tvbe june 2015 digital edition

www.tvbeurope.com

June 2015Business, insight and intelligence for the media and entertainment industry

Exclusive interview: Thomas RiedelThe IOC’s Olympic archive

Communications forum

NAB retrospectiveSatellite | Audio | M&A

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TVBEurope 3June 2015 www.tvbeurope.com

I am very fond of executive interviews. I have always

been keen to understand how companies operate,

how strategies are defi ned, how philosophies are

born. Much of that rests with those at the helm of

the boardroom, with responsibility thrust into the

hands of the chief executive. Despite my fondness

for this series of features, it doesn’t go unnoticed that

tête-à-têtes of this manner are often of a familiar

prototype: strategy, growth, trends…you get the

picture. Hardly ever do they naturally trickle over

into what we would deem as ‘real life’, and almost

never do they touch on ‘life’ itself.

That’s why I found my trip to the German

town of Wuppertal to spend time at the Riedel

Communications HQ with its eponymous founder

such a refreshing experience. We discussed

strategy, and growth, and milestones, and all of

the things typical of a discussion with a brand’s

driving force, but the underlying context was

one of perspective, of understanding business’

place in the much grander tapestry of...without

sounding all gushy and arty-farty…life.

It was a human conversation with a human

being, and it was humbling to hear the story of this

company’s foundation and fruition being delivered

in such an emotionally charged, and passionate

fashion. After all, Thomas Riedel is an entertainer at

heart, and the feature interview on page 26 tracks

his journey from magician to entrepreneur. It’s a

great insight into the entrepreneurial mindset.

As I mention in the article,

the blurred lines of work

and life are common to

such creators: those who

give birth to enterprise and

position their livelihoods

around the consequences.

It requires balance and

it requires the bravery to

embrace risk. Riedel’s

position on all of this is well worth reading.

Elsewhere this issue, we continue our MAM

Leaders’ Series coverage with part two of

our write up from March’s roundtable, held in

association with Avid. We also refl ect on NAB

2015, and what there was to learn from the worlds

of satellite, audio for broadcast, and the M&A

landscape. Mergers and acquisitions is also the

subject of Joshua Stinehour’s article in our Opinion

and Analysis section, as he goes into detail on

some of the most recent business transactions.

Finally, we’re gearing up for TVBEurope Strategy

Week, taking place from 29 June to 3 July 2015. We

now have a number of events confi rmed for the

week, and you can fi nd more details on page 25 of

this issue. Be sure to book your tickets for the week’s

centrepiece conference, TVBEurope 2020.

I hope to see you at BAFTA.

James McKeownExecutive Editor

From the pace of Vegas to the peace of Wuppertal

Welcome

The strategic balance of work and life

EDITORIALExecutive Editor - James [email protected] - Melanie [email protected] Staff Writer - Holly [email protected] Media, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England +44 207 354 6002Contributors - Chris Forrester, David Fox, David Davies, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett, Adrian Pennington, Philip Stevens, Catherine Wright, Ian McMurrayHead of Digital - Tim FrostHuman Resources & Offi ce Manager - Lianne DaveyHead of Design - Jat GarchaEditorial Production Manager - Dawn Boultwood

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 BurtonUS Sales - Michael MitchellBroadcast Media International, PO Box 44, Greenlawn, New York, NY [email protected]+1 (631) 673 0072Japan and Korea Sales - Sho HariharaSales & Project, Yukari Media [email protected]+81 6 4790 2222 Fax: +81 6 4793 0800CirculationNewBay Media, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, LE16 9EF, UK

Free [email protected] Tel +44 1580 883848

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

NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association

© 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

In this issue4 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

James McKeown fl ies out to Wuppertal, Germany for a heart to heart with magician-turned-DJ-turned-entrepreneur Thomas Riedel, the founder and CEO of Riedel Communications

NAB retrospective26 318Opinion and Analysis

23 TVBEverywhere

Adrian Pennington reports on the International Olympic Committee’s digitisation of its vast audio visual archive

16 An Olympic undertaking

Will Big Data save the broadcast industry? Niko Waesche, global lead of the media and entertain-ment industry at Gfk , fi nds out

48 Data Centre

Leaders continue MAM discussion

12Melanie Dayasena-Lowe picks up the discussion in part two of our coverage of the MAM Leaders’ Series roundtable event at The Shard in central London, held in association with Avid

Ian McMurray, David Davies, and Russell Grute report from this year’s NAB Show 2015, exploring the latest from the worlds of satellite, audio for broadcast, and M&A activity

42From beltpacks to digital matrix technology, comms covers a wide range of products and innovations. Philip Stevens moderates this month’s forum with experts from the sector

Communications forum

It’s a kind of magic

Mergers and acquisitions: a sector analysis. Joshua Stinehour, principal analyst at Devoncroft Partners, provides a detailed insight of the industry’s recent business transactions

Holly Ashford reports from April’s TV Connect in London, where the talk centred on the future of hybrid OTT services

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Opinion and Analysis6 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

L TE is becoming a crucial topic for the broadcast

industry as the fight to protect market share

in an increasingly competitive environment

heats up. As a result, the broadcast sector is actively

exploring the possibilities of using LTE services to

deliver new offerings to mobile consumers. Beyond

the mobile play, however, LTE is also introducing new

competitive dynamics for delivering entertainment

services to the home, by adding a new alternative

to cable, fibre, DSL and satellite services.

To be successful in this environment, broadcasters

will have to review the way their current customers

access programming, and make sure that plans

are in place to hold on to a viewership that expects

their content to move seamlessly from at-home flat-

screen TVs to an array of portable devices, as well

as from their home environments to any place they

want – or need – to be.

In short, LTE technology is not just a mobile

entertainment opportunity for broadcasters: it may

play a critical role in serving a core market of

at-home consumers.

Accessing an untapped household market According to analysts at ABI Research, some

1.26 billion households do not have DSL, cable,

or fibre optic broadband. As a result, fixed and

mobile telcos are looking for LTE to close that

broadband access gap. As we closed 2014, the

research firm estimates that 14.5 million residential

and commercial premises used LTE technology as

the primary vehicle for broadband access. By 2019,

that figure could go as high as 123 million.

In addition to the emergence of LTE-to-

the-Home (LTE-TTH), network service providers

(NSPs) are exploring new enhancements to

specifically optimise their wireless infrastructures for

entertainment services. For instance, LTE Broadcast

technology is being honed to distribute content,

such as live events and media, to a wide audience

at home and on the go. These technology and

market developments are increasingly seen by

NSPs – especially pure-play mobile operators – as a

very attractive new market and revenue stream.

For broadcasters, these developments are

disruptive. LTE may represent a threat to existing

business models because consumers will have

new ways to access high-quality content. This

could create headaches for broadcasters that do

not figure out how to feed programming through

new LTE channels.

This explains why a number of forward-

thinking broadcasters were represented at this

year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to

review an early demonstration of LTE Broadcast

technology from Technicolor and Ericsson. While

this particular technology is not yet ready for the

kind of on-demand consumption that consumers

clearly want, it is now evident that the bandwidth

capabilities offered by LTE are evolving rapidly to

support broadcast quality traffic. It therefore offers

great promise to the future for seamless delivery

of entertainment services across the spectrum of

home-based and mobile devices.

Broadcasters who are not already doing so may

want to explore new business relationships with

operators of LTE-TTH infrastructures, and work out

what – if any – technical adjustments (such as

compression to handle next generation content

like UHD, HDR, etc) may need to be made so that

high-quality programming can be delivered via LTE.

From a competitive standpoint, it may well

be that the internet-friendly OTT providers are

better positioned to take advantage of LTE-TTH

than traditional broadcasters. But in classic ‘if

you cannot beat them, join them’ fashion, many

broadcasters are already making major moves

to adopt and add OTT models of operation for

their own purposes. LTE-TTH may just be another

reason to continue, or accelerate, this shift.

LTE accelerates NSPs’ search for content partners For NSPs in general, and pure-play mobile

operators in particular, the adoption of LTE-

TTH strategies may require a fundamental

re-evaluation of the kinds of business and

technology relationships needed to meet the

extremely high expectations of consumers who

demand high-quality entertainment services.

It is not enough to just provide connectivity from

the central office to the home. NSPs will have to

carefully think through the experience consumers

will have to manage inside their homes. Most

consumers will be unable to distinguish problems

originating in the wireless local-area network (LAN)

from those originating in the wireless wide-area

network (WAN). Thus, operators must do what

satellite, cable, DSL and fibre service providers

have done – which is to take responsibility for

offering customer service assistance and technical

support across both environments.

There is a continuum of bandwidth that must

be managed in order to maintain a continuum

of quality as traffic crosses Wi-Fi and LTE networks

at consumers’ homes. Also, within the home,

attention must be paid to antenna design and

management to ensure maximum performance

and service availability. The right equipment

and technical expertise has to be in place and

effectively applied to deliver a consistent and

positive consumer experience.

Conclusion The era of consumer choice over how to access

rich content experiences has never been more

exciting. New developments in LTE technology

are making it possible to deliver a growing

portfolio of entertainment services to devices

across LTE and Wi-Fi environments. Beyond

addressing the unserved broadband access

market, LTE-TTH also raises the prospect of new

alternatives for consumers who may not be

happy with current cable, fibre, DSL or satellite

providers. The specifics of how these new

technological and competitive dynamics play

out remain to be seen. However, it seems clear

that the broadcast community will be well served

to take a comprehensive and integrated look at

the impact LTE will have on their business.

The LTE alternativeLTE technology alters the competitive landscape for delivering broadcast services to consumers, writes Olivier Lafontaine, director of strategy and product management, Technicolor

‘It may well be that the internet-friendly OTT providers are better positioned to take advantage of LTE-TTH than

traditional broadcasters’

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Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is a

popular topic in the media technology

sector. Announced transactions lend

themselves to speculation on the motives of

the buyers and sellers, along with the outcome

of a given combination – and there has been

much to discuss.

Figures from the IABM DC Global Market

Valuation Report1 confirm there were a record

number of transactions in the sector for each

of the successive calendar years 2012, 2013,

and 2014. The heightened levels of activity

reflect practical business realities confronted

by executives in the sector including a limited

market for initial public offerings, mature

growth levels in many market segments, and

the challenge of achieving an appropriate

economic scale of operations. A review

of recent M&A transactions highlights

these topics.

Public to private Occurring within a week of each other during

November 2014, broadcast graphics suppliers

Vizrt and ChyronHego both announced

going-private transactions, where a private

equity sponsor purchased a majority of the

outstanding share equity to remove the

respective companies from the public markets.

Scandinavian private equity firm Nordic Capital

closed its acquisition of Vizrt on 19 March 2015,

and San Francisco-based Vector Capital

closed its acquisition of ChyronHego on 6

March 2015. Part of the stated rationale for

both transactions was an ability to support

future add-on acquisitions. In the case of Vizrt,

CEO Martin Burkhalter told Devoncroft Partners,

“Nordic Capital is very committed to support

our growth strategy going forward.

Being a privately owned company opens up

for accelerated growth opportunities through,

amongst others, future acquisitions that support

our long-term strategy.”

Two observations for each of these

transactions inform an analysis of M&A in

the sector. First, M&A is viewed as necessary

to augment the growth strategies of each

organisation. Second, the management teams

of both ChyronHego and Vizrt believe growth

strategies are preferable to execute as a

private company.

Beginning with the second observation, small

public companies reside in an unenviable

twilight, enduring all the expense and

responsibility of a public market listing, while

enjoying few of the benefits.

Public market investors are interested in large,

cash generating businesses and small companies

with exceptional growth. This is the cold reality.

Great technology, high-profile customers,

best-in-class customer service, and a host of

other beneficial sale points do not factor into

the public market investor decision unless and

until it manifests in sustained cash generation or

exceptional levels of growth.

Vizrt achieved record full year 2014 revenue of

$141.5 million, and ChyronHego was anticipating

reaching a 2014 sales level of $59.0 million, which

would have represented 24 per cent year-over-

year growth.

Even though both vendors are large and

well known in the sector, this level of annual

revenue is small for institutional investors.

Though both companies were generating

strong levels of revenue growth versus market

growth rates, this level of growth was similarly

not compelling for the public markets. In the

spring of 2014, Vizrt traded at EBITDA (Earnings

Before Interest Depreciation and Amortisation)

valuation levels of approximately eight times

(to enterprise value), while at the same time

the broader NASDAQ traded at EBITDA levels of

approximately 15 times.

While not aligned with public market investor

preferences, there is direct alignment with the

investment preferences of private equity firms

such as Nordic Capital, Vector Capital and

many others. These organisations exist – in many

respects – to profit from the market inefficiency

for technology vendors of a given size and

growth profile.

Private equity firms are not providing a public

service; these are savvy commercial entities

seeking investment returns. One recent example

is Telestream’s acquisition by GenStar Capital in

January 2015. Telestream had been owned by

M&A activity A sector review

By Joshua Stinehour, principal analyst at Devoncroft Partners

#justsaying

@wts_broadcast

Our systems team has built over 50 Outside Broadcast vehicles in the last five years.


private equity firm Thoma Bravo since December

2011. Rumours suggesting an expedited sale

at depressed levels were without substance.

Speaking at a 2015 NAB Show briefing, Telestream

CEO Dan Castle stated in unambiguous terms,

“Thoma Bravo achieved more than the firm’s

investment return goals with Telestream in less

than the firm’s typical holding period.”

Constrained growth Returning to the observation of growth strategies

benefiting from add-on acquisitions, despite every

management team’s best efforts not every vendor

can grow faster than the market. In this way, every

vendor’s growth rates are constrained by the

growth of the underlying market segments. During

the annual IABM breakfast at the recent NAB

Show, IABM CEO Peter White provided excerpts

from the latest IABM DC Global Market Valuation

report on product category growth rates. In

aggregate, product revenue in the sector was

actually slightly negative for the calendar years

2012 through 2014. Management teams desiring

material levels of growth will therefore either need

to take market share from competitors or expand

into higher growth market segments.

Many vendors have successfully leveraged

M&A transactions to accelerate organic initiatives.

Blackmagic Design has completed five acquisitions

to add to its product portfolio. Ross Video has

acquired seven businesses since 2012 to help

enable its 21st, 22nd, and now 23rd consecutive

years of growth. NEP’s worldwide fleet has grown

to over 110 HD outside broadcast units in part from

completing 12 (not a typo) acquisitions since 2012.

Ericsson has used a series of M&A transactions to

create one of the larger businesses in the sector,

with acquisitions ranging from cloud technology

provider Fabrix to large managed services provider

Red Bee Media. The precedent Harris Broadcast

division was the accumulation of more than 40

M&A transactions, and the subsequent Imagine

Communications has augmented its solution

offering with four separate acquisitions over the

past 18 months. Belden built its now largest division

– broadcast – through successive acquisitions of

Telecast, Miranda, and Grass Valley.

