TV Tech 525 - Sept 2026

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IP SH ER S N P W A .8 O C p

3.0 on Mobile

www.tvtech.com | September 2026

Is 5G the answer?

equipment guide audio & intercoms

contents

September 2026 volume 44, issue 9

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Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images, VCG/Contributor

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Broadcasters Gain Flexibility in Pursuit of 5G Multicasting

20 Are You Scared of AI Yet?

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How Multiviewers Are Evolving into ‘Information Hubs’ Vendors seek to deploy agentic AI, accommodate more formats

By Kevin Hilton

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Winning the Fight Against Churn

In the batle for hyperpersonalization, data quality can often be the deciding factor

By James Careless

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Staying Vigilant in the Shift to Autonomous AI

equipment guide

Artificial intelligence is creating uncertainty in all aspects of TV production

By Dennis Baxter

Does it create a path towards getting NextGen TV on mobile?

By Fred Dawson

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The Other Side of Streaming

Consumers will blame you if your video doesn’t sound or look right, so it’s important to know how to monitor for quality

By Michael Heiss

user reports cloud distribution/OTT

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• Solid State Logic

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in the news

• Calrec Audio • Riedel Communications • Lawo • Sennheiser

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eye on tech

• Pliant Technologies • Shure

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people

Why trusted data quality and agentic automation are becoming the backbone of modern enterprise workflows

By Karl Paulsen

26 @tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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Credit: Manuel Romano/NurPhoto via Getty Images

25 Years Later, the Signals Still Echo Every September, the world remembers the terrorist attacks on the United States that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people. As we observe the 25th anniversary of 9/11, it is essential not only to remember the broader legacy of that day and its aftermath, but to recall the individual names and faces of those we lost.

The World Trade Center hosted most of the city’s broadcast transmission facilities on the upper floors of the North Tower. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, those facilities were being maintained by six dedicated broadcast engineers: Bill Steckman (WNBC), Don DiFranco (WABC), Bob Pattison and Isaias Rivera (WCBS), Steve Jacobson (WPIX) and Gerard “Rod” Coppola (WNET).

In an article published 15 years ago, “A Decade Later, the Loss Still Deep,” TV Tech writer John Merli profiled the engineers, capturing a poignant quote from WNBC Chief Engineer Jeffrey Birch about their collective bond. “They were all very selfless,” he said. “We were competitors, but we always helped each other out at World Trade. It was all such a tragic loss back then. It’s still a tragic loss today.”

We also remember those who helped document, manage, and rebuild the region’s signal infrastructure atop the new One World Trade Center.

Frank Beacham, a longtime New York-based writer for TV Tech who passed away in 2023, wrote extensively about the devastating impact the loss of the North Tower mast had on regional communications. He famously profiled broadcast pioneer Edwin Armstrong, whose historic Alpine, N.J., tower served as one of the critical temporary locations where­—in addition to the Empire State Building—displaced broadcasters relocated their antennas.

In a commentary for TV Tech in the months following 9/11, Frank pulled no punches in summarizing the cellular industry’s immediate response amid a rapidly changing technological landscape where the internet and cellular networks were still in their infancy.

“It was time to put up and shut up for ‘stay-in-touch’ technology—an unexpected pop quiz for the gadgetry that’s invaded our lives over the past decade,” Frank wrote. “During those tense hours following the attack, people either connected or they didn’t. Excuses didn’t cut it.”

John Lyons of The Durst Organization was responsible for the communications infrastructure across Durst’s commercial portfolio and spearheaded the design and implementation of the redesigned master antenna at 4 Times Square, as well as the new broadcast facility at One World Trade Center. John passed away in 2019, though not before being recognized for his work with the NAB Television Engineering Achievement Award in 2017.

For me, 9/11 hit close to home. The attack occurred just months after I began my tenure as editor of TV Tech. With our offices located only a few miles from the Pentagon, the events of that day created memories that will haunt me forever.

I generally avoid films or TV programs about 9/11; unlike the families who lost loved ones, I was fortunate not to be directly impacted, yet like many, the memories remain too painful to revisit.

However, for those seeking to understand how TV captured the immediate human cost of the tragedy, one film stands out. “Telling Nicholas,” a 2002 Emmy Award-winning documentary by director James Ronald Whitney, followed the family of 7-year-old Nicholas Lanza in the 10 days immediately following the attack as they agonized over how to break the news of his mother’s death to him.

It remains a devastating, deeply personal account of grief—and a vital reminder of why we continue to remember.

A segment of the North Tower radio and television antenna at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York.

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September 2026 | www.tvtech.com |

@tvtech.bsky.social

Tom Butts Content Director tom.butts@futurenet.com

Vol. 44 No. 9 | September 2026 FOLLOW US

www.tvtech.com x.com/tvtechnology @tvtech.bsky.social CONTENT Content Director Tom Butts, tom.butts@futurenet.com Content Manager Michael Demenchuk, michael.demenchuk@futurenet Senior Content Producer George Winslow, george.winslow@futurenet.com Contributors: Gary Arlen, James Careless, Fred Dawson, Michael Heiss, Kevin Hilton, and Mark R. Smith Production Managers: Heather Tatrow, Nicole Schilling Art Directors: Lisa McIntosh, Will Shum ADVERTISING SALES Managing Vice President of Sales, B2B Tech Adam Goldstein, adam.goldstein@futurenet.com Publisher, TV Tech/TVBEurope Joe Palombo, joseph.palombo@futurenet.com 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 254, Lowell, MA 01853.

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in the news

Nielsen: Fox, NBCUniversal Score With 2026 FIFA World Cup The highly anticipated 2026 FIFA World Cup drove remarkable audience engagement, with more than 84 billion minutes of coverage viewed across Fox and NBCUniversal properties, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge and Media Distributor Gauge reports for June.

That viewing also pushed both distributors to the month’s only viewing increases in the Media Distributor Gauge.

Meanwhile, the combination of World Cup matches and NBA Finals games helped drive a 118% increase in broadcast sports viewing and led the broadcast category to 19.8% of TV and its first increase during a June interval (up 0.6 share pts.) since the inception of The Gauge in 2021.

According to the June Media Distributor Gauge, Fox showed the largest gain in share of TV, up 0.9 points compared to May, and the largest overall viewing increase among all distributors (up 18%). The World Cup surge boosted viewing on Fox affiliates by 73%, and FS1 was up 232%. Fox concluded the month with 7.4% of total TV watch-time and moved up to No. 5 in

the Media Distributor Gauge rankings.

NBCU-Versant represented 9.1% of total TV viewing in June (up 0.7 share points). That success, per Nielsen, was a result of two drivers: NBCU’s Telemundo was the exclusive home to all Spanish-language World Cup coverage, which drove a 143% monthly viewing increase to its broadcast affiliates in June.

Peacock also benefited from Telemundo’s World Cup coverage, as audience was up 60% on game days and viewing among Hispanic audiences increased nearly 200% compared to the prior month.

Credit: Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; Shutterstock; FCC

FCC Returns $881 Million in Unused TV Broadcaster Relocation Funds The Federal Communications Commission said it will return $881 million in unused funds from the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund, known as the “repack,” marking a significant milestone in the successful conclusion of the first-ever spectrum incentive auction.

Initiated on April 13, 2017, the incentive auction repurposed 84 MHz of low-band broadcast spectrum for commercial and

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September 2026 | www.tvtech.com |

unlicensed wireless use, generating $19.3 billion in net winning bids.

The auction consisted of two separate but interdependent auctions: a reverse auction, which determined the price at which broadcasters could voluntarily relinquish their spectrum usage rights, and a forward auction, which determined the price companies were willing to pay for flexible-use wireless licenses.

As part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 and the Reimbursement Expansion Act of 2018, Congress allocated $2.75 billion to reimburse broadcasters and other entities for costs incurred due to involuntary channel reassignments.

The fund supported thousands of broadcasters through licensing, construction and equipment removal efforts, ensuring a smooth transition to new channels.

@tvtech.bsky.social

Trump Nominates Danielle Thumann Severs to FCC

President Donald Trump has nominated Danielle Thumann Severs, a senior counsel to Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, to serve on one of the commission’s two open seats.

The nomination was sent to the Senate last month.

“Danielle is a dedicated public servant and has consistently delivered policy wins from bridging the digital divide and protecting consumers to advancing public safety,” Carr said on X, congratulating Thumann on her nomination.

“I am deeply humbled and honored by President Trump’s nomination to serve in this role,” Thumann Severs said on X. “I look forward to the Senate confirmation process and, if confirmed, to serving our country with dedication and gratitude.”

Thumann Severs advises Carr on matters before the Wireline Bureau, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, according to her FCC biography.

She rejoined then-Commissioner Carr’s office in August 2024 after working ion government relations matters for Crown Castle, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Thumann Severs was legal adviser in Carr’s office from March 2021 until July 2023. Before that, she was a communications attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Wilkinson Barker Knauer.

In 2016, she earned her JD from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, where she was associate editor of the Law Review.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in 2013, according to her LinkedIn profile.

in the news OPINION

National Ownership Cap Vote Reveals Bigger Issue needed to compete on a more The big news in the broadcast level playing field by outdated industry in August was the Federal federal rules that didn’t apply to Communications Commission’s the largest and most powerful vote to eliminate its TV-station companies like Google’s YouTube, ownership cap.

Meta’s Instagram or Netflix.”

Advocates of removing the limThe comment made me it, which bars a single broadcaster wonder how else local broadfrom reaching more than 39% of casters have been “handcuffed all U.S. TV households, argued from” competing “on a more that it hindered local stations level playing field by outdated and their ownership groups from Phil Kurz federal rules.” If the 22 years competing effectively with social since the 39% cap was established media giants, digital ad platforms is a standard for determining what is “long and streaming services—competitors never overdue,” how about the 30 years since envisioned in 2004 when the cap was raised Congress and the FCC established rules for from 35% to 39%. the transition from analog to DTV or the 28 Those favoring its continuation argue that years since the first digital TV signals went the FCC lacks the authority to eliminate the on air? cap without new legislation, and that the Broadcasters are required to use MPEGmove will promote further media consolida2 TS, a compression scheme and digital tion and a loss of voices in markets. packaging technology first published in With all of that said, this really isn’t a the mid-1990s. Since then, a succession of column about lifting the cap. Rather, it’s more-efficient compression algorithms has about competition in a government-regulated been released—with the latest (VVC) being market and a comment from Gary Weitman, 75% to 80% more efficient than MPEG-2. chief communications officer at Nexstar On the packaging and encapsulation side of Media Group. the ledger, the world began to embrace IP as An Aug. 6 Variety.com article quoted Weitthe World Wide Web gathered steam in the man as saying, in part: “The FCC’s decision early 1990s. to eliminate the broadcast ownership cap Now, the television industry waits to see is a welcome, necessary and long-overdue what the FCC will do when it comes to sunrecognition of today’s competitive landscape, setting ATSC 1.0 so it can fully embrace a new which is dominated by legacy Big Media and standard that has no restrictions on using Big Tech. For too long, local broadcasters the latest—and most efficient—compression were handcuffed from reaching the scale they schemes as they come along, nor the inability to encapsulate and package bits like the rest of the world.

The hope is the agency will make rules enabling broadcasters to transition by setting up ATSC 1.0 lighthouses to free up channels to take full advantage of the ATSC 3.0 capabilities and services while continuing to transmit legacy DTV to viewers with older sets.

While the FCC and the industry may indeed overcome this hurdle, I am not confident that, in the long run, it is possible to expect a government-regulated industry to compete with unregulated businesses— especially when 20 or 30 years seems to be how long it takes for the regulator to modernize rules, and unregulated competitors can pivot on a dime. ●

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@tvtech.bsky.social

PBS Station Sues Iron Mountain Over Archives A PBS station in St. Louis is taking a data center provider to court to retrieve what the station says is “more than 70 years of history.”

In a lawsuit filed in Denver District Court against Iron Mountain Data Centers in late July, Nine PBS (KETC) said Iron Mountain is refusing to release more than 50 TB of archived programming housed at the storage firm’s data center in Denver. According to the lawsuit, Open Source Storage, the cloud service hosting the archives, went out of business earlier this year and shut off Nine PBS’s access to its material.

