colour management EOTFs we need,” says Hinsen. “After the grade, we are able to export whatever high-resolution DSM format we require for mastering, straight out of the Resolve to our deliverables mastering team. We then use Resolve’s collaborative workflow to pass the timeline to our assistant colourist/finishing artist for the SDR trim pass. Once again, it’s DaVinci Resolve’s excellent colour management which makes this far less complicated than other systems, as it has the ability to more intelligently switch between colour spaces.”

Since it provides post production for many international films, commercials and TV shows, Department of Post also had to build an HDR workflow that deals with all HDR standards, to deliver in HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG. “Resolve colour management makes this seamless, taking the complication out of the post finishing process across three fundamentally different colour science workflows,” Hinsen continued. “We use Resolve on all of the HDR projects we do. Resolve has fantastic colour management and is an integral part of our end-to-end HDR workflow.

"Resolve is also used for most of our finishing projects. We believe that every production, regardless of budget or scope, should have equal access to the best tools and technology the world has to offer, so we use Resolve across web series, commercials, television and feature films. We even used Resolve recently on portions of an AR-integrated live broadcast.”

One of the most recent additions to the Department of Post’s workflow are DaVinci Resolve Mini Panels.

“We love using the Resolve panels, both the large and the Mini Panel. The Mini Panel has really improved our high-end TV grading. We’re looking to add some Resolve Micro Panels for our dailies colourists in DIT,” said Hinsen.

While international productions are now regularly finishing in HDR, Department of Post is helping local productions with their first moves into HDR, and opening its doors to cinematographers and post production freelancers for training on HDR workflows.

“We want to help ensure that our local productions are consistently worldclass, so we open our doors to give the production community the tools and exposure to HDR material, so that they can produce the best work possible,” said Hinsen.

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com/au and http://departmentofpost.com

POST PRODUCTION

Canon Launches 4K HDR Reference Display

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CANON HAS ANNOUNCED THE LAUNCH of the DP-V2411, a 24-inch professional reference display designed for 4K High Dynamic Range (HDR) broadcast and film production workflows.

ARRI Log C for HDR monitoring. Enhancing the efficiency of production, the camera can simply be connected to the DP-V2411 without the need to add any special LUTs to check the quality of HDR signal.

The DP-V2411 offers high luminance performance, delivering full screen white of 600cd/m², with the ability to increase luminance up to 1,000cd/m², using the Boost Contrast mode. Canon’s original built-in backlight control system is able to correct brightness to ensure a uniform, stable, precise and high-quality image.

The DP-V2411 is the first Canon display to feature 12G-SDI, which can send 4K 50P signal with a single cable. The DP-V2411 also features a HDMI terminal, capable of 4K 50P signal with a single cable for easy connection to cameras or playout systems.

Delivering accurate colour reproduction, the DP-V2411 uses a direct matrix backlight LED panel which has been optimised to an IPS liquid crystal display to achieve a much wider colour gamut. The display supports a broad range of standards, including the ITU-R BT.2020 Ultra HD broadcast standard colour gamut, ITU-R BT.709, EBU and SMPTE-C, as well as the DCI-P3 digital cinema standard. The DP-V2411 also supports ACES proxy.

Through its adherence to the latest HDR Electro Optical Transfer Functions (EOTFs), PQ and Hybrid Log Gamma, along with Canon Log 2/3, the DP-V2411 offers accurate image reproduction for HDR production. The DP-V2411 is able to display metadata from Canon’s Cinema EOS camera range and ARRI Camera Systems. Preset LUTs are installed on the DP-V2411 for both Canon Log and

The DP-V2411’s HDR functions support the highest quality for HDR production. A built-in 4K waveform monitor can display scales for PQ and Hybrid Log-Gamma signal, while the HDR False Colour feature also supports both PQ and Hybrid Log-Gamma signal. HDR False Colour shows a different colour, based on the input signal level, on the monitor. In addition to this False Colour function, the DP-V2411 can display HDR image and False Colour image simultaneously in split screen from a single 4K input. The DP-V2411 also provides a HDR and SDR comparison function, which allows images to be compared in split screen on the monitor. This removes the requirement for two monitors for this task, further boosting efficiency in the production process.

Visit www.canon.com.au

NEWS OPERATIONS

AVIWEST Uplink for Live Remote Production AVIWEST ATTENDED IBC2017 to showcase the latest developments in its digital mobile newsgathering ecosystem.

The extended capabilities of AVIWEST’s cloud solution were also showcased at IBC2017. By supporting both point-to-point and point-tomultipoint distribution scenarios, the platform offers broadcasters the flexibility to stream live video content to any CDN and streaming platform. The platform includes a SIP-based IFB application, providing broadcasters with an efficient way to coordinate with crew via audio conferences or one-to-one. On the field, eligible AVIWEST devices are connected to the Manager in just seconds, and conferences can be started without configuration.

A key highlight was the transition to the HEVC video compression standard. AVIWEST’s live IP video solutions support HEVC, allowing broadcasters to deliver superior video quality at lower bit-rates.

AVIWEST also showcased AIR300 and AIR320, the two first products in its AIR series of lightweight video uplink systems. Integrating H.265/HEVC hardware encoders, the series enables HD and SD encoding and exceptional video quality delivery. Featuring up to four cellular connections, an internal Wi-Fi modem, internal battery, and AVIWEST’s SafeStreams technology, the AIR series allows broadcasters to stream live videos, store and forward recorded content even during unpredictable and unmanaged network conditions.

AVIWEST’s HE4000 4K Ultra HD (UHD) HEVC live encoder is aimed toward real-time delivery of live UHD or HD content over unmanaged networks. The half 1RU encoder combines 10-bit and 4:2:2 HEVC encoding with the latest generation of SafeStreams technology for delivery of live video content over IP at low latencies and bit-rates.

AVIWEST has enhanced its Mobile Journalism (MOJO) solution, which includes the Laptop MacBook application and the iOS and Android applications. The new version of the APP smartphone application for live streaming, store, and forward of video features an optimised interface, advanced camera settings, dynamic resolution, and video-quality improvements, with the capability to transmit video over bonded 3G/4G and Wi-Fi connections.

AVIWEST’s PRO video uplink series has been extended with the new PRO180+.

PRO180+ supports most of the cellular networks deployed in the world, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the United States, Canada, Latin America, and most of Asia. The versatility of this version gives broadcasters and video professionals the flexibility to travel anywhere in the world with a single unit – without needing to replace internal or external cellular modems.

MEDIA STORAGE

The HE4000 was demonstrated with the latest version of the StreamHub transceiver and decoder platform, offering integrated 4K UHD HEVC recording and decoding functions.

AVIWEST’s live IP contribution system includes the StreamHub transceiver and the Manager management system. The system operates in virtualised mode to deliver the economic benefits of the cloud without compromising performance.

Visit www.aviwest.com

MADE SIMPLE Stream Directly to Facebook Live

SOFTWARE DESIGNERS RASCULAR create PCbased video playout control and media management systems. Bespoke or off-the-shelf, its applications work across SDI and IP technologies. This allows media companies control and management across hybrid playout environments. User-defined screen layouts provide precision access to on-air and off-air thirdparty technologies. This gives operators crucial touchof-a-button control of manual and automated media preparation and channel playout, be that IP or SDI.

Providing the flexibility required in modern broadcast facilities, Rascular also revealed its new web panel capabilities at IBC2017. Alongside the flexibility that device independence provides, they also allow tight integration with live broadcasting to social media e.g. Facebook Live. Panels can be used in all modern browsers on mobile and desktop platforms. They also facilitate the remote control of services and equipment for pop-up and OTT channels and are ideal for integration with cloud-based encoding technologies.

For existing Helm users, already created panel designs can be easily converted to Web Panels. Helm’s familiar drag and drop designer allows the easy creation of new panels to the user’s specification.

Create, Manage, and Deliver Media Content Edge to Core to Cloud

At IBC2017, Rascular demonstrated its ability to provide direct control of streaming content to Facebook Live using its master control platform Helm. This can be achieved via Helm on a PC or via associated, device-independent web panels. This allows integration for broadcasters and playout providers between broadcast devices and streaming content. Operators can control both the streaming encoder and Facebook Live from a single screen. Helm communicates with Facebook using the latter’s Graph API.

Rascular has also created a cost-effective solution to provide automated time-of-day router switching using a self-contained, PC-based router control panel, which provides both manual and automated time-of-day switching.

Visit www.rascular.com

IP-Enabled LED Monitors

Post-Production | Content Delivery | Broadcast Audience Analysis | Visual Effects | OTT Delivery

CueScript’s IP-enabled prompting system runs on CueiT prompting software – designed and built on feedback from today’s broadcasters, offering greater flexibility, ease of use, and a shareware style that allows CueiT to be loaded onto every laptop/PC in a facility. The ‘CueB’ engine offers connection via ethernet or USB and the connectivity of near limitless scroll controllers that can also be connected at:a true HD-SDI prompting signal as well as a composite video signal. overFind IP. Theout CueBmore produces Multiple CueB’s can run independently or simultaneously, and can be rack mounted in the C.A.R or emergingtechsolutions.com/media-entertainment anywhere in a studio complex.

Visitisilonapj@emc.com www.cuescript.tv

NEWS OPERATIONS

CUESCRIPT PRESENTED its European debut of its range of IP-enabled CSM LED monitors during IBC2017. The new range can be integrated into an IP workflow today, but also works with the HD-SDI and composite video inputs that many studios currently use. The CSM LED monitors are available in 15, 17 and 19-inch sizes.

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POST PRODUCTION

Getting Animated About the Future DESPITE THE SUCCESS OF VFX HOUSES such as Animal Logic and Rising Sun Pictures, or game studios like Hipster Whale or Halfbrick, the corporate market is the growth area for animation and VR in Australia. That was the word from David Zwierzchaczewski, Animation Specialist with Autodesk, at the recent Media Entertainment Technology Open Day hosted by Digistor.

“Right now, I would say, the civil industries is definitely a massive growth area for that,” says Zwierzchaczewski. “So, last year, I probably did a VR demo every week and I'd say you can count on one hand the amount of people that I demoed to who were media entertainment people. It was architecture and engineering, construction, defence, manufacturing. They are so hungry for it and I'm actually seeing traditional game studios that are moving into that space now, so it traditionally hasn't been where gamers want to go, because they want to make the next Call of Duty or whatever it might be.

