TVB Europe 99 August 2023

RISE OF THE BEASTS

WITH TRANSFORMERS

Standing in solidarity

There’s absolutely no doubt the biggest topic of conversation in the industry at the moment is the Hollywood strikes. With both writers and actors stopping work, almost every major studio film and TV series shooting in the United States has ceased production. And it’s not just the United States where the strikes are having an impact. Productions in the UK and across Europe have also shut down.

These strikes will have a far-reaching impact across the industry, not just on the actors and writers, but on the those working in the more technology-focused areas. We’ve already seen companies issue profit warnings due to

seems wrong to me. If an actor is acting they should be paid for their work.

AI is going to have a huge impact on the entertainment industry, we all know that. But there definitely needs to be a discussion around the ethics and employment of using it. I suspect that’s a topic we’ll be talking about a lot at the IBC show in September. The countdown to Amsterdam is definitely on now, and I’m delighted IBC CEO Mike Crimp has detailed his thoughts around the show’s three pillars of content for us.

The main focus for this issue is audio. David Davies catches up with Ron Bartlett, re-recording mixer on the latest Transformers

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CONTENT

Editor: Jenny Priestley jenny.priestley@futurenet.com

Graphic Designer: Marc Miller

Managing Design Director: Nicole Cobban nicole.cobban@futurenet.com

Contributors: David Davies, Kevin Emmott, Kevin Hilton, Neil Maycock, Robert Shepherd Group Content Director, B2B: James McKeown james.mckeown@futurenet.com

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a downturn in areas such as rental hire and localisation. And, unfortunately, some vendors have been forced to enter into administration due to the loss of work brought about by the strike.

I would argue that the technology side of the entertainment industry needs to support our creative brethren. There are many aspects to these strikes, but the one that stands out to me is the AMPTP’s desire to allow studios to train artificial intelligence systems to create “synthetic” performers. We’ve covered how artificial intelligence can be used to enhance performances in these pages previously (see the June/July issue). But the idea that a studio can scan an actor and use their likeness again and again while only paying that actor once

film, while Kevin Emmott hears about the use of next-generation audio at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, and we take a deep dive into the technology that brought the sound of the show to viewers around the world. Plus, Kevin Hilton investigates why so many viewers are turning on subtitles, despite not having a hearing impairment.

And, if you’ve ever spent time scrolling endlessly through SVoD carousels struggling to find something to watch, we speak to the startup that is using emojis to try and help.

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“These strikes will have a far-reaching impact across the industry, not just on the actors and writers, but on the those working in the more technology-focused areas”

JENNY PRIESTLEY, EDITOR @JENNYPRIESTLEY

IN THIS ISSUE AUGUST 2023

11 FantasticBeasts

Re-recording mixer Ron Bartlett tells David Davies about combining the sound world of the Maximals with a “‘90s hip hop vibe” on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

14 AllaboardTheMixbus!

All of the music at the year’s Eurovision Song Contest was mixed aboard The Mixbus, an OB vehicle specifically designed to produce up to 5.1 audio for the largest shows. Doreen Greatton reports

20 Mixedemotions

Can an emoji help you decide what to watch? Moveme.tv co-founder and CEO Ben Polkinghorne explains to Jenny Priestley why he believes they can

24 ThethreepillarsofIBC2023

Mike Crimp, CEO of IBC, joins Mark Smith and Jo Mayer to discuss plans for this year’s event

28 Watchingwhattheysay

Kevin Hilton investigates why so many viewers are resorting to a visual solution to help them hear content

32 Casestudy:BringingEDMto theworldwithremote production

36 ReachingtheValhalla ofvisualeffects

In the realm where history entwines with artistry, the VFX team on Netflix’s The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die adopted some ‘novel’ techniques, writes Robert Shepherd

44

HowEurovisionishelping designthefutureof televisionsound

BBC R&D’s Matt Firth tells Kevin Emmott how this year’s Eurovision was a major step forward in delivering next-generation audio to global viewers

Are you being served?

By Neil Maycock, strategic business advisor

When I started my career in broadcast technology I wrote software for a router manufacturer, Pro-Bel. The company specialised in custom solutions; a router that had any combination of inputs and outputs, with an associated control system and panels also designed to a customer’s specific requirements. The last item on a Pro-Bel quotation was “Software as required: FOC”. Undefined, unlimited software development free of charge... hard to imagine in our increasingly software-centric world today. Of course, the price and margins of the custom hardware made the economics work then, but it also led to a culture of doing whatever the customer wanted, and this has been a legacy that much of the media technology industry has struggled to move away from.

The example above typifies the way many businesses operated in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and beyond; customer-led project businesses that lived the mantra “the customer is always right”. The margins in the businesses allowed extraordinary levels of flexibility in accommodating customer requests. Fast-forward to today and suppliers are all striving for a different relationship; solutions are increasingly standard product software running on commodity IT hardware. The healthy custom hardware margins have gone, and while the software has high gross margins it also incurs high overheads in a business to develop and support it professionally. This naturally led to the introduction of support contracts; at the time this was a tough transition in a market where support was free and hardware warranties of ten years weren’t unheard of. The reaction of many customers was, of course, ‘why should I now pay for what I’ve traditionally had for free?’

Even today many businesses are struggling to justify and charge support at the levels seen in the IT sector; 20 per cent plus, with 15 per cent being more typical and in some cases less than 10 per cent for media technology suppliers. But this article isn’t about charging for support, there is a more profound shift happening that businesses need to understand and grasp. Increasingly, software businesses are moving to subscription-based licensing. Famously, Adobe made this transition and set the stage for many more media technology

companies to adopt subscriptions. The benefits businesses seek from software subscription is a level of predictability in future earnings that simply isn’t possible with capital project-based procurement. However, the relationship with the customer also changes...

When a customer makes a capital purchase they will amortise the cost of the purchase over several years, and in effect are committed to the system they’ve purchased for at least that period. The support provided by suppliers is predominantly reactive, waiting for the phone to ring when there’s a problem, then engaging with the customer to address the problem. When the system comes around for renewal, in most cases, no matter how good the relationship between customer and supplier, the customer is likely to go back to the market with a full evaluation and procurement process. With subscription, the relationship between the customer and supplier is more engaged on day to day basis. This is because without the amortisation period there is no implicit economic retention of the customer, so a customer in theory could switch supplier at any time. The companies that will be most successful with this new relationship are the ones that pivot from traditional reactive support, to a proactive ‘customer success’ model.

Customer success is the principle of engaging with your customer and ensuring that they continuously have a positive experience of your service or system. The engagement may be regular reviews ensuring they are getting maximum return on their investment, or anticipating issues before they occur. The aim is to ensure they keep their subscription going, and of course, an ongoing conversation is an opportunity to upsell new features and capabilities. This means we’re not looking for altruism from suppliers; it is about customer retention, perhaps a better term would be ‘mutual success’.

Whether it’s at trade shows or through other marketing, the communications from media technology suppliers are predominantly focused on technology; for example, AI will certainly be the talk of the show at IBC. I will be interested to see the companies that shift the conversation to the wider relationship with their customers, and how they will engage to ensure that mutual success. n

Monitoring the future of TV sound

By Erik Otto, CEO, Mediaproxy

Television is a visually oriented medium but one that is reliant on the accompanying soundtracks of the programmes to make sense of what is being seen. Although audio traditionally took up much less bandwidth in a broadcast signal than the pictures, it was a vital element. Without it, all that is left is either pretty pictures or talking heads mouthing silently.

Monitoring TV audio has become more complex over the years. The mono channel eventually – and belatedly – became stereo in the 1980s. Surround sound added another dimension in the ‘90s, although not all broadcasters adopted it. Programmes such as The Simpsons and The X-Files proudly advertised being made in Dolby Surround but not every broadcaster promoted the fact.

While the surround soundtrack was still transmitted along with the programme, which allowed anyone with the right receiver and decoder to enjoy the enveloping delights of early matrixed multichannel audio, many broadcasters were not offering a surround service. Consequently, they did not want to be the target of any complaints if the technology did not work properly when the signal came out of a viewer’s set-top box.

Today, immersive sound – most commonly Dolby Atmos – and 5.1 surround are a key part of a larger proportion of TV services, particularly the leading streaming companies. Dolby Atmos, MPEG-H 3D Audio and DTS: X are the main immersive formats and are all object-based audio (OBA) systems. This means they each have a foundation of conventional audio channels plus a multitude of ‘objects’, each of which contains an element of the mix and can be placed anywhere in the soundscape.

Monitoring all these is essential in ensuring that every channel and object are transmitted and can be properly decoded by domestic receivers to reproduce the immersive mix. This proliferation of audio channels has made more people in the broadcast sector aware of the need to comprehensively monitor audio signals, even though it has always been absolutely necessary to do that. As well as establishing that there is an audio track to go with the pictures, the checking process has, for some time, guaranteed proper lip sync (so that dialogue matches mouth movement), something that became more of an issue with the introduction of embedded sound and digital distribution.

There is now an increasing number of audio formats that can be used

for broadcast and streaming. This can include Dolby Digital (5.1) and its extended version Dolby Digital Plus (also known as Enhanced AC3, or EAC3), Dolby Atmos, MPEG-H 3D Audio (which, together with higher order Ambisonics, or HOA, forms the basis of Apple’s Spatial Sound system), DTS: X and even one of the earliest immersive formats, binaural. The challenge is not only monitoring each individual format but also potentially dealing with a mixture of them in the same stream.

While this new landscape appears to be complicated and challenging enough, immersive audio is only part of the equation. In many respects the more important element is personalisation. This allows viewers to select not only their own language for a film or TV programme but also have a choice of commentary for sports coverage, which could be the TV commentator, the commentators on an associated radio station or a fan giving their take on the game. The feature can additionally allow the viewer to pick from which side of the stadium the crowd noise comes and to alter the balance between commentary and sound effects (something that can also be applied to dialogue, music and effects in drama productions).

These features are offered by next-generation audio (NGA) systems such as Dolby AC4, which includes Atmos, and MPEG-H Audio (also with the 3D immersive option). The growing demand for multiple languages in streaming can at times involve more than 20 audio tracks per contribution delivery. All these need to be monitored for audio quality and content, ensuring that all the necessary elements are present and in the correct configuration.

This necessity applies not only to streamed services but also linear TV, video-on-demand platforms and video for mobile devices and social media. An emerging area that could add to the already wide remit of today’s monitoring systems is audio advertising. This is now playing a major role in the distribution of podcasts, audiobooks and music streaming services, all of which are immensely popular and rely on good sound reproduction.

Audio should never have been considered the poor relation in TV broadcasting. Now that its importance is at last recognised, it is up to compliance technology developers like Mediaproxy to offer broadcasters the right tools to deliver the best and most exciting audio possible. n

Unlocking production efficiency through flexibility

By Dieter Backx, solutions manager control, monitoring and orchestration, EVS

In an industry with an increasing need for flexibility and adaptability, the traditional one-to-one relationship between back-end devices and control interfaces is becoming obsolete/outdated. Staying ahead requires envisioning new possibilities and at EVS, we are shaping a future where operators engage with back-end components through a completely reimagined approach: the flexible control room. This concept offers a glimpse into a world where flexibility becomes the cornerstone for unlocking essential production efficiency.

ABSTRACTION OF BACK-END DEVICES AND DYNAMIC SCALING

At the heart of the flexible control room lies its ability to abstract the backend infrastructure, which is achieved by dynamically mapping functions based on individual roles and positions within the production chain. Enabled through customisable widgets, this flexible and dynamic scaling of resources empowers production teams to optimise resource allocation, streamline operations, and ensure a seamless production process across multiple platforms.

Whether it’s scaling up to meet tight deadlines or scaling down to optimise resource usage, the control room provides the agility and adaptability needed to meet the demands of live production.

FINDING THE PERFECT BALANCE WITH SEMI-AUTOMATION

While automation has its place in our industry, the unpredictable nature of live environments calls for a balanced approach. The flexible control room automates carefully selected parts of the production process, streamlining workflows and enhancing efficiency. It also empowers human operators to contribute their expertise, adaptability, and creativity to deal with the unpredictable challenges that live environments present. One example could be in breaking news scenarios, where additional guests that weren’t expected suddenly enter the scene. The outcome leverages the predictability and precision of automation for routine tasks, and the adaptability and creativity of humans to ensure the delivery of compelling content.

PRE-DEFINED RESOURCES FOR STREAMLINED OPERATIONS

Within the flexible control room, production and engineering teams are able to gain access to a unified tool that seamlessly integrates design interfaces for preparation and operational interfaces for production. Serving as a central hub for all their needs, this tool eliminates delays and wasted time associated with cumbersome spreadsheets and endless back-and-forth discussions between both teams.

