PROTRENDS

Pixel Power

James Gilbert, CEO The pace of change in the media world continues to accelerate. Broadcasters and content providers need to react rapidly to new expectations from consumers and challenges from device manufacturers. The only way that the supply side can keep up is through collaboration and agility; technology alone is not the answer. By collaboration, I mean working closely with both customers and system integrators to create a solution with maximum flexibility while avoiding costly software customisation. By agility, I mean the ability to react quickly to new requirements and customer needs, supported by an agile scrum-based development and project delivery methodology.

ACCESS:VFX

Simon Devereux, Group Head of Learning & Development at The Mill, and founder and Director of ACCESS:VFX May the new year be a time full of action towards encouraging greater diversity, awareness and inclusion across our creative industry. We’re going to see an avalanche of ambitious students eager to get into fields such as VFX, animation and gaming. As a result, there’ll be more collaboration between professionals to create opportunities for young talent to enter various sectors of the media and entertainment industry. Let’s roll up our sleeves and equip them with practical tools, through initiatives such as e-mentoring and practical

workshops. This is a recipe for a future the entire industry will benefit from.

Haivision

Peter Maag, Chief Commercial Officer and EVP Strategic Partnerships 2020 is the year when advances in quality, latency and the use of low-cost public internet connections will satisfy the broadcasters’ objective of more content at much lower cost. The most apparent shift will be the adoption of remote production solutions (also called REMI or at-home solutions). In 2020, broadcasters will save millions by backhauling all cameras and microphones from location to a central control facility, efficiently using resources and minimising travel and on-location spend.

White Light

Andy Hook, Technical Solutions Director There has been an explosion of real-time rendering engines and realtime graphics production in powering virtual studios in broadcast, and 2020 will likely see further growth. Companies like Unity, Unreal and Notch are pushing more realistic and better graphics rendered through higher quality media servers for incredibly glossy and reflective virtual studios and sets. We are seeing a demand in how we can work with these groundbreaking tools and workflows to create more immersive, interactive and collaborative broadcasting

24 | www.broadcastprome.com | January 2020

environments using mixed reality over green screen. This allows thought leaders, presenters, children, politicians, lecturers - anyone - to be within the environment and immediately interact with it. In 2020, we will see increased data integration and interactivity so we can do more with content. Rather than just a virtual set that looks pretty, we are working to evolve the technology to allow for interactivity with real-time live data. We are also likely to see increased haptic feedback, skeletal tracking, frictionless motion capture – things that allow us to track the people within the virtual space and create more innovative use of the tools and technologies to create more immersive and engaging content.”

OWNZONES Entertainment Technologies Nick Nelson, Chief Product Officer We anticipate the ‘next big thing’ will be the evolution of AI from being simply a buzzword to having tangible benefits across the industry. Content production and consumption is becoming more global every day. Version control, consideration for cultural differences, and attention to storage footprint are more important than ever. AI is critical to achieving these by revolutionising the way media is stored, localised, and distributed in the cloud through technologies like speech-to-text, duplicate frame detection and consolidation, facial recognition, deletion of commercial blacks, and more. No longer a buzzword, AI will transform the content-to-consumer experience on a global scale.