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Transcript of TVBE September 2015
www.tvbeurope.com
September 2015Business, insight and intelligence for the media and entertainment industry
A diamond year for ITV
Up Periscope: is now-casting the future of live?
IBC2015 thought leadership showcase
Audio forum: sounding out the expertsPhotos by: ITV/REX Shutterstock
As ITV turns 60, we take a nostalgic walk down memory lane
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TVBEurope 3September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
This year’s IBC will be a poignant event for
all of us here at TVBEurope, as we prepare
to bid farewell to one of our own. This will
be the fi nal issue where Steve Connolly’s name
will grace our magazine credits, as he prepares
to make the short trip down to Fleet Street to
join our colleagues at IBC to become their
new head of sales. I think it’s fair to say that
what IBC is inheriting goes far beyond the
obvious talent, diligence, and professionalism
that Steve will bring to the table: they are
inheriting a true gentleman.
Steve was sat on the opposite side of the
boardroom table when I fi rst set foot inside the
offi ces here at NewBay Media (Intent Media, as
it was then). He was the person who introduced
me to the TVBEurope brand, to the people I
would be working with, and to the industry I
would be entering. He was the person who
opened my eyes to the nuances of the business,
and has been a guiding hand for the duration
of my time in this wonderful marketplace. I
can quite honestly say that beyond the clear
opportunity he was presenting to me with the
editorship of TVBEurope, the main reason I
accepted was because of the man offering me
the job. I believed in him, his vision, and trusted
wholeheartedly his leadership. That he has also
become a great friend is an honour. Yet, while I
lament his moving on, I must also congratulate
him for an exceptional stint here with TVBEurope,
and all our affi liated brands. After a decade of
service, he deserves an immense amount
of credit, and I wish him the best of luck in
his new career with IBC. Thankfully, that means
that he is not leaving us completely.
I’d just like to fi nish by thanking Steve
for his peerless management, his constant
encouragement, and ultimately for giving me this
fabulous opportunity. Fare thee well my friend,
you will be sorely missed.
James McKeownExecutive Editor
Welcome
Our loss is IBC’s gainEDITORIAL
Executive Editor - James [email protected] - Melanie [email protected] Staff Writer - Holly [email protected] - Chris Forrester, David Fox, David Davies, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett, Adrian Pennington, Philip Stevens, Catherine WrightHead of Digital - Tim FrostHuman Resources & Offi ce Manager - Lianne DaveyHead of Design, Hertford - Kelly Sambridge
Senior Production Executive - Alistair TaylorPublisher - Steve [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Sales Manager - Ben [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Account Manager - Richard [email protected]+44 207 354 6000Managing Director - Mark Burton
US 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 +44 207 354 6002
NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association
© NewBay Media 2015. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owners. TVBEurope is mailed to qualifi ed persons residing on the European continent. Subscription is free.
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
TVBEurope bids farewell to its long-serving publisher
In this issue4 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
10 Workfl owUp Periscope! Adrian Pennington explores whether social services like Twitter’s Periscope are wresting control of ‘live’ away from TV
08 Opinion and AnalysisSteve Plunkett, CTO of Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services, asks whether IP is really ready for primetime broadcast
36IBC PreviewPart two of our thought leadership feature gauges the mood of the industry as we head into another IBC week in Amsterdam
SupplementPreventing churn 101: why video quality, and the ability to analyse it, matters. In association with IneoQuest
Audio forumIn the second audio forum of the year, Philip Stevens talks to several foremost sources about issues facing the sound side of broadcasting 55
ITV at 60As ITV celebrates its diamond anniversary, Philip Stevens takes a nostalgic look back at the early days of commercial television in the UK 46
www.tvbeurope.com
September 2015
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Opinion and Analysis6 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Today’s OTT viewers can be both fi ckle and
hard to please. Faced with the wealth
of choice now on offer, it’s no surprise
that they’re not afraid to vote with their feet
if a service doesn’t meet with their exacting
standards. Providers are now in a constant battle
to optimise the viewing experience and retain
consumers’ attention.
Our TV experiences can have the effect
of pushing us along the entire spectrum of
emotions: from the sense of comfort of watching
Saturday Kitchen, to the joy of seeing our
favourite football team winning, through to our
suspense at the latest episode of Homeland.
There’s a sense of stagecraft about it, and as
such, breaking the fourth wall for the viewer –
taking them away from that experience –
is a cardinal sin for providers wanting
to optimise engagement. The game has
changed. Consumers have grown accustomed
to the high quality offered by linear TV –
uninterrupted periods of viewing in the crispest
defi nition – and now, with the explosive growth of
OTT, we don’t want to make compromises when
it comes to our online viewing experiences either.
This perception was borne out in a recent survey
we conducted. We asked 400 UK consumers
about their attitudes toward watching TV
delivered over the internet. Their responses were
enlightening, showing that today’s viewer is
looking for a TV-like experience, and will quickly
abandon their show if the spell is broken
and they are forced to remember that ‘this
is the web’.
Large screens still ruleWhile the amount of video consumed on mobile
devices has exploded in the last two to three
years, three out of every four OTT TV viewers
surveyed continue to use the larger screen of
a PC to watch content. The OTT industry is not
short of commentators predicting that soon
we will barely watch TV on anything other than
smartphones, yet, while mobile is certainly
Don’t break the spellOTT providers, here’s why you shouldn’t break the spell for viewers, writes Dr Hui Zhang, CEO and co-founder, Conviva
‘It’s clearer now than ever: to build a thriving business, service providers must
absolutely emulate traditional TV’
TVBEurope 7September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Opinion and Analysis
important and a rapidly growing medium,
consumers still currently use the tried-and-true PC
screen more than any other device.
Looks matterWhen asked about the most important factor
in choosing an OTT video service, consumers
showed considerable discernment. Fully a third
of respondents made it clear that they wanted
to be sure they were getting (at least) a TV-
quality experience. Unsurprisingly, the breadth
of the content library was a very close second,
but the results hint at a future in which even the
best shows will quickly lose audience if delivered
poorly. With the amount of money being
dedicated to content development, losing any
viewers has long-term implications, not only for
the monetisation of these valuable properties,
but for the long-term health of content
production firms.
Put up or shut upWhile 41 per cent of viewers suggest that they
don’t currently subscribe to a service, it’s clear
that once consumers have selected a service,
they must be persuaded to stick with it. We found
that the most important factor influencing the
consumer’s decision to keep or cancel an OTT
subscription is the breadth of the content library:
three out of ten subscribers look at this as the key
reason to stay or churn.
Above all, don’t break the fourth wallWhen services break the spell with slow start
times, inferior picture resolution, or excessive
interruptions, viewers are reminded that they’re
watching internet-delivered video, and quickly
move on to the next thing. They want to lean
back and enjoy as though they are watching
traditional TV, and will lose interest as soon as the
illusion evaporates.
Consumers define the quality of their
experience evenly across video start times,
interruptions during the stream, and picture
resolution. They are also unforgiving: three out
of ten will abandon a poor quality experience
immediately – regardless of the length of the
video. Just 16 per cent of viewers will muddle
their way through a sub-par short form piece.
Consumers are flocking to OTT video, and six
out of ten of our respondents are ready to pay
for the privilege. However, they expect to be
able to watch their content on large screens,
and have no qualms about abandoning a
disappointing experience in short order. The
implications for providers – both in terms of
subscription retention, and content monetisation
– are significant, and require attention. Viewers
who are reminded that the experience they’re
engaged in is ‘only the internet’ – due to poor
picture quality or constant stream interruptions –
have the spell broken, and are taken away from
the experience. It’s clearer now
than ever: to build a thriving business,
service providers must absolutely emulate
traditional television. You must provide
a broadcast quality experience, or risk
losing paying customers.
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Opinion and Analysiswww.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Alongside the talk of 4K, HDR and wider
colour gamuts at this year’s IBC, there will
be plenty of discussion about another
new entrant to our broadcast technology stack:
IP. This interloper, invented a mere 40 years
ago, seems destined to sweep aside our old
favourites such as SDI as the universal transport
protocol within broadcast facilities. But is it really
something we need and when can we expect
to be able to use it? Let’s look at the ‘why’,
‘where’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ of IP in a professional
broadcast environment.
Why?There is a sense of inevitability about the arrival
and use of IP in broadcasting, but it is important
to understand why we might want to use it. The
reasons are many and varied but can probably
be summarised as follows.
CostIP typically sits on top of Ethernet, and the
economics of Ethernet in terms of cost per bit
are becoming increasingly attractive due to its
near ubiquitous deployment in all major industries
and rapidly increasing bit rates. With 1Gbps port
speeds now the entry level, 10Gbps becoming
mainstream and rate increases up to 1Tbps
expected over the next five years, the ability
to carry professional media over Ethernet/IP is
not just becoming viable but necessary. This is
particularly the case as we introduce UHD into
our production workflows, with the associated
increase in bandwidth for both file and live-
based media flows.
FlexibilityIP is a fundamental building block of
virtualisation. The hypervisors and containers
that underpin the ‘cloud’ (both public and
private), require IP for transport and control
purposes. If you want to embrace the software-
defined, IT-centric, model of systems design (and
you should), then you have to use and really
understand IP. You can’t plug an SDI cable into
a virtual machine and you will need to use many
of those to build the dynamic programmable
broadcast facility of the future.
InsightBecause IP is a two-way, packet-based
communication medium, you can collect highly
granular data on machine-to-machine and
people-to-machine interactions and media
exchange. This data provides much greater
insight into how content is distributed and
consumed as well as the networked elements
that form a broadcast environment. We have
seen the application of such information already
in IPTV and OTT to deliver personalised services
and advertising, and as IP pervades the rest of
the broadcast ecosystem we will gain greater
insight and potential business value as a result.
Where?The implementation of IP in broadcast is, for
good reason, happening at a different pace
in different domains. In some areas, such as
on-demand and OTT delivery, it is not only the
foundation technology but the media industry
which is at the cutting edge of designing and
deploying sophisticated distributed computing
environments. In other domains, such as within
the studio and playout facility, where real-time
synchronous baseband video prevails, it is still
a nascent technology with many outstanding
challenges to be addressed before
mainstream deployment.
On-demandThe challenges involved in designing, building
and operating very large scale IP-based on-
demand video platforms are such that media
organisations are in many cases pushing forward
IP related protocol development, software
engineering best practice and new architectural
styles. Anyone who suggests that broadcasting
and media are laggards in their adoption of IP
and distributed software systems need just look at
this side of our industry. This is a world built on fast
developing internet technologies, of continuous
delivery (releasing new software builds rapidly
and autonomously), infrastructure-as-code,
microservices and so on.
Netflix are probably the flag bearer in
this regard with their entirely cloud based,
microservices architected, globally distributed
video platform that consumes over 30 per cent
of US internet bandwidth in peak hours. They are
also seeding the rest of the industry (and other
industries) with knowledge and freely available
software (they have over 50 open source
projects active).
LinearAlmost the opposite extreme from the
groundbreaking use of IP in the OTT world is
traditional linear broadcasting. There are of
course very good reasons for this. In this domain
we transport and mix high bandwidth real-time
video and audio across synchronised devices
with extremely high availability expectations.
We achieve this through the use of dedicated,
industry specific, hardware centric, fixed
configuration, people intensive facilities that
are slow to deploy and change. But they work,
relatively flawlessly.
If we are to use IP in the real-time broadcast
domain, and take advantage of all the good
things outlined in the Why section previously, then
we must meet those same exacting standards
and requirements. Something which until recently
did not seem technically or operationally
feasible. That is changing though and with
increased industry focus a momentum is building
to overcome the challenges.
How?There are a couple of ways in which we, as an
industry, can approach this. We can take the
architectures, protocols, products and ways of
working from today’s broadcast facilities and
try to port them across to IP/IT infrastructure.
Or we can pause, take the time to really
understand what IP and IT technologies can
Is IP really ready for primetime in broadcast?By Steve Plunkett, CTO broadcast and media services, Ericsson
8 TVBEuropeurope
offer, and build a radically different future
architecture that is more closely aligned to
the pure software ecosystems of the OTT world
that we will ultimately converge with. With
those two different choices facing us, we have
decided to… do both. Much of our industry
focus today is on taking the software out of the
hardware packages from previous incarnations
and delivering them as software only products,
deployable on virtual machines. We then
take our familiar transport protocol, SDI, and
encapsulate the whole thing inside IP. Within
no time we will be a software based, IP-centric
industry. Sort of.
We can vew this as a two-phase transition – in
Phase One we do largely lift and shift our current
environment and place it on top of an IP/IT base.
This is no small feat in itself and will deliver a good
deal more deployment flexibility and cost saving
opportunities. We will also learn a great deal in
the process about what IP can and cannot do
well, resolving issues as we go. Then in Phase Two,
which we can start now in parallel, we begin to
deconstruct media to its component parts (video
frames, audio samples, metadata etc) and
re-think how to compose more dynamically, the
content itself and the infrastructure that serves it.
Who knows what we will end up with, but it will
be quite different from what we have today
and in Phase One.
When?This is the big question of course. When can we
realistically introduce and take advantage of IP
across the real-time broadcast domain? Based
on real world experience, we are already some
way towards achieving the benefits of what I
described as Phase One above. However, we
are certainly not there yet (despite what you
might read at IBC). The more radical future, one
that really adopts an IP first architecture, is still
in its infancy but also gaining traction through
initiatives such as the EBU/SMPTE/VSF Joint
Taskforce on Networked Media and others.
The bottom line is that moving forward
requires effort, investigation, standardisation,
collaboration, experimentation, innovation and
skills investment across the entire industry. When
is also subjective – when will your organisation
(or you) feel ready and willing to embrace
the change that is IP. The steps required at
an industry level are also necessary at an
organisational and individual level.
I think we will look quite similar in two years
and radically different in ten (remember, at
the beginning of 2005 there was no YouTube,
iPlayer, Netflix streaming, Twitter or many of the
things that make up today’s TV experience).
The transition between those two points should
be very exciting and rewarding for those that
embrace it.
Steve Plunkett took part in our recent IP
video webinar in association with Quantel and
Snell. Vist www.TVBEurope.com/webinars to
watch the on-demand video.
TVBEurope 9September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Opinion and Analysis
’There is a sense of inevitability about the arrival and use of IP in broadcasting, but it is important to understand why we
might want to use it’
Outside broadcast vehicles have
changed radically over the past few
years. The move to HD throughout
the world, coupled with the introduction of
broadcast-quality flat panel displays, stimulated
a new generation of builds toward the end of the
last decade. Most major broadcast organisations
and independent operators took advantage of
the buoyant TV market, which was hit less hard
by recession as many others, to upgrade their
fleets with new vans and new technology. The
introduction of 4K transmission and an ever-
increasing demand for more cameras at live
events has further stimulated ongoing growth in
the outside broadcast market.
A desire to utilise the internal and highly
restricted space within a truck to the absolute
greatest efficiency and level of flexibility has
encouraged system integrators and designers
to seek and deploy new techniques and
technologies. KVM matrix switches are rapidly
proving that they can offer significant benefits
in this field and are being incorporated into
many new OB vehicle builds, as well as into fixed
broadcast studios and editing facilities.
The primary role of the switch is to connect all
available operator workstations to all resources
within the truck: performing for data- and file-
based systems the same type of function as the
video router for video feeds. It allows freedom
of access from any console to any device,
which in turn means that every operator position
is completely application-independent. The
broadcast workflow is streamlined: production
staff can be situated anywhere within the vehicle
and can change their working application
instantly. A consequent benefit is that the total
number, and hence real estate, of monitors and
keyboards is reduced to the minimum.
This flexibility provides several advantages.
Production staff can set workstations to their
preferred configuration, whilst becoming less
reliant upon the actual physical equipment
configuration. Resources are more easily
shared: files can be accessed directly from the
source without the need for comprehensive
network configuration and associated and
time-consuming downloading and distribution of
content. Direct access to servers helps eliminate
the proliferation of multiple copies of content,
which can lead to confusion and part-finished
work being transmitted.
Connection between source devices and
operator consoles is fast, and artefact- and
delay-free. In operation, there is no perceivable
delay in user response, so operators are not
normally even aware of the switch and are
presented with images that are visually accurate.
Switching is instantaneous and can be achieved
through several methods: in-band switching
where the user selects the source by keyboard
hot-keys; through an administrator GUI, which is
useful in setting up configurations using stored
layouts for rapid and efficient changeover of
layout as the vehicle changes jobs; and by
integration with a standard broadcast control
system, and there are several examples of
KVM switch deployments using VSM and KSC
Commander controllers.
A recent introduction has been the universal
IO (UNI-IO) module that enables parallel
switching of keyboard, video and mouse signals
along with the associated HD-SDI stream. This is
invaluable in setting up editing stations where
both types of signal need to be provided to the
editor together.
In many trucks, broadcast equipment is
located at a distance from the user workstations.
Extended interconnection is necessary and
with today’s high bandwidth, this is becoming a
problem for standard DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort
data cables of limited transmission capability.
KVM switches incorporate signal extension
and bring an added dimension of operational
flexibility and efficiency that should be
considered at the start of any new build.
A further advantage is that trucks can be
equipped to suit each job. Videohouse OB14
employs a Draco tera 32-port matrix switch to
great effect: equipment is mounted on sliding
trays that are accessible from outside the vehicle
and the truck is loaded with just the equipment
needed for each outing. It makes for greater
flexibility and allows equipment to be shared
amongst the fleet thereby reducing the overall
stock level of expensive devices.
IHSE’s Draco tera range spans a wide range of
output ports from eight, right up to 576, so there is
a solution for every fixed and mobile installation.
