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WHAT WAS LOCAL TELEVISION LIKE IN 1969? P. 4

NASA ASKS FOR SMPTE’S HELP

➤ 6

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BROADCAST • PRODUCTION • BROADBAND • SATELLITE • MOBILE

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➤ Special Report Live Production Over IP

—page 11-14

➤ Cloudspotters Journal Use the cloud or build a datacenter? —page 25

➤ Equipment Guide

Monitors & Test Equipment —pages 28–34

‘The Wheels Are Coming Off the Repack’ Stations are relocating, but with STAs and temp facilities BY JAMES E. O’NEAL ALEXANDRIA, VA.—Last month, as the latest phase of the television broadcast spectrum repack was wrapping up, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai advised the Senate Financial Services Subcommittee that all was going well and “on schedule.”

“We want to make sure it is a smooth transition for everybody,” he said. “And thus far it is.” However, a number of those within the industry—engineering consultants, station groups, tower contractors—have a somewhat different take on things. REPACK, PAGE 8

IN THIS ISSUE

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TUNE IN TO TVTECHNOLOGY.COM For the latest news and insight on the channel repack, visit our Repack silo on the TV Technology homepage at www.tvtechnology.com/repack

NOVEMBER 2019 ➤ TVTECHNOLOGY.COM ➤ VOLUME 37, ISSUE 11

NEWS

INSIGHT

‘The Wheels Are Coming Off the Repack’ Stations are relocating, but with STAs and temp facilities

Virtualized Playout Promises Greater Security, Flexibility Cloud-enabled production enables hyper-specialized channels, more monetization

Use the Cloud or Build a Datacenter? Cloudspotter’s Journal, Karl Paulsen

Microphones and Beyond … Inside Audio, Dennis Baxter

How Can We Secure Live Production over IP? Protecting the entire consumption path is key

The Tangible Changes IP Brings to Live Production The entire media landscape is changing

2019 IBC: Why Hollywood Can’t Wait to Be Cloud Silicon Valley’s increasing presence in M&E can’t be denied

Get the LED In Dos and don’ts about installing the latest lighting technology

Repack Impact: How Is It Affecting Wireless Mics? Manufacturers/users cope with loss of spectrum

Making Sense of UHDTV Revisiting the standard in light of the recent move to promote ‘Filmmaker Mode’

RIST Forges Reliable, Secure Internet Connection Standards group capitalizes on ever-increasing bandwidth of the internet

EQUIPMENT GUIDE

EQUIPMENT

User Reports— Monitors & Test Equipment JVC, Mediaproxy

Product Showcase

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4 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

A TV Time Capsule T

he year 1969 was a momentous year for television as the recent 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing reminded us of its impact.  TOM BUTTS It was also the year EDITOR-IN-CHIEF WWNY-TV, the CBS aftom.butts@futurenet.com filiate for Watertown N.Y. placed a time capsule at its newly built broadcast facility. Fifty years later, the station opened the time capsule to remind us of what our industry—and the average American community—looked like in the late 1960’s. John Moore, news anchor for the station reports:

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and by the time you rummage through the contents of this box we assume much more will have been done. We do presume that Watertown’s first Urban Renewal project will have been completed between Arsenal and Court streets and that still other modernization programs have changed the entire appearance of the business section near our broadcast center. In the year 1969 we know how many changes have taken place since 1900. It staggers the imagination when we contemplate what will have transpired by the time this box is opened. Whenever it is opened, we wish you well, good luck, whoever you are.”

WATERTOWN, N.Y.—A halfcentury ago, WWNY’s news director and evening news anchor Bob Tompkins filmed a message to future generations. Here is what he said: “From the 20th to the 21st Century, greetings to whomever opens this cor- Bob Tompkins, WWNY news director and evening news anchor nerstone in the WWNY raIn his message, Tompkins wondered dio and television broadcast center. I’m about the future of television and offered Bob Tompkins, news director for WWNY, some predictions about the future. So, with a few notes about what you’ve dishow well did he do? Let’s break it down: covered in this cornerstone and some Tompkins said, “We would be inclined observations on why they are included. to wonder whether there are still proAssuming the contents were properly grams about the Old West such as ‘Gunprotected and thus preserved for possmoke,’ ‘Lancer’ and ‘Bonanza.’” terity, you should find copies of our The answer, mostly no. program logs for both radio and televi“I think Westerns were like the number sion, for August 19, 1969, the day the 2 and 3 drama shows of that era. Now it’s cornerstone was placed into position. been replaced by crime shows. It started These documents should give you an inon CBS with ‘CSI,’ we now have ‘NCIS,’ dication of the changes that have been ‘FBI,’ so I think those types of crime wrought within broadcasting in the enshows replaced the Western,” said WWNY suing years. Program Director Jim Corbin. We would be inclined to wonder whethTompkins also wondered, “What reer there are still programs about the Old placed the variety shows such as the ‘Ed West such as ‘Gunsmoke,’ ‘Lancer’ and Sullivan Show’ and ‘The Lawrence Welk ‘Bonanza,’ and what replaced the variety Show?’” shows, such as the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ and “There were probably six or eight vari‘The Lawrence Welk Show.’ And in 1969 we ety shows and I would say the thing that can’t help but think that television will have has replaced the variety show is the regone three dimensional, with stereophonic ality show. You’ve got shows like ‘Amerisound and full wall screens in homes by can Idol,’ ‘So You Think You Can Dance,’ the time this cornerstone is opened. We’ve ‘Dancing With the Stars,’” said Corbin. included a packet of photographs taken “And in 1969, we can’t help but think recently of downtown Watertown’s section that television will have gone three dias a way of measuring progress over the mensional with stereophonic sound and years. There’s much new building going full wall screens in homes by the time this on this year in Watertown besides our own

cornerstone is opened,” Tompkins said in his message to the future. “Bob nailed it,” said WWNY Chief Engineer Jim Felton. “He predicted flat screen TVs, he predicted stereophonic, which we deliver every day, or quadraphonic. He really nailed it. He was looking into the future.” Tompkins also said, “We do presume that Watertown’s first Urban Renewal project will have been completed between Arsenal and Court streets and that still other modernization programs have changed the entire appearance of the business section near our broadcast center.” Urban Renewal was all the rage in the 1960s. It led to the demolition of 100 or more downtown Watertown buildings. Some of it was needed, but Watertown City Planner Mike Lumbis says much of it was not. “I’m sure there were some that were in pretty rough condition and had to come down, but there were certainly others that were in good condition that didn’t. I know the old city hall on Court Street for instance was a beautiful building and was torn down in the sake of progress and modernization,” he said. And while Bob Tompkins seemed to hint at the likelihood of more Urban Renewal phases, that didn’t happen. “I think the idea was that this Urban Renewal idea would carry on and continue throughout the downtown. So I think fortunately, it sort of stopped in the area where it started. So he would probably be surprised by that, that it didn’t continue further, but I think that’s a good thing,” said Lumbis. Could we be as daring as Bob Tompkins and look another 50 years into the future? Felton says TV may change more dramatically than most of us could imagine. “We’ll probably have contact lens, or something tied in directly to your eyes, and with electrodes tied into your brain. You’ll pick what you want to watch and you won’t need the TV on the wall, it’ll be in your head,” he said. The video can be viewed at https:// www.wwnytv.com/2019/10/22/messagepast-glimpse-future. Reprinted with permission.

Tom Butts, tom.butts@futurenet.com Content Manager Terry Scutt, terry.scutt@futurenet.com Content Producer Michael Balderston, michael.balderston@futurenet.com Contributors Gary Arlen, Susan Ashworth, James Careless, Gary Eskow, Steve Harvey, Craig Johnston, Claudia Kienzle, Bob Kovacs, Mark R. Smith and Peter Suciu Production Manager Heather Tatrow Managing Design Director Nicole Cobban Senior Design Director Lisa McIntosh ADVERTISING SALES Associate Publisher Vytas Urbonas vytas.urbonas@futurenet.com, 845-678-3956 SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE To subscribe, change your address, or check on your current account status, go to www.tvtechnology.com and click on About Us, email futureplc@computerfulfillment.com, call 888-266-5828, or write P.O. Box 8692, Lowell, MA 01853. LICENSING/REPRINTS/PERMISSIONS TV Technology is available for licensing. Contact the Licensing team to discuss partnership opportunities. Head of Print Licensing Rachel Shaw licensing@futurenet.com MANAGEMENT Senior Vice President, Content Chris Convey Vice President/Group Publisher Carmel King Vice President, Sales John Bubello Head of Production US & UK Mark Constance Head of Design Rodney Dive FUTURE US, INC. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036

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6 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

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70-Year-Old Antenna Site Rules Up for Debate by FCC WASHINGTON—Times have changed since 1945, and the FCC wants to make sure that it is keeping up with those changes, seeking to update many of its media rules that may no longer be relevant. The latest such attempt comes with rules dealing with who has access to antenna sites. The commission announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (MB Docket No. 19-282) on Friday, Oct. 25, seeking comment on whether current rules originally crafted in 1945 should be eliminated or revised. Specifically, the rules prohibit the grant, or renewal of, a license for a TV or FM station if the applicant or licensee controls an antenna site that is suitable for broadcasting in the area and does not make the site available for use by other similar licensees. The FCC says that since the rules were introduced, there has been an increase in antenna sites suitable for broadcasting, a majority of which it says are owned by non-broadcast entities. Calling them “rarely invoked,” the FCC seeks comment on whether the rules are necessary in today’s environment to promote competition and a variety of broadcast sources. All five commissioners approved of the NPRM.

“These rules date back to 1945,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “At the time, there was a freeze on broadcast station construction in order to conserve equipment and material needed for World War II. The commission was also concerned about developing the stillnascent FM radio and TV services at a time when broadcasters were still the predominant antenna site owners. But that was a long, long time ago; today there are abundant FM and TV stations, the tower site market is flourishing and commission staff has been unable to find a single instance where these rules were successfully invoked. What they have found are parties citing these rules without a factual basis for doing so, resulting in unnecessary delay of commission proceedings.” “We must keep up the effort to free traditional, regulated industries from regulatory burdens where appropriate; otherwise, they will continue to fight with one, or both, of their proverbial hands tied behind their backs,” wrote commissioner Michael O’Rielly in his statement. No deadline for comments has been given at press time. Michael Balderston

OPINION

SMPTE 2019: 3, 2, 1 Liftoff The closing day of the 2019 Annual SMPTE Technical Conference & Exhibition focused on space and imaging as part of the society’s 50th anniversary celebration of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin setting foot on the moon. Rodney Grubbs, Imagery Experts program manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Dylan Mathis, communications lead with the International Space Station at Johnson Space Center in Houston,  PHIL KURZ presented at the conference. Their mission was to ask the brain trust of the motion picture and TV industries for help in solving problems encountered with imaging in space. Protecting camera imagers from the ravages of radiation, dealing with the impact of dramatic temperature fluctuations in space, handling massive exposure complications when pointing back at the sun and finding a suitable camera pan and tilt solution for outside a spacecraft were among the issues they raised. Adding urgency to their quest for solutions is an abbreviated timetable—by NASA’s standard—to meet President Trump’s directive to NASA to put the first woman and the next man on the moon before the end of 2024. Not only did I attend the presentation, but I also had a 30-minute interview with Grubbs the day before he took the stage. I walked away with three relevant observations for broadcasters. First, TV isn’t the only game in town. Unlike when Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins went to the moon, people have many different platforms on which to view the liftoff, journey, landing, extra-vehicular excursions and return than they did in July 1969. When Artemis 1 takes off, NASA plans to meet people—especially those 35 years old and younger—where they consume media, specifically on their phones, tablets and laptops, via game controllers, VOD and OTT streaming devices as well as on their living room TV screens. “As we think about taking the rest of the world along with us to the moon, by the time we get there in four or five years, I want to have this entire architecture together where they can see it in as close to real time as we can possibly make it on as many platforms as we can reliably, possibly allow,” said Grubbs. That means sending out notifications as the spacecraft and crew achieve various milestones during the mission, alerting the public of what’s happening and inviting them to stream coverage. Second, so many people accessing so much incredible video from Artemis 1 at the same time will likely push wireless networks to—and perhaps beyond— the breaking point. Consider that at the time of the Apollo 11 mission, the moon landing was the most watched TV event in the history of the medium. Using Grubbs’ own age threshold of 35 years old and looking solely at 2018 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, that would mean as many as 88 million people in the United States would be hitting wireless networks at once. (If only there were a transmission system that could wirelessly deliver video content from one source to an unlimited number of people. But that’s a story for another time.) Third, if NASA gets the same kind of response to its requests for help from private industry as it did at the SMPTE conference, the space agency might actually be able to pull off its ambitious presidential mandate. Broadcasters, the movie industry and aligned imaging industries represented at the conference should be proud of the willingness of their peers to offer assistance. Many people approached the mic at the end of Grubbs’ and Mathis’ presentation to offer their ideas, assistance and support to find solutions to specific imaging problems in space. Of course, all of this depends on Congress allocating funds for the Artemis program. As of the SMPTE conference, Grubbs reported there is greater support for fully funding the project in the Senate than in the House. Even if the project were to get funding from Congress to meet the 2024 date, it is entirely possible that the attention of the public will be focused on SpaceX instead, which may be on its way to Mars. If so, maybe streaming coverage of Artemis 1 mission milestones won’t melt wireless networks after all. Read more about NASA’s SMPTE presentation in this month’s issue of Broadcast Engineering Extra.

8 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

“The wheels are coming off the repack,” declared Bill Meintel, principle of the Meintel, Sgrignoli, & Wallace firm, in reflecting on his experience with some of his television clients and the repack statistical homework he’s done. REPACK GETS ‘C’ GRADE AT BEST In examining the numbers of channel transitions fully completed during the first five phases of the repack, Meintel determined that only about 73 percent of the stations had fully met their objective of moving to a new channel with coverage equal to what they provided with their pre-repack facilities. As defined by Meintel, a fully successful repack means that a station met its repack deadline fully, is licensed according to the terms of its construction permit, and is providing service comparable to what was offered on its original channel prior to the repack—in other words, no STAs.

