tvbe march 2014 digital edition

Italy’s WeFly takes off

www.tvbeurope.com

MMarch 2014Europe’s Television Technology Business Magazine

Coronation Street: a half-century of broadcast

NAB Product Preview

Forums:Systems Integrators and Loudness

1-13 News & AnalysisFile delivery made…simple?George Jarrett attended a recentDPP forum and discovered thatstriving for simplicity can be very complex 6

14-19 Loudness ForumPhilip Stevens seeks the views of anumber of industry experts about theniggling question of Loudness 14

20-25 The WorkflowThe HDR revolutionThe UHD debate revolves aroundgetting a richer picture to viewers with implications forcapture, post and retail. Adrian Pennington reports 20

27-33 Systems Integrators ForumSystems Integrators from acrossEurope discuss topics that affecttheir business, by Philip Stevens

27

34-43 The WorkflowThe word on the StreetPhilip Stevens walks one of TV’smost famous streets and reviewsthe history of the long-runningsoap, Coronation Street 37

44-48 NAB Product PreviewThe first of our two-part showpreview, offering a glimpse of whatto expect next month 44

49 The Business CaseA new Avid for a new eraNeal Romanek talks to Avid’s Tom Cordiner about the company’snew trajectory 49

50 Cloud for BroadcastHard edges in the cloudIn the second part of this cloudcomputing feature, Miranda’s IanFletcher goes deeper into the issueof cloud tools for broadcasters 50

By Neal Romanek

TVBEUROPE HAS confirmedthe first round of speakers for its Next TV Summit on 11 June at London’s BAFTA theatre.

Next TV is the UK’spremiere conference foralternative media delivery,including VoD, OTT and IPTV.

Next TV’s line-up willinclude Ashwin Navin, CEO ofSamba TV and founder ofBitTorrent, the largest file-sharing network in the world;Edward Lee, VP contentacquisition at streaming videopowerhouse Roku; Mary AnnHalford, managing director,media and entertainment, atFTI Consulting; Jens Richter,former managing director of Red Arrow Internationaland now CEO of Fremantle Media; Patrice Slupowski, VP digital innovation andcommunities at Orange;Charlotte Hargreaves, SVPmarketing and businessdevelopment at DRG/ModernTimes Group, and AshleyMacKenzie, founder and

CEO of leading digital rightsmanagement agency Base79.

TVBEurope publisher SteveConnolly said, “With a line-uplike this, Next TV is becomingthe must-attend connected TVconference in the UK. Thesespeakers are leaders in one of

the most rapidly developingsectors of the industry. Andwe’ll be making even morespeaker announcements in thecoming weeks.”

Next TV Summit early birdtickets are available atwww.nexttvsummitlondon.com.

By Holly Ashford

CANON HAS made its entranceinto the production display marketwith the launch of the DP-V3010,a 30-inch reference displayspecifically designed for colourgrading and 4K video production.

The new display, together withCanon’s Cinema EOS System,offers an input-to-output solutionfor 4K digital cinema and wider

video production workflows. The DP-V3010 has been

designed to deliver 4K resolution alongside accuracy in colour reproduction.

The display is powered by acustom-developed imageprocessor designed andmanufactured by Canon.

A 10-bit panel driver workswith the processor to enable thedisplay of 1024 gradation levels

for each RGB colour to delivergradation characteristics across allcontent types.

Kieran Magee, director ofprofessional marketing, CanonEurope said: “We’ve listenedcarefully to the needs of the marketthroughout the development of thedisplay to deliver an exceptionalproduct suited to even the highestquality productions.”www.canon.co.uk

News & ContentsTVBEurope 3March 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

(Clockwise from top left): Patrice Slupowski, Ashley MacKenzie, Edward Lee and Mary Ann Halford

Canon's DP-V3010 4K reference monitor

ContentsBy Holly Ashford

NATIONAL THEATRE Live(NT Live) will present the world’sfirst live 4K theatre broadcast,War Horse, working inpartnership with Sony, CreativeBroadcast Solutions, NEPVisions and Links Broadcast.

War Horse will be broadcaston 27 February 2014 to cinemasacross the world. The broadcastwill be shown in Sony 4K at theCurzon Cinema in Chelsea,London, and the theatreproduction will be projectedusing a Sony projector.

Creative Broadcast Solutions(CBS), with NEP Visions willwork with Sony, using its F55 Super CineAlta camerasequipped with Fujinon Cabrio lenses to capture theperformance. NEP Visions will provide the technicalinfrastructure and expertise totake the 4K content fromcamera to satellite, as well asrecording and broadcasting asimultaneous HD version. www.creativebroadcastsolutions. comwww.linksbroadcast.comwww.ntlive.comwww.sony.co.ukwww.visions-ob.com

NT Live delivers4K War Horse

Canon unveils 4K display

Next TV speakersannounced

News & Analysiswww.tvbeurope.com March 20144 TVBEurope

EDITORIALActing Editor Neal [email protected]

Staff WriterHolly [email protected]

Managing Editor Joanne [email protected]

Intent Media London, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road,London N1 8LN, England +44 207 354 6002

Editorial Consultant Adrian PenningtonAssociate Editor David FoxUSA Correspondent Carolyn GiardinaContributors Mike Clark, David Davies,Richard Dean, Chris Forrester, Mark Hill, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett, Heather McLean, Bob Pank, Nick Radlo, Philip Stevens,Reinhard E Wagner

Digital Content Manager Tim Frost

Office Manager Lianne Davey

Head of Design & Production Adam ButlerEditorial Production Manager Dawn BoultwoodSenior Production ExecutiveAlistair Taylor

PublisherSteve [email protected]+44 207 354 6000

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Sales ExecutiveRichard [email protected]+44 207 354 6000

Managing Director Mark Burton

US SALESMichael MitchellBroadcast Media International, PO Box 44, Greenlawn, New York, NY [email protected]+1 (631) 673 0072

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TVBEurope is published 12 times a year by Intent Media London, 1st Floor, SuncourtHouse, 18-26 Essex Road, London,N1 8LN, England

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© Intent Media 2014. No part of thispublication may be reproduced in any form orby any means without the prior permission ofthe copyright owners. TVB Europe is mailedto qualified persons residing on the Europeancontinent. Subscription is free.

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By Neal Romanek

AFTER ANOTHER successfulBVE in London, all eyes arenow on NAB. And in this issuewe feature part one of our NABProduct Preview. There weren’tmany product launches at BVE— most companies want to keeptheir powder dry till NAB —but the consensus amongvendors was that the show was a great networking event.

The dearth of announcementsseemed to work to BVE’sbenefit, opening up some spaceto get back to the basics ofexchanging ideas and building

partnerships. The BVEseminars, as usual, attractedstanding room crowds, and, notblinded by the flash-pow ofanother new product debut,conversation on the stands wasfree to address the bigger issues.

TVBEurope’s contribution to that conversation expandsthis year with three majorindustry events. Our twopopular conferences,BeyondHD Masters and ITBroadcast Workflow, willreturn in June and July,respectively. We are alsointroducing a new event thisyear, Next TV Summit London

— modelled after last year’ssuccessful Next TV summits in the US. We’re happy toannounce in this issue the first round of industryheavyweights who will bespeaking.

Looking ahead, our Aprilissue will be covering what’sbeyond HD, with a 4K focusand part two of our NABProduct Preview. In May we’ll have a look at satellite and an in-depth look at audiofor broadcast, and June willfeature our Summer Of SportOB Focus. We hope you’ll jointhe conversation.Neal Romanek

The big broadcast conversation

THE DIVERSE line-up atDublin’s second Digital Biscuitshow meant a visitor couldexperience the latest cameratechnology and attend atechnical masterclass, beforehearing from movie marketingspecialists, The Einstein Couple,who just finished work on Larsvon Trier’s Nymphomaniac, orlearning how neuroscienceinforms design with Neurosketchco-founder, Carlos Velasco.

What emerged from thismelting pot is that technology isthere to support art, first andforemost. Nobody knows thisbetter than ARRI, which choseto showcase its AMIRAdocumentary camera for the first time since itsannouncement at IBC2013.

“ARRI is going back to itsroots in documentaryfilmmaking,” said MilanKrsljanin, director of groupbusiness development at ARRI,showing off the camera. “Highframe rate is very important forpeople doing natural historytype work. AMIRA, likeALEXA, can go up to 200fpswith full picture quality and nocompromise. It’s built aroundthe same sensor as ALEXA.”

AMIRA fills a gap betweenhigh-end motion-picturecameras and consumer-typeDSLR solutions. Milandemonstrated how the “lighter,smaller, faster, cheaper” sister ofARRI’s flagship ALEXA couldbe used straight out of the bagby a single person on location.

And crucially, the camera isbuilt on FPGA chips, whichmakes it highly upgradable.

The creativity/technology balanceWhile the shooters were beinggifted technology to help themwork their magic in the field,Brian Gilmore, head ofproduction at Irish animationstudio Brown Bag Films wasstressing how technology hadtransformed animation andmade his job easier.

Brandishing hand-painted cellsof the Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles as an illustration of thehard work of yore, he hailed theadvent of technology in theanimation space.

“I spent many a day paintingthose. Traditional hand-drawnanimation involved an imagexeroxed onto acetate or clearplastic, then hand-painted. Itwas laborious, time consumingand restrictive.”

Gilmore gladly witnessed achange in the 90s, with the adventof digital ink and paint systems,

followed by 3D animation. Yetsome independent studios, likeIreland’s Cartoon Saloon, onlymoved from paper to digital inrecent times, during theproduction of Song of the Sea,which was previewed at the show.This sequel to the award-winningThe Secret of Kells benefitedfrom technology to faciliate pan-European file-sharing and collaboration.

However, Gilmore warnedagainst an industry driven solelyby technicians and leavinganimators behind. “People canlose sight of the final goal, whichis to entertain an audience. Athree-year-old doesn’t care whatsoftware you’re using, they wantto be entertained, so a balancebetween technology andcreativity must be struck.”

Tech gives accessKevin Moore, director ofEurotek Ireland and DigitalBiscuit exhibitor, concurs.“Broadcast infrastructure is ourmain market, but we come to itfrom an understanding of a

creative requirement. We’re notjust selling a bunch oftechnology, we are interested inthe creative arts and findingtechnology to adapt it. At theend of the day, we all care aboutlovely images on screen.”

He notes that the biggest trendin the last couple of years is areduction in the cost oftechnology. “Tech gives access tocreativity to a broader range ofpeople. Improvements in imagequality, speed of drives,processors at an affordable priceare fuelling creativity.”

Dave Hughes, head of telecineat post production houseWindmill Lane, knows first handhow much technology cansupport the creative process inpost production. “At last year’sevent, I gave a talk aboutgrading, but it’s not easy toconvey without having the kit todemo. People think the imageonly is captured on camera, so it’snice to see DPs asking us, findingout how to get the best out ofwhat they want to shoot nomatter what camera they use.”

Windmill Lane and FilmLightjointly demonstrated FilmLight’sBaselight PLUS and Slate in theKinoplay area. “We combine theTruelight colour managementsystem with the grading tool, tohandle mixed formats and giveclients the best result. And becauseevery job has an element of VFXthese days, we can control howfiles go to a VFX house or artist toensure what we deliver is what weget back.”

FilmLight attended the eventfor the first time this year andwas delighted to note thatBaselight was used by PeterDoyle at Technicolor-PostworksNY to grade the Coen Brothers’Inside Llewyn Davis, whichpremiered in Ireland on theopening night of the event.

Digital Biscuit: where tech meets artLast month’s Digital Biscuit event served up a weird andwonderful menu for TV technologists and creatives alike.Monica Heck reports

ARRI chose Digital Biscuitto show off its AMIRA forthe first time since IBC2013

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FISHERMEN HAVE theirfriend, and so do contentproducers. The DigitalProduction Partnership (DPP),not satiated by creating the AS-11 delivery standard, hasdeveloped an undeniable drivethat is taking it into manyassociated areas where it canpush for and set more standards,reduce others down to producer-speak bullet points, and offerpeople guidance in how toprosper in the file-based world.

DPP’s increasinglysophisticated bi-monthly forumsattract large knowledge-hungryaudiences from both theproduction and post sectors.

At the most popular forum yet,staged at Channel 4, DPP chairMark Harrison (currentlyseconded to the BBC encodingprogramme) said: “We are facinga very big moment in October —British broadcasting goes digital.And we only have a couple ofdots to join in the form ofprogrammes to finish and deliver.

“When we created AS-11 we didn’t recognise we could bethe body to make the wholechange process much simpler,”he added.

The DPP attracts a mixedability group, so it runs sessionsfor the person who knows least.It put up eight people to tell the

current story of file creation anddelivery, and they all typified thewonderful support it hasgarnered from its nationalbroadcaster membership.

The eyes have itAndy Tennant, technologydirector at ITV Studios, andDPP training collaborationshead, covered technical standardand metadata issues from thestandpoint of what producersmust consider when they need todeliver an AS-11 file. Firstly, itwill take longer to generate anddeliver than a tape ever did.

“In our file-based world,metadata is absolutelymandatory. It must be deliveredwith the file, meaning that someof the paperwork thathistorically appeared aftertransmission needs to bebrought forward,” Tennant said.

Typical of what thebroadcaster would provide (andexpect back) is the productionnumber. Producer providedmetadata should include a briefsynopsis. Checking was Tennant’sthird big subject. He asked: “Howcan I be confident as I learn thisprocess that what I have got interms of my file is something thathas a reasonable chance ofgetting to a broadcaster, and onair?” The answers are on a helpfulDPP checklist that starts witheditorial sign off.

Tennant warned: “You cannotinsert edit on file yet, so as youstep through this process bear inmind that if you need to make achange, and you are in the processof completing your file, you areback into your edit and startingthe process again. This makes finaleyeball checks really important.”

The last chance saloonAndy Quested, head of UHDtechnology at the BBC, lockedonto the new emphasis oneyeballing. The eyeball review isa modern notion for the fileexchange era, and it starts withsetting up a screening room, andcutting out the bad habits ofusing computers or proxies togive final nods.

“It is a chance to sit downwith a specific (DPP) check list.Don’t make the assumption thatsomeone else is going to checkit; that’s not going to happenanymore,” said Quested. “Thereview is the last chance for theproducer, directors, DOP,production manager and editorto watch a programme, with thecriteria of passing it technically.

“The contract says produce,make and deliver a transmittableprogramme, so it has alwaysbeen there. This is abouthanding the responsibilitiesback to the producer, andactually allowing much moreleeway for editorialinterpretation,” he added.

It is not the editor’sresponsibility to approve contentfor transmission, but if a file isrejected it bounces right back tothe NLE. “The producer has tosign the certificate to say it hasbeen checked and reviewed,”Quested said.

“The audience will decide if aprogramme is good or bad,” headded. “That is what has beenhappening in radio for 10 years.There is audience/producer and that’s how it should be. We are just going to reiteratewhat we all know anyway: this is not rocket science, it is aboutgut feeling.”

Harrison: “We are facing a very big moment In October — British broadcasting goes digital”


File delivery made...simple? George Jarrett attended the DPP Forum “File

Delivery Made Simple” and discovered that striving forsimplicity can be very complex

Predicting success or failureAway from the productionprocess, one of the moreintriguing interactionsbetween creativity andtechnology came fromEpagogix. CEO NickMeaney introduced thecompany as an ‘antichrist tothe creatives’ that uses expertprocess and artificialintelligence to predict thesuccess of scripts at the boxoffice and permit evidence-based decision-making.

Targeting the bean countersof the big money, big riskHollywood business,Epagogix transferred the TV analysis process to film,codifying, breaking down andscoring scripts before feedingthe result into a neuralnetwork that forecasts successor failure of the script beforebig money has been pouredinto it.

“It’s a collaborative thing,”said Meany. “The creativevision is needed and we helpthem make the best of it.”

IPTV museumTo round off the event, theultimate happy marriagebetween art and technology tookthe stage in the form of IkonoTV. This specialty TV stationdelivers art to the living room.

The station, which has notyet been monetised, can be livestreamed and has been availablefor three years through IPTVboxes in Germany and France and in the Arab worldthrough satellite.

Markevitch says it took timeto acclimatise the art world tothe concepts of rightsmanagement and streaming.“Most museums think they aresuper-modern because theyhave a website. I knew nothingabout broadcasting but Iwanted to make art as popularas music, which had radio as a medium.”

Fail every programmeThe subject of automated QCand PSE fell to ITV technologystrategist Rowan de Pomerai.Gone are the days of tape worldQC with a person in a darkroom armed with waveformmonitors, audiometers andseveral monitors. Technicalmeasurements are all wrappedin software processes.

“We can analyse files, preferablyin faster than realtime, and giveyou the results to review, and totake into your human reviews too.It would give an inclination ofparticular areas you have to watchout for,” said Pomerai.

One problem is people wantingto create their own QC device andQC workflows — that will failevery programme. Pomerai said:“Buy any QC product. Butturning on all the tasks andplugging it in will fail everything.The reason is that you can test somany things, and set so manyparameters. Tuning this to test theright things is really difficult.”

This is where and why theDPP has looked at the fantasticQC definitions created by the EBU, and produced anintelligently shortened set ofmust dos.

