tvbe november 2014 digital edition

www.tvbeurope.com

November 2014Business, insight and intelligence for the broadcast media industry

Transcoding forumIndustry celebrates at the TVBAwards

The new grammar of virtual reality

The Art of AcquisitionNew cameras, robotics and lighting

Imagine where you could take your business...if technology didn’t stand in your way.

An all-new blueprint for managing, moving and monetizing video content is here.

an evolutionary path that aligns current investments with the network of the future.

Find out more. imaginecommunications.com© 2014 Imagine Communications

TVBEurope 3November 2014 www.tvbeurope.com

It was a night I will remember fondly. If you

were in attendance at the Hilton London

Wembley on 23 October, I hope this is a

sentiment you will share.

There was something unexpectedly

pride-inducing about being the entity giving

out awards that recognise the efforts and

achievements of industry colleagues; the surprise,

the joy, the thrill of receipt. It’s easy to forget all

of this in the throes of organisation, and it made

worthwhile the effort and labour that went into

every detail of the inaugural TVBAwards.

To the victors, the spoils, and my sincere

congratulations go to all of our awards winners

from the night. Yet, the nub of the evening, as

I will eternally review it, was that beyond the

pomp and the ceremony, the occasion was one

of celebration; an opportunity – an excuse, even

– to celebrate all that is great about our industry

in the company of friends and colleagues.

This was a rare occasion to recognise those

pushing the boundaries in their fi elds, and honour

their pursuit of excellence, innovation, and

endeavour; doing so light of heart, and with

a glass in hand.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make

the night a success, including our sponsors:

IBC, Ericsson, and Manor Marketing; everyone

in attendance; and our beloved events team,

upon whom I seem to lavish praise at regular

intervals, and rightly so. You can read our review

of the evening on pages 38 to 39 of this edition.

Our focus this month turns to acquisition, and the

latest from the world of cameras, robotics and

lighting. Elsewhere, our Forum delves into the

complexities of transcoding, the vital technical

component of the modern broadcast and

production chain, while our Workfl ow section

covers a diverse range of topics – from Riedel’s

involvement in Formula One, to virtual reality,

to recording sound on Mount Everest.

This is an issue I’m looking forward to sitting

down with to read again (minus a red pen).

I sincerely hope you enjoy it, too.

James McKeownExecutive Editor

A night to remember at the fi rst ever TVBAwards

WelcomeEDITORIALExecutive Editor - James [email protected] - Melanie [email protected] Writer - Holly [email protected] Media, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England +44 207 354 6002Contributors Mike Clark, Chris Forrester, David Fox, Mark Hill, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett, Heather McLean, Adrian Pennington, Philip Stevens, Reinhard E WagnerHead of Digital - Tim FrostHuman Resources & Offi ce Manager - Lianne DaveyHead of Design & Production - Adam ButlerEditorial Production Manager - Dawn Boultwood

Senior Production Executive - Alistair TaylorPublisher - Steve [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Sales Manager - Ben [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Sales Executive - Richard [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Managing Director - Mark BurtonUS Sales - Michael MitchellBroadcast Media International, PO Box 44, Greenlawn, New York, NY [email protected]+1 (631) 673 0072Japan and Korea Sales - Sho HariharaSales & Project, Yukari Media [email protected]+81 6 4790 2222 Fax: +81 6 4793 0800CirculationNewBay Media, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, LE16 9EF, UK

Free [email protected] Tel +44 1580 883848

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

NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association

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Allow 8 weeks for new subscriptions and change of address delivery. Send subscription inquiries to: Subscription Dept, NewBay Media, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough LE16 7BR, England. ISSN 1461-4197

Printing by Pensord Press, Tram Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood NP12 2YA

A celebration of excellence, innovation and endeavour

In this issue4 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

This issue, our acquisition feature focuses on the movers and shakers of the mid-market camera fi eld, looking at the latest releases and technological developments. David Fox provides the lowdown

TVBAwards lights up Wembley28 38

8 Opinion & Analysis

10 Opinion & Analysis

Transcoding is a vital part of today’s broadcast and production chain. Philip Stevens moderates this edition’s Forum that confronts the issues facing this complex technology

40Transcoding Forum

Akamai Technologies has released its Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report, providing insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds and broadband adoption across fi xed and mobile networks

46-50 Data CentreAcquisition: Lighting

34Higher quality LEDs, particularly in conjunction with Fresnel lenses, and better colour temperature control are the key trends in broadcast lighting. David Fox reports

The fi rst ever TVBAwards took centre stage at the Hilton London Wembley on 23 October, as the industry gathered to recognise those pushing the boundaries in excellence, innovation and endeavour in broadcast media

24Early producers of narrative live action VR are pioneering a visual and audio language that breaks the walls of cinematic convention, writes Adrian Pennington

12-27 Workfl ow

Broadcast camera round up

David Crawford, MD, satellite for Arqiva, explores the future of satellite TV in a hybrid connected world, and how to keep up with OTT and IP-delivered content

Steve Ballinger, head of broadcast at Carat, believes convergence is changing the way that people consume TV

Opinion & Analysis6 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

More than 46 million households

worldwide will subscribe to a 4K UHD

pay-TV service by 2018, according

to new research from Parks Associates. Pay-TV

providers will deploy this service as a differentiator,

especially among younger consumers who are

more likely to use new pay-TV features, such as TV

Everywhere and cloud DVR, but also have slightly

lower subscription rates for pay-TV services. In the

US, 82 per cent of consumers between the ages of

18 and 22 have a pay-TV subscription, compared

to 87 per cent among older consumers.

“To enjoy the true benefi ts of 4K, three things need

to be present: the television, the content, and a way

to get the content to the TV,” said Brett Sappington,

director of Research at Parks Associates. “4K can

deliver an enhanced experience to viewers, but

these three factors are not yet aligned. Getting 4K

content to the TV remains a key challenge, as is the

pace of production of 4K content.”

Multitasking while watching TV TiVo’s second Annual TiVo Multitasking and Social

TV Survey has shown a dramatic increase in

multitasking during TV viewing: over half of the 856

survey respondents reported multitasking every

time – or almost every time – they watch TV

(51 per cent); compared to just over one third

(36 per cent) in last year’s survey. Though TV

multitasking may be on the increase, viewers also

report a rise in TV viewing as the primary focus:

47 per cent of respondents’ total TV time is spent

Content Everywhere round up

Melanie Dayasena-Lowe rounds up the latest Content Everywhere news, which looks at the number of 4K UHD homes expected by 2018, how multitasking while watching TV is on the rise, and the growth of the global pay-TV market

with their primary attention on the TV show while

multitasking, versus last year’s 39 per cent. More

than a quarter (26 per cent) of their TV time is spent

multitasking with their main focus on another task,

similar to the 2013 study, and 27 per cent of their TV

time is spent only watching TV (not multitasking),

down from 35 per cent in 2013.

Despite the pronounced increase in TV multitasking,

viewers continue to report that their alternate

activities are only rarely related to the programme

being watched. Only fi ve per cent of respondents

report TV-related multitasking every time (or almost

every time) they watch TV, while 50 per cent report

never or almost never engaging in TV-related

multitasking. Top TV-time activities include browsing

the internet (74 per cent), reading or sending emails

(73 per cent), and text messaging (71 per cent).

“Even given the proliferation of multitasking,

viewers remain primarily focused on the television

shows they are watching,” said TiVo chief research

offi cer, Jonathan Steuer. “To paraphrase the Bard,

‘the programme’s the thing!’”

Global pay-TV market to exceed 920 million subscribers in 2014 The worldwide pay-TV market is expected to surpass

920 million subscribers by the end of 2014, according

to ABI Research. Overall, pay-TV average revenue

per user (ARPU) is expected to drop slightly due

to increasing price competition, but at a lower

rate compared to the ARPU drop in 2013. “The

growing number of HD subscribers, as well as major

sporting events such as the World Cup 2014, have

contributed to improving ARPU. As a result, the total

pay-TV market is expected to generate over $US269

billion by the end of 2014,” explained Jake Saunders,

VP and practice director of Core Forecasting.

“ABI Research anticipates that the worldwide

pay-TV subscriber base will grow to nearly

1.1 billion subscribers generating $US323 billion by

2019,” added Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst.

“Getting 4K content to the TV remains a key challenge, as is the pace of

production of 4K content” Brett Sappington, Parks Associates


Many are left bewildered by the choice,

leaving only the ‘gadget geeks’ able

to stay up to speed. But it is not just

the tech-savvy who are enjoying regular use of

platforms like Netflix and BBC iPlayer. According

to Netflix the average ‘streamer’ watches 46.6

hours of content monthly, and earlier this year BBC

iPlayer announced that in 2013 it had a record

three billion programme requests. These statistics

show the growing appetite for OTT content.

Many would argue that media convergence –

where internet-based services are used seamlessly

in line with traditional linear television viewing

– will actually improve viewer experience and

the longevity of satellite rather than threaten it.

Many people still consider linear television to be

‘real television’, with all other options viewed

as ‘something extra’. Connected devices are

becoming more and more ubiquitous, but there

is no reason why satellite – as a linear broadcast

technology providing a simple and reliable service

– cannot continue to play a major role when there

is little sign of change in viewing habits. While the

convergence of broadcast, IPTV and broadband

delivery through smart TVs and set-top boxes

(HbbTV) is well established across Europe, this sits

alongside the provision of satellite delivered content.

The point is that the end-user experience should not

differentiate between the delivery method.

Viewers have a hunger for live programming,

especially when it comes to news, sports and

reality TV. Despite our increased access to near-

line, off-line and archive programming, socially

we expect to watch certain programming and

genres live. The benefit of this being delivered via

satellite is the agility of SNG vehicles being at the

live event and distributing the content globally,

quickly and efficiently. Missing The X Factor,

the latest breaking news or goals scored in the

Premiership as they happen can leave people

feeling left out, and unable to share and banter

with other viewers. Using the red button to vote

or interact with the show is an enhancement to

linear viewing – not a replacement.

The key to satellite is in its simplicity. While

the television experience is now considered to

be interactive, it is what we wrap around the

viewing experience, rather than the content itself

which makes it interactive. There are massive

changes in the way we consume television

now – such as where we watch it, what device

we watch it on, and who we watch it with –

but does this make it interactive? It’s become

the norm now to tweet, post on Facebook or

use the red button on a remote control while

we watch TV. We want to share our thoughts

on what we view with our friends and other

audiences. But underneath all of this, the content

itself is a sequence of moving images which

are broadcast and watched in the quality and

speed that audiences have come to expect.

A huge benefit of satellite is in its ability to service

large coverage areas, including hard-to-reach

rural regions. In the UK, one satellite transponder’s

coverage ability is as good as that of several

hundred terrestrial hilltop-located transmitter towers.

Rolling out broadband services for on-demand and

catch up TV to land-based locations struggling for

high speed broadband service, is not cost effective

for providers, as well as being incredibly difficult to

implement. Across some regions such as the Middle

East and North Africa, the number of unique TV

channels is expected to almost double from 2,800

now to 4,600 in 2023 (Euroconsult). This is due to be

largely satellite driven.

Satellite is very much alive and has a bright

future. Hunger for live broadcasting is as strong

as ever, and satellite is a cost effective and

efficient way of transmitting these feeds over

large and difficult to reach areas. Connected

devices will play an important part in improving

viewers’ experiences, allowing them to seamlessly

interchange between live broadcast and the

internet on their devices. In the future, it won’t

be about the speed of broadband to homes –

Netflix running UHD needs about 15-18mbps – it

will be about the speed being able to support

simultaneous streams, and more importantly that

the broadband infrastructure (and CDNs) is able

to support large scale delivery of live content

(e.g. sports and The X Factor) to audiences of ten

million plus. We see convergence not as a threat

to satellite, but as the emergence of a hybrid world

which offers real enhancement to consumers’

viewing experiences where available.

TV and convergence does satellite have a future?

More service providers than ever are now entering the broadcast space and the technology landscape for content distribution can be confusing. David Crawford, MD of satellite at Arqiva, asks what this means for the future of satellite TV in a hybrid connected world


I’d bet that many of you watched the Red

Wedding episode of Game of Thrones through

your fingers with a permanent wince on your

face. After all, it was one of the goriest (and most

memorable) pieces of TV programming ever

created and aired.

However, I’d also bet that 33 per cent of you

had one of those shocked eyes on Twitter or

Facebook (or some other social network) to see

if everyone else was as (insert relevant emotion

here) as you were.

According to our recent research from our

CCS proprietary research tool – a survey of

11,000 UK consumers’ media habits – this is how

many people use social media to talk about the

TV that they are watching during the show.

Our research also found that this sort of

appointment-to-view (ATV) TV was driving 35 per

cent of people to actively plan their evenings

around the TV schedule – a rise of five million

from four years ago.

What this means is that TV shows like Breaking

Bad, Britain’s Got Talent and the aforementioned

Game of Thrones are moving the nation from

the era of TV on-demand to the age of

TV on-command.

This might be a slightly grandiose statement,

but the truth is that there is a shift in people’s

perception of how TV should be viewed, as

social media redefines the whole experience by

reinventing the water cooler moment. People

now want to watch TV as it happens, not three

days later, because they want that instant

realtime water cooler moment. They want to be

part of the conversation with friends and strangers

as heads are being chopped off or Meth dealers

are being blown up in nursing homes.

And then there is the ever growing, and

deadly serious, risk of being the victim of a

spoiler. If you’re planning on watching catch-

up you have to pretty much become a hermit,

in both the real and online worlds, to avoid this

potentially evening-ruining situation.

Active viewersThis means that people are moving from passive

to active viewing. Viewers now have the ability

to play along with the show (Million Pound Drop)

and even be part of the content of the show

(the live social wall on Got To Dance).

This is also affecting viewing figures in realtime.

Our research shows that 20 per cent of people

say friends and family are a huge influence

on their TV viewing (up from five per cent in

2010) and this referral traffic can positively or

negatively affect a show’s progress.

Typically the viewing of a programme will be

high at the start of the transmission and tail off

towards the end. The opposite was true for an

episode of Dynamo Magician Impossible –

which grew its viewing during the show as social

media recommendation created buzz around

the content. More recently, when Luis Suarez was

caught biting at the World Cup, social media

went crazy and viewing figures for the games

increased massively. This obviously also has huge

ramifications for advertisers (hey, we’re a media

agency, we were going to get to it at some

point). It turns their advertising from a monologue

to a dialogue. Using second screen opportunities

such as AdSync or Shazam allows the user to

access more content and means more dwell

time for consumers with the brand, but also helps

to drive convergence and get the consumer

closer to the point of purchase. This is something

that advertisers have been trying for a while with

more traditional advertising methods such as TV.

There have also been apps developed,

such as Beamly (formerly Zeebox), which

encourage sharing with friends in the social

space while watching TV.