Iron Mountain says since OSS owned “the physical services housing the data,” it would not return access to the archives to Nine PBS, according to a story in Current.

The judge granted Nine PBS’s request to prevent Iron Mountain from deleting, modifying or overwriting the archives and a hearing was held Aug, 12.

In a statement to Current, Nine PBS Vice President and Chief Content Officer Leah Freeman said the broadcaster is “committed to ensuring we can recover and restore full access to this valuable content, which Nine PBS rightfully owns, as it holds significant historical importance for St. Louis.”

Nine PBS had a contract with a predecessor to OSS starting in 2019 and said in its lawsuit that it had not received any response from OSS earlier this year when it attempted to renew that pact for 2026.

Although the contract required 30 days notice before termination, the lawsuit claims that OSS abruptly ended Nine PBS’s access to its archives on March 6 and that it was only after this that the broadcaster discovered that the cloud provider had gone out of business.

Iron Mountain told TV Tech it “has acted appropriately and responsibly at every step to safeguard customer data and honor our contractual commitments to OSS. Throughout this process, we have been transparent with Nine PBS about our role in this dispute, that we do not have access to their data, and we have made consistent efforts to help them resolve the issue.”

5g broadcast

Broadcasters Gain Flexibility in Pursuit of 5G Multicasting Does it create a path towards getting NextGen TV on mobile?

Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

By Fred Dawson

As U.S. TV station owners’ prospects increasingly depend on how they deal with challenges posed by the global 5G juggernaut, newfound flexibility in the use of the fast-evolving cellular technology is opening more promising paths to their success in the battles ahead.

“We’re now at our last chance to remain a viable communications platform across all devices,” said Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media Technologies, Sinclair’s engineering unit. The opportunity lies in the fact that multiple strands in the long and complex evolution toward broadcast and mobile service integration are coming together on commercially viable chipsets capable of making things work across all fronts, he added.

“Whether our integration into the 5G domain

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is by way of ATSC 3.0, 5G Broadcast or some combination of the two, we as an organization don’t care,” Aitken said. What matters above all is “over-the-air broadcast remaining viable.”

WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY Many in broadcast TV circles, including Aitken, first viewed 5G Broadcast as an approach to multicasting video and other content to smartphones aimed at circumventing ATSC 3.0. But Aitken said he saw things differently after learning about the ATSC 3.0/5G Broadcast strategy implemented by Castanet, with live LPTV prototype services supporting the current 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) version of 5G Broadcast on ATSC 3.0 transmitters in Las Vegas and Silicon Valley.

In fact, Aitken said, ONE Media plans to test the Castanet platform on Sinclair’s WIAV-CD Washington, D.C., once the LPTV station re-

@tvtech.bsky.social

ceives the multiplexing and exciter equipment from Castanet partner Televes.

“We can see how [the Castanet solution] plays against the widest variety of 3.0 receivers,” Aitken said. “I think we have a bigger variety than just about anybody. If it comes out as claimed, why wouldn’t we support another means?”

How long before the solutions developed by Sinclair and Castanet will be relevant to getting ATSC 3.0/5G convergence off the ground remains to be seen. Eventually—and not so far in the future—TV station owners will be able to bolster the long-term viability Aitken said they’re looking for by leveraging 5G as a socalled bootstrapped radio access network (RAN) component of ATSC 3.0 transmitters through implementation of the recently announced Broadcast-to-Everything (B2X) standard.

The emerging 5G/TV convergence stems

5g broadcast from the fact that both ATSC and the wireless industry’s 3GPP have moved their respective architectures ever closer through successive waves of standards development. Like LTE, ATSC 3.0 employs orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexing (OFDM) modulation, and like the New Radio (NR) version of 5G, the B2X Radio Access Network (BRAN) framework will employ OFD Multiple Access (OFDMA) to support slicing capabilities with disaggregation between core and edge processing sites.

OPTIMIZING 5G But B2X does away with reliance on 5G broadband, although it employs techniques similar to those adopted in 3GPP’s latest Release 19 version. The idea with B2X is to optimize execution of all 5G-like functionalities in accordance with ATSC 3.0 architecture while ensuring smooth interoperability between the two domains.

Current U.S. broadcaster options related to using 5G Broadcast with ATSC 3.0, as supported by the Sinclair and Castanet solutions, are a bridge to opportunities across a virtually unlimited range of 5G multicast verticals anchored by B2X, ATSC President Madeleine

Noland said. As for broadcasters that feel constrained by the fact that bandwidth availability for 5G multicasting is highly restricted by the current “lighthouse” sharing scenario of ATSC 3.0 spectrum, where Federal Communications Commission rules require full-power stations

“We’re now at our last chance to remain a viable communications platform across all devices.”

MARK AITKEN, ONE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES

Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media

to continue ATSC 1.0 broadcasts, Noland said to stay tuned.

“I think it’s a good idea to keep an eye on B2X and what that can enable in the future,” she said.

One example of bridge-building to BTX already underway is in India, where government-run broadcaster Prasar Bharati

and its technology partners are conducting direct-to-mobile (D2M) 5G/ATSC 3.0 service trials in 19 cities in preparation for commercial rollout by year-end. Smartphones and other devices will run on chipsets developed by Saankhya Labs, now owned by Tata Group’s Tejas Networks, with investment support from Sinclair. This full-reception system is built on

5g broadcast CAS muting, which prevents that TV protection mechanism from impeding the 5G flows.

Once the smartphone turnover cycle puts these new devices into mass circulation sometime around 2031-32, the floodgates should open for broadcasters, Fotheringham said.

“Our capex for the 5G Broadcast master site is equivalent to the cost of a 4G macro-level site but serves population areas covered by hundreds or even thousands of those cell sites,” he added. This translates to a massive cost reduction for 5G multicasting compared to MNO reliance on narrowcast streaming, he said.

THE LPTV FACTOR

Vern Fotheringham, founder and executive chairman, Castanet

a patented, software-defined radio platform that supports demodulator, antenna, filter and other front-end components, Aitken noted.

As this phase of the D2M strategy takes hold across India, Prasar Bharati and its tech partners have begun gearing up for the transition to B2X with high-profile standards development support from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. Sinclair and the other partners backing Saankhya Labs have launched Sampige Semiconductors to create B2X chipsets “in roughly the same time frame that semiconductors supporting 5G Broadcast will be appearing in some smartphones,” Aitken said.

READY FOR QUALCOMM LPTV spectrum owners, who are free of 1.0/3.0 simulcast requirements, represent an immediate market for 5G Broadcast solutions providers, as long as they implement 5G Broadcast over ATSC 3.0 transmitters as required by the FCC. Castanet is allied with what founder and Executive Chairman Vern Fotheringham describes as a coalition of LPTV spectrum holders with footprints covering 60% of the U.S. population. Castanet documents point to expectations of expanding that base to 95%.

Castanet’s immediate goal is to ensure broadcast customers are fully prepared to capitalize on the projected 2028 rollout of smartphones equipped with new Qualcomm chipsets, Fotheringham said. Those chipsets support 3GPP Release 19 advancements that bring TV reception and 5G applications together on smartphones and tablets without requiring a separate tuner or SIM card and with no impact on a user’s data cap. These systems-on-chips (SOCs) will enable interleaving, which allows non-TV 5G signaling to share the same spectrum with TV broadcasts, and

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Of course, there are two sides to 5G tech advances, with benefits also accruing in directions unfavorable to the ATSC 3.0 agenda.

One such trend is the widely publicized push by some segments of the LPTV community for freedom from FCC rules limiting use of 5G Broadcast to ATSC 3.0 broadcasters.

Last month, LPTV broadcaster XGN and sister company X1 Mobile, along with Tyche Media LLC, owner of WCRN-LD Boston, filed a petition with the FCC requesting permission to completely replace ATSC TV broadcasts with 5G Broadcast distribution.

This goes beyond last year’s filing by the largest LPTV station owner HC2 Broadcasting—soon to be acquired by Dish founder Charlie Ergen—that seeks authority to use 5G Broadcast overlaid on a single ATSC 1.0 TV channel with no 3.0 requirement.

The proposed rule change would require LPTV stations to stream at least one free TV channel and to devote at least 50% of the remaining spectrum capacity to the types of public-safety applications ATSC 3.0 broadcasters are considering with use of 5G, such as emergency alerts, first-responder data and GPS backup.

WCRN for the past three years has been running FCC-sanctioned tests demonstrating 5G Broadcast delivery of linear programming streams, emergency alerts, global positioning and many other public-safety solutions, said Frank Copsidas, founder of XGN/X1 and founder and president of the LPTV Broadcast Association. Elsewhere, Copsidas said, LPTV stations in France, Africa and other countries with fewer regulatory restrictions are pursuing commercial rollouts of 5G Broadcast services.

“By 2029, short-form programming produced by the TDF Group for LPTV distribution will be available to 90% of the French population,” he said.

Another player pushing 5G Broadcast—but with the full expression of the Release 19 version—is Austria-based Big Blue Marble.

@tvtech.bsky.social

With support for interleaving and CAS muting, the company’s Nakolos platform is ideally suited for enabling 5G Broadcast over existing DVB-T2 infrastructure in Europe free of licensing restrictions, said Johann Mika, Big Blue Marble’s chief innovation officer.

“From a regulatory perspective, in Austria, for example, we can ask for a 10-year license for 5G Broadcast with no issue,” Mika said.

But, as with Castanet, the “missing piece for us is mobile phones.” Broadcast organizations across Europe are “working to get phone costs lower,” he added, noting that with the wait for Release 19-capable chipsets, things “aren’t 100% set yet.”

But when they are, those Qualcommdesigned chipsets will also open the gate for MNOs and 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) providers to put 5G Broadcast to use over their own networks, said Andrew Towe, a 5G Broadcast specialist and participant in media streaming standards who worked closely with WCRN at the outset of the 5G Broadcast testing project in Boston.

“It will be pretty impressive when you get to an ecosystem with all the 5G advanced capabilities working on smartphones,” Towe said, noting there is a widespread expectation in many quarters, including among European broadcasters, that when that happens, “5G is going to take over.”

Aitken is well aware of the “threat,” which he said is a big reason suppliers and broadcasters must be incentivized to move ahead with preparations for 5G rollout on ATSC 3.0, free of the 1.0 broadcast burden.

“We’re just waiting for somebody to cut the shackles,” he said. “Until they do, we have to hop around on one foot with our hands behind our backs.” ●

Johann Mika, chief innovation officer, Big Blue Marble

signal monitoring

The University of Nebraska’s HuskerVision recently completed the second phase of a multiyear modernization effort with the deployment of a comprehensive ST 2110‑based video infrastructure powered by Lawo and including the company’s HOME multiviewer platform.

How Multiviewers are Evolving into ‘Information Hubs’

By Kevin Hilton

The old-fashioned, one-screen display monitor in TV studios, OB trucks and master control rooms (MCRs) had to evolve technologically because it did only one thing. Or, to be more accurate, because it showed only one thing. The result was the multiviewer, which was—and still is—able to show multiple image sources simultaneously.

While that was a massive step forward and made for more extensive and efficient monitoring, the multiviewer itself is now evolving further. The demands of modern broadcasting and streaming call for something that not only displays pictures but is part of an overall production and distribution infrastructure.

The multiviewer has evolved from a simple “display wall” to a “software-defined monitoring and intelligence platform,” said Suzana Brady, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Cobalt Digital. This allows operators and engineering teams to monitor ever more complicated infrastructures, she explained. “The focus has shifted from simply seeing signals to helping operators monitor, manage and respond to increasingly complex workflows efficiently,” she said.

SHIFTING FOCUS The change is driven by three current trends in broadcast technology: hybrid SDI/IP facilities becoming the norm; the continuing expansion of remote/cloud production; and broadcasters wanting fewer dedicated monitor systems and

more integrated tools for monitoring, operations and processing, she said.

Another transformation in how multiviewers are expected tooperate is identified by Lawo Product Evangelist Paul Scott. Bigger broadcasters are looking for more flexibility from their monitoring displays, which are often fixed multiviewer installations—typically one per studio—and can be expensive in terms of capex when multiple studios and events are involved, he said.