“This goes through all thetests that the DPP thinks needto be done on a finishedprogramme, and what thethresholds and tolerances are,”said Pomerai. “The idea is thatvendors will be able to help us

with setting up profiles for theirQC devices.”

This will give producers aminimum baseline. In “realEnglish language” the DPPexplains mandatory tests forthings that must be passed, andeditorial and technical warnings.Photosensitive epilepsy is anotherarea where the DPP has testedand approved various devices.

“Broadcasters will not berunning a full QC on files certifiedas passing the DPP process. Whatwe will do is basic file integritychecking, and there will be a spot

check by the play out director tomake sure it is the right bit ofcontent,” said Pomerai.

Validate prior to wrappingShane Tucker, a developmentengineer at Channel 4 and DPPmetadata app project manager,talked about the creation andexport of a DPP AS-11 file, whichis an AVC Intra 100Mbs filewrapped in with metadata anddelivered as a single MXF file.

This MXF file has descriptiveeditorial, technical and structural

metadata. Tucker looked at thevendor support of AS-11.

“Some are not currentlyproviding full AS-11 files, butcan provide the raw essence,” he said. “So you can do most ofyour work and you wouldimport that valid essence fileinto the DPP metadata app andwrap in relevant metadata.

“There are manyimplementations of AS-11 outthere, and when consideringproducts, one question you shouldask yourself and the vendor is, Howintuitive is the UI? Some products

just present you with 60 fields andsay, there you go, enter it.”

There is little validation, andyou might end up tapping in dataalready entered in your NLE. Do the fields drop down andoffer options, or are they blank? Re-populating fields can lead tomistakes. The answer is validation.

“Look at validating prior towrapping. As there are a lot ofmetadata fields, it is quite easyto make the odd mistake andhave metadata not matching theessence,” said Tucker.

Do an anti-virus checkJohn Wollner, head oftechnology at BBC North andNations, covered the issuesaround delivering files tobroadcasters. It is aboutconnectivity, the transfermechanisms across thatconnectivity, security, fileintegrity and notification.

Wollner reviewed all theplusses and minuses of theinternet, managed and directservice connections, and saidthat USB hard drives and LTOdata tapes are verboten. His first

like, after doubting FTP and thecloud, was third partyaccelerator tools.

“Security is the key issue. Bear in mind that broadcastersare receiving tens of thousandsof files every year,” he said.“They do not have the time to manually check every file. We will use automated processes,and if there is any non-compliance we will reject it.

“Do an anti virus check,because to broadcasters theworst nightmare is a virus intheir system.”

Encryption is the key, butthings to note include the factthat using other things likechecksum might add delays totransfers. Neither the DPP appnor the DPP XML schemerwill support checksum.

So what trips people up? “The AVCI class 100 codec forDPP is the SMPTE specificationnot the Panasonic spec. There isno debate or argument,” saidWollner. “The audio channelshave to be BWF not AES, andthat is another thing trippingpeople up recently. Audiochannels have to be individualtracks (for HD).”

The third party acceleratorsprovide notifications, a function that can beautomated, and Wollner used(Signiant) Media Shuttle todemonstrate the ease withwhich files can be sent.

“Our children’s TVdepartment get suppliers todeliver stuff using MediaShuffle,” he said. “As a test wegot a supplier in Toronto tosend a completed programmethat was 38GBs. A 40-minuteasset, it arrived in 38 minutes.”

News & Analysiswww.tvbeurope.com MMarch 20148 TVBEurope

DPP’s increasingly sophisticated bi-monthlyforums attract large knowledge-hungry audiences

from both the production and post sectors

“How can I be confident as I learn thisprocess that what I have got in terms of my file is something that has a reasonablechance of getting to a broadcaster, and on air?” Andy Tennant, ITV

New loudness solutionsfrom NUGEN Audio BVE2014 saw the UK debut of theNUGEN Audio MultiMonitor.MultiMonitor is NUGEN’sloudness and true-peakmonitoring software that offers upto 16 individual loudness and true-peak meters to monitor mono,stereo, and 5.1 formats for up to96 individual audio channels. This standalone software providesreal-time monitoring in fullcompliance with global loudnessregulations and standards.Also shown at BVE were theNUGEN Loudness Toolkit andComplete Loudness Solution,plug-in collections offeringloudness metering, logging,correction and more. www.nugenaudio.com

Host Broadcaster selectsAvid for SochiAvid’s broadcast solutions havebeen chosen by the HostBroadcaster to power theproduction workflow for theWinter Olympic Games. Anintegrated Avid workflow allowedthe host broadcaster to managethousands of hours of contentcaptured at multiple sites andinstantly make it available toRights Holding Broadcasters inRussia for multi-device delivery toviewers around the world.www.avid.com

NEWS IN BRIEF

AJA releases lo 4K software updateAJA Video Systems has released itsv.10.5.1 Mac software driver packagefor Io 4K. The software upgrade adds4K/UHD high frame rate support toAJA’s device for video I/O, customisedfor Thunderbolt 2 technology and 4Kworkflows. The upgrade adds Io 4Ksupport for 50, 59.94 and 60fpscapability at 4K and UHD resolutions.The v10.5.1 software also adds newformat support into the AJA DataCalcdesktop app, along with overallperformance and format supportenhancements to Io XT, Io Express, T-TAP, and the current KONA lineupof capture cards. www.aja.com

Panasonic to launch ‘cloudready’ camera Panasonic is set to launch its firsthandheld ENG camera with wirelessconnectivity. The AJ-PX270removes the need for traditional videouplink, making it suitable for the livestream and freelance news gatheringmarket. The camera enables awireless production workflow viaLAN, with additional 3G/4G/LTEapplication from Autumn 2014. TheP2 HD handheld camera recorder hasintegrated AVC-ULTRA recording,offering a range of recording bitrates. www.panasonic.com

Sennheiser introducesHDM Pro technologySennheiser has introduced newtechnology to its HD25 headphonerange, with the aim of helping toprotect users’ hearing against noiseinduced hearing loss (NIHL), andimproving reproduced sound quality.Sennheiser Solutions is the firstcompany to market LimitEar’s HDMPro device, which enables soundlevels to be adjusted dynamically toreduce the impact of NIHL. The HDMPro device changes users’ soundlevels through the day to ensure thattheir exposure to reproduced soundstays within legally defined limits.www.limitear.comwww.sennheiser.co.uk

NEWS IN BRIEF A quality thresholdKevin Burrows, CTO of broadcastand distribution at Channel 4, andDPP technical standards lead,looked at what happens to filesonce they are at the broadcaster.This is a nonlinear process full ofside processes and lots ofindividual workflows going off toother platforms.

Focusing on linear broadcastand keeping things simple,Burrows said: “The file would be available to broadcastdepending on the timing. Themetadata would have beenentered or extracted within theconditioning and schedulingsystems, so whoever isscheduling that programme willknow where the parts are andhow long it is. They put it intoan automated schedule drivingthe play out server.”

There is an option. If thebroadcaster cannot play out in theAVC file format at any time, thereis the potential for a transcode, butthis incident will be rare.

“It takes quite a long time to get something in place. We are seeing some quite bigimprovements in some of theLong GOP versions of AVC,and we have to start somewherein terms of standardisation,”said Burrows. “At least then wehave a quality threshold.”

Waiting for Insert editing The strict procedures for recallingfiles were explained by Bill Brown,head of media standards at ITV.Editorial and technicalcorrections are more problematicin the file world, and you mustreplace original versions.

“Obviously if you send a file toa broadcaster or a play outprovider you have not got a clue of how many times that filehas been copied. So if you do notchange the version when you alterthe content either technically oreditorially, you increase the risk ofthe wrong content going out withall the ramifications,” said Brown.

“The first stage if you mustmake a correction is to contact

your broadcaster (mediamanagement department orprogramme planning) and getpermission. Once you haveconsent, you go back to thebeginning editing station. Oncecorrections are done, you have to

re-enter the metadata, re-wrapthe file, re-evaluate and QC it.”

Brown cited the questionsaround this subject: how closeare you to TX, how good is yourconnectivity, how quickly canyou transfer files, what are thelimitations in terms of theworkflow at the play outprovider that is sending this fileback to you, and how long willit take them to re-process the filecontent and get it onto servers.

“We have all known the days when we just dived into a

linear tape suite and made aquick correction,” he said. “In the file world we still don’t have any means of insertediting, so we have to go way back to the first stage of the process.”

The letter of the lawGarry Metcalfe, a broadcastdesign engineer with Sky,covered the must-adhere-tosubject of the EBU R128loudness specs. These areessentially a measuring methodmodelled on how the human earresponds to frequencies atdifferent loudness levels. Theresult is measuring the averagesound of an entire asset.

“There is no opportunity tobe louder anymore. You aremuch better starting to open up

your dynamics. Start to bringsome nice fidelity into it,” saidMetcalfe. “If you deliver R 128compliant content it will goright through to the TX chain.”

Another EBU spec with lotsof numbers required more plainEnglish. “You measure theentire asset and there is thetarget loudness of -23, and that’swhat you have to hit. If notcorrect, you simply move thewhole mix up or down, give itattenuation and gain, until youget the correct value,” saidMetcalfe. “There is confusionaround tolerances on targetloudness, but R 128 is the letterof the law. That said, mostbroadcasters have a built intolerance anyway. Tolerance isbuilt in for live content.”

The EBU PLOUD group islooking at adding a tolerance,and at loudness range.

“The other thing you have to ensure is that there are no peaks in the audio above -3dB; the reason is if it isintended to go to a furthercompression codec such asDolby Digital. The more youpush it to zero, the greater

chance of creating artefactswhen you data reducesomething,” said Metcalfe.

He ended by pointing at amajor benefit. “If you are doinglong form content it is arduousto measure it and find you havenot hit the target loudness. Itcan be much more efficient touse a package and create yourmix. The software will measurethe content and calculate theoffset that is required andautomatically shift it to thecorrect loudness target.”


Tennant: “In our file-based world, metadata is absolutely mandatory”

“There is confusion around tolerances ontarget loudness, but R 128 is the letter ofthe law. That said, most broadcasters havea built-in tolerance anyway. Tolerance isbuilt in for live content” Garry Metcalf, Sky

Broadcast Audio People.

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People on the movewww.tvbeurope.com March 201412 TVBEurope

By Holly Ashford

Mark Burton named MDof Newbay Media EuropeTVBEUROPE PARENTcompany NewBay Media hasannounced that Mark Burtonhas been named managingdirector of NewBay MediaEurope, Intent Media. Burtonmost recently led IncisiveMedia’s Insurance Group as itsgroup publishing director,where he was responsible for awide portfolio of magazine,digital, and event properties.

“Mark is an accomplishedmedia executive with animpressive track record,” statedSteve Palm, CEO, NewBayMedia. “He is the right personto further develop our magazine,digital, and event capabilitiesand aggressively grow ourEuropean business. I am excitedto have him join our team.”

At Incisive Media, Burtonmanaged a portfolio of brandsthat included Post, InsuranceAge, and Insurance Hound.

During his time at IncisiveMedia, Mark was instrumentalin launching new, data-drivendigital products, expanding theInsurance events portfolio intonew territories, and gainingsubstantial subscriptiongrowth through digitalcorporate licenses.

“NewBay’s depth andbreadth in the markets it serves

offers a unique opportunity for growth and expansion,”said Burton. “I am lookingforward to working with theteam to build on the success ofthe current products, anddelivering the best service we can to our customers. This is an amazingopportunity and I can’t wait toget started.”

dock10 appoints newnon-executive chairmanMALCOLM WALLhas been appointedas the new non-executive chairmanof dock10. Wall’slong career in theglobal media sectorincludes being CEOof Abu Dhabi Mediaand holding seniorroles within VirginMedia, UnitedBusiness Media and various ITVcompanies. Mostrecently, Malcolm leda joint venture forPinewood Studios in China.

“I am delighted tobe working with the dock10management and shareholders,”said Wall. “The team haveachieved a great deal in a veryshort space of time. I lookforward to working with themin the next stage of

development of the business.” Mark Senior, chief executive

of dock10 said of Wall: “Hisextensive experience andcontacts will be enormouslyhelpful as we look to the futurestrategic growth of dock10.”

Mark Burton, Newbay Media Europe

Malcolm Wall, dock10

A+E Networks has hired VVivianePaxinos as senior director ofadvertising sales. In this newly-createdrole, Paxinos will lead the ad salesoperations at A+E Networks UK and isresponsible for shaping the company’sstrategy for ad sales growth, both inthe UK and across their internationalterritories. Paxinos has over 15 years of media and advertising experiencewith companies including Viacom and Comcast.

Andrew Pons has been appointedby Exset as its global director forsales and marketing. Pons has beenwith the company for nearly twoyears, and has had many years’experience in the TV business,working at Pace, SysMedia,Electronic Farm and Harris. AlexBorland, CEO, Exset, said: “We’redelighted that Andrew has beenpromoted to this new role within ourteam. With his wealth of experienceacross our markets, we know he’s theright person to help drive us forwardsin what are exciting times for Exset.”

Net Insight has announcedmanagement changes, with the aimof becoming a more sales and marketoriented company. The managementteam will be comprised of; FredrikTumegård, CEO; ThomasBergström, CFO; Per Lindgren,CTO, SVP business development andfounder; Stig Stålnacke, SVP globalsales; Peter Sergel, VP new segmentsales; Anna Karin Verneholt, VPmarketing; Martin Karlsson, VPportfolio management; Ulrik Rohne,VP research and development, VPservice acting; and Marina Hedman,VP HR.

NUGEN Audio has announced theappointment of Simon Kerr as chiefmarketing officer. Kerr will overseethe company’s global marketingstrategy and will manage NUGENAudio’s newly opened NorthAmerican office. Kerr lectured invideo production at LeedsMetropolitan University, and beforejoining NUGEN Audio, worked atCanon USA.

Tim Waller has joined PrimeFocus as senior colourist. Waller hasthree decades of experience gradingfilm, commercials and broadcast. Hepreviously worked at Molinaire where,over seven years, he completed over70 films and countless TV dramas.He joins Prime Focus from Envy.

re:fine has announced twoappointments in the form of ChristosGlaridis as head of operations andAnna Connolly as head of QC.Glaridis brings 15 years’ mediaexperience to the company startinghis career as a runner in Soho’s VTRand working his way up to technicaldirector for Dubbs-Eyeframe (nowPremiere). Most recently Glaridis was technical manager of postproduction at PERFORM Group.Connolly’s career in QC started atSky, later moving to Technicolor asQC supervisor.

Lee Sheppard has been hired by SGL as director of productmanagement, overseeing thecompany’s global product strategy.“I’m very excited to embark on this new stage of my career at SGL,” said Sheppard. “I’m looking forward to continuing todrive the SGL product roadmap

forwards, working with existing andnew customers.”

Signiant has increased its sales andsupport staff to meet growing global

demand for its products. Recentadditions to the global team includeJonathan Lunness, sales director;James Mansfield, regional sales

manager; Jamie Lakin, key accountmanager for EMEA; and Steve Gibson,who joins the solutions architectureteam. All are based in the UK.

By Holly Ashford

Andrew PonsExset

Simon KerrNugen Audio

Christos Glaridisre:fine

Tim WallerPrime Focus

People on the moveTVBEurope 13March 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

Burrows: Nothing major, butthere are some learning points,such as trust your audio skillsand your ears, set yourmonitoring levels with care tohelp you hit the right loudnessbalance point, try to stop usingPPMs as soon as you can — thiswill take a little longer in post,but should be more than offsetby a reduction in the timewasted by reworking rejected

productions — and finally,applause at the end ofperformances can catch you outon live programmes if therehearsals had none!

Camerer: No significantlydifferent issues compared toother countries have arisen. TheUK has the advantage of beingable to draw on the experienceof several other Europeancountries and so should avoid

the most common pitfalls. Oneapproach is similar to Francewhere the tolerance for live isinitially +/- 2 LU, and for tapeor file-based delivery is +/- 1LU. This is looser than in R128— it will be tightened later, but an understandable step tofacilitate the transition. Also,R128 is not demanded yet, it isstill encouraged.

Nicholas: The standard is still in the process ofimplementation and it is as yettoo early to be able to have aview of any potential issues.

Plunkett: There has been agrowing consensus that loudnessis best dealt with at source, asthe solutions that work on thelive outputs of a channel don’tgenerally produce optimumresults. Production companiesare already expected to satisfyvarious technical and qualitativemeasures related to theirprogramming, so this has beenan expected and inevitabledevelopment. At the moment,everyone is familiarisingthemselves with new tools andprocedures, but no majorconcerns have been identified.

Schut: There are alwaysproblems implementing a newstandard and this is noexception. The biggest problemis that it is a complex exercise.Only if the producer of thesound is aware of the loudnessrequirements will you get goodresults. Anything that needs to be corrected afterwards —and especially legacy material— will have reasonable to poorresults. Also the differentformats that need to besupported and the complexityof R128 advice for all differentplatforms does not help.