Operational scale There are financial merits from M&A activity

beyond supporting growth initiatives. On the

day before the 2015 NAB Show, Avid Technology

announced its planned acquisition of Orad

Technology. A review of the transaction

announcement showcases the tremendous

cost synergies and the related, tangible benefits

achieved from greater operational scale.

On an annual basis, Orad Technology was

spending 34 per cent of its revenue on sales

and marketing expense. Investors would

expect a substantially lower figure for a business

operating at appropriate scale. By contrast,

Avid Technology is spending a figure closer to

25 per cent of revenue on sales and marketing

expense. Avid and Orad attend the same

global trade shows and have overlapping

sales initiatives focused on targeting the same

potential customers. Avid’s management has

communicated a conservative figure of annual

savings of approximately $5 million. Expressed

in terms of the deal valuation, Avid purchased

Orad at an EBITDA valuation of approximately

seven and a half times, but when accounting

for expected cost synergies this figure is more

accurately restated to six times. Eliminating these

overlapping sales and marketing functions is a

proverbial ‘free lunch’.

‘While M&A is not always the most appropriate step for a technology vendor, in the current industry environment there are strong rationales for including M&A

in strategic planning’

Vendors: Sales executives on M&A – the seller’s perspective Source: Devoncroft 2014 Big Broadcast Survey

Cost synergies are especially acute in the media

technology sector given the relative size of the

vendors, global profile of customers, and long sales

cycle associated with large solution purchasers.

A simple but powerful example of the synergies

achieved through M&A was seen on the 2015

NAB show floor. For example, the Grass Valley

(Belden) booth at NAB 2015 was 9,900sqft.

Contrasted against the booth space at the NAB

Show ten years earlier (2005), all the precedent

firms acquired by the now Grass Valley

represented just under 32,000 square footage of

exhibition space. This is a reduction of nearly 75

per cent. This single sales and marketing synergy,

which represents only a small percentage of

total spend by industry vendors at large trade

shows, was on the order of $1 million (based on

the current price per square foot at the NAB

Show). The point is ‘bigger’ works for global sales,

marketing, and support operations.

Motivation Many may find it surprising that the number

one motivation of selling executives is, in fact,

the desire to obtain access to a greater sales

and distribution infrastructure. Devoncroft

Partners’ annual Big Broadcast Survey of the

media technology sector, which includes many

of the readers of TVBEurope, has asked senior

executives at technology vendors about the

rationale behind M&A activity. Responses from

senior executives making the decision to seek a

company sale are depicted in Figure 1.

In both 2013 and 2014, the principal reason

cited for engaging in a company sale initiative

was to obtain access to greater sales, marketing,

and distribution resources. Having developed

and matured technology solutions, it is a natural

evolution for a business to become part of a

large entity to accelerate customer adoption.

Even if you have a demonstrably better

technology solution, this is of no consequence

if a vendor does not possess the sales and

marketing organisation to reach customers, or

the professional service and support organisation

to manage a global footprint of customers. In

the press release announcing the Avid-Orad

transaction, Avi Sharir, CEO and president of

Orad, made this very point: “Avid’s global scale

and distribution network provide significant

opportunities for customer support, growth and

market expansion.”

M&A rationaleWhile M&A is not always the most appropriate

step for a technology vendor, in the current

industry environment there are strong rationales

for including M&A in strategic planning. And in

the aggregate, there is every expectation of

continued heightened activity since primary

catalysts persist including the inability to generate

investment from public equity markets, the need

for vendors to reach more appropriate levels

of scale, and the desire from executives to

accelerate growth strategies.

Ref: DC Global Market Valuation Report1


Opinion and Analysis

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12 TVBEurope

Continuing the discussion on security, Anil

Chaman, manager of technology at

Al Jazeera English Language Channel,

highlighted that assets are the most valuable part

of his business. “That’s what we produce and make

and that’s what costs a lot of money. Security and

trust are key, which is why we’re not into the cloud

and won’t be for the foreseeable future.”

But what about secure services from a

dedicated supplier, asked moderator Jeremy

Bancroft? For instance, he cited trusted suppliers

like Signiant and Aspera, which are used for

transporting content around the world.

TV 2 Denmark’s head of TV projects and

deputy manager Kjeld Skovlund believes it

goes in two directions. “Using cloud services is a

question of functionality and price. I don’t have

an issue with relying on Aspera. Moving into the

cloud, whatever we all do, can be done by one

company in the cloud because that is all they do.

“On the other hand, where I see the role

of my staff in the future is to understand the

business processes within our facility and be able

to refl ect on new wishes and changes in the

Melanie Dayasena-Lowe picks up the discussion in part two of our coverage of the MAM Leaders’ Series roundtable event at The Shard in central London, held in association with Avid. Jeremy Bancroft leads the discussion that includes Anil Chaman, manager of technology at Al Jazeera English Language Channel; Paul Clennell, CTO, dock10; Francesco Donato, VP broadcast operations, Sky Deutschland; Craig Dwyer, senior director, Global Center of Excellence, Avid; Tom Evetts, regional sales director, northern Europe, Avid; Rod Fairweather, senior director of infrastructure and media technology, Viacom; Jouni Frilander, portfolio manager, media systems technology and development at Yle;

Kevin McCue, senior manager of technical operations for Sky Post Production; David Shield, senior vice president, global director of engineering and technology, IMG Sports Media; Kjeld Skovlund, head of TV projects and deputy manager, TV 2 Denmark; Chris Whatmore, MAM product owner and senior business analyst, Sky

in association with

www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

The MAM debate continues

IMG’s David Shield offers his perspective

The London skyline provided a dramatic backdrop to the day’s discussion

“We write our requirements or specifi cations and we have a manufacturer who wants to deliver this project. I want a basic functionality that can grow with me and my company and then have a working

relationship with that manufacturer” Kjeld Skovlund, TV 2 Denmark

organisation and production. That has to change

over a few weeks and we’ve tried a number

of manufacturers who say we can change our

processes in a quick way but usually it takes two

to fi ve months. We need it to take two to fi ve

weeks,” he remarked.

The conversation then moved on to how

the industry looks for the right product and

manufacturer. Bancroft posed the question:

“When we go out and specify what we need,

whether it be MAM or production platforms,

we’re gathering information from our users

and stakeholders and people driving that line

of business. We write a list of requirements and

typically people go out to the market and say ‘we

want you to do this’. Is that the right approach?”

Skovlund believes this is where the industry

needs to change. “We write our requirements

or specifi cations and we have a manufacturer

who wants to deliver this project. I want a basic

functionality that can grow with me and my

company and then have a working relationship

with that manufacturer.”


in association with

Sky Deutschland’s Francesco Donato

in association with

Rod Fairweather, senior director of infrastructure

and media technology for Viacom, said: “I’m

looking at MAM as an infrastructure rather than

application and it’s a fundamentally different

way of looking at it.”

With reference to terminology, Avid’s

Craig Dwyer, senior director, Global Center

of Excellence, said: “When you look at MAM

more as a utility or more generic it makes more

sense than when you try to apply it to a specifi c

business or operational use.”

Fairweather added that when basing MAM

on today’s absolute needs, by the time it is

delivered it will be out of date and won’t service

the necessary requirements. “We really need to

look at it as a much more agile platform that

allows us to add or take things away. That’s

the kind of fl exibility we need to be building-in.

We need to understand it from an operational,

engineering and business point of view.”

Sky’s Chris Whatmore, MAM product owner

and senior business analyst, said the model isn’t

too different from the traditional method of

buying a studio from a systems integrator rather

than a manufacturer if you want to do it yourself.

“As this becomes more mature, one would

hope you get better interoperability and

adopt that model again.”

Bancroft returned to the question of how to

specify what is needed. “Should we come up

with a list of huge requirements and expectations

and go to these vendors and say ‘will you build

this for us?’ Is that really the right approach?

Or should we pick something we think has

capabilities and ask what it can do? Do I have

to adapt what I do?”

At Viacom, Fairweather admitted that there

isn’t one application that does everything it

needs. “We have chosen to separate workfl ow

from asset management as much as possible.

We deliver to 100 different platforms. I don’t

want to be tied in to one supplier. You end up

with a multi-layered workfl ow environment. It

gives us the ability to build workfl ows quickly

and still have the granular control to do

what we want.”

“So, does that mean every major media

enterprise needs a signifi cant developer

department to keep itself ticking over?”

asked Bancroft.

Fairweather agreed since Viacom has

a developer pool, which it uses to create

social media interactions on screen such

as Twitter battles on its MTV and Comedy

Central channels. Bancroft asked if it involves

a different level of development compared to

developing infrastructure. Fairweather would

argue that it’s not that far different.

“Our developers don’t necessarily

understand a huge deal about TV but at

the developer level you need to be quite

precise about what you need them to do. Our

developers are less TV specialists; they’re closer

to being proper developers. Our workfl ow

engineers have much more of an idea of how

the whole TV operation works: i.e. where the likes

of compliance and QC sit.”

14 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

Sky Post Production’s Kevin McCue enters theanimated debate

Rod Fairweather delivers Viacom’s insight

“I’m looking at MAM as an infrastructure rather than application and it’s a

fundamentally different way of looking at it”

Rod Fairweather, Viacom


During the time Chaman was working at Channel

4, the broadcaster developed its own scheduling

system. “It was almost like a proof of concept.

There weren’t manufacturers out there making

automation systems so we decided to do it

ourselves,” he commented.

Although IMG Sports Media doesn’t have a

development team yet, David Shield, senior vice

president, global director of engineering and

technology, said his company is moving in that

direction. “We’ve just made a very bold step of

moving our whole separate broadcast IT team

to co-join them with corporate IT. So far, it’s

working quite nicely.”

Chaman, from Al Jazeera English Language

Channel, agreed: “I think the nature of the

systems means cross-scaling has to happen.”

At Yle, the large IT department was outsourced

a few years back and Bancroft asked if there

were any plans to bring the skill back in-house.

“We are more and more trying to work through

partners. Some are local IT companies and

some are non-vendors. We have very few of our

own developers. We try to concentrate on our

core business. There are some signs that it would

be more meaningful to have some of our own

developers,” explained Jouni Frilander, portfolio

manager, media systems technology and

development at the Finnish broadcaster.

Moving the discussion on, Bancroft opened up

the debate to fi nd out the biggest lessons learnt

from implementing MAM systems.

Sky’s Whatmore pointed out the difference

in opinions between business leaders and users.

He explained that business leaders are often

concerned with fi nancial effi ciency while users

may focus on the functionality required to do the

job they’re doing now. His advice: “Don’t listen

to too many people. Choose carefully who you

listen to for those requirements when building out

your workfl ow, otherwise you won’t get the full

benefi t of what you’re trying to achieve. Adding

too much complexity by trying to provide too

much to too many people at once can add

signifi cant risk to the success of a project.”

Fairweather from Viacom echoed the view of

minimising the number of people you consult.

“We need to pluck important bits of information

from users and work out which bits need to

be discarded because it’s no longer relevant.

We need to have an understanding of what

technology could provide, plus get a mix in the

middle. Getting that right is a challenge.”

Kevin McCue, senior manager of technical

operations for Sky Post Production, highlighted

one of the challenges: “When you’re talking

specifi cally about the enrichment of metadata,

the biggest problem you have is that the

user will take the quickest route to get the job

done. It’s the users we’re relying on to make

this thing work. A lot of the problems we’ve got

from manufacturers is that the UX isn’t thought

about properly. “We’re all trying to achieve more

automation to make everything happen in the

background seamlessly,” he continued. “In Sky

post production, we’re moving rapidly towards

entertainment and to get to this utopia where

we have automated ingest. IT all falls down at

the fi rst step due to the user because the camera

manufacturer has made it too diffi cult for users to

get the metadata off them.”

This in turn raised the question of RFID, GPS

and geo-tagging as possible solutions. It also

highlighted the important issue of training. Bancroft

asked, “Do we have to train people better and

make them understand the bigger picture and

why the camera metadata is important?”

Fairweather agreed that training has become

a major issue. “We all recognise this. In the

industry we used to have cameramen who

spent years training to be a cameraman, but

now the moment you leave college you’re a

cameraman, soundman, producer. Training

people on how to use a tripod, focus, frame,

expose, etc, is hard enough. To then train

people to the next level of data entry is very

diffi cult. We absolutely need to automate

things as much as possible. We know there are

tools that are going to help with that such as

language recognition, speech detection, and

shape recognition. It’s the reason we need

good quality digitisation.”

Skovlund from TV 2 Denmark was also in

agreement on the need for automation. “It’s

important we focus on auto enrichment of the

media. The amount of hours coming into our

systems is exploding and I can’t see any way of

us tying in metadata.”

Both TVBEurope and Avid would like to extend

their sincere thanks to all of the participants at

the MAM Leaders’ Series roundtable event.

Particular thanks go to our moderator Jeremy

Bancroft for expertly supervising and directing

the fl ow of discussion.

The MAM Leaders’ Series is a new thought

leadership initiative between TVBEurope and

Avid that unites authorities from around the

industry to offer insight on some of the key

challenges and areas of opportunity relating

to the management of assets. The latest

MAM Leaders’ Series blog can be found on

the TVBEurope website: http://www.tvbeurope.

com/mam-leaders-series-blog-bartosz-paprocki-

telewizja-polsat-sa/.

in association with

Kjeld Skovlund, TV 2 Denmark

“Don’t listen to too many people. Choose carefully who you listen to for those

requirements when building out your workfl ow, otherwise you won’t get the full

benefi t of what you’re trying to achieve” Chris Whatmore, Sky

The IOC has a proud history of innovations

ranging from the Technicolor film of London

1948, to the first HD test in 1984 in LA and

early video-to-mobile tests from the 2006 Winter

Games in Turin. However, an internal audit in 2006

revealed the alarming extent of the archive’s

deterioration. It found that within a decade,

half of the IOC’s 33,000 hours of video would be

unplayable, 20 per cent of its 400,000 stills would

have faded beyond use and there would no

longer be a player to listen to much of the 8,500

audio recordings.

The collection spans official films, technical

films, behind the scenes footage, unedited

broadcast rushes and newsreel collections.

The IOC has opened a new exhibition at the

Olympic Museum on the banks of Lake Geneva

in Lausanne to highlight the results of an SFR 30

million digitisation and logging effort.

Official film restorationBack in 2006, the 40 official olympic films were

in dire need of restoration with large pieces

missing and uncatalogued.