“But, if you want to make money and where I'm seeing real growth in the gaming industry right now, is absolutely in the serious gaming space. And then, inside that gaming space, I'm seeing growth in VR – it is definitely one of those growth areas, right now. It's one of those things, when you show a video of VR, it's just someone wearing a headset looking awkward. But, when you experience VR, you get a true sense of where the power of that is and it's that immersiveness of being in that space that no other experience can give you.

And that's why it's becoming very good for education, for visualisation and for training.”

Another area of growth for Zwierzchaczewski is that of 360° video, which has seen its uptake largely in advertising.

“That's where the growth for 360° video is happening,” he says. “I can't say why that is. I've got my own speculative ideas of why I think it's that way, but 360° video, as opposed to VR, is cheaper in some ways - it uses real life photography.

So, anything VR right now uses a game engine, so you tend to get that gamer kind of look to it no matter how good your shaders are. Where 360° is being used in advertising, it's being used to, say, sell a car or a holiday somewhere or an apartment somewhere – so, you want that to look as real as possible.”

As to the technological challenges confronting Virtual Reality, David Zwierzchaczewski says it comes down to more than just render power.

“Right now, when we're using VR,” he says, “we basically have two screens that are rendering the whole HD image in front of us. The way the human eye works is that we only see a very small part of our world in 3D – whatever we're focusing on is in high definition and everything else from that little area bleeds off into a very low resolution. Right now, with VR, we render the whole image in a high resolution, so we're wasting so much bandwidth. One of the things that needs to happen – which a lot of people are working on right now and should be up relatively soon – is real-time eye tracking.

“That real-time eye tracking will allow us to only render in high resolution what the pupil is looking at, which will allow so much more data to be pushed through. That's one of the things that's probably holding that back right now.

“The next thing is a trade-off between what looks good and what plays in real time. That's always been the universal thing with gaming, that's what they always struggled with. That gap is getting smaller and smaller, but now we've introduced VR, we've now added another hurdle to that.

“It's a tough one, because what audiences expect always changes. So, what was acceptable last year is old hat and unacceptable this year and is no good, anymore. Our expectations are always rising. It's never a level playing field.

So, I think we'll be here in 20 years' time and you'll ask me that same question and it'll still be ‘We're almost there, maybe in another 20 years' time’. But, our expectations are going to keep growing. It's like that old thing with storage, never say you never need any more storage on a hard drive.”

Visit www.autodesk.com and www.digistor.com.au

Update 3 for Flame 2018 AUTODESK HAS RELEASED update 3 for its Flame 2018 family of 3D visual effects (VFX) and finishing software, which includes Flame, Flare, Flame Assist and Lustre. Flame 2018.3 empowers creative professionals to explore new, more efficient ways of working in post, with feature enhancements that offer greater pipeline flexibility, speed and support for emerging formats and technology.

• HDR Waveform Monitoring: Set viewport to show luminance waveform; red, green, blue (RGB) parade; colour vectorscope or 3D cube; and monitor a range of HDR and wide colour gamut (WCG) colour spaces including Rec2100 PQ, Rec2020 and DCI P3

Flame 2018.3 release highlights include:

• Shotgun Software Loader: Load assets for a shot and build custom batches via Flame’s Python API, and browse a Shotgun project for a filtered view of individual shots

• Action Selective: Apply FX colour to an image surface or the whole action scene via the camera • Motion Warp Tracking: Organically distort objects that are changing shape, angle and form with new 32-bit motion vector-based tracking technology

POST PRODUCTION

• 360° VR Viewing Mode: View LatLong images in a 360° VR viewing mode in the Flame player or any viewport during compositing and manipulate the field of view

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• User-Requested Improvements for Action, Batch, Timeline and Media Hub Flame Family 2018.3 is available at no additional cost to customers with a current Flame Family 2018 subscription.

Visit www.autodesk.com/products/flame/overview

ADVERTISE WITH US

TARGETED CUSTOM EMAILS

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CONTACT Adam Buick adam@broadcastpapers.com or +61(0)413 007 144

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

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POST PRODUCTION

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

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

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

Avid Artist | DNxIP feature highlights include:

• Laptop or desktop HD/SD capture and playback over IP across Thunderbolt 3.

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

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

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

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

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

• Downstream keyer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

production workflow that lets you master full resolution high dynamic range

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

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

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

Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

External GPU Devices for Graphics Acceleration

POST PRODUCTION

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit www.sonnettech.com

POST PRODUCTION

Real-Time Boost for Motion Capture

EDIUS 9 with HDR Support, Floating Licenses

IKINEMA HAS ANNOUNCED The latest release of 3D animation software, Action 5.0 for Maya. The release has seen advancements to accelerate speed and performance, and live motion capture tools borrowed from IKinema’s LiveAction.

The new Real-time Playback capability enables users to solve MoCap data live, and retarget that motion directly to characters inside the viewport, allowing animation teams to see exactly how characters behave for a faster on-the-go workflow.

For the first time in Maya, Live ACP (Animation Cleaning Pipeline) is on hand during live set-ups to filter imperfections commonly found in MoCap data, reducing workload and time for in-house or outsource teams and studio expenditure.

EDIUS 9 NONLINEAR EDITING SOFTWARE from Grass Valley features support for more formats and more resolutions in real time.

“We’ve seen a spike in post-production studios preferring to adopt game engines to their animation pipelines for their ability to handle heavier content loads and faster render times,” said Alexandre Pechev, CEO IKinema. “We quickly realised that by introducing LiveAction’s MoCap and retargeting tools, as well as fine-tuning components of Action, meant faster feedback time, and smoother animations.

Maya users now have a further advanced and user friendly real-time platform to perform a wider range of tasks.

EDIUS 9 performance enhancements include:

New features for IKinema Action 5.0 include: • Optimised core plugin: Improved performance delivering twice the speed as previous version with real-time MoCap playback, solve and retarget directly to characters.

• Live ACP (Animation Cleaning Pipeline): Animation cleaning during live setups removes motion jitters, feet sliding and stop body and object penetration on the go.

• Revised IKinema Solver: Improvements to solver quality, stability and consistency produces refined end-result and quicker workflow.

• Core to IKinema Action is motion capture solving from labelled cloud data (marker solving), real-time retargeting, solving from sparse data, automatic correction of animation. A full list of features available here.

Action for Maya incorporates streaming interfaces for Vicon, OptiTrack and Xsens motion capture systems (Windows only).

Visit www.ikinema.com and www.deepsilver.com

A new ‘Cloud Ready’ floating license package is designed for large facilities such as broadcast stations or educational environments, allowing users to install EDIUS across multiple systems and then run a set number simultaneously at any given time, adding more licenses as needed. This feature will enable the use of EDIUS 9 on virtual workstations with major cloud platforms. The floating license package also includes license management software, making it much easier to manage the license with a single key.

• Native editing of HDR material.

• Export of HDR, which addresses the growing use of HDR content and supplements the existing ability of EDIUS to work directly in a number of 4K and HDR formats.

• Ability to mix SDR and HDR material in the same project, and output results in either colour space.

• Native support for HDR content from professional and consumer camcorders from major camera manufacturers, and also for HDR video from drones and smartphones.

• Workflow updates, such as Canon EOS C200 ‘Cinema RAW Light’ decoding, still raw file decoding and improvement of the user interface.

• Third-party hardware support update.

• Third-party hardware 4K 50p/60p output support (EDIUS Workgroup 9 only).

• Mync (media management software) bundled with EDIUS 9 implements a powerful new Meta Smart Search function.

The floating license package will be available in April 2018. For purchases of EDIUS 8 after September the 1st, 2017, a free upgrade to EDIUS 9 will be available, and for users of earlier versions, a jump upgrade package will be offered.

Visit www.grassvalley.com

Embracing the cloud ¸PRISMON The convergent monitoring solution for broadcast and streaming media R&S®PRISMON is designed from the ground up to allow broadcast and media service providers to successfully solve challenges. ❙ Multistandard support for unmatched versatility (e.g. AIMS /SMPTE 2110, ASPEN, DASH, ...) ❙ Future-proof, fully software defined solution for innovative monitoring features ❙ Cloud-enabled and orchestration-ready design for dynamic and flexible resource allocation

2.0 Focuses on Digitising Tape Archives

TELESTREAM, THE PROVIDER OF digital media tools and workflow solutions, has announced version 2.0 of Lightspeed Live Capture, its multichannel video capture and processing system.

Designed to provide the fastest possible tape ingest workflows, Lightspeed Live Capture now supports high-density log and capture, with the ability to www.rohde-schwarz.com/ad/prismon control and digitise four tape decks at once from a single system. Lightspeed sales.australia@rohde-schwarz.com Live Capture is a 1RU appliance capable of capturing 4 channels of HD-SDI or 1 channel of 4K/UHD into any high-quality video format required at frame rates up to 60 fps. Its multi-tenant design enables one operator to control four channels, or four operators to each control a single channel, maximizing operational efficiency.

Although usable as a stand-alone device, Lightspeed Live Capture is part of the Telestream Vantage ecosystem. Vantage enables automated capture, editing, transcoding, copying, and more, while Vantage Open Workflows allows these processes to start early, even as files are being captured (growing). Lightspeed Live Capture also functions as an integral part of any enterprise live-to-VOD workflow that includes Lightspeed Live Stream and Vantage.

Telestream’s Vidchecker application can be used to verify video and audio quality, plus legality and correctness for a complete archival workflow.

Vidchecker can run directly on the Lightspeed Live server with Live Capture.

Visit www.telestream.net

POST PRODUCTION

Available on scalable IT hardware platforms Telestream Live Capture and for cloud deployments.

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE Aspera Moves Mediacorp’s Miles of Files

By Phil Sandberg 2017 HAS BEEN A BIG YEAR for Singapore’s national broadcaster, Mediacorp, with the launch of its new HQ in the city’s Mediapolis precinct.

As well as a new building and studios, there is a new 'engine' under the hood in the form of a comprehensive file-based workflow.

Powering this engine are IBM Hybrid Cloud solutions, including IBM Aspera Orchestrator, part of the Aspera platform, which manages video and audio for more than 35 Mediacorp brands, including seven television and 11 radio stations as well as newer over-the-top (OTT) distribution systems.