Manufacturers now offer various options to reduce capex for multiviewing. Lawo’s HOME IP management platform, which includes a range of specialized apps, is based on readily available COTS hardware and works with native cloud and containerization technologies, including NATS and Docker, and monitoring

@tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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Credit: Lawo

Vendors seek to deploy agentic AI, accommodate more formats

signal monitoring tools like Grafana or Prometheus.

The word “hardware” might seem incongruous when multiviewers are now described as either “software-based” or “software-defined,” Scott agreed. However, he explained, the shift has been away from dedicated processing hardware that performs only one function.

MORE FORMATS A big shift since last year has been the expansion of formats users now work with, said Ketan Patel, project manager for multiviewer systems at Evertz.

“People want to have the mixed signal monitoring or multiviewing of the mixed signals, whether it’s ST 2110, SDI or compressed feeds,” he said. “But now JPEG XS is getting added to the mix due to interfacility connections.

“On top of that, we are noticing customers looking for more integrated systems,” Patel added. “They want a single surface where they can manipulate the multiviewers, do their routing and analyze the signals. It’s more like dashboarding, so they want one surface to bring that all together and simplify day-to-day operations.”

John Mailhot, senior vice president for product management, playout and infrastructure at Imagine Communications, confirmed “more functionality” is being “dashboarded” and moved into the multiviewer. This has made multiviewers “the most important part of the facility,” he said, because they connect the operations team to what they are doing.

“The multiviewer is becoming more of an information hub,” he explained. “This is driven by a need for economy within the television operation. In a historical small TV station, you’d have one master control operator running the channel.

“Now that same operator is trying to

Cobalt Digital’s Cobalt UltraBlue MV-SW software-based multiviewer and monitoring system.

manage the main channel, cable distribution, OTT, a side channel and ENGs [electronic news gathering],” Mailhot continued. “Multiviewers are where that all comes together.”

As for the signal formats, Mailhot also predicted the hybrid model would be adopted, adding that SDI will “be with us forever—or at least another 10 to 20 years.”

SDI is among many signal formats that

“People want to have the mixed signal monitoring or multiviewing of the mixed signals, whether it’s ST 2110, SDI or compressed feeds.”

KETAN PATEL, EVERTZ

today’s multiviewers must accomodate. As Brady observed, these also include ST 2110, compressed IP streams and cloud feeds. But though the market “has shifted increasingly toward software,” she pointed out, it has not moved entirely to the cloud—relying on gateways between different formats and IPMX, which supports the convergence between broadcast and Pro AV workflows.

THE HOME MCR

John Mailhot, senior vice president for product management, playout and infrastructure, Imagine Communications

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it has introduced Workspaces, an HTML-5 virtual user interface that can be used on desktop and laptop computers, tablets and phones, he added.

Evertz has also adopted the MCR at home.

To do this, according to Patel, all the necessary controls—not just the multiviewer function— have been integrated and made available on a single browser. Alongside this, Evertz is integrating AI capability into the analytics feature

IP and internet connectivity have also furthered adoption of “MCR at home,” where operators working remotely can access all sources and functions they would have on-prem. This technology is typiucally deployed as a distributed MCR rather than a completely remote setup, Brady said, with the critical signal processing taking place in a secure data center or broadcast facility while operators work through browser-based interfaces on an IP connection.

Lawo’s Scott said MCR at home functionality can be facilitated through a second output from the multiviewer head as an SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) feed. The company has seen more demand for remote video monitoring, for which @tvtech.bsky.social

set, including alarm and telemetry data.

“Those are being analyzed to make smarter decisions to present to the users,” Patel explained. “We haven’t automated it completely [to the point] where AI is driving everything, [but] those will be future steps.”

Agentic AI is the form of the technology most suited to multiviewing and monitoring, as it has the capacity to learn what to do. AI agents are “one of the most significant developments in the multiviewer market over the next few years,” Cobalt Digital’s Brady said.

“Everybody is in the experimenting phase” with AI, said Mailhot, noting that Imagine is running “a number of initiatives” around how AI systems within a facility interact with other equipment. “And designing how that works in a way that is both repeatable, reliable and correctly safeguarded,” he added. “You want to make sure these agentic systems can do something useful but, at the same time, that they don’t do anything to endanger your production.”

At this rate—and with the perceived potential of agentic AI—it is likely that multiviewers will have moved on considerably by this time next year. ●

content personalization

Winning the Fight Against Churn In the battle for hyperpersonalization, data quality can often be the deciding factor streaming services know that content discovery, not content volume, is what drives engagement and retention.”

This means treating television like any other modern application. “People expect the same level of convenience from television that they get from every other digital service they use,” explained Elodie Levrel, corporate marketing and communication director for Broadpeak.

“That means recommendations should reflect their interests, live and on-demand content should be easy to find and the experience should feel consistent whether they’re watching on a connected TV, tablet or smartphone.”

By James Careless

To win the fight against churn and build lasting engagement, media and entertainment companies are leaning heavily into content personalization. In fact, they’re committing themselves to it.

“We’ve reached this inflection point where AI hyperpersonalization is transitioning from experimental into foundational,” said Nina Walsh, global leader of business development, Media & Entertainment, Games and Sports, at Amazon Web Services (AWS). “Consumers are drowning in content and are looking at how best to find what they want when they want it. Passive discovery is dying. Channel surfing is gone.”

Personalization is also one of the most effective defenses against churn, added Mrugesh Desai, chief revenue officer at Accedo.“When

Jacob Arends, senior product manager, Bitmovin

BREAKING THE METADATA BOTTLENECK

viewers can’t quickly find something worth watching, they begin to question the value of their subscription,” he said. “The best

Today’s hyperpersonalized content delivery relies on a massive amount of high-quality data. Unfortunately, the efficiency of these systems is being hampered by legacy databas-

content personalization es and the very nature of household viewing.

“One of the problems with personalization is the fact that a television is a shared device—one per household, rather than a truly personal device like a phone or a tablet,” said Dimitri Tarassenko, senior vice president of product management for LTN. “To make a step from addressable [i.e. targeted at a household] to personalized [targeted at a viewer] you need more data, and programming context [what the viewer has watched to date] is often a very good clue.”

Extracting that context in a useful way is the industry’s biggest hurdle. “This is the No. 1 conversation that I have with media companies all over the globe: Legacy metadata is the biggest obstacle that they encounter,” Walsh said. “The reason for that is that there are decades of inconsistently tagged, multiformat, multilanguage content libraries that weren’t designed for algorithmic consumption.”

Desai agreed. “Poor metadata is still the quiet killer of personalization projects, and it’s rarely fixed by buying a better recommendation

Among the new tools being deployed to help personalize and automate content is AWS Elemental Inference, which uses AI to convert video into vertical formats optimized for mobile and social platforms in real time.

“Poor metadata is still the quiet killer of personalization projects, and it’s rarely fixed by buying a better recommendation engine.”

MRUGESH DESAI, ACCEDO

engine,” he said. “The real work is foundational: First, an honest audit of where metadata is inconsistent, incomplete or siloed across legacy CMS systems, then establishing a single normalized schema that every content source (live, VOD, licensed and owned) maps into.”

Titan TV President Heidi Steffen stressed the importance of reliable data for feeding content personalization systems. “You need the data that is being fed into AI to be consistent,” she noted. “‘Garbage in’ results in ‘garbage out.’ If the data being used is inconsistent and confusing, AI will not be able to produce reliable, useful content recommendations.”

CURING CHOICE FATIGUE Conventional wisdom says churn happens because viewers are tired of paying for too many streaming services, which isn’t necessarily the case.

“Churn in streaming, much like piracy, is a convenience problem rather than price,” said Jacob Arends, senior product manager for Bitmovin. “If one of those services isn’t meeting a viewer’s needs or keeping them engaged, then it will likely be on the short list

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for the next service to drop.”

The same convenience problem occurs when platforms present viewers with too many recommendations. “Casual viewers do not want to be the director, so giving them too much choice and options actually creates a less rewarding experience,” Arends told TV Tech.

Instead, these viewers want to be told what to watch, and those recommendations had better be spot on—or else. “The data shows that if a viewer hasn’t had a ‘wow’ moment in 72 hours, it’s probably a 30-day churn from there,” Walsh said.

Ironically, making it hard for viewers to drop services can actually increase churn over the long term. “For the Gen Z and millennial cohorts driving the 50%-plus churn rate, the fix is rarely a smarter algorithm alone but rather to remove the friction around leaving and returning,” Desai said. “The platforms with the lowest churn make cancellation painless and reactivation a single click, because a subscriber who leaves easily is far more likely to come back than one who feels trapped.”

Ultimately, keeping those subscribers engaged requires an end-to-end approach to the

@tvtech.bsky.social

Dimitri Tarassenko, senior vice president of product management, LTN

user experience. “The broadcasters most likely to reduce churn are the ones that combine personalization with a simple interface, value-added features such as multiview for live sport and advertising that feels relevant without interrupting the viewing experience,” Levrel said.

LIVE SPORTS DEMANDS CLEAN DATA Live sports and hyperlocal news present unique challenges for content personalization algorithms.

A case in point: Broadcasters who decide to route a live game to a secondary over-theair channel can wreak havoc on smart-TV algorithms and viewer retention. “They can’t put it on their 9.1 due to other demands, so they put it on their 9.2, which is traditionally a pass-through,” Steffen said.

content personalization Making such switches confuses algorithms and viewers alike. This is why broadcasters and other content producers need to ensure their real-time metadata is properly synchronized so that content personalization systems can function correctly.

With the right data, delivered cleanly and consistently, these systems can work wonders. “We’re now at a point where productions can offer real-time user preference graphs, where you can build live models of each fan’s teams, leagues, favorite players and what their viewing patterns are,” Walsh said. “This enables them to personalize the ‘what’s on now’ experience for fans—but it requires ingesting real-time schedule data, rights, and metadata.”

To further optimize this experience, the delivery infrastructure must keep pace.

“Technologies such as Media over QUIC (MoQ) are helping improve live streaming by reducing zapping time, lowering latency and limiting rebuffering,” Levrel explained.

“During major tournaments, features such as multiview also give fans more control by letting them follow several matches or different camera angles at the same time.”

FROM ATSC 3.0 TO AGENTIC AI As content personalization expands, traditional broadcasters face technical hurdles— particularly in implementing ATSC 3.0.

“For traditional broadcasters, the biggest roadblocks are addressable advertising and interactive overlays onto ATSC 3.0 hybrid delivery orchestration,” Walsh explained.

“Legacy infrastructure coexists, so broadcasters can’t abandon ATSC 1.0 overnight. This creates massive operational challenges, not to mention the cost.”

Added Tarassenko, “While the ad replacement and ad decisioning technologies are largely there, one of the biggest gaps lies in connecting the ad sales systems used for digital campaigns with the traditional infrastructure used to originate the linear channels.”

The good news: In the future, improvements in agentic AI, predictive behaviors and even physical biometrics are poised to make content curation entirely seamless.

The next real shift is agentic AI, according to Desai.

“Agentic AI closes this gap by letting specialized agents work together toward a shared outcome rather than each optimizing in isolation,” he said. “Get that right, and personalization stops being just a feature to become the core of a service’s operating model.”

Added Walsh: “Sensors in wearables can provide real-time emotional signals to

enhance recommendation engines. A system that senses viewer stress, for example, could surface more calming content. Or, if your heart rate spikes during a scene, it could use that as a preference signal.

“Privacy is an important piece of all of this,” he continued. “The platforms that win longterm will be those that give users the transparent control over the personalization of their data, creating a trust-based value exchange.”

Of course, deploying such wearables will require a high level of consumer trust, because tapping into biometric and emotional signals moves content personalization from viewing behavior into sensitive personal data.

Overall, Walsh believes the M&E industry is moving towards agentic, predictive and generative personalization.

“As for how far it will go, it’s likely we will reach a point where the default entertainment experience will feel handcrafted for each viewer,” she said. “When this happens, the generic broadcast experience will feel dated, like the old-school telephone. As we move this direction, it’s vital to ensure that ethical frameworks are in place to build alongside the technology that’s evolving at a rapid rate.”