So, whether a fan of dancing dogs or

dangerous drug dealers, convergence is

changing the way people consume TV

and we need to redefine how we approach

programming, advertising and even

scheduling to reflect this.

TV on commandSteven Ballinger, head of broadcast at Carat, believes convergence is changing the way people consume TV

20 per cent of people say friends and family influence their TV viewing, up from five per cent in 2010

Workfl ow12 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

Earlier this year, ITV Cymru Wales moved

into a new 1,050sqm broadcast facility

in Assembly Square, Cardiff Bay – a

relocation that involved around 100 staff from

the previous base at Culverhouse Cross

on the outskirts of the Welsh capital.

“The new base puts ITV Wales journalists

and programme makers at the centre of the

thriving cultural and business communities

in Cardiff Bay and right next to the National

Assembly of Wales,” explains Phil Henfrey,

head of news and programmes at

ITV Cymru Wales.

“The move represents a multi-million

pound investment, combining the latest HD

technologies, studio and editing facilities.”

The relocation also offered the chance to

install direct fi bre connections to the National

Assembly of Wales building.

He continued, “We’ve upgraded our facilities

in the National Assembly for Wales building as an

additional production and editorial base for our

politics team and we’ve upgraded our

North Wales bureau in Colwyn Bay to HD.”

A time for expansion and upgrades

Philip Stevens follows news operations located in two UK capital cities as they move into new facilities to progress upgrades, conversions and expansions

The news team in the new Assembly Square facility


Workflow

At the same time, ITV Cymru Wales has

replaced its two satellite trucks with

state-of-the-art HD vehicles.

Mixed outputFive-and-a-half hours of news and programmes

are generated each week from the new facility,

including the flagship ITV News Wales at 6pm,

weekday lunchtime, and late bulletins and

weekend bulletins, plus Wales news injects for

Good Morning Britain. There is also a weekly

news review titled Newsweek Wales on Sunday

mornings. Complementing the news output is

one and half hours of current affairs, factual,

sport and political programming each week.

“We also have a commercial relationship

with the Welsh language broadcaster S4C to

produce up to 30 hours a year of their current

affairs and factual programming so we needed

a fully integrated HD system that would work

for different teams and different types of

programming,” says Henfrey.

Overseeing the technical aspects of the move

was systems integrator, TSL. “We wanted to

work with a team who would complement our

holistic approach to design and be innovative

and responsive to our needs. This was our third

iteration of a regional news facility and the

second with an HD infrastructure,” explains

Paul Stevenson, director of technology and

technical operations, ITV News. He says that TSL

was selected because there was an existing

relationship from earlier work and the company

had satisfied the requirement for innovation

at a competitive cost. Stevenson adds that

the ability to deliver on time and to budget

was paramount.

The projectKeith Warrender, the TSL project manager for ITV,

takes up the story. “Work started on the project

in November 2013 and was completed in June

2014. We were asked to equip the news studio

with production and sound control rooms, four

edit suites, two voice booths, one audio dubbing

room and a traffic desk in the open plan

newsroom. The studio, which measures around

87sqm, includes a green screen area for a stand-

up weather position.”

Four Sony HSC100RT cameras with Canon

K17ex7.7 lenses and mounted on Vinten Osprey

pedestals are employed in the studio. The

cameras are controlled by Ross Furio robotics.

Sony was also selected to provide the vision

mixer – in this case a MVS3000. When it came to

audio mixing, the ITV preference was an SSL C10

Compact Broadcast Console.

James McLoughlin, audio specialist for TSL,

explains, “With the audio system being entirely

MADI-centric, we needed a console that could

process the vast amount of MADI I/O within

the system. The C10 with redundant Blackrock

processor enabled us to not only manage

the required MADI signals, but also create a

backup path for every connection. Using a fibre

infrastructure, we were able to strategically position

several stageboxes throughout the building to

minimise cabling and create a wider system feel.”

Clear communicationsCommunications are provided by a Clear-Com

Eclipse HX-Delta/32 matrix with one E-MADI64-

HX card, one IVC-32-HX IP card and 17 V-Series

rotary keypanels (1RU, 2RU and Desktop panels).

The Eclipse HX matrix is connected to keypanels

in the gallery, news floor and edit suites.

There are also two remote panels over IP,

one to the Assembly of Wales building and the

other to Colwyn Bay. The 64 channel MADI card

provides connection to the main audio router.

“The use of a single 64 channel MADI card

connected to the core router allows for greater

flexibility in setups, without the need for extra

4-wire patch bays or 4-wire ports on the comms

matrix,” explains Stephen Sandford, product

manager of Clear-Com.

The new facility in Cardiff Bay that houses the ITV Cymru Wales production centre

“It also means that signals to and from the Eclipse

HX matrix can be easily monitored.”

The addition of the IVC-32 IP card makes the

connection to remote sites easy to implement. As

IP connectivity is native and standard across all

V-Series panels, they were deployed at remote

locations like the parliament building and other

ITV Wales sites without hardwire connections.

Sandford goes on, “The system was designed

with expansion in mind. Half the 4-wire ports are

free, and there are also free MADI and IP ports on

the matrix. Further 4-wire ports can also be freed

up by moving non-gallery panels from analogue

connections to IP connections, without the need

for extra hardware as the V-Series panels come

with a native IP port enabled as standard.”

Warrender reports that the X-Edit graphics

playout that was in use at the previous

Culverhouse Cross facility was relocated for use

in the new set-up. “ITV also brought across the

Avid iNews NRCS which is linked to the graphics

system. Although the capability exists for ingesting

legacy tape formats, the new facility is essentially

tapeless with Avid handling live or file-based

ingest, central storage and networked (shared)

editing. In common with many of today’s

newsrooms, there is a mixture of journalists who

carry out their own editing and craft editors for

the more complex projects.”

He concludes, “Both TSL and ITV are keen

to use the knowledge gained from the ITV Cymru

Wales installation for future upgrades across

the ITV regions.”

RT takes a view on LondonStaying in the UK but moving from Wales to

London, it’s the turn of Russian news channel RT,

which is expanding its London operation.

Views from the Millbank Tower on the north bank

of the River Thames are stunning. And those vistas

are available to production staff as backdrops at

the London headquarters of Russian 24 hour news

channel, RT (formerly Russia Today).

In order to better serve its viewers in the UK,

RT is expanding its London operation. As well as

increasing the number of journalists, two new

studios have been created to inject UK related

news bulletins and other programmes into the

main output from Moscow.

“Viewers are very discerning,” maintains Chris

Wood, CEO of RT-UK. “They like to see reports

about the United Kingdom from staff who are

locally based. What’s more, they can often

determine when the production is being directed

at a specific audience. RT has long had a

presence in London, but now it is time to step

up local production.”

Two studiosThe RT facility is based around two production

studios: the main Studio A measures about

55sqm, while studio B is around 25sqm.

Solutions provider CVP was retained in February

2013 to equip the facility. “Our brief was to bring

together the most appropriate equipment within

the budget,” states Philip Hatch, CVP’s head of

systems integration.

That equipment includes a number of items

from Sony. For example, Studio A is home to

three HXC-100 cameras mounted on Vinten

pedestals, while a fourth can be found in Studio

B. Where necessary, the cameras can be moved

between studios – or into parts of the RT facility –

as required.

“We decided to use manually operated

cameras in the main studio to provide us with

the versatility of angles,” says Wood. “A number

of different programmes will be produced in a

relatively small space, and to achieve different

looks it will be necessary to position the cameras

to suit production considerations. We also use a

Steadicam for even more flexibility.”

Studio B includes a rack-mounted TBU and

Soundcraft audio mixer. Where this studio is

used for pre-recorded content, the output is fed

to the Dalet Brio servers located in the adjoining

‘media hub’. This studio can also go ‘live’

independently from Studio A and provide

‘Up The Lines’ to Moscow and, indeed, any

other news providers via the production

lines to BT Tower.

Autoscript has provided the prompting

equipment mounted on each camera, including

the Steadicam. The main gallery is equipped with

a Sony MVS-6520 vision mixer.

“We opted for the Sony mid-range mixer

because it offers us all the features RT needed,

without going to the top of the range solution.

Again, it’s a case of using the budget to the very

best advantage,” declares Hatch.

The Sony MVS-6520 produces 2x16 way

multi-viewers internally, the output of which

are shown on Samsung 55-inch LCD displays. In

addition, transmission and preview outputs are

displayed on JVC screens.

Sony has also supplied three BRC-H900 robotic

cameras which deliver HD images via three

half-inch Exmor CMOS sensors.

Workflow14 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

Chris Wood: “Viewers are very discerning”


Workflow

Multi-image displayThese images, together with pictures or images from

other sources, can be displayed on the Barco 3x3

video wall, the four Samsung 90-inch and one 65-

inch LED screens located at various points around

Studio A. Behind these displays and occupying three

walls of the studio are 69 (60cmx60cm) LED screens.

Multi-image integration and manipulation for

the various displays is handled through a Spyder

X20 video processor and presentation switcher.

“We will change the defused images and colours

on this LED screen according to the programme

which is in production,” reveals Wood. “This

enables us to create a different feel in the most

economical way.”

He goes on, “I was not in favour of having a

massive video wall that covers the whole studio

area. I think having images on a screen to which

presenters can point is preferable to an impressive,

but maybe not so practical, large area display.”

LED lighting comprises a mix of Desisti, Gekko

Karesslite and ETC Source 4 lights. These are

controlled by an ETC Smartfade 2496 in Studio A,

and ETC Smartfade 1296 in Studio B.

“We are able to light the shows in a dynamic

way – something that is difficult to achieve within

a typical office building and low ceilings and

challenging construction,” states Hatch.

On the audio side, four Sony UWP-X7s

wireless microphone kits with ECM-77B Lavalier

microphones are used in conjunction with a

Soundcraft Si Expression 3 console. This mixer

provides 32 recallable microphone pre amps plus

four line inputs, four internal stereo FX returns, AES

in, and a 64x64 expansion slot.

Sennheiser EW 300 G3 In-Ear Monitors are

provided for presenters, while radio Talkback

comes from JVC/Kenwood NX-320E3 hybrid

handsets. “And reception coverage is vastly

improved as a result of the digital air interface. The

associated base station is assembled by Raycom

and I am particularly impressed at the quality and

features of this system compared to what you

would typically find in a studio environment.”

Comms comes from RTS ZeusIII with a

selection of desktop and rackmount panels,

and numerous 4-wire ports. Graphics are

produced by a VizRT system comprising Viz Artist,

Graphics Hub, Viz Gateway for Newsroom

integration along with Viz Content Pilot and

a dual channel rendering Engine.

Newsroom integrationIt was specified that the Dalet newsroom system

already in use in Moscow (and RT’s Washington

bureau) was to be mirrored in London. The Dalet

Enterprise Media Asset Management system

allows both newsroom and media supervision

features to be combined into a single application.

“Since we first started the London operation, our

content has been sent to Moscow for archiving

on the Dalet system,” explains Wood. “Having the

same set-up in London means that we can readily

access that earlier material if needed.”

Once incoming materials have been ingested

and processed, these resources are available

to anyone on sites both within the facility and

remotely via a web browser to bureaux in other

areas of the world.

Playout to the gallery and other destinations is

provided by two 6-channel Dalet Brio servers.

Editing is carried out using Adobe Premiere Plus.

Expanding scheduleThe current schedule calls for RT UK to produce

four 30-minute bulletins a day anchored by Bill

Dod who has recently returned from working

with the network in Moscow. The studio will also

generate the channel’s three times weekly

Going Underground investigation programme.

“With the new studio commitments, we are

increasing the number of journalists we employ,

and our UK-based ENG crews will rise from three

to five,” reveals Wood. “We are still in the midst of

an expansion programme that will see this local

operation contributing more to the channel and

adding that more local UK-based feel that will

benefit our increasing number of viewers.”

“Both TSL and ITV are keen to use the knowledge gained from the ITV Cymru Wales installation for future upgrades

across the ITV regions”Keith Warrender, TSL

Formula One represents the cutting

edge of Riedel’s technology and while

radios are only the start, over the years

it has developed several other services in

communications and media backbone that

make it integral to team command, race control

and even broadcasting of the Grand Prix circus.

Founder and CEO Thomas Riedel chanced by

the opportunity to get involved in F1 around 20

years ago. “I was heard on local radio giving an

interview about our work at Lillehammer (Winter

Olympics 1994) and quite by chance someone

involved in Formula One passing by on the

autobahn heard it, had never heard about us,

and was intrigued enough to put us in touch with

the German Grand Prix,” he explains.

From that coincidental connection, his fl edgling

company began supplying radios and headsets

for marshalls and race control at the German

GP, then the European GP (held at Germany’s

Nü rburgring) and then the Austrian GP.

“After a few years I spotted our kit being used

by Ferrari’s pit crew for Michael Schumacher,” he

recalls. “It had been sold by a dealer but this was

the fi rst I knew of it. I was really proud and excited

so I went with a pile of business cards around the

paddock and introduced myself.” The F1 business

accelerated. First McLaren, then motorsport trade

body FIA and even Bernie Eccelstone’s Formula

One Management (FOM) and soon every team

called on Riedel for race comms.

Among the company’s innovations was

something as obvious as making it possible for

a team member to communicate on the same

radio channel but at a different frequency so

that multiple team conversations could occur.

Before Riedel’s involvement, the driver was

able to listen and talk but there was a limitation

because only one person could talk on a radio

channel at a time. Riedel’s intuition was to

solve this with an intercom system together with

changing the confi guration of the radios.

Riedel also developed a method for cutting out

the noise of the car when the driver is speaking to

the pit over the radio with a device that subtracts

the noise of the car from the voice in realtime.

Riedel supplies all 11 teams with an intercom

system, typically incorporating two to four Artist

nodes, which are connected over a redundant

fi bre ring to form a single non-blocking matrix. A

specially developed intercom interface, which is

geared to work even under the extreme F1 racing

conditions, allows for wireless comms between

each driver and team or among the team.

One Artist node is placed in a weatherproof

rack in each pit with at least one panel

connected to each node.

Beyond intercom, Riedel has also established

secure WAN MPLS data services, providing

point-to-point connections for the team from

the circuit to the team’s base offi ce. All of this

is based on 8km to 12km of fi bre cable which is

removed, shipped and re-installed at each of

the 19 circuits, each year.

Dedicated fi breSurely a permanent installation makes more

sense? After all, each circuit is already ringed

with its own dedicated fi bre. “Having our

own dedicated fi bre means that we are

solely responsible for it; we install it, we test it

and should anything go wrong they know

who to blame,” says operations manager

Richard Serschen.

Signals are routed to a radio base station with

three antennas (two receivers, one transmitter).

Usually this is placed on the highest part of the

circuit which is the race control tower but Monza’s

race control is uniquely the same height as the

surrounding paddock and grandstand buildings

so Riedel places the antenna on a cherry picker.