Orchestrator now provides a common, streamlined solution for Mediacorp to collect, manage and distribute video across all systems, including on-premises systems and public clouds. Orchestrator helps manage more than 200 workflows and automatically handles parts of the process, such as encoding video for different formats, to help reduce manual tasks and speed time to market. In addition, IBM Aspera Faspex and Aspera Shares transfer files between internal sources, global sites and external vendors.

Planning

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

Production (AVID)

Distribution (Webportal)

Subtitling

Distribution (Toggle)

Distribution (GV)

MAM (Dalet)

Distribution (Radio-Zetta)

Non-linear distribution (Web, Toggle)

According to Steve Pollini, Vice-President of Technology Solutions with IBM Aspera, building new headquarters gave Mediacorp the opportunity to expand its use of Aspera solutions from that of high-speed file transfer to collaboration.

“In terms of the overall goal, Mediacorp really wanted to improve their processes and modernise the operation and then position themselves for the evolving trends – not only being able to handle linear, but Over-the-Top more effectively. They wanted to lower their operational costs and reduce errors and effectively provide deterministic kind of errors and that’s where, when they just put out their tender, that’s what they were looking for in terms of workflow management and coordination. So naturally, we have quite a lot of experience with that with broadcasters around the world doing quite a number of large projects of similar scale, and we proposed Aspera Orchestrator.”

So, what is the scope of the Orchestrator implementation?

Compliance (Actus)

Distribution (Radio-Netia)

Content, Metadata & Control Flows

The new IBM Aspera platform being used by Mediacorp now handles the endto-end production process for video – ingest, asset management, transcoding, quality control and distribution for various platforms, including linear programming on TV and radio stations, and OTT systems. It helps manage the workflow sequencing, queuing and load balancing, while providing a comprehensive view and control point for different processes, users and subsystems.

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News PAM (EVS)

Ingest Folders

Scheduling (IBS)

Distribution

Production

Linear Distribution

Planning/Scheduling

News

Radio

all of their assets or the technical assets, but also effectively operate like an enterprise service bus which was quite central to the request that they had within their tender.

“The idea of the enterprise service bus is that you can tie it together, everything from program acquisition and scheduling, metadata processing, together with distribution, rights, ad sales, VOD planning and then, at some point, as they evolve, they can tie it into their finance and broadcast resource management systems.

“In addition to that, instead of kicking off the process and then waiting for something to pop out at the other end, they wanted a comprehensive endto-end view of everything that was going on in the system. So, instead of a request going from the scheduling system into the MAM and then it cascading through the system, everything started with a request from scheduling system which would invoke Aspera Orchestrator.

“In order to accomplish their end goals, we created approximately 250 workflows within Orchestrator and, of those, 50 of them are mainline workflows and the other 200 are what we call 'sub-workflows'. Let’s say you were going to do transcoding for linear and you’re also going to do transcoding for Over-the-Top, the transcoding and QC portion of that could constitute a sub-workflow that could be called by each of the multiple mainline workflows.

So, once you design and build that, you test it, it’s like an object, a sub-routine, and you’ve got it and you can reuse it with other workflows.

“They have about 20 major subsystems and various vendor systems that they use for transcoding, QC, subtitling, their MAM, they have their own scheduling and planning system, media analysis, virus scanning, etc. The way a lot of folks in the past have tied these things together is via a scheduling system which would invoke the MAM and kick off a process that was sort of cascaded through till something popped out the other end and it was ready for feeding to the live system.

“By using Orchestrator as a hub, it knows the status of every step of every flow within the system. Therefore, we could create dashboards that management could use to know the status of the entire system. You would also know the status of any assets that were flowing through the system, whether it was successful, whether it was meeting their SLAs, or if there was a problem within the system. So, you have both management level dashboards and you have the normal, technical displays and dashboards that allow your technical staff to do investigation and to research it.

“One of the reasons I think that they appreciated what Orchestrator could bring is that not only would it be able to coordinate the workflows, manage

“I think the other positive aspect of Orchestrator is that it’s scaled along with their system and, even more importantly, it lets them reuse their resources continues p35>>

POST PRODUCTION www.content-technology.com/postproduction

Animal Logic Launches USDMAYA Plugin as Open Source ANIMAL LOGIC HAS ANNOUNCED the open source release of its USDMaya plugin (known as ‘AL_USDMaya’). The plugin enables efficient authoring and editing of 3D graphics data using Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (USD) in Autodesk Maya.

AL_USDMaya builds upon Pixar’s USD technology, which was released as open source in 2016. USD supports the interchange of 3D graphics data through various digital content creation tools, providing an effective and scalable solution for the complex workflows of CG film and game industry studios.

When Pixar confirmed that it would open source USD earlier this year, Animal Logic became an early adopter of the technology and decided to use it as the backbone of its new animation pipeline. As Maya is used extensively at Animal Logic it was important to have a sophisticated integration of USD into Maya. During this time, Animal Logic was developing its own common scene description format based on technology from its inhouse renderer, Glimpse, and since then the AL_USDMaya plugin has been in development within Animal Logic’s research and development team.

The goal of the plugin is to leverage the strengths of both Maya and USD and use each one to represent the data it is most suited to. Animal Logic

uses AL_USDMaya to allow native Maya entities such as complex Maya Rigs loaded as references, and other assets not easily represented in USD to be embedded in USD scenes and imported into Maya natively. The plugin maintains a ‘live’ connection between the USD and Maya scene, and can respond to various events, keeping the Maya and USD scenes in sync. This affords a dynamic user experience allowing artists to swap in and out different representations of objects in their scene, including Rigs for geometry caches and different levels of detail. Additionally, heavyweight scene elements such as sets and crowds can be represented in OpenGL in the Maya viewport, and manipulated either with USD or Maya tools and UI components.

Prior to the open source release, a number of studios and vendors including Pixar, Autodesk, Luma Pictures and MPC, assisted in evaluating the plugin, which is currently in use on Peter Rabbit, the Hybrid CG/Live-Action feature film currently in production at Animal Logic.

Visit www.animallogic.com

Little Red Ants Take Colourful Ride with Uber Vietnam SINGAPORE’S LITTLE RED ANTS Creative Studio recently provided colour correction for an Uber Vietnam television commercial (TVC) using Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve.

The growing, Singapore-based production house is responsible for producing multiple TVCs from various sectors – military, public service, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), and more. Choosing to colour all their projects in DaVinci Resolve, Little Red Ants Creative Studio has grown from strength to strength to be one of the most trusted names in post-production in the region.

outdoors and even inside the vehicles. So it was a mishmash of lighting conditions and trying to make the piece coherent. Utilising masks and the extremely powerful tracker in DaVinci Resolve, along with the robust colour tools, allowed us to selectively alter and tweak shots so that they matched from scene to scene along,” explains Darren Tan, owner of Little Red Ants Studio.

“At Little Red Ants, we believe good ideas and great people create the best works. Together with our clients, we constantly seek new ways to deliver top visual content. We rely on DaVinci Resolve as our go-to colour grading software because of the incredibly powerful set of tools that allow us to add finesse with colour,” explained Tan.

August 18, 2017 marked three years of Uber in Vietnam. In 2014, Uber started with Ho Chi Minh City. Since then, Uber’s service has been expanding fast and now offers rides in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City through multiple choices of safe and affordable modes of transportation (uberX, uberMOTO, UberBLACK and UberSUV); and has created hundreds of thousands of job opportunities. The new television commercial campaign celebrates the growth of Uber in Vietnam by tracing the trips of every day Vietnamese and showing how Uber is the best way to get around.

“DaVinci Resolve also provides a very easy to understand and well-designed interface that makes the learning curve for beginners short. I also really like DaVinci Resolve’s flexibility when it comes to taking in various camera formats and codecs. Being able to edit, colour grade and master out makes it an indispensable tool in our workflow.”

Software-based IP solutions for View the Uber Vietnam TVC at https://player.vimeo.com/video/218099364 compliance, monitoring and analysis Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com

“Uber wanted to show that their service spanned all types of scenarios and situations, hence, we had to juggle with day, night, magic hour scenes, indoors,

POST PRODUCTION

Explore the possibilities at mediaproxy.com

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MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

OTT Playout Takes the Stage

By Mark Horchler, VP of Marketing, Mediaproxy AS OTT SERVICES BECOME increasingly popular with viewers as well as advertisers, playout systems are no longer treating Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streams as secondary to primary screen distribution. For some content, OTT is now the primary form of distribution and revenue generation. As these trends continue, content owners and regulators alike are looking to up the quality of OTT services by applying the same standards for video quality, audio, and captioning as with traditional broadcast television.

REIGNING IN THE COMPLEXIT With OTT, broadcast engineers need to manage a more complex ecosystem with an ever-growing list of logging and compliance requirements. There is a wide choice of devices and delivery outlets that need to be supported and viewers expect the same level of service, no matter how they are accessing content. For example, in covering premium sporting events, engineers need to simultaneously ensure quality of service for content viewed on different types of devices that rely on multiple ABR formats with several profiles. Keeping up with so many OTT streams can be daunting which is why having a unified system for monitoring compliance and identifying issues across all traditional and OTT playouts is critical.

When it comes to monitoring live channels over multiple OTT streams and ABR profiles, it is no longer practical for display panels to mirror all the possible video outlets. The human eye simply can’t monitor so many different profiles simultaneously. To address this, Mediaproxy offers data panels in its Monwall multiviewer software for use in master control rooms. By being able to dynamically configure how specific information is displayed, broadcast engineers and master control room staff are given a high-level view of all transport streams including incidence alarms in a context they understand and are well trained in.

UP TO THE CLOUD AND BACK

BETTER OTT DELIVERY WITH BETTER DATA

Compared to cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcasts, OTT video is not only more complex, but also 'cloudier'. Operators need to rely on CDNs or, in most cases, several third-party networks in order to deliver content. This means that they need to monitor outgoing streams as well as edge server return feeds.

Though content may be correctly streaming from one location, an edge location may experience its own issues which could be local or originating from within the CDN.

