MARCH 2016 Vol 222

The second ever Media Technology Pacific Conferencewent over 2 days in Auckland at the beginning of Marchthis year and, following the first conference in 2014, wasanother great success.

The numbers were slightly down, but there was certainlya wide selection of people from right across the industry;the broadcasters, the telcos and lots of other interestedgroups, wanting to know and share ideas and views as tohow the industry was going and to see the changes thathad occurred since the last conference – and there were aconsiderable number.

The key sponsor of this, and the previous MTPconference, is Gencom and to fill in some detail we havetheir GM, David Barnard.

David: Gencom has been one of a number ofsponsors of this show since the beginning. We’ve helpedput it together and we’re very excited about it. We’ve gota booth here which is a nice opportunity to show off someof our product relevant to this conference’s theme, butreally for us, it’s about getting together with customers,suppliers and others in the industry – getting everybodytogether and talking. We know that there are a lot of bigchanges happening in our industry – there’s no big secretthere. In my view, the most important thing is foreverybody to get together and understand how we’re allfacing these challenges; what are the issues we’rehaving; how do we address them and help people connectthe dots between what has been and what is coming.

It’s a very interesting time and I think that in this market– not just Auckland, not just New Zealand, but in theregion, it’s really good to have a forum like this for peopleto come together to hear the latest thinking in theindustry; to learn how various companies around theworld are addressing these challenges; and to then bringthat information to bear on their own challenges.

Ed: What does impress me, and this is something Ithink is a New Zealand and probably an Australian thing

MTP Conference 2016

too, is the collaboration. This is not a Gencom show.There are not great big Gencom signs all over the place tosay “rah rah, this is Gencom.”

You’ve been very inclusive and shared the event with awhole lot of other companies so that everyone has achance in here and you’re very open about it?

David Barnard, Amery Carriere and Gerry Smith.

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P4 Our Minister speaks.

P7 The Presenters.

P20 Camera Lighting at Newshub.

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David: Yes – to be fair, you’re right it’s not aGencom show and it was never conceived as a Gencomshow. Gencom has been involved with it from thebeginning …

Ed: Well because you’ve got lots of product that goesinto the space and, really, you are supplying NewZealand with broadcast and digital services, so you’rean obvious player, but you’re still being very open inallowing anyone to come in and have a part in this?

David: We feel that in order for the show to besuccessful, it’s very important that we’ve got a mix ofvendors, a mix of participants, a mix of speakers andthat’s much bigger than just Gencom. Obviously thismarket is very important to us, it’s our core market. Toreally develop it, we need shows like this to succeed;and that means making it an industry initiative, not justone party’s initiative.

Ed: You’ve done so well which I am sure is at leastpartly attributable to having Gerry Smith in charge ofeverything?

David: Yes, Gerry’s fantastic. He’s done a greatjob of bringing together some really interestingspeakers over a broad range. Today we’re hearing a lotabout the distribution side of the business, but we’vealso got Avid, we’ve got Object Matrix, we’ve got someother guys giving a different perspective on variousparts of the supply chain. Gerry’s been really good atthat, and he’s really good as a moderator at identifyingthe core items of interest and asking good questionsand making it a discussion, an open forum.

Ed: So for people who didn’t attend this year’s oneand find the synopsis that I’m going to provide in mypages too brief, what can they do further, apart fromsigning up to the next one in 2 years’ time. Is thereany way they can get further information on any of theproducts or services discussed here?

David: Yes. First of all, with regard to the show,you can visit the website for the show which iswww.mediatechevents.com and there’ll be lots ofinformation, pictures, stories, all of that. As far aslearning more about the products and the sponsors –

years, some businesses have gone from being seen bysome as in far too dominant a position in the market, tonow urgently looking at how they compete.

So what’s the role and the responsibility of Governmentin this period of intense change?

Well in my view, it’s not to dictate how these shockwaves should play out, nor to try and preserve existingbusiness models. What I think we must do is firstlymake sure our regulatory settings are notunintentionally constraining how markets evolve.Where possible, we should seek to deliver a levelplaying field between competitors.

Secondly, we need to ensure consumers’ interestscontinue to be protected in a way that reflects how theyare actually behaving, not based on models of how theyused to behave.

New Zealand’s regulatory and policy framework in thisarea has served us well for many years, but because ofthe dramatic shifts in the broadcasting andcommunications landscape, it is now showing signs ofbeing outdated and out of step with today’s realities.

In 2015-16, Government will invest more

than $200 million in the public

broadcasting sector and, of course, we

are in the middle of investing more than

$2 billion in high speed communications

infrastructure up and down the country.

These are not small sums of money.

In this era of fiscal constraint, we’ve

maintained this funding because we

understand the critical importance of the

digital economy for New Zealand and

because we back New Zealand-made

content and recognise the value that

publicly funded broadcasting plays in our

communities. We want New Zealanders

to be able to receive and view content

that is relevant and interesting to them

when they want, and on the platform of

their choice, while at the same time

reflecting the Kiwi identity.

What are the challenges?

Our Broadcasting act came into effect in 1989. Theidea that in 2016 we would use this thing called theinternet to stream and download news, movies and TVshows in high definition from anywhere around theworld, or run video conferencing from mobile phones,was unimaginable – and because of this, it was notreflected in the policy of the day. This misalignment ofpolicy with market and technological realities in 2016poses several risks.

At the moment, individual platforms are treateddifferently in the eyes of legislation. We regulate basedon the method of transmission. Restrictions whichapply to television and radio under the Broadcasting Actdo not apply to online platforms, even if they aredelivering exactly the same content. Classificationregimes and advertising restrictions, for example, canbe entirely different for exactly the same content,accessed at the same time, by the same people, simplybecause of the technology they use to access it. Evenour election rules apply differently to print, broadcastingand the online space. It is increasingly hard to see howthese discrepancies make sense in 2016 and we need toquestion the ongoing relevance in each case.

The legislation around the use of radio spectrum alsowarrants further examination. We need clearer ways tomanage the process of spectrum acquisition andongoing compliance.

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for Gencom’s products you can come talk to us, or youcan come to our website at www.gencom.com Alsofollow us on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin as we’re nowusing social media to communicate industry news andproduct announcements. And if you want to hear fromany of the other sponsors or any of the other speakersthat were here, just send me a line and I’ll be happy toput you in touch.

Again, it was an event for the industry, put on bymembers of the industry and the value of it wasdemonstrated by the presence of the BroadcastingMinister, the Honourable Amy Adams, who gave theopening address.

NB: I have shortened and changed a few insignificantwords so this is not a verbatim transcription. Ed

Good morning

It’s a pleasure to be here this morning to present theopening address at the 2nd Media Technology Pacificconference representing both my Communications andBroadcasting portfolios. It’s no accident that I holdboth those roles.

After serving as Communications and IT Minister forthree years during our previous term, it had becomeclear to me that the space between these areas wasshrinking so quickly that to deal with one without theother risked missing the realities of what was occurringin the real world.

In days gone by, of course, broadcasting sat as adistinct area with a dominant, and seeminglyimpenetrable, role in how we receive our informationand entertainment. But in this modern age, as weexperience the digital revolution, things are changing.In fact, digital disruption means that everything ischanging.

Specifically for our purposes, the nature of how wecommunicate, conduct business and access informationand entertainment is shifting rapidly. Digital disruptionin media and communications takes many forms but thearea I want to focus on is that of market convergence.

Near ubiquitous access to high speed, and increasinglycheap broadband has enabled digital communicationplatforms like websites, blogs and social media totransform the way we learn, do business, socialise andconsume content, but this certainly won’t be news toany of you here. The days when telephones, televisionsand radios all had separate functions are well in thepast.

Businesses now face competition from not only newplayers, but from whole new sectors. In just a few

And in the telco world, convergence is raising issues ofhow we regulate companies with effective monopolypositions in a world where the copper line to your homeis now being challenged by fibre and high speed fixedwireless and cellular options.