With pre-defined resources and tools readily available, teams can dive straight into action with the right content and tools at their fingertips. The ability to quickly access and utilise the right resources empowers teams to respond with agility to changing requirements, resulting in more efficient and effective operations from pre-production to post production and archiving.

REDUCED TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP

In the world of production, time is money. By easily pre-defining resources and tools, the flexible control room optimises resource allocation and minimises idle resources and devices, leading to a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership.

Additionally, the inclusion of templates for similar productions enhances the efficiency of production teams and helps them maintain control over their power consumption. It’s a win-win situation for both budgeting and sustainability.

In conclusion, the flexible control room is a revolutionary approach that transcends the limitations of conventional set-ups, fostering seamless collaboration between production and engineering teams. The concept optimises workflows, streamlines resource allocation, and ensures a smooth production process from start to finish.

By embracing the characteristics of the flexible control room, broadcasters can better adapt to the evolving media landscape, producing high-quality content for diverse platforms, and ultimately delivering exceptional viewer experiences. n

ICYMI

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FANTASTIC BEASTS: MIXING THE LATEST TRANSFORMERS MOVIE

Re-recording mixer Ron Bartlett tells David Davies about combining the sound world of the Maximals with a “‘90s hip hop vibe” on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Stepping into a hugely successful film franchise is always going to be an exciting prospect, and there’s no denying the enthusiasm of Ron Bartlett when he discusses his recent work as re-recording mixer on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

The seventh instalment in the film series serves as both a sequel to Bumblee and a prequel to the original film. As of early July, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts had grossed an impressive $408 million worldwide.

An invitation to deliver a temp mix was the

starting point for Bartlett’s involvement in the film. Director Steven Caple Jr – also making his debut in the Transformers franchise – and composer Jongnic Bontemps (JB) “really liked how it went, so they asked me to do another and it kept rolling on from there!”

Not unsurprisingly for such a long-running series, there was an emphasis on the continuation of audio aesthetics, albeit with the addition of some significant new elements. “The sound design needed to stay on par with the other films in terms of the robots, voices and so on,” says Bartlett. “But there were also new aspects, including the

Ron Bartlett

sound of the Maximals”, which for those not in-the-know are fetchingly described by Transformers Wiki as “the descendants (at least in part) of the Autobots, controlling Cybertron under the Pax Cybertronia.”

Then there is the significant presence of classic ‘90s hip-hop, courtesy of artists such as Dr Dre, The Notorious B.I.G., and Wu-Tang Clan. Seamlessly blending in a track by Nas towards the end of the film yielded one of the biggest challenges for the sound team: “Steven really wanted the song in the middle of this big action scene, and with a lot of force, and there was some scepticism about whether it would work. It was quite a bold idea,” says Bartlett.

Composer Steve Jablonsky – who provided the score for many of the previous films in the series – assisted with the scene, and provided some “excellent ideas” for other moments. Ultimately, the climactic scene “turned out very well, and it was really a lot of fun to put it all together with the other [audio elements].”

The bulk of Bartlett’s involvement took place over three months and entailed about half a dozen mixes before the final mix took place. The workflow was entirely based in Pro Tools, both at Paramount – where the vast majority of the audio work was undertaken –and at Bartlett’s own home studio, where he did some dialogue pre-mixing. In terms of plug-ins, Bartlett

made extensive use of his “bread and butter” go-tos such as FabFilter EQs and compressors, and Cinematic Rooms reverbs, as well as various GRM Tools plug-ins “which provided some really cool sounds for some of the robot voices”.

As the film moved towards completion, and more elements were added, there was a keen focus on ensuring that the busy sound world did not become overpowering. “Maintaining intelligibility was a really important priority, including that of the robots; you want to give them the spin that they are robots and not people, but their voices [still have to be clearly understood].”

Bartlett is pleased by both the end result and the collaboration he experienced with JB and Caple. “It was a great working relationship with them,” he confirms. “Steven is a really nice guy and very open to hearing what you have to bring to the table. There was also plenty of scope to try things out and not worry about [a particular idea] not working out.”

‘THE PEOPLE DRAW ME TO A PROJECT’

Indeed, as Bartlett surveys his formidable CV more generally, it’s evident that seeking out the most complementary collaborators has been a hallmark of his career. “It’s the people that really draw me to a project, and that could be the director, sound editor or

“The sound design needed to stay on par with the other films in terms of the robots, voices and so on,” says Bartlett

composer,” he says. “If you find people you really get on well with, and who give you the space and latitude to be creative, then that’s fantastic.”

It’s also evident that there’s no one he rates more highly than director and screenwriter Denis Villeneuve, with whom he has worked on multiple projects, including Blade Runner 2049 and the current Dune films. “These have been my absolute favourite films to do; collaborating with people I love to work and hang out with. They have also been extremely creative experiences.” At the time of his interview with TVBEurope, Bartlett was in the midst of his work for Dune Part 2, which is scheduled for release on 3rd November.

Although his recent filmography inclines towards the epic, Bartlett has also worked on plenty of less actiondriven movies – As Good As It Gets and Wonder Boys being just two classic examples – and confirms that his

interest in the smaller-scale pictures is just as vivid. “If it’s a good film, you really want to add to the art of it,” he says. “And that could be a very small, dialogue-driven film that doesn’t have giant VFX, explosions, spaceships and robots! It can be a really touching film that grabs you and makes you feel something. Ultimately, we are storytellers at the end of the day, helping directors to find their way and embellish their films with our sound.” In which context, another of Bartlett’s current projects, the forthcoming Kingsley Ben-Adir-starring Bob Marley biopic, One Love, must surely be especially thrilling. The Marley family is closely involved, with Bob’s son Ziggy operating as a main producer. “We have just finished the temp mix and are about to dig into the music; there is so much great material to work with,” he marvels of the movie, which is currently due for release in January 2024. n

The Maximals are described as “the descendants (at least in part) of the Autobots”

ALL ABOARD THE MIXBUS!

All of the music at the year’s Eurovision Song Contest was mixed aboard The Mixbus, an OB vehicle specifically designed to produce up to 5.1 audio for the largest shows. Doreen Greatton reports...

The Eurovision Song Contest is as one of the world’s most watched non-sporting events, with hundreds of millions of viewers tuning in to enjoy a spectacle of live music entertainment.

Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Eurovision is usually hosted by the previous year’s winning country, which in 2022 was Ukraine with the song Stephania by the Kalush Orchestra. But, because of Russia’s invasion of their country, Ukraine was unable to hold this year’s contest. Instead – for the first time in 25 years – the event took place in the UK at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, where it was hosted by the BBC on behalf of the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine.

Costing more than £16 million to stage, Eurovision 2023 involved 37 participating countries and nine television shows including two live semifinals and the live grand final. Always a marathon undertaking, this year’s contest was made even more complex because BBC Studios, which was in charge of the technical delivery of the live shows, had much less time to prepare. The decision to host Eurovision in Liverpool wasn’t made until October 2022, which knocked at least four months off the usual schedule. Catching up required a determined effort by everyone involved, including external contractors who were tasked with providing the multitude of services needed to make the event a success.

SWEET MUSIC FOR EVERYONE’S EARS

Eurovision is an international song contest, so it stands to reason that great audio lies at the heart of the show. Capturing and delivering exceptional sound, as well as relaying the unique atmosphere of the event itself, is a huge task that requires the very best in terms of broadcast equipment and personnel. For 2023, new technologies such as fibre digital connections and IP played a part, with audio video bridging used to feed all the speakers in the venue, microphones linked to digital audio networks via Ethernet (Dante), playback devices fed via a multi-channel digital audio interface, and MADI used to feed graphics machines. Indeed, MADI with Optocore was used for all critical infrastructure including stage boxes and track playout machines as this was preferred for point to point, with IP reserved for distribution.

The man in charge of delivering the sound for radio and television broadcast was BAFTA-winner Robert Edwards, previously sound

supervisor for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon. Among the trusted team he assembled for this event were two more BAFTA winners: Andy Tapley, sound supervisor and sound and technology manager at BBC Studioworks, and Conrad Fletcher, owner of The Mixbus music and audio outside broadcast facility. Their task was to mix, in stereo, all the music for the rehearsals and the various live shows, including the allimportant final on 13th May. Once the mix was completed, it was handed over to another BAFTA-winning sound supervisor, Richard Sillitto, who added presentation and audience on board NEP’s UHD1 scanner. He also provided the 5.1 surround mix.

WHY THE MIXBUS?

There were two main reasons why Robert Edwards chose The Mixbus for this critical mission: he had worked with Conrad Fletcher on many previous complex broadcast shows; and he knew The Mixbus was kitted out with a plethora of high-end equipment, including an Evertz Studer Vista console that was more than capable of handling a show as technically challenging as the Eurovision Song Contest.

Fortunately for Edwards, the console onboard The Mixbus was set to be even more formidable because Fletcher had just placed an order for a new Evertz Studer Vista X, a state-of-the-art desk that, together with the Infinity Core, marks an enormous step forward in large-scale mixing console technology for broadcast applications.

“I’ve been working on Studer consoles for many years and until recently we had a Vista 8 on The Mixbus, which had always done a sterling job,” Fletcher explains. “However, the desk was old, and I’d been wanting to upgrade to a Vista X for some time. What stopped me was Covid and having to spend all the money I’d saved on simply surviving because for six months we had absolutely no work.”

Once the live sound business began to recover, Fletcher was able to revisit his plan to upgrade. He was still nervous because a new console was a major investment, but eventually he decided to bite the bullet.

“I knew I had to do it to carry my business forward for the next ten years at least,” he explains. “By the time Robert called to say he had Eurovision and wanted to use The Mixbus for the music mix, I had already ordered my Vista X and my decision was vindicated. I’d specified our console for live-to-cinema work, which accounts for 50 per cent of our business, so I knew we’d have the capability and the flexibility to handle the event. All we had to do was meet the deadline, which was

Conrad Fletcher and Andy Tapley

This year’s Eurovision hosts (Image courtesy EBU/Chloe Hashimi)

immovable. The Vista X had to be delivered, installed and working in time for the first rehearsals in May.”

THE MIXBUS’ ORIGINS

A former BBC sound supervisor, Conrad Fletcher is one of the industry’s most respected broadcast and live sound engineers. He first became involved in outside broadcast in the mid-1980s, working for BBC OB in Birmingham. By the early 2000s he had built his first truck, Mobile One, which was also equipped with a Studer console because Fletcher already rated the quality of Studer’s mic amps and signal path.

In 2010, after parting company with his former business associates, Fletcher set up a new company, SounDesign, and built The Mixbus, a large format location recording vehicle. Designed primarily for live-to-cinema events (Fletcher does a lot of work for the National Theatre amongst others), The Mixbus is an acoustically treated sound control room on wheels that is capable of tracking over 500 separate inputs. Its discrete 5.1 speaker system translates mixes to the sound of the average cinema or living room using carefully aligned cinema equalisation and Dolby Digital cinema encoding. This set-up is also ideal for pop, rock, classical and theatre events, as well as 5.1 and stereo TV and radio transmissions that The Mixbus carries out in conjunction with all of the UK’s biggest OB facilities. Anyone who watched the recent Royal weddings or the funerals of both the Duke of Edinburgh and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will have heard sound from the vehicle as it was used on all those occasions.

In addition to The Mixbus, SounDesign also has The Auxbus, a smaller vehicle that is ideal for smaller jobs and venues where parking is an issue. It is also equipped with a Studer console – a Vista 5 – and has the same IO and proprietary compact and fibre optic stagebox system as its big brother.

“Both vehicles deliver exceptional sound because the quality of the Studer mic amps is unparalleled,” Fletcher says. “I’m especially fond of the Vista range because its ergonomics are designed around the end user. It is such a well-designed console that it is very hard to beat.”

SWITCHING TO STUDER VISTA X

Fletcher’s decision to buy a Studer Vista X was not taken lightly. He spent two years looking at all possible options before deciding that it was what he wanted.

“The type of work we do, especially live-to-cinema work, is complex and I honestly believe Studer is the only console manufacturer that can handle it,” he explains. “Nothing else comes close. We had no concerns about ordering our Vista X, but once we knew we had Eurovision we only had four months to get the desk onto the truck and that was nerve-wracking.”

Close cooperation between Fletcher and Evertz, which had recently moved all Studer manufacturing to its factory in Canada, was key to ensuring the deadline was met.