Bill Meintel

In compiling his repack “score,” Meintel said that he drew on a number of resources, determining that at the end of Phase 5 (which was officially concluded on Sept. 19), a total of 528 stations should have been operating on their new channel assignments. However, based on data available in late September, only 388 stations—just 73.5 percent—had completely finished repacking activities. He observed too, that out of the 984 stations identified as repack candidates, 496 of these were assigned to Phases 6 through 10. (It should be noted that this article was compiled at the time Phase 6 was ending, and complete data was not available for determining the exact number of stations that were fully transitioned in that phase. However, based on Meintel’s numbers for Phases 5 and earlier, “fully successful” transitions ranged from a low of 45.6 percent to a high of 92.5 percent in those phases, so it’s doubtful that all of the 126 stations assigned to Phase 6 were fully transitioned. Based on Meintel’s numbers

Stephen Lockwood

for phases five and earlier, it would appear that nearly two-thirds (60.6 percent) of the overall repack work will have to be completed within the remaining nine months or so in order to make the July 3, 2020 deadline.) Meintel observed that at the completion of Phase 5, only about 39.4 percent— perhaps less—of stations being repacked had completely wrapped up their channel moving exercises. “At 30 months into the schedule, this averages out to 12.9 stations repacked per month,” he said. “At this rate, it will take another 46.2 months [almost four years] to complete the repack. The repack is well behind schedule.” Meintel is not alone in his belief that progress on the repack has slipped considerably. “I don’t expect it to be fully completed by deadline—maybe 80 percent,” said Stephen Lockwood, a senior engineer and partner of the Seattle-based consulting firm of Hatfield and Dawson. “Scheduling problems and the other things that we’ve talked about over the years are serious bottlenecks. Also, a number of entities have not planned appropriately, considering the limited availability of tower crews, qualified personnel to do antenna testing—once they’re in place, structural engineers to work out tower modifications, and even the manufacturing end of things for such things as transmission line.” John Hidle, a consulting engineer with the Virginia-based Carl T. Jones consult-

John Hidle

ing firm agrees. “It’s going very slowly,” said Hidle. “A number of the stations we represent are typically making the transition with temporary facilities. We’ve been pretty much able to keep up in Phase 6 with about 40 percent of them making the transition. The remaining 60 percent have been working furiously to put up temporary antennas.” Hidle said that his firm is working with about 100 stations spread across various phases of the repack, and that the endpoint shortfall number predicted by Meintel is likely correct. And as with others interviewed for this article, Hidle identifies the root of the problem as an FCC goal that was way too ambitious; a position that most in the industry voiced when the 36-month construction timetable was announced. “There are just not enough qualified people,” he said. “A factory can only make so many antennas, and I’ve been told that the two major ones are running at least two shifts every day of the week to keep up with the demand. But people get tired; I’m tired. Everybody is trying their best. Nobody is slacking off. It’s a matter of just how much people can do in a given amount of time.”

tor is in place, and noted that on several occasions his firm has been called in at the last minute to do this because manufacturers’ crews weren’t available. Harvey Arnold, corporate vice president of engineering for Sinclair Broadcast Group, is overseeing the reworking of facilities for some 100 stations—or about half of the Sinclair television properties— and has seen even the most carefully planned transition schedules fall by the wayside due to unforeseen or unintended difficulties. “Wind, rain and ice can cause delays, but in our experience, it’s primarily been the wind,” Arnold said. “We’ve had situations where it’s a beautiful day on the ground, but at 1,000 or 1,500, feet up, the wind is blowing so hard crews can’t work. We would schedule a job for two or three weeks and it would take six months. It doesn’t always happen like that, but that’s where schedules can really get delayed

SOMETIMES THINGS JUST HAPPEN And it’s not just Most of the 2017-2020 repacks are not as simple as uncrating a new delivery of antennas, transmitter and connecting it to an existing transmission line. Many sites are hosting multiple stations, and the RF plumbing to get signals to transmission lines, combiners, filters and antennas is anything but simple, requiring hours and and new transmit- hours of painstaking on-site measurement and fabrication. ters that are factoring into schedule slippage. Accidents happen, and our tower projects get backed up.” There are many other reasons for unhumans make mistakes, weather is not alplanned delays. Arnold observed that one ways perfect. Pete Sockett, director of engineer- of these surfaced at an Oregon antenna ing and operations at Raleigh-Durham’s site common to several broadcast operaWRAL-TV, related a critical industry short- tions. “Two stations were being repacked age that impacted his station’s repack and one was not,” he said. “We found that plans. “We’re behind the repack curve too,” the antenna we’d planned to use for this said Sockett. “We converted in Phase 5 and site wouldn’t work properly at the lower had planned a helicopter lift in October channel frequency and we had to order for our two stations and the three others a whole new antenna. Replacing the anon our tower to replace our top-mounted tenna was one issue; finding a tower crew antennas. However, there’s a shortage of when we needed it was another. “When you’re dealing with these ‘comhelicopter crews, which disrupted our planning, and now has delayed things un- munity’ systems,’ things can take much til early in 2020. We’re operating with an longer,” Arnold added. “Having to work STA for a temporary side-mount antenna around FM stations that use the same tower can be tricky, as some have to be until then.” Lockwood also cited delays caused by shut down when working near these FM lack of qualified crews to do antenna test- antennas. Another issue can arise when ing and measurements once a new radia- you’re combining very high-power trans-

Credit: Bo Hoover, TSG

REPACK

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IN THE NEWS mitters into a single antenna and you have arcing and other problems that weren’t discovered at the factory, as they couldn’t do testing at full-power conditions.” Arnold related other unplanned situations that resulted in lost time, including misplaced or lost structural drawings in situations where tower modifications

Harvey Arnold

were necessary. “Every call sign is different,” he said, referring to the numerous stations Sinclair has acquired. “I wish we had greenfield sites, but every one was an existing site, and most all have had modifications. It’s

pretty complicated. We had an early repack job in Toledo which we found was going to require about half of the tower to be taken down and rebuilt.” Arnold says they couldn’t wait and and elected to go on the air with lower power and a temporary antenna. “Needless to say, our coverage was impacted, but we did make the transition date,” he said. ”We have a few markets that are operating at significantly reduced service until we can complete the required tower work.” LESS THAN OPTIMUM Sinclair currently has 26 stations operating with STAs, according to Arnold. “We had five past STAs that have now been cleared for full power,” he said. “So far, that’s a total of 31 stations with STAs. I don’t have an actual count, but hundreds of STAs have been issued for lower power operation so far. You can look at the FCC records. “We’ve had to go with side-mount antennas and low-power transmitters—five kW—at some sites. I’m sure that we, and other broadcasters, never envisioned temporary antenna systems going on for very long, but here we are.”

Industry suppliers such as RFS are running at full capacity to supply equipment for the repack, but crews qualified to install antennas, transmission lines and transmitters are limited in number, and frequently stymied by adverse weather conditions and secondary scheduling issues.

And such reduced power operations have inevitably resulted in a loss of service to viewing audiences. “Many people are viewing over-the-air television, and we’re getting a lot of calls and complaints from the viewers now because of the low-power situation,” said Arnold. “But what can you do? We work hard to provide good over-the-air service. it’s frustrating when we’re not able to reach our viewers.”

Others mirrored Arnold’s comments about operating with less than optimal facilities in order to make the tight channel clearing deadlines. Bill Harland, vice president of marketing at ERI, a company that manufactures antennas and handles tower work, also acknowledges that stopgap measures are part of the repack landscape. “We believe the spectrum to be cleared REPACK, PAGE 10

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10 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS REPACK

“A lot of time and effort is being expended in putting up temporary faciliwill be cleared by the July 2020 dead- ties when we could be completing facililine,” he said. “[However] some television ties,” said Hidle. “It’s a matter of ‘oh my stations may not be operating with their God,’ we have to get on the new channel and we have to do something to get fully authorized facilities.” to the new channel and then live with this until we can get back to it. The stations that we’re working with are all absolutely serious about getting on their new channels in time. The FCC is pushing this hard and is granting STAs right and left just to say the stations have moved to their new channels.” “We’re going to have to take some time after the deadline has passed and go back and rework some of the sites as originally planned,” said Arnold. “I know we’ll have to go back and rework more than 25 stations, and we’re probably going to be well into 2021 before it’s all done.” Dreasler pointed Gary Marifke, chief engineer for Milwaukee’s WVTV, poses with a five-kW “temporary” transmitter that will remain in operation until there’s time to out that work re“do things over” to comply with the station’s CP. maining to be performed at QMI’s Brady Dreasler, director of television “completed” sites include two transmisengineering at Quincy Media, Inc. (QMI), sion facilities that were awaiting the rewhich has stations in multiple U.S. mar- turn of tower crews to raise auxiliary/ kets, reported that although his compa- interim antennas to the proper height, ny has now cleared the Phase 0, 1, 2, 6 installation of transmission line switches, deadline hurdles with only a single sta- completion of HVAC work, as well as retion operating with FCC special tempo- pairs to site parking lots that were damrary authorization, that may not be the aged during tower modification or concase as the repack moves into its final struction work. He said that the push of the repack had months. “For our remaining stations in Phases also left a number of transmission facil7, 9, and 10, we’ll likely be utilizing STA’s ity maintenance and repair operations on hold, including tower inspections, lightfor some time,” he said. ing system replacement, coating of guy wires, tower painting, repairs to radomes, ‘NEVER TIME TO DO IT RIGHT; and replacement of microwave dish anALWAYS TIME TO DO IT OVER’ The temporary facility aspect of the tennas, or in some cases, new microwave 2017-2020 repack is a common theme link installations. Dreasler said too that there were conamong those interviewed for this article, with all bemoaning the fact that many tinuing issues involving stations that transitions were having to be done on weren’t repacking, but which operated on a temporary basis with a lot more work a common tower where others were reahead. When July 3, 2020 rolls around, packing, and are now having to transmit crews will have to go back and turn tem- with their licensed auxiliary facilities at porary substandard facilities into the per- reduced power levels. “We have excellent vendors,” he said. manent ones specified under the terms of “But they can only do so much. I don’t the station’s CP and license. Credit: Harvey Arnold

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see the tower crews catching up until late 2021.” Meintel opined that he had no reason to believe that the repack pace would pick up during its final phases. “The handicapping factor has not changed,” he said. “There were never enough resources to meet the demand. While I believe that all 984 stations affected by the repack will be operating on new channels by July 3, 2020, a significant number will likely be providing inferior service caused by this completely unrealistic buildout schedule.” Hidle shared Meintel’s pessimism.

“I do not believe the whole transition will be done by next July,” he said. “Even though all repacked stations might have migrated to their new channels and met the phase deadlines, it’s likely going to take at least another year-and-a-half for these stations to fully complete their authorized permanent facilities. “There is only so much people can do,” he added. “It’s now the middle of October and the repack is supposed to be all finished by next July—nine months. You can have a baby in nine months, but I don’t think the repack can be finished in nine months.”

The FCC Responds TV Technology contacted the FCC’s Office of Media Relations for their input Oct 15, two days prior to Chairman Pai’s statement to the Senate Financial Services Subcommittee. The following statement was issued by Neil Derek Grace, Senior Communications Advisor, FCC: “The broadcast repack is progressing as designed and is right on schedule. Overall, the number of stations that moved off their pre-auction channel in the first few phases of the transition schedule was actually ahead of the number of stations we planned to have completed because a number of stations asked to move earlier than their originally planned transition date. As of today, of the total 987 stations included in the 39-month Transition Scheduling Plan, 546 have already moved off their pre-auction channel. This is fully consistent with the number of transitioned stations anticipated when the Plan was prepared at the beginning of the transition period. With the end of Phase 6 scheduled at the end of this week we anticipate that number will increase by another 100 plus stations. The transition scheduling plan anticipated resource constraints, weather impacts, and other factors, and includes flexibility to work with individual stations that face unforeseen challenges on a case-by-case basis to adjust requirements in a manner that does not negatively impact the overall transition scheduling plan. We’ve worked with stations who needed to implement interim measures or move to a later phase as a result of unforeseen delays. As of today, we’ve granted over 190 phase changes, moving some stations to earlier phases and some to later phases. We have also granted special temporary authority to operate a variance to many stations and extended construction permit deadlines. We moved the deadline five days later for all Phase 5 stations phase to assure that viewers would not be required to rescan their TVs during Hurricane Dorian and risk missing important emergency news and information. We anticipate

that all stations will transition by the end of the transition period, July 3, 2020. If individual stations face challenges completing their permanent postauction facilities, we will continue to work with them as we have throughout the transition by applying the flexibility included in the overall plan. Background • Our data shows that 423 of the transitioned stations are operating on their new channel without any variance, which is more than 77% of the total transitioned stations. It is not accurate in many cases to equate interim facilities with poor coverage or with transition delays. Some stations that have not entirely completed their construction may be using interim facilities with little or no decreased coverage or population loss but instead closely match their permitted facilities. Some station’s interim facilities have coverage that is better than the station’s pre-repack facilities and the remaining work to be done is to complete post-auction maximization. Some stations have loss in coverage on interim facilities that is due to causes separate from the repack. • Counting the number of transitioning stations by month of the transition is not a reasonable approach. The Transition Scheduling Plan grouped all transitioning stations into 10 phases and assigned each phase a phase testing period start date and a phase completion date, or deadline. Stations may transition any time after the start of the phase testing period and must be off their pre-auction channel by the phase completion date. Many stations have elected to transition at the phase completion date, in some instances due to the need to coordinate with other stations that are in linked sets due to interference considerations. Therefore, for instance, in Phase 5 and 6, most of the 100 plus stations in the phase elect to transition at the end of the phase.