Cat X and fibre are interchangeable and can be
mixed on the same chassis, and a commitment
to supporting new picture resolutions and formats
means that the solution is future-proof: it can
change and expand as the truck itself evolves.
The use of KVM in OB vansOpinion and Analysis
10 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
KVM matrix switches are becoming essential in OB vans to provide unlimited and highly flexible access to facilities within the vehicle. Switches of different sizes have been installed in many new builds, writes Enno Littman, managing director of IHSE GmbH
Videohouse OB14 employs a Draco tera 32-port matrix switch to great effect
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Eastern promise
The Hungarian commercial television channel
TV2 (250 permanent employees and the
same amount of freelancers) has been
operating since 1997, providing a large variety of
programming. It was owned by ProSiebenSat.1
Media AG until early 2014 when it was sold to
two investors. It is aired throughout Hungary. The
TV2 Group comprises of TV2 and its three cable
channels, SuperTV2, FEM3 and PRO4. Like its
competitors, the group depends on localised
programmes and magazines.
While visiting the studio facilities in Budapest,
the broadcast engineer Dániel Löczi provided
me with a brief overview of the installed and
used equipment as well as the incorporated
studios and workflows behind it. Similar to RTL
Klub, which we covered in August’s issue, TV2
has a huge amount of localised production,
which is generated by external companies as
well as internally on its Budapest premises. The
operation does not have ENG or OB trucks but
does boast an SNG vehicle with SD equipment, to
be upgraded in the future. When there is a need
for such services, external resources are hired-in.
Currently, IP technology is used instead, which
is very reliable, inexpensive and well-suited
to news production.
The channel’s first on-air programme was
broadcast on 4 October, 1997. At that time, the
internal technology was SDI (studios, post
Workflow12 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Part two of Reinhard Wagner’s insight into the Hungarian broadcast industry looks at the workflows and operations of commercial channel, TV2
TV2 first starting
broadcasting in 1997
TVBEurope 13September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Workflow
production, master control) with the broadcast
output to cable operators in PAL analogue (SD
4:3 aspect ratio, Sony BetaSP VTRs D75 with SDI
output: analogue component signals were
used for monitoring purposes only). In 2001, the
MCR outgoing signal was changed to SDI (fibre
connection: 150Mbps). General investments as
well as standard upgrades are discussed with
the employees of each department, with future
functions and possible enhanced feature sets
explained during the process. There is also a
rule that the final decision is always made by
the technical department. “This is because the
employees of our company are so close that we
talk in advance about things and then it will be
decided,” Löczi says.
“We always hesitate to be early adopters
and appreciate the ability to evaluate software
and equipment in advance. How useful a new
release might be always depends on what
features you use. Therefore, we talk to the
manufacturer and try to get a personalised
version instead of the general latest version.
Each encountered problem is communicated
with the operators, managers and vendors.”
In previous years, the operation was tape-
based and the post production performed
by Interactiv, which was an external service
company at that time. This required a large
amount of manual work by operators. Interactiv
was bought by TV2 and all services integrated
into the production chain within the
Budapest headquarters.
Following this, the existing Avid equipment
needed to be upgraded: Adrenaline DNE was
migrated to a central storage system (Unity) with
12 units. This move opened up the system for more
collaboration and effective workflows. Then, on
1 September 2011, the transmission started in
16:9 at SD resolution. But the last step to HD was
taken on 12 October 2012 with the first on-air
HD production of The Voice.
The whole infrastructure and workflows were
redesigned and enhanced. This resulted in an
ISIS 7000 storage system with 96TB capacity.
A total of 23 editing suites, whereby 17 are
connected to Interplay and six are standalone
clients (Media Composer version 7.0.x with Nitris
DX hardware), get access to the centralised
media, work collaboratively on it and use the
clustered Interplay v3.1 base system (redundant
components: two engine nodes, two Media
Indexers, two LookUp servers). The editing
and production workflows are supported by a
clustered Avid MediaCentral platform (used
for internet content creation, for example) with
10Gbps connections to ISIS. This incorporates 13
base and nine advanced licences.
Services and publications for social media,
including YouTube, are supported by Avid Media
I Distribute, which includes two Interplay Transfer
Managers and Media Services, which offer
transcoding and STP servers.
Support is provided by in-house Avid certified
engineers and the 24/7 support teams of the
vendor and manufacturer. “Looking back, we
have only had one big issue over the past ten
years that lasted a couple of hours. But it was
solved easily and caused no major breakdown“,
explains Attila Szarka from Snitt Studio, a local
Budapest-based Avid vendor and system house.
“Because we don‘t like ‘single point of failure’
components, when we purchase new equipment
we always keep an eye on this aspect,” Löczi
adds. “Freelance editors and journalists have to
pass an internal exam at TV2 to use and work on
the Interplay system: it‘s a must. After that they get
an account. If they fail, they are not allowed to
access the system at all.”
The archive integration comprises a single
Interplay Archive Engine, two Archive/Restore
providers, an SGL Flash-Net integration (v6.4.12),
16TB nearline storage and a deep-archive (IBM
TS3500 tape library with four LTO-6 and four LTO-5
drives: licensed capacity around 2,600 tapes).
An LTO-6 tape can store 2.5TB uncompressed
or 6.25TB compressed data. Both IMX50 and
XDCAMHD are hard to compress, so the average
capacity of tapes is around 3TB. The archiving
workflow starts with the ingest of clips and raw
material into the archive for one year. One copy
stays within the LTO tape library, while a second
copy goes into a library that is explosion and fire
protected. These tapes are ‘offline’, representing
the post production part of the archiving.
After the final editing of material some of it
goes into a deep archive for long-term storage
purposes. After a year, the raw material will be
deleted from the library to open up space again
for future productions. There are intentions to
roll back from LTO-6 to LTO-5 again because of
the problems encountered. There is not much
stored metadata about the raw material, but
the finalised material is archived with a good
metadata set and can be searched using
different search expressions (production, type,
on-air date, archive date, series number,
episode number, etc).
Löczi says: “Our producers and journalists carry
most of the information in their brain – they know
where it is. The situation with news production is
different, because they use metadata which is
searchable and connected to the raw material.”
A Telestream Vantage system integration is
used for transcoding, playout to the internet
and for streaming purposes through Interplay
Web Services and direct connections to
the ISIS system.
TV2’s IT department carries out a lot of
in-house development with regard to solutions
for news archive, MAM and QC. This leads
to a unique environment that is in many ways
more enhanced, especially when it comes
to automated quality control (Baton and
the in-house product) where plenty of
manpower is invested.
Most of the shows and magazines are
produced using a total of four in-house studios.
Because of the centralised storage solution
within that infrastructure, Avid Airspeed 5000
and Airspeed Multi Stream video servers are
incorporated: News (Studio 1: 4ch AMS5000
XDCAMHD); local production (Studio 2:
two 4-channel AMS5000 XDCAMHDs, one
4-channel AMS XDCAMHD); MCR/Studio 3 (fig 6):
shared 4-channel AMS5000 XDCAMHD); and TV
series studio: one 2-channel AMS DNxHD (IsoSync
plus in-house developed for ingest control). All
studios share an iNews Command for
playback control and MediaCentral GUIs
for ingest and retrieval.
Files that arrive at TV2 are always quality
checked while ingested – and during the
handling process, they are recoded into the
internally agreed file format: a slightly adapted
version of XDCAMHD 50. External producers
have to deliver their productions in the
requested TV2 standard which makes it easy
to use and process.
“Today, we are able to use workflows we have
not been able to in the past: with Interplay, for
example, we can create high-res and low-res
material at the same time and use it concurrently
in all connected suites,” Löczi concludes.
Workflow14 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Hall 10.A49
when audio mattersnatural sound – in the home
www.jungeraudio.com
Dániel Löczi
#justsaying
@wts_broadcast
Our systems team has built over 50 Outside Broadcast vehicles in the last five years.
Workfl ow16 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Broadcasters managed to stave off the
early threat from online video by
offering something that YouTube, Netfl ix
or Facebook could not; namely, coverage of
live water cooler events. Indeed, TV viewing of
live and recorded programming has increased
as a result of incorporating interactive,
promotional and companion apps on
smartphones and tablets.
TV’s long-term hold on live may, however,
be numbered or at least forced to adapt once
more. The rollout of 4G networks and Wi-Fi as
utility means the broadcast experience is being
reinvented for mobile. Global events like the
Olympics or the World Cup have reached a
tipping point in consumption on digital platforms
where viewers can access on-demand clips,
scroll backwards during live play and direct their
own multi-camera coverage.
The buzz around live streaming sites and social
media apps is indicative of this trend. The poster
child is Twitter’s Periscope but it is far from alone.
Services like Livestream, Bambuser, Ustream,
SnapChat and Qik pre-dated Periscope, which
launched in March to nip the sudden growth of
rival streamer Meerkat in the bud.
Hang w/, which promotes itself with celebrity
endorsements, is a more established app with
a million users and has just launched on the
Apple Watch. Vine has 40 million registered users
with user-created videos limited to six seconds.
YouNow claims 150,000 broadcasts daily and 100
million user sessions per month.
Users of these sites are predominantly young.
YouNow, for example, says 70 per cent of its
users are under the age of 24. Research by TNS
indicates that over 50 per cent of us engage in
other digital activities while watching television.
When mobile video viewers do watch traditional
TV, 22 per cent are regularly doing so while
watching video simultaneously on their phone,
states an IAB report in June. What’s more,
mobile screens are regularly being used for
streaming longer-form video, the IAB found. “If
broadcasters ignore live streaming platforms
they will be stuck in the one-size-fi ts-all television
model of yesterday, and their products will be
less valuable to the consumer of tomorrow,”
warns Stephen Smith, CTO, cloud technologies,
Imagine Communications. “Content owners,
distributors, and others in the media industry are
faced with three different responses to these new
threats: they can ignore them, fi ght them,
or embrace them.”
Digital marketing fi rm Greenlight suggests
that one in fi ve marketers plan to use live
streaming apps like Periscope in campaigns
this year. Traditional media is not closed to
experimentation. US chat show hosts Ellen
DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon have incorporated
the new live streaming apps into rehearsals
Up PeriscopeIs now-casting the future of live? Adrian Pennington investigates
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and on-air monologues; Major League Baseball
reporters are live streaming MLB practice
sessions; a ceremony at Twickenham to mark
100 days until the 2015 Rugby World Cup aired
on Periscope. When Snapchat announced its
Discover channel in January, the brands that
dominated its line-up were National Geographic,
CNN, Comedy Central, and Vice.
“Television networks could exploit these new
technologies to deepen their relationships
with viewers and move from digital cable to
smartphones,” reckons Om Malik, partner at
investment firm True Ventures and founder of
online publisher Gigaom.
Social media-centric newsMeerkat and Periscope are ground-breaking in
their use of the real-time Twitter timeline as the
key mechanism to drive tune-in to a live stream.
With both apps you initiate a live broadcast on
your mobile, type in a few words about what
the viewer is about to see, and enable that text
(plus a link) to be shared to Twitter. If a person is
already following you on the app, they also can
get notifications that you are broadcasting
via iOS notifications. The fact that anyone,
anywhere, can now upload footage of a live
event or breaking news story means Twitter via
Periscope could become a 24/7 rolling news
channel. Again, it is the demographic that
matters. Business Wire revealed that 60 per cent
of millennials in the US depend on social media
to keep up-to-date with current affairs, preferring
to visit BuzzFeed and Huffington Post rather than
traditional news outlets. Sky News suggests that
only 18 per cent of 16 to 24 year olds in the UK
trusted mainstream media to provide them with
relevant information. The online-only Vice News
launched last year and has since become the
fastest growing news site on YouTube.
Publishers and newscasters have dabbled.
During the UK general election in May, The
Economist used Meerkat to explain deflation and
Sky News journalist Joe Tidy used Periscope to
get a behind the scenes look at the first leaders’
debate. He also used the chat and ‘love heart’
functions (which rate a broadcast’s popularity)
to encourage 200 viewers to post questions,
comments and reactions.
According to the The Wall Street Journal,
viewership of its live video stream is much
higher than traditional cable networks through
syndication with other sites that repost the
videos. Presence on social media platforms
Facebook, Instagram, Periscope and others
contribute to the increased number of viewers.
One advantage that live streaming has over
conventional broadcast news is the instant
conversational element that viewers can have
with the broadcaster themselves. Each YouNow
broadcast, for example, features a window
where the broadcaster live streams themselves,
and a chat window, where users interact with
broadcasters. “The fact that the camera
faces in as default, not out, suggests how
valuable we believe conversation is to the
success of this format,” says David Pakman,
a partner at YouNow investor Venrock.
The latest iterations of live streaming
services are limited. There’s no search function
in Periscope, for example, and you can only
shoot in portrait mode, making the video
unsuitable for the 16:9 standard screen aspect
ratio (though this development is coming)
The time window to re-watch video could
extend back further than 24 hours when the
content deserves it. A fast-forward function
would help, as would crowd-sourcing live clips
of the feed for broader social distribution. Such
criticism seems churlish for an app developed
barely 18 months ago and now with Twitter’s
R&D team working on it 24/7.
PiracyLive streaming has already gained notoriety for
being hijacked by pirates. HBO issued takedown
notices to Periscope after it was used to
broadcast the fifth-season premiere of Game
of Thrones and courted further controversy
when used as an illegal platform for the
streaming of the Mayweather/Pacquiao
boxing match in May. Anti-piracy specialist
KLipcorp suggests up to 750,000 pirate viewers
watched the fight in Europe alone. The pay-
per-view to watch cost $99 but the fight had
to be delayed 45 minutes while rights holders
like Comcast and HBO caught up with last-
minute orders. In the interim, more people piled
into illegal views of the contest apparently
unconcerned about the sub-HD quality of the
video. When asked about the controversy
surrounding the Mayweather/Pacquiao
fight, Twitter’s then-CEO Dick Costolo likened
Periscope’s effect on live events to that of
fantasy sports on live sports. In his opinion,
it will ‘surround and amplify’ those events, rather
than enable piracy or theft.
The EPL currently restricts Sky and BT from
broadcasting live games to the mobile devices
of fans in stadiums but how can such sports
organisations stop a stadium full of fans with
phones live streaming? The answer is not to treat
Periscope like Napster but to take advantage of
the engagement with the team or sport it brings.
“The industry needs to stop looking at
Periscope as a piracy issue,” declares Smith.
“It’s a business model that we are not taking
full advantage of at the moment. It’s also an
opportunity to reach people who are priced
out of certain events, or do not consume
content because they cannot get it on their
preferred platform. If we can fix these issues, I
would argue that we would fix the majority of
the piracy problem.”
He argues that by augmenting a broadcast
with multiple types of content and viewing
options, media companies can provide a tiered
experience that can be monetised accordingly,
“taking advantage of audiences with different
ideal price points.”
YouNow offers one monetisation model.
Users can buy into Bars, a virtual currency
which they can exchange for a number of
‘thumbs up’, to tip their favourite broadcaster
and help them trend. YouNow takes a cut of
these in-app purchases and says that many
of its ‘broadcasters’ make more revenue
than on YouTube.
Smartphones bring immediacy and
engagement to the traditional ways of
consuming video at a pace which could leave
TV behind. This is the most important implication
of the rise of Periscope, et al. Having made
live streaming by mobile so easy, the nature of
live has changed for good. Live is no longer a
passive experience but a shared one in which
interaction can be in real time.
Workflow18 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
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Team Brunel, third boat of the Volvo Ocean 65
fleet around Cape Horn
The Volvo Ocean Race is the world’s longest
and most extreme offshore sporting event,
requiring a three-year cycle of planning
and technical decision-making to equip seven
high performance, one-design racing yachts -
the state-of-the-art Volvo Ocean 65.
It is also critical to equip each of 11 stop-
over ports with broadcast technology to cover
arrivals, departures and in-port racing, which
may seem straightforward but is not, particularly
for arrivals. Even though the boats are tracked
throughout their 38,739 nautical-mile journey,
when, where, and from what direction each
boat will actually arrive in port can be something
of a guessing game. They manoeuvre in open
sea to gain an advantage right until the last
moment, which can be diffi cult for those
producing a live show because they don’t know
where their equipment needs to go. As opposed
to in-port races, where you know where and
when the boats will move, with arrivals you never
know precisely when, or from what direction,
they will arrive. It’s not a football pitch, where
you have fi xed, or at least relatively contained,
Workfl ow20 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
By Jeff Allen, seniorsolutions manager at Cobham
‘It is critical to equip each of 11 stop-over ports with broadcast technology to cover arrivals, departures and in-port racing’
Broadcast innovationputs wind in the sails
© R
ick To
mlin
son
- Vo
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Ra
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camera, transmitter, and receive positions. Even
the finish line moves around a lot depending
on the prevailing wind, speed, and tide, which
means that what professionals would call a
‘normal’ RF setup cannot even be attempted.
During the second stopover of the race in
Abu Dhabi around Christmas 2014, it became
clear to the Volvo Ocean Race production
team that they needed a faster, more reliable
way to move video and audio data around,
preferably over a solid IP backbone. Millions of
people in the boatyards, watching on television,
or viewing via the web wanted to see what was
happening no matter when the boats arrived.
Before Abu Dhabi, the team’s ability to
provide content for live arrival shows was pretty
limited in terms of input from cameras because
there was very limited time to set up RF systems,
let alone a full TV infrastructure at each port.
This is when the team started thinking about
how it might further exploit the Cobham IP Mesh
system it was already using. IP Mesh is versatile
and easy to deploy. Multiple transmitters can
be combined into a single IP network to provide
non line of sight coverage with extended range
in environments that are usually too difficult for
most radio-based solutions.