Nine of the teams are also equipped with

Motorola TETRA radio intercom units. Some 1,500

are used during every race although this pales

besides the 25,000 units used during the London

Olympics. Fortunately, Riedel owns the largest

radio rental fl eet in the world with 40,000 devices.

As if catering to all these high-profi le

clients were not enough, Riedel also services

broadcasters with RiLink which provides

bidirectional links between RF cameras race side

and the broadcast station. Its longest standing

broadcast client, RTL, transfers the international

programme video signal and additional signals

from its electronic news-gathering teams on

location at each of the race venues to its

playout centre in Cologne. During off-peak hours

when there is no signal transmission, RTL uses

the additional capacity for other purposes

such as fi le transfers to its archive in Cologne,

which can be carried out automatically in

managed workfl ows.

FIA team rules this year permit only 60 crew

on-site but up to 250 might be at the factory at

home and even split over three continents at

certain races. This is not only about cost though

there are considerable savings in not sending

200 additional crew to Australia by business class.

“Team strategists feel more relaxed and are

better able to perform and make judgements

within seconds, than they were when crowded

around the pit lane and far from home,” says

Dario Rossi, Riedel head of motorsport. “What’s

more, via RiLink teams can respond instantly.”

The delay is 300 milliseconds from overseas, just

ten milliseconds (tenth of second) in Europe.


Zero tolerance comms in F1

Adrian Pennington visits the Italian Grand Prix in Monza to walk the pit lane with Riedel


Workflow

All weatherThe fibre, the radios, and the Artist panels have

to withstand the rigours of constant packing

and shipping but also climates with often severe

weather conditions ranging from rain in Europe,

to extreme heat and sand in Bahrain, to heat

and humidity in Asia. Newer ruggedised and

lightweight versions of the kit is being introduced

from next season.

Riedel’s other key services and products for the

FOM and FIA include wireless HD on-board camera

solutions for the race cars, CCTV recordings of

parc ferme as well as a Race Incident Detection

and Review System to enable race control to view

controversial situations from different camera angles.

A Riedel-built flyaway command centre takes

in all of these feeds and time-stamps them on

arrival. The car information excludes sensitive

engine data but includes braking, gear change,

pit lane limiters and other information which the

race steward might use in the event of a yellow

flag incident. Since this needs to be decided

in race time, when an incident occurs a Riedel

operator can take a snapshot of the relevant

information and hand it over to the FIA.

Naturally for all of these to work, all of the time,

the many communications channels need to be

strictly encoded and segmented because much

of the data and comms is closely guarded to

prevent knowledge of it giving a competitor the

edge in a sport where success is often decided

by fine margins. “The room for failure is zero

tolerance,” says Serschen. “There has never been

a breakdown in this security yet.”

Toward IT and SkypeThe company is also introducing its customers,

step by step, into the world of IT-based media

infrastructures. At IBC it released a new

Smartpanel designed to serve as a powerful

multifunctional user interface with multitouch

colour displays, a multilingual character set

and is sunlight readable. Another release,

Tango TNG-200 is the company’s first fully

networked platform based on the AES67 and

AVB standards.

“It’s all about flexible connectivity beyond any

hardware limitations,” said founder

Thomas Riedel at IBC. “There is no need for

discussions about the right connectivity solution

for audio and video signals in broadcast

whether layer 1, layer 2 (such as AVB), or

layer 3 (such as AES67 for audio or SMPTE 2022

for video). All of these standards have their

raison d’etre and we are convinced that

there are very good reasons for all three

approaches and that they can perfectly

coexist. By supporting layer 1, 2, and 3

interfaces, we will integrate all three transport

layers into one solution to maintain maximum

flexibility and to achieve compatibility at the

same time.” He added that these developments

marked the start of a new era for platform-based

products at Riedel. “We are moving away from

being a purely hardware driven company, to

becoming a software solutions player.”

Eye-catching news at the show was a

partnership with Microsoft to bring a professional

version of Skype into play. The STX-200 broadcast-

grade interface brings any Skype user worldwide

into the broadcast environment. It meets

broadcasters’ increasing need for a reliable

single-box solution that enables them to engage

both reporters and viewers in live programming.

Microsoft, which is looking to monetise its $8.5

billion 2011 acquisition, approached Riedel and

asked if it wanted to tender for the development

of a version of Skype specifically for the needs of

the broadcast industry.

The result, the STX-200, is licensed by Microsoft

which integrates Skype into Riedel’s intercom

solutions. The unit offers HD-SDI, balanced XLR

audio I/Os, remote management and

monitoring of Skype calls.

“By enabling the use of a tremendous volume

of new content, the STX-200 will change the way

broadcasters interact and engage with their

viewers,” said Thomas Riedel.

“Broadcasters now have live access to

quality video from the more than 300 million

regular Skype users around the world, and the

STX-200 equips them to take the best of this

content to engage the imaginations and minds

of their audiences.”

“After a few years I spotted our kit being used by Ferrari’s pit crew for Michael

Schumacher” Thomas Riedel

Everest was possibly one of the most

technically challenging commissions that I

have ever worked on as a production sound

mixer in the 30 years I have been working in the

game. The main thing I was looking for regarding

radio mics was range. I already knew the

technical parameters of Lectrosonics equipment

as far as the delivery of full range audio recording

and transmission, but it was the range I was

interested in, for I was about to be recording

12 A-list celebrity artistes on a mountainside with

a fi lm unit based half a mile away.

I decided to get involved with Lectrosonics

about two to three years ago. I was an avid

fan of Audio Ltd radio mics from the late 80s

when I fi rst went freelance and I stuck with them

from that period. But when Lectrosonics made

their product line available in Europe they soon

proved that their products were absolutely far

superior to anything else on the market. This was

especially true of the quality of the build and

the range of equipment on offer for working in a

more portable style or rack mount set up.

Lectrosonics has a team of people who are

absolutely passionate about the design and build

of their products. I needed to know that when I or

one of my assistants puts a radio mic transmitter

on an A-list celebrity on a fi lm location that it

wouldn’t be the weak link in my equipment chain,

especially for the demanding locations of Everest,

and this gear has never let me down so far in any

of the projects I have worked on, whether for

major feature fi lms or television productions.

For the initial part of the shoot we were fi lming

in Katmandu with maybe six or eight radio mics.

We fi lmed on a bus and around the streets, and

there is very little RF activity in Katmandu so we

were lucky. We also fi lmed at the airport where

there was a lot of other RF around and the

Lectrosonics proved very good at eliminating

some of the unwanted RF in that vicinity.

Open airOne of the more remote areas where we

wanted the greatest range was close to base

camp on Everest. Quite a few of the actors were

wearing radio mics in thick down snowsuits. Our

job was to get the Lectrosonics transmitters as

close to the open air as possible to get the best

transmission from the aerials. Fortunately, up near

base camp the RF spectrum was very clear and

open, we had very few interference issues and

some of the range we got from the radio mics

using the LP650 receiver antennas was brilliant.

It was some of the best reception I have ever

experienced using any kind of radio mics.

Because a lot of the actors were wearing the

transmitters, some of the warmth from their bodies

was helping to extend the battery life of the

transmitters and there was defi nitely a trade off

between having the transmitter outside the body

or having it in a warm protected pouch within the

down snowsuit. We used Lithium batteries for this

project as a standard measure because of the life

expectancy of Lithium technology and because

we were working with fairly sensitive artistes who

didn’t like having the batteries changed too often

– it may well have been a half-mile trek to get to

these actors who were in fairly precarious positions

“One of the most important things for me as a production sound mixer is having

a support network of engineers and supply companies”


Recording EverestAward winning sound recordist Adrian Bell explains the challenges he faced while recording Everest, a feature fi lm in which a climbing expedition on Mount Everest is devastated by a severe snow storm

on the side of a mountain. Quite often they were

secured by safety climbers, safety ropes and

wearing crampons which our sound team may

not have been wearing, making it hard to get

to them on that rock slope. We had to plan the

situations where we had to re-battery these artists

for whatever scene they were about to shoot.

Director Baltasar Kormakur sometimes changed his

mind as to which scene he was about to shoot, so

we had to be ahead of the game as far as which

scene we were prepared for, and which artistes

were involved in which scene during the course of

the filming.

I generally have two sets of receivers in my

sound kit. I have one set in a flight case or bag

and another set in a rack on my sound cart. I

don’t like swapping gear around from one to the

other in the course of a day. I have no problem

having two sets. One acts as a back-up to the

other and I like to ensure that they are both

maximised in terms of specification.

One of the most challenging aspects of

Everest was filming in the old studio complex of

Rome, where the RF is not controlled and not

licensed and certainly, for a European-wide

spectrum, really didn’t seem to fit into any rules or

regulations. We unfortunately ended up having

to hire in some local frequencies and local

bands of RF which were clear and marked out

by local hire companies. There was no other way

of finding out that information apart from being

there and getting the local guys down to check

exactly which bands and frequencies were clear.

This in no way affected the way the Lectrosonics

gear performed, it was simply down to the

logistical set up of RF planning which is becoming

more common especially in and around cities.

In London and busy studio complexes you need

to do a very specific plan of where your radio

mics will be operating and what pitfalls you might

encounter during filming.

The Lectrosonics app LectroRM and Frequency

Finder is an invaluable tool for frequency

management and planning as far as I’m

concerned. The app is very good at pinpointing

what frequencies might be available in the area,

and might also be useful to plan out frequencies

that you have not got a licence for.

Lending supportOne of the most important things for me as a

production sound mixer is having a support network

of engineers and supply companies. This is only

coming to fruition now in the UK. 2013 was a good

year for Lectrosonics to finally have a small network

of suppliers that can supply kit at a good rate and,

more importantly, a source of technical support.

Lectrosonics has made great inroads into the UK and

European market as far as their specification supply

and technical support over that last year or two.

There is still some development potential I feel

with Lectro gear. Ideally that would be eight

receivers in a 1U rack mount unit. Anyone who

can do that will do very well. We are always trying

to minimise the footprint of our equipment on set.

The transmitters have possibly reached a point

where they cannot be any smaller – they are very

small, very lightweight, with very good battery life

and are very robust. From an engineering point

of view I think it would be very hard to beat

Lectro transmitters.

What I have found over the past few years

is that there are some very loyal supporters

of various types of radio mic equipment but

Lectrosonics has definitely shaken the industry

recently in the UK and as long as they keep

producing the standard of products they do it

will keep them at the forefront of the market for

radio mic technology.

TVBEurope 19

Workflow

“Everest was possibly one of the most technically challenging commissions that I have ever worked on”

November 2014 www.tvbeurope.com


The two new all-digital HD studios used for

Italy’s state broadcaster RAI’s channel

1 flagship news programme TG1 were

presented during the summer at RAI’s Saxa

Rubra complex with the participation of general

manager Luigi Gubitosi.

As well as the technical aspects, the

programme also has a new sound, thanks to the

opening and closing music by Academy Award

winning composer Nicola Piovani (Life is Beautiful)

The new look, on the other hand, came courtesy

of a set incorporating the high visual impact of

Lightbeam LED walls by Monza-headquartered

Leading Technologies.

The main studio, from which the various editions of

the news programme are transmitted throughout the

day, features 3mm pitch LED panels forming three

displays, measuring respectively 3.7sqm (5x5 panels),

8.8sqm (10x6 panels), and 13.2sqm (18x5 panels), all

controlled by means of a NovaStar set-up.

A new digital home for TG1

Mike Clarke reports on the features of the new digital HD studios, the base for Italian RAI’s TG1 news programme

The main studio, from which the various editions of the news programme are transmitted throughout the day, features 3mm pitch LED panels forming three displays


Workflow

The slim SL 03 BK I (384x384 mm) panels feature

SMD 2020 Epistar Black LED technology and, thanks

to their compact dimensions, lightweight (10kg)

and simple fast mounting system, are suited to any

type of permanent or mobile installation. They are

able to display images, text, graphics and video in

2D/3D in the majority of video formats (AVI, MOV,

MPG, VOB, etc), have a 120°/120° viewing angle,

1300 cd/m2 luminance, 1400Hz refresh rate, 100,000

hour life cycle and IP31 rating front and rear.

The main screen in the studio used for special

TG1 reports is made up of 3mm pitch panels, is

also curved and measures 8.5x2.3m (22x6 panels).

There are three LED ‘banners’, one high and two

low, formed by Lightbeam FD12WH 12mm pitch

flexible LED panels and measuring 0.76x19.2m

(the large top one) and 0.38x6.14m (the

smaller lower ones). The 160x160mm 12mm

pitch panels have SMD 3528 LED, a 110°/110°

viewing angle, >1300 cd/m2 luminance, 1000Hz

refresh rate, 50,000 hour life cycle and are also

rated to IP20 (front and rear). The installation was

carried out by specialist Rome firm TVI Srl. Leading

Technologies’ technical department (in the

person of engineer Alessandro Gianelli) provided

TVI with design and commissioning support for

the prestigious project. Gianelli explains, “Due to

the importance of the installation, each screen was

designed and installed with total redundancy, as

far as both cabling and number of sending cards

“We had an excellent and profitable working relationship right from the drawing board stage with RAI’s set design department, and scenographer Carlo Canè and his collaborators

Alessandra D’Ettore and Cecilia Guzzo” Alessandro Gianelli, Leading Technologies


were concerned. The number of sending cards

in the NovaStar control systems used with all the

3mm screens varies according to the size of each

screen. The key feature of this set-up is the complete

redundancy of the control system; each screen has

twice the necessary number of cards in a Master/

Slave-type format: if any element of the master

group has a breakdown, the system automatically

switches over to the slave card, ensuring signal

continuity without the video blacking out.”

The NovaStar MCTRL300 controllers’ features

include: a DVI video input; an audio input; two

Ethernet output ports; an USB interface (which

can be daisy-chained for uniform control),

sending card supporting resolutions of 1280×1024,

1024×1200, 1600×848, 1920×712 or 2048×668; a

light sensor interface, an independent power

supply and two serial ports (UART OUT\UART IN).

The 12 mm pitch banner screens are controlled by

an LINSN system, using the same modus operandi.

Vital parametersGianelli continues, “If necessary, technicians can

intervene on each single panel, carrying out

‘hot swap’ procedure and, when switched

on again, the panel automatically carries out

configuration procedure, without any additional

work being required on the control set-up.

The NovaStar system also constantly monitors

all the screens’ ‘vital’ parameters.”