Loudness Forumwww.tvbeurope.com March 201414 TVBEurope

Shout outfor loudness

In this Forum, Philip Stevens seeks theviews of industry experts about the niggling —

sometimes baffling — question of loudness

Kevin Burrows, Channel 4; DPP

THE QUESTIONSsurrounding loudnessdon’t want to go away.Several Europeancountries have adoptedthe Technical DeliverySpecification forLoudness, but is itworking? Are thereproblems implementingthe standard? Wherenext on this thornyissue? Some people inthe industry seem happyto discuss the matter —others are reluctant.

We’ve broughttogether professionalsclosely involved with the topic who are happyto air their views. Theyare (in alphabeticalorder) Kevin Burrows,CTO broadcast and

distribution, Channel 4,and DPP tech standardslead; Florian Camerer,senior sound engineer,ORF — Austrian TV and chairman EBUgroup PLOUD; Tim Carroll, CTO The Telos Alliance/Linear Acoustic; Bob Nicholas, directorbusiness developmentEMEA at CobaltDigital; Mark Pascoe,senior technicalmarketing manager,Dolby Laboratories;Steve Plunkett, CTO,Red Bee Media; PeterSchut, CTO and SVPof R&D at Axon;Richard vanEverdingen, broadcastand audio consultant.

Last October saw all UK nationalbroadcasters accept the DPP’sTechnical Delivery Specificationon Loudness standards.Although early days, have anysignificant issues come to lightsince the implementation of thestandard in the UK?

Camerer: The BBC has a headstart in the UK because theaverage level has always beenaround -23 LUFS. There havebeen outliers, of course, but theprincipal production methodsdon’t have to change. BskyB has been doing loudnessnormalisation for years, so theyhave no issue whatsoever. I thinkthe UK will generally catch upwith the more loudness advancedcountries in Europe quickly.

Carroll: In my opinion, quite well. Again, manybroadcasters were far ahead ofrecommended practices, suchas EBU R128 and otherregulations, as they found thatsatisfying the viewer is simplygood business practise.

Nicholas: The UK is certainlysomewhat behind some of theprimary European markets.France and Germany areleading the way in terms ofimplementation of R128recommendations on loudnessmeasurement and control. Thecontinuing poor economicclimate in the rest of Europe isaffecting the ability ofbroadcasters in those mostseverely hit areas to implementcorrective measures.

Plunkett: The UK hashistorically been one of themore active implementers ofloudness control at the point of

broadcast, which ironically hasperhaps slowed the impetus for R128 adoption to date.However, the work of the DPP will bring the UK to theforefront of adopters by the end of 2014.

Burrows: The industry with thelargest challenge in this area isthe pop music recordingindustry where hyper-compression is commonplaceand often extreme.

Carroll: Anyone who does notrealise that traditional meteringlike PPM or VU must take asecondary role to proper ITU-RBS.1770 loudness metering andEBU R128 recommendedpractices. This list is thankfullybecoming smaller every day.

Nicholas: The worst offenderscould possibly be defined as thoseadvertisers who still try anydubious engineering practices tocircumvent the recommendationsand appear louder than thepreceding content. Somebroadcasters also could beincluded as they may considerthat, as they do not carryadvertising, they are exempt fromloudness issues on programmetransitions. Apparently, they donot consider interstitials as being

advertising, althoughthey are invariablygenerated by thesame agencies thatprepareconventionaladvertisingmaterial andusually to the sameinternal engineeringpractices.

van Everdingen: Somepeople are fundamentallyopposed to the use of loudness

normalisation. It is alwaysdifficult to convince someonewho starts from the oppositedirection. I see examples wherethis negative opinion is based on a wrong application ofloudness normalisation.Consequently, before anyone canexperience the advantages, andbefore a fair discussion about thisis possible, it must start with aproper preparation, applicationand evaluation.

Loudness ForumTVBEurope 15March 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

Bob Nicholas, Cobalt Digital

Florian Camerer, ORF — Austrian TV; PLOUD

How is the UK faring comparedto other European broadcasters?

By releasing the loudness spec, we have now standardised the loudness ranges together with tolerances for pre-recordedand live programmes” — Kevin Burrows, Channel 4, DPP

“Only if theproducer of thesound is awareof the loudnessrequirements

will you getgood results”

Peter Schut, Axon

Who, in youropinion (withoutnaming specificcompanies), is the worstoffender in thewhole loudnessdebate?

Burrows: Yes it has, and hasresulted in much moreeducation and training toadapt to the new ways ofdealing with sound mixing,production and monitoring.Initiatives like the BBCAcademy training programmeshave really helped theproduction communityunderstand the new ways ofworking needed. The DPP hasbeen pro-active in setting upworkshops where audioloudness has been properlydebated and concerns aired.

Camerer: The UK is still ahybrid loudness/PPM6 world.So initially there might be moredifferent mixes to satisfydifferent specifications.Working practices changesimilarly in other countries.Mixers rely more and more ontheir ears — hopefully, theyhave done so anyway — butnow they have a meter thatcorresponds with what theyhear. If average loudness levelshave been different from thenew target level of -23 LUFS,the listening level has to beadjusted accordingly — up ifyou have mixed louder, down ifyou have mixed softer. Forcing

oneself to mix to target throughadjusting the listening level isthe primary tool to success.

Nicholas: There has certainlybeen a change in approach in UK studios and post housesas they are all now aware of the nature of a loudness meter.They are also coming to termswith the fact that properimplementation of it should not have an adverse effect on the dynamic range of theirproductions.

Burrows: By releasing theloudness spec, we have nowstandardised the loudnessranges together with tolerancesfor pre-recorded and liveprogrammes. In terms of thetwo parameters you have listed,these refer to the overallprogramme loudness, and theMaximum True Peak. The latterof these, the Maximum TruePeak values, are proposed asguidance only, together withexamples as they can vary.

Examples would beuncompressed music or gunshotsounds. This is a change toworking practices compared tousing conventional PPMs, asthese only looked at averagepeak values, but it will beprovide a much more subjectivemeasurement.

Nicholas: This will only affectworking practices in as much asnew compliant metering willneed to be implemented. Otherthan that it could be comparedto the period when digital audiocame into use and engineers hadto get used to the idea of arelative 0dB level — which wasactually different depending onwhich country you were located.The only major issue to get usedto on a loudness meter is thatwhat you are seeing indicatedhas already happened as theprocess is based on integratedmeasurement.

Schut: Sure, as they both havea very different outcome to theend sound and level.

van Everdingen: I wouldadvise against a restriction forloudness range (LRA),especially regarding dramaseries and films, or it must berecommendation for somethingin the area of not more than 22or so, just as a safety precaution.A limit on a lower LRA meansthat some drama mixes that canbe transmitted on televisionwithout any problem, need to becompressed just to comply witha certain number. What I foundin my own research is thatexcellent mixes with good

speech intelligibility and aconsistent voice level close toprogramme loudness can havevery high LRA figures up to 22without causing a problem, noton the low and not on the highlevel side. Bad mixes on theother hand, tend to ‘improve’ toa certain extent by compression.This leads to the trend that goodwork is penalised because of theshortcomings of bad work.Other bad mixes that includeannoyingly loud modulationscan still have a relatively lowloudness range. A limitation onLRA is, in that case, not able to prevent that — which canlead to even lower restrictionslater on. The current LRAmeasurement is meant as anindicator for an audio mixer. Touse it as a strict restriction inprogramme delivery documents

Loudness ForumTVBEurope 17March 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

Peter Schut, Axon

Richard van Everdingen, broadcast and audio consultant

The standardprovides twoparameterrequirements —loudnessfigure and dBTrue Peak.When astandard forloudness rangeis introduced,will this makea difference toworkingpractices?

Has the implementation of EBUR128 made any difference toworking practices in UK studiosand post houses?

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is tricky. Currently, the PLOUDgroup is doing research toascertain if the LRAmeasurement can be slightlyoptimised so that some specificmixes that have a high LRAnumber correlate better with thehuman perception. Even if itcomes to an improved LRAmeasurement, extensive testingis required in my opinion beforeit is recommendable to use acertain number as a restriction,especially if this number ischosen relatively low.

Camerer: Unfortunately, it isnot possible to predict theloudness of a down-mix fromsurround sound to stereo,judging only from the downmixparameters. This is due to the

differentinfluence ofthe level ofthe surroundchannels, aswell as theuse ofdivergence —‘bleed’ — ofCentre signalinto left andright. The moresurround-heavycontent you have —applause, for example —the bigger the loudnessdifference of a stereo downmixwill be. There is no singlesolution to that. Best practiceis to transmit two separatemixes, both loudnessnormalised — and not to relyon an automatic downmix atthe consumer’s end.

Carroll: Downmixes cancause slight loudness variationswhich are completelyprogramme dependent. This iswhy some of the regulationsenacted throughout the worldhave a tolerance of +/- 1 to2dB. Having zero tolerance may result in additional — andunnecessary — processingwhose only goal is to satisfy a meter. This needs to bewatched carefully as heavierprocessing is an easier and less expensive answer forcompliance versus remixing butcan often lower quality.

Plunkett: The loudnessmeasurement on a down-mixedstereo audio can be significantlydifferent than that measured on the discrete surroundversion, especially where there is a great deal of correlationbetween the channels as theyare summed together. It istherefore important to checkthe loudness post down-mix and for sound supervisors tounderstand the possibleconsequences.

Schut: There shouldn’t beother than that some videoformats require different levels.

van Everdingen: There can beloudness differences betweenmultichannel audio and thedown-mix. This is also affectedby down-mix parameters suchas the Centre and Surrounddown-mix levels. In practice,the down-mix level willfluctuate a bit if the

multichannel programmes areloudness normalised. Thebroadcast station can checkcontent in the ingest stage toprevent tricks being appliedthat make the down-mixunreasonably louder, forexample in commercials. Thereis, however, also another way towork around the issue. In theNetherlands, the main stationsuse simulcast audio on cablenetworks. There is a dedicatedstereo service and a separateservice for multichannel audio.Dependent on the playbackconfiguration, the viewer canchoose the stereo or thesurround service on IDTVs andset-top boxes. This offers thepossibility to optimise both,independent from down-mixand up-mix issues.

Burrows: We are not currentlyplanning any changes to the UKDPP Loudness specificationspublished last year, but we willmonitor progress and if throughexperience we identify any areasrequiring optimisation, we willconsider making minoradjustments to the spec. In themeantime we will continue withour industry training andcollaboration initiatives.

Camerer: Loudnessnormalisation in radio is thelogical next step. There are a fewdifferences and many things incommon with TV. Once

loudness normalisation isestablished in radio, it

will have a strongimpact on music

production too,together withstreaming servicesbecoming moreand moreloudnessnormalised, forexample, iTunesRadio.

Carroll: Ibelieve this issue of

tolerance has to behandled before

processing is increasedjust to hit a meter-

satisfying result.Nicholas: I would predict

that the next development in theloudness issues would be that alldevelopers and vendors agree onthe method to convey clearindications of whether a piece ofaudio content has beenmeasured to a known standardand whether it was compliant. Ifprocessing has been applied thatshould also be indicated. Thisindicator should be able to beread by all consumer devices toprevent ruinous multipleloudness corrections beingapplied to a piece of content. Itwould be advantageous if such aprocess were also able to handlethe advent of object-basedaudio that is now getting a lot ofattention within our industry.

Pascoe: The EBU PLOUDgroup now have other platformsfirmly on their radar; radio and cinema being amongstthem. While the technicalsolutions for measurement are

now in place, lack of industryconsensus is most likely to be abarrier to adoption.

Plunkett: If we do a good jobof introducing R128, the nextdevelopment should be thatloudness disappears as anindustry and viewer concern.Let’s hope that we can do so.

Schut: I would expect someimprovements in automatedcorrection algorithms fromdifferent vendors. Implementingimproved metadata wheresignals that are correct are leftalone and not affected bydownstream loudnesscontrollers as proposed byDolby. And I hope for betterunderstanding of the problemwhere there is the most control— in production.

van Everdingen: The group isspending time on implementationissues and is also working onradio at the moment, particularlythe alignment between DAB andFM radio.www.orf.atwww.axon.tvwww.channel4.comwww.cobaltdigital.comwww.delta-sigma-consultancy.nlwww.digitalproductionpartnership.co.ukwww.dolby.comwww.linearacoustic.comwww.redbeemedia.comwww.tech.ebu.ch/groups/ploud

Loudness ForumTVBEurope 19MMarch 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

What is the nextdevelopmenton theLoudnessissue?

Tim Carroll, The TelosAlliance/Linear Acoustic

Steve Plunkett, Red Bee Media

Mark Pascoe, Dolby Laboratories

Are therespecialconsiderationswhen down-mixing fromSurround toStereo usingthe Loudnessstandard?

“I found in my own research

that excellent mixeswith good speech

intelligibility and aconsistent voice level

close to programmeloudness can have very

high LRA figures, up to 22, without causing

a problem” Richard van Everdingen,

audio consultant

IS THERE a need for anenhanced, richer-pixeled versionof Ultra HD that includes greaterluminance and colour alongsidehigher frame rate and resolution?

Tom Morrod, senior director,IHS Technology at analystsScreen IHS, says yes, arguing thathigher colour data has a moremeaningful impact on the viewingexperience than more pixels.

“High Dynamic Range(HDR) is not an increase intransmitted colour space, but itadds colour/contrast estimates tofill the gap between the colourspace that the TV can display,and the colour data from thedelivered stream,” he says.

TV displays have beenperforming better than the signalthey are fed for a while now. 8-bit depth per pixel has long been

the standard for HD video, yetwhen today’s content is acquiredat 12-bit, the signal is insufficientto store the extra information.

“When you acquire contentwith much higher bit depth its

quality is dumbed down on thedisplay to 8-bit,” explains RolandVlaicu, Dolby’s senior director ofBroadcast Imaging. “If we wereto change the bit depth of everypixel today to 12-bit, it would not

be compatible with any existingdisplay system. Our proposal isto maintain a higher bit depth forevery pixel up to 12-bit and 16-bit — or one day even higher —from the moment of capture to

the home. We need to modify thesignal to make it compatible withtoday’s infrastructure.”

Dolby Vision is a suite oftools applied to the colourgrading process in post and to

The Workflowwww.tvbeurope.com March 201420 TVBEurope

The HDR revolutionThe Ultra HD debate revolves around getting a richer picture to the living room with implications for capture, post production and retail. Adrian Pennington reports

Dolby Vision is just one of the new HDR tools aimed at boosting broadcast image quality

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the encoding of the signal forHEVC decoders in new UltraHD TVs. Under licence, CEmanufacturers will need tointegrate Dolby Vision decodingand display mapping softwareinto their equipment. Sets fromSharp, Vizio and TCL will havethat capability this year.

How Ultra HD will bepresented at retail is up fordebate, with the Digital TVGroup in the UK hoping to avoidthe confusion that surroundedthe badging of hardware with theHD-ready logo.

Dolby says it expects to placea separate Dolby Vision logo onconsumer equipment (andpossibly on content augmentedwith its system) alongside a4K/UHD/Ultra HD logo “as aclear indicator of performanceand quality.

“We believe Dolby Vision isthe perfect compliment toUHD,” says Vlaicu. “Thecombination of higher frame rateand higher resolution creates atrue-to-life viewing experience.”

Display brightness ismeasured in nits and the DolbyVision system can describe a

peak of 10,000nits. That’s waymore capacity than the average400nits most TVs can display,but Dolby believes that byallowing more information toflow through the chain thebetter the final picture quality.

Dolby has built prototype4000nit professional referencemonitors and is looking tolicence the technology to beginto populate facilities. A first setof plug-ins can be expected atNAB for colour grading systemsfrom Filmlight and Blackmagic.

The process is already inaction on 25 legacy and in-production titles. “New moviesare our goal, which will thensupply to OTT aggregators tostream,” says Vlaicu. “We areenabling post facilities,primarily in Hollywood, tocreate Dolby Vision grades withthe necessary plug-ins in forcolour grading software.”

“The post workflow doesn’tneed modifying,” says Vlaicu.“Today in a lot of cases, the DPand colourist will reference gradeto [Dolby’s] PRM 200 monitor inRec 709 for 100nit displays. We’dprefer that they look at the new

Dolby Vision reference displayand make creative decisions thatenable them to create a DolbyVision master.

“The process is largelyautomatic and built into thecapability of the plug-ins. Witha single pass master versionscan be derived for Dolby Vision,rec 709 and DCI-compliance. Ifthe director/DP wants to fine-tune they can make manualdecisions with the toolsprovided,” says Vlaicu.

Here’s Morrod’s verdict: “Extracolour is a serious improvement,but while the Dolby technologymakes things ‘pop’ and look morereal, the major benefit of additionalcolour information at transmissionis the subtle shading around theedge of things — the slow andaccurate transition of bright todark — which makes things ‘look’3D. It’s one of the main visual cuesto 3D objects in space, shading.This can’t be ‘created’ by HDR verywell, but is what makes 4K demos‘look 3D’ — they are usingadditional colour subsampling toplace a colour within the display-able colour-space, making it lookmore realistic.”

Technicoloralso bets on brightnessTechnicolor is working on asimilar set of HDR tools andworkflows and will bring twoversions of its dynamic rangeexpansion to market. The first isfor high-quality legacy contentfrom studios and will be a mixof automatic processes andartistic interactions. Initiallythese will feed the library of M-Go, the movie rental streamingservice it runs withDreamWorks and which willdebut a 4K option shortly.