How do we ensure a climate that continues toencourage investment and provides business certainty,while still ensuring consumers get the best prices andservice possible at a time when data hungry consumersare demanding more and more from networks that stillface very high capital expenditure, but may deliverincreasingly reduced marginal returns.

Finally, as Government, we’re thinking about what

regulation means in a world that is increasingly

borderless. This is where our domestic businesses face

their biggest competition from offshore providers in agreater way than ever before and yet those competitors

operate under different regulatory systems and cost

structures.

But for all that, we can focus on the challenges and the

fact remains that convergence brings with it many

opportunities.

As well as facing competition from offshore, our local

providers are increasingly able to compete on a global

scale, and New Zealand consumers can take advantageof lower prices and a much wider range of content and

services.

Yet in order to ensure that businesses and consumers

are fully able to realise these benefits, our legislation

and policy need to be fit for purpose, flexible and, most

importantly in such a fast-moving area, durable.

In the digitally converging world, the Government’s long

-term vision is to have high quality and affordablecommunications services and media content available to

New Zealanders in ways that meet their needs –

enabling our economy to thrive and compete in a

dynamic global environment.

Content regulation

As I mentioned earlier, the merging of previouslydistinct industries which characterises convergence, cangenerate all sorts of thorny situations. In the realm ofmedia content, there is currently a lack of clarity aroundthe classification of content and rules around electionprogrammes. For example, there is the question of howon-demand, online content should be classified.Current classification and standards legislation cameinto effect over 20 years ago so it’s inevitable therewould come a time when the current regime would needupdating.

There needs to be a clear set of rules and acomprehensive framework on delivery of content. Thesector’s regulatory system needs to be flexible and fairto enable it to cope with future change and it shouldfocus on the content, not the way in which it isprovided. Based on the feedback received on ourconvergence discussion documents, there is clearlyagreement that some sort of regulatory change isneeded.

Overall, there is support for amendments to currentlegislation to address gaps created by convergence.Through submissions, there was a clear message fromthe sector for consistency in the regulation of content.At the same time, we will need to maintain a balancebetween respecting the principles of freedom ofexpression and acknowledging issues of fairness,security and privacy.

Among possible ways of supporting desired localcontent, New Zealand focuses on contestable funding,owning and mandating public broadcasters, andproviding spectrum and funding for regional andcommunity broadcasting.

Concluding remarks

So overall, it’s an exciting time to be involved in thecommunications and broadcasting sectors. The oldrules no longer apply and we have access to tools andservices that can be of huge benefit in connecting oursmall, faraway country to the rest of the world but thatwill also challenge almost everything we thought weknew about content creation and delivery acrossGovernment and the private sector.

In order to get the most out of these developments, weneed to ensure that we’re well equipped to deal with thechallenges that are arising, as well as those which areyet to arise.

We need policy and regulation that is technology-neutral and doesn’t constrain innovation orconsumer choice.

We need to ensure the safety and privacy of all

New Zealanders in the online space and haveconfidence in the networks and platformsavailable to us.

Convergence means different things to businesses,consumers and policy-makers but ultimately it will beconsumers that decide how the future looks and weneed to be ready to respond.

So thank you for those of you here who gave yourconsidered feedback and recommendations to thevarious consultation processes we have underway.

Now, over to the speakers.

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Next Generation TV Consultant.Mike McMahon.Mike spoke about curatingacross multiple OTT walledgardens.

Now OTT of course is “overthe top” and a “walledgarden” is a package of mediafrom one supplier.

For example, Netflix will do adeal with a large studio andtheir movies only appear onNetflix, so if you want to seethose movies, you have tosign up to Netflix; however,you’ve also got Sky, Lightbox, Neon, Quickflix and otherplatforms and if you want to see the whole range ofmovies and shows, then you’ve got to sign up to morethan one of them.

Hence the concept of the “walled garden.”

Mike works for a company called Ashabash Consultingand he gave the example of how he sees the industrygoing in terms of delivery by giving some instances ofthe world’s current biggest companies and one is UberTransport – that they have no vehicles of their own.

And you have Ali Baba in China – well they don’t holdany stock of their own.

You have Airbnb from Europe – they don’t own anybeds of their own.

So this is perhaps a model of how he sees theentertainment industry going – something similar tothat, but you have an aggregator, somebody who putsa whole lot of things together and doesn’t actually ownany themselves.

Mike talked about the SVOD ( Subscription Video onDemand ) explosion in New Zealand with many platformincompatibilities between the offers that we have; thatsome of them might be walled gardens, but there is alot of overlap of content which, again, causessubscribers unhappiness.

He spoke about live sports being very different from ondemand – 4K, brand new series where incumbents inthe industry still have the edge, because they’ve got themoney to buy this new material.

Another area where customers can become unhappy iswhen providers play ping pong with rights, so at oneparticular time you might be able to watch Orange isthe New Black on Netflix, but then suddenly Lightboxbuys the rights to it and the next series doesn’t appearon Netflix, but appears on Lightbox or vice versa.

So the customers don’t know from time to time wherethe content they used to watch has moved to.

Do they need to change providers? And in fact, thismeans that television viewing is becoming moredifficult.

One example of how the industry is trying to createunited value to customers is by big players going direct.

HBO and Showtime are now going direct to theconsumer.

Mike gave an example of Skinny who took off in themarket when they added live sport to their offer.

What has developed in some offers is a myriad of appsthat customers are finding difficult to control.

Some of the bigger players, such as Google, are lookingto overlook everything and control the myriad of apps –for example, a fully loaded Hulu may have hundreds oficons, each requiring registration.

Google will allow you to sort what you want to appear,but maintain data control.

This is leading to customer confusion.

What may be necessary is a new type of aggregatorwho is not philosophically different from the currentbroadcaster.

“What would it look like?” For the consumer, it wouldmean one bill, one place to change subscriptions whenyou add your credit card details, and if your credit cardchanges or is lost and is replaced, you only have oneplace to go to make all of those changes.

The topic of set top boxes came up and that is anotherexample of a walled garden, but with the quality ofbroadcast and the choice of immediate or delayedviewing.

When you get into 4K, this is available at 16 megabitper second from some offers, but this can alwaysreduce while you’re watching it. The question ofsustainable throughput in an OTT situation is still beingworked on.

I spoke with Mike McMahon after his presentation.

Ed: Mike, you talked about a “walled garden” and itseemed as though this was a bad thing for consumers,but then you talked about “aggregation” and how it’s agood thing for consumers to have all their products inone place. I was just confused as to the differencebetween aggregation being good and a walled gardenbeing bad?

Mike: To me, a walled garden is a collection ofcontent under one subscription model or entitlement asa commercial model, and I think that’s a good thing.You need to put content into one place and provide avalue proposition to people that they can understand“you pay this, you get access to this.” So that makessense. My point about walled gardens not being ideal isbecause no one walled garden has everything.Individual entertainment needs are quite varied, soyou’re likely going to need access to more than oneservice or more than one walled garden to satisfy youroverall entertainment ambitions as a consumer.

Ed: But then you’ve got a whole lot of overlap?

Mike: Then you’ve got overlap of duplicativecontent in some of them and differentiated contenthopefully as well, and you’ve got to figure out a way …that’s what I mean by breaking down the walledgardens is more the subscription – brokering,aggregating the subscriptions and curating andmanaging a kind of global user experience would be theway to provide an end user the ability to understand itall.

Ed: But then, as you say, you get a myriad of appsand icons on your screen and suddenly it becomes fartoo hard for grandma to actually find what she wants tolook at?

Mike: I think it is confusing and I think it’s hardto remember where everything is and even people inthis industry don’t truly understand who’s got whichlicence and when it’s going to expire …

Ed: And for which episode series?

Mike: It makes it really hard to be entertained,but to have a facility that was your guide around all ofthat, that recognised the walled gardens exist, butallows you to kind of traverse seamlessly andunderstand what was where …

Ed: Sort of like an overall walled garden thatincorporates lots of little ones, but you don’t necessarilyhave to pay for all of the content in all of the walledgardens?