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

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Virtualized Playout Promises Greater Security, Flexibility Cloud-enabled production enables hyper-specialized channels, more monetization BY PETER SUCIU

tunities that it now presents. However, to take advantage of what virtualization offers, there are actually two types of this orchestration that need to put in place. “The first is a technical one, which is to orchestrate the appearance and provisioning of these virtual playout solutions,” added Savina. “And the other, which is the one that we are playing more of a role in, is to orchestrate the production process and the content preparation process to feed in these new types of channels that are suddenly appearing.” On a more basic level orchestration also explains the lifecycle management of the workload that one would want to operate. “Workloads need to be designed in terms of the functions needed and the topology of content flows between them and captured to a representation that’s readable by humans and computers,” said John R. Naylor, director of product

NEW YORK—Fixedpurpose hardwaredefined processing and delivery solutions have been standard in the world of video production for decades. However, these legacy systems, which require a large number of components and can be costly to deploy and maintain, have given way to more cost-effective software-based solutions that provide numerous benefits in video production that weren’t available with those dedicated hardware solutions. “Virtual playout is becoming one of the enablers for broadcasters and content producers to do something that they were not really able to do before, which is to start launching hyper-specialized channels, so that they can have dedicated or targeted audiences they can address more easily, and can then start to monetize these new, more granular types or segments of the audience,” said Kevin Savina, director of product strategy at Dalet. This move towards virtualization in the industry has spawned a new buzzword, “orchestration;” and it could be said that there Grass Valley’s iTX Flex cloud-based playout platform offers trueare a symphony of oppor- cloud playout orchestration using microservices, provided as SaaS.

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Kevin Savina, director of product strategy, Dalet

security for Ross Video. “From a vendor’s perspective, at minimum we provide an API for virtualized products that enable them to be plugged into the workload’s topology.” THE IMPORTANCE OF ORCHESTRATION Today, even the term “virtualization” itself remains very much another industry buzzword—one that to some is now part of the industry’s migration to the cloud. “At Harmonic we’re typically thinking of the cloud when we’re talking about virtualization,” said Andy Warman, director of playout solutions at the company. “However, the private and public cloud deployment has been changing over time and this is why this discussion of

orchestration is important as it is necessary for multichannel deployment. Orchestration is far more significant than ever as it can take the function of the cloud with an effectively limitless pool of resources.” It is allowing for greater customization in terms of how content can be delivered. “With the advent of virtualization we have the ability to deploy systems quickly, and start up new channels as customers need these such as for live events,” said Karl Mehring, director of product management for playout at Grass Valley. The issue in the short term is how virtualization will fit with legacy systems, even with the benefits it offers broadcasters and production houses. “Not every customer has the ability to rebuild their production environment,” said Steve Reynolds, president of Imagine Communications, whose Virtualized Master Control solution that provides the ability to consolidate, streamline and create consistent workflows across teams. “We’re seeing that some will rely on a hybrid solution that includes an SDI-based infrastructure in the studio, while some customers have moved to virtualization in control and playout.” To facilitate such a solution, Reynolds said some clients are creating so-called “islands of SDI functionality,” where content is then transferred to an IP environment in the same facility. “We see this as an integration layer where the old world and new world can talk together.” MAKING THE TRANSITION The biggest challenge in virtualization appears to be the ongoing transition the industry faces with the move from legacy systems. “The hard point of the transition will depend on how integrated a user is with the old-style broadcast infrastructure,” said Savina. “Moving forward, broadcasters also need to think in terms of multiple outputs that include linear streams, and if you don’t have the right tools upstream you could find yourself in deep trouble.” However, this isn’t the first time the industry has faced a transition and while this one will end up being less about hardware, broadcasters and production facilities should be prepared for this brave new world. “There are good examples with the move we’ve seen from tape to tapeless workflows,” said Warman. “We went through a very similar type of transition, and while we’re still not quite all the way with the transition to virtualization we’re making good progress.” This move to virtualization is also proVIRTUALIZED, PAGE 13

12 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

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How Can We Secure Live Production over IP? Protecting the entire consumption path is key BY RITIKA TANDON With the television industry in a transition to live production over IP, the benefits of such a change are clear. Most notably, IP production can offer a more dynamic, agile and, in some cases, cost-efficient content creation process compared to its more rigid predecessor, SDI. However, amid this transition, the industry is also beginning to better understand some of the potential drawbacks of IP production and what obstacles stand in the way. For example, as the consumption path has widened and become more complex, so has the surface for security attacks and threats. Spanning service disruption, loss of data, and even loss of content through piracy or unauthorized viewership, security risks are among the biggest hurdles to overcome during this transition to IP. So how can the industry not only mitigate these emerging risks but also stay ahead of the curve to take full advantage of IP live production? Content distributors will be best suited for what lies ahead by focusing on infrastructure security, protecting viewer data and securing the content itself.

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BOLSTERING INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY It’s important to remember that with such a broad attack surface inherent to IP delivery, securing the entire consumption path is key. Attacks can originate at multiple touchpoints, from content acquisition to the customer experience itself.

Attacks can originate at multiple touchpoints, from content acquisition to the customer experience itself. Preventing service outages or disruptions along this path is often the main goal. For example, quality of service can be jeopardized by distributed denial-ofservice (DDoS) attacks, which is a type of cyberattack that attempts to make a service unavailable. Malware, which is designed to maliciously disrupt the nor-

mal operation of a service, and ransomware attacks, which force victims to pay a ransom to cybercriminals to regain access to content, are other examples of common cyberattacks that can disrupt content delivery. Regardless of the type of attack, media organizations should consider security protocols that have massive scale and multiple layers of protection given these complexities. For example, for companies with cloud-based workflows, storage, and other assets, the ability to stop attacks in the cloud is key. By doing so, threats can be mitigated before they reach an organization’s critical applications or data centers, a point where significant disruptions can occur. With bots playing a growing role in cyberattacks, a thorough bot management program is important to consider. However, because not all bots are created equal, flexible management strate-

gies for the different types of bots that an organization could come across can be important for overall success when it comes to mitigating bot-based threats. Regardless of the specific solution, it’s important to remember the complexity of these security risks and the need to focus on each stage of the content delivery process, including the acquisition, production and distribution stages. PROTECTING TROVES OF VIEWER DATA Today’s consumers expect a flawless viewing experience. But with data breaches becoming far too common and personal data often exposed as a result—not to mention an increased focus on data privacy—ensuring that such information is protected is now a crucial

Ritika Tandon

part of this overall experience. In the age of social media, users are not shy about expressing their dissatisfaction with a service or product, meaning a single instance of compromised user information can permanently tarnish a brand’s reputation. In a world

with so many content distributors and services to choose from, it doesn’t take much to lose a viewer or subscriber. One growing trend is the credential stuffing attack, in which hackers use bots to access stolen login information to access user accounts. The scope of these attacks is massive—Akamai reported 55 billion credential stuffing attacks between November 2017 to March 31, 2019. Investing in modern bot detection and blocking solutions that leverage AI and machine learning can greatly reduce these threats. BIG TARGET GETTING BIGGER The value of content is skyrocketing in today’s competitive industry. Just look at Amazon, which is paying $130 million for two years of rights to stream

the NFL on Thursday nights, separate from the rights other broadcasters are paying to air games over traditional network and pay television. It’s evident that content is becoming more valuable than ever, but with this trend comes growing security risks. In fact, the content itself is only becoming a bigger target for cybercriminals—from hackers to content pirates— who see dollar signs in exploiting such a growing market. With IP delivery, the attack surface for tapping into this content is much wider and thus content distributors should consider strong safeguards to secure their most valuable asset. Recent data suggests that piracy can cost the industry as much as $71 billion annually. And while the industry recognizes the problem, an Akamai survey of media technology influencers and decision-makers found that only one percent are “very confident” in their current security measures to address the issue. Media encryption can be a great place to start to address content protection challenges. Investing in this approach ensures a unique encryption key is established for each delivered media segment and can offer message integrity verification data to prevent the theft of content during delivery. Tokenization can also make sure that only viewers that have been properly authenticated can access content, while geo and IP-based blocking can guarantee the same. Additionally, watermarking can be an effective strategy to prevent piracy. By adding unique watermarking to identify the source or recipient of content, each copy can be differentiated from stolen content, allowing organizations to find the true source of the piracy. By prioritizing investments into infrastructure security, protecting consumers and their data, and ensuring the content itself is secure, the industry will not only allow for a smooth transition to IP live delivery but will also ensure that IP delivery has the right foundation to securely succeed for years to come. IP live delivery is the future, but only if we safeguard it. Ritika Tandon is Solutions Engineering Manager at Akamai.

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

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IS YOUR VIDEO MICROWAVE

VIRTUALIZED

PREHISTORIC?

“Orchestration is far more significant than ever as it can take the function of the cloud with an effectively limitless pool of resources.” —Andy Warman, Harmonic

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

viding new ways to do the same job. “We are seeing less obvious solutions such as Software as a Service [SaaSs], and this provides the latest technology and also frees up the end user from inconvenient maintenance and upgrade cycles, and allows the user to focus on content delivery instead of software upgrades,” added Warman. Another advantage is that the cloud offers the ability for users to experiment without a major investment in completely new hardware. “It is easier to update software than a hardware board,” said Mehring. “That gives you the flexibility in how you modify your services.” KEEPING IT SECURE The move to virtualization introduces other challenges—including the fact that “content” and “data” will be increasingly interchangeable terms. And where there is data there is the risk of a breach.

Steve Reynolds, president, Imagine Communications

“Cybersecurity is a huge concern for anyone in this industry, especially as the move to solutions that aren’t housed in four walls of a broadcaster,” said Bea Alonso, director of product marketing at Dalet. “It is difficult to keep up with the number of threats, but we should remember there was no security on the old VTRs.” The industry will need to realize the nature of potential threats, but also take advantage of the available countermeasures. Security is about defending three principles: availability, integrity and confidentiality, according to Naylor. “This priority order is the reverse of how government agencies and the military usually put them but is what’s appropriate for commercial operations,” he said. “The loss of confidential information is prevented using standard controls similar to those in place in a

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sence—experienced one transition after another, but virtualization could result in the end of such major transitions. “Our upgrade path is much more streamlined than ever before,” said Reynolds. “We had the move from 1080 to 4K, and we can look at that as a blueprint for future moves. With HD to 4K you replaced a couple of components but you didn’t have to significantly replace everything in the workflow, just a few codecs. It resulted in a much more

Andy Warman, director of playout solutions, Harmonic

traditional broadcast infrastructure. The only twist that virtualization possibly adds is when your workload is but one of multiple tenants on a physical host which theoretically opens it up to attack from co-hosted bad actors.” Broadcasters are not facing cyber threats alone—and in fact are actually late comers at least in terms of needing cybersecurity. Thus there are plenty of examples of how it has been done right in other industries. “Because we are moving to standard DON’T REPAIR. REPLACE WITH MOSELEY DON’T REPAIR. REPLACE WITH MOSELEY DON’T REPAIR. REPLACE WITH MOSELEY IP technology and standard IP platforms DON’T REPAIR. REPLACE WITH MOSELEY DON’T REPAIR. REPLACE WITH MOSELEY we can draw from industries that are much wider than broadcast industry,” DON’T REPAIR. REPLACE WITH MOSELEY said Reynolds. “We can look at others, and by no means are a first mover so we have the advantage to draw upon experts and best practices.”

IS YOUR VIDEO MICROWAVE

streamlined way to make a transition and that is what we can expect going forward. We will then move from a ‘revolution’ change and back to a more traditional ‘evolution.’” Of course getting to that point will still require some effort however. We’re at the point where users are getting over learning about the technology and finally putting it to use,” said Mehring. “We’re not at the end, but this is the end of the beginning.”

PREHISTORIC? IS YOUR VIDEO IS YOUR ISISMICROWAVE YOURVIDEO VIDEOMICROWAVE MICROWAVE IS YOUR YOUR VIDEO VIDEO MICROWAVE MICROWAVE PREHISTORIC? DTV PREHISTORIC? PREHISTORIC? IS YOURLINK-A VIDEO MICROWAVE PREHISTORIC? PREHISTORIC? DTV DTV LINK-A DTV LINK-A DTV LINK-A LINK-A DTV LINK-A DON’T REPAIR. REPLACE WITH MOSELEY

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FUTURE PROOFING PRODUCTION The final consideration to virtualization is the advantages that it could offer to content creators at all levels. This could be the final significant transition, in part because it is more future proof than legacy hardware. This is notable

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14 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

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The Tangible Changes IP Brings to Live Production The entire media landscape is changing BY MATT ALLARD The current shift in live production implementations derives from the dramatic impact of IT across all aspects of daily life. Virtually any professional field of human activity reveals that modern IT technologies are not just augmenting domain-specific methods, but actually replacing them—and media production is no longer an exception. The entire media landscape is changing because of IT. The tools people use, the way buildings and facilities are designed, and the concept of media installations have all changed. Internet protocol (IP) is now ubiquitous worldwide and is connecting systems used in daily life. Enormous prior development has gone into ensuring IP handles all relevant data types—and IP has proven it does this very well. By its nature, IP technology efficiently handles any and all data types of interest to media production and distribution. To a network, various formats and protocols are just more ones and zeros, and—it’s vital to appreciate—they are all equally viable. IP permits working in the protocols and formats that suit current pipeline needs, yet it remains completely open to changing needs, and to standards being extended, merged, or otherwise adapted in the future. In IP-based production, “on demand”

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benefits extend to all source types, whether live or recorded, and the more sources available, the greater the creative options. Expending resources only on what is actually needed for a production, while at the same time presenting everything

following examples of how IP infrastructure has helped redefine the capabilities of live TV: • A change in setting has occurred in terms of where a live signal can physically reach. Alma TV in Argentina

AlmaTV uses Metrolinq antennas to carry camera signals from a set to a control room 800 meters away in a different building using NDI. No digging up earth or running cables across snow.

anywhere, benefits media playout, virtual sets, augmented reality, sound reinforcement, and any other area of production that involves processing. All sources can be instantly available anywhere in the pipeline with IP; media introduced into a production can be selected, modified, and updated right up to the point of insertion into the output. IP offers a more elegant and efficient approach. And the nonlinear nature of IP-based media production unleashes creativity and revolutionizes production workflows.