“These projects will be individually regraded by a colourist often withinvolvement of the DP,” explainsCristina Gomila, director ofTechnicolor’s Rennes Researchand Innovation Centre. “Inversetone mapping allows us tostretch the dynamic range of alllegacy catalogue and make theimages brighter for new displays.We’ll try to stretch the range in a way that conveys the trueimage the DP wanted to create but in such a way wedon’t want flush the user with


“The industry,including standards

bodies like MPEG, needto set up a continuous

scale and define a pointbelow which we can

term LDR (low dynamicrange) and above

which is HDR”Cristina Gomila,

Technicolor

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maximum peak luminance atany time.

“Where content or areas ofcontent have been clipped whenrepresented in LDR Technicolorhas some algorithms that cancompensate and bring detailfrom brighter zones for example.“Lost information is difficult torecover so we are going to beseeing a variety of qualitydepending on these algorithms,”says Gomila.

Technicolor will also licence a version of its technology to perform dynamic rangeexpansion at the receiver, in set-top boxes or the TV. As withDolby Vision, the enhancementcan be applied to images of any resolution.

She calls for a consistentmeasure of what constitutesHDR to be agreed and iscontributing to standardisationactivities on HEVC extensionsfor HDR and wide ColourGamut in MPEG, ITU-T and applications standardcommittees such as DVB andATSC 3.0.

“The industry, includingstandards bodies like MPEG,need to set up a continuous scaleand define a point below whichwe can term LDR (low dynamicrange) and above which isHDR,” says Gomila. “Theremay even be intermediate range,but there should be a singleagreed definition to avoidmarket confusion.”

She suggests that fromcapture to grade creatives need

to learn about how new artisticeffects can be conveyed withHDR images. “If you knewyou could display thisgreater range, thequestion is would youplay differently withthe lighting whenfilming? This hasimplications forproductionsbeing shot goingforward.”

The genesis of Dolby’stechnology camefrom IP acquiredfrom Brightstar in2007. The Canadianwireless technologyspecialist had developed theconcept of local dimming inwhich TVs are dynamically litby individual LEDs arrayedbehind the screen, rather thanby way of a single backlight.

Brightstar developed a meansof creating a HDR version ofregular content by extrapolatinginformation needed to create thelocally dimmed image within theTV. The idea didn’t take offbecause it required TV sets tobecome wider to accommodatethe LEDs at a time when thetrend was toward ever thinnerunits (although LED edge-litdisplays which light up the panelequally are now common).

“When we acquiredBrightside, the existing IPrevolved mostly around theconcept of direct LED localdimming for LCD displays,”

explains Vlaicu. “The idea ofenhancing the signal itself wasreally just an idea at the time.Since then, we have built thetechnology and IP to turn thisinto a reality. The way we seethis panning out now is that thecombination of betterperforming displays in the formof local dimming LCD orOLED along with Dolby Visionsignals that carry higherdynamic range and a widercolour gamut will enable a farsuperior imaging performance.”

Folded Space Technicolor and Dolby are not alone in developing thisarea. Video processing companyFolded Space, subsidiary toanamorphic lens makerPanamorph, is marketing what it terms deep colourcontent encoding.

“DCE is an extremelyefficient process requiring verylittle additional bandwidth orprocessing power to deliver true12-bit equivalent colour tocompatible displays,” notesbusiness development directorJohn Schuermann.

The company’s algorithmsprocess original content with 12-bits and encode informationabout the colour detail into a

backward compatible 8-bit Blu-ray disc. Newer displays andBlu-ray players with thedecoding algorithm can thenrestore a 12-bit equivalent of theoriginal image.

Folded Space is licensing thetechnology to software partnersfor free “to stimulate HDRcontent production,” it says,while charging a modest fee forit to player and display vendors.

“We are working with severalCE manufacturers and majorfilm studios to develop a 12-to-8-back-to12-bit demo, but ofcourse the current limitation isthe lack of a high bit depth

display to show it on or evengood 12-bit video content

to run through theprocess,” says

Schuermann. “Theseare challenges we areworking on withseveral CEcompanies and filmstudios, most underNDA at this point.”

He adds: “Thewhole HDR/high

colour bit depthdiscussion is evolving

rapidly and there are stilltechnical problems to be

overcome on the display side.This is where Dolby is focusingpart of their efforts, as a majorcomponent of what they aredoing is encouraging thedevelopment of higherbrightness, high bit depthdisplays. We have simply beenfocusing on the efficient deliveryof high bitrate content.

“It is our understanding thatDolby’s delivery system will beproprietary and include at leasttwo data streams that will needto be remuxed at the display. Ourtechnology is fully compatiblewith current and future Blu-raystandards and can be adapted toother high-quality deliverymethods such as downloads(although probably not realtimestreaming, as the massivecompression could adverselyaffect our process).”

“The whole HDR/high colour bitdepth discussion is

evolving rapidly andthere are still

technical problems tobe overcome on the

display side” John Schuermann,

Folded Space

The WorkflowTVBEurope 25MMarch 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

Phabrix increasesinnovation at BVEAt BVE, PHABRIX announced severalnew enhancements and innovationsacross its Sx handheld and Rx rackmount test and measurementinstruments. PHABRIX has startedshipping its new handheld TAG,capable of testing most broadcastinfrastructures. The TAG comescomplete as an analyser/monitor withsupport for SD and HD formats. Asoftware option can be purchased toadd 3G, a generator or optical support.The TAG has an audio toolsetincluding full support for metadata,levels and logging of Dolby E, D and DPlus. PHABRIX also previewed itsnew V9 upgrade due for release end of March 2014.www.phabrix.com

Front Porch Digital andthePlatform offer newcloud servicesFront Porch Digital has signed anagreement with video publishingcompany thePlatform, to offer cloud-based video publishing services toFront Porch Digital customers. Thecompany will integrate thePlatform’smpx video publishing system into itsLYNXSM cloud-based CSM formanaging media assets. This willallow LYNX users to more easilymonetise assets and build newrevenue streams, the company claims. www.fpdigital.comwww.theplatform.com

eyevis acquires IPTVspecialist Teracueeyevis has acquired IPTV systemsmanufacturer Teracue AG atOdelzhausen near Munich. TheReutlingen-based eyevis GmbH istaking over all brands, names andpatent rights, as well as staff andmanagement of Teracue, and istransferring them into the newTeracue eyevis GmbH. The first joint products of the mergerwere presented at this year’s ISE inFebruary along with eyevis’ eyeCONMetaWall 2.0 solution.www.eyevis.co.ukwww.teracus.com

NEWS IN BRIEFGomila: “If you knew youcould display this greaterrange, would you playdifferently with the lightingwhen filming?”

“The whole HDR/high colour bit depth discussion is evolvingrapidly and there are still technical problems to be overcomeon the display side” — John Schuermann, Folded Space

Baumanis: Amount of work tobe done! We have many projectsfor 2014. In general, they aresmaller than before — butrequire more from us.

Burgess: In 2014, one of thehurdles we face is overcomingthe length of time it takes fromproposal to exchange ofcontracts. More and more weare finding that we have toadjust our planning andforecasting to accommodate aprolonged tendering process.

Cleaver: I suspect it will be afamiliar challenge of managingresources. The recent toughclimate has meant decisions areleft late and timescales shortened,so getting a clear vision of what isahead is impossible. We have toensure that our workforce isflexible and dynamic so that weare in a position to provide aservice to all our customers whenthey need us.

McCaw: Project timescales arebecoming shorter than ever as theindustry finds the need to reactquickly to changing marketdemand. We are fully accustomedto those pressures, including the

ability to work alongside activenetwork staff without disruptingtheir routine operations.

Moore: I think one of thechallenges for 2014 is the overalllevel of activity. I don’t thinkthere will be too many significantprojects going ahead in ourterritory this year, so we mayneed to look to alternative sectorswhere we can apply our skills.

Osselaer: We hope for aneconomic upswing in 2014, afterthe down slope in 2013 where themarket was impacted bycontinued uncertainty. In Africa,we see an increasing demand fordigital transmission, whileEuropean broadcasters, drivenby demand for more HDcontent, are focusing onmultiscreen and multiformatplayout systems. As an integratorwe strive, in partnership withmain suppliers, to focus on along-term technological strategyby delivering complete end-to-end solutions.

Phillips: The continued rapidchange of technology has meant

that customers are more wary ofmaking investments intechnology at any given time incase something ‘better’ appearssoon afterwards. The evolvingtechnology also requires SIs tomaintain a high level ofinvestment in training andknowledge enhancement. Manyof the large manufacturers nowprovide turn-key solutions whichmay offer price advantages, butcan present limitations withregards to choice, quality andinteroperability between third-party systems. This is whereindependent Systems Integratorscan strongly assist.

Robinson: Understanding thevaried and ever-changingchallenges of our customers andbeing part of the solution! Ourcustomers face new challengesevery day due to changingconsumer trends, theconsumption of media,competition, fluctuations inrevenue and shrinking budgets.They need trusted partners tofight the battle with them.

Url: From the technicalstandpoint, one of our biggestchallenges at the moment is being

prepared for changing tasks inthe areas of broadcast and IT. Inorganisational terms, we musttherefore remain flexible, with ourspecialists in systems integration,consulting and technologysupport services taking trainingcourses more frequently.

Wainberg: In Spain the majorchallenge, apart from the obviouscrisis that our industry is facing,is the re-distribution offrequencies as a result of ‘digitaldividend’ — the governmentpolicy to allow ‘space’ for the 4Gtelecommunication frequencies— and the impact that this willhave on the existing broadcasters.

Baumanis: More and more the SItask is taking the role ofeducator/adviser/consultant forfast-changing technologies.Customers want one single contactfor all their needs, who alsoguarantees that all different partsof the system will work together.

Cleaver: I don’t think we seethat as our prime task. Ourcustomers generally know their

Kalvis Baumanis, Hannu Pro

Steve Burgess, Megahertz

ForumSystems Integrators

TVBEurope 27MMarch 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

Bringing together the integrators

Philip Stevensmoderates a secondForum this month in which SystemsIntegrators discusstopics that affect their business

“Project timescales are becoming shorter than ever asthe industry finds the need to react quickly to changingmarket demand” — Charlie McCaw ATG Broadcast

SYSTEMSINTEGRATORS (SIs)have seen their rolesincrease in recent years,and today their functionscontinue to expand. Butwhat challenges will theyface as 2014 progresses,what areas of technologyneed further consideration,and does the role of an SIvary across Europe?

These and other issuesare discussed by (inalphabetical order) KalvisBaumanis, board memberof Hannu Pro; SteveBurgess CTO ofMegahertz; John Cleaver,director of Dega BroadcastSystems; Gabriel Dusil,chief marketing andcorporate strategy officerat Visual Unity; CharlieMcCaw, head of solutionsat ATG Broadcast; KevinMoore, managing director,Eurotek Ireland; WernerOsselaer, sales andmarketing manager,Studiotech; David Phillips,managing director, TSLSystems; MalcolmRobinson, director mediaand broadcast solutions atBroadcast Networks;Daniel Url, sales directorat Wellen+Nöthen;Sebastian Wainberg,general product manager,Promovisa Spain

Apart frombudgets, whatare thebiggestchallengesyou face as aSI in 2014?

Do you seeyourself as an educator of newtechnologies,as well asbeing asupplier?

own business and the associatedtechnology, but will rely on us to let them have the benefit of our recent experiences and investigations. We arecontinually addressing the issuesaround installing the latestequipment, but they are onlydoing so when looking to invest. So, in many cases, weeducate each other for our ownmutual benefit.

Dusil: As a trusted advisor, we propose best-in-class

products and services tobroadcasters, telcos andenterprises. In many cases, weadvise our clients to begin theirprojects with a consultinginitiative. This way they willbetter understand their existinglandscape, and a cost-efficientpath to their new infrastructure.

McCaw: Definitely.Broadcasters have less time toresearch changing technologythan previously, and fewer staffable to attend major new-

product shows, such as NABand IBC.

Moore: Our clients look to usto help them find the besttechnologies for their businesschallenges, and this is becomingeven more prevalent as theengineering resource in most ofthe broadcasters and posthouses is being scaled back.

Url: Absolutely, yes. That isalso one of the reasons why weestablished our own Consultingand Development unit abouttwo years ago — and it’s been ahuge success. We currently offerconsulting to nearly every majorGerman TV broadcaster andour company group alsosupports TV networks on theinternational level.

Wainberg: Absolutely. Withover 35 years in the industry,Promovisa has had a fundamentalrole in introducing newtechnologies and manufacturers,which in time have became ‘core’components of the main nationalbroadcasters. This required, andstill requires, an active role inevangelising and training ourcustomers, as a major part of ouradded value.

Burgess: Broadly speaking, wehave noted a rise in the use ofKa Band satellite technology inboth earth stations and mobiletelevision production units overthe past three years. This ispartly due to the falling cost ofthe technology and theefficiencies that can be gained byits deployment.

Cleaver: We find that theability to provide comprehensiveoperations between sites has hadthe biggest impact on morerecent contracts. The level ofintegration between systems in

multiple locations that allowdata and content to be readilyavailable wherever needed hasadded another level ofcomplexity to most aspects ofour installations.

Dusil: Areas of developmentand innovation that concernsuppliers of digital video andinternet streaming includesupport for MPEG-Dash andfor Hybrid-DRM. Other areasinclude support for 4K UHDvideo. Through to the end ofthis decade, OTT will be the firstservice to showcase 4K content.Initially, this will requireeffective encoding of video — tomaintain a small file size and bitstream, while still maximisingvideo quality that demonstrates4K’s potential. This will initiallyrequire adaptive bitratetechnologies, especially inregions that don’t quite have thebandwidth or latency resilienceto showcase 4K’s full potential.Integral to 4K streaming issupport for H.265. As a solutionprovider, we need to be readywith support of both H.265 and4K, long before the market isflooded with requests.

www.tvbeurope.com March 201428 TVBEurope


John Cleaver, Dega Broadcast Systems Charlie McCaw, ATG Broadcast

Are there anyspecific areasof technologythat are morein demandtoday than,say, threeyears ago?

Osselaer: We will not surprise you if we mention streaming, IP-basedinfrastructure and archival.

Robinson: Definitely technologywhich supports asset monetisation. All customers are now trying to sweattheir assets so OTT and second screenapplications are a lot more visible.

Wainberg: Apart from the usual, such as Digital Archive, MAM andshared storage, we see greater demandfor technologies over IP and thePAM/MAMs for small environments of, say, two to five seats.

Baumanis: Yes — from ‘big’ internationalplayers who want to be amongst the firstones! As for regional level customers —they are not so keen on 4K. The mainproblem is lack of real-life business-oriented production systems availability.People understand that ‘cinema’ style 4Kproduction is not the way to go — justmention shallow DoF, which is a problemfor live sports events — and they arewaiting for manufacturers to come upwith systems where they can re-use part ofexisting equipment and operate as before.

Cleaver: Not really, there are still too many unanswered questions aboutthe use of 4K in television. It looksfantastic as a demo, but there are a lot of practical problems in both itscontent and its distribution. We do find that we are being asked to look atconsidering infrastructure that will copewith it in the future.

Dusil: Throughout 2013, 4K was noton the radar for most of our clients, butwe anticipate a ramp-up of requestsnear the end of 2014 and into 2015.This includes both OTT and broadcastprojects. For broadcasters in particular,a 4K channel commands highbandwidth real-estate — it will take upthe equivalent of four HD channels, orup to 24 SD channels. At the moment,the business case is not strong enoughto justify the investment. On the flipside, we anticipate that OTT providerswill be the first to adopt 4K, since

delivery over the internet affords more flexibility.

Moore: Our feedback frombroadcast clients is that they are notreally interested in 4K in the shortterm — they’ve only recently moved to HD. There is some interest from the post houses, but this is largely led by the fact that that relative cost is not hugely higher than 2K. I thinkthe OB companies are interested andwill probably adopt 4K when they aredoing their next refresh, if the camerasystems are ready for mainstream.

Phillips: To date, there has only been a passing interest in 4K withcustomers seeking views on its likelysuccess and whether to invest now. At the moment, there are still anumber of uncertainties over thetechnical standards and very limitedmethods of delivering 4K. The bestpractice is to consider making sure anyinvestment now allows a futureupgrade to 4K with the minimumoutlay. For example, making sure theinfrastructure is based on fibre-optic.

Robinson: The industry will movetowards 4K content capture in a similar way it moved to HD contentcapture. Broadcasters may not bebroadcasting in 4K to any large extent


Werner Osselaer, Studiotech


“Our feedback from broadcastclients is that they are not reallyinterested in 4K in the short term —they’ve only recently moved to HD” Kevin Moore, Eurotek Ireland

Have you seensignificantinterest in 4Kinstallations?

for a number of years, but theability to capture images in the highest possible resolutionhas always been a key driver inthe industry.

Url: Of course 4Kinstallations are gainingacceptance and significance inthe area of camera acquisition— especially in the sceneproduction business. But for themajority of broadcasters 4K is,at present, only of secondaryinterest and therefore plays lessof a role for us in systemsintegration, although we arekeeping an eye on developments.For example, we have alreadycarried out a number ofdevelopment projects for livetelevision sports in collaborationwith a German sports channel,including the first 4Kproduction of a Bundesligasoccer game just over a year ago.