To try out their idea, during the Abu Dhabi
stopover the Volvo broadcast team expanded
IP Mesh in all sorts of places, from masts on
boats once they arrived, to Volvo Ocean Race-
inspired Volvo cars onshore, to helicopters,
chase boats and other strategic locations.
The decision to expand the use of IP Mesh
in Abu Dhabi paid off at the next deployment,
approximately 25 days and 5,400 nautical miles
later, at the next stopover, in Sanya, China.
There, the Volvo Team started using IP Mesh in
earnest. For the first time, the team could easily
include coverage of the arrivals from a wide
range of solid RF links, not just from cameras
and ENG systems on the docks, but RF links on
helicopters, boats, even suitably-equipped race
committee members. All the team had to do
was link any equipped camera to the IP Mesh,
and off they went.
In short, IP Mesh meant that the wireless network,
and those who were using it, didn’t have to
be static. Unlike other wireless systems, IP Mesh
constantly readjusts itself, working out which
mobile nodes are in range and finding the best
route to exchange data between them. The
production team could move with the fleet and
cover it, uninterrupted, with high quality images.
The success in Sanya cascaded to the other
stopovers in the ensuing months. The effect was
TVBEurope 21September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Workflow
‘The deployment of IP Mesh meant that the production team could move with the fleet and cover it, uninterrupted, with high quality
images’
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7680/8192 4320 120 60 [8] 80 [8] 120 [16] 72 [8] 95.5 [16] 144 [16]
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that viewership of subsequent live arrival shows
steadily increased with every stop, at least in
part because they were getting great pictures
to tell their stories.
That experience prompted the Volvo team to
look at even more ways to exploit IP Mesh, and
they came up with a terrifi c idea.
In our industry there are ‘briefcase’
technologies based on 3G and 4G connectivity
that work very well on land in countries with
well-established network coverage. But in
regions with less-established networks, such
systems can struggle, or fall down, especially in
cases where there are massive crowds such as
those at race stopovers, all using their mobile
devices. In some stopovers, some local mobile
phone networks couldn’t cope, so using 3G/4G,
at least reliably, was out of the question.
Volvo came up with an innovative idea and
worked with Cobham to produce a hybrid
backpack, the same sort of backpack that you
can easily fi nd on the broadcast market, but
with an added an IP Mesh unit. Whenever there
was no 3G or 4G coverage, there was always
IP Mesh. It was amazingly effective, especially
from helicopters that were often up to fi ve or
six nautical miles offshore. The combination of
3G, 4G, and IP Mesh could be rapidly deployed
anywhere. A good example of this is stems
from the 24-hour stopover in The Hague, the
penultimate stopover before the race fi nish in
Gothenburg, Sweden.
Broadcast operations covering the live arrivals
and departures at the short stopover in The
Hague were taking place while simultaneous
preparations for the race fi nish in Gothenburg
were in full swing. There was no time to build a
proper RF infrastructure for arrival and departure
shows with the stopovers so close together,
but the hybrid solution with IP Mesh was able
to be derigged at The Hague and re-
established at fi nish line in Gothenburg, all in the
space of about 12 hours. As a result, the Volvo
team was able to provide a live eight-hour show
of the triumphant fi nish, picking up and
covering the fl eet from the coast of Denmark
to Sweden. In this case, broadcast innovation,
as ever, was rewarded with its own
around-the-world win.
Workfl ow22 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
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The Volvo broadcast team expanded IP Mesh in all sorts of places, from masts on boats once they arrived, to Volvo Ocean Race-inspired Volvo cars onshore.
IP Mesh meant that the wireless network, and those who were using it, didn’t have to be static
‘Broadcast innovation was rewarded with its own around-the-world win’
Camera operators running up and down
the touchline at football games is, of
course, a very familiar sight. And like
other technologies in the broadcast industry,
these camera systems have evolved into highly
sophisticated units over the recent past.
The latest innovation, known as the SC100,
comes from Presteigne Broadcast Hire. “This new,
packaged RF camera system is especially aimed
at sports coverage and includes a short form
factor Sony camera, a mount to fit a Steadicam
rig, two-way low latency RF circuits, and the
ability to colour match to all popular outside
broadcast cameras for transparent intercutting
with any OB unit,” explains Mike Ransome,
CEO of Presteigne Broadcast Hire. “We have
called this an all-in-one package because
everything required at the camera end,
including the camera block itself, is contained
within one complete outer casing, with no
external components.”
Meeting specific needsThe development of the new system came as
a result of a request from NEP Visions for a new
lightweight camera package that could be
used principally for its Premier League football
coverage in the new season. “NEP Visions
wanted to replace what has been previously
in use with a newer, lighter, smaller system,
including RF control of camera paint and
shading functions and a return video capability.
It also had to colour match to their existing Grass
Valley cameras,” states Ransome. He reveals
that the package took around eight weeks
from conception to the creation of the initial
developmental prototype, then a further nine
months to the final delivery of production models.
Previous similar rigs were proving problematic
because of their size: particularly length, weight,
DC power consumption and lack of return
Workflow24 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Philip Stevens examines the latest all-in-one camera package to reach the market
‘The package took around eight weeks from conception to the creation of the
initial developmental prototype, then a further nine months to the final delivery
of production models’
Making light work of touchline coverage
vision. “Our development has resulted in a system
that weighs just 4.5Kg, excluding the lens,” says
Ransome. “Other systems also consist of several
individual items attached around the outside of a
standard camera, with associated external loose
cabling prone to snagging and failure.”
He adds, “The short length and good balance
of the camera allows the operators to balance
the rig more easily and work the camera closer to
their body, enabling finer control and even more
fluid movement.”
Matching other makesAlthough the Presteigne Broadcast Hire package
comes with a Sony camera, the rig is colour matrix
mapped to other popular system cameras, such
as those from Grass Valley. The equipment is
controlled from the appropriate vendor’s OCP,
and simply requires the touch of a button on that
panel to colour match other cameras being used
on the broadcast.
“We have designed the telemetry to provide
the link between the OCP and the camera for
full matching and other control functionality.
TVBEurope 25September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
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Up to four SC100 cameras can be controlled
simultaneously per telemetry channel.”
The camera package incorporates low
latency (40ms end to end) MPEG-4 video links
using either Cobham or VisLink technology.
“Those technologies are largely similar, both
utilising digital modulation and H264 coding.
Vislink systems have the ability to utilise a wider
RF bandwidth for an increased bit rate, where
picture content requires the additional quality,”
explains Ransome.
Both technologies use a four-antenna diversity
reception system which comes along as
standard with the SC100. However, for complex
jobs an eight-antenna system can be utilised.
The intention is that the primary and reverse
video feeds will operate in licensed bands,
and Presteigne will set frequencies as
appropriate for each project.
“A standard job can be defi ned as one where
the camera only operates in a single, easy to
cover area such as inside a stadium, in front of
a grandstand, a stage, or a similar environment.
Once the area of coverage requires multiple
receive sites, we regard this as more complex.
As such, this is one where the nature of the
job requires additional receive antennae and
receiver infrastructure to achieve the required
areas of coverage. For example, covering
several geographically separate areas such as
inside and outside a stadium and in the players’
tunnel, or to provide wide area coverage, such
as at a golf course.”
During the development stage and alongside
input from NEP Visions, Presteigne Broadcast
Hire consulted and tested with experienced
Steadicam operators. Live testing was carried
out at football grounds including Fulham,
Manchester United, Sheffi eld, Brentford,
Bournemouth and Arsenal.
Continuing developmentRansome continues, “The new SC100 is
another example of Presteigne Broadcast
Hire’s continuing commitment to be at the
forefront of technology and to provide bespoke
solutions to our clients where they have specifi c
requirements unmatched by commercially
available products. As such, this is not the
fi rst ‘all-inclusive’ camera to be created by
Presteigne. In 2009, in order to meet a specifi c
requirement we produced the fi rst UK ‘all-in-one’
camera with a Gigawave system integrated
into a stripped down HD730 camcorder. We also
manufactured the fi rst 3D handheld, broadcast
quality, camera system.”
Presteigne Broadcast Hire now has a large
number of SC100 all-in-one system cameras in
stock and available for rental.
Workfl ow26 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
© Vo
lvo
aa
inin
Oc
ea
n
“The new SC100 is another example of Presteigne Broadcast Hire’s
continuing commitment to be at the forefront of technology”
Mike Ransome, Presteigne Broadcast Hire
www.asperasoft.commoving the world’s data at maximum speed
Hall 7 | Stand # B27September 11 - 15, 2015
Amsterdam RAI
Dutch start-up Vigour has
launched a new multiscreen
OTT app with Viacom
International Media Networks
(VIMN) to introduce a new way
of streaming content to any
combination of devices.
The MTV Play app is built on the
Vigour Video platform and allows
viewers to connect to MTV Play
on various screens and switch easily
between devices. The app is mainly
used by those with an MTV mobile
subscription and with access to
MTV content.
Unlike existing interface solutions,
Vigour Video lets viewers intuitively
combine screens through an
application that detects, connects
and interacts with other connected
devices, based on the context of
the user. The Vigour Video platform
surpasses the existing concept of
‘first’ and ‘second’
screen interfaces
and automatically
changes the behaviour
of devices based on
the context of the
user. Video services
that use Vigour
Video are available
through any browser or standalone
apps running on all platforms,
but when you use multiple
devices in your environment your
standalone experience is extended
automatically.
Ramon Duivenvoorden, CEO
of Vigour, explained how his
company first started working
with VIMN by an introduction
through a shared contact. “Your
product is crucial but it’s also about
having a personal connection with
people,” he explains.
“At that time we had a very
disruptive technology but didn’t
have a fully functional product out
in the market. I ran into the then
head of the mobile division and
he fell in love with the product
straightaway. We worked on a
small prototype and we developed
something in six weeks,” he adds.
Vigour’s white label OTT platform
powers a ‘native’ experience
for a wide variety of screens and
devices. When users add a new
device to an existing ‘standalone’
product experience, both devices
automatically ‘merge’ to offer an
enhanced experience. A mobile
phone or tablet adds convenient
content discovery and remote
control when combined with a
big screen, while the big screen
in turn leverages its size to enrich
navigation or playback video
content.
Reinventing content interactionThe holistic approach of Vigour
was crucial for MTV to reinvent
the way young people interact
TVBEverywhere28 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Melanie Dayasena-Lowe talks to Vigour CEO Ramon Duivenvoorden about the MTV Play app, which was built on its Vigour Video platform with the aim to change the way people consume content across all platforms
F8-200Twice the power...
IBC2015Hall 11E38
The Flat FresnelvBRIGHTER
Flat as ever.F
Content everywhereon every screen A mobile phone or tablet adds convenience
to content discovery and acts as a remote control when combined with a big screen
with content. “For network
operators looking to diversify, the
service allows them to move into
multi-platform solutions, whilst
maintaining mobile as the central
hub for their services. The app,
backed by Vigour’s industry-first
multiscreen technology, delivers a
unique proposition for operators,
raising their brand profile as the
network choice for the millennial
demographic,” remarks Robert
Bakish, president and CEO of VIMN.
Duivenvoorden comments on
the exclusive features of the app:
“The unique capability of the
app is that it can bring together
different screens while still offering
a complete paradigm for content
consumption because every screen
can also deliver a standalone
experience. You can still use your
native TV or iPhone app. We add
a completely new layer to that
experience where the different
devices take on different worlds
whenever they get connected
to each other.”
He went on to explain how
the value proposition consists of
two layers. The first is where the
screens of different devices are
connected together to allow
the user to take full advantage
of their combined assets and
hardware. “The second stage is
about adding content layers when
you start having all these screens
available. We made a decision
to initially focus on the creation of
the single environment rather than
overloading it with features.”
When asked how Vigour’s
new platform fits in with the way
content consumption is changing,
Duivenvoorden reinforces
that “content consumption is
heading everywhere on every
screen”. He adds: “There is now
an imperative for a minimum
requirement for broadcasters
because consumption happens
across platforms. We build on top
of that by saying we have this
whole fragmented world of devices
around us and we treat their screen
as an extendable canvas rather
than independent worlds.”
Data canvasGiving the example of Netflix being
available on every screen supports
the trend of ‘content everywhere’.
“We see it as a logical step where
people have these entries into a
digital consumption experience
from different angles so why not
use the data canvas we have
available to create new kinds of
content experiences?”
So what makes Vigour stand
out from its competitors? “On the
product level I believe we have
an industry first. I think the user
experience and multi platform
strategy is very powerful. We have
been exclusively concentrating on
innovation of the user experience
and I think that allows us to deliver
truly disruptive technology.”
Following the company’s
rollout with VIMN, Duivenvoorden
has plans to work with other
broadcasters in the future. “Our
goal is to really change media
consumption across the board.”
TVBEurope 29
TVBEverywhere
Ramon Duivenvoorden: “Using our technology they can use their living room like a control room and experience live events from personalised angles”
“Our goal is to really change media consumption across
the board”Ramon
Duivenvoorden, Vigour
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At Deutsche Telekom, as with much of
the telco industry, we talk a lot about
IoT (the Internet of Things). For those who’ve not
heard of IoT, essentially it will see the majority of
devices, in our homes, cars, offices, factories, our
whole lives, going online. It’s a revolution which
is already underway, but currently for most us, it’s
completely unseen: principally being deployed
in factories, and urban infrastructure. For many
in the broadcast industry, such developments
may seem of close to zero relevance.
However, I would strongly challenge such
a perspective. Over the next few years, IoT
will have a significant impact across multiple
industries, many of which we are not fully
aware of today, and will without doubt impact
the TV industry.
In the future, I don’t believe you will be able
to consider TV production without reference to
IoT. Our homes – and the vast majority of devices
within them – are about to go online, and this will
impact how we view, interact and engage with
our TVs and consume the content.
To put this all into perspective, Gartner predicts
that by 2022 there will be several hundred
connected devices in the more technically
advanced homes (they have even suggested
as many as 500 in some homes). There will be
an immense shift from where we are today.
And this is not some pipe dream: all the major
manufacturers that we are working with have
active plans to move their entire portfolio online,
whether it is a washing machine, shaver, kettle,
toothbrush or heart rate monitor. In the coming
few years, we will see thousands of connected
consumer devices coming to market, not just
video cameras, motion sensors, thermostats,
smoke sensors, smart lights and speaker systems,
www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Traditional ‘broadcast’ industry to be rocked by IoT
Jon Carter, UK head of business development, connected home, Deutsche Telekom
By embracing OTT technologies and relying on third-party vendors with
strong cloud infrastructure, it is possible to completely change the cost structure
TVBEverywhere30 TVBEurope
but also heating, AC systems, energy meters, etc.
We will no longer just connect a smart TV to
the internet, and consume streamed content
via dual-screen tablet and TV, whilst chatting
on social networks. Our devices might also
start engaging via social networks as well. The
connected home revolution will fundamentally
change the way we interact with our homes in
more ways than we can now predict, and the TV
will be central to this.
Firstly, we believe that the TV screen will be
one of the prime interfaces that consumers will
use to interact with the connected devices
around their home, whether that is via gesture
or voice, and it will no doubt support text to
speech recognition. Some of you may have
TVBEurope 31Septernber 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
TVBEverywhere
‘Gartner predicts that by 2022 there will be several hundred connected devices in the more technically advanced homes’
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Meet us.Hall 7.E21
Source: Business insider, 2014
come across the Jibo Robot, well that’s just fi rst of
many examples that we expect to see entering
the market, and the TV could be the way we
engage with such ‘entities’.
We expect an increasing amount of content
becoming more personalised, and affected by
the individuals watching, enabled by IoT. It will
no longer just be the advertising that is tailored
based on relatively inaccurate segmentation
analytics. Now, with the customer’s permission,
we will know who is watching that content, and
the content played out will be more linked to
how they’re feeling, what they’re doing and their
interests, based on real-time advanced cloud-
based analytics.
We believe that the set-top box will play an
increasingly important role in gluing everything
together. We believe that it is most likely to be
the hub that many of these connected devices
link to. From next year in Germany, we will be
enabling connected home services via all our
routers; and we’re also in discussions with several
manufacturers who are looking to enhance
their TV offering by adding our software
capabilities into their STB.
With an increasing number of telcos bundling
TV as part of their quad play offering, we believe
that the connected home – and the services
that it will enable – will become the basis for
a fi fth play offering. The connected home will
impact multiple industries, not least TV. As value
shifts between different categories and players,
we all need to be aware of the developments
that are coming.
TVBEverywhere32 TVBEurope
‘The connected home revolution will fundamentally change the way we
interact with our homes in more ways than we can now predict, and the TV will
be central to this’
2015: av.8.59 devices1 2020: >241 to ~2002
IoT WILL HAVE DRAMATIC IMPLICATIONS ON ALL OUR LIVES, ESP. IN OUR HOMES
Gartner predicts there will be >100 connected devices in some homes by 2020
DT HAS DEVELOPED A WHITE LABEL OPEN CONNECTED HOME PLATFORM
>35 partners incl.
Standards/ open source
Supporting a broad range of use cases
Source: GartnerSource: Strategy Analytics
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®
The justificationIn 2014, the world hit the mobile tipping point:
the number of users on mobile phones outpaced
those on desktop for the first time. In 2015,
conversations have shifted from mobile’s growth
to how broadcasters and wider business can
best take advantage of it. With customers and
competitors across a wide range of industries
embracing mobile, there is no choice: mobile
must be top of mind. The evidence is all around:
take a look at recent news articles to see the
ways different sectors are making investments
for their mobile users.