Last year, producers of the Western Amateur Golf Championship used IP for the first time to remotely control production 1,300 miles from the tournament.

CHANGING THE DEFINITION OF ‘LIVE’ What does this mean in practice? It means productions are evolving beyond the norm. It means a culture of change is taking place at fundamental levels. Today we see productions breaking traditional barriers of not just technology— but also shattering the cap put on creativity by traditional, cable-heavy workflows. Consider a few of the

found a way to broadcast live sports and news from mountain peaks using AV-over-IP infrastructure and a pair of 2.5GB antennas. The wireless network was strong enough to send video and audio over IP using NDI, enabling multiple live camera positions where there was no feasible way to run SDI cabling across the mountain. • In the U.S., Fishing League Worldwide, broadcasts live from the water during tournaments thanks to a networked workflow where cameras are connected to a cellular mobile hotspot on the boats via a cloud-based streaming service to a studio in Kentucky— no matter the location of the fishing tournament on any given day. • Production control now no longer has to sit in the same building, campus, or even the same time zone. This might not sound revolutionary to those familiar with utilizing OB trucks at sporting events—but what if you could completely eliminate the costs of such a truck? For years the Western Amateur Golf Championship took place without a broadcast, the budget simply didn’t exist for a full broadcast workflow—no OB truck was on the horizon. That changed in 2018

when operators streamed 12 hours of the tournament online by sending AV signals via an IP pathway to a master control facility 1,300 miles away in South Florida. • Another change is occurring in terms of scale. While many productions might max out with a small number of inputs, esport broadcasts can demand hundreds of live inputs. The answer is often to utilize network device interface software in the workflow to bring in all IP native inputs. • In terms of cost, productions are no longer burdened with the capital expense of hundreds—or thousands— of feet in SDI cabling, and dedicated hardware systems that are not scalable. Nor are they burdened with the travel expenses or set up time when productions go on the road. • Perhaps the more impressive connection between all these stories is an expansion of creativity. Productions are no longer hampered by limits on video inputs, camera positions, or cable runs. Now, any video source can be captured and cameras can be deployed far more freely. The IP workflow opens up the palette of tools with which video workflows can tell stories. CREATIVE REFLEX WITH IP The above examples are a taste of this production revolution—the shift from creative plan to creative reflex. IP offers liberation from the traditional production model, permitting the entire process to be handled on location and across locations with far more ease than organizations have been accustomed to in the past. The technologies and examples mentioned here can help with the process of moving to IP production. IP-based technologies and software tools exist—even at no charge. The next step to discovering these enabling technologies is to connect with digital media manufacturers and suppliers and ask them what they offer for moving toward IP, or moving further into IP, and what they are able to enable. Ask them for specific examples of new, creative, and exciting workflows that empower different and unique productions. Something new emerges in storytelling when source devices are able to communicate directly with receiving devices. Storytelling suddenly has more options available at any given time, and the evolution of the media industry continues to be redefined not only in terms of the devices and processes used to tell stories through media, but by the accessibility provided to the people telling them. Matt Allard is Product Marketing Manager for Vizrt Group.

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

IN THE NEWS

2019 IBC: Why Hollywood Can’t Wait to Be Cloud Silicon Valley’s increasing presence in M&E can’t be denied BY ANN-MARIE COLVIN AMSTERDAM—While hot topics around OTT, AI and the growing dominance of Silicon Valley were in abundance, the biggest innovations at IBC this year were arguably to be found in the Auditorium. This year’s Big Screen strand ran throughout the entire conference and the sessions offered delegates a glimpse into future production techniques and workflows that will set the bar for years to come. Employing a live-action film crew that can work virtually to set up and execute shots in an animated world is one example; a technique employed on Disney’s all-digital, astoundingly photorealistic “The Lion King” remake. In one keynote session the film’s cinematographer Ca-

leb Deschanel and its VFX supervisor Rob Legato demonstrated how they used VR headsets to plan out their shots. “VR allows you to walk around the CG world like you would on a real set and put the camera where you want,” Deschanel said. “You know where the light goes, you know where the camera goes, you know where the actors are. We were able to get some obscure points of view and tell a different story about the characters—and VR gave us that opportunity.” According to Legato, the film’s budget could have been much larger had the production gone to Africa to shoot and then composited CG characters into the shots. As a result he predicted that VR previsualisation would change how movies were made and scheduled, while

Deschanel argued that it would democratize the film-making process for a new generation of filmmakers. “A 25-year-old aspiring director will be able to practice a shoot at home virtually before sharing their vision with the world,” Deschanel predicted. “This is where the next generation of talent will come from. VISION FOR 2030 In another Big Screen session, Hollywood studios’ tech bosses gathered to discuss a new whitepaper that is set to transform production workflows in an industry where massive increases in content production across multiple platforms is proving a real challenge. Michael Wise, CTO of Universal Pictures, argued that “faster production

cycles and more rapid iterations” were needed. MovieLabs—an independent body founded by five prominent studios to explore new technologies and workflows— believes the answer lies in the cloud. The body’s 10-year vision is for all studio assets to be created and ingested straight into the cloud, and furthermore, any tools used on content assets in this new workflow must come to the cloud, rather than the other way around, (for more insight, read “SMPTE 2019: MovieLabs CTO Lays Out Vision For Media Creation In 2030,” in this month’s Broadcast Engineering Extra). For this to happen, Arjun Ramamurthy, senior vice president of technology for Disney, acknowledged that the stuIBC, PAGE 16

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16 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS

Get the LED In

Dos and don’ts about installing the latest lighting technology BY JAMES CARELESS ONTARIO—TV engineers in charge of older broadcast studios know that they have to replace their aging incandescent (e.g. tungsten) lighting some day, and that the popular choice is LED (lightemitting diode) fixtures. That said, LEDs are so technologically different from incandescent lamps, developing a transition plan can be daunting for engineers schooled in the older tech. To ease the task, TV Technology has compiled this list of “must-knows” and myths about LED studio lighting.

IBC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

dios would need the support from “everyone in the production ecosystem.” “We want the best of breed tools, but they need to be interchangeable and interoperable,” he said. “I would say that this is the key message here for manufacturers at IBC.” BBC’S NHU PUSHES ENVELOPE Another production trailblazer—and a big influence on “The Lion King,” according to its cinematographer—is the BBC’s Natural History Unit. Big Screen delegates were wowed by UHD HDR versions of the NHU’s recent hits including “Planet Earth II,” “Dynasties” and its latest production, “Seven Worlds, One Planet.” Colin Jackson, senior innovation producer at BBC Studios, revealed that most of its productions are now filmed in 7.5K and 8K and the unit was “committed to driving innovation.” According to Jackson, this includes the use of drones in ways that would have been unthinkable only a couple of years ago; at night, over water, in caves and circling around the Russian Arctic. Rachel Butler, a producer at the unit, added that new technology was literally taking its crews to new depths: “Using air rebreathers, for example, means our underwater teams can now stay down for 3-6 hours at a time.” FRIENDLY FAANGS Those other California players 350 miles north of Hollywood—the so-

COOLER AND CHEAPER When the AT&T Entertainment Group decided to move their syndicated Dan Patrick sports radio/TV show into a new 20,000 square foot facility, they opted to illuminate using Litepanels’ Gemini and Astra soft LED panel fixtures instead of incandescent lamps. “The decision came down to the temperature of the lights,” said Eric Jones, associate director of creative operations for AT&T Mobility & Entertainment Group. “The talent always complained about the heat of the old incandescent lights and how hot the called FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google)—were also out in force at this year’s IBC, hungry for partnerships and insisting that they were friends, not foes.

Actor, director, producer and expert on all things performance capture Andy Serkis received IBC’s International Honour for Excellence. Read an exclusive Q&A with Serkis and TVB Europe Editor Jenny Priestley in the October issue of TVB Europe.

In her conference opener, Cecile FrotCoutaz, head of content for YouTube, urged pay-TV companies to harness the platform to reach new audiences. The former Fremantle chief executive said that YouTube’s partners in the pay-TV space were increasingly viewing the platform as an essential part of their content offering. Traditional European free-to-airs are also embracing VoD on social, with examples provided of how ProSiebenSat.1 and France Télévisions are harnessing

AT&T Entertainment Group lit their new 20,000 square foot facility for their syndicated Dan Patrick sports radio/TV show with Litepanels’ Gemini and Astra soft LED panel fixtures.

studio was. In contrast, the Litepanels run cool, which keeps the talent comfortable and saves us money on air conditioning.” The reason tungsten lights are so hot is because up to 94% of the electricity they consume is released as heat rather than visible light, according to Pat Gross-

wendt, co-founder of Litepanels (now owned by The Vitec Group). “LED lights don’t emit this kind of heat; they use their power to generate visible light,” he said. “This is why LEDs need much less power to generate the same amount of illumination as incandescent lamps.”

Facebook’s Watch video on demand service to drive audiences to their TV programming, with previews and exclusive content. Erin Connolly, social video product manager for Facebook, added that, on average, audiences are currently spending 26 minutes in Watch. “We have a long way to go, but are excited about the progress we have seen,” she said, adding that the platform was looking for “long-term sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships.” Facebook was also an exhibitor this year and during the conference announced updates that it has made to two Facebook Live features, Watch Party and Creators Studio. Also delivering keynotes at the conference were Shalini Govil-Pai, head of Android TV (Google), and Alexa’s Max Amordeluso (Amazon), who both espoused the benefits of voice control technology. “We find that the user has to be trained to use Google Assistant, but when they get it, it’s a magical experience,” said Govil-Pai. However, not everybody believes the way that the FAANGS are operating is magical. During Friday’s keynote, Noel Curran, director general of the EBU, warned that any partnerships between broadcasters and social media companies would remain “unbalanced” while platforms coveted broadcasters’ audience data. “We need to have access to the data social media platforms hold on our output and we need to get to a position where we get due prominence on those platforms,” Curran insisted. Regulation,

Curran continued, was the answer, as he called for governments to get tougher on Silicon Valley. “Why is there no regulation in terms of data? Right now we have an unregulated social media sector, dominated by four or five big players that have an unprecedented amount of control.” AI BUSTS FAKE NEWS Another strand running through IBC this year was Tech Talks, which sees the show’s Conference committee anonymously select whitepapers on the basis of their merits, and then invites the authors to give their presentations to IBC delegates. This included a session on AI, which saw Grant Totten, head of media and emerging platforms for Al Jazeera, present a proof-of-concept AI aimed at busting fake news. Totten explained that the work involved combining enriched metadata with contextual video analysis to perform a number of compliance-related tasks on its news-based content. These ranged from ensuring political candidates get equal speaking time to validating maps of disputed territories. The most challenging level of the research, he added, was the detection of deep fakes— AI-generated synthetic videos of events and actions that haven’t occurred. “Detecting deep fakes is the most advanced level of our research because it takes a visual orientated approach to fake news and is also textual as well as visual,” Totten said. “We’re pushing contextual video analysis to its limits.”

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

SAVING MONEY The cost savings from using LEDs instudio, rather than incandescent lamps, are significant. “You can count on cutting your lighting power consumption by two-thirds, and your air conditioning costs by two-thirds as well,” said Randy Read, specifications lighting sales manager for ARRI. “You’ll also save money not having to change burnt-out bulbs or gels, because the LED lights are coloradjustable.” “In fact, the ROI from installing LEDs is three years or less, based on money saved due to reduced operating costs,” said Grosswendt. In the early days of LED lighting, there were some issues associated with color stability. “As the LEDs aged, the color temperature would sometimes drift towards the green end of the spectrum,” said Rich Pierceall, vice president of Cineo Lighting. “This shift was due to manufacturing issues that have since been resolved. Today’s LEDs hold their color temperatures reliably year in, year out; allowing stations to ‘set it and forget it’ once they get their new LYNX LEDGMlamps and lighting boards HALF PAGE HORIZ-2-OL.pdf 1 5/30/2019 installed and calibrated.

CMY

Credit: Nicholas Hutak

IN THE NEWS

Set designer Nicholas Hutak has incorporated energy-efficient, highly flexible LED lighting into the news set at KTVI in St. Louis.

ADVANTAGES FOR MULTISTATION BROADCAST STUDIOS In a bid to cut operating costs, TV group owners are using one common studio to produce newscasts for two or more of their stations. This is why Emmyaward winning lighting designer Nicholas Hutak—who has designed more than 130 news sets since 1995—chose LED lighting for these multinewscast studios. “In Florida, I designed a news set that was shared by three different stations,” said Hutak. “Thanks to our multicolor 9:28:23 AM LED light fixtures, I was able to preset

three distinct lighting looks for each of these broadcasts. Going from one station newscast to the next is as easy as pushing a button; covering for the lack of lighting directors in today’s lean TV operations.” Hutak uses the same approach to differentiate programs shot in one of his other client’s studios. “This degree of color control could not be achieved with conventional lighting,” he said. In theory, it is possible to swap LED lamps for incandescents on a one-to-one basis. But doing so is inefficient because A)

one LED can often do the work of two or more incandescents, and B) using LEDs effectively requires installing a lighting panel tailored to work with this technology. This is why broadcast engineers who are new to LEDs would be wise to hire a qualified lighting designer to design and install this new technology. “In reality you should do this, because LEDs and incandescents are two totally different kinds of light,” said Toby Sali, co-owner of BB&S Lighting. “If you personally don’t know LEDs, you need to use someone who does.” KEEPING UP APPEARANCES In the old days of “hard” incandescent lighting, it could be difficult to make anchor people look good on air. The hard lights generated shadows in anchors’ eye sockets and under their chins; accentuating the appearance of aging over the years. “The ‘soft light’ generated by LEDs can smooth out these shadows, creating a more subtle and youthful look for on-air talent,” said Frieder Hochheim, president of Kino Flo Lighting Systems. “This is a particular benefit in HD today and going forward as broadcasters move to 4K, where every pore is visible on camera.”