“Our build team was aware that this console was destined for Eurovision, so they knew delivery wasn’t a moveable date,” explains Mark Hosking, director of international sales, Studer-Evertz Audio Solutions.

“It went flawlessly,” Fletcher adds. “Andy Tapley was calling me every day to check on progress because he knew he’d be mixing the contest on it, and we were all very relieved when it arrived on schedule and was installed on the truck.”

Fletcher’s Vista X has 52 faders and a control surface that weighs 150 kilos. It is also 7cm higher than his old Vista 8, which meant the back-end of the truck had to be rebuilt to raise the speakers and video monitors above the meter bridge.

L-R, Chris Kalcov, Hitesh Parmar, Conrad Fletcher, Andy Tapley

Like its predecessor, the console retains Studer’s patented Vistonics user interface and added FaderGlow, along with a new Infinity Core, which provides control of 1,000 or more audio DSP channels with superb sonic quality and more than 5,000 inputs and outputs.

To ensure system redundancy that is so vital for live events, Vista X has four processor Quad Star technology and CPU-based DSP that allows two completely independent DSP cores to run in parallel with ‘instant’ changeover.

“While it is operationally very similar to the Vista 8, this new desk has some clear advantages,” Fletcher explains. “I really like FaderGlow because each audio fader type can be associated with a chosen colour, plus it has assignable channel metres with a history function so you can instantly see which microphone is faulty, even in a show with hundreds of them; or spot problems with assignments, which is invaluable in a live situation. This gives you an instant overview of the console’s status.”

Fletcher adds that the console’s configuration system is also much quicker because it runs natively on modern x86 CPU processors that are found across Evertz live media production product lines.

“Tasks that took 15 minutes to do on the old desk now take about two,” he says. “It’s so much faster and easier to use and I really like that. As a test during a Eurovision rehearsal, we timed from switch-on to actually getting sound out of the desk. It took 4 minutes 30 seconds from the power being plugged in to being able to rehearse.”

For a project as critical as Eurovision, system reliability is key. The fact that Vista X has four independent processors was very reassuring, Fletcher says, as it provided the necessary back-up.

“Two of the processors run the fader bays and two run the meter bridge, with all four connecting to the Infinity Core for control,” he adds. “The two cores run in parallel, so they receive all inputs and all control signals simultaneously. If there is a problem, the only thing you have to switch are the outputs, and as that’s done within one audio sample, and automatically, there are no audible artefacts at all.”

2023’s winner Loreen with her trophy (Image courtesy EBU/Corinne Cumming)

SETTING UP SECURELY FOR EUROVISION

The majority of the audio equipment for Eurovision was supplied by Britannia Row, with The Mixbus supplying its own stage boxes.

“We had two digital paths and one analogue path, so we had MADI coming in, a back-up MADI from a back-up Pro Tools machine, plus a third Pro Tools machine, which was switched,” Fletcher says. “That meant we had three Pro Tools machines – a main, a back-up and a switch –handling playback of all the music. We also had an analogue route, via our own stage boxes, that we could turn to if the digital route fell over or started clicking because it had lost clock.

“The great joy of the Vista X is that it has 18 MADI ports and we like MADI because it is non-proprietary and it’s incredibly quick. The Vista X works natively with MADI, so any device you plug in is recognised and working in a fraction of a second. This removes a whole load of infrastructure that might go wrong at a critical moment, and we know it was a key reason why Rob wanted to have our truck on this project.”

To be absolutely certain that nothing could go wrong on the night, an NEP truck from the Netherlands also took all of the audio feeds and acted as a third point of redundancy.

“Security is always important at Eurovision, but for this year’s show it was especially tight because the UK was hosting the show for Ukraine,” Fletcher says. “Not being part of an IP network meant our truck was completely isolated. I actually put a wireless router under the truck so that we could access the internet but also easily cut it off. That meant we were effectively behind a firewall with just MADI coming in and going out to the NEP scanners, plus the analogue signal from the stage boxes.”

THE MUSIC MIX

Throughout Eurovision week, The Mixbus team were responsible for mixing 45 songs live to air, including guest artists such as Sam Ryder, Rita Ora and Rebecca Ferguson, as well as the contestants.

The show’s organisers are scrupulously fair and lay down very strict rules for each contestant to follow. They each provided a 32-track backing track, which was played out by Pro Tools, and they could use up to six live microphones during rehearsals and their final performances. Backing vocals could also be included in the mix, and these performers were either on or off stage. Autotune was certainly not permitted, and Andy Tapley didn’t use VistaMix auto mic mixing at any stage during the contest.

“None of the artists were allowed to talk directly to us and they were segregated from the other acts as well,” Fletcher explains. “It was incredibly strict; they had 30 minutes on stage for their first rehearsal and 20 minutes for the second one. Once the rehearsal was over, they were taken to a viewing room backstage where they could hear their performance and make notes to give to us if they wanted anything changed.”

Andy Tapley had 20 stereo tracks of Pro Tools to mix, which included live and recorded vocals. When the stems came in, he subbed 50 microphones down to six faders and used the same six faders for every country. He also used Vista X’s Cue List feature to trigger snapshots for each country and fire MIDI commands to the various outboard effects racks.

“Cue List also fired up a notes page for each band, which was really clever,” Fletcher says. “This is certainly something that is either not possible or difficult to do on other consoles.”

Once the music mix was completed, presentation elements and speech

were added by Richard Sillitto. Graham Norton’s presentation for the BBC was added separately, and an international feed was provided to each country so that they could add their own commentary.

Fletcher adds that the main concern for production wasn’t the music, it was the changeovers, which had to be carried out in just 90 seconds,

SUMMING UP A JOB WELL DONE

The Eurovision 2023 final was a compelling broadcast spectacle, which was ultimately won by Sweden’s Loreen with the song Tattoo.

“Considering the complexity of the final show – and indeed all the live shows and rehearsals – it is testament to a great team effort that everything went so smoothly,” says Tapley. “‘The Vista X was absolutely the right choice for this event. Its ability to completely reconfigure every parameter on the fly at the touch of a button meant it was the perfect choice. It is simply the best console for entertainment and music mixing.’’

In his role as sound and technical director of BBC Studioworks, Tapley is responsible for specifying all the audio equipment in the studios at BBC Television Centre, Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, and Elstree. He has chosen Studer Vista X consoles for all three facilities because he believes them to be the best for music mixing.

“I’ve been on a long journey with Studer, and I am really delighted that the brand is now part of Evertz and finally getting the love it deserves. Evertz has a strong pedigree in broadcast technology and R&D, and this is great for Studer’s future in the broadcast industry,” he says.

Tapley adds that equally important to the success of Eurovision was The Mixbus, which he describes as the ultimate music-mixing truck.

“Conrad has built an incredible facility, one that is aesthetically pleasing as well as technically perfect, which is important when you have to spend a lot of time in what is actually a very small space,” he says. “For Eurovision, we were in that truck for the best part of a month. It was very comfortable and never felt claustrophobic.”

The final word on the event goes to Fletcher, who says: “We are told that the EBU was extremely happy with the quality of the output from The Mixbus, and this is both gratifying and a relief. Some colleagues questioned the wisdom of putting in a new desk just before one of the biggest shows we have ever undertaken. All I can say is the Evertz Studer Vista X console gave us complete and total reliability, from first delivery to completion of a four-hour epic broadcast, and everything in between. Is there one thing I’d change? Yes: Australia should have won!” n

Andy Tapley mixing Eurovision 2023

Can an emoji help you decide what to watch? Moveme.tv co-founder and CEO

We all do it. You reach the end of a long week and you just want to chill out with a good film. But what to watch? With so much content available at the touch of a button, it’s not surprising many viewers say they’re overwhelmed by the plethora of films and TV series to choose from.

A new start-up is aiming to help viewers find exactly what they want by delivering emotion-led AI recommendations. Moveme.tv aims to suggest content to a viewer by encouraging them to use emojis to search for what they might want to watch. So, if a viewer wants to feel happy, it might suggest anything from Toy Story to The Sound of Music; for a viewer who wants a good cry, recommendations may include The Father.

The idea is the brainchild of Ben Polkinghorne, who found himself at a loss when trying to find something to watch. “Every Friday night, I’d sit down after a busy week and want to feel the entertainment and escapism that a movie would offer,” he explains. “Often both my wife and I would be sitting on the couch scrolling carousels endlessly, complaining that there was nothing available to watch, and I felt like this was playing out in every living room around the world.

“I became obsessed with trying to come up with an understanding of why it is so difficult to find something to watch, and what I realised is that what you want to watch changes depending on your current mood, and how you want to feel,” he continues. “Emotions play an incredible role in our day-to-day life. Just about every decision we make is based on our emotions, and I realised that what you want to watch is no exception. Movies are an incredible art form that are designed to make an audience feel different emotions. So I realised that if watching movies is an emotional experience then discovering them should be too.”

Polkinghorne is something of a serial entrepreneur, having previously worked on a data-driven idea for solving air pollution that was recognised by the United Nations and received funding from the European Climate Foundation. He’s also set up a company that makes sausages that taste like a burrito, and created a caffeinated vodka soda drink. “I like being busy and I like learning about different things,” he explains. “It just brings me joy. I’ve realised the scale of this opportunity with Moveme and so it’s 100 per cent my full focus at the moment, which

is exciting because I’ve always sort of split my attention across numerous projects, but this one feels different.”

Having initially come up with the idea pre-pandemic, it was during lockdown that Polkinghorne really began to focus on the project. “I started trying to understand how to bring it to life, not knowing anything about technology, streaming, or psychology. I threw myself into it and I realised that with machine learning there might be ways of analysing content, specifically films in this case, to try and understand the emotion within it.”

That led him to realise that every video file includes three layers: a text layer, such as subtitles, metadata, reviews and words associated with that content; audio, including sound effects and music; and visual cues, everything from the actors to stylistic features, lighting, editing, etc. “I started to understand that it would be possible to analyse movies with a 360-degree view to have a deep understanding of what was happening within the content and how that might affect someone emotionally.”

Polkinghorne admits to being “quite naive” at the start of the process, but he had a strong belief in the potential behind the technology. “I didn’t want to just sort of put it out into the world because I felt that if I did, well-funded competitors might ‘eat our lunch’,” he says. “So the first thing I did was file for a patent in March 2021, which has gone through various iterations. We’re still going through that process, but it’s looking promising.”

Polkinghorne has also spent a lot of time working on bringing his idea to life and recently received funding from Innovate UK which has enabled him to work with leading neuroscientists Dr Kathrin Kadosh and Dr Philip Dean from the University of Surrey to develop its emotion-led algorithm that has now analysed 679,000-plus films.

Moveme.tv officially launched at the beginning of the summer, and saw around 12,000 searches in its first few weeks and around 1,500 accounts registered (you can use the site without registering). “Retention is high, and we’re getting a good conversion rate,” adds Polkinghorne. “We’re really happy with the results so far. What’s really pleasing and promising is that it’s growing daily without us actually spending money on ads or anything like that, so people are clearly talking about it. This is just the very first version, in many ways, it’s like the prototype.”

Film titles are uploaded to the site via different APIs with key

Ben Polkinghorne explains to Jenny Priestley why he believes they can

Ben Polkinghorne

information such as genre, subtitles and reviews often available online. As more people interact with the site, the algorithm will be fine-tuned. “It’s the same way that Google works; the more you click something the higher up it rises,” he says, “so we can start to understand a viewer’s personal taste profile. With more research and development, we can include the audio and visual features as well, so that we’ll get a really complete package,” he adds.

At the moment, the site only offers film suggestions, with titles going as far back as the early 1900s and ranging from Hollywood to Bollywood. But, Polkinghorne does intend to add TV to the mix. “I have a hypothesis around TV shows that with most series, the end of the episode wants you to watch the next one, whereas movies have a finality to them. So it’ll be interesting to experiment and see how it actually works for TV shows.”

Moveme.tv can be used on a tablet, desktop or phone. Polkinghorne says he deliberately chose to build a progressive web app in order to reach a wider audience.

“In order to get initial traction we decided to make it available to anyone. That also enables us to quickly iterate; we don’t have to push an update to the App Store, we can just update at our end and there it is. We want to remove barriers and see if this is something that people are interested in.”