Some media and entertainment businesses
are already making progress into mobile with
dedicated services. Earlier this year, Reuters
unveiled a mobile TV service to provide
personalised curated news coverage, and
Sky entered the mobile space with Telefónica
UK offering TV, telephone and broadband
services to its customer base. At the time of
writing, the mobile TV service Sky Go has 5.7
million registered UK users, and allows them to
watch content across multiple devices, with
live channels and content on demand. Even
Facebook wants a piece of the media and
entertainment business with its latest offering to
split advertising revenue with video creators just
like YouTube. Facebook video views increased
fourfold in 2014, which is directly growing
advertising revenue. According to reports, the
company’s total ad revenue in the first quarter
of 2015 was £2.1 billion, and 73 per cent of that
came from mobile ads – up from zero in 2012.
But mobile is being used in other creative ways
to engage with consumers and blurring industry
lines in the process. Pinterest recently announced
it is adding a ‘buy’ button, and Twitter will now
let marketers target consumers based on their
mobile apps.
In the music industry, Apple is challenging the
status quo with Apple Music. In financial services,
companies like Starbucks are seeing huge
success with mobile payments applications,
while Square’s solutions can turn anyone
into an entrepreneur. The mobile takeover is
also affecting industries where you might not
expect mobile to be top of mind. Take furniture
manufacturing: Ikea saw the opportunity
and is rolling out furniture that can wirelessly
charge mobile devices.
Then, of course, there’s Google, which
recently changed its search engine algorithms
to reward mobile-friendly sites. Sites deemed
mobile friendly will receive higher rankings and
will have a ‘mobile-friendly’ tag next to the result.
In addition, Google recently announced Android
Pay and the addition of a ‘buy’ button on
smartphone ads, enabling consumers to make
direct purchases from those ads.
The business equation for broadcasters is
simple: people are using their mobile devices
for everything, everywhere, anytime; and its
generational. Take my six-year-old son, for
example: he’s only allowed to use an iPad
for a limited amount of time and only for age
appropriate apps, yet never needed instructions
on how to use it – mobile is, and will be, the only
way our children know.
It’s all about the end usersBut what should your starting point be if you
want to embrace mobile? There are many
opportunities and technologies, but there is only
one factor that should be the focus. The answer
is your end users, and more specifically, your end
user’s web experiences.
End users have expectations, which are only
getting higher. They expect websites, streamed
content – whether live or on-demand – and
apps to be fast. The findings from Akamai’s
recent Performance Matters study, conducted
from nearly 3,500 respondents in five countries
including the US, UK, France, Germany, and
Japan showed that 49 per cent expect a site
to download in two seconds or less, while one
in five expect a site to download instantly. The
consequences of poor performing sites and
content are high, just like the expectations. Fifty
per cent will abandon a slow site, and one
in five will not return.
Meeting end user expectations is no
straightforward process, as the mobile landscape
is so complex, with multiple operating systems,
many browser alternatives and devices, all
with different capabilities and screen sizes. In
addition, a user’s connection can have a range
of speeds and quality from GPRS to home Wi-Fi
and 4G, which is dynamic and affects the end
user web experience as users change location.
This complexity makes it difficult for companies
to develop websites, content or apps that can
TVBEverywhere34 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
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Thinking mobile-firstIt’s time for all businesses to think mobile first, writes Berk Veral, senior product marketing manager, web experience, Akamai
provide consistent web performance across their
customer base. It is also costly to develop web
properties that cater to end users with all types
of different profiles; device types, geo-locations,
screen resolutions… the list goes on and on.
All this fragmentation means that companies
adopt different deployment options to get sites,
content and apps into the hands of mobile
users. Some choose to develop and maintain
separate sites for mobile users such as m-domain
or m.dot sites for smartphones and t-domain
sites for tablets. An alternative approach brings
customers via a single URL, but then redirects
users to different web properties or digital
assets that are optimised based on the user’s
device type.
Mobile optimisationOne of the best solutions is implementing
responsive web design (RWD). RWD sites are
mobile-friendly and are the recommended
approach to qualify for Google’s mobile-friendly
tag. They are also considered ‘future-proof’ as
they can adapt to almost any new device that
may be available in the future. However, RWD
sites are only part of the solution. Responsive sites
can have performance penalties due to ‘over
downloading’ if not built properly.
In order to explain that, let’s look at the core
concept of RWD sites: these websites use a
single codebase for all end user devices, and
then optimise the presentation layer based on
device characteristics. In other words, when a
user visits a site, the site content and objects are
downloaded onto the device and then the RWD
code makes decisions on what to display for the
best experience on that device. This is where the
over-downloading issues come to the forefront:
high-res images and heavier objects that won’t
be displayed on less capable devices will likely
be downloaded onto the device as well. So,
while the presentation of the site is optimised,
the performance of the site might be adversely
affected on a smaller device; especially if it’s a
richer, more image heavy site.
The best approach to counter these possible
performance penalties is to use a performance
optimisation solution. These solutions will
complement RWD sites and accelerate content
delivery by optimising the route for bringing
content across the internet and the format
of images delivered to the device to render
the websites for the user. These solutions can
even compress and serve content in the most
appropriate format for a given user device
and connection. This removes the need for
developers to prepare hundreds, possibly
thousands of assets. Just like mobile website
performance, mobile app performance can
be optimised by accelerating APIs. In essence,
mobile apps are similar to dynamic websites
that speak API instead of HTML, meaning the
optimisations above can also help mobile app
performance. For broadcasters, the content
challenge is immense. When you are constantly
producing high quality content, regardless of
device and connection, users want the kind of
experience they get at home: uninterrupted,
high quality, and instant.
TVBEurope 35
TVBEverywherewww.tvbeurope.com September 2015
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Feature36 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Welcome to AmsterdamSo, here we are in Amsterdam once again. It’s scarcely believable that a year has passed since we were last trudging around the cavernous halls of the RAI complex, complaining of blistering feet. As goes with the current territory, much has happened between the 2014 and 2015 events, and to gauge the mood of the industry as we set up camp for another IBC, part two of our preview continues our thought leadership series from a selection of exhibiting companies
I n the past twelve months,
multiscreen services have
matured from delivering a
seamless and secure experience
on a number of devices in and
out of the home to offering more
content options to consumers
and monetisation opportunities
for operators than ever before.
The advent of newcomers such
as Netfl ix and end-to-end content
and service providers
also means that
operators have to
leverage standardised
technology and gain
better insight into
consumer habits to
offer improved search
and recommendation engines and
to unleash new revenue streams.
However, providing a single user
experience on many devices and
the quality of service that consumers
have become accustomed to
remains a challenge for pay-TV
operators. Operators need to use
the same tools as OTT providers,
such as aggregating and analysing
data to better understand user
behaviour related to devices,
location, content type and user
consumption of the service. By
knowing the subscriber’s personal
tastes, operators can upsell
new services and features such
as selling additional Personal
Video Recorder (PVR) storage
space, or offer a tailored content
catalogue. However, multiple
devices, security systems and
analysing large amounts of data
originating from multiple
sources remain a challenge.
Integrating standards-based
content delivery and device
management solutions in
combination with technologies
that are easy to update while
maintaining high quality
delivery can help operators face
stark competition from content
providers and OTT services.
IBC showcaseOperators coming to the ACCESS
stand will see how utilising the
multiscreen management solution
ACCESS Twine can help them
deliver content securely and
seamlessly to multiple devices.
ACCESS Twine has been expanded
to aggregate and analyse a wide
range of data points, such as type
of content watched, consumer
habits, and devices used to access
the platform.
The growth of multiscreen Dr Neale Foster, COO and VP global sales, Access
Stand: 14.D14
PREVIEW
I BCStand
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FeatureSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com TVBEurope 37
The television industry is
undergoing its most signifi cant
transformation since it begun.
Over the next fi ve years, established
rights holders, producers, content
owners, broadcasters and all forms
of MVPD TV service providers will
jostle for position with new entrants,
new investors and new aggregators.
The outcome is unknown, yet the
overall winner is assured. In the
Networked Society of 2020, the
always-connected viewer, with his/
her hunger for immediacy of media
consumption, will have been met
by the most agile and forward-
thinking players. On the journey
to 2020 all of the sacred cows of
television will be put to the test.
Every aspect of the commercial
model – from selling rights,
advertising, bundles, geographical
boundaries and especially carriage
fees – will need rethinking. Beyond
this, serious questions need asking
such as whether the creator and
distributor industries will share the
cost of converting the internet to
TV scale, to safeguard the future of
all video delivery. With such pace
of transformation, the need to be
driving this progression rather than
reacting to it has never been so
important.
IBC showcaseEricsson is announcing and
showcasing its new solutions at
IBC, which enable players to put
consumers at the centre of their
agenda, deliver new experiences,
drive new immersive TV formats
such as UHD and HDR, leverage
the capabilities of the cloud, and
enable IP-networks to become
highly effi cient and revenue-
generating for delivering the
explosion in traffi c fuelled by online
video. Ericsson is publishing the
results of its 2015 ConsumerLab TV
report into what TV consumers and
audiences are demanding.
As a supplier of intercom
systems to the broadcast
industry, we see an early
perspective on infrastructural
changes and expansions among
broadcasters. Market data (and
our own experience) has shown an
overall trend among broadcasters
to expand into regional
broadcasting and venues. The
advancements in IP technologies
have enabled intercom, audio
and video resource sharing across
wide area networks and media
mux/demuxing technologies
at the end points. One of the
challenges for intercom in this
mature market is audio and control
interoperability when using IP audio
standards. Connections need
to be independent so that local
components can be reconfi gured
without taking down all cross-
connected systems or facing
delays in the rediscovery and
reconnections of
all points. Also,
the basic control
fl ow needs to
be universal to
allow crosspoint,
audio level and
trunking control
over other
manufacturers’
systems. There
is movement in the industry with
this standardisation and we look
forward to cooperating in forging a
control standard.
In addition to IP interoperability
is that intercom systems have
always had to connect with other
elements such as the studio mixer
desk and audio router for IFBs or line
monitoring, or through the master
control to outside lines and to
camera and wireless systems.
IBC showcaseClear-Com is presenting its latest
communications and connectivity
solutions at IBC2015 including the
new FreeSpeak II 2.4GHz wireless
intercom, Agent-IC mobile app
and Interactive IFB capabilities.
Clear-Com will also make a
worldwide debut
of all-new intercom and
connectivity offerings to the
broadcast market at the show.
TV transformation and the Networked Society Simon Frost, Ericsson
The challenges of interoperability Simon Browne, director product management, Clear-Com
Stand: 1.D61Stand: 10.D29a
Ericsson is publishing the results of its 2015 ConsumerLab TV
report at IBC2015
PREVIEWFeature38 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Meeting the evolving demands of mobile broadcasting Eric Chang, VP marketing, TVU Networks
There are few areas where
the impact of the internet
cannot be felt. The growth of
IP-based solutions in the broadcast
industry is accelerating, and the
adoption of IP-based technologies
by broadcasters is helping to drive
increased efficiency by reshaping
and revolutionising how live video is
acquired, stored, routed, distributed
and consumed.
IP-based technology is
evolving more rapidly than ever
and challenging traditional SDI
infrastructures with added flexibility
and functionality in the capture and
sharing of video for news and sports.
The advantages of moving from SDI
to IP-based technologies with the
promise of increased efficiencies
and dramatic operational cost
savings are hard to ignore. The
focus has shifted to solution
enhancements and transformation
but without necessarily impacting
existing broadcast workflows. By
migrating to more efficient, IP-based
video solutions, users and networks
are able to scale and automate
several processes to improve and
enhance everyday operations.
To meet the evolving needs of
the ever-changing landscape
of mobile broadcasting, the
acquisition and control of live video
streams will be left to innovative,
competitive solutions for IP-based
central management of live
video broadcasts from virtually
anywhere and distribute to multiple
locations. These solutions will enable
broadcasters to utilise their existing
infrastructure by transmitting video
between transceivers over their
network environment and monitor
IP streams in real-time, without the
need to convert signals from SDI.
IBC showcaseTVU Networks is a pioneer in IP
video technology and is leading
the way in helping organisations
looking to transition to a
predominantly IP-based
infrastructure. TVU Grid solves the
challenge of switching, routing
and distributing professional-
quality live video with low latency
using ubiquitous, cost-effective IP
networks within existing workflows.
Stand: 2.B28
FeatureSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
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across a variety of verticals looking
to modernise their AV and video
communication services. However,
the demand for seamless distribution
of video content in a professional
environment has amplified the threat
of piracy and all organisations must
be vigilant in ensuring that their
video over IP solution provides a
secure service that complies with the
content industry’s requirements.
The utilisation of Conditional
Access and Digital Rights
Management systems only scratches
the surface of what is needed to
secure content across the entire
network. As the only standard for
delivery over IP, High-bandwidth
Digital Content Protection v2
(HDCPv2) is essential for it to function
as a fully secure solution as it provides
robust protection for communications
over one or more links in a network,
including both wired and wireless
communication between devices.
There is now an increased demand
for secure end-to-end professional
video over IP systems as a direct
result of the increasing industry-wide
understanding of the systems, which
must be able to handle all types of
broadcast signal without picture or
quality of service degradation, and
support for content protection in
the distribution system now plays a
central role in enabling organisations
to distribute a wide range of high
quality content wherever it is viewed.
IBC showcaseExterity is showcasing its HDCPv2-
secured video over IP distribution
system at IBC to enable news
channels, production houses and
proAV installers to discover how they
can leverage their IP network to
distribute high value content securely
to any screen without risking third
party access. Exterity is also showing
its Beyond the LAN product range
that facilitate the seamless delivery
of content over IP to any connected
device over any network.
The importance of security in VoIP systems Colin Farquhar, CEO, Exterity
Stand:14.H13
Beyond the LAN + HDCPv2
Since we started FilmLight
in 2002, we have seen a
huge transformation in our
industry, The transition to all-digital
technology, the transition to non-
linear, fi le-based workfl ows, and
the commoditisation of products
and roles. We have lived within the
‘age of disruption’ from the very
beginning, and hopefully have
done a little ourselves to contribute
to it. Seen against that backdrop, it
is easy to conclude that there isn’t
much left to do. 4K, HFR, HDR – who
cares? Actually, some people do.
There is some confusion about
what constitutes ‘our industry’.
The threshold of entry has all but
disappeared, and the attraction to
be a part of it hasn’t gone away.
So there is a lot of noise – amplifi ed
by social media – that drowns
out the serious work that is going
on. High quality content creation
cannot be commoditised. It is a
collaborative effort that requires
both talent and experience, which
will always be in short supply. From
our perspective as an independent
specialist manufacturer, we see this
polarisation of the market as an
opportunity. We don’t need 100,000
customers. We are happy to deal
with the small group of people you
fi nd all over the world who feel
the need to push the technology
beyond what it can do today,
to push for higher productivity,
to push for new ways to express
their creativity. Because they care
about quality. And they do so
from a position of experience. So
there is plenty more to do for us as
a technology developer. Not all
of what we do fi ts into the trends
highlighted at a show like IBC. But
we know for sure it is appreciated
by our customers.
www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Feature40 TVBEurope
PREVIEW
Stand: 7.F31
The ‘age of disruption’By Wolfgang Lempp, CEO and co-founder, FilmLight
Big Data is a hype topic in the
television industry. We hear a
lot about it, and how it can
have a transformational impact on
companies that mine it and use it
properly. But there is very little by
way of best practice, real results or
real impact on the TV business.
Take multiscreen. The
consumption of multiscreen video
viewing may be harder to track
than traditional linear TV in the living
room but the bigger challenge lies
in the subsequent analysis to gain
deeper insights about its impact on
viewer behaviour – and how this
can help an operator in the key
areas of acquisition, retention and
ARPU.
Multiscreen has helped create
a binge viewing culture, which has
already been exploited to great
effect by Netfl ix in exploiting viewer
insights to drive consumption. Netfl ix
created ten different trailer cuts for
House of Cards, targeting them on
the basis of past viewer behaviour.
The challenge now is to exploit
multiscreen in a similar way,
targeting recommendations and
ads not just by viewer identity
but also by what and where they
are watching. And data is sure to
play an important role in ensuring
operators can do exactly that.
IBC showcaseAt IBC, Genius Digital is discussing
what is has learnt from working
with its newest customer, a major
leading pay-TV provider. The
customer is using big data to get
a clearer understanding of what
its customer base is doing, and to
help it to make better decisions
around scheduling, packaging,
retention and advertising.
Big Data in actionGiles Cottle, director of consumer insight products, Genius Digital
Stand: 14.F33
The evolution of the broadcast
and production industries
toward progressively more
IT-centric thinking continues to
accelerate, and it is encouraging
to see renewed enthusiasm for
software-based solutions and the
drive toward virtualisation. Clearly,
the rationalisation of hardware,
increased ease of use, and
workfl ow effi ciency are motivating
this shift in thinking. The transition
from SDI to IP-based workfl ows
is a critical step in this migration
toward virtualised software-based
architectures. Moving from today’s
SDI connected discreet devices
to tomorrow’s all-IP virtualised
infrastructure will be a multi-
phased journey for most. During this
evolution process, the ability of key
workfl ow components to ‘speak
both languages’ is mandatory.
Specifi cally, media server platforms
should simultaneously accept both
SDI and IP TS sources as live sources
and inputs for ingest and combine
them with graphics, DVEs, audio
and video effects to create SDI
and IP outputs. This approach will
support baseband and compressed
workfl ows while preserving frame-
accurate automation control, which
is vital for broadcasters
IBC showcaseThe Spectrum X advanced media
server system is making its European
debut at IBC2015. Spectrum X
elevates the industry’s most trusted
server platform to new levels of
fl exibility, effi ciency and reliability.