18 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS

Repack Impact: How Is It Affecting Wireless Mics? Manufacturers/users cope with loss of spectrum BY JAMES E. O’NEAL

er unoccupied channels anymore, especially in metropolitan areas—where the great majority of wireless mic users are found.

productions for wireless microphones and related pro audio equipment has steadily increased. The TV spectrum has been the primary home for wireless mi-

Innovation division, also weighed in on the issue. “The repurposing of spectrum from traditional over-the-air broadcast to mobile broadband is an issue of distribution of content,” said Ciaudelli. “It slices the distribution ‘pie’ into smaller slices. Conversely, the content creation ‘pie,’ which requires wireless microphones and similar devices, continues to experience exponential growth. Furthermore, productions continue to advance in technical sophistication.” This has put engineers in a very difficult position, according to Ciaudelli. “Many producers and directors don’t know the details of the spectrum crunch and regulatory changes,” he said. “They understandably are focused on nontechnical aspects of the production. They just expect the engineers to make it work, without realizing the magnitude of the challenge the engineers face.”

WASHINGTON—Ever since the use of wireless microphone technology exploded several decades ago, virtually all TV broadcasters—large and small—“cut the cable,” deploying wireless mics both in the field and in the studio. Ditto with live music, Broadway and Hollywood adopting wireless mics for sound reinforcement and motion picture Wisycom’s state of the art dual-channel wireless mic receiver, the MRK980, is designed to help operators maximize operating spectrum. production. JUST HOW BAD IS THE PROBLEM? Paradoxically, as the popuWhile an exact headcount of wireless crophones since the beginning, and this Admittedly, a wireless mic requires a larity and use of these devices has risen, microphones, IFB systems and beltpack spectrum is ideally suited to the RF perlot less operational spectrum than a TV the amount of permissible spectrum for intercoms in the United States isn’t availformance characteristics desired by techstation, but users are feeling the pinch their deployment continues to shrink, able, James Stoffo, the chief technology nical crews.” nonetheless. beginning with the TV channel repack officer at wireless intercom manufacturKarl Winkler, vice president of sales “The reallocation of the UHF Band for 10 years ago, which made the 800 MHz er Radio Active Designs, offered what he and marketing at Lectrosonics, echoed mobile and other services is the single spectrum “off-limits,” and continuing tobelieves to be a good working estimate Brunner’s observations. largest regulatory challenge that has day with the cap being lowered to 608 of the number of such systems that are “The popularity and utility of wireless faced the wireless microphone industry MHz. now competing for spectrum. microphones has not waned at all deglobally,” said Mark Brunner, vice presiThe FCC issued a “heads-up” notice spite the loss of a sigdent of corporate and government relaaddressing this as the most recent TV nificant portion of the tions at Shure. “Reduction of TV band spectrum auctions were ending, advisThe Lectrosonics’ D Squared fourth spectrum,” he said. “The spectrum has occurred while demand by ing that wireless mics could still be used generation is also representative convenience, freedom in 600 MHz spectrum as long as there of new high-tech wireless systems designed to help users cope with of set design and movewas no interference to TV broadcasters limited spectral resources. ment, and the ability or wireless broadband operations. The to rapidly respond to commission also established a firm “line evolving news situain the sand” deadline of July 13, 2020, tions have all contribfor a complete cessation of wireless mic This Sennheiser SK6000 uted to this popularity. operations in the 600 MHz spectrum bodypack transmitter Thus, the loss of specdeeded over to the telecoms. is typical of the very large number of wireless trum has forced the indevices vying for space dustry to respond with WILL THERE BE ANY in an ever-shrinking RF newer technologies and ‘WHITE SPACES’ LEFT? spectrum landscape. features, along with the With the deadline less than a year need to offer assistance away, like broadcasters, wireless mic usto customers who have ers face the loss of more than 80 MHz “My partner Geoff Shearing and I been displaced.” in the region between 608 and 692 MHz went to the FCC on multiple occasions Winkler noted that this assistance has where mics had been allowed to operate on behalf of the broadcast and producbeen in the form of rebates, trade-ins, (minus, of course, spectrum occupied by tion communities, and tried to enlighten special pricing and other incentives beTV stations that were operating in that them as to how many wireless microing offered by wireless mic manufacrange). This lost chunk of spectrum is in phones and intercoms were out in the turers, and observed that while broadaddition to the 100 MHz or so that was United States,” said Stoffo. “When we casters were being compensated for reallocated for wireless broadband use first went, the FCC thought there were the changes forced by the reduction in when TV channels 52 to 69 “went away” less than 1,000 wireless in the entire spectrum, this was not the case with mic in the aftermath of the 2009 transition country. Actually, at that time there were users. to DTV. closer to 2.5 million devices, and that “The government has not offered any The FCC is still allowing unlicensed caused a couple of jaws to drop.” compensation for wireless users the way wireless mic operation on any unoccuStoffo, who has been in the wireless they have for broadcasters to repack or pied UHF (or VHF) TV channel, but the business since the 1980s, and has served go off the air,” he said. gotcha is that with the current consolias RF coordinator for numerous large Joe Ciaudelli, director of spectrum afdation of stations into an even smaller fairs within Sennheiser’s Research and neighborhood, there are fewer and fewWIRELESS, PAGE 20

20 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

events for years, noted that even three decades ago the number of wireless systems in use was close to 2 million and has been growing steadily. “At the NBC studios in New York, in one building there are probably 500 devices,” he said. “In Broadway theaters—in just a three-block radius—there are probably 1,500 wireless devices. And in Disney World alone there are almost 2,000 devices.” Obviously, the diminishing spectrum for these devices is a huge issue and one that is not going to go away. So, with the loss of the 600 MHz TV channels, can there still be a “business as usual” attitude among users? THE SHOW MAY STILL GO ON, BUT NOT WITHOUT CAREFUL PLANNING Jim Dugan, president of wireless microphone company Wisycom USA and Jetwave Wireless, a firm that specializes in wireless technology deployment, has been involved in many large-scale wireless system deployments during his three decades in the business. These include ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rocking Eve” Times Square broadcast, along with many other big-ticket sporting and music events, Presidential inaugurals and more. He was asked about the prospects of being able to “go wireless” at future events, given the contracting spectrum situation. “It’s all about coordination,” said Dugan, pointing out that he acts, on a volunteer basis in conjunction with the local Society of Broadcast Engineers, as frequency coordinator for special events in Washington, D.C., and also works to coordinate wireless device use for many of the really big events just mentioned. Dugan cites the most recent NHL All-Star game as a good example of the challenges of frequency coordination. “There were 500 frequencies in coordination—really a lot of stuff going on,” he said. “We’re in the process of revisiting this whole usage and coordination model right now. I’m also involved in coordinating the New Year’s Eve Time Square broadcast origination. This is really big—ABC does a show, NBC does a show, Fox does a show, CNN does a show. Then there are the international broadcasters who will be there, plus all the musical acts that play at 45th Street—this will be a separate remote for ABC. “During the past several years we’ve been looking at six TV networks with probably 500 wireless mics,” Dugan added. “There have also been maybe 10 wireless cameras in use too, along with the thousands of people with their cell phones generating RF noise. This is a really good test of the technology.” Dugan starts notifying the networks in October, but adds that once the coordination plan was established it has pretty much stayed the same over the years. “This year may be different,” Dugan said. “Due to the repack, we are going to be re-evaluating what’s doable and what’s not within the remaining spectrum.” EDUCATION IS KEY Loss of spectrum because of the repack is not the biggest problem facing the wireless mic arena, however, according to Dugan. “I think it’s spectral efficiency and spectrum manage-

ment [band planning],” he said. “This problem shows up differently for different verticals. If you’re an ENG operator you want to have 20 or 30 MHz between transmit and receive frequencies for talent. In broadcasting bigger installations, band planning is very important. A lot of people turn these things on and don’t realize that they interact. “I tend to look at everything in terms of inbound and outbound frequencies,” he added. “People seem to understand this the least. There’s really a big gap in the understanding of ‘best practices’ by a lot of operators t

there. It can’t be a situation anymore where ‘planning’ is accomplished by just issuing a purchase order for wireless mic equipment.” While it appears that post-repack wireless mic usage can continue—along with over-the-air TV broadcasting—there will be fewer and fewer parking slots. This just might be a good time to check out your old tried-and-true corded microphones and cable sets to make sure they’re serviceable, just in case the wireless broadband folks start eyeing some of those remaining parking places.

So, What Exactly Is Left Spectrum-Wise? With the UHF spectrum above Ch. 36 (602-608 MHz) fast becoming “verboten,” just where can wireless mics, wireless IFB systems and beltpack intercoms operate? According to the FCC, this depends. Rules allow such unlicensed devices to freely navigate both the VHF and (remaining) UHF spectrum, provided there is no licensed entity operating there. With the repack forcing some very close channel adjacencies, and even movement from UHF down to low VHF slots (there will even be 11 stations operating on Ch. 2 when the dust settles, according to www.rabbitears.info), broadcast spectrum that might be used for wireless mics and similar devices seems to be in short supply, especially in larger markets. The FCC, in a recently-issued bulletin (“Operation of Wireless Microphones”) rather optimistically states:

SHF (super high frequency) microwave region. A license is required to “fire up” a wireless device operating on any of the frequencies in these ranges, however, this may not be the easiest thing to get unless you belong to a certain group. This is spelled out clearly in FCC rules dealing with low-power auxiliary stations (LPAS) licensing and operation, with only large entities such as TV and motion picture production companies, cable TV operators, performance venues or professional sound reinforcement companies that “routinely use 50 or more” such low power devices eligible for a license. If you don’t fall into this group of “super users,” the commission also sanctions wireless mic operation in some other spectrum blocks, but these are shared, and are not always the best neighbor-

Credit: WISYCOM USA

WIRELESS

Available wireless microphone spectrum

“Many frequencies in the TV bands that had been available for wireless microphone use prior to the auction will continue to be available after the transition period.” Notwithstanding the reality of the highly-compacted post-repack spectrum, there is a glimmer of hope that operation of these devices will still be permitted above 608 MHz within “certain frequencies” in both the wireless broadband’s 614–616 MHz “guard band” (just above TV Ch. 37) and in its “duplex gap” (657–663 MHz for unlicensed mics) and (653–657 MHz) for licensed devices. However, the commission’s memorandum does not specify what the “certain frequencies” may be. (Definitely off-limits are the 617–652 MHz and 663–698 MHz regions.) The Commission also requires that anyone selling or leasing wireless mic gear capable of operation in these latter two spectrum blocks must inform customers that they “must cease operating on these frequencies no later than July 13, 2020.” It goes on to say that this “sunsetting” may even take place sooner if interference to licensed services (those of wireless broadband providers) occurs. The FCC memorandum also recognizes some “bands outside the TV bands for wireless microphone use.” Specifically, these are the 169–172 MHz region, some 900 MHz spectrum, as well as 1,435–1,525 MHz in the UHF band, and 6,875–7,125 MHz in the

hoods. They include 902–928 MHz (also referred to as the 33-centimeter band), and 1,920–1,930 MHz, along with some additional territory in the microwave region (portions of the 2.4 gHz and 5 gHz spectrum bands.) If you opt for 33-centimeter spectrum, you’ll be sharing it with industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) RF equipment users, as well as radio amateurs. The 1,920–1,930 MHz block is shared with licensed “Fixed and Mobile” users, as well as some cordless telephones. Also, the commission forbids the plunking down of conventional FM wireless mics (or other communication devices) in this region. As it’s shared, any unlicensed device must perform continuous monitoring and only produce RF where no other signal is detected, which requires a specialized class of wireless mics. You’re also going to have some company in the 2.4 gHz and 5 gHz regions too, with such things as ISM devices, cordless phones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth transmitters, and even garage door openers and microwave ovens vying for spectrum. (Note: The spectrum usage information is only a summary of applicable FCC rules and regulations, and is not intended to replace careful reading and observance of the complete rule set. For detailed information on wireless mic operation, refer to the FCC’s 15-100 “Report And Order,” which was released Aug. 11, 2015.)

22 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS

Making Sense of UHDTV Revisiting the standard in light of the recent move to promote ‘Filmmaker Mode’ BY RANDY HOFFNER SEATTLE—Ultra high definition is becoming ever more dominant as the sets become the de facto standard in consumer electronics and more UHD programming becomes available on cable, satellite and streaming sources. What’s this all about, and how does it relate to HDTV? UHDTV is based on the specifications contained in ITU-R BT.2020, which specifies two resolutions: 8K, which is 7,680 horizontal pixels per line by 4,320 lines vertically; and 4K, which is 3,840 horizontal pixels per line by 2,160 lines vertically. Both resolutions have an aspect ratio of 16:9, the same aspect ratio as HDTV, and square pixels, which simply means that the pixels themselves are square, with an aspect ratio of 1:1, as are HDTV pixels. While common practice in Europe, in the U.S.—before high definition came onto the scene two decades ago—networks and broadcasters refused to “letterbox” wide aspect ratio films onto 4:3 NTSC TV screens, which would leave black bands above and below the frame. This was done because when letterboxing was experimented with, it resulted in many calls from viewers. Thus, when theatrical films were transferred to video, they were “panned and scanned,” so that the most important parts of the film image filled the TV screen and the excess was discarded. With the advent of HDTV, letterboxing of wide-screen film features became the standard practice.