Polkinghorne adds that he has a roadmap of further development that will deliver new features and improve the user experience. “As feedback comes through, we can see what the common themes are and what people want the most,” he continues. “We’ll continue developing as fast as we can.” ■

Moveme.tv can be used on a tablet, desktop or phone

ADVANCING REMOTE PRODUCTION FOR AUSTRALIA’S FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Headquartered in Sydney, Global Advance, one of the most diverse media production services companies in Australia, has changed the way remote production is delivered by creating cost efficiencies and scalability; thanks, in no small part, to Clear-Com technology. Working together with system technology integrator Elevate Broadcast, a Clear-Com partner, the Global Advance team uses a Clear-Com communications system comprised of Eclipse HX Digital Matrix and FreeSpeak II Digital Wireless Intercom supplemented by the Agent-IC Mobile App to produce the Australian Professional League’s (APL) A-League men’s and women’s football programming for Australian commercial television network Network 10 and subscription VoD service, Paramount Plus.

“When we came into this project, we were looking to take the way remote production and outside broadcast was done even further,” says Dennis Breckenridge, CTO of Global Advance. “We endeavoured to drive economies of scale and operational efficiencies, saving our customers significant money, and offering as good if not better levels of coverage than they were used to receiving. It really all comes down to the technology we implement and our ideology of what remote production can be by harnessing [ST] 2110 IP connectivity.”

The system was originally commissioned and produced in Singapore in 2020 during the midst of the pandemic shutdown, allowing Breckenridge’s team to produce the broadcast fully remotely from nearly 4,000 miles away.

Now based out of Sydney, the system (and production crew) is able to accomplish seamless remote production. The backbone of Global Advance’s system is the Eclipse HX-Delta, a high-density 3RU rackmount frame supporting point-to-point, or one-to-many (party line or conference) communications up to 256 ports. It’s linked with LQ Series IP interfaces out to the field for moving and distributing comms signals to and from all the communication points on the network, and incorporates a dynamic eclipse configuration (Dynam-EC) add-on module, which Andrew Parsons, communications manager with Global Advance, says plays a powerful role.

“I use Dynam-EC extensively to actively control all the comms facilities to manage the overall system,” Parsons explains. “I was able to architect and manage the communication between all the different venues on any given weekend. It allows a single communications person located in a control room to manage up to six APL games in an evening,

which is far more efficient than a typical comms management workflow supporting multiple locations.”

“We look at how technology can enable us to re-invent or recreate more traditional production processes and I see communications as one of the most important elements of a seamless production,” adds Breckenridge. “Since we’re utilising a 100 per cent 2110 IP facility and connectivity, we chose to use a Clear-Com intercom system with 2110 in and out of our data centre so we can directly integrate our comms into the architecture and dramatically reduce our equipment and personnel footprint.”

Comms are all routed and controlled from the Clear-Com system,

Global Advance’s Andrew Parsons managing six simultaneous events

distributed over IP from the data centre out to the comms panels in the control rooms, then over the IP national network directly to the cameras and wireless systems in the field. This solution results in a continuous flow of communication, servicing multiple games and their various production teams and media operators at multiple locations all at once. There is no need to distribute multiple systems or conversion devices in the field as all equipment directly takes the 2110 signals natively.

Using a DPN – digital production network from Telstra – all the APL game content and media coming from the stadia travels through the country-wide network over fibre straight to Global Advance’s data centre, which serves as its central production hub processing the SMPTE

2110 signals with fully remote production systems and providing network connectivity and delivery capabilities. The data centre connects to various Telecast control rooms (TCR) located another 15-30 km away, all linked up via fibre and operating with replay control, production control, vision control, communications, commentary, studios, and audio control rooms. This type of three-pronged distributed architecture (in-field, processing, and control systems) enables Global Advance to relocate its control rooms at any time and provide facilities nationwide, offering a mobile and agile production infrastructure.

Finally, a Freespeak II system delivers ultra-low latency capabilities for all the wireless coverage required by the production crew and team on the field, and the Agent-IC mobile app allows remote team members to connect via their phones and still maintain reliable comms with production and on-field crew.

“Being able to integrate our comms into our IP infrastructure and, for example, directly interface with our cameras straight out of our Eclipse-Delta frames has been critical to us,” says Breckenridge. “It’s removed the traditional method of building complex infrastructure in the field.” He also praises the LQ series for giving them significant flexibility to run on either public or private networks.

“The quality of the Clear-Com system speaks for itself,” he adds. “Our set-up delivers exceptional system performance and high capacity for expansion to meet our constantly changing production demands. Communication is such a core part of these types of remote applications.” However, the decision to partner with Clear-Com goes beyond ones and zeros, encompassing their unwavering commitment to an exceptional level of support. “Working with the Clear-Com team was more than just a technology decision for Global Advance; it was a relationship decision.” n

Camera operators communicate with production over fully IP coms with Clear-Com and LDX 100 Series cameras

The Clear-Com system used by operators at Global Advance

THE THREE PILLARS OF IBC 2023

IBC returns to Amsterdam in September for another busy and much-anticipated event, bringing together the global media and entertainment industry to collaborate, learn, network and unlock new business opportunities. With more than 1,000 exhibitors booked across more than 42,000 sqm (a significant rise on the 37,000 sqm in 2022), and a raft of headline speakers already announced, IBC organisers are gearing up for a fresh and exciting show.

Placing three new core pillars at the heart of the content themes and broader agenda for this year’s edition, organisers are looking to showcase game-changing innovation and tackle the industry’s most pressing business trends and issues, while sparking positive change for a more inclusive and sustainable industry.

Transformative tech: Mark Smith, innovation lead

CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE MORE ABOUT TRANSFORMATIVE TECH?

Transformative tech has always been the beating heart of the media industry, driving evolution, breaking new frontiers and empowering content creators to imagine fresh possibilities.

IBC consistently champions groundbreaking technologies, showcasing leading-edge solutions and services while providing an incubator for innovation; especially through the Accelerator Media Innovation Programme. Engineering and development teams work tirelessly throughout the year to bring new technologies to the forefront and pioneer real-world use cases, and that’s exactly what we’re helping to drive in a collaborative way through our Accelerator projects. Building on the huge successes of last year, we’re bringing together a line-up of pioneering media companies and technology partners that have united to solve common challenges and push new boundaries across the media and entertainment sector.

Transformative tech is the driving force that makes working in media

so exciting, unpredictable, and fascinating, and it plays a massive role in deciding where our industry is heading and how the viewer experience evolves. That’s why it’s a pillar of IBC 2023.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT FOR OUR INDUSTRY IN 2023?

We’re seeing big technology shifts in our industry right now. AI is advancing at breakneck speed; cloud is proving itself on the biggest stages; 5G-enabled connectivity is opening up an array of new production opportunities and re-shaping consumer experiences. Meanwhile, media brands and content owners are battling economic uncertainties to make their businesses as efficient as possible. Technology is a huge force in helping media companies not only be more creative and exciting, but also in enabling them to operate more efficiently while unlocking new cost-savings. It’s never technology for technology’s sake, especially not in 2023. Business leaders know that a show like IBC is the perfect place to uncover the best new technologies and smarter ways of working. And if you’re putting in the work to bring an inventive product to market that can make a difference, IBC is where you come to shout about it.

HOW WILL THE SHOW BE COVERING THIS THEME?

Cutting-edge innovation across areas such as cloud, AI, 5G, XR, metaverse and edge computing will be front and centre throughout the sessions, panels and demos across the show floor theatres and at the IBC Conference. Our Accelerator Programme projects will also showcase proof-of-concept demonstrations at the Innovation Stage; the culmination of months of hard work, dedication and learning from groups comprising industry pioneers and dynamic start-ups. Some truly exceptional projects are taking part this year, covering connectivity anywhere for remote productions with cloud and edge workflows, synthetic human avatars and accessibility, immersive sport, metadata-driven content targeting, and live, 5G-enabled motion capture performance art and animation.

The IBC Technical Papers Programme leads the way in showcasing original, novel research, driving new technology concepts forward and exploring their real-world applications; it’s the pinnacle of R&D in media

Mike Crimp, CEO of IBC, joins Mark Smith and Jo Mayer to discuss plans for this year’s event

technology. With the IBC Innovation Awards celebrating the best success stories harnessing tech for game-changing business outcomes, there’s so much on offer this year when it comes to transformative technology.

Shifting business models: Mike Crimp, IBC CEO

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR SHIFTING BUSINESS MODELS?

Exploring evolving business models runs in IBC’s DNA, and right now, the global media and entertainment industry is tackling more complexities than ever. In the face of challenging economic headwinds, world-leading media organisations are trying to find new ways to grow revenues and align with rapid shifts in consumer behaviour to secure sustainable commercial growth. IBC has always been a hub for business innovation, where media leaders come together to define and action the industry’s future. As markets shift and media ecosystems become increasingly complex, IBC aims to help industry players better understand how to futureproof their organisations and harness emerging opportunities to monetise their content.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT FOR OUR INDUSTRY IN 2023?

The only constant in our industry is change, and 2023 is no different. Broadcasters, content owners, streaming services, and sports organisations are making key decisions about how to better engage with consumers and operate their businesses more cost-effectively. As decision-makers weigh up various routes to market, they are looking for new and different monetisation models, while re-imagining their content distribution strategies amid a rapidly changing sports rights landscape. IBC is where the industry meets to talk business and everyone comes to the show looking to learn, uncover the next big trend, and find the partners and technologies that will allow them to achieve their long-term business goals.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT TO SEE AT THE SHOW COVERING THIS THEME?

We have a high-quality line-up of industry visionaries taking to the stage at the IBC Conference to discuss some of the most pressing business issues, opportunities and challenges facing our industry today. The opening conference session by Evan Shapiro is centred on navigating change and disruption in the new media ecosystem, with plenty of other big-name speakers from brands such as Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount Global, Universal Pictures and BBC Studios covering topics such as AI-driven content personalisation, free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST), futureproof streaming strategies, and more.

Across the show floor stages, exhibitor thought leaders will also present novel technology thinking and cutting-edge solutions that empower content owners to capitalise on emerging business trends and adopt new models. IBC provides the foundation to gain mission-critical market insight and the networking opportunities to build powerful new connections; we’re confident this can help all our visitors navigate a fastmoving business landscape.

People and purpose: Jo Mayer, head of marketing

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT PEOPLE AND PURPOSE?

IBC plays a vital role in enabling positive change for our industry, and we’re focused on delivering that more than ever this year. We want to bring together the associations, companies, individuals and other changemakers driving diversity, inclusiveness, accessibility and sustainability throughout media and entertainment, energising new thinking and fostering initiatives that really shift the status quo. We’re hugely excited about the IBC Changemakers Programme, returning in 2023 after a hugely successful launch last year, with industry trailblazers addressing critical topics such as gender equality, workplace culture, inclusive tech and advancing sustainability. People are at the heart of our industry’s future, and through our people and purpose pillar, we aim to spark conversation to create a more equitable, sustainable and creative future for media and technology companies.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT FOR OUR INDUSTRY IN 2023?

Through collaborative learning and decisive action, the media and entertainment ecosystem can ramp up its sustainability efforts to help achieve emissions goals and tackle climate change. Issues around diversity, equity and inclusion are coming to the forefront of industry discussion as companies look for ways to attract and retain new and better talent from a broad range of backgrounds. Staying engaged and informed about where the industry is moving in the near term and long run is critical for organisations that want to fuel creativity and stay ahead of the curve while adopting forward-looking business practices. With a deep offering of educational, informational and inspirational speakers across the content programme this year, we want to provide the platform for visitors to gain new insights that can spark debate, reshape perspectives, reset expectations, and prepare our community for positive change.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT TO SEE AT THE SHOW COVERING THIS THEME?

The free-to-attend IBC Changemakers Programme is at the core of the people and purpose content pillar, bringing together industry game-changers that are pioneering best practice across social and environmental areas while championing creativity. Some of the sessions already announced include talks on ethical AI, gender equality, inclusive storytelling and best practices in reducing carbon emissions. We’ll also showcase our IBC Social Impact Awards winners, celebrating media initiatives that set new benchmarks in sustainability and diversity while delivering meaningful societal impact. We’ve been blown away by the quality and range of this year’s entries, and they exemplify the type of positive change and real-world advances our industry can achieve through real ambition and collaborative spirit. n

Registration for IBC 2023 is open. You can find more information about this year’s show, including visitor, delegate, and premium passes, via the following link: https://bit.ly/40RhykJ

MY IBC

PAUL CLENNELL, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, DOCK10

Every year is different, depending on the priorities: attending the conference where possible, catching up with key suppliers and partners to discuss specific projects and technology purchases for the coming year, as well as keeping time free to wander the halls to find new tech and innovations.

This year will have a focus on virtual studio production innovation and further enhancements to dock10’s remote post workflows, but there is always a wider list of things to progress and explore. There’s so much to cover that a number of the dock10 team attend each year, with the evenings spent catching up and sharing what we’ve seen with each other together with colleagues and friends from the wider industry.