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Mike: Yes, that’s my thinking – that make sense?

Ed: Yes it makes sense, but then, you’re almostgetting down to the stage of paying a subscription foran individual programme that you watch – maybe it’s5¢ if you want to watch 30 minutes of The Big BangTheory for example … you pay per view?

Mike: You can – people say TVOD or transactionalVOD means “pay as you go” kind of whether it’s rent amovie for 24 hours, or purchase a movie to have thelifelong access to it, or buy an individual episode or buySeason 2 of something; you can transact “one off” likethat and have rights to it. Non-subscription orientedmodels give you a recurring monthly bill in return forongoing access to a licensed catalogue.

Ed: So this is where you see the traditionalbroadcasters coming back into the play – that they canprovide this overall service?

Mike: I think there’s a variety of people who canprovide that from current pay TV operators, tobroadcasters to an upstart that doesn’t exist yet, topeople like Apple or Google that are trying to do thisnow and have ecosystems and devices around it. So Ithink there’s a variety of people who are circling aroundthis kind of notion, but nobody’s really nailed it yet.

Ed: One of the questions that came from the floorwas about 4K and how people are looking at thatcoming, but still we’re in this situation that you mightbe getting it at 16 megabit per second, you’re watchingit in 4K, but suddenly other people on the network aresucking the data out and it drops down. So you’realways going to get this OTT varying level of servicewith any of these products and that’s where I wouldthink, in New Zealand for example, Sky with abroadcast set top box that is its own walled garden, isproviding that high quality delivery that is not interferedwith by other people using just Clouds?

Mike: Yes, with traditional pay TV, whether it’ssatellite delivered or cable TV with QAM, you get intowhat they call “constant bit rate” so you have aguaranteed playback quality based on that; streamingvideo over the top is adapted bit rate, so it will fluctuatebased on the available capacity at any given moment.It’s more cost effective to deliver content that way, it’smore internet like in nature. You talk about fluctuationfrom say SD to HD or HD to 4K and back and forththroughout playback, that’s a deliberate function of thetechnology to create a smooth playback experience thatadjusts to the network or the congestion as it were. Ifyou get into a world where you’re able to sustainreliably something north of what you need, you wouldpresumably get a pretty high quality playback, right?So you talk about a 16 megabit per second for a 4Kexperience – if you’re getting 30 or 50 into your home,you’re going to be able to support one or even multiplestreams like that.

Ed: But in this New Zealand situation, unless you areon fibre, that’s not happening.

Mike: I’m all for fibre, I don’t have it at my housebecause it’s not available. I’ll be the first to sign up …

Ed: So is this quality issue a major concern in NewZealand or is it a different audience that really doesn’tcare if it’s low res at some times?

Mike: Look 4K …

Ed: No, not necessarily 4K, but even delivering highdefinition content in an OTT service sometimes doesn’tdeliver?

Mike: The kind of lower echelons of HD, meaningthe lower bit rate pro files around, say, a 720 offering,you know it’s not that much. I mean if you get intomodern compression and stuff which is different than

what’s used on traditional broadcast technology – youknow you get 1.5, certainly 2 megabit per second,you’re into pretty high quality video and that’s not thatmuch bandwidth. As it relates to 4K, it’s not reallyrelevant unless you actually have a 4K TV and thecontent was produced in 4K in the first place. So it’s asubset of both content and footprint that are evenapplicable right now.

mike@mikemcmahon.org

Brightcove.Mark Stanton.This version has not been proofedby the speaker. Ed.

Mark talked about the digitalvideo trends for 2016,providing an insight into keytrends, recent innovations andupcoming standards.

Mark began with a presentat-ion that Brightcove had beeninvolved in in Australia, 360degree video.

He asked people to go on their smartphones ( and youcan do it too ) to www.Australia.com and this showsfootage from about 8 locations in Australia.

Once you’ve loaded it up to the location of your choiceand set to “play”, this reacts to the gyroscope in yourphone to show you different views – so as you turn yourphone, you get a different view for the time that the clipplays.

A key trend that Mark presented was that Flash fromAdobe is dead. I think this points to the fact thathaving proprietary playing software is no longer the wayto go – you only need to have JavaScript and HTML andthey will power any video these days.

He talked about shifting workflows into the Cloud,including things that used to be in the server room.This is becoming a true extension of the broadcastenvironment.

He went on to talk about analytics, where daily reportsare provided as to who watches what and when.

One of the big topics that is being questioned by theindustry is that of viewability – that when you have astatistic that a viewer is watching, how much of it isseen by the viewer, and for how long?

The standard seems to be – and this is in the socialmedia space – that if an ad is on the screen and itencompasses 50% or more of the screen for over onesecond, then that is regarded as a “view.”

If it’s smaller than that, or on for less than that, thenthat is not seen as an effective view.

He showed a slide entitled “Programmatic” and this isabout automated ad insertion arrangements; anotherabout server slide ads and frame accurate insertion –and in this process you can bypass ad blockers becausethey can’t see the ad, it’s just part of the stream.

Currently Newshub in New Zealand is using thistechnology, so what you’re getting on the broadcasttelevision where the ads are just part of the samestream is now part of the same stream in an onlineversion of the same programmes.

Mark gave an example from Channel 7 Australia, wherethey have introduced live linear. This provides livestreaming the same programme across all platforms

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24/7, including major events – the Tennis Open, theMelbourne Cup – and this is all live to video on demandand includes live ad insertion, again selected region forregion.

mstanton@brightcove.com

Gracenote.Dominic Malsom.Dominic provided us with aninsight into the technologyand use of metadata to powerthe world’s top music serviceproviders, consumer elec-tronics companies, mediacompanies, cable and satelliteoperators.

Dominic began with userexperience – Gracenote pro-vides the data that will power

a better user experience. That data supports the wayconsumers view, search and discover content throughimagery, synopsis and key words.

All of this requires a common ID system, standardiseddata and localisation to purpose marketing and labellingfor an audience in different countries.

What they can provide is data to support the on-screeninterface while an event is being viewed, a universalsearch showing where to find content, recommenda-tions à la social media, automatic content recognition,and create immersive experiences with all of this for theaudience.

The question of course comes up here as to a person’sprivacy and Dominic replied to that that yes, there areprivacy concerns and it is not a service that has beenlaunched in New Zealand at present.

dmalsom@gracenote.com

Freeview.Sam Irvine.Sam pointed out thatFreeview in New Zealand is ajoint venture of TVNZ,MediaWorks, Maori TelevisionService and Radio NewZealand. Freeview works withall Free to air Broadcasters,manufacturers, retailers,transmission providers andinstallers, to make sureviewers get quality Free to AirTV and radio in the areas

where they are, and that everything works.

Basically Freeview provides conformance for the twentybroadcasters that they’re involved with, to give aconsistent viewer experience, with no subscription.

HbbTV is now the main platform for FTA linear and VODservices to TV in New Zealand and Australia andFreeview is now introducing FreeviewPlus (HbbTV)which has the ability to search across all live and ondemand free to air content, rather than in just one forthe type of programme that you might want.

This has got to make it easier for the viewer andFreeview’s future is very closely linked to developmentsof the HbbTV service.

Sam.Irvine@freeviewnz.tv

Switch Media.Bruce Hume.This version has not been proofedby the speaker. Ed.

Bruce talked about leveragingHbbTV to deliver much morethan just catch-up. He lookedinto live broadcasting enhanc-ed applications games andmore.

Switch Media’s claim is thatthey enable delivery, moneti-sation and analysis on OTT

services. They provide the player to Freeview andmany others.

The viewer’s experience is a menu bar on the broadcastscreen; the viewer remotely selects data to appear on asecond device, such as an iPad, so they can be lookingat some show on their main screen and with the menuselect, for example, something about the director ofthat show. It won’t appear on the main screen andinterrupt the programme, but it will appear on a seconddevice, such as an iPad, and they can look at that ifthey wish.