Wainberg: The interest in 4K technology is marginal. It more relates to research and‘pilot’ making than mainproduction for broadcast. Spainis still struggling to adopt highdefinition as a real production/broadcast standard.

Baumanis: With new personnelentering the industry, it isincreasingly important toincorporate user interfaceelements that are familiar to the way they interact withtechnology in their daily lives.Integration of touchscreens,customisation of software andhardware interfaces and use ofmobile devices into systemsneeds to be considered. With the increasing performance ofprocessing, networks andstorage users are looking formore systems that canconsolidate various functions in a single solution.

Burgess: There is always roomfor equipment design to improveto meet the demands of theindustry and we see the leadingvendors working very hard. A

consideration when buildingmobile production solutions,such as OB trucks, is the need toincrease density, reduce heatdissipation and lower powerconsumption to save runningcosts for the operator.

Cleaver: It is being made clearby the manufacturers that in afew years’ time we will berouting video via IP. There iscurrently little advantage —especially if your existinginfrastructure is all SDI. Itwould be useful to see a clearmigration pathway to the newcarrier and a sensible range ofequipment that can bridge thegap during, what will no doubtbe, an extended transition.

Dusil: There are four mainfeatures that we believe willsignificantly improve the quality

of online digital video servicesin the next decade. First, contentaccessibility — today’s digitalsociety is migrating fromentertainment ownership tolicensing. Once the contentresides in the cloud, thenmillions of duplicate copies willno longer be necessary.Secondly, content upgradability.Once content resides in thecloud, then the idea of anupgrade path becomes a no-brainer. Thirdly, contentportability — this has already

begun in the entertainmentindustry with the support formultiscreens. But there are stillimprovements to be made acrossdifferent operating systems,service providers, and hardwareplatforms. Lastly, an engaginguser interface and userexperience (UI/UX). Before,during and after the movie,subscribers want to have fun.The more they are having fun,the longer they will stay andplay. The longer they stay, themore money they will spend.

www.tvbeurope.com MMarch 201430 TVBEurope


David Phillips, TSL Systems

Are there any areas ofequipment design you feel needmore innovation to meet currentdemands?

McCaw: We are watching the channel in a box businessvery closely as it is a logical way of expanding existinginfrastructure cost efficiently.Additionally, the wayinfrastructure is built forrealtime signals may well changein the next couple of years, sowe are watching carefully howIT standards develop.

Moore: I think the currentcamera systems still need a littlemore development for practical4K OB applications, especiallyaround the lenses, comms/control, and so on. I also thinkthere is more work to be donearound the area of standardisedfile delivery — the DPPinitiative is a great start, butmore manufacturers need tocommit to adopting AS-11 typeworkflows and making it easierfor the broadcasters andproduction companies.

Phillips: There’s no doubt thequality of lenses and cameras at all price points are nowoutstanding. However, mediaasset management still remains a challenge due to inter-operability and customisation

issues. Systems Integrators canoffer substantial experience inthe vagaries when implementingbespoke MAM systems intotheir operations and thus helpmitigate such risks.

Baumanis: Yes, we hope that2014 will be a video over IP year for broadcasters. At thismoment there are discussionswith customers andmanufacturers with likelyinfrastructure implementationsnot earlier than end of 2014.

Burgess: As alreadymentioned, we have seen anincreasing interest in Ka bandsatellite access requirements and much of this is driven bydelivery of video over IP,especially for news acquisition.We are also seeing an increase in

the requirement to deliver IPvideo over aggregated mobilephone networks. IP is graduallymaking inroads into the videoand audio infrastructure. Atfirst it was used in islands ofpost production and graphics,now it is acquisition anddelivery. We are already seeingthe first IP crosspoint videorouters coming onto the market,and we expect this to be anincreasing trend

Dusil: There is a lot oftraction in video over IP asclients realise that implementingan end-to-end IP workflowhelps to streamline processesand reduces their processingdelays. Video over IP is part ofa computing evolution in theentertainment industry. As IPtakes over the delivery of videoto the consumer, it makes sense to investigate how it canbenefit and improve workflowright from when content is first created.

Url: The demand forinnovative technologies foronline-based production anddistribution of video content ison the rise. Cloud-based system

architectures, collaborativeworking, regardless of location,and intelligent web and mobileapplications are supposed to enable direct interaction with the audience. WithWellen+Nöthen Venture wehave already made ourinvestment in this area and we now also have a stake inmake.tv. This innovative cloud-based live streaming solutioncombines the functions of

classic TV van production with a high level of flexibility,enabling teams to worktogether regardless of wherethey are. In our data centre inGermany we take care of theentire system technology andIP-based video distribution for the TV channel of aninternational hotel chain. Over 400 hotels on all fivecontinents are connected to this infrastructure.



Gabriel Dusil, Visual Unity Daniel Url, Wellen+Nöthen

Are thereincreased callsfor video overIP projects?

Cleaver: This tends to be moreabout distribution, but it doesmean that we are required tomake more content instantly orcontinuously available andprovide interactive systems thatwill include social media.

Phillips: Undoubtedly, yes.Broadcasters need to have systemdesigns that integrate withsecond screen technology. Moreand more consumers now usesecond screens. It’s vital that themedia is managed by the systemto allow efficient and timelydelivery of content to the secondscreen, with correct formatting.

Robinson: Second screens andOTT delivery have becomeparamount in broadcasters’minds. The method of creating,editing and publishing content toa variety of end users is now avital element in our designs of anyoperation and we are workingwith suppliers to continue to havea key understanding of theavailable products.

Url: These days, classictelevisions are no longer the onlydevice for viewing TV content.With the additional option ofdistributing content on internetplatforms or via apps on mobiledevices and tablets, broadcasters

are able to reach exactly thoseviewers who are increasinglydisappearing from the traditionalTV sets. One project where wewere able to implement secondscreen applications, is a newchannel in Berlin. This socialtelevision broadcaster offersviewers a maximum ofinteractivity, while linkingclassical TV with mobile internetand social networks.

Baumanis: Honestly, not much,even if each client believes thathis case is unique, more or less,expectations are the same.

Cleaver: They vary betweendepartments in the samecompany. Systems integration is used to describe so manycompanies that providecompletely different services

compared to each other, so Iguess it is not surprising thateveryone’s expectations are varied.We tend to find that each customerdefines what service they wantfrom an SI, rather than the SIdictating what package is provided.

Dusil: The adoption of OTT isevolving in three main tiers. Tierone is the national broadcastersthat are adopting their own OTTservice. This could be as eithersubscription-based video ondemand, transaction-based VoDor advertising-based VoD. Tiertwo involves regional broadcastersand content aggregators who seeOTT as an opportunity to expandtheir traditional portfolios bydistributing content over theinternet. Tier three is a relativelynew market opportunity in the context of OTT. Here sitenterprises, governments andcorporates that have large treasuretroves of video. The videos couldbe deployed for internal usage, forpartner extranets, or to a selectuser group of subscribers. Theselibraries lie dormant, waiting for an appropriate OTT servicethat allows control over theirsubscriber base, implementsstrong content protectionmeasures, and ensures contentrights ownership.

McCaw: Customer expectationswithin the broadcast industry have become homogenous acrossthe globe, given the extent ofcross-region content exchange.Broadcasters in every country

expect their systems to be reliable,easy to operate, affordable,compact and easy to upgrade. Our engineering team deliversboth in ATG Broadcast specificprojects and in partnership withour parent company DanmonSystems Group.

Moore: I think they do. Insmaller countries, like Ireland,there is a tendency to expect a more complete service, includingpost-installation support, whichactually suits us. The client and SItend to have a greater partnershiprelationship. Whereas in largercountries, I believe there is a greatertendency to use the SI as a ‘gun for hire’, just for the design andinstallation, while maintenancepost-install tends to be delivered bylocal companies later.

Url: As regards the German-speaking countries, I can say thatour customers today expect a full-service provider, which alsoincludes comprehensive customercare and services for the support oftechnical infrastructures. As in thecase of systems integration andconsulting, the prerequisite here isa high level of technical expertise.

Wainberg: Definitely. The rulesof the ‘game’ change enormouslyfrom country to country. If welook at the financial environment,crucial for this industry, we findSpain’s standard payment cycle is more than 120 days. This istotally unacceptable to otherregions in Europe and almostimpossible to transfer, even in part,to manufacturers. Anotherimportant difference, unless weface a major broadcast project, isthat the customer assumes that the consultancy service has noassociated cost or are related to the‘virtual’ strategic advantage thatthe privileged information couldgive in the case that they finallybuy the system. www.atgbroadcast.co.ukwww.bcnet.co.ukwww.dega.co.ukwww.eurotek.iewww.hannu-pro.comwww.megahertz.co.ukwww.promovisa.eswww.studiotech.bewww.tsl.co.ukwww.visualunity.comwww.wellen-noethen.com

www.tvbeurope.com MMarch 201432 TVBEurope


Sebastian Wainberg, Promovisa Spain

Malcolm Robinson, BroadcastNetworks

Kevin Moore, Eurotek Ireland

Along the same lines, do you getinvolved in projects involvingsecond screen? If so, how?

Do theexpectationsof clients withregards to the serviceoffered by SI’svary acrossdifferent areasof Europe?

Panorama chooses Fujinonlenses for SochiRussian video production companyANO Sports Broadcasting (alsoknown as Panorama) selectedFujifilm to supply lenses for theproduction of the country’snational HDTV feed of the WinterOlympics and Paralymic Games inSochi. A total of 292 Fujinonlenses were provided to Panoramaby Sony Moscow and BroadcastSolutions. Included were 20XA101x8.9BESM-TK telephotofield lenses, 41 XA88x8.8BESMtelephoto field lenses, 24HA2x9.7BERD telephoto ENG-stylelenses, 53 HA14x4.5BERD wide-angle ENG/EFP lenses, and54 ZA22x7.6BERD telephotoremote-controlled lenses. The lenses were used by severalEuropean and Russian outsidebroadcast companies.www.fujinon.com

Riedel’s feat ofcommunication for Sochi OlympcisRiedel Communications’MediorNet fibre-based networksupported the transport of HDvideo and audio signals, data, andRiedel Artist intercom signals forthe duration of the Games. TheMass Cast deployment, including14 transmitters and thousands ofreceivers and earpieces, providedsupport during the opening andclosing ceremonies. Riedel’smodular MediorNet andMediorNet Compact systems weredeployed during the Games indouble-redundant rings to serve asa fibre backbone for audio and HDvideo (with timecode), data, andintercom signal transport withinthe stadium and several othervenues that fed back to the IBC.www.riedel.net

Sky and SIS LIVE insatellite dealCopy: SIS LIVE has signed anagreement with Sky Sports Newsfor the provision of satellitecapacity for its newsgatheringoperations. The four-year contractdelivers 73MHz of capacity on theEutelsat E16A satellite for the Sky Sports and Sky Sports Newsfleet of SNG vehicles, supplied andoperated by SIS LIVE. Sky Sportswill make use of this satellitebandwidth for its live coverage ofweekend football matches, whichare also transmitted by SIS LIVESNG vehicles. SIS LIVE is able to provide full resilience for the Sky downlink system, using its two broadcast teleport/MCRsystems which offer round theclock coverage. www.sislive.tv

NEWS IN BRIEF

In late 2013, Megahertz Ltd wasacquired by the shareholders ofRussian systems integrator,OKNO-TV. Neal Romanektalked to Megahertz managingdirector Jon Flay to learn how theacquisition has affectedMegahertz and what is on thecompany’s horizon.

What does the new ownershipmean for the Megahertz brand?

The Megahertz brand is aliveand stronger than ever. Somuch so, that we have justcompleted a process of re-branding OKNO-TV UK toMegahertz Ltd, a newcompany that combines thestrengths of both, along withgreater resources in terms ofsales, commercial and technicalexpertise. Building on the solid foundations laid byMegahertz, we are expandingour international reach. An example of this is theappointment of Igor Orlov, ournew managing partner, who isa very well-known figure in thebroadcast community inEastern Europe, the CIScountries and Africa.

If the Megahertz name is beingused more widely, will thatdilute your core business, thesystems integration you areknown for?

Megahertz has been buildingoutside broadcast and SNGvehicles, and implementingfixed installations, since 1982.Our unique strength is that weare a real one-stop shop forlarge and small projects, withcoach-building and specialistfurniture construction providedin-house alongside design andwiring. That is definitely notgoing to change.

Our shareholders, OKNO-TV, are also major systemsintegrators, which is their core business. So last year,whilst Megahertz wascompleting the new BT Sportheadquarters in the oldOlympic broadcast centre,OKNO-TV were completingprojects for events such as theWorld Athletics Championshipsand with international newschannel, RT.

Does the Megahertz brandreally extend beyond the UK?

Yes, definitely. Recentprojects have included satelliteuplink vehicles for CyprusBroadcasting Corporation,parliamentary television inNorway, and a fleet of outside

broadcast units for Astro inMalaysia and Oman TV.

While I am a relatively newappointment as managingdirector, we have a core teamthat has been with Megahertzfor numerous years, so there is a great heritage in our systemdesign and integration. We alsocombine this heritage andtradition with the right blend ofyounger fresh-thinking talent,giving us a strong team to movethe company forward.

Is the systems integrationbusiness undergoing a change?

We are talking to our newpartners and seeing where we can learn. In many of itsmajor systems integrationprojects, for example, OKNO-

TV takes a life-cycle approachto the installation. Rather than selling a system design,implementing it then walkingaway, it will take over the client’sinstallation, and perhaps evenleasing it or operating it as amanaged facility, providing theengineering resources to allowthe broadcaster to reduce its in-house staff.

So we are certainlyreviewing everything we do,and seeing how we can bestserve our clients. In the nearfuture I am sure we will beadding new ways of workingand commercial services tomatch the real requirements ofour clients, helping them movetheir business case from capitalto operational expenditure ifthat is what they want.

How are technological changesaffecting SI’s?

The future of systemsintegration is all about stayingahead of the technical curve.Obviously we are looking at IPinfrastructures today, with newtechnologies like 4K production,

or Ka-band communication,coming fast.

As a systems integrator yourtask is to make all systemswhether large or small workwell, and you have to ensurethat the client gets a fastreturn on the investment. Webring that commercial angle,that consideration of returnon investment, which in-houseengineers with their differentmindsets would not have.

We know that a good partof that is the changing natureof the technology. Broadcastfacilities will become more andmore IT-centric. Our job willbe less about rack and stack,and more about developingthe bespoke interfaces that willget the very best out of file-based infrastructures andmodern workflows.

We are not talking atransformation here, becausethat is not what we need. But it is right that we take afresh look at the systemsintegration business and seehow we can help our clientseven more effectively.

TVBEurope 33March 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

ForumSystems IntegratorsMegahertz has been building OB and SNG vehicles,

and implementing fixed installations, since 1982

The new Megahertz

Flay: “We are talking to our newpartners and seeing where we can learn”

Last year Megahertz built the new BT Sport headquarters in the former Olympic broadcast centre

“Our job will be less aboutrack and stack, and moreabout developing bespokeinterfaces to get the verybest out of file-basedinfrastructures and modernworkflows” Jon Flay, Megahertz

Noun: workflow; plural noun:workflows. 1. The sequence ofindustrial, administrative, orother processes through which apiece of work passes frominitiation to completion.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Yet television producers theworld over seem to spend halftheir days discussing how toimprove, refine, update, changeor overthrow their currentworking practices.

The move from tape-based todigital production necessitatedthis and, despite complications,also provided greater freedomand the chance to reinvent theway television is made on both acreative and technical level.

One of the best opportunitiesto do this, of course, is whenyou have a blank canvas to workwith: when a company,department, division or teammoves office, for example.

ITV in Manchester (the artistformerly known as Granada) isa great case in point.

In 2013, when the commercialbroadcaster’s northernoperation moved from QuayStreet in Manchester city centreto MediaCityUK in Salford, thefirst task was to work out howto move the North of England’slargest production facility 2.5miles down the road withoutdropping a frame. The secondwas to devise a way of making

it work more efficiently once itgot there.

Both were significantchallenges, not least when youconsider that ITV Manchester isresponsible for 800 hours ofbroadcast television every year.That’s about 2.5 screen hoursper day.

The facility itself is involvedin just about every facet of

television post production fromingest, backup, editing,graphics and visual effects todubbing, grading, archive, QCand transmission.

To move this broadcastmountain lock, stock and barrelrequired serious planning fromITV technical manager TaigMcNab and his chosen systemsintegrator root6. After months

of discussion, in which everyconceivable use of space wasinvestigated — from edit suitesaround the edge of the buildingto a facilities island in the middleof each floor — they agreed on adesign and a plan of action.

During this process, however,it also became clear that themove would be a greatopportunity to adopt, asMcNab puts it, a more “elegantand flexible” way of working.

“We had a rather limitedbudget to do all this so wecouldn’t just buy a load of newstuff to put in our newbuilding,” he says. “Wherepossible, we had to re-use whatwe had at Quay Street.”