The 3mm panels measure 384x384mm;

so having to follow the curve of the set, it is

inevitable that putting one alongside each

other they approximate the curve by means

of a series of straight lines. However, thanks to

a special metal support framework designed

by Leading Technologies, TVI was able to

position the panels in such a way as to make

their edges mate perfectly, achieving excellent

results. Gianelli concludes, “Our interface at

RAI from a technical point of view was Fabrizio

Pizzingrilli and I was technically responsible on

behalf of Leading Technologies. We had an

excellent and profitable working relationship

right from the drawing board stage with RAI’s

set design department, and scenographer

Carlo Canè and his collaborators Alessandra

D’Ettore and Cecilia Guzzo. It is always a pleasure

to work with extremely experienced people

who are willing to cooperate to find solutions

to any unforeseen events that can crop up

on installations of this calibre, and seamlessly

integrate all the various technical requirements

into their designs.”

LED technology is also integrated in the main

studio’s lighting, and the rig now includes 40

Rush PAR 2 RGBW Zoom LED fixtures by Martin

Professional, one of the many audio, video

and lighting brands distributed by Leading

Technologies in Italy. These single-lens units feature

fully premixed colour via 12 RGBW LEDs, 10° to 60°

zoom, electronic dimming and strobe effect.


The rise of Virtual Reality (VR) would only be

extraordinary if stereo 3D hadn’t emerged

before it. In less than a year VR has taken

on much of the hyperbole used to describe

digital 3D – as a new medium for immersive

entertainment beyond gaming.

Likely to become a household name on its

commercial release, Facebook’s Oculus Rift (OR)

faces competition from Sony Morpheus and a range

of companies offering ‘cinematic VR in your pocket’

including Google Cardboard for Android, Samsung

Gear for Galaxy Note 4 and the Durovis Dive.

None of this hardware will fl y off the shelves

without content to watch, play or ‘use’ with it.

Hence the wooing of TV and fi lm producers by OR

which demonstrated Crescent Bay, its new lighter

headset with motion tracking and integrated

headphones, to Hollywood execs in September.

3DTV pioneer Atlantic Productions has

produced three ten-minute VR pilots (a drama,

a documentary and a CG fi lm) for OR and

Samsung and is now fi elding interest from large

international content providers. “VR is becoming

a business model,” says CEO Anthony Geffen.

Twentieth Century Fox has announced VR

projects based on features The Maze Runner and

Wild, and another for its Night at the Museum

franchise. Gravity’s post house Framestore opened

an immersive content studio on the back of a VR

simulation it created for HBO’s Game of Thrones.

“When VR gets out into public hands we will

see a social media of VR content explode along

similar lines to the growth of YouTube,” says

Henry Cowling, creative director at production

company UNIT9. “Members of the public,

brands and semi-professionals will use VR to

deliver immersive experiences online. Users will

access content from mobile devices. Games

companies, movie studios and shortform viral

ideas will take VR mainstream.”

“The [VR] fi lming experience is akin to the

bastard progeny of experimental theatre-in-the

The BBC experiments with VR

The new grammar of Virtual Reality

Early producers of narrative live action VR are pioneering a visual and audio language that breaks the walls of cinematic convention, writes Adrian Pennington

Live streamed VR installation by Inition for Topshop

round and video game production,” wrote Neal

Ungerleider for Fastcolabs.com on the set of

horror short Black Mass, one of the first attempts

by Hollywood of a straight to Oculus Rift

production. Coincidentally, digital media

company Amplified Robot is creating six VR

experimental projects one of which is of a portion

of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night shot against

green screen where actors will be ‘placed’ into

a stately home.

“To an extent, directors will lose complete

command over the experience,” says

Phil Harper, creative director at Atlantic’s

division Alchemy VR.

Audio clues3D positional sound is coming to consumer

electronics in binaural and object-based methods.

Vendors like Dolby may release an SDK for Atmos

allowing producers to create soundscapes that

can aid in directing audience attention.

“You can’t control where the audience look

but one of the things we’re learning is that, for

example, when we walk along a street in real life

we don’t spend all our time looking to the left

or right or behind us,” adds Geffen. “Most vision

is within 180° and that learnt behaviour follows

through into VR.”

There’s no rule which says a VR experience has

to be 360°. A 180° fixed position best seat in the

house IMAX-style film viewing is an application

already advanced by Oculus Rift. Masking crew

and equipment, which will be visible in rushes

from a 360° shoot, can be achieved readily if the

production is shot against green screen.

“For live events or documentaries why not

reveal the crew?” asks Harper. “Immersion in

an incredible landscape or scenario is more

important than masking the artifice of how

you got there.”

Breaking the frameLive action VR production is still in its infancy.

The rule book has not been written. “You’ve

got to think of the project from the ground up

since your location or studio, the cameraman,

equipment and crew – everything will be in

shot,” advises Andy Millns, co-founder, Inition.

“You don’t need to be as frenetic in camera

movements, you can slow the pace down and

not refresh the angle as much (as 2D),” Millns

explains. The vertiginous effect of swooping

camera movements will induce sickness in the

viewer especially if they don’t expect it. “If

the camera is not gyroscopically level to the

horizon you instantly feel it in your stomach. Very

predictable movements are okay.”

Much the same lesson is given by UNIT9, which

has launched a VR division off the back of VR

campaigns for O2 and 5Gum. Any sudden

movement, change of direction or cut will

be even more pronounced than stereo 3D

because of the familiar problems of having the

brain resolve depth and the eyes refocus to

avoid discomfort. “We want to train directors

who are focussed just on VR experiences

because we do see it as a different film

language,” explains Cowling.

“You have to have very long transitions and

ideally make as few cuts as possible. Basically

360-VR is a way more fundamental paradigm

shift than 2D to 3D.”

Because the user is immersed in a scene they

naturally feel more in control of, so some form

of interaction is desired. “In 2D, the director

offers the viewer a very limited POV and we use

choreography and framing to give the viewer

precise details,” says Cowling. “In VR, that

language doesn’t apply to the same degree.

The real question is how you position the user,”

he poses. “Do they take the part of a

character or assume a floating POV, or do

other layers in the scene interact with you?”

Live streaming VRVR opens up space within a film, for the viewer’s

imagination and awareness to complement the


Workflow

Interior mapping using the structure device from structure.io


experience and narrative. A remarkably simple

piece by visual artists Félix Lajeunesse and

Paul Raphael is regarded as one of the best

examples to date for the Oculus Rift. Titled

Strangers – A Moment with Patrick Watson, the

360-camera is static but places the viewer in the

musician’s studio, flawless in its stitching

and composition.

Another possibility is live streaming into a VR

world, although image quality and realtime

image stitching needs development. This was

explored by Inition in February when it worked

with retailer Topshop to launch a new menswear

collection. Live video of a catwalk at the Tate

Turbine hall was filmed using wide angle 4K

broadcast cameras in 180° and streamed to the

headgear of five competition winners watching

in a Topshop store several miles away.

BSkyB must have an eye on live streaming

sports to VR headsets having taken a stake, with

Google, in VR developers Jaunt. Even the BBC has

dabbled. It recorded a news bulletin in 360-video

which enabled viewers to look around the entire

BBC News studio and production gallery.

“VR is not a fad,”

comments Ben

Fender, founder

of agency Drive

Worldwide.

“We’re trying to

create photoreal

experiences.

VR breaks the

fourth wall and

encompasses all

of your senses...

manipulates your

reality.”

Much the

same could

be heard from

Steven Spielberg

speaking at

the USC School

of Cinematic Arts in July 2013: “We’re never

going to be totally immersive as long as we’re

looking at a square, whether it’s a movie screen

or a computer screen. We’ve got to get rid of

that and we’ve got to put the player inside

the experience, where no matter where you

look you’re surrounded by a three-dimensional

experience. That’s the future.”

“VR is trying to satisfy the desire for an

interactive immersive experience which is much

more controlled from the user’s point of view,”

said Douglas Trumbull, genius behind the VFX

for Bladerunner and high frame rate cinema

exhibition systems.

“It’s a ‘one person at a time’ experience in

some kind of virtual world that could possibly

be the same as in a movie. There’s no reason

why you can’t have a movie called Avatar and

a VR world called Pandora. The experiences

are different but they might share the same

intellectual property.”

At the recent OR developer’s conference in

LA, Lucasfilm’s new media creative director

John Gaeta said he is looking at virtual reality

as a potential opportunity for the Star Wars

franchise. Could immersive world narratives

for Star Wars or Avatar deliver the first breakout

hit? A potential drawback to VR is that the user

UNIT9 is developing rigs which combine cameras and 3D scanning techniques


Workflow

is required to block out the world by strapping a

large piece of plastic to their face. Facebook may

overcome this by incorporating avatars of friends

into a social VR experience, but there’s another

interesting hybrid approach which mashes-up VR

with augmented reality.

Technical Illusions, the outfit behind kickstarter-

funded CastAR, uses micro-projectors that project

a holographic-style 3D image onto a reflective

surface several feet in front of the person wearing

special glasses – allowing users to see and interact

with an immersive scene in front of them.

Amplified Robot (AR) is researching the idea

of putting photorealistic 3D people and objects

within a natural environment. It is working with

Structure Sensor from structure.io, a device which

attaches to a mobile phone or tablet to capture

3D models of rooms.

AR CEO Steve Dann hopes to create

augmented reality experiences where the real

world is the game world.

Immersive journalismFormer Newsweek correspondent Nonny de

la Peña is pioneering immersive journalism

using VR to recreate events and bring them

closer to audiences.

Immersive journalism, as described by de

la Peña on her blog, allows the participant to

enter a virtually recreated scenario representing

the news story. The participant will be typically

represented in the form of a digital avatar.

In Project Syria, she used VR to try to tell the

plight of children in Aleppo. Using audio, video

and stills taken on scene, she recreated in CG

and the Unity game engine, a viewer experience

of a street corner in Aleppo, a rocket attack

and the aftermath in a refugee camp.

However, the experience has been criticised

for its lack of subjectivity and even of trivialising

the reporting of such a volatile subject.

“Filming is the easy part to crack,” says

Geffen. “Post is of another order of

magnitude.” It’s why Atlantic chose to

work though all the problems inherent in

VR by melding the talents of its in-house

post outfit Zoo with its production side to

form Alchemy.

UNIT9 is developing rigs which combine

cameras and 3D scanning techniques,

like a Kinect, to gather depth-map

information which will be projected over

the live action in post.

“The major challenge with live action VR is

to deliver 3D when matching pairs of eight (or

so) cameras,” says Cowling. “Stereoscopy

works from one particular POV but as the

user turns their head in VR the stereo no

longer makes sense.”

Atlantic finds that GoPro-style rigs are

more practical for the form of shooting it does

although lenses can only be synched to a

reasonable degree of accuracy.

There are no shortage of systems for

capturing 360° video. Most are fully integrated

systems, meaning that they feature one battery,

one memory card, a common optical axis,

shutter sync and a means of exporting and

stitching the overlapping feeds together.

Figure Digital’s Panopticam is a ball-like

device featuring 36 HD cameras mounted

into a 3D printed spherical case that stands

on a tripod.

Jaunt has rigged together up to 14 GoPros.

Data from sets of three cameras is used to

triangulate image depth to create a final 3D

stereo image pair for stitching.

Geonaute’s 320 360° sports camera is loaded

with three 8-megapixel wide-angle lenses with

single shot, burst and time-lapse modes.

The smartphone-like 240 Ricoh Theta

includes two opposed hemispherical lenses to

capture 360° stills, and weighs just 95g.

Kickstarter-funded Giroptic’s 360cam has

a unique, egg-shaped design, incorporating

three 185° fish-eye lenses synchronised to

capture and stitch images in realtime inside

the camera.

The palm-sized, spherical Bublcam houses

four 190° 1.6 megapixel lenses and is capable

of recording video at 30fps at 720p or 15fps at

1080p exporting as an MP4.

360Heros offers a 790 mount composed of

Aircraft Flexible Nylon for up to 14 GoPros and

software for stitching them in pairs to form 3D

360. It also has an underwater mounts for 360°

sub-aqua capture.

VideoStich Live from Paris’ VideoStitch

has a range of rigs around 500 housing six to

ten GoPros (it can work with other cameras)

including the Freedom 360 Explorer for

underwater shots.

NextVR has a rig outfitted with six Red

Dragons and claims to be able to support live

streaming of UHD VR content at 60fps.

iSTAR, designed and manufactured by

NCTech for mobile mapping, houses four

sensors delivering a 50-megapixel spherical

image with up to 27 fstops.

France’s Kolor offers a range of image

stitching and 360° virtual tour solutions

branded Autopanor and Panortour and

includes a free video player.

360o video systems

This year has seen a huge number of new

cameras introduced. Besides all of the

4K and high-end systems discussed in last

month’s TVBEurope, there have been a lot of

changes in the low-end and middle market,

including more affordable studio cameras, a

huge choice of compact and miniature cameras,

and greater flexibility for high-speed models.

Studio and system camerasThe sleek HD Blackmagic Studio Camera sells for as

little as £1,125, while the Ultra HD model is £1,740. They

use micro four-thirds camera sensors (the HD version

is slightly smaller than the 4K), and can take add-on

B4 or other lens mounts. Besides the large (ten-inch

1920x1200) viewfinder and the lens, they take up

little space. They include talkback, tally lights and

bi-directional optical fibre connections, plus a three

(4K) or four (HD) hour battery allowing independent

operation via a single optical fibre cable.

The SK-1300 is Hitachi’s first CMOS studio

camera and “takes us to new levels of

performance,” said Paddy Roache, director and

general manager, Hitachi UK.

The 3G-SDI 1080p camera “offers higher

sensitivity than our CCD versions,” added Richard

Harvey, technical director. However, Hitachi was

“reluctant to leap into CMOS before we were

confident of reliability,” explained Roache.

The camera offers sensitivity of F11 at 1080/50p,

signal-to-noise of 62dB, realtime lens aberration

correction, quick focus and focus assist.

Ikegami’s new HC-HD300 is a compact and

“aggressively-priced” HD shoulder mountable

camera with three 1/3-inch CMOS sensors,

and outputs 1920x1080 50i/59.94i, 1280x720

50p/59.94p, plus NTSC and PAL. It offers 58dB S/N

and sensitivity of F11 for 1080/50i.

Also new is the HDK-790X, a studio version of

the portable 79GX, with additional, and more

easily accessible, facilities, such as variable

viewfinder markers and easy access to functions,

such as a button for focus assist.

Ikegami also has two new ultra-low light cameras:

the HDL-4500 box camera has a minimum sensitivity

of just 0.001 lux (or F22 at 2000 lux), with a S/N ratio of

56dB in HD. “It’s amazing. It will be ideal for wildlife

and natural history,” said Mark Capstick, general

manager, Ikegami Electronics UK. It uses three 2/3-inch CMOS sensors. Although it can be fitted with

a viewfinder, shoulder pad and handle, there is also

a new Unicam HD system camera version, the

HDK-5500, which is more easily expandable with

triax, fibre or wireless backs.

Wireless links as standardIP-enabled cameras, which make it simple

to upload video files directly, even for live

streaming, are a key trend among smaller

cameras, particularly for ENG use.