Switch Media are in the process of delivering DASH livefor Sony.

An important part of this service is live data overlay andHbb is basically a website over the top of a normalbroadcast signal. It provides lots of information,statistics and links to VOD clips and it enables an OTTsupplier to compete with a pay TV operator on live sportrather than having a multi-camera offer in the live sportdomain.

bhume@switch.tv

SintecMedia.Damien Thomson.Damien spoke about theconvergence of traditionalbroadcasting and digitalmedia, what changes broad-casters can expect in the waytheir inventory will be soldand the platforms they willneed to support thesechanges. He was quite up-beat that the outlook forbroadcast has actually im-

proved, citing a PWC statistic that TV ad spend in theUSA will increase by 12% over the next 5 years.

Broadcasters can learn 3 key things from digital media

– 1. The need for transparency – and that’s real time

access to data on a dashboard; 2. Performance; and 3.

Efficiency.

Broadcast media can benefit from new ways of selling;by combining their audience data with inventory they

have ways of reaching only a target audience. This

creates a premium segment for advertisers when

they’re not wasting advertising people outside of their

target.

Technology currently exists to synchronise an advertthat appears on television, with the same ad appearingon a website, like Facebook, where the audience iswithin the target audience – for example, a 38 year old

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more on page 13

Techtel Provides the CakesWe’re at afternoon tea on the first day of the MTP

conference here in Auckland and the delegates are very

happy that we’re taking a wee break and we’re enjoying

some very nice cakes.

We are fortunate to have the sponsor of the cakes here

and it’s none other than David Colthorpe.

Ed: Now David, you didn’t actually bake these

yourself, but in your position as head person of Techtel

in New Zealand, you are a proud sponsor?

David: Yes, we’re a proud sponsor. We like to

support the industry so it’s great to have Matt Feeney

our AP ENPS specialist here. He’ll be speaking

tomorrow about how modern newsroom technology is

responding to massive changes in the way people

consume news.

Ed: Well Techtel’s a pretty big player in this side of

the industry, so it’s very sensible that you’re here and

part of it?

David: Yes, ENPS is well represented in New

Zealand, so the topics at the conference this year are

especially relevant to us.

Ed: Right – and perhaps one year you’ll speak?

David: Well I’m not sure about that – but we do

our best to get the right people here to do that.

Ed: Great. Another teacake? NZVN

Page 11

male who is interested in travelling. If they’re watchinga television programme and it has an ad for Qantas, if,while the ads are on, they decide they’ll go to theirFacebook page, at the same time, an ad for Qantas willappear on their Facebook. This can occur because theyhave shared their demographic profile with thebroadcaster. Of course, they can’t reverse sync and putan ad on broadcast television.

SintecMedia provide a platform called OnBoard, which isa holistic solution for broadcasters, enabling them to

manage sales, inventory and optimisation across all

their media channels. This unique Sales Side Platform

(SSP) offers them increased efficiency through the sales

process, and the ability to integrate their traditional

sales and traffic systems with both their agency trading

partners and emerging programmatic exchanges.

Damien acknowledges that people react differently totargeted advertising – on one side of the equation,

consumers can always use ad blockers to restrict

advertising; and on the other side, you find that

advertising done well is more relevant and less

intrusive.

He explained that the targeting comes from the digital

media profile that the person has created and not from

the broadcast viewing habits. So, for example, a

female watching television at the same time would geta different ad on Facebook during the Qantas ad than

the targeted male got.

Damien.Thomson@sintecmedia.com

Accedo.

Chris McNair.This version has not been proofedby the speaker. Ed.

Chris’ presentation was aboutthe dynamic OTT user

experience – that is how a

modern user interface and

dynamic experience can

increase interaction across

differing video services. He

said that the user experience

has not been about the screen

size or the resolution. There has really been no viewinggrowth due to HDTV models becoming available, so it’s

not about the devices … for example, set top boxes or

dongles don’t increase viewing.

It’s not about the content – there may be a key showthat gives a bump in viewing numbers but it’s thecatalogue that determines the user’s experience.

Consumers evolve with the market and success for anoperator comes with a number of things –

1. Valuing the multi-screen customer. If you can

augment the content to enhance their experience. This

can be in the form of a companion application.

2. You can create a dynamic user experience – provide

personalisation by getting the metadata right, though it

is understood that there are privacy issues with data

collection.

3. Evolve customer engagement models – different

customers have different needs at different times.

4. Efficient application of lifestyle management –

customers expect us to take advantage of the newest

and the best experience that is related to the operating

system improvements in their device that have taken

place in the previous 3 months, so if Microsoft comes

out with some new operating system that has some

special features, then the customers expect that

experience to be seen in the applications that an OTT

service is providing; if not, they will switch to someone

who does.

chris.mcnair@accedo.tv

Ericsson.

Khush Kundi.

K h u s h t a l k e d a b o u t

reinventing the TV experience

– about how looking at

virtualisation and Cloud

technologies will help to

overcome the challenge that

the rate and scale of

technology change currently

presents and to create a moreagile business. The provider

is constantly vying for

viewers’ attention.

What does the new TV experience need to look like?

The average weekly active viewing time is around 30

hours per week. When you look at a person’s daily

media habits, it’s seen that live TV viewing is going

down and streamed on-demand viewing is going up.For weekly viewing situations, there has been a move

from just in the morning and evening to a spread over

the day, and that people are not just using in-home

WiFi, they’re using mobile data too.

An interesting area was that of subscription for video on

demand, that it is driving binge watching, so more

people are having long times of viewing one particular

series in one block than they were before.

A streaming device such as Chromecast from a phonecan be directed to the TV, so why have a set top box?

Again, a technology change that takes another

technology out of the system.

One of the greatest increases in viewing is in TV content

that can be viewed anywhere and for this people are

willing to pay more. There is some increase in interest

in interactive TV, but it is “anywhere viewing” that is

what most people want.

In another area, a new specification for television, high

dynamic range, is something that’s coming along and

this is going to introduce new considerations for

managing the broadcast environment. This is going to

impact on the whole industry and it will be interesting

to see whether this brings people back to more

broadcast viewing because of its increased good looks.

As a result, there needs to be a change in the operatingmodel for providers to manage all these changes.

Khush believes that companies should look at different

infrastructure technologies from on-premise to Cloud to

see what is the best fit from a technical and cost

perspective.

However, the Cloud is not an answer to everything and

there must be some infrastructure within an

organisation and I guess that’s where Ericsson can help

in choosing the right infrastructure to have for yourself.

khush.kundi@ericsson.com

Page 13

Object Matrix.Jon Morgan.This version has not been proofedby the speaker. Ed.

Jon talked about being

futureproof with “object”

storage and he looked at the

rationale behind object stor-

age. Multi-platform content

delivery, digitisation and

repurposing workflows; that

they demand more than just a

simple file system.

Jon asked the question “How do you handle data in a

large system that’s over 10 terabyte?”

In the process of growing your data storage

infrastructure, you end up with discrete silos of data

and metadata, because any new technology is not often

100% compatible with the old unless it’s identical.

This is that you have yourself a server with a certain

array of hard drives in it of a certain size and brand and

its own little infrastructure and then, after a time, that

fills up and you need another one. It’s very hard to get

that same technology again, or the technology’s moved

forward, so in fact, you get the next model which is

"bigger, faster, cheaper", but because it’s not identical,

it’s very hard to link the two systems, hence the silo

situation where you have to be discreet in where you

keep your data.

In the Object Matrix world, each object has data,

metadata and policies, and each object can be on any

server technology. By having an object, this allows the

scale of your system to run to Petabytes. The

technology allows self-healing, easy transport and does

not tie you to any particular hardware.