59.94 Hz video, as seen in pure video recordings, produces what is popularly referred to as the “the soap-opera effect,” while 2/3 pulldown is achieved by displayPULLDOWN STILL NEEDED ing alternate 24 Hz film frames in Before we leave frame rate, we a 2/3/2/3/2/3… sequence. That is note that one of the frame rates of to say, the first film frame is disUHDTV, as well as HDTV, is 24p, played twice, the second frame (actually 23.976p). ATSC includes three times, the third frame twice, the ability to transmit 1920x1080 etc. The resultant judder artifacts at 23.976p video, while the HD In August, a group of filmmakers, studios and receiver has the ability to add 2/3 consumer electronics companies announced the cause problems with some camera “Filmmaker Mode” setting to enable cinematic pans, etc., but it is essential to the pulldown and display the images at home viewing on future TVs. display of 24 Hz film on television, 29.97 interlaced or 59.94 progresand every filmmaker is very much aware of it. sive frames per second. While there is no mention of pulldown in Rec. 2020 ‘FILMMAKER MODE’ or the Ultra HD Forum guidelines, it is essential to add We will concentrate on 4K resolution, as this is the pulldown; otherwise, viewing 24p images would result current state of the art available to the consumer. As is apparent, 4K resolution is about twice the 1920x1080p HD resolution. In addition to resolution, the other enhancements brought about by UHDTV include frame rates, as discussed above, and colorimetry. The UHD Alliance, a consortium of broadcasters, vendors and Hollywood studios, in their most recent guidelines, specify that UHDTV content masters and distribution channels shall use Rec. 2020 color space, which incorporates a much wider color gamut than the ITU-R BT.709 color space, which is used in HD. The reader may find diagrams showing the gamuts of both color spaces online. Here is how various color spaces compare with CIE 1931 color space, which includes all colors the human visual system can perceive: • ITU Rec. 709 covers 35.9% of CIE 1931 • Adobe RGB covers 52.1% of CIE 1931 • DCI-P3, the digital cinema color space, covers 45.5% of CIE 1931 • Rec. 2020 covers 75.8% of CIE 1931 pages, the fractional frame rates are still not going away in the foreseeable future.

A WIDE SWATH Rec. 2020 specifies only progressive scan frame rates, which makes great sense in light of the fact that all advanced displays are progressively scanned by their nature, and interlaced images must be deinterlaced before they’re displayed. The frame rates specified include 24p, 25p, 30p, 50p, 60p, 100p and 120p, plus the fractional frame rates 23.976p, 29.97p, 59.94p Rec. 709 and Rec. 2020 color gamuts plotted on the CIE 1931xy color space, showing and 119.88p. the white point of D65, or approximately 6500 Kelvins. Blue numbers around edge of The inclusion of fractional frame plot are light wavelengths in nanometers. rates recognizes the installed base of in highly objectionable flicker. Film sourcing has been television distribution facilities and the vast quantity of used on television for many decades, and 2/3 pulldown U.S. legacy programming available at fractional frame has always been used to reduce flicker. In this way, the rates, including analog NTSC, digital NTSC and ITU-R TV viewer is exposed to 59.94 large-area light flashes BT.601 component digital video. The use of the 59.94 per second, which is sufficient to eliminate flicker even Hz rate facilitated the Rec. 601 digital video sample rate when watching a TV screen in a brightly-lit room. of 13.5 MHz for both 59.94 and 50 Hz systems, as 13.5 When film is projected in a dark theater, each frame is MHz is exactly 6x2.5 MHz, the NTSC horizontal line rate double-shuttered, resulting in 48 large-area light flashes is exactly 225/143 MHz and the PAL horizontal line rate per second, which is sufficient to eliminate perceptible is exactly 2.25/144 MHz. flicker under those conditions. Motion artifacts of 2/3 Thus there is an identical number of samples per line pulldown are, incidentally, essential to the “suspension in the two systems, and it would not work if NTSC had of disbelief” when watching a film source on TV. 60 Hz parameters. So, as I wrote a decade ago in these

Additionally, Rec. 2020 specifies color bit depths of 10 and 12 bits, although the UHD Alliance currently specifies only 10 bits, plus High Dynamic Range per SMPTE ST 2084.1 This brings us to the concerns expressed by a consortium of film producers, who are calling for an easy way to set a UHDTV set to “Filmmaker Mode” as laid out in techcrunch.com: • Turn off all motion-smoothing effects • Turn off noise reduction, sharpening and other afterthe-fact processing effects • Automatically display the media in its intended aspect ratio/frame rate. • Turn off overscan, unless required by the video • Set the white point color to the widely used D65 standard Addressing these points—the first two, related to motion smoothing, noise reduction, sharpening, etc.—are not part of Rec. 2020 or the UHD Alliance, and probably should be UHDTV, PAGE 23

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

IN THE NEWS UHDTV CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

shut off as a matter of course, unless the content cries out for them. The set should also display the content in its intended aspect ratio, as is the current practice in HDTV distribution. Suggesting “turn off overscan, unless required by the video,” would seem to be covered by the suggestion about aspect ratio, but it is unclear what “unless required by the video” means. The D65 white point is a part of both the Rec. 709 and the Rec. 2020 color spaces. Finally, as explained elsewhere in this article, it is a bad idea to display anything at 24fps, as this generates way too much large-area flicker under any viewing conditions. One last point. There have been at least a few people who have inquired as to whether it is time to eliminate fractional frame rates in the U.S. I refer you to my article “Will the End of NTSC be the end of 59.94?” in the Jan. 9, 2008 issue of TV Technology. That article still stands, as evidenced by the inclusion of fractional frame rates in the Rec. 2020 standard. As has been true since NTSC was specified in the 1940’s, today’s television technology developments are informed by and based on what came before. Randy Hoffner is a retired broadcast network executive and long-time contributor to TV Technology.

RIST Forges Reliable, Secure Internet Connection Standards group capitalizes on ever-increasing bandwidth of the internet BY BOB KOVACS ALEXANDRIA, VA.—There is an old saying that goes, “‘Tis impossible to be sure of anything but death and taxes.” I’d like to propose an extension of that quote to include “faster internet speeds,” whether they be wired or wireless. In the past 20 years at my home, I have literally gone from dial-up speeds that were limited to 28 kbps, to the availability of gigabit Ethernet. Yet for some, pure connection speed is not enough without improved reliability. Greater reliability and improved security are the goals of the Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) Forum, which has members that include many of the television industry’s best-known companies. Experts at these companies will tell you that the ability to watch streaming 4K content at home is no guarantee that the internet is reliable enough for broadcast origination or contribution. “For lack of a better word, internet service is ‘bursty’ at best,” said Jacob Kinsey, chief development officer for Cobalt Digital and RIST Forum co-chair. “Internet speed ebbs and flows—sort of like the tides, except internet speed is unpredictable. Because bandwidth access goes up

2019 at NAB SHOW

and down with the number of users and the content being accessed, it becomes very important to have a retransmission methodology for video content.”

Jacob Kinsey, chief development officer for Cobalt Digital and RIST Forum co-chair

RIST is one function of the Video Services Forum, which has played an important role in the development of the SMPTE-2110 video over IP transport standard. The international association is comprised of service providers, users and manufacturers that focus on interoperability, quality metrics and education

for media networking technologies. The VSF’s activities include: • Providing forums to identify issues involving the development, deployment, operation and security of media networking technologies; • Promoting interoperability by contributing towards the development of standards. The driving force behind RIST is the overall growth of the television industry. There are more content creators on more networks than ever, and this will only continue to increase. “We know live video transport over the internet will grow 15 times or more by 2022, so having a cost-effective solution to transport that video for contribution or distribution applications is essential,” Kinsey said. “RIST offers the key to unlocking video transport interoperability over the internet, and it can be used to transport PTZ control and other communications as well as video and audio signals.” RIST, PAGE 24

24 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS RIST NATURAL GROWTH? Won’t the natural growth of faster speeds and technology like 5G be enough to get us the bandwidth and reliability we need? “The internet is unreliable,” Kinsey said. “Video requires packets of information be delivered in order and in a timely manner. When transporting video over unmanaged networks (as opposed to a private network), reliability is even more difficult to achieve. Reliability is the key to the success of RIST.” A definition of the term “broadcast quality” is elusive, but it means absolute reliability and the highest quality to many people. “RIST is designed to deliver broadcast-grade live video transport over any type of connectivity,” said David Griggs, senior product manager for media services at AWS Elemental. “It leverages standards-based qualityof-service [QoS] techniques to ensure that a high-quality, live video stream can be delivered over both managed and unmanaged networks, such as the internet, and at bitrates suitable for professional broadcast applications.” The potential audiences out there are huge, so the stakes for reliable internet delivery could not be higher. “More than an estimated billion viewers tuned into coverage of Women’s World Cup this summer, a testament to growing consumer appetite for live video and its importance in modern broadcast programming,” Griggs said. “Whether delivering a premium live sporting event or 24/7 linear service, ensuring reliable, high quality video distribution is essential for customers who want to deliver great viewer experiences.”

Credit: Cobalt Digital

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RIST encode/decode workflow diagram

rooms, Atwell and others pointed out that occasional lags and dropouts seen at home are unacceptable to content creators, distributors and broadcasters. “Occasional bandwidth congestion or brief loss of service is somewhat acceptable or even anticipated by the average user of the internet,” Atwell said. “For the delivery of high-quality source material, such as HD cameras located at a remote sporting event or returning broadcast content for network distribution, interruptions in the contribution stream are unacceptable.” One relatively low-cost way that RIST plans to build in more reliability is to incorporate reliable bonding of multiple IP connections to sustain the required transport bandwidth. Not only does this provide a wider pipe when all the circuits are working, it allows for failure of one or more circuits without killing the entire feed.

OPEN STANDARD One of the driving forces behind the RIST Forum is interoperability based on an open standard, which is the reason why the RIST Forum is MORE EFFICIENT populated by manufacturers. There COMPRESSION are some proprietary and semi-proAnother way to improve the reprietary networking protocols tarliability of contribution feeds is to geted at the broadcast industry, and use more efficient compression of RIST promises to replace them with the video signal. Since compressed an open standard along the lines of video is sent as packets, more comRS422. pression means that fewer pack“In the past, internet transport David Griggs, senior product manager for media ets need to be sent—however, the content distribution models were services at AWS Elemental loss of a packet results in a greater manufacturer-specific and did not breakup of the transmitted signal. allow for implementation without Still, the inherent improvement in reliability by sendrequiring uniform deployment of identical-brand hardware or software at each location,” said Paul Atwell, pres- ing less data (i.e., using more compression) is significant. “Applying RIST to transport streams with greater comident of Media Transport Solutions and a RIST Forum member. “RIST allows for the transport and exchange of pression increases reliable delivery of valuable payload content by applying a uniform set of existing practices packets, plus the added benefit of a reduction in allomanufacturers can implement in order to allow interop- cated bandwidth,” Atwell said. RIST technical recommendations will continue to erability between unrelated sending and receiving deevolve as Forum members weigh in and incorporate previces.” Atwell said that RIST will let customers keep existing liminary recommendations into their hardware. Meanhardware (encoders, decoders, multiplexers, integrated while, manufacturers and other interested parties will receivers, etc.), without requiring a wholesale replace- continue to refine the standards and practices through the Video Services Forum. ment or writing off a previous capital expense. What has happened so far in the industry is that Although the ever-increasing internet bandwidth to the home is fine for watching streaming content in living a couple of companies recognized the benefits of IT

infrastructure early on and developed proprietary network devices specifically for broadcast transport. These worked great within a facility, and didn’t really need to connect to the wider world since commercially available networks did not have the sort of bandwidth and reliability required for content distributors. Still, these were proprietary solutions that meant you had to get a bunch of “Brand X” boxes to make everything work.

“RIST offers the key to unlocking video transport interoperability over the internet, and it can be used to transport PTZ control and other communications as well as video and audio signals.” —Jacob Kinsey RIST Forum co-chair The RIST Forum is focusing on building that reliability into each connected component, and also adapting them to work with the wider internet with increased reliability. And since the content is valuable, encryption should be built in from the start. RIST was established in March 2019 with 21 founding members, which has since grown to 36, according to RIST Forum co-chair Kinsey. “Our industry association has a presence at every major trade show, and we’ve sponsored programs at NAB and IBC. One of the concerns with using the open internet for video transport is security, so RIST has added encryption and VPN tunneling, which was part of our RIST Main Profile demo at IBC in September. Our goal is to make IP transport over the internet as ubiquitous and reliable as SDI cabling within a facility.” For more information, visit www.rist.tv.

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

INSIGHT CLOUDSPOTTER’S JOURNAL ➤ FOR MORE INSIGHT AND INNOVATION VISIT TVTECHNOLOGY.COM

Use the Cloud or Build a Datacenter? T

he phrase “the future is now” can be no more reflective than when you consider the merging of the cloud with IP and virtualization. This Cloudspotter’s Journal looks at changes  KARL PAULSEN that are reachable and already on the horizon. The merging of IP (in various flavors) with virtualization, and their machines, are creating a new environment that yields suitability for cloud production, continuity playout or consolidation of operational resources. With the continuing maturity of the latest IP standards for high bit rate— professional media on a managed network—comes the question “Could this be applicable to ‘the cloud’?” If so, just how would you sandwich 1.5 to 12 gigabits per second onto a public highway in an efficient and productive way? Today, this is likely an unsubstantiated perception; yet, there is certainly an assumption given that everything else is headed in that direction, so why not IP? Such an assumption might be valid if you had an unlimited budget and you were physically parked next to Azure in Redmond with direct-tocloud fiber connectivity that didn’t need to go any further. Even with that “pipe dream” the security issues and egress management alone would likely put a halt to that nonsense in a heartbeat. Pipe dreams aside, alternatives for high bit rate data movement and manipulation still need to be realized.

