TV Tech - 0461 - May 2021 by Future PLC

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remotely speaking p. 21

equipment guide www.tvtech.com | May 2021

AI in TV Production Has it lived up to the hype?

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contents

May 2021 volumn 39, issue 5

The Future Direction of Television News, Post COVID TV Tech looks at the technologies, attitudes and influences affecting the direction of reporting, production and presentation. By Phil Kurz

Time to Check on the Machines

AI/ML tools are improving and increasing in use but are not yet, and perhaps will never be, the magic bullet for all media cases By Adrian Pennington

Artificial Intelligence or Audio Illusion?

Computers controlling computers is one thing; machine learning is another By Dennis Baxter

The Art of ‘Iprompting’

Remote production, IP drive teleprompting innovations By Kevin Hilton

Remotely Speaking

How has a year of production from (insert locale here) impacted local TV? By Bill Hayes

Intelligent Data Terms & Tiering

A primer on understanding the lingo By Karl Paulsen

For more events and industry news visit www.tvtech.com.

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in the news

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editor's note

Getting the Word Out Over the past year, as the world has gone through numerous shutdowns, reopenings and situations in-between the two, we have awaited the arrival of vaccinations to help us return to a “semi-normal” way of life (it’s doubtful that things will ever be exactly the same again). The arrival of vaccines late last year was nothing short of miraculous and demonstrated the advances made by medical science over the past several decades. Now that the general population in this country over 16 years-old is eligible for the vaccines, there is hope that the United States and the world could get control over this pandemic within the next year and come close to herd immunity. The most important variables in reaching that goal, though are the new, more contagious variants and vaccine hesitancy. There are a number of reasons why portions of the public will remain unvaccinated. Some are understandable (lack of access, health concerns and skepticism because of past historical wrongs); while others are not (politics and outlandish conspiracy theories fueled by social media). Whatever the reason, the virus doesn’t care, so it’s imperative that if we want to recover from the economic and social devastation wreaked by the pandemic, we need to fight it through vaccines. Broadcasters have been on the front lines of this pandemic since before the first deaths were reported in the United States and have played a vital role in keeping the public informed. Of course, not all media organizations have been so helpful in relaying useful information and many have promoted irresponsible behavior. Broadcasters, however, have a public duty to provide and promote vital and factual information about vaccines and why they are so important. Programs like NBC’s “Plan Your Vaccine” have offered useful resources for what can be for some, a confusing and frustrating process. Broadcasters donated millions of dollars worth of airtime to promote coronavirus and vaccine awareness even before the White House announced a $1.5 billion media promotion campaign earlier this year. “Since the early days of the pandemic, broadcasters have donated unprecedented airtime to keeping the public informed and to address mistrust and concern among vulnerable communities,” NAB President Gordon Smith told Congress last month. “Local broadcasters have been a constant companion shining light, spreading hope and supporting communities as Americans have experienced acute isolation from their families, neighbors and loved ones.” Smith also reminded Congress that local broadcasters remain the most trusted sources of news and information and how important this trust is at this moment. “As this pandemic has shown once again, localism and journalism are central to broadcasting’s franchise. Therefore, we are eager to continue to assist Congress, the Administration and local leaders by using our airwaves to carry the message America needs—and trusts—to get over the finish line with the COVID-19 pandemic.” Even before 2020, broadcasters were among the most trusted sources of news; now more than ever, we need to live up to that trust by helping the nation—and the world—recover from these unprecedented times. Tom Butts Content Director tom.butts@futurenet.com

MILESTONE

Smith Announces Retirement Gordon Smith is stepping down from his position as president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters at the end of the year and will transition to an advisory and advocacy role. Curtis LeGeyt, NAB’s chief operating officer, has been appointed as the next president and CEO of the organization. Gordon has been a strong and passionate advocate for the broadcast industry and will be greatly missed. We congratulate him on his tenure and wish him all the best as he returns to his home state of Oregon!

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

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Vol. 39 No. 5 | May 2021 FOLLOW US

www.tvtech.com twitter.com/tvtechnology CONTENT VP/Global Editor-In-Chief Bill Gannon, william.gannon@futurenet.com Content Director Tom Butts, tom.butts@futurenet.com Content Manager Terry Scutt, terry.scutt@futurenet.com Content Producer Michael Balderston, michael.balderston@futurenet.com Contributors Gary Arlen, Susan Ashworth, James Careless, Kevin Hilton, Craig Johnston, Bob Kovacs, Adrian Pennington & Mark Smith Production Manager Heather Tatrow Managing Design Director Nicole Cobban Senior Design Directors Lisa McIntosh and Will Shum ADVERTISING SALES Director of Sales, Media Entertainment & Tech Laura Lubrano, laura.lubrano@futurenet.com SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE To subscribe, change your address, or check on your current account status, go to www.tvtechnology.com and click on About Us, email futureplc@computerfulfillment.com, call 888-266-5828, or write P.O. Box 8692, Lowell, MA 01853. LICENSING/REPRINTS/PERMISSIONS TV Technology is available for licensing. Contact the Licensing team to discuss partnership opportunities. Head of Print Licensing Rachel Shaw licensing@futurenet.com MANAGEMENT Senior Vice President, B2B Rick Stamberger Chief Revenue Officer Mike Peralta Head of Production US & UK Mark Constance Head of Design Rodney Dive FUTURE US, INC. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036

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in the news IBC Set to Go Ahead as Planned in September

update Here are some of the most recent developments regarding the transition to ATSC 3.0: Sinclair Launches ATSC 3.0 Test Site, Fraunhofer Partnership Sinclair Broadcast Group has installed a 100w transmitter atop its Hunt Valley, Md. corporate headquarters to test reception on small devices like its MarkONE 3.0-enabled smartphone and integration with Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) in its broadcast app. In addition, Sinclair and German-based Fraunhofer IIS have announced a new partnership to bring audio services using the DRM standard to ATSC 3.0.

LONDON—IBC 2021 is set to go ahead as planned in September, with organizers saying they are focused on delivering a “fantastic event” at the RAI in Amsterdam. However, the fall back dates for December are still in place, and an announcement on that is expected to be made in June. The current dates for the show are Sept. 10–13, with the fallback option for Dec. 3–6. Organizers are asking the industry to keep their options open for both possible set of dates. “The industry is telling us that people are keen to come together again after being apart for a long time,” said IBC CEO Michael Crimp. “In the coming months, a number of factors will help us decide when the event can happen and in what format. From macro trends such as vaccine rollout and testing, to

ly asking for comment from consumers and industry members. The Media Bureau officially issued a Public Notice inviting comments, giving a deadline of June 3 for comments, with reply comments then due on July 9. The CALM Act was enacted in 2010 by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) with the goal of regulating the volume of broadcast, cable and satellite commercials compared to other programming so they are not significantly louder. The FCC adopted implementing rules in 2011 for TV stations and MVPDs, but acknowledges it has only had minor changes in the last 10 years. In response to a renewed push by Eshoo and “thousand of complaints” that have not been enforced, the FCC wants comments on the effectiveness of its rules on preventing loud commercials, as well as what stakeholders may view as necessary updates to the FCC’s CALM Act rules. y Michael Balderston

ATSC, TSDSI Working to Bring ATSC 3.0 to India The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) have come to terms on an agreement that will enable TSDSI to adopt ATSC standards, seen as the first step toward advancing development of NextGen broadcasting standards for India. TSDSI says that it can now begin adapting ATSC 3.0 standards for specific livelinear broadcast and broadcast traffic offload use cases in India. Among the possible key benefits will be the integration of core networks and the devices of cellular operators and broadcasters. Sinclair Broadcast Group and ONE Media—both ATSC and TSDSI members welcomed news of the agreement, noting that many elements of ASTC 3.0 are compatible with international broadcast standards and are recognized by the agreement.

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

CPB Approves $175M COVID Distribution Plan the willingness of our attendees to travel, we will take all things into consideration as we make those important decisions.” IBC said that it is budgeting for exhibition space to be about 30% less than in 2019, with the two pavilions not being used in 2021. There will also be no on-site registration for people who have not pre-registered. Other steps IBC is taking include temperature checks, extra wide and one-way aisles, enforcement of stand capacities and attendees showing that they had a recent COVID-19 test. Steve Connolly, head of sales at IBC, said support from the industry continues to be strong, with 30,000 square feet of stand space booked so far. y Jenny Priestley

FCC Revisiting Commercial Loudness WASHINGTON—The FCC is taking a look at its rules regarding the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, official-

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WASHINGTON—The Corporation of Public Broadcasting has OK-ed a distribution plan of the $175 million in relief funds for public media that was included in the American Rescue Plan Act. The plan was unanimously approved by the CPB Board of Directors. The funding from the American Rescue Plan Act is meant to help public telecommunications entities “prepare, prevent for and respond to coronavirus” so they can maintain their programming and services to their local communities. The CPB’s distribution plan, based on a recommendation from a group of public TV and radio representatives, includes $100 million prioritized for small, rural or minority stations, calculated using the CARES Act formula. The remaining $75 million will be distributed according to the respective TV and radio Community Service Grant formula,

in the news OPINION which takes into account stations’ service to rural communities, number of transmitters needed to cover large geographic areas and the amount raised in non-federal financial support. CPB says that it will expeditiously distribute these funds to station licenses. A list of grantees and the amount they will receive is available at cpb.org. y Michael Balderston

Byron Allen Launches Local Now Ad-Supported Streaming Service LOS ANGELES— Byron Allen, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, has announcd the lauch of "Local Now," a free, ad-supported streaming service that offers local news and premium content, using proprietary software and artificial intelligence to curate content based on the user’s zip code.