Designed for production and
playout applications, the Spectrum
X media server system eases the
transition to IP broadcast workfl ows
by integrating SDI and IP I/O on the
same chassis. Also on display is the
Harmonic MediaGrid ContentStore
5840 shared storage system.
Encouraging signs on the road to virtualisationAndy Warman, Harmonic
Stand: 1.B20
Baselight with three UI monitors and Blackboard 2
PREVIEWFeature42 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Stand: 7.K11
Let’s take one key example
of the accelerating change
in live acquisition. The UK
General Election in May saw
LiveU partnering with Sky News
and the result was a paradigm
shift in live coverage. While our
technology has already been used
extensively for elections – most
recently including India, Sri Lanka,
Greece, and Spain – they were
nothing on the scale of this project
with Sky News: the broadcaster
delivered 138 live IP feeds from
150 key counts and constituencies
countrywide using LiveU’s cellular
uplinking technology. This was
unprecedented. Sky News was keen
to expand upon its coverage of the
Scottish Referendum 2014. There
it provided additional coverage
from 32 locations, using apps and
iPads. During early planning stages
for 2015, a demo unit of LiveU’s
LU200 ultra-small transmission
device arrived at Sky News. After
conversations with LiveU, and
further internal discussions, it was
decided that LiveU units out in the
field, providing coverage of 150
constituency declarations at 138
key counts, would give Sky News a
unique selling point for its coverage
of the election. The Scottish
Referendum project provided
additional TV feeds as well as online
coverage (all 32 locations were
streamed live on YouTube) on top
of the feeds provided by traditional
TV OB trucks, but the audio and
picture quality were not ideal. When
it came to providing coverage from
150 declarations, the Sky150 as it
came to be known, the decision
was made to use ‘proper’ hardware
units and a proper camera. The
138 LiveU transmission units were
paired with Sony PJ620 Handycams,
each manned by a team of
trained media students and young
journalists.
This was in addition to the existing
49 traditional OB trucks providing
live feeds to the newsroom – as
deployed for the last election –
using capacity on an ad-hoc basis
from providers Globecast, SIS Live
and Arqiva.
LiveU develops its solutions-based approach at IBC2015
Stand: 3.B62
Ronen Artman, LiveU
TVBEurope 43
www.mediagenix.tvwww.mediagenix.tv
SCHEDULING
Streamline your
Model your schedules from the concept up to broadcasting and beyond over multiple media.www.mediagenix.tv
V oD, time-shift TV,
multiscreen viewing and
download-to-own (DTO)
are all having a huge impact
on how we access content,
enabling EPG providers to bring
new opportunities for growth to
channels, platforms and content
owners. As demand for content
continues to increase, the role
of the EPG becomes even more
important. In the linear world,
when channels and platforms
need to aggregate and supply
data for the EPG there’s a
create-once-distribute-many-
times approach.
But what happens when a
platform adds new services such
as VoD or DTO? The traditional
schedule no longer fits non-linear
platforms as content can be
viewed or purchased 24/7.
IBC showcaseEBS is demonstrating how its
Pawa database overcomes
these challenges providing a
multi-platform, multi-territory,
scalable solution that enables
EPG data to be aggregated,
restructured and delivered.
EPG in a VoD world Keith Bedford, MD, EBS
Stand: 14.B01
Customers around the world rely on Pawa for their EPG data services
FeatureSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
IP content is an area that’s grown
its footprint in the industry. Our
clients produce live programming,
or real-time mixes for post production
or on-demand viewing. They use our
solutions to deal with coordinating
on-site camera coverage, pre-
produced packages, B-roll clips,
titles and graphics all at once. But
audiences now expect more from a
show than traditional video mixing.
One opportunity opens up when
producers can incorporate non-
traditional sources in their shows
– bring up a web page, cut to a
Skype video call, click through a
presentation, change positions on
a PTZ camera, or call up any other
IP source from the vision mixer – just
as readily as they would switch a
camera angle.
This new world of IP access extends
beyond inputting computer feeds
or robotic cameras; it potentially
takes a workflow wherever the LAN
goes – audio routing, web control,
automation with HTTP, network tally
– workflow-wide efficiencies that
have greater implications for on-site
production. Where is on-site?
Maybe we can start to define it by
where the cameras are, while other
sources, even virtual guests and a
few crew members, can remain
where they are.
The biggest challenge for our
customers is the fragmentation
accelerating across the entire
technology spectrum for audience
viewership: multiple devices and
screens; new media platforms that
crop up every day; formatting for
social media engagement; and
feeding massive appetites for
consuming video. Against any one
of those perspectives, producers
have to grapple with the delivery
technology to keep up.
IBC showcaseAt IBC2015, NewTek is showcasing its
full range of TriCaster multi-camera
live production solutions, along with
its 3Play sports production solution
and the acclaimed TalkShow video
calling production system.
The new world of IP access Ellen Camloh, senior director worldwide segment and product marketing, NewTek
Stand: 7.K11
NewTek’s 3Play 440
PREVIEWFeature44 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
All trademarks remain property of their respective holders, and are used only to directly describe the products being provided. Their use in no way indicates any relationship between Primestream Corporation and the holders of said trademarks.
Stand: 7.K11
The business of video has
evolved from the ecosystem
of established roles and
revenue models that it used to
be. No longer should TV channels
and broadcasters only take
entertainment to living rooms in
a one-way, linear fashion. Pay-TV
operators and broadband providers
too need to think beyond their
stable distribution infrastructures for
getting content to viewers.
Bandwidth speeds and the
sophistication of connected
devices have now caught up with
consumers’ desires to watch video
wherever and whenever they want.
Online video content consumption
is rocketing and many businesses
are at risk of seeing eyeballs drift
away from their programming unless
they explore more flexible offerings
for their viewers.
OTT is a proven way to reach
larger audiences, generate new
revenue and extend the value
of existing content for as long
as possible. It can bring about
all sorts of positive outcomes for
businesses such as the ability to
attract new content deals, build
customer loyalty and attract
high-value advertisers. However,
the main challenge for many is
that they don’t understand OTT
well enough to confidently design
and implement a sustainable
monetisation strategy. In fact, some
businesses are waiting to understand
OTT better before moving into it –
risking market share to competing
services in the meantime.
Developing a strategy comes down
to precise planning and strategy,
and having the foresight to use the
latest services available to mitigate
the risks involved in diversifying into
new delivery methods. Online video
specialists such as Piksel can help
support businesses with overcoming
these obstacles.
IBC showcasePiksel is demonstrating how its
services-led approach addresses
these diverse business needs.
Underpinned by the transformative
Piksel Palette, Piksel’s cloud-based
modular framework, Piksel is
showing how its Strategic Services
portfolio of Consumer Insights,
Content Acquisition Services and
Business Modeling helps businesses
develop successful online video
strategies. Piksel is also highlighting
how its managed and professional
services support and future-proof
client businesses, enabling stable
growth alongside the entry of new
technologies, competitors, and shifts
in consumer trends.
Stand: 14.C34
The business of video Neil Berry, EVP commercial, EMEA, Piksel
TVBEurope 45
FeatureSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
www.mediagenix.tvwww.mediagenix.tv
WORKFLOW
Optimize your
Optimize linear broadcasting and on-demand services in a single system and streamline your
www.mediagenix.tv
Capturing viewer attention
is becoming more difficult
every day, leading TV to push
the limits of technology, whether
it’s shooting with more cameras or
delivering in higher definition. Much
of the heavy lifting that makes these
changes work falls to workflow
infrastructure, and in particular to its
storage, which must be fast, efficient
and flexible.
To meet these new demands, more
and more workflows are expanding
their storage from exclusively disk-
based online storage and tape-
based archives to architectures that
integrate more storage options, such
as object storage and cloud. When
these mixed types of storage are
properly integrated into the workflow,
content can remain accessible
through a single infrastructure.
At the same time workflows are
expanding to include new storage
options, smaller-scale producers and
post houses are demanding solutions
which are attractively priced, but still
powerful enough to handle large files
of broadcast-quality content.
With the right workflow storage,
advances in technology don’t have
to be disruptive but can help you
unleash your creative vision.
IBC showcaseAt IBC2015 Quantum are available
to speak about the latest in media
and entertainment storage solutions.
We’re also presenting StorNext
Pro Foundation, our collaborative
storage for small workgroups. It’s a
complete, integrated shared storage
solution designed specifically for
post, broadcast, corporate and
government video.
Unleashing creative vision with new storage solutions Alex Grossman, vice president, media and entertainment, Quantum
Stand: 7.B26
The advent of 4K has increased
consumer demand for high
quality video anywhere and
on any device, and has made
multiple encodings across video
platforms almost unavoidable. This
new paradigm results in inventory
complexity and redundancy of
data, both of which increase costs
through the requirement for more
computing power, bandwidth and
storage. With consumers expecting
to watch high quality content
seamlessly on every platform, the
discrepancy between traditional
codecs and the reality of UHD
requirements is forcing operators
to implement flexible encoding
solutions that combine picture
quality with ease of use.
Reducing bandwidth is one
way for operators to address the
economic challenges of delivering
UHD content in multiple formats and
to more devices than ever before.
In a mobile streaming age where
4G users are expected to generate
46 per cent of all mobile traffic by
2018, extending the reach of video
services to mobile devices is another
key requirement for the broadcast
and OTT industry.
IBC showcase At IBC, V-Nova is discussing how its
market traction with Tier-1 chipset
manufacturers, operators and
compression vendors answers the
industry’s growing realisation that
today’s compression technologies
will not meet tomorrow’s bandwidth
and business challenges. Visitors
to IBC can experience PERSEUS
demonstrations on a number
of partner booths and see for
themselves just what V-Nova’s
compression is capable of.
The reality of UHD By Guido Meardi, CEO, V-Nova
Stand: 14.M23
Quantum StorNext
Associated-Rediffusion’s Marconi cameras covered the first broadcast
from London Guildhall a on 22 September 1955
Tuesday 22 September sees the 60th
anniversary of the launch of independent
television in the UK. Independent because
the new broadcasting service had to be seen
as free from the BBC monopoly that had existed
up to that point.
Although the launch of commercial television
was in 1955, the process started a year earlier
when parliament passed the Television Act, thus
creating the Independent Television Authority
(ITA) to regulate the new service. During the
debate in parliament, former BBC director
general, Lord Reith, compared “sponsored
broadcasting” to smallpox, bubonic plague
and the Black Death.
Of course, in those days there was no such
company as ITV. And, just to complicate matters
as far as the general public was concerned,
the ITA didn’t make programmes. The UK was
divided up into regions with a different franchise
holder responsible for the programmes to be
aired in that particular area. But it wasn’t even
that simple. The three main regions – London,
midlands and the north – required different
contractors for the weekdays and weekend,
to prevent one company from becoming
too dominant in the new marketplace.
The fi rst two contractors, responsible for the
London region, had been named as Associated
Rediffusion (AR) for the Monday to Friday
operation, and the Associated Broadcasting
Company (ABC) responsible for weekend
programmes from the ITA’s transmitter in
Croydon.
Tracing the pedigreeAR traced its pedigree back to the 19th century
– long before television, of course – and was
made up of two main shareholders: British Electric
Traction (BET) and Associated Newspapers.
Feature46 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Philip Stevens takes a nostalgic look back at the early days of commercial television in the UK
ITV’s diamond anniversary
Pic
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BET started its corporate life by
installing power cables for the trams
that had become a popular form
of transport towards the end of the
Victorian monarchy. The traction
part of the company name came
from the fact that the company
also made tram motors; or tractions.
With the advent of radio
broadcasting in the early 1920s, low
power transmitters and homemade
‘cat’s whisker’ receivers meant
that reception was often hit and
miss. BET was able to capitalise on
the fact that it had a significant
network of cables in many large
towns. If the company erected
some big and well tuned aerials
to pick up transmissions from the
BBC (British Broadcasting Company,
in those days) and use its cable
network to deliver programmes
directly into living rooms, then
the unreliable reception could
be avoided.
BET set up this network and in
March 1928 the operation became
known as Rediffusion: a word
meaning ‘broadcasting again’.
Unwilling to gamble on its own for
the London weekday contract,
BET joined forces with Daily Mail
publisher Associated Newspapers,
and Associated Rediffusion was
born. The Associated Broadcasting
Company was also a result of
a merger. Before the ITA Act
became law, a consortium called
the Associated Broadcasting
Development Company (ABDC)
had been created to help push the
legislation through parliament.
When the Act became law,
impresario Lew Grade and his
consortium, ITC (Independent
Television Company), applied for
an ITA contract. But because it was
considered to have undue control
over potential broadcasting talent,
its bid was refused. However, by
joining with the ABDC, the problem
was overcome and the London
weekend contract was awarded
to the newly-formed Associated
Broadcasting Company.
If the viewing public had been
confused over terms such as ITA, ITV,
AR and ABC, more bewilderment
was on the way. The midlands and
north weekend ITA contracts were
awarded to the Associated-British
Picture Corporation operating
under the name Associated-British
Cinemas Television (ABC-TV).
It took a court case to settle who
had to change the name:
Lew Grade lost, and the
London weekend contractor
was re-branded Associated
TeleVision (ATV).
Killing the audienceOn that Thursday in September
which marked the start of
commercial television, the BBC did
its best to prevent the launch of its
new rival from being an audience-
puller. The Corporation’s already
long-running radio soap The Archers
decided to ‘kill off’ one of the
leading characters, Grace Archer,
in a dramatic stable fire just minutes
before the 1915 hours start of the
new TV service.
The first programme was an
outside broadcast of a dinner to
celebrate the new TV service held
at London’s Guildhall. The cameras
used for that OB were Marconi Mk
IIIs. However, speeches were filmed
using an Auricon 16mm camera
(1,000ft magazine) with a turret
lens. One of those speeches was
delivered by the then postmaster
general Charles Hill during which he
addressed the fear that some had
voiced about the appearance of
advertisements during programmes.
He stated in no uncertain terms,
“We shall not be bothered by a
violinist stopping in the middle of
his solo to advise us of his favourite
brand of cigarettes, nor indeed
will Hamlet interrupt his soliloquy
to tell us of the favourite brand
of toothpaste ordinarily used at
Elsinore.” Perhaps that reference to
toothpaste was not without some
degree of advance notice. The
long-awaited first advertisement on
commercial television appeared at
2012 hours and featured Gibbs SR
Toothpaste. In all, 23 commercials
were shown on that opening night.
But if the appearance of
commercials on the fledgling
television service was designed to
make the contractors very wealthy,
the early signs were not good.
Whether or not the death in The
Archers had anything to do with
it might be debatable, but by the
end of the first night commercial
television was losing money. The
next few months didn’t show any
signs of improvement and it would
be some years before the contracts
made economic sense.
But, eventually, there was
money to be made in commercial
television. In 1957, Lord Thomson
of Fleet made a successful bid for
the franchise for Central Scotland.
He described winning the Scottish
Television (STV) contract as a
“permit to print money” (a phrase
frequently misquoted as a “licence
to print money”).
Being a Thursday, the launch
day came under the banner of
Associated Rediffusion, although a
variety show on that first evening
was made by weekend contractor
ABC and produced by Bill Ward.
Other programmes that evening
included 30 minutes of drama
excerpts starring Sir John Gielgud,
Alec Guinness and Kay Hammond,
a boxing match, a news bulletin
and cabaret before the final five-
minute Epilogue.
It is estimated that around
100,000 viewers watched at
some time on that first night. That
compares to an estimated eight
million listeners who heard that
fateful episode of The Archers.
Mass production seriesThe first weekend of commercial
television saw the introduction
of what would become a long-
running feature of those early
days – the half-hour episode of The
Adventures of Robin Hood. Made
by ITC, it involved a new technique
TVBEurope 47September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Feature
‘In 1954 former BBC director general, Lord Reith, compared “sponsored broadcasting” to smallpox, bubonic plague and the
Black Death’
www.mediagenix.tvwww.mediagenix.tv
VODStreamline your
from content acquisition over
scheduling to publishing and
package your content using
miniplaylists or render channels.
www.mediagenix.tv
in television film-making which, in effect,
created a production line (suitable choice of
phrase) process. By mounting standard items –
such as staircases, rooms, fireplaces – on wheels,
sets could be quickly created in readiness for
the next shot. This procedure allowed each
26-minute programme (allowing times for the
all-important commercials) to be turned out
every four and a half days.
Rapid turnaround times were essential if
budgets were to be maintained. On one
occasion, when the director called for positions
for a take, one actor (new to the series) asked
about a rehearsal. He was given short shrift.
“But I don’t know what side to enter,” he
lamented. “Are you a goodie or a baddie?” he
was asked. “A baddie.” “Then you enter from
the right: baddies always enter from the right.”
This fast turnaround technique became a
feature of a number of other ITC series.
Building the networkOver the next few years, the network spread
across the UK. Alongside its London weekend
Feature48 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Pic
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The launch of commercial television brought about production line series such as the ever popular The Adventures of Robin Hood
operation, ATV was awarded the midlands
weekday franchise. Later Granada Television
was installed as the North’s weekday contractor.
As well as STV mentioned earlier, other
franchise holders were Television Wales and
the West (TWW), Southern Television, Tyne Tees
Television, Anglia Television, Ulster Television,
Westward Television, Border Television and
Grampian Television.
These were followed by the last two stations
to go on air, and both had their own stories.