Certainly the list of users of Object Matrix technology

that Jon showed was varied and included some very

large customers. The cost of this was a question and

on the plus side, Jon said that, because of the object

nature, this can be kept on commodity hardware, so all

the cost is in the software and that’s something that

you need to talk to Object Matrix about.

jonathan.morgan@object-matrix.com

The NZ Herald media columnist.

John Drinnan.

John gave his views on where

the media landscape is

trending in New Zealand. He

first of all talked about how

local media are dealing with

challenges in change. A

major challenge is for the 30+

consumer to understand the

new technology. Luckily,

when something happens to

Netflix, most homes have a

teenage boy who finally has

something worthwhile to do

and that’s to re-establish the connection.

A company can disappear overnight if the technology

change makes what they do obsolete. For example, if

Google comes out with some change to its system, then

a particular app is no longer necessary, and so the

person who wrote the app no longer has a job.

He talked about TV3 MediaWorks – when it was

established it was under-capitalised and it’s pretty well

maintained that all the way through its life. It’s gone

through 2 receiverships and is again currently for sale.

The way that it’s looking at growing is through digital

media add-on services.

As with other players in the market, such as NZME

which is part of APN Media, there seems to be a move

towards web based presentation. Telcos such as Spark

opened Lightbox; Sky opened Neon; and then Netflix

came along. The value to Sky and Netflix in this

situation was that both had access to content.

The question one has to ask with any of these forays

into entertainment through the web, is "when will there

be profit?"

It is believed that Lightbox has budgeted to lose $35

million this year, so there’s a lot at stake.

John commented that Sky cannot afford to ignore

subscription video on demand but, on the other side, it

can’t make it too good or it cannibalises the income it

gets from set top boxes. TVNZ tried with TiVo and it

was a disaster.

He then moved on to talk about the role of the

journalist and stated that the concept that editorial

content is separate from advertising is not so true

anymore – the lines are blurring. The term

“advertorial” is now called “native advertising”.

Most people, when they watch media, don’t want it to

be difficult; they just want to watch TV. The snake pit

of wires that you find behind your television set is

comparable to where media is going.

Print newspapers are up against the wall; overall there’s

been a 6-15% drop in readership over New Zealand

papers in recent times.

As to the move for video on the web as a subscription

model – people are reluctant to do this because they

expect it for free, which they’re getting in a lot of cases

now. The unfortunate side of this is that the cost of

providing an on demand service is 8 times that of a

broadcast service, so the revenue must be higher. How

do you do this? More ads? One of its selling points is

that it has fewer ads.

TVNZ has to be admired for its ambition, but who wouldwant to buy a TV station now? For example, TiVo costthem $17 million, with a write off in the books.

MediaWorks' current CEO, Mark Waldon, seesMediaWorks’ future with digital development.

At the end of his presentation I asked John whether,from his interviews with them, Sky were apologetic forthe huge consumer backlash for what they touted as a"new improved service"?

John replied – “No, they’re not apologetic they don’tbelieve they need to be. The same problem happenedin the UK and in Italy with BSkyB. My impression isthat there are lots of unhappy people out there andthey are aware that pricing is an issue to varyingdegrees for some people. To be fair, the scale of thereaction has been partly because it is the incumbentdominant player. TV One used to get the same flakwhen it was dominant.

jdrinnan@xtra.co.nz

Page 14

Radio NZ.

Bob Coombes and CarolHirschfeld presented a case

study at Radio New Zealand

looking at Checkpoint with

John Campbell.

Carol started it off by telling

us that she’d come up with a

new plan for RNZ that

included video with the radio

news.

Initially, people were usingSkype to do this but therewere issues with that. Shewanted to put together amodel of light technology – inother words, not a capitalproduct intensive technologybut one that did not detractfrom making good qualityradio programmes.

The plan was for a daily radio

show of around 90 minutes,using remote cameras and

automated switching. It was

not to be on broadcast TV but

viewable on the net. Bob, who had had previous

extensive experience with TV broadcasters around the

world, was brought in as the project manager. Bob

liked the rules for “radio with pictures”; he liked the

immediacy of presenting the News from when he saw

the first Gulf War news feeds. The pictures were not ofhigh technical standard, but they were immediate … in

other words, the technical standards were secondary to

News.

In terms of project management, there was not a lot of

television experience in the crew that they got together

for Checkpoint but it worked. In the look that they

wanted to create, they replicated the feel of radio,

experimenting with new ideas. The studio space was

very limited, so they put “point of view” cameras onsliders mounted on the wall. They had 3 boundary mics

on the desk and another 3 radio mics on main

presenters. The use of a NewTek TriCaster was pivotal

in the design that it was all in one box. The backup was

that they can use the standard matrix and just cut –

luckily this has only been necessary in rehearsals so far.

Of course, doing a show like this every day, you do end

up with a lot of data and rather than have an off-the-shelf MAM system, they set up their own human

managed MAM system by setting up folders on a

standard PC and dragging and dropping the data into

those folders. The actual requirement for this was 85

gig a day to store the whole show, clean and dirty

footage as an archive, using just standard computer

storage.

Bob showed an example of a live feed from the

cameramen in Queen Street following John Campbell onthe TPP protest, where they had a Live-U transmitter on

a shoe on the camera.

Checkpoint takes feeds from the Wellington studio and

parliament, as well as Skype inputs from anywhere.

These feeds can be a live cross from an iPhone

somewhere, or the material can be stored for later use.

John Campbell was shown using an iPhone to try to get

into the Apple offices in Auckland, but only got as far as

the front door.

Bob talked about RNZ reporters being big gainers and

flourishing with the challenge of “radio with pictures.”

He talked about it taking RNZ different places with this

new technology, and that stories were the key values.

The concept is intended to expand to Morning Report

and there are more possibilities to come, including lotsof audio podcast developments.

Bob.Coombes@radionz.co.nz

MediaHub.Alan Sweeney.Alan talked about “Tech-nology: the Disrupter!” Hecalled for the industry toembrace the “Dark Lord” oftechnology change in thebroadcast industry andrelease limited and valuableresources for where it matters– content.

MediaHub are providers ofplayout services for cus-tomers. This is an Australianoperation and Alan has had much experience in thebroadcast world. When MediaHub was set up 5 yearsago, it was an initial expenditure of over $35 million.

Now he says that a large part of the initial technologyinfrastructure is already effectively outdated.

The take-up of digital TV in Australia was very slow tostart and so, initially, it seemed as though thebroadcast industry had overextended themselves, butthen it exploded and now the take-up of digitaltelevision in homes in Australia is over 100% becausemany homes have more than one television set.

The way MediaHub works is that digital files arrive fromclients at any time, from months previously to a coupleof hours before air. At some time, a schedule will comealso. The schedule is designed to matchup the mediathrough an automated process. Changes can actuallybe made about 30 minutes prior to broadcast, wheredifferent media can be chosen to play at a certain timewithin the schedule and at different locations withinAustralia.

Alan talked about the operation as a multiple sharedclient environment.

In 2012, they were operating 135 channels; in 2016, 4years later, it’s 200 and still growing. He used a casestudy of the ABC who currently has 35 channels goingout through MediaHub and over the period of a month,they logged an average of under one minute of erroroverall, across all 35 channels, which is anextraordinarily low amount for that quantity of traffic,with high levels of live programming.

So in the broadcast space, everything was goingsmoothly and then along came OTT, the Cloud andmobile, and all of this totally disrupted what they weredoing. It caused their customers to be uncertain aboutengaging with them as an outsource provider. Theydidn’t want to be locked into old technology.

So to counter this, they needed partnerships and theychose Hewlett Packard and Snell ( and a number ofother quality Broadcast Technology providers ) toprovide advice and guidance in a move to virtual

Page 16

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Alan.Sweeney@mediahubaustralia.com.au

AP ENPS (Techtel).Matt Feeney.Matt talked about the modernTV newsroom and how it mustevolve to meet the demandsof a 24-hour News cycle.News consumption habits arechanging and the change haslargely been driven by mobiledevices, with News consumedon mobile devices more thanever. He explained that APENPS expands on traditionalworkflows by incorporating

online and social media platforms and mobile reporting.