What About the Military?

the organization committed to n March, while moderating the awarding at least three $2,500 opening session of the virtual scholarships. Tech Leadership Summit 2021, But the panelists spoke more I had one of those “ah-ha” (or broadly about attracting young maybe that should be “duh”) moblood to the engineering and ments that happen occasionally and technical ranks of the industry. open one’s eyes to a whole new— As the conversation proand in my case, what should have gressed, no one brought up been an obvious—perspective. retiring U.S. military personnel First a bit of background. “The as a possible solution. I found Tech Leadership in 2021” session Phil Kurz that strange because many of featured four recipients of the B+C the TV engineers I have met over the past three 2021 Tech Leadership Awards (profiled in last decades attribute their early love of broadcastmonth’s issue of TV Tech). For 45 minutes, ing to ham radio and their tech training to their William Hayes from Iowa PBS; Cindy Hutter military service. Cavell of Cavell, Mertz & Associates; Barbara Naturally, I asked, “What about the milLange from SMPTE; and TV Tech RF guru itary?” Why can’t the television industry Doug Lung of NBC-Owned Television Stations attract young men and women with an RF or spoke about some of the important technolosome other tech-related specialty who are gy issues facing the industry. leaving the military? One topic in particular seemed to stand out

The Local Now streaming service has more than 300 free-streaming channels, including a Local Now channel in every zip code in the country. Local channels and content from the likes of Allen Media Broadcasting, News 12, E.W. Scripps, Meredith Broadcasting and Cox Media Group are also available. Genre-based channels are also available from Allen Media Group, The Weather Channel, Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, Lionsgate, Cinedigm, Gravitas and more. Per Allen, the Local Now software and AI produce, aggregate, curate and stream local news, weather, sports, traffic, movies, TV shows and more in real time, based on the user’s zip code. The user interface for Local Now puts local content out front. Users can create a “My Stream” channel for greater localization and personalization. Local Now is available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Xfinity, Vizio, Samsung, Hisense, Android and iOS devices, as well as YouTube TV, Sling, Xuomo, fuboTV and Dish. y Michael Balderston

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com

Courtesy US Army

Bransen Dillon covers Operation Khaleje Response at the Kuwait Naval Base in 2012.

given the time and thought that went into the responses: How to attract young people to broadcast engineering and other technical careers in television. Sure, NAB’s PILOT initiative annually offers a total of four $2,500 college scholarships to two undergrad and two graduate students pursuing “studies related to broadcast or media technology and innovation.” Other organizations offer scholarships as well. The Society of Broadcast Engineers, for instance, through the Ennes Foundation Trust, awards scholarships to those wishing to continue or begin their education in broadcast engineering and technology. In 2020,

The reply from the panel: It’s a matter of money. It’s doubtful television can meet their salary expectations, especially when there are other sectors like big tech and the wireless industry that compete for the same talent. That was my combination “ah-ha-duh” moment. The answer was in front of my face all along. While I didn’t say it during the session, my takeaway was that all of the event sessions, pontificating and hand-wringing in the world won’t solve this issue. The answer resides with the media companies that make up the TV industry. If they really want more young engineering and technology talent, they will have to pay for it. l

local news

The Future Direction of Television News, Post COVID TV Tech looks at the technologies, attitudes and influences affecting the direction of reporting, production and presentation. Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a newly published white paper from TV Tech commissioned by Avid Technology.

By Phil Kurz

THE COVID-19 EFFECT When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic last year, governments and society at large had to cope with travel bans, social distancing mandates, lock-

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

NBCUniversal/Telemundo Enterprises

Television news has a long history of evolving—from the days when stories in the field were shot on film through electronic newsgathering to wireless network contribution of live and finished packages. The same could be said of newsroom technologies—from reporters on manual typewriters through a newsroom computer system to laptops in the field connected via virtual private networks (VPNs) to the newsroom system. Each of these news workflow transitions was gradual, giving journalists and their news organizations time to adapt and adopt that in many cases was years long. However, in March 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, leaving newsrooms, like the rest of society, in a scramble to maintain a degree of normalcy while the pandemic surged and alternatives to long-established routines were deployed. Many newsrooms accelerated plans only under consideration prior to COVID-19 to a phase of rapid deployment, such as embedding journalists more deeply in their communities and reducing their presence in the newsroom or virtualizing common news workflows in the cloud. In other instances, newsrooms turned to new tools, such as video conferencing apps, to replace newsroom meetings. These changes and others, however, do not seem temporary—tied to some future allclear signal from a health authority. Rather, COVID-19 appears to have acted as a catalyst for a transformation in workflows touching newsgathering, production and presentation that will be felt for years to come.

downs, event postponements and cancellations. Television broadcasters, too, responded to the pandemic with steps to limit exposure and maintain operations. Crowded newsrooms in particular were susceptible to the virus, not only because of the proximity of staff but because of the risk that reporters and news photographers in the field, who are exposed daily to a constant stream of people, might return to the station with the virus. Further, the close confines of production control rooms and the proximity of anchors on a news set demanded change. A common strategy was to direct as many staff as possible to leave the station, work remotely from home or elsewhere, and adjust the work patterns of those who remained to reduce the likelihood of exposure. Only those required to be physically present for on-air production stayed; the rest, including those working on packages and documentaries and media managers, were sent home to work. While a dramatic step, directing staff to work remotely in the initial phase of the pandemic also set in motion a major rethink and retooling of news processes and workflows that promise to leave a lasting mark on how TV news is gathered, produced and presented.

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CHANGES IN ATTITUDE To change just about every aspect of the television news process is no small undertaking. Not only did news management and engineering teams have to establish new workflows, but long-held attitudes and institutions in the newsroom had to change. For example, the morning editorial meeting, a newsroom fixture during which news management and journalists sit around a conference table to set the direction of the day’s coverage, was no longer appropriate at a time when the public was being directed to maintain six feet of social distance. In its place, the in-person meeting was replaced with virtual equivalents leveraging video conferencing apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack. What was once a sacrosanct part of editorial operations changed in an instant and in the process revealed where new workflow efficiencies might be achieved. Participants now come to these meetings more prepared to execute the newsgathering mission of the day. l A free copy download of the entire white paper is available at tvtech.com/whitepapers.

ai/ml for media

Time to Check on the Machines AI/ML tools are improving and increasing in use but are not yet, and perhaps will never be, the magic bullet for all media cases By Adrian Pennington

LONDON—Media and entertainment enterprises are seeking automation to drive efficiencies with artificial intelligence and machine learning the technology keys. In a post-pandemic world where a remote and distributed work model is the new norm, AI engines could come into their own. “We’re at the beginning of a golden age of AI and ML,” says Hiren Hindocha, cofounder, president & CEO at Digital Nirvana, a Fremont, Calif.-based developer of media compliance technology. “The use in media is tremendous. It makes content searchable and translatable into multiple languages, allowing content to be consumed by users anywhere.” Others strike a note of caution. “AI/ML is working and has not led to the mass layoffs that some feared,” says Tom Sahara, former vice president of operations and technology for Turner Sports. “But nor has it reduced budgets by a huge percentage.” Julian Fernandez-Campon, CTO of Tedial, agrees, “AI/ML has become a ‘must-have’ feature across all technologies but we have to be quite cautious about the practical application of them. They’ve proved good results in some scenarios but in reality, broadcasters are not getting big benefits right now. Being able to test and select the proper AI/ML tool quickly and cost-effectively will definitely help adoption.” Roy Burns, vice president of media solutions at Integrated Media Technologies, a Los Angeles-based systems integrator, says customers are confused about what AI/ML is or what they want to do with it; “We have to explain, it’s not a magic bullet.”

Dalet Media Cortex is an AI-powered SaaS that enables the orchestration of multiple cognitive services in a pay-as-you-go model.

Julian Fernandez-Campon, CTO for Tedial

SPEECH TO TEXT The key benefit and one ready for general operation today is captioning. Live speech-totext quality is rapidly improving, leading to the possibility of fully automatic, low-latency creation of subtitles. Dalet reports time savings of up to 80% in delivering subtitled content for news and digital publishing. Additional ML capabilities allow systems to properly segment and layout captions to increase readability and compliance with subtitling guidelines. “Speech-to-text translation is probably most mature where there’s about a 90% confidence

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

rate,” says Burns. “For some people that’s good enough but for others making an embarrassing mistake is still too risky. “It’s important to understand that the output of object or facial recognition tools are not human readable,” he adds. “They are designed to give a ton of metadata about the asset but to correlate it against your media you need a MAM [media asset management]. That’s what I try to explain—if you can ingest AI outputs to a MAM and correlate against a central database of record that is what is going to make it searchable.”

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Hearst Television has adapted its MAM with Prime Focus for automation of file management of commercial spots. Joe Addalia, director of technology projects for the station group, explains, “We have hundreds of commercials coming into our systems every day. If we have to mark in and out each time and do a quality check we are not being efficient. Instead, the MAM automates this, harvests necessary metadata and supplies it downstream to playout. There’s no reason for an operator to go into the item.” Addalia emphasizes the importance of metadata. “You can have the most glorious 4K image you want but if you can’t find it you may as well not have it. AI/ML is about being able to find what you need as you need it.” Hearst’s internal description for this is “enabled media:” Metadata-enriched video, audio or stills content that Addalia says will advance the possibilities for new workflow and products. “On top of speech-to-text, automatic machine translation is nearing maturity to enable multilingual captioning scenarios,” says Michael Elhadad, director of R&D for Dalet. “The main obstacle is that standard machine translation models are not fully ready to translate captions out-of-the-box. Automatic machine translation is trained on fluent text, and when translating each segment into individual

ai/ml for media

Digital Nirvana’s Trance is a cloud-based, enterprise-level SaaS that auto-generates transcripts, creates closed captions and translates text into more than 100 different languages.

subtitles, the text is not fluent enough; standard models fail to produce adequate text.” The alternative method, which consists of merging together caption segments into longer chunks, leads to another challenge: How to segment back the translated chunk into aligned and well-timed segments? “A specialized ML method must be developed to address this challenge and produce high-quality translated captions,” says Elhadad. “This remains an open challenge for the industry and something that we’re working on at our research lab.”

CURRENT USES OF AI/ML IN MEDIA Additionally, object and face recognition logged as metadata can assist scripting and video editing, specifically with a rough cut being automatically created based on given metadata fields, for example, creating highlights from keywords, objects, text-on-screen. Tedial has been using AI/ML tools for some customers in the automatic logging of legacy archives, to identify celebrities and OCR using AI tools. A big pain point is “text collusion,” when onscreen text (perhaps indicating a place or date) overlaps with caption files. Files presented with this error will immediately fail the QC of all the big streamers, but detecting issues manually in every version permutation is not cost-effective. OwnZones offers a deep analysis platform to scan content and compare it against other media items like time text. “The AI analysis tool can find the location of onscreen graphics using OCR [optical character recognition] and with information from time text is able to detect a collision,” explains Peter Artmount, product director for the Los Angeles-based developer of media management distribution technology. “A failure report is automatically sent back to whoever did the localization work to fix captioning before sending on to OTT services.” Typically, it would take an hour or two to manually QC and flag issues per hour of

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

content; OwnZones claims its AI does it in 15 minutes. Another common use case is scene detection for censorship. Artmont describes a scenario in which an episodic drama containing occasional profanity requires closed captions to be blurred out for transmission during daytime hours.

“You can have the most glorious 4K picture you want but if you can't find it you may as well not have it. AI/ML is about being able find what you need as you need it” —JOE ADDALIA, HEARST TELEVISION

“Typically, you have to store all the versions you create, eating up storage on-prem,” he says. “In our example, you are storing 300–400 GB per show, yet the only difference between each version is to 3–4 MB of frames. We apply our AI analysis to generate a (IMF-compliant) composition playlist from the content. By storing only the differences [scenes with bad words] from the original we can trim content by 46%, making storage far more efficient.”