Channel Television was the smallest station on
the network, and in those distant days, there
was no direct transmission link with the Channel
Islands. That called for an innovative solution
for the delivery of network programmes to the
Islands. That answer involved Channel taking
its signals directly from the off-air transmission
of Southern at Chillerton Down on the Isle of
Wight or Westward at Caradon Hill in Cornwall,
and then inserting its own commercials at the
appropriate moment. That kept the Transmission
Controllers alert, for a late switch would see
the wrong commercials being broadcast
to the islands.
The last contractor to join the network
was Wales (West and North) Television
(Teledu Cymru). Sadly, in less than two
years, the financial position of the company
became untenable and the operation was
absorbed into TWW.
Alongside the programme contractors, a
separate company, Independent Television
News, was created. ITN, of course, still exists
today. Southern Television was able to lay claim
to being the only company with a floating OB
unit: having mounted cameras and control
rooms in a vessel capable of covering major
events such as Cowes Week.
Over the years, several contracts were
awarded to different groups until in 2004,
TVBEurope 49September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Feature
The forerunner of modern day prompters – long strips of paper on a modified caption roller
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Virtual Studio solutions made easy!Datavideo introduces the TVS-1200, two 3G SDI input trackless virtual studio solution. The TVS-1200 uses two single fixed cameras. This allows the director to zoom, pan and tilt the camera virtually within the set.
Just like the TVS-1000, the TVS-1200 is very easy to operate. With a new and improved 10 second chromakey setup, this system is up and running in less than a minute. Use Datavideo chromakey products to dress your studio in the best shade of green and use Datavideo lighting kits to bring some light in the darkness.
The TVS Series virtual studios have streaming encoders on board. That means that the only thing between your studio and a broadcast on the largest CDN’s is a piece of Ethernet cable or a steady WiFi connection. TVS Series equipment supports RTMP streaming and is capable of importing your FMLE settings file.
Datavideo TVS Series equipment is easy to set up, easy to use and easy to master. The results are professional, and the possibilities are endless. To watch some example clips and receive more information, visit www.datavideo.com
TVS-1200
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TVS-1200 dual 3G SDI virtual studio solutionTurn key solution with capturing, streaming and RMC-220 control panel
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[email protected] Technologies Europe B.V.
2015
Visit our booth: hall 7 booth D39
Feature50 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
ITV plc became the owner of 11 of the
15 regional licences. Today, ITV plc sells
advertising for all 15 of the licences and
produces or commissions a great deal of the
programming broadcast across its channels.
Technology transitionsThe past six decades have seen technological
advances beyond compare. And it would
take numerous articles to detail all of
those changes, so perhaps just a few
merit being highlighted.
Video tape – let alone tapeless recording –
was still some way off in 1955. If a programme
needed to be recorded, a film camera was
bolted very securely in front of a high grade
monitor and the images and sound captured on
16mm or 35mm film.
Even highly successful quiz programmes such
as Associated Rediffusion’s Double your Money
and Take your Pick were recorded in this way
and edited for transmission.
The term ‘high definition’ meant something
quite different in 1955. A company called High
Definition Films with studios in north London was
responsible for making those quizzes for ARTV.
The programmes were shot using three Pye Mark
II cameras with varying line and frame speeds
to create a higher resolution image. The cut
programme was then sent to the basement and
recorded using a camera filming a low gamma,
high definition flat glass display monitor. Not the
HD we know and love today. How definitions
(excuse the pun) have changed.
One of the cutting room staff who worked
on the first Double your Money programme
recalls that the team were facing a very tight
schedule. This individual collected the print
from the film labs on the morning of transmission
and, unable to view it, took it straight to AR
who promised to run and check it.
In the event, the broadcaster rehearsed
with the sound off and that evening it was
discovered to everyone’s dismay and
embarrassment that the labs had misread
a sound key number and the print was
about 100ft out of sync.
London weekend contractor ATV favoured Pye Mk III cameras for its extensive OB operation
‘Eventually there was money to be made in commercial television: in1957, Lord
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TVBEurope 51September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Feature
Sound of silenceCommercials were made on 35mm film. And
because the picture gate on telecine machines
(the TV equivalent of film projectors) and the
sound reproduction head were 20 frames
apart, film prints were produced with the audio
advanced by that length.
For transmission, the commercials were
assembled into breaks. After transmission, the
films were disassembled and placed back
in their relevant cans. The next time that
commercial was assembled, the film joining
process (cement in those days) meant that one
frame was lost at the start of the commercial. To
prevent the audio being chopped through the
continual use of the same film print, a silence
of 38 frames was placed at the start of each
commercial, no matter the overall length. Such
technical problems do not exist with taped or
tapeless advertisements, of course.
Channel in a control roomAnother area that has seen a massive change is
in the region of transmission control. Operations
varied between contractors, but one example
would send today’s financial directors into a
state of shock with its level of manning.
ATV’s master control in London was located
in Foley Street, close to the Museum telephone
exchange which served as the switching centre
for TV circuits. Here in the basement no less
than four personnel handled all transmissions
for the single channel of London’s weekend
broadcaster. The Transmission Controller was
in charge, directing the shots, calling for the
telecine machines and, later, VTRs to be rolled
and so on. He was assisted by the MCR engineer,
Highbury Studios where early quiz shows were produced awaits a crew for the next programme
a vision mixer and a sound controller. Instant
starts were unknown in those days, and so careful
planning about when to roll the machines for film
and VT inserts was necessary. Telecine machines
required a five-second pre-roll to achieve stable
image and sound, while VTR required at least 15
seconds to produce a usable signal.
Coping with commercial breaks was an intense
affair and required deep concentration. A
normal top of the hour sequence might include
a commercial break of two and a half minutes
(on film), station ident (on a different telecine),
a seven-second commercial (again on film), a
live clock with live announcer and then cut to
the next programme. And all had to be cued
and timed to the second to meet network
commitments. Lots of cue dots all over the place.
Maybe Channel in a Box has some merits,
after all. Then, of course, there was how to
place credits and captions over live material.
Those early days were pre-keying technology
and credits were created by superimposing
the output of a camera focused on the card
mounted or a roller caption of another showing
the background action. The ‘super’ being
created by using a ‘half mix’ on the vision mixer –
with varying degrees of success when it came to
reading the words.
Doubling upMultitasking is not a modern invention.During the
late 1950s the ITV sports programme Let’s Go was
broadcast from the Alpha Television
Studios in Birmingham. The live programme
was hosted by Berkeley Smith, who was head
of outside broadcast at Southern Television.
But not only did he present the programme,
he also directed it.
The programme originated from the
production gallery where Smith would not only
introduce the next OB by talking to camera three
located next to the monitor stack, but would also
be cueing it as well.
The next 60So, what will the next 60 years hold? In
1955, it is doubtful that many of those
pioneers would have envisaged tapeless
technology, or a multitude of satellites in
geo-stationary positions that allow instant
access to news around the globe or the
whole host of other innovations that have
been developed. With that in mind, it will
be a brave person who will predict what
readers of TVBEurope will be poring over in
September 2075.
Happy anniversary ITV.
Feature52 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Hughie Green was the host of AR’s Double your Money quiz. The cut feed of the programme was telerecorded and then edited for broadcast
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Sounding out the experts
TVBEurope 55September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Forum
Audio consoles often appear as
the glamorous part of the
broadcasting chain. But, of
course, there is far more involved in sound
reproduction than mixing desks. So, what
are these ‘other’ topics?
We asked Larry Schindel, senior applications
engineer for Linear Acoustic; Anthony Wilkins,
international sales and marketing manager,
Jünger Audio; MC Patel, CEO, Emotion Systems;
Tuomo Tolonen, Shure UK’s pro audio and
broadcast group manager; Lee Ellison, CEO,
Audinate; Matthias Exner, Audio-Technica’s
business development director EMEA; Andreas
Hildebrand, senior product manager at ALC
NetworX (Ravenna); and Achim Gleissner, head of
commercial management broadcast and media
at Sennheiser for their input.
In the second audio forum of the year, Philip Stevens talks to several foremost sources about issues facing the sound side of broadcasting
56 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Forum
Broadcasters’ demands when it comes to collecting metadataSince its creation, metadata has been used,
misused, set properly, improperly, or simply left at
the default values. It is often misunderstood, yet it
is key to getting modern audio correct.
According to Larry Schindel, senior applications
engineer for Linear Acoustic, the most important,
and commonly used, metadata describes the
number of channels contained in an audio
stream, the average loudness of a programme
(sometimes called dialnorm or Program
Reference Level) and the dynamic range
compression information.
“Other metadata exists for information
such as the type of stereo downmix to
perform when necessary, gain of the centre and
surround channels when downmixing, whether
a two channel programme is a stereo mix or
has been surround encoded, copyright
information and so on.”
Schindel goes on to say that where metadata
really starts to get interesting is when emerging
audio technologies are discussed. “A new type
of metadata is starting to be deployed which
signals the measured loudness of an audio
programme and indicates whether or not
the audio has been corrected. Newer, more
intelligent, loudness processors will be able to
read this metadata and know whether they
should process the audio as normal or just let
it pass through. The result of this will be audio
that sounds less compressed, more natural, and
correctly at the target level.”
Next generation TV audio systems will include
object-based audio and/or immersive audio, and
will utilise other new types of metadata. In some
cases, each sound is considered to be its own
audio ‘object’ with positional metadata or other
metadata attached to it.
“This will facilitate transmitting the mix elements
such as the ‘bed’ mix and dialogue channels,
individually, and then having the next generation
DTV receiver mix the audio together based on
a combination of the producer’s intent, the
viewer’s preferences, and the configuration of
the viewer’s audio system.”
He goes on, “Before you panic and think
you’re about to lose control of your audio mix,
the addition of this metadata will provide a
better experience for viewers, while saving
valuable bandwidth in the transport stream.”
Schindel’s view is that producers and
broadcasters will be able to author the
metadata in such a way that viewers are
provided with some fixed and pre-selected
choices to optimise their experience.
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“I like to compare this mic and the processing unit to the human ears and the
brain. The ears are also just stereo, and the brain turns their signals into 3D”
Achim Gleissner, Sennheiser
TVBEurope 57September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Forum
Audio monitoring for HDTV broadcastAccording to Anthony Wilkins, international sales
and marketing manager, Jünger Audio, when
it comes to creating audio for HDTV broadcast,
a good starting point should be the subjective
quality of the mix itself. “In order to reliably and
repeatedly judge this, along with your preferred
set of monitors, a correctly calibrated listening
environment should be considered essential.
When mixing TV content, general consensus
suggests that a measured level of 79dB SPL –
using C-Weighted Pink Noise – at the mixing
position is appropriate. A monitoring control
unit that allows individual speaker level and
EQ is ideal for this.” Another vital element is the
perceived loudness level in order to ‘comply’
with the relevant local standard. This requires the
use of loudness measurement based on ITU.R
BS.1770-3 with its in-built K weighting and relative
gating to give a reliable reading in LUFS/LKFS to
check that the programme loudness is in line with
the target value. “Equally important is to monitor
the loudness range of the mix, which should be
maintained at a level appropriate for the final
destination of the content.”
As Wilkins points out, audio for HDTV broadcast
is often encoded into either AC3 (Dolby Digital)
or E-AC3 (Dolby Digital Plus) and this introduces
another consideration: metadata. “When the
bitstream arrives at the end user’s decoder,
metadata parameters determine some of the
behaviours of the decoder and how it affects the
reproduced audio. DRC is a selectable Dynamic
Range Control profile that will apply a pre-
determined amount of compression to match
wider dynamic range content to equipment
less capable of reproducing the full range. HDTV
broadcast is often accompanied by 5.1 Surround
Main image: Cable TV Show Poker Night in America makes full use of digital audio networking. Above, left to right: Achim Gleissner, Sennheiser; Andreas Hildebrand, Ravenna; Anthony Wilkins, Jünger Audio; Larry Schindel, Linear Acoustic; and Lee Ellison, Audinate
Audio, but many consumers will be watching on
equipment that can only reproduce Stereo audio.
DOWNMIX instructs the decoder how to distribute
the six channels of audio across the available two,
while DIALNORM implements a scaling factor that
normalises all audio output to a level equivalent
to -31dBFS. This should ensure that all programmes
are perceived at a consistent loudness level, but it
is dependent on the actual programme loudness
and DIALNORM values matching. All of the above
means that there are multiple opportunities for
inaccurate metadata parameters to cause
unwanted audio effects and a method of
verifying the values before broadcast would be
advantageous.”
Loudness yesterday, today and tomorrowThe fundamental challenge of loudness control
has not changed much over the years. The aim
is to enable the audience to enjoy the full
dynamic range that’s in compliance with
broadcast standards.
“In the past, many television adverts and promos
have been mixed to push hard on the allowable
peak levels, which removes the dynamics and
gives a lifeless, but loud and intrusive result,”
maintains MC Patel, CEO of Emotion Systems.
“The consequence has been commercials that
are far higher in volume than the programmes
they sandwich. Perhaps the creators forgot that
we have a mute button on our remotes!”
In October 2014, the UK’s Digital Production
Partnership (DPP) approved a common file
delivery specification which requires compliance
to EBU 128 based Programme Loudness. That
meant instead of measuring the peak level of
audio, measurements are taken for the average
level as specified by the standard, and similar
variants for the USA and other countries.
“Emotion has provided Programme Loudness
measurement and correction to all global
audio standards for a number of years and
our algorithm is designed to allow Programme
Loudness and True Peak Correction without
changing the creative mix,” says Patel.
The current challenge in Loudness control is to
provide good quality audio on second screens
such as tablets and mobiles, as well as for radio
where the ambient sound levels are high and the
speakers often quite poor.
“We’re monitoring this closely and are
keenly interested in how we might solve new
broadcast challenges for all media. Our future
goal in a world of manifold devices and delivery
mechanisms is to give the listener a satisfying
experience, regardless of the way they gain
access to it.”
Microphone technology: The importance of wirelessMicrophones are the first contact with the
audio source, which means quality and
reliability are imperative.
“Every component of a microphone needs
to be meticulously designed, built, and tested,”
emphasises Tuomo Tolonen, Shure UK’s pro audio
and broadcast group manager. “Thankfully,
we as wired microphone manufacturers have
comprehensive control over the design and build
of our products: the results are predictable, and
destiny is in our hands.”
Wireless microphones, however, are a
different matter, and with so many units now in
operation across live performance, broadcast,
and even corporate installation, it is as important
to focus on this technology as it is microphone
capsule design.
Unfortunately, the sharp increase in wireless
microphone and in-ear monitor systems has
correlated with an increase in demand for
RF spectrum by the mobile phone industry.
Increasingly, the trend has been to allocate
more and more spectrum for use by mobile
data services, which leaves the broadcast
industry in a precarious situation. “In a nutshell,
changes to allocation over recent years have
left us with less spectrum, higher wireless
channel counts and the possibility of
also sharing with further users,” laments
Tolonen. “The risk of interference has
greatly increased, and for live events in
particular, the consequences can often be
substantial. To put it quite bluntly, when an event
like The Voice goes live, that mic had better
work.” He continues, “Unlike the production
of our microphone capsules, there is only so
much influence we can impose on the agenda
of governments when it comes to spectrum
allocation. We can raise awareness – as Shure
has done through the recent ‘Losing Your Voice’
campaign – but ultimately money talks.” Ten
years ago, Shure recognised the importance
of spectrum efficiency, and this sparked an
ambitious R&D project to develop the world’s
most complete wireless system.
The result is the Axient Wireless Management
System. Axient pioneered a range of new-to-the-
world technologies – partly centred on the needs
of engineers, but also offering exceptional RF
performance through features such as automatic
interference detection and avoidance. “While
initially limited to our flagship Axient system, our
intent was always to replicate these features –
wherever possible – throughout the entire Shure
wireless portfolio. Subsequently, many of the
advanced wireless technology features
originally exclusive
to Axient are
now
58 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com August 2015
Forum
Rush Street Productions has benefitted from the higher channel capacity,
streamlined cabling and simplified set up and tear down associated with
digital audio networking for its Poker Night in America programme
The ATND971 was the first wired
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over Audinate’s Dante network
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60 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
found across our portfolio, right down to our
consumer level options.”
Given the uncertainty of a congested RF
landscape, having a spectrally efficient
wireless system is essential – no matter what
the budget. “Everybody, including the mobile
industry, needs to recognise that spectrum is a
finite resource. If we’re not responsible, we’ll
eventually run out.”
The benefits of audio over IP for TV broadcast and productionThe transition from legacy to IT architectures
in the broadcast plant has quickly evolved
from concept to reality. From the digitisation
of the control room to gradual facility-wide IP
transitions, today’s TV operation is in the midst of
changes that are transforming – and simplifying –
broadcast and production workflows now
and into the future.
But those changes are just as viable on the
audio side. Broadcasters are increasingly looking
to audio-over-IP as a low-cost, high-performance
means of moving multichannel, low-latency
audio signals over the facility’s central IT network.
“The cost savings are immediately recognised
through an ability to use existing network
infrastructure,” states Lee Ellison, CEO, Audinate.
“In most cases, audio-over-IP displaces heavy,
expensive analogue or multicore cabling with
low-cost Cat5e, Cat6 or fibre-optic cable. This
equates to a simple, lightweight and economical
solution that accelerates return on investment
through reduced labour and infrastructure.”