At the same time, becauseQuay Street had to be keptrunning throughout themigration, the currentinfrastructure couldn’t be re-used.Although this created somethingof an impasse, the potentialnegative was quickly turned into a positive, a challengebecoming an opportunity.

“The fact that we had to builda new one gave us theopportunity to address some ofthe challenges that had built upat Quay Street,” says McNab.“Due to it being an old buildingthat had evolved over the years,there were a number of pools of

infrastructure and it was difficultto create elegant workflows andit was tough to support.”

Work wherever, wheneverThe resultant new set-up isbased around the mantra of‘work wherever, whenever.’ Thekey to this, says McNab, was“unlocking the space from thetask”, in much the same way


Moving mountains in ManchesterITV Manchester’s relocation from the city centre to nearby Salford Quays provided an idealopportunity to reinvent the broadcaster’s post production workflow. Will Strauss reports

“Why do you have to edit in an edit suite?Why can’t you edit in a meeting room if youwant to? That drove quite a lot of theinfrastructure decisions” Taig McNab, ITV

ITV’s relocation became an opportunity to adopta more “elegant and flexible” way of working

that ‘normal’ office workers canwith laptops, mobile phones and online collaboration. So,working with root6, he set aboutoffering the same kind of choicefor production staff by devisingan infrastructure that allowedany technology to be used in anysuite or room.

“Why do you have to edit inan edit suite?” asks McNab.“Why can’t you edit in a meeting room if you want to?That drove quite a lot of theinfrastructure decisions.”

The secret to making thiswork in practice was AmuletHotkey’s zero client, a KVM(keyboard, video and mouse)technology that allows a user to access and use any of thehardware and software in themachine room from a singleinterface at their desk.

Originally adopted by thefinancial community, it enablesusers to access multiple systemsfrom a single interface over a network connection without operators and, moreimportantly, the operatingsystem or application beingaware that it is being used from afar.

“It sends two 1920x1200 DVIdisplays, computer, audio andmic feeds and the USB signalsover a single CAT-6 networkcable,” explains McNab. “Prettymuch every single computer wehave in the facility is connectedto this system and that meansthat, at the press of a button,you can select which physicalmachine you want to connect towithout having to move rooms,or even buildings. We’ve hadAvid systems physically locatedin Salford Quays being operatedfrom Quay Street.”

As a result, a craft editingroom within the new facilityfeatures 24-inch CPU monitors,an SDI monitor, a rasteriserdisplay, speakers, an audiomixer, a mouse and keyboard but no computer.Freedom indeed.

“You cannot do a gradingsession in the canteen”, says McNab, “but, where it is appropriate, staff can work where they feel the mostcomfortable and feel the most productive.”

Away from the Amuletsystem, the majority of the traditional broadcastinfrastructure is concentrated onthe fourth floor of ITV’s newoffices, spanning out from thecentral machine room.

Included are networking,audio and video to “pretty much every room on the floor,including the meeting rooms”

plus uncompressed feeds to mostof the communal televisions.

IPTV encoders are availablefor firing pictures around the company network whileITV’s own nationwide 10Gbnetwork and its video circuits

for transfer and transmissioncan send content further afield.

Compared to the old set-up at Quay Street,concludes McNab, the newSalford facility, because it was designed rather than an

organic topology, affords asignificantly better workflowand connectivity.

With centralised hardwareand the ability to route toanywhere, it is a highlyadaptable and efficient facility

designed, not just for now butfor the future too.

“Redesigning theinfrastructure has allowed us tocreate a really flexibleinstallation that will suit us foryears to come,” he says.


Compared to the old set-up at Quay Street, the new Salfordfacility affords a significantly better workflow and connectivity

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IT’S APPROACHING 1900hours on 9 December 1960. Inthe production gallery of Studio2 of Granada Television’sManchester headquarters, thePA to director Derek Bennett iscounting down to the start of anew 13-part drama seriesfeaturing the residents of afictitious street in the city’ssuburbs. Little did anyone knowthat when the Granada logoappeared on screen and the nowfamiliar strains of the thememusic were heard, thatCoronation Street would still be

running more than 50 years and8000 episodes later. At its peak,well over 25 million viewerstuned in to watch thehappenings of Weatherfield (asthe fictitious suburb is called).

“Coronation Street has seenmany changes in its 53-yearhistory. Over five decades it’sgrown from two to five episodesper week and seen countlesstechnical and productionadvances, including theintroduction of colour pictures in1969, wide screen in 2002 andhigh definition in 2010,” states the

current executive producer,Kieran Roberts.

However, the most recent ofthe changes has involved theproduction moving to acompletely new 7.7acre purpose-built studio block and exteriorset located close to MediaCityUK — Salford’s productioncentre just outside ofManchester. Centrepiece is theconstruction of the actual streetand surrounding buildings. To provide a thoroughlyauthentic feel, nearly half of the facing bricks used to

construct the buildings werereclaimed from a derelict Salfordstreet. In addition, a total of54,000 cobble stones have beenlaid on the new street — withthese being reclaimed fromSalford and the canalside innearby Eccles.

The early daysSo, what is the story behind the production of Corrie (as the programme is nowaffectionately known)?

Marconi MkIII cameras wereused on that first episode in

1960. Broadcasting in 405 linesand with lens turrets (it wouldbe some years before zoomlenses became the norm), thecamera moves had to becarefully choreographed by the director for the live showinvolving a large number ofdifferent sets in a relatively small studio.

Initially, the programme wasshown twice a week. The Fridayepisode would be transmittedlive, immediately followed by arecording of the upcomingWednesday’s show. Although


The word on the Street

Philip Stevens walks along one of the most famous streets in British TV and reviews the history of the long-running soapThe new specially built external set of Coronation Street

Coronation Street has seen many changes in its 53-year history.Over five decades it’s grown from two to five episodes per weekand seen countless technical and production advances

recorded on 2-inch Ampex tape,Granada set up a film camera infront of the VT preview monitorto also capture a telerecordingof the early programmes.

In those early days, even the‘exteriors’ were shot in thestudio — with the cobblestonespainted on the studio floor.However, the show’s producersdecided that external shotswere needed for a 1967storyline that involved a tramcrash close to the Street. That first external set wassimply the previous woodenstudio build which had beenweather-proofed and thenerected against scaffolding bythe yard arches.

“The first outdoor set was onthe site of an abandoned railwaygoods yard,” recalls the show’screator, Tony Warren. “It

already had cobbles, but theyslanted the wrong way. Iremember it as a dank hole.Between shots the cast couldtake shelter from the wind andthe rain in an old Nissen hut.”

By the late 1960s, whenproduction had moved fromblack and white to colour, the wooden set had become so severely dilapidated by the Manchester weather that it needed to be replaced with asmall brick built construction.

The first colour episode was produced in earlyNovember 1969 using EMI2001 four-tube colour camerasalthough the title credits, end

credits and location insertswere still in black and white.The next three episodes weremade in the same way, but all four were networked inblack and white, until ITVstarted colour transmissionslater that month.

As the programme’s successcontinued to grow and moredemands were placed onstorylines and productiondeadlines, it was decided torebuild the whole set in a newlocation near to Granada’s QuayStreet centre.

“Denis [Parkin — the show’sdesigner] finally got to build hisreal street in the 80s,” statesWarren. “That was whenCoronation Street had its ownpurpose-built unit. That street is the outdoor set we have useduntil now.”

The new StreetThe move to the latest set hasbeen a couple of years in theplanning. “When we brokeground at Trafford Wharf Roadin September 2011, ITV hadalready been planning our moveto MediaCityUK for asignificant period of time,”declares Jon Huddleston, ITV’s Manchester move projectdirector. “But the mostchallenging piece of the jigsawhas been to rebuild CoronationStreet — terraces, pavements,cobbles and all. To buildsomething new, whilst recreatingbrick-by-brick, cobble-bycobble, puddle-by-puddle,

The Workflowwww.tvbeurope.com MMarch 201438 TVBEurope

WHEN THE soap reached its50th anniversary, the BBCcommissioned a one-off dramatitled The Road to CoronationStreet that revealed the storybehind the humble beginningsof the programme. To do so,Studio 12 of the Granadacomplex in Quay Street,Manchester was briefly turnedinto the Studio 2 that had beenhome to Corrie in 1960.

“To ensure the authenticityof the era we were asked toprovide equipment from ourvast inventory,” explains DickyHowett of Golden AgeTelevision Recreations (GATV)based in Essex.

GATV was established in1994 by Howett and colleaguePaul Marshall for the purposeof providing historic film andtelevision equipment datingback to the 1940s. Included in its equipment list arecameras, lenses, lighting,cranes, audio equipment, VTRs— even two complete outsidebroadcast units.

Howett goes on: “TheMarconi MkIII camerasmounted on vintage VintenHP419 pedestals seen in The Road to Coronation Streetwere the same type used at the

Granada studios in 1960. Wealso recreated the Granadabadging that appeared on theside of cameras. Even thelighting rigs used in theCoronation Street studioreconstruction were from theearly 1960s. I’m a stickler fordetail, and we wanted to makecertain that the studio was asclose to the period as possible.We also tracked down some

people who worked in thestudios at the time.”

Operating cameras morethan half a century old is quitedifferent from using moderntechnology — knowing how torevolve lens turrets, forexample. In order that cameramovements during the Corriedrama were authentic, bothHowett and Marshall wereused as ‘extras’ on the set as1960s cameramen. “It was likegoing back to our early days in television.”

Howett continues:“Interestingly, some of thecameras we now own camefrom the Granada studios in Manchester. But everythingthat we own, from the smallestlens to the largest outsidebroadcast truck, has beencarefully restored and is‘period’ correct. And we havefound there is an ongoingdemand for this uniquecollection from productioncompanies, not just in the UK,but also from abroad.”www.golden-agetv.co.uk

The golden age of the Street

Having supplied the 1960s kit for the Coronation Street documentary, Dicky Howett acted as cameraman on the reproduction set

Authentic equipment from the 1960s was used for the documentary, including Marconi MkIII cameras on vintage Vinten pedestals

“To build something new,whilst recreating brick-by-brick, cobble-by cobble,puddle-by-puddle, the finedetail of Weatherfield hasbeen the most incredibleexperience” Jon Huddleston, ITV

the fine detail of Weatherfieldhas been the most incredibleexperience.”

Alongside the actual ‘street’,the Corrie site consists of four studios, all dedicated to the programme. “We have atotal floor space of around33,500sqft — 3105sqm,” states Stan Robinson, technicalmanager, Coronation Street.

“There are two galleries, butany studio can be connected to either gallery depending onthe production requirements of the day.”

Three Ikegami HDK 79 IIIcameras are employed in eachstudio, although a fourth can be accommodated, if necessary.“Our studio cameras areequipped with Canon XJ22 boxlenses, while on location thechoice of lens is HJ17. Wedecided to use the same camerasfor both studio and locationshoots to ensure consistency.”

Each gallery is equipped witha FOR-A HSV 300 visionswitcher. “It is a small mixer —but we do not need anythingmore elaborate as all the cuts areeventually made in postproduction,” explains Robinson.“For audio mixing, we haveopted for Studer Vista 1.Previously, we used analoguemixers, but the move allowed usto go for a digital unit.”

Unique networkThat digital format has allowedRobinson to introduce a uniquefibre transportation system forthe signals around the site.Based on an Optocore networkstructure, Robinson designedportable stageboxes that allowsignals from the studios (oranywhere else on the site, forthat matter) to be routed toeither gallery. “There are notechnical wall boxes. Eachgallery has its own stagebox,and we simply wheel it to wherewe are shooting and plug in toour SMPTE 311M camera cable network. There are 100SMPTE sockets distributedaround the site that can bepatched to Camera BaseStations or to the OptocoreRouter. Once connected thesignals are automatically routeddelivering signals, such asmicrophones, foldback, picturemonitoring, video router controland talkback to the StudioFloor and Galleries. In effect,the whole site becomes ourstudio floor.”

The stagebox alsoincorporates the microphoneamplifiers. Once a microphone is plugged into the appropriateinput in the box, that source

immediately appears on therelevant fader in the soundcontrol room.

“Another innovation is ourETC Paradigm lighting controlsystem which allows strip lightsaround the studio to be

controlled by the gallery to showthe status of that studio. Ourstudios are large, and it could bethat a scene is being recorded inone area, while a set is beingbuilt in another. With severalsets in each studio, the view

across the floor is severelyrestricted, but this lightingsystem ensures all areas canimmediately see if the studio isin rehearsal or ‘live’ mode.”

Lighting the studio andlocation sets is a mixture of LED

and tungsten lamps. “We areutilising an app which allows thelighting directors to makeadjustments through their iPads,if necessary. That means theydon’t have to return to the galleryeach time a change is required.”



Careful planningWith five episodes a week to betransmitted, each involvingseveral interior sets, plusshooting on the ‘street’ andother locations, the productionschedule is extremely complex.For any given week, 15 episodesare in production.

Each week’s shows areconsidered as a ‘block’ to whicha director is assigned. He or shewill receive the script prior toshooting of the assignedprogrammes. The technicaldetails and set allocation will be worked out and then a 12-daycycle of shooting the fiveprogrammes will begin.

“The three cameras in thestudio will be recordedseparately, but there is also a cut version from the visionmixer. An Edit Decision Listwill also be created. When weare shooting exteriors, twocameras are generally used,”reveals Robinson.

Studio recordings are sentstraight to an Avid 4-channelAirspeed 5000. The material istransferred to an Avid Isis 5000.Exteriors are captured on P2cards which are then reusedonce transfers and back-ups tothe Avid system have been made.

“We have back-up units, andwithin a few seconds of ingest

we have three copies of therecorded material. Even bylunchtime on the first day ofshooting, assistant editors willstart compiling clips ready forediting. By the end of the firstday, editing will have started.The director may visit the editsuite from time to time, butthere is a day allocated at theend of the ‘block’ for him or herto review the cut versions.”

The post production areaincludes colour grading rooms, a voiceover booth anddubbing suites.

The move was completedearlier this year — with the firstepisode from the new locationdue to be shown in mid-March.“It has been a hectic time,”admits Robinson, “but thingshave gone well and we can lookforward to a long residency inour new Street.”www.itv.com/coronationstreetwww.avid.comwww.canon.co.ukwww.etcconnect.comwww.for-a.comwww.ikegami.comwww.optocore.comwww.studer.ch

The stagebox designed by Stan Robinson provides a unique fibre transportation system for the signals around the site

“By lunchtime on the firstday of shooting, assistanteditors will start compilingclips ready for editing. By the end of the first day,editing will have started”

Jon Huddleston, ITV

AFTER A test run on the WorldCycling Championship inFlorence (in September 2013), fiveItalian companies, each with in-depth expertise in a specific OB production sector, formedWeFly. Thanks to new Europeanregulations, the group can pool itsresources and take part as a singleentity in tenders for importantevents, particularly in the sportsfield, where reliable airbornecoverage plays a key role.

Offering turnkey HDproduction packages, the

company comprising WeFly are:CGA, a business with planesand pilots and the necessaryexperience and certification forEuropean airborne coverage; Fly Shot, owned and run by apilot with 30 years’ experience,

providing logistical and practicalorganisation as well as procuringhelicopters; Team TV, which isresponsible for all HF/RFequipment connecting vehiclesand intercom facilities (thecompany also provides custom

equipment able to track bikesfrom the helicopters andplanes); Laboratorio Tevere,supplier of all equipmentonboard the aircraft, such asgyro-stabilised cameras; andfinally, Global Production which

coordinates facilities andproduction. Global also has afleet of OB trucks that run up to a 30-camera HD vehicle.

Davide Furlan of GlobalProduction reflects on thecompany’s work so far:


WeFly’s fleet includes three helicopters, two planes, and a wide diversity of outside broadcast vehicles

WeFly: shooting up the skiesLast year five ItalianOB companies joinedforces to become a major player in aerial live broadcast. Mike Clark reports

“After Florence, WeFly wascommissioned by statebroadcaster RAI to cover one ofthe last races of the UCI worldtour (Giro di Lombardia), and wefielded four video motorcycles, anaudio commentary motorbike, ahelicopter with a gyro-stabilisedcamera, a relay helicopter withanother gyro-stabilised unit and arelay plane. At the end of 2013,WeFly was the key player at theCortina-Dobbiaco 35km cross-country race at the Nordic worldski championships. We coveredwith two snowmobiles, twohelicopters, a plane and 28ground-located cameras.”

The high-altitude platformGiovanni Braghetti, sole directorof Rome-based LaboratorioTevere, adds: “Our contributionto the services offered by WeFly consists of supplyinggyro-stabilised systems for aerialfootage and installing them onhelicopters and planes. We alsoprovide antenna systems for thetransmission and reception ofaudio and video signals and putour specially equipped helicoptersat WeFly’s disposal. For example,

for the World CyclingChampionship in Florence, weprovided gyro-stabilised HDcameras, which we installed ontwo helicopters (a single-enginedAS350 and a twin-enginedAS355), auto-tracking antennasfor air/land transmission. One ofthe two helicopters — the AS355— was ours and was specificallyequipped for broadcast/newscoverage and transmissions.”