BARBARA LANGE, PRINCIPAL AND CEO, KIBO121

For many years I attended IBC as executive director of SMPTE, but now I am attending under my new consultancy, Kibo121, where I help media tech understand how to operate more sustainably. This year I will be meeting with media tech companies to discuss their sustainability needs.

I am also programming a three-hour session on sustainability for the IEEE BTS on Sunday, 17th September. Mark your calendars!

MATT STAGG, SPORT, MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT INNOVATOR

IBC offers a glimpse into the diverse landscape of technological advancements. Covering a wide range of technologies, it provides a platform to witness first-hand how companies are effectively implementing these innovations. It’s fascinating to witness the increasing convergence between the

communications industry and media/entertainment, with even telco companies now actively participating in discussions on topics like 5G. Additionally, IBC serves as a valuable educational opportunity, allowing me to expand my understanding of areas within the industry where my knowledge may be limited. The exceptional quality of the keynotes and panels further sets IBC apart, making it a standout event on the calendar.

In summary, IBC’s professional importance lies in its ability to showcase technological trends, foster industry convergence, and provide educational insights.

PAOLO PESCATORE, TECH, MEDIA AND TELCO ANALYST

IBC remains one of the key global broadcasting events which attracts a diverse audience. I’m looking forward to providing insights and commenting on what I see as the key takeaways from the event. There were intriguing snippets from NAB and it will be interesting to see what happens at IBC.

This will give us a good opportunity to assess the general health of the industry in light of these changing and uncertain times.

GAY BELL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, PLATFORM COMMUNICATIONS

IBC is in the Champions League of global technology events, and a really important date on the media and entertainment calendar. It is an ideal place to explore and navigate the changes that are opening up the sector. Whether that is new markets (XR, gaming, corporate/brands), new types of partners (5G), new competitors and new buyers (AV/corporate), the media landscape is transforming and IBC 2023 is where the future of the global media and entertainment industry will be defined and actioned.

Ultimately, events like IBC are about the people: people you can connect with; people you can learn from; people you can share experiences with; people who inspire you by driving change and accelerating innovation; and people you can have fun with. I’m looking forward to catching up with the fun people most of all. n

Ahead of next month’s IBC Show, TVBEurope asked a number of industry stakeholders to tell us about their typical IBC routines, and what they’re looking forward to at this year’s show

NOMINATIONS ARE NOW OPEN

RECOGNISING OUTSTANDING BROADCAST PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS

The Best of Show at IBC 2023 awards is the perfect guide to the latest and most innovative products and technology being showcased at this year’s event.

KEEP YOUR FINGER ON THE PULSE OF INDUSTRY INNOVATION WITH THE BEST OF SHOW AWARDS.

> Subscribe to TVBEurope (TVBEurope.com/subscribe) for coverage of this year’s standout products from the IBC show floor

> You can also keep updated with TVBEurope news on social media: twitter.com/tvbeurope facebook.com/TVBEurope1 linkedin.com/company/tvbeurope

Exhibiting at IBC and want to enter? Nominations are now open. Visit the official website below:

WATCHING WHAT THEY SAY

Television sound has always been a target for viewer complaints, from adverts that are too loud to mumbled dialogue. While next-generation audio systems offer greater control over volumes, as Kevin Hilton reports, many viewers are resorting to a visual solution instead

Not being able to understand what actors are saying in dramas and films on TV is a long-standing cause of complaint from the viewing public. Technology is now available to help deal with the problem but it seems many people who would not class themselves as deaf or hearing impaired are now turning to subtitles – aka closed captions – instead.

New research by Xperi, producer of the DTS: X immersive sound system, shows 23 per cent of UK adults “always or often” turn on subtitles when they watch TV, with over a third saying they use them because dialogue is difficult to understand or inaudible. “We also found that 32 per cent of UK adults cite difficulty hearing voices over the background noise or music, while 27 per cent say they can pay attention [more] by reading along with the dialogue,” comments Sven Mevissen, director of product management at Xperi.

He also points to “the limitations of modern TVs [not being] equipped with top quality loudspeakers” and “lower budgets and time constraints” in production contributing to poor sound. Another factor, highlighted by Anaïs Libolt, director of broadcast for Europe at Dolby, is when people are viewing on the move. “Surveys show 57 per cent of viewers watch content in public places – such as on public transport, in waiting areas or at work – where listening levels are lower in volume and background noise gets in the way,” she says.

Libolt also quotes research showing 80 per cent of younger UK viewers employ subtitles for some or all of their viewing, while in the US half say they use them most of the time. “The reason is, according to 55 per cent of the respondents, because TV is harder to hear than it used to be,” she comments, “with 78 per cent saying background music and effects are the main issues when it comes to hearing dialogue.”

Re-recording mixer Howard Bargroff, whose credits include Doctor Who, The Midwich Cuckoos and Devs, sees his role – and that of the soundtrack – as telling the story without getting in the way unless the story requires that. He feels there is now more reliance on sound to help tell stories but acknowledges any mixer should have a “duty of care” to ensure the balance between all the audio elements makes for something that can be understood. “If the number of people using subtitles is so high, something must be going on,” he says. “Although, listening to mixes out of iPad/iPhone speakers and the bad quality ones in flat-screen TVs must have something to do with it.”

ABOVE: TV player with MPEG-H Dialogue+ preset and interactivity

BELOW: TV player with MPEG-H Dialogue+ presets

A common gripe amongst viewers is that many contemporary actors deliver their lines in a more naturalistic way than performers of the past, which, in some cases, verges on mumbling. “It’s an unrecoverable problem,” Bargroff comments, “but, with AI, maybe not for long. There’s always been this kind of approach with some actors since the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s not a new thing but the problem seems to be worse today.”

From the early 2010s onwards there was a series of media and viewer outcries about unintelligible actors and overpowering music scores that became known as ‘Mumblegate’. The most notorious example remains the 2014 BBC production of Jamaica Inn, in which actor Sean Harris combined low-key delivery with an impenetrable Cornish accent. The last major Mumblgate storm was in 2016 with the second series of crime drama Happy Valley. The mini-controversy over almost whispered acting and heavy accents was heightened when executive producer Nicola Schindler suggested some of the problems might have been caused by people not setting up their TVs properly.

There has been nothing comparable in the years since then, with the BBC not receiving a “significant number of complaints” (that is more than 100) about dialogue in programmes for some time. This could be because viewers are now routinely using subtitles, although the BBC does not have any data on closed caption usage. It is, however, offering 86.7 per cent of programmes on its iPlayer video-on-demand (VoD) service with subtitling, although this appears to be the exception rather than the rule for UK broadcasting.

In June, the RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People) published its Subtitle It! report, which found that “people continue to face significant barriers accessing TV through on-demand platforms due to a lack of subtitles and signing”. The survey included both people with varying degrees of hearing loss and those who, while not identifying as having serious impairments, prefer to watch TV with subtitles. As other surveys have shown, there is now a high percentage of young people watching video with subtitles on a variety of devices.

“Younger generations have grown accustomed to consuming content with subtitles, notably the 12-18 and 18-25-year-old demographics,” comments Ken Frommert, president of ENCO, which produces the enCaption subtitling system. “In many cases they want captions on their mobile phones, which are muted so as not to distract others in their surroundings. In other cases, they simply want subtitles because activities surrounding them diminish auditory comprehension.”

Frommert adds that with so much programming being made today, it is difficult if not impossible for it all to be captioned manually. Because of this, he explains, in the future AI will play a larger role in captioning. To prepare for this, ENCO introduced new features at NAB 2023 that utilise the technology for TV, radio and OTT workflows. “The end goal is to expand accessibility to a fast-increasing library of broadcast and media content with low latency and accuracy,” Frommert comments.

More viewers relying on subtitles could imply that audio-based solutions to the audibility problem are either not being implemented or ineffective. Dr Ben Shirley, reader in audio technology at the Acoustics Research Centre of the University of Salford, observes there is “very little guidance” from broadcasters, regulators or technology companies for the different levels within a broadcast mix. “Often, the only recommendation is that foreground speech has to be ‘comprehensible’ and ‘clear’, which is quite subjective,” he says.

Object-based audio (OBA) forms the basis of systems that allow individual elements of a broadcast mix – especially the balance between dialogue or commentary in relation to music and effects or crowd noise – to be adjusted by the viewer or listener. Such capability is part of nextgeneration audio (NGA) systems, including Dolby AC-4 and MPEG-H

Audio, which are in varying stages of implementation for broadcast and streaming. “Both formats are supported by a large number of smart TVs and set-top boxes and are capable of providing some degree of personalisation for accessibility, including changing dialogue levels,” says Shirley. “This functionality is key to NGA being adopted and although there is some wariness from some audio mixers about ‘messing with their mix’, both AC-4 and MPEG-H allow constraints to be imposed on how much the levels can be adjusted.”

MPEG-H incorporates Dialogue+ software, which was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS). It has been used by German public broadcaster ARD for its transcoding farm since 2022 and what Christian Simon of Fraunhofer IIS’s accessibility team describes as a “big European VoD platform” will also soon be offering the capability. “As most providers are not yet using OBA they can only produce one or more alternative dialogue-enhanced audio versions of their content and make them available to the user,” Simon comments. He explains this is the case with Amazon Prime’s recently introduced Dialogue Boost system, which has ‘medium’ and ‘high’ settings, and the alternative ‘Klare Sprache’ (clear speech) version from ARD Mediathek. “The user interactivity is limited to the preset selection, with the content provider determining how much and in what form the background of the dialogue-enhanced version is attenuated,” he adds.

Anaïs Libolt at Dolby states that AC-4 is now shipping in more than 80 per cent of 4K TVs sold in Europe, which she says makes them ready for when broadcasters expand their NGA services and is also included in HbbTV systems. She adds that the codec has been selected for the new UHD TV specifications, including in the Nordic countries and Ireland, and is part of both the pilot project for the DVB-I platform and NEXTGEN in the US. “AC-4 provides the tools for broadcasters to deliver each audio element – M&E [music and effects], dialogues, audio description – separately, together with the necessary metadata for personalised receiver-side rendering,” Libolt explains.

Viewing habits are certainly changing and it seems subtitles will continue to be part of how people of most ages watch programmes and films. But audio enhancement systems offer an alternative, particularly for those who find closed captions distracting. It does appear that modern TV is about personalisation after all. n

The BBC’s Happy Valley

DELIVERING SATURDAY NIGHT TAKEAWAY

When Ant and Dec’s 2023 series of Saturday Night Takeaway reached its conclusion in April, the entire crew – along with 200 prize winners – decamped to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, for the live finale.

Broadcasting from underneath the famous Incredible Hulk rollercoaster, the show included some spectacular performances along with the usual audience participation through regular features such as Singalong Live and the ever-popular Win The Ads

Ensuring that Ant and Dec’s audiences could still have an active role in the live episode meant providing remote links between the UK and the US. This task was, in part, given to Multicast Audio, a London-based company that specialises in audio, communications and networking support and systems to clients in the events, theatre and broadcasting worlds. Led by director

Ian Threlfall, Multicast Audio has nearly ten years of experience in designing, installing and managing all of the technology needed for a successful project.

“We have been working with the Saturday Night Takeaway team for over five years, originally from its home at the Southbank-based The London Studios and now at Television Centre,” explains Threlfall.

“Primarily, we use an existing remote video solution to allow Ant and Dec’s surprises to reach much further than the studio walls. Our job involves managing a team of remote engineers who hide in viewers’ homes so they can take over their TVs and feed them a return feed directly from the studio, avoiding both transmission delay and allowing us to use a mix minus audio return. The systems allow us to achieve a round trip latency of 0.3 seconds and gives us the quick reactions needed for the surprises and various gameplay elements in the show to work.”

Ian Threlfall

While this solution is ideally suited to situations that require both audio and video, there are occasions when only an audio feed is required, and in these cases Threlfall’s first port of call is Emmy award-winning Cleanfeed. Billed as an online studio for live audio and recording, Cleanfeed is a software solution that facilitates remote collaboration by capturing broadcastquality live audio over the internet. Developed by industry experts Marc Bakos and Mark Hills – the latter a recent Academy Award-winner in the Scientific and Technical Achievements category for a software he developed for the film industry – Cleanfeed delivers high-quality audio with very low latencies so that recording remotely feels like a real conversation.