As television broadcasters adopt IP technology including Media over IP for production, engineers are able to track and analyse detailed metadata which can help identify issues across the entire OTT delivery chain. As operators look to monetise services, they also need to be able to keep tabs on digital program insertion triggers (SCTE-35) and loudness levels across multiple video sources within a single transport stream. Mediaproxy’s extensive live stream monitoring and post-broadcast reporting tools, able to capture and visualize transport stream and OTT data, are designed to address these requirements.

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

OTT playout systems need to deliver ABR streams encoded in H.264 or HEVC to a CDN before reaching the viewer. Depending on the setup, ABR streams can be encoded and pre-packaged in advance before reaching the CDN’s cloud.

In which case, there should be little difference in picture quality once reaching edge servers and on to the final viewing device. However, bandwidth availability can differ greatly from edge to edge and, therefore, an OTT monitoring system needs to be able to compare both upstream and downstream bandwidths to identify any potential streaming issues at local edge points or within the CDN cloud itself.

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multiple ABR streams. The final step of packaging those streams into different formats, including HLS and MPEG-DASH, can occur within the cloud or at the edge. By being able to run on-premises, or in the cloud, Mediaproxy LogServer can capture, monitor and compare streams at any and all points along a playout workflow.

Mediaproxy provides OTT operators with both data and video panels monitoring the outgoing encoded feeds for more traditional video and audio errors (loss, freeze, black, etc.) alongside its data panels displaying the bandwidth, URL and manifest information for multiple edge points. Specific bandwidth thresholds can also be configured to raise alarms when ingest encoders or edge points go below or above what is expected.

In other cases, broadcasters may decide to process OTT playout streams in the cloud or even at the edge. A high-quality mezzanine video stream can be uploaded to the cloud where a cloud-based encoder then transcodes it into

SOFTWARE SCALABILITY Software based logging and compliance solutions such as Mediaproxy’s LogServer are perfectly suited for OTT services as they can be quickly and easily scaled up and down in line with available services. As is increasingly common for special sporting events, an operator or broadcaster may decide to launch a temporary OTT channel. In some cases, several channels for covering multiple events or camera angles simultaneously. By capturing and monitoring these services through software, the entire workflow including compliance and logging, can be scaled in line with available OTT services.

In addition, software-based logging and compliance solutions such as Mediaproxy are able to support new standards including encoding profiles, media over IP formats, and DRMs as they take hold. The agility and flexibility of Logserver means that OTT service operators can stay one step ahead of market trends and introduce innovative revenue generating services Visit www.mediaproxy.com

MAM with AI WAZEE DIGITAL AND VERITONE have announced an agreement whereby Wazee Digital will offer its clients Veritone’s proprietary platform of cognitive engines and applications. The new alliance will allow Wazee Digital Core customers to leverage Veritone’s AI technology for automated metadata extraction and analysis, including speech-to-text transcription, face recognition, translation, object recognition, content moderation, and optical character recognition.

Core is Wazee Digital’s cloud-native digital asset management solution that serves as the foundation for all of the company’s services and capabilities.

The Veritone Platform is an open, extensible AI ecosystem of cognitive engines and applications. With this partnership, Core customers can select which content to have cognitively processed, with the option to store metadata output as timeline data in Core as well as within the Veritone Platform. The enhanced information will allow Core customers to discover moments more easily and ultimately license and deliver them from any system powered by Core.

Visit www.wazeedigital.com and www.veritone.com

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT >> continued from p32

to best advantage. For example, you can have a pool of transcoders. Then, depending on the nature of the content and the metadata associated with it, you can queue the content for transcoding, but you can also prioritise it.

In addition, if you’ve got something like it’s got to get through really fast, like news content, and you’ve got long form content that typically takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes to transcode the program, you can reserve one or a couple of transcoders just for that and Orchestrator will automatically route the content to the high priority queue, which will feed it to the transcoders that are used for doing the short programs that have to get through basically instantaneously.

of internal rules or regulatory issues, you’ve got to protect that content from users within the different groups. When you set up a Share is like setting up a project and you allow a certain group of users access to that and you can do that through say, Access Directory Permissions or LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), and then that way you get to manage the permissions and control the access of that content internally. You’ve got both the external security, not allowing penetration into your network with your normal network security measures, you’ve also got a virus scanning and then internally, by using Aspera Shares, they control access to the content, depending on what group permissions you have.”

“Essentially, what we created for them was a fully integrated system to improve the processes and allow them to avoid the silos that they’ve had in years past with all these various subsystems effectively having manual handoff or watch folders between them to move content along through the system.”

Mediacorp also operates quite a number of radio stations. Are they utilising Aspera for that, or is that a completely separate silo?

In terms of security requirements, is the focus of that protecting content, protecting their whole system, or a bit of both?

“It’s actually both. As an example, anytime you receive new content or metadata from an outside party, the first thing that would happen is as that content would land within a DMZ, in a server, storage within a DMZ. Before that content can be moved into the broadcast zone, the production zone, Orchestrator would automatically have it virus scanned and if it passed it would then allow that content to be ingested into the production zone. If not, it would be quarantined, an alert would be sent to the relevant team to manually handle that content, and to potentially notify the folks that sent it to them.

“They actually have some fine-grained security requirements that you can’t handle with normal storage permission. So, what they did was they licensed Aspera Shares, which is effectively a web app which uses the Aspera transfer protocol to move content around, but it also allows you to control access to various places and content. So, let’s say, you’ve got a sports group, you’ve got a news group, you’ve got your regular other content for movies, etc., and because

“No, it’s tied in through Orchestrator, right, because they’re using products like RCS Sound Software, Netia, Media software, and so that ties in, just like Harmonic, Vantage, EVS, Avid, you know, Grab Valley, Baton, Dalet, they all tie in via Orchestrator and that’s where Orchestrator serves as a functional enterprise service bus for them and provides all the workflow orchestration for all the processes and all the subsystems. That way they’ve gotten away from the silo approach that they had in the past.”

Does that allow different TV and radio channels to share content?

“Absolutely. Let’s say that the television station didn’t already have access to a piece of content, you’d be able to kick off the workflow to have a transfer from their radio system into the subsystem that handles all the video.

“They’re using Dalet for the MAM, so that also stores the metadata for everything and one of the things that Orchestrator does is it allows you to tie together, with the radio system, with the transcoder, et cetera, because they all have different metadata requirements and their APIs are all slightly different in terms of the way that they operate, and so Orchestrator facilitating that by acting as the glue and basically doing any transformations that are required of the metadata from one system’s format into another system’s.”

Visit www.asperasoft.com

IT’S THE CATCH-CRY ACROSS NUMEROUS INDUSTRIES. Humans replaced by robots, by software, by machines. But, artificial intelligence (AI) in content production?

It may be closer than you think, according to Bea Alonso-Martinez, Business Development Director, Media Logistics at Ooyala. The Telstra-owned company has been focusing on automation, collaboration, artificial intelligence, and datamining in its quest to bring efficiencies to bear on media production.

“We’ve actually done a bit of a proof of concept together with Microsoft,” says Alonso-Martinez, “to see how cognitive services can index video in real time and analyse faces, sentiments, transcribed speech, text, even translated text and how that can be leveraged not only through the production process but also for delivery and including recommendations and advertising insertion.”

How far away do you think that is from being implemented?

“From the proof of concept that we’ve seen, I believe that we can start seeing some useful application of this probably within about six to eight months from now. It is in its infancy today.”

As quickly as that?

“We can already deploy artificial intelligence to make decisions around the way that the infrastructure is used, an example being the growth of cloud storage.

We can use elastic deployment by increasing the amount of computer power or the amount of storage that is needed based on your production needs. So, with Media Logistics, one of the things you can do is whenever you enter a new production with the system you can say we’re going to have a peak of storage requirements sometime in the middle of this production. So, artificial intelligence we can call it, or just technology orchestration could help already today do that in a kind of dynamic way.

“Around collating metadata based on the transcription of the speech, the sentiment, the face recognition, objects within the image, that needs a bit of work. But, machines are learning fast and one of the abilities that the video index for Microsoft has is; if there is a face that it doesn’t recognise, you can actually tell it, this is Al Pacino and next time it will recognise Al Pacino. So, I do think within – and in fact, we are talking already to a number of customers

to start deploying this at least as a proof of concept. We think within the next six to eight months, it’ll be useful to some extent. And the uses it will have is mostly for productions with a lot of content like reality TV or talent shows, baking, chef shows with a lot of footage that need a lot of speech translations so that someone can easily locate a specific quote. That probably would be one of the earlier applications and saving quite a lot of time from somebody who’s got to actually watch the footage and log throughout metadata and tracks.”

Wouldn’t an AI system need ongoing instruction from a human?

“There may be a future within 10 years from now where the machine learning is so good that it can recognise most faces by itself, but there will always be a need to – at least today and for the next five years – where we still have to teach the cognitive services to recognise specific faces or sentiments.

“Sentiment is somewhere where I see that there’s still an awful lot of learning to do. Sentiment is a combination of the tone of the voice, the words that are being used and the face. Sometimes it may say that the sentiment is positive, but actually the face is quite serious or sad, but it could be about the actual words or the tone that is being used. I think there’s still a bit of a gateway that at some point a human will have to, perhaps, review some of that content to validate its usability.”

Visit www.ooyala.com

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

The Robots are Coming!

35

AUDIO Digital soundwaves

www.content-technology.com/audio

Maximum Audio at AES 2017

By Brad Watts THE 143RD AUDIO ENGINEERING SOCIETY International Convention recently held at the Jacxob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan was, for the first time, co-located alongside the NAB New York Show. If your field of professional interest involved audio, you couldn’t have picked a better convention to attend in 2017.

AUDIO

Headed up under the catch-cry of ’Maximum Audio’, AES has emphasised the development of audio branching well beyond its more traditional bastions of stage, recording and mixing. Nowadays, we’re subjected to more and more media across countless new channels and mediums. All these developments require sound to be finessed into their respective transmission platforms, including broadcast and web-streaming, networked audio, audio for virtual and augmented reality, game audio and various SSL’s System T S300 compact broadcast console. surround environments. These are relatively recent fields when considered alongside the more surrounding workflows for configuring audio streaming from one networked traditional arenas of waveform wrangling. ‘Maximum Audio’ is certainly where audio platform to another using AES67. Attendees learned how AES67 we’re heading. complements the various AoIP solutions.