CURRENT USE OF AI/ML in SPORTS Sports is a greenfield where the use of AI can leverage production to generate more tailored content for a specific audience. “With the reduction in live events, the ability to monetize valuable content from years of archives is key,” says Elhadad. There are two principal applications: Indexing (tagging, transcription, classification and object/face recognition) of vast archives;

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and automatic highlight creation, event-driven automatic overlays and titling. Aviv Arnon, cofounder of WSC Sports, an Israeli-based developer of sports media production technology, says its platform is taking “dirty” production streams of a sport into its cloud-based platform where an AI/ML system breaks the game into hundreds of individual plays. The system applies a variety of algorithms to ID each clip, make it searchable, and to clip each with optimal start and end times and then gathers the results into video packages for publishing. “Our ML modules understand the particular patterns for how basketball is produced including replays, camera movement, scene changes,” Arnon said. “We have all those indicators mapped to automatically produce an entire game.” He says sports leagues need to scale their content operations by packaging different clips to social media and other websites and that AI is the only way to do so rapidly. “I can’t say it’s 100% accurate but 99% is too low,” he said. “A better question might be, ‘if I had a manual editor would they have clipped it a second shorter or longer?’ It’s not about the veracity of the content. There’s no doubt it has helped speed up the process by allowing an operator to handle a lot of content in a short amount of time.” Elhadad explains that indexing is collected frame by frame (e.g., a frame contains the face or the jersey of a known player), but search results should be presented as clips (coherent segments where clues collected from subsequent frames are aggregated into meaningful classification). “While descriptive standards exist to capture the nature of such aggregation (MPEG-7), the industry has not yet produced methods to predict such aggregation in an effective manner.”

SMPTE DEVELOPING AI/ML BEST PRACTICES Work is under way in this area. SMPTE is working with the ETC@USC’s AI & Neuroscience in Media Project to help the media community better understand the scope of the AI technology. “AI is promising but it’s an amorphous set of technologies,” says project director Yves Bergquist, noting that a quarter of organizations report over a 50% failure rate in their AI initiatives. Consultancy Deloitte also found that half of media organizations report major shortages of AI talent. “There are a lot of challenges around data quality, formats, privacy, ontologies and how to deploy AI/ML models in enterprise,” Bergquist

ai/ml for media says. “AI/ML is experimental and expensive and there are duplications across the industry. “We think there are strong opportunities for interoperability throughout the media industry,” he adds. “Not everything has to be in the form of standards. We also want to share best practices.” The task force is made up of about 40 members including Sony Pictures, WarnerMedia and Adobe. Research is focused on data and ontologies, AI ethics, platform performance and interoperability, and organizational and cultural integration. “That last topic is the most important and least understood challenge,” Addalia says. “It speaks to the ability of an organization to create an awareness and understanding of what AI is and is not, how to interpret its output, how to understand the data.” The task force is “expecting to make a substantial contribution in the area of suggesting best practices in terms of creating a culture of analytics,” he said. Addalia agrees that no single tech provider can do it all. “TV is a cottage industry,” he said. “We have to use our collective resources properly so we can leapfrog into next-gen where we have automated workflows. This re-

quires cross-industry collaboration. Vendors must work together.” There’s also an onus on end users to provide feedback, Addalia added. “They need to define the use case and the desired results,” he said. Muralidhar Sridhar, vice president of AI/ ML products at Prime Focus says M&E needs specific treatment and that ready-made AI engines have not transformed the industry. Human-like comparison of video masters, transcription for subtitling and captions, AI-based QC, reconformance of a source from a master, automatic retiming of pre- and post-edit masters are all important use cases, he says, provided the AI can be made to understand the nuances. “The problem is that while most AI engines try to augment content analysis, the ability to accurately address nuances is not easy to match,” he said. “Marking segments like cards, slates and montages takes time and cost. It needs 100% accuracy and 100% frame accuracy." Prime Focus’ prescription for clients like Star India, Hotstar and Hearst Television is to combine computer vision techniques with neural networks where necessary then customize the solution for the customer.

DEVELOPMENTS AHEAD Higher accuracy and speed across all AI/ ML capabilities continues to advance. Fernandez-Campon advocates “Intelligent BPM,” where AI tools improve workflows by taking automatic decisions and focusing the work of operators on creative tasks. “That’s why it’s key to offer flexible and cost-effective AI/ML tools that can easily integrate into workflows and be swapped one for another,” he said. Dalet is working on a new approach to indexing faces and creating “private knowledge graphs” it thinks will speed up the process of cataloging large content archives and building libraries of local personalities for regional needs. Current technologies are not able to easily recognize faces throughout a historical archive, the company says. “Better context-aware speech transcription, more accurate tagging and smoother automatic editing will further reduce the need for manual, repetitive tasks,” says Elhadad. “AI/ML empower content producers and distributors to focus on higher value creative work. AI/ML is becoming pervasive: another tool in the box that users will find increasingly beneficial without the doom-laden ‘man vs. machine’ context.” l

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inside audio

Artificial Intelligence or Audio Illusion? Computers controlling computers is one thing; machine learning is another

and we are already seeing the will never forget the day I concept of computers controlling brought an Avid ProTools computers. Computers consystem into our studio and my trolling computers is nothing partner remarked that “there new, but machine learning is, and was no way a computer could be to me this is a haunting reminder faster than the old-fashioned of Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey. razor blade edit.” There were two computers in the studio: one for accounting and the other was a SOUND AS AN INDICATOR crude device that controlled the Artificial intelligence (AI) has capstan motor on the 24-track been used in sports for awhile. EXPERTISE tape machine to synchronize it to At Wimbledon, for example, the Dennis Baxter a video machine and timecode. computer listens and watches the This was the early 1980s; there were no tennis match and identifies exciting indicomputers in the OB vans and every single cators by applying a variety of metrics. The piece of equipment was analog. Videotape edmetrics guide the computer in learning how iting was machine-to-machine with an operto recognize significant points of interest and ator—the video going through a switcher and for what makes a good highlight or replay. audio going through the mixing desk. Music Interestingly, sound is a leading and reliwas played off of the NAB Cart, a magnetable indicator. For example, pandemonium in ic-tape sound-recording format. I guess you the crowd after a long quiet pause is a good could call the first “computer” I remember in indicator of a memorable highlight moment. an OB van was the DigiCart instant playback One of my logic metrics would also include system from hard drives. the duration of the crowd burst as well as the After several decades of computerization amplitude, threshold, attack and sustain of and the implementation of IP throughout the sounds during the interesting moment. broadcast ecosystems, innovation has put us Additionally, the voice inflection of the in a place where everything is computerized crowd—sustained screaming as opposed to a

Lawo's mc296 Grand Production Consoles was used to create immersive audio mix at the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) Moscow at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

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sigh of dismay that dies out quickly is another valuable and identifiable metric. From these simple learning indicators the computer within a dozen repetitions or even 100 times will be able to accurately predict a good highlight moment. I would argue that in 2018 we were close to something with AI. Lawo had developed a mixing system that takes data of the ball position (or any interesting follow target) and translates that into capturing the best possible sound from the optimal microphone or combination of microphones, plus determines what level to mix and blend them together. Tracking the ball is done optically and in a sport like football, the focus of the game is the ball—basically you tell the computer to follow the ball. Undeniably World Cup 2018 was the best-sounding football event I have ever heard. Praise goes to HBS Christian Gobbel, Felix Kruckles and the Lawo team for implementing a true paradigm shift in the world of sound for broadcasting, but I think Philipp Lawo is on to something else.

THE SALSA ALGORITHM An alternative and interesting method to advance automation is "Spatial Automated Live Sports Audio," which uses existing shotgun microphones around the pitch to detect the ball kicks. The system not only looks for overall level intensity, but also the envelope across a range of frequency bands for each sound event type that a sound mixer might want to capture. The SALSA algorithm is capable of detecting ball kicks that are virtually inaudible on the microphone feeds and is more reliable at recognizing sound events than our ears. During live production, SALSA uses one of two approaches: It can automate a mixing console’s faders to capture each on-pitch sound event, or use the frequency/envelope information of the ball kick to trigger preproduced samples. These sounds can be added to the on-pitch sounds or can replace the game sounds if you want it to sound like an EA Sports Game or a Saturday afternoon match on SKY. It is up to you as the sound designer

inside audio and consumer. Now, let’s take a look into another possibility of AI for sports coverage. Artificial intelligence comes into play when a computer analyzes the switching patterns of a sample of directing styles and compares the director’s commands to the position of the ball within the field of view of the broadcast cameras. The computer archives the director’s selection for future learning. Within a short period of time, patterns will be detected, examined and programmed into event cycles to take over the direction of the cameras. A basic “follow-the-ball” pattern is learned, however it would seem possible that you can modify the production by blending and altering production styles. I once worked with a director that had a rhythm and repetition to his cutting style and literally repeated a dozen or so patterns over the course of a three-hour game. I can clearly envision the day when bots and droid-computers capture, direct and produce live sporting events with little human intervention. Let’s follow the flow; camera robotics support systems have been around for awhile and there is no reason the cam-

eras and audio cannot follow the electronic commands of a computer that is following play action. Imagine this possible scenario: The computer is calculating that, after a goal kick, seven out of 10 directors would cut to a wide shot while optical position tracking is con-

I can clearly envision the day when bots and droidcomputers capture, direct and produce live sporting events with little human intervention.

information to the directoid, which is learning the patterns of the coaches and when to cut to the coach. The directoid has a library of possibilities for each ball position and makes comparisons. Real-time action coverage could include speech interpretation played out from a computer that has ingested all the data and artificially created the commentary track. Speech synthesis has existed for awhile and once you have optical tracking it becomes conceivable that you can create droid commentators that interpret the play-by-play action and sound resynthesis to complete the entire experience— alternative reality. My vision of the future paints a different picture of the science, art and practice of audio as I/we know it, but I believe my speculation could become reality. l

tinually sending the directoid mapping data of the field of play. The “directoid” directs camera X, Y and Z to follow the ball while simultaneously directing camera A and B to track the coaches. Additionally, cameras A and B are capturing the audio from the coaches and sending the

Dennis Baxter has spent over 35 years in live broadcasting contributing to hundreds of live events including sound design for nine Olympic Games. He has earned multiple Emmy Awards and is the author of “A Practical Guide to Television Sound Engineering,” published in both English and Chinese. He is currently working on a book about immersive sound practices and production. He can be reached at dbaxter@dennisbaxtersound.com or at www. dennisbaxtersound.com.

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media production

The Art of ‘Iprompting’ Remote production, IP drive teleprompting innovations By Kevin Hilton

LONDON—The teleprompter has long been a mainstay of live television, replacing the earlier and unkindly named “idiot board,” but still ensuring that on-air presenters get their lines right. Its necessary usefulness moved beyond TV into live events such as political conferences, corporate presentations and product launches. Their ubiquity and effectiveness now extend into the realm of independent and individual internet broadcasters, to the extent that there are regularly videos on YouTube selecting the best teleprompters for YouTube.

understanding and popularity of teleprompting has increased considerably, O’Brien says, with greater demand for these units not just in the home but new and established studios as well. “The need for ‘smarter’ IP-based solutions is extremely important, which is why Telescript is partnering with a global technology company to add their IP into our monitors,” he said, adding that the details of this partnership will be announced this month.