“Usually, our customers want to move audio and video, but when it is just audio, we always use Cleanfeed because it provides a reliable, high-quality audio link,” Threlfall says. “I was introduced to the software by Oli Driver at Audio Alliance. I had a project that involved moving audio between two locations for a comms link and I was going to hire a hardware solution, but Oli pointed me towards Cleanfeed because it was excellent quality and much simpler; all I needed was a free account, an internet connection and a laptop.”

Cleanfeed imposes no limit on the time a session can run for, or the number of people who can be invited to join. Only one person needs an account in order to invite others to join via a web link. In addition, multiple people can be recorded on separate tracks, making it much easier and quicker to edit recordings and create professional results.

For the finale of Saturday Night Takeaway, Threlfall used Cleanfeed to send rehearsal programme feeds back to the musical director in the UK.

“I needed an audio-only link that was very high quality,” he explains. “The musical director wasn’t interested in a video feed, he just needed to hear exactly what was happening so that he could advise on any changes he wanted to make. Cleanfeed allowed us to give him what he wanted in a reliable way.”

Threlfall also used Cleanfeed as a safety net during the show’s ‘Win The Ads’ segment, which involved a contestant from Glasgow in the UK. This was a critical part of the 2023 live show because Ant and Dec had upped the ante by offering a huge prize pot that included a holiday for two in Dubai, £20,000 in cash and a year’s worth of groceries.

“We don’t normally have anything to do with Win The Ads because it is usually filmed in the studio, but because we were on location in Florida and the producers wanted to use a UK-based contestant, we were brought in to provide the links,” Threlfall explains. “It was absolutely imperative that we got it right because

it was such a crucial part of the show, but it wasn’t straightforward because we were in the US and there were a few technical issues to overcome.”

During one of the rehearsals, the production team had an audio issue – a setting option that was eventually fixed – but for a short while everyone panicked.

“That reminded me of the solutions we deployed during Covid when we couldn’t have contestants in the studio,” Threlfall continues. “We used to have Win The Ads players on a phone line as well as a remote link so that if their primary connection dropped, we could at least switch to the phone. We didn’t have the right hardware with us to do this in the US, but we did have a 4G connection, so we used Cleanfeed as our back-up. Fortunately, our main link was alright on the night, but I was very confident that Cleanfeed would have been equally fine had we needed to use it.”

Since returning from Florida, Threlfall and the Multicast Audio team have been busy with other projects including the European Rowing Championships in Slovenia where it provided RF links, and the Pokémon European International Championships at London’s Excel, where it handled comms for three game stages and galleries.

“We have been lucky enough to work on some fantastic shows and events over the years, often in difficult locations and with moving goalposts,” Threlfall says. “Wherever we go, we use our knowledge and experience from various sectors of the entertainment industries to ensure that we deliver the right solutions for every project.” n

The Cleanfeed desktop

BRINGING EDM TO THE WORLD WITH REMOTE PRODUCTION

Boasting elite DJs including David Guetta, Martin Garrix and Tiësto, Ultra Music Festival Miami prides itself on being the world’s premier electronic music festival. In addition to leading the way with big-name acts, it’s also been at the forefront of production innovations over the past decade, with the help of full-service video production agency NOMOBO.

In 2012, the festival was approached by Google which wanted to test a new feature on its YouTube platform: live streaming. The organisers haven’t looked back since, and nor has NOMOBO, which manages the production. But, while that first year involved working from an OB truck in the middle of the site with swathes of cabling and one vision mixer, the 2023 edition has moved on somewhat and NOMOBO now relies heavily on Blackmagic hardware to deliver an extensive multistage production.

Constantijn van Duren, CCO and founder of NOMOBO, explains: “Step by step, year after year we have been investing in technology. So, every year it’s been fascinating to see Blackmagic release new product lines that we could implement in our productions immediately. Four years after the first edition of Ultra, we didn’t have to hire the OB anymore. We collaborated with rental companies to hire the camera chain, we invested in video switching technology, and we integrated that together. We slowly moved from OB trucks to starting to own the whole production chain ourselves. That is where we are right now.”

The set-up now involves a wall-to-ceiling implementation of Blackmagic hardware from URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 cameras and ATEM Constellation 8K video switchers through to Smart Videohub routers and monitoring. Much of that control infrastructure now resides in Amsterdam, with NOMOBO boasting four remote production galleries.

“Our main goal throughout the years was to create compelling content, but we also wanted to stay in full control of the technology. Experience has taught us that if anything does go wrong it’s invariably on the technical side. Not owning the full production chain makes

that more difficult to troubleshoot and fix. That’s why we wanted to be in control and that’s why we have continued our investment in technology,” explains van Duren.

REMOTE PRODUCTION

NOMOBO has also invested in its master control room in Amsterdam, where much of this year’s production was managed remotely. As van Duren reveals, this has led to benefits for viewers, the client and NOMOBO.

“Our offices in Amsterdam have three internet connections and we have power interruption facilities, so if something happens on-site at a production, such as a loss of power, we can take over and we have back-up content that we can use. Remote production also means less impact on-site and fewer people on the ground, which frees up some production budget to invest back into the content.”

For the 2023 edition, NOMOBO had a crew of 75 in Miami, mainly made up of local engineers and camera operators. The main stage was produced entirely on-site, while the other three other stages were handled remotely, with production elements including video direction,

audio mixing, video playout, encoding and live graphics all handled by a 15-strong team from the MCR. A massive fibre network between the stages enabled NOMOBO to get feeds from Miami to Amsterdam.

Van Duren explains the workflow: “On-site, we only focus on capturing the stage, so the stage director and the camera guys are there. They create a switch feed that is sent over to Amsterdam, and all the additional elements like live graphics, playout, replays and lower thirds, were handled in Amsterdam. Not only are there environmental benefits, but it also helps to keep the cost of production down for our client.”

FAST TURNAROUND

Around 150 hours of content was created over the three-day event and broadcast on the UMF TV YouTube channel; viewing figures peaked at about 50,000 concurrent viewers on the Sunday night.

Content was also quickly repurposed for upload to artists’ channels and used as snippets on social media. Full sets in 4K resolution were made available online, generating the after-buzz and encouraging massive viewing figures. NOMOBO’s key focus was the turnaround time; the goal,

Much of NOMOBO’s control infrastructure resides in Amsterdam, with the company boasting four remote production galleries

to have a polished, QC-checked video set with added video bumper roles with the artist between four and eight hours after they walked off stage.

“It requires quite a solid edit workflow but this is something we have developed in the past ten years as well,” adds van Duren. “On the UMF channel, we reached around ten million viewers.”

A focus on storytelling helped to generate interest, and audience engagement was also essential to deliver the big viewer numbers the festival has come to expect. “Every year we try to implement storytelling into the live broadcast. We have two hosts who represent the connection between the viewer and the brand. It’s a solid connection between the viewer and the Ultra brands online,” says van Duren.

New for this year, NOMOBO created a studio on-set “with the look and feel of [Formula One documentary] Drive to Survive” and invited artists in for short interviews. “We captured strong statements from the artist as part of the interviews and they were quickly edited into short-form content that we used between sets. That helps to hype the viewer’s experience.”

The style of shooting is also important to NOMOBO, with the preference being a more dynamic and cinematic approach. This makes the choice of camera and lens crucial to the final production. “We don’t like the standard TV broadcast approach, preferring a cinematic approach instead, but it has to be cost-effective. And that’s why we’ve chosen Blackmagic’s camera line-up for productions like this.”

“At the main stage we used URSA Mini Pro G2s with PL glass, and it looked beautiful; it’s unbelievable. It really helps to invest in our own technology on that level, to keep the budget cost-effective and deliver a good quality look from the cameras that we need. Blackmagic as a brand and its hardware is essential to everything we do.” n

MORE ONLINE: Read more about NOMOBO’s Amsterdam-based MCR here or copy and paste this link: https://bit.ly/3Q3f54v

NOMOBO had a crew of 75 in Miami, mainly made up of local engineers and camera operators

Will Best and Andrea Helfrich hosted coverage of the event

REACHING THE VALHALLA OF VISUAL EFFECTS

In the realm where history entwines with artistry, the VFX team on Netflix’s The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die adopted some ‘novel’ techniques, writes Robert Shepherd

The decision to turn the final instalment of Netflix hit The Last Kingdom into a standalone film instead of a sixth series was an unorthodox – some might even say risky – approach to a successful screen adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories novels.

While series five resolved the narrative by bestowing upon Uhtred his rightful inheritance of Bebbanburg and the encompassing territories, The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die plays out as more of an epilogue to the main story than the start of a new one.

Condensing three books into just north of a two-hour film was always going to pose creative challenges for producer Carnival Films & Television (Belgravia, Downton Abbey), especially with such a VFX-heavy drama.

In the earlier seasons, the show included ‘2D’ crowd replication, such as shooting multiple plates of the limited number of real crowd members in place, repositioning them between each take and then compositing these passes together.

Richard Frazer, VFX supervisor at BlueBolt, says with each new season the CG characters improved more and more in quality, to the point where they could just swap out real performers from the scene and replace them with CG characters with no visible difference.

For this instalment of The Last Kingdom, Blueblot produced some 375 VFX shots. “These were mostly the same kind of work we had provided for previous seasons; crowd extensions to large-scale battles, and creating/ extending the fortresses, towns and locations in medieval England.

Inside the banqueting hall created by the team at BlueBolt

“However, at the end of the movie we experience a glimpse of the halls of Valhalla (the great hall in Norse mythology presided over by the god Odin). It was of vital importance to get the visual tone of this right; the look of the show had always been grounded in a gritty reality and we had never really depicted anything fantastical or supernatural before,” he continues. “It was through some concepts developed by production designer Dominic Hyman and the team of artists at BlueBolt that the production created a giant, inviting banqueting hall that had just enough of an ethereal quality to show that this was possibly the afterlife or maybe just a fevered vision.”

It also provided an opportunity for cameos from various characters who had died throughout the course of the first five series.

MAKING HISTORY

Aficionados of The Last Kingdom saga will be aware that the show is loosely based on real historical characters and events from the 10th century. The team shot in Hungary to exploit the large areas of unspoilt countryside that could easily mirror ancient Britain, along with some stunning sets for towns and cities.

Frazer says the practicalities of building sets meant that a story location such as the fortress of Bebbanburg only exists as a partial set, with VFX used for completion. “Whilst we have a historical consultant for the show who gives feedback on the designs of buildings, costumes and vehicles, he’s also aware that we are not making a documentary and so some creative licence is always taken on the look,” he adds.

“Some of the artists on the BlueBolt team are not only fans of the show, but real historical nerds about this period, so we always have great input from them if anything we were creating was too inauthentic.”

POETRY IN MO-TION

When it came to delivering the director’s vision, Frazer and his team began breaking down scripts and discussed VFX requirements weeks or months before production started.

“We’ve had the opportunity to work with some great directors, such as Ed Bazalgette who directed Seven Kings Must Die,” he says. “He had previously directed six episodes of the show, so knew the material well.”

Frazer says, on a personal level, he particularly enjoyed working with Jon East who also directed six episodes. That’s because his background as a storyboard artist, combined with his in-depth knowledge of VFX, meant he could “easily communicate every detail of a complicated battle” in a way that the team could easily plan VFX requirements in advance.

With that in mind, any chance to streamline the VFX workflow and increase efficiency is always welcome and Frazer’s team’s ingenuity made it happen. He says “the game changer” was Bluebolt investing in its own motion capture suits. Due to the fact the company creates “so much crowd extension work for the large-scale battles”, it necessitated an everevolving library of fighting actions that the CG soldiers could perform.

“Having our own kit (and a set-up that we could easily run on location in the Hungarian countryside using the stunt performers) meant we could quickly grab whatever bespoke actions were required for any given scene,” Frazer continues. “And when we were deep into post production and needed additional captures, the VFX team could throw on the suits at the office and grab what was needed. Our crowd

TDs also gained more experience with just how much we could stretch Golaem (our crowd simulation software of choice) to do quite complex battles.”

In the end, the film not only provided a satisfying conclusion to the five seasons that came before it but also pushed the boundaries of VFX in historical dramas. n

The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die, made by Carnival, is available to stream on Netflix now.

Top and bottom of page: Before and after VFX shots

SEAMLESS SWITCHING

IMG Studios in London are at the forefront of broadcast technology with studio facilities available 24/7. Talented teams work collaboratively to provide a high-quality production experience for each client, technically sound, on budget and on time.

IMG Studio’s portfolio comprises production services with edit suites, radio studios, live galleries, and a media services and encoding team that coordinates everything from ingest to file delivery for broadcast; live and recorded content delivery across the globe; fully managed, networked storage with the benefits of an extensive archive offering instant access; graphics and visual effects creation; and four flexible broadcast studios with spacious production galleries networked to post production suites, digital services, and a master control room.