Panasonic’s new AJ-PX800 P2 HD camcorder

will cost €13,400 and offers full networking with

“the ability to stream straight from the camera a

Acquisition — Cameras28 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

Broadcast camera round up

Mid-market movers

Harvey: SK-1300 “offers higher sensitivity than our CCD versions”

David Fox investigates the movers and shakers in the camera market and the latest technology developments

Panasonic’s new AJ-PX800 is being used by ITN in its wireless networking trials

high-quality image with latency of less than one

second, so you can do a two-way interview over

a 4G network,” said Rob Tarrant, Panasonic’s

European product manager.

At 2.8kg, it is also “the lightest three-chip 2/3-inch shoulder-mount camera on the market.”

ITN is using it for a networking trial, allowing users

to upload content in the background over IP, 3G,

4G and Wi-Fi at up to 6Mbps in proxy resolution,

so that editors make their decisions, then send

an EDL back to the camera, uploading only the

full-resolution pictures they need.

ITN is also using Panasonic’s AJ-PX5000 P2 HD

cameras to deliver reports to its London head

office “very, very soon after it’s been shot,” said

ITN CTO, Bevan Gibson. “It allows us to send back

footage

without sat

trucks or other

links, delivering the

content to our non-linear

platforms faster than ever before.”

Panasonic’s new HC-X1000 Ultra HD 4K

camcorder can record UHD 60p/50p on an

SD card. It can also record Cinema 4K.

On formatSony has added the more efficient XAVC recording

format to all of its XDCAM cameras (which still

also record MPEG-2 MXF), either I-frame or 10-bit

Long-GoP – which gives greater quality at 50Mbps

than MPEG-2, “especially in the dark areas,

where there is now very little noise,” said Robbie

Fleming, product marketing manager, entry-level

production, who believes that 35Mbps XAVC is

equal to 50Mbps MPEG-2.

It is adding live streaming in early 2015, with

a maximum of two seconds latency. “We are

developing our own receiver, and also partnering

with Teradek,” said Lucie Wendremaire, Sony’s

European product marketing manager for news

and broadcast production.

The system can work on networks with a very

poor signal-to-noise ratio thanks to a new Quality

of Service (QoS) application on the transmitter.

In demonstrations, the signal broke up constantly

without the app, but was usable with the app.

The QoS app will be a free upgrade in early 2015,

for the CBK-WA100 wireless LAN/modem adapter.

Wendremaire sees the new 22,500 PXW-X500

as “the ultimate broadcast camera from Sony.”

It uses three newly-developed 2/3-inch CCD

sensors. “We truly believe this is best in class

quality, with no rolling shutting, no motion

artefacts, and a wider colour gamut than CMOS.”

It records all the legacy codecs, plus XAVC

Intra and Long GoP, and will be able to have two

optional codecs (ProRes and DNxHD, recording

internally to SxS cards – available April). A further

option records at up to 120fps, “unique for a CCD

sensor. Normally a CCD cannot cope with such

high frame rates. This will make it very suitable for

sport, thanks to the lack of rolling shutter,” she said.

The X500 can be used as a live camera with a

fibre or triax back.

Other new models include: the PXW-X200

(replacing the PMW-200) with three 1/2-inch


“[The Panasonic AJ-PX5000 P2 HD cameras] allow us to send back footage

without sat trucks or other links, delivering the content to our non-linear platforms

faster than ever before” Bevan Gibson, ITN

Acquisition — Cameras

www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

Acquisition — Cameras30 TVBEurope

CMOS sensors offering better sensitivity, new

17x lens, and wireless links offering remote

control, FTP and live streaming via a Wi-Fi

dongle or a 3G/4G USB stick.

The PXW-X180 and PXW-X160 have three 1/3-inch sensors and a 25x zoom with three

control rings. “It’s the widest lens we do and has

variable ND filters,” said Flemming. Users can

record different formats on each card (of two)

or relay record.

For very low-light, the 4K-capable A7S

full-frame 35mm DSLR goes up to 409,600

ISO, recording XAVC-S (4:2:0 8-bit) at 50Mbps

internally to SD card, with S-log and Cine modes,

and 4K 4:2:2 output for an external recorder.

The compact 2,313 PXW-X70 uses a single

1-inch 4K sensor (a little larger than Super 16mm

size). It will record 4K (via 500 upgrade early

2015), and records 1080 50/60p HD on two SD

cards in XAVC Long GoP at up to 50Mbps (4:2:2

10-bit), plus AVCHD and DV.

There is also a new MI (Multi-Interface) Shoe

for all of its new XDCAM cameras (except

the PMW-300), including the A7S and FS7. This

intelligent hot shoe allows users to control a light

from the camera, and power it if necessary, and

can also hold a wireless receiver, taking the audio

via the shoe so there is no need to plug it in via

XLR. It is limited to one channel at the moment, but

there could be a dual-channel version in future.

EOS upgradeThe new Canon EOS C100 Mark II is a

comprehensive upgrade of its entry-level

Super35 camera, offering improved image

quality and creative flexibility, easier operation

and wireless sharing.

It is the first Cinema EOS camera to get

integrated Wi-Fi, for file transfer via FTP, and can

record both MP4 and AVCHD (or HD and SD)

simultaneously to the two SD cards (and upload

the low-bitrate version).

Canon’s new XF205 and XF200 each have

a single slightly-bigger-than 1/3-inch CMOS

sensor and come with Wi-Fi and Ethernet LAN

connectivity, for direct or wireless connection

to smartphones, tablets and laptops, including

camera control, remote viewing and the

ability to transfer files via FTP without additional

software. A new CameraAccess function

allows lower-quality proxy files to be streamed

to another device via Wi-Fi, improving the

speed in which content, such as news flashes,

can be shared.

Each camera has a 20x zoom lens (equivalent

to 28.8 to 576mm at 35mm, f1.8), plus ND

filter, records at 50Mbps (MPEG-2) 4:2:2 MXF

on Compact Flash (dual card slots) and can

simultaneously capture 35Mbps 4:2:0 MP4 files

to an SD card, in HD or lower resolutions, for

shooting for both broadcast and web channels,

plus two XLR inputs.

Wendremaire: The new PXW-X500 is “the ultimate broadcast camera from Sony”



B4 and afterThe recently introduced Blackmagic Ursa PL and

EF-mount UHD cameras will soon be joined by

a Broadcast (B4-mount) version using a smaller

13.056mm x 7.344mm sensor than the other Super

35mm models – the sensor and lens mount is a

user-upgradable block.

It has dual CFast 2.0 card recorders for

recording at up to 350MBps, with support for

ProRes and 12-bit CinemaDNG Raw.

Up to speedI-Movix has introduced modular and UHD

versions of its X10 high-speed system, using Vision

Research Phantom cameras.

“There is now almost a bespoke answer for any

set of requirements a customer may have, but

whatever the chosen configuration the solution

will have all the advantages of the market-

leading X10 core technology,” said I-Movix

CEO, Laurent Renard.

Every modular system requires the rack-mount

X10 CCU, and configurations include: X10 USM,

for very high frame-rate sports applications (up to

2,600fps at 1080i, or 5,600fps at 720p); X10 Spine,

which sits below a Phantom camera and supports

the same frame rates but adds operational

flexibility for additional non-broadcast use; X10 SSM,

for use as a conventional HD broadcast camera

with the addition of continuously-recorded super

slo-mo at 300fps (1080i) or 600fps (720p); and the

X10 UHD, which works with the Phantom Flex4K and

can do up to 500/600fps in HD or 100/120fps in 4K

for live use, or can do up to 2,00fps in 1080i/1080p

and up to 1,000fps in 4K for ultra-slow-motion

applications. There are also RF wireless versions

of each module.

For multi-camera production there is the X10

Multi, which can be used with three camera

heads (six channels).

Grass Valley’s new LDX XtremeSpeed (LDX XS) 6x

ultra-slow-motion system comes in both box and

system camera models, delivering 150 or 179.82

3x frame rates and 300 or 359.64 6x frame rates in

1080i and 720p, plus 150 or 179.82 3x frame rates in

1080p, as well as 1x standard speed live output.

There are also two new 3X cameras, the LDX HS

(HiSpeed) and LDX Compact HS, successors to the

LDK 8300, both of which are software upgradable

to the LDX XS and LDX Compact XS, respectively.

The cameras also work in

tandem with Grass Valley’s

K2 Dyno Replay System and

K2 Summit 3G Production

Client, which, using Dyno’s

AnySpeed technology,

allows for smooth playback

at any speed from zero per

cent to 200 per cent.

Heroic effort by miniature camerasThe biggest name in small

cameras is GoPro, which

has just released its latest

range: the Hero4. The

$499 Hero4 Black offers 4K

(and 12MP stills – at 30p),

2.7K (at 50p) and 1080p

at up to120fps, plus a

redesigned audio system

with twice the dynamic

range of previous models,

improved image quality,

better low light performance, highlight tagging,

improved user interface and faster Wi-Fi.

The $399 Hero4 Silver records 2.7K/30p,

1080/60p and 720/120p, and includes a built-in

touch display. There is also an entry-level $129

GoPro Hero, for 1080/30p and 720/60p.

GoPro has also expanded its professional

Protune mode to include colour, sharpness, ISO

limit, and exposure controls.

Camera Corps also has three tiny new cameras:

the Q3 robotic pan/tilt/zoom/focus camera; the

very compact MeerCat; and the third-generation

Stump Cam.

The IP45-rated Q3 comes in the unobtrusive

spherical housing of its Q-Ball predecessor, and

has a 1/3-inch 1920x1080 CMOS imager.

The MeerCat is small enough to be used as a

wearable camera, yet has full control, including

The new Stump Cam can be “completely housed inside a regulation-gauge cricket stump” Paul McNeil, Camera Corps

Canon’s EOS C100 Mark II is the first Cinema EOS camera with integrated Wi-Fi

Hero shot: GoPro’s new Hero4 is the latest in its best-selling line of action cameras

Integrated robotics: Telemetrics’ new Robo Eye HD pan/tilt/zoom camera

Acquisition — Cameras32 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

manual iris. It has a very small footprint, 30x30mm,

and is only 93mm high, to fit very narrow locations.

It can deliver 1080p, 1080i or 720p video at 50,

59.94 or 60Hz, via HD-SDI – or an optical feed using

Camera Corps’ optical fibre interface. The power

supply and interface can be up to 30m from the

camera head, and control signals can be delivered

over a standard audio line, so the interface can be

any distance from the operator. Six MeerCats can

be controlled from one remote panel.

The new Stump Cam can be “completely

housed inside a regulation-gauge cricket stump.

This gives users the freedom to place cameras

in the mid or outer stumps. Each camera can

be configured with a choice of 50°, 100° or 128°

lenses to allow tight, wide or super wide shots,” said

Camera Corps’ projects manager Paul McNeil.

“The Version 3 Cricket Stump Cam system consists

of four cameras: two for each wicket. A classic

arrangement is to position one camera with a

tight-angle lens facing forward to capture images

of the bowler and the oncoming ball. The second

camera, fitted with a super wide lens, is then ideally

placed to televise the wicket keeper. All four feeds

are multiplexed onto single-mode fibre.”

A Robo Eye viewThe new Telemetrics Robo Eye integrated HD PTZ

camera has a Sony Exmor 2.18MP CMOS sensor

and 30x zoom lens, with a S/N ratio of 50dB and

sensitivity of F8 at 2,000 lux.

It offers native 1920x1080 HD-SDI and HDMI

outputs, plus SD composite video signals in NTSC

and PAL. Gain set-up is automatic with a manual

override, and up to 1,000 presets can be stored.

Its servo motors have stop accuracy of 0.005°

and feedback accuracy of 0.000375°, and offer

a pan/tilt velocity of 0.0 - 90° per second.

Open goalBradley Engineering’s elbow-shaped Elkam

was designed to fit in a corner post for rugby

coverage, and is also ideal as an in-goal camera

(it can simply hang in the netting), in corner

pockets for snooker, or on nest boxes for wildlife

productions – “because of its weight distribution,

it just hangs, you don’t have to do any rigging,”

said CEO, David Bradley.

It has a full HD 1/3-inch CMOS sensor, a 100°

wide-angle lens and full remote control. It can

be used with Bradley’s Remote Control Panel

Mk3, which can control all four goalmouth

cameras on the pitch.

Bradley also introduced RD12, probably the

smallest wireless CCU controller capable of

controlling all of the parameters on a broadcast

camera. At just 100g and 88mmx60mmx12.5mm,

it operates with Sony, Ikegami, Panasonic and

Bradley cameras, controlling iris, tally, red gain,

blue gain and pedestal. Goal keeper: Bradley gets up close with his new Elkam camera



Marshall Electronics’ second-generation miniature

2MP HD-SDI camera, the CV500-M2, supports

multiple formats, including 1920x1080 50p and 50i,

and 1280x720 50p. It offers improved versatility,

durability, compatibility, and functionality

compared to its predecessor, with a full size HD-SDI

(BNC) and easily switchable M12 lenses.

“We’ve expanded lens compatibility to a

dozen Marshall HD lenses ranging from 2.5mm to

50mm. Lens options and ease of installation make

this camera possibly the most versatile PoV mini

camera in the broadcast market today,” claimed

Tod Musgrave, product marketing manager,

Marshall Electronics.

The new Flare 2KSDI-ENR is a major upgrade

for IO Industries’ HD/2K mini camera, offering

improved image quality and extra output

formats. Besides outputting full 2K Raw for digital

cinema or 4:2:2 for live broadcast, it now gains

new RGB 4:4:4 output modes in 1080p and 2K.

DSLRs on track for studiosNikon has two interesting new full-frame

DSLRs designed for video use, and has linked up

with Mark Roberts Motion Control to create

an autotracking system for small studios or

sports production.

It can track talent or objects in motion using

automated cameras, MRMC’s AFC-100 heads

and Polycam autotracking to track multiple focus

points. It has tracked cars at over 355kph (220mph),

accelerating through tight corners, demanding

ultra-fast response from the camera heads. A

single operator can automatically control the

synchronous movement of numerous cameras.

“The multiple camera installations are easy to

set up and control from a central location,”

said Assaf Rawner, CEO of Mark Roberts Motion

Control. “In F1, for example, there could be

substantial savings just on freight costs, taking

into account all the peripheral equipment

needed to put an operator safely into the field.

The broadcast unit also has the advantage of

directly controlling and synchronising remote

cameras from one place, all over a standard

Ethernet network.”

Nikon’s €3,200 D810 and smaller D750 (€2,149

inc VAT) both offer full-frame and Super35 format

shooting in full HD at up to 50/60fps, with clean

HDMI out, plus simultaneous capture of full-

resolution footage at up to 42Mbps in H.264 and

on an external recorder.

The D750 “is the first pro camera in the Nikon

range with a flippable [3.2-inch] screen,” said Frank

Zuidweg, co-ordinator Nikon Professional Services.