Matt explained that statistics show people still see TV asthe best source for accurate News, however an exampleof the disruption to this was given using a clip from TheColbert Report where Colbert had Jeff Goldblum live inthe studio and showed a clip that appeared on theinternet reporting Jeff’s death in New Zealand. Thenanother website that plays pranks on people renamedthe dead person as Will Smith, and had him falling off acliff in New Zealand. This story was picked up by Newsorganisations as being true.

People are accessing News stories by links from socialmedia now, rather than by going to the front pages ofNews websites and clicking on an item that they findinteresting. They are being directed to these Newsstories by social media sources of varying reputation.

The statistics also show that video on print mediawebsites are preferred over video on TV News sites.This suggests that publishers have a betterunderstanding of the relationship between text andvideo and their video content complements the text.

On the topic of rights management for material comingin over the web, Matt was asked if you can tag media toshow that it either has to be paid for, or some sort ofrights acknowledged. He replied that this can bemanaged through user rights. There were ways ofhighlighting or tagging stories so that they go throughan approval process by senior members of staff beforethey go to air or online.

One of the ENPS products, called Mobile Suite, extendsENPS into the field. The benefits of this are that it hastools to edit a story as it is being reported, accesscontacts, messages and planning calendars. It includesthe ability to upload content shot on mobile devices. Italso includes a prompter in the mobile deviceapplication which obviously has great benefit to areporter having everything in one place.

In summary Matt proposed that ENPS has developedinto a hub for all modern-day media production withworkflows for repurposing any content over anymedium.

NZ rep, David Colthorpe.

dcolthorpe@techtel.co.nz

Avid.Peter Ennis.Peter talked about the nextgeneration newsroom andthat the broadcast Newsindustry is undergoing a hugetransformation. Story-centriccoverage is driving Newsengagement across multipleplatforms. He talked aboutthe rate of change in thenewsroom as accelerating;that managing and protectinga growing number of media

files is getting more onerous. About 20% of theaverage media library has a value but which 20% – andto know which is the valuable stuff, you need reliablemetadata so you can easily find it.

He carried on talking about the consumption of News,that it’s changing, that social networks are taking overthe role that broadcast television once had. Aninteresting note that, over the years, the news of well-known personality deaths has changed; that he and Iboth remember hearing over the radio that Elvis Presleyhad died; on television that Princess Diana was killed ina car crash; Michael Jackson was reported dead onlineand social media reported the death recently of DavidBowie.

It’s seen that to get News out there you need toconnect quickly. Integrated workflows and seamlessintegration are vital.

For the reporter or the management, the question thencomes "when do you break a story?" Do you do itonline immediately or do you wait until your 6pmbulletin? Of course, if you don’t do it online, Facebookor somebody else who has only an online function willdo it if they know about it.

So in your planning, you need to look at a story-centricworkflow rather than a bulletin based workflow. Hewent on to say that everything Avid does is basedaround Avid Media | Central Platform.

The Media | Central Unified Experience or “UX” providesreview and approvals and accuracy and it can beaccessed by a mobile app which can bring everythingtogether on something as simple as an iPad.

As an example of the increasing openness of Avid andtheir solutions, he said that they’re now allowing othercompanies onto the Media | Central Platform becauseit’s the customer who needs to have control of whatthey want, and this is all inside one interface. They’reoffering lots of collaboration and a means of security forthe media world.

He stated that the APIs that Avid provides tocollaborators are exactly the same ones as they usethemselves.

A new journalistic tool has been launched by x.news onthe Avid Media | Central platform called Xnews. Thedeployment is on the Cloud and it allows aggregation ofsource material from multiple sources including socialmedia.

There is also a new product called make.tv – again, thisis from a partner company and is a public Cloud basedmodel and here for News capturing and this is onewhere you can have members of the public registered inyour system and you can get them to record a breakingevent as a stringer, and the display shows on a mapwhere the event is happening and which of your

Page 18

registered stringers are nearby, then you canimmediately send a message to say “go to this placeand grab what you can.” Once again it is fullycompatible with Media | Central.

That sounds like a very useful tool in a modernenvironment where so many people have smart phoneswith good cameras ( as long as you teach them to holdthem in the landscape format.)

peter.ennis@avid.com

Imagine Communications.Michael Day.Michael talked about IPinfrastructure that enablescontent delivery. Hispresentation focused on thebenefits of moving fromtraditional broadcast technologyto IP and IT infrastructure.

The benefits of moving to acommon IT infrastructure fortelevision were shown in a

number of slides. In the move to IP, he demonstratedthe way in which infrastructure can be set up from atoolbox that Imagine provides, which leveragescommon IT, Telco and Software systems. In thistoolbox there are orchestration tools that enable theselection and composition of software modules to formapplications, allowing easy construction of systemswhich are also flexible. If conditions change and aclient requires new modules, then these can be easilyadded and with little or no impact.

Broadcasters today rely on input, routing, processingand output hardware – and Imagine is moving thesefunctions into the IP domain. Of course, it doesn’t haveto be done all at once; IP can be integrated into asystem over time, so parts of a broadcast facility canmove as necessary.

Michael stated that the use of public Cloud has limitedapplication for broadcast applications and that adedicated Cloud ( on site or hosted ) is really the onlyway to go if you value data security and systemreliability. He added that SDI will be around for a longtime to come, as it is still a very robust system, but IPtechnology is likely to limit its use in the future.

Michael.Day@imaginecommunications.com

GatesAir.Alex Ng.For background reference,GatesAir and ImagineCommunication were bothformerly part of the HarrisGroup of companies. WhenHarris devoted itself entirelyto missiles and other militarytechnology, the television sidewas sold off into Imagine andGatesAir. GatesAir is fullydedicated in its operationsand development in the

transmission market.

Alex gave a rather technical presentation that talkedabout using the DVB-T2 transmission signal to transmit

LTE data packets. There is a huge growth in the use ofmobile data consumption for video, so there is a needfor more video data bandwidth in the system and atsome point the hardware is going to get overloaded.

Existing LTE’s eMBMS standard requires 60% of theresources in mobile systems for multicasting video,while only leaving 40% for voice calls. This is not idealas telcos prefer voice call revenue over data.

GatesAir and Technische Universität Braunschweig havecome up with a solution to relieve the loading oncurrent hardware. Broadcast transmission companiescan provide the LTE data packets for video using DVB-T2 and their “High Tower, High Power” approach tocover a wide coverage area.

For this to work ( and it was shown to work in trial inFrance and Italy ), the 4G specifications would need tochange so that existing handsets can recognise thepackets from DVB-T2 transmission. Now there’s verylittle likelihood of anybody wanting to change the 4Gspecs because 5G is coming, so nobody wants to doanything right now – they want to wait for 5G. So forthe time being we would have to adopt a wait and seeapproach, until the network buckles under more andmore bandwidth requirements.

Alex.Ng@gatesair.com

CombiTel.Eugene Razbash.CombiTel has been a special-ist IPTV systems integrator inboth operator and enterprisemarkets for over 10 years,but this year’s presentationwas focused on enterpriseIPTV, digital sign-age andrelated multimedia applica-tions.

Omniscreen, a member ofCombiTel Group, developstheir bespoke IPTV anddigital signage software used for enterprisedeployments.

Eugene talked about a comparison between the localservice operator versus a global service provider … thatthe local operator runs into economies of scaleproblems versus a global player. One could talk aboutLightbox versus Netflix as an example of the localprovider versus a global platform. However, local telcos( and other service providers alike ) could develop goodbusiness opportunities with local organisations byproviding tailored IPTV-enabled services, which may beprotected from global competition.

Nowadays LED display is much cheaper and, by usingthe Cloud, an enterprise can provide material from acentral server to lots of different panels all around thecity or a country.