Nina Walsh, global leader of business development, Media & Entertainment, Games, and Sports, AWS

However, the ultimate goal isn’t total automation. “Personalization will continue to improve, but the goal isn’t to personalize every part of the viewing experience,” Levrel said. “The real opportunity is using personalization where it adds value, so people stay engaged and broadcasters can better understand what’s working.” ●

ai outlook

Staying Vigilant in the Shift to Autonomous AI Why trusted data quality and agentic automation are becoming the backbone of modern enterprise workflows longside the many technological • AI Systems Integration: The fundamental changes occurring in this era, roelements associated with this widespread botics continues to evolve with new migration, modernization and optimization capabilities in artificial intelligence. of services using a leaner stack are being Of those more recent advances and updates, accomplished with zero disruption. An “algenerative AI took the lead, but there’s a new ways-on digital workforce” is a key element, tech in town and it’s going “fully autonomous.” constructed as a unified platform built on at In my Cloudspotter’s Journal columns, I have least three integrated layers: Data Quality, shown by example that the basics of nextAgentic AI and Plain-Language Interfaces. generation cloud computing now include an advanced “cloud” infrastructure, shifting toward DATA QUALITY (DQ) AI integration, edge computing and cross-cloud Data Quality (DQ) encompasses elements federation (coming up in October). Crucial eleof trust and Autonomous Data Engineerments include “AI-first architectures,” “agentic ing—the automation of jobs for data analysts, data systems” and “distributed cloud-to-edge” data engineers and operations (see workflows connections and their associated networking. depicted in Fig. 1). DQ aims to improve the The importance of connecting the cloud accuracy, completeness, consistency and to the world of AI cannot be underestimated. reliability of the data used to train, test or At first, it seems to be a bit farrun machine-learning models fetched and beyond the reach of and AI systems. DQ generally everyday use, but hold on—artiincludes model accuracy, which ficial intelligence is now “everyaims to ensure all AI outputs are where,” with a wider definition trustworthy and to prevent error and an expanded dimension factors where poor data leads to touching all walks of life. Most biased or incorrect results. evident today is the explosion of DQ concepts include machine data center activity popping up learning models that depend on everywhere. Only a few see this as “clean inputs”—free of duplicates, an important element of our tech errors or misrepresentations, EXPERTISE future, but the data centers of toaka missing values or skewed day and tomorrow are “the cloud,” anomalies.

KARL PAULSEN with compute power, storage and Modern platforms use other interconnection across the globe.

AI tools to automate DQ checks In the not-too-distant future, and build validation rules that these new data centers will be self-managed scale. Validation rules are those surrounded and, in many cases, autonomous in nature. by an AI simulation of human intelligence in They will become the backbone for AI activimachines specifically programmed to think, ties as their integration grows. learn and make decisions—i.e., utilizing In this installment, we take a broad overbuilding blocks typical to AI systems that view perspective of some new AI-related include data (i.e., numbers, characters, media terms and how they generally apply to workimages—audio, video, etc.) and operations flows, data centers and AI: which are performed by using compute pro• Artificial Intelligence Integration: Based cesses. upon custom AI agents, robust LLM inte• Algorithm(s): Basically a sequence of gration and AI-data engineering. As stated calculations or rules used to solve a problem in Google Search, “AI integration is the employing data that is “optimized in terms process of embedding artificial intelligence of time and space.” Such relative data should into existing systems, workflows and apfit the time, place and application, and must plications to automate processes, generate provide suitable results that resolve the insights and optimize performance.” problem constructed of appropriate prompts

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@tvtech.bsky.social

with sufficient depth to properly answer the question “posed” of the associated content.

• Model: Sometimes referred to as an “agent,” a model is a combination of data and algorithms used to generate the response. Once you have a model, you can constantly provide it with new data and algorithms and continuously refine it. Fundamentally, the goal is to perform these actions autonomously.

• Response: Outputs generated as responses from models, otherwise known as the results.

• Ethics: The “moral principles” and “guidelines” from responses. These and related fundamental principles ensure that the responses (replies, reactions and/or outputs) from the AI systems “contribute to positive social, economic, and environmental impacts of the organization and the community.”

One significant application of AI is automating tasks that do not necessarily require human intervention during routine operations. This brings on some relatively new definitions for workflow and actions—e.g., idempotent, which means an operation that can be applied multiple times without changing the final result beyond the first time, and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

When combined, idempotency and CLV can match analytics or calculations without double-counting revenue or corrupting historical cohorts—i.e. the use of past records to identify groups of people with or without a specific exposure.

The latest evolution in AI-driven automation is known as Agentic AI.

AGENTIC AI FOR RPA Agentic AI is the next step in automation.

Autonomous or semiautonomous artificial intelligence systems can independently plan, make decisions, use external tools and execute multistep workflows to achieve a specific goal with minimal human supervision. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is rule-based, using software “bots” to mimic human actions. RPA automates repeated tasks (invoicing, inputting data, extraction and validation) which have since evolved

ai outlook with new AI capabilities. In principle, that evolution has stepped into various levels of agentic automation used to aid in determining the level of agents your organization may need; agentic workflow automation in action, or how those AI-powered agents perform; and how to scale agentic automation—responsibly and securely—while autonomously evaluating foundational skills aimed at end-to-end task completion.

The main types of automation (in robotics) include: • Attended RPA: Bots that run on a user’s computer to help with live tasks like customer calls.

• Unattended RPA: Bots run on servers in the background to complete large batches of work automatically.

• Hybrid RPA: Blends both attended and unattended approaches so humans and bots can work together on complex jobs.

In addition to those RPA/human modes, those rational and easily manipulated sets of actions or instructions—including reporting and outputs—are orchestrated in plain language instead of software-driven expressions in specific forms of new or complex terms that must first be thoroughly learned and trained.

Fig. 1: Autonomous AI-Supported Workflow (aka Autonomous Data Engineering).

PLAIN LANGUAGE For an AI interaction to be “conversational,” the prompts and stages should repeatedly master the following steps in its sequences: • Removes Jargon: Finds hard-to-read technical words, acronyms, or legalese and swaps them for everyday terms, with “audience identification” obviously being a prime focus on both output and delivery. For example, a response for a lawyer would be output differently for an administrator without a legal background.

• Shortens Sentences: Breaks down long, tangled sentences into short, direct thoughts aimed for a C-level executive set, TV/radio news reporter or professional-level manager.

• Active Voice: A sentence structure where the subject performs the verb’s action, following a clear pattern: actor, verb—targeting its searches for passive phrasing and changing it to clearly show who is doing what.

• Layout Improvement: Outputting clear headings and bullet points so text is easy to scan and reading for understanding is elevated smoothly and rapidly.

ASSURING DATA QUALITY A part of maintaining and assuring Data Quality is documentation (especially if auto-generated). Docs are a foundational

Fig. 2: Data Quality workflow and breach protection by assuring personally identifiable information (Pii) is safe and uncompromised.

principle in assuring Data Quality and are extremely important when assembling any AI platform. Having a consistent and accurate reference set that includes the stages and steps discussed is essential to the AI system’s intelligence for long-term maintenance of the large model learning system, for both immediate and future or long-term support of the system overall. Instructions on documentation integrated with the “checks and values” portions of a system are essential.

Elements crucial to AI-developed outputs (Fig. 2), based on the prompts submitted and the audience you are addressing, include accuracy, where data matches real-world values and facts; completeness, with no essential fields or values missing; consistency, where all information matches across different systems, tables or equations; that data is fresh and timely, appropriate to the topics and audience and easily available

when needed; and validity, where data follows defined (business) rules, formats and constraints, is unique and does not contain duplicate records.

Appropriate expectations are part of the primary requirements in qualifying the validity of an AI system and integration. These are some of the guidelines most solutions or outputs will produce with a properly utilized agentic AI or general practices as modeled across many levels of industry—providing a good checklist and process for relatively effective and useful autonomous applications and solutions. ● Karl Paulsen, CPBE & SMPTE Fellow, is a retired chief technology officer and a longtime contributor to TV Tech on media technologies, workflows, IP networking and cloud.

He can be reached at karl@ivideoserver.tv or at TV Tech.

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inside audio

Are You Scared of AI Yet? Artificial intelligence is creating more uncertainty in all aspects of TV production

I

have written about superanymore, with autofocus and computers in the pages of TV simple commands like “follow Tech for more than six years. the ball” or “follow car No. 6.”

I even had an ABC director I was resistant to “audio-foltell me my musings on computlow-video” for many years er dominance in broadcasting because I thought the switch were pure folly and that I was did not sound very good and “full of it.” However, my earliest subjective control was the job of contemplations did not take into the mixer. Basically, my prejuaccount learning models which, dices were ego-related and not to me, now further legitimize engineering-related.

EXPERTISE the possibilities of AI in broadThe Lawo “mixing assist” DENNIS BAXTER casting. compares sound levels from Let’s use my friend at ABC different microphones and as an example. Bob has less than a dozen adjusts mix levels for the most desirable cuts in his directing repertoire, with only a combination of sounds. So, what about handful of permutations between them—very computer-generated sound fields and sportpredictable. Now, if you take it to the next ing sound effects, like what Ben Shirley level, Bob-Bot can remember these camera and Rob Oldfield of Salsa Sound have been sequences and their outcomes, plus how developing? The Salsa program not only can effective their entertainment value was. You mix, but can change the timbre, texture and could even teach Bob-Bot the patterns of composition of sounds. I imagine a ball kick different directors and producers and mix up a pretty good show.

FIFA World Cup soccer and Host Broadcast Services have led the way in advancing sound quality and also in developing computer-assisted sound.

Not only was the concept of mixing matches in the broadcast center’s master control developed at the World Cup, but Lawo also created a mixing algorithm that compares sound intensities from different microphone positions, selects the best ones and creates the most desirable sports sound. I wrote in the pages of TV Tech that I thought the 2022 World Cup was the best-sounding World Cup ever and better yet, the best-sounding sporting event ever!

with a little thunder or dynamite explosion added to it. That is entertaining!

ENTERTAINMENT VS. REALITY When gaming came along, I realized my role as a sound mixer was to entertain the audience and not necessarily document the sound image. Some sounds were boring or not easily captured, which is why, in the early ’80s, I started to use a sound sampler—a primitive analog computer to play back and enhance the sound field—everything from pit sounds and tire squeals to canoe rows and crowds. Engaging sound, camera work and graphics drive broadcast retention, but also cost money, unless perhaps there is a heavy dose of generative computer influence and output.

Every sport can develop an audience via the internet, and there is clearly an abundance of content that is captured and streamed. Not only are supercomputers good at automating tasks and improving efficiency, but they are

Credit: Tang Ke/VCG via Getty Images

FROM ASSISTANT TO CONTROLLER The difference between the early AI systems and current (and future) systems is that AI brings the ability for the computer to learn and remember. For example, a machine model can combine audio sources and create a mix from the existing data. A learning model will be able to elevate the entertainment value with more and better permutations each learning cycle.

Computer-assisted is quickly moving to computer-controlled. It is easy to see how the entire production chain can be computercontrolled. Cameras do not need operators

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I used to think the safest jobs in television were held by those who set up and maintained the equipment. I don’t see that as the case anymore when I see stories of Chinese robots playing soccer.

@tvtech.bsky.social

inside audio capable of creating realistic content. How about nude beach volleyball? How will content production keep up? Through AI. Supercomputers with learning and adapting capabilities are known as “generative,” where computers create new content using similar or existing data. Think about the commentators. You rarely see them, and they tell the viewer what they just saw and then read something about the person, place or thing that was just shown. It is called play-by-play and color, and I think these folks are on the way out.

I have read postings on LinkedIn for audio practitioners to train AI algorithms. That makes sense, since the power of artificial intelligence lies with its ability to ultimately learn and think for itself. It also seems that the best models have a deep reservoir of knowledge to build on.

pening right here in the United States—with impunity. I don’t know who is to blame—the publisher or the AI company.

I heard on the news recently that Anthropic, a leading AI company that I thought had

A BETTER MODEL ME

scruples, has settled a class-action suit for copyright theft, which included two of my broadcast publications with Focal Press. If you are going to train a computer to do my job, then learning the fundamentals of signal processing as well as the aesthetics of signal

But where is this knowledge coming from?