SMALL AND PORTABLE

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By its very nature, this end of the market is serviced primarily by systems in the $80– $1,400 price bracket but over the past year the higher-end manufacturers have been looking more closely at how their technology can be used both at and from home, for traditional broadcasters rather than YouTubers. “We have seen an increase in the need to use smaller, more portable displays for prompter text, especially when home working,” said Robin Brown, product manager of Autoscript (part of the Vitec group with Autocue). “These screens are mostly tablet-sized and the ability to connect an iPad into the system as a prompter, without any added latency from streaming video, has been significant for many of our customers.” Brown explains that “network coverage and simplicity of configuration” have made this way of working easily adoptable and simple to apply. The mass uptake of remote workflows was necessitated by the pandemic of the past year but has been enabled by the continuing evolution of connectivity technologies. “The speed of change in IP development and deployment—plus the global pandemic—has dramatically changed what users expect of prompting and what it can deliver,” said Brown. “Remote operations have become commonplace for users to request this mode of working, which is making for a buoyant market.” COVID-19 has affected every person and every business, forcing media enterprises to find more ways to connect to small devices at remote locations, according to Chris O’Brien, president of Telescript International. The

A practical downside to the shift towards more compact devices is emerging technology meeting the limitations of human faculties. “Everyone wants smaller but the problem is that the talents’ eyes are not getting any better,” One particular Mirror Image customer requested an iPad be mounted said Michael Accardi, president on the front of the company’s new LC-12 E camera teleprompter. of CueScript. “Small consumabout new styles of broadcast operations, er-based products fall short on readability, which extend to teleprompters. connectivity and dependability. Now more “Today, operators and talent can be anythan ever, people are depending on prompters where—they do not have to be together,” he to get the message out the first time and we says. “All physical boundaries have been lifted have been designing systems that meet the and it is common for an operator in their customers’ needs. There is no room for error.” home to be prompting for multiple talent in In general, Accardi observes, the prompting multiple locations.” market is scrambling to cope with the new Prompter vendors have been seeing very normal. The reaction to COVID-19—with specific requests from end-users to meet these more home and remote working—has brought changing requirements, according to JT Meidl, president of Mirror Image Teleprompters, noting that one particular customer requested an iPad be mounted on the front of the company’s new LC-12 E camera teleprompter. “The iPad acts as a talent monitor and receives a live network feed, allowing for perfect eye contact,” Meidl said. “The system was installed in the customer’s mobile studio van and has been used since the start of the pandemic by a major network.” Studio equipment developers have also been looking at how to incorporate prompters into more compact and integrated systems. Robotic camera control specialist Telemetrics developed the Telepod with this in mind. —ROBIN BROWN, AUTOSCRIPT

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

“The speed of change in IP development and deployment—plus the global pandemic—has dramatically changed what users expect of prompting and what it can deliver.”

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media production According to company Vice President Michael Cuomo, Telepod interfaces with “most teleprompting systems and automatically keeps the prompter facing the talent at all times and varying heights.” Cuomo adds that the Telepod is a response to the trend for fewer personnel in TV studios. It includes the RoboEye 4K pan/tilt camera system, Televator Mini elevating pedestal, floor dolly and RCCP-2A robotic control panel featuring reFrame AI software. “Hands -free prompting will soon be used for all newscasts, going the way of the three camera setup of robotic camera that is now operated by one person in the control room,” he said.

INTEGRATION WITH THIRD PARTIES Overall integration is the ongoing trend in broadcasting with Telescript’s Chris O’Brien adding that customers are increasingly looking for integrated IP prompting systems that work with the main newsroom technologies from the likes of ENPS, Avid iNews and Octopus while at the same time supporting SDI facilities. “With many studios, colleges and TV professionals turning to IP solutions, teleprompting displays that natively connect to IP environ-

ments make adding prompting to a network easy,” he said. “The future is smarter, smaller, sleeker, with the emphasis on smarter systems that can interconnect through IP networks.” Autoscript, a pioneer of IP workflows for telepromting, says its “Intelligent Prompting” system, which is fully-IP enabled, will similarly change how people use teleprompters. “Our primary focus is building responsive technologies that enable broadcasters to work more An Autoscript prompter deployed in a virtual studio environment flexibly and manage resee the new workflows developed for remote sources more efficiently,” Brown said. “Ensurproduction will go away. ing presenters always remain confidently on “This adoption of remote prompting will only script is our goal because that’s the ultimate expand, changing the way we do sports, locatest of any prompting system.” tion shoots, satellite studios and more,” he said. Accardi agrees that IP-based prompting “is “Customers now understand how to leverage not the future, it is today,” adding that the their existing systems and in turn we will see demand for flexibility, speed and dependabilprompters in more places than ever before.” l ity is driving development. He also does not

Prompters In Motion The Telemetrics RoboEye camera system with reFrame™ camera tracking now includes the ability to robotically pan in sync with the teleprompter of your choice. When mounted on a EP-6M Televator elevating pedestal, your studio now has a way to follow the talent across the set without touching the control panel. Automate your studio operations today! The Leader in Camera Robotics MADE IN USA

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remote production

During the pandemic, Iowa PBS provided pool feeds of daily news briefings from the State Emergency Operations Control Center to media around the state and nationwide. Here Iowa PBS videographer Phil Blobaum covers Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds giving an update.

Photo credit: Iowa Public TV

Remotely Speaking How has a year of production from (insert locale here) impacted local TV? By Bill Hayes

JOHNSTON, IOWA—It is not news to anyone, anywhere that COVID-19 and the associated pandemic and global shutdown has forced changes on everyone. Even now as we start to see some lessening of restrictions and resumption of a less restrictive return to work, we are beginning to evaluate what are the impacts of the last year and half in the near and long term. How many of the changes we were forced to implement will continue after the pandemic has ended? Even more interesting to me is what will motivate keeping or eliminating the changes when we can go back to a relatively speaking "more normal" way of life? When it became obvious in the early days of March 2020 that Iowa PBS would have to look at implementing a remote work policy, we had to pivot, which isn’t easy for my organization since we are an agency of the State of Iowa and governmental policies and procedures tend to make flexibility and nimbleness a challenge.

HYBRID OPERATION We were challenged on a couple of fronts. First being that much of the staff is hourly and as a result are expected to work from their desks within the facility for set shifts. Enabling even clerical and traditional office workers to work from home meant not only supplying them with laptops and VPN access but also with meaning-

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

ful work that demonstrated they were actually working their shifts. The other challenge was for those involved in content creation where they would need to interface from a remote location into a facility that was purposely built to not connect to the outside world. Providing VPN access to Avid edit suites and broadcast operations required a bit more thought and planning. The Iowa PBS IT team did an amazing job ramping up remote access capabilities and configuring remote work stations. What we ended up with was a hybrid operation where the majority of the staff could work remotely, and a limited number of essential workers Bill Hayes still went into the office. We implemented a sanitization routine that was highly successful when you consider that when the crisis began, we were tasked to be the pool feed for our Governor’s press conferences, which started out at three a week from a remote secured location and have settled into weekly from our studio facility. In addition, we continued studio production of "Iowa Press," our weekly news program and “Market to Market,” our weekly syndicated agriculture program. While there were a couple of individual cases of COVID reported, no

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wide outbreaks thanks in no small part to our thoughtful staff and thorough sanitization.

FAIR GAME One of the most impressive accomplishments was in August when in normal years we would have had an all-out commitment to blanket-covering events at the Iowa State Fair. Now I know for many, a state fair may seem to be pretty trivial but Iowa PBS has been covering the Iowa State Fair for 50 years and creating a nightly show that often generates higher ratings than the commercial network affiliates. While we aren’t motivated by ratings, this is a pretty good indicator that the audience likes the content. When the State Fair had to cancel, we decided to produce a myriad of retrospective pieces going back through our archive of past State Fair coverage. These pieces were produced primarily by editors working on laptops from their homes connected to Avid machines at the broadcast facility. They not only continued our long-term commitment to highlighting the Iowa State Fair but they also kept the people of Iowa and around the country connected to what is an immensely popular annual event. Looking forward, I find myself less concerned

remote production about the technology needed to enable a change to a "work from anywhere" mindset. I personally have had that capability for as long as I have been at Iowa PBS. It is one of the key factors that has enabled my participation in leadership at the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, the NAB Show, ATSC and the IBC. My primary computer has been a laptop and I have done my Iowa PBS work from all over the world. The commoditization of bandwidth, the virtualization of software-based systems and the power of computing have all worked toward an environment where even the most visually intensive production can be done by disparate people working from multiple locations.

The commoditization of bandwidth, the virtualization of software-based systems and the power of computing have all worked toward an environment where even the most visually intensive production can be done by disparate people working from multiple locations. I have encouraged many of my colleagues and friends to review the Movie Labs 2030 Vision Initiative white paper (https://movielabs.com/ production-technology/) as a way of expanding their thinking. While I do not see myself involved in the production of cinema releases, I am definitely inspired by the global creative community that this vision enables. And who knows, with the challenges faced and lessons learned by the major film producers, their world and ours may be aligning much faster than we ever thought.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS My concern as I see the light at the end of this tunnel is the potential for overreacting or underreacting to the changed environment. The pandemic has forced many employers to accept that their employees can work from anywhere and not just in their cubicle in the office complex or the edit suite at the station. This can require that we value people’s worth within an organization not solely or primarily on the number of hours they spend in the edifice that has the company logo at the roof line but on what they contribute to the mission and goals of the organization. The same pandemic has allowed many people to more seamlessly blend their home life and work life together. We have all been in a virtual meeting where one of our colleagues has had to explain a toddler asking a question or a cat walking across the keyboard. We as employees have to remember to keep some separation between the two and we as employers have to remember to tolerate the occasional collision of the two. Finally, while necessity—the mother of invention—has proven that we can work virtually, there is still a valid need for going to the office and interacting with our colleagues and coworkers. We must remember that we are a social species and just like social networking is no substitute for real networking, a virtual presence is only an augmentation to reality, it is not a substitute for reality. l Bill Hayes is the director of engineering and technology at Iowa Public Television and a recipient of Future's 2021 Tech Leadership Award.

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Reality 2021

Channel Branding

Ncam Reality 2021 is an advanced real-time tracking solution that lets users track on any camera, lens or rig, as well as opens up possibilities to add virtual graphics to productions. It includes an Mk2 Camera Bar, Mk2 Server and Ncam Reality 2021 software. The Mk2 Camera Bar is built on modified Intel RealSense hardware and provides advanced tracking indoors and out. The unit can integrate with Unreal Engine and has native support for LED walls. Additional features include a new GUI and simplified controls. z For additional information, contact Ncam at 323-9225353 or visit www. ncam-tech.com.

Part of its Flexible Access Suite, Vizrt's new Channel Branding is designed to simplify the use of identity, branding and content cross-promotion with channel branding graphics. The Channel Branding software imports data from traffic and scheduling applications to automatically create playlists. It provides up-to-the-second sync with automation systems for data and trigger control, as well as accurate content delivery, dynamic data-driven graphics and automatic error checks. A lone operator can control multiple channels from a single interface, while it augments capabilities of master control environments for use in single channel or large network facilities. z For additional information, visit Vizrt at www.vizrt.com.