“I was informed that a century of Olympic

images was in danger of disappearing

irreversibly,” explained IOC president Jacques

Rogge who greenlit the digitisation programme

in 2007. “In the digital age it is vital to have a

digital version of this patrimony especially

if we want to promote the Olympic brand

around the world.” Less a highlights reel and

more an evocation of the spirit of each Games

and an artistic representation of the period,

the official films have attracted A-list directors

including Claude LeLouche, Milos Forman, Arthur

Penn, John Schlesinger and Mia Zetterling. “In

1912 the reels would have been shot, processed,

edited, packaged and sent to play in theatres

within a single day,” explained Adrian Wood,

IOC consultant, acquisition and restoration. The

original 16mm negative reels of the 1912 games

have been scanned to 4K and now provide a

remarkably detailed record.

Leni Riefenstahl’s controversial work Olympia,

documenting the 1936 Berlin Games is among

the restored pieces. “She was deeply unpopular

because she made propaganda for Hitler but

Workflow16 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

An Olympic undertaking: The IOC prepares for the next 100 years

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been pushing the boundaries of TV and media production ever since the Stockholm games in 1912, writes Adrian Pennington, yet no-one in the organisation was prepared for the catastrophic state in which its audio visual archive was found in 2006

Image credit: © 2012 Londres – Comité International Olympique (CIO)

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also there was jealousy because her films are

among the most impressive of their type and

being made by a woman made her a tabloid

hate figure,” explained Kevin Brownlow, film

historian, documentary-maker and film editor

who met her in the 1980s to restore the footage.

Producer/director Caroline Rowland had to

fight to document London 2012 with an official

film. “London did not include provision for a film

in its charter,” she explained. “LOCOG weren’t

sure if it was a relevant addition to the legacy

of the Games. Given that there is so much multi-

screen coverage of the Games today that is a

legitimate question to ask.”

The solution that convinced the committee to

fund the project was to track the achievements

of first-time Olympians to chime with 2012’s

theme of inspiring a generation.

Until recently, the IOC has not involved itself

in the production of these films so it had no

ownership over the original elements, much of

which is spread worldwide in private collections.

The entire 1960 official film is still missing.

“We are not like a major studio which has all

negatives in house and can access the vaults,”

said Wood. “A lot of research went into finding

where those original elements might be. Different

cuts have been made for different audiences

which begs the question of what version to

restore when we find the films. And most of the

time we’ve no access to production records

which explains why changes were made, how

many versions and what the post production

methodology was. We are missing all of these

because we are not the producers of the films.”

However, restoration, digitisation and

comprehensive metadata logging of the

archive is now complete. For long-term archive,

the official films are preserved on new 35mm

polyester-based film stock with digital files

backed up to LTO tape. They are versioned in

2K and 4K DCP for theatrical presentation with

HD access copies for broadcast.

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the benchmark

“In the digital age it is vital to have a digital version of this patrimony

especially if we want to promote the Olympic brand around the world”

Jacques Rogge, IOC president


“We haven’t faced the 4K TV yet,” explained

Wood. “We’ll leave that problem for the

next generation.”

With the 2020 Games being broadcast in 8K

domestically in Tokyo the organisation is aware

of challenges ahead. “What is certain is that

we need more agility in archiving technology

to cope with the changes in format,” said Blaise

Chardonnens, IOC head of images services.

Olympic coverage challengesAll of this work is important not just as a legacy

but to form the backbone to a new Olympic

channel set to launch worldwide ahead of Rio

2016. It is one of a number of media strategies

the movement is spearheading in order to

reach younger audiences and maintain its

brand awareness in an age of digital distraction

and discovery. Other initiatives include a

new approach to how the IOC presents and

broadcasts the Games. The delivery of more

content to multi-screens has highlighted a

tension between traditional broadcaster-

directed or curated coverage and the

potential, and seemingly pent up demand

“What is certain is that we need more agility in archiving technology to cope with

the changes in format” Blaise Chardonnens,

IOC head of images services

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for, individuals to compile and view their own

playlist on-demand of any and all aspects of

Olympic coverage.

“The ideology of all sports broadcasting has

changed from filming from the perspective of a

viewer in the stand to filming from an athlete’s

POV and to be as close as technically possible

to the action,” explained Yiannis Exarchos, CEO,

Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) citing the use

of tracking cameras for 100m or underwater

cams tracking swimmers.

“What has also changed is filming only once

the athletes are in the stadia to filming behind

the scenes of key preparation moments such

as the motivation of coaches, visualisation

in alpine skiing, or the mental and physical

preparation of athletes,” he said.

“There is now pressure to introduce more

wearable cameras into the field of play.

While today’s elite athletes are getting

used to this media jungle, we have to be

sensitive to introducing technology that

doesn’t interfere with the integrity of the

performance. Involvement of media in

sports competition is aggressive. We want to get

cameras closer to the athlete and even on the

athlete, but we have to respect the athlete.”

At Rio 2016, coverage will include wearable

cameras on equipment (track cycles, yachts)

and on referees (e.g. basketball). It is also

looking to use mini-cams on athletes during

training sessions in the run up to the games.

Body-worn health science sensors – such as

heart rate monitors – are also on the radar.

“Fundamentally, what we are doing with

broadcast coverage is storytelling that conforms

to classic Greek drama that has existed for

4,000 years,” said Exarchos, a Greek national.

“You need to define the characters and tell

the story of those characters, bring their story

to a resolution and experience a catharsis of

emotion as a result of that arc. What keeps

me awake at night is how we can integrate a

more democratic storytelling into coverage of a

sport event.” Following the 2014 winter games in

Sochi where more video was watched on digital

platforms that on linear channels for the first

time, the IOC has declared Rio will be the first

real multi-screen games.

“Broadcasters traditionally have been very

keen to control what is being produced and

for people to follow next the story they want to

tell,” explained Exarchos. “Today, everybody is a

storyteller. Everybody has capacity to produce

audio visual content. Integrating these elements

into an overarching narrative is, I believe,

the most important challenge for broadcast

storytelling in years to come.”

‘Following the 2014 winter games in Sochi where more video was watched

on digital platforms that on linear channels for the first time, the IOC has

declared Rio will be the first real multi-screen games’

How can satellite transmission compete

five or ten years down the line with high

bandwidth cable, especially in a country

like France, where politics is a huge part of the

equation? The French government has indeed

launched an ambitious programme aiming to get

all gaul homes connected to what it calls “very

high bandwidth” cable – meaning a connection

of at least 50Mbitps – by 2022, and has agreed

to put a massive wad of cash on the table to

finance the move: €20 billion over a ten-year

stretch, an amount financed by central and local

government, with some private money thrown in

as well. It’s a political decision that could well lead

to an important loss of market share for satellite

operator SES, in one of its major European markets.

At it currently stands, SES’s market share in

France has been steadily growing throughout the

years, no mean feat as more players compete

for a slice of the cake here than in most other

European countries. According to the company’s

yearly satellite monitor, a comprehensive study

of the satellite world market that has been in

commission since 1994, six million gaul homes

watch television thanks to an SES satellite. A

further breakdown of these figures reveals that in

2014, two million of these homes simply bought

a dish and used it to access digital terrestrial TV

programmes on a free basis. The remaining four

million paid for a subscription, either as Canal Plus

subscribers or Orange and SFR hybrid set-top box

owners, which number one million. But compared

with Great Britain and Germany, where SES

boasts 12 million and 18 customers respectively,

in France satellite can only claim a 23 per cent

share of the TV transmission market, as 40 per cent

of French viewers have opted for IPTV through

an ADSL connection.

One of the main drivers of SES’s business in

France has been, as in other European markets

and across the world, the huge increase in HD

viewing over the last five years. According to the

aforementioned monitor, 25 per cent of the 7,500

HD TV channels in the world are accessed by SES

satellites, amounting to 1,885 channels in 2014,

up from 1,202 channels in 2011. In France,

13.8 million homes are equipped to watch HD,

and DTH satellite represents 3.5 million of that total.

The lion’s share of the HD market, unsurprisingly, is

claimed by IPTV (6.3 million homes), but the other

providers have a lesser share than satellite, with HD

terrestrial coming third with 3.1 million homes, and

cable far behind with only 0.9 million.

So far, so good. But the prospect everyone is

getting excited about is Ultra HD. Speaking at a

Paris press fest, designed to drum up enthusiasm for

the new format and give an idea of the potential

it represents for SES business growth, Nick Stubbs,

the company’s vice president for Western Europe

hit the nail on the head: “We are convinced UHD

will drive our business forward in France and in

the world over the next five years, as more and

more TV sets are sold and operators as well as

broadcasters gradually endorse the format.”

The company has conducted a number of

trials with various broadcasters across Europe over

the last couple of years, thereby showing that it is

ready for and can handle UHD transmission now

for live events, with an average 25Mbitps capacity.

To date, Sky Deutschland is the only one to have

made any sort of public announcement about

the trial which involved the live transmission of a

Bundesliga football match in April last year. Little,

if any, information has emerged about the other

ones, which most certainly included Canal Plus in

France. Some press reports have hinted that the

gaul satcaster is preparing to launch 4K channels

towards the end of 2015. Canal Plus does not

confirm the rumours but admits it is testing the

technology: “We are conducting 4K tests on the

whole broadcasting chain with all the French

and European companies involved in that field of

technology,” a spokesperson admits.

Philippe Bailly, the head of NPA, a media and

telecoms consultancy, thinks the timing is ripe

for the format to take off in France, as consumer

demand begins to grow. “The indication we get

is that the French public is ready for UHD. We

interviewed and observed a number of consumers

at retail points across the country and they showed


SES makes a play for UHD in France

When will 4K become a market reality in France? For satellite operator SES, timing is crucial as it prepares to compete with very high bandwidth cable in an unequal fight, which on paper at least, seems to favour the latter. Catherine Wright reports

Nick Stubbs, SES Tom Cristophory, SES


Workflow

a real interest in the format and seem to fully

appreciate its benefits. Unlike what happened with

the introduction of HD, and the confusing signals

sent by the launching of HD-ready sets just before

the arrival of full HD ones, the marketing of UHD is

much better understood by the public.”

And the figures tend to bear him out. According

to estimates provided by consumer research

institute GfK, 800,000 4K TV sets will be sold in France

in 2015 as their price decreases under €1,000. That

is four times the number of 4K sets sold in 2014. Gfk

also indicates that 4K sets already represent 30 per

cent of the sales of 56-inch TV sets sold in France.

One of the most strategically savvy companies in

the gaul market, telco Free, is also hedging its bets

on the imminent take-off of the new format. In its

usual pioneering and flamboyant style, it launched

the first 4K set-top box in the market in February.

On the content side, Netflix, which started up in

France last autumn, has already announced that

it will be producing new gaul series Marseilles in 4K

and that 100 hours of its total 300 will be as well,

thereby putting pressure on other broadcasters to

compete. Even Blu-Ray discs will be available in 4K,

as a new standard has been adopted by the Blu-

Ray disc association in February. The good news for

consumers is that their current Blu-Ray players will

be able to read the new 4K Blu-Ray discs.

And for SES, timing is everything. If 4K becomes

a reality in France sooner rather than later, as

NPA believes, the satellite operator will have a

small window of opportunity to grab market share

before 2022, the target date set by French officials

for the widespread implementation of very high

bandwidth cable. “We are rearing to go. SES is

ready to broadcast 300 to 400 UHD channels from

one single orbital position as from now. We have

the right capacity, the wide coverage ability and

the reliability required for UHD. ADSL does not

have the bandwidth to compete and most digital

terrestrial operators will probably not have sufficient

financial clout to massively broadcast in UHD,” says

Tom Cristophory, the company’s senior manager

for sat/IP networks systems.

And although he does not overtly mention

it, coverage is one of the main competitive

advantages satellite currently has over cable.

According to Nick Stubbs, growth will mainly

come from the hybrid set-top box market

anyway, as viewers opt for the quality of satellite

transmission, but with the advantage of a return

path. “We will never reach the sort of figures we

have in the UK or in Germany, but we will remain

an important player in France,” he concludes.

“SES is ready to broadcast 300 to 400 UHD channels from one single orbital

position as from now. We have the right capacity, the wide coverage ability and the

reliability required for UHD” Tom Cristophory, SES

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TVBEverywhere

“V ideo remains the single most

valuable content to monetise,”

said Sef Tuma, managing

director of Accenture Digital Services, during

a presentation at TV Connect. The broadcast

network today generates almost half a

trillion dollars in revenue, he continued, but

“disruption has already been happening in

the broadcast world.” The migration to digital

caused cracks in the traditional broadcast

business model as audiences fragment and

the share of viewing on flagship channels

decreased. Disruption, stated Tuma, hit the

industry in three waves: the first wave brought

the first generation of OTT players including

Hulu and Netflix, followed by the second

generation like HBO Now and Mediaset’s

Infinity – broadcasters launching their own

standalone services using content to generate

growth. The third generation of OTT includes

Facebook, Google and Samsung: social media

video providing a ‘super platform’ allowing

device manufacturers to go direct to the

consumer. “Disruption is the new norm in the

video industry,” he continued, resulting in “an

evolving ecosystem”.

Hybrid OTT services This evolving ecosystem is not a bad thing for

viewers, allowing them access to a range of

pay-TV and on-demand options, accessing

libraries of content over the internet, either on

the go or through a set-top box or smart TV.

These issues were discussed on day two of TV

Connect, in the Super Panel Session: What is the

future of ‘Hybrid OTT’ services? Moderating the

panel was iTV Doctor Rick Howe and discussing

the evolution and convergence of TV delivery

were Pierre Francois Dubois, SVP, technocentre,

Orange; Richard Halton, CEO, YouView; Jim

Ryan, SVP and chief strategy officer, Liberty

Global; Jaime Miles, group vice president,

Time Warner Cable; and Simon Trudelle, senior

product marketing manager, Nagra.

The discussion opened with participants giving

their definition of ‘Hybrid OTT’: “What consumers

want, when they want it, across all devices”

was the straightforward response from Nagra’s

Trudelle. The company has developed service

management products and solutions to support

customers in the changing digital environment,

supporting services ranging from broadcast TV

and multiple forms of VoD to applications stores

and interactive. “Semantics are important when

talking OTT”, added Time Warner Cable’s Miles.

You used to have to be in the house to access

content: “That’s not OTT” he asserted, but “using

IP as a technology”. The “true definition of OTT”

is “when you want to go truly over the internet”.

Time Warner Cable argues that it leads the pack

when it comes to OTT: the company has made

content available not only on smartphone and

tablet, but has launched apps for Xbox, Samsung

connected TVs, and Roku live streaming.