Well, one significant avenue has been through theft of intellectual property.

America has long had a beef with China over intellectual property theft, but it is hap-

The difference between the early AI systems and current (and future) systems is that AI brings the ability for the computer to learn and remember.

balancing will make a better Model Me. All sound disciplines are changing and the evolution probably will not stop. No doubt, analytical tools for quality control are soon to arrive, if they are not already here. Things like distortion, phase and loudness are easily quantified and corrected. While working on this article, one of my sources said they have developed a profanity eliminator that works basically in real time and even in different languages.

I used to think the safest jobs in television were held by those who set up and maintained the equipment. I don’t see that as the case anymore when I see stories of Chinese robots playing soccer. Television broadcasts are not hard to set up, and any deficiencies can be compensated or covered up by the computer.

Are you scared yet? ● Dennis Baxter is the author of “A Practical Guide to Television Sound Engineering” and the publication “Immersive Sound Production—A Practical Guide” on Focal Press. He can be reached at dbaxter@dennisbaxtersound.com or at dennisbaxtersound.com.

the other side

The Other Side of Streaming Consumers will blame you if your video doesn’t sound or look right, so it’s important to know how to monitor for quality

Credit: Michael Heiss

ack in the day, when you The options used to be simple: produced and/or disBlack and white or color; mono or tributed content mostly stereo. Monitoring, particularly through one broadcast at the local level? Easy peasy: a or cable channel, making certain decent consumer TV set and an everything looked and sounded antenna or cable feed. the way it should was easy. You simply checked it at the last point KNOW WHERE TO LOOK where you touched it and then How have you and those in verified it via a return feed. Oh, your organization or at client loEXPERTISE that it was still that easy. cations adjusted to the ways that Now, thanks to content distribeven a single program or piece of MICHAEL HEISS uted through multiple distribucontent is viewed? How are you tion pipes and consumerand your team assessing and then side reception devices, you have assuring end user or viewer image to check the same piece of content multiple and sound quality? times. Think of it as creating a single drink Here’s a bit of guidance from the consumer but having to deal with a wide range of pipes, side of things: No matter who is at the root pressure and different faucets. Oh, and on top cause of an issue, the one who touched it last of that, different sizes and shapes of glasses. is always blamed by the end user. They don’t If you are not careful, this economic necessity care about who or what is upstream from you; becomes a QoS nightmare. if it breaks, it is your fault and you look bad.

In the age of social media, you can’t afford that, so here are some suggestions on how to avoid it.

First, make certain you are properly monitoring any error conditions in the full streaming workflow, no matter whose side it is on.

Encoding, packaging, CDN delivery, DRM, caption timing, audio and anything related to ad insertion, such as SCTE-35 Ad Break Market Integrity. That last one has to be “right on the money”—if not, there may not be any money! You also need to ensure your own internal content management system matches the needs of the various distribution feeds and services. A metadata mapping mismatch may cause your content to be rejected.

Even when you’re comfortable with how content left your facility, you must check the quality against the matrix of the streaming services/distribution channels and the multiple consumer devices.

To do that, you need to consider two

Think about how many paths these local station news streams traveled through from the station to the network’s news app to Sling. Will what viewers see and hear have the quality you expect?

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@tvtech.bsky.social

the other side

things: First, create a “streaming QC station.”

The second and equally important part is to create checklists and score reports to validate the results.

Remember that the same feed may not look and sound the same on different services or on different devices. Beyond that, each generation of the same device brand and model may impact how a feed looks and sounds. You are no longer monitoring a single off-air or return feed.

DEVICES MATTER Start with one each of the Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV 4K and Google TV 4K external streamers with the latest OS updates. Then, look on sites like eBay or ask around with colleagues for older models that no longer get updates. That covers you from missing errors that might not be revealed on current devices or OS drops.

For monitoring, have two midpriced connected TVs (CTVs). Why two? Because Roku, Fire TV and Google/Android TV can be monitored with external streaming dongles, but the captive TV manufacturer OS systems (LG’s WebOS, Samsung’s Tizen and Vizio’s OS/SmartCast) can’t. Depending on which HDR formats your consumer-facing feeds use, make sure you can check the current HDR formats beyond the now almost standard HDR-10, including Dolby Vision, HDR-10+, HLG and Advanced HDR. When it comes to switching between the two sets, instead of using an HDMI switcher, get a midline AVR with at least six HDMI inputs and two HDMI outputs. That will also

let you monitor multichannel audio presentations. If you need more HDMI inputs, simply connect some of the streaming devices directly to the TV sets.

For control, the AVR remote should be able to cycle through everything. However, because you may need to have a bucket of remotes for the TVs and the streamers whose remote codes might not be in the AVR remote, consider a programmable universal remote.

For the more adventurous, experiment with a simple home-device control system or talk to a local CEDIA member residential design/ installation firm, as this type of system is what they do for a living.

TEST SYSTEMATICALLY To justify the time and expense of the QC station, it is essential you develop a repeatable test sequence to identify when something is wrong and then locate where the fault originates. That will help you correct the root cause for things you can correct.

You can’t be expected to provide tech support for your viewers, but if something is happening outside your control, knowing what is going on allows you to post a message on social media feeds (or, if it is more significant, consider an on-air crawl message).

Remember, if you don’t catch errors when the cause may be the viewer’s slow bandwidth or outdated streamers and CTVs, you could become the scourge of the internet.

Capture your daily QC check across all services in a database matrix against how each

Michael Heiss has almost five decades of experience in product development and management/marketing for professional and consumer electronics products.

A longtime journalist, he is also a global lecturer on home technology and an active participant in the technical activities of CEDIA, and is a fellow and a recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award. He can be reached at mhh@michaelheiss.com.

@tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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Credit: Michael Heiss

Checking all the major streaming devices can help you avoid missing errors that are specific to one platform or piece of hardware.

stream lands from all services and on each device. Remember, the same stream viewed on a Roku might appear differently than on a CTV app or through a different streamer.

Keep a record of the download speed and occasionally check it using a smartphone, either directly or by using the phone as a hotspot to the QC station rather than from your facility’s usual broadband access. There are a lot of variables, and any one of them can be the root cause for a single outage or reception issue, even when other streams are perfect.

As you would for any QC/QoS testing, check and record the image quality and color gamut. Is there buffering or occasional freezing? Is there excessive latency from one stream and device to another? Is the sound in sync? Be sure to check that for a few minutes on each view to make sure you don’t have issues with audio/video sync drift when variable frame rate (VFR) encoding is used. Is the audio, particularly multichannel audio, correctly passed through from an app originating in a CTV through to the AVR? Are the captions working properly?

Finally, chart every place your content appears, including channel aggregators. Think of a feed coming not from a station, but from the feeds of local newscasts that are part of a network’s news app. Those, in turn, may be picked up by FAST aggregators like Pluto TV or Xumo.

This may seem a big task, and to some extent it is, or at least can be. However, if you construct your QC station properly, set a logical-but-comprehensive test schema and develop the database for metrics, you don’t need to do everything every day. Create a manageable rotation so that over the course of a week, you check everything at least once with the caveat that during major news, sports or milestone programs, you have someone checking things in real time.

Always remember that no matter what the root cause of a system or technical issue is, and regardless of how far upstream it was from you, the consumer blames the last one to touch it.

In the case of streaming content, if it has your name on it, that’s you. Don’t let that “last one to touch it” syndrome hit you in the face. ●

eye on tech | products and services Zixi & Comcast Technology Solutions C-Band Replacement Solution

Fujinon GF19-35mmT3.5 Lens

Zixi and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) are combining the end-to-end video management capabilities of Comcast Media360 with the Zixi Software Platform to offer broadcasters and content providers a direct migration path from C-band satellite to IP-based distribution. At its core is the integration of Media360 and the Zixi platform, providing customers with a 24/7 managed service.

CTS’ linear rights management normalizes rights metadata using SCTE 224, enabling providers to manage alternate content delivery, ad-insertion windows and audience-based restrictions across broadcast and streaming destinations. Zixi ZEN Master orchestrates the live video workflow across cloud or hybrid networks, with native support for SCTE-35/224 signaling, blackout enforcement and schedule-driven source switching. https://zixi.com www.comcasttechnologysolutions.com

AJA Video Systems Io Xpand Io Xpand is a high-performance Thunderbolt 5-enabled PCIe expansion chassis for AJA KONA and Corvid video and audio I/O cards. As demand for higher-bandwidth, higher-resolution content grows, Io Xpand unlocks the performance of AJA PCIe I/O cards for video professionals leveraging Thunderbolt 5 laptops and mini-PCs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Io Xpand is suited for creative or live production environments with limited space and where portability is needed, including on-set, remote production and live switching. Video professionals can pair the new chassis with either a KONA 1, KONA 4, or KONA 5 I/O card and a Thunderbolt 5-equipped computer to create a powerful, compact workstation with advanced throughput, video capture and playback functionality. For AJA Developer Partners, most AJA Corvid I/O cards can easily be used with the Io Xpand enclosure to develop smaller-footprint solutions. www.aja.com

The Fujinon GF19-35mmT3.5 PZ OIS WR (GF19-35mmT3.5), the second cinema power zoom lens for Fujinon’s GFX System, features a native G-mount and provides the widest angle of view available in the GF format. It offers filmmakers at all levels of production a large-format cinema zoom with expanded cinematic versatility and exceptional optical performance in a compact, lightweight design.

GF19-35mmT3.5 pairs with the Fujifilm GFX Eterna 55 camera, particularly alongside the Fujinon GF32-90mmT3.5 PZ OIS WR lens. Those lenses have identical exterior dimensions, allowing for shared accessories for seamless rig setups.

The two lenses also have standardized zoom and focus functions, enabling a streamlined filming style that minimizes equipment requirements and crew workload, enhancing production efficiency and expanding creative flexibility. www.fujifilm-x.com

LucidLink/ Adobe Frame.io Workflow Integration LucidLink has expanded its workflow integration with Adobe Frame.io, giving globally distributed production teams unified access to their Frame. io projects and offering support for production media in separate cloud-storage environments. By extending the Frame.io ecosystem, LucidLink provides a complete production workflow, allowing editors and producers to access Frame.io assets alongside all supporting production media, including B-roll, audio, graphics and archives—all within a unified LucidLink file space.

Using LucidLink Connect, files stored in such cloud environments as Microsoft SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and Amazon S3 appear instantly for the editor. No data migration, downloads or file duplication is required and existing cloud-storage systems remain unchanged. www.lucidlink.com

Cascade PBS Local Public

Hitomi Broadcast Spectra

Cascade PBS has launched Local Public, a wholly-owned public benefit subsidiary that offers app solutions to U.S. public media stations, enabling them to offer a locally branded, locally curated streaming video service across connected TV, web and mobile platforms. Local Public currently supports 18 PBS stations across the country with streaming applications available on all major platforms. Additional stations will launch in the coming months.

The launch grew out of a Cascade PBS initiative to help public broadcasters build stronger connections with their communities in the streaming era, delivering streaming experiences crafted for the audiences they know best. Rather than a one-size-fits-all experience, local outlets can showcase their own local stories, highlight community priorities, strengthen audience relationships and create a clearer pathway for viewers to directly support their local station. www.localpublic.tv

Hitomi’s Spectra HDR colorverification tool helps engineers confirm that color remains accurate as pictures move through complex production and distribution routes.

Live workflows now carry more formats and versions through the same facility, including SDR and HDR outputs from a single production. As signals pass through converters, routers, processors, LUTs and software workflows, one configuration error can leave the program technically wrong even when the picture looks acceptable during initial checks.

Hitomi’s color-verification solution generates a defined set of test colors at the source, sends them through the normal program route and analyzes them at the end. By comparing the received colors with the expected result, it can highlight incorrect LUTs, unexpected conversions and routing errors between SDR and HDR paths. https://hitomi.tv

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September 2026 | www.tvtech.com |

@tvtech.bsky.social

equipment guide | audio & intercoms

SSL System T Helps AT&T Stadium Prep for 9 FIFA World Cup Matches USER REPORT

By Gary French Head of Audio Dallas Cowboys

DALLAS—Being selected to host nine 2026 FIFA World Cup matches, including a semifinal, was a great honor for AT&T Stadium and a tribute to the work of our entire team. From an audio perspective, the project brought our in-stadium production together with an international broadcast operation requiring several new signal combinations and delivery paths.