Health Care and Aged Care industry applications wereshowcased during the presentation.

A Penguin remote control activates the screen’s menu,links to any DV player that the resident wants to plugin, can target messages to different residents within thehome related to their particular illness, for example noinvitation to go for a walk to those that are bedridden.In other words, providing very targeted information viaIPTV technology.

eugene@combitel.com.au

Page 19

CameraLighting atNewshub

You may recall a story onlighting for TVNZ News inour November issue lastyear; well, MediaWorksNewshub has also gone LEDbut in the direction of somedifferent product. CushlaLewis is the chief cameraoperator for MediaWorksNewshub and I sought outCushla because of a storywe did from Amsterdam onthe Aladdin LED Flex Panels.Chris McKenzie from PLStold me that Cushla wasusing one.

Ed: Well Cushla, you’veactually got more than onehaven’t you?

Cushla: Yes, here at

Newshub we’ve got three of them, the single colour

Flexlites. At the time we purchased them, they were

reasonably expensive and we had a limited amount of

money to spend on new equipment. I’ve sent one to

Wellington, one to Christchurch, and we’ve got one here

in Auckland.

Ed: Is that “sharing the love”?

Cushla: Sharing the love around, yes, I like to dothat with any new equipment. We don’t keep it all inAuckland, we like to share it around equally so thateverybody can get some new gear.

Ed: What was it about the Aladdin Flexlite thatinterested you?

Cushla: LED lighting has changed our lives ascamera operators and the Flexlites seemed like afantastic idea. Before LED lighting, we were totallydependent on mains power or battery belts for sunguns.LED lighting has completely changed everythingbecause they use very little power and we can plugstraight into our camera batteries; it’s fantastic. TheFlexlite is awesome because we can use it in all sorts ofsituations. You can stick it to things, you can hang itfrom things, you can make a little cylinder out of it, youcan put it in a car, you can stick it to the roof of a carwhich gives you downlight … you can do all sorts ofthings – endless.

Ed: And it’s dimmable?

Cushla: It’s dimmable and it weighs next to nothing– it just goes into your daypack so you can take itanywhere with you to any job with ease.

Ed: So when you think back to the day when I firststarted as a cameraman – did you use candles … no?

Cushla: Ha ha no – well we used Blondes andRedheads and so that’s what we would cart around withus. I used to cart two Redheads around with me alongwith my camera and my battery belt and my pack andmy tripod, so you know we we're pretty much like apackhorse. We still do carry a bit of gear but havinglightweight easy LED lighting has just revolutionisedOPC camerawork really – when we’re running aroundit’s just so much easier.

Ed: What purpose do you use the light for – obviouslyit’s not a light for lighting a scene at night?

Cushla: I use it all the time; I use it for just abouteverything I do night or day.

Ed: On its own?

Cushla: Along with my Ledzilla, which is a littleDedolight LED light onboard my camera, or I’ll use it inconjunction with another LED panel if I need to.

Page 20

Cushla ( with Ledzilla ) in action.

Ed: Say for example, you were at a roadside accident– would you use the panel for that?

Cushla: I would definitely use it if I needed someextra light, but to be honest probably 80% of the timewe’d use our onboard light for that kind of thing,because you’re rushing around off the shoulder. So inall honesty, it would be more for interview typesituations.

Ed: You’d use the panel and the onboard … in whatcombination? How would you set them up?

Cushla: If I’m using the Ledzilla and the panel, I’duse the panel as a backlight / sidelight, or to light thebackground. Quite often if you’re doing an interviewduring the day outside somewhere, you need a little bitof extra light if it’s a sunny day, and your onboard alonedoesn’t quite cut it. You need an extra bit of light andthe Aladdin’s fantastic for that because it’s so bright.It’s small, flexible, really bright and you can dim it – it’sgreat.

Ed: But when you’re balancing the background andthe foreground, I’m sure you use your Ledzilla tobalance?

Cushla: The Flexlight that I’ve got is daylightbecause only tungsten or daylight was available at thetime. I had to make a choice, so I chose daylightbecause it’s more versatile. I use it for everything –inside, outside, all over the place. What I can do is Ican use the Flexlight as a sidelight – it gives you alovely blue look and then the Ledzilla as a front keylight with tungsten which then gives you lovely mixedlight that looks pretty good. It looks like there’s awindow beside your subject.

Ed: That’s for daylight, but at night time, you’dbalance against the daylight panel?

Cushla: Yes I would just put the light on and do awhite balance and it comes out fine – the backgroundlooks interesting.

Ed: Cameras have become a lot more “forgiving”?

Cushla: Totally, yes.

Ed: So in fact, even though you’ve got a daylightsetting on one light and you’ve got a tungsten on theother, it’s not the same as it used to be with the oldtube cameras?

Cushla: It is a bit different. You still have to knowwhat you’re doing, so it’s just manipulating your filters,the light that you have available and the light that youintroduce. You can turn the light off, do a balance; youcan have one light on, do a balance, you get a differentcolour effect, turn them both on. It’s just knowing whatyou can do and manipulating it to get it looking the bestthat you possibly can, because that’s what you’re tryingto achieve. So with News …

Ed: It’s all about content, please say that?

Cushla: It is about content – we’re about content,but we’re also about trying to make things look the bestthat we can in a short amount of time, so it’s all aboutspeed and efficiency and making something look reallygood when you’re under tight time constraintsgathering content.

Ed: And also, the person you’re interviewing quiteoften could be in a stressful situation, so you don’t wantto faff around setting up lights and saying “Oh can wedo that again, because I didn’t get something quiteright” – you want to get it right first time?

Cushla: That’s right. The way we work haschanged – News changes constantly and gets busier.We used to have a lot more time to do lighting andcamera work in general.

Ed: When you had a big crew?

Cushla: When we had bigger teams yes. We don’thave the luxury of that any more, those days were gonea long time ago. We now have to be lightweight, fastand efficient and these types of LED lights, like theAladdin, are a very useful tool for camera operators.We’ve still got a great light, but it doesn’t weigh muchand it’s efficient, uses very little power and I can plug itinto the camera battery. It’s fantastic.

Ed: And use the same camera battery for the cameraand the light?

Cushla: Yes, you can take a separate battery ( Ialways have a spare battery in my bag ) or plug intoyour camera battery but the good thing about theAladdin is that it comes with a really long cable, so ifyou need to plug it into your camera and have the lighta good distance away, you can easily. It’s great forthat – I just find it really very versatile. If I could, Iwould equip all Newshub camera crews with an Aladdin.It’s a flexible, lightweight, dimmable and bright LEDlight – fantastic!

Ed: But still on the subject of lights, you also recentlypurchased some Lowell Blenders?

Cushla: Yes, I purchased three sets of LowellBlenders and there were I think three lights in each kit.I kept a kit in Auckland and sent a kit to Wellington anda kit to Christchurch. The reason I went with the LowellBlenders is that again they’re small and light, differentfrom the Aladdins because they’re not flexibleobviously, they’re just little square lights, but they’rereally light so you can pack a couple of them into yourday kit without much trouble. You get your nice frontlight and your backlight, it’s got colour, you can changefrom tungsten to daylight, they also have filters. It’spretty much everything you need in a small LED light

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It takes seconds to set up.

and they are reasonably powerful, which is what weneed. I was really impressed with them actually –although I think the Aladdin is more powerful / versatileand if I could get the Aladdin Bi-Flex with the tungsten /daylight dual light I’d be rapt.

But the Lowell Blenders are great little lights because,again, they’re really light and easy to use, you canmove them around. They’re fantastic – and you canuse camera batteries to power them, or they come withbatteries and you can also power them from the mainsif you need to.

Ed: So really it’s an ergonomic choice – the Aladdinpanel has just that little bit more flexibility?