Cloud Transform

LTN Target

Cloud Transform is a cloud-native, API-driven media processing and transcoding service designed to allow development teams writing their own code to access Telestream’s transcoding and media processing technology. Telestream has equipped the Cloud Transform platform with extensive format support, color space conversion and wide color gamut support as well as captions/subtitles conversion. Designed to be integrated into a user’s media supply chain, Cloud Transform can be customized based on the user’s need. The service also utilizes a pay-as-you-go billing model. z For additional information, contact Telestream at 530-470-1300 or visit www.telestream.net.

Described by LTN Global as a universal signaling solution, LTN Target is designed specifically for addressable TV advertising, focusing on issues such as fragmentation in distribution platforms and ad decisioning systems. LTN Target integrates with all parts of the advertising ecosystem to enable linear advertising on different networks, platforms and workflows. It offers frame-accurate signaling to ensure that replacement of an ad with the addressable creative is invisible to the viewer. Other features include contextual metadata, precision advertising, cross-platform signaling and workflow automation. The system acts as an automated translation layer and communications proxy between systems in the advertising ecosystem. z For additional information, contact LTN Global at 240-855-0004 or visit www.ltnglobal.com.

Pebble Control

Church Pix

Pebble Control is an IP connection management system designed to help broadcasters transition to all-IP facilities without a custom enterprise solution. The Pebble Control system provides automatic discovery and resource management with full support for NMOS IS-04 v1.3 and physical and logical views to organize and IP system. It also features alarms for when devices go offline; multicast settings management; streamlined connection management with support for NMOS IS-05 v1.1; legacy router emulation; software and hardware panel integration; modern access control; and flexible deployment and host management. z For additional information, contact Pebble at 720-638-7171 or visit www.pebble.tv.

Designed for the house of worship market, Church Pix is a live production and streaming turnkey platform designed for ease of use by church production volunteers for streaming services online. The Church Pix platform consists of two RoboPix PTZ cameras with 20x optical zoom, integrated remote control and mounting brackets; PC hardware and IP switch; a royalty-free library of clips, stills and graphic templates; instant streaming and recording; audio inputs that support Windows Audio devices, NDI, Dante and external USB converters; and a software control interface to automate common production tasks. z For additional information, contact Broadcast Pix at 978-6001100 or visit www.broadcastpix.com.

XXXXXXXX May 2021 | 2021 www.tvtech.com | www.tvtechnology.com | twitter.com/tvtechnology | twitter.com/tvtechnology

eye on tech | product and services

Quantum Vislink's Quantum wireless camera receiver is an IP-native device that incorporates IP connectivity to provide reliable reception from wireless camera transmitters and other workflows. The RF receiver helps with the implementation of remote production systems. Quantum delivers content directly over IP fiber networks while cutting out additional video compression stages. It also provides built-in SRT capability to contribute video over the unmanaged internet. There are 16 RF inputs, a touchscreen interface, APIs and a low-latency video processing technology for multiformat video decoding. z For additional information, contact Vislink at 908-852-3700 or visit www.vislink.com.

Remote Commentator Part of TVU Networks’ remote production offerings, Remote Commentator allows for hosts or commentators to provide real-time commentary on a live event from a remote location using public internet. The cloud-based technology can be integrated with the TVU Anywhere app and a PC browser. Any feed from a TVU Receiver SDI input can be used as the return video feedback source and channel output to provide commentators with a high-quality video feed. Additional features include the ability to set predetermined start and end times; group creation for up to 17 users; and support for up to eight feeds in Audio Mixer. z For additional information, contact TVU Networks at 650-440-4812 or visit www.tvunetworks.com.

Clipster The latest version (v6.9.1) of Rohde & Schwarz's Clipster mastering system has added support for Dolby Atmos multichannel surround-sound production technology and the latest IMF (ST2067-X) delivery standards. All variants of Dolby Atmos files can be added to Clipster edit timelines and be edited like other files. IMF packages that feature Dolby Atmos can now be created. Support for the latest IMF standards, meanwhile, simplify distribution and archival of IMF content packages by removing previous constraints regarding the required types and number of assets referenced by Composition Playlists. z For additional information, contact Rohde & Schwarz at 410-910-7800 or visit www.rohdeschwarz.com.

CJ17ex6.2B Part of Canon’s UHDgc series of portable 4K broadcast zoom lenses, the CJ17ex6.2B is a compact, lightweight, portable zoom lens that captures 4K UHD images and features a 6.2mm focal length and a 17x zoom ratio for a total telephoto focal length to 106mm. The lens comes equipped with a 2x extender to double focal length. It also has a drive unit that features 16-bit absolute value encoders for cooperation with CG environments. Additional features include three 20-pin connectors for integration with virtual and robotic systems, and lens support for HDR and WGC-compatible color gradation. z For additional information, contact Canon at 800-385-2155 or visit usa.canon. com.

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cloudspotter’s journal

Intelligent Data Terms & Tiering A primer on understanding the lingo

igrating from on-prem to cloud storage can drive the inexperienced user to new sets of knowledge well outside those they would encounter when managing in-house storage. The most apparent differentiators are that in-cloud storage users pay on a per-consumption basis—usually monthly or at some incremental time-based period—and by the type of store they send their data into. Both conditions are set by the agreement established with the cloud service provider (Fig. 1). Definition-wise, cloud storage is a service model whereby data in one or more locations is transmitted to and stored in a remote storage system. Cloud storage components are managed by the cloud storage provider. Responsibilities of the storage provider’s solution include maintenance, backup and availability to the user. The latter, availability, is often stipulated by agreement, sometimes called a contract or service level agreement (SLA). Storage availability has two components: a time-to-retrieve (recover) data factor and a cost-to-store factor. Usually, these two are tied together. For example, if the user puts its data into deep storage and does not depend on that data for routine (daily) applications, then the cost is much lower per unit gigabyte than

for sustained, readily accessible, low-latency/fast-recovery storage applications—as in editing, rendering or compositing.

LOGICAL STORAGE POOLS

A cloud service provider will manage and maintain the data that was transferred to the cloud by the user. Data is usually distributed across disparate, VIRTUALIZING commodity storage systems. INFRASTRUCTURE Data storage topologies may be When storage is based on an on-premises, in a third-party infrastructure— which includes EXPERTISE managed data center or in a pubaccessible interfaces, near-instant lic or private cloud. elasticity and scalability, mulKarl Paulsen In an on-prem environment, titenancy and metered resourcfor various reasons, data may be es—the storage is usually cloudstructured in logical pools. In such a shared based and “virtualized.” Meter resources, also environment, storage pools are capacity aggreknown as pay-per-use, are those offered with gated and formed from various physical storage potentially unlimited storage capacity reresources. Pools may vary in size, yield variable sources. Commonly found in enterprise-grade but conglomerate performance (IOPS), and IT environments, this application has moved provide collective improvements like cohesive from a flat-fee (cost-per-month) world to a management and aggregate data protection. pay-for-the-use fee structure. Logical pools are usually provisioned by adminA familiar structure for pay-per-use is istrators via management interfaces. A cloud Apple’s iTunes model, the “sample for free and infrastructure generally utilizes this logical pay for what you want to ‘own’” (so to speak). form of storage. Obviously in cloud storage you will not “own” the physical platform that holds your data, but you will pay for what you use based upon its RAW AND COOKED— structure, endurance/availability, its accessiLAKES AND PUDDLES bility and the length of time you utilize the Storage pools may be equated to a data storage space. lake, although there are differences between

Fig. 1: Cloud storage parameters based on characteristics. Security depends upon the specific measures available or provided by the cloud storage entity. Public and hybrid storage costs are a “pay-as-you-go” model and may vary—and assume either a “no-on-prem” or varied (for hybrid) storage infrastructure.

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

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cloudspotter’s journal these two derivatives. The data lake is a storage repository holding a large and vast quantity of unprocessed raw data known as source or atomic data. A giant bit-bucket where data is pushed without specific organization is a form of data lake. Processed data is, although less often, referred to as “cooked” data. Raw data may not necessarily be called “information” since there needs to be an abstraction or applicational use, accomplished through processing, elevating its worthiness and value from raw to informational purpose. A data puddle is a single-purpose data mart built on big data technology, which is essentially an extract from a data lake.

ON-DEMAND STORAGE No one likes to pay for things that they don’t need or use. In the cloud, storage services are provided on demand with elastic (increasing and decreasing) capacity as needed, when needed. Opting for cloud storage eliminates the requirements to buy, manage, depreciate and maintain storage infrastructures that reside on-prem, (Fig. 2).

Experiment with the numbers, frequencies, volumes and applicability to a particular workflow before going down any cloud storage path. Cloud models have radically driven down the cost-per-gigabyte of storage. However, cloud storage providers, also known as a managed service provider (MSP), may add different sets of operating expenses vs. those in owned, on-prem storage. Added OpEx costs could make certain cloud-based technologies more expensive, depending upon whether or not the equation considers how or when the storage is used. Look for options when selecting and architecting your cloud storage solution.

THOUGHTFUL ACCESS SHUFFLING Cloud providers concoct many useful and appropriate names for their various services, utilities and architectures. As of 2021, Azure and AWS each offer 200+ different products and services. Without naming anything specific, the concept of shuffling data storage sets to appropriately price and utilize varying locations in the cloud is a topic growing in

popularity. Optimizing storage costs, without burdening the user, employs automated methodologies that might be termed “thoughtful.” Otherwise called tiered storage, such architectures are not new, especially for ground-based (on-prem) facilities. In non-cloud datacenters, the practice of using high-performance storage for editing, compositing or rendering, where accessibility and speed is essential, is commonplace. This is known as Tier 1 storage. A large SAN or Fibre Channel data store can be a costly proposition. Not all data workflows need this capability, so less-needed data is Fig. 2: Five key advantages to cloud storage typically pushed to a Tier 2 (mid-level) environment. owner of that data. Archive data, which is seldom used or set Users typically authorize automatic migraaside for protection or redundancy (longtion when signing up or establishing a particterm) is known as Tier 3, where it may live on ular SLA. Actions might be via user interface tape or object storage or both. Some may also or APIs associated to work orders or activities. use Tier 3 as that single occurrence where Adding intelligence to this practice data is pushed to the cloud (known as deep has evolved over time. Intelligent tiering archive) knowing it won’t require fast retrievgives cloud service providers opportunities to al anytime soon. expand archive tiers to other levels, which in turn improves the cost structures accordingly.