It is also its first full-frame (24x35.9mm) camera to

have Wi-Fi for remote operation. “We’ve made

it as compact and lightweight as possible [using

carbon fibre and magnesium], without losing any

functionality for professional users,” he added.

Flip-up: Zuidweg demonstrates the new Nikon D750 video-focused DSLR

ARRI, De Sisti, Videssence and Zylight are

all combining the single shadow beam

of the traditional Fresnel lens with the

lower power needs of LEDs.

The latest in ARRI’s L-Series of LED Fresnels, is

the 115W L5, which offers the same features

as the L7, at half the weight and size. It is

tuneable from 2,800K-10,000K, has green/

magenta correction, hue selection, saturation

control and DMX control.

There are L5-C (Colour), L5-TT (Tungsten

Tuneable, 2,600K-3,600K) and L5-DT (Daylight

Tuneable, 5,000K-6,500K) models. The L5-C is the

most tuneable, but the L5-TT and L5-DT are 25 per

cent brighter. New features of the L5 include a

PowerCON power connector and battery input

for portability. De Sisti has four new LED Fresnels,

offering up to 56 per cent greater output in full

fl ood than previous models, with a Television

Lighting Consistency Index of 90 for tungsten and

92 for daylight versions.

The compact 55W LED Magis has a 120mm

Fresnel lens, the 110W LED Leonardo 6 and

Leonardo Piccolo 6 have 150mm lenses, while

the 150W LED Leonardo 10 has a 250mm lens.

Users of existing De Sisti 1kW or 2 kW tungsten

Fresnels can retrofi t a 110W LED in the 1kW or

a 150W LED in the 2kW. Zylight has upgraded

its collapsible 100W F8 LED Fresnel. It delivers

close to the output of a traditional 1kW Fresnel

and collapses to less than 10cm thick for easy

transport. Its yoke mount has now been angled

for greater positioning range and is able to

accommodate 90° stand mounting.

Acquisition — Lighting34 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

Taking a shine to LEDsHigher quality LEDs, particularly in conjunction with Fresnel lenses, and better colour temperature control are the key trends in broadcast lighting. David Fox reports

Space man: Polaczek with the new Sumo100, surrounded by the Sumolight LED Spacelight

Plus, all locking and adjustment is

done with a single knob.

On the light: the self-locking focus

now automatically holds focus

position; it has improved bellows

design for smoother operation;

self-terminating DMX input; better

protection from the elements; and

a new heat sink orientation that

allows 20 per cent better cooling.

“We went back to the drawing

board to make the F8 even better,

without changing the features that

make it the most exciting lighting

instrument on the market” said Joe

Arnao, president of Zylight.

Available in daylight (5600K)

or tungsten (3200K), it is fully

dimmable with an adjustable beam

spread (16-70°), using a patented

focusing system for spot and flood

operations. It can be powered from

standard 14.4v camera batteries

or AC adapter, and is water

resistant (IP54).

Face to FaceliteThe lightweight new Videssence

Facelite 010 is a compact, high

colour rendering LED 10W niche light

that is easy to handle or mount in

tight quarters. It is designed to boost

the vertical light levels on a subject’s

face and features, to separate them

from the ambient lighting. A smooth,

even wash of light is produced with

the frosted spread lens gel that

comes as standard. The Osram/

Sylvania HF2 Narrow Stick LED 3000K

lamp (optional 4000K) should last

50,000 hours. Videssence also has

three new Fresnel LED lights: the

Vidnel 050 50W LED Fresnel; and

two mini LED lights. All are rated at

96+ CRI for tungsten – there are also

daylight versions.

The Little VID LV050 (with stationary

beam and permanent barn doors)

and the Little VID-Focusable,

LV050-F, mini LED lights have

lightweight, compact (165mm x

152.4mm) housings. Passive cooling

delivers quiet operation, and power

is shut off to the driver and LED

when dimmed to zero with DMX so

no external relay or power cut off

is required. The 5.4kg Vidnel 050

joins the Vidnel VN100 100W

fixture introduced last year, and is

designed for key or back lighting.

It has a manual, lockable slide

bar, and spot focus delivers more

than 1077 lux at 3.6m. There is DMX

control and onboard dimming. It

takes standard four-inch Gel Frame

and Barn Door accessories.

Look softPhoton Beard’s new PhotonBeam

80 LED floodlight uses remote


Acquisition — Lighting

The Rotolight Neo has dual knobs for brightness and colour temperature

Altogether cooler: Improvements to the F8 include better cooling and smoother operation

“We went back to the drawing board to make the F8 even better, without changing the features that make it the most exciting

lighting instrument on the market”Joe Arnao, Zylight

Acquisition — Lighting36 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

phosphor technology that has been adapted to

enable it to provide near full spectrum, high CRI

lighting. It is available in daylight 5600K

or tungsten 3000K versions. Power can be

supplied from 90-260v AC mains or via standard

V- or Gold-mount 11-17v DC camera batteries.

De Sisti’s new LED softlights, the twin-array Soft-

LED 2 and triple-array Soft-LED 3 lights, also use

remote phosphors. They offer a controlled beam

white source (daylight or tungsten) that produce

soft shadows with even distribution and no pixel

effect from the LED. Kino Flo’s Celeb 400Q DMX

softlight joins its Celeb range, which is claimed

to offer “the only stable, colour-variable

LED to ride the spectral sensitivity curves of

digital cinema cameras.”

The LED lights have been designed to offer

peak lumen output without sacrificing Kino

Flo’s signature True Match colour and soft light

aesthetic. Special thermal dynamics (no metal

fins or fans) are claimed to ensure the colour

temperature will remain stable for 50,000 hours

and output won’t fade.

The 65x65cm DMX Celeb 400Q is tuneable

from 2700K to 5500K (saveable as five presets)

without affecting light output, while dimming

(100 to zero per cent) won’t change the colour

temperature settings.

Squaring offLitepanels’ new Astra 1x1 Bi-Color panel is up to

four times as bright as its traditional 1x1 Bi-Color

and offers a high CRI. The daylight-to-tungsten

tuneable colour light is the first in a new range.

It offers higher intensity, a longer throw, and a

wider effective beam spread than the original.

It has both passive (silent) and active cooling

(using an ultra-quiet fan module, for double light

output). An optional communications module

allows brightness, colour temperature and cooling

mode to be controlled via DMX512. Additional

wired and wireless communication modules are

The straight and narrow: The Videssence Facelite

010 is good in tight spaces


Acquisition — Lighting

in development. Rosco’s new Braq

Cube packs 100W of LED output

into a 12.5cm cube. The Braq Cube

WNC offers 7,000 lumens of white

light tuneable from 2800K to 6500K,

and is powerful enough to hang

from the grid, yet small enough to

be mounted inside scenic elements.

The Braq Cube 4C uses RGBW

quad-chip technology that

eliminates multi-coloured shadows

and can create a fully blended

palette of saturated, mid-tone and

pale tint colours. It also produces

a white light that is particularly

flattering to skin tones.

The smaller (10cm) Miro Cube

LED wash light outputs 3,000+

lumens and is available either as

a full colour mixing fixture (Miro

4C) or a tuneable (Miro WNC).

The slim, soft Rosco LitePad LED

light has been upgraded, and

is now fully customisable and

available in tuneable White and

RGB configurations. It comes in

two models: LitePad Axiom, in a

protective metal housing, and

LitePad HO+, the raw LED light

engine just 8mm thick.

Neo dynamicsThe Rotolight Neo is claimed to be

the world’s first on-camera light

with accurate electronic colour

temperature display, for tuneable

colour (3150K to 6300K in 10K steps).

The bi-colour LED delivers 957 lux

at 90cm, and uses 120 LEDs for full

spectrum colour reproduction with

an overall CRI of 95 (and a skin tone

rating of more than 98). Neo can be

powered by six AA batteries for up

to five hours (or three hours at 100

per cent), or via an AC adapter or

D-Tap, drawing just 9W at full power.

Space raceSpacelights can consume a lot of

power, and require a huge amount

of cable with large dimmer racks.

“There have been a number of

different LED-based approaches

to this problem over the past few

years, but so far it doesn’t seem that

any of them have really caught on,”

said Sumolight CEO Ralf Polaczek.

Generally the result has been heavy

lights (weighing about 20 to 25kg)

with fixed colour temperature, and

sometimes even fans. “Basically the

lights in this category just haven’t

been very exciting.”

He hopes to change this with the

new Sumolight LED Spacelight,

which is fully dimmable and

flicker free at any frame rate, and

comes in a bi-colour, daylight

and tungsten versions. Its output

equals a traditional 6kW tungsten

spacelight with a skirt but uses less

than 500W and is fully passively

cooled. With 30° optics (quickly

swappable) it gives more than

550fc at 3m. It weighs about 5kg,

including ballast, and has a

DMX-RDM interface.

The new Sumo100 LED light can

do some things many other lights

can’t, such as run off 12v from a car,

at high output. It boasts very high

colour accuracy (TLCI 99 and CRI

95+) for daylight and tungsten. It

outputs 1200 lux at 3m, is tuneable

from 3000K-5700K, with zero to100

per cent dimming, weighs 2kg, and

offers interchangeable optics for

30°, 60° and 120° beam angles.

Plasma buzzOne of the few non-LED debuts is

Hive Lighting’s new Wasp Plasma

Par with tuneable Daylight Dial

that ranges from 4800K to 7000K.

The 276W Wasp is flicker free up to

225 million fps and has a powerful

10° beam that can do the work of

smaller HMIs on set. When combined

into arrays (called Killers) the Wasp

is claimed to be the brightest fixture

that can be plugged into a wall.

The six-light Killer is the equivalent

of a 4kW HMI running off of a single

120v wall socket, while 240v allows

as many as 12 to be plugged in at

once. The Wasp can be fitted with

lenses and soft-boxes, or even the

barrel of an ETC source 4, to create

a daylight spot.

The Daylight Dial is calibrated

to prevent green/magenta

shift and can transition all

the way to deep blue

moonlight, with little or no

dimming. It is now available

across all of Hive’s lights.

“There have been a number of different LED-based approaches to this problem over the past few years, but so far it doesn’t seem that

any of them have really caught on” Ralf Polaczek

Hang ten: The 150W LED Leonardo 10 is the largest of De Sisti’s new LED Fresnels

T he grand ballroom at Hilton London

Wembley was the setting for a truly grand

night in which deserving award winners

were recognised, and talent throughout the

industry celebrated. TVBEurope executive editor

James McKeown welcomed awards nominees,

broadcast professionals, PR companies and

TVBEurope figures past and present, who packed

out the venue. “Beyond the pomp and the

ceremony, tonight we are coming together to

celebrate all that is great about our industry,

in the company of friends and colleagues,”

opened McKeown. “We will be recognising

those pushing the boundaries in their fields;

honouring the pursuit of excellence,

innovation, and endeavour.”

The awards were divided into four categories,

with the aim of encompassing a broad range

of talent and expertise in the broadcast media

field. Presentations began with the Workflow

category and first up on stage to collect the

Achievement in Sound award was NUGEN Audio,

for its work on Later…with Jools Holland. This was

followed by Achievement in Systems Integration,

which went to Cambridge Imaging Systems. “The

award is for our work in UK education, providing

a catch-up TV service across 60 universities,” the

company explained. “The BBC and the British

Universities Film and Video Council enabled us

to capture TV and broadcast from the entire

UK spectrum and also from foreign language

channels and to produce those for catch-up,

learning and research.” Finally, dock10 was

awarded Achievement in Post Production

for work on hit TV drama series Happy Valley,

broadcast on BBC One.

The World Cup was a major TV event this

year, so it’s perhaps of little surprise that the

sporting highlight cropped up twice in the

Delivery category. Elemental Technologies was

awarded the Achievement in Fast Turnaround

Broadcast for its successful delivery of a 4K

UHD TV broadcast of the World Cup over an IP

network using Elemental Live encoding, while EVS

walked away with Achievement in Multiplatform

Content for its delivery of the showpiece

tournament. The partnership between EVS and

specialist production company HBS provided the

live and multimedia production and distribution

workflow, including nearly 200 servers and

related connectivity. “With the trust of HBS and

FIFA we’ve been able to accomplish many things

and the multiplatform delivery and multiscreen

delivery technology that we’ve put forward is

something we’re very proud of,” said EVS on

receipt of its award. Achievement in Legacy

Content went to RR Media, for the British Pathe

historic archive for YouTube.

Within the Capture category, Beyond HD

Achievement for Excellence in Image Capture

TVBAwards38 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

Broadcast talent is rewardedat inaugural TVBAwards

Holly Ashford reports on the resounding success of our first ever TVBAwards event on Thursday 23 October, where the broadcast media industry gathered to celebrate a year of achievement and progress, in the shadow of Wembley Stadium

TVBEurope executive editor James McKeown welcomes guests to the TVBAwards

Members of the BAFTA Albert Consortium collect the Sustainability Award for Albert+

The team from Milk VFX receive their TVBAward for Natural History Museum Alive


TVBAwards

was created to celebrate a

company or in-house team

responsible for outstanding use

of new and innovative image

capture technologies in a live or

recorded TV programme. TV2 ASA,

Norway was the deserving winner

of the honour, for its work on the

spectacular Fly med oss. “We set off

in May 2014 with a helicopter and a

Cineflex camera and a 360-camera

mounted on the helicopter. We

flew for three weeks and got

some amazing pictures, both of

mountains and people, all over

Norway,” explained the winners,

who didn’t forget to thank the stars

of the documentary: “This award

is actually also to the Norwegian

people who went out on the top

of the mountains and took their

clothes off and waved to us!”

The Achievement in Sports

Broadcast award was picked up

by Presteigne Broadcast Hire, for

its work, in association with CTV,

on The Boat Race – the annual

shootout on the Thames between

the universities of Oxford and

Cambridge. Receiving the award,

the company described the

project as “a technically complex

programme both sides, which saw

lots of innovation, and the first use

of IP and RF mesh-based acquisition

systems, which is reflected in this

award.” Achievement in VFX went

to Milk VFX for the magical Natural

History Museum Alive, broadcast on

New Year’s Day.

The awards ceremony

concluded with the presentation

of four Special Awards, the first

of which went to Karmarama/

Red Bee Media for the WW1 on

the BBC campaign. To mark the

centenary of the start of the First

World War, the BBC commissioned

programmes about the conflict to

run over four years and released

a film showcasing the content.

Karmarama created the TV spot,

which shows the war from various

perspectives, tied together with

the wartime song Pack Up Your

Troubles In Your Old Kit-Bag, which

is sung or spoken by different

characters and BBC presenters.

“We’re very proud not only of

representing the BBC, but also

representing everybody who

gave their lives through what was

an incredibly tough campaign

in the First World War,” commented

Karmarama.