A “hybrid system” to CEO Halton can be

defined as “trying to blend quality, resilience,

universality of a broadcast network, with

the flexibility [and] personalisation…of an IP

network.” YouView offers digital TV channels as

well as catch-up TV from the past seven days,

with the choice of on-demand and pay-TV

options for those who want them. Users need not

sign up to a monthly subscription, and the service

is available via a YouView box.

More consumer choiceOrange has been active in the hybrid OTT

market for a few years now: “We started with

IPTV in 2002, a long time ago,” said Dubois. “It’s

a very dynamic market, something like 20 million

broadband customers, more than five million

IPTV customers.” In July 2008, the company

launched a hybrid service combining satellite

and broadband delivery, and is now one of

the most successful telco TV services in Europe.

This provides access to broadcast channels via

satellite, and to VoD via the internet. In 2009,

“we invested in content” continued Dubois,

and “built something we can compare to

Netflix”. Orange Cinéma Séries is a series of

movie channels that launched as part of the

company DTH satellite service. Not only did the

company provide an alternative to Netflix, but,

as the movie giant’s popularity with consumers

grew, Orange decided to launch the service

on its own set-top boxes in France. “We have

a different vision of what an OTT service is,”

said Dubois. “As an operator, we provide our

customers with a shop.”

Providing consumers with choice, with a

“shop”, has grown ever more important.

TV Connect returned to London’s ExCeL centre in April for three days of dialogue, debate, and demos. Holly Ashford joined scores of exhibitors and hundreds of attendees discussing the future of connected TV entertainment

Evolution putting content in the ‘shop’ window


TVBEverywhere

Content creators and studios used to be at

the top of the industry food chain, followed by

networks, distributors, down to consumers, yet

consumers have in recent years jumped to the

top of that chain, determining for themselves

what they want to watch. And, what many

want to watch is Netflix. Last year, Dish Network

became the first pay-TV provider to integrate

Netflix’s offering directly into its set-top box, the

second-generation Hopper DVR. In April this year,

the network also announced it will bring Netflix

to its Joey receivers. Is Times Warner Cable also

looking at bringing in separate distributor content

and making it available to viewers via their

STB? “We’ve always tried to find what content

customers want to be watching and integrating

it. We’re evolving the relationships we have,” is all

Miles would say.

A new kind of video service“We currently have a ‘transitional model’ in the

hybrid OTT industry,” rounded up Howe, “with a

blend of delivery systems.” Where will the business

be in terms of delivering to consumers, in the next

24 months? Some things will remain unchanged,

said Halton. Linear channels account for 80

per cent of TV viewing, he said, “that’s not

going to change much”. The role of YouView,

he continued, is to try and help customers find

content, to gather intelligence and “use that

intelligence to anticipate the needs of a user

who just wants to be entertained”, ensuring “a

great user experience”.

The next 24 months and beyond will see “more

screens”, added Liberty Global’s Ryan. This was a

point discussed by Accenture MD, Tuma,

at TV Connect, who pointed out that

while TV set viewing remained strong for

sport and movies, “overall viewing is rapidly

fragmenting across devices. More people are

going to be consuming more content on

second and third screens.”

Miles continued, foreseeing a “continued

increase in video-over-IP” and, in agreement

with Halton, “sharing of data in ways we’ve

never seen before”, enabling a better customer

experience, changes in advertising models,

and “all kinds of new interaction and social

media embedding”.

These multiple screens mean that

delivering content needn’t mean providing

an STB: portable devices and even apps

within a device can do the same thing,

concluded Tuma. The impact of this industry

disruption has provided opportunities for

operators and next generation ‘broadcasters’

to take advantage by providing a new kind

of video service.

www.asperasoft.commoving the world’s data at maximum speed

“We currently have a ‘transitional model’ in the hybrid OTT industry with a blend of

delivery systems”Rick Howe, Moderator

Preparations are now in full swing ahead

of the first ever TVBEurope Strategy

Week, which takes place from 29 June

to 3 July 2015. The week of events starts with

the centrepiece TVBEurope 2020 conference

at BAFTA in central London, on 30 June, and is

followed by a series of thought leadership events

held in conjunction with dedicated partners.

The one-day conference addresses the

convergence of UHD and IT/IP infrastructures in an

effort to identify the strategic imperatives facing

media entities as they prepare their roadmaps for

the medium to long-term future. The preface to the

day suggests that the transition to IT and IP workflows

and the move to higher UHD resolutions come

at a turning point in the history of television and

media. They represent a revolution arguably even

greater than the transition to colour TV in the ‘60s.

UHD and IT workflows are inextricably linked, each

a driver for the other, transforming the technology

used to produce and distribute content but also

transforming the way in which programming is

delivered to consumers, what they watch, and the

devices they watch video content on.

Conference chairman, John Ive, director of

technology and strategic insight at IABM – strategic

partner of TVBEurope Strategy Week – explained

the concept behind the day’s agenda. “TVBEurope

2020 is taking an exciting new approach this year

and recognising the future of UHD and IT workflows

are inextricably linked,” he said.

“There is no stopping the introduction of new

formats and better quality images but a change

of infrastructure for each new image format

is no longer tenable. To address this we have

assembled some of the most influential industry

experts as speakers and panellists. Bringing these

two aspects together and looking towards 2020

will provide many fascinating insights.”

The confirmed speakers for the conference

include Bevan Gibson, CTO of ITN; Jon Carter,

UK head of business development, connected

home, Deutsche Telekom; Dr Hans Hoffman, EBU;

Phil Tudor, principal technologist, BBC R&D; Rowan

de Pomerai, senior technical manager, Studios,

ITV (on behalf of the DPP); Tim Santhouse, global

head of video products, Reuters; Rod Fairweather,

senior director of infrastructure and media

technology, Viacom; Kris Hardiman, head of

product marketing, Ericsson Broadcast and Media

Services; Simon Gauntlett, CTO, DTG; David Peto,

CEO, Aframe; Thomas Kernan, consultant systems

engineer, Cisco Systems; Alla Salehian, CEO, TIMA;

Niall Duffy, head of IT and workflow solutions, Sony;

David Klafkowski, MD, The Farm; Martyn Whistler,

lead analyst, media and entertainment, Ernst

and Young; Erhan Gurses, EMEA telecom industry

analyst, Bloomberg, and more.

The Strategy Week also includes a breakfast

briefing hosted by media and communications

analyst firm, SNL Kagan, which will explore the

future of the European pay-TV market. The briefing

precedes the 2020 conference at 9.00am on 30

June at BAFTA and is open to all delegates.

Elsewhere during the week will be the IABM

executive industry C-level conference on 1 July,

a webinar on ‘IP: opening up new perspectives

for live broadcast production’ in association

with EVS, and a roundtable event on 2 July at

The Soho Hotel, held in conjunction with

Pebble Beach Systems.

Tickets for the TVBEurope 2020 conference can

be found on www.tvbeurope2020.com.

Momentum builds towards TVBEurope Strategy Week

Webinars, breakfast briefings, roundtables, and the brand new TVBEurope 2020 conference to make up a week of industry insight and analysis


TVBEverywhere

“The day I die, I cannot take anything

with me. My last thought would be

that I’ve had a great life.”

The enthusiasm and candour of our roaming

conversation has hardened into something

more primitive, more tangible. Thomas Riedel

is visibly emotional as we pursue an acutely

personal avenue of discussion on his attachment

to his work, his life; indeed, life itself. Here is a

man of real perspective, not the sort that so

often manifests in boardrooms around strategy,

growth, roadmaps, but the sort that is aware of

the true bigger picture.

“I often tell my nephews and nieces that when

they think about people on Earth, probably 99.9

per cent of people don’t have the standard of

living that we have. We’ve had the luck to have

been born where we have, to have enough to

eat, enough to drink, and a place to live. Why

should I complain? I’ve just got to get on with my

job because, largely, life is great.”

A passionate elaboration to a question about

the balance of pleasure versus pain in being the

figurehead of a company that bears his name.

He has more invested in this company than simple

oversight of strategy. “I enjoy it about 80 per cent

of the time,” he estimates. “There’s about 15

per cent that is neutral, and there might be five

per cent where I think about it being too much.

However, if I accumulated all of the moments

where I have thought about not doing this

anymore since we started, it wouldn’t amount to a

single day. It is a privilege to be able to live such a

life, to live your dream.”

The blurred lines of work and life are common

to entrepreneurial folk: those who give birth to

enterprise and position their livelihoods around

the consequences. Thomas’ out of office itinerary

is a familiar story: he’s never truly absent. “I don’t

really separate working time and private time,

this is all ‘life-time’,” he admits. Indeed, if you

stumbled across the headquarters in Wuppertal

out of hours, it wouldn’t be deserted. “I do spend

time in the facility when no one else is here. If you

turned up at the weekend, you could feasibly find

me on a forklift truck moving stuff about.

I think it helps to understand what some people in

the company do.”

For Riedel the man, everything associated

with work and life is about balance: “It gives you

support when making very difficult decisions,”

he explains. “You need to trust that things will

be good, and you need to trust the people you

work with. A positive basic attitude and the right

view on life really helps.”

The facility The balance we have been discussing

permeates through to the design of the working

space here at the Riedel facility, with factory

and desk space mixed together so that all parts

of the company are integrated. “It started as an

issue, but turned into a real opportunity,” he says

of the industrial nature of the set-up.

Feature26 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

It’s a kind of magicRiedel Communications is a brand synonymous with its pioneering work across many verticals: Formula One, the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, and Red Bull Stratos to name but a few. It’s easy to forget amid the high profile the brand enjoys that the name sitting in lights atop the industrial HQ here in Wuppertal, was given to the company by the man sat beneath

it; in an unassuming office decked out in some of the more basic furniture his enterprise has invested in. Thomas Riedel’s story perpetually entertains, to be expected of a magician-turned-DJ-turned-entrepreneur, as I found out in a refreshingly candid and heartfelt conversation. By James McKeown

“At the facility here, which we own, we had a

bottleneck in office space: there were plenty of big

halls from earlier industrial use, but not enough office

space. So, we discussed it with the architect who

had the idea of making a gallery above the shop

floor preparation area to create an office space.”

The mezzanine level is surprisingly calm,

given the proximity to the shop floor and the

associated noise levels. Understandably, it wasn’t

universally accepted, at least initially. “I discussed

it with a few people who were against having

everyone in one big room, ‘the noise will be a

big problem’, they would say. So I accepted

that it was an issue and set about fixing it by

installing noise protection in the ceiling between

the upper and lower floors. It’s still the case that

not everyone is happy with the arrangement,

but the ratio of happy and not is 80:20 whereas

it used to be 20:80.

“We believe in teams working together,”

he continues. “The openness is highlighting our

philosophy, which is very much about good

communications internally, about being

open and having all departments close to

the gear and preparation areas, with staff

moving between the areas. I wouldn’t say it

is perfect, but the reaction of people who visit

is positive, and it is something I would do

again, for sure.”

It certainly does impress. This is no CERN or McLaren

facility, admittedly, but it is an endearing use of

space that holds the company’s entire philosophy

at the core of its design. This visit preceded another

to the Pixar studios in San Francisco, where I was

shown around a modern ‘campus’ that attempts the

same balancing of work and life, and successfully.

Although wildly different in execution, I am struck by

the similarities the two facilities share: their openness

and accommodation of all components of the

company, and the encouragement for divisions

to integrate. “The factory isn’t shut off from the rest

of the company departments, there’s a fusion

between all departments which helps with the

notion that they’re one and the same thing,” Riedel

states. “It also highlights how we think: everyone


Feature

here is part of the fabric of what we do.”

One statement that strikes a chord is that “you

need room for thinking, just as much as you need

room for building things”, important for a company

of technical means and entrepreneurial spirit. Is

this an unspoken philosophy? “There’s certainly

no manual which preaches our philosophy,” he

explains. “However, we do talk to candidates early

on in the [recruitment] process about our goals

and ambitions, that we don’t want to build me-too

products: we want to change the market, we’re

really passionate about what we do and we

want to be different.

“This is an entrepreneurial company, not one

built with private equity and run by banker-type

people. In my mind, there’s not enough of this in

our industry. I’m not saying the equity route doesn’t

work, but there aren’t enough companies left who

are independent, and I think that’s a shame.”

The reason for this, he explains, is that decisions

about technology that may only pay off in five

years’ time are difficult decisions to make, with

a huge amount of responsibility on the line for

the individuals making them in more corporate

organisations, whose ideal turnaround might only

be two years. “It’s very hard to see any return on

technological decisions in two years; to get the

concepts on the road and fully functioning takes

between three and five years. So there’s

a fundamental difference in how an investor-

backed organisation and an independent

enterprise function.”

Riedel the company started life as a comms

manufacturer in a market already well furnished

with incumbent competition. The philosophy of not

delivering me-too products and services brought

about a study of the market to assess the possibilities.

“We came up with a completely new concept of

decentralised comms,” Riedel recalls. “In the past,

there was one big block matrix in one location: we

saw the future was in networking with a distributed

system, and that’s exactly what we did. This was

back in 2000, which was way ahead of the curve if

you think that networking is a hot topic today.”

Early yearsThe company’s genesis is an unlikely, but

suitably engaging tale. “I started the company

in February 1987, but I only left school in 1989, so

there’s a bit of an overlap in the early days.

It wasn’t a clear decision for life, it was more

‘let’s start this now and see how things work out’.

I never had a big masterplan.”

Riedel was ten years old when he developed an

interest in business…show business, that is. “This came

through my interest in magic. It was a hobby of mine

to perform as a magician on stage in kindergartens

or in the church, and by the age of 14, I became

interested in the technology behind the stage.

I was always more active outside of the classroom

than inside of it, and I’d always be the one handling

the technology of theatre productions in school.

“During the summer, I’d spend much of it at a

sea stage on Lake Constance, which was only

five minutes from my mother’s house in Austria, just

helping out where I could, and this is where my love

for the industry really started.” By the age of 16, he

was organising parties, taking care of the sound and

lighting systems. His increasing stewardship of these

events was the real reason he started the company.

“In Germany, if you file a company, you can buy

the equipment at the dealer price rather than the

end user price, so I literally started the company to

get the equipment at a cheaper price. So you can

see the lack of a masterplan.”

Thomas bought his first radios in 1990 for an

event for which he was stage builder, performer,

and car park attendant. It was for the latter role he

would need the radios to direct the flow of traffic

to the right parking spaces. This was his entrée to

the world of communications, following which he

would drop the lighting, sound and magic from his

repertoire (although he has been known to rekindle

his act for the Riedel employees).

“This was in the early 1990s, and it was at this

time when private TV stations in Europe started up.