“We supply the high-altitudeplatform (a pressurisedturboprop plane) on which weinstall the connectivityequipment, enabling it to beused for radio audio/video relaybetween vehicles on the groundand the control room,” explainsGiuseppe Ottonello, manager ofGenoa-based CGA. “We use aPiper Cheyenne II, withexcellent performance as far asspeed and range are concerned,enabling us to stay on events’locations for up to six hours.”

Marco Bianchi, one of TeamTV’s partner/owners, describes his company’s management and coordination of all the RF signals. “We handle allcommunications and ground-air

audio/video transmission, as wellas providing the specialisttechnical staff for operating theequipment aboard the airbornerelay platforms. This work is doneusing Gig wave/Link H.264 HDsystems, whereas the air-groundsystems are Europe. To track the

motorbikes, we use terminalsdeveloped in house, whichintegrate commercial equipmentwith dedicated parts built in ourlabs. These interface GPSreceivers with UHF transceivers,each with a specific station ID,and transmit their positions at setintervals, enabling the terminalson the airborne relay units totrack the transmitting stations’positions on the ground andconsequently maintain a suitableposition for their reception.”

Veteran pilotRenzo Rossi, sole director ofTuscan firm Flyshot, is also aveteran pilot who personallycarries out event coverage with helicopters equipped with gyro-stabilised systems.“Through the years — working

in Italy and abroad with keybroadcasters such as RAI andMediaset — I have coveredmotorbike races, rallies,regattas and more and built up a group of highly specialisedpilots,” he says. “We organiselogistics for landing, necessaryauthorisations, control in the operating area of theposition of the helicopters,refuelling, etc.”

WeFly aims to ensure acomplete turnkey package for

any type of HD broadcast instandard HD with OB vans,SNG, RF systems, graphics forlive event coverage, threehelicopters and two EASA-certified pressurised planesequipped with all the latestequipment for live coverage.

Global Production’s Furlanconcludes: “There are few playersin Europe able to field such arange of technology andprofessionalism, so there isconsequently almost a monopolyas far as live race broadcastproductions are concerned, so wedecided to combine our strengthsand skills, dividing the cost —and the risks! — to create analternative that was immediatelyable to compete without cuttingthe market prices.”


New European regulations have allowed the WeFlypartners to pool their resources for important events

“Our contribution to the services offeredby WeFly consists in supplying gyro-stabilised systems for aerial footage andinstalling them on helicopters and planes”

Giovanni Braghetti, Laboratorio Tevere

In just a few weeks, TVBEurope willbe joining you in Las Vegas for theworld’s biggest broadcast industryconfab. This year’s NAB is sure tofeature a lot of buzz about 4K, IP,second screen, and workflowdisruption, but just as important isthe show’s traditional role as anannual platform for productlaunches. Go to any big tradeshowbetween Christmas and Easter andthe mantra you hear is: “We’ll bewaiting till NAB to announce that.”In the following pages, you’ll find thefirst of our two-part NAB ProductPreview, a glimpse of what to expectnext month from the big players inthe business. Neal Romanek

LeaderLEADER INSTRUMENTS willexhibit the latest additions to itsrange of broadcast-quality testand measurement solutions atNAB. Leader’s LV5490 will be onshow, and the FS3140 qualitycontrol software will be makingits NAB debut.

The company’s LV5490 multi-display picture and signal monitornow supports video productionand transmission resolutions from525 and 625 standard definitionup to 3840x2160 and 4096x21604K. Equipped with four 3G-SDI/HD-SDI/SD-SDI inputchannels plus a wide-viewing-angle 1920x1080 9-inch flat-paneldisplay, the LV5490 allows precise

matching of studio or outsidebroadcast cameras.

Test and measurementcapabilities of the LV5490 includewaveform, vector and picturemonitoring, SDI signal dataanalysis, cyclic-redundancy-checkerror, embedded-audio error, eventlog, data dump and timing display.

The Leader FS3140 combinesthe waveform and vectorscopedisplays, plus automated QCsoftware. It can be deployed on aweb-based Windows server,allowing rollout across Windows,OS X or Linux environments. www.leaderamerica.comCC9511

Bridge Technologies“At NAB 2014 we are showing a full hand of aces!”said chairman of BridgeTechnologies, Simen K Frostad.A range of new products will be on show, including theObjective QoE solution, VB288Content Estractor and nextgeneration OTT Engine withMPEG-DASH support.

The company’s new QoEsolution enables Bridgesystems users to bring QoScapability together with QoEmonitoring, running on thesame Bridgetech infrastructure

and with support for QoEmonitoring of regionally-inserted material.

Also new is the VB288Content Extraction System forObjective QoE Monitoringwith remote videowall display.The VB288 delivers visualcontent extraction, statusdisplays and alerts to a virtualvideowall display.

Bridge Technologies’second-generation OTTEngine makes MPEG-DASHsupport a core part of theuser’s OTT monitoringcapability, is compatible with

all Bridge Technologies 1Gand 10G probes, and part ofthe iOS and AndroidPocketProbe mobilemonitoring apps.

The VB273 SatelliteRedundancy Switch is designedfor Bridge Technologies’ newredundancy switching solutionfor satellite uplinks.

Also new will be thePocketProbe for Android,Version 5.0 System softwarewith new capabilities andMicroAnalytics System.www.bridgetech.tvSU9713

Leader’s latest additions on show at NAB

Bonded 3G/4G uplink solutions from LiveULiveUAt NAB, LiveU willdemonstrate its complete rangeof bonded 3G/4G uplinksolutions for broadcast andonline media, promising todeliver a ‘one-stop-shop’ for livenews, sports and event coverage.LiveU’s LU500 backpack, LU-Smart application and LiveUCentral will all be on show.

The company’s newprofessional-grade LU500backpack weighs 2.2lbs (1kg),and is based on LiveU’s fourth-generation patented bondingalgorithms and powered byLiveU’s multi-processor videoencoding engine.

LiveU will also be presentingLiveU Central, its centralmanagement system that allows

control and monitoring of theecosystem and content via anybrowser-supported device. Thesystem includes: point-to-multipoint distribution; the LiveUMatrix for realtime previews andonline management of multiplefeeds for live broadcasts andsocial newsgathering; geo-locationfor each LiveU unit; andenhanced remote control.

Also at NAB will be LiveU’smobile app for smartphones andtablets, the LU-Smart with itshandheld Smart Grip; LiveU’sXtender external antennasolution for resilient signal inextreme scenarios; and hybridsolutions with microwave andsatellite technologies.www.liveu.tvSU8513

NAB debuts from Bridge Technologies

What’s new for NAB?


LiveU Central

Leader’s LV5490

By Holly Ashford

MirandaMiranda will use NAB 2014 toshowcase its expanding IP productportfolio, along with new offerings inrouting and monitoring.

The new NVISION 8500 IPGateway cards convert and packetiserealtime, uncompressed, basebandvideo for distribution over Ethernetnetworks. The introduction of IPinputs and outputs to Miranda’sNV8500 routers aims to make it moreconvenient for broadcasters as they look to transition from SDI to IP infrastructures.

In 2RU, the new CR6464 routerfeatures high density DIN coaxialconnectors, hot-swappable crosspoints

control card, IO cards, and a dual fancooling module. It handles all coreformats including triple rate3Gbps/HD/SD/ASI, and AES.

Miranda further extends its IP-enabling portfolio with the IRG-3401 IP Gateway, a high density, bidirectional DVB-ASI/IPgateway. The card, which fits inMiranda’s Densité 3 chassis can handle up to 120 gateways in a single3RU frame.

New and improved monitoring andcontrol products on show at NABinclude Miranda’s Kaleido IP X310,iControl 6.0 and EdgeVision 1.30.www.miranda.comNN2513


Miranda opens IP gateway at NAB

MultiDyneA range of fibre-optic-based videoand audio transport solutionsdesigned for pro A/V andbroadcast applications willbe demonstrated byMultiDyne at NAB.

The Dingo supports a widerange of camera signals over asingle fibre-optic cable, and isavailable as an openGear compatiblecard and as a portable, black box or as a smaller personality card for TheBullDog, LiGHTBoX, and LiGHTCuBEproduct lines.

Now available from MultiDyne is The BullDog, a field fibre transportsystem. Using The BullDog, cameraoperators can extend the transmissiondistance of multiple camera signals. In addition to transporting any camera signal over a single fibre cable,The BullDog can transport up to 8 HD-SDI signals in any direction.

Also on display at NAB will be theMultiDyne SilverBACK-4K, a camera-mounted fibre transport solution thatsupports 4K digital television. UtilisingSilverBACK-4K, users can transmit any

camera signal over a single hybrid copperand fibre cable.

The company’s SilverBACK-II withJUICE is a camera-mounted fibretransport solution capable of transmittingany camera signal over a single hybridfibre and copper cable. It provides userswith a lightweight, remote poweringsystem that can be integrated onto any camera.www.multidyne.comC9921

MultiDyne showcase fibre-based transport solutions

TedialTedial will be at NAB to demonstrate how it aimsto help broadcasters and media companies, withits media management solutions, to increasecreativity and improve workflow efficiency. The company will highlight its solution tocustomer problems: ‘Find it, enrich it, publish itand manage it.’

Tedial asserts that broadcasters and media companies are experiencing an increasein the number of versions of programmes andother associated assets, often in diverselocations. The company provides metadataacquisition from third-party systems andguaranteed preservation, so wherever content

or work-in-progress is stored, its search toolswill find it.

Tedial provides media management tools tocatalogue, edit and enrich content.

The company offers a next-generation mediaworkflow managing the transcoding of contentand packaging of metadata to enable contentdelivery for multi-channel TV, catch-up services,VoD and OTT.

At NAB Tedial will be showing a new userexperience and integration with third-partyscheduling and traffic systems combined with liveworkflow reporting dashboards.www.tedial.comN5711

Tedial: Find it, enrich it, manage it, publish it

PolecamPolecam Systems willlaunch new products atNAB 2014 including thePolecam ProfessionalPack, PPP. The PPP isdeveloped from theexisting and PSP+package. Like the PSP+,the PPP is modular and provides a platformfor cameras includingRED, Canon, Panasonicand Sony.

Also new is the Antelope PICO highspeed minicam. Polecam and LMC have partnered to bring super slow motionvia a minicam that will mount on or off Polecam to give a new POV viewing experience.

The Polecam Grip Relocator packageenables the Polecam operator to control the C300 remotely from their

natural position when operating the rig.The new Polecam Remote Control

Panel RC200 includes the protocol for theIO Industries Flare Camera enablingremote control of up to six differentcameras from the one panel. The PolecamLong Head Weather Cover will also be onshow at NAB. ww.polecam.comC9908

EVSEVS, provider of live video productionsystems promises to deliver its improvedlive, near-live and post productionefficiency and enriched contentcapabilities at NAB.

EVS Sports will showcase the XT3media production server that now offersbuilt-in proxies, 4K zooming, live multi-angle review and 12 live recordingchannel support. EVS’ new C-CastXplore web-browsing interface providesaccess to live multi-camera recordingfeeds and clips on XT servers.

EVS Entertainment will present theXS video server with advanced multi-codec, native support including formats

such as I-Frame (DNxHD, ProRes,AVC-I) and Long Gop (XDCAM HD),with new 10GigE connectivity.

EVS Media will demonstrate the EVSOpenCubeHD/SD server forstreamlined file-based, multi-formatworkflows that comply with all MXFstandard formats. EVS Media will alsopresent its latest closed captioning andsubtitling solution.

Finally, EVS News will debut the XSNewsFlash, offering file and feed ingest,metadata and quick-turnaround virtualediting, disaster recovery, breaking newsplayout and more.www.evs.comSL3819

EVS showcase new production workflow solutions

Polecam’s PPP

Multidyne The Bulldog can transport 8 HD-SDI signals

Polecam Professional Pack gets NAB launch


SnellAt this year’s NAB, Snellwill be showcasing newinnovations from acrossits Live TV and TVEverywhere divisions.This will include the firstapplication for the SnellOn Demand platform.

Snell will present newfeatures for Momentum.Active directory supportenables users to drivesecurity policies via centralised IT systems. Proxybrowse capability can be used to manage captions andsubtitles and the HTML5 browser-independentinterface supports a choice of web browsers.

The first application for Snell’s On Demandframework, Alchemist OD offers a scalable motioncompensated format and frame rate conversionsoftware available on demand.

ICE-LE is the new version of Snell’s ICE channel-in-a-box, and now provides twice the 2D or 3D graphics capability within a standard 2RU

system. In partnership with Quantum, Snell will also be showcasing ICE SAN for large-scale sharedcontent storage.

Kahuna Maverik will make its NAB debut. It provides areliable access control interface for studio and mobile TVprogramming, and offers 4K support.

Snell will also showcase new updates and features forits Sirius 800 router range, Luna router control panelsand its Modular IQ range.www.snellgroup.comN1820

Live TV and TV Everywhere solutions from Snell

iMovix“At NAB 2014 we arebringing the latest in X10ultra motion technology,now in a new modularproduct range that allowsbroadcasters to build theideal system for any kindof sports broadcastapplication,” said LaurentRenard, CEO at iMovix.

i-Movix will showcaseits new line of products based on the X10 ultra slow motiontechnology. The new product line emphasises modularconfigurability to suit any VisionResearch Phantom camera, and anyconfiguration can be customised tomeet performance and budget

targets across a range of productionscenarios. The X10 product rangehas been optimised for upgradeabilityto allow for evolving productionrequirements and upcominggenerations of cameras.www.i-movix.comC4742

iMovix presents latest ultra motion tech

Photon BeardUK lighting solutions companyPhoton Beard will launch its newPlatinum Blonde HMI-focusablefloodlight at NAB 2014.

Platinum Blonde is an energy-efficient 1200W HMI linear lamp,provided in open face format. It is suitable for any applicationwhere raw output is required,such as for use as a bounce light or for punching throughdiffusion to create a soft,powerful daylight source. PlatinumBlonde can be powered from any domestic supply, as it drawsonly 1200W, while also beingsuitable as a generator supply formobile applications.

LedHead, an LED version of thecompany’s tungsten Redheadluminaire, will also make its world

debut at NAB. LedHead uses only70W to provide the same illuminationas a 500W fixture.

A selection of lighting solutionsfrom Photon Beard’s complete rangewill be on show for visitors toPhoton Beard’s stand at NAB.www.photonbeard.comC7849

Photon Beard’s Platinum Blonde

iMovix’s new product lineemphasises modular

configuarability

Snell Kahuna

Photon Beard goes Platinum Blonde for NAB

2wcomAt NAB 2wcom will be introducingnew products, as well as showingthe FlexDSR02+/FlexDSR04+,IRD for audio contribution viasatellite and IP. “These extremelyversatile, multi-faceted solutions are being deployed by majorbroadcasters to build the nextgeneration of robust, high-qualitycost-effective radio infrastructure,”commented Werner Drews, MD of 2wcom.

The company will extend its audio-over-IP offering with the new AIC , a 19-inch unit that combines IPencoder and decoder functions in one

chassis. It suppports all current audioformats and providing networkstreaming connections.

The 2wcom FlexNsert DAB+Distribution Inserter receives a DABETI data stream, converts the streaminto a standard MPEG2-TS-signaland outputs it via ASI or Ethernettransport stream interfaces.

2wcom will debut a new solutionfor SFN FM networks at NAB 2014that provides synchronisation forimplementing FM SFN networkswith existing analogue transmissioninfrastructure. www.2wcom.com10202

Four new products from 2wcom

2wcom’s FlexDSR02+

Riedel“The solutions we’re bringing to theNAB Show not only demonstratemajor enhancements to our coreproducts, but also showcase new refinements anddevelopments,” said Riedel Communications’CEO Thomas Riedel.

At NAB, the companywill show how the newMediorNet firmwareprovides video router functionality andhigh-speed rerouting. The MediorNetfamily has also been expanded with theaddition of the 2RU large-scaleMediorNet MetroN core router.

Riedel has developed its first WAN-focused solution. Using the MediorNetplatform as a base, attendees at the 2014NAB show will see how the networkedapproach of MediorNet can beexpanded to include WAN capabilities.

Enabling direct integration of RiedelMediorNet realtime networks withStuder consoles and cores, the new A-Link interface module gives Studer

users a scalable audio routing systemoffering I/O capacities in excess of10,000 I/Os.

The company’s virtual key panelsenable the use of smartphones and tabletsas control panels in combination with anyArtist digital matrix intercom system.

Riedel’s AVB manager softwaresolution provides generic AVB control for IEEE 1722.1-compliant AVB devices. www.riedel.netCC4937

TMD’s Mediaflex demonstrated at NABTMDTMD will demonstrate the full capabilitiesof its Mediaflex platform at NAB.

“The move to multiple deliveryplatforms means that every player in themedia chain has to be more efficient andagile if they are to succeed,” said TonyTaylor, chairman and CEO of TMD.“Package management is key to the successof digital content publishing, and

Mediaflex allows businesses to define anddeliver packages to multiple platforms, andbuild workflows to maximise productivityand minimise operational costs.”

At the show, TMD will announce newsoftware elements which draw on thepower of the cloud, providing software asa service solution. The system architectureincludes integration to cloud servicesincluding Amazon S3 and encoding.com.