The AES Convention keynote speech was entitled ‘Fooled by Audio’, presented Telos Infinity IP Intercom appeared as a new series of Telos Infinity solutions.

by Professor Edgar Choueiri, Director of Princeton University's Program in The talkback system converges voice communication and contribution audio Engineering Physics, and addressed questions regarding the future of spatial on a single IT backbone – it employs VoIP and Livewire+ AES67 AoIP to audio and perception. replace outmoded matrix technology.

The keynote tackled questions such as “how far we are from having Wheatstone revealed its WheatNet-IP, an AES67-compatible IP audio reproduced or synthesised sound that is truly indistinguishable from reality?” network system comprising I/O BLADEs for ingesting of audio, controlling Is this laudable goal still the receding mirage it has been since the birth of microphones and other devices, and transporting audio over IP in real-time. As audio, or are we on the cusp of a technical revolution? part of a WAN between a primary studio and a sports stadium for live remote “The VR/AR audio revolution?” asked Choueiri. “Advances in virtual and production, the WheatNet-IP M4IP-USB BLADE is used at the remote site as augmented reality audio research from around the world focus on critical an interface between the network and up to four microphones. areas in spatial audio, synthesised acoustics, and sound field navigation, and Focusrite exhibited its RedNet X2P – a compact 2x2 Dante audio interface recent breakthroughs are bringing us quicker and closer to being truly fooled featuring two Red Evolution mic pre-amps, stereo line-out and a headphone by audio.” amp. RedNet X2P adds I/O to your Focusrite Red interface or any Dante AoIP In 2009, Choueiri invented a technique for producing pure 3D sound from two system, with power, audio and remote control via ethernet when used with loudspeakers. The technique allows the listener to hear sounds located in 3D a PoE switch or injector. A local input mixer allows monitoring control, while space as they’d be heard in reality. The technology, called BACCH 3D Sound, a control lockout keeps settings unchanged when used remotely. The two is currently being licensed by Princeton and is finding use in consumer audio digitally-controlled mic pre-amps provide scads of gain with stereo linking, products and professional audio. individual 48V power, highpass filter and phase reverse, and ‘Air mode’, which Present future aside, last year’s crystal-balling showed its pertinence with emulates Focusrite's transformer-based mic pre-amps. many manufacturers embracing last year’s focus on the AES67 standard.

Focusrite also announced the launch of its Focusrite Pro division which AES67 is without doubt here to stay, with Audio-over-IP (AoIP) providing a currently oversees three product ranges: Red multi-format audio interfaces; prominent aid to many of the mentioned newer audio fields.

RedNet modular audio-over-IP solutions; and ISA microphone preamplifiers So with AoIP in mind, we’ll look through some of the IP and AESD67 based and analogue signal processors. revelations of the show before getting into the hard-core hardware.

Mixing heavyweight, Solid State Logic, introduced four new broadcast specification audio interfaces for Dante/AES67 audio networks: the A16.

AUDIO OVER IP D16, the A32, the D64, and the Dante PCIeR. The devices run as interfaces, Nobody could be more involved with Audio over IP than the Telos Alliance. converters, and standalone units, or in conjunction with SSL’s Dante/AES67 With companies such as Telos Systems, Omnia Audio, Axia Audio, Linear enabled consoles.

Acoustic, 25-Seven Systems, and Minnetonka Audio under its umbrella,

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the Alliance was a presence felt with a number of educational sessions across the four-day AES Show. Sessions included ‘How to Leverage AES67 to Integrate Multiple Networked Audio Systems’, and training sessions

SSL’s Network I/O cards are a range of broadcast spec interfaces using Dante technology and AES67 transport incorporating SSL’s SuperAnalogue circuit design. The Network I/O Dante PCIeR offers high capacity Dante connectivity Continues P38 >>

480MHz

490MHz

500MHz

510MHz

520MHz

530MHz

540MHz AUDIO

550MHz

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AUDIO

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AUDIO Continued from p36

to any suitably specified Mac or PC. It features primary and secondary network connections and streams up to 128 channels at 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96kHz, or 64 channels at 176.4 and 192kHz, with sub-millisecond latency and sync.

SSL also revealed its System T S300 compact broadcast console. The S300 comes in two versions: 16+1 faders and 32+1 faders. System T is a dedicated live-to-air broadcast audio production system and is entirely IP based, and uses AoIP as its core. AoIP connections for Tempest Engines and all Network I/O devices are capable of Dante, AES67 and SMPTE 2110-30. System T S300 consoles include an integrated Dante control API, providing audio and control resource sharing for SSL’s Network I/O range across the Tempest consoles.

Holding networks together was Neutrik, and its new etherCoN CAT6A feedthrough coupler. Accommodating its etherCON CAT5 and etherCON CAT6A cable carriers, as well as standard RJ45 plugs, the etherCON CAT6A feedthrough coupler features 10Gbit bandwidth with IP65 ingress protection when mated to cables equipped with Neutrik’s NE8MX6 etherCON CAT6A cable connectors.

AUDIO ACQUISITION At the acquisition end of the audio workflow were new interface releases from Focusrite, unveiling its Red 16Line, a 64I/O Pro Tools | HD and dual Thunderbolt 3 audio interface. The unit offers low latency with audio converters providing a 121dB dynamic range D/A. Also on board are Red Evolution mic pre-amps, offering up to 121dB dynamic range and ethernet for networked audio. With DigiLink and Thunderbolt connections users can switch from Pro Tools to other applications without reconfiguring option cards in the interface, or swapping host mode via software or the front panel.

Prism Sound showed its Titan and Atlas audio interfaces sporting an MDIOHDX expansion module – compatible with Avid’s DigiLink Mini connection, allowing multiple Titan or Atlas units to be connected directly to Pro Tools|HDX and Pro Tools|HD Native systems. Prism Sound demonstrated integration of the MDIO-HDX into a recording workflow and how key controls can be operated from within the workstation’s GUI and saved as part of the session.

Antelope Audio revealed its Discrete 8 and Discrete 4 interfaces sporting both Thunderbolt or USB 2.0 connection. They’re quite similar in design, with the Discrete 8 offering eight mic preamps and the Discrete 4 with four preamps. Both come with S/PDIF coax, ADAT I/O and monitor outputs, and wordclock I/O. Interestingly, the Discrete 4 offers four headphone outs, while the Discrete 8 eschews two headphone outputs in lieu of two re-amping channels.

MICROPHONES There were also many new microphones on show. Neumann announced its U 87 Rhodium Edition, limited to a mere 500 units worldwide, individually numbered with a certificate of authenticity hand signed by Wolfgang Fraissinet, President of Neumann.Berlin. The mics come is an aluminium case with an EA 87 elastic suspension mount, and a pair of black gloves for keeping engineers’ greasy fingerprints off the mic.

Austrian microphone manufacturer, Lewitt, debuted its new single-pattern large-diaphragm condenser, the LCT 540 SUBZERO. The LCT 540’s premiumquality capsule, together with some clever circuit design drops the electrical self-noise to -1dB (A) at a sensitivity of 41mV/Pa, -28dBV/Pa, and increases the dynamic range to 132dB (A) – impressive specs for a large-diaphragm condenser.

AUDIO

Earthworks launched its new cardioid condenser vocal mic, the SV33, due to ship in December, and features hand-tuned circuitry paired with a 14mm capsule and incorporates Earthworks’ patented polar technology to provide a cardioid polar pattern of reportedly up to 80° off-axis.

38

Always on the front foot, Audio-Technica unveiled its AT5047 condenser. The AT5047 includes the four-part rectangular element originally developed for the AT5040. Four matched ultra-thin diaphragms function together (with outputs proprietarily summed) as Audio-Technica's largest-ever element, providing a combined surface area twice that of a standard one-inch circular diaphragm.

Sennheiser’s AMBEO VR microphone for producing 3D VR/AR audio.

Sennheiser showcased its AMBEO 3D audio recording technologies, presenting the AMBEO VR microphone for producing 3D VR/AR audio, and the renowned MKH800 TWIN recording microphone for loudspeaker-reproduced 3D audio. The concept includes a free plug-in for management of multiple TWIN microphones for 3D recording.

MAXIMUM MANGLING New processing solutions made their way to AES. Eventide revealed its H9000 multi-channel rack-mount unit. The H9000 features eight times the processing power of the H8000 and features four quad-core ARM processors serving as 16 DSP engines, eight channels of analogue, AES/EBU and ADAT, 16 USB audio channels, and optional I/O including MADI, Dante and Ravenna.

The H9000’s remote control application, emote, runs as a standalone app as an AU, VST, or Pro Tools plug-in.

Rupert Neve Designs announced the 535 500-Series Diode Bridge Compressor. Based on the dynamics circuit of the company’s Shelford Channel, the 535 is based on the original 2254 compressor while providing modern updates including timing control, lower noise, and fully stepped controls, and internal parallel processing.

Software processing was also at the fore, with current plug-in darlings, Acustica Audio teaming up with D.W. Fearn to bring emulations of the VT-4 and VT-5 equalisers to the masses. The technology provides convolution style processing to emulate hardware: preamps, equalisers, compressors, reverb, basically anything – for Microsoft and macOS. It can also access Nvidia’s CUDA GPU architecture for processing. Keep an eye out for Acustica’s Nebula system, with the Nebula 3 Server able to provide processing over IP networks.

Continues P39 >>

AUDIO from p38

MAXIMUM MONITORING Monitoring saw some manufacturers stepping away from last year’s DSP assisted designs. PMC launched its result6 nearfield reference monitor.

The two-way design features a 27mm soft-dome tweeter with dispersion grille and a mid/bass unit composed of a doped natural fibre, both customdesigned for the result6.

management system. The router is a 40 x 36-point matrix and is aimed at surround and immersive audio formats such as Dolby Atmos. The MMP1 includes time alignment delays, six-band room EQ, and trims on every one of the 32 monitor speaker outputs. Editing is via software for Windows, macOS and iOS. The MMP1 supports Dante alongside analogue and AES/EBU outputs.

Genelec arrived with ‘Ultimate Point Source’ monitoring with ‘The Ones’. In this series, the 8351 three-way Smart Active Monitor is joined by the 8341 and 8331 three-way coaxial monitors. The Ones offer 110dB SPL (at 1m) for the 8341, and 104dB SPL for the 8331, with accuracy better than ±1.5 dB, and frequency responses starting at 45Hz and 38Hz and extending beyond 40kHz.