RTL, which I think is now the biggest TV station in

Europe, called and asked me about radios but also

whether they could be connected to their talkback

or intercom system. So I had to learn how to find

a solution, and built a product called RiFace,” the

name of which, he says, is an unspectacular mixture

between Riedel and interface.

Winning formula RiFace sold well in Germany and Austria, with the

interface-to-comms system giving the company

a foot in that particular door. “I then started

developing a small intercom system with a couple

of friends which was almost ready by the end of

1993. It was then I got a call from the organising

committee of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

They hadn’t thought about communications, and

they came to me pretty late in the day. Although it

wasn’t an easy job, I said yes, which might be seen

as quite typical of me: I’m not afraid of taking risks.

We supplied a comms system and a radio system for

the opening and closing ceremonies.”

Riedel was able to use his association with

Lillehammer to good effect in marketing terms,

but as he admits, a significant stroke of luck was to

take his company onto the next step. It involved an

interview with a local radio station about Riedel’s

involvement at the Winter Games. “At the very same

time, someone happened to pass Wuppertal on

the autobahn and heard the interview on the radio.

He happened to be involved in Formula One, and

he’s probably responsible for us being in motorsports.

It was a slow start in Formula One, and it took me

about ten years to be accepted in this circus.”

The current state of Hall J at Wuppertal HQ is

proof that this acceptance has now become

almost total. Literally tripping over crates of

headsets belonging to the likes of Ferrari,

Mercedes, and the FIA itself, I’m shown around

a factory floor more reminiscent of a motorsport

garage than a communications depot. There are

Formula One cars on display, past and present,

and sat in a Riedel motorhome enjoying the calm

of the off-season, Riedel’s place in the sport’s

tapestry is abundantly clear.

Having followed the sport with a keen eye for

some time, I am more than aware that Riedel

and Formula One go hand in hand, but as the

company’s leader earlier suggested, visiting the

premises opens one’s eyes to the scope and scale

www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

Feature28 TVBEurope

The mezzanine was designed to integrate factory and office departments

Pict

ure c

redi

t: Kr

istin

a M

alis

“This is an entrepreneurial company. In my mind, there aren’t enough

companies left who are independent, and I think that’s a shame”

Thomas Riedel


Feature

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of the wider operations. More recently, flying out

to join Riedel at the Barcelona Grand Prix at the

Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya provided more

evidence of this, with the company providing the

comms for all of the teams on the grid, plus the

FIA, its medical team, and so on. In fact, it’s

hard to walk the paddock and pit lane and not

pass something or someone associated with

Thomas’ company.

It is emblematic of the progress Riedel has

made since its inception, and Riedel himself is

conscious of the luck has befallen his progress

thus far; the timing of the company’s activities in

communications systems coming in parallel with

the broadcast industry ramping up, and with the

entertainment industry becoming an industry. “It’s

not something that could be repeated,” he recalls.

“It was a question of timing: it wasn’t because of a

smart concept, but because the stars were in line.”

Pride and perspectiveDespite this, there is abundant pride exuding

from every recollection of every milestone: setting

the company up to be financially independent;

buying the facility in Wuppertal; getting the first

big contracts – Olympics, Formula One, ORF; the

acquisition of Mediornet. “Even looking back to

three years ago, I couldn’t have imagined the

progress we’ve made in that time,” he says.

“However, nothing has changed, really. I still

do what I love, and my risk is very limited:

I started from zero, so the lowest I could fall

is back to that place.”

The lack of a grand masterplan has not stunted

the growth of the company as of yet, and his pride

in his successes extends to the manner in which

they have been realised. That he considers meeting

and convincing the right people to come on board

among his greatest successes possibly tells you

everything about Riedel: man and brand. It explains

the family atmosphere here in Wuppertal, the sense

that people are well looked after, and are buying

into the ethos of the company; winning together,

losing together.

2014 was a profitable year for the company,

but the year before was more challenging. The

company clearly prides itself on its agility in coping

with the undulations of the fractious business

landscape, and Thomas is philosophical about

meeting success and frustration with a level

head. “You have to experience some dark

moments to appreciate the sunshine,” he states.

“You never learn when you do things successfully,

you only learn when you fail. Since we need to

learn a lot for the things we need to do in the

future, we need to fail in certain ways to give us

that experience. Yes, it’s painful, but it’s necessary in

order to move on.”

It may sound a risky philosophy: one thast is only

beneficial if you ably apply what you learn from

failure to sufficiently correct it. But this is a personal

and distinctly human philosophy brought to bear

in the professional domain, and that is refreshing

in an environment that can so often suffer from

corporate sterility.

There is an overarching picture bigger than

any boardroom strategy can prepare for, and

understanding this balance is what sets Thomas

Riedel and his operations in good stead for the

future. It may not be the kind of magic Thomas

was once known to showcase, but it is an

inspiring formula.

is the leading media brand for suppliers to the European broadcast and mediamarket and is a proven partner in delivering the very best in news, analysis and

debate to the key decision makers in the broadcast industry.

Visit www.tvbeurope.com for more details

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Round Tables

Awards

What do LG, Netfl ix, Panasonic, Samsung,

Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney

Studios have in common? The answer,

of course, is that they are among the founding

members of the UHD Alliance announced at CES

earlier this year, and providing further evidence that

the move towards higher defi nition broadcasting is

accelerating. Unsurprisingly, that was refl ected by

the satellite industry at this year’s NAB.

The show saw Intelsat introduce IntelsatOne

Prism, which the company describes as a new

next generation, IP content distribution managed

service. Intelsat took the opportunity to stage a true

4K UHDTV live transmission using HEVC compression

along with an HD Content Distribution Network

(CDN) contribution feed from a production truck

over satellite with end-to-end video transmissions

managed by the IntelsatOne Prism hub located at

the company’s Atlanta teleport.

“The demonstration highlighted the

advancements in HEVC compression technology,”

said Peter Ostapiuk, head of media services at

Intelsat, “as well as how IntelsatOne Prism’s fully

automated, converged IP-based platform allows

media customers to conduct multiple content

transmissions via one platform, enabling effi cient,

high quality, multiscreen content delivery.”

The OTT societyOstapiuk noted that media companies are facing

pressure to quickly upgrade their networks to

meet the demands of a TV Everywhere and an

increasingly over-the-top (OTT) society. IntelsatOne

Prism is, he says, designed to addresses the

challenges of the converging broadband and

media landscape by enabling media customers

to seamlessly implement digital media networking

using legacy assets, improve bandwidth

management with minimal investment, and simplify

overall content delivery and operational networks.

Intelsat recently chose ETL to upgrade its

teleport facilities with ETL’s new Enigma matrices.

“That allows Intelsat’s operations personnel

to monitor multiple projects with complete

confi dence,” according to Susan Saadat,

vice president of ETL’s North American sales

and operations. “There are a number of high

throughput satellites that either have launched,

or are being launched in 2016, and we’re working

closely with those operators in building out their

teleports and ground terminals.”

On show on the ETL stand was the company’s

new StingRay RF over fi bre range, which Saadat

believes offers a unique, compact design for high

isolation applications, and new Dextra L-band

splitters and combiners, as well as its Alto series

of line amplifi ers. Also capturing visitors’ attention

was ETL’s high density 128x128 L-band Vulcan

matrix, which is said to be capable of distributing

high volumes of L-band signals in broadcast and

government applications.


Feature: NAB Retrospective

Delivering the future, today‘Recent forecasts suggest there will be over 1,000 channels broadcasting to over 500

million Ultra HD screens by 2025’

There is a case to be made that, increasingly, the success of the broadcast industry rests on satellite companies. Ian McMurray opens our NAB retrospective by fi nding out what these entities were doing at this year’s show to ensure that success

Intelsat introduced IntelsatOne Prism, which the company describes as a next generation, IP content distribution managed service

As well as being chosen by Intelsat, ETL has also

recently secured orders from DirecTV for its Alto

amplifiers to strengthen and improve signal quality.

“That’s testament to the adaptability of this

technology for years to come,” continued

Saadat. “Our Alto range of amplifiers is available in

redundant configurations, recognising the need for

systems to provide redundancy for ultra-resilience.”

1,000 channels, 500 million screensAlso focusing on the impact of higher definition

broadcasting was Eutelsat, with the company’s

director of innovation, Antonio Arcidianco,

pointing out that recent forecasts suggest there

will be over 1,000 channels broadcasting to over

500 million Ultra HD screens by 2025.

“We’ve taken a strong stance on Ultra HD,

starting with broadcasting the first 4K content

in Europe two years ago and working since

then with the entire broadcasting chain to

get all the pieces lined up in the right order,”

said Arcidianco. “We have both

bandwidth and reach today and have

made investments in future satellites optimised

for broadcasting commercial Ultra HD as soon

as our clients are ready.”

Eutelsat believes that the other key trend in

broadcasting is interactivity.

“We’re looking to provide broadcasters and

platforms with the ability to manage the

customer return path by satellite, thereby

giving them full control over their network,”

continued Arcidianco. “Our approach to this

is through the smartLNB, a low-cost modem

that bundles satellite reception of TV channels

with a narrowband satellite return link for short

transmissions of IP packets. It opens the door for

broadcasters to grow towards an interactive

and individualised set of services beyond TV,

managed through a network they control.”

At NAB, Eutelsat teamed with Prodea and its

ROSE platform to demonstrate a broad range

of services: including IoT services such as home

monitoring, security, control, access, energy

management, eHealth and wellness, eLearning,

and eGovernment services.

High efficiencyHigher definition broadcasting relies, of course,

on highly efficient video compression and

bandwidth usage – and the latter was front and

centre for Newtec at NAB, on whose booth the

newly announced MCX7000 had its first public

showing. It is described as a dense DVB-S2X multi-

carrier satellite gateway demodulator that brings

multiple benefits, including increased bandwidth

efficiency of up to 51 per cent for distribution

to towers and head-ends, reducing OPEX and

CAPEX in various ways.

“The MCX7000 represents another milestone in

the extension of our modem capabilities beyond

single carrier support,” noted Hans Massart,

market director, broadcast at Newtec, “and is

ideal for broadcasters looking to future-proof

their operations.”

Also receiving its official launch at NAB was

the Equalink 3, a new linear and non-linear pre-

distortion technology designed to compensate

for the effects of distortions caused by the

satellite’s filters and amplifiers.

“Live satellite tests have proven Equalink 3’s

ability to increase link margin, which can be

used to improve coverage and availability or to

increase the symbol rate,” said Massart. “That

enables up to 15 per cent more TV channels to

be inserted in a DTH carrier.”

Focusing on video compression was Vislink,

which showcased, among other products, the

UltraCoder – a 19” x 1RU half rack width unit said to

be capable of encoding four full 1080p60 HD or SD

video signals using H.265 (HEVC) compression, or

one 4Kp60 video, within the same unit.

Interest in H.265“We saw a great deal of interest in Vislink’s

implementation of H.265 video encoding,” said

Ashley Dove, the company’s VP of solutions, “and

visitors to the booth were able to see how Vislink’s

approach could help them use significantly less

bandwidth over satellite. Our demonstrations

showed how required bandwidth could be more

than halved compared to video signals currently

using H.264. Also, high quality 4K contribution video

signals can be transmitted over existing satellite

transponder allocations using the same bandwidth

that’s used for HD video encoded with H.264.”

According to Dove, H.265 high compression

technology will be implemented into Vislink’s

Feature: NAB Retrospective32 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

Antonio Arcidiacono, Eutelsat

Hans Massart, Newtec John Bozza, SIS Live Susan Sadaat, ETL

Peter Ostapiuk, Intelsatz Ashley Dove, Vislink Eddie Ferraro, Globecast



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current range of sub 23kg MSAT ultra-lightweight

integrated SNG terminals, enabling multiple HD

(or even 4K transmissions) from the field using the

rapidly deployed MSAT terminal. It will also be

implemented into the multi-use NewStream Van

Transmitter, making it possible to transmit video via

long range COFDM microwave (ENG), satellite

(SNG) and bonded Cellular (CNG) as well.

Another company operating in the SNG

space is SIS LIVE, which was at NAB to promote

the ManPakT range of VSAT terminals. The

ManPakT, which is based on the ManPak60

portable VSAT terminal – also on show in Las

Vegas – is described as a compact, integrated

tripod-based system. It was showcased as a

prototype for the first time at NAB 2014 and, says

the company’s commercial director, John Bozza,

received significant interest. At the show this

year, the 0.6m and 1.0m reflector-sized antennas

were being displayed. The 1.0m version is Ka-Sat

NewsSpotter and Hylas approved.

The ManPakT is also available with a range

of optional extras including integrated COFDM

receiver for mobile camera connectivity,

a Wi-Fi router enabling a secure satellite

internet network, and integrated housing and

connections for high grade encryption devices.

“SIS LIVE’s ManPakT range leads the way in the

next generation of VSAT terminals,” claimed Bozza.

“It is a compact and lightweight system which is

IATA compliant and can be easily packed into

one robust case. The completely waterproof and

rugged design allows for operation in even the

most challenging of conditions.” SIS LIVE was also

showing off its uPod 1.2m drive fly system.

Change in the airAs always, change was in the air in Las Vegas;

especially as the satellite industry gears itself

up to a new world of higher definition

broadcast and interactivity.

Those, however, were far from the only

changes, reflected, for example, in the launch

by Globecast of its Los Angeles Media Center

in Culver City, which already includes BBC

Worldwide as a customer.

“We’re seeing tremendous interest in our media

management and playout solutions,” explained

Eddie Ferraro, Globecast’s managing director in

the US. “What we are experiencing is a growing

demand for bundled services, with distribution

included as part of the package. This is where our

recent reorganisation – to take advantage of our

global reach, combined with new infrastructure

to power our media management business – is

really coming into its own.”

“The new Los Angeles Media Center offers

broadcasters and content providers a

converged workflow to prepare, deliver and

playout content to any kind of distribution

platform,” he goes on. “The new Media Center

complements established Globecast facilities

in London, Singapore, and Paris, enabling

Globecast to offer a truly global one-stop-shop

for media management, playout, satellite and

OTT distribution.”

Globecast’s announcement was in many ways

typical: once again, NAB saw the satellite industry

gearing itself up to support its customers, and

whatever the future might bring.

SIS LIVE was at NAB to promote the ManPakT range of VSAT terminals

‘Once again, NAB saw the satellite industry gearing itself up to support its customers,

and whatever the future might bring’

The standard of debate around the

transition from point-to-point connectivity

to audio-over-IP (AIoP) in broadcast has

been what one would most politely describe

as ‘variable’. But no one could deny that it has

certainly been abundant – and continued to be

so at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas.