The Sustainability Award went to

BAFTA Albert Consortium for

its Albert +, an industry project

promoting sustainability in the

production process.

Channel 4 was the winner of the

award for Outstanding Broadcast,

in one of the most eagerly

anticipated moments of the night.

The broadcaster demonstrated the

largest-ever UK TV commitment

to the Winter Paralympic Games

in Sochi, delivering 50 hours of

coverage, with two further digital

streams providing 100 hours of

additional content. “A lot of

people have worked very hard on

Channel 4’s behalf to deliver the

best possible coverage and to tell

the great stories of the Paralympics

we’ve been working with,” said

the broadcaster.

The evening wrapped up with

Dr David Wood, former deputy

technical director of the EBU

and current chair of the World

Broadcasting Union’s Technical

Committee, taking to the stage.

Wood had previously been

announced as the recipient of the

Lifetime Achievement award

and shared with attendees a

reflection of fond memories of his

career and experiences in the

broadcast industry.

Simon Fell, technology and

innovation director at the EBU

described Wood as “a unique

talent well respected in the

industry. His humour and all round

enthusiasm for all things involving

media technologies have given him

international respect.”

TVBEurope would like to thank

our TVBAwards sponsors, Manor

Marketing, Ericsson and IBC, as well

as all of our guests. For those who

were unable to make it, we hope to

see you in 2015.

Lifetime Achievement winner Dr David Wood accepts his award from James McKeown

Attendees enjoyed dinner at the Hilton before the Awards presentations got underway

40 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com November 2014

Devlin: As we start to deploy transcoding

into the cloud the biggest challenge remains

interoperability between systems. Gone are

the days when a transcode was just a case

of fl ipping a codec from .mp2 to .mp4. The

current transcode paradigm is much more like

manufacturing on demand, with a different

feature set between contribution transcoding,

and transcoding for web. Smart transcoding

involves great deinterlacing, frame rate

conversion, audio handling, captions and

subtitles and metadata handling with a minimum

of fuss for the end user – something Dalet

AmberFin has been pushing for the last six years.

This complexity results in a legacy of years of fi les

being made in the wild that contain subtle and

expensive-to-correct issues in them. These issues

can lie there until an upgrade of playout servers,

transcode farm and/or editing equipment takes

place when the errors need to be addressed.

Eksten: The biggest single infl uence as we think

about transcoding and encoding and all the

ramifi cations are the next generation formats

and their resolutions. The challenge is that chip

set manufacturers are reticent to leap into the

game. On the software side, we’ve crossed

the line. We know that software can do most of

what we would describe as being part of the

broadcast infrastructure in realtime. As you

move to software, there are discussions about

how you are going to manage or monitor the

systems and I think that is something the industry

is a little bit behind in.

Turner: Whilst our business is to take fi les from

one format and turn them into another, the

proliferation of those formats is a constant

Delivering a coded message

Transcoding is a vital part of today’s broadcast and production chain. Philip Stevens moderates this month’s Forum which tackles some of the issues facing this complex technology

Different video and audio workfl ow environments mean that there is always a need for fi le transfers to take place. So what are the challenges for transcoding equipment makers? Does the use of second screens add complications? And has the ‘cloud’ made an impact on the transcoding scene?

To discuss these and related issues, we’ve brought together (in alphabetical order) Bruce Devlin, chief media scientist, Dalet; Brick Eksten, VP product development, Imagine Communications; Simone Sassoli, VP marketing and business development at RGB Networks; Paul Turner, VP enterprise product management at Telestream; Owen Walker, head of product management, root6 Technology; Keith Wymbs, chief marketing offi cer for Elemental.

Transcoding Forum

“The current transcode paradigm is much more like manufacturing on demand, with a different feature set between contribution

transcoding, and transcoding for web”Bruce Devlin, Dalet

What are the biggest challenges facing makers of transcoding equipment and services?


Transcoding Forum

issue. It has been made worse recently with

the introduction of new cameras, both in the

professional arena and in smartphones. The world

of newsgathering has been hit with this last issue

as UGC becomes more and more of a source for

final outputs. This is likely to continue as we move

forward. The challenge is not so much in the

decoding of the video and audio, but in ensuring

that metadata survives the transcoding process.

More and more of our customers’ workflows rely

on manipulation of metadata, so preservation

throughout the transcoding process is of great

importance. Unfortunately, there are no real

standards being enforced in this regard.

Walker: Transcoding is not a creative task, it

needs to be fast, reliable and automated. It also

needs to be part of an overall solution, it cannot

be an island. Products which enable transcoding

need to be workhorses which can scale to meet

these demands and provide the formats and

tools which clients require. The never-ending

emergence of new standards requires root6

to deploy resources to stay relevant in a very

dynamic, rapidly changing industry as the move

to complete file-based workflows becomes the

norm. Interoperability with third-party devices

as part of a wider workflow, such as file-based

QC, takes time in development, but can offer

rich rewards, rather than having to develop

every function in-house. Building tools which not

only provide the required transcoding needs,

but can also manage the workflow is key. Our

ContentAgent product provides encoding,

media management and metadata tracking

with a complete toolset for automating the

transcoding, management and distribution of

digital media files. Its user interface has been

designed to be operated by non-technical

users using a graphical node-based workflow

tool – to allow them to build their own workflows

and apply automated decision processes, and

provides a highly efficient encoding engine.

Wymbs: The key challenges are keeping

pace with rapid changes in streaming formats

and video resolutions, increased emphasis on

virtualisation, and helping customers maintain

a balance between adding new value-

added services, such as 4K, while controlling

costs. Elemental software-defined video

frees video providers from the constraints of

dedicated equipment by allowing for the best

architecture and processor combination to

be used for a particular application – even if

that application changes over time. Another

challenge is supporting customers contending

with increased demand for value add time-

shifted services, adapting those for multiscreen

“Transcoding is not a creative task, it needs to be fast, reliable and automated”

Owen Walker, root6 Technology


Transcoding Forum

viewing, monetising live services with targeted

advertising, and managing multiple content

delivery networks and network topologies. This

necessitates a new class of video infrastructure.

At IBC, Elemental introduced the Elemental

Delta video delivery platform that helps content

owners and distributors add new time-shifted

services, reduce distribution costs and more

precisely manage content in multiscreen

delivery deployments.

Devlin: This depends on the defi nition of second

screen. A presentation at Broadcast Asia from

Twitter confi dently stated that the only second

screen app of signifi cance was Twitter. Other

defi nitions of second screen include dedicated

apps and multi-view experiences for the

consumer. Many of these contain different media

to the fi rst screen and so have undoubtedly

increased the volume of transcoders required.

It has also added a new dimension in the

complexity of transcoding to be delivered. More

versions of more content packaged to more

deliverables with more automation and more

metadata more cheaply.

Sassoli: Advertising remains the primary revenue

source for the TV industry – representing 57.6 per

cent of total global ad spend in the latter half of

2013. Fortunately, the unicast nature of multiscreen

adaptive bitrate delivery of content provides

operators with a wealth of new opportunities to

create a more personalised ad engagement

experience in the multiscreen environment that, in

turn, drives revenue. RGB’s AIM is a leading alternate

content monetisation platform that enables relevant

advertising in realtime, across all video stream types,

on subscribers’ preferred viewing devices.

Bruce Devlin, Dalet Simone Sassoli, RGB Networks

Has the growing use of second screens made any impact when it comes to transcoding equipment and standards?


Transcoding Forum

Turner: It has certainly driven the demand for

high speed, parallel encoding at multiple bit

rates. We have specifi cally targeted a transcode

product at this area, focussing on high fan-out

encoding from a single input encode.

Walker: The explosion of media consumption

equals more platforms, equals more material,

equals more transcoding needs. The requirement

to transcode media in an effi cient and timely

manner requires the transcoding product to be

able to manage and scale to meet the ever-

growing demand for content in different formats

for different platforms. Keeping track of ever-

increasing versions of fi le-based material requires

a product which not only transcodes, but also

manages the overall workfl ow keeping track of all

media assets. The key to enabling new workfl ow

paradigms is to have a toolset which will allow the

end user to build and design their own workfl ows –

which will then automate multi-platform delivery.

Wymbs: Absolutely. Two cases in point include

the high-effi ciency video coding – HEVC/H.265

– compression approach and software-defi ned

video processing. HEVC is expected to become

the video standard of choice for the next decade.

It will fi nd widespread adoption in streaming,

broadcast, satellite, cable, IPTV, surveillance,

corporate video and gaming applications before

the end of the decade. As with each generation

of video compression technology before it, HEVC

promises to reduce the overall cost of delivering

and storing video assets while maintaining or

increasing the quality of experience for the viewer.

Without sacrifi cing video quality, HEVC can

reduce the size of a video fi le or bit stream by as

much as 50 per cent compared to AVC/H.264

or as much as 75 per cent compared to MPEG-2

standards. This results in reduced video storage

and transmission costs and also paves the way

for higher defi nition content to be delivered for

high-quality-of-experience consumer consumption

for new value-add multiscreen and 4K services.

When it comes to Software-Defi ned Video

Processing, keeping pace with rapid changes in

technology and consumer demand is a signifi cant

challenge to video providers as they try to address

a plethora of internet-connected devices. Relying

on traditional video processing infrastructure is

becoming increasingly diffi cult and costly, yet

video distributors simply do not have the option of

ignoring demand for multiscreen video services as

they risk permanent loss of customers to internet-

based OTT alternatives. Software-defi ned video

solutions offer a way around the tradeoff between

the need for long-term investments in technology

for video delivery and the expectation of short-

term return on investment. Software-defi ned

video is an infrastructure agnostic approach

to implementing fl exible, scalable and easily

upgradable video architectures.

Devlin: On the human front, the increasing

number of engineers who truly understand

storage and networking issues has made the

transcoding vendor’s life less diffi cult. Virtualisation

and network licensing solutions have made life

easier and more fl exible for the operational life

of the transcode customer. The mass roll-out of

contribution grade HD IP-streaming directly into

live transcoders is, however, still some years off

and remains an exotic solution today. I personally

wonder if the real, long-term solution will end up

using the cloud for this type of application.

Eksten: This is where all the excitement exists

today. The broad perspective at looking at IP

or IT, whatever term you use, is that there’s an

opportunity to benefi t from the economy of scale.

As the computers get faster, as the networks get

faster, as the prices come down, there’s the thought

that we are going to see cost savings and a fl exibility

for our infrastructure we never had previously. But

there’s a reality that is attached to that, which is

that these systems were not really designed for the

type of work that we do. If you look at IP, it is a ‘best

effort’ network. It is designed to robustly deliver

your emails, it is not designed to deliver every single

frame or frame boundaries. And especially if you

start talking about UHD, it becomes really scary. So

we fi nd ourselves at this crossroads, where we have

Brick Eksten, Imagine Communications

Keith Wymbs, Elemental

Does the increasing use of IP technology make any diff erence to transcoding practices?


Transcoding Forum

customers integrating islands of IT or IP into their

systems – where it makes sense – then trying to plan

a roadmap of how they are going to transition to

everything. I think it is incredibly exciting because it

creates opportunities for new product categories,

new technologies.

Wymbs: Absolutely. A good example of the

opportunity and challenge of IP video and the vital

role played by software-defi ned video processing

is found in the pay-TV market. Consumers of

video have the power today. By and large,

they decide when, where, and how they watch

their videos. Pay-TV providers are accelerating

their IP-based video services to compete more

effectively with rapidly emerging OTT providers.

But there’s an Achilles’ heel in many operators’ TV

Everywhere game plans – few or no live channels.

To keep a competitive edge, pay-TV operators

need an offensive strategy that enables them to

easily ready their technology infrastructures for

live linear streaming at the lowest possible total

cost of ownership. Hardware-based approaches

lack the agility and elasticity to get the job done.

Pay-TV providers enriching their current services

with premium live-linear streaming services can

strengthen their competitive position and speed up

time to market by deploying SDVP architectures as

the core of their next-generation infrastructures.

Devlin: There are two angles – technical impact

and business impact. A well-designed transcode

platform should offer the fault tolerant, fl exible

performance required to scale independently

of where it is actually running. Dalet AmberFin

has worked hard to achieve a resilient platform

that can scale from a small laptop to hundreds

of nodes in a facility or in a cloud. This technical

versatility makes the main impact of cloud a

business decision on resource allocation rather

than a technical one of making it work. Many

companies still prefer the owner-operator

model where all of their content stays within

the physical boundaries of their facility during

a transcode. Others are experimenting with

cloud to discover the techno-commercial

benefi ts. There isn’t a one-shoe-fi ts-all way to get

a win-win for every transcoder vendor and all

transcoder users.

Eksten: Yes, it has. Part of that change started

four or fi ve years ago when we began thinking

‘what is the value to the customer?’ When you

think about the systems we are trying to use in a

cloud environment, they don’t exactly meet our

requirements in broadcast. In an IP environment,

it’s all designed around ‘best effort’. When you

take that into the cloud, it gets that much more

challenging and so what we fi nd ourselves

having to do is look at the opportunities.

Spending more time encoding a feature

because we can do it in the cloud means we

can do it more easily. And if we are managing

all of our queues, and our pipeline from end to

end, then we know when we can squeeze it

into the overall workfl ow.

Sassoli: The IPTV industry has fi nally embraced

the cloud. And, at RGB Networks, we recognise

how open source projects like this can help

promote the use of standard APIs which

make it much easier for vendor-to-vendor

integration and for video service providers

to migrate to a cloud-based video delivery

model. We have just announced that we

are developing an open source version of

our popular TransAct Transcoder. Called

‘RipCode Transcoder’, the new, cloud-enabled

software transcoder will provide RGB Networks’

customers with greater control, integration

and fl exibility in their video delivery workfl ows.

In a pioneering move, and harnessing the

industry momentum toward developing

cloud-based solutions, RGB Networks is actively

welcoming operators and vendors to be part

of a community of contributors to the open

source project.

Turner: Customers are showing great interest in

the idea of transcoding in the cloud. It certainly

makes sense for many of them, but we feel

that in most cases, this technology will be used

for peak throughput management and

quarantined deployments. Peak management

in the sense that customers will continue to

have suffi cient capacity on premise to handle

their typical workload, but will cope with

peak demand by spinning up transcode farms

in the cloud. Others will use the cloud to allow

them to quickly bring new services online in a

secure, siloed fashion – quarantining the new

service from their run-rate operations until

such time as they feel they want to pull that

work on-premise. The cloud is not a cure-all,

though. Customers should carefully consider

the time and cost of transferring assets up to

the cloud service, and to download the

output fi les back to their own facilities. The costs

can be quite high, and the transfer times

can be quite long.

Walker: Cloud transcoding is the natural

evolution to enable vast server farms to scale

the encoding of fi les quickly and effi ciently.