Obviously, it’s impossible to report each of the hundreds of newly minted audio products at AES 2017. However, what is interesting is the industry’s direction with virtual and augmented reality. While we’re yet to see where these developments lead, and if VR/AR will hold its own over the coming years, there are many opportunities, in the meantime, for those working in the audio field, both in broadcast and production. Bring on Maximum Audio.

For multichannel surround, Yamaha announced its MMP1 monitor

Visit www.aes.org

Jands Distributes Gibson Pro Audio JANDS HAS ANNOUNCED its appointment as the Australian distributor of

Gibson Pro Audio’s product development with Jands’ strong commitment to the

Gibson Pro Audio brands KRK, Stanton, Cerwin-Vega, Cakewalk and Neat.

local market, with inventory, training and product support, and we are more than

Of the appointment, Jands’ Managing Director Paul Mulholland, said, “It is great

confident that together we can deliver our customers a great experience.”

to be back representing Stanton, having first represented Stanton in the early

Gibson Pro Audio’s General Manager, Ingrid Calvo, said, “We are extremely

2000’s. Jands are excited to have the opportunity to work with Gibson Pro Audio under whose guidance and management Stanton, along with KRK and Cerwin Vega, have become market leaders in their category. Gibson Pro Audio is heavily in engineering and product development in order to provide the most appropriate tools whether you are a studio engineer, producer, musician or enthusiast. Couple

excited and very much looking forward to working with Jands as our new partner for Gibson Pro Audio in Australia. Jands are a long-standing, highly professional distributor and we believe they are a great fit for our brands and products.”

Visit www.jands.com.au

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

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AUDIO

Video Over IP Solu ons

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RADIO The original broadcast media

www.content-technology.com/radio

Engineering Award Perfect Timing for Southern Cross Austereo

By Brad Watts OCTOBER 14TH SAW THE 29th annual Australian Commercial Radio Awards held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The peer-judged awards have been held since 1989 and rotate across major centres along Australia’s east coast.

This year’s awards ceremony featured the usual star-studded array of music and radio celebrities, both in attendance and presenting awards but, glitz and glamour aside, there were also those responsible for getting the show on the air. These are the people keeping those pocketing ‘Best Presenter’ and ‘Best On-Air Team’ awards in the limelight. Without the solid support and unswerving dedication from technicians and crews there’d be no radio show.

Developed in-house, SCA Townsville’s studio clock system for the 21st century.

These largely unsung heroes had their moment to shine in the ‘Engineering Excellence’ category.

scraping data off our websites. We’ve got a team of people in our digital area

Taking out the non-metropolitan Engineering Excellence category was

that make sure we’ve got the schedules of the announcers and all that sort of

Southern Cross Austereo’s Matt Paton. Based in Townsville, Queensland,

stuff – it’s all on the website for the public to see.

Matt supports both 4TO FM and hit103.1 studios. Matt had been cursed

“So, rather than coming up with a way of managing that from an engineering

with keeping the studio clocks both functional and synchronised. Obviously,

point of view, to then display it in the studio, I took what was already available

a radio presenter needs to keep track of the time – an accurate timepiece

and just automatically ripped that off. Then displayed it in a nice graphic way on

is a prerequisite. Traditional studio clocks were expensive bespoke systems

a screen.”

that were problematic to maintain. They also only had one function –

So, there’s a whole raft of information you’re gleaning from this system?

telling the time. Matt’s system revolutionised the concept and provided far more information than simply the time. It can be used by any station with customised settings to suit a studio’s requirements.

So, Matt, what was the clock system your concept replaced?

playing it out locally, we always take that currently playing song info and spit it out to our RDS systems for playback on air. Then we spit that into a file that Rainmeter reads and displays it onscreen in the studio.

was hard-wired. I think it was a 240-volt system with a master clock unit

“There’s some general information panels which we send. We use Pathfinder

– with cables that went from that out to every studio. I’ve got quite a large

as audio routing software, so that knows when you’ve got a microphone on or

building to cover so some of those cable runs were really long. These clocks

when there’s a phone-call and that sort of thing. Then I manipulate Rainmeter

would then sit in the studios and would slowly, over the course of an hour or

from Pathfinder to display when those evens happen. We’ve got automatic

so, get out of whack. Then, at the top of each hour, they’d all stop, freeze, and

security system arming at certain times through the night, so I’ve got the

then either catch up or slow down, re-syncing themselves and then off they’d

system to flash a warning on-screen indicating that the security system’s

go again. It was pretty archaic.

arming – so you can go and swipe your fob to stay in the building without

“That system died so we put in a system which had AM transmitters that

setting off the alarms.”

you’d install in the ceiling above each studio and sync via GPS master-clock.

And this information all gets to the screens how?

Once again, there was a whole bunch of cabling involved, then you have these

“That’s the easy part. We put a TV on the wall in each studio and on the back

synced to the GPS clock. Then six months later the battery would go flat and the thing would freeze, or the signal would get interference and it would get out of whack and just sit there with the hand spinning around and around. So, everything we tried over the years ended up failing dismally.”

of the TV we took an Intel PC-on-a-stick running Windows 10 and plug it into an HDMI port on the screen. Initially, we had those connected via Wi-Fi, but we found that to be a bit unreliable. We changed the connection to ethernet dongles to avoid any delays with microphone arming messages and what-not.

It’s really very resilient now.”

How’d you tackle the problem? Software and IP?

So, the cost is how much when compared with the old systems?

“Exactly. I took a piece of open source software called Rainmeter and adapted

“Oh, much, much less. You’re talking the cost of whatever screen you care to

it. It’s pretty much an app for customising a Windows desktop with time and weather information, but you can get it to display whatever you like. You can run it on the desktop and it will tell you how fast your CPU’s running and what the temperatures are and the fan speeds and that sort of stuff. So, it’s a very responsive piece of software. Choose whatever fonts, skins, buttons and whatever, along with scrape data from other sources.

RADIO

whether we’re taking programme from Gold Coast or Sydney or Melbourne, or

“In the old days, it was just a clock, and it required a load of maintenance and

wireless battery-powered clocks that you’d put on the wall in every studio,

40

“Yeah, we’ve got the songs that are being played by the playout system. So,

use and the PC-on-a-stick unit. The real gains are the lack of maintenance compared with the previous systems. Plus, it’s all off-the-shelf devices, you can add screens whenever and wherever you want. We always allow for that with the new studio builds. You know, whether you have smart TV or whether you want to put a PC in there or something you have a network cable going to.

The software itself was free, it was just the time I put into it to build the little

“There’s some plug-ins that allow you to manipulate data from all sorts of

applications. Add to that all the extra information you can display and you’re

different places and display it in different ways. So, I came up with a way of

even side-stepping other systems in the studio.”

RADIO

MediaWorks NZ to Roll-Out LAWO with PAT PROFESSIONAL AUDIO & TELEVISION has announced it has been awarded the contract as preferred supplier for the national roll out of LAWO equipment for the MediaWorks Radio Network throughout New Zealand.

After an extensive tendering process, which involved most of the major radio broadcast manufacturers in the world, MediaWorks decided on LAWO technology for its national technology refresh throughout New Zealand.

Taranaki is the first station which received the new LAWO technology refresh, consisting of two studios equipped with custom configured crystal consoles and a main MCR NOVA17 core router. The open AoIP standard Ravenna (AES67) is being used as the main audio transport protocol, with AES10 MADI configured as a redundancy audio path. LAWO’s VisTool visualisation and control software provides metering, visual feedback, alarms, and of course a highly customised engineering interface, which can be accessed and controlled remotely from anywhere in the country.

MediaWorks’ New Plymouth station is also one of the first sites in the world to run the LAWO virtual patchbay on a fully virtualised server environment.

General Manager of Professional Audio and Television, Keith Prestidge,

[L-R] Steve Exton (PAT), Nick Brown (PAT), Mike Heard (MediaWorks), Kieran Connellan (MediaWorks) and Rob Stewart (MediaWorks) during factory acceptance of the new LAWO technology.

enthused, “LAWO and PAT have worked very closely together with MediaWorks from the conceptual stage through to commissioning to ensure the overall vision, timelines and technology requirements were met and in line with the overall national network design. We are looking forward to supporting MediaWorks during the roll out of this project and are proud to have been chosen as the solutions provider for one of the largest and most successful radio networks in New Zealand.”

Next on the agenda is the technology refresh of Southland and various network studios in Auckland. The overall project rollout is currently envisaged to be finished in two to three years.

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

RADIO

MediaWorks Solutions Architect, Mike Heard, explained the decision, “The MediaWorks technology strategy is to be world class. In order to be world class, MediaWorks needed to partner with a technology vendor that shared our vision and passion. We concluded that LAWO’s radio products were one of the most powerful, flexible and expandable technologies available and seemed like the perfect fit for our company and future plans. We are planning a total technology refresh of both regional and metro markets with the flexibility to make radio for any format, anywhere. With implementation services and support provided by PAT, our first site with seven brands in New Plymouth, Taranaki went to air smoothly for the first time with LAWO technology on the 26th of September between 5pm and 1am. MediaWorks Radio (formally Radioworks) was born in Taranaki with Energy FM, so it was fitting that this site was New Zealand’s first LAWO radio studios.”

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RADIO

Digigram: Building Advanced Broadcast Solutions AFTER 32 YEARS in the radio broadcast arena, Digigram will gain new momentum through a change to its management board. Committed to moving closer to customers and making technology become invisible to the user, the company is gearing up with new market-oriented solutions.

Digigram IQOYA IP Codec’s Power in Software Digigram is making its IQOYA audio-over-IP (AoIP) technology accessible as middleware to ecosystem partners for creation of live streaming, processing, and encoding systems.

Offered as AoIP software, IQOYA *VIP can be hosted on a PC or in the cloud.

The engine provides high-performance encoding, transcoding, streaming, and routing functions for Windows applications. It offers strong added value through IP streaming to radio automation editors, as well as program routing and transcoding for radio stations. Broadcasters and content delivery networks (CDNs) will see a major evolution in their business models using IQOYA *VIP, allowing them to design ‘radio-as-a-service’ solutions.