In truth, we do now finally seem to be

moving away from the ‘protocol wars’ towards

a more balanced and practical debate

about implementation of IP networks. The

arrival of the AES67 standard – which enables

interoperability of existing Layer 3-based

networking technologies – looks set to be

a crucial enabler in this regard, and

unsurprisingly there were several related

announcements during NAB.

In line with its confirmation last year that it

would deliver compatibility with AES67, Dante

media networking technology creator Audinate

announced support for the standard via the

release of the Dante Brooklyn II firmware update.

The addition of AES67, explained Audinate,

will allow baseline connectivity between the

growing ecosystem of Dante-enabled devices

and networked devices from other vendors who

support AES67 bridging.

“The adoption of AES67 supports our

vision to make Dante the most complete

audio networking solution, and will help

facilitate the industry’s evolution from

analogue to audio-over-IP,” said Aidan

Williams, CTO, Audinate.

Meanwhile, ALC NetworX – developer

of another AES67-compatible technology,

Ravenna – held a series of presentations on

the implementation of AES67 in ‘real world

applications’ and new product developments.

With the recent formation of the Media

Networking Alliance to actively promote AES67

adoption, the momentum behind the standard is

obvious – and should ultimately push forward the

overall adoption of IP-based workflows.

Immersion battle heats upSuch is the fevered debate around AoIP, it would

have been easy to overlook some of the other

underlying trends going into this year’s NAB. But

show visitors would not have failed to notice the

glut of developments around immersive audio as

vendors and broadcasters work to deliver a sonic

experience befitting the emerging 4K/UHD and

(God help us) 8K TV formats.

Perhaps most prominently, Fraunhofer IIS,

Qualcomm Technologies and Technicolor

jointly undertook demonstrations at NAB of

the new MPEG-H audio standard. Designed to

offer broadcasters a cost-effective means of

improving the sound quality of their offerings

beyond 5.1 surround, MPEG-H Audio also

delivers a host of interactive and immersive

features across the full range of modern

viewing devices from high-end home theatres

to tablets, smartphones, and sound bars. At

NAB, the MPEG-H-based system on display, with

a monitoring unit from Jünger Audio, offered

features including the ability to select different

audio presentations – for example, ‘home team’

or ‘away team’ commentary for a sports event –

or volume control over specific audio elements in

a programme such as dialogue or sound effects.

Another firm perennially at the cutting edge,

Fairlight, demonstrated its latest progress in this

area. Designed to allow content creators to

deliver 3D immersive sound, the 3DAW (3D Audio

Workstation) enables users to work in formats

such as Auro-3D, Dolby Atmos and DTS MDA

without the need to replace existing 2D tools

and workflows.

Avid, too, underlined the extent to which an

increasing number of TV shows and movies are

being mixed in surround by introducing the Pro

Tools | S6 Master Joystick Module. An option

for both M10- and M40-based S6 systems, the

Master Joystick Module incorporates dual non-

motorised, touch-sensitive joysticks for surround

sound mixing with Pro Tools | S6, as well as a 3.2-

inch TFT display to depict current pan

and joystick locations.

Whilst nothing remotely approaching a

consensus exists about the best means of

delivering more all-encompassing broadcast

audio to the home – or even what the viewer

should actually be getting out of it experientially

– the innovations on display at NAB suggest that

sound won’t be trailing too far behind picture as

the new high resolution formats gain traction.

Quiet is the new loud(ness)If such top line themes can be persuasive,

some issues reflected at NAB were more

evergreen in nature. Take loudness, for example,

which continues to preoccupy many broadcast

sound engineers despite the advent of the

reforming EBU Loudness Recommendation,

R128. Accordingly, at NAB there were plenty of

new developments aimed at making loudness

metering and correction as painless as possible.

NUGEN Audio, for example, released

Loudness Toolkit 2, the latest generation of

its suite of loudness metering and correct

tools. Consisting of the VisLM-H 2 Loudness

Meter, LM-Correct 2 Quick-Fix Tool and ISL 2

True-Peak Limiter, Loudness Toolkit 2 is geared

towards the requirements of NLE and DAW

users. Elsewhere on the show floor, TSL Products

introduced Phinix, billed as a complete suite

of desktop and enterprise tools to address

many file-based audio requirements, among


Gently ushering in a new era for broadcast audio?

As well as the expected rush of developments related to audio-over-IP, the NAB Show 2015 heralded some exciting innovations in immersive audio and loudness correction. David Davies wonders whether, all things considered, we are witnessing the dawn of a discreet but distinct new era for broadcast sound

them loudness measurement and correction,

and Dolby E encoding and decoding. More

general workflow optimisation was on the

mind of several other leading vendors at NAB.

Harman’s Studer, for example, exhibited its

Vista X and Vista V digital consoles, whose

Infinity Core CPU-based processors are

designed to provide high numbers of DSP

channels for large-scale, high-resolution audio

processing and mixing. Also on a console

‘tip’, Lawo unveiled a high-density version of

its popular mc²56 audio mixing console. In a

move destined to endear it to compactness-

seeking OB vans and studios, the mc²56XT

offers the possibility of doubling the fader

count on the same footprint. Miniaturisation of

console design has, of course, been an abiding

theme of broadcast audio R&D for a good

half-a-decade now.

With IP-based production and immersive audio

crossing over from concept to reality for many

broadcasters, it is clear that more exciting times

are now firmly within reach. The innovations

on the visual side might attract a greater

percentage of industry headlines, but NAB 2015

did nothing to dispel the impression that we

are entering a discreet but distinct new era

for broadcast audio.



‘Whilst nothing remotely approaching a consensus exists about the best means of delivering more all-encompassing broadcast audio to the home, the innovations on display at NAB suggest that sound won’t be trailing too far behind picture as the new

high-resolution formats gain traction’

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Transform your business

In my first 20 years in the industry, I believed

that plus or minus a bit of smoke and

mirrors, smart broadcast and media

customers could successfully evaluate the

leading innovators to make well informed

buying decisions. Sellers sold and buyers bought.

Wouldn’t it be great if it were as simple as that?

But there are others amongst us. Investors.

Whilst it’s customers’ investment in vendors’

technology and services that pays for the whole

show, the whole industry in fact, they are not

always only dealing with the vendors. Many

developers and manufactures rely on suitable

external investment to get their businesses to the

next level. ‘Suitable’ for whom?

Appropriate investment is more important than

ever to support the simultaneously converging

and diverging media technology industry. As

UHD promises to explode our eyeballs and

‘TV Everywhere’ is getting closer to finding the

advertising-everywhere money, never have so

many business models been so disrupted. Investors,

advisors, financiers, private equity and venture

capitalists are new spirits amongst us at NAB,

haunting the show floor searching for opportunity.

Our media-meshed industry is now running

fast with many overlapping cycles in play.

Technology innovation in, say, managed services

and SaaS at one end, versus the unprecedented

changes in audience behaviour at the other,

requires huge investment to innovate and deliver.

Investors are searching for something to give a

financial return that suits their current appetite for risk

and reward. Many developers and manufactures

come to NAB actively seeking backing, too: new

funding to get their idea off the ground or to boost

their next phase of innovation or expansion. For

vendors who have gained recent new financing,

the challenge is to swing into action and get their

latest value proposition front and centre.

For many vendors, it’s now a two-way shop

window at NAB: selling their latest solutions to

prospective customers whist also promoting

their company’s innovation and potential value

to the investment community. It’s a very tricky

balancing act for vendors.

Who’s zooming who? Which of the recent mergers or acquisitions

actually create and deliver a better value

proposition for paying customers? Does a boost

in vendor investment, a merger or a change of

owner actually benefit them?

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity

continued apace after last year’s upturn; a

valuable chance to pause and review the

impact of last year’s activities, too. The IABM cites

annual market size for the media technology

industry at about US$40 billion for the sectors that

it addresses. The huge overlap with the IT industry

and new cloud services makes that number

potentially much larger. Gartner recently cited

25 per cent growth in “the emerging and

disruptive software defined video” sector at

US$10 billion by 2018. It’s interesting when you

look beyond the numbers.

Some highlights: last year we saw M&A action

from Belden (Grass Valley), Dalet (Amberfin) and

Vislink (Pebble Beach Systems). Later on in the

year, Ericsson completed its acquisition of Red

Bee Media and Nordic Capital AS announced

its intention to acquire trendsetters Vizrt, which

completed recently.

Serial acquirer, Oracle, made one of its most

media-centric purchases to date when it

bought highly respected archive innovator

Front Porch Digital. Many customers saw this

being as much about high quality people.

We’ll look at that aspect next month in part two

of this feature: Peoplesoft.

Vitec Videocom, one of the industry’s most

active acquirers, recently bought Paralinx for

its real-time wireless monitoring and in October

last year, completed its purchase of Autocue.

CEO Matt Danilowicz got my attention with this

statement: “M&A is easy. Integrating companies,

that’s really hard. The reason that Vitec is still one

of the most profitable companies on the show

floor is also because we’re also one of the least

well known. They know our brands, they know

the businesses that we bought, but they don’t

really see us – and that’s very intentional.” The

group versus micro brand and segment reach

is one of the biggest challenges in successful

M&A; everyone has an opinion and the

perceived connections between brands are

often highly intangible.

Highly respected live graphics specialist

ChyronHego was finally taken private in a

merger: I think. No space for the details here but,

if you really want to study the real challenges

of governance, communications and value

engineering in precision M&A, it’s well worth

reading up on ChyronHego.

Less interestingly so far, Avid acquired Orad

for an all share deal worth about $60 million, on

a turnover of about $40 million. A low valuation

perhaps, given Orad’s cash position and its

Ghosts in the machineMergers and acquisitions at NAB Show 2015, by Russell Grute, director at Broadcast Innovation


‘The group versus micro brand and segment reach is one of the biggest challenges in

successful M&A; everyone has an opinion and the perceived connections between brands

are often highly intangible’

highly competitive yet under appreciated

technologies and products. Orad itself had

previously acquired UK MAM specialists IBIS.

Come on Avid.

Leadership and perception (and soft rock defined video) For Imagine Communications, NAB 2015 was the

moment. The big push. And the company was

everywhere, even on the NAB App home

screen. Imagine’s campaign over the last two

years since acquisition by The Gores Group

illustrates two key dynamics in M&A: leadership

and perception.

Anyone invited to The Joint at The Hard

Rock Hotel to see Imagine Live featuring soft

rockers Foreigner, couldn’t fail to be impressed

by chief executive Charlie Vogt’s on-stage

converged confidence, or by Imagine CTO

Steve Reynolds’ 30-minute verbal tour de force.

Leading the 1,700 strong crowd with Imagine’s

version of the industry future, with some

repetition (Cloud, IP, SDN, etc) but certainly

no hesitation or deviation.

This was real marketing folks: ‘make the

market’ or ‘serve the market’ is what the books

say. Imagine Communications with Gores

backing is attempting both. Ambitious. Either

way, the perception of value is crucial, both

to paying customers now and to secure future

investment. It’s also what astute investors think

very carefully about. Successfully matching

a company’s transformation with the global

media-meshed industry is as difficult as it has

ever been. Investors’ typical three-year outlook

can be painfully short. Consumer and mobile

technology ‘hype-cycles’ are going faster whilst

perhaps typical media industry buying and

budgeting periods remain slower.

Lining up Vince Roberts from

Disney/ABC Television to confirm its vision

and close proceedings was, almost,

“unprecedented” as they like to say all

too often in the US. He neatly gave us

Disney’s/ABC Television’s strategic line:

“By leveraging evolving IP and Cloud

technologies we are able to move beyond

what’s currently possible with traditional

proprietary ‘Big Iron’ broadcast infrastructures.”


Feature: NAB Retropsective

One which might indeed help drive the industry.

As Foreigner took the stage to croon, “Feels like

the first time…” a sharp-witted CTO remarked

to me, “…trouble is, I remember the last time.”

Genuine frustration born of previous broken

promises no doubt but that seemed possibly too

simplistic. Broadcast and media technology is

now a mature industry. Many established global

brands do have a challenging legacy. Belden

with Miranda then Grass Valley is going

through a similar journey (Don’t stop believin’?

Plenty more soft rock defined anthems where

that came from).

Quantel and Snell just got married, also with

new leadership as Lloyds Capital appointed Tim

Thorsteinson as CEO. Quantel and Snell’s vision

is for an open and less proprietary approach

to IP within the broadcast facility. Thorsteinson

elucidated further for Quantel as “…one of the

larger independent businesses in our industry,

with world class products and a rich history of

innovation. I want to build on that tradition to

create an organisation 100 per cent focused

on helping our customers prosper in the media

technology world.”

The dynamics of leadership and perception

were illustrated again, with the departure in

October of EVS CTO Joop Jansen, which left

many customers puzzled. EVS has one of the

strongest value propositions in the industry and is

highly professional. Another indicator of a mature

industry searching for growth.

Streaming and distribution: walk this way…Imagine also made two notable acquisitions

over the last 12 months. File-meisters Digital

Rapids last NAB yielded its Zenium software-

defined workflow management proposition. RGB

Networks, acquired in January, adds Dynamic

Ad Insertion (DAI), Just-in-Time Packaging and

Cloud DVR technologies. These highlight three

game changing areas to rewire the revenue

from advertising and subscribers.

Cloud DVR technologies will be key in the

next cycle. The line between TV and mobile

services is blurring, and in many cases that blur

is ‘the cloud’. Just after IBC last year, Ericsson

announced its planned $95 million acquisition of

Fabrix Systems, another innovator in cloud-based

platforms for delivering DVR and VoD services.

This acquisition is intended to help service

providers deliver what Ericsson calls TV Anywhere:

viewing on multiple devices with high-quality

and relevant content for each viewer. Cable

operators and telcos gaining dramatic growth in

video streaming need to reach consumers and

revenue cost effectively on multiple screens.

Ericsson, along with many others, is now

laser focused on the importance of the game

changing opportunities in distribution technology,

ABR and IP – going beyond the linear playlist

– and the pivotal role of telcos and mobile

operators in supplying future growth in media

consumption and crucially, of course, advertising

revenue. Listening to this year’s customer-side

reaction at NAB, Broadcast Innovation thinks

that telcos, their systems integrators and service

providers, will be the dominant customers for the

media technologies on offer at NAB very soon.

Not broadcasters. Both will have to find a way

to work closely but telcos, and mobile operators

too, will thrive.

Patience and perspective: don’t fear the reaperThe financial spirits amongst us at NAB, haunting

the floor searching for opportunity, add a

complex dimension for customers trying to select

crucial new technologies that will help their own

broadcast and media businesses innovate to

survive and grow. For some, it gives reassurance

and stability; for others, the clarity and focus of

their favourite vendor is often lost.

Increased perspective and patience are

required at times by customers trying to evaluate

the benefit for them in a merger or acquisition.