Our main audio control room is built around a 48-fader Solid State Logic System T S500m surface. It is the central point for audio distributed throughout the venue and for the feeds we exchange with broadcasters.

GAME-DAY PLANNING We began meeting more than a year before the tournament and as plans developed, we learned that a central hub would connect the stadium’s audio, video and communications systems to the International Broadcast Center in downtown Dallas and the international broadcast truck at the stadium.

The show content was not radically different from a Cowboys game, where we regularly manage dozens of inputs routed to around 30 auxiliaries and patchable outputs, together with several stage submixes.

For the World Cup, the principal difference was how that content needed to be packaged and distributed. We had to send our show audio to both the IBC and the international broadcast truck, while continuing to supply feeds to the stadium PA

SSL’s System T allowed us to make changes for the World Cup productions without affecting our established stadium workflow.

and back-of-house areas. Our production partners at Media West provided audio support for the entertainment stage and sent their mixes back to me.

Broadcast requirements called for several distinct mixes and delivery paths. Music, video playback and entertainment content were supplied in stereo, while commentator and host microphones required a separate mono mix-minus. Later in the planning process, we received an additional request for crowd microphones and introduced a separate submix position in an adjacent control room, where the operator managed a combination of sources that changed during each match.

The main change to our System T game-day showfile was adapting the existing routing for the new broadcast workflows. We expanded the routing and monitoring setup to support the additional feed requirements, while keeping our control-room operation intact.

System T allowed us to make these additions without affecting our established stadium workflow.

Its routing and I/O options gave me the flexibility to add sources,

build new submixes and position the additional playback channels where I needed them, all on top of our typical configuration.

TOUCH AND DONE During each match, the S500m remained at the center of the production, with a remote System T TCA and fader tile allowing an operator in the bowl to adjust EQ and levels as crowd conditions changed. Our bowl mix was embedded into the video feed returning to the IBC. The music mix and the mix-minus for commentator and host microphones were sent separately, while our crowd microphones were routed through another video stream with embedded audio.

I received the international broadcast audio feed and routed it to our back-of-house submixer. My mix and a return submix from the IBC, which needed adjustments during the match, were then sent to another control room. From there, a further submix was created and returned to both the IBC and the international broadcast truck.

The stadium’s Dante infra-

structure continued to carry signals between our Shure wireless microphone receivers and System T, while connections to the World Cup broadcast operation were made through the IBC hub in our broadcast rack room.

Redundant System T engines provided confidence for both our team and FIFA’s technical team.

At source level, I used the console’s A/B inputs for the primary and backup music playback, making either source immediately available while preserving my normal layout.

Delivering nine matches required preparation, coordination and an ability to adapt our established operation as broadcast requirements evolved. System T gave us that flexibility. When a technical manager requested another source in a submix during one match, it was simply a case of “touch, touch, touch…done.” ● Gary French is head of audio for the Dallas Cowboys football team.

He can be reached at GFrench@ DallasCowboys.net.

More information is available at www.solidstatelogic.com.

@tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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equipment guide | audio & intercoms

Banana Ball TV Hits A Home Run With Calrec USER REPORT

By Matt Webster Head of Technology Systems Savannah Bananas

SAVANNAH, Ga.— What started in 2015 as a college summer baseball team selling just a handful of tickets in its opening months has evolved into the phenomenon known as the “Savannah Bananas,” selling out every single game since we adopted the moniker in 2016.

This year marked the Savannah Bananas’ biggest broadcast season yet. In June, we brought “Banana Ball” to ABC for the first time, taking on the Party Animals at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore., and our new Banana Ball Championship League is bringing more fans into more packed stadiums than ever.

Our exclusive distribution deal with Disney+ and ESPN—the most ambitious in Banana Ball history—allows for every game to be streamed on the ESPN App and Disney+, with select games airing across ESPN networks and ABC. True to our “Fans First” ethos, every broadcast remains free to watch on YouTube regardless of where else it airs.

REMI BANANA BALL With our audience growing at pace, BTV (Banana Ball TV, our production arm), has needed to rapidly build up its technical capabilities. We’ve seen a lot of growth for the 2026 World Tour season, so we’ve rebuilt our facilities over the past two years to increase our efficiency and output. Prior to this latest expansion, we were operating with consoles not designed for broadcast production, which caused a number of challenges.

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Calrec solutions are at the center of our REMI workflow, which includes two main control rooms at our remote facility in Savannah and with flypacks positioned out in the field.

Working closely with Sean McCluskey, our head of engineering, we designed and implemented a REMI workflow that gives our production staff consistency without compromise as they move from room to room and site to site. Spread across two main control rooms at our remote facility in Savannah, and with flypacks positioned out in the field, we’ve placed Calrec’s audio network at the core of our REMI operation, building in the capacity our rapidly expanding operation demands.

We adopted an agile, distributed system, installing three 36-fader Argo M consoles, three Type R systems, and True Control 2.0. This gives us a combination of analog, embedded SDI, MADI and Dante. All of our audio gets a first-pass mix and level set before it’s embedded in our video transmission back to Savannah. We make sure lip sync is correct onsite, so when everything reaches our control rooms, we can focus on mixing the broadcast as if we were at our home stadium.

The Calrec Assist GUI gives us full remote console control,

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keeping our operation agile whatever the demands. Using a browser means we can access any console from inside the stadium to make changes, and I can also work remotely from home to support our shows and fix issues quickly. It’s a genuine game-changer.

RANGE OF VENUES That agility matters because no two venues where we play are the same. We love massive stadiums, but we also love the smallest ones equally. We recently played at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, one of the largest venues in the state with a seating capacity of more than 100,000; two days prior, we played at a high school with free admission and a maximum capacity of 1,000. We are here to deliver a consistent entertainment experience.

That range of venues also demands an adaptable approach, which is why we work with local audio operators rather than carrying a full crew with us. Many of these engineers come from an entertainment and film back-

ground rather than broadcast, but the Calrec consoles have made it extremely easy for them to make that transition and excel.

Banana Ball is as much about performance as it is sport. It’s designed for casual fans who love great entertainment as much as for die-hard sports fans who want a legitimate season to follow, and creating that fun, positive environment is what resonates with people.

With our Championship League in its inaugural season and our television and streaming output expanding, Calrec’s Argo consoles have dramatically improved our production, putting us in the best position to broadcast the next chapter of one of sport’s most extraordinary success stories. ● Matt Webster is head of technology systems for the Savannah Bananas, where he oversees the production and distribution setup behind Banana Ball’s multicity tour. He can be reached at webster_m@bananaball.com.

More information is available at https://calrec.com.

equipment guide | audio & intercoms

R-Gear Keeps Crews Connected With Riedel Artist, Bolero USER REPORT

By Gregg Kita CEO R-Gear

BURBANK, Calif.—R-Gear is a communications and engineering equipment rental company specializing in audio and video for large-location builds in the reality TV genre. For more than 20 years, we’ve built production communications for some of the most logistically complex shows in the genre—”The Bachelor,” “Bachelor in Paradise,” “Temptation Island,” “The Challenge”—productions where the physical environment is unpredictable and the crew is rarely in one place.

On a typical reality build, we might be setting up communications across a multifloor mansion, a resort with satellite locations or a remote competition site— with producers, art department, lighting, audio and engineering all working in different spaces simultaneously. A single show might have 15 to 20 ENG camera and audio crews covering 30 cast members spread across an entire beachside resort, with control positions in trailers, tents or wherever space allows.

Producers regularly change their minds about coverage areas at the last minute and, when that happens, we need to extend fiber runs and add hardware quickly without disrupting what’s already running.

The communications system must work the first time, every time.

two-way radios. That served us well for several years, but once we moved to Artist and Bolero, nobody could do without it.

Our standard build now centers on an Artist-64 or Artist-1024 with SmartPanels and Bolero wireless.

Panel configuration depends on the setup: we use rack-mounted RSP-1232 panels and desktop DSP-2312s based on what users prefer. Cast mics and program audio come into the Artist matrix over Dante, so any panel can monitor any microphone on the show. Producers, audio and engineering can communicate with the crew and follow the show’s story from a single device.

Bolero provides the most flexibility for our distributed-location builds. At the main control room, it integrates directly with the Artist frame. For offsite crews, we build standalone systems using licensed antennas powered over Cat-6 with PoE, with an NSA interface bringing analog program audio into the system. Everyone uses the same beltpacks regardless of where they’re working. There is no recon-

figuring and no workflow changes or equipment swaps when someone moves between locations.

AUTOMATIC CONNECTIVITY “Top Chef” illustrates how that scales in practice. The main stage runs an Artist 64 with SmartPanels, integrated Bolero and a RiFace to bring walkie channels into the system. Two separate offsite locations run standalone Bolero systems with NSAs feeding program audio to the beltpacks. The beltpacks connect automatically to each location’s antenna network, so crew members move between all three sites during the day without stopping to reconfigure anything. From the user’s perspective, it feels seamless because it is.

The three-part Apple TV+ documentary “Fight for Glory: 2024 World Series” presented a different situation. The World Series broadcast was already running Bolero throughout the stadiums. Our documentary crew integrated directly into that existing environment—the director communicating from a Bolero in

the trailer, every camera operator carrying a beltpack, all running on the coordinated antenna network already built for the broadcast. We didn’t install separate RF infrastructure; we stepped into a communications environment that was already built and operational.

That’s what gives me confidence in Riedel. Whether it’s a reality competition with crews spread across multiple locations or a major live event, the system must perform without question.

After 20 years with these products, I know that anything with the Riedel name on it will be rock solid. In whatever conditions, wherever our shows take us, I already know the answer. It just always works. ● Gregg Kita is co-owner and CEO of R-Gear, a Burbank-based equipment rental house specializing in audio and video for reality television. He can be reached at gkita@rgear.com.

More information is available at www.riedel.net/en/.

BUILDING FOR DISTRIBUTED PRODUCTIONS We’ve been building on Riedel systems since R-Gear’s earliest days, starting with the C44+ frame, Performer series panels, hardwire beltpacks and a RiFace to tie in

Gregg Kita (left) and his company set up production communications systems for major reality TV shows that often involved 15-20 ENG camera and audio crews covering 30 cast members. @tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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equipment guide | audio & intercoms

Creating Big Audio With Lawo mc² Consoles USER REPOERT

By Felix Krückels Freelance, Immersive Audio Supervisor Professor of Broadcast Production & System Design, Media Campus of Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences

DARMSTADT, Germany—All sound engineers probably agree that delivering high-quality audio mixes for sporting events requires a versatile mixing console, a good speaker setup, and carefully selected microphones with an excellent tonal balance.

For my work at tier-one events, I need a console that provides quick access to all critical features, is easy and fast to configure, and is flexible. For this, I use as many direct access buttons and custom functions as possible. Designed to address these needs, the Lawo mc²56 console makes it easy to check the availability and status of hundreds of audio sources.

DOLBY ATMOS SOUND This is especially important for Dolby Atmos productions where I need to create and monitor several 5.1.4 presentations, as well as 5.1 and stereo renditions provided by the mc²56’s downmix function—both with and without commentary. Near-instant tweaks are of the essence when the world is watching.

Automation tools such as audio-follows-video, Lawo’s KICK software for tracking-based, closeball mixing that delivers crisp ball and other on-pitch noises—and increasingly AI, which I use to clean audio signals such as commentary—have become essential.

Without them, the high audio-quality standards viewers have come to expect would probably be impossible to achieve.

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Lawo mc² consoles have become the de facto standard in all productions I work on.

I prefer to mix remotely, in an optimized acoustic environment, which usually involves audio sources coming from several locations. The Remote Audio Control Room (RACR) in Germany, where I mix frequently, provides such an environment. While this might work with proprietary MADI over Ethernet connections, only an IPbased network allows me to mix signals originating from different parts of the world.

The total absence of bleed from the venue allows me to make informed decisions about the sound. Today’s audio and video workflows more than justify using a networked ST2110 backbone for the production of top-notch TV events, be they world cups, four-yearly athletics jamborees, or music performances.