CUTTING COSTS BY INTELLIGENCE Early in cloud storage history, moving data around to different data containers (buckets) was accomplished manually and by specific direction of the user. While there may have been cost advantages to deeper storage, the labor effort was not advantageous to those early cloud storage users. Things have changed over time as varying new services, increasing volumes of data and acceptance (i.e., trust) of the cloud provider by the user continually improve. Accomplished by learning elements of data usage patterns, unattended cloud storage migration between cloud storage tiers was introduced in the 2017–18 timeframe. By automatically moving data between cloud stores, users and the cloud providers gained new advantages. With simple recognition of access periods for data, cloud providers would shift dormant storage to a “deeper” level without ever having to contact the user/

APPLICABILITY When engaging cloud storage services, users should look into automated options and evaluate, via cloud-provided models, the value of tiered and automated storage electives. For large projects extending over months to years, one set of guidelines might be appropriate. Smaller projects utilizing shared data sets across multiple production activities may yield different answers. Experiment with the numbers, frequencies, volumes and applicability to a particular workflow before going down any cloud storage path. Don’t let the “I’m not paying attention to this” excuse be the reason for higher storage costs, which then provide no improved results. l Karl Paulsen is chief technology officer at Diversified and a frequent contributor to TV Tech in storage, IP and cloud technologies. Contact him at kpaulsen@diversifiedus.com.

twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | May 2021

equipment guide | video monitors

Ninja V Latest in DP’s Long Partnership With Atomos USER REPORT António Morais Director of Photography

BRAGANCA, Portugal—I’ve used a lot of Atomos products in multiple productions over the years, from the Ninja Blade to the Ninja Star, the original Shogun, Shogun Inferno and now Ninja V. In fact, it’s difficult to remember a recent project where I haven’t used an Atomos product somewhere on my camera rigs. At the time it came on the

market, I thought the Ninja Blade was the best solution to improve the file quality from a DSLR. Then I became a heavy user of the original Shogun, using it not only as a way of getting a better file, but as a very practical way of exposing my shots. My light meter is always with me as a backup, but I don’t remember the last time that I’ve used it. Nowadays, I use the Ninja V as my main monitor/recorder and I love it.

MY ATOMOS TOOL BELT The Ninja V is a very practical

way to have all the exposure and focus aid tools that I need on set. I use it in tandem with my Shogun Inferno as a director’s monitor (though I soon hope to swap that for the brand-new Shogun 7, which might be a better match to my Ninja V UI). And I still use the original Shogun, which doesn’t seem to be giving up any time soon. These are my key tools on set—I not only use the false color feature as my main exposure aid tool, but the waveform and the peaking tools are second to none too. One of the tools that I

Antonio Morais has been using Atomos monitors for many years, with the Ninja V now being his monitor of choice.

love the most is the de-squeeze tool and the masks that let me frame for multiple formats. Unfortunately, a lot of cameras haven’t been integrated with this feature, so this way of using the Atomos Ninja V and Shogun Inferno means I can be much more precise. For the future, I’d like to see an easier way to add LUTs to the monitor, perhaps via an extra SD card slot—this would make these recorders even more practical on set than they already are. A way to add more user interchangeable battery plates would be great too. But I currently have my eye on the Shogun 7, which I think with 3,000 nits is going to be very useful in the multiple exterior day sets where I shoot. Having a very good monitor with which I can show what my vision is to the director is a valuable asset to have on set; it means I can better manage the visual expectations while changing lights and framing to go towards the director’s view of the scene. Recently I’ve been shooting more and more for Instagram content and sometimes there is no time to shoot the same shot in multiple formats. In those situations, the integrated masks in the Ninja V help me better frame for them without the need to always repeat the shot. Time is money, after all, and on set this is even more true. l Antonio Morais is a director of photography and university professor. Since the beginning of his academic career, he has been part of several shooting teams in numerous short films, films, documentaries and TV shows as director of photography. He can be reached at antonio@ golpefilmes.com. For more information, visit www.atomos.com.

twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | May 2021

equipment guide | video monitors

SmallHD Proves Vital on ‘Cruel Summer’ Amid COVID Protocols USER REPORT Jayson Crothers Director of Photography

DALLAS—I was fortunate to have a busy early career of consistent work on low-budget features, then two seasons shooting second unit and three seasons as the main director of photography on “Chicago Fire.” Following that show I moved back to features until the pandemic hit and I finally had some down time. Recently I was brought in as the DoP for a new drama series shooting in Dallas. The unconventional thriller, “Cruel Summer,” takes place in a small Texas town over the summers of 1993, ’94 and ’95. Popular teen, Kate, goes missing and Jeanette, a sweet, awkward outlier, goes from being the most popular girl in town to eventually becoming the most despised person in America. It’s a dynamic story. My philosophy is that powerful visual storytelling comes from collaboration—the director, producers and crew pitch ideas and we go with the best ones. One of my functions is to coordinate how the set runs, and the pandemic brought unique challenges.

ADJUSTING TO THE NEW NORMAL Safety protocols called for compliance with a zone system that included three COVID tests per week and new working practices. I had my own video village but I didn’t spend much time in the tent. Being very hands-on, I am constantly moving—I’m one of the only people without a chair on set. The camera package consisted of two Alexa Mini’s with Panavision Primos and wireless

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

Even with COVID restrictions, SmallHD monitors helped keep the “Cruel Summer” set connected while setting up shots.

transmission via a Teradek Bolt transmitter and four receivers positioned with the focus puller, DP station, director’s monitor and distribution station. Everyone on the team needs visuals, so Teradek’s Serv Pros and Links allowed multicam viewing. Other crew—from hair, to assistant directors, to the boom op—used Teradek’s VUER live video monitor app on their personal devices. The proliferation of monitors on set has been a major change. No longer just for ACs to use for focus, screens are everywhere and on our set most are SmallHD. The operators have SmallHD 703 7-inch Ultrabrights on camera, the ACs have 13-inch 1303 HDRs and the directors have 1703 17-inch reference-grade monitors. There’s always a SmallHD within 10 feet of me so I can stay on set to talk to everyone. I can go adjust a camera, then run and twitter.com/tvtechnology

talk to the director; I can check waveform and false color with a button press on any SmallHD monitor—and I know they will all match. It’s a real benefit to my working style.

MATCHING SHOTS SmallHD has become a secret weapon for us because our show is so ambitious. The story follows multiple characters and, time-wise, jumps between three different years, making it a fun creative, visual and editorial challenge. It makes shooting for transitions and edits crucial. One day the director wanted a pretty specific match cut. We tried SmallHD’s “Image Capture” function for a particular shot and used “Overlay” to quickly line up the image. That would usually require significantly more time, but the director and I were amazed at how fast and useful this function was on the

SmallHD monitor. We were soon doing exact matching of shots quickly on the fly: a closeup of a character one year and an exact match cut of the character in a different year—or a different location, or another character— enabling more creative choices. It’s become a signature tool we use on virtually every episode. Now the SmallHD capture and overlay capability is a vital part of my toolbox. “Cruel Summer” premiered on Freeform, April 20, then on Hulu the next day, and will stream on Amazon International in the future. l Jayson Crothers is a director of photography who lives in Los Angeles. He can be reached at: www. jaysoncrothers.com, or contact@jaysoncrothers.com. For more information, contact SmallHD at 919-439-2166 or visit www.smallhd.com.

equipment guide | video monitors

Monitoring Korn With Blackmagic Video Assist USER REPORT Kevin Garcia Video Partner & Director of Film MixOne Sound

LOS ANGELES—“Korn: Monumental, A Global Streaming Event” was shot in downtown Los Angeles at Stranger Things: The Drive-Into Experience. The immersive concert provided fans with an elevated, larger-thanlife performance by the rock band Korn as they were filmed in front of several hundred feet of LED walls with the L.A. skyline behind them. Korn is an incredible live band, and we had only one take to capture the live performance. For such a visually stunning and dynamic show, we used 12 Blackmagic Design cameras on set, along with a drone to capture the performance. Seven Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12Ks, one URSA Mini Pro G2s, one Pocket Cinema Camera 6Ks and three Pocket Cinema Camera 4Ks were situated on jibs, dollies and gimbals around the 200x50-foot rooftop stage. The range of cameras provided ultimate coverage, supporting the band as they delivered a stunning show.

a tool I know and trust, so it was used to monitor feeds when dialing levels. We also had its scopes and exposure assist turned on as another layer of reference. When it was go-time, we easily scrolled through and made sure all the cameras felt right. When shooting, the monitor’s HDR screen is our last line of defense in ensuring we like the colors we capture. It’s very accurate and I trust it fully; if it looks good there then I know we’re getting what we need. It’s the last element in our chain and

really is such a vital component for monitoring and recording. The Video Assist 12G HDR also comes with the added benefit of not only monitoring, but also recording. During the Korn shoot, we used my primary Video Assist 12G HDR to record a 4K program/ line cut in Blackmagic RAW to an external SSD. The external SSD record feature might be my favorite as simple as it is. The line cut being right there and available for delivery within seconds is something I can’t imagine not having in my workflow now. l

Kevin Garcia has spent the last decade capturing festivals, music and documenting travels around the world with some of rock’s biggest acts. Over the last year, he’s been streaming and directing shoots with bands in order to bring live performances right into people’s homes, making them feel as if they’re right alongside the bands as they perform. He can be contacted at Kevin@ Mixonesound.com. For more information, contact Blackmagic Design at 408-9540500 or visit www.blackmagicdesign.com.

MANAGING A LOT OF LOOKS While the number of cameras helped properly capture Korn’s high-energy performance, it also meant a lot of lenses and cameras to match and monitor. To help manage this, we relied on Blackmagic RAW and several Video Assist 12G HDR monitor/recorders, both the 5-inch and 7-inch models. Shooting in Blackmagic RAW on every camera allowed us to capture the highest quality possible and make sure everything felt cohesive. The Video Assist 12G HDR is

Blackmagic’s Video Assist served as both a monitor and recorder for a recent Korn concert on top of a roof in downtown Los Angeles. twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | May 2021

equipment guide | video monitors buyers briefs Wohler RMTF-170-3G

Panasonic BT-LH1770P Monitor

RMTF-170-3G is a 17-inch, 10-bit, 1920x1080 resolution, 16x9 format, anti-glare IPS LCD monitor with tabletop or rackmount options. The monitor scales all video formats to fit on-screen using 12-bit digital processing, precision scaling and gamma correction. IMD, Tally, timecode, in-screen audio level metering, format display and area/title safe markers are available as in-monitor display features. Built-in speaker monitoring for dual stereo analog inputs or SDI embedded audio is also included. A standard XLR-4F connector can also plug into the XLR-4M connector for an alternative power source. z For additional information, contact Wohler at 510-870-0801 or visit www.wohler.com.

The BT-LH1770P LCD monitor from Panasonic delivers high brightness, a contrast ratio of 1,500:1, full-HD (1920x1080) resolution and faithful gradation via 10-bit processing. It can be mounted in a 19-inch rack and can be taken on the go with its AC/DC/battery drive. Additional features include mutliformat/ multi-input compatibility; a two-screen comparison video display; embedded audio for simple downmixing; external memory functions; monitor adjustment features like built-in test signals, mix test signals and white balance assist; user markers; and waveform monitor. z For additional information, visit pro-av.panasonic.net.