Ellison says the industry should think hours,
instead of days, for installation or production
setups. “That same streamlined fibre or network
cable architecture can easily transport multiple
channels of audio from one to many points:
increasingly a requirement for multichannel
broadcasters managing signals across many
live feeds, production tasks and more. Using an
advanced digital audio networking technology
such as Dante from Audinate, a broadcaster can
easily establish a channel count that can quickly
scale to over 500 bi-directional channels on a
single cable, and thousands of channels in the
facility, all connected and easily routed over
an IP network.” He says that technologies like
Dante further excel over MADI by evolving from
point-to-point limitations to unlimited multipoint
freedom. All the connections in Dante can
be managed from a centralised computer,
as the connections are logical. “Benefits such
as flexibility in routing, multichannel capacity,
intuitive control, are among the points of
attraction for broadcast and production
companies like Microsoft Production Studios. This
facility has gradually transitioned to a facility-wide
Dante network, starting with sound design and
mixing and evolving to cross all audio production,
post and intercom applications. The low-latency,
multichannel capacity has even grown to
signal contribution over Microsoft’s SkypeTX,
using Dante to bring interview feeds into
live broadcasts distributed to cable TV
outlets and stores.
While the low-latency benefits of digital audio
networks cannot be understated for the studio,
field broadcasters like Rush Street Productions
have benefitted from the higher channel
capacity, streamlined cabling and simplified set
up and tear down associated with digital audio
networking. These benefits have simplified work
Forum
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Matthias Exner, Audio-Technica MC Patel, Emotion Systems Tuomo Tolonen, Shure UK
TVBEurope 61September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
on the cable TV show Poker Night in America,
where the company uses a lightweight, Dante-
enabled audio flypack to distribute 26 channels
of audio at low latency.
The Dante network for the programme
captures all audio tracks in synchronisation
with video feeds, which are then mixed for the
local PA system and a live webstream. With all
multichannel audio routing and management
happening across the Cat5e infrastructure,
labour and equipment costs for live production
are minimised.
Developments in third-party compatibility for Dante-enabled microphones Audio-Technica entered the network audio
market in June 2014 with the launch of the
ATND971, the first wired microphone to transmit
audio and control data together over Audinate’s
Dante network protocol. Powered by PoE, the
ATND971 boundary mic features a programmable
user switch to control devices on the network and
a red/green LED status indicator.
Later, Audio-Technica released the ATND8677
microphone desk stand, which allows the use of
existing gooseneck mic inventories to be added
to Dante audio networks. GPIO-over-Dante
enabled control – a new network
feature developed specifically with Audio-
Technica – is among the benefits of the ATND8677,
which also features a capacitive switch and
green/red LED surround. Matthias Exner, Audio-
Technica’s business development director EMEA
reports that the increasing interest around and
requirement for networked audio has meant
continuing developments in compatibility for
Dante-enabled products. “Originally compatible
with Symetrix’s SymNet Composer v3.0, which
allowed native integration of Audio-Technica
network audio products, both the ATND971 and
ATND8677 are now supported by Biamp Systems
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Tesira v2.3 software and Bose ControlSpace
Designer software v4.3.”
The ATND971 microphone can be
incorporated into a Tesira system to provide
quick audio and control signal setup. In addition
to normal audio input controls, the integrated
processing block allows for predetermined
button and LED behaviours, as well as the option
to control both completely discretely. Each
processing block for the ATND series can accept
multiple microphone inputs, so individual units
with the same control configuration only need to
be configured in Tesira once. “Ease of integration
and interoperability will be huge drivers and
in the long term I think processing systems will
cease to exist and algorithms will run on normal
computers – specialist DSP will fade,” states Exner.
Where next for microphone technology in the TV world?“There are two major trends we are currently
witnessing in broadcasting,” states Achim
Gleissner, head of commercial management
broadcast and media at Sennheiser. “First
is the democratisation of content, which is
driven by social media, and encompasses
both the production and consumption sides.
The traditional TV broadcast is increasingly
supplemented by on-demand content which
can be watched everywhere and at any time.”
Gleissner maintains that the microphone
technology used at the production end
reflects this development, and its ‘bandwidth’
has become much wider. “You will find
expert broadcast teams, who use Sennheiser
professional equipment, but also small ‘one-man
shows’, who handle everything on their own
and usually do not come from the audio side of
things. For these users, Sennheiser has recently
launched a series of new products.”
AVX wireless microphone systems for
cameras remove the need to license the
system, to look for a suitable transmission
frequency, and to create settings required to
ensure reliable communication between the
transmitter and the receiver.
“For small productions, and as a tool for instant
news gathering, there is the MKE 2 digital. This is
a professional-quality Sennheiser mic powered
by Apogee’s award-winning A/D conversion
technology which plugs directly into an
iOS device. This is the probably the most
portable broadcasting mic solution we
currently have on offer.”
The second major trend is surround audio
in broadcast productions, and the need to
achieve surround sound in a cost-effective and
technically easy way.
“On location, production companies
would like to use existing infrastructure, and
cameramen definitely have other things to worry
about than quality surround sound capture. The
Sennheiser solution for this field of application is
Esfera, which uses a compact, easy-to-use stereo
microphone to do the job.”
These two channels are upmixed in the Esfera
processing unit anywhere in the production
workflow, creating a realistic surround sound.
While upmixes with other algorithms result in
sound problems when a 5.1 broadcast is heard
on a stereo device, Esfera will deliver the stereo
image it recorded. “I like to compare this mic
and the processing unit to the human ears and
the brain. The ears are also just stereo, and the
brain turns their signals into 3D.”
64 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Video is an ever-evolving market, and
as viewers we’re continually looking
for faster and more convenient ways
to get the content we want. A recent Ooyala
report took an in-depth look at the viewing
habits of millions of individuals worldwide, and
our research has us convinced that video
viewing on mobile devices is going to make
up more than half of all views by 2016. That’s
not surprising given ongoing advances in
the mobile ecosystem. Manufacturers are
developing tablets and smartphones with bigger
screens than before, which make anywhere,
anytime viewing more enjoyable and are
driving increased mobile video consumption.
Developers are also producing new apps and
content designed to drive viewer engagement
and make viewing more seamless for mobile
devices, as well as ad delivery systems that are
well on their way to providing a simpler and
more personalised mobile video advertising
experience. Yet mobile video still has its pitfalls: in
fact 60 per cent of all mobile video suffers from
quality issues, device fragmentation continues
to dog mobile app developers and advertisers
are still waiting for effective mobile viewing
measures. Clearly, we need more than a little
sleight of hand for mobile video to more fully
meet the needs of viewers, content providers
and broadcasters. What’s behind some of
the challenges with mobile, and how will they
be surmounted?
A fragmented viewIt’s in advertisers’ and content owners’ best
interests to deliver video to the largest number of
devices and platforms possible while ensuring a
reliable, high-quality experience. Yet, obstacles
exist. Though it may sound simple to take a
single video clip and repurpose it for playback
on multiple devices, a lack of standards means
developers have to create a different version
for each device – a challenge to say the least.
Android devices are especially problematic.
Data Centre
Caitlin Spaan, VP marketing, Ooyala
The future of video: Mobile is becoming the majority
TVBEurope 65September 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Data Centre
OpenSignal reported that this year developers
needed to account for at least 18,796 different
Android devices, a 60 per cent increase from the
prior year. The bottom line is that fragmentation
is a fact of life for mobile devices that’s not
going to be resolved any time soon. Publishers
and content providers need to get creative and
find solutions to address the issues inherent in
fragmentation. Fortunately, we’ve seen some
progress, with the introduction of SDKs and
applications that let developers work around
native players and deliver high quality video
playback across a variety of devices.
Just browsing?The common thinking is that if users are interested
in your content, they will install your application.
But the fact remains that there are also a lot of
folks browsing on mobile devices and coming
across content serendipitously. That leaves
smaller providers faced with the choice of where
and how to invest in mobile video delivery. If
they choose to invest in an application, there still
remains the question of which device to design
for. Screen size, inputs and user interfaces vary
dramatically across devices and require very
different approaches. The good news is that
analytics are improving all the time and
will help push targeted content to viewers.
Going forward, content discovery and
personalised experiences may help eliminate
the ‘either/or’ conundrum.
The long and short of itYahoo and other publishers are betting that
viewers will increasingly turn to their mobile
devices to watch mainstream, longer form
content; Yahoo launched Yahoo! Screen, an
offering that makes all its video content available
through a mobile app, in hopes of drawing
viewers and advertisers. Meanwhile an app,
TabletTV now lets users of Android tablets watch
and record Freeview content. Separately, EE is
building a partnership to deliver a mobile video
distribution network for the UK as part of the
company’s Mobile Video Alliance (MVA).
But how do providers really know where to
place their bets? While our recent data shows
that 53 per cent of the time spent viewing
videos on mobile was spent watching long form
content, that leaves the other half watching
short form content. Providers need to know
what’s being watched and when. For example,
if I’m a video provider should I serve ads prior to
the start of programming, or in the middle? What
happens to viewing habits if I created content
that’s a little longer? Unfortunately the answers
to those questions aren’t easily found because
measurement standards haven’t yet caught up
with the mobile ecosystem.
Coming attractionsEvidence does point to a future in which mobile
will become the main act in video and TV
consumption, and by extension, advertising.
Forward-thinking developers, content providers
and advertisers will do well to look past
today’s obstacles and envision the world in
which mobile video viewing will be as easy
as saying ‘Abracadabra’.
The television industry is currently witnessing
another evolutionary stage in its long
and varied history. The growing popularity
of watching and sharing TV online has meant
that viewing video content online has also
become a much more widespread activity
in many people’s lives, particularly the
younger demographic.
Recent years have seen a shift away from the
traditional method of viewing TV via broadcast
services. Instead users have shown a much
greater demand for content as VoD, which
allows them to watch their favourite shows when
and where they want.
Market shift: TV goes OTTIn meeting the demands of today’s television
consumer, nothing appeals more than OTT
services, many of which offer live streaming, PPV
(pay-per-view) videos, DTO (download-to-own),
and VoD, often provided on a subscription basis.
OTT providers offer consumers content through
a multitude of portable devices. Much of this
content avoids the traditional ‘linear’ release
pattern aiding to a growing consumer trend
towards ‘binge-watching’ TV and video,
whereby users will view multiple episodes, and
sometimes an entire TV series in one sitting.
The release window poses a dilemma for
both content providers (for example, the big
Hollywood studios) and service providers like
Netflix and Hulu, who know consumers expect
content as soon as possible in a form which is
easy for them to watch, where and when they
like. Netflix to some extent has influenced this
trend with the release of its original programing,
such as Orange is the New Black, seeing the
entire series released on launch day, rather than
the traditional method of individual episodes
broadcast via a scheduled basis.
OTT services have been viewed as most
established in North America and West Europe.
Juniper expects continued growth in the North
American market will see it remain as the leading
region in terms of subscriber numbers, but by
2019 it will be closely followed by the Far East,
as this region emerges with new services and
increased consumer interest.
Connected devices to aid OTT growthJuniper Research forecasts that over 84 per
cent of OTT subscriptions will be made via
connected TVs by 2019. Previously ‘dumb’ TVs
will see an upsurge in becoming ‘connected’
due to the cost-effectiveness of devices such
as Chromecast, and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, as
well as the high uptake of games consoles and
STBs which provide preloaded services. This is in
contrast to smart TVs which currently offer poor
operating systems and user interfaces.
The past year has seen the TV industry
witness a wealth of new OTT and VoD services
launch; we recently saw NVIDIA make a
concerted effort to also gain traction in this
space with the launch of its Shield device which
looks to target both the STB and games console
market at once.
In terms of TV and video, Shield owners will
have access to the Google Play Store, as well
as applications on the device for OTT services
such as Netflix and Hulu. And for gaming, NVIDIA
provides its Grid delivery system.
66 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Television’s evolutionData Centre
By Steffen Sorell, research analyst, Juniper Research
‘Juniper Research forecasts that over 84 per cent of OTT subscriptions will be
made via connected TVs by 2019’
The television industry is currently witnessing another evolutionary stage in its long and varied history
Network operators seek solutionsThere has been some movement to act to
counter the OTT threat on the traditional
broadcaster’s part, with Verizon offering
‘slimmed’ TV packages, and HBO providing its
own OTT service HBO Now.
Verizon’s offering means that consumers can
choose to purchase a cable subscription without
any sports channels included, making it popular
with consumers who want cheaper packages,
but hugely unpopular with sporting networks
who see a large share of their revenue from
programmatic advertising.
4K to drive OTT uptakeEven with this attempt by TV incumbents to
claw consumers back, Juniper forecasts
subscription OTT services to do markedly well
over the next four years, largely aided by the
uptake of 4K services.
Whilst key players such as Netflix and YouTube
have launched 4K services, adoption of 4K
content has been slow thus far. Juniper is
predicting this to change over the next two
years. Netflix added its 4K offering to its highest
priced subscription package last year, showing
belief that consumers are willing to pay for higher
quality content, while OTT providers are gaining
recognition as being first to supply viewers
with content in this new format. Meanwhile, 4K
TVs will continue to become more affordable,
accelerating hardware take-up.
Juniper Research forecasts that subscriptions
OTT TV providers such as Netflix will generate
$31.6 billion by 2019, up from just under
$8 billion in 2014.
68 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
Data Centre
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‘In meeting the demands of today’s television consumer, nothing appeals
more than OTT services’
70 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
The global pay-TV market is projected to
grow from more than 900 million subscribers
in 2014 to 1.21 billion by 2022, while Europe
will likely comprise 117.2 million subs by that year,
according to SNL Kagan data.
Asia should contribute the largest number
of global subs in 2022, as it did in 2014, while
cable TV is expected to continue to serve more
subscribers than either direct-to-home or IPTV
worldwide, although the latter two platforms will
continue to experience significant growth over
the coming years.
We estimate that there were more than 582
million cable TV subs globally at year-end 2014,
dwarfing the 207 million DTH subs and 109 million
IPTV subscribers. Some of the largest cable TV/
IPTV operators are in China — including the
largest of any kind, the IPTV operator China
Telecom with more than 29 million subs. Comcast
Corp in the US is the world’s largest cable
operator with 22.4 million subs as of 31 March.
The US is also home to the largest DTH provider
in the world, DIRECTV, with 20.4 million subs as
of the end of March, with Dish TV India taking
the number two spot at more than 15.8 million
subscribers. North America has the highest pay-
TV penetration regionally, followed by eastern
Europe and Asia.
Multichannel subscribers in western Europe are
currently projected to grow from 108.1 million
in 2014 to 117.2 million by 2022. The greatest
expansion will come in IPTV services, thanks to
the continued investment and development
by telcos such as Orange in France, British
Telecom in the UK and Spain’s Telefonica.
Subscribers served by cable MSOs are expected
to decline slightly over this time period as a
result of increased competition from other
multichannel operators – IPTV and DTH – as well
as the growth of online video alternatives taking
share in some markets.
However, operators across Europe are
responding to streaming competition with the
expansion of TV Everywhere and over-the- top
services of their own. For example, Sky’s Now TV
and Modern Times Group’s Viaplay are keeping
customers within those companies’ suite of
products even if those customers opt for only
the streaming services.
Operators across Europe such as the UK’s
Virgin Media, France’s Numericable–SFR,
Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG, Denmark’s
Waoo! and Sweden’s Com Hem have integrated
Netflix into their set- top boxes. There is a notable
overlap between Netflix subs and other OTT
services as well as pay-TV services in some
markets across Europe, with Sky TV, for example,
reporting that around 40 per cent of Now TV subs
also take Netflix and 20 per cent take Amazon.
com’s Prime Instant Video.
Our data shows that broadband households
exceed multichannel households in the leading
markets of France, Germany and the UK, with
the growing gap a focus for pay-TV operators.
The aggressive rollout of triple- and quad-play
services in France has limited the difference,
but the gap is expected to increase over time.
Aggressive bundling also now characterises the
UK market, with BT and TalkTalk Telecom Group
rolling out innovative bundles to compete with
Virgin Media, which has achieved 90 per cent
penetration of its triple/quad-play homes. In fact,
in the UK there are few signs of cord cutting, with
ample room still existing for pay-TV growth.
Cable and DTH operators in the UK market are
achieving a growing penetration of connected
devices, which is driving revenue growth from
new products and services. Cable still has the
competitive edge with high-speed broadband,
while DTH provider and market pay-TV leader
Sky targets a broad reach of services and
premium exclusive content, with a big
investment in originals. IPTV players TalkTalk and
BT have been focusing in part on alleviating
price pressure via bundles to gain market share,
and they have achieved some success in selling
smaller TV bouquets.
Global pay-TV market to exceed one billion by 2017
Data Centre
By Robin Flynn, senior analyst and research director, and Mohammed Hamza, TV and video analyst, SNL Kagan
(mil.)
1,400
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
0
(%)
64
63
62
61
60
59
58
57
56
55
54
Cable DTH IPTV Pay-DTT Other Pay-TV Penetration
63%63%63%
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908.9 953.3 995.1 1,035.9 1,075.01,110.7
1,143.5 1,175.7 1,208.3
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www.tvbeurope.com
September 2015TVBEurope Supplements
In association with
PREVENTING CHURN
101Video intelligence
Supplementii TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
in association with
OTT and multiscreen in today’s environment
T he role of OTT and multiscreen is increas-
ing in importance every day. In fact, for
younger generations, it is almost the way
of consuming. Over time, we won’t distinguish a
television set from what we call ‘digital devices’.
They will all simply be ‘devices’.
The industry has really turned a corner as the
predominant revenue model continues to pivot
from ad revenue to subscription revenue. In my
mind, this became a tipping point in the industry,
when many content providers realised that they
absolutely had to have a digital OTT presence.