Lawo mc² consoles have become the de facto standard in all productions I work for. Almost all OB trucks in Germany and the Benelux are equipped with Lawo desks, and the host broadcaster for global soccer events also provides

September 2026 | www.tvtech.com |

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them. So, for me, there is definitely a muscle-memory dimension to Lawo consoles: I know them inside out and find their layout highly intuitive. Working with an mc² console almost feels like my fingers can reach inside the desk and directly touch what I need to refine. This gives me speed, reliability and confidence.

I also use a lot of plug-ins, such as Waves, high-quality Seventh Heaven reverbs, AI tools such as Clear or Clarity and many others, depending on the production, as well as new metering tools that we developed at the university.

QUEST FOR BIG AUDIO I am very lucky to work on so many immersive audio mixes: the whole crowd is cheering, music is playing, different camera angles are shown in rapid succession—and everything is immersing you. This conveys the impression that viewers at home are actually at the event.

We spent the last 20 years looking for “bigger” audio as video

moved from SD to HD, then to UHD and HDR. The tricky part was figuring out how to get rid of unwanted noises in the audio for optimal channel separation. We now have the tools to provide an enveloping sound experience, and we can even specify the scale of an immersive mix to match the average screen size viewers have in their homes—or make it as huge as we like. ● Felix Krückels started his mixing career at Wige Solutions, an event and remote broadcast company in Cologne, Germany, and has been a sound supervisor for major sporting events like soccer World Cups and European Cups, Bundesliga, Klitschko Boxing, etc., ever since.

In addition to his approximately 50 immersive audio mixing gigs per year as a freelancer, Krückels is a professor of broadcast production and system design at the Media Campus of Darmstadt University. He can be reached at fkrueckels@gmail.com.

More information is available at https://lawo.com.

equipment guide | audio & intercoms

How the Sennheiser Helped Me Capture the True Sound of ‘Bluey’ USER REPORT

By Dan Brumm Sound Designer at Folklore Sound Voice-Over Artist with Scout Management

BRISBANE, Australia—I’ve spent nearly two decades working in sound design and voiceover, and for almost half that time my focus has been “Bluey.”

I lead sound design on the show and voice Uncle Stripe, working between my home studio and my studio at Folklore Sound in West End Brisbane on a series that started in Queensland and has grown into one of the mostwatched children’s programs in the world.

My brother Joe created “Bluey” with a clear brief: No exaggerated cartoon effects, just an organic soundscape built from the sounds kids actually recognize from their own backyards.

That direction has shaped nearly everything about how I work, and for almost the entire run of the show, the tool I reach for most is the Sennheiser MKH 416 shotgun microphone.

phone for commercial voice-over recording. In 2016, I bought my own for my home studio, where it remains in daily use. I now own three. In Australia, the 416 has long been the benchmark for commercial voice-over work, and once I began using it on “Bluey,” its directional control and durability made it an obvious choice.

Capturing the real sounds of suburbia means stepping out of the studio and into unpredictable environments. I frequently do what I would call “guerrilla” field recording, using the 416 to capture audio directly from the locations reflected on screen. For slides down playground equipment, I want the real sound, which has occasionally meant climbing into large enclosed

slides with the 416 in hand, banging around to capture real physical movement.

For years, I paired the 416 with a Zoom H5 recorder while gathering effects for “Bluey.” Today I use a Zoom F3 and a Sennheiser MKH 8018 in MS stereo, a microphone I’ve been thoroughly enjoying for location work.

Over eight years of field recording, my 416s have endured Queensland’s challenging conditions without missing a beat.

The tight directional pattern and strong off-axis rejection let me isolate precise foley and ambient sounds outdoors, while the RF condenser design shrugs off the humidity and temperature swings that come with recording in Queensland.

SOUNDS OF AUSTRALIA I love that I get to show the rest of the world how beautiful Australia sounds. Our native birds and suburban noise might feel mysterious to international viewers, but for us, they are simply the sounds of home. Having a microphone kit I can rely on, whether I am out in the field or mixing in the studio, means every detail translates cleanly to millions of homes around the globe. ●

ONE CAREER CONSTANT My path into voice-over happened almost by accident.

I was working at a postproduction house as a sound designer, spending my days recording other people, when a director walked in one day and asked me to step up to the microphone and read an advertisement myself.

That one moment changed the direction of my career, and the microphone that has stayed with me through nearly all of it has been the 416.

I first used the 416 at postproduction house Cutting Edge, where it was the standard micro-

The 416 has also defined my career as a voice-over artist. In Australia, it’s the microphone performers reach for, because you can work right up into its barrel and presence region to get the classic, relatable read advertisers want.

When we began production on “Bluey,” I brought in a Neumann TLM 103 to record several of our child actors. I have since added a Neumann U 87 for studio Foley and an MKH 8018 MS stereo microphone for location work.

When working from Brisbane with production and post teams on the other side of the world, having a kit built around trusted names carries real weight. When international studios connect with me over Source Connect, seeing an MKH 416 and TLM 103 on my equipment list immediately signals broadcast-quality standards before recording even begins.

For “Bluey,” I want the real sound, which has occasionally meant climbing into large enclosed slides with the 416 microphone in hand and banging around to capture real physical action of going down the slide.

Dan Brumm is a veteran sound designer for children’s and adult animation. He was the sole sound designer and mixer for all 154 episodes of “Bluey.” For nearly 20 years he has worked as a professional voice-over artist, repped

by Scout Management. He can be reached at dan@ danbrumm.com and at kscott@ scoutmanagement.com.au.

More information is available at www.sennheiser.com/en-us.

@tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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equipment guide | audio & intercoms

Pliant Comms Helps Crew Stay in Step on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ USER REPORT

By Brett Carleton Owner Geronimo Creek Inc.

LOS ANGELES—Geronimo Creek Lighting specializes in location‑based work, such as commercials, television, film and short‑form projects where we’re constantly moving. Some days we’re shooting promos on a helipad while on other days we’re in vans heading to Santa Monica Beach. Sometimes we’re bouncing between stages with no time to set up a traditional comms network.

On modern film sets, communication is more spread out than ever. Camera assistants who used to stand beside the operator now sit further away, adjusting the focus remotely. In these situations, we need a lightweight and reliable professional communication system that is truly plug‑and‑play. Pliant Technologies’ MicroCom XR fits that workflow perfectly and has become the comms solution I rely on.

THE PROFESSIONAL ALTERNATIVE I’ve been working in film and television since 2001, and in that time, I’ve seen on-set communication shift toward cheaper, disposable wireless systems.

These systems work in a pinch, but they create an undisciplined, constant‑talk environment and they’re not designed for professional production or long demanding days.

For our crews, reliability matters more than price. I need something that sits between large‑scale matrix systems, which are too big for our

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We used Microcom XR series comms to support our field crews for Season 36 of “Dancing with the Stars” on location, in dance rehearsal halls, on stages in Hollywood and on locations for promotional shoots.

footprint, and inexpensive, unreliable radios. Pliant Technologies MicroCom XR is that middle‑ground solution: It’s the lightest-weight system I have found that still offers professional grade headsets.

MicroCom XR requires no infrastructure and performs consistently in environments where cheaper systems struggle. Even without a centralized antenna, the range is excellent; I can move from one stage to another without losing signal. The 900 MHz frequency penetrates walls better, so the audio stays stable even when you step away or move into another part of the building.

Because the antennas are customizable, MicroCom XR can also adapt to unconventional setups. On one production, I needed coverage across multiple stages without a network. The

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system’s flexibility allowed us to maintain stable communication without adding hardware or engineering support.

Even without a centralized antenna, the range is excellent.

Headset fatigue is another issue we face that often gets overlooked; people don’t realize how exhausting it is to carry gear for 12 hours straight. Pliant’s lightweight headsets make a noticeable difference. Location filming can feel like a contact sport, so having gear that doesn’t drag you down matters.

CRITICAL PRODUCTION WORKFLOWS As a gaffer, I use comms to stay in sync with the lighting programmer, especially during complex setups. The grip departments also use comms for camera movement involving jibs, techno cranes or detailed

dolly shots—a small kit of four to 10 beltpacks is perfect for these situations. Having multiple channels helps keep the communication clear. It’s not about having everyone talking at once, but about clear, disciplined communication that supports the work.

We use the Microcom XR series comms to support our field crews for Season 36 of “Dancing with the Stars”—on location, in dance rehearsal halls, on Hollywood stages and on location for more promotional shoots. MicroCom XR’s range and portability allows our grip, lighting and camera teams to stay connected without setting up a networked comms system. It’s exactly the type of production where a midsize, professional solution makes a measurable difference.

For me, the value of Pliant comes down to reliability, build quality, headset comfort and ease of use. It’s robust, dependable and appropriate for the television and film industry.

Whether it’s a reality show, large commercial shoot, or a short‑form project, MicroCom XR offers a scalable, professional alternative to consumer‑grade systems. ● Brett Carleton is a veteran chief lighting technician and gaffer with more than two decades of experience across commercials, television, feature films and other short‑form projects. Based in Los Angeles, he leads Geronimo Creek, a lighting and grip company founded in 2002 and specializes in fast‑moving, location‑based production workflows. He can be reached at brett@gc.rentals and at www.geronimocreek.com.

More information is available at https://plianttechnologies.com.

equipment guide | audio & intercoms buyers briefs DPA Microphones 6388 CORE+ Headset Microphone

DHD audio One Modular Platform for Broadcast Audio

The DPA 6388 CORE+ Headset Microphone is a directional headset designed for live environments where clarity, feedback rejection and ease of use are critical. Its physically asymmetrical design, shifted acoustical axis and tightly controlled proximity effect make it less sensitive to placement, ensuring consistent, high-quality sound even if repositioned. The 6388 CORE+ delivers enhanced feedback rejection, greater clarity and natural sound while providing excellent voice isolation for theater, live performance, broadcast, sports, house of worship and corporate events.

Switchable left or right boom placement offers flexible, discreet positioning, while consistent directionality improves isolation and gain-before-feedback. Its IP58 rating ensures resistance to dust and humidity. It is compatible with major wireless systems and available in multiple colors, sizes and terminations. www.dpamicrophones.com

DHD audio produces a modular platform for broadcast-quality audio production and live-to-air presentation with control surfaces, audio cores, I/O and software, working as one system and expandable to support evolving workflows.

XC3, XD3 and XS3 IP cores provide DSP processing and AES67/RAVENNA or Dante audio-over-IP interfacing with internal routing matrices of up to 10,240 x 12,288 crosspoints. The TX2, DX2, RX2 and SX2 consoles scale from compact self-operated desks to large production surfaces with up to 96 motorized faders. Cores are exchanged while surfaces stay and surfaces learn new tasks while cores stay. DHD systems are on-air around the clock in more than 10,000 installations across 42 countries. https://dhd.audio

Wheatstone Virtual VMX Strata-V Console

Jünger Audio flexAI Platform

Wheatstone’s VMX Strata-V offers a virtual mixing experience from anywhere, whether from a laptop at the ball field or from a touchscreen recessed into the news desk in the newsroom. This full-featured broadcast console includes ample faders, subgroups, masters and 5.1 surround sound controls. The virtual console can be accessed on a phone, tablet, laptop or touchscreen by entering a URL in a Chrome or Safari browser and is designed to work like a physical console, but without the cost, maintenance and fixed location. Ideal for television crews that predominantly run a production automation system but need a console interface to occasionally set levels and other controls, VMX Strata-V is s AES67-compliant and compatible with all the major video production automation systems. https://wheatstone.com/product/vmx

The latest evolution of the Jünger Audio flexAI platform stays true to its promise to adapt to technological advances and evolve alongside an ever-changing media landscape by bringing even more power and flexibility to live production workflows. In addition to AIXpressor—a dedicated standalone audio processor and flexible endpoint device—and flexAIserver—a server-based hardware solution for high-density installations with high channel counts—users can now deploy flexAI on their own servers or on AWS using flexAIcloud.