Ikegami HQLM-3120W Equipped with two channels of 12G-SDI input as standard, the HQLM-3120W monitor works with 4K cameras and switchers. There are also 3G-SDI, HD-SDI and HDMI inputs included on the monitor as standard. The HQLM-3120W features a 31.1-inch 4096x2160 pixel UHD LCD panel with LED backlight to reproduce high-res 4K and 2K images. The viewing angle comes in at 178-degrees and offers a contrast ratio of 1,500:1. It also has waveform and vectorscope displays, closed-caption and multiview capabilities z For additional information, contact Ikegami at 201-368-9171 or visit www.ikegami.com.

Plura SFP-H-7

Postium OBM-N101

A spin-off of the SPF-H Hybrid Monitor Series, the SFP-H-7 monitor supports coax, fiber and IP connectivity as well as SMPTE ST 2022-7 and Ember+. The monitor comes standard with Plura’s Plural IP Module PIPM-R-7, and is available in multiple sizes ranging from 17 to 84 inches. SPF-H-7 features a built-in 4x4 Cross Point solution, enabling the monitor to be utilized at the front, middle or backend of a video system. Other features include LFKS loudness audio real-time monitoring, closed captioning and support for various SFPSDI and SFP+ modules.

A full-HD monitor measuring in at 10.1 inches, the OBM-N101 supports HDR displays of ST 2084, Hybrid Log Gamma and S-Log3. The monitor also features 3G/HD/SD-SDI two-channel input and active loopout, as well as HDMI inputs and HDMI to SDI conversion. Additional features for the OBM-N101 include 3D-LUT for accurate color reproduction; side-byside color comparison settings; HDR and camera log comparison; remote control via a GPI port; optional rackmount kit; and the ability to update firmware through a USB port.

z For additional information, contact Plura at 602-944-1044 or visit www.plurainc.com.

TV Logic LUM-313G-CI This 31.1-inch native 4K resolution (4096x2160) monitor from TV Logic offers a maximum luminance of 350 nit, contrast ratio of 1,500:1, wide color gamut and a wide viewing angle. With four BNCs and HDMI 2.0 interface, the LUM-313G-CI supports video formats up to 4K/60p through single-link 12G-SDI, Quad 3G-SDI and HDMI 2.0. More HDR log and gamut supports are expected in future updates. The LUM313-G-CI monitor also provides waveform and vectorscope monitoring, an HDR emulation function, focus assist, timecode display, audio level meter and TV Logic Color Calibration Utility. z For additional information, visit www.tvlogic.com.

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

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z For additional information, contact Postium at 833-767-8486 or visit www.postium.com.

equipment guide | video monitors

Dome Productions Monitors 4K, HDR With Sony’s PVM-X USER REPORT Al Karloff Manager, Engineering Services Dome Productions

TORONTO—As a leading production facilities provider, Dome Productions executes live sporting events and entertainment, as well as corporate productions, working closely with major broadcasters, leagues, teams, production companies, government bodies and content creators. We pride ourselves on providing technologies and expertise that contribute to a visually engaging and immersive end result. We’ve been a longtime Sony user, incorporating their imaging technologies into our workflow, so we’ve come to trust their expertise and dependability. At Dome, we’ve produced more than 1,000 live 4K events over the past five years, and as our clients began embracing 4K and HDR production, we needed advanced monitoring solutions to meet those needs.

4K MONITORING ON WHEELS In our previous truck builds, we had been using Sony’s BVM-E170 and BVM-E171, which were always reliable and priced right. When we were looking to outfit our newest greenfield IP core mobile unit, Dome Gateway, we knew we wanted to explore the latest options from Sony. We were pleased to learn about Sony’s new PVM-X series picture monitors, the 24-inch PVM-X2400 and 18.4-inch PVM-X1800, which incorporate a 4K native panel, HDR and wide color gamut while offering the color accuracy we’ve come to expect from the company.

Dome Productions has outfitted its latest IP core mobile unit with Sony PVM-X series monitors.

4K was an extremely important selling point for us. With the PVM-X series, we recognized the benefits of using a native 4K monitor that doesn’t require scaling and has no delay in internal processing. For our line of work, lip sync is especially important, as is the ability to work in real time and provide an accurate representation of what is going out to air. It’s also great that the monitor accommodates whatever format we have, from 720p all the way up to 2160p. In our field, a video operator serves as the main point of quality control so they need to have the best tools for the job, so having a dependable monitor like the PVM-X series that combines 4K with high-quality color accuracy, very low processing latency, wide color gamut, HDR support and options for LUTs, is critical. In addition to the key features,

it was beneficial to choose a Sony panel that fits perfectly into the fixed space in the truck’s wall. It was also instrumental that the PVM-X series seamlessly color match with our other Sony monitoring technology and complement the imaging from our Sony cameras. We always look to select options that can easily integrate into our existing workflow, grow with us and have a long lifespan to ensure a return on our investment. That’s why we’ve been so pleased to be among the first users of this new series of monitors.

MORE TO COME There are more features incorporated into the PVM-X series that I hope to take advantage of in the near future; for instance, the quad-view capability. The monitors provide four independent inputs so you can display four different signals at the same

time or compare the same signal in different ways. We haven’t used this yet, but we look forward to deploying it soon when we get back into HDR productions. Based on the success we’ve had with the PVM-X series monitors in our Gateway truck, we are currently in the process of replicating the monitor setup in our all-4K Dome Silver truck, along with implementing Sony’s HDC-5500 system cameras, to continue the collaboration. l Al Karloff has worked in various engineering roles at Dome Productions over the past 17 years. He is currently engineering project manager where he has designed and built numerous 3G/1080p, UHD mobile trucks and remote production facilities. He can be reached at Alan.Karloff@domeprod.com. For more information, visit pro. sony.

twitter.com/tvtechnology | www.tvtech.com | May 2021

equipment guide | video monitors

Amazing Facts Relies on JVC for Monitoring, Master Control USER REPORT Goce Shamakoski Broadcast Engineer Amazing Facts Christian Media Ministry

GRANITE BAY, Calif.—Amazing Facts Christian Media Ministry has produced religious content for national television networks for more than 50 years. We also have our own streaming platforms, print/digital media and satellite channel, as well as an international presence. In addition to our regular weekly worship services, we produce a variety of content, such as our flagship “Amazing Facts with Doug Batchelor,” which airs on multiple networks and satellite channels, including Lifetime

and Discovery. We also host “Bible Answers Live”—a weekly streaming and radio call-in show, produce historical and religious documentaries and other smaller shows. We recently built a stateof-the-art 4K-capable studio complete with control and video engineer rooms, which include 4K broadcast monitors for referencing, color correction and color grading. When we installed our new infrastructure, we selected the JVC Professional Video DT-U31Pro, a 4K-capable, HDR, multi-use interface studio monitor. We also use the monitors in a master control setting, with signal feeds from all our locations during a live transmission, as well as for troubleshooting SDI signals from the other stations to ensure conformity.

ESSENTIAL FEATURES We looked at models from different manufacturers but there were a few things that stood out to us about JVC, which offered a very appealing price and just as important, an attractive feature set. We wanted to have a built-in waveform, monitor, vector and histogram, along with built-in audio, which would give us more reference for broadcast signals and monitoring abilities. The monitors also have built-in HDR capability and a single-link 12G-SDI connector, which is perfect for our new facility as it is built on a 12G-SDI coax infrastructure. It is difficult to find monitors that can receive a native IP video signal without needing a conversion to a standard SDI coax interface, but JVC has that ability. This will

The DT-U31Pro monitors have been helped with color correction, synchronizing with 4K and troubleshoot SDI signals.

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

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enable us to follow the transition of coax to IP, making JVC a future-proofed solution.

FUNCTION IS KEY When we first acquired the monitors, we used them to color correct and synchronize our 4K cameras to our desired standard. They also helped us troubleshoot SDI signals by providing us different aspects of the SDI signal, like the exemplary data streams captions, multiple audio channels and other more detailed SDI components. Since deploying the monitors, we discovered additional features that enhance our workflow, such as tally display, focus assist and timecode reading. We also found that they’re quite user-friendly; the menus are very straightforward; and the buttons are selfdescribed and useful. Additionally, all the connectors are on the side and easily accessible, which is perfect for the wall-mounted application of our monitors. We have volunteer operators, so we need technology that’s not cumbersome and overly technical. The JVC monitors provide an ease of use not only for very technical individuals but also our volunteers. l Goce Shamakoski has been with Amazing Facts for more than 15 years, having first started with the production/post-production team and gradually transitioning to the broadcast sector. Shamakoski has also worked with various other TV networks, local cable channels and over-the-air transmitters, providing technical support and studio build services focused on modern IP infrastructure. He can be contacted at goces@amazingfacts.org. For more information, contact JVC at 973-317-5000 or visit www.jvc.com.

equipment guide | video monitors buyers briefs

Konvision KUM-3110S The Konvision KUM-3110S is a 31-inch OLED 4K (3,840x2,160) HDR reference monitor that has both 12G-SDI and 3G-SDI inputs and outputs. It also boasts a color gamut that can reach more than 99% of DCI-P3 and 80% of BT2020. The monitor features 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 0.0005 nit deep black and a usable panel life of up to 30,000 hours. Other features include 12-bit video processing; quad view; SDR and HDR comparison; Ethernet remote control; and zebra stripes to display false color areas. z For additional information, visit www.konvision.com.

Marshall Electronics ML-454 Designed for flypacks, control rooms, routing rooms and other video system applications, Marshall’s ML-454 Quad 4.5-inch LCD display offers 1280x800 resolution and colorful display for each screen. With looping video inputs, the ML-454 is not limited to a single SDI connector. Other ML-454 components include HDMI and 3G-SDI digital inputs; 900:1 contrast ratio; adjustable LED backlight; standard power and tally connections; 2RU height and 1.4 inches deep; the ability to accept HDMI and SDI embedded audio; and 80-degree viewing angles. z For additional information, contact Marshall at 800-800-6608 or visit www.marshall-usa.com.

Leader LV5600 Described by Leader as a “true-hybrid” waveform monitor and rasterizer, the LV5600 is compatible with 4K/HD/SD-SDI signals and UHDTV/HD/SD IP signals. The LV5600 features a 7-inch touchscreen display within a 3RU enclosure that has built-in AC power supply. LV5600 can monitor SDI signals up to 12G-SDI as well as IP, while audio support includes SDI embedded audio, audio multiplexed to IP, external input AES/EBU and analog audio. Other features include SDI and IP analysis; video analysis; eye pattern display; external monitor output; Ethernet connectivity; and HDR support. z For additional information, visit www.leader.co.jp/en/.

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KIMBERLY GODWIN

JASON TOLIOPOULOS

BARBARA DEHART

MICHAEL ANDERSON

President ABC News

Sr. Vice President, Operations and Customer Success Chyron

Director of Alliances Grass Valley Media Universe

Chief Operating Officer Hitachi Comark

Chyron has promoted Jason Toliopoulos to senior vice president of operations and customer success. He now oversees pre-sales and solutions engineering activities, installation and training delivery, creative services and technical support. Chyron CEO Ariel Garcia said in a company statement that Toliopoulos’ success “managing many projects for our most high-profile customers, make him the ideal fit for this new role.”