IQOYA *VIP combines Digigram’s IQOYA IP audio streaming and encoding engine, built on the company’s FluidIP technology, and virtual multichannel audio devices. This solution allows development partners and system integrators to provide their own value-added applications with confidence.

Refined over more than 3,000 IQOYA installations for broadcast and telecom operations, Digigram’s IQOYA *VIP engine features native MPEG-TS, Shoutcast/ ICEcast, and ACIP dual streaming formats with time diversity, including MPEG, AAC, OPUS, and apt-X encoding/decoding. Because the software is packaged in a module and controlled through a web services API and GUIs, IQOYA *VIP is easy for customers to deploy in cases ranging from a simple streamer to a complex, multiformat transcoding farm for head-end distribution.

Cloud Technologies for Broadcasting Digigram’s cloud technologies meet increasing market demand for simplified access and serve as high-level solutions that address complete outside broadcasting workflows, thereby eliminating the need for specialised hardware systems or expensive capital expenditure.

IQOYA *CLOUD SIP Infrastructure and Codec IQOYA *CLOUD, the codec-management infrastructure from Digigram, is now available in software-as-a-service (SaaS) mode. The IQOYA *CLOUD is affordable for small and medium-size broadcasters who need only to pay a monthly recurring fee. The service gives broadcasters access to a broadcast SIP infrastructure for outside broadcasting, as well as allowing centralised codec management anywhere from any authorised device. It enables interoperability, worldwide discovery, and secure access to a broad array of IP audio codecs from different manufacturers. With this centralised, cloud-enabled tool, control room operators can monitor current codec status, accept and initiate IQOYA calls, and take action in the event of network faults to ensure the continuity of outside broadcasts.

Broadcast in Two Clicks With blu blu by digigram is a virtual talkshow service that facilitates real-time management of content contribution from journalists, voice talent, and remote presenters. Designed for the professional broadcast environment, blu by digigram enables studios to establish several simultaneous bidirectional communication links via the blu virtual-mixing workspace with any remote contributor who has a web browser, traditional SIP codec, or even telephone as a backup.

This service unites a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) application with a professional audio interface in the studio to improve the user experience dramatically. With this pay-as-you-go model for managing and processing contributed content from an array of sources, broadcasters can dedicate more resources to creating relevant programming.

Visit www.digigram.com

Telos Alliance Premieres Innovative Radio Products THE TELOS ALLIANCE PREMIERED products to an international audience at

Axia Livewire+ AES67 IP-Audio Driver

this year’s IBC Show. The Alliance introduced several new broadcast products

Axia Pathfinder Core PRO Routing Control

Axia has been implementing AES67 compliance across the Telos Alliance product line since the AES67 standard was ratified. With v2.10, Axia is excited to announce that its IP-Audio Driver is now fully AES67-compliant.

The Axia Livewire+ AES67 IP-Audio Driver lets users send and record single or multiple channels of stereo PC audio directly to and from Axia networks via ethernet – no sound cards needed. Up to 24 channels of stereo audio can be sent simultaneously over a single CAT-5 ethernet connection. v2.10 adds AES67 features like the ability to sync to PTP, support to define multicast addresses outside of the Livewire range, and SIP/unicast support for RTP streaming.

Axia Pathfinder Core PRO offers reliable system-wide routing control that

OmniaSST Audio Processing

and updates to existing lines during the show.

Omnia VOLT Audio Processor Sharing technological lineage with Omnia products like the Omnia.11, VOLT has a nextgen clipper designed by Frank Foti and dynamics design from Omnia Chief Algorithm Designer, Cornelius Gould. Six separate AGC sections (one wide-band, five multiband), five timealigned limiter sections, deep bass, warmth, and stereo enhancers, and the Omnia factory presets all contribute to pristine audio.

is independent of a PC. Axia has taken everything it’s learned over the 10 years since the launch of the Pathfinder family of routing control software, and ported that knowledge into a completely new appliance. Pathfinder Core PRO’s web interface means simple configuration and monitoring from any device. This Linux-based appliance makes efficient use of the processor, while freeing users from a Windows-based server. Control protocol for third-party

RADIO

integration is also included: Pathfinder Core PRO Device Emulators allow it to

42

OmniaSST is a professional software platform that transforms Windows PCs into Omnia audio processors. OmniaSST is the first processor to support the Telos Alliance’s µMPX codec. µMPX, a specialised codec purpose-built for FM radio, is able to transport high-quality Multiplexed FM signals over a small 320kbps data pipe, slashing bandwidth requirements up to 83%. Reduced data requirements mean high-quality multiplexed audio and RDS signals can be directly routed over IP from a processor to a decoder application, opening

‘look like’ another protocol, emulating third-party protocols and translating

tremendous possibilities for efficient MPX audio transport.

them into the Axia language.

Visit www.telosalliance.com

CONTENT DELIVERY Terrestrial, Mobile, Broadband

www.content-technology.com/delivery

Mediaware: 20 Years of Living the Stream

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The production IP environment or the SMPTE 2022 standards and the profiles that are being developed are very much at the acquisition and creation end,” says the Mediaware MD. “Where we fit is dependent on the particular customer requirements needed. That is, we have loop hard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit www.mediaware.com.au.

CONTENT DELIVERY

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

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

43

CONTENT DELIVERY

Telestream and IBM Aspera Enable Near Real-Time Remote Live Video Capture AT THE RECENTLY HELD IBC SHOW, IBM and Telestream announced a solution for high-speed capture and production of live broadcast quality video from remote locations. Telestream Vantage powered by Aspera combines Aspera’s FASPStream streaming technology and Telestream Lightspeed Live Capture media processing platform to enable production teams to work on live video feeds from remote locations in near real time.

Capturing and producing content for live events poses challenges, and timely remote production has long been an unattainable goal. Today, media companies rely on satellite or fibre-based infrastructure, and incur additional costs by co-locating production teams and equipment. Alternative IP-based solutions either offer streaming with low quality and high latency, or are slow and cannot work with content still in creation or capture.

Telestream Lightspeed Live Capture and Vantage Open Workflows powered

by Aspera offers an innovative approach to delivering broadcast-quality video streams. Creative teams can now work on a live capture feed delivered from a

remote location while the event is taking place, without waiting for the entire file to be written to disk and transferred. Transcoding, packaging, editing and other downstream workflows can start immediately. The end-point can have a range of hosting environments, including centralised on-premises, private or public cloud, and the streams can be written to multiple locations concurrently.

IBM Aspera’s FASPStream software line represents the first open video transport solution that is capable of high-quality live streaming over commodity internet WANs. The software utilises the FASP bulk data protocol to transport any live video source (local multicast, unicast UDP, TCP or growing file source), and provides timely arrival of live video and data independent of network round-trip delay and packet loss. Less than five seconds of start-up delay is required for 50Mbps video streams transported over 250 milliseconds round-trip latency and three percent packet loss – sufficient for 4K streaming between continents.

Visit http://asperasoft.com and www.ibm.com/cloud-computing

Rohde & Schwarz Bridges Hybrid SDI and IP Operations ROHDE & SCHWARZ RECENTLY INTRODUCED a new approach to live ingest, media processing and channel playout that provides bridging technology between hybrid SDI and IP broadcast operations. R&S VENICE can be used as a channel playout solution in 24/7 operation applications within medium and large-scale broadcasters. The integration of Rohde & Schwarz’s virtual storage access technology ensures reliable on-air operations even in mission critical applications.

on-air reliability. The system’s implementation of Rohde & Schwarz’s virtual storage access technology enables uninterrupted broadcast operations with no performance degradation in the event of single or multiple failures. When combined with R&S SpycerBox Cell storage systems supported by IBM Spectrum Scale file system, the virtual storage access technology provides multiple layers of data redundancy, from low-cost to enterprise-scale configurations.

R&S VENICE enables immediate application within existing SDI baseband architectures while future-proofing by offering the flexibility and sustainability of IP-based broadcast infrastructure. R&S VENICE allows communication and integration via the framework for interoperable media services (FIMS) standard. Also, open standards rather than proprietary APIs enable interoperability with a range of third party equipment.

Rohde & Schwarz’s modular storage approach enables users to select from different bandwidth, capacity, and redundancy levels, and for these levels to be modified in the future. The UHD capabilities of R&S VENICE with parallel 1080 down-conversion functionality enables users to establish high resolution services while maintaining the simple infrastructures used within existing HD workflows.

In developing R&S VENICE, Rohde & Schwarz claims a new standard in

Visit www.rohde-schwarz.com

Imagine Communications Accelerates Evolution of Playout with Versio Platform IMAGINE COMMUNICATIONS RECENTLY introduced Versio Platform, a modular and customisable media workflow platform designed to enable media companies to optimise playout and related operations to meet finely tuned operational objectives. Versio Platform provides content producers and distributors with a menu of integrated building blocks for constructing a playout facility that can be customised to operational requirements and upgraded with market demand.

Despite recent advances in the viability of next-gen architectures to host mission-critical media workflows, most playout solutions are still optimised for purpose-built hardware. Versio Platform represents the industry’s first cloud-native, microservices-based and modular playout solution for pure-IP, geo-dispersed environments using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.

Versio Platform segments functionality into discrete building blocks that can be integrated to support precise workflows. Versio Platform modules can also be implemented into multivendor environments. A modular approach to playout operations provides customers with the ability to reach new levels of customisation and achieve the optimal balance between required resources and productivity demands.

CONTENT DELIVERY

The modular nature of Versio Platform enables media companies to select from a variety of deployment models, operational modes and functionality. The platform provides a choice between capex and opex payment options, as well as multiple deployment models, including premises, cloud (private or public), or

44

hybrid. Media companies can also select functionality, including playout engine and automation, as well as input/output requirements, on a function-byfunction basis. Numerous value-added options, such as advanced audio track routing, multi-language captioning, UHD and proxy generation, can also be implemented incrementally.

The new playout solution features an intuitive user experience, shielding operators from the ‘componentised’ nature of Versio Platform. The HTML5based interface present an integrated and simplified user experience across all operations, enabling media companies to navigate through every aspect of their operations using a single and familiar interface.

Powered by Zenium, Imagine Communications’ pure microservices technology, Versio Platform derives its modularity and agility from its cloud-native design. Unlike solutions based on monolithic software design principles, the components that make up Versio Platform are composed of discrete services that can be updated or replaced essentially on the fly – and without disrupting operations.