Dante Connect and NDI join ST 2110 and AES67 for enhanced network connectivity. Expanded S-ADM, Dolby, MPEG-H, and 7.1.4 capabilities support next-generation immersive audio, while the new JAIC AI-powered automixer helps maintain clear, consistent speech in demanding live environments. www.jungeraudio.com

Audinate Dante

AEQ Xplorer MAX

Audinate’s Dante platform is a complete AV-overIP solution that allows audio and control data to be transported over standard 1GigE networks. Supported in more than 4,500 Dante-enabled products from more than 700 manufacturers, Dante replaces point-to-point analog and digital connections with software-based routing, effortlessly sending audio channels anywhere on the network with perfect digital fidelity. Along with unparalleled audio quality, Dante delivers ultra-low latency and near-perfect synchronization. Dante’s intuitive user interface and network management features enable even the most complex networks to be set up and configured quickly and easily, making system integration simple. www.audinate.com

The AEQ Xplorer MAX wireless beltpack is designed for demanding broadcast and live production environments. Operating in the 5 GHz band with WM DEC digital radio technology, it delivers reliable, low-latency communications with strong resistance to interference and coverage of up to 600 meters in open areas, supporting up to 20 users per base station.

The compact unit features a multifunction TFT display, programmable keys and dedicated volume controls for fast operation during live productions. It integrates with AEQ matrix-based intercom systems, including Conexia, Crossnet and TH5000, as well as matrix-free Xpeak and Easynet party-line configurations. With HD VoIP compatibility, up to 10 hours of battery life, IP67 protection and operation in extreme temperatures, Xplorer MAX provides a robust, flexible wireless intercom solution. https://aeq.es/en @tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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equipment guide | audio & intercoms

Capturing the Sounds That Transport Fans Into the Game USER REPORT

By Brian Robertson Broadcast Audio Engineer

TAMPA, Fla.—As the A1 audio mixer for Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Lightning and Orlando Magic home broadcasts, I try to make viewers feel like they’re part of the experience. Whether watching from their living room or on a mobile device, the fans should feel like they’re sitting behind home plate, courtside or inside the arena.

The best broadcasts don’t draw attention to microphones, mixers or technology. They create a listening experience that feels authentic. I don’t want viewers to think that I’m trying to make them hear something. They should hear it naturally.

Sports audio is complex, with crowd noise, public address systems, venue acoustics and the pace of the game all competing for attention. My job is to present the sounds that matter most naturally, so viewers experience the game, not the technology behind it.

NATURAL SOUND That philosophy is what first drew me to the Shure DCA901 microphone array. I was introduced to the tech through colleagues working on major national broadcasts, and my first opportunity to spend significant time with it came during NBA All-Star Game productions. What stood out immediately was how the DCA901 allowed me to focus less on chasing individual sounds and more on creating a complete listening experience.

In basketball, I originally relied on a large number of microphones spread around the court. Capturing the sounds required constant attention as the action moved from one end of the floor to the other.

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Pairing the Shure DCA901 microphone with Shure Action Isolator software helps me produce the authentic, immersive sounds of baseball and basketball.

The DCA901’s steerable lobes and automixing capabilities simplified that process while still giving me the detail and coverage I needed.

Instead of constantly chasing the action, I could focus on getting the sound where I wanted it.

What impressed me even more was what I heard when using the DCA901 for baseball. For years, I’ve worked with high-end parabolic microphone systems that are considered industry standards in sports production and they do an excellent job. But when I first listened to the DCA901 behind home plate, I noticed something different.

With many traditional systems, you hear the impact of a baseball hitting a bat. With the DCA901, I felt like I could hear the wood itself. A clean hit sounded different from a foul tip. A player finding the sweet spot sounded different than one getting jammed inside.

When a bat splintered, the detail of the wood breaking apart came through with remarkable clarity.

As an audio engineer, those details matter, because they’re

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the sounds that make fans feel connected to the game.

FLEXIBLE COVERAGE Today, I regularly deploy DCA901 systems on MLB and NBA broadcasts. For basketball, I place units on the basket stanchions.

For baseball, I position them along the first- and third-base lines to capture key game sounds throughout the field of play. The steering flexibility gives me options that would traditionally require a much larger microphone deployment.

Pairing the DCA901 with Shure Action Isolator software has also been incredibly valuable. In baseball, I route my effects mics through the Action Isolator before bringing them back into the console. My crowd mics remain separate, so crowd energy stays natural, while Action Isolator cleans up the effects mix and makes it easier to feature key game sounds.

For me, the two technologies complement each other. The DCA901 gives me flexible coverage across the field and court, while

Action Isolator helps reduce ambient noise that naturally exists in live sports environments. One feature I’ve especially appreciated is the ability to independently adjust processing on individual channels, allowing me to tailor the mix to the sport, venue and production requirements.

What continues to impress me most is how naturally the system captures important moments.

Whether it’s the crack of the bat, the sound of the ball hitting the mitt, a pickoff attempt at first base or action developing across a basketball court, the DCA901 helps reveal details that might otherwise get lost in the mix. ● With more than 30 years of professional audio experience spanning live music, concert touring and television production, Brian Robertson is the lead A1 audio mixer for Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Lightning and Orlando Magic broadcasts. Reach him at brobaudio@gmail.com.

More information is available at www.shure.com/en-US.

equipment guide | audio & intercoms buyers briefs Blackmagic Design Fairlight Live

Nugen Audio DialogCheck

Studio Technologies StudioComm Model 762 Stereo Level Control

IntraCom Systems One Connect by IPC

Fairlight Live is a new, free software-based live audio mixer with spatial audio mixing and SMPTE-2110 broadcast workflows. Fairlight Live handles thousands of audio channels, including commentary, crowd mics, IFB and more. Engineers can control complex routing and multiple outputs in real time, keeping audio aligned with fast-paced camera switching and broadcast demands.

Working with standard computer audio or USB audio from ATEM live production switchers, Fairlight Live is customizable with built-in effects and professional features such as a cue player, talkback busses and snapshots.

It allows users to design their own mixer with flexible audio workflows perfect for any project from stereo to 5.1 surround or immersive formats. It is available as a free download from the Blackmagic Design website. www.blackmagicdesign.com

The StudioComm Model 762 Stereo Level Control is a compact, self-contained stereo monitor controller engineered for Dante Audio-over-IP applications. Designed for broadcast, postproduction, recording and general professional audio environments, it combines intuitive operation, installation flexibility, and premium audio performance in a rugged tabletop form factor.

The Model 762 allows users to monitor two stereo (2-channel) Dante audio sources via one or two Dante-based stereo loudspeaker systems. A configuration option supports a headphone cue system via the unit’s second stereo output. Powered by PoE and built around Dante audio-over-Ethernet technology, the all-digital Model 762 also supports AES67 interoperability. It is compatible with the Dante Domain Manager (DDM) application, allowing integration into contemporary media and enterprise network environments. https://studio-tech.com

Clear-Com Avalon IP Station

NUGEN Audio DialogCheck is a speech-intelligibility plug-in that provides an objective read on dialogue clarity across mono, stereo and multichannel projects for film, broadcast and podcasting. It identifies sections of speech that may be difficult to understand and pinpoints issues subjective listening might miss. Featuring real-time bar metering, history graphs, distribution views, numerical statistics and a DAW playback tracking function, it offers a comprehensive view of dialogue performance, while presets and customizable settings streamline workflows. The latest update introduces several enhancements for expanded immersive support, improved workflow efficiency and deeper loudness insight, including a new Session Timeline Offset feature. It also expands support for up to 9.1.6 channels, to accommodate more immersive/surround/3D audio formats. https://nugenaudio.com

Formerly known as VCOM, One Connect is a leading soft keypanel and software-based matrix solution with a highly flexible, missioncritical communications platform.

One Connect’s new One Link professional-grade physical keypanels deliver unparalleled electroacoustical echo cancellation and ultra-loudspeakers and support point-to-points, party lines, fixed groups and IFBs. With smart button technology, users gain the flexibility and convenience of a software-based intercom system while still enjoying a tactile experience. One Link is available as a compact desktop form factor with VESA mount, as well as a 1U rackmount version, One Link Studio. https://vcom.ipc.com

products & services marketplace

Avalon is a 1RU IP intercom communication platform for modern networked production, designed to simplify and scale workflows across broadcast, live events and production environments. Avalon supports FreeSpeak wireless beltpacks, HelixNet digital party line, V-Series and I.V. Direct in a compact 1RU form factor. It features scalable licensed port capacity and flexible IP interfacing, allowing users to configure systems based on current operational needs and expand over time without replacing hardware.

Designed for fully IP-based intercom environments, Avalon provides a streamlined alternative for users that don’t need analog audio connectivity. It combines scalable licensed port architecture with a compact rackmounted design, helping reduce system complexity. Optimized for modern network infrastructures, Avalon expands customer choice within the Clear-Com product family as a cost-efficient option for IP-only workflows. https://www.clearcom.com

@tvtech.bsky.social | www.tvtech.com | September 2026

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people on the move For possible inclusion, send information to tvtech@futurenet.com with People News in the subject line.

DAVID V.R. BOWLES

MICHELE FERREIRA

LING LING SUN

MARK BRIDGES

AES

Advanced Systems Group

MPT

CableLabs

The Audio Engineering Society has elected David v.R. Bowles as president-elect for 2027. He will join the AES board on Jan. 1, then succeed Cesar Lamschtein as president in 2028. He will then serve one year on the board as past president in 2029, followed by a two-year term as an agency governor. Also elected as AES vice presidents were: Malik Williams, Eastern Region, U.S./Canada; Jess Berg, Western Region, U.S./Canada; and Merlijn van Veen, Northern Region, Europe.

Advanced Systems Group has elevated Michele Ferreira to chief business officer, a new role overseeing the company’s business systems and operational functions. In her new post, Ferreira, formerly vice president of ASG’s systems integration team, will oversee enterprise resource planning (ERP), information technology, purchasing, logistics, and other core business operations, the company said.

She reports to Chief Financial Officer Amy Zeno.

Maryland Public Television has promoted Ling Ling Sun to chief technology officer. Formerly vice president of technology, Sun has overseen MPT’s production and maintenance, transmission and distribution, and information technology units since 2025. In her expanded CTO role, Sun will now now lead enterprise technology strategy, long-range planning and execution to strengthen MPT’s operational capabilities and prepare for technology-related advancements.

CableLabs has promoted Mark Bridges to president and chief technology officer, effective Jan. 1, 2027. He succeeds CableLabs president and CEO Phil McKinney, who is retiring. Bridges had been executive vice president and CTO of the cable research and development consortium since 2023. In that role, he oversaw its core research and development programs, technology investment decisions and the strategic direction of its innovation portfolio.

EDWARD F. O’KEEFE

DEAN LITTLETON

BRIAN JONES

SCOTT GILL

WNET Group

E.W. Scripps

NCTC

Tegna

Edward F. O’Keefe has been named president and CEO of The WNET Group effective Sept. 21.

He succeeds Neal Shapiro, who is retiring from the public broadcaster and will become president emeritus. He was CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Public Library in Medora, N.D., where he led the successful launch of the $450 million institution. Prior to that, O’Keefe worked for more than 20 years in leadership roles at broadcast and digital media firms such as ABC News, CNN and NowThis.

E.W. Scripps has promoted Dean Littleton to vice president of media, a new role combining leadership of its enterprise television and broadcast operations. He’ll oversee Scripps’ 60 local TV station and the Scripps Networks division, which includes Ion, the company’s digital multicast channels and streaming service Scripps News. He had been executive VP of media broadcast operations and senior VP of local media since he joined Scripps in 2017.

The National Content & Technology Cooperative, a buying group representing some 650 small, independent cable operators, has promoted Brian Jones to chef financial officer.

The 34-year NCTC executive had been senior vice president of finance and operations. He will lead the cooperative’s finance function and will continue to support operational planning, financial reporting, and strategic decision-making across the organization.

Tegna has promoted Scott Gill to vice president of operations, responsible for overseeing engineering, technology and sports operations across the group’s 64 local stations. He’ll be tasked with leading efforts to strengthen station performance, modernize infrastructure and support the delivery of the company’s journalism across broadcast, streaming and mobile platforms. Gill, who joined Tegna in 2012, was most recently head of technology and sports operations.

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