It might have been a campus-like topology infrastructure where resources were easily shared; that is, doled out, when or as needed and then reconfigured to serve other purposes once that “compute cycle” effort was completed. Then consider how a “shared resource” model, as in a datacenter, would be analogous to the cloud. A shared

Fig. 1: The evolution of the cloud as an icon, from early network through internet to pooled resources.

resource model, when appropriately configured, is a cloud; with on-premise cloud versions functioning like a datacenter. Pools of resources are allocated as needed with a central management and monitoring platform overseeing operational functionality (sometimes called “orchestration”). How the services are efficiently and effectively abstracted from the resource pool becomes the challenge. The “co-lo” (co-located) facility is simi-

Fig. 3: Cloud-based flexibility approach using virtualization concepts to maximize the utilization of the server (core) resources. The same quantity of servers is reassigned to new workflows based upon facility workflow needs.

CLOUD ORIGINS What if the cloud went back to what it originally started as? The actual cloud symbol—that puffy squashed circle-like icon—was just a representation of “the network” on a diagram (Fig. 1). The network could, at the time, be described as anything from a short-connected Ethernet segment with files moving on it to a full datacenter or anything in between.

and sometimes not. The co-lo is usually connected at a main internet point, whose point-of-presence (POP) is usually very close or actually co-located in the facility. Nonetheless, the co-lo concept appears a bit like a cloud, without the customary sharing of resources found in a dedicated pooled resource environment. Co-lo datacenters usually service many

lar, but they are not generally “on-prem located.” In this model, a datacenter-like structure houses several screened-off areas (i.e., private “cages”) where customers place their own equipment and connect it to the internet or a similar network topology (Fig. 2). Sometimes the co-lo equipment cages are managed independently

customers. However, they only become a true “cloud” if the individual sets of components (from the individual customers in their own cages) can leverage one another, pooling their collective resources into a managed, coherent system of compute resources. This doesn’t happen very often, unless it is a campus research center where the cages are interconnected to/ from a central processing core that can allocate and then reallocate their functionality to serve varying purposes. Co-lo models have been applied to broadcast operations, such as in Jacksonville, Fla., where a datacenter approach first served Florida Public Broadcasters and then later added customers from outside the Florida region. This was known in its early days as “centralcasting” and was adapted to yield the “hub-and-spoke” concept for consolidation of television station playout and content ingest. The model was extended to differing formats, but it is essentially a cloud-like central facility, which sometimes shares its resources in a virtual environment and sometimes houses discrete components assigned to specific distant station markets but managed (i.e., controlled) from a single location. SHARING THE RESOURCES Shared-resource private-cloud functionality, as found in current and emerging environments, seems better served when the physical architecture of the supporting components (switches, servers and compute topologies) is virtualized to support multiple functions depending upon the day-part needs for that playout region, city or operations center.

Such capabilities, promoted by broadcast equipment manufacturers as products that were once built into application-specific and dedicated functionality (e.g., an up/down/cross converter, graphics generating device, render engine) are moved away from purpose-built hardware to software-based products landed on universal “pizza-box” servers. As FPGAs and other compute devices (such as GPUs and multi-core CPUs) evolve technically, manufacturers are likely to move further away from single purpose black boxes to a shared services model on COTS equipment. Manufacturers already recognize the capability to port functionality into a series of blade processor servers, or such. This model is becoming more viable to end user’s applications (Fig. #3), where a server ‘pool’ is repurposed depending upon facility needs). For traditional facilities, where the hardware gets only about a 25-35 percent average utilization factor, the concept is to move from a ‘dedicated’ (per device) model to a ‘shared’ (i.e., pooled) environment. The model is now considered virtualized, with the devices (the bare metal COTS servers) becoming mulCLOUD, PAGE 26

Fig. 2: Co-located facilities, pre-cloud, where individual entities occupy a cage (their own cloud), forming a self-contained entity that shares a direct connection to the internet.

26 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

INSIGHT INSIDE AUDIO

Microphones and Beyond … S ports production is moving forward with more 4K HDR productions, and there is an interest in improving the sound quality and advancing the standards for audio  DENNIS as well. For live enter BAXTER tainment and sports, improving the audio begins with sound capture. Live events are captured in real time using a variety of microphones placed on the sports apparatus, on the field of play, on cameras and around the venue. Through the ’80s microphone selection and usage advanced beyond shotgun and lapel microphones because sound mixers began to have some influence over the microphones that the OB van carried from show to show. As sports productions got bigger many network-specified makes and models of microphones were based on the recommendation of the sound designer and mixers who worked on those shows. INNOVATIVE APPLICATION Microphones for sports have evolved through innovative application, advances in engineering and integration of different technologies. Innovative application is a natural progression—it begins by using and testing a variety of different microphone makes and models in unfamiliar and unintended applications. In 2004, I repurposed five high-quality Audio-Technica AT4050 vocal microphones and put them on the roof of the Olympic stadium

in Athens. These microphones captured want the microphone to reject. Passive the explosions of the pyro-sound with off-axis sound rejection and filtering is great depth, clarity and believability, and the principle of removing certain off-axis surrounded the listener with the tone of frequencies from the on-axis sound. The the event. After this test, I used the AT4050 interference tube impedes certain off-axis for atmosphere and ambience at every frequencies and attenuates them relative sporting venue until the stereo version to on-axis frequencies making off-axis AT4050ST replaced it (Fig. 1). Over the last couple of decades, microphone technology seems to have advanced using different materials and construction. This has resulted in better quality with reduced costs, but looking forward, I expect next-generation sound should have some innovative microphone configurations and designs. I have seen several interesting prototype configurations that have promise, but in practice, next-generation microphones may require an open mind and deeper pockets. To make a microphone selection, you must first analyze the components of the audio and how best to capture it. Fig. 1: The Audio-Technica AT4050 on roof in Athens, Greece Sports capture is two separate but equal components: sports-specific sounds perceptibly muted. Familiar examples of these principles and venue-specific (ambience and atmosphere) and each component gener- are the cardioid, super cardioid and shotally requires different microphones and gun microphone designs used to focus sound capture. Advanced concepts of sound design. Sports-specific sound capture and mi- focused capture have to do with formcrophone selection could be as much ing capture areas, known as “beams” or about what sounds you want the micro- “sweet spots,” from what are known as phone to capture and what sounds you array and spherical microphones.

CLOUD CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25

tifunctional through a software defined architecture. In the ‘cloud-like’ model, the functionality of a pool of shared compute engines, for example, can be spun up to transcode for a portion of the day and then spundown, reconfigured (in software) and spun-back-up to do another function perhaps as a format converter or MAM processing engine at another time. As more content is generated in a single cloud, the model then expands to provide services to multiple channels (distribution points) and thus, the cost-per-channel goes down considerably. FULL FUNCTION FLEXIBILITY Media organizations are now starting to head in the direction of cloud-flexibility and in mixed locations such as on-prem, hybrid and private or public cloud. While in the past, functions were optimized for compressed workflows (e.g., DNxHD, XDCam, AVI formats), the capabilities of high-speed NICs

and faster processors have enabled workflows in full resolution, uncompressed formats. Some systems now coming online are utilizing the recent SMPTE ST 2110 IP studio production standards for formats from HD (1.5 Gbps) to UHD (4K) at upwards of 12 Gbps. Returning to an earlier discussion, a cloud utilization model now makes practical sense whereby owners can create an on-premises, cloud-like architecture that supports full bandwidth (HD/3G or UHD) and can serve many entities locally and afar. Here processing is done in full bandwidth and then distributed (as completed work) in a compressed format suitable for air or CDN/distribution. This spares each local facility from building up services that take up expensive real estate, yet only get used a fraction of the time. Extending these capabilities to full-spectrum, high-quality production capabilities that support end-to-end services is gaining momentum on a global scale. Remote (REMI or “at home”) productions are now carrying out field production needs that

ARRAY MICROPHONES Array microphones come in a variety of forms, but all share in the ability to adjust patterns and directivity as a result of computer modeling. An array microphone can technically be anything more than two capsules or like the Sennheiser Microphone Array prototype, which has 31 shotgun-type microphones. These microphones are oriented facing forward with all microphones aligned on a single horizontal plane (Fig. 2). Microphones can also be like the spherical Eigenmike array, which has microphone capsules mounted into a spherical form and captures sound from all directions (Fig. 3). Array microphones are capable of beam forming, resulting in focused accumulation of sound through microphone modeling and computer manipulation. Beam forming is an active approach using multiple fixed microphone capsules and creates a variety of patterns or directions using the fixed capsules to optimize the capture of the desired objects such as the ball, the coach or the player. Not only does beam forming benefit from focused capture, but also rejection of unwanted off-axis sounds. The Sennheiser Microphone Array is differentiated by its design to capture

once required a fully equipped mobile (outside) broadcast unit and a crew of dozens to produce sports and entertainment. Outfitting the datacenter to share large sets of servers in a network topology can now raise the utilization factor manyfold, while reducing the overall capital expenditures (and labor costs) that were once required at every station or venue location. Virtualized environments, whether on-prem or in the cloud, make a lot of sense as facilities consolidate locations and share their resources. Deploying in a virtualized world requires a few more additional learning curves: applications in SMPTE ST 2110 as networked IP, virtual machines (VM), and not to be left out, security. That will be the broadcast engineer/network technician’s future, and that future is now! Karl Paulsen is CTO at Diversified and a SMPTE Fellow. He is a frequent contributor to TV Technology, focusing on emerging technologies and workflows for the industry. Contact Karl at kpaulsen@ diversifiedus.com.

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

INSIGHT INSIDE AUDIO primarily 360 degrees, but only in a single horizontal axis. Sennheiser says that this type of array cluster can process up to four focused sound beams plus independently steer each beam’s focus. For example, the microphone can optimize the capture of the sound of the ball, the coach or any sound source in the horizontal sound space and output each beam separately. But this array cannot output an ambisonic soundfield because this array captures no discrete height information. The size of this setup is cause for concern. The current Sennheiser prototype uses 31 short shotgun-type microphones and the form factor is large, but ultimately they expect the final product to be half the size while still using 31 directional microphones. An ambisonic approach attempts to capture and reproduce all dimensions and as much of the entire soundfield as possible. An ambisonic microphone uses multiple closely spaced microphone capsules that work together to capture an ambisonic soundfield. As you add microphone capsules, the order of ambisonic increases along with additional amounts of detail: 1st Order—four capsules; 2nd Order—

nine capsules; 3rd Order—16 capsules; and 4th Order—25 capsules or more. A 3rd Order ambisonic microphone is available from Zylia and the well-known 4th Order MH Acoustics’ ambisonic Eigenmike array has become a reference standard for ambisonic capture and research. There clearly is a noticeable difference in the detail of the soundfield and better control of the beams as the ambisonic order increases. A final benefit with Fig. 2: Sennheiser Array beam-forming microOne final thought: You do not need arphones is the ability to steer the microphone beam dynamically ray microphones to track a sound or amand in real time using positional infor- bisonic microphones to create immersive mation from video systems like Chyron- sound, but these are tools to be considered Hego’s sports tracking technology, which for advanced audio production. 1st Order ambisonic microphones, uses cameras to track objects on the fieldof-play and creates positional information such as the Sennheiser Ambio, are effecof where an athlete, ball, coaches or even tive and economical packages that deliver a cohesive immersive sound bed. They are a car is located.

a small package with virtually imperceptible latency. Moreover, the price of these microphones allows for ambience and atmosphere capture from multiple capture zones. Multiple capture points deliver an acoustical representation of the venue space with on-axis presence and natural diffusion from the venue architecture. Ultimately, chasing the sound of sports is a thankless job while beam tracking is a tool to support the innovative audio mixer. Novel microphone application and design are essential to advancing the art and science of sound and are the responsibility of both the users and the dreamers. The designers and manufacturers of audio equipment want good input and sound advice—and it is always a good time to participate. Dennis Baxter has spent more than 35 years in live broadcasting contributing to hundreds of live events including nine Olympic Games. He is the author of “A Practical Guide to Television Sound Engineering,” and is working on a book about immersive sound practices and production. He can be reached at dbaxter@dennisbaxtersound.com or at www. dennisbaxtersound.com.

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28 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

EQUIPMENT GUIDE

MONITORS & TEST EQUIPMENT

➤ FOR MORE INSIGHT AND INNOVATION VISIT TVTECHNOLOGY.COM

JVC’s DT-V Monitors Provide Workflow Results for J/KAM BY ERIK BEAUCHAMP CTO J/KAM Digital Editing Solutions BURBANK, Calif.—J/KAM Digital provides turnkey editorial solutions to media and entertainment post professionals. With more than 20 years of

USER REPORT experience with rentals, edit suites and technical support services, we put our knowledge and experience to work for our clients to help them complete various network television, streaming and film projects. Some of our biggest clients include ABC, including “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and Marvel Television, and Fox, for which we provide edit packages. Over the years, we’ve come to realize that an important piece of the post workflow is having a reliable monitor— specifically one with color accuracy. This is critical because footage is shot very systematically. It’s then processed in a daily’s facility with a color grader, which applies a certain look to the show, and subsequently goes to the editors who must ensure what they see on

J/KAM utilizes multiple DT-V monitors for to ensure consistency between its edit bays.

a monitor is what the DP envisioned. Having monitors that offer color-accurate pictures is crucial to a project. That’s why we standardized our entire fleet on JVC’s DT-V series of field/studio monitors. As far as reliability, price point, color accuracy, range of applications and company support, JVC and the DT-V series are light years ahead of other options. We have a fleet of around 50 JVC DT-V series monitors—G1Z and G2Z, as well

as the lower-cost DT-R models. When we’re managing 50-plus edit systems in various environments with different applications, it’s important to standardize our monitors from one vendor as this gives us a consistency between our edit bays. With JVC monitors, we know that our clients will never call to say that the monitor needs to be calibrated or that there’s an issue. It’s just one less thing to worry about, and also lowers our support overhead.