New leadership can sometimes unintentionally

polarise the perception of both customers and

also the inherited staff too. People are much

harder to evaluate than technology and

market segments. More on this next month

when we’ll look at other important factors in

M&A cited by customers as vital for success:

people and partnerships.


www.ibc.org

RAI AmsterdamConference 10-14 September : Exhibition 11-15 September

BBC Studios and Post Production’s (S&PP)

Studio D at Elstree was home to the

broadcaster’s General Election coverage,

and saw more than 24 hours of live programming

immediately following the close of polls on 7 May.

The use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented

reality (AR) technology has become

commonplace for such broadcasts where

analysis of the results is presented in the most

compelling – even dramatic – way possible.

Central to that technology for the election

programme was the service provided by Vizrt.

“It’s the sheer scale of the programme that

makes this project such an absorbing and

interesting challenge.” That’s how Russell Leak,

project manager at Vizrt, who oversaw the

graphics workfl ow for the broadcast, summed up

his company’s contribution with the task.

“The size and intricacy of the task meant that

we had to utilise more than 20 graphics engines

to provide the capacity needed. That complexity

also meant that we arrived in the studio in mid-April

to start all the preparation work. It was necessary

for us to integrate those engines with the BBC S&PP

systems and ensure all the video outputs were fi ne.”

Leak also points out that there were many

cameras that needed to be calibrated and

checked in a short space of time. All of this pre-

production work had to be completed before

the end of April when designers arrived to start

pushing graphics through the systems.

Building on experienceLeak was able to draw upon around ten years’

knowledge of election programming in preparation

for the mammoth overnight transmission. “The most

recent were the local elections and the Scottish

referendum that took place last year and both of

those provided us with some useful background

knowledge for the General Election.”

Leak says that active preparation for the

programme started soon after the beginning

of 2015. “We had a series of meetings with the

BBC about what they wanted to deliver in terms

of the programme and what they wanted to

achieve in terms of graphics.”

Based on the experience of the Scottish vote, the

BBC wanted to introduce an increased amount

of depth tracking on the cameras that showed

presenter Jeremy Vine analysing results and

making predictions. The technology enabled

Vine to move realistically around a green screen

environment and become immersed in the regularly

updated graphics. The tracking system allows these

movements to happen accurately and without

affecting the position of the virtual graphics.

That part of the programme originated in a

separate studio with its own gallery to enable

complicated moves to be rehearsed without

interfering with the main output. Those analysis

segments also involve the results and statistical

Feature40 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com June 2015

The reality of election graphicsFollowing his feature on the UK election in last month’s issue, Philip Stevens fi nds out more about the use of AR and VR for the programme

A panoramic view of the election studio, including the green screen area used by Jeremy Vine for VR sections of the programme

“The size and intricacy of the task meant that we had to utilise more than 20

graphics engines to provide the capacity needed. That complexity also meant that

we arrived in the studio in mid-April to start all the preparation work”

Russell Leak, Vizrt


Feature

graphics that come from automation and data

integration provided by Idonix. Similarly in AR,

Idonix was used for displaying social media

messages on screens in the studio.

Keeping track of the cameras“We take the tracking information that comes from

the Mo-Sys Engineering system called StarTracker

and SpaceTracker into the Viz Engine render engine.

These systems use reflective ‘stars’ on the ceiling

of the studio to accurately locate the camera

positions. As the camera is moved, there is a depth

perception to the viewer at home. When the director

switched cameras, the Viz Engine maintains the

correct perspective view. A GPI trigger box sends

a command from the vision mixer to the Viz Engine

via Viz Virtual Studio. That was done to great effect

in Scotland, and we learned valuable lessons about

how it should be set up. But it is now even more subtle

and was used on the General Election programme.”

Leak adds that what was important for this

broadcast was the requirement to be able to track

the whole studio. “This was a huge studio space

and the BBC wanted to use both VR and AR. The

cameras that were being used for augmented

reality were sometimes swung around and would

be required for a virtual reality set-up. As a result, two

of the cameras – the Steadicam and the encoder-

based Moviebird crane – were capable of using

both technologies.”

In effect, this means that the output from these

two cameras had to be fed into two different

render engines. Overall, the multi-camera set-up

comprised seven virtual reality-capable and five

augmented reality-capable cameras.

Green issues“There are lots of interesting scenarios for the AR

camera. For instance, because green is being keyed,

it is obviously important that nothing of the colour

appears on the set. But what happens if the director

required that camera to be turned to another set

that perhaps has some green somewhere in it?

That’s when you have to utilise another graphics

engine that runs a hold-out matte that makes sure

that nothing is keyed if a guest comes into the studio

wearing a green jumper or is sporting a party rosette

or an election logo containing that colour. Even the

reflection on the floor of such items would cause

a problem, so we have to make certain that is not

keyed, as well. It is a delicate balance to getting the

AR and VR set up together.”

Although set up for different purposes, both

rendering engines are identical and have the

same latest version of NVIDIA Quadro M6000 and

both run in a Matrox card for a video output.

“On every election there is always the challenge

of getting the graphics cards to work in real time,”

reports Leak. “Like any computer system, if you start

to go over real time you begin to see problems.

We had worked very closely with the BBC to

optimise the performance and the Vizrt UK team

had the capabilities to handle these huge and

complex projects. And we certainly pushed

those graphics cards to their limit because of the

demands that were placed upon them.”

Leak states that all the AR and VR elements

worked well on the night and everyone involved

with the production was well pleased with the

outcome. “A great many graphics were prepared

to meet a variety of scenarios, many of which were

based on pre-poll predictions. We rehearsed the

graphics based on what the opinion polls were

saying, but in the end those often proved incorrect

so the graphics were not used. No matter how

much planning you do, there is never enough.

Although you come to the show with as many

plans as you think you need, there are always

unexpected events that occur, but we were

prepared for everything.”

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A crane was fitted with a Mo-Sys Engineering tracking system to enable it be used for AR and VR production


Forum

Brico: The entire industry and also RTS is in a

changeover phase – moving from either analogue

or digital to IP-based technology. In this process,

audio specialists have to work and cooperate

with IT specialists to get systems specifi ed, installed,

confi gured and working. This requires not only a

change in mindset, but also in workfl ow. What

in the past was achieved using wires or audio

routers now happens on the network. Additionally,

different IP formats and standards may present

themselves as a challenge in the future due

to interoperability and compatibility between

different systems and standards.

Browne: I would say 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

taking many minutes to rediscover each other

and reconnect.

de Bruyn: Connectivity with as many as

possible other systems and protocols. AES67

certainly helps achieving that.

Johnston: The most immediate challenge

is adapting to the rapid adoption of IP in all

aspects of the production process. This brings

opportunities and challenges. For example,

AVB was trumpeted as the next standard 12

to 18 months ago. Today, AES67 seems to be

the emerging standard. Keeping pace with

technology trends as well as continuing to add

functionality is always an on-going challenge.

Malleck: For us the challenge of 2015 is fi nding

the balance between satisfying the growing IP

solution demand and the necessity of providing

simple out-of-the-box solutions. The IT industry

moulded the perception of easily deployable

Talking of commsFrom beltpacks to digital matrix technology, comms covers a wide range of products and innovations. Philip Stevens moderates this month’s forum with experts from the sector

Communication technology may not have the same glamour appeal as cameras, slow motion systems, or massive audio mixing desks, but it is nonetheless vital to the production industry. So, what are the challenges, what role does VoIP play today, and what should we expect for the future?

To communicate these and other issues we have (in alphabetical order) Manuel Brico, marketing manager EMEA, intercom and aviation, RTS Intercoms; Simon Browne, director of product management, Clear-Com; Eric de Bruyn, CEO, ASL Intercom; Ewan Johnston, sales and marketing director, Trilogy; Jürgen Malleck, international sales, Delec; and Ramon Pankert, product manager at Riedel.

What are the main challenges facing comms providers in 2015?

Manuel Brico, RTS Intercoms


Forum

TCP/IP and VoIP solutions. But the truth is users

are left alone with bringing these solutions to life.

We think that 2015 will focus more than ever on

integrated systems rather than shifting boxes.

Pankert: There are two main challenges. First

is networking – how do you transport over a

digital network protocol? As an industry, we are

still in the process of building up our knowhow

when it comes to IT technology, but it will be

the future. Meanwhile, there are still many

decisions pending and so we include in our

products all the important protocols that we

see coming along. Secondly, the total cost of

ownership is getting more and more important.

It is not only CAPEX, but especially OPEX. We

build our products so we can highlight the OPEX

advantages for our users.

Browne: There is a place for pure intercom

without connections to other audio and control

sub-systems, but it is limited in most working

scenarios. You often need connections to audio

consoles and routers if only for IFB or announcer

systems. These connections are also needed

within the cloud. If this isn’t possible, and APIs

may not exist for the third-party devices, then the

cloud intercom may be limited.

de Bruyn: So far, we have not had the wish

from our customer to go through the cloud with

their intercom system. However, it might be an

issue for the future.

Johnston: While we can deliver on that

capability today, there are still latency issues to

be addressed and any increased latency by

going via a cloud service makes such systems

unacceptable to many customers.

Malleck: Yes and no. We still see great interest

in cloud solutions, as this was the term of late

2014. However, translating cloud features into

the intercom language is more about providing

distributed resources – available everywhere

and anytime – than pure internet-based services.

The reliability and downwards-compatibility of

conventional intercom systems and the fl exibility,

scalability and cost-effi ciency of transnational

cloud-based communication services like

Intracom’s virtual intercom VCOM.

Brico: RTS’ VoIP solution is called RVON, which

stands for RTS Voice Over Network. RTS has built

up and maintained a large RVON install base

over the last ten years. This is, therefore, nothing

new for us. Additionally, we now also provide a

high quality audio with full bandwidth and ultra

low latency solution called Omneo. This is based

on Audinate’s Dante and offers as standard

keypanel connection for our customers. Also,

IP four-wire exchange with other devices is

becoming standard and more common.

Browne: Absolutely, yes. The concerns over

latency for cueing the remote, although justifi ed,

are diminishing for the simple reason that the

convenience of providing comms and data in

the same low cost pipe is more appealing. Clear-

Com has a Partyline over IP product, LQ-2W2,

that provides for this operation with both audio

and call signalling over WAN networks.

de Bruyn: There is an increasing demand for

AoIP (audio-over-IP), not so much VoIP.

Johnston: Absolutely. The twin prongs of

improved quality of the more modern VoIP

codecs, together with the increased fl exibility

VoIP provides are making this an increasingly

common communications standard in remote

production systems.

Malleck: We’ve noticed a strong move away

from analogue telephone hybrids and expensive

audio codec trunks, to more affordable VoIP

solutions as networks become faster, and reliable

connections are available around the globe.

We make sure our customers grow with the

possibilities VoIP solutions offer, meaning we will

be giving them more than just the VoIP interface,

we provide them with a set of tools to choose

from when they are in production and are under

pressure to establish connectivity. Relating to this,

2015 will be especially interesting for Delec.

Pankert: Short answer: yes. The need for

remote production is growing a great deal. And

there is a link to the OPEX we mentioned earlier.

People don’t want to travel around the world

to make productions, so we see great potential

for remote operations – so we anticipate the

potential for our VoIP products. We don’t just

need LAN solutions, we need integrated LAN

and WAN solutions. That’s why we sold the WAN

concept last year and we have virtual solutions

all over our portfolio.

Brico: The integration into overall umbrella control

systems such as VSM from LSB, KSC from BFE and

Celebrum from Axon is happening everywhere.

So, comms will increasingly be part of automated

set-up change via a control system.

Browne: The intercom system has always had

to connect with other elements such as the studio

desk and audio router for IFBs or line monitoring, or

Simon Browne, Clear-Com

Eric de Bruyn, ASL Intercom

“The most immediate challenge is adapting to the rapid adoption of IP in all

aspects of the production process” Ewan Johnston, Trilogy

In the forum last year, opinions were divided about ‘comms

in the cloud’. Is that technology being more accepted today?

Has the use of VoIP increased as a means of communicating

between studios and OBs?

Are we seeing greater integration between comms

systems and other elements in a studio distribution network?


through the master control to outside lines and to

camera and wireless systems. With the development

of higher audio quality in today’s digital systems

– like Clear-Com’s Eclipse-HX – we are seeing

intelligent links over MADI, integration with fi bre-

based audio and video distribution with ProGrid,

and AoIP connectivity to remote links over LQ.

de Bruyn: Even though we still believe in

having a separate network for your intercom

(to be able to communicate should the general

distribution network fail), more and more

integration is happening.

Johnston: The answer to this is both yes

and no. There is a defi nite move away from

purchasing proprietary systems from a single

vendor that locks customers into that solution

for their comms and some other aspects of the

studio network. However, as happened in the IT

world, there is an increasing drive towards making

systems interoperable by using standards-based

approaches. The move to IP means more and

more systems are sharing the same IP infrastructure,

so interoperability and compatibility are key to any

successful implementation.

Malleck: Comms systems have always

been tightly integrated with other broadcast

components. Right now, we see a convergence

for interfacing standards. Recently launched AoIP

connection standards – for example, Dante and

AES67 – are bound to simplify connectivity amongst

the elements, but they only transport audio.

IP-based control protocols like OCA (Open

Control Architecture) or EmBER are not industry

standard yet, so the way we exchange

information is actually not much different from

15 years ago. We are certain that the demand

to improve interoperability – even between

competing products – will eventually become

a real requirement. The IT industry is teaching us

this. Together with its parent Stagetec – one of

the founding members of OCA – Delec sits at

the source of this development. The concept of

OCA has been introduced as X210 to the Audio

Engineering Society and Delec’s R&D is ready to go

as soon as this becomes an approved standard.

Pankert: Absolutely. One example is the AVB

concept. This whole network approach is brilliant,

but there are probably still some components

missing. But we can have intercom on an AVB

network with a mixing console, a monitoring system

on AVB – you just connect the devices together to

the cloud – and everything is auto-detected and

working. This is a huge advantage of interoperability

integration. Then look at our new Smartpanel. It’s a

total approach and we are operating in a similar

way to the iPhone. You buy the platform and

purchase the software applications as you need

them. We have different editions of apps – just buy a

simple one and pay for your needs. But in the future,

the whole concept brings us up to a level where our

platform will be able to do many other things – not

just intercom. So, our approach is to sell a powerful

smart platform onto which you can install comms

apps. Then you have an intercom panel at an

attractive cost. But on top, you have a concept

advantage of other applications.

Brico: Yes, the CTV’s new OB11. It ranks among

the largest OB trucks ever built. With 880 ports,

its ADAM matrix allows for the creation of a very

large communication matrix. The matrix can be

connected to all audio transmission formats –

including analogue, voice-over-IP and the

media networking architecture Omneo.