Grass Valley has appointed Barbara DeHart as director of alliances for the GV Media Universe. In this newly created role, she will focus all of Grass Valley’s strategic partnerships on bringing together solutions from broadcast technology vendors into a GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform), a cloud-native, cloud-agnostic SaaS platform. DeHart will report to Mike Cronk, Grass Valley’s vice president of advanced technology.

Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC has promoted Michael Anderson to the position of COO. He will be responsible for the day-to-day administrative and operational functions of Hitachi Comark and report to President and CEO Matsuzaka Toshihiro. Anderson has held various positions since joining the company 40 years ago, including inventory control, buyer, purchasing manager and vice president of manufacturing and operations.

SATOSHI KANEMURA

CHARLYN STANBERRY

MIKE SPUGNARDI

KRISTIE GONZALES

President For-A Corp. of America

Vice President of Government Relations National Association of Broadcasters

Director of RF Systems and Components, Dielectric

Vice President, Media Operations TEGNA Inc.

Dielectric has promoted Mike Spugnardi to the position of director of RF Systems and Components as the company shifts its strategy to better support broadcasters in the post-repack world. He will lead an expanded team of senior RF engineers and mechanical designers, as they develop new internal technical resources. Previously, he led the company’s strategic repack initiatives.

TEGNA Inc. has promoted Kristie Gonzales to vice president, media operations. In addition to her current role as president and general manager of KVUE in Austin, Gonzales will now also oversee KYTX in Tyler, Texas, and help set the vision for recruiting across TEGNA’s 11 Texas markets. Prior to joining KVUE in 2016, Gonzales held television management roles focusing on news branding, multicultural marketing and digital and social media.

Kimberly Godwin has been named president of ABC News. She will oversee editorial and business operations for broadcast, digital, streaming and audio news across the organization, including “Good Morning America,” “World News Tonight,” “The View” and “This Week.” She will report to Peter Rice, chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content.

For-A Corp. of America has appointed Satoshi Kanemura president. He joins the company from Sony Electronics where he was vice president of Professional Products and Solutions. In his new role Kanemura will lead growth into new and existing markets, such as remote and live event production, distance learning and worship applications. Former For-A America President Ken Truong is now CTO.

May 2021 | www.tvtech.com |

The National Association of Broadcasters has hired Charlyn Stanberry vice president of Government Relations. She will report to Shawn Donilon, executive vice president of Government Relations. Stanberry joins NAB after serving as chief of staff for Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (NY-09), for whom she previously served as legislative director and counsel.

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Product delays and labor shortages in 2023

PHASE-2, before December 2023

install Phase-2 ﬁlter on all USA dishes Band shrinks to 4000-4200 Mhz.

Phase-1 filters get replaced with phase-2

shrink to 76 programs per satellite

3820-4200 Mhz • Dec 2021

Guard

CBRS 35503700

New interference: 5G cellular in C band

Phase-2 Repack C Band for Satellite

shrink to 40 programs per satellite

4000-4200 Mhz • Dec 2023

Call DAWNcoCall now, we will Call help

DAWNco DAWNcoyour ﬁlter

DAWNco you understand for helpand dish forrequirements help for help

Altimeter Radar Band

Call 248-391-9200 or 248-391-9207

Site type 1 NonRegistered Dish sites

No FCC money to cover costs

Site type 2 Registered dish sites that chose

LUMP SUM

Site type 3 Registered dish sites not getting lump sum

using SES satellites

Submit Get FCC compensation DAWNco quote for check in summer 2021 reimbursement

Info@DAWNco.com

per FCC cost catalog

! 248-391-9200 1 of 28 ! 248-391-9207

2020 2021

3700-4200 Mhz

2022 2023

Guard

CBRS 35503700

New: 5G cell

Perfect signal quality, lightning protection. Place your dish a long distance away, and convert your LNB signals to light using fiber. TX & RX set SATfiber 1LNB-on-1fiber $1799 SATfiber 6LNB-on-1fiber $7699

Filter Prices

call for quote Current $388

Pictured is Made in USA ﬁlter, entirely silver plated

Phase-1

3820-4200 Mhz

Call

Phase-2

4000-4200 Mhz

Call

You may need new Dishes

2024

100 programs per satellite

3700-4200 Mhz

Current

C Band

Call

INTELSAT

for help

Site type 4 Registered dish sites not getting lump sum

using INTELSAT satellites

Repack increases adjacent satellite interference. Dishes with poor specs will let in energy from adjacent satellites, and may fail in the 2nd or 3rd year of the repack. That is when all satellites will be stuffed-full of channels at the upper end of the band. Replace dishes smaller than 3.7 meter (12ft) in diameter, and scrap all mesh dishes. Programs spread out over more satellites, so more dishes needed for TV and CABLE TV Dish Prices (only 1 dish call for quote for Radio)

Intelsat provide labor & equipment

Pictured is 5m dish with heater to prevent winter outages, and 194 mph wind rating

3.7m fixed dish 4.2m fixed dish 4.5m fixed dish

motorization

upgrade

Info@DAWNco.com 3 sats on 1 dish upgrade

$5K delivered $10K delivered $15K delivered ADD

+$7K ADD

+$3K

Big Dishes solve ALL satellite reception problems! 4.2 3.7 meter meter

3.7 meter C gain 42.3 dB 4 petal aluminum fits 5.5" OD pipe

Popular size for reliable sat reception #D37F48-4PC-5.5

Get bandpass ﬁlters Planning Guide

PLANNING GUIDE: 3-years to move sat channels to upper 40% of band Buy new ﬁlters and replace low grade dishes REPACK CALENDAR PLAN which of your dishes must be replaced, how many new dishes needed

ORDER Phase-1 ﬁlters for Big city

sites *Radio can go straight to Phase-2 Order new dishes if needed

PHASE-1, before December 2021

install Phase-1 ﬁlters on Big City dishes only. Band shrinks to 3820-4200 Mhz

ORDER Phase-2 ﬁlters for all sites if

you haven't done so already

sat dish $2399

SATﬁber

search YouTube for DAWNco Info@DAWNco.com

SATELLITE LNBs

Pipe, feed, LNB, wire, actuator & controller sold separately

3.7 METER STATIONARY #D37F48-4PC-5.5 $2399 Most popular size and model. Reliable C band reception. 3.7 METER 2-axis MOTORIZED #D37PMD60-4PC-5.5 $3999 Standard-gain motorized dish for a good price. Dual axis 2-motor mount for perfect aiming toward any C or Ku satellite.

Pictured with optional Galvanized mount & backside electric heater 194 mph wind rated

4.2 meter C gain 43.5 dB 8 petal aluminum

4.2 METER STATIONARY #D42F60-8PC-6.6 $5995 Lowest-cost high-gain stationary dish. For finicky programs needing high-gain & high-rejection of adjacent satellite interference. 4.2 METER 2-axis MOTORIZED #D42PMD60-8PC-6.6 $7198 Lowest-cost high-gain motorized C/Ku dish. 2-motors for perfect aim

4.5 meter C gain 43.9 dB hurricane rated

PHASE-2 repack filter #Cbandpass2-4000-4200 All radio install now

C A L L

RADAR FILTER old style 3700-4200 Mhz $388 block radar & wimax Email us your county name We'll tell you if you need PHASE-1 or PHASE-2 filter

Best C band LNB

C band reception depends on great DAWNco filters Tray holds to block 5G cellular new feed new struts fit old dish FCC mandate requires a filter UPGRADE FEEDHORNS ON OLD DISHES be placed on Retrofit kits provide heavy-duty struts and feed tray, all C band to hold new feedhorn. Specify dish CALL for price LNBs 3 BEAM RETROFIT allows 1 NEW HEAVY-DUTY STRUTS dish to receive from 3 satellites fits old DH dishes. Strong support for feed, LNBs, Filters CALL Starting @ $1144

±5 Khz, CLNB20-PL05

4.2 to 5.0 meter Massive Mount

buy DAWNco filters & dishes

Act Now! Special prices valid until May 15, 2021

buy DAWNco & dishes

Boost signal quality on filters digital sat receivers. Best gain compression, phase noise, stability. Prevent signal outages when outdoor temps change. CALL for price

FEEDHORNS

Satellite Repack 5G

Satellite Repack

PHASE-1 repack filter #Cbandpass1-3820-4200 Big City TV & Cable TV install now in 2021

CALL for price MOTORIZED & STATIONARY, C and Ku band

Option for galvanizing 5.0 meter C gain 44.3 dB 8 petal alum

CONTROLLER-MOTOR Position controller with 50 positions, fast movement to desired satellite. Actuator arms for all dish types. 24 inch actuator/motor, ACT2400 36 inch actuator/motor, ACT3600 1-axis controller, CONTROL-1500A 2-axis controller, CONTROL-2000A CALL for price CALL for price

3.7m $588 4.5m CALL COVERsat will block snow pile-ups and keep signals strong. Uses gravity and a steep surface. Tell us your dish size & make. COVERsat

4.2 METER STATIONARY Massive Mount #D42FAE-GIB-8PC $8799 Super 4.5 METER STATIONARY Stable #D45FAE-GIB-8PC $9799 5.0 METER STATIONARY MaxGain SAT-METER TO AIM DISH #D50FAE-GIB-8PC $10,799 Boost signal quality many Strong dish receives important programs dB using meter to peak. from one satellite. Super high-gain See sat names, 4.5 METER 2-axis MOTORIZED FLEXtest $999 #D45MAE-GIB-8PC CALL for price 5.0 METER 2-axis MOTORIZED MaxGain #DIVINSUP $277 #D50MAE-GIB-8PC CALL for price SIGNAL SPLITTER & POWER FOR LNBs Boost Super high-gain dish, perfect peak with signal levels. All signal wires go into this amplified D5500 • CALL for price splitter. 1 LNB can feed signals to 9 receivers, or 2 $177 LNB-Zap-Stop, 2-motor AZ/EL drive, 50 positions. MPEG2/4 SAT RECEIVER LNBs each feed 5 receivers. 18 vdc power to LNBs. LIGHTNING SURGE Tuner and decoder for satellite SUPPRESSOR stop LNB POWER SUPPLY $99 PHONE 248-391-9200 or 9207 equipment damage. EMAIL info@DAWNco.com L band input. MPEG2 & H.264 insert 18v dc power via coax Can take multiple hits WEB www.DAWNco.com w 4:2:0 profile, DVBS & DVB-S2 cable for 1 or 2 LNBs #DCP7

Half coverage HEATsat 3.7m DH $4288 HEATsat stops snow outages using sensors for precipitation and temp, to turn on heat elements bonded to dish backside. Say your dish size & make. BASESTAND MOUNT Bolt sat antenna onto a steel beam on roof, or mount dish onto suitably-sized cement pad. Get local structural engineer. CALL for Price Option for galvanizing Basestand-5.5" OD Basestand-6.6" OD Non-Penetrating roof Mount: Call

Basestand pipe mount

PHONE 248-391-9200 or 9207 EMAIL info@DAWNco.com WEB www.DAWNco.com

call for quote and info

Roof steel beam