Cushla: The best thing is that you can roll up theAladdin, you can pack it, it’s just so light it weighs nextto nothing. And it’s got the most powerful LEDs on it,it’s really bright; I love it. Another fantastic thing aboutthese Aladdin panels is that if you’re in a bunfight – youknow, a media scrum, and it happens to get pushedover, it doesn’t break. It’s fantastic, not like any otherlight. All other lights they fall over, smash, you knowthat’s it, but these are great. You can knock themaround and they still work, it’s fantastic.

Ed: And you can take it out in the rain?

Cushla: I haven’t actually tried it in a hugedownpour, but you can easily just put a little plastic bagover them, which I’ve done before to protect them andit’s fine.

Ed: And it can be any old plastic bag, as long as it’sclear, because it’s not going to burn?

Cushla: That’s right, any clear plastic bag.

Ed: Now, when you’re into a large situation – saythere’s a bit of a group, obviously one Aladdin panel’snot going to cut it. What do you use in that situation?

Cushla: Well we’ve got a great big HMI light whichwe can use. We actually purchased it for the RugbyWorld Cup because we were doing our whole Newsbulletin at the time from down at the Viaduct and, ofcourse, it was summer, so competing with sunlight, weneeded to get something that was a very powerful light.We found that the HMI worked really, really well and it’sbeen a fantastic light, we keep it in our Livecross vanand we use it for all sorts of things.

Ed: There are situations where you need lots of light?

Cushla: Yes, and to be honest, we still have an oldBlonde and a couple of old Redheads that at times westill pull out. I mean, they’re real good old standardlights that you can’t go past.

Ed: For the actual quality of light, but it’s just thetime you take to set it up, find the power point …?

Cushla: Exactly, yes. If you’re filming in acontrolled situation and there are no crowds of peopleand there’s available power, you can’t beat a Blonde asa backup at times. They are strong reliable lights. Butthe HMI is a lot stronger for when you’re battling sunnysituations. LED lighting is the way of the future andgets better all the time.

Ed: Now when you were talking about your on-camera lights, you used the term “sungun” but Iunderstand that, amongst your crews, there’s quite avariety of on-camera lights?

Cushla: Well when I say “sungun” I mean anonboard camera light. We depend on these a lot for

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Ledzilla. This is currently your onboard camera light of

choice?

Cushla: Yes it definitely is, I like it, it’s greatbecause you can spot it, you can change the colourtemperature on it and it’s small, light, powerful and it’sreasonably waterproof.

Ed: But you’ve taken the barndoors off?

Cushla: Yes, they get in the way and scratch thecamera. It’s just better for me to work fast without

Page 24

News because most of the time that’s allyou’ve got. You’re running around andyou are very dependent upon youronboard camera light. In my 20 years ofshooting News, I’ve never found the“perfect” onboard camera light. I do findthe Ledzilla made by Dedolight prettygood, but lots of camera ops try differentthings.

Here at Newshub we have tried differenttypes of panels, we’ve tried all sorts ofonboard camera lights but there’s somany things that we need to take intoconsideration – there’s powering it,making sure that it doesn’t use too muchof your battery power – very important,you don’t want your battery going downin the middle of a job.

The other big thing is moisture – rain –because we’re often out in the rain. Alot of onboard camera lights don’t allowfor that, so the minute you get a bit ofrain they stop working. So there’s lots ofdifferent things … and you don’t want itto be too big because it gets in the way, it getsknocked, it falls off, it gets smashed. It has to be ahardy, waterproof, really good light that doesn't drainyour battery too much, so there’s a lot of things toconsider.

The following day, I went "on location" with Cushla to

the Manukau Police Station.

Ed: Now Cushla, while we are waiting for the other

News crew to arrive, just a little bit more about your

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them, I don’t need them and I’ve never used them.

Ed: And the filter – that’s come off too?

Cushla: That’s come off because I don’t use it. Thelight has a dimmer so I don’t need the filter as it cutsout too much light. I just never used it, so for methat’s just something that gets in the way of my speed.So anything that gets in the way of me working quickly,I get rid of it. It’s got a little colour temperature dial onit, so you can dial up tungsten or daylight or a mix –whatever you want.

Ed: So that enables you tobalance against the Aladdinpanel?

Cushla: Yes I like to mixmy light up a bit and I try tomake the light look asnatural as possible, as goodas possible in a shortamount of time, so havingthat combination of theflexible panel and my lighton top of my camera, I canactually come up with apretty good effect quickly.News is all about speed andaccuracy and trying to getthe pictures to look as goodas possible.

Ed: Certainly in the past,your on-camera lights havereally been a bit pathetic interms of brightness; theywere just a key light for a

close-up interview, but you find this Ledzilla prettypowerful?

Cushla: I find it pretty good; it’s the best one thatI’ve come across. I know other camera ops chooselarger panels to have on top of their cameras, but I findthat bigger lights get in the way and they get knockedoff. You don’t want something that’s going to stick outand break off if you smack it into the wall or whateveraccidentally.

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Ed: Okay, at the moment, we’re in the foyer of theManukau Police Station and you’ve got your camera,your onboard light, your panel and a stand and yourtripod and your reporter – we’re just waiting to find outwhat we’re going to do. We don’t even know if thisinterview is inside or outside?

Cushla: And this is pretty much the way Newsgoes; we often never know what we’re going to do orwhere we are going to and we often never know wherewe will end up. Most of our jobs just happen during theday and you don’t know where you’re going to be butthat's exciting I think. Like this morning, I dressed fora sports day, because I thought there was going to be alot of sport today, but I ended up having to go to AirNew Zealand for the announcement of their profit shareand I kind of felt a little bit under-dressed, but you justhave to go with it. Everything can change in a second!

Ed: Now as the Newshub camera supervisor you mustbe constantly fielding calls from other camerapeople outin the field?

Cushla: Yes, I look after all of the camera operatorsin Auckland and assist the rest of the country, includingall the camera vehicles and all of the equipment, so Ispend a lot of time talking to people not just inAuckland but in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.Even on the weekends I get calls if something goeswrong or if somebody needs help of some kind. Wealso employ stringers in different parts of the countrythat we can’t get to in a hurry. so it’s quite a number.We’ve actually got 36 vehicles and 32 full time cameraoperators within our Newshub team.

Ed: Do you ever look at their footageand sort of say “Oooh, something needsto be done with that camera or thatlighting’s not right”?

Cushla: Usually, if something standsout, people will draw your attention to itpretty quickly, or you’ll see it and go“Whoa, what’s going on there?”

Ed: But they give you the respon-sibility of calling that person?

Cushla: There are a number ofpeople who will take action. If we seesomething that stands out, we’ll go"There’s something not quite right withthat camera, or what has gone wrongthere” This does happen but not veryoften thankfully! We try to do our bestat keeping an eye on any problems butit’s not always possible, because we’reall so busy all the time.

Ed: And, as we said before, News is all aboutcontent?

Cushla: It’s all about content, but you know wedon’t just shoot content for Television News now, we’reworking with online radio and television, we are a multi-platformed business now. We’re gathering informationand content for lots of different platforms.

Ed: But you can’t beat some nice pictures?

Cushla: It’s a dying luxury – having the luxury oftime to shoot nice pictures. Once that’s what proudlyspecialised in really lovely picture stories within CurrentAffairs and News … now we do our best in the shortamounts of time with what we have. We do our bestand I think the product that Newshub produces is a topclass product considering the time constraints and dailypressures. I’m proud of all my camera team, they’revery competent camerapeople; they’re the best in thecountry. For all the situations that we’re thrown into,we do extremely well. It’s not like the old days whereyou used to have 3 or 4 people in a crew – you had asound person, a lighting person, a director, reporter anda camera operator. Those days are long gone intelevision; we do everything. We do the sound, thelighting, the camera – and you have to do your best.There’s always a compromise, but you do your best.

Ed: Good gear helps.

Cushla: It sure does; it's really important to keepcurrent with equipment so content delivery is fast andefficient. NZVN

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Cushla and Nick Estelrich at the Mediahub ingest area.