Interestingly, this is putting more pressure on
the broadcast side of things, because there is
an increasing opportunity for churn as existing
barriers to switching providers have lowered. In
the past, if I signed up for a cable subscription,
I would sign a long-term contract and make a
commitment to that provider for an extended
period of time. In contrast, now I have the oppor-
tunity to pay for content on a monthly basis. If I’m
not happy with my online service provider, I can
easily switch: immediately. I can take advantage
of a 30-day free trial, and if I’m not happy with
that, I can go to another 30-day free trial. Add
the number of content providers coming into the
mix, and the fact that there are only so many
viewers out there, and it’s easy to see that cus-
tomer churn is a huge concern in the industry.
Improving the multiscreen experience, reducing viewer churnOne of the fascinating dynamics in the OTT
space is that providers such as Netflix and Am-
azon are attracting some of the industry’s best
writers, producers and directors by giving them
the creative freedom to produce incredibly
compelling original content. And viewers are
being asked to vote. Viewers, in particular binge
viewers, are discovering programmes in the OTT
environment that they were overlooking when
broadcast in the traditional linear fashion.
So if content availability is not an issue, what is?
I believe it’s the quality of the viewer experience.
What the industry needs is an awareness of the
quality issues that viewers are still dealing with
and an understanding of that in the context of
the OTT space. For example, if you think of the
business of television, the currency, the standard
that drove that business was ‘viewership’ and
ratings. There was third-party validation, such as
Nielsen ratings, to indicate how many people
were watching what in certain demographics,
so the industry could establish advertising pricing
based on those ratings. Content providers could
make decisions on whether or not they would
renew a programme for the following year based
on this same viewership currency.
Not so in OTT and multiscreen. In the OTT
space, the primary measure of content populari-
ty is in subscriptions and the associated
revenue. And a reliable, broadly accepted
third-party Nielsen analogue – a basic
foundation of an ad-supported monetisation
system – does not yet exist.
It’s not that Nielsen, along with others, isn’t
trying to do that. By way of example, after a
significant event such as a World Cup or Super
Bowl, when the numbers are announced by the
rights holder/broadcaster the next day – ‘Oh
this was a huge game, a huge event and we
had, in the case of the Super Bowl here in the
US, 110 or 112 million viewers who watched on
broadcast television’ – that number is
established by Nielsen and everybody agrees
on and understands what that means. Then they
say, ‘and we also broke the record of having 2.3
million unique visitors over IP, based on our
measurements.’
If the OTT industry is going to support an
ad-driven business model similar to that of
broadcast television, they need the visibility and
transparency that only an objective third party
can provide. We simply are not there yet.
Video analytics what you don’t knowwill hurt you
Kurt Michel, senior marketing director at video assurance specialist IneoQuest, examines the role of OTT and multiscreen in today’s environment, and the increasing importance of video analytics
‘If you really want actionable insights, to know what individual viewers are watching and why, you need visibility, transparency
and above all, intelligence about what is happening to content at every link in the
video delivery chain’
Kurt Michel
TVBEurope iiiSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Supplementin association with
Viewership validation is one area where I think
OTT needs to catch up to broadcast, but it’s
important to note that OTT viewership numbers
require some critical context to have the same
kind of weight as Nielsen ratings. That context is
the quality of the viewer experience. Traditional
broadcast leverages a purpose-built network,
made expressly for video content, which is much
less complex than multiscreen OTT. This OTT distri-
bution complexity adds quality risk which the in-
dustry continues to wrestle with. And that means
that viewership numbers must be filtered through
a ‘delivered quality’ lens. As an example, if
you’re a content provider collecting real-time
viewership numbers – made possible through
digital distribution – you can see that you have
a million viewers; but then half way through the
event or content you lose 25 per cent of them.
Something is wrong. But what is wrong? Why did
they abandon? Why did you lose them? Did
the audience lose interest in the content, or did
the playback quality degrade? Did they switch
off, or drop due to buffer issues? Did you lose a
certain region, or local network, or device type?
And if so, why? Maybe it was because
a poorly packaged advertisement was
inserted into the stream, and it created
playback issues. Or maybe some part of
the network started behaving badly and
the picture started to pause or become
blocky, or ‘pixelated’, making the
content unwatchable.
Without understanding the quality issues,
without understanding that the viewers were
experiencing re-buffering or poor picture
quality, without that context, the viewership
numbers are not meaningful.
Video intelligence and quality of experienceIf you find you have a quality issue, you need
to be able to identify the root cause. The root
cause is the answer to the ‘why’ questions, and
finding that answer is the real challenge. And
you can’t get that by just using measurement
software in the player. You also need to under-
stand the quality of content (QoC); whether
the content coming from your origin looks good
and is packaged properly (in dozens of different
variations) to deliver to all those end users on
their different devices and networks. Next up in
the distribution chain is the actual delivery of the
video packets. Measurements in this area are
referred to as quality of service (QoS), and since
the demands of video streams are much higher
and require more bandwidth than pretty much
anything else in a network, the importance of
a solid QoS perspective cannot be overstated.
Finally, information can be gathered at the end
device for both QoS and the resulting viewer
response. By collecting and correlating the infor-
mation collected across the distribution system,
true understanding of the viewers’ quality of
experience (QoE) can be gained, and the video
business leaders can find the answers to the
nearly infinite number of ‘why’ questions that are
needed to effectively drive their businesses.
Quality: an end-to-end gameIf you really want actionable insights, to know
what individual viewers are watching and why,
you need visibility, transparency and above all,
intelligence about what is happening to content
at every link in the video delivery chain. Every
step, from where it originated, throughout the
entire network, and ultimately to each individual
device’s playback software, contributes to the
quality of the experience. Traditional broadcast
networks built in this capability. It is part of the
‘broadcast quality’ foundation.
OTT has a vast opportunity to meet the de-
mands of global viewers. Those demands are
driving the industry faster than many expected.
But if we are to achieve a level of quality and
reliability that approaches the gold standard of
‘broadcast’ in the complexity of an unmanaged,
multivendor distribution ecosystem, the concept
of end-to-end analytics with clear demarcation
points and key quality indicators must be em-
braced. And those key quality indicators and the
knowledge gained would be made accessible
to the video business operators, resulting in a true
‘currency of quality’. And in this case, that knowl-
edge truly is the power that will propel the OTT
industry to ‘broadcast quality’ and beyond.
‘Without understanding the quality issues, without understanding that the viewers were
experiencing re-buffering or poor picture quality, without that context, the viewership
numbers are not meaningful’
Supplementiv TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
in association with
T he OTT industry is being propelled forward
at a rate that few, if any, in the industry
expected. It is being driven primarily by
viewer demands, and the industry has respond-
ed with new innovations in compression and
delivery, faster device development, and an
explosion of available content.
Meanwhile, viewer expectations for quality,
set over 50 years by the broadcast industry,
present an enormous challenge for the online
video sector. OTT is also trying to address some
of the same challenges that the broadcast
industry faced over that half-century, but in less
than a decade. For example, the functional
silos in the traditional distribution network have
been supplanted by multiple vendors providing
services together in the unmanaged media
distribution path. In addition, consumer driven
growth continues. According to Ray Gilmartin
of Akamai Technologies, publisher of the State
of the Internet report, “We are estimating that
in order to meet the future quality expectations
for OTT as video progresses to 4K and 8K, the
industry will require 1000x the capacity it has
today. Given this projection, the challenges are
daunting to ensure the future of broadcast-like
experiences for OTT.”
In this context, all of them spoke to the need
for a more flexible, more open multi-vendor distri-
bution ecosystem balanced with and defined by
clear demarcation points.
More importantly, however, was their unani-
mous agreement on the need for open, accessi-
ble KPIs (key performance indicators) supported
by consistent and transparent quality measure-
ment at every one of these demarcation points
in order for the system to deliver on the enor-
mous business promise of OTT video.
Keith Wymbs of Elemental Technologies told
TVBEurope: “Consumers don’t stand still. We
must meet their expectations, and the only way
to do that is via a software-defined video (SDV)
approach that allows the industry to change at
the speed of viewer demand.”
Deepak Das of VisualOn noted that there is a
“shared responsibility of everyone in the ecosys-
tem to create appropriate handoff mechanisms
with specific criteria to handle the complexity of
the OTT delivery system.”
These and other leaders in the OTT industry are
working to improve their respective domains
within the streaming distribution pipeline. In-
creasingly, they are leveraging software-based
solutions that support the rapid innovation that
has driven the success of OTT thus far. However,
this next stage in the maturity of OTT as a viable
business model will require greater collabora-
tion to improve video quality and consistency
across the system as a whole. The lynchpin: an
agreed-upon set of standards for quality at each
stage of the pipeline.
TVBEurope spoke to three major players in the OTT end-to-end video distribution space: senior management from Elemental Technologies, representing video processing and origin services; Akamai Technologies, representing the content delivery network; and VisualOn, representing device video player technologies.
Each gave their perspective on how the industry can drive toward the broadcast-quality viewer experience their audiences expect in the brave new world of OTT, and the role that ecosystem partners play in that growth.
‘Viewer expectations for quality, set over 50 years by the broadcast industry,
present an enormous challenge for the online video sector’
OTT and video quality Where content, complexity and viewer expectations collide
Ray Gilmartinsenior director, product marketing, media,Akamai Technologies, the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services
Keith Wymbschief marketing officerElemental Technologies, the leading supplier of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen content delivery
Deepak Das, senior director of marketingVisualOn, Inc., a multimedia software company that enables video and audio across connected devices
How did IneoQuest become involved with the OTT sector?
IneoQuest [IQ] has been around for about 14
years. We spent the fi rst eight years producing
the fi rst video-quality assurance solutions for
IPTV and cable video deployments, and in that
time we worked with the majority of the leading
telecommunication and cable companies
around the world. Some of these companies
were the pioneers in adaptive streaming video
deployments, and asked if we could help them
to learn why some services weren’t working.
Since we offered video analytics at that point,
we applied the tools we had to see what we
could do. We put our probes and solutions in
place, put our best engineers on the problems,
and eventually developed a new set of metrics
that actually started to make some kind of sense
out of the issues facing HTTP delivery of adaptive
video, such as start-up problems and critical
delivery timing of the video packets.
As a result of these early collaborations, over
the last six years we have become a leading
provider of service assurance and analytics
solutions for adaptive media delivery quality.
We work with the majority of the operators today
with video headends and across the HTTP deliv-
ery system to provide end-to-end monitoring of
those services.
What do you see as the main challenges in the OTT sector today?I like to think about this by relating back to the
architecture of IPTV. If you look at the original lin-
ear IPTV video delivery via broadband or cable,
it was all end-to-end MPEG transport streams. In
that system, you can you look at MPEG packets
all the way through the network – whether on
ASI at the headend, in the IP core network or
going over the last mile DSL, cable or whatever
it happens to be. But with HTTP-based adaptive
video, the model is completely different. The vid-
eo starts in one original format, and is converted
into many different forms based on what device
the viewer is using, the software/apps on that de-
vice, the quality of the connection it has, and the
demands of the content itself. Converting and
managing all of these different formats, bitrates,
and protocols can introduce unique, complex
problems. To complicate things further, between
the content delivery networks (CDNs) and the
viewer devices there are multiple different types
of broadband access networks; so the video
could be carried via cable, xDSL, fi bre (xPON), a
public Wi-Fi or WiMax infrastructure, or over a mo-
bile infrastructure using 3G, 4G or LTE. And then
of course there is the domestic Wi-Fi network,
which is often used to extend these other access
network connections within the viewer’s home.
All of these different ‘last mile’ technologies
have the potential to affect quality levels and
viewer experience.
We have basically moved from a world of
controlled video delivery where everything was
managed by one or a few entities from the hea-
dend through the core network, the broadband
pipe and out to the set-top box, to a world of
multiple different networks (the internet), vendor
silos, protocols, technologies and bit rates of the
same video stream to many, many devices. It’s
a huge change that is constantly increasing the
complexity of delivering video.
How are you specifi cally addressing those challenges?For the past few years, we have been applying
our understanding of packet-based video
measurement to create tools and services
that provide an end-to-end perspective for
HTTP adaptive video streams, with a focus
on the unique needs and quality indicators
across different parts of the delivery chain.
Supplementvi TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com September 2015
in association with
To discuss IneoQuest’s perspective on the world of OTT, and the likely road ahead for the wider video industry, TVBEurope sat down with the company’s VP of corporate strategy, Stuart Newton
Over the top, into the future
TVBEurope viiSeptember 2015 www.tvbeurope.com
Supplementin association with
The headend or ‘origin’ is the fi rst part to get
right because if you don’t, every viewer will
be affected. So we started by developing OTT
headend solutions which can monitor and
compare the incoming and transcoded bit
rate streams, and then we moved our focus
to the needs of publishing points, post-origin,
intra CDN, post cache, and then eventually
produced a cloud-based active testing solution
post CDN. Over time we have expanded these
passive monitoring and active testing solutions,
and recently added the ability to collect video
quality analytics and viewer response from
the end device’s player itself, completing our
portfolio’s end-to-end measurement capability
across the video delivery network.
Why are video analytics a core requirement for OTT?Video analytics are a core requirement for any
video delivery service, whether it’s IPTV, cable,
satellite, or OTT. Without them, the provider is
fl ying blind. Video will reveal issues in a network
like no other data: it is extremely time-sensitive,
whether linear or adaptive. If you don’t deliver
video in a precise fashion to keep the end-play-
er buffers full, viewers will get a black screen,
rotating rebuffer symbol, or another fault that
makes people complain (often in social media),
demand their money back, or in arguably the
worst case, simply cancel their subscription. It’s
an absolute imperative to have the ability to
gather video analytics from the end-to-end of
the chain of video delivery.
More recently, as the industry has matured,
advanced customer experience management
(CEM) is gaining increased attention. Video ser-
vice providers want to put a much stronger focus
on reducing churn and improving their brand
recognition for video delivery. To do that, they
need a much better view of which customers
are affected and when. Being able to profi le
the audience – and any individual viewer expe-
rience – in real time across different geographies
based on network, device, player, and many
other factors leads to much more effi cient, timely
problem resolution.
Are broadcasters giving enough serious thought to their multiscreen services? Are they missing out on opportunities to monetise their offerings?I think broadcasters are giving a lot of serious
thought to this, and many have been playing
with multiscreen services for the last few years.
It’s evident to me from some of the services that
I’ve seen – and in conversations with colleagues
and friends – that you get a very clear picture,
very quickly, about which services are good and
which aren’t. You can see the broadcasters that
have put a bigger focus on it now. Some of
those broadcasters have been offering these
additional OTT/multiscreen services for free until
now, but as they improve the quality and start
rolling out other content, they are going to
want to charge for it.
In fact, last year I gave a presentation on mon-
etising the video experience. It was about the
monetisation cycle where you really need to do
the service assurance and ensure the delivery of
the content before you can go on to fi ne tuning
the content, advertising, and providing addi-
tional services. And this is a dynamic problem,
because as you are attracting new subscribers,
you affect the performance of the delivery infra-
structure. It requires awareness and infrastructure
fl exibility. And we have found over the years is
that the biggest concern for many operators is
how to deliver the video with the right quality
consistently. Even though they want to know who
is watching on what device in order to better
monetise, it is all a waste of time and money
if the viewer’s video quality is poor. Consistent
delivery quality is always ‘step one’.
We have seen several content providers and
operators who were initially focused on obtaining
the behavioural data measurement tools who
rapidly performed a U-turn and refocused on
operational service assurance data as a priority.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a huge
learning curve for the OTT industry, resulting in
greater focus on quality assurance. So we offer a
comprehensive analytics solution: both foun-
dational service assurance tools, as well as the
audience behavioural tools.
Looking to the future: where will this sector be in three to fi ve years’ time?It’s going to be fascinating. I don’t think the rate
of innovation is going to change; potentially, it’s
only going to increase. I think there are three ma-
jor topics that video is going to be affected by,
and be attracted to, over the next few years.
The fi rst is advanced customer experience:
making sure you reduce churn, generate ex-
cellent brand awareness, and provide the best
experience you can. I think real-time analytics
will be key to enabling that kind of future.
Secondly, network-function virtualisation (NFV)
is going to be realistically deployed in a two to
fi ve-year timescale. If video service providers
want to provide future services that are going
to be highly adaptable and dynamic, then NFV
is certainly going to be employed alongside
software-defi ned networking (SDN) for video
services. Again, real-time analytics is going to
be a critical part of the control and feedback
loop to enable that.
On a third level, there is the enormous fore-
casted growth of video over mobile. The mobile
operators deliver a lot of free OTT content today,
but as the amount of premium content grows,
customer expectations will rise. Those mobile op-
erators will need the same level of visibility as the
traditional IPTV and cable operators to ensure
solid service delivery and SLA compliance.
These three areas are not mutually exclusive. If
you’re a video service provider, you will need to
be delivering HTTP-based video over mobile and
fi xed infrastructures in the next several years. You
will be affected in both fi xed and mobile by the
move to NFV and SDN, and there is only going to
be increased pressure on customer experience
management. We are evolving for all of these,
and have solutions to cover all three aspects as
they start to converge and merge.
It will be an exciting future. Any one of these
topics is a huge consideration in itself. As a com-
pany, we’ve embraced a signifi cant number of
new technologies and capabilities in virtualis-
ation, mobile delivery and analytics in order to
prepare: it’s certainly going to be an interesting
few years ahead.
“As a company, we’ve embraced a signifi cant number of new technologies and capabilities
in virtualisation, mobile delivery and analytics in order to prepare: it’s certainly
going to be an interesting few years ahead”
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IBC at Stand 3.A23 Hall 3