For our audio department, IMG Studios has relied on Lawo consoles, routers, DSP processors and I/O stage boxes for quite a while. In light of ever-higher expectations regarding production flexibility and turnaround times, we decided to migrate to an IP-based audio infrastructure with the latest mc²56 consoles and A__UHD Core DSP processors at its heart.

Our sound supervisors cover a lot of different operations: podcasts, live events, remote productions and studio shows. At IMG, we are keen to keep up with new technology that serves all these different areas. With the transition to our new IP infrastructure, upgrading to an A__UHD Core ecosystem and the flexibility it provides with the entire IP network serving as the backbone was a logical step.

Seeing that sustainability has become a key part of our business, I’m happy to say that changing to the new audio hardware has reduced our energy and rack space consumption by a significant margin compared to the older hardware. The new system gives us greater flexibility, allowing us to increase the flow of audio around the building and extend out to

remote locations while remaining firmly in control of the audio from our London site.

IMG’s audio infrastructure is currently being upgraded from Lawo mc²56 MkII surfaces with a Nova 73 router to the mc²56 MkIII powered by Lawo’s 1U A__UHD Core that provides the DSP power for the mixing consoles. We knew that this would require a massive overhaul of our audio workflows, which was all the more daunting as IMG is home to more than 15 audio production areas.

The new system has been designed with comprehensive redundancy in mind, from dual power supplies right through to redundant MCX instances and even A__UHD Core units working in ‘air-gapped’, redundant pairings. The main and back-up devices are connected to separate network pipes – called ‘red’ and ‘blue’ in IP jargon – in compliance with the ST 2022-7 Seamless Protection Switching standard.

This redundancy strategy has been put in place to provide an audio infrastructure with a high degree of resilience. Strictly speaking, the five likeliest glitches for an audio infrastructure – control connection loss, routing failure, media connection failure, control system failure, and power supply failure – no longer require hardware redundancy in an audio infrastructure built around the A__UHD Core. Having a spare unit online somewhere is, however, desirable as fail-over for incident number six: DSP/FPGA failure.

The MCX app, for its part, is the brain of the mixing process: it receives, and remembers, instructions transmitted by a console surface and passes them on to the assigned A__UHD Core. Thanks to this approach, another console can take over instantly if the first one, or the audio engineer sitting behind it, unexpectedly becomes unavailable.

The flexible design of the A__UHD Core processor means that we are

Tom Oliver, sound guarantee engineer at IMG, details the company’s facility-wide networking and audio production flexibility

able to run two mixing consoles independent of each other using the same processing core. We are completely free to allocate the A__UHD Core’s available DSP channels to these mixers depending on the requirement. While we knew that one A__UHD Core can power up to eight completely independent physical or virtual mixing surfaces, our system has been designed for two or three consoles per main A__UHD Core.

Slightly more static, but nevertheless vital, control of the A__UHD Core audio engine is provided by Lawo’s HOME management platform for IPbased media infrastructures. HOME allows us to route streams in a highly intuitive and fast way, directly on the console. This helps us to respond to production requests and to facilitate slightly more convoluted workflows.

filters, a side-chain filter, five independent dynamics modules (expander, gate, compressor with parallel compression, limiter, and de-esser) as well

The reason why we have chosen the mc²56 desk rather than a mix of current mc² consoles across all our sound control rooms in various sizes (which would have been possible given the similarities and data portability) is that this offers our operators maximum familiarity and the

CONVERTING CONTENT ARCHIVES INTO THE CLOUD

By François Cotiche, head of media rights and content at France’s Ligue Nationale

As one of the world’s biggest rugby union leagues, France’s Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) organises, manages, and regulates the Top 14, Pro D2, and In Extenso Supersevens club divisions in France. Our key mission is to promote and develop the professional sector of French rugby clubs, including representation in European Cup matches. We also negotiate and market the television and partnership rights of all competitions.

MODERNISING THE MEDIA ARCHIVE

Recently, we found ourselves in a challenging situation. Our media asset management (MAM) system was discontinued, and we needed a new solution deployed during the busiest part of the French rugby season. We wanted to be able to share highlights quickly and easily with our 30 first-division clubs, including coaches, social media, and tactical video managers. With a 400-terabyte video archive, and new match footage coming weekly, our new MAM system needed to be deployed fast. We wanted a cloud-based platform, accessible from anywhere, to efficiently access, store, manage, and share all of our video content.

EMBRACING AI AND THE CLOUD

We chose Newsbridge as our technology partner based on its powerful Multimodal AI-powered Media Hub solution. The media hub drastically improves how we search for content and collaborate with our partners and sponsors. With the cloud media hub, everything is automatic, from ingest and publishing to media collections, clipping, transcription, and more.

de Rugby (LNR)

Being in the cloud, the media hub is incredibly flexible, so it can easily adapt if our media volume requirements change. It also makes our files accessible to anyone and allows real-time collaboration. Within just one month, Newsbridge had our media hub up and running!

WORKS

We initially had 19,000 hours of archived video ingested into our new platform, and we add another 2,000 hours of video annually. Any time there are rugby games, our broadcast partner Canal+ sends the match, highlights and interview footage to the media hub. Newsbridge then applies the first layer of indexing, enabling all of our clubs to easily find their footage, as soon as ten minutes after a game finishes. Our 15 sponsor logos

HOW THE CLOUD WORKFLOW

are automatically detected via optical character recognition (OCR). Team members don’t need to be at the office to log in and access footage, they simply connect to the media hub using their web browser.

Our clubs use these videos in their communications, such as on social media. The French rugby community especially appreciates funny on-field moments between referees and players. Teams can instantly clip these interactions from match footage and quickly and easily share them on a variety of social media platforms. Referees and club statisticians take widescreen shots from the media hub to review games and analyse player performances; for example, how a team can improve their defence at the 22-metre line.

Rugby matches typically occur on the weekends. Every Sunday at midnight, Newsbridge automatically publishes match footage to Dailymotion for the MyRugby app, where fans can access videos on demand.

An integration with sports data feed Stats Perform provides us with time-coded match highlights that greatly enrich a two-hour rugby game. By syncing the Stats Perform data with our video footage in the Newsbridge media hub, our clubs can quickly search for and see key moments, including every try during a game, the time of the score and the player who scored it, and any instances where a player receives a red or yellow card.

The role-based access feature for the media hub means our partners, sponsors and broadcasters can log in via the web and see smart ‘Collections’ folders that are relevant to them. These are set to specific detection parameters and are automatically updated with all the latest video highlights. With Newsbridge’s semantic search engine and cloud editing tools, our users can find, clip, transcode, and export the footage they need in no time at all. This is a real boon for us and for our users.

TRANSFORMING CONTENT DISCOVERY

Prior to adopting the Newsbridge media hub, a typical game required two to three hours of manual indexing. With 15 games per week in the Top 14 and Pro D2, it could easily take a staff member an entire week to do the work. Newsbridge’s sports data feed integration along with the automated sends from Canal+ save us significant search and publishing time.

Newsbridge’s cloud-based Media Hub makes it easy for LNR users to clip and collect specific footage

More than 300 users, comprising our own internal staff, 30 clubs, partners, broadcasters, and rugby referees, have access to highlights. The fact that our partners, sponsors, and some sports journalists can help themselves to footage and independently get what they need is a huge breakthrough for us and a significant game changer. Internal teams no longer need to spend time manually fulfilling these requests.

BRINGING INNOVATION TO CONTENT MONETISATION

Another benefit of Newsbridge’s Stats Perform integration and semantic search is in how it enables us to find and then clip the best moments from all of the past seasons to create video NFTs, which are a new way to engage with and expand the community of fans of our leagues in France. All 30 of LNR’s professional clubs benefit from the revenues and enhanced fan experience that the digital world of NFTs offers.

Ultimately, Newsbridge’s cloud media hub, with its cutting-edge AI indexing technology, elevates content preservation, discovery, and monetisation for our organisation. From the self-service experience that we can give our clubs and wider rugby ecosystem, to the way we can quickly identify and clip match highlights, Newsbridge’s platform allows us to innovate like never before. n

A ‘Collections’ view of LNR’s Newsbridge Cloud Media Hub

STREAMING SUSTAINABILITY: PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO COMPLEX PROBLEMS

By Sam-Orton Jay, VP, product, V-Nova

Should I replace my eight-year-old diesel car with a new electric one? It has a very efficient engine and was built after the changes to ensure the worst diesel emissions are filtered. Whilst electric cars are wonderfully emission-free on the road, what are their embedded emissions like? In other words, what was the environmental cost of building them? Might it be better to keep my current car going for as long as possible, and just try to use it as little as I can?

These are the sort of questions that have troubled many of us over recent years. It’s often so difficult to know for sure what’s best, and when a little over a year ago, V-Nova joined the excellent industry group Greening of Streaming, we quickly realised that our world of video delivery is rich with a similar big selection of complex questions to figure out.

Indeed, our primary motivation at V-Nova to get actively involved in this area was to fully understand the implications of the use of our own technology. For instance, we know that our MPEG-5 LCEVC technology can deliver higher-quality video at up to 40 per cent lower bit rates, reduce transcoding energy usage by up to 70 per cent and extend the lifecycle of existing devices by enhancing the capabilities of the native codecs they support. But which of these would have the most positive impact on energy usage and, in turn, carbon emissions overall? Would it vary for the different types of services adopting the technology? And how should we invest in our development to maximise the impact in future?

It has been a privilege to work alongside a great selection of experts in Greening of Streaming to try to understand, measure, experiment and ultimately find approaches to significantly reduce our collective impact through the Low Energy Sustainable Streaming (LESS) Accord. But as you dig into the problem, the complexity can quickly become overwhelming and paralysing because changing something can unintentionally make things worse elsewhere in a delivery workflow. Ultimately, the great projects we’re embarking on to test a variety of approaches and provide the best practice recommendations that will form the LESS Accord should give us all reliable guidance to follow. But what can we do in the meantime?

Firstly, think about driving the car less and focus on exploring ways to reduce the utilisation of existing systems. One possibility is rolling out

better encoding technologies to reduce the amount of data we deliver; since reducing the data delivered means reducing energy usage. While this sounds like the right thing to do, it is still hard to fully quantify the impact of, say, a 20 per cent reduction in bandwidth. The validity of research like the Shift Project which mapped emissions directly to each gigabyte of traffic is being increasingly questioned. Networks and most of our back-end infrastructure such as CDNs are provisioned for peak traffic and are largely ‘always on’. Lowering overall streaming traffic will help, but the actual overall impact is something we still must measure, even if it’s simply a reduction of future infrastructure investment for peak provisioning.

Secondly, a major part of the discussions so far on the LESS Accord has been the idea of a ‘good enough’ quality of service that considers energy usage rather than simply prioritising quality at all costs. Try to evaluate if you are delivering higher resolutions to certain devices than they really need. Very few people can see the difference between 720p and 1080p on a mobile for example. Similarly, ensure that unnecessary adaptive streaming profiles are dropped and that your platform doesn’t duplicate workflows to deliver a different format if only marginal user experience benefits are gained.

Finally, start asking key sustainability questions to both internal teams and external vendors. It is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal at this stage. For example, if a vendor is encouraging you to upgrade an appliance because it will use less power, challenge them to give you the information you need. Should you really be trying to prolong the life-cycle of the older version to avoid the embedded emissions of the new one? Can the vendor tell you what the embedded emissions are?

With your own teams, work towards establishing meaningful KPIs around energy usage. That also starts with asking some core questions: Are we measuring our energy usage? Do we know where the largest issues are? What are we doing to improve things?

Whilst it’s important to exercise some caution and be insistent about evaluating claims, it’s incumbent upon us all to do something and not wait around in paralysis. Taking some simple steps like the ones outlined here is an important start towards ultimately tackling the complexity of the sustainability challenge. n

HOW EUROVISION IS HELPING DESIGN THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION SOUND

The Eurovision Song Contest has a long tradition of experimentation, and 2023’s competition was no different. BBC R&D’s Matt Firth tells Kevin Emmott how this year’s event was a major step in delivering next-generation audio to global viewers, live and direct from Liverpool

The Eurovision Song Contest is many things. One of the world’s longest-running television programmes, a riot of colour and joy, and a genuine cultural phenomenon. But it also keeps a much deeper secret; amongst all the feathers, glitter and spectacle, it has been a beacon of technological innovation for more than 60 years.