Rounding off the intercom system is a total

of 32 keypanels from RTS.

Do you have a very brief case study that illustrates an innovative use of comms?

“Comms systems have always been tightly integrated with other broadcast

components. Right now, we see a convergence for interfacing standards”

Jürgen Malleck, Delec

Ewan Johnston, Trilogy

Jürgen Malleck, Delec

Forum

CTV’s new OB11 ranks among the largest OB trucks ever built

Browne: Through Clear-Com’s

distributor, Audiopole, and the installer,

Astrium, the Eclipse HX matrix system

and V-Series control panels were

used during the world-renowned

13-day fast-paced motor vehicle

event that is known to fans simply

as The Dakar. This event attracted

more than fi ve hundred competitors

travelling up to 900km a day through

Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. Unique

operational challenges arise from the

sheer scale of the event, teamed with

the dangerous and noisy aspects of

the sport. It is therefore essential that

the comms are reliable, clear and

fl exible. As part of a recent update,

all standard IP-connected V-Series

operator panels perform both as fully

functional intercom user panels and

as multi-channel audio gateways

with no requirement for additional

hardware or software licences – thus

meeting the fl exibility requirements

that are necessary for a successful

rally. This added feature extended a

V-Series panel at a specifi c remote

location to utilise the auxiliary channels

to provide a local intercom, audio

system, or radio system with matrix

communication down the same pipe.

Johnston: We have recently

deployed systems for customers who

have elected to use a standard

enterprise wireless solution for

camera, lighting, sound, and fl oor

managers. They are using ruggedised

mobile handsets rather than

proprietary beltpack solutions. Initially,

this is wireless, but will likely expand to

a 4G offering in future use cases.

Malleck: We introduced the

Oratis compact series at IBC 2013. It

provides up to 24 analogue 4wires, up

to 16 dual channel AES/EBU ports – for

panels and 4wires, and a redundant

64-channel Dante interface – also for

subscribers and 4wires. Dependent

on a customer’s technology level,

he is able to interface with legacy

components as well as conveniently

connect a subscriber through his

IP infrastructure using Delec Dante

panels. For us, innovative intercom

systems are hybrids. Multi-interface

nodes bring everything together with

maximum cost effi ciency.

Pankert: We were one of the

players who inspired ESPN to go

down the AVB path when it came

to building a new studio complex.

As a result, Riedel delivered a

complete intercom system based

on AVB network technology.

Brico: We have just made a big

innovative step by introducing

Omneo-based intercom keypanel

and systems. Two years ago, RTS

launched the fi rst Omneo-based

products: the OMI (Omneo matrix

interface card) and the OKI

(Omneo Keypanel Interface cards

for legacy RTS panels). We have

now extended this portfolio with a

new keypanel series with Omneo

on board: the KP-series. With the

complete new KP family, all RTS

keypanels will feature two or more

channel Dante-based Omneo

matrix connections as standard.

For the future, we already have

several ideas for other products

and customer requirements that

could be realised using Omneo

technology.

Browne: Yes, always. There

are new technologies that allow

greater reach and fl exibility that

can be tied in clever ways to

traditional intercom.

de Bruyn: Flexibility of the

intercom system is still a very

important issue. In Frankfurt, we

showcased a new digital system

that will give you the greatest

fl exibility to date.

Johnston: Yes, but they are

roadmap items that we are not

prepared to launch just yet. Make

sure you visit Trilogy at IBC this year,

where innovation and security will

be high on our agenda.

Malleck: In a nutshell: increasing

interoperability and decreasing

complexity. Simplifi cation is the

real future innovation of our times.

Delec focuses on making it easier

to use our systems, without any

reduction in functionality.

Pankert: For me, the biggest

major innovation is the Smartpanel.

As I mentioned earlier, this is

a new approach to doing

communication. At NAB, we

introduced the apps that turn the

Smartpanel into an innovative

and customisable intercom panel

for professionals. In the same way

that smartphones have surpassed

traditional mobile phones in

enriching user experience, the

Smartpanel brings workfl ows to a

whole new level. And we have

a small intercom platform called

Tango. This is our fi rst fully networked

platform based on the AES67

and AVB standards. With its own

dedicated intercom application,

it can be turned into a cutting-

edge and fl exible solution for

a variety of communications

scenarios. In short, Tango is the

fl exible future-proof platform for

the broadcast environment.


Forum

Are there any major innovations in the pipeline as far as comms are concerned?

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you will be promoting and selling Touch & Connect

You will have strong communication skills coupled with an ability to build rapport quickly with potential

experience of the events and/or publishing industry

IBC is offering a competitive package of base salary with an opportunity of earning up to 15%

Ramon Pankert, Riedel

The Global Broadcast, AV and Pro Audio Resource Library

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Data Centre

The new research, ‘Mobile & Online TV &

Video: OTT, IPTV & Connected Markets

2015-2019’, observed that OTT services

are seeing a rapid uptake by consumers who

want to view content, when and where it

suits them. The report argued that traditional

broadcasters are facing increased competition

as more services go over-the-top of pay-TV

incumbents, allowing distributors such as

Sling TV to provide customers with a cheaper,

tailored alternative to cable TV, driving the

trend for ‘cord-cutting’.

Continued growth in the established markets

of Western Europe and North America, along

with the emergence of key OTT players in the

Far East and Asia Pacific, will bring a surge in

the uptake of OTT subscriptions over the next

four years. In the US, OTT is a service which

has done considerably well over the past few

years, with Netflix registering 37.7 million paid US

subscribers. This looks set to continue, particularly

with the launch of services such as HBO Go

where content will be available direct from the

production company, on-demand and for a fee,

rather than customers requiring a more costly

cable or satellite subscription package.

Whilst key players such as Netflix and YouTube

have launched 4K services, the adoption of 4K

content has been slow. Juniper is predicting

this will 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 the first to supply viewers

with content in this new format.

Meanwhile, 4K TVs will continue to become more

affordable, accelerating hardware take-up.

Over 84 per cent of OTT subscriptions will be

made via connected TVs by 2019. IPTV revenues

are set to more than double between 2014 and

2019, rewarding network operators’ investment in

triple and quad-play services.

One of the biggest threats to the traditional

TV industry, Juniper asserts, is consumers

cancelling their satellite or cable TV services

in favour of cheaper deals from OTT streaming

companies such as Netflix and Hulu. This trend

has been dubbed ‘cord-cutting’ and has

become a way for consumers to save

money as they assess whether they need to

subscribe to hundreds of channels, especially

as they move to watch TV on mobile and

connected devices.

In an attempt to combat the growing trend

for cord-cutting amongst consumers, numerous

network operators have ‘bundled’ their services

over the past few years.

OTT TV subscriptions to reach $31.6 billion by 2019

New data from Juniper Research has shown that subscriptions from OTT TV providers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime will generate $31.6 billion by

2019, up from just under $8 billion in 2014. By Holly Ashford

Total Subscription OTT revenues 2019: $31.6 billion

Sour

ce: J

unip

er R

esea

rch

Today’s broadcasters and content owners are offering more subscription-based and registration-based services, collecting mountains of data about their users and audiences. But most of this potential is going unused, even though it has the power

to dramatically reshape the broadcast industry. In its latest paper, ‘Big Questions, Big Answers: Will harnessing smart data for audience analytics save the broadcast industry?’, GfK explores the benefits of Big Data for broadcast. Niko Waesche, global lead of the media and entertainment industry at GfK, outlines what a Big Data future looks like

At a time of intense competition, Big Data

is increasingly being embraced as a

strategic and operational business tool.

But the type of data that is being collected and

analysed is changing. In the past few years, the

industry has been focused on the basics; such

as subscribers, the number of pieces of content

or the number of plays. Now, the industry is

moving away from asset-based data towards

‘behavioural’ data, using real-time individual

information on a much greater scale.

Viacom International Media Networks’ (VIMN)

senior vice president Philip O’Ferral says, “Six

months ago, we were doing the basics. TV

ratings, website numbers and top-line social

media numbers. Now we have a business

intelligence team and the guy who runs it has

a PhD in maths. What we are using is a blend of

raw data from the mobile web and app usage

in particular, who’s watching what, for how long

and for what time. Then we add third-party

feeds to help shape what we do with it, including

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and some set-top

box data. But we also use traditional data like

panels and groups.”

Yet it is clear that there is still some way to go.

Rohana Rozhan, CEO of Astro, states, “I would

love to say we are very good with data but the

reality is we are not yet, and we are working hard

to change that. We are evolving and learning.

The reality today is that it is no longer about

households, it’s about personalised data across

individual devices.”

Adding value to advertisingMany commercial broadcasters are using Big

Data to enhance their advertising sales, because

“in developed markets, advertising is a known

metric,” says Tom Weiss, CEO of Genius Digital.

In the UK, Channel 4 is pioneering the use of

Big Data to drive advertising revenues. Big Data-

enhanced VoD ad sales currently account for

15 per cent of Channel 4’s total VoD advertising

inventory, traded based on demographically

targeted information. And in two years, Channel

4 predicts that as much as 50 per cent of its total

VoD inventory will be traded this way.

Sanjeevan Bala, head of data planning and

analytics at Channel 4, says that these changes

have resulted in “incremental revenue of

between 30 per cent to 55 per cent depending

on the ad product, compared to current VoD

prices. These new products will be more

effective and efficient for brands and advertisers

that are looking to take advantage of

more targeting on VoD.”

Getting personal with the viewerThe changing business model in broadcast is

also impacting how Big Data is being used and

with more direct communication happening

between the broadcaster and the audience, Big

Data is becoming business-critical.

Sky IQ collects customer behavioural data

across all the Sky platforms, including online,

and tracks profiles and interactions. It also

integrates this data with outside data, including

publicly available statistics, demographics and

retail data and partnerships. Tony Mooney,

managing director of Sky IQ, thinks that

companies need the basic demographics,

including household composition, affluence

of the house, affordability, transactions,

and interactions. “But what you really need

after that is frequency and ‘recency’; or

how often and how soon. Until we started

doing the viewing piece, we didn’t have a

complete picture of consumer behaviour

and consumption, so adding that has been

extremely powerful.”

ProSiebenSat.1 made Big Data a company-

wide initiative in 2014, moving it beyond the

maxdome catch-up TV business to gather

data from all the different parts of the business

in compliance with the legislation on data

protection. ProSiebenSat.1’s maxdome service

has already seen 40 per cent growth in its

customer usage since its re-launched brand

and content offer in 2014.


Will Big Data save the broadcast industry?

Data Centre

Dr Niko Waesche

‘Big Data-enhanced VoD ad sales currently account for 15 per cent of Channel 4’s total VoD advertising inventory, traded based on demographically targeted information.

In two years, Channel 4 predicts that as much as 50 per cent of its total VoD inventory will be traded this way’


Data Centre

OSN, the leading pay-TV operator across the

Middle East, has quadrupled its spend on

research and data capture analysis in the last

four years. “We spend multiple millions every

year on data. The justification for increased

amounts of money is to enhance the value

proposition and increase the growth of our

subscription base,” says CEO Dave Butorac.

For content production companies, the allure

of Big Data is about the ability to create new

business models. Ernst Feiler, head of technology

at UFA serial drama in Germany, says contact

with the audience is really new for broadcasters,

but it’s a key element to the future health of

the television production business and TV as a

whole. “We have no experience with (data)

and we have to learn. The broadcasters do deal

with data, but only after we deliver them our

production. This is not an intelligent way forward.”

The Big Data futureThe power of Big Data is immense and it’s clear

that broadcasters and platform operators are

only beginning to scratch the surface of what

is possible. Understanding how best to use Big

Data is also at a fairly early stage and there are

still questions about who should be doing the

analysis and how that research is disseminated

throughout the organisation.

But for the future of broadcast, the industry

needs to think about the data ecosystem. All

the business models around data are still in the

stage of thinking about ‘our’ data rather than

the ecosystem of data. In the end, the

different data sources will have to come

together to be truly effective.

Remote Broadcast Solutions

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reliability as well as highly redundant system architecture with a minimum

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All of the systems can be controlled from a joystick control or a touch screen as

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‘All the business models around data are still in the stage of thinking about

‘our’ data rather than the ecosystem of data. In the end, the different data sources will have to come together to

be truly effective’


In its third annual Viewer Experience Report,

Conviva suggests that as audiences swell

and potential subscription revenue increases,

there are mounting challenges in building

sustainable OTT services.

Consumers no longer simply expect a service

to work, they demand that it provide a high-end

experience. Delivering a quality experience to

each and every viewer has never been more

complex nor more fundamental to acquiring and

retaining an audience.

“Viewers used to be content with an OTT

service if the video began playing at all - this

is no longer the case,” explains Hui Zhang,

Conviva’s CEO. “Consumers now demand a

multi-dimensional experience that provides

superior picture fi delity, zero resolution volatility,

and TV-like viewing quality, and will abandon the

streams that do not deliver. OTT providers need

to utilise an iterative publishing process to ensure

the optimised experience consumers demand.”

The report states that video start failures have

decreased by almost half to an all-time low of

2.6 per cent while buffering and low resolution

experiences remained relatively unchanged from

2013. Worldwide picture fi delity grew 30 per cent

in 2014, and the report concluded that as picture

fi delity increases, so does time spent consuming

content. Playback interruptions were highlighted

as a point of concern, as 14 minutes of viewer

engagement is lost on average for each one per

cent of interruptions experienced.

“In the end, it is the combination of high picture

fi delity and low interruption rates tuned to the

platform, device and network in use by the viewer

that determines engagement,” the report states.

Despite these issues, multiscreen viewing is at

an all-time high. While average household size

has been shrinking, the number of devices in use

within each household has risen, with the average

household of three people using two devices

simultaneously during primetime. “TV is becoming

a more individual, rather than community,

experience,” the report summarised. It concludes by

warning that although this is an exciting prospect, it

also brings signifi cant risk to OTT providers: as viewers

compare and contrast one another’s services,

identify the best available, and move to whichever

best meets their needs.

The OTT viewer experienceData Centre

“Quality of experience impacts the profi tability of every digital media business and every single viewer,” says new report published by Conviva

Engagement reduction (in minutes) with 1% increase of buffering

39.3%2012

% of views that experience buffering

BUFFERING

RESOLUTION

START FAILURE

% of views impacted by low resolution

% of views impacted by full start failure

26.9%2013

28.8%2014

63%2012

56.7%2013

58.4%2014

4%2012

4.8%2013

2.6%2014

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

201320122011 2014

+1% INTERRUPTIONS

3 MINS

8 MINS

11 MINS

14 MINS

tvbe june 2015 digital edition

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