Mediaflex is a modular platform whichincludes a customisable workflow engine.This can be teamed with Mediaflex CImodule, which allows users to designworkflows using a simple graphicalinterface, and draws on business analyticsto derive information and to furtherautomate processes.www.tmd.tvN3425

Emotion Systems introduces Emotion EngineEmotion SystemsAt NAB 2014, Emotion Systems willintroduce Emotion Engine.

Emotion Engine is a user-friendlysoftware engine that has been developed todeliver CALM loudness compliance within

a suite of audio solutions designed to meetfile-based media demands with efficiencyand accuracy. Emotion Engine can be usedas a manual, fully automated, orstandalone solution, all integrated withinan automated enterprise system.

The Emotion Engine toolset includesloudness compliance, channel remapping,duplication, Dolby E and Loudness Range(LRA) monitoring.www.emotion-systems.comN3719

Riedel to showcase “major enhancements” at NAB

WORK MicrowaveAt NAB, WORK Microwave willdemonstrate enhancements to its DVB-S2Broadcast Modulator, Video ACMSystem, and fifth-generation FrequencyConverter series.

Powered by a combination of videoand IP technologies, WORK Microwave’sDVB-S2 Broadcast Modulator provides asolution for IP network links and TVcontribution. Features include DVB-S2multistream, TSoIP, wideband, andcarrier ID. The DVB-S2 BroadcastModulator platform supports next-generation DVB-S2 extensions.

A key highlight at the NAB Show fromWORK Microwave will be its VideoACM System, an integrated data/video

(DaVid) modem and encoding solutionfor enhanced video contribution. VideoACM combines WORK Microwave’sDVB-S2 Modem SK-DV and the EN-91MPEG-4 HD ultra-low delay encoderfrom Adtec Digital.

The company will also demonstrate

Ka-band support for uplink anddownlink services, superior phase noise,and adjustable slope compensation for itsFixed Frequency Block Converterproduct line. www.work-microwave.deSU8525

Tech demos and key products from WORK Microwave


ShotokuAt NAB Shotoku will show the enhancements toits manual camera support range with the newcarbon fibre tripod system and pan and tiltsolutions. It will also unveil its new ncam cameratracking system.

Shotoku’s new two-stage TTH1502C carbonfibre tripod gives operators a lightweight yetsturdy tripod system, suitable for EFP ordocumentary production.

One of the company’s latest mid-weight EFP panand tilt fluid heads, the SX300 features a 40kgpayload and wide-balance capability, and supportsan array of cameras, lenses and accessories.

The SG900 manual pan and tilt head is suitedto OB and studio production with telepromptersor box type lenses, supports 90kg, and featuressingle knob balance adjustment.

The ncam camera tracking system features amulti-sensing bar mounted on the studio camerathat provides realtime data to its associatedtracking server.

The company is also showcasing its advancedTK-53VR crane and its entire range of controlsystems will be available for demonstration.www.shotoku.tvC8731

Shotoku showsrobotic and manualcamera systems

Shotoku will show its new carbon fibre tripods

WORK Microwave’s 5K-DV combined dataand video modem

Riedel’s MediorNet MNXSS processing card

DFTDFT is announcing the globallaunch of its new SCANITYHDR film scanner, and will also be showcasing its Wet-gate solution.

SCANITY HDR can handle arange of difficult and historically-aged film issues. It facilitates theingest of dense black and white

materials at realtime speeds usingDFT’s new proprietary, triple-exposure technology.

SCANITY HDR will be shownat NAB in its pre-productionguise, with the production modelavailable later in the summer.SCANITY HDR will come withthe additional option of the newWet-gate solution.

DFT will also present its Wet-gate solution. Using newmanufacturing and designtechniques, DFT has developedan approach to the idea ofwetting the material at thescanning stage.

PHANTOM II, DFT’s newsoftware transfer engine solution,developed for existing SPIRIT data

transfers, will also be showcased atNAB. This allows existing Bonesusers to migrate their SPIRIT datatransfers via this new softwareengine, which is supported by SUSE11+ providing for future-proof datatransfer strategy and fast interfacingto SAN and NAS solutions. www.dft-film.comSSL15123

DFT set for global launch at NAB

CobhamRF specialist Cobham willfeature its Nano HDTX at NAB2014, as well as using the event tolaunch its new receiver platform.

Nano HDTX is an HD digitalvideo transmitter designedspecifically for POV and body-worn applications and, thecompany claims, the world’ssmallest wireless HD transmitter.With Cobham COFDM andH.264 encoding technology at itscore, the transmitter providesimage quality retention over the

wireless link and supportscomposite, SDI, HD-SDI andHDMI video input formats.

Cobham will alsolaunch a new receiverplatform at NAB, with1080p60 4:2:2 10-bitdecoding capabilities.Available in 1RU or 2RUconfigurations, each receiver candecode two separate highdefinition signals, making themtwo receivers in one. The unit’sdecoding algorithm has beenengineered by Cobham to

Cobham features Nano HDTX and newreceiver platform

SGLSGL will demonstrate a range ofsolutions at NAB, including the jointoffering with FOR-A and co-developments with Avid.

Acquiring material on the boothusing a Go-Pro camera, SGL willdemonstrate its live ingest-to-archiveworkflow, using FOR-A’s LTR Series,LTO-5 video archiving recorder. Thecombined offering enables customersto archive material that’s been recordedon the LTR, directly to LTO5 tape.

Since 2004 SGL and Avid have co-developed archive content storagemanagement solutions for broadcastersusing Avid solutions. The Avid InterplayArchive is the only fully integratedarchive and storage managementcomponent for the Avid Interplay digitalworkflow engine. At NAB SGL will showa full archive demonstration via Avid’sInterplay PAM system.

The company will also demonstratethe integration of FlashNet with AvidInterplay Web Services. www.sglbroadcast.comSL5306

ensure full compatibility with allleading encoders.

The receiver can also act as anIP decoder using the interruptiblefoldback (IFB) audio input,

which when used with a CobhamIP encoder automaticallyprovides IFB for the presenter.www.cobham.comC9515

SGL demos withFOR-A, Avid

The Nano HDTX is

the world’s smallest wireless HD transmitter


IN 2012, after heading Technicolor’smedia, broadcast and telecom sales inEurope and parts of Asia, Tom Cordinermoved to Avid. After a year of runningAvid’s sales business in EMEA, he wasasked to take on Avid’s Asia business aswell and has been head of Avid’sinternational sales arm since.

What do you think are the major issuesfacing the industry now? And what impacthas the increasing move to cloud and IPproduction affected Avid?

Media professionals are facingunprecedented challenges, including: theaccelerated digitisation of media assets,the ‘consumerisation’ of content anddistribution, and the relentless pressurefor operational efficiency to structuretheir operations to take advantage of a‘content anywhere, anytime and on anydevice’ world. What a lot of companiesare looking for is essentially oneinterconnected process.

As an example: broadcasters andcontent owners want to syndicate contenton multiple platforms, as well as createpromos and advertising material for thatnew platform, and at the same timebroadcast on linear TV, and make it allone seamless process. If you can put allof those toolsets and all those productiondistribution capabilities onto oneplatform — as we are going to be doing

and are doing — it really starts toenhance how organisations reach theirchosen audiences.

Our new direction takes us beyond thecreative part of the business and linkstogether the creative side with the businessor monetisation part. One of the thingswe are seeing is that it’s a key priority formedia companies to link these two partstogether. Often the business end isstarting to drive changes in how thecreative process actually works. What weare building with our Avid Everywhereplatform is a way to allow these two partsto come together and work in unison.

Have you seen a real change at Avid sinceLouis Hernandez took over as CEO last year?

Yes, very much so. I had a year at Avidwith one CEO structure and now I’ve had

a year with Louis. The company isevolving, and Louis has built a verygrowth-minded team. He’s a veryexperienced technology and platformsoftware executive and he has broughtthat attitude and thinking to Avid. It’snow a more focused company. He’s alsodeveloped our strategy and our vision forthe future, Avid Everywhere, and seesAvid as having a strong and shaping role

in building an ecosystem that’s going tobenefit all of us. It certainly feels veryexciting and there’s a lot of energy in thecompany right now.

This month will be Avid Connect, theinaugural event of the Avid CustomerAssociation. What has the response beento the ACA?

It’s been really positive. In certainmarkets it’s become almost overwhelmingin terms of people wanting to getinvolved. We have an executive board thatgoverns all of the various councils, withspecific councils set up around strategy,around products, around service anddelivery, around industry issues andobviously our partner and resellernetworks too. We recently announcedsome key leadership: David Mash , SVPfor innovation, strategy and technology

at Berklee College ofMusic, is in charge of thewhole board of directorsand executive chairmen.Richard Friedel, who’s theEVP at Fox Networks,and Dr. Andreas Bereczkyof ZDF in Germany arethe two vice chairs.

It seems like a realtransformation of Avid, like you’re reallyapproaching the industry in a completely new wayand moving to become aservice provider.

It feels very different,but really it’s an evolutionof how the market isdeveloping. We’re taking aleadership role within that to help ourcustomers and partners make thesetransitions and deal with all of thechange that’s going on inside theindustry. I think the scope of marketsthat we serve have very different needs, sosome markets are very ready for a muchmore service-oriented offering and amodel that’s much more cloud orplatform-based. Other markets will take amore cautious approach to adopting that.They’re a little more traditional in howthey want to invest in technology. They

prefer to own their own infrastructureand buy in a more traditional way. Butwe’re very happy to continue to drivegrowth in those markets too. There’s a lotof flexibility built in to how we’re goingto work with our customers and partners

We view ourselves as being an openplatform and an open partner to ourcustomers and our resellers. We’re veryexcited about our new vision, and we’re looking forward to helping theindustry move at the right pace in theright direction.

As workflows undergo radical changes, Avid is stepping up to lead theway. Neal Romanek talked to Avid’s VP of sales international, Tom Cordiner, about the company’s new trajectory

Avid hopes to have a strong and shaping role in helpingthe media industry transform over the next few years

A new Avid for a new eraAAvid Everywhere aims to be

a platform that seamlesslyjoins the creative and

business side of the industry

The Business CaseTVBEurope 49March 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

Cordiner: “I think what a lot of companiesare looking for is essentially oneinterconnectedprocess”

“Often the distribution or thebusiness end is starting to drivechanges in how the creativeprocess actually works” Tom Cordiner, Avid

IN THE first of this two-partarticle, I talked about the need tobe wary of solutions that comedressed in some of the clothingassociated with ‘the cloud’, butwhich have limited potentialbecause they do not implement atrue cloud-computing architecture.

The key point to emphasise hereis that if our industry is to benefitfrom the full, extraordinarypotential of cloud computing, itrequires vendors to fundamentallyre-think and redesign solutions for this new architecture. Theindustry’s demands for increasedagility, more channels, morelocalisation and more scale can’tbe met by simply implementingmore of the same technology wealready have.

In the beginnings of broadcastautomation, the aim was toproduce a system that would unifythe control of a large number ofphysical devices, and deliverrealtime commands to executeoperations such as switching,starting the video server, andbringing on the graphic.

Then, as IT technologymatured, the industry movedtowards newer technologies andthe channel-in-the box paradigm.The automation system and thedevice performing the playoutbecame squeezed into one andthe same system. At the sametime, the needs of the broadcastindustry have also grown morecomplex. Automation has gonefrom being concerned mainlywith list-management andexecution to a much moresophisticated set of capabilities.

Combining the ‘management’functionality and the playoutfunctionality in the same unitdelivers many advantages, but thereare also further gains to be madeby separating them in any futurearchitecture designed to deliver ahighly scalable and agile solution.

On one hand, there is the act ofplaying out video clips, bringingon graphics, switching to livesources – all operations that needto be performed with accuracymeasured in milliseconds. On theother, there are complex

information management tasksthat do not require suchdeterministic responses. The wayyou go about designing a frame-accurate playout system is verydifferent from the way you designa business management system.And to take broadcast automationforward into a new generation ofcapability it makes sense to dividethe functionality into two layers –the realtime playout/automationlayer, and the management layer.

Why? Let’s return to thenatural and justifiable cautionbroadcasters feel about losingcontrol of the physical machineryand assets of broadcasting.Playout from the cloud does notsound an enticing prospect tomost broadcasters. Where is thesecurity over content? How canthe cloud deliver with frame-accurate timing?

The answer is that you don’tneed playout from the cloud.

With the two layers ofmanagement and playoutseparated, we can take fulladvantage of cloud computing’spotential, while still retaining thevital frame-accurate control overplayout that broadcasting is builton. The management layer can bemoved to the cloud, whererealtime dependency is not critical.The realtime playout componentcan be designed separately andlocalised to where the mediastorage is: in this way it canoperate with the high performanceand availability demands thatbroadcasters require. Themanagement system can be madecapable of handling large numbersof channels because thecomputing platform it runs ondoesn’t also have to cope withplaying them out. Playout can be

delegated to individual computernodes and the management layercan provide global control for anynumber of them.

While the management layer of the automation system doesnot require the realtime frame-accurate responses that theplayout layer must deliver, it mustprovide failsafe reliability and veryhigh performance. This is wherethe unique capabilities provided bytrue cloud computing are critical,and the automation system of thefuture must be designed to exploitthem to the full. The systemneeds to make full use of a multi-tenancy cloud environment thatcan dynamically scale with theload, to service many customerscost-effectively with the same setof computing resources, instead ofdedicating computer resources toindividual channels or customers.

The system has to be able to dealwith failure — to be ‘stateless’.The architecture has to be proofagainst the disappearance of anyof its computing nodes at any timewith no interruption to the service.

This kind of resilience alreadyexists in many cloud-based servicesand one of the ways of testing truecloud-based systems is bydeliberately provoking failure ofnodes within them. The in-housesystem used by Netflix (known asThe Chaos Monkey, and nowavailable to other developers) goesthrough the cloud systemrandomly switching nodes off totest that the software has beenproperly designed to deal with that.

So while it’s natural forbroadcasters to wonder whethercloud systems can be reliable, thereality is that a true cloud-basedcomputing architecture should befar more reliable than the

traditional broadcast playoutsystem running on-site andbacked up by a SQL database. At2am on Sunday when there are nomaintenance staff at the broadcastcentre and the SQL server fallsover, how long will it take to getthat traditional system back on air?

To make a future automationsystem bomb-proof, guaranteedmessaging and connectivity isessential. Non-deterministicbehaviour of the network has to beassumed in the architecture. Thepublic internet is very reliable, butit’s not deterministic, and that’swhy you can’t rely on sending

frame-accurate messages aroundany kind of distributed computingenvironment. So for the playoutfunctionality you need to useexternal time references and time-stamping messages to ensure thatthe right message is processed atthe right time by individual nodeswithin the network. It’s alsoessential to have guaranteedmessaging. A correctly architectedcloud-based computingarchitecture should be able tosurvive network cables beingunplugged while schedules arebeing edited, and on reconnectionthe right device must automaticallyreceive the messages that it missed.Any as-run information shouldalso be delivered after anyinterruption of connectivity, sothat there is a clear record of whatwas played out and when.

For the cloud-basedmanagement functionality to be

effective, it also has to be fast. The typical online shoppingexperience just won’t do forrealtime operations in a broadcastcentre. There has to be instantresponse from the automationenvironment, and this can bebuilt-in by using web apps withinthe browser. Web apps exploit thepower of modern web browsers toexecute quite complex applicationcode within the browser window.With HTML5 and Javascript, richapplications can be built thatperform the logic and userinteraction directly in realtimewithin the web browser, whiledata is transferred separatelybetween the application and thecloud-based system.

To deliver the speed ofresponse the management layerneeds, the cloud-based solutionmust also have a highly efficientback end. If you are designing a system from scratch it’sadvantageous to avoid SQL andtake a Big Data approach to thearchitecture, because SQL itselfwould become a bottleneck and asingle point of failure. The designaim is to get to a point where the system is infinitely scalableand where there is no specificbottleneck when handling verylarge amounts of traffic.

Broadcasters’ demands forincreased reliability and agility,more channel numbers, easierlocalisation, and elasticity of scalecan’t be satisfied with more of thesame – by cramming morefunctionality into increasinglycomplex boxes. Our expectationsof automation have changed overthe years, and it’s not enough tokeep the same concepts andmoving parts, even when collapsedtogether on IT hardware. Vendorsthat have just applied their existingautomation systems to IT basedplayout hardware are missing thepoint. It’s time for a rethink.

The reality is that a true cloud-based computing architectureshould be far more reliable than the traditional broadcast

playout system running on-site and backed up by a SQL database

Hard edges inthe cloud

Cloud for Broadcastwww.tvbeurope.com MMarch 201450 TVBEurope

“The industry’s demands for increasedagility, more channels, more localisationand more scale can’t be met by simplyimplementing more of the same technologywe already have” Ian Fletcher, Miranda

In our February issue, Ian Fletcher, Miranda’s CTO of automationand playout, outlined the basics of cloud computing for broadcasters.This month, he goes deeper into the possibilities for broadcastautomation that cloud tools offer

Fletcher: “The design aim is to get to a point where the system is infinitelyscalable and where there is no specific bottleneck when handling very largeamounts of traffic”

tvbe march 2014 digital edition

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