Formed in 1956, the event was created by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to help develop broadcast standards between member countries and it has always been a technical use case masquerading as light entertainment, and 2023’s contest was no different.

This year’s viewing figures topped 162 million global viewers, not to mention billions of #Eurovision2023 views on social media. At the same time, a much smaller group of BBC R&D engineers were also watching – and listening – with the aim of continuing the competition’s history of innovation.

AUDIO DEFINITION MODEL

ADM, or the audio definition model, was originally developed by the EBU and standardised by the ITU in 2015. It is a metadata specification to describe next-generation audio (NGA) content.

NGA content can improve consumers’ audio experiences by creating greater immersion and personalisation of the audio presentation. Immersive audio can envelop a listener in 360-degree sound, while personalisation can give them more control over what they hear; perhaps they want to listen to a commentator in a different language or reduce the crowd noise.

The ADM metadata is carried throughout the production chain to an encoder, such as for Dolby AC-4 or MPEG-H, which is then sent to

the consumer. This metadata describes each audio object (commentary, crowd bed, music, narration, etc) where it should be placed in the sound field (left, right, centre, above), and how loud it should be. The decoders on the consumer devices then adapt the audio to whatever

Matt Firth

S-ADM is a frame-based version of ADM which provides metadata in time-delimited chunks, delivered in sequence alongside the audio

available speakers are on the output device. ADM is well established, but the problem is that it doesn’t work in real-time workflows like live broadcast. Say hello to S-ADM, and to Eurovision.

LET’S GET LINEAR

“File-based ADM is becoming reasonably well adopted,” says Matt Firth, a project R&D engineer at BBC R&D in Salford, UK, and a key member of the Eurovision S-ADM trials.

“The serial ADM standard was published four years after ADM so it’s not as well adopted. For many years we’ve been focusing on getting ADM well established and supported across the industry, and it feels like it’s now time to start looking at how we use serial ADM.”

With a growing appetite and greater understanding of NGA from consumers, now does feel like a good time. Firth adds: “Consumers are starting to realise the benefits of NGA; several platforms are supporting Dolby Atmos and the reception from consumers of those immersive mixes has been really positive. This creates more demand; more content creators want to use immersive production, and more platforms want to support it.

“It’s also more accessible than ever, with earbuds that support immersive mixes and binauralisation. Head tracking provides a dynamic binaural effect, and soundbars use beamforming to project sounds around you without you having to set up impractical speaker systems,” he adds.

“One of the biggest appeals to consumers is immersive audio, but BBC R&D has an additional focus on accessibility to cater for the needs of all our audience, such as hard-of-hearing consumers or those with sight impairments who need audio description tracks. NGA is a great way of delivering those services because we can easily add audio description tracks or provide dialogue enhancement. Narrative importance can make the mix more intelligible by dropping background sound when it isn’t adding anything to the narrative. These things are all possible using NGA.”

NEW FRONTIERS

The benefits of NGA are clear, and S-ADM is the next frontier in bringing live NGA productions to viewers.

While ADM is suited to programmes produced in advance and delivered as a complete file, S-ADM is a frame-based version of ADM which provides metadata in time-delimited chunks, delivered in sequence alongside the audio. S-ADM generates ADM metadata in real time for live broadcast.

Another method of passing ADM metadata in real time is ADMOSC, a proposal based around ‘open sound control’ which makes it well-suited to production controllers. Eurovision presented Firth and his colleagues with an opportunity to break new ground, using ADMOSC with S-ADM in a production workflow for the first time, as well as testing interoperability with NGA encoders and other production tools such as L-Acoustic’s L-ISA controller and processor.

“This was the first trial that we’ve been able to test ADM-OSC and S-ADM through the production chain,” says Firth. “To build these chains you need support within the production equipment and broadcast infrastructure software, as well as support for NGA formats in

the consumer equipment. Our goal was to identify what was missing in the chain to get from live production to playback on a consumer device. It was a perfect opportunity to make sure that all the bits and pieces we need were in place.”

MIND THE GAPS

The team fed 62 channels of audio over MADI from the Eurovision venue in Liverpool into the BBC’s immersive listening room in MediaCity in Salford. Feeds included music, presenters, effects, and audience microphone feeds. The production tools output ADM-OSC which was used to generate S-ADM metadata to identify each channel and tell the encoder how to render it in the final user experience, such as what level it should be and where each feed should be perceptually placed in the mix.

Transport of audio and of metadata from the controller to Dolby’s encoder had to be squeezed down to 15 audio channels, with an additional channel carrying the metadata. These channels were sent to a Dolby AC-4 encoding and playout system and decoded by consumer devices in the BBC lab.

“Putting the chain together required the development of bespoke software to fill gaps in the chain,” explains Firth. “We had all the building blocks but there were quite a few stages missing to get audio signals and metadata from the controller to the emission encoder, and our aim was to discover where the gaps are and how to fill them.

“We knew what feeds we were getting and the ADM structure that the emission encoder required, so we could quickly create the software to do that conversion but there will always be different rules and priorities for every broadcast. Generalising that workflow to convert any number of audio objects into a specific emission encoder is no easy task,” he continues.

“Development work around an ADM emission profile will help and there is work ongoing to create a common ADM structure for emission encoders; if we can get it down to a common structure, the problem is easier to tackle.”

While there is still more work to clean up live ADM workflows, the project was a success, with minimal latency in the production chain. Even better, it worked first time. And for those of you still downbeat about the UK’s disappointing performance in the actual contest, this is something that we can be very proud of. n

Transport of audio and of metadata from the controller to Dolby’s encoder had to be squeezed down to 15 audio channels

SAFEGUARDING SOUND

Rycote has been operating in the broadcast audio space since 1969 when founder John Gozzard invented the company’s first microphone windshield.

At the time, Gozzard was a sound recordist for the BBC and became frustrated with the cumbersome equipment needed to ensure he captured quality audio while filming on location. He developed a number of solutions, including the now iconic Rycote Zeppelin.

Over the following decades the company, named after Gozzard’s home, Rylan Cottage, has gone on to develop a number of solutions, including soft windshields for camera microphones in the 1980s, a modular suspension system, and the Lyre technology included in a number of the company’s products.

“The most recent endeavours for Rycote have seen the company go into microphone manufacturing,” adds Bjørn Rennemo-Henriksen, audio sales senior director. “We’re making high-quality professional broadcast microphones.”

Microphone windshield company Rycote recently moved its UK manufacturing operations to a brand-new facility in Leicestershire. Bjørn Rennemo-Henriksen tells Jenny Priestley the reasoning behind the move and why the new facility enables the company to test its latest products to the highest standards

Having recently pre-launched two new mics at NAB in April, Rycote now offers a total of seven, ranging from shotguns to pencil mics and a figure-of-eight microphone. “It’s a portfolio that we’re quite proud of and with our wind suppression solutions, we’re capable of offering a complete solution that John Gozzard back in 1969 would have been very pleased with, I’m sure,” adds Rennemo.

The Rycote user is often an on-location sound engineer, who can be working on anything from a blockbuster movie to a natural history documentary or a major sports event. But whatever they’re working on, they need to know that their equipment is up for the job. “It almost goes without saying if you’re on a production for two weeks or a month in a jungle, you don’t have a warehouse of microphones you can go back to and get another mic,” says Rennemo.

“Other users are often within electronic news gathering, which is very much about capturing the moment, and quality of course is important because we need to be able to hear what the journalist is saying,” he continues. “Then we have the sports space. Sports broadcasting is always big in every dimension, whether you sell audio equipment, camera equipment, or anything else related to that industry. On a football pitch, there will often be 11 or 12 microphones and you’ll very often see Rycote’s windshields all around the pitch.”

ON THE MOVE

Back in the spring, Rycote moved its UK operation from Stroud to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where its parent company Videndum has had a presence for a number of years. “The move enables us to prepare for the future upgrade of our windshield operation and to expand our manufacturing capacity,” says Rennemo.

“One of the things that we wanted to pursue was a more sustainable manufacturing process. We could have done that abroad, but around 93 per cent of our suppliers are UK-based so it makes sense to stay within the borders of the UK,” he adds.

The building itself is also sustainable, with all internal walls made of 100 per cent recyclable and low-environmental impact material.

“We are also considering solar panels. Videndum is always considering sustainability, and we have a group-wide ESG strategy. We’re looking at 2024 to install solar panels, which it’s estimated will give us a CO2 saving of 31 tonnes per annum. A lot of thought goes into sustainability in the entire group.”

One of the key features of the new Ashby base is its Hemi Anechoic Wind Tunnel for product development, testing and quality control. A Hemi Anechoic chamber is often used by microphone and loudspeaker manufacturers to measure their products, particularly the frequency response. “The Hemi Anechoic chamber has absolutely zero noise,” explains Rennemo. “If you have ever been to one you will feel a vacuum in your ear.

The building also includes a wind tunnel, rarely used outside of the automotive industry, but so important for a company that claims to be the expert in wind suppression products. “It is very important for us that we can measure frequency responses and also create conditions in which to test our products,” Rennemo says. “Even if we are in the

UK, it’s good to be able to create an environment where we can test our products without having to wait for a windy day.”

The move to Ashby has also seen the company introduce comprehensive quality checks across all of its products. “The wind tunnel and the Hemi Anechoic chamber are a part of that, but we have inbound quality control where we check parts against detailed dimensional CAD drawings. We do this to ensure that all the components that are used are of the highest quality so that we will not have a problem later on in the process. We also have an end-of-line quality control procedure where the product is checked against an approved golden sample.”

THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Sound is integral to pretty much any kind of visual content. Would a lightsaber have quite the same impact without that iconic zuzsh? Or would TikTok videos be as popular without the music behind someone’s cat being adorable? Over the last five-to-ten years the broadcast industry has seen fundamental disruption brought about by the adoption of the internet, both in the contribution and distribution sides of the industry. “Democratisation of content delivery and the way users all over the world consume content has changed,” agrees Rennemo. “This leads me to believe that broadcast as we used to know it is forever changed. I think this long-predicted shift happened last summer. For the first time, TV viewers watched more content on streaming services versus traditional TV. I believe this will only develop from here.

“There’s the consumerisation trend as well, which took off when the iPhone started being able to do video at a good enough quality. Around 500 hours of content per minute are uploaded to YouTube, and that is an immense amount of content,” he continues. “Many videos are produced so that you can watch them without sound because a lot of people do that on their phones. But in order for your content to be viewed more than your rivals, people are starting to realise that the audio behind it needs to be good quality.” n

John Gozzard’s iconic Rycote Zeppelin design

Rycote now offers a total of seven microphone options, ranging from shotguns to pencil mics (above) and a figure-of-eight mic

CHANGE IS HARD

Marty Sacks, EVP of sales, marketing and strategy, Telos Alliance, explains why he believes the media industry needs to adapt to new technology faster

How did you get started in the media tech industry?

My first paying job was at American University’s WAMU-FM as a board operator. I learned the basics of radio broadcasting as a teenager and almost immediately started hanging out with the technologists, eager to learn more. WAMU has always been a highly respected station, and I was very fortunate to start my career there when so many of my friends began in much smaller markets.

How has it changed since you started your career?

Wow! Where to begin? In the beginning, we were playing LPs, reel-to-reel tapes, and tape cartridges. We had analogue phone lines connecting us to National Public Radio and used a tube-type transmitter. Now we have entire broadcast facilities in the cloud and computer-based tools responsible for everything from editing, playback, music scheduling, and of course, streaming media. On the consumer side, I never imagined I would have connections to my house and through a mobile device that would allow me to access content from anywhere in the world. Maybe the real question is, what hasn’t changed?!

What makes you passionate about working in the industry?

The people. I’ve grown up in the industry and spent my entire life around it, and I’m most excited about the relationships I’ve been privileged to have. So many people have contributed to my success, and I hope that I have been able to help others in some way as well. The positive impact our industry can have on audiences continues to amaze me.

If you could change one thing about the media tech industry, what would it be?

That we would adapt to new technology more quickly. Sometimes change is hard. Our industry is no different from so many others in this regard, but sometimes it feels like we might benefit by moving a bit faster.

How do we encourage young people that media technology is the career for them?

Though the technology itself has changed, the same things that attracted me to the business can still attract a new generation. Reinforcing that sense of purpose about the importance of media technology and the role it plays in the lives of others is key, along with the chance to work with some great colleagues and mentors.

Where do you think the industry will go next?

On the technology side, I believe we will continue to see more virtualisation of facilities. On the content delivery side, we’ll see even more opportunities for the audience to engage with media no matter where they go, which is why it’s so critical to be everywhere the audience expects us to be. n

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