However, there are some challenges at this

present time. Getting large media fi les to

and from the cloud storage is a challenge,

fast internet access is an absolute requirement,

and fi le delivery WAN acceleration tools must

be deployed. The cloud storage itself needs

to be able to support the bandwidth to

encode large media fi les and the servers

themselves need to be high-end machines to

enable fast processing. As network bandwidth

increases, cloud transcoding will become

more obtainable for many media companies.

One of the most interesting aspects of cloud

processing is the ability to subscribe to

Owen Walker, root6 Technology Paul Turner, Telestream

“To keep a competitive edge, pay-TV operators need an offensive strategy

that enables them to easily ready their technology infrastructures for live linear

streaming at the lowest possible total cost of ownership”

Keith Wymbs, Elemental

What impact has ‘the cloud’ had on transcoding practices?


Transcoding Forum

a cloud service on an ‘as needed’ basis:

a‘Software as a Service’ model rather than

using capital expenditure.

Wymbs: Video processing in the cloud provides

the scalability required to seamlessly add

capacity in order to keep pace with growth,

while also providing the elasticity to quickly

adjust capacity as demand fl uctuates. And

while costs can sometimes be higher for cloud-

based solutions on a per-asset basis, overall

costs can be optimised to accommodate

spikes in the demand. This improves business

planning, eliminates fi nancial risk and replaces

capital investments with operational expenses,

which often align expenses with revenues more

tightly. With a cloud video processing service,

such as the Elemental Cloud Platform as a

Service, users have more control than ever.

Businesses can experiment with offerings

before fully committing to large capital

investments and they can manage fl uctuations

in demand with ease rather than over-buying

processing capacity as a risk-mitigation

measure for the business.

Devlin: Increasing use of the smart toolbox such

as (AT)3 from Dalet AmberFin. As transcoding

becomes ‘manufacture on demand’, the role of

a smart transcoder will be to match the available

resources to each job’s requirements. (AT)3

shows how a toolbox can be created that gives

different performance depending on the source

material and the execution environment – CPU/

GPU/cloud. Ultimately, it’s a business decision to

match the best resources to the money-making

content. A modern transcode farm underpinned

by great IPR allows this to happen.

Eksten: On the hardware side, I think we will

continue to see solutions driving density and

quality, and, therefore, cost. You are going

to see much more dense platforms that are

going to be more easily traded off between

the number of streams and the quality of

those streams. So a little bit of that software

style of fl exibility, but in very dense and lower

powered hardware packages. On the software

side, we are going to see continued drive for

optimisation. We are still learning about visual

acuity – how people perceive content – and I

think there have been some real breakthroughs

over the last 12 months or so that are allowing us

to drive even greater compression.

Turner: We see transcoding as much more

than just converting media from one format to

another. We’re already producing products that

work in conjunction with Vantage’s transcoding

capabilities to reduce the repetitive operations

required of many creative personnel in various

workfl ows, and I think you’ll see an expansion of

that role continuing as we move forward.

Walker: As fi le-based delivery becomes

the norm, having comprehensive delivery

specifi cations will be paramount. At root6, we

have implemented a complete DPP workfl ow

solution with our ContentAgent product. From

creating the AVC-I essence to metadata

insertion tools to visual and fi le-based QC,

we have got it covered.

What is the next innovation we can expect relating to transcoding?


“The number of firsts we’re seeing in

the Second Quarter, 2014 State of the

Internet Report make this a particularly

interesting quarter,” commented David Belson,

editor of the report. “We’ve experienced our first

quarterly decrease in global unique IP address

counts, the global average connection speed has

risen above the 4Mbps broadband threshold, and

Akamai’s customers experienced a reduction in

the likelihood of repeat DDoS attacks.”

The global average connection speed

increased 21 per cent from the first to second

quarter of the year and, at 4.6Mbps, exceeded

the 4Mbps ‘broadband’ threshold for the first time.

For the second consecutive quarter, Switzerland

topped the European country listing, just ahead

of the Netherlands, with an average connection

speed of 14.9Mbps. Sustained quarter-over-

quarter growth was observed in all European

countries; France had the lowest growth rate at

7.4 per cent, while Romania achieved the biggest

increase at 27 per cent. Impressive year-over-year

gains were observed in all European countries,

ranging from a low of 22 per cent in Austria and

Italy to a high of 58 per cent in Ireland.

Average peak connection speeds in all

European countries surveyed also saw significant

quarter-over-quarter growth. Romania came out

top, with an average peak connection speed

in excess of 60Mbps, while significant quarter-

over-quarter increases pushed the Netherlands,

Switzerland and Belgium above 50Mbps.

The global high broadband (>10Mbps)

adoption rate continued to see strong growth

in the second quarter of 2014, reaching 23 per

cent thanks to a 12 per cent increase during the

quarter. In Europe, Switzerland, the Netherlands

and Romania recorded rates of 50 per cent or

more and, with the exception of Italy, all countries

in the region achieved high broadband adoption

rates above ten per cent. Positive quarter-

over-quarter changes were observed across all

surveyed countries. Finland was the only country

to see its high broadband adoption rate increase

by less than ten per cent, growing just five per

cent from the first quarter, while the highest growth

rate was seen in Portugal (up 92 per cent).

The global broadband (>4Mbps) adoption rate

grew by 5.6 per cent quarter-over-quarter to reach

59 per cent. In Europe, Romania, Denmark and the

Netherlands joined Switzerland to become the only

surveyed countries in the region with a broadband

adoption rate of 90 per cent or more. Once again

all European countries had broadband adoption

rates above 50 per cent. A review of the quarter-

over-quarter changes reveal that these were

positive but limited, with only Norway and Italy

growing by more than ten per cent. The smallest

quarterly increases (less than one per cent) were

seen in the United Kingdom and France.

4K readinessFollowing the introduction of the ‘4K readiness’

metric in the First Quarter, 2014 State of the

Internet Report, Akamai has again identified

countries that are most likely to sustain connection

State of the internetAkamai Technologies has released its Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report. The report provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds and broadband adoption across fixed and mobile networks, overall attack traffic, global 4K readiness, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation, and traffic patterns across leading web properties and digital media providers

Data Centre

The global average connection speed increased 21 per cent from the first to second quarter of the year


Data Centre

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speeds above 15Mbps, as Ultra HD adaptive

bitrate streams typically require bandwidth

between ten and 20Mbps. The fi ndings do not

account for other ‘readiness’ factors, such as the

availability of 4K-encoded content or 4K-capable

televisions and media players.

This quarter the majority of European countries

had more than ten per cent of their connections

to Akamai at speeds above 15Mbps, with the

top three countries (Switzerland, the Netherlands

and Sweden) seeing more than a quarter of their

connections at those speeds. Switzerland’s 33

per cent 4K readiness rate was the highest seen

in the region. Both Portugal and Romania saw 4K

readiness rates more than double quarter-over-

quarter, while the smallest increase was seen in

Finland (14 per cent).

Under attackAkamai maintains a distributed set of

unadvertised agents deployed across the internet

to log connection attempts that the company

classifi es as attack traffi c. Based on the data

collected by these agents, Akamai is able to

identify the top countries from which attack traffi c

originates, as well as the top ports targeted by

these attacks. It is important to note, however,

that the originating country as identifi ed by the

source IP address may not represent the nation in

which an attacker resides.

The European region experienced a modest

quarter-over-quarter decline of 14 per cent, with 49

reported attacks in the second quarter, down from

57 reported attacks in the fi rst quarter.

IPv6 adoptionIn the second quarter of 2014, more than 788

million IPv4 addresses from more than 238 unique

countries/regions connected to the Akamai

Intelligent Platform. For the fi rst time in the history of

the State of the Internet Report, the global unique IP

address count declined quarter-over-quarter, by a

nominal 0.9 per cent.

“Though even a minimal quarter-to-quarter

decline is unusual in the history of this report,

we see no reason for concern,” said Belson. “It

may be due to providers working to conserve

limited IPv4 address space, or likely was a result

of increased IPv6 connectivity and adoption

among leading network providers. That said,

globally, 69 per cent of countries and regions still

showed year-over-year increases in unique IPv4

address counts.”

European countries continued to dominate

the IPv6 adoption list, holding seven of the top

10 positions. IPv6 traffi c volumes more than

doubled from the previous quarter in the Czech

Republic and were up by more than a third

in Belgium. Romania and Germany however,

saw IPv6 adoption levels decline quarter-over-

quarter, with Germany dropping 25 per cent.

This, however, is due to the IPv4 request count

growing more aggressively than the IPv6 request

count, resulting in a decline in the calculated

percentage of IPv6 traffi c.

“ 69 per cent of countries and regions still showed year-over-year increases in

unique IPv4 address counts” David Belson, Akamai


The European TV industry is one of the most

vibrant environments in the world, offering

signifi cant, untapped potential. Across the

region, viewers are eager for quality content and

are prepared to pay for the privilege. This makes

Europe an immensely valuable region for the TV

industry, worth in excess of $130 billion* a year.

With 750 million people, 53 countries, 28

currencies and billions of IP devices, connecting

European subscribers to content is complex,

and competition is fi erce. Several streaming

services expanded their footprint on the

continent this year: Germany’s Sky Deutschland

has launched Snap; Italy’s Mediaset is standing

behind its Infi nity offering; and France’s Canal+

has launched CanalPlay. And as Netfl ix picks

up the pace of its signifi cant European roll-out,

TV operators across Europe are preparing a

counter-attack to respond to the demands of

an increasingly connected and media-savvy

audience. But it is too little, too late?

There are signifi cant hurdles to overcome for

TV executives looking to expand their breadth

of reach across Europe, not least because

launching in new markets also comes with a

price tag. From the cost per hour of production

to content agreements and legal restrictions,

there are many regional variations that must

be factored into the go-to-market plan. When

crossing borders, content expenditures are

considerable, and acquiring rights must be

carried out on a territory-by-territory basis.

To understand how companies are adapting

to the challenges and potential offered by the

region, Clearleap commissioned some exclusive,

high-level research and interviewed over 30

European TV operators to understand how

they are approaching the demands of content

without borders.

The headline fi nding was that OTT and TV-over-

IP services are already well established, at least

in a 1.0 version. Forty-eight per cent of operators

surveyed stated they had already launched an

OTT service in some form, while a further 45 per

cent had launched a SVOD/TVE service.

For TV executives, OTT clearly presents a

tremendous opportunity to reduce churn, increase

subscribers, and generate new revenue streams.

Content without bordersMonetising the European pay-TV revolution

Data Centre

Braxton Jarratt, CEO of Clearleap, discusses his company’s recent study which outlines the changing face of service delivery among European pay-TV providers

“As Netfl ix picks up the pace of its signifi cant European roll-out, TV

operators across Europe are preparing a counter-attack to respond to the demands

of an increasingly connected and media-savvy audience”

With 750 million people, 53 countries, 28 currencies and billions of IP devices, connecting European subscribers to content is complex, and competition is fi erce


Data Centre

When asked to describe how they currently

manage their business processes to offer TV

services to subscribers, the majority (65 per cent)

said they used a partner. When asked about their

future plans, the overwhelming consensus

(87 per cent) were considering increasing

the use of partner providers.

Today’s TV executives are relying on partners

to pick up the technology heavy-lifting so

they can focus on their core content and

services business while also delivering slick

streaming solutions across a growing number

of devices and platforms. When tied together

correctly, multiscreen video logistics can help

TV operators ramp up to a 2.0 OTT/TVE

monetisation model.

For pioneers able to combine great content

and effective delivery within a viable business

model, the rewards are signifi cant. For those that

don’t meet consumer demands, it’s clear that

others will. In an era where content lives without

borders, now is the time to bring innovative new

services to an eager market.

* iDate: http://www.idate.org/en/Research-store/

Current TV services being offered


When it comes to planning the evolution

and development strategy of any

organisation, a clear vision of the future

is necessary. However, without a crystal

ball how can we know precisely what the

future will hold? As an organisation, Marquis

Media Partners helps organisations shape

their future through strategic technology

planning, change management and

deployment for organisations working in

media and broadcast. With this in mind,

we wanted to fi nd out where the industry

was on their future thinking and therefore

commissioned two separate surveys of

broadcast executives in 2014.

We completed our fi rst survey earlier

this year and ‘changes in consumer

viewing habits’ was shown to be the

greatest business challenge, while ‘content

management and distribution across

multiple platforms’ led in terms of the

greatest operational and technology

challenges faced by the industry today.

However, in our most recent survey,

completed in August, we wanted to delve

deeper and fi nd out why such issues were

infl uencing business strategy. We questioned

over 100 senior executives in the sector

about their businesses’ most pressing issues.

Respondents were at director level or CTOs

from broadcasters from the UK, Europe and

the rest of the world.

Some of the results were unsurprising with

many respondents citing uncertainty about the

future as a challenge. Forty per cent stated that

there was uncertainty about what technology to

invest in to satisfy customer needs and more than

half (53 per cent) said that ‘keeping up with the

pace of change’ is an issue.

Changing viewing habitsMany view change positively. Most (55 per cent)

see changes in viewing habits as an opportunity.

However, 37 per cent agreed with the statement:

‘we are unsure how to drive our technology

strategy to remain fl exible for whatever

emerges.’ When it comes to making a profi t 41

per cent of respondents were unsure how to

monetise the new opportunities.

Yet, although what the future will bring is unclear,

the good news is that many organisations are

taking steps to address this pressing issue. More

than half (58 per cent) of fi rms either have a

team dedicated to addressing this challenge

or have already started working with partner

organisations to fi ll the knowledge/resource

gap. However, 11 per cent are concerned their

organisation is doing nothing or changes in

viewing habits have not been addressed yet and

this does raise concerns. “The company I work

for is stubbornly trying to ignore the signs,” stated

one respondent. For those organisations who are

not yet embracing the need to change, the fear

is that they will simply be left behind.

Resources do seem to be one of the key

challenges with 41 per cent stating ‘to meet

our vision we need more resources’.

Similarly, 28 per cent said: ‘it is diffi cult with the

expertise and experience we have to identify

the way forward.” One respondent commented:

“[I am] concerned that we do not have enough

staff or budget to shift the business.”

However, for most, the challenge is mainly

about uncertainty: ‘It is diffi cult to keep up with

what the next big thing in viewing habits will be’

(53 per cent). In addition, the pace of change

is certainly on people’s minds: “The industry is

changing too fast for large companies to keep

pace,” one respondent commented.

What we do know is that the industry is

developing and there is good news that the

majority of organisations are adapting and

attempting to move forward by anticipating

the new nature of future viewing habits even

if they are not yet sure precisely what these

will look like. As one respondent said: “I

intend to be one of the survivors.” It seems

that whatever the future holds, change will

be the only certainty.

Change is the only certainty

By Andrew Ioannou, partner, Marquis Media Partners

Data Centre

53 per cent said that ‘keeping up with the pace of change’ is an issue

tvbe november 2014 digital edition

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