Versio Platform also integrates with Versio IOX Storage. The recently introduced Versio IOX Scale-out NAS Storage solution is powered by EditShare EFS, the scale-out file system and storage software platform provided by Imagine’s technology partner, EditShare.

Visit www.imaginecommunications.com

ADVERTISE WITH US

TARGETED CUSTOM EMAILS

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CONTENT DELIVERY

ABC Says No Plans to Turn Off Radio, TV Broadcasts DELIVERING THE 2017 Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture at the recent Screen Forever conference in Melbourne, ABC Chairman Justin Milne outlined some of the challenges facing the national broadcaster and made a commitment to traditional broadcasting alongside newer forms of content delivery.

In addressing some of some of the challenges facing the ABC, Milne said, "All organisations are having to re-examine their business models, their structures, their technology, their markets – because of the internet. We do now live in the Global Village. We are all connected and so are our machines. It really has changed everything – and these changes have probably only just begun. Newspapers have lost their rivers of gold and scheduled TV stations are selling ads to declining, older audiences.

"These days consumers know what technology can provide so they want every movie, radio program, newspaper article, book and TV show available to all the time. They expect the media company who provides the service to use machine-brains and consumer data to make intelligent suggestions about things they might enjoy. Oh – and they’d like that as cheaply as possible and ad-free.

"Turns out, this is a major opportunity for the ABC because that’s what we do.

High quality, free content. It’s true that today most of our content is broadcast and scheduled but we are adding a very significant on-demand service – the beginnings of which can be seen with iView and ABC Listen.

"But, that is only the first step," he said. "The ABC will develop the systems and tools that make it easier for audiences to discover our content. If the ABC

is to be relevant and impactful in this new era, we must master advanced authentication capability, big databases which can catalogue and retrieve all of our media assets, and connected databases which can track the assets that our customers request. We can use advances in machine learning to identify improvements for both the ABC and its users.

I will provide more details about this new platform at our first Annual Public Meeting in February.

"And, just to be clear we have NO plans to turn off radio or TV broadcasts. Those services will continue far into the future but a modern and exciting on-demand service will be added progressively."

Though Milne said it’s hard to predict exactly how technology will play over the next 20 years, he is in no doubt that big data and machine learning will be important.

"Think about Amazon," he said. "They dominate the cloud, have huge data about shopping all over the planet and are one of the world’s leaders in Machine Learning too. They can match data sets about the things you buy, the books you read, plus all the data about the movies and shows you watch, when and for how long. Put all this together and their capacity to significantly improve the odds as to what sort of shows will succeed are enhanced. Their data and analytics can help them decide what elements scripts should have, up and coming actors who are likely to be a big hit tomorrow, themes that are likely to be big next year. If this doesn’t help them produce more hits it may at least help them produce less misses.”

Visit www.abc.net.au

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CONTENT DELIVERY

MPA1Sol oSDI

T:+61( 0) 2976458911 E:s al es @av gr oup. com

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CLASSIFIEDS + EVENTS POSITIONS VACANT international trade shows as required. You will also prepare reports, forecasts and handle all aspects of account maintenance.

Job Requirements: REGIONAL SALES MANAGER - OCEANIA You will have a deep understanding of the broadcast Join Ross Video and you will have an opportunity and/or video post-production business. You will have to be part of a growing company that is continuing worked within a reseller and/or as a manufacturer’s to build a greater presence in the Oceania account manager. In addition, you will have a marketplace. minimum of 5+ years of experience selling and In the position of Regional Sales Manager – achieving sales targets both via direct and in-direct Oceania, you should have an entrepreneurial spirit. channels in the Broadcast industry or related field.

You would be responsible for proactively growing The successful candidate will have the proven ability both existing and new business relationships for to negotiate and manage complex sales through Ross Video in this region either directly or through to successful completion. Excellent teamwork, one of Ross’ designated Channel Partners. You communication and interpersonal skills are a must. would work from the new Sydney office, based The Successful Candidate: in Alexandria, and support from the global HQ in Ottawa and Iroquois, ON. You should have • Negotiates and closes sales experience and previous success in sales related to • Builds and nurtures relationships with end users the Broadcast Industry. You will have passionate • Delivers sales presentations to clients and commitment to customer service and should business partners in the territory be prepared to develop business relationships on a face-to-face basis throughout the whole • Develops and implements strategic sales plans to of the region. You will have a well-honed ability accommodate corporate and individual territorial to communicate compellingly at all levels of an goals organization both in written and verbal form.

• Adheres to and follows the Ross Video code of Duties, Responsibilities and Accountability: ethics As the Regional Sales Manager for Oceania your • Develops and maintains sales forecasting major responsibilities will include developing activities and assists in setting of territory sales new business and maintaining existing customer goals with business partners accounts across multiple verticals in the • Performs market analysis to determine customer broadcast market. You will also be responsible for needs and pricing strategies establishing and maintaining productive working • Directs channel development activity in the relationships with Ross Video’s Channel Partners territory and coordinates sales distribution by within the region. You will be responsible for preparing and conducting technical presentations establishing business partner territories, quotas and demonstrations at customer visits as well and goals as conferences and trade shows as required.

• Meets monthly order targets Approximately 30% of your time will be travelling • Assists in directing marketing resources to to customer and potential customer facilities establish RossButVideo products in the region Some say that the future is uncertain. with Magna, providing information and support as required. couldn’t be clearer.

For almost 50 company years, Magna been • Represents at has trade association Majority of this travel would be domesticitwithin Asiaand Pacific’s leading meetings systems integrator for Broadcast Media, Australia, with some travel to New Zealand and exhibitions

Your future is in safe hands

Pay TV and Service Providers. With Magna, you’ll always know what’s beyond the horizon. We’ll get you there with a consultative selling approach securely – we oweprofessional it to our reputation.

and experience in analysing customer needs, Contact your local Magna office for more information advising customers on their requirements and and a free consultation today. solidifying long standing relationships along with Auckland +64 9520 1582 managing Hong Kong +852supplier 2563 4453 Jakarta 8181 43923 relationships. and +62 principal Singapore +65 6282 3613 Sydney +61 2 9417 1111 sales@magnasys.tv www.magnasys.tv

SALES EXECUTIVE-BROADCAST (SYDNEY BASED)

In short you will:

• Systems Establish sales objectives Call your local Magna office today to book a meeting with one of the Magna & Engineering team at IBC and 2017 quotas

Join one of the longest serving broadcast equipment resellers and SIs in the country and, indeed, the Asia Pacific region.

This role will be responsible for sales activities, management and growth of new accounts and key existing accounts. You will need to gain the knowledge and have a great understanding and awareness of our product, services and solutions offerings, generate new business, close revenue and nurture existing accounts. The role requires you to be a consummate self-starting sales

(forecasting and developing annual sales quotas)

• Employ strategic selling including on-the-fly needs analysis • Develop new business In terms of professional experience and qualifications, Magna’s offerings are technical in nature and thus demand a combination of technical and solution sales experience and/or business process management services sales experience. In truth you will almost certainly have both.

• Assists in coordination and liaison between sales department and other sales related units • Assists other departments within organization to prepare marketing plans specific to the territory • Prepares periodic sales report showing sales volume, potential sales, and areas of proposed client base expansion • Monitors and evaluates the activities and products of the competition • Assists in resolution of customer complaints regarding equipment, supplies, and services • Follows company policies and procedures • Performs other related duties as required Knowledge/Education/Training/Experience: • Successful track record selling & Marketing Broadcast Equipment • Strong Organizational Skills • Knowledge of use of Ross Video products / Production Switchers & Willingness to Learn.

• Excellent Communication & Presentation Skills • Ability to negotiate and manage complex sales through to effective completion Traits: • Positive, Determined and Proactive.

• Passionate about Ross Video solutions • Attention to Detail • Team Oriented • Problem Solver • Organized Other: • Willing to Travel up to 30% of the time • Valid Passport • Valid Driver’s License • Occasional requirement to set-up equipment To apply, visit http://careers.rossvideo.com/ jobs/8142085-regional-sales-manager-oceania You must understand IP broadcast, media and postproduction relating to broadcasters and media content providers and have a comprehensive knowledge of MAM/DAM, metadata management and media processing. You will also understand the content supply chain from production through distribution and be able to demonstrate significant experience in selling consultation and professional services, broadcast services, OTT, MAM and enterprise level media services.

If all of this sounds like you and you want to join one of the most well established and fastest growing companies in the broadcast industry email DBlackett@magnasys.tv with the subject line ‘Position Vacant - Sales Executive - Broadcast’ to submit your covering letter and resume for consideration.

CLASSIFIEDS + EVENTS

Advertiser Index

48

ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium …………..………..IBC AJA……………………………………..………..………..……………..…..3 Amber Technology………..………..………..……………………….9 AV Group Technologies……….………..………..………..…15,45 Blackmagic Design……………..………..………..………..………..5 Blonde Robot……………………..………..………..………..………17 EAV Technology……………………..………..………..………..… 23 EMC……………………………………………..………..………..…… 27 Fujinon Fijifilm……………………….…..…..…..…..…..….. 46,47

Grass Valley………………………………..…..…..…..…..….. 21,25 Harmonic Inc………………………………..…..…..…..…..…..…..35 IHSE GmbH Asia Pacific………………..…..…..…..…..…..….. 4 IRT Communications………………..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..10 Jands………………………………………..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..37 Magna Systems & Engineering….…..…..…..…..…..…..….11 MediaProxy…………………………….…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 33 On-Air Solutions………………………….…..…..…..…..…..….. 41 Ooyala……………………………………..…..…..…..…..…..……... IFC

Professional Audio & Television…………..…..….Cover,6,20 Quantum……………………………………..…..…..….…..…OBC Rohde & Schwarz……………………………..…..…..…..…..…...31 Seagate………………………………..…..…..…..…..…..…..….29 Snell Advanced Media..………….………..…..…..…..…..….. 19 Stagetec…………………………………..…..…..…..…..…..….39 Techtel……………………………….….…..…..…..…..…..…..…..7

ENHANCING MULTIPLATFORM CONTENT 5-8 MARCH 2018 KUALA LUMPUR

JOIN THE DBS

MASTERCLASSES

8

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

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

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

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www.abu.org.my/dbsymposium