ACCURATE COLOR The DT-V series monitors offer several great, built-in features such as histogram, waveform, vector scope and zebra functions. Plus, JVC offers a utility that allows users to calibrate the monitor via a colorimeter probe. This allows us to run calibration on a consistent basis or as monitors come back from projects. Aside from our in-house facility, we also provide editorial equipment that goes out on-location. We shipped an entire editing environment out to Brooklyn for “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” which included six JVC monitors, while also providing all the editorial gear for “Kimmel” here in Hollywood. The monitors are being used in studios, editorial suites and field environments, so it was important that we sent units to New York that match the calibration of the in-studio monitors in Los Angeles. With the JVC DT-V series monitors, that objective is simple. It’s definitely no secret that the JVC DT-V series monitors are rock solid; all the best vendors use these monitors. Erik Beauchamp has served as CTO of J/KAM Digital for more than a decade. Over the course of his 20-year career in the industry, Beauchamp has also held titles at Matchframe Video and LA Digital Post. To get in touch, contact sales@ jkamdigital.com. For more information, visit www.jvc. com or call 310-639-9000.

BUYERS BRIEFS Phabrix Qx Combining test and measurement tools for next-generation video formats, Qx rasterizers are designed for HD/3G/6G/12G-SDI and HD/UHD IP ST 2110/2002-7/2022-6 and AMWA NMOS environments. Available in two models, Qx and QxL, these rasterizers provide an accessible user interface and toolsets for operational flexibility and migration from SDI to IP. Although Qx rasterizers are standard-

ized for analyzing media for broadcast operator HD/3G environments, it has a flexible architecture that can upgrade to UHD/4K, HDR, AV test signal generation, engineering grade data view and ANC packet inspection tools. For more information, visit www.phabrix.com.

Blackmagic Design Video Assist 12G Available in 5- and 7-inch models, the latest version of Blackmagic’s Video Assist 12G combined monitoring and recording system offers a number of new features, including brighter HDR screens, built-in scopes, upgraded batteries and 12G-SDI. These monitors can be used with any SDI or HDMI camera in all HD, UHD, 2K and 4K DCI formats. With 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 support,

users can record in all formats up to 2160p60. Each model also has a touchscreen user interface with deck controls and a large screen to view recordings. For more information, visit www.blackmagicdesign.com or call 408-954-0500.

Canon DP-V3120 A 31-inch 4K reference display, the DP-V3120 features an edge-to-edge luminance of up to 2,000 cd/m2 and a black level of 0.001 cd/m2

for a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Combined with Canon’s HDR Toolkit, the display works with HDR and 4K production workflows. Other components include a display engine, improved local dimming algorithm and an LED backlighting system. It also has four in and four out 12G-SDI terminals for use in a dual view mode, multiple video inputs in a quad view mode or up to an 8K input signal. For more information, visit usa.canon.com.

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

BUYERS BRIEFS Tektronix PRISM

Ikegami ULE-217-HDR

Used for monitoring SDI/IP hybrid environments, PRISM is enabled for both SDI and multiple IP standards to address production and editing needs. It can also be scaled to address technical QC and engineering. PRISM can connect with any signal in a facility and lock to Precision Time Protocol or Black Burst references for timing analysis. It supports 4K/HDR/ WCG production and is designed for future upgrade to 25 GigE. There’s also a full API, receiver NMOS/SDP support, different form factors, extended display options and high-quality speaker options for easy integration. For more information, visit www.tek.com or call 800-833-9200.

This professional multipurpose Full HD monitor comes with 3G/HD-SDI and HDMI interfaces. The 21.5inch screen features 1080p HD resolution and its HDMI 2.0 input supports up to 4K/60 Hz. The monitor also includes support for HLG and HDR10; image flip, H/V and H&V selection; full, over and under scan; front-function assignable buttons; two built-in speakers; and a VESA interface that allows the monitor to be racked, wall-mounted or used as a desktop. For more information, visit www.ikegami.com or call 201-368-9171.

TVLogic R-5T Avateq AVQ200 RF Signal Inspector An embedded RF signal analyzer for ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 standards, the AVQ200 is part of the company’s product line for remote off-air signal monitoring. The unit features in-band interference detection and visualization, as well as an echo profile with monitoring capabilities for SFN applications. The AVQ200 also comes with an advanced web-based user interface, signal group delay and frequency responses, detailed characterization of ATSC 3.0 signal components, report generator, user-defined alarm engine and an optional transport stream output. LYNX GM HALF PAGE HORIZ-2-OL.pdf 1 5/30/2019 9:28:23 AM For more information, visit www.avateq.com or call 416-342-0761.

CMY

TVLogic’s new 4K 12G-SDI rack monitor offers a 3.5x5.5-inch LCD Full HD screen with 1920x1080 resolution and contrast ratio of 1,000:1. In addition to video monitoring, it also provides waveform/ vectorscope and an audio level meter. The unit features 12G/6G/3G-SDI input and output; H/V delay; key lock; Luma Zone Check; timecode display; UMD; user aspect; and various scan modes. Its SDI input also supports multiple SMPTE and SMPTE ST formats, as well as ITU-R BT.656. For more information, visit www.tvlogicusa.com or call 818-885-6442.

30 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

EQUIPMENT GUIDE

Mediaproxy Checks All Necessary Monitoring Boxes for Quincy Media BY BRENDAN FORD Director of Control Room Operations Quincy Media QUINCY, Ill.—Quincy Media is among the leading local television groups in the United States, with stations nationwide from Arizona to New York, as well

USER REPORT as two newspapers, two radio stations and digital media platforms. The TV operation involves 24 transmitters, 15 master control rooms, 19 production control rooms and a growing OTT presence simulcast alongside the main terrestrial broadcasts. An operation of this scale requires comprehensive compliance monitoring in all senses of the term—technical faults, advertising data collection and complaints resolution. Because of this we chose to install a new logging system based on a suite of Mediaproxy products: LogServer TSoIP (Transport Stream over IP), OTT Logging and Monitoring and TS Monitoring/Analysis.

interface. It also has 24-hour recording capability and can keep operating even if the transmission is interrupted. Quincy Media always monitors off air, rather than from the direct output of the broadcast center. This means the compliance recording will show exactly OUT WITH THE OLD, what viewers see and IN WITH THE NEW reflect the actual fault. The need to replace The Mediaproxy sysan older monitoring tems also have capacity system was one factor for monitoring OTT— behind the upgrade, although this has not but there were many been implemented yet, other considerations, we’re working with both technical and opour OTT providers to erational. Particularly find a place to monibecause the old system tor our streams without did not work if the terthe need for us to pay restrial transmission The Mediaproxy unit provides 24-7 monitor recording capabilities for all channels that fall a monthly fee to them. went down due to a under the Quincy Media banner. There’s also been some power outage or othdiscussion about implementing the our stations run unattended so having er reasons, we needed something that specific commercial insertion function a comprehensive monitoring-recording would continue recording no matter for OTT. It’s not up and running yet system gives us the confidence that what and have 24-hour record capabilbut it’s not far off. everything runs as expected. And if it ity. doesn’t, we can go back and see why. This last feature was important beGETTING RESULTS To find a suitable replacement our cause we have to be able to produce Among the technical faults LogServer technical teams tested and demotransmission recordings for reference has been used to detect since the ined three to four different units. From and confirmation in case of queries or stallation began in mid-July are: off-air these sessions the Mediaproxy systems protests. If there are any complaints signal problems, pictures appearing in emerged as offering all the necessary from viewers or advertisers, we need black for too long, lost audio, issues features. Mediaproxy seemed the most to be able to verify what actually went with closed captions, equipment failure reliable and had an easy-to-use, intuitive out. At certain times of the day some of and operator error. We’re also using the system to log news broadcasts to ensure the correct music licensing clearances have been made and monitor competitors’ transmissions to see what advertising is being carried. Each of Quincy Media’s local TV stations has its own, standalone monitoring setup. These are self-contained but The patented R232 MultiPort RF they link together on an IT network so Router features 32 inputs and two that any employee at any station within non-blocking outputs in one compact the group—whether in sales, engineer1RU chassis. Each output is completely ing, administration or news—can see independent, allowing sharing of the same (or any other) input. what is going on. The unit’s Pocket Power Supply allows all electronics to be fitted into a 1RU-high chassis, The feedback we’ve had from all deenabling the highest-possible density in this type of RF routing equipment. Adding +20-dB input to partments has been positive, both about output gain and ultra-wide operating range (5 MHz - 2 GHz) with an IP interface with integrated webthe ease of use and what the system can server for manual control and automation interfacing, makes the R232 the best test point aggregator, do. As a manager, I can watch any staaccording to the company. tion from my desktop and I log into one For more information, visit www.digitalalertsystems.com or call 585-765-2254. of the systems at least once a day.

BUYERS BRIEFS Panasonic BT-LH1770 Panasonic’s BT-LH1770 16.5-inch 10-bit LCD production monitor has an IPS LCD and offers a wide viewing angle, high brightness, high contrast ratio, motion-image response and outstanding color reproduction. The Full HD (1920x1080) resolution means all input pixels are displayed without resizing. Furthermore, the 10-bit processing capability assures accurate gradation reproduction. The monitor comes standard with 3G-SDI/HDMI analog composite input terminals and supports multiple monitor operation. It’s also AC/DC battery-powered and can be mounted on a 19-inch rack. For more information, visit us.panasonic. com/broadcast or call 877-803-8492.

Digital Alert Systems R232 MultiPort RF Router

Video Clarity RTM

Video Clarity’s real-time A/V quality monitor/recorders are designed to compare multiple references to corresponding processed feeds, reference files to processed SDI input of the same file feed and reference files to processed files. One key new feature includes a multichannel function that can work as a monitoring tool for broadcast channel share applications and OTT group channel testing. RTM comes in 1RU configurations for four or eight SDI to mix with gigabit IP. Video Clarity also has RTM models that support 4K formats and SMPTE ST 2110. For more information, visit www.videoclarity.com or call 408-379-6952.

Brendan Ford started working in the broadcast industry in 1992 at WGEM TV, a Quincy Media Inc. property. During his career he has taken on roles in production, creative services and as a director/technical director for weekend newscasts. In 2015, Ford joined the QMI Corporate team as director of control room operations. He can be contacted at bford@quincymedia.com. For more information, visit www.mediaproxy.com or call 646-951-5051.

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www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY November 2019

BUYERS BRIEFS Rohde & Schwarz ETL TV Analyzer This all-in-one platform combines the functionality of a TV and sound broadcasting signal analyzer, video and MPEG TS analyzer and spectrum analyzer. There are also generators within the system to create analog video signals, audio signals and MPEG-2 transport streams.

The unitâ€™s demodulators work in real time, providing fast signal processing for comprehensive, accurate measurements. It also can be used in both stationary and portable situations with a compact, rugged housing designed for outdoor use. For more information, visit www.rohde-schwarz.com or call 410-910-7800.

function, dot-by-dot upscale conversion, gamut marker, support for DCI P3 and ITU-R BT.2020, as well as Sony S-Log Gamma, Hybrid Log-Gamma and SMPTE ST 2084. For more information, visit www.pro.sony.

Sony BVM-HX310 Part of Sonyâ€™s new Trimaster HX technology brand, the BVM-HX310 is a 31-inch 4K professional master monitor that features Sonyâ€™s specified 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and its LCD processing technology. The unit is also designed for accurate color and black reproduction with wide color gamut and HDR. The monitor supports 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI and HDMI inputs via a single cable. Additional features include a quad-view display

PRODUCTS & SERVICES SHOWCASE

4 CHANNELS IN A BOX Supports SCTE-35 and EAS Triggers and will Splice in Internal or External Live Clips as Needed

PLAYSERVER 4 CH

sales@dveo.com | +1 858 613-1818 | www.DVEO.com

32 November 2019 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

BUYERS BRIEFS Densitron 2U 19-Inch Rack This mount-ready TFT display is designed to be used for signal and picture monitoring, as a control system with multitouch Projected Capacitive Touch or a combination of both. The 16.3-inch, 1920x285 display allows for multiple video picture monitor and audio level displays to appear side by side. The monitor is plug-and-play with most operating systems and is a single power unit that can control both the displays and PCT touch panel. It also has 8-bit color depth, 500cd/m2 or 800cd/m2 brightness and can operate 24/7. For more information, visit www.densitron.com or call 951-284-7600.

Interra Systems Orion-OTT This software-based OTT monitoring system is designed to check content integrity and related network performance of live and video on-demand ABR content for multiscreen service delivery using userdefined automated or manual schedules. Elements monitored include package compliance, manifest/ playlist syntax, download errors and content quality. A web-based user interface provides remote access on any browser-enabled device. Other key features include configurable alerts that can be categorized by severity and frequency; different alerting mechanisms like email or SNMP; and easy-to-understand graphical representations. For more information, visit www. interrasystems.com or call 408-5792000.

ENENSYS ReFeree 3 ReFeree 3 is a portable ATSC 3.0 field analyzer that is also compatible with terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcast standards that run TestTree— an Enensys Technologies group member— dedicated analysis software. ReFeree 3 receives live ATSC 3.0 and ATSC 1.0 RF signals to provide calibrated measurements of reception quality as well as a live display of the constellation, spectrum and SFN echoes; detail of the frame structure and modulation parameters; and live decoding of the video and audio content. There are also Ethernet and SFP input connectors. For more information, visit www.test-tree.com.

Postium America OBM-X241 The latest 4K monitor from Postium is designed for on-set HDR production and post-production editorial applications, offering features for HDR-ready DITs, camera rental companies and postproduction facilities. Among the features of the OBM-X241 is its 10-bit wide gamut IPS LCD, 4096x2160 panel resolution, on-screen comparison of two different color spaces, gammas, HDR/SDR camera logs, focus and exposure tools, SDR/HDR waveform and vectorscopes, and custom 3D LUT file import. Input options include 3G/6G/12G HD & 4K, HDMI 2.0 and dual-SFP. For more information, visit www.postiumamerica.com or call 833-